Dungeon 11 Turn 36
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Ricki, Kamau, and Amadeusz head to the left, to the room where the Guard’s contractors are kept.
Ricki opens up the chest and finds some plate armour, which is nice, but she can’t carry it so she drops it on the floor nearby.
Amadeusz inspects the empty cell with the destroyed door. He thinks it looks like a good place to craft items of various kinds, though he isn’t sure exactly what tools or raw materials he would need. The box of parts the party found earlier is probably a good candidate, but he sees no instructions for building a bomb out of them, even though one was apparently set off here recently. The dead gnome didn’t have any on him either, which means he likely committed instructions to memory ahead of time. If so, those instructions might still be here somewhere. Perhaps locked away, if the Guard was as worried about this person escaping as they seemed.
Kamau attempts to talk to the armoured dwarf.
“Hey there. I understand the Guard had you locked up in here for some time?”
“You’re free to go now, if you want.”
“I find you.”
“You… find me? I’m the one who found you, aren’t I?”
“I find you…”
“…poorly made.”
Kamau barely has time to register that what he thought was armour in fact appears to be fused to the smith’s body before he gets hit square in the chest with a hammer, taking 1 damage. This guy hits hard! Kamau’s heavy armour doesn’t seem to help at all.
Back in the previous room, Macadamia opens up a chest and finds a strange piece of paper. He’s pretty sure he could follow these instructions easily enough, but he’d need to keep the paper with him to make sure he gets it right.
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DUBIOUS RECIPE
Treasure
To make a FUN THING, you will need:
-hammer (any)
-anvil
-spare parts
-rope (substitute stringy biological material if need be)
-golem core
Weight 1, Cost 25
If we beat up the ‘dwarf’ he’ll drop his hammer, which means we should have enough ingredients to make one bomb, which we can then (hopefully) use to destroy the door leading to the undead kobold and the wealth of rings it’s guarding. However doing that will likely be cutting things pretty close as far as any other plans in this dungeon are concerned, like talking with the Imp; a group of guards will spawn in at the entrance in just four more turns. (And probably every 5/10 turns after that.)
Please don’t talk to the imp ._.
Some people think the imp can revive the companion that just died.
Oh my god, you guys are way too afraid of the imp. We’re gonna see them more than once; might as well find out what their deal is. I kinda feel like the fear this community has for the imp is enough to protect us from doing something stupid. What if it can bring that guy back to life or take us back to turn 19 so we can save him, but the tradeoff is something it thinks will hurt us, but isn’t actually that bad or is manageable?
The argument that “it’ll be worded in an enticing way and we’ll be tricked” is stupid. We have time to hear it out and decide for ourselves whether the wording of the deal is too ambiguous or not. It might give a clear cut explanation of the trade, thinking the punishment is worth it.
Example of a feasible deal it could make that we accept: “I’ll take you back to turn 19, but the guards are arriving 10 turns earlier.” (The trap being the dungeon also completely resets and we still have the same HP, but we save the poor guy).
Example of a deal that’s worded too ambiguously that we decline: “I can bring him back to life, but let’s just say he might not be the same.” (The trap being the guy is an undead monstrosity that we have to fight, losing precious time).
Both are deals that it would make perfect sense for the imp to make because it thinks it can trap us. Why NOT just hear it out and just auto-decline the slightest hint of ambiguity? It’s gonna be valuable information gathering about what these creatures can do, and it’s going to take ONE turn to do.
We do not have time for a single bomb.
If the enemy Kamau’s fighting takes more than one more turn to go down, game over.
If the skeleton kobold takes more than one turn to go down, game over.
If the bomb takes too much time to build and set up, game over.
If the bomb explodes and does way more damage than we thought, game over.
If escaping over the tower is going to do a lot of damage from the fall, game over.
We have time for very little. We can finish killing the dude Kamau’s fighting by ganging up on him. For all we know he could be like the Enforcer and have insane defense. Turn 37.
Turn 38: we collect everything we can and start heading out, with Ricki pointing out traps. MAYBE on the way out, if we aren’t too scared, we talk to the imp, in case it has some sort of crazy miracle it can perform, since it’s on the way and it’s literally just talking.
Turn 39: we discard the imperial stuff and escape, right before the bell.
THIS IS ALL WE HAVE TIME FOR. We NEED that buffer turn so Kamau can kill that armored guy. We don’t know how much HP and defense it has, and adding another unknown entity to the equation with three turns left is just crazy.
So best case scenario if we do the bomb plan is Kamau KO’s the guy next turn with little to no help and we immediately pick up what we need to build the bomb. Turn 37. Then we make the bomb. Turn 38. Then we destroy the door. Turn 39. Then we kill the kobold and it has no gimmicks so it goes down in one turn. Turn 40. The guard arrives this turn. We grab the stuff and get up to the battlements, since we can no longer go through the front entrance. Turn 41. Then we jump off in the nick of time, crossing our fingers that we don’t take fall damage and Kill Kamau or the characters and pets with less HP. And this is the BEST case scenario.
We need time to pick things up and discard things. We need time to navigate traps and escape. We need at least one turn to account for Murphy’s Law.
I don’t like the bomb plan either. I’m currently on team “let’s just get out of here without making things worse”.
Mac + Rope on roof can be our successful dungeon clear no matter where the rest of the party is or what they’re doing in this dungeon.
We can complete the dungeon by having Macadamia exit, per LSN his early-exit ability + these dungeon conditions basically allow us 2 main characters.
“Once the condition is met to clear a dungeon, all characters will immediately leave safely even if there are still monsters or traps to deal with, and even if they were separated.”
We’re probably going to be able to handle t40 guards. Odds of this being one of the hard time limits seems low. They’ll escalate fast and we’re going to need to be exiting, but I don’t think we need to be planning to exit by turn 41 “in the nick of time”.
That being said, we definitely shouldn’t use the rope to make a bomb.
Plan: bomb making.
Kamau: interpose
Ricki: attack dwarf
Mac: move left and scoop up plate on molly. Drop hunting bow (for now)
Amad: àttack dwarf.
Mushroom: attack dwarf.
Daisy: attack dwarf.
Dwarf prob has high def, so we hit him with everything we have. Once he’s down, I think everyone can work together to use their items to make the bomb. Kamau can grab bow and once the bomb has been planted we can combine rings on mac for optimal space. At that point we’re probably ready to exit.
Are there enough boxes of spare parts left to make the required 3 bombs? If not, might be more efficient to leave them as-is.
For that matter, enough rope (or spider web is probably the stringy organic alternative) that we can access in time?
We need the rope if we’re gonna leave through the roof.
We brought the rope in, and found none inside the dungeon.
We do not have enough materials to make the 3 bombs.
In that scenario, I’d rather waste an action and a golem core trying to reactivate the gnome’s small golem than trying to build the bomb on that recipe.
I think we should kill the dwarf and go check under the beds. And I’d suggest Mac mends Kamau next turn.
No. No bomb making. We need to focus on wrapping things up and getting out of here. I explain the breakdown in another comment. I say we take this turn to all gang up on the armored dude, with Kamau interposing. It’s a unique creature with unique dialogue. It could require all of us working together to kill it, similar to the Enforcer. This plan might be overkill, but we NEED that thing dead in one turn if we’re gonna have time to also loot its stuff, organize our inventory and discard imperial items (because I’m not sure if imperial discarding automatically happens or not), navigate the traps, and escape. We might be able to talk to the demon on the way out, because if it can turn back the clock for us to save that guy, I think it’s worth it, as long as the punishment or trap it sets is something we’re willing to risk. If it says it can resurrect that guy, it’s probably not worth it, since it’ll probably make him a zombie or something and we’ll run out of time to escape.
Just a comment (did upvote yours):”discard imperial items” Currently, there is not a single imperial item in our inventory. We paid attention when picking up things! Of course, the empire lays claim to everything in this dungeon, but (for game play) as long as the items have no “imperial” in their name, we can keep them.
Downvoters, please note that this plan does not actually commit us to bomb-making.
Yes. Could we drop the hunting bow in a more convenient location? So that later we can pick up several things in one turn?
DO NOT MAKE A BOMB WE NEED THAT ROPE TO EXIT THE DUNGEON
Guys. We have FOUR turns to get out of here and an enemy that is hitting VERY hard, that could be as tough as the Enforcer. We’re not getting the secondary goal. We don’t know how powerful those bombs are, especially when you consider that just three of them should collapse this whole dungeon. We have the loot we need, and we don’t need to be greedy. Do we really think we have time to build a bomb and start attacking another mysterious miniboss, AND have Kamau defeat his? If that kobold takes more than one turn to defeat, or we take damage fron the blast, we’re screwed.
My proposal is we put EVERYBODY on the guy Kamau is fughting. Turn 37. We get everybody moving to the exit with Ricki identifying traps. Turn 38. Everybody exits. Turn 39. Depending on what everybody’s movrment is, MAYBE we have Ricki talk to the demon or grab something on the way out. That’s all we have time for. We have very little room for error. If this guy takes more than one turn to defeat, we’re screwed.
Just FYI: “amour doesn’t SEEM to help” might simply mean that’s 1 unblockable damage, or that smith’s attacks ignore metal pieces of armour (since he’s an expert at finding their weak spots, etc).
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised, if what he said didn’t really mean he’s hostile. “Poorly made” then bang with a hammer – he might be actually repairing Kamau 😀 it’s just the organic parts that don’t like the armour being reshaped 😀
Re:bombs – not really, we know they (1) are capable of destroying a metal door, (2) scenario told us they are capable of breaking a supporting pillar, (3) not “bombs collapse the dungeon”, but “removing all pillars collapses the dungeon” since “the dungeon has already heavily damaged the building but the damage is on-hold since it’s magic” and (4) “the damage to the building will manifest once dungeon is gone”. Or something like that.
Aside of those minor things, I agree we should skip the make-fireworks part, just take the parts to sell them, and leave (almost) asap. I think we may have 1 spare turn that we could spend for example here, fighting or talking to the smith (only Kamau tried, Ricky hasn’t! but I think she should try talking from afar…).
Yeah, I agree that the bomb is likely just doing the same amount of damage to destroy the door. But it’s just one of many examples of something going wrong. The primary concern is time. Building the bomb, then setting it up and exploding it is taking a minimum of two turns. Killing the kobold after that takes a minimum of one turn. Scooping up the loot is taking up a minimum of one turn. Even with everything going right, we’re at turn 40 with everyone still in the basement. Those guards also might have more movement than we might think, so escaping over the battlements might not be possible, either.
We have time to knock out the armored guy, collect his loot, and talk with the demon on the way out. That’s it.
Ricki talking to that guy isn’t going to do anything. He already chose to attack Kamau. Her turn is better spent helping him knock that guy out.
Also I’m dying to see what’s up with that imp. A playable character is dead. If there’s *any* chance we can either revive him or turn back the clock, it might be worth the risk. A playable character is of greater value to me than the dungeon goals being met, as long as we don’t risk sacrificing another playable character to do it.
Suggestion for GTFO-Plan:
Turn 37:
Macadamia: Go to the dead smith. Drop the recipe and the bow. Go to Ricki, pick up the plate armour and store it on Golly. Go back to the dead smith.
Ricki: Go to the dead smith. Drop keys and 2 silver rings of aggression. Pick up shield, sword and arrows.
Amadeusz: Play the pipe and go to the dead smith.
Kamau: Interpose.
Turn 38:
Macadamia: Pick up 2 silver rings of aggression, stack them in 1 inventory slot. Go through the rat hole to left room and then one room up.
Ricki: Pick up recipe. Go through the rat hole to left room and then one room up.
Amadeusz: Play the pipe. Go up to the rat hole. (You cannot go through, naturally.)
Kamau: Go to the dead smith, pick up bow.
Turn 39: Ricki and Macadamia: Leave the dungeon through exit. (Macadamia & Golly carry the necessary weapon, shield, armour >99 GP, thus winning the dungeon.)
What’s one guard patrol? I say risk it to get the rings at least. Get out of dungeon by turn 50 – it’s a game, let’s roll the dice and have some fun!
Finish this punk off, hit the bedrooms, then dip out off the roof.
Ricki: Wear one of your Silver Rings of +2 Atk instead of your Dodge Ring. Attack the Smith. Have Daisy attack Smith.
Kamau: Interpose the Smith. Have Shroom attack Smith.
Macadamia: Ditch a Box of Parts by the lower Anvil, pick up the Plate Armour.
Amadeusz: Attack the Smith.