Dungeon 2 Turn 20
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Ricki pushes the barrel to the left, while Kamau follows. They step carefully across the larger patch of glass; when there’s this much of it on the ground, it’s possible to get hurt even if you’re watching your step, but they make it no problem this time. The barrel does nothing to clear away the glass.
Back in the entrance room, Ricki pulls out a torch to provide some light while Kamau immediately runs forward and slays one of the two dogs. He takes no damage in return, and the rusty armour continues to not instantly fall apart somehow.
Ricki notices some movement in the hall above.
“Hey Kamau, my thing-I’m-not-supposed-to-talk-about just informed me that two more drunk guys just showed up. If they start wandering around they might catch up to us soon.”
“Then we should finish here quickly. We could either try to hide somewhere and let them pass, or confront them here.”
“Come to think of it, I thought I heard some others walking around earlier. I wonder where they went?”
“Also, do you know if skeletons are strong?”
“Skeletons are not strong. No muscles.”
Well, here we are. Might as well go for that wand, especially since we’re at risk of damage even when carefully crossing that glass. Piggyback ride next time.
Kamau: Kill dog.
Ricki: Trade the torch, leather armor, and magic lens for the rusty chain. (Character sheet still has her with both daggers, my goal here is to have rusty chain, rusty longsword, and a backup dagger.)
I think it’s a bit greedy to have Ricki go up and fight the skeleton this turn, since Kamau will have to lift her up. That’s where I’m going with this, though. Hopefully 4 defence will let her avoid damage and 3 attack will one shot, though I’m not sure what to expect from wands.
Note that the last bucket like the one on the left was full of dog food. Didn’t have a rat tail poking out, though; I’m guessing there’s a rat in there.
Tempted to have Ricki use Grit. It’d waste 1hp of healing, but being 2hp from death is scary, and if Ricki takes enough damage to maximize Grit then Kamau will be out of action.
Note that if a character would hit 0hp, they don’t actually die until the end of the turn so healing abilities can save them on that same turn. Hopefully Ricki would be able to swap her action to Grit to survive if that happens, wouldn’t want to end the story just yet.
In addition to what Kind Marth wrote: have Ricki point out the rat trap.
Also, if possible, have Ricki wait until Kamau has finished the dog and then avoid the trap, climb down the ladder and check out the next room. If she can’t go past AFTER the fight and would be at risk of taking damage from the dog, don’t do this.
Since all you have on the “to do” list for Ricki is inventory trades (which usually are free in LSN games), I would like to have her explore a bit more. She can come back next turn and hopefully get rid of the skeleton (probably worth it for the wand alone, but there’s also a chest without a lock on it behind it). But knowing more about the pipes might even give us an idea if we have to deal with the 4 skeletons in the dead end (and/or if the first drunk group made it there, see theory 2 below).
Wands are somewhat unpredictable, because they can carry many spells. In this case, I’m kind of assuming that it will be some kind of damage dealing spell (magic missile for example). If nothing else, then to give that skeleton the option to attack someone going straight for the rat tail bucket from behind. But I figure the skeleton will only “activate” once someone is on the same level as them (or if they get LoS otherwise).
I’m glad we went to this area for turn 20, because we know a bit more about the wandering drunks now, but not quite enough. It’s possible that the “turn 10 group” was just one person, who hurt themselves on the glass and then the rat trap and therefore decided to go back to the entrance room and wait (or leave back to the tavern because up there it’s not dark, no glass shards on the floor and no rat traps nipping at one’s toes). And if the “turn 20 group” was also just one person, then that would result in these two standing here now.
On the other hand, the first group could have disabled themselves (with glass, then rat trap, then glass again on the return path would be up to 3 HP lost) completely without us even laying eyes on them once. If that’s the case, I hope they didn’t die.
At least we can be fairly sure that the first drunk group didn’t leave the first two rooms (they could have wandered back and forth between them during turns 10-15, but from turn 16 onwards, Ricki and/or Kamau have been in the second room (albeit in the lower level), and would have noticed them.
I guess it’s possible that theory 1 the first drunks were “small creatures” and that they went through the rat tunnel to places unknown (at least we don’t know yet, where it leads), or that theory 2 the drunks went into second room in turn 11, past the other group of drunks (probably unhindered, because they recognized kindred spirits) in turn 12 and into the entrance room (lower level) in turn 13. They might have run past the dogs and down the ladder in turn 14, but I guess it is a bit unlikely that they were still alive & conscious at that point. The dogs would surely have made an AoO at least.
@ LSN, can Ricki see any bodies here (I know you don’t like drawing them, but if Ricki can see the whole dungeon, shouldn’t she be able to detect the first drunk group (provided that they are in the same room with her), even if they aren’t “up and wandering around” anymore?
Also, is the room lit for the two drunks in the top level now thanks to Ricki’s torch, or are they still in the dark?
And I absolutely understand about wanting to use grit, I can’t say I’m not tempted, too. But I’d also hate to waste 1 HP worth of healing, since we don’t really have access to getting HP back at all, so far.
I wanted to suggest Kamau to lift Ricky a bit, and then Ricky to pull the skeleon’s leg and drag him down.. but the “balcony” seems a bit too deep and skeleton is standing quite far, I think it won’t work :/
We could probably stand the barrel up and let Kamau use that to help climb to the skeleton, but that might not work, because he has only one arm and pulling oneself up to a ledge is hard enough even if you have two arms…
Therefore I think this skeleton with wand is an opponent for Ricki (or someone with ranged weapons)…
What about the “ball and chain”? Sure, the ball tends to break, but it could make an improvised single-headed meteor hammer used to swipe the skeleton from its feet and drag it down. Kamau might be able to do this while standing an the upright barrel. When “upstairs” is clear, he could help Ricki climb upstairs.
…only the ball and chain was dropped in the room with the centipede.
Yeah, I don’t have a good action for Ricki this turn without exposing her to the dog (and even the inventory trades might do that). That said, these dogs are “less frenzied” when not in a group. Agreed that exploring past the trap would be good.
Looking at the How to Play page, the examples given for wands are healing and ranged attacks, with some wands being infinite use and some being once per dungeon. I’d say the green gem looks healing-like except the skeleton eyes also glow green (eyes are brighter). Agreed that it looks like the skeleton is set up to snipe anyone going for the bucket. Getting a ranged weapon for Ricki would be great.
Also, keep an eye on that mouse trap!
I say we have Kamau throw the remaining dog at the skeleton. What dog doesn’t like a good bone? =P
Ricki: point out the rat trap. Ricki: Throw a dagger into one dog. You have another dagger and a (rusty) sword! And the dagger is not even consumed when thrown.
Can Ricki throw the mouse trap at the skeleton somehow? Or one of his daggers, now that he has an extra one?
Ricki is a “she/her”: https://dungeoneyes.com/dungeon-1-turn-0/ But indeed it would be nice to know whether a rat trap could be used as weapon.
If the traps are in the same condition here, as they were in the first dungeon, then no, they can’t be used as anything else but deduct one HP from you, if you fail to avoid it when trying to move past.
https://dungeoneyes.com/dungeon-1-turn-8/
I quote: “Heading towards the ladder leading up, Ricki carefully avoids the heavy-duty mousetrap on the floor. It looks like it would hurt if stepped on, so she will have to be careful to avoid it every time she walked past. It also looks very rusty, so it would probably snap if touched at all, so she doubts she could take it with her.”
Ricki: Help Kamau kill the other dog, then throw one of your daggers at the skelly-bob with any luck, the wand will fall down to them. If not, Kamau can lift Ricki up to get to the chest anyway
I’d rather not pick a fight with the skeleton this turn, especially since Ricki would need to go over where the remaining dog is to get line of sight to the skeleton. Let’s get her armored up first.
Speaking of throwing weapons, in The Jail turn 36 it mentioned that “throwing weapons that aren’t designed for throwing isn’t very effective”. That instance was throwing a longsword at a rat, so even at -2 Atk that’d still kill 1HP/0Def. I’d still assume that throwing a dagger will cut the damage from 2 to 1, though it’d be worth it to keep Ricki out of combat.
The general ranged weapon rules say that they don’t use the character’s Atk value at all, and do a fixed amount of damage. It could just be that throwing random weapons will deal 1 damage at best, even if Kamau were to do the throwing.
Ricki is this party’s leader, right? What about an “Inspiring Word” now?