Dungeon 13 Turn 3
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Ricki dodges two magic rays and blocks two more as she quickly reads the note on the wall.
“Experiment successful but unstable. Power flow must be highly regulated (particularly during oscillation) to avoid buildup and eventual breach.”
Ricki then returns to the previous room.
Amadeusz, Lara, and Cordy engage the group of enemies by the locked chest. Lara singlehandedly destroys a wisp with her basic poison spell, while Cordy uses their wand to help Amadeusz take out the winter wolf. The enemies split their attacks in a tactically abysmal way, resulting in no party members taking damage (though Amadeusz has to block the wolf’s area ice breath from affecting Golly).
Also, a fresh little mushroom sprouts from the wolf’s corpse. Cordy can keep it or assign it to another character.
Lara drop her pack of cigarettes.
Just noticed a crack in the pipe above the 3 Hellhounds. Maybe closing the valve will cause it to rupture?
I suspect the Note that Ricki just read may explain how to get it to rupture: “Experiment successful but unstable. Power flow must be highly regulated (particularly during oscillation) to avoid buildup and eventual breach.”
Note that this dungeon may be designed such that we need to get characters in 4 different rooms at once and do things in coordination. If so then a major consideration is going to be whether we try not to alert the Turn 20 Guard patrol by avoiding the direction that they will take until after they leave on ~Turn 24 or we just commit to fighting the Turn 20 patrol.
I think that tank might be where the new character is, based on this image from the Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/i/IR6R3TWBJU
and we’ll be able to flip elements: https://ko-fi.com/i/IV7V7TWBJS
Coincidentally,I said the exact same thing on the previous page (just scroll down far)
Plan 1: Go Up
Ricki: Point out trap by ladder to the party. Move up and kill Bird 1
Cordy: Move up and Sting Bird 2 in melee. keep the new shroom
Big Shroom: Attack Bird 2
Amad: Avoid trap and Move up. Kill bird 3
Lara: Kill remaining Wisp with a venom sting.
This should hopefully Clear the birds and wisp. Frees up the area to read notes, break open Owlbear area or scout past skellies
Note that the GM called them “three angry birds” rather than Magicrows. I am not certain if that detail will prove important or if it was just flavor text. The party did deal with some Magicrows in a non-hostile manner in dungeon 7 (The Overgrown Farm) around D7T10 https://dungeoneyes.com/dungeon-7-turn-10/ so they aren’t always hostile, although these three bird may be unavoidably hostile and may not be Magicrows.
Also note that the three “angry birds” have different colored eyes and are thus individually distinguishable so we should probably specify what we mean by bird 1, 2, 3 for an attack plan in case their eye color is important, for instance it determines the type of elemental damage of their ranged attack and/or perhaps what sort of elemental damage they are immune to. Their eye colors are: light blue, yellow, and purple.
The picture of Magicrows on the Enemies page at https://dungeoneyes.com/enemies/ shows an image with three birds that all have different eye colors (in that image the eye colors seem to be yellow, blue, and green).
Wait,were people not aware that magicrows could have different elements?
Plan 2: Go Down
Lara: Avoid trap, attack Sun Knight with Siege sword.
Amad: Attack sun Knight with Claws
Cordy: Attack Wisp with Wand of sting. Keep the new shroom
Ricki: Point out trap to the party. Move left, avoid floor traps, unlock door, scout down.
This most likely clears sun Knight and distracts the wisp from adding its damage to amad or Lara who are fighting Knight.
Unlocking door gets us 2 chests of loot and we still might keep the lockpick. Also gets us eyes on the lower rooms where the note said the “Wisps are contained”
Note that going down may commit us to fighting the Turn 20 Guard patrol !!!
It appears I should have explained my idea about using Case on the sunhead more thoroughly last Turn. Here is the explanation with references:
The green colored “sunheads” that we encountered in The Abandoned Chapel (dungeon 3) were most definitely wearing armor, since we got it as a drop and Kamau wore it. See the enemies page, items page, and D3T7 https://dungeoneyes.com/dungeon-3-turn-7/
SOLAR GUARDIAN, TARNISHED
HP: ???
Atk: ???
Def: ???
Drops: 50% Tarnished Solar Armour
SOLAR ARMOUR, TARNISHED
Armour
Def+3, or Def +4 against holy damage. 10% chance to break after being attacked.
Weight 4, Cost 30
My thought is that by using Case (which does not require expending a 10gp Lens, although we could do that too) might find out if this is a ‘normal’ Solar Guardian (with no modifying adjective like Tarnished) or if it is a Fallen Solar Guardian, or a Dark Solar Guardian, or a Shadow Solar Guardian, or an Imperial Solar Guardian, etc, etc. If this is something like an Imperial Solar Guardian that would tell us that it is probably not just a randomly spawned elemental monster but rather an intentional guardian. The fact that it is apparently equipped with a non-Imperial Longsword and Heavy Shield are somewhat odd and hint to me that it is not a randomly spawned elemental creature but instead a guardian that was placed there, which would mean that defeating it would definitely result in the turn 20 Guard patrol being alerted, since according to the Goals: “Additionally, every 20 turns a Guard patrol will enter the dungeon to collect the dungeon’s output. If they find anything amiss, they will begin to search for intruders.”
I had very specific reasons for why I placed priority on finding out more about the sunhead and trying to figure out why it is there — as a random elemental dungeon spawn, or as an intentional guardian. See entry Note 3 regarding random elemental dungeon spawns: “Elemental creatures have begun to appear throughout the dungeon independently of any experimentation. They should be cleared away daily if they can’t be controlled.” If sunhead is an intentional guardian then fighting it before Turn 23 could be bad, and that is something we need to know. Although it can wait until later, we should probably learn more before we explore downwards, and it can help inform our decision to explore upwards first.
I am sorry that I did not explain my idea and reasoning better on the previous Turn.
Case will just confirm what it is holding and maybe the type of armor it is inhabiting. Wont tell us its base stats or its targeting AI.
The fact it has non-imperial items tells me it wasnt created by the guards so is probably hostile towards them. We can always carry the stuff away since we have space on Molly so guards wont see.
We cant explore upper left dungeon without a key or using a lockpick, so we may run out of things to do before turn 20.
As I understand it, Ricki’s Case Ability will tell us the full item descriptions of everything this sunhead has in its inventory (i.e. what will drop when it is defeated) including the name of the Armor it is wearing. See D11T23 https://dungeoneyes.com/dungeon-11-turn-23/ for what happened when Ricki used Case on the Guard Enforcer. Yes, I know Case will not tell us anything other than the full list of Items that this sunhead has in its inventory and the FULL DESCRIPTIONS of all of those items. Yes, I know that we would need to use a Magic Lens to get the sunhead’s base Stats, and I also know that the Magic Lens would not tell us the items this sunhead has in its inventory.
For the green colored armor that dropped when Kamau and Ricki defeated a green “sun thing” on D3T7 the name of the item, SOLAR ARMOUR, TARNISHED, told us something about the creature that was wearing it, which we later learned was called a SOLAR GUARDIAN, TARNISHED after dungeon 3 was over and that enemy eventually got added to the Enemies page.
If the Case just tells us that it is Solar Armor we won’t have learned much, but if it is something like Solar Armor, Corrupted or perhaps Solar Armor, Imperial then we will have learned something.
Re: “The fact it has non-imperial items tells me it wasnt created by the guards”
Remember that some of the GUARDS in the Guard Outpost had non-Imperial items, so that fact that this sunhead doesn’t have Imperial gear doesn’t mean as much to me and does not tell me that it is certainly a random dungeon-spawn rather than an intentional guardian.
Perhaps I am being too cautious in worrying that the sunhead might be an intentional guardian that the Guard patrol will miss on about Turn 22, rather than being a randomly spawned elemental creature that the Guards won’t miss or notice as long as we pick up all of the fallen Items it drops upon being defeated.
Green sunheads do NOT have armor equipped. They do NOT have armor in their inventory. The armor item is created out of thin air when the sunhead dies, because it is listed as a drop on their entry.
An enemy dropping their inventory on defeat is different from the bonus drops listed in the enemy entry.For example, a basic guard has NO drop listed yet often drop equipment. Those were part of their inventory and can be stolen or cased. Inventory items are ALWAYS dropped.
The “armor” on the green sunhead is equivalent to the tail on rat. It will not be cased nor stolen. The way to tell is on the enemy page images, they are always the enemy without any item equipped.
The one situation where case would reveal anything is if this sunhead is actually just a regular green sunhead that has a black armor item equipped(in which case it will drop the black armor AND have the 50% chance of dropping tarnished sun armor on top) instead of a new variant of sunhead. I think that is unlikely since we just saw another black variant of a base enemy(the owlbear) here.
Ok, I guess I was just confused. Thank you for the detailed explanation.
For this plan, you may want to consider and clearly specify which side of the floor trap you want Cordy to end up on at the end of Turn 4 based on your plans for Cordy in future turns, since after Turn 4 Ricki may be too far away or too busy to conveniently point out the trap to them to cross it safely.
I don’t like this for 2 reason:
-Patrol will move down to fetch the holy wisps and may notice the unlocked door as sign of intruders.
-Cordy can’t oneshot a wisp. The wand deals 2 when a wisp has 3 hp.
That’s fair. The wand attack was to distract wisp from the others.. I cant edit either so Cordy may get stuck on that side of the trap as well.
we should probably pick up the press at some point so it doesn’t get trashed by the patrolling guards
Golly is carrying it.
According to the current party page at https://dungeoneyes.com/current-party/ the Upgrade Press is currently on Golly. That page does get updated every turn when we are in the dungeon, so hopefully it is accurate about the current location of the Upgrade Press.
Edit: after I posted this I saw that Sick had just answered it, just like Sick answered me before… see, I do learn: https://dungeoneyes.com/dungeon-13-turn-1/#comment-15498
Assign Little Mushroom #42 that was created on Turn 3 to Ricki. She is our primary character so we need to place priority on keeping her alive since the story ends if she dies and Amaduesz isn’t around to Resurrect her. Also, conveniently enough, the +1 Atk and Def that she’ll get from the mushroom pet will exactly cancel the penalties from the Wanted Posters of her that seem to appear throughout this dungeon.
Sadly, powering up Cordy will just have to wait so Medium Mushroom #35 will just have to wait a while longer until the stork or a Wand of Venomous sting brings them a tiny sibling for company.
Just my plan from last turn.
Lara: Unequip your weapon, lens the black sunhead, move left past it and scout down the ladder
Ricki: Unequip your weapon, point trap to amad and loot locked chest
Cordy: Move up, sting blue bird from just close enough for your mushrooms to attack
Medium mushie: attack yellow bird
Little mushie: follow cordy, attack blue bird, hopefully explode for more damage and replace yourself
Amad: Avoid floor trap, move up to kill purple bird
Comment removed. Thought Lara was In danger of traps by gate but there are none before ladder
The floor traps (in the hallways just below the entry area) are only a problem for a character trying to go to the locked gate, not for a character going down the ladder.
Edit: to remove a Comment/Reply just edit it to include 2 or more hyperlinks, then the spam filter will mark it as “Awaiting Approval” and *poof* it is gone forever.
For the benefit of any newer readers who are having difficulty figuring out how combat in DE works, and for future readers who are reading the archive and trying to puzzle out the stats of what just happened, here are the stats for the combat that occurs here on Turn 3 (D13T3):
Lara: attacks a blue wisp with her basic Venomous Sting I spell (Atk: 2(spell)+1(Poison Proficiency)=3 ranged; 8 Def).
Cordy: attacks the winter wolf with a WAND OF VENOMOUS STING (Atk: 2(wand) ranged; 5 Def).
Ricki: reads poster (Atk: N/A; Def:7-1(poster)=6 Def; 50% evade).
Wolf: tears into the winter wolf with both claws (9 Atk, 9 Def).
The party has Atk: 9(Wolf) + 2(Cordy, wand)=11 against the winter wolf’s Def, the winter wolf’s Def + HP is less than or equal to 11 so it is defeated, but not before getting a last attack as is customary and normal for defeated/dying opponents. The winter wolf apparently has an short range area effect breath weapon that likely affects everything within melee range in one direction, which in this case is just Wolf (aka were-Amadeusz) and his pet Molly the pack mule. Wolf’s Def of 9 is more than the winter wolf’s attack so Wolf takes no damage. Enemy attacks cannot affect a pet that does not attack that Turn so Molly is immune to the winter wolf’s melee area effect attack and the GM included the flavor text, “(though Amadeusz has to block the wolf’s area ice breath from affecting Golly).” Thus we now know that a winter wolf’s Def+HP≤11, which will be useful to know later if we fight another winter wolf since they all have the same stats (a feature of Dungeon Eyes enemies). The winter wolf’s corpse is likely either completely consumed by Cordy’s Infestation Ability to create a new little mushroom pet or the corpse is conveniently pushed out of the way (once describe as ‘into the foreground’) or the corpse somehow evaporates upon the creature’s death, the GM doesn’t bother to specify which of these it is in the descriptive text of the combat, assuming that everyone already knows the answer to that by this point or doesn’t care about details like that when the wolf’s body (probably) conveniently disappears on the Turn 4 screen (as is customary and normal for most but not all defeated enemies).
Lara has Atk: 3 against a blue wisp which has Def: 0 and HP: 3 (which we know because we used a Magic Lens), thus the wisp takes 3HP of damage and is defeated (just barely). The wisp apparently does actually disintegrate or evaporate upon being defeated because of how it is shown in the artwork. That is not typical for enemies. From the artwork we can see that the wisp’s “dying attack” was a blue-colored ranged beam attack that hits Lara in return. The wisp has Atk: 3 ranged and Lara has Def: 8 and is taking no other attacks or environmental damage on Turn 3 so she doesn’t take any damage since 3-8=-5. Lara could have taken another Atk: 5 from enemies or 5 Damage from environmental hazards or some combination that totals 5 without taking any damage on Turn 3, but any more than 5 total Atk or environmental damage this Turn would have caused Lara to lose HP. Fortunately Ricki’s girlfriend (Lara’s description on her character sheet ever since we finished dungeon 10) is fine this turn. We already knew the wisp’s stats because we used a Magic Lens this Turn to find out that information, but we probably learned something about wisp’s targeting preference, which probably be useful later in this dungeon. Lara attacked the wisp and it attacked Lara in return, which might be totally random but is likely an indication that wisps will attack an opponent that causes them damage.
The other wisp attacks Cordy with a blue ranged beam. The wisp has Atk: 3 ranged and Cordy currently has Def: 5 and Cordy is taking no other attacks or environmental damage this turn so Cordy takes no damage. If both wisps had concentrated their fire on Cordy they would have been Atk: 2*3=6 and Cordy’s Def: 5 would not have been enough and he would have taken 1HP of damage. Fortunately, “The enemies split their attacks in a tactically abysmal way, resulting in no party members taking damage.” This wisp could have attacked Wolf or Lara with its beam instead of Cordy, which could mean that the semi-intelligent wisps targeting AI is to randomly attack among all available opponents (Lara, Cordy, and Wolf in this case) if they are not attacked and/or damaged themselves or it could indicate that the targeting AI is to randomly attack among opponents wielding environmental damage (only Lara and Cordy in this case). What we do know is that the wisp’s targeting AI does not appear to give priority to opponents in melee range since Wolf (who does not have environmental damage attacks) is ignored in favor of Cordy.
A couple of months ago I was rather mystified by the combat mechanics (even though I’d read the webcomic since its beginning), so I wrote this combat up as an example of my understanding of how things work and as a service to newer players. If I got something wrong please leave a reply and I’ll fix it if I can edit this post without it being eaten by the spam filter.
Ricki, solo those bats. You got this.