Dungeon 14 Turn 27
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Botanya heads back to the entrance on her way elsewhere.
Mac shuffles his inventory for the last (?) time, then begins making his way back to his friends.
Kamau ignores the dragon rider that continues to take swings at him and ascends the ladder. After taking a quick look around in the dark room and assuming everything is fine, he eats the steak he’s been carrying and recovers 2 HP.
Ricki dashes swiftly past the dragon rider in the ladder room and oh dear god.
Oh shit!
Well uh. That might be game!
Let the race begin!
Plan: Save Ricki
Ricki: Head left then up the ladder. Case the Lightning Tamer.
Kamau: Loot the trapped chest by the killer centipede.
Botanya: Head right (Upper).
Macadamia: Head left, then down to the nest room. Blow the Horn.
–
In case action simultaneity screws us up and the information we’ve gathered so far is shmuck bait, opting for a safer course of actions.
This is nonsense. This plan is not “Save Ricky” it’s “screw up the dungeon with 33% odds”. Percentage guessed, explained below.
Ricky attacks the Rider? While Tyrant is in the NEXT ROOM? Putting all cards on the Horn, a dungeon-specific mechanic that we think we know and that we never fully tested?
We’ve heard Tyrant hates intruders. We don’t know with 100% certainty what Tyrant will prioritize. We have the chance to test it right now, but we don’t know it yet.
If for some reason the Tyrant ignores the horn, Ricky will just move one room left, be stuck in this room in combat, Tyrant will just follow her, and we’re screwed. If she survives, Kamau will probably remorse out, or even if he somehow doesn’t – he will lose precious points in remorse. Also, Ann may get hit with AoE from Tyrant, and I can only guess she’s low on MaxHP stat and DEF.
Ricky has a lot of movement. Moving just 1 leftwards is a waste and unnecessary risk. Why attack the DragonRider at all? Just let Ricky go left and up the ladder and have Kamau attack the Rider like you wrote. If we’re worried that Rider ignores Kamau and takes a swing at Ann when she’s passing by with Ricky, then we can let Kamau just go down and interpose to make it 100% safe.
This is enough to “Save Ricky” and test what Tyrant prioritizes in such critical moment. Tyrant won’t come up the ladder after Ricky. Yes, we have not tested it, I guessed it, but at least we have observed several times it didn’t move up/down via ladders when it could. And having Kamau here is enough to see if Tyrant comes here or not, and Kamau can gamble that bite if Tyrant comes. Ricky can not (assuming we can’t risk Kamau phasing out).
I know I am nervous too, but when Mac last blew the horn it stopped the king from taking his full move. Which means the action of blowing the horn influences where king will move before it takes its action.
Given the description of horn and king itself, the cry of its baby will most assuredly draw it away
Tyrant Lizard: If they hear the sound of one of their own nearby, they will call out to make the sound of distress carry farther. An adult will come running if it hears this sound.
Tyrant Lizard King: However, it is known to stop what its doing and come running if it suspects its offspring are in danger
Tyrant Horn: A horn made from the bone of a powerful lizard. When blown, it attracts the attention to any tyrant lizard in the dungeon.
D14T25: Tyrant Lizard King is attracted by the horn, and its 3 Mov is cut short to 2.
D14T10: Tyrant Lizard Baby responds to the call of the horn.
It’s a bit of a high stress situation to do this for the first time, but we have a pretty good idea of what will happen with evidence to support. Plus it’d be pretty weird if LSN intentionally lied and threw in a bunch of red herrings regarding the tyrant and the horns.
Yeah but
CAN we just have Ricki actually run away and down a ladder and not get stomped on while the King runs past
This seems more based on cheesing mechanics than LSN has encouraged. LSN who makes judgement calls for all our enemies, not just robotically assigns actions based on a library of code
Presumably the King wouldn’t be running past Ricki. The baby is on the bottom floor, so it would make more sense for the King to go through the tunnel to get there, effectively going in the opposite direction as Ricki. We’ve seen the King on the bottom floor before, so we know it can get there.
I don’t know what this plan looked like before, but the current edit –
Ricki: Head left then up the ladder. Case the Lightning Tamer.
Kamau: Loot the trapped chest by the killer centipede.
Botanya: Head right (Upper).
Macadamia: Head left, then down to the nest room. Blow the Horn.
– looks OK to me EXCEPT that if the tyrant doesn’t turn around when Mac blows the horn, Botanya is toast.
… actually, now that I think about it, what’s to stop the tyrant from grabbing Ricki off the ladder before she gets to the top? I don’t know how dungeon logic works in this situation, but in real life the tyrant would be at the ladder in like two steps. And the dragon rider in the middle of the ladder isn’t going to just step aside to let Ricki pass.
The hope is that blowi ng the horn makes the king give up the chase. This is based on the descriptions we have been given of the monster and the horn.
I can see the Tyrant King attacking before you might get up, but not preventing you from completing your move. Last dungeon we tried “there’s no ability saying we can prevent someone from going up a ladder but logically this should work” and LSN said no, wasting our actions.
Suddenly, I wonder if Ann is a Pet/Npc and mostly-safe from taking damage unless she actively joins the combat, or not?
Do you mean Sue?
From the first turn (Sue’s dialogue with Ricki)
“Like… you want to help?”
“No, I’m just going to watch.
And complain if you don’t do what I wanted.”
“What was that last part?”
“Don’t worry about it!”
“And you don’t have to worry about protecting me from any enemies, either. This is all out of character.”
I know we are in deep shit right now…
But I wanted to point out this is the only time Sue isn’t smiling.
Ricki, solo the tyrant
Cold croc looks dope.
Since no one else seems to be doing it, here’s an alternate plan to vote on.
Plan: Prepare for the worst
Ricki: Move three tiles left, then down the ladder.
Kamau: Head down, interpose the dragon rider.
Botanya: Head left, then down the ladder.
Macadamia: Head left, then down to the nest room. Blow the Horn.
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Reasoning: Distracting the tyrant is the only hope we have of completing this dungeon, but we don’t know if it will work. The babies are specifically described as repeating each other’s cries, which implies that they have a range limit. It is possible that this instinct was evolved to handle larger areas than this dungeon and it really just serves as a way to turn our horns into something the parent cares about. It is also possible that they have a 2-3 room range and we killed the only repeater that would have let the vault baby be heard where the parent is. If distraction doesn’t work, the parent kills Ricki on two turns, or one turn if we let the rider join in. Kamau is too far away to interpose the Tyrant this turn, and won’t be around next turn if Ricki gets attacked. This plan should guarantee Ricki’s survival, then we can prepare to abandon if Ricki does get attacked. If the distraction does work, then we can continue the dungeon with a single “wasted” turn.
Kamau moving down to interpose is bad. She-King is gonna destroy him.
Ricki needs to scram, and Kamau needs to stay upstairs. Fight the scorpion, if he must.
If the distraction works, the Tyrant won’t target Kamau at all. If the distraction doesn’t work, Kamau remorses out and is therefore still safe. Even if something weird happens and the Tyrant moves and immediately attacks Kamau this turn, he should be able to survive for a couple turns with his current HP and defense. And the alternative we are facing is total game over, Ricki instantly dead with no revive ability in the current team.
I like Sick’s new plan except I doubt Ricki can get all the way up that long ladder before the king gets there – they both have 3 MOV – especially since there’s a dragon rider halfway up that ladder. Going down a ladder, on the other hand, gets her to safety instantly. I also don’t love having Botanya in that upper hallway while the king is in it. So:
Plan: Run like rabbits
Ricki: Dash + action move back to the loot pile.
Kamau: Loot the trapped chest by the killer centipede.
Botanya: Stay put.
Macadamia: Head left, then down to the nest room. Blow the Horn.
Reasoning: Dash + action move gives Ricki a MOV of 4, which should ensure that she can outrun the king. I know it slows us down to have Ricki backtrack, but I don’t want to risk her life.