Dungeon 15 Turn 43
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Ricki finally finds the high priestess, looking very well defended in that hallway below. Ricki uses her Case ability to identify the staff she’s holding, then returns to the previous room (to get attacked by a lingering drider that can’t hurt her).
Amadeusz joins Lara in her fight, and the two of them together defeat the drider with no trouble.
Sue heals Golly for 2 HP.
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STAFF OF SPIDERBITE
Staff
Curses an enemy at range, stripping them of any immunity or bonus Def against poison, then cutting their remaining Def and evasion in half. The halving lasts for 8 turns, but the other effects are permanent. Can only be used once per dungeon.
Weight 1, Cost 20 per charge
Ricki: Head left, then down. Point out the ladder trap to Wolf and get fed the Poison Resistance Potion as he’s coming up. Head down again.
Lara: Carry Sue to the Right then up the pit. Drop her off and then head right. Wield your Tower Shield and use your Webbed Morsel to subdue that group’s Spider.
Sue: Be carried by Lara. Tie off your rope to the ladder above the pit to help Wolf out.
Wolf: Head right, then up to Ricki. Avoid the ladder trap she points out. Feed her your Poison Resistance Potion.
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Based on D5T10 and D6T6, I think Lara is safe to subdue that group’s spider without risk of being hit by the Spider itself, like those cases, this group of enemies is currently unalerted. This is in contrast to the Gargantula which was alerted before we attempted to Subdue it so it got to attack us. She has 24 Defense vs. Poison, and the Drider does 13~14 damage and the Arachnomancer does 7 after the idol boost. Maybe more if it also has a venom gland, but Lara should still be safe from major damage.
Wolf is making a trip to the top right. If the High Priestess is going to camp, then we’re going to punish her for it. While Ricki, Lara and Sue move to break the bottom right Brazier, Wolf is going to turn back into Amadeusz and play a Dirge to damage the High Priestess for 1, triggering her teleportation response and forcing her to the only remaining brazier in the bottom left.
Wolf is feeding Ricki his poison resist potion so Ricki can tank the battles in the bottom right without risk of death.
How is Wolf supposed to get up the ladder?Edit: Duh, I somehow missed the part about the rope. Never mind.
I don’t know if we can get such info about it, but how “permanent’ is “permanent” in Staff of Spiderbite? It it as usual, so “until end of dungeon”, just stated differently? Or does it really remove any immunities and/or bonuses from their items truly permanently (update item text) and from their character sheets too (i.e. Lara loses that +6def skill)? Or does it work by adding something like “spiderbite: immunity against poison does not apply” “skill” to their charactersheet?
…that staff (in this particular setting) is EVIL.
And I bet, if we somehow manage to loot it, it will not work anymore, because the goddess of spiders hates us or has not enough strength to power it or whatver.
Come to think of it, we don’t even know which enemies have poison resistance, that isn’t something we get as information, even if we lens people, so it might not be super relevant for us, even if it would still work. *sighs*
We definitely get poison resistance/immunity info when we lens enemies lol. The staff is a god-tier anti-golem item. They have huge defense and immunity to poison. Also useful against Justiciar Supremes to decrease their dodge chance.
Thanks for pointing that out. I had a the stats from a couple of enemies in mind, which in my book would be logical to have poison resistance, too, (any spiders that we lensed and the killer scorpion variant – iirc there are animals that are immune to the venom that they apply, not sure if this is the norm or the exception, though) and they didn’t mention it, so I assumed that it wasn’t part of the info package. My bad.
I vaguely recall that LSN at some point noticed that he doesn’t specify the kind(s) of damage that get(s) dealt to our party member by enemies, but a) that was in the past (probably a couple of dungeons back) and b) perhaps I mixed that up with the resistance info.
But yeah, unless we have the capability of dealing loads of poison damage at once (we have some options with glands and the enchanted weapons now) and at a target with poison resistance in the first place (so we can halve their def stat on top of removing any poison resistance), it’s of less use to us than the garden gloves. ^_^*
I kind of wonder, how does it work in detail: the siege sword does has posion damage now, but before it dealt “normal” damage. Is “only” the additional damage from the enchantment poison, rest is normal, or was all the normal damage “converted” into poison as well?
For example A skeleton has poison immunity (as it should IMHO). If Lara whacks a skeleton with the venomous siege sword, does it do any damage (namely the amount of normal damage the siege sword without the enchantment would have made) or does it all get done away with from the poison immunity? It’s still a huge chunk of sharp metal, it should still do something to a skeleton.
IIRC, the way stuff like poison defense works is like a floodgate of defense that opens up at the smallest amount of poison damage.
For example, lets say Lara has 10 Normal Defense and +10 Def against Poison.
If she is dealt one point of poison damage during a turn, she will have 20 Defense, so if alongside that one point of poison damage she takes another 19 poison damage or fire damage or regular damage, she’ll tank the entire attack.
Immunity to a type of damage just ignores it entirely. If Lara is dealing 5 Regular damage + 5 Poison damage to a Poison Immune Skeleton, then she’s only hitting it for 5 Damage, minus any defense the Skeleton might have.
Against an enemy like the High Priestess, which gains +9 Defense vs. Poison, we have to be careful if Lara decides to attack them. Unless Lara is doing at least 9 more poison damage than she could by simply using an attack that didn’t deal poison damage (for example, her Venom Blade attack does 11 Poison Damage, vs. her unarmed strike which does 4. So Lara just punching is stronger than her Venom Blade against the HIgh Priestess.)
Thanks for the elaboration. It’s been a while since I tried to understand (all of) the game mechanics in detail (I didn’t see a point anymore when the turns started to get more or less decided in discord) and so I seem to have forgotten quite a lot (or never bothered to learn in the first place). So I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to claify stuff for me. 😀
I got it. We buy a mirror from Paws and Perseus this thing. Staff can only be used once per dungeon so she shoots it, we reflect the beam, and she can’t do any more damage with it.
Lets talk to the Imp and have the priestess curse herself with the staff.
I can’t tell if you’re making a bad decision as a joke, but the imp is not a good choice. He was straight up said to be the only way to fail Cox’s dungeon. They’re schmuck bait.
It is an Imp. We have been told it has a bargain to offer. Is it a safe bargain? Of course not. But this is the fourth or fifth time we see the little guy and people always vote to avoid it at all costs.
I will never not wanna talk to it, even fully knowing it might be a bad idea.
And I don’t remember anything about the Imp leading to a failed attempt at the Broken Tomb.
It was in the wrap up notes from that dungeon.