Dungeon 3 Turn 17
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Ricki sets the grave flowers aside and takes the torch back from Kamau, who returns to using his longsword. Together they easily dispatch the two remaining skeletons in this room, leaving the throwing dagger unguarded. Kamau picks it up.
“Hey Kamau, what can we expect from the ghoul pope in the room ahead?”
“Ghoul… pope?”
“Yeah, like with the big hat, you know?”
“Well, ghouls aren’t all that powerful, but still a step up from skeletons. The real threat is their touch, which can sometimes immobilize you and stop you from running or fighting back. But if there’s only one of them, they can’t get us both.”
“As for the pope half… that’s outside my experience. Sorry.”
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DAGGER, THROWING
Weapon/Ranged Weapon
Atk +1, or can be thrown to deal 2 damage. Must be recovered after throwing.
Weight 1, Cost 5
The real boss might be someone who creates the skeletons and gives them orders to move to pope. I wonder if the sun guys and skeletons are enemies or frendlies to each other? What if it’s the sun dudes who ultimately rules the undead here?
I think that’s likely, it would be a very short dungeon if the boss was put right in the front of it.
I think this is a miniboss that we could completely ignore and still complete the dungeon, much like the rat king. Clearing this path will probably secure our way out but not resolve the core problem.
Kamau: Put on the solar armor, drop the lockpicks, trade the throwing dagger for the regular dagger and the torch, then go into the next room and throw the non-throwing dagger at a bat.
Ricki: Drop the lockpicks for the graveflowers.
Moving the graveflowers so they’re in the same room sounds like a good idea, won’t need to spend a turn to grab them if we need them.
The throwing dagger will hit with 2 atk (does not say unblockable, confirmed in Discord by LSN), so the regular dagger will keep one more bat alive to attack the skeletons/ghoul pope.
If Kamau is correct in that ghouls are only a little bit scarier than skeletons, and if @Jeff is correct in that there’s another bbeg, then we should also consider saving the holy water for later. Also something to remember, holy water will illuminate the room, so we won’t need the torch if it goes out.
Five bats are enough to eat a skeleton, they could win that fight and continue to “guard” that path. I think we’d see more skeleton reinforcements, though. I’d rather finish off the ghoul now before giving it a chance to regroup.
Remember the chandelier room is still lit by the armed sun-head.
If we trigger bats we would have to leave the room to avoid unnessesary damage and then wait until one side killed the other. I say we go for the kill now and leave the bats to mop up the rest or act as guards
Kamau: Drop throwing dagger, pick up grave flowers, equip solar armour. Go to the right and attack the ghoul!
Ricki: Swap dagger for throwing dagger.
We’re getting low on inventory space, and this looks like a great place to use the flowers, otherwise we’ll be juggling them for the rest of the dungeon. Agreed to hold off on holy water for now, if this is more of an Attack 2/Defense 2/HP 5 sort of threat then Kamau can carve it up and Ricki can help mop up skeletons.
Immobilize is rough. Once we have a better idea of what the fight is like, we should send Ricki over to help; she does have 4 Defense. If each of those three skeletons (and maybe more, it’ll have been a couple of turns) gets +1 Attack from having a leader, then we’ll be in trouble.
Alternate:
Kamau: Trade throwing dagger for torch, equip solar armour. Go to the right and smash a small skeleton with the longsword.
Ricki: Set thieves’ tools on the floor, pick up grave flowers. Stand back for now.
Maybe the ghoul won’t join the fight immediately, and either way we’d definitely drop a skeleton.
The flowers will be used up on the dwarf skeletons before we ever get to the ghoul.
There is a chance that more skeletons are going to enter the room next turn so we should definitely have the flowers with kamau
Set off the bat bomb and explore the rest of the level while they take off the skeletons’ HP.
Note: the throwing dagger is “+1 Atk” or “throw to deal 2 dmg”. The latter phrase sounds like unconditional damage, like the magic wand, but is repeatable (providing its retrieve back).
If Kamau is going to attack the Pope, let Ricky stay in behind, and throw dagger at Pope. 2 HP left to worry about.
How much damage are the skeletons doing? Lets discuss the following approach: Ricki engages the skeletons at which point the ghoul engages Ricki in close combat, stunning her. Then Kamau drops the chandelier, smashing the pope. Then Kamau can join the fight. Its a bad Idea if Ricki cant tank it though.
Of course Ricki equips the solar armour and the shield for this.
Too risky. We don’t know the pope’s behavior and how much damage he deals. And judging by him hiding behind tons of skeletons, he may have ranged attacks or buff for undead. And there may come new group of skeletons.
What if we swap Ricki and Kamau in this plan and tell Kamau to duck when Ricki pulls the lever?
We would need to have Kamau give Ricki a signal to pull the lever, otherwise how would he know when Ricki is going to pull the lever?
Simple: let him duck the moment he enters the room xD
Oh dear. I just thought of a small side-effect of killig the Pope here..
What if we actually want to have the Pope there?
It ORDERS the Skeletons to WAIT under the chandelier, correct?
It actually makes it much simpler for us, skeletons are managed, and they even are prepared for an easy disposal.
(I assume Pope doesn’t learn and won’t relocate their waiting spot to some other place)
If they come from an ever-active story machine like some dimenstional rift etc, then with no Pope, they will probably just continue to the exit. Ok-ish if it’s timed and ocurring on regular intervals, but pretty crappy situation when the intervals are random. We’d need one person to stay near the lever and keep crushing them as they show up, and that must be Ricky (safe place re:remorse, and Dungeon Eyes to see if they are coming, and when they are under the thing).
We already know the mechanics of the chandelier, so maybe we should leave the Pope be for some time and try out the rope+bell arc instead?
On the one hand, yes, on the other hand: the rope&bell part is right/top of the known rooms. Thus we would either need to get by the sun guy with sword or by the pope. – By the facial expression the pope made when his skellies were crushed, I expect him (it?) to be sentient and therefore not go under the chandelier and stare in awe… (It is no dumb human.)
Kam: Go to the next room and throw the throwing dagger at the pope. Next action will be to attack the first skeleton.
Ricki: Follow Kam and attack the first skeleton.
Leave the grave flowers. We don’t need them.