Dungeon 3 Turn 63
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Lara picks up the tarnished sun sphere, able to carry it fairly easily. She and Ricki then climb down the side of the chapel and then down the ladder to the base of the chapel’s tower. On the way, Ricki tries to talk to Lara about what kind of stuff they can do.
“So what kind of stuff can you do? Like, in a fight?”
“I dunno. I don’t have a weapon. You wanna loan me one of yours?”
“Maybe, but I can’t decide which one to give you… Would the light from the torch hurt your eyes?”
“No, that’s a racial stereotype. Drow can see in the dark really well, but bright lights don’t hurt us any more than they hurt you.”
“Hmm, okay. Can you do magic? You have robes on, like what a magic person would wear.”
“I’m just a guy with fancy clothes.”
“Heehee!”
At the same moment, Kamau makes his way from the door room up to where Ricki and Lara are. On the way he passes by the two groups of bats, which both attack him. He takes 1 damage from their combined assault, mostly due to the presence of a deadly venom bat.
Kamau runs past the flittermice and up to the platform where the other two await.
“Oh, hi Kamau! This is my new friend Lara. She’s gonna help—”
“Ricki, get away from her!”
“What? Why?”
“Yeah, man, what’s your problem?”
“Those clothes she’s wearing! Don’t you recognize them?!”
“Your new ‘friend’ is an arachnomancer! A bloodthirsty cultist!”
“What, just because of how I’m dressed?”
“Oh, please. Those robes are forbidden everywhere in the empire. The only way you’d get away with wearing them is if you came here straight from a hidden cult compound.”
“Yeesh. Sounds like your OTHER ‘friend’ is a COP.”
Oh Crap. Sounds like the first priority here is to defuse the intra-party conflict. Ricki, remind Kamau that Lara already agreed to fight a deadly monster, which Kamau doesn’t yet know about (Ricki should tell both of them all about the Blob, stat), without any negotiation or any mention of recompense, after just being made nearly deaf – that sounds heroic enough that it doesn’t fit the theory that she would still be with the cult! Kamau could please defer this conversation to after the city-threatening Blob is destroyed, and could he please consider what she is doing as community service?
If conflict is defused or deferred for later, they need to get back to the Blob’s territory. However, the venom bat is problematic, and Kamau has nearly run out of HP. Between Lara’s arachnomancy and Ricki’s Dawn Mitre, can they hit the venom bat at range from this platform, or from another safer location? If so, do it. Else, they should go down, with Kamau interposing the bats.
Also, Ricki should tell Lara about in what condition and where exactly Kamau was found…
I disagree. It would open up a way for mockery, and that won’t build up the atmosphere. Kamau’s history is his, he’ll talk about it when he feels like it, and so far it did not look like he’s eager to tell everyone everything. If we need, just note that Kamau has made some guards quite unhappy, and that should be enough.
Ricki: Not everyone who once wore a guard uniform is still a guard and not everyone wearing these *points-to-Lara* robes has to be a cultist
Oooo an arachnomancer? We should get her to have that spider from earlier fight the blob! :O
Don’t worry Lara, he’s off-duty.
Make that a capital, bold, italic, underlined OFF-duty 🙂 (i.e. explain about “traitor”, jail, execution).
All Cops Are Bastards.
Dismiss Kamau from the party. Keep Lara.
Kamau’s a traitor, he’s just going to betray us sometime in the future anyway. And he’s a cop. LSN’s twitter handle should clue you in to what he thinks about cops.
Let’s let the powergaming drop. Let’s do the moral thing for once in a campaign, even if it’s tactically disadvantageous.
All Cops Are Bastards.
Hm, ex-cop? “Traitor” to the empire? Cop turned hero? We might want to talk with Kamau about his past, but I would not damn him for being e.g. a road safety education officer, who wanted to help the community but then had to recognize that the Empire’s forces worked against its people. Obviously he put himself against that Empire. He did not even talk off Ricki after her trying to buy food without money in the first intermission.
I’d rather not judge a group of people I’ve never met based on the actions of a few.
Ricki, Kamau, Lara: Wait here, keep chatting.
This is a good ambush spot for the blob. The bats will likely attack it when it arrives. We can then add our attacks on top of that damage for massive impact. I know, waiting around is boring and feels wasteful. But we can’t do much in the two turns we have to spare. The ghoul will probably more than one turn to kill (the unshielded ghoul pope took two turns for Kamau to kill with grave flower bonus, this one has +2 defense), and will leave a character paralyzed for a turn after that.
Shadow blob will probably arrive on turn 66. Unless it spends time attacking something like the bats in the room below.
Unless Lara would like to get the nice spider from the room of rooms, but do we have time to fetch it? And should we kill the bats in this room, because they will attack Bob as well as our team?
We don’t know what arachnomancers do. Maybe they just summon webs and specialize in poisons? They don’t have to be skilled at taming spiders.. But worth asking when the situation cools down a bit.
For now, we don’t even know Lara is one. “Judging just by the clothes” and all. If we judge Kamau by his clothes, he’s a sun-god disciple. And Ricky is a holy pope. Yay. What a team!
Right! Also, if we detonate the holy-ball when the bats are busy with the blob, it will probably also hit the bats, and decimate them all, maybe except for the venomus one (but I think it’ll evaporate as well). Just couldn’t be better.
So Ricki, Kamau and Lara wait up above the ladder and when Bob gets to the bottom of the ladder, Lara drops down the ball and Ricki fires a holy bolt? I kind of like this plan.
We shouldn’t be in danger of Bob attacking us (Ricki) at the top of the ladder in the same turn, right?
One thing to consider that might make this plan less favourable:
What does Bob do with other monsters? Does it eat them and get stronger? What caused Bob to look bigger/angrier? He could have eaten the skeletons, and if that’s the case, what happens if he eats something else on his supposed way up?
One theory I read was that it gets meaner in the dark.
I think we’re supposed to escape the blob, not fight it straight up and defeat it.
It’s worth rolling the holy bowling ball at it to see what happens, but a toe to toe fight to the death is a terrible idea.
Probing it with the magic lens could help us decide that. But I agree that we shouldn’t fight it if it’s not worth it or if it looks too dangerous. For now we just don’t know.
It seems likely that Bob the Blob is the source of the spawning skeletons and defeating it is the victory condition for the dungeon — but we don’t have proof of that yet. Hopefully magic lensing Bob will help.
If we’re sticking around, can Ricki just try and aggro the ghoul so it falls down the pit? That way maybe there’s something dope in the treasure chest.
Ricki: shoot ghoul with golden light.
Kamau: cut rope if the ghoul tries to climb it.
Ricki: mention that we’re all just trying to survive and that many people call us things that aren’t true.
I am Ricki, I wear a Mitre, but I am no pope. (Found it on a ghoul.) He is Kamau, he is an ex-cop, whom I found in jail ready for execution because the cops call him traitor to them. This is Lara, she is wearing what she is wearing, she agreed to help to kill the evil grime death slime Bob from the graves. Cultist is no issue: Who are we to order a person what to believe into? But I would not like to get my blood drunk. I am sure Lara can explain. In case we do have time for that, I want to hear Lara’s story, seems interesting, but if Bob arrives first, I prefer survival first. Remember: The enemy of my enemy (Bob) is my friend?! – Btw: Do you see her holding that holy sphere and it not burning her up?
FUCK YEAH SPIDER WIZARD
Ricki: Shoot a light ball at a regular bat from on the rope. Give Lara the throwing dagger.
Lara: Throw the dagger at the venom bat from up top, or a regular bat if the venom bat isn’t visible.
Kamau: Intercede, staying up top but intercepting attacks from any bats that fly up.
End turn away from the bats, including down the ladder (mind the glass) if the bats fly up top.
Ah, that makes sense. She ran away crying from a building with a big spider mouth, that wasn’t *this* church.
Ideal here will be to drop the sphere into blob and bats, though getting bats up top and ignoring. At expected rate of movement, the blob should be up the stairs now.
3 attack on the venom bat is bad. Might still be 1 HP, probably 2, hopefully not with in flight defense as well as dodge.
Why would we fight the bats now? Ricki, Kamau and Lara should be safe and far from them on the top platform. Unless we want to go down towards Bob, that is.
I agree we are better off waiting. If we did want to get the bats, It’d be better to have Ricki and Lara go after group on left (2 normal bats) and Kamau to go after the Venom bat.
With Ricki tanking two normals, Kamau wont take damage.
That said, we risk the armor and i’m never 100% sure how the bats will target. Better to play it safe Kamau is down to 3 hp 🙁
Throwing dagger: “Must be recovered after throwing.” What if the dagger falls down to the winch? What if the dagger sticks in the venom bat and it flies around/away with the dagger? What if the thrown dagger slithers to the far right and falls down the ladder? Even if it just lays on the floor with the bats: Do we have enough time to fetch it before Bob arrives? And the bats will attack us when we try to reclaim the dagger (which makes it a guarded item which makes retrieval an action). Maybe shoot at the bats with the mitre (but: counter attack of the bats?!), but preferably do not risk our only dagger.