Dungeon 4 Turn 0
————
After waiting over an hour for the flush cycle to occur, Ricki, Kamau, and Lara descend the rope into the pipes below the city. The dungeon can’t exactly be called dry, but as promised, the water level has subsided enough that they can explore safely… for now.
“Wow. Looks like the rats didn’t waste any time getting here, either.”
“How many are there?”
“Oh yeah, I always forget. You humans can’t see in the dark, can you?”
“Here, let me help you with that.”
“Ugh. Thanks, I guess.”
It seems that a whole swarm of rats has already found its way into the dungeon, apparently with the intention of depositing the things they’ve stolen over the past month. Ricki notices many cracks and holes in the pipes, some of which only she can fit through, as well as a number of places she can’t see how to reach at all. It looks as through the entire dungeon is devoid of light, except for the torch Lara carries.
Nothing else to to but start exploring. They’re on a time limit, after all.
————
Dungeon 4: The Rat Vault
Goal: All remaining characters must gather at the exit and leave while carrying three or more treasures.
Time Limit: Every 5 turns, the water level will rise by one stage. At turn 20, the dungeon will be completely flooded.
This dungeon can be abandoned. If Ricki leaves while carrying the necessary treasures, only other characters not present at the exit will be considered to have abandoned.
Ricki, ask your friends what do they know about huge deadly beavers.
Lara, let the rat feel the caress of Venomous Sting I.
Ricki: squeeze through the hole and engage the rats below. It must lead to the lever room which is the only room. Focus one of the big rats.
Kamau/Lara: Attack the rats in front of you. Lara uses venomous sting from afar, Kamau his sword.
p.s. I think the “rat piles” spawn more rats.
The lever must raise the bars. Its the only way now.
We are on a timer, don’t fight, just go for the lever.
Actually, Ricki pull the lever, Kamau and Lara can move to the next room then right away.
Also, after reading how cigarettes work: Kamau grab the pack of cigarettes from Lara.
Totally. This. Very important. We do NOT want to have 10% chance of getting remorse’d just for Lara’s idiotic smoking habit.If Lara resists (no info on char sheet) just tell her about methane in the air.EDIT: I take that back. I just read the ruling on self-inflicted harm. I don’t see how that could not trigger a remorse, IRL I think it would even double any remorse anyone gets, but that way we can leave them on Lara.
Imagine Venomous Sting + Cigarettes. Does that mean 4 dmg ranged?
For future reference, ranged attacks don’t use the user’s attack value.
Ricki: Go through the hole in the wall
Lara: Blast a single rat
Kamau: Attack a single rat
20 turns?? We gotta fuckin motor.
Ricki’s gotta move now. We’re keeping the equipment on her for now, as well as one set of lockpicks in case she runs into something that needs unlocking. With 5 def maybe she can ignore any enemies and just do what needs to be done in there. The door doesn’t have a lock to pick, so hopefully we can open it on the other side of the hole.
Meanwhile, Kamau and Lara should take on the rats. We wipe out the known kills first before taking on the ratJAM. Those other rooms seem like it was a great idea to save the sun sphere.
There were suggestions in the discord to give Kamau the cigs so that Lara doesn’t smoke them automatically, but (to keep in line with rp) I’m not going to do that. Also, LSN confirmed that self-inflicted damage does not trigger Remorse, as that is more of an ability cost than damage taken.
The pack of cigarettes is not listed at the items page yet. If it is a free action for Lara to inspect the pack and write an entry 😉 she should do so. Before acting on it, I would like to have information on it.Shift+Reload at items page solved the riddle.
To be precise: Lara, blast a single rat with “Venomous Sting I”.
Ok, lets go!
Kamau: move past the wall hole and interpose.
Ricki: get inside the wall hole, in the room below ignore the rats and pull the lever.
Lara: venom sting one of the rats in front of Kamau.
Harsh time limit. We only have five turns to get to the bottom of this. HP is a resource and we should be willing to use it. Right now, what we need to do is open that grate so we can get deeper.
Kamau: Interpose.
Lara: Venomous sting a rat.
Ricki: Go through the rat hole. If you end up in the lever room, pull the lever.
Ricki will be fine; she has 5 def.
Kamau may take a little damage, but we’ll find out how much damage the rat swarms do.
Ricki has more def than Kamau, we don’t need him to interpose. If the enemies had enough damage to hurt Ricki, it would definitely damage Kamau. Lara has 1 def so that fends off a rat, if it ran past Kamau AND Ricki. So unless the pile of rats does a lot of damage, interposing is a waste of an action.
Ricki is going to take damage from the two dire rats and regular rat in the lever room below, when she walks past them to pull the lever. We want to pull the lever ASAP, and we can do it this turn because walking through the rat hole is just a move action. But that means if any of the rats above also attack Ricki, she will take damage, and if more than one rat attacks Lara, she will take damage.
If you think moving through the hole is safe and (no more than one of) the rats will pass Kamau to attack Lara either, it does make sense to have him attack in melee instead. Feel free to vote for it. But I do think having Ricki pull the lever this turn is a good idea.
Kamau: Attack Swarm of Rats (if that is just a pile of rats) if it is not targetable, attack a mini rat.
Ricki: Move through hole, Flip lever
Lara: Venom sting Pile of Rats or a little rat (if not a pile).
Logic: Ricki should be safe from dire rats damage unless she also moves past the little rats after leaving. We need that lever flipped asap to keep going.
From the Art, I cant tell if that is a pile of rats or a hole with lots of rat eyes. Looking at the 3d image, we see lots of eyes looking back from down the tunnel so I think its a pile or rats.
If it’s a pile then we should be able to attack it and maybe disperse it.
Also: Trapfinding II and no traps in sight…
As a reminder, all party members need to get back to then entrance so we should clear away things that will spawn more enemies. Leaving a rat or two behind wont be a big problem but leaving a pile will literally bite us in the ass
Yup. I also think that the pile-of-rats will be a rat-spawner. I hope we can kill or scare or disperse them, at least for some time.
We need to get to the bottom of the dungeon before the water rises. That’s where the best treasure could be.
Kamau: Give Lara your sword. Interpose.
We don’t want to loose any remorse even by accident yet.
We don’t need the sword on a tank.
Lara: Swing at the rats. You are safe to engage while Kamau is Interposing, and you do more damage in melee combat.
Ricki: Go through the rat hole. If you end up in the lever room, pull the lever if able.
Ricki will be fine; she has 5 def. vs 5 att. If a crit happens, oh well.
Kamau may take a little damage, but we’ll find out how much damage the rat swarms do.
(stole parts of Night’s comment)
I’m guessing the hole Ricki can get through goes to the leaver and that it opens the gate. If we use the Tarnished Sun Sphere, we can deal massive, if not lethal damage on the rats guarding it very quickly. We need to free some inventory slots to be able to carry the sphere back which means we’ll have to leave some equipment behind for now, but I like the risk/reward payoff.Ricki: Give Lara the Shield and Lockpicking Tools, take Kamau’s Tarnished Sun Sphere and roll it through the hole, and go through after it.Kamau: Give Ricki the Tarnished Sun Sphere and attack a Rat.Lara: Take the Shield and Lockpicking Tools and cast Venomous Sting on a Rat.Edit: Turns out I forgot about the “minor” detail of “we can just run past the rats instead of killing them.”
Ricki should Leroy the leaver.
Ricki has 5 Def with the shield, and we know from experience that the dire rats have 2 Atk, and regular rats 1 Atk. There’s no need to kill the ones guarding the lever; we can walk right past them safely.
Kamau should take the cigs from Lara and attack the pile of rats. Lara should use venomous sting I on the pile of rats. If talking is a free action, then Ricki should ask Kamau and Lara about beavers the size of dire rats and whether either are familiar with them. Additionally (or instead, if talking isn’t free) Ricki should go through the hole, and assuming it leads to the lever, flip it.
Welp, i checked item “Pack of Cigarettes”. Remorse says Hi.
LSN stated on his twitter post that self inflicted damage does not trigger Remorse. Cigarettes included:
Replying to @LoneStarNorth
I also added Pack of Cigarettes to the items page so you can see what Lara’s all about. To clarify, self-inflicted damage from items or abilities does NOT trigger Kamau’s Remorse ability.
LSN confirmed that self-inflicted damage does not trigger Remorse, as that is more of an ability cost.
Just in case that we need to mention it: Ricki, look out for traps (II), if found: avoid and point out to Lara and Kamau. [Yes, it is our job, but in game it is Ricki’s job.]
Since we don’t see anything trap-like in these panels, and since the grey mass of rats looks strange, I think Ricky should ask Lara and Kamau if they notice that mass of rats with no problems, and also ask if they are dangerous. There is a slight chance that this is not a ‘monster’ but a ‘trap’ – like – lots of rats crawling around some object – and they could stay in place and just bite if someone passes nearby. If that’s the case, dispersing the rats could reveal the object, and it may be something interesting (a huge circle of cheese, etc :D). Anyways, talking with team members may tell us if that’s a mob clearly visible in the torch light, or a trap to point out.
Do treasure chests float? Could we attach floating things (like that wood with the beaver-rats) to them so that they rise with the rising water?
Very, very unlikely. Chest with treasure will be heavy, and noone ever said they are water-proof, so any water will probably immediately get inside and we can’t count on the air bubble.
Re thing behind beavers, that looks like a dam. It actually might stop the water for us for some time, but I guess we’ll have to cut a way through, i.e. by burning it. If we still have the torch. But burning takes time, and takes air, and generates smoke, I’m not sure if we should risk that.
Hey all. An idea here. Since we’ve got a time limit and limited lockpicks, and some chests on lower levels – We know we can move empty chests around. So, I suppose we can do the same with locked chests as well. We also know we can push them between rooms, we did so in the Chapel. But can a chest be lifted? Could Kamau, or Kamau and Lara, take a chest, and move it a level up, or even up to the exit? I doubt we could walk away from the dungeon with a chest and unlock it during intermission, but if that’s doable, it may be helpful to move a chest so Ricky gets to it faster/etc. Distance and turns. If a chest can be dropped/lifted/pushed to a next room, it may count.
I like this idea.
Kamau: take cigarettes from Lara and give her the sword. Interpose
Ricki: go through the rat tunnel. If it leads to the lever room, operate the lever. If you end up in the room with the green dire rats and the chest, open the chest and loot it. Disengage from the rat fight afterwards in both cases (if possible).
Lara: give Kamau the cigarettes and accept the sword. If the metal bar door opens, go left. Else attack one rat with the longsword.
I don’t see any traps so far.
Also, if we do it this way, we can get a peek at the next room (iirc. entering a room is always safe in the first turn, so Lara shouldn’t take any damage and time is literally money in this dungeon, so scouting ahead is crucial).
If both Lara and Kamau get involved into combat, they can’t leave the room afterwards.
If the green dire rats are more dangerous than the grey ones, we’re risking some remorse, but with only 20 turns to go, we can faff around even less than usual.