Dungeon 4 Turn 13
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Ricki leaves through the rat tunnel once more and picks her rat fang weapon back up on her way to meet with Kamau and Lara, both of whom have been diving for treasure.
“I found a gold coin. How about you guys?”
“Some heavy boots. Might have come in handy earlier, so of course they only showed up now.”
“I found this busted up old wand. Looks handy, but I don’t think it counts as treasure.”
“Well, we still have a little bit of time to keep looking. Let’s hurry, though! We’ll be flooded soon, plus Paws is still waiting for us!”
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IRON BOOTS
Accessory
Removes Atk and Def penalties for fighting in water, but also prevents swimming.
Weight 2, Cost 6
WAND OF MEND, BENT
Wand
Can heal 1 HP to a nearby ally that has 3 current HP or less. Has a 30% chance to break every time it is used.
Weight 1, Cost 17
Ricki: unlock the chest next to you
Kamau: get the chest underwater and go back up
Lara: kill small rat
Guys, let us NOT aggro the boss group that could vanquish us, please.
In fact… If we are unsure of what’s going on at the right most room now that Paws is gone, we could Mend Kamau now, just in case. But Kamau should use the wand on himself, since Lara is not lucky.
What are they going to do? Gesture at Lara from the other side of gate?
Mend only works on targets with 3 or less HP. Kamau has 4.
Wand is expensive, better to save it and sell.
The last cool hat we saw let the user make magic ranged attacks.
I don’t expect that the King Rat will use a ranged attack to return fire. I mostly reject this because it’s a waste of an action when we have other things to do.
Ricki is at 3 HP and could heal, though things would need to go quite wrong for that to make a difference now.
Ricki has 3 HP to Kamau 4/5 Remorse.
The only person that can receive damage from now on is Kamau or he misses on EXP again. That would be bad.
but mend can’t be used on him yet, so imo wand of mend stays un-used for now.
Uhm, Kamau atm has 4 HP, so no, we can’t use the wand on him atm. We could use it on Ricki, but I wouldn’t risk it breaking for that (we don’t want Ricki to take any more damage anyhow)…
Also, all we can see is that Paws is not in the ally right now. He could have moved DOWN into the dungeon to help with the rat pile, so we still will be able to get out safely (he did say he’d stick around).
Of course, there’s also the possiblity that a guard patrol or similar walked by and Paws had to disappear (at least temporarily).
Or any number of other things. Maybe Lohk is talking his ear off for enabling Ricki’s dungeon crawling hobby. 😀
That’s true!
From the description of the wand:
I think that healing themselves most likely prohibited, only nearby ally. So Kamau can’t heal himself (even if he has 3HP or less). But we can try it if there is a need in such a healing.
Both are cool new items. Now we know what mend is which is a good keep Kamau alive wand
Yeah, infinite use (for an unbroken version) at low HP is perfect for Heroic Effort and Adrenaline. Something to keep in mind for future upgrades.
The extra 8 gold is probably preferable though, that lets us upgrade from Chain to Plate. +1 defense is worth a fair amount of HP.
Iron Boots are suspicious, I don’t expect too much flooding and they are heavy. Only seem useful here. They technically don’t say they protect against hazards like regular boots do, but if iron boots can’t walk safely on glass then I’d be annoyed. Oh well, 3 gold.
That made me laugh. 😀 😀 😀
I think it won’t really be infinite use once we are in dungeon.. yeah, we’re short on time usually, and the 3 HP is quite limiting, but still it would change things a bit if we had an unlimited healing potion. It may be “unbreakable” and “infinite” in overall terms, but it will probably have a limited number of uses in a dungeon, and reset overnight, like in DnD after a good long rest.
Nah, the HP max (and action cost) would be enough of a limit. Nothing is infinite when we have finite time, but dungeon 2 did offer unlimited Moldy Cheese to allow Ricki to heal to full and have a chance to accomplish something if Kamau had to leave.
Ricki: Unlock and loot chest.
Lara: Loot the other chest.
Kamau: Take and wield Ricki’s shield, take one of Lara’s thieves tools, go right, snag the longsword and rat tails, and try to kill a small rat.
Two loot actions this turn is obvious. Kamau gets a head start on the rats in the middle room, that being the next thing to deal with.
Edit: Some more inventory shuffling so the two characters still in this room have plenty of room for loot.
I’m still curious if Kamau can attack without using his arm. I suggested this back in the Chapel, holding the torch for light and just kicking the skeleton rather than attacking with the torch for that 10% break chance.
Yes, he can! From turn 5:
Turn 6:
Lara would not have been able to kill a plague rat with 1 hit, if Kamau had not removed 1 HP with his shield attack. OK, shield uses arm, so in some way this is attack with arm, but:
Dungeon 1, turn 2:
without shoes! (But gets 1 damage because the rat nibbles at her toes.)
Attacking with the shield is still using what’s in your hand, though it doesn’t matter here as the shield doesn’t add to your Attack (without Shield Bash). The torch is an odd case where it gives us benefit from being held but we might not want to use it in an attack when you don’t need the attack bonus.
Strictly speaking, we don’t know if 4 damage would have been enough to kill an uninjured plague rat, we’ve never tried. The “modest” damage hint definitely has me thinking that plague rats have 1 defense, see d2p26 for dealing “minor” damage to the centipede.
Lara: pass two sets of thieves tools and the leather armour and the shield to Kamau, accept coin from Ricki. Loot the left chest on level 3 (counted from above), get back to “dry land”. move right (top level) and end the turn on the right side of the room (not in aggro area of the remaining rats)
Ricki: unlock and loot the locked chest (keep the tools), stay on “dry land”. Pass the coin to Lara, pass the thieves tools (if still there) to Kamau. move right (top level), pick up the 2 rat tails. end the turn on the right side of the room (not in aggro area of the remaining rats)
Kamau: accept sets of thieves tools, shield and armour from Lara, accept thieves tools from Ricki, too, if offered. equip shield and leather armour and move right (top level), pick up the longsword and interpose. end the turn on the right side of the room (not in aggro area of the remaining rats)
EDIT:
The “and kill the plague rat with a “tail-boosted” rat fang dagger attack” by Rick I initially posted will have to wait until next turn.
Also, mixing up left and right again. FIXED NOW. 😀
Unlocking the chest is an action. Can’t have Ricki attack in the same turn.
Also: Left is <- that way. You meant right on the top of the room.
This, but by “left” I think you mean going to the right back to room 2.
Lara already has the alcohol
In minor nitpicks of future turn plans, I don’t like using a tail on the plague rat. That group of rats only drops 1.3 tails on average. I’d prefer to have Lara hit it with a longsword. That might not kill it, but either way we’ll narrow down exactly how much damage they take to one shot. Even if we have to abandon them because we’re out of time, that info is worth 0.3 rat tails.
Wow, you guys are fast with the corrections. I caught most of them myself (edited before I even refreshed and your comments showed up), but thanks for paying attention and making sure I don’t make any mistakes. (and right now mistakes could ruin our success of the dungeon, which I don’t want to happen. Still hoping for that last treasure to “drop”…)
Kamau: Take Lara’s leather armor and shield, go right, pick up everything Ricki left on the floor, then attack a small rat with the shield
Lara: Loot the last chest, then go right but stay out of combat
Ricki: Loot the locked chest, pass whatever you find to Lara, then go right but stay out of combat
Kamau will fight with 6 def, so he shouldn’t be taking any damage, unless we find out poison damage is unblockable without the right gear).
Lara and Ricki will loot and use their move action to at least get to Room 2, in case…well, anything.
Ricki’s giving what she finds to Lara because there’s a 50% chance she won’t be able to carry it.
We have to empty one of Ricki’s inventory slots this turn for her to safely have room for loot. Otherwise, yeah, this is good. Having them move out of this room is better than my plan so long as we don’t leave anything behind.
For inventory, we can hand off all the thieves tools to Kamau, we won’t need any more after Ricki is done with this chest. Lara should have space though, after handing off defensive items.
[Forgot that Kamau could wield either a shield or a sword.]
With only one shield received Kamau will have 5Def which should be enough for him to handle incoming attacks from rats (room 2).
So, maybe it’ll be better if Ricki gives the shield so she will have 3Def and Lara 4Def (just in case some of rats will try to attack girls).
Or we are sure that they will be fighting Kamau?
Upd. And Lara can give Kamau all Lockpicks to free her inventory
This is just throwing out an idea even though it’s probably a bad idea. If Rats can’t cross the gaps where ladders are, Lara could go to the room to the right and snipe a Rat with Venomous Sting. I don’t want to try it in case they can cross the ladder and deal damage though. (Unless Plauge Rats only deal 2 Damage. I forget if they deal 2 or 3, but I think it’s 3.)
Plague rats have 3 attack.
And I think it’s worth testing out this idea in the NEXT dungeon or so.
Ricki: Unlock and loot chest. Move back into middle room.Lara: Loot the other chest. Snag anything from Ricki’s chest that Ricki can’t carry. Move back into middle rom.Kamau: Take and wield Ricki’s shield, take one of Lara’s thieves tools, go right, snag the longsword and rat tails, and try to kill a small rat.Mostly the same as my previous plan, (“two loot actions this turn is obvious. Kamau gets a head start on the rats in the middle room, that being the next thing to deal with”), but Lara and Ricki move right before the end of the turn.This is just CombatDoctor’s plan but slightly worse. Ignore.
Paws: “Don’t worry, I’ll be up here with the rope ready to pull you out whenever you’re ready to call it quits.”
Ricki: “Paws is waiting for us!”
Paws: “Guess they’re dead. Maybe next month.”
Actually. He said the first line. Since Paws went to a toilet/etc, does that mean we no more can “call it quits” at any moment? I think we’d get a clear note on that, and we did not. So taht may be just a funny image that reveals something about Paws, but not much relevant for this dungeon.
The rope is still there. We should be able to climb the rope (we did rope-climbing in the chapel). A rope on the ground is more unremarkable then a Paws standing next to the open sewer grate, thus he might just be waiting in the shadows nearby. If a 20-soldier-patrol of the empire entered the dungeon, we are dead. But maybe a single soldier entered and is now locked in mortal combat with the rat pile in the entrance room?
Oh no. That IS plausible.
Possible, but still probably not a concern. We can get through the first room no matter what as long as we have dauntless before entering it.
Did anybody notice how the rats react to the rising water? The beavers swim, but maybe the rats relocate to a higher level instead. If this is the case we would have a severe problem getting out from turn 15 onward. Maybe Kamau should check out the rightmost room while Lara and Ricky loot just in case?
As long as the rats don’t go to the center room we are fine. Kamau can interpose in the rightmost room as soon as we go in and tank an unlimited amount of damage then so long as he still has dauntless. That lets us get to the room, have Kamau tank the damage, and then complete the dungeon that turn.
I’d like to make it to the exit in case things are bad, but if the coast is clear and rats are just washed away by rising water then I wouldn’t mind sticking around for a couple more turns to get tails.
I think we should clear the middle room and hope for some rat tails (this should only take a turn anyway) then we can go to the entrance and structure commands so that Kamau interposes and we leave the dungeon if there’s anything other than one rat pile there. Otherwise Kamau interposes and we kill the rat pile
We haven’t yet seen rats flooded. If rats respond to rising water by following tunnels out, then room 1 got the lever rats up top back on turn 10.
Since there are rats behind a locked grate, I feel like they might just get washed out of the Dungeon when the water rises. If we had the Remorse to spare, then that could’ve been a neat way to get at the room 1 treasure room, let rising water clear out the guards then frantically loot while suffocating.
Remose not, but damage done to Kamau doesn’t count for Remorse effect, so actually Kamau could try that.
To get into the room, the grate before it must be raised. To rise the grate, the lever in the first room, third level from top, must be switched up. The lever is only accessible through a rat tunnel, thus only Ricki can go there. That third level is already flooded. If the rats there are gone, there would be no attack, so diving, switching, surfacing would be possible in 1 turn. Since turn 15 the lever room will be two floors deep under water. We only have dived 1 level down so far. We do not know if diving down further costs more time (because movement in water is somewhat slower than on dry ground), or whether you get any damage from diving so deep. I guess that it does not do any harm, but if it does just 1 HP to Ricki, then Kamau: Remorse. Therefore I would not like to risk that here. But we might try it in another situation, where 1 HP is no problem.
The only problem with this is that generally moving through tunnels has counted as movement. You can’t move through a tunnel and then back out without using your action to move, and we would need the action to flip the switch. If we up Ricki’s movement to 2, this plan would be possible. Something to consider for the next level up.
Cashing in the brandy, rusty greatsword, bent wand, and iron boots puts us at 30 gold with the coin, enough to pick up Plate Armour, which I expect is +4 defense for weight 4. Kamau could’ve tanked this entire dungeon, and tackled the king rat room. We lost 30 gold of loot in the last few turns of the chapel, so we have two more chests to pull ahead. (Of course, that Shield is basically 20 gold since we probably wanted another of those anyway.)
Chain armour might be preferable, now that we know a Shield is weight 1. If we needed to, we could put chain on Ricki with a shield to bring her up to 6 defense with one slot left for weapons or tools. Heavier armour would only work on the bigger characters.
We should consider setting aside a couple gold for another torch, as well as the copper ring for the Warrens. I also agree that leaving in some money for food is worthwhile.
I suspect we’ll eventually want more inventory space on Ricki anyway. We’ve had to spend a bunch of time juggling items, and eventually we’ll presumably want Ricki to be able to hold a bow or accessory.
I wonder.. Why do we see that this “waiting for us” isn’t exactly true? Probably Paws is just doing some business.
Anyways, another non-action idea do you think we should spare a moment to take a look at the skeleton? Do you think it could contain anything else other than the sword, and we simply didn’t see it, because it was concealed, etc? Do we even have “concealed items” in this game’s dictionary?
EDIT: Wand of Mend – now… it doesn’t exactly undo Remorse, right? So that would be helpful for Kamau. But 1 HP.. still something. Maybe non-bent versions heal a bit more?
Bent wands look like rusty gear. The regular version is probably identical but without break chance.
Enemies have dropped items that they weren’t visibly carrying, but I don’t recall getting anything from searching skeletons. It’s generally up to us to notice what items are there. (On that note, maybe we should keep an eye out for loose change in places like the Warrens, coins are pretty small…)
In and out, in and out…if there’s concern that the group above is too much, maybe we could make Ricky climb on the lever AGAIN and make Kamau agro part of the group, and (assuming the door lowering have been violent) with Ricky’s dungeon eyes, weaponize the door.
We can’t use any more levers because they’ll cause drowning damage. All we’ll be doing after looting the last two available chests is potentially killing rats on the way out the door. Middle group should be doable and if the rats from previous rooms haven’t grouped up, so should the last room.
lol