Dungeon 5 Turn 8
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Ricki and Lara stop fighting for a moment while Kamau keeps the bugbear busy. Ricki expends her thieves’ tools to open the cage and release the dog inside. It seems hostile at first, but Lara correctly guesses that the nearby bucket contains some meat, which she holds out for the hungry dog. It immediately calms down and takes the food from her. Lara decides to hold on to the other two pieces of raw meat for now.
The dog now appears to be docile and will no longer attack, but it still seems wary of following any of the party around. Maybe there’s something else the dog might want in order to gain its loyalty?
“Hey! Stop stealing that dog I stole!”
“Settle down.”
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RAW MEAT
Consumable
Carnivorous beasts can eat it to recover 3 HP, but other creatures can’t digest it well.
Weight 1 (Stack 3), Cost 2
We need the kid’s ball…
Do we know where the ball is?
One guess is that actually, a monster took it.
We could check in with the reds later, or macadamia and the kobolds
I wonder if we could use the dog to snort the kid and have it “track” the ball.
Chicken and egg problem. If the dog will only follow us if we have the ball, we can’t really have the dog track it.
why would the dog care about the ball?
“Go fetch, boy! Good dog!”
Definetely.
No one said anything about the meat yet, but I’d like to suggest that we save both cuts UNLESS we need more to appease or befriend the doggo. I’d like to try using the meat, if it will remain available, to distract or bait the owlbear or to test from a safe distance if the lone chest on the other corridor is a mimic.
While we don’t own it yet, we could talk the kids into coming here and to play with the dog. Kids would be removed from the entrance hallway, and we’d see if the dog reacts to the ball. If we ever get the ball from kids, the dog would already know it’s a toy and maybe it’d follow us with ball.
However, it can also end up royally screwed. If the dog likes the kids more, then the kids would have a pet dog if parents allow 🙂
Ricki: take longsword from Kamau. Equip it. Attack bugbear
Lara: [take cigs from Kamau and smoke one] Attack bugbear.
Kamau: interpose.
With that Bugbear’s Armor, we’re going to need more power to KO it without taking forever.
For short term power: Ricki can use a Rat Tail for the Rat Fang Dagger and/or Lara can smoke her Cigerates. (Or we could have Ricki smoke them if we’re horrible people that want to get her addicted.)
For risky long term power: Subdue Spider. As much as I like saving Corruption Abilities for when it’s life or death, it’s worth it if we think using it now will prevent a life or death situation later. (Ricki might as well take the Bucket if we do that because she’s not going to be able to deal damage through the Chainmail without Lara attacking too.)
Edit: What I’m saying is pretty much do what Siv posted literally 30 seconds before I posted this.
there are MANY bugbears. we don’t have enough rat tails (and should keep some of them for the big monster anyway)
Cigs are good idea
i agree with Spider.
We have a stack of 5 and a stack of one. We are going to need to clear inventory room, and there’s an opportunity to get further rat tails anyway. I think it’s worth the 3 damage to try and finish this in a turn.
Okay, first priority is keeping the dog safe until we get the ball, and we need to do it quickly.
Kamau, hand over extra rat tail to Ricki and interpose.
Ricki, attack bugbear with rat fang, use rat tail. This frees one inventory slot we can use to carry his chain armor around. If possible, ask if anyone, especially Kamau, knows what specifically guard dogs like.
Lara, attack bugbear with the longsword.
As per Kamau’s request, non lethal attacks.
I think Lara should use cigarettes now. We will deal more damage and free our inventory.
There’s no reason to think the bugbear will attack the dog. We need to kill the bugbear faster than we are now, so we should go with a plan that has Kamau attack and Lara go to range with a torch and shield.
if there is no interpose there is a chance bugbear attacks Lara or Ricki
and while Kamau is a Tank the rest of our party has effectively combined 5 HP.
Lara has only 2 Def on top of that, so any attack on her WILL deal damage
Not if she uses a shield. Ricki has 5 defense and Lara would have 4, at most we would be risking one damage on Lara and we would get more info on how bugbears handle ranged attacks when being fought in melee. The bugbear only does 5 damage.
If the bucket is empty, have Kamau pick it up after the fight. He’s blind already, gimme that +1 def
His 11 Defense is already overkill and wearing the bucket would risk it breaking it for no reason.
Yeah, we should spare the bucket for that big group of enemies above.
Okay so to open this dialogue for those not on the discord, I think we need to talk about burning a corruption to summon a spider.
Now I personally think we need to be very VERY stingy with using this. But in this case, given the soft timers and the sheet number of enemies we have – I think we need to just use it. It’s taking us three rounds to burn through one – granted likely powerful – hobgoblin. We won’t have the time to do the rest in such a fashion and accomplish what we want. We need more dps, period. With a spider and once we recruit the dog, we’ll be able to burn through enemies much faster. Given the fact that we’re basically using Kamau as an interpose machine right now – we just don’t have the damage to churn through the enemies fast enough.
I think next round or soon after we burn a corruption. We don’t use this often, and are going to try to not use it at all for a while. But I think it’s maybe time if we want to get some goals done.
I am all for doing the cool thing when there’s a good opportunity for it! If it leads to a dramatic moment 10 dungeons later where Lara has to go full-on corruption to save Ricki, all the better! I’m here for both a fun game and a cool story
Hey, that’s talking instead of fighting. Does it mean the fight is over? Can we talk the bugbear into GTFO instead of getting more walloping? Maybe we just tell him some RED NINJA GUY paid us very well to retrieve his friend’s beloved dog?
Also, are bugbears carnivorous? He seems to have fangs. Somehow, I don’t think he can be subdued with meat xD
There was another plan suggested at turn 7:
Kamau: attack the bugbear with the longsword.
Ricki: use Rate Fang plus Rat tail to attack the bugbear.
Lara: get the shield from Kamau, move to the far right, use Venomous Sting (plus Poison Proficiency) to attack the bugbear while holding a torch in other hand (for Kamau to see something).
The Bugbear might pass Kamau, jump over Ricki, not stumble over the bucket, risk an attack by the dog to go against Lara, but we might take this risk.
If we get a pet dog how are we going to get it up and down all the ladders? Not that it cancels out the benefits of having a pet that can fight and scent things, but it seems like a chore.
Maaan. INVENTORY. xD
Dungeon 2 Turn 52:
oh wow. Thanks!
Maybe someone is brave enough to stroke the dog… Dogs like that, you know.
This was already worth it for watching that cute doggo eat.