Dungeon 8 Turn 17
————
The party once again clears away a whole group of merchant guards in a single turn, so efficiently that even the bandits nearby seem to feel bad for them. Kamau doesn’t even take any damage when interposing. The sole remaining merchant in the dungeon takes a step back, closes their eyes, and waits for death.
So… LSN says this is the last Merchant in the dungeon, and the dungeon goal is: Either all of the bandits OR all of the merchants must be defeated. the party must also be carrying 10 Boxed Goods.
So will the dungeon end immediately as soon as we have the 10 boxes now? or do the guards also count as a “Merchant”?
I would guess that the guards also count. Because only counting the merchants themselves would make one faction way easier to defend than the other.
Plus I’d bet that we have to be on a tile where leaving the dungeon is viable – either up top or entrance (or maybe other side)
Probably only the entrance. Up top we take damage, so it isn’t really viable (2 unblockable damage per character)
Usually dungeons state that as a requirement, but the Inn and Church just had an auto exit once the goal was met. I would laugh so hard if we ended the dungeon by accident while leaving our best loot on the floor.
Ricki: point out the three pressure plates below for your party members, so they can avoid the traps(if this makes it impossible for you to do other stuff, prioritize this). Drop a common shield for the bandit group, attack the merchant, get any coins and other non-visible items that drop.
Kamau: avoid all traps in the floor below, interpose at the stumps downstairs.
Lara: avoid all traps in the floor below, attack the leftmost stump.
Cordy: avoid all traps in the floor below, attack the rightmost stump.
Oh, forgot to say, this is continuing TNIM’s timetable.
General timeline is as follows:
T18: Ricki bop merchant to get coins and token. Rest kill the two stumps.
T19: Presumably the stumps are dead. If they aren’t, we should move everybody onto the screen 4 guard fight if possible (if stump enemies are weak and won’t cause remorse to anyone walking by them if they decide to change targets). Ricki lockpick the gate and start heading back to screen one. She should be able to end turn on screen 4, but on the roof after unlocking. Rest of the group fights the guards while Kamau interposes.
T20: Ricki head back to the start, noting any wolves that pop up on the way. Along the way she can feed the floor token to the screen 2 bandits. Rest of the group cleans up the last guard fight. If we can, we send Cordy, or at worst Lara, to open the trapped chest. Once we loot the chest, any pressure plates linked to it won’t be able to spawn a crossbow bolt shot. We want it to be Cordy or Lara because an explosive bolt, if that’s what the chest uses, would kill Molly, but the tiny mushrooms are safe while carried.
T21: ? Finish up on screen 5, again using Cordy to run through the traps to clear any pressure plates that were actually bombs rather than arrow triggers. We can try to consolidate inventory, loot chests, and get Kamau where he needs to be based on spawn of wolves. Ricki can return to work on the rat hole and/or the stirges chest if we are able to get others to handle wolves. Everything after the wolves spawn is speculative, but realistically I don’t think we can get anybody BUT Ricki back to the start if that’s where we need them to be. Kamau can do it, but we can’t do the screen 4 guard fight in any sort of time without him.
Should the pets do anything (additionally to avoiding the pressure plates, of course)? Or do we fear unblockable damage and therefore intentionally avoid it?
They should. I cleanly forgot.
Since merchant is only going to need a little tappy tap, can we spare someone to go scout one screen right?
There is no screen to the right. This is The Final Wagon.
Ah, nice!
I think we could even leave him for the wolves. Only saving the bandits count. However, until this merchant is down, the enemy group is still standing, and the loot won’t magically materialize. Let’s bonk him like a doge meme.
Correction to previous plan. Continuing tnim’s timetable:
Ricki: point out the three pressure plates below for your party members, so they can avoid the traps(if this makes it impossible for you to do other stuff, prioritize this). Drop a common shield for the bandit group, attack the merchant, get any coins and other non-visible items that drop.
Kamau: avoid all traps in the floor below, interpose at the stumps downstairs.
Lara and her mushy: avoid all traps in the floor below, attack the leftmost stump.
Cordy and his mushies: avoid all traps in the floor below, attack the rightmost stump.
With 2 shields and a 2-handed weapon, the 3 bandits will already have their hands full. Why give them another shield?
If you just want to make space for non-visible drops, I suggest to drop the shield to the left of the snail before bonking merchant so that it may be picked back up during pet battle if we find a nice buff potion for Daisy in one of the remaining chests.
Interaction with pet master is an action. So it doesn’t really matter where the shield is dropped.
I said left of snail over any other unguarded areas in case the pet battle takes 2 turn.
The point is, dropping it on the bandits prevents us from picking it back if we have an spare action somewhere in the future and doesn’t help these bandits much.
I mean. There are two shields in the guards in screen 4. We are not getting this particular shield back unless we find a bag of holding.