Intermission 11 Page 6
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Ricki decides to have another bedroom in the manor renovated to give Amadeusz somewhere nice to sleep (even with him wearing that mask all the time she can tell he’s making faces when he looks at the existing furniture), as well as a sentry camp for some of the builders to live at long term and a place to keep that baby mammoth the farmers promised her a while back. She also goes ahead and buys that strange new machine Paws was offering, and a few additional odds and ends to help in the next dungeon. She leaves the machine at the manor for now, though.
Ricki, Lara, Amadeusz, and Cordy all then hit the road on their way to explore a well full of poison.
No bond for you.
Where the heck did these spammy trolls/kids come from all of a sudden? Any plans on the Discord or anything for dealing with them?
I do not know to whom, exactly, you refer to, but LSN has repeatedly stated no voting security shall be implemented. Since it’s all on him to care for his game and his characters, and since he plainly doesn’t, I have desisted from caring about the outcomes, and will just spectate and heckle, to both mine and his amusement.
Enough. You aren’t the main character.
We’re committed now. *Sigh*
Here’s hoping we haven’t handicapped ourselves
In what sense?
I made the same problem as you,Jing.
The well likely has cramped areas,which only Ricki,Lohk & Macademia can pass through…
AND that machine (which is APPARENTLY,SOMEHOW supposed to repkace a party member is expensive as shit!And likely heavy.
I’m just sad we couldn’t get the kobold Warrens,but so long as we get 40 coind from selling loot & labour,we should have enough to give that family a new home.
In the “screwed out of a good ending due to insufficient bonds” sense.
THANKFULLY,Lara has maximum Bond,while Cordy does not have any Bond to raise.
Sadly, only Amadeusz will get a bond level. And you’ll be neglecting the other characters’ bonds to do so.
To be clear – there is a finite number of dungeons. Every time a character isn’t bonded – that bond isn’t going to be available again. Unlike Cordy, “Amy” burns all bonds.
While I always want more bond and more story, I don’t think Dungeon Eyes has a “bad ending” based on bond (unless Ricki Dies) Some characters may not get a resolution to their personal problems (ex. Cyx may never remember who he was in life), but I dont think it will mess up the overall story. Max Bond give us new abilities and perma health which contribute to the overall success of not Dying early.
Hopefully, you are right. LSN does like to lay schmuck bait, so I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ll be only spectating now, so godspeed to you all
@Claudious
Nothing’s suggesting that dungeons will be the ONLY way to raise bond.
The Manor wasn’t a mechanic that existed 2 years ago,LSN might throw yet another surprise at us.
Lara already “burns” a bond and everyone wants her. Since we also took Cordy, Amad doesn’t actually cost us any bond here.
We just dont burn 3 bond, we still could have gotten one bond if we brought Lhok.
the Bond “cost” of bringing Amad is reduced from 3 to 1 with Lara and Cordy but that doesnt mean we should still pick him.
It’s like buying something you don’t need because it is “On sale” right now
Jerf detailed the actual mathematics last page. Please have a read.
Cordy’s mushrooms being unable to attack underwater as they will die.
Amad being in human form for music and having a 50% miss chance if we need him to attack.
Mushroom Death hurting Amad.
Poison Resist enemies getting unknown def boosts from Lara’s sword/cordy’s mushroom death (Rotfang hood reduces it by half, but Cordy has to do poison dmg which is his weaker attack)
Just a lot of things we need to keep in mind and work around. Makes planning a pain.
Like, every pet would die attacking underwater. And there was plans bringing a non-tiny Toaster which I think will die even when not attacking!!
I’m surprised nobody liked my version of the Lara, Lohk, Coccyx plan that didn’t bring Toaster. >.<
The assumption was that, as a construct, Toaster wouldnt need to breathe.
Tiny Shrooms only have 1 Atk anyway, so would be brought to 0 by Underwater Combat.
To add to all the items on Claudious’s list:
No healer in a dungeon where we are likely to take 1 unblockable damage every turn.
We should theoretically be fine.
I’m mostly ticked off that the family of kobolds didn’t get a better home,but hopefully we’ll get 40 coins from the well.Maybe even 60 so we can get the Still & Garden next Intermission.
The Upgrade Press sounds useful,but niche.I don’t care that much about the benefits,because we aren’t replacing our current loadout unless we can get a 2nd Siegesword & Swiftblade.I’m more interested in that poor blacksmith who was killed by the golem.
How were we supposed to know he was recruitable?How were we supposed to save him,beyond slaying the golem when we had the chance?Is he KilledOffForReal FOREVER,or will LSN take pity on us,& give us a replacement blacksmith in 2 years after we renovate the Foyer?
I’m also curious about the Party itself…
How did Amy become a werewolf?Can Lara’s Curse be removed?What is Cordy’s history?Why was Cordy on a meteor (according to LSN’s Kofi gallery)?Why does Paws hate Amy?Will we get an upgrade thatwill let us bring 5 members instead of 4?Will we ever meet Chester (Mac’s spouse) and Yasmin (Kamau’s daughter)?Will the Manor be invaded in Act-III?Can we even GO BACK to the City or previous Dungeons?Will we ever reach the CAP for party members,or can we recruit 30 of them?
Please do read How to Play.
I’ve been meaning to,but somehow I tend to forget the page exists.I’m not intentionally being an idiot or troll.
EDIT:So,upon review,that smith which was killed by the golem is perma-dead.HOWEVER,nothing says that we can’t find a replacement,the way we did with Molly/Golly (because otherwise,LSN would’ve wasted a lot of effort on that character).The HtP page slso never mentioned the Manor or upgrades,& we still got that.
Also,that just answers a FEW questions.Certainly nothing about Amy,or his involvement.
That’s on Arena Slaves, a previous comic available in LSN’s Ko-fi page.
It is true that we never know anything for sure about the story and mechanics. We can always hope there’s a way to rez a character (Amad’s lvl ability is a nice surprise for that), but we need to hope for the best, plan for the worst. The worst being that there are no redos or take backs with our decisions.
There are 10 characters, plus Cordy and Sue (note Ricki’s room had space for 9 friend portraits plus 2 underneath). Rekt is gone and it’s all our fault. We did get the Upgrade Press out of pity. LSN has been waiting for a chance to make fun of us for killing a character, and enjoys when people freak out and insist they’re quitting the comic whenever something like Burned Temple Turn 9 Part 2 happens. We cannot get everything, pick and choose what is important because anything too far down the list won’t happen.
LSN does Twitch streams and after every dungeon he breaks down what could have been and some general hints.
We also post those Stream breakdowns in the comments after for those who couldnt attend.
I wasn’t aware of that.Is that how you all knew the Smith was a recruit,& called Rekt?
Yes
I can’t wait to see how the villagers react to this group coming to help them. Two of our party members outright look like monsters, the third dresses like an opera villain and is secretly a werewolf, and the fourth is the cheery goblin that leads them. The only way it could possibly be worse is if we had unrestricted character picks and brought Coccyx instead of Ricki.
It CAN get weirder!
The world has in general been pretty diverse and lacking “oh god monsters” moments. Lara might get one, but besides her, Cordy just seems nice, Amadeusz is just a dandy, and Ricki’s a somewhat suppressed subclass.
We brought 2 Goblins, a Kobold, and Kamau to the farm and nobody blinked.
Goblin, Arachnomancer, Kamau, and Cordy to the Merchants and they were happy to get help right up until we betrayed them…
To be fair, Goblins and Kobolds are citizens of the Empire now; I don’t think anyone will really consider them monsters anymore, so Kamau is the most concerning member of the Farm party, and even then only to people who know who he is.
Fair dinkum about the Caravan party though. Best case scenario there is that the merchants didn’t recognize Lara as an arachnomancer, but Cordy’s still Cordy.
Cordy and Lara hid in the bushes while Kamau and Ricki talked to the merchants, so they didn’t see them.
Noooo,I wanted to see the kobold children pull off shenanigans with the main characters…
No small characters? No bond? No Coccyx who’s immune to poison? Okay you guys.
Don’t forget no healer
No STANDARD healer.Amy has 1 song,& Cordy’s pets can be eaten to regain health.But yes,Botanya or Lohk would’ve been WAY better.
Not to brag,but I WAS praided last page for reccomending Coccyx & Lohk.
But I DO want to see their new skills.
I guess Lara and Corey can come along. But if we only had Amadeusz, I’d be a lot happier.
2 party members instead of 4,AND it’s the guy who CAN’T Interpose,Channel or Smif rings?
Yep,username checks out. =P
Also,how’d you insert a profile picture?Where do you go for that?
If you say so. Haim or Feldman?
Upgrade Press
Once per dungeon can combine two identical weapons, shields, or armours to create a superior version.
Weight 3, Cost 100
Interesting, Shield +1 time. At least it pairs neatly with Mule, it is reusable as long as we keep using up the inventory space. Duplicate equipment has a use now.
The mechanics of “a superior version” are vague. For now, I’ll assume that the base damage or Def bonus will increase by +1, hopefully with some caveat to not mess with the armour proficiency abilities (going from +0 Def to +1 would deactivate Cloth Proficiency). Unique gear obviously won’t be able to benefit, and presumably enchantments need to be on both (identical) and won’t simply take the best from the components.
The other potential improvement would be reducing weight, though this wouldn’t apply to anything that starts out as weight 1. It’s not impossible that every Upgraded item does something unique, but that sounds unlikely given how rings work.
I’m hoping we Press either Parrying Daggers or Spiked Buckler first. They (well, presumably in the Parrying Dagger case) have both atk and def stats, and may very well accumulate twice the bonus of other things.
A +2 Spiked Buckler granting +3 atk would be pretty sweet.
I don’t expect secondary abilities would be impacted. A Pick +1 would still have 20% critical chance, a Battlesmith Hammer +1 would have +3 Atk and +5 against metal, a Spear +1 would have +3 Atk/+1 Def and maybe deal 4 damage at range, and a Spiked Buckler +1 would provide +2 Def and also +1 Atk against creatures that attack the wielder.
I’d suggest the Tower Shield first. It also affects both Def and Atk, but the Tower Shield is already a best-in-class piece of equipment, while the Spiked Buckler never made the cut and Parrying Daggers have never been bought. By a similar argument, Plate Armour is +4 Def or +5 without gloves/boots, so why not hope for accumulating twice the bonus there?
Sudden realization: As long as there’s two identical items, they can combine. I expect two +1 items would combine to +2. This caps out very quickly as Press is per-dungeon and the cost is exponential, so this is more a thought of what might have been with a party member who could Press multiple times per dungeon.
Here’s a chart! It helpfully illustrates how much better the character would have been just for extra sads.
Upgrade Press DeadPress
1 dungeon = +1 +1 +1 (take quality upgrade)
2 dungeon = +1 +1 +2 +1 (take quantity upgrade)
3 dungeon = +2 +2 +2 +1 (take quality upgrade)
4 dungeon = +2 +1 +3 +2 (take quantity upgrade)
5 dungeon = +2 +1 +1 +3 +3 (maybe at the cap in quality and quantity?)
6 dungeon = +2 +2 +3 +3 +2 +1
7 dungeon = +3 +3 +3 +3 +1 (*unlikely we’d be able to bring him to this many)
8 dungeon = +3 +1 +3 +3 +3 +2 +1 +1
9 dungeon = +3 +1 +1 +3 +3 +3 +3 +1 +1
Plate Chain Shield HeavyShield ParryingDagger SpikedBuckler
+0 30 19 16 26 6 13
+1 60 38 32 52 12 26
+2 120 76 64 104 24 52
+3 240 152 128 208 48 104
We don’t even have a tank oh lord
Cordy is a retroactive tank,thanks to his higher HP & Ressurective Immortality.
I think this team was very poorly chosen. I can’t see rhe reasoning behind bringing only one small character, no healer, no iron boots and only Amadeusz with a valid bond gain.
Why?!
Could we please prevent the Emperor from voting against us?
If we live to see intermission 12: Can we please get one voting about which party members to take to the dungeon, and then a separate voting about sell/buy/order/equip? It’s getting a little bit cluttered otherwise.
We did vote on party before and Ricki, Lara, Lhok, Cordy was ignored!!!!!
We cannot prevent it. LSN will not change the voting system. Whoever can turn on and off Airplane Mode on their mobile faster and most consistently will always win.
Uh,I don’t follow.I thought the Voting System was based on likes,what does Airplane Mode have to do with this?
With some independent science, I can confirm what LSN said on discord. Which is that the extra votes from that method evaporate in time. And if you go back a couple pages and look at how the votes lie now that it’s long-since decided, they are still as they were when I last saw them, the two Amad + Cordy plans beating all the others. It really, truly isn’t that, siv.
Where was Ricki, Lara, Lhok, Cordy party plan??
wE VOTED WHO TO BRING IN REPORT PAGE
but its good we did not bring Cocyx the weakling
But this dungeon was a perfect opportunity to bring Coccyx since it’s the last dungeon before the hard empire dungeons and we could have seen what his level up abilities are. If not Coccyx for this dungeon, then *when?*
As long as we bring Kamau with TowerShield & Platemsil,he can Interpose & make sure Coccyx stays as far back as necessary.
That wasn’t when we were supposed to vote on that, though, so LSN ignored it.
To clarify, the idea was that nobody would post any party composition on page 5 different than the one voted on in page 4.
But of course, the idea of setting community-made rules to an open anonymous uncontrolled internet voting is akin to have an idea to start a cat herding business.
TF you on about? Im talking about dungeon 11 report where we had a big vote where Ricki, Lara, Lhok, Cordy was one of winners… it was above all the shitty cocyx plans and tie with amadeus plan
Sorry, you are correct, I misspoke. Still, that voting was supposed to generate a guideline to be followed – but it was unenforceable.
Nobody agreed to that plan, Siv. Because why would we. I read the report, went “huh, neat”, and never looked at the comments because there wasn’t anything to vote on that page, so why would I read the comments, so this magical “THERE WAS AN AGREEMENT” thing is at best a plan among a small small subset of the pool of voters.
Indeed.
I feel I must apologise for not posting an Ricki Lara Lhok Cordy plan as an option.
I set up the earlier party voting as an attempt to simplify things for later on but it may have just made people more divisive.
I posted the initial plan with cyx and assumed that others would post a Cordy version of it since there were a lot of support or that option.
That was a bad assumption on my part. I should have made sure all the options were covered
Everybody complaining about how weak Coccyx is, but like…where else are you going to bring him? This is the last dungeon available before they ramp up in difficulty and it was his specialty with his immunity to poison and immunity to drowning. Are we just never going to use him at all? We don’t even know if he’s got useful level up abilities.
This isn’t the worst possible team, at least. But once we get Cordy’s Labor up to a reasonable point we really don’t need to be using them for anything else. They are a bonus character. They were chosen by a single vote over Sue, so clearly they are designed so that we could potentially work even if they are obtained much later in the story. But they don’t have any active story contributions we haven’t already seen.
I *assume* that the reason we were so adament about bringing Cordy was because of the pets and Labor. Because if we’re just bringing them because we hadn’t used them in a while, then the same logic applies to Coccyx, who we haven’t used at all.
Never…he is waste of time and ressource
I’ve been guessing, based primarily on speculation backed by a couple comments LSN made on stream about the length of the comic and the story structure so far, that we’re somewhere around 7-9 mainline dungeons from the end of the story (bond dungeons may pad that out). Most likely is probably 7.
Therefore, it’s worth paying attention to how much bond we’d like to work on. The last point of bond is earned in that character’s bond adventure, so we can ignore that, since those are going to be bonus dungeons. We can simplify it by saying we probably have about 21 Bond left (3 points per dungeon)
Kamau needs 2 more.
Macadamia needs 2 more.
Lohk needs 4 more.
Botanya needs 1 more, then we’ll need to build a bedroom (1 dungeon pause), then 2 more.
Coccyx needs 4 more.
Amadeusz needs 5 more and cannot overlap with any of the others. 4 after this dungeon.
The Elementalist we meet in the Research Dungeon (see Ko-Fi) will need ???
So, we probably can’t max bond everybody at this point, unless the story is going further than my guesswork or there are other sources of bond (oh please let the Living Room work…). That’s because we would need a minimum of 8 dungeons after this one (at least 4 for Coccyx & Lohk and 4 for Amadeusz).
Anyhow, just thought I’d point that out so people can plan accordingly when making decisions about who to bring.
I am not aware how long this comic’ll last,but your math on Bond does work out.First time hearing that Living Room raises Bond passively,if all of us knew that,we wouldn’t have bought the Upgrade Press.
Hopefully there’s a way to bring more than 4 characters.I mean,the Manor,as a mechanic,didn’t exist a few years ago.With that in mind,there SHOULD be a way to reverse Lara’s curse,give Kamau a new magitech prosthetic arm + raise his max Remorse,let Mac meet Chester again,& maybe find a replacement for the Smith we were supposed to recruit.
After doing some mental math,we’d need 40 + 15 + 17 coins for Manor upgrades (Kobold Den,Garden,Still,the mammoth might make the latter 2 cheaper),30 Coins for a Book status effect OR a Closet for coccyx,& 55~ coins for Wsnd of Venom Barrage (lohk can use it 2 extra times due to her Ability to have 24 venom DMG,then absord it near the end of the next Dungeon).So we need to get 157 coins through selling loot & Labour (I hope you nitwits are proud of buying the Upgrade Press).
We’re likely going to have to grovel at LSN’s feet if we miss something important.
I was hoping to bring Ricki,Kamau,Coccyx,Lohk OR Ricki,Kamau,Botanya,Macadamia for the Research Station (plus Daisy,Lazuli,Toaster & of course Golly).The plan is to either have 2 tanks (Tanya + Kam) or 2 strikers (Ricki + Cyx) and use the Imperial loot as needed.I don’t know if suddenly getting a new character will change this.
– The living room thing is 100% speculation. There’s a good chance it doesn’t do that
– There’s unlikely to be a way to take more than 4 characters.
– There’s unlikely to be a way to reverse Lara’s curse. LSN said something along the lines of ‘Not every story has a happy ending. If you want that, go read an isekai novel.’
– Kamau may or may not get an arm, but why does everyone act like that’s essential to his happiness?
– We’ll see if Mac gets to meet Chester again. I feel like there’s a decent chance?
– We found the replacement for the Smith. It’s the upgrade press. LSN has made it very clear that decisions are permanent and have consequences. We decided not to talk to the Smith immediately. Then we decided not to investigate the loud noise that had a cutscene panel and therefore was obviously important for 5+ turns. You can argue we didn’t know for 1000% certain that it was specifically a character dying that would be the penalty for that, but I feel there was more than enough warning that SOMETHING was happening and we should have checked out what. As to LSN wasting work: that’s how permadeath games go. I’m pretty sure he’s prepared for that. If Ama dies this dungeon, all the work on him will be “wasted” too.
– My brother, there is no reason to get the garden. Have you read any of the replies explaining why labor is not a good idea? Multiple people have explained it at this point. If you still don’t understand, can you loan me $100 via Venmo? I’ll pay you back $10/year, for 9 years, then nothing more and we’ll be square, right? It’s practically free income, great deal for you.
– The upgrade press was a good purchase – the only way to get access to the Smith’s abilities, now that he’s dead. Much, much better than any labor upgrade. Ama’s room was the only dubious purchase. If it turns out to remove sketchy (or somehow mitigate it) then it was worth it. If it doesn’t, then it wasn’t.
– We can grovel if we want, but LSN isn’t likely to listen.
– For research station, we would want to bring Mac (for Smiffing reasons) but not Botanya (because fire is expected), so we would need a party comp somewhere between the two you listed.
– Suddenly getting a new character? Do you mean the one we’ll find in the research station? It won’t join our party until after the dungeon is over unless someone leaves the party (Kamau remorsing out, someone dying, or possibly Mac bailing early.)
So,I feel like it’s fair to provide an answer of SOME sort:
Are you certain?With 7+ recruits (not counting Ricki) that’ll be a lot of talet we AREN’T bringing to help us when we delve.
-Sad,but fine.Call me a sucker,but I just like to believe any problem can be solved with enough time & creativity.And we HAVE been solving a lot of problems so far.
-For Kamau…generally,2 arms are considered to be better than one (&it’ll mean he can use 2-handed items)
-Just in case you’re unaware,I joined the community while you all were still choosing which Ability to unlock for Amadeusz.I feel like I have a fair reason to go “WHY would you DO that?What were you THINKING!?”…If I joined 2 months earlier,& knew FOR CERTAIN that the smith was more important than the Angry Drunks or Forrest Bandits we helped previously,AND was also RECRUITABLE…I would’ve voted to help him SOMEHOW.
And given that THIS trope exists…
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt
…can you blame me for being somewhat skeptical?Dumber things (good & bad) have happened in other media long before this webcomic was written.Replacement Goldfishes have existed sinceTTRPG & Munchkins have intersected!& to quote ERBoH’s Tolkien: “the genre’s called Fantasy,it’s MEANT to be UNREALISTIC”
And the Press only replaces the ABILITY,not the CHARACTER.To me it’s an important distinction.I’m not against consequences,I just feel sad over the characters failing in such a STUPID way.The community is supposed to be smarter than THAT.
-It’s NOT _JUST_ the Labour,jerk.We all bought the Mammoth (presumably) for the build boost,so why NOT use it?Garden might act like a Bedroom fo Tanya,or ptovide Book-like buffs.& if you think about it:something like Battle Histories is a VERY niche buffs.If the 1st enemy that receives +3DMG is a common mook Kamau could 1-shot anyways,it’s a wasted buff,& would require very careful (likely impossible) positioning.
-My plan was that Kamau would Interpose,Tanya would weaken with her Ability & Pipes,the other 2 characters would strike,AND we could use Flytraps,Imbued Skulls,& Magicrow Whistle wherever a distraction was needed.I TRIED to strategise…
-The Kofi page shows the goal is somewhere above 3K money out of 5k.So the new character (packmule lass) might join us after we leave the well.ANOTHER reason I was hoping for a 5-person party,because what else could she contribute?
ANYWAYS,I see a new page was posted!Cya!