Let's Play * of Krynn

[Balcerzak]

All right guys, this is the kind of shit I grew up with, and another topic somewhere on these boards aroused a fierce nostalgia, so I'm gonna pull these bad boys back up and play through them. I need some forum members to volunteer to be my crew, though. I do have a general idea on what I'm looking for in a party, though, so if your submission matches that, it's more likely to be selected. From memory in these games nonhumans were very, very, good because they had the ability to multiclass. They were also very, very, dangerous in that I don't believe they could be resurrected if they outright died (although maybe that was just elves, fuck I have a manual, I should look through it.) Also, unless non-humans have max stat in their prime-requisite, I believe they have a level-cap, while humans do not.

With that said, I should do a little bit more to whet your appetites. The character creation process looks a little like this:

Main Menu                                       Race Selection                                        Sex Selection

Class Selection                                 God Selection (Cleric only)                          Alignment Selection

When you've navigated those choices, it spits out a character stat sheet for you. Basic D&D type stats, nothing too unusual. The money system is different than standard gold/silver/copper, in that it uses Steel pieces, but whatever, nothing too unusual.

[spoiler=A little more about the races and classes]"Hill Dwarves are a stubborn and rough race of sturdy workers and craftsmen. They are especially resistant to magic and poison. During combat, dwarves receive bonuses when attacking goblins and hobgoblins and are adept at dodging the attacks of ogres and giants. Dwarves can be fighters, thieves, rangers, clerics of Reorx, or mixed classes.

Mountain Dwarves are somewhat clannish and more refined than their Hill Dwarf cousins. Otherwise they are nearly identical. Mountain dwarves may be fighters, thieves, clerics of Reorx, or mixed classes.

Silvanesti Elves (High Elves) are a tall, arrogant and long-lived race. They are nearly immune to sleep and charm spells and are adept at finding hidden doors. During combat, elves receive bonuses when attacking with long or short swords and bows. They cannot be raised from the dead. Silvanesti elves can be fighters, mages, clerics, rangers, thieves and mixed classes.

Qualinesti Elves are slightly smaller and friendlier than their Silvanesti brethren. They have identical abilities and bonuses. Qualinesti elves can be fighters, rangers, mages, thieves, clerics and mixed classes.

Half-Elves are hybrids with many of the virtues of both humans and elves. They are resistant to sleep and charm spells, and are adept at finding hidden doors. Half-elves can be fighters, mages, clerics, thieves, rangers, knights and mixed classes.

Kender are a small people characterized by an absolute lack of fear and insatiable curiosity. They are especially resistant to magic and poison, and have the special ability to taunt intelligent opponents. When kender successfully taunt, an opponent will attack in a mindless rage, suffering a loss of combat effectiveness. The preferred weapon of the kender is the hoopak, part staff sling part metal shod staff, which only they can use. When armed with a hoopak, a kender will receive bonuses to hit and is a deadly accurate shot. Kender can be thieves, fighters, rangers, clerics or mixed classes.

Humans are the most common player-race in the world of Krynn. They can be fighters, mages, clerics, thieves, rangers, and knights but not mixed classes."

Anyway, there already seems to be a discrepancy with the text, as you'll see from the above that the Silvanesti can't seem to into thieves, but whatever.

Qualinesti                                            Half-elf                                      Mountain Dwarf

Hill Dwarf                                            Kender                                        Human

The example party                                  Copy protection                                  Example plot

Overworld Map                                      Example Menus                                    Combat Screen

More Combat                                        Dungeon Navigation                               Dungeon Map (toggleable)

Anyway, format is going to be screenshots, obviously, as nobody wants to watch a lot of deadtime in action, and you won't miss out on anything by lacking the glorious DOS era sound.

Also, I do promise to try to be more regular about updates than I usually am.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Balcerzak

[Psych]

Psych

Half-Elf

Male

Cleric/Mage

Reorx

Chaotic Good

Like that?

[Strunk]

Jacob

Human

Male

Fighter

Neutral Good

[Parrhesia]

Esther

Human

Female

Cleric

(whichever god seems to fit CN the most)

Chaotic Neutral

EDIT: *sees 'level-cap'* NEVERMIND, RACE CHANGE

But yeah, awaiting this LP with bated breath.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Furetchen

[Balcerzak]

Just curious what your original choice was. Like I said, level cap is only a problem if the stats roll poor, so I might be able to still make it work.

[Parrhesia]

Originally a half-elf, but honestly humanity's more tempting in hindsight because FUCK YEAH HUMANITY

[riariadne]

Strider

Human

Male

Knight

CN

[Ice Sage]

Anthony

Human

Male

Mage

Neutral good

this will be interesting xD

[mimgrim]

Oh gawd, Dragon Lance, I love the books. XD

anyway I want you to implement a character from the books into there soooo:

Tasslehoff Burrfoot (don't know how long of a name you are allowed)

Kender

male

Thief

Neutrual Good (Seemed like the best option I think, seeing as I don't know what chaotic good would mean exactly)

[Komeiji Koishi]

Sure, why not. Should be interesting. Hope my character doesn't die

Daimon

Human

Female

Knight (or whatever the base class with highest physical defense is, bonus points to those that get the reference)

Lawful Good

[Balcerzak]

Initial thoughts. Way more single-class folk than I think I've ever run with in the past, but I think this hits the bare minimum bases of acceptable-ness after I fix a few of your alignments.

Knight is essential for some quests, so Strider fills that role.

Psych's good-aligned Mage/Cleric gives me a White Robes + Good Cleric spell-list. I have to pick him a different god because Reorx is neutral only.

Furet's Cleric gives me Neutral Cleric spell-list.

Ice Sage, your mage just became Neutral Neutral, because I need a Red Robes.

Tasslehoff, will be interesting, considering canon characters actually do run around from time to time, but I don't care if I paradox. He's a kender anyway, he could be lying. Still, needed a thief and you obliged me, thank you.

Plain fighter is, have to admit, pretty damn boring, but well, I did ask for you guys to pick for me.

While I'm rolling you all up, do you have any particular color-choices for your sprite's that I'll probably waste too much time customing for too little reward?

Edit: Also, I don't think there's room for the female knight, due to party cap of six. If something changes, maybe I'll work you in somehow.

Edit: Also, if latecomers also wish to submit character ideas, I can't guarantee they'll get used, but I certainly wouldn't seeing them.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Balcerzak

[Jedi]

If someone dies or something you can consider this possibly [sees the edit ok I will post this]

This looks fun I will be watching also here

Arala Duercral

Mountain Dwarf

Female [because Female Dwarves are amusing]

Cleric/Fighter

Lawful-Good

[Psych]

Blue or Green or something, but it doesn't really matter to me

[Balcerzak]

And we're off!

Here as you can see are the raw stats of individual members. I rerolled a bit in order to assure the following things:

Strider would be able to promote into Knight of the Rose at some point (he's currently Knight of the Crown, and there is Knight of the Sword in between), this had some pretty serious minimum stat requirements across the board, although this roll definitely exceeded all of them in stunning fashion.

Characters would have at least 16 in all of their prerequisite stats, so as to ensure they get XP bonus.

Their HP didn't blow too badly. Now, you may note that Esther's HP is pretty low, but for some reason I don't know why, Clerics and only Clerics start at level 1 instead of level 2. Anthony's HP is also low, but he's a pure mage, so I can understand it. d4s yo.

Unfortunately, this means that Jacob looks a little underwhelming compared to Strider, but on the other hand, Knights level up slow as fuck, and Fighters also have the ability to "Sweep", which basically just means they can multi-attack weak vermin like creatures, which comes into play from time to time. I may also be forgetting some other differences, but lets move along.

You may recognize this screenshot from the teaser/appetizer. If not, I reproduce it here for you. There is another panel with the same picture that continues the text. In these instances I will use inset text to save on my image limit. The following is a representation of this.

「Joining you on the trip is an older Knight of the Rose. He is introduced as Sir Karl Gaardsen. His mission is to evaluate the outposts for the Council of Knights.」

「Your first mission is to patrol Throtl and report any suspicious activities immediately.' Sir Karl continues, and you record it in Journal Entry 51.」

Now, this will happen frequently throughout the game, and these Journal Entries are the ones that also provide the bulk of the copy protection (although occasionally it will shift it up to cite paragraphs from the actual rules manual as well). As such, they're not in any sort of order, as seen by the fact that the first one chronologically is 51. I will treat and quote Journal Entries just like other text on repeated CGs, except in italics.

「The worst monsters our scouts have reported anywhere in the area are hobgoblins. Draconians and evil dragons have long since abandoned this area to our forces. Still, be a little wary on your way to Throtl.

Also, be sure to report back here immediately, if anything unusual or dangerous occurs. This outpost depends on information brought back by patrols such as yours. Good luck and may Paladine watch over you.」

「'Also buy and ready equipment from the Armoury. Memorize spells before going out.'」

Sound advice, this. I do so, but I also go into the menus and adjust certain things.

Here you see me set the difficulty level. This is fucking Champions of Krynn, so you better believe we're not going to pussy out, we'll choose 'Champion' setting. As I recall it, this is mainly a hp buff on the enemies, though I may have forgotten other details it affects.

Memorizing spells. I may have forgot to mention it, but which god you choose as your patron gives certain benefits, and certain bonus spells. Esther worships Sirrion, who I believe is the god of fire, or some shit, and hence gets a wizard fire spell out of the deal. It suck though, doing 1HP of damage per level or something, so I'll probably never use it. It seemed most Chaotic Neutral to me, though, so I chose it over the other Neutral gods, Reorx (god of dwarves, which gives a +1 bonus to THAC0 and no spells), and Shinari (god of I can't remember, but it gets Charm Person, an objectively better spell).

I stack up on a lot of Cure Light Wounds, and one helping of Bless.

For Anthony's spells, I take one helping of Detect Magic, for keeping an eye on loot drops. 2 Magic Missiles, and 1 helping of Sleep. The reason he gets so many spells is because the moon is full, which grants a +2 bonus and a +1 effective caster level. If it's a new moon, it's a -1 effective caster level penalty. I /think/ there's a +1 spell bonus when the moon is waxing, but don't quote me on this. There's also some saving throw adjustments, but it's less important to track those, IMO. Also, I later adjust the repetoire to 2 Sleep spells, and Magic Missile and Detect when available.

Psych's god is an awesome god, granting a bunch of bonus spells, and a +1 bonus die on heal spells. Thank you Mishakal, goddess of healing. The other good gods are Paladine, god of honor? who gives Protection from Evil 10' radius; Majere, god of life? who gives Silence 15' radius and you turn undead as if you were 2 levels higher (a pretty tough choice between this and Mishakal to be honest); and Kiri-Jolith, god of war? who gives a +1 bonus to THAC0 and Detect Magic.

After we leave the outpost we head to the east one square and are immediately confronted with a plot battle. Luckily I purchased some arms and armor, just neglected to save screens of it. This battle happens I believe no matter which direction you head.

Here you can see my palette choices. Strider is right-middle, Esther is to his NW, Jacob has the generic default palette to his SE. The back row consists of from top to bottom: Psych, Anthony, and Tasslehoff.

Here you can see the full power of Sleep. It will render enemy targets helpless. I was slow on the draw and missed showing Psych 1HKO the other helpless Baaz draconian to the west of the one still left. Any helpless target, friend or foe, will be instantly 1KHO'd by any physical attack. This works at melee, this works at range. It completely blows when it happens to you.

I cut out a lot of the intervening combat, switching to here where we have a Magic Missile take out the last Baaz.

After all enemies are deceased, typically you'll need to go through a full round of Done->Guard before the game will prompt you to end combat. I do not think there is usually any reason to continue a battle when this prompt happens. Ever.

Victory! Experience is gained.

Here is the treasure menu. The option Share simply has every party member take an even share of the coinage. The Pool option has everybody put their money down on the table, so it can be redistributed. Take allows you the choice to take either looted items or looted money onto any one character.

We choose to help, like any good party, and are rewarded with experience and a

「'Thank you for your help.'」

This needs a little explanation. I forgot to mention it, but Knights have sworn a vow of poverty, and give away money whenever you enter an outpost. I also forgot about this in-game, but right now we're basically flat-broke. Still, now and for the future, I will compulsively do: Pool, Share, and then Trade all of Strider's money to Esther. Every time from now on.

We have re-entered the outpost to head to make our report to the Commandant and Sir Karl, as they wanted to know about anything suspicious, and draconians massacring a caravan seemed to fit the bill. There was more going on when we got back than we expected.

「As you report, his face grows gray. 'This is much worse than we feared.」

「We have a patrol in Throtl. Caramon leads it. Find him. Tell him he is desperately needed here. The imposter has emptied this outpost of troops. I know you are inexperienced, but I have no one else to send.'」

We head to nearby Throtl. The locals do no seem happy to see us. We try to bust our way in.

There's a ton of folks here, and this is a tough battle for our current setup. I had to savescum a little here while I remembered mechanics, and decided to alter my party order slightly so that Ester was in the middle of the front row instead of one of the ends, where she often got 1HKO'd by one of the enemy warriors.

This outlines the general gameplan, cast Sleep on as many of the dudes in the upper left as possible, prioritizing the enemy warriors, who are clearly the biggest threats. Tasslehoff picks them off at range using his Hoopak, while a second dose of Sleep from my other Mage catches the guys who were either out of range of the first Sleep or made their saves.

Then, we Charm Person the Warrior who came down from the right hand side.

Jacob needs a steady stream of heal spells to keep him up to beat

Esther is now blocked off from combat by a bunch of allies, so I have her equip her ranged weapon. It just so happens she connects and kills the last hobgoblin.

We get XP and a huge pile of loot. Anthony casts Detect, but none of the swag is magical. Ah well.

We are now in Throtl. You'll recognize these two images from my teaser/appetizer as well, but sadly, I've hit damn close to the image limit, so will cut you off here.

Sorry, this is unsatisfactorily short, but eh. It happens.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Balcerzak

[Jedi]

A great start, this game looks very fun and interesting [seeing as I love D&D and such]. I'll have to give it a go one of these days

Also Sleep seems to be a great life saver, does that usefulness continue?

[Balcerzak]

A great start, this game looks very fun and interesting [seeing as I love D&D and such]. I'll have to give it a go one of these days

Also Sleep seems to be a great life saver, does that usefulness continue?

Sadly no. All undead are completely immune to it, and later on enemies of simply high enough level are also unaffected, if I remember right. You can get similar effects with Hold Person and Stinking Cloud, but again, they fail to work against undead, and will also eventually lose their potency, I believe. (Stinking Cloud also has the drawback that it stays on the field, and you can often then cut yourself off from a bunch of maneuverability. Hold Person is a 3 target max spell, while Sleep is I believe the central target plus everything surrounding it.) Still, for early game it is as you have rightly noted, an absolute life-saver.

[Psych]

Man I seem awesome. Plus I know like, triple the amount of spells of everyone else.

[Rothene]

DRAGONLANCE!!!

Why no Gnome option?! too busy trapped in Mount Nevermind?

Is it not too late for:

Fizban the Fabulous(Or call him Paladine)

Human(?)

Male

Lawful good

Mage

[Balcerzak]

We last left off in Throtl. It may be a bit confusing to follow along here for a bit, but I'll try my best.

First I start off heading by west. There's an empty study there, but not much more.

Obviously as in most dungeon crawlers, if you wander around, you can crop up some random encounters. There are also fixed location encounters as well. I'm putting together a sort of overall map, but I probably either missed some things, or was otherwise not 100% accurate. Still, it should give you a good idea when I get it posted. Most random encounters have generic text like this, while planned encounters tend to be a little more flavorful.

This is mainly showing off one of the Kender's abilities. The Taunt. It effects basically everybody in earshot and makes them focus on the Kender a little more than they otherwise would have. I'm not sure how tactically useful it is, to be honest.

This combat cropped up on me while I was going around the outside of the study, taking part in my bad habit of making sure I step on every single square. The rats are weaksauce (3HP), but the zombies are pretty damn tough for our party and since I was about to lose somebody I managed to Turn a few of them.

After a little more rummaging around, I'm over-encumbered from carrying around loot (mostly enemy's armors) and head back to the outpost to liquidate. Honestly, in most cases I probably shouldn't bother, because I don't recall very many places where actually spending my money is useful, but hey, I am a thrifty person by nature. This is my current haul.

Every now and again we stumble across locked doors. There's always two options: Bash and Pick. If your thief fails to pick the lock, they can't try again until (I'm not entirely sure of the specifics but I think this is how it works) you exit and re-enter the area. I don't think there's really much penalty to bashing it open, although it may cause traps or spring ambushes sometimes. Anyway, we pick open one of these locked rooms and find

Now enemy clerics, as well as enemy mages, are priority targets. Clerics will cast Hold Person on you, which is like I said, pretty much an instant death sentence, and mages can have nasty shit up their sleeves too. The skeletons aren't so bad, but in large numbers they can be problematic, and they hit harder than rats.

We find some need loot after this battle, and the game also explicitly tells us it is a safe place to rest here. This is important, because, while you can rest just about anywhere, sometimes wandering monsters will come by and disturb you and force you to have an encounter. This is bad if you were trying to memorize new spells, or heal up, or shit. One of the reasons to always save before and after attempting to rest, IMO.

We've completed the loop around the south-western area of Throtl, and open a door into the area where we would have gotten to if we'd simply headed straight north off the bat. An NPC is here to great us.

「You record the rest of his speech as Journal Entry 38.」

「"They're back...back there...who, look out! No, no, no. I stabbed one but it took my sword. I couldn't get it out of its body! Caramon!" His eyes clear for a moment and he becomes more lucid. "Listen to me," he says, "they've captured Caramon. Most of our party has been wiped out." He suddenly jerks about. "What's that! Get them! They've got Caramon. Find him. I'll find him. North, north and west and south. Traps! Back up...go back now. Quiet, quiet, quiet...look out! above you! oh no, oh no, oh no..."

He gets a sly, slightly mad conspiratorial look on his face. "I saw a money chest in a room to the east. I'm gonna get it and I'm set." He looks around and leans towards you, "You wanna help? Huh, what d'ya say?" The terrorized look comes back. He screams and gasps in terror.」

He's clearly mad, and runs off at this point. The mention of treasure piques my interest, and I resolve to go in all ways opposite of the direction I should as long as I am able. I head south then and check out the rooms to the east and the west.

I was too slow to screen cap the first section of text here, but it said there were bones and bodies basically strewn all about, at least from memory. It's not really a hard fight, so I'm not even going to show any caps. This was the western room.

The eastern room actually curiously enough gives me the option to Parlay. I ignore this and opt for attack, hoping maybe it will give me the edge in initiative. My assault goes pretty flawlessly.

I was again full of loot, so I went back to the outpost. While there I had Anthony learn detect magic, and confirm my suspicions. Magical items will show up in the inventory list with asterisks. You then can get it IDed at an Armoury or such, for a fee.

The Hall is a location I didn't mention before, but it's one of the more important ones. It gives you the opportunity to Train, which is required to level up. No, you don't just ding when you hit the required XP total, and if you forget to try to train regularly, you will end up wasting XP. You can safely adventure until the point where you would gain 2 levels at once, because after training you'll be 1 XP shy of being able to train again. I think at this point your name will turn purple as a visual cue, although that might only be in the later games in the series after some engine tweaks, I cannot recall. Anyway, Esther and Tasslehoff are able to advance now, and this is useful and appreciated. Mostly because

Esther unlocked some key spells. I already discussed Hold Person, but Silence 15' is also an effective way to counter enemy casters. I memorize accordingly.

Heading back into Throtl, I head eastward now (I've still got plenty of ground to cover before searching for Caramon in earnest). I encounter a new type of enemy here, the Giant Centipede. While weak, they have deadly poison, that will occasionally just straight-up kill you. You can cure it later out of battle with Neutralize Poison spell, but you can't bring them back in that combat, and they'll miss out on XP. Word of warning (also known as target those bitches with priority).

Symmetrically opposite of where I encountered the study on the other side of Throtl, I hear voices, and choose to eavesdrop.

「'Eggs in the temple...Death Knight...conversation...ambush'」

「You are discovered! A Battle Begins...」

It's the traditional Baaz + Hobgoblin + Warrior mix, susceptible to Sleep, although they start far away, and I actually think I needed to wait for them to enter spell range, which means their formations were funky and I had a hard time optimally taking them out. Still, it wasn't too bad.

The game alerts you if you try to leave and forget some of your treasure. In this case it was by design, as certain items, like shields, just aren't worth the time it takes to sell them.

After wandering around and checking a few worthless locked doors, I head north from my current location in the far east of Throtl. I encounter this somewhat ominous warning.

After following a twisty passage heading back to the west we enter a large-ish room, and are greeted to some enemies scurrying about. The text here is also important, as it alerts us to a secret passage.

I was out of inventory space, so I went back to town and liquidate, and Jacob had enough XP to level up. Rejoice. Immediately after I returned to the scene of the secret passage, and discovered loot. This was also back in the good old days of dungeons and dragons where you also got XP not only for killing shit, but for finding riches even if you didn't really have to work hard for them. Ahhh, my youth.

Anyway, our side routes now completely exhausted, we go back to the central corridor and head due north. We have to bash our way past a locked door Tas couldn't figure out and on the other side we are treated to

Aaaaaaaaah, a hail of arrows. Our first trap!

A little further on we run into a friendly fellow who wishes to exchange words with us. I lend him an ear.

「He explains his presence here and you record it as Journal Entry 35.」

「"I was with a party of knights and others under Caramon that came in here to explore. We haven't really found anything. Caramon's already left to report. I guess you must have missed him.

"Oh, one thing we did find out was that there is a treasure left over from the previous occupants of Throtl. We got word of it from a hobgoblin who was sneaking in to claim it. Before he died, he told us that it was located in the south-central area of the city. Tell you what, if you help me find this treasure, I'll split it with you. All right?"」

He wishes to join up. I'm a band of green adventurers, and I fail to notice the incongruities in his story and some of the others, and to be honest am itching for the chance at a little extra muscle making our life easier. It doesn't hurt that I'm pretty sure I found his treasure already, and thus probably won't have to share it with him. I foolishly accept him into my party. Looking at his stats, he's pretty badass.

There's a broken sword laying on the ground a little ways further. I decide to be on my guard, and circle around as far west as possible before heading south. I don't know if this actually means anything or not.

We open up into a rather big room, and come across a small Kender, hard at work.

「"So! At last, you've come to rescue me. You know these things are quite clever. Not clever enough for me of course. I've just been improving them somewhat. Oh dear. I do hope you didn't come through from the North...oh, sorry.

"I suppose you'll be wanting to get me out of here now. Oh, there are more people back there. Strangbourn is around here somewhere. He's looking for Caramon. Oh, you want to find him, well that's an interesting story, you see when we first got together about two weeks ago...

"Uh, I can help, you know. Caramon was taken somewhere south of here. I've been trying to reset traps in case more Draconians and hobgoblins get here.

"Why don't we team up, OK?"」

「Do you allow him to join your party?」

Yes! There's room in this party for everyone, I say.

This is an interesting set of enemies, and I think the first I've shown you with an enemy mage. And... oh shit! That's not good. Oh, don't worry Anthony, apparently you weren't too badly hurt, and I managed to bandage you up and keep you stable. This is a special command that only shows up if one of your party members has been dropped, and only if they're still alive (I don't remember the mechanics for dead death off the top of my head). Anybody can execute the bandage command. Alternately, you could cast a cure spell on them, in which case they'd be at positive hit points, but still laying on the ground, out of the fight, and in a world of pain.

I think to myself that perhaps I should go back to the outpost, unload gear and try to train. My NPCs persuade me otherwise. :(

Ouch. Fuck. More traps.

OUCH FUCK MORE TRAPS! This one OHKOs Anthony, and not only that but before we get a chance to do anything we're mobbed by monsters. This actually ended up with a wipe, or close enough to it. I think NPC Soldier and maybe Strider were still up when I hit the [x] in the upper right hand corner.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Balcerzak

[Balcerzak]

Okay, the RNG on the pit trap was much kinder this time. Also, tons and tons of enemies. Yes, I was running on lower spells than I should have last time, and yes I got unlucky. But anyway, this time the line holds firm and we pave the way to victory.

Just heading south on the other side of the pit trap, we open up into a host of hobgoblins, and our NPC soldier friend turns his coat! This always fucking catches me by surprise. I must skim the text too fast too, because I'm always like... "Hey, where did my friend go?" during and after battle too.

Fittingly enough, I cast Charm Person on the warrior, and he turns his coat back. ＼(^o^)／ (I don't get to keep him after the battle though...)

Pressing southwards a little further we encounter a new face.

「"I was with the patrol that followed Caramon in here. We ran into trouble almost immediately. We were not really expecting much opposition but...We were ambushed by a large force of hobgoblins and Draconians. I was knocked out by a blow to the head early in the battle. I awoke in a dark corner, alone. It took me a while to get my bearings but I finally went out in search of my companions. I overheard from passing patrols that everybody except Caramon was killed. You must help me find Caramon. He must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the leaders of this band."」

「Do you want him to join you? (No Yes)」

The game defaults to "No", and the recent experience with the traitor may have you a bit worried. But man, his story checks out, and he's a knight. He's got fucking "Sir" in his name. We let him in.

After letting him into the party he has more info for us.

「Strangbourn asks you about Sir Karl. After hearing your answer, he hesitates and then tells you a story and you record it as Journal Entry 7.」

「"Listen, Sir Karl is the most honorable of men. I would follow him anywhere. But there is something very dark and strange going on around him. He seems obsessed with a young girl named Maya. The fact that he's about 40 years older than she is isn't really the problem; if they'd just settle down and declare themselves! All that would happen is that a few gossips will snicker and that'll be the end of it. But they won't do that. Maya is extremely valuable to us. She has sources of information that are astounding, especially for one so young. But whenever the two of them are in the same room the tension is so obvious that...

"Ah, never mind. You say that he seems to be all right. I will go on that hope, and let troubles find me in their own good time. Let's go."」

Da~yumn, that be some juicy gossip. Robbin' the cradle, are we Karl?

Shit. Our new knight friend already be proving his worth.

Immediately thereafter I head north, and glad am I, because if we'd been caught in that trap it looks like it would have been another twofer, coming along with an ambush.

Okay, this deserves special mention, and I need to go into a little bit of detail on the mechanics of magic. Spellcasters begin spellcasting at a certain initiative, and then, based on the type of spell they're casting, they take up a certain number of time units before they get it off. Also, they simply cannot cast at all if they've taken damage prior to their turn in the initiative order. So, while you're already spending most of your time focusing on trying to hit the bastards, when you see them actually in the act of casting, you drop everything and stop them. In this case, it meant hoping my Magic Missile would be fast enough that it would finish before his spell did. And it was, and it paid off big time. I missed the screencap where it would go on to say "CLERIC LOST A SPELL", but trust me, it was a glorious thing.

A bit of wandering leads to the following, I find a couple of scrolls. Neither of my mages have Read Magic prepares, so for the moment they're useless and I'm overburdened on basically everyone, but I find enough space on Strider to tuck them away until we get back to town.

Oh shit man. The gibbering weirdo from back at Throtl's entrance actually knew what he was talking about with the whole "death comes from above" schpiel.

Damn, can't Charm them every time it seems.

Dammit Jacob...

On the other hand, Esther makes up for Psych's bungle with a wonderful 3 for 3 on Hold Person.

I'm pretty sure I was trying to screen-cap something else at the time, but this is instructive, so I'm leaving it in. At certain points in time (generally when most of the enemies are dead, or a particular enemy is badly wounded), they'll fail their morale check. This leads to either (rarely) prompt surrender and their unit poofs immediately, or they panic and attempt to flee. This usually will prompt them getting hit from behind (which grants bonuses) and then going down like a sack of potatoes, but sometimes they'll book it away. If they make it to the edge of the map they can escape (and conversely, so can you if you make it to the edge), but more frequently they'll get caught on walls or shit and you have to go hunt them down.

Oh, yeah, that second body on the ground, that was probably what I was screencapping originally. Tas, why you gotta collapse like that. I would have taken a Bandage shot, but I think my NPC Kender beat me to it.

! Whoever could this be?

It's Caramon. Yay! Time to rejoice, and listen to his story.

「"After the battle I was taken to see a powerful cleric. He laughed at my defeat. They led me to some doors that glowed in the darkness, opened them with a key that he pulled from his robes, and took me to a dark temple. I saw a bronze dragon egg on the alter! He told me that they were going to start the corruptions again! Then he had his minions beat me.

"I woke up here. If it hadn't of been for the treachery of a dark elf, and a sneak attack from behind, they never would have captured me." He pauses. "I'm sorry for my men." he says, "They had no idea what we were getting into. Krynn's blood, I didn't know either. We were unprepared for the extent of the evil forces.

"The ambush was a complete surprise."」

Why whatever could be happening?

「A lovely elven woman strides in the room. She embraces Caramon and explains her presence, and you record it as Journal Entry 9.」

「She explains to Caramon, "I've been sent by Sir Karl to get you back to the Outpost. There are rumors that large forces of draconians, hobgoblins, minotaurs and others are gathering. We need you to direct scouting and raiding operations. I see now that things are worse than we thought. Throtl was supposed to have been abandoned."

Caramon says, "It's even worse than that. I have seen Brass Dragon Eggs!"

She gasps, "No! They must not do this again!" Then she pauses, "Wait, how can they do it? I thought the process was lost during the War of the Lance. Did you see any evidence that they were successful?"

"No," says Caramon, "I was knocked unconscious before I had a chance to look further." He turns to you. "I need you to investigate this matter. Find the key, and go to the old temple in the Northeast part of the city. Find out what you can."」

Sir Tagalong chimes in with his input as well.

「Caramon says 'The cleric that took me has just left for his quarters in the south-west corner of Throtl. Find him and you will find the key.'」

「'The key will make the doors into the temple glow. The doors are located in the two corridors that border the northeast quadrant of the city.'」

「Caramon and Maya leave. You hear a great rush of air shortly after their departure.」

Why, what have we here? Foreshadowing?

「Your companions leave.」

No more extra NPCs in the menu. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. Anyway, time to book it out of here and finally unload this loot and do some training.

Oh yeah, this is the text for one-way doors. There was one of those previously, from the treasure room behind the secret wall into the main corridor. I forgot to mention that, I believe.

What ever could have caused this? I have no idea.

Back at the city we have my current net worth. This also introduces the appraise menu. One of the gems was worth 250, and I kept it. The others were worth 25 and I sold them.

I decided to keep all of the jewelry. It weighs less than its equivalent weight in coinage.

Time for a Training montage.

Also, I put this out of order, but when you gain a level in mage you get to choose one spell that you do not know to learn. I of course learn Stinking Cloud (ignore the highlight on Strength, I wasn't at the top of my screen-capping game).

Esther memorizes Prayer, which is a pretty great buff spell.

After memorizing and casting Read Magic, I enter the Scribe pane of magic. While I could just cast spells from the scrolls I found, it's better to transfer ones you don't have yet into your spell-book so you don't have to waste time learning them on level-up. I may be able to find/buy more scrolls later. Anyway, both Invis and Mirror Image are neat. I'll probably use them occasionally. I'm not high enough level to cast 3rd level spells yet, so Haste has to wait.

Psych on the other hand, can't even cast 2nd level mage spells yet, so he has to wait. His scroll is decidedly inferior, IMO.

Finally, we check in with Sir Karl, who reminds us we still have a mission to finish up in Throtl.

I may not be able to update again until Monday, but we'll see. So much for my promise of regularity, huh?

Edit:

OH, right! I forgot to include the map I was making.

Red for fixed enemy locations, Yellow for treasures, Brown for traps, Green for NPC recruitments, and Blue for general plot events. Tiny white dots for either secret or 1-way doors.

As I said, may not be entirely accurate.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Balcerzak

[Jedi]

Most badass knight ever, shows up, joins the team and stops a trap now that's a TRUE KNIGHT.

[Balcerzak]

So, we head back to Throtl and because I exhaustively roamed around I have a pretty damn good idea of where that cleric that had captured Caramon absconded to. We head to the well-furnished study.

We find the cleric, who's actually much beefier than the typical clerics we've been running into. Also, I think the one and only previous time I fought zombies I never gave you guys the mouseover for them, so here they are in their glory. After dealing with the cleric via our ways of handling people that are alive, the rest of this battle is just a slug-fest. When it's all over

We find the key we seek.

There are two ways in to the northeast segment. Both of them feature nearly identical text alerting you to the presence of the door.

And nearly identical text after passing through it.

One of them however sports a surprise attack by enemies after passing through.

This actually starts off going poorly for me, as the cleric resists my hold person spell and counters with his own. Thankfully only Esther succumbed and was sent to the ground, but she got bandaged in time.

The gloves come off and I charm the bastard.

Those of you who are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons probably know what I'm about to tell you here. So the thing about ghouls... yeah, their touch has a paralytic agent, which leads you, you guessed it. Instant KO for Jacob here.

He gets bandaged up, and the enemy cleric actually successfully turns all of the undead before I manage to kill any of them, resulting in this incredibly satisfying 0 XP encounter. ...At least it wasn't a TPK, right? Silver linings.

I head to the south, and set off another encounter. (They pack them dense up here, it seems.)

「He motions and other people join him [Combat][Wait][Flee][Parlay]」

「The cleric demands to know who you are. How do you respond? [Haughty][sly][Nice][Meek][Abusive]」

I'm feeling a bit ballsy, though truth be told based on how that last fight went I should be anything but. I try to bluff my way through this, maybe squeeze out some additional information on the dark rituals and all that, but it sort of falls apart.

It's all humans though, and my sleep and hold spells go off in time, so it's no problem, and after dispatching them I do find some information that I hadn't had. Not a lot of information, mind you, but more than I had before.

I keep exploring this area, and at the very end of one of the nook or cranny corridors I bump into another assortment of evil creatures at the command of a foul cleric.

Again, since my auto-win buttons don't really work on undead, and I don't like pussying out and Turning them (because that yields 0 XP unless you're high enough level where it would outright destroy the undead, and hint: I'm not.), so this gets a little dicey at times.

I say "fuck it" and try out one of my new spells anyways. Just as I expected, the undead don't have to breath and the stinking cloud doesn't affect them, but the cleric is paralyzed with nausea. There's actually two or three different things that can happen with stinking cloud, if I remember right. 1) They pass their save and are unaffected. 2) Some sort of middle ground, where they're coughing. I /think/ this prevents them from casting spells, but I might be wrong. 3) Choking and Gagging = full on Helpless. It's a 2x2 square of effect, unless blocked off by walls or terrain, and it lasts a good 2-3 rounds at this level, meaning if you kill people paralyzed inside the cloud, there's a chance more enemies will walk into it and paralyze themselves on subsequent turns.

And I probably rambled too much about an uninteresting tangent. Back to your regularly scheduled update.

We put down the last of the undead, and sadly, we know these guys. They're in a better place now, at least.

A bit more wandering and I unearth a staircase leading downward into what I presume is a labyrinthine set of catacombs. Not ready to go check those out now, so I about face.

「The clerics look as if they would like to talk. The Draconians immediately attack, dragging the clerics into the fray.

A battle begins...」

I decide to give Parlay another chance the next time it's offered. No traction, no traction at all. After beating them down

「Draconians!

I have good news. I have managed to attain the volume that we have been searching for all of these years. The power to create more of our kind is now in my hands. Send me all of your eggs along with any mages and clerics that you may have with you. I'll be at the Citadel of Gargath very soon. Have the eggs packed and taken to me within the week. By order of Myrtani.」

Bits and pieces of the puzzle are falling into place.

Heading southward along the easternmost wall, we enter a room with a lone cleric, absorbed in a document. There's no chance in hell we're letting him go alert his friends...

「The cleric surrenders. You bind and gag him to prevent his warning the others.」

「You find a few scraps of paper. You record them as Journal Entry 10.」

「"...attempt a conversion without the intervention of Tak...

...book of spells that contains the necessary incantations and rituals for the conversion. It is said that this book will allow even relatively weak ma...

...nze, silver and gold were considered the most difficult trans..."」

There's nothing else of interest in the room, but as we pass him on the way out he does his best to look intimidating and angry. We all stifle a chuckle at the amusing sight.

This random encounter illustrates exactly what I was talking about with enemies walking headlong into the Stinking Cloud on subsequent turns. Glorious.

I had to head back to town to drop off some loot, and did a little Training while I was at it. Always nice for folks to be levelling up.

Here we go. This feels ominous. Something climactic is surely just around the bend.

「This part of the temple is dark. The only light comes from an altar fire burning in the far room.」

Draconians out of nowhere! Without spellcaster support though, they went down right easy.

Haha, that's what you think, bad guys. That's what you think.

We advance up to the altar, and things play out right before our eyes. The foul ritual was thwarted, though whether or not it was due to our influence, I truly cannot say.

Psych wins the initiative order and I get my spells off before the enemy gets theirs off. gg folks, nothing to see here.

Sweet! Phat loot. I'll have to get these identified on the next trip back to town.

It wasn't a complete annihilation for the forces of evil though, just a very serious rout. The stragglers dash off away from the altar room, and it's in our best interest to set chase to them.

There are a few minor squabbles as they peel off small groups to protect their rear flank. One of these encounters nets some more magical gear.

Then in hot pursuit we follow them down the staircase into the catacombs. Down here, the AREA map indicator is completely unavailable. We'll be flying blind here folks.

Red for fixed enemy locations, Yellow for treasures, Brown for traps, Green for NPC recruitments, and Blue for general plot events. Tiny white dots for either secret or 1-way doors. Black is for the stairway down.

As I said, may not be entirely accurate. I did however learn that there are coordinates posted in the little dialogue windows I've saved though (like 2,15 for the very first one of this update) which can be used to correlate to map positions. I'm too lazy to go back and check that the previous ones are all in the right places, although for this update's encounters I tried to be good about it.

[Jedi]

Ghouls... Ugh BAD memories of a campaign of being ambushed by those suckers. I lost a Druid of mine to them once ._.

Also the ritual might not have had enough Nickelodeon slime in it [its GREEN I couldn't resist]

Edited October 21, 2012 by Captain Jedi

[Balcerzak]

We last left our adventurers hot on the heels of some enemies descending into the Catacombs beneath Throtl.

We fight a fixed encounter with some fighters and assorted others. I've been slightly careless, and Jacob hits the mat. A little first aid by Anthony keeps him with us, though.

I make sure that I'm better prepared for this tussle with a cleric and some undead that comes a little further down the stretch. It's a good thing for the most part that these catacombs are pretty much a straight shot. I mean, sure there's winds and turns, but it's not nearly so bad as I'd expected, no real branching paths at all. Anyway, from the scraps of paper he hadn't managed to destroy we learn

「"...we have contacted the minotaurs. They will help us. I must go to Gargath. It is rumored that there is a Dragonlance stored there. We must secure the Keep and find the treasure room that is hidden there. The map of the Keep shows those places where we believe the secret door may be located. Give this map to your officers and..."

The fragment ends.」

Fucking hell, we don't get the map. And there's gonna be pissed off minotaurs in our future. Both of these strike me as exceptionally unfortunate.

These draconians aren't getting away with any more dragon eggs than the bare fucking minimum. Not if I can stop them. And I can easily stop them.

「What do you do?

[Attack] Flee」

Go for broke. We gotta do the most damage possible to this band of evil.

Ow, my Strider! Did I mention I hate enemy clerics. ...damn Hold Person being a double-edged sword...

Not perhaps as legible as I would like, but we'll go with it.

Also, sweet loot. I can sort of guess what these are, but I don't equip as general principle because they may be cursed or something. Also, a safe place to rest. That said, we're overloaded on gear. I head back to town, get this stuff IDed and train. (No, it's not OOC to abandon the chase, what are you talking about. Of course they'll still be there when I come back.)

Oh god. Christmas came early.

Yeah, whatever Psych. Call me when you become a real mage.

The various magical loot that I had picked up. It obviously needs being redistributed a tad, but this let's you know what I have to work with.

I also decide all this money I'm carrying around it too cumbersome, so I drop it all off at the Vault. It stores my money, but only in 100 steel increments, and whenever I withdraw they take a 20 steel fee off the top. When dealing in numbers this big, I'm not too concerned.

I scribe the scrolls from the scrolls into my spellbooks. Also, remember how I mentioned the moon phases give you bonus spells? Well, at the time all I could cast were level 1 spells. Now you see the full power. These spells can be memorized from any of the spells you're able to cast. 3 Fireballs. mmmm!

Back to the catacombs. This is just a piddly battle with no real consequences, and a corner with flavor text and nothing more.

On the other hand, this was a random battle that almost went TPK. Somehow out of somehow I managed to keep all three of these guys from being knocked out. Esther spamming Hold Persons strategically to block off access to my cripples for the win.

Cha-ching!

What!? Not loot this time? I am disappoint.

Oh man oh man, were there actually a shit ton of these little buggers. I forgot to snap a photo at the very beginning, but see how badly we're getting swarmed?

This set of images demonstrates two things. My willingness to take a chance on saving throws to the detriment of my team, and Jacob being just unlucky enough to be hit down to 0 exactly after successfully escaping the stinking cloud. I was surprised when I was unable to bandage him, but apparently he wasn't bleeding out so...

You have to wake up pretty early to pull the swirling colored lights over Psych's eyes. Haha, take that!

These enemies were also packing some pretty nice loot as well as their fancy illusions and tricks.

「'And I don't trust that white dragon. I don't think it enjoys it here. Too hot for him, or something.'」

「Another voice answers, 'Listen dwarfmeat, we've got to get the word out that adventurers are on our trail. So shut up and keep moving.'」

「The conversation fades to low mutterings.」

Wait, did he just say there's a dragon here...

We bust in on them.

These images should give you a pretty good idea of how fights go down when I'm at the helm. ...and when I've remembered to rest up and memorized a full complement of spells.

Nothing but flavor here, as far as I remember. I like it though, it keeps the pacing interesting. You never know when you're going to get mobbed, or just enjoy the atmosphere.

Image limit reached, wait warmly for another post.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Balcerzak

[Balcerzak]

I don't rightly recall if the screencaps fully demonstrate things, but the background stone in the catacombs here has changed a couple of times: the same sort of light-blue/grey as in upstairs Throtl, a darker grey/green stone, and now this red area. We continue to try to catch up to the main forces.

Aha, here's a pack of them now!

Time for a Fireball!

Okay, so I rolled a little low, but fun as hell. (No this isn't showing you every enemy hit, that would be a waste of valuable image real estate. This is just a tribute.)

Wait did I saw avoid wasting the image limit? Disregard that. Fireball is too much fun.

(Collateral damage? What collateral damage?)

No actual fights here, just following the trail of clues.

Oh... shit! I mean, I knew they were here somewhere, I just wasn't mentally prepared yet.

Well, at least they don't have a lot of hit points, and their AC isn't super low.

Oh fuck me. Hello there breath weapon. :S

Are you shitting me, these fuckers can move 30 squares?

Not pictured, the fact that he attacks like 3 times every time he attacks with a melee attack.

I have been in more advantageous positions...

You've got to be kidding. Dragons are affected by Stinking Cloud? I just tried this on a whim because this is clearly Shit Creek and I'm fresh out of paddles.

WELP!

That went swimmingly.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Balcerzak