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Completed Let's Play Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures- Module B4 The Lost City

Azira

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Center door. Oh, and if it's possible, it indeed sounds like a good idea to prop the exit door as well. :M
 

Dr. Doom

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I propose the door to the right. Probably the three statues represent something inside each of the cylinders.
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Hit points on the characters currently looks like this:

Jaesun the Gay, Human Paladin, AC: 8, HP: 11 (Jaesun)
Magnus the Irascible, Dwarven Fighter, AC: 10, HP: 9 (Azira)
Midge, Dwarven Fighter/Thief, AC: 7, HP: 9 (Octavius)
Qastur, Human Mage, AC: 8, HP: 6 (Monstrous Bat)
Abigail, Human Mage, AC: 9, HP: 4 (Excidium)
Myass, AC: 10, HP: 8 (Dr. Doom)

Before propping the door and moving on, I check the spells available and find that no one has spells memorized. I rectify the situation by having the magic-users choose to memorize sleep while Myass stocks up on three Cure Light Wounds spells. Alternatively the magic-users could have also memorized detect magic, read magic and shield, which aren't as useful. The cleric could also pray for bless, curse, cause light wounds, detect magic, protection from evil, protection from good, and resist cold. Out of that list, bless is the best choice as it affects the entire party. When I go to rest however, the game does not give me the option to do so. :(

Looks like this is not a safe place to rest. You'll find that in many of Ray Dyer's modules you can only rest at certain times in game. Let's hope we don't find anything with teeth.

I prop open the door, which is a smart move as not doing so would have resulted in the party inhaling stale, dusty air and losing hit points. Instead we get this:

Opening the door is like opening a flood gate of fresh, dry air. When you prop open the door you can feel the heavier, unclean air of the tomb trailing out into the desert.

Myass wants to try the right door, but he is outvoted by his companions after Midge gives each portal another once over and declares them clear of traps. Some people might think that the blood at the central door might indicate danger and to stay away, but sod that! Entering ends up being safe enough, however, so perhaps the blood did indicate a trap that was already sprung. The party goes through the center door and finds themselves in a small, 10 foot by 20 foot chamber, with two rickety ladders, one leading upwards, and another down into the depths of the pyramid.

Shall we go up, down, or check out one of the other doors?
 

Monstrous Bat

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The party's currently on the top level of the pyramid, no? Let's climb the ladder up to have a look at our surroundings. Also to check out the statues.
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Qastur was right. Climbing upwards leads to the party the actual insides of the central statue.

At the top of the hollow cylinder you find yourself in one of the three statues atop the pyramid. A tube leads out through the statue's mouth, so that the god's will could be known by his priests. Levers seem to be connected to pulleys and gears that operate the arms, head, and eyes of the statue.

There is nothing else for us to do but return to the previous floor.

We can take the ladder down or try one of the other doors, though if I made a guess I bet we'd find a similar set-up in each of the others.
 

Monstrous Bat

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Check out the other two cylinders. Climb up the ladders if there is any. See if there's anything intersting. If not, return to the central cylinder and climb down.
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
The party returns to the ground level, where they get to once again choose between three doors.

lets-make-a-deal-doors.jpg


The adventurers move on to door number three the door on the right, as suggested by Myass. Midge checks for traps once more, and after a moment she declares it free of danger. Jaesun steps up and turns the knob...

As you touch the doorknob of the door before you, hinged floor slabs swing away from your feet, dropping you into darkness!

Jaesun the Gay is hit for 4 points of damage
Magnus is hit for 3 points of damage
Midge is hit for 5 points of damage
Qastur is hit for 2 points of damage
Abigail is hit for 6 points of damage and is unconscious
Myass is hit for 6 points of damage
:rage:

MIDGE!:mad:

Seriously, though, it wasn't her fault. I tried searching before we dropped, loaded the game back up and tried searching again with Midge highlighted as the current character and even did the look command. Either she kept failing her Find Traps roll or there is no way for her to locate this particular trigger.

A ten-foot radius circle at the foot of each ladder is lit by a glowing two-foot long beetle. Each beetle has three glowing spots.

LostCity02.png


Warily, you move around the beetles, testing them to see if they are aggressive. In a sudden burst of hunger-driven rage, the creatures attack!

LostCity03.png


Midge is on the top left of the formation and is highlighted. Jaesun the Gay is in the front and center, and Magnus is to his right. Myass has the awesome hammer in his icon and ugly clothes, while Qastur stands next to him in blue and purple, while Abigail lies down in a pool of her own blood. They are opposed by three beetles with an AC of 4 and 7 hit points each. I'm sure this will be a hard, but victorious battle...

Red sands bleach your bones and bury your legend.

Oh. I guess having no weapons and armor and spells might be a problem. Also, now is a good time to mention something Jaesun pointed out to me. The original module is meant for levels 1-3, but Ray Dyer's conversion is meant for levels 3-5 and we have a level 1 party.

I reload and retry several times until our barefisted heroes win. The survivors only get 66xp each. On this effort, Jaesun and Abigail are up and around with 1 hp each. Everyone else is unconscious.

With the beetles disposed of, you are free to see that this room holds spare parts for the machinery inside the statues. There are a also several large, covered clay pots. A small foundry stands in the northeast corner.

I search the room, hoping for weapons, armor and a place to rest.

Here stand the clay pots. Working off the lid releases the odor of oil, but the contents have almost completely evaporated in the years since humans used this place. Here stands a small foundry, apparently for fixing broken statue parts. It has tongs, hammers and so on.

Hmmm... no signs of weapons or armor. The room is 40 feet north to south and 30 feet east to west. There are doors to the southwest, northwest, and a single one to the east. Three ladders up stand in the center of the room, which leads me to believe that all of these ladders lead up to the previous room. No matter what we would have to fight the beetles, but if we use the center door we won't fall into a pit and take damage.

Typically, in a Ray Dyer module we would have found a merchant or equipment by now, but since this is a module for levels 3-5, I am bettering that we were supposed to bring a better equipped party into this game. So I will take these characters through the Journey to the Rock module, since I know it well enough and it is both short and fairly easy. They should come out of it at level 2 or 3, and with some decent equipment. I'll give a short post about their fast progress, then toss them back into this module and this point in the game.
 

Jaesun

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Yes, do Journey to the Rock. We should end up I *think* around level 2/3 (if you discover everything). And after finishing the Rock you can shop and train on the overland map.
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Detour1.png


It will take me only a day or two to get through this module scenario since I know it so well now. I need to purchase weapons, so if anyone has a preference not already stated let me know. Each character has a measly 35gp, though I can go on a second shopping spree at the adventure's conclusion as suggested by Jaesun, so you can give me a before and after shopping list.

Belt, Boots, Bracers, Cloaks, Gloves, and Robes are 1gp each. Bracers are 15gp. All these have no effect on AC.
Banded Mail: 200gp
Chain Mail: 75gp
Leather: 15gp
Plate Mail: 400gp
Ring Mail: 100gp
Studded Leather: 20gp
Shield: 7gp
20 Arrows: 20gp
Battle-Axe: 5gp
Hand-Axe: 1gp
20 Crossbow Bolts: 20gp
Longbow: 75gp
Composite Longbow: 100gp
Short Bow: 30gp
Composite Shortbow: 75gp
Club: 1gp
Heavy Crossbow: 50gp
Light Crossbow: 35gp
Dagger: 1gp
12 Darts: 12gp
Flail: 15gp
Fork: 8gp
Glaive: 6gp
Halberd: 10gp
Hammer: 2gp
Javelin: 1gp
Knife: 1gp
Mace: 8gp
Morning Star: 10gp
Pick: 8gp
Quarter Staff: 2gp
Sling: 1gp
Spear: 1gp
Bastard Sword: 25gp
Broad Sword: 10gp
Longsword: 15gp
Short Sword: 10gp
Two-Handed Sword: 50gp

No worries about supplies like ropes, lanterns, etc in this game.
 

Azira

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Before:
Studded leather, shield, battleaxe. And a sling for ranged combat. Ammo is free for the puny sling, right?

After:
Do dwarves movement rate drop when wearing plate like it does for humans? If so, go banded. If not, then plate if at all possible.
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Yes but for overall weight, not type of armor. Don't worry about movement, but instead go for armor class. I tend to have the melee fighters hang back and guard to protect the soft spellcasters. If an enemy uses ranged attacks, I switch my fighters to bows for a return salvo while they creep forward steadily to get into melee.
 

Dr. Doom

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I need to improve my AC a bit. I say
before: Club
after: Studded leather,Shield,Morning star
 

octavius

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Lvl 1, no weapons or armour, and a damage dealing trap to boot? Sound like all my least favourite FRUA modules...
So I approve of the decision to get more XP first.

Midge fails to steal, so is forced to buy instead:
Broadsword
Shield
Leather
Sling

She is a bit worried that she won't be able to utilize her backstabbing if in the front row. OTOH she realizes that putting the cleric up front is not optimal either.

BTW, are the rules for backstabbing different in Ray's hacked modules? In vanilla FRUA a Fighter/Thief can backstab even while wearing plate, something which may be a bug. I think in the Gold Box games you were limited to Studded Leather for such activities.
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
I purchase equipment for everyone except with slight tweaks. Magnus the Irascible gets a one-handed hand-axe instead of a two-handed battleaxe so that he can hold a shield. As mentioned before, you do not need to purchase ammo for slings as the game assumes you pick up appropriate rocks along the way. Because we had some left over coin from the magic-users, and because Midge's thief checks won't be effected by the heavier armor, I got her studded leather vs leather. The protection will matter. I purchased 24 darts, a quarter staff and a sling for Abigail. The darts sometimes enable a magic-user to attack ranged twice, but they run out fast, which is why the sling. I go back and get Qastur 24 darts on top of his previous order for the same reason. Myass' decision to just purchase a club for now is smart as he can pick up a weapon after looting the first few encounters. I rest and memorize sleep for each mage and three cure light wounds for the cleric.

I won't get into how this adventure went. You can see for yourself how this plays out via my older Let's Play at ENWorld: http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ay-forgotten-realms-unlimited-adventures.html

Some highlights:
- The party destroys the goblins in its first encounter with only Myass being slightly wounded. Jaesun gives Myass his mace, and picks up a goblin cutlass, allowing the cleric to discard the cheap club he had picked up.
- The battle against the harpies is a bit tougher. We have to use all our cure light wounds spells to recover to a point we can press on, but Jaesun gets a mace back from looting the dead and pockets the harpy's tiara. We'll sell it for coin later.
- I really wanted to save a sleep spell for later, but we can't risk getting even more hurt to wolves. Qastur knocks them out and we kill them quickly.
- On the other hand, a second encounter with goblins goes quite easily. No loot this time, though, and we get to rest and restore spells after.
- I decide to take the northern trail, since it was the one way I hadn't tried before, and the game sets our first level characters up against three ogres...

Detour2.png


Sleep only effects certain monsters who have 4D+1 hit dice or lower. Luckily that is the exact number of hit dice an ogre has. Qastur must have rolled high on his total hit dice effected check, because two of the three ogres are knocked out by his spell. That leaves one left, and we quickly finish him off, so I keep Abigail's sleep spell in reserve. That doesn't mean the last ogre isn't dangerous. He nearly puts down Magnus and Jaesun before succumbing to multiple stab wounds. A fourth ogre fled and did not engage. We track him after using up three more cure light wound spells to get our fighters back to health. When we get to his lair I decide not to screw around. Abigail sleeps the fourth ogre and we slit his throat. No worries about him tracking us down now, and I find a crap load of treasure and some healing potions. We now have more than 900 gold pieces and some jewelry, gems and potions. All around a pretty good haul. Who knew being ambushed could be so profitable?

- I met a crazy, harmless hermit and chatted awhile.
- A lone wolf without the brains to leave an armed party alone. Quickly died and I rested and restored health and spells shortly after.
- This route to the rock continues to incline. I pass by a dark, uncharted city along the way. Although I've played this module three times before, I never went in this direction. It's like a new game.

Detour3.png


- The creatures ask me to answer the riddle of the Rock or turn around. Since I haven't solved the Rock yet, and they look quite imposing, I decide to hack through the wilderness instead of pressing on. I plan to pass by again on the return trip.
- We are ambushed by more than a dozen goblins because of our detour. They spread out when they attack, so I wait with my magic-users for an opportune time to cast Sleep, while the front line holds and guards. Abigail lets loose and so it works out, but Myass take some scrapes protecting the mages from three flanking goblins. Not that it matters as we camp soon after. The cleric almost gets poisoned by a snake when we wake...
- I get to the Rock and it plays out as it did in my previous sessions. Welcome, to the Rock!

image_medium_2330.jpg


It doesn't look anything like the brochure.

I can't complain about the sights, though.

Rock26.png


- Of course nothing is easy and there are a series of encounters. I have to fight four wolves, which I decide not to mess with, putting down three through Abigail's sleep spell while the rest of the party kills the fourth. Next we have to fight six animated knives. This is a bitch of a fight.

Detour4.png


Sleep doesn't work on them, they hit often, and they aren't easy at all to hit. Soon they get into my back row. Of course once I am done, the young woman I was trying to save turns out not to be a young woman at all and we have to fight the boss of the module.

1253637441-admiral_ackbar.jpg


Midge puts the finishing blow on the boss via backstab. Jaesun gets a magic sword, the magic-users get some bracers and silver daggers, we solve the secret of the Rock. See the ENWorld LP for details.

- I do go back to the city, where I find some oddities and am haunted by phantoms of the dead. I am left unharmed, though, and continue back to the forest. Of course goblins ambush us. Myass is surrounded trying to protect Abigail from four flanking goblins, but Qastur's Sleep spell knocks the cleric and four goblins out. After that it's just a matter of mopping up the rest with Magnus slaying the last two fighting goblins. Soon after we meet the quest giver, hand him the secret of the Rock and conclude the quest.

I go quickly to the city of Specularum, level up everyone to level 2 except Midge who is now a Fighter 1/Thief 2. Then it is new equipment time. The bracers we found were useless, though we did get a magic sword, ring, and potions. Both magic-users now have Sleep and Magic Missile as combat spells.

Jaesun: AC 0, HP 17, Broad Sword +2, Plate Mail, Shield, Healing Potion
Magnus: AC 2, HP 18, 2-Handed Sword, Field Plate, Arquebus. Also Hand-Axe and Shield in case he wants to fight with an AC of 1. Tried to go with a bastard sword, but wouldn't let me wield it one-handed
Midge: AC -1, HP 13, Broad Sword, Plate Mail, Composite Longbow, Shield, 40 Arrows
Qastur: AC 8, HP 12, Sling, Silver Dagger, Healing Potion, 36 Darts
Abigail: AC 8, HP 8, Sling, Silver Dagger, Healing Potion, 36 Darts, Ring of Protection+1
Myass: AC 2, HP 15, Sling, Plate Mail, Shield, Flail. Had to drop the morning star as the game treated it as a two-handed weapon.

We are now down to 39gp each, almost where we started. We are not level 3, like Ray Dyer suggests for his Lost City module, but we are better equipped. Shall we continue to where we left off at the Lost City or do another speed run on a quick module to reach level 3? What level 2 magic spells should I get for Qastur and Abigail when it comes time?
 

Monty

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What level 2 magic spells should I get for Qastur and Abigail when it comes time?

Are you implying that there exist level 2 wizard spells other than Stinking Cloud ? :D
Melf's acid arrow often came in handy, desperate situation vs trolls and about to die, then an arrow from a previous round would do a crucial bit of damage and save the day....
 

Erebus

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I'm only familiar with the Krynn trilogy, in which Melf's Arrow doesn't exist and Stinking Cloud is level 2. Didn't realize things were a bit different in FRUA.
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
List of FRUA 2nd level magic-user spells from this website: http://frua.wikia.com/wiki/SPELL_DESCRIPTIONS

Detect Invisibility allows the target to spot invisible creatures.

Invisibility makes the target invisible. The THAC0 of melee attacks against invisible targets is reduced by 4, and it is impossible to aim ranged attacks at them. Invisibility is dispelled when the target attacks or casts a spell.

Knock opens locks. The spell will affect both magically and non-magically locked doors, chests, etc.

Mirror Image creates 1-4 illusionary duplicates of the magic-user to draw off attacks. A duplicate disappears when it is attacked.

Ray of Enfeeblement reduces the target's strength by 25% + 2% per level of the caster.

Stinking Cloud paralyzes those in its area of effect for 2-5 rounds. If the target saves, it is not paralyzed but is nauseous and has its AC reduced for 2 rounds.

Strength raises the target's strength by 1-8 points depending on the class of the target.
 

Monty

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I'm only familiar with the Krynn trilogy, in which Melf's Arrow doesn't exist and Stinking Cloud is level 2. Didn't realize things were a bit different in FRUA.
You're right, my mistake. As you say, hard to look past stinking cloud then.
 

Dorateen

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Keep in mind, when using Stinking Cloud on enemy spell casters, even if they are not paralyzed, they will not be able to cast spells if they are neuseous and choke and gag.

Another vote for stinking cloud, from peanut gallery.
 

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