Lets Play Incursion

Ooooookay - Incursion - pretty good roguelike based on D&D rules - figured I'd do a LP cus i'm drunk & what the hell. basically, make a character, go down into the depths of some dungeon & kill the goblin king so he doesn't start a massive war. you can also try to talk him out of it - choices & consequences!!! (optional - get back out alive).



gonna make this thing "interactive" so i don't have to make any "big" decisions & so you fuckers keep "reading".

Incursion: http://www.incursion-roguelike.net/

Wiki: http://www.incursion.wikidot.com/


Choice 1: character class & race
class options:

Barbarian (hack em up)
Bard (be fucking useless)
Druid (be pretty useless with a bit of magic)
Mage (be horribly overpowered past level 5/6)
Monk (be pretty useless)
Paladin (hack them up for a god on a holy horse)
Priest (buff yourself & hit them with a hammer)
Ranger (hide, snipe & hack, but do none of these things very well. also, have a pet)
Rogue (hide and backstab. run away from most things)
Warrior (hack em up & find things really easy until you meet a wizard who melts your sword & shoots you in the face with lava)

pretty much all as you'd guess. bards, monks & druids i can never get far with, so... take that as a plus or a minus.

race options:
Drow (weak, sneaky, smart, unlucky, gets pretty good magic for free)
Dwarf (strong, dumb, does well in heavy armor)
Elf (weak, smart, all elves worship Maeve, who is a capricious bitch and will turn you into a pig in front of a load of orcs for giggles. or give you better weapons. depending.)
Gnome (small, weak, can't be paralysed or entangled)
Halfling (small, weak, lucky - will find phatter loot)
Human (surprise surprise, we're average)
Kobold (small, weak, ridiculously dextrous)
Lizardfolk (strong, little stupid, unlucky, never drown)
Orc (strong, stupid)


christ thats a lot of words.
ok - gonna go grab some more drinks - post some selections.

also, the way i've got character generation set-up, it gives me 5 choices of stats & perks. i could choose the best one for the character, but thats boring. so pick a letter between a-e as well.

also, we're gonna worship a god cus it makes things more interesting, but we can pick that in a bit. the god backstories are pretty interesting tho & might give you some ideas for chars, so take a look- http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/man/Pantheon.html

also, fucking reply. you. reading this. pick two things from those lists and a letter from a-e.

also, we're gonna die horribly over & over, so... yeah. roguelike. throw a load of char ideas at me & we'll get round to them all probly.
no save-summing.
death or glory.

Orc Paladin, worship Semirath. :crying eagle:

Letter D for dicks lol

Amanda Fapping

Lizardfolk, Ranger, D

36 views 2 replies. you fucks.
10 mins till i make our first character.
PICK TWO THINGS FROM THOSE LISTS YOU SHITS. STOP LURKING. GROW SOME TESTEES.

Halfling Monk the letter E

ok, well, we're settled on the letter D.
gonna use http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/ to pick between chars (cool cus you can check http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/search/353532/ to make sure i dont cheat.)

1 - orc, 2- lizard, 3- halfling
1- paladin 2- ranger 3-monk

rolls - 3, 3

halfing monk.
i give this character about 5 minutes.

lets see what the charcter generator gives us.


not too bad. the broadsword is nice, but as a monk we can't use it very well. still, always the chance we'll be able to turn it into a pair of nunchucks or something (with magic!!!) (the odds of us finding the right potion are v. small)

(e would have been nicer so guess you should have listened to getter)

Monks all have gods that they worship - here's our selection:


told you the backstories were interesting

Aiswin (neutral god of vengence, if someone attacks you, kill them. only accepts sacrifices of creatures that hurt you. gives you bonuses to hiding & spells to conjure darkness. might be useful as a monk that focuses on hiding)
Essiah (chaotic good god of travels & joy & sex - accepts sacrifices of evil creatures. gives immunity to paralysis which is nice & some stat bonuses, gets angry if you kill good creatures)
Hesani - (neutral good god of balance - gets angry if you kill *anyone*, accepts sacrifices of gold - can make you immune to non-magic weapons. very different game to other gods, & as a monk we don't have diplomacy to sort battles without fighting so he would be... interesting.)
Immotian - (lawful neutral god of community - the head god -only accepts magic items & gives fire resistance, conjures fire companions, gets angry if you become diseased or kill fire creatures)
Mara (neutral good god of beauty & death - accepts dead bodies you didn't kill, conjures undead companions. gets angry if you kill for no reason (ie if they are not hostile)).
The Multitude (chaotic evil gods of murder, death, blood, pain, etc. accept any sacrifice, but particuarlly like good, friendly creatures. give magic spells as powers. get angry if you use healing potions / spells)

pick one!

also, decide wheter we should fight unarmed or with martial weapons (think ninja turtles).
also, should we lug around that sweet broadsword on the off chance we can change it into something we can use?

Unarmed for the laughs/profits of the phatter loot finding producing great unused weaponry.

Sell the sword!

Aiswin since this character will likely get smacked around at the start of everything on account of not having great armor.

Aiswin

The problem I have with roguelikes is how repetitive they are and how they throw the whole game at you from the beginning instead of introducing game mechanics gradually to make the beginning easier and reduce repetition.

This game looks awesome, but is the endgame the same as the beginning except with higher level monsters? In RPG terms, are there any cool endgame spells/mechanics/tactics?

quick reply- well, sort of - you don't see much of the cool stuff till you get to a reasonable level & fight high level magic users / dragons / etc, but i do get where you're coming from.

At the start of incursion you're pretty much just trying to scrape together enough experience to level without dying- once you get to a point where you don't have to worry about hitpoints so much then it becomes more interesting with creatures attacking you from shadows, poisoning you, turning you to stone etc. You also find a lot more creatures that have specific weakensses - eg. i once mixed up brown molds and blue jellies & hit a mold with a flaming sword a couple of times- it split into about 12 copies & swarmed me to death. The items you find in incursion are also a lot more interesting than just being a +3 sword instead of a +2 sword - wield an evil item as a good player & it might kick you down a level & stick to your hand.

Anyway, update coming up now:

Thydron said:

At the start of incursion you're pretty much just trying to scrape together enough experience to level without dying- once you get to a point where you don't have to worry about hitpoints so much then it becomes more interesting with creatures attacking you from shadows, poisoning you, turning you to stone etc. You also find a lot more creatures that have specific weakensses - eg. i once mixed up brown molds and blue jellies & hit a mold with a flaming sword a couple of times- it split into about 12 copies & swarmed me to death. The items you find in incursion are also a lot more interesting than just being a +3 sword instead of a +2 sword - wield an evil item as a good player & it might kick you down a level & stick to your hand.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I meant, every good game has new stuff to watch out for as you get farther into it. It's refreshing to see a roguelike that's well-designed, downloading now.

Ok, so Lyle Redwine the Halfing Monk of Aiswin. His stats are a little different from the ones in the char generator because halfings get some bonuses / penalites: -2 strength, +2 dex, +2 char, +4 luck. we've got 19 luck, which means we're probly gonna find some pretty nice stuff (i once managed to get a halfling to start with 25 luck & he was rolling in magic items)

so here we are, beginning our journey into the dark depths of the halls of the goblin king. the yellow @ is us, and all those %s are dead bodies, which bodes well.


we pick up the healing & dimension door (teleportation) potions scattered around the entrance, & wander around the dungeon. Here's our first encounter - a bogwart. These guys can rot organic material away, but given we're not wearing armour & have no weapon we should be ok.


One punch. What a fight. (the * means more than one item on a square- in this case the bogwarts equipment & his body)


Ok, so on we go. Next encounter- a zombie. this might be a bit trickier for a couple reasons.
1 - for some reason (bug/oversight) zombies can still cast spells. so we're fighting against 5 images of this bastard.


2 - zombies are pretty resistant to bashing damage. we're fighting unarmed.


So at this point (after trying a healing potion & some more punching) we're forced to dimension door away. but the random number generator being what it is, this doesn't help much:

yep, now we're still fighting a zombie, but this time we're stuck in a tanglebag. at least this zombie hasn't magic'd itself itno 5 different copies.

so lets try one of our monk abilities - flurry of blows. with this we can hit much much faster & get a lot of hits in before the zombie has a chance to hit us back


this gets us through one of the fuckers, but we're in a dead-end and theres still a couple to get through. time for another dimension door


at this point you might be seeing why its not a great idea to have to rely on the potions the game gives you at the start


a bit of fighting, some luck & another couple of dimension doors and we've got past most of the zombies & can run south, past this last one into a muddy swamp


in pretty much the first bit of good luck we've had, this isn't a dead end, and takes us back to the starting cave. time to try another corridor & leave the zombies for later


and... jackpot - we find a chest. check out the first of our phat loot collection. the horn of blasting & wand of fire are going to be especially useful in dealing with the zombies, & the girdle makes us a little stronger, which is nice.


yep, the horn of blasting takes care of the zombies no problem. it can only be used 7 times a day, but is still gonna help a lot, and a pretty good illustration of why luck is always the best stat. also, it recharges, unlike the wand of fire.


the horn also takes care of some orcs we run into, though we're pretty injured.



ok, so since i said i'd give you choices here, we are with 3hp left
A - "Better safe than sorry" - go back to the entrance & rest in the inn there safely
B - "I'm tired NOW" - rest in the dungeon, risking being swarmed by a horde of monsters & killed instantly. but it saves us a 5 minute walk.
C - "3hp is plenty!" - power on into the forboding purple corridors to the north without resting at all.

we're out of healing potions, so these are our only choices.
probly going to fall asleep before updating again today, so i'll see you in 6 hours!

Be a man....err half-man....pick C.

B seems like the optimum, to turn your back and die anyways.

Woah, a kung-fu midget versus a bunch of zombie midgets, it must've looked awesome.

Cool.

C. Never desist, never surrender!

C it is - onwards and upward! (well. downwards.)

the purple room is pretty underwhelming, so we keep on treking. unlocking a door gives us enough XP to get to the glories of LEVEL 2! so we're not quite so neaer death anymore.


not all creatures in the dungeon are hostile - these modrons are just chilling out. I try to get them to join me on my adventures, hoping for some Nordom - based fun, but i'm not attractive enough .
The orange 8 is an altar, but its not dedicated to our god. but we can try to change it!


bam. changed. (took a couple tries & there is a risk of the altar exploding or the god trying to kill you, but we got lucky). also, we get some more loot from that chest.


one of the orcs from earlier got some hits in on us, so i haul his body to the altar and sacrifice it - Aiswin approves & makes us better at hiding (something i have been forgetting to do)


The modrons head south & I follow them, hoping they'll kill some of my enemies for me.
This purple room usually holds a load of summoned creatures trapped in the circles, but the current Incursion version seems to have deactivated them. dunno why. Anyway, another Bogwart - shouldn't be too much trouble.


He doesn't even hear us as we bash his face into a pulp. but.... we can't hide. something can see us, and we can't see it. this is usually pretty bad news.


and here it is- a "shadow ooze". these can be pretty annoying since they're very good at hiding, and drain your life to heal themselves. so in the interests of staying alive, Lyle decides to blast it with his wand of fire. this should take care of it.



or not.

it catches up to us & grabs on. we're not doing much damage to it & it keeps healing, so its time for another dimension door.


at this point i'm beginning to suspect that dimension door simply finds a reasonably close monster and puts you next to it.


Thankfully we are not killed by the cave cricket. Time for a rest - I forgot that halflings start with a load of magic stones that allow them to rest safely, so I use one.


Some more orcs - we're LEVEL 2 now, so it might be a bit more of a fair fight


or a complete massacre. either way, time to descend to the next level of the dungeon


and we descend the stairs into an indoor forest (?)


more orcs. how this halfling is killing groups of orcs with his bare hands is left as an exercise for the reader. halfway through the fight we get to... LEVEL 3!!!


At this point i'm beginning to think that this charcter might actually get reasonably far. which probably means we're about to to die, but what the hell.
couple more chests of loot dotted about, (the brown triangles) which we raid (usually there are nowhere near this many chests, but our luck is pretty high)


check out our haul. unfortunately we don't know what the hell most of this stuff does.


moving on, we find a lake inhabited by living blobs of acid. these things can be nasty, as they splash you with acid when you hit them, but Lyle is a nutter and starts punching them.


surprisingly, this doesn't do as much damage as i expected - guess being a monk has some upsides


and we find the temple! this has altars to all the gods except the multitude, and is usuaally where you'd pick a god, but we're already set for that because we started as a monk. If we ever feel the need to change gods tho, we can do it here.


we find a group of mongrelmen, but only one of them is hostile. and he's sleeping.
His friends don't seem to mind as we beat him to death in his sleep, which just goes to show you should never trust a mongrelman.


time to head down a level. and here we find something pretty interesting - a load of fire creatures trapped in a prison of ice. now you might be thinking "ok, so leave them alone" but.... they have a chest of loot in there. and god knows i'm a sucker for loot. time to drink a load of dimension doors till we end up in there!


here we go. and now that i'm trapped in here with a load of creatures made of fire, this doesn't seem like such a good idea


yeah, this wasn't the best plan. i'm swarmed by elementals, and near death. no fear - i pray to Aiswin to help us in our time of need.... and he does fuck all. fantastic.


dimension door got us into this problem, so it can get us out. we've got 1hp left so we're not in the best possible shape.


exploring carefully, we find a group of creatures trapped on a pillar in the middle of a room. unluckily for them, we've got a wand that can hit them from where we're standing


that was easy. plus they were pretty strong monsters, so we get a load of XP without any risk. at this point i realised i could have been LEVEL 4!!!! for a while now & decide to level up.


time to head back to the start & buy a wand to identify the treasures we've found i think. the loot we've found is pretty nice, including a couple of magic books that increase our stats.


ok, so that'll do for now. here are some choices!!!
should we stay neutral good? maybe flip out & turn evil? go lawful? probly depends on your answer to the next question:
should we stay with Aiswin? we can "lay worship" another god too, or we could convert, which will piss Aiswin off but might be fun.
should we stay as a monk or multiclass? there are a load of prestige classes, but we don't qualify for any of them.

you decide!

also as a bonus, I googled "halfing monk", and found this:

i'd like to think Lyle doesn't prance about quite so homoerotically.

Convert to the Multitude, they sound pretty win.

Good effort, great game... Never enough roguelikes on the Codex!

Yeah, screw around with deities and alignments, that tends to have random and usually awesome results in roguelikes.

Monks look good enough by themselves, unless it's impossible to win without going prestige.

Awesome game. Altough i suck badly at it. My kobold thief survived only 5 minutes. Propably due to my rush and kill everything in eyesight tactic.

My drow rogue was just attacked by A VAMPIRE MELON.

Incursion White Paper said:

[T]he majority of current roguelike games simply discard the idea of immersion completely. NetHack’s idiosyncratic sense of humor smashes the fourth wall regularly, including samurai, kitchen sinks, light sabers and Norse gods in one vast patchwork setting; Omega’s world is based on the humor of anachronism, with the medieval player buying fast food and finding maps of NYC, and even the strongly Tolkien-themed Angband mixes characters from countless different time periods of Middle Earth and drops them all in one huge dungeon for the player to kill.

Obviously, immersion and believability are not highly-rated goals in these games.

Incursion is aiming for something a little different. . . . [T]he world will be drawn seriously and with an eye toward detail even though the plot of the game itself is not high on drama. The primary method of achieving this is to focus on world detail rather than conversation. There will be no (or very, very few) branching conversation trees in the game, but items, myths, cities and locations are none the less described in consistent detail. The intent here is that a player can get to “know the world” of Incursion and appreciate it as a believable place with nuance and detail, without replayability being repetitive.

Click to expand...

So far, my experiences in the game have revolved primarily around fighting cave pelicans, underground eagles, zombie jackals, dangerous crickets, and giant slimes. Did he just give up on this goal? If so, can we please see a samurai class implemented? I think a samurai would be just right for dual-wielding lightsabers. . . .

Great LP, please continue. Also, to everyone: more RL LPs in general, please.

Mines of Moria done wrong ;`(