Raiding the Raiders
You thought I would leave you only with this last update? I'm not that cruel
So this is where Lone Mountain is, the outpost should be near
This place looks like it
Yep sounds about right let's get in
First fight, with our mage in action!
Our priest got injured
This game has a detailed damage system. The first thing to do after fighting it to make sure to treat the bleeding. The priest's injury on the other hand is requires a higher priest spell to heal which I don't have at the moment. We'll have to drop at the temple next time we're in the city.
This is what the auto-map looks like, it can't be zoomed
Interesting
oh?
Our monk in action
Wooo!
Why does he makes these weird noises... I can't hear my lovely axe at work!
Hey keep it low... He must have had a weird upbringing at that temple!
Sorry to disturb you guys!
Oh oh, they have a strong leader... wait is that our leader?
That is a tough battle, let's blast them with magic!
Didn't kill them but it hurts, it's a linear damage spell
Our warrior in action... merciless
This is for the wolfwarrior
It killed him...
Behold my magic!
yeah yeah...
jealous?
shut up!
Our priest in action
when preaching doesn't work... Smiting bloody does!
The priest's got a point...
One important option in combat
The interesting part of this system is that hitting someone doesn't take move points. You have a set number of attacks depending on your weapon skill. The move points are used for all other actions like opening a door, trying to stop your bleeding. Interestingly enough. equipping items doesn't cost any points...
Aim takes al of your remaining points, the more move points you have the better your aim. It is a critical skill as it boosts your chance to hit and allows you to target enemies that would otherwise be too strong for your team. It is especially critical for the monk as it gives him a better chance to stun the enemy and then finishing him off.
The inevitable consequence
Let's raise our skills
The monk has has the cheapest requirements to increase his open hand skills, so he will always be the character to dictate which enemies we can tackle. Some monster are really strong against melee but weak against magic like the wolfwarrio. But a lot of other monsters are resistant to both hence the monk being my only chance to win (at least at low to mid level gaming)
Hmm...
We'll avenge you!
Other enemies
So they have to hide the food from the troops...
We found stairs leading down...
... and others leading up
So logically the leader should be at the top level... but first let's finish exploring this level. I need to have everything perfectly mapped after all
Oh what's this another secret door? Ah! ah!
So the leader is a hill giant
Our ranger in action
*holds his breath*
So professional... I'm glad he's on my side!
But it's our monk that will single-handedly finish the giant
Turns out that the leader was on the first level after all...
I remember that part since at the time, it took me some time to find the secret door. This time I bumped into it by chance. I actually kept bumping into secret doors during this whole mission. I used to be precise in my movements back then because of my DM experience where hitting a wall hurts you. So my movements were very precise. I realise now that I've grown a bit sloppy since then and I do hit the walls regularly but in this game it's an advantage!
Anyway let's quickly explore the lower level
There's not much of interest here apart from our cheeky friend here
There is also a section of corridors and secret doors that reads 'DEATH' on the auto-map and evidently enough:
We find this creature
I's highly resistant to magic and quite tough. The only character who can damage it and thus stun it is my monk. So I can kill now if I want. But it doesn't hold any interesting loot and I'm not sure if it's quest related...
I'll leave it for now and maybe come back kill it later. I suppose I could also kill it and keep it's remains. But I'll leave it for now. Any suggestions about this?
We can now explore the second floor
It's a small area and we find...
And that was the decoy... The first time I played the game I killed this guy and went back to Farnus to be told that that wasn't what they expected. So I came back bumped into every single wall until I found the real leader I just killed above
And indeed
This is the next mission
But we'll leave it for later
Some notes about the system. I noticed that characters slowly regenerate as you walk. And funnily enough HP regenerates faster than MP. So it makes it hard to level mage type characters(experience is not divided evenly among party members) unless you have MP potions and others. I could of course rest after every single encounter to replenish MPs. But for some reason it doesn't fit with the spirit of the game. Don't get me wrong I used to rest after every single encounter in the gold box series. But here it just doesn't fit. So to come back to mages, because the experience is not divided by team members but allocated depending on their actions, I have been slowly raising their combat skills (it costs a lot of experience points) so that they can manage a bit. Then I'll just send them on their own on a training mission. This lead to this conversation:
I don't get it why do we need to improve our fighting skills before focusing on magic?! I just want to have fun with my illusions!
Well we are called the disciples of steel after all...
oh yeah? and where is your steel then?
in my fist!
We should be called the disciples of steal...
That's not fun!
I can get you a whip if you prefer...
that would be fun!
It handles similarly to your scimitar... (whip are part of the edged skill)
You would like that you dirty little gnome, wouldn't you?
I'm really with a bunch of sick people and they say that *I* look dodgy...
The art is really weird.
