Yet another Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor let's play

NJClaw · Jun 5, 2020

Summary

1 - Prologue: technical difficulties
2 - Party creation
3 - A nice walk in the countryside
4 - Entering our first dungeon (aka the orcs genocide)
5 - This place is HUGE
6 - This place is DANGEROUS

Prologue: technical difficulties

After finishing Divinity: Original Sin 2, I found myself craving for a D&D isometric videogame. I don't feel like playing through the Baldur's Gate series once again and I recently replayed both Icewind Dale games, so what can I do? Neverwinter Nights is out of the question (I tried it a couple of months ago and I couldn't even finish the tutorial) and I want to finish that before giving Neverwinter Nights 2 a go (I don't know why, it's bigger than me). I can't play The Temple of Elemental Evil because I still remember every single encounter from my last playthrough, I need something new and fresh. This means that there's only one possible answer:

Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor.

I know exactly two things about the game:
- it's a wonky adaptation of D&D 3.x;
- it can delete your entire hard drive.

So I hop on the Codex asking for help and my fellow Codexers don't betray my trust (or at least I hope), telling me everything I need to know before starting the game.

I get the game and download everything I need:
- the 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 patches: https://sorcerers.net/Games/PoR2/index_misc.php
- the speed control utility (that should allow me to increase combat speed): https://sorcerers.net/Games/PoR2/index_editors.php

and I begin the installation process. After a nostalgia-inducing mid-installation CD swap, I get greeted by an old friend:

After the installation, I fire up patch 1.1 (patches have to be installed separately), but... uh-oh, you can't just launch the patch after having already installed the base game: you need to launch the installer, close it, launch the patch executable and then install the game through it. Fortunately, the patch 1.1 executable allows you to safely uninstall the game without erasing your entire hard drive: I use it to uninstall the game and... uh-oh, now the original installer can't start because it still sees some dirty files and only allows me to begin the uninstallation process. To be able to play the game, now I need to go through the original unpatched uninstall, but that could irreversibly erase everything I have on my pc... well, fuck it, my life is worthless anyway.

I click on the "uninstall" button and... everything is fine. Now I can launch the original installer, close it, launch the patched installer and... it won't work because it searches for the CD only in my physical optical disc drive and I mounted a .iso file with a virtual drive. Well, okay, I guess we are going for a clean unpatched installation.

I reinstall the base game and launch patches 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4. Everyone of them ends with a big warning prompt that reminds me never to uninstall the game through the unpatched uninstaller and to always use the 1.1 uninstaller. Well, too late for that. I extract the speed control utility in the game folder and launch the new executable: I'm finally ready to play.

I sit through half a dozen companies' names and there's an intro video with Elminster in it:

this feels official, nice.

After a quick look at the settings panel (there's a strange bug: my cursors moves at normal speed everywhere except for the settings menu, where it seems under the effects of cocaine and moves at random speeds), I start a new game and immediately begin creating a new character. I need to pick a race, but... what is this?

what do you mean by "(humans) get a significant advantage when earning experience as multiclassed characters?" There's one of this tip for each race, but non-humans get an "advantage when earning experience as a multiclassed characters" only with certain classes. This looks like the Favored Class rule, but it surely is a strange way to explain it. I alt-tab out of the game and look for an answer online: it's exactly just the Favored Class rule. Okay, let's go back to the game...

... oh, now it's an horror game. I guess I can't alt-tab to the desktop, lesson learned.

Let's just skip the character creation part for now (we will go back to it in the future). I just want to point out two things:
- there's no gender selection: you just select your character model and that's it. Pretty progressive for a 2001 videogame :smug:

- when you hover over your character model in the inventory screen, he assumes an incredible power pose:

I finalize my party and start a new game. The loading screen is nice, but it takes forever:

what is this? Pillars of Eternity? *background laugh track*

The game starts with me beating two orcs without understanding what's going on. Sometimes my characters just skip their turns without explanation. With the orcs' bodies still warm, there's immediately a major plot-changing discovery:

my characters actually are human-like prisms. They also know how to disappear into the ground:

and the light they reflect has x-rays properties:

Cool.

I ask for help on the Codex once again and Sharpedge saves the day. Turns out I have to download this thing:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/microsoft_directx_control_panel.html

I launch it, deselect "hardware acceleration" under "Direct Draw" and restart the game for the third time. My characters no longer are prisms: that's sad, but at least now I can play the game without heavy seizure risks.

NJClaw · Jun 6, 2020

Party creation

Now that my problems are solved, I can finally begin my first real game. Let's do it from the beginning:

No way I'm doing the tutorial, I'm a fucking pro, this game can nothing against me. Let's just give a quick look at the options:

Nice, I can set "combat round speed" to the minimum, so I no longer lose turns just because I'm fiddling with the interface. Let's create the party already!

There are six premade characters, but there's no way I'm using them: I'm making my very own party! I click on "new character" and, after a quick first attempt, I notice that I can't select feats. I look online and the answer is simple: feats are automatically selected based on your character class. Strange, but okay. Let's just see which feats are available and which ones each class gets: https://www.gamebanshee.com/poolofradianceromd/feats.php. The list is very limited:

Blind-Fight
Cleave
Combat Casting
Combat Reflexes
Extra Turning
Great Fortitude
Improved Critical
Improved Initiative
Iron Will
Lightning Reflexes
Mobility
Point Blank Shot
Power Attack
Precise Shot
Run
Skill Focus
Spell Penetration
Toughness

and (for my melee guys) I'm only really interested in Cleave, Improved Critical and Power Attack. Since I'm going to get more than 3 feats, I guess I would also pick Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Lighting Reflexes and Blind-Fight. Due to the lack of interesting feats, I really can't see why I should build a pure Fighter, so I'm going either for a Fighter/Barbarian or a Fighter/Paladin (I would love a Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin, but alignment is a bitch). Also, there's no Weapon Finesse/Two Weapon Fighting, so a Dexterity-based character really isn't viable in melee.

The races selection screen has a bizarre layout:

Why arent Human and Elf on the same row? Same situation for classes:

Also: there's the Sorcerer, but no Wizard (no big problem: I always prefer Sorcerers anyway). I guess the Sorcerer is easier to implement because you don't have to work on the spellbook management stuff, but I can see the Cleric, so I don't immediately understand (the answer is easy: the Cleric casts spontaneously in this game, nice).

Since I have 4 slots, I'm going for the classical Fighter - Rogue - Cleric - ~~Wizard~~ Sorcerer. First, let's create the Sorcerer (it should be the most straightforward):

it's a human because I don't really care about other races stats adjustment and I might take a couple of Paladin levels to greatly improve saves. Highest possible Charisma, totally gimped Intelligence and balanced Dexterity and Constitution. Spell selection: Sleep and Magic Missile (Shield seems nice with its +7 AC, but I'm just going to keep him out of enemies range).

Then the Cleric:

Also a Human (I considered a Dwarf, but I want a medium-high Charisma to improve my turning capabilities). 16 in Wisdom instead of 18 because I want acceptables Strength, Constitution and Charisma to be able to turn undeads and still fight in melee.

The next in line is the Rogue:

I wanted to create the cute and lovable Halfling Rogue Lidda, but since I'm going for a Strength-focused character, i really don't want that -2 to Strength (also, there are no female halfling character models). Balanced stats all-around, with Charisma as dump stat because I still don't have info on Lilura's appearances.

For the last character, a big surprise:

it's the pregenerated Paladin. I built one myself, but, for some reasons, the premade one uses an higher point buy (the main benefit is that he has an 18 instead of a 16 in Strength, he also has 7 instead of 3 in Intelligence, but who cares? He needs to cut goblins, not win the Nobel prize).

The party is ready: the ruins of Myth Drannor await!

Erebus · Jun 7, 2020

Has any LP of this game ever reached the end of the first dungeon ?

NJClaw · Jun 7, 2020

Erebus said:
Has any LP of this game ever reached the end of the first dungeon ?

I don't think so, but soon I will have the power of unemployment on my side!

NJClaw · Jun 7, 2020

A nice walk in the countryside

After a cutscene where a luminous gas emerges from a sinkhole and murders a guard, our party gets immediately teleported in the midst of the action: there are two orcs looting some corpses near a giant flying stone:

A single cast of Sleep from Ontopoly is enough to completely disable one of them and the second one is dead as soon he approaches the party. We immediately discover that the orcs were harvesting the corpses' organs (eewwww) and wrapping them in papers (turns out those papers are pages of a diary of some guy who was doing something). From these two orcs with disgusting habits we gained a grand total of... 7 experience points:

better than nothing. From the giant flying stone we go left and get attacked by two more orcs while crossing a bridge:

They waste their turn reaching us and we waste our cutting them to pieces. One of them had a magic leather armor, that obviously goes to the queen of our hearts:

Beautiful. We explore the are beyond the bridge and find a magical symbol at the feet of a giant tree and the entrance to a cave blocked by a rock wall:

Maybe it's time to look at our journal to find out what the hell we are supposed to do:

Okay, apparently we need to the destroy this Pool of Radiance and to do so we need some allies, got it. We retrace our steps back and near the bridges we get attacked by two more orcs. A single Sleep from our beloved Sorcerer renders both helpless and subject to deadly sneak attacks from our Rogue:

We can't see the area of effect of our spells while casting them, but the affected targets get highlighted in red, so we can carefully aim to keep our allies out of danger. We keep exploring and we find a solitary orc, quickly sending him to orc heaven (before dying he manages to hit Jozan, but he still has plenty of healing spells). We walk a bit more and find ourselves in some kind of ancient ruins where a merchant is being attacked by two undeads:

We deal with the two zombies/skeletons (it's hard to understand what they are) before they even understand what's happening and the merchant rewards us by teaching us a "Word of Power" that's supposed to reveal a secret passage if spoken out loud on a magical symbol near a big tree. I think he is somehow messing with us, but who cares, he isn't worthy of our time: we have allies to find! Since this is our first dialogue, we learn something terrible: dialogue options can't be selected through numbers and you have to click them with your mouse like a fucking slave. We reach a nearby stairway and three more undeads attack the party (in an area that gives very strong Divinity: Original Sin vibes):

We simply stand our ground and let them approach us, annihilating them without giving them the chance to attack. In a barrel we find a strange keys that conveniently opens the chest on the top of the staircase, where there's also a magical pool that radiates light when it gets clicked:

The chest contains a couple of Remove Paralysis scrolls... what are you trying to tell us, game? From there we go north and get ambushed by three undeads:

They are very close to the party, so they don't need to waste their first turn walking: the first one immediately attacks Lilura, inflicting a very dangerous amount of damage. It's Jozan's turn and his melee skills aren't reliable enough to at least kill one of the zombies, so he goes for his very first Turn Undead and HOLY SHIT:

A single use of the ability and the three zombies are completely disabled. The rest of the encounter is a pure formality. The next group of undeads gets spotted far enough for them to waste their first turn walking, we can just rely on the good old "wait and whack" tactic:

We keep exploring the area and find a small empty tower. We enter it suspecting absolutely nothing and two undeads appear out of thin air, sending the Sorcerer and the Rogue KO with in a single round... LILURA, NOOOOOO:

The next few rounds are a run against the clock: each turn our heroes lose another HP, getting closer and closer to their premature departure. When the two zombies are nothing more than a spit of formless meat on the ground, Jozan brings everyone back to positive HP (using all his first level spells and his orisons). The chest contains a medallion and a ring:

so the loot obviously goes to Lilura, why would a man care about rings and jewels? We make camp inside the tower and sleep for the rest of the day, waking up at night:

Everything now is darker, but we are old enough to not be scared of the dark, right? We decide to go back to the giant tree to give the Word of Power a chance, but a group of undeads ambushes us on the road:

There's a lot of them, but thanks to the Cleric's Turn Undead ability, most of them aren't able to attack even once:

We reach the bridge we already crossed and... oh fuck, more undeads! I'm sure those weren't here before, so this means there are different enemies at night:

We quickly take care of them exactly as we did with the two orcs and we reach the tree near the magical rune. Uttering the Word of Power, a ladder falls from the top of the tree:

We climb the ladder ready to be ambushed by the merchant's goons, but we only find two gentle wizards who immediately heal us and are eager to talk about stuff:

They explain that an hero (a guy whom Elminster sent to deal with some sort of problem in the nearby ruins) recently died (we show them the pages we found on the orcs and apparently it's his diary) while trying to recover a key-finger from the Hall of Mirrors (or Words or something). Apparently this dead guy's objective is linked to our quest to destroy the Pool of Radiance, so we decide we should search for this key or this Room of Something. Before leaving the two wizards to whatever they were doing in this tree-house, I decide to click on the giant book and BOOM, our heroes reach the second level! The level up screen is very simple:

you just have to pick the class you want to gain a level in. Everybody sticks to his original class, so now we have:
- Corran D'arcey, Lawful Good, human Paladin 2
- Lilura, Chaotic Good, human Rogue 2
- Ontopoly, Lawful Good, human Sorcerer 2 (the Sleep Machine)
- Jozan, Lawful Good, human Cleric 2 (the Turn Undead Spammer)

NJClaw · Jun 8, 2020

Entering our first dungeon (aka the orcs genocide)

After leveling up, we leave the two kind strangers to their tree-funhouse with a clear goal in mind: finding the ruins the Elminster-sponsored hero was looking for and, once there, reaching this mysterious Hall of Words (or was it Room of Words?) to grab a finger-key or something like that. The tax evaders also taught us a Word of Power to unlock the rune that seals the entrance to the ruins.

The only remaining area to explore is the one to the right of the merchant we saved the morning before: the moment we go there, a group of orcs tries to stop us (accidentally giving us some information on an ongoing feud between two orc tribes), but commits the error of talking about their hidden treasure. Our Lilura needs more jewels and these scums probably don't even pay their taxes, so it's a fight! Fortunately, Ontopoly still has a couple of slots to cast Sleep on the savages, readying them for the slaughter:

Inside the small camp there are two other orcs, but they last just the time needed to click on them once:

We don't find any treasure, but still manage to put our hands on a beautiful giant two-handed hammer, that obviously goes to the strongest of the party:

Near the encampment there's the entrance to a big structure, but we can't interact with it, so we'll just leave it there:

We go back to look for missed treasures in an area we cleared before only to find... a stack of cardboard boxes:

So we keep following the eastern path and, while passing under a collapsed stone bridge, we fall into an ambush with two orcs firing arrows at us from the remains of the bridge. We deal with one of them with a deadly Magic Missile from Ontopoly and the other one, probably mad for the loss of his companion, leaves his advantageous point to face death in melee by the hands of our blood-thirsty paladin:

We keep exploring to the east and finally find the magically sealed door:

We cautiously approach the rune and our idiot (but still strong) paladin just screams the Word of Power, opening the door and immediately sending the party inside the dungeon without any choice. We find three orcs waiting for us and, fortunately, Ontopoly keeps winning every initiative roll even with a mere 14 in Dexterity, opening yet another encounter with a Sleep that disables 2 out of 3 enemies:

The rest is the usual formality: Lilura cuts the awake orc's throat in the surprise round and Corran annihilates the two sleeping ones with his newfound two-handed magic hammer (we even start seeing attacks dealing 20-something damage). We grab the loot (a couple of keys and maybe some potions) and open the door just to find ourselves surrounded by undeads:

This could easily be the end of our adventurers' career, but Jozan shows us a new trick: he goes for the usual Turn Undead, but this time, instead of just stunning them, he completely erases them from existence:

The party takes a moment to congratulate the cleric for the timely save and seizes the opportunity to take a breather.

Sharpedge · Jun 8, 2020

Good luck with this LP, hopefully you manage to finish it :D

NJClaw · Jun 8, 2020

Sharpedge said:
Good luck with this LP, hopefully you manage to finish it :D

I've never finished anything in my entire life, so that would be... awkward.

"What's the first thing you managed to complete in your entire life?"

"A let's play of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor."

Surely I want to keep playing to see if in this game there's an enemy that's not an orc or an undead (actually I'm having a lot of fun with it).

baud · Jun 8, 2020

NJClaw said:
Sharpedge said:

Good luck with this LP, hopefully you manage to finish it :D

Click to expand...

I've never finished anything in my entire life, so that would be... awkward.

"What's the first thing you managed to complete in your entire life?"

"A let's play of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor."

You just need to embellish the truth a little and it'll work wonder.

"I finished a project of innovative retelling of my transmedia experience, in a visual and text based medium, shared to a community of peers"

NJClaw · Jun 10, 2020

This place is HUGE

I'm loving this game's loading screens, they are simple but evocative. This one, however, might be a bit too kinky for my taste:

Don't do it snake-man, come on.

After the brief moment of respite, we start exploring the ruins. We traverse a small corridor and immediately get attacked by three undeads. Lilura wins the initiative thanks to her high Dexterity and quickly kills an enemy and Jozan stuns the remaining ones with Turn Undead:

In the next room a makeshift barricade blocks our passage. Maybe the orcs are defending against the rising undeads? If that's the case, there's a chance we might convince them we are not a threat:

Clicking on the giant rocks on the ground makes the paladin promptly attack and destroy them:

I just wanted to examine some stones, man. Calm down.

We break through a wooden wall and end up in a big room with some columns in the middle, where 5 undeads attack us. To avoid getting overwhelmed, Jozan goes for his Turn Undead with amazing results: 3 enemies die on the spot and the remaining 2 get stunned (so Corran just has to play whack-a-mole with his giant hammer):

In the room there are two stone structures and an empty fountain, we examine everything and find some coins:

While we walk through an empty corridor, we notice something strange in the next room: there are dead bodies everywhere and two orcs are fighting against 3 undeads:

Obviously we hate those filthy orcs, but undeads are abominations and eliminating them is our number one priority. Sadly, when we reach the room only one orc stands his ground against his enemies:

Jozan runs into the room screaming his sacred rituals and paralyzing the skeletons. Turn Undead DOES save lives:

With the undead menace neutralized, we finally saved the orc... just in time to kill him. He has an AC of 21 so it's not an easy fight, but after a single hit he panics and tries to run away, falling from the resulting AoOs:

We explore a small room next to the corridor and find a bunch of undeads sleeping on the floor. As soon as we attack one of them, they all stand up and and surround us. Without a shield, Corran is an easy target and, with an unlucky crit, he goes dangerously near 0 HP:

Fortunately, when he hits, he hits hard and in a couple of rounds the party is safe again, albeit tired and weakened:

In a chest we find a magic axe that we don't need (Lilura already has a magic short sword and Jozan a magic hammer) and two potions of Restoration (that we stack up in our inventory next to the scrolls of Remove Paralysis). After a quick look at the map of the dungeon so far:

We retrace our steps back to the entrance and make camp there among the corpses and the death smell:

The northern path still has rooms to explore, but we prefer to see what's behind the other door. And the answer obviously is orcs:

These, however, are archers! We don't have many ranged options (I probably shouldn't have sold all our bows to the merchant), so we just rush in after a Sleep from Ontopoly, taking out all of them:

The orcs, however, don't go down without a fight and Corran is already severely injured after the first fight of the day. We start exploring a very long corridor and eventually find a locked door:

Behind the door we can hear a couple of orcs laughing, but their dialogue has no subtitles and what I managed to understand can be summarized in: "bwhaglabbgrrrrgnap". We keep following the corridor and meet two other undeads:

Even if they have no bows and arrows, they still manage to deal some damage to Corran, so we need to waste other Jozan slots on healing spells. Maybe the extra damage from two-handing the weapon isn't worth the loss of AC? The corridor reaches a room with two enormous barrels in it. I click on them to examine them and... CORRAN WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK STOP DOING THINGS. Without giving me a choice, he drinks from the barrels; fortunately, each barrel just stack a (useless) buff on him (cat's grace and bull's strength... what kind of alcool is this?):

Now he has a luminous halo over his head. Sounds holy.

Following the corridor, we reach a giant empty room and... FUCK! Five orcs come out of nowhere, materializing from thin air. And one of them also has a bow, let's just hope for the best:

Lilura takes care of the first orc thanks to her Sneak Damage on flat-footed opponents and Ontopoly disables half of the remaining ones with a Sleep spell:

Jozan approaches the nearest enemy, while Corran runs for the archer:

We manage to take them down, but the cleric gets badly injured and the paladin survive with just a sliver of health (I single hit right now would mean sure death):

Jozan runs out of slots to heal his valorous friend and buff him with a Protection from Evil (maybe a defensive buff can avoid the need for healing spells afterwards). We look around the giant empty room and Corran keeps destroying tables and bookshelves (I've lost any hope, we will have to live with his anger issues):

On a shelf we find a Wand of Resurrection... this is escalating quickly...

We start exploring the rooms accessible from the long corridor we went through and the first one is full of orcs, obviously:

Corran immediately takes down one enemy, but Ontopoly rolled a bad initiative and each orc gets a turn before his Sleep spell, bringing everyone except Lilura (nobody dares to touch our queen) very close to the afterlife:

By the end of the encounter, Corran is down with negative HP. Jozan has no more slots, so we have to rely on the very few healing potions we found so far to revive him:

Once everyone is up and at positive HP, we go for the chest and... it's trapped! A poisonous explosion hurt the entire group, bringing everyone to low HP and taking down Corran once again. Jozan has no more slots and we no longer have any potion available, this might be the end of our adventure. But this is no time to panic, maybe we can rest? A quick click on the "rest" button and the party makes camp once again, waking up healthy and ready after eight hours.

NJClaw · Jun 10, 2020

baud said:
NJClaw said:

Sharpedge said:

Good luck with this LP, hopefully you manage to finish it :D

Click to expand...

I've never finished anything in my entire life, so that would be... awkward.

"What's the first thing you managed to complete in your entire life?"

"A let's play of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor."

Click to expand...

You just need to embellish the truth a little and it'll work wonder.

"I finished a project of innovative retelling of my transmedia experience, in a visual and text based medium, shared to a community of peers"

As soon as this pseudo-quarantine is over, I'm going to get my best-looking friend drunk enough to convince him to try exactly that as a pick-up line.

NJClaw · Jun 11, 2020

This place is DANGEROUS

Loading screens are getting cryptic: what are these supposed to be?

Since we followed a single straight path up until now, probably we should check our map and start the backtracking process:

We decide to go back and explore all the nooks and crannies accessibile from the long corridor we just traversed and immediately get attacked by two undeads that Jozan knows how to take care of:

Throughout the corridor, we find some sort of giant candies on top of what seems a... miniature furnace? There's no interact option, so we have to ignore them for now:

Before progressing further, let's spend one of Jozan's slot to buff our paladin's AC (with Protection from Evil):

Now he has a floating purple umbrella. We reach a big open room and four undeads surround us. Luckily, Jozan screams very loudly and the Turn Undead destroys all of them:

Finally we reach a dead end and can go for another path (there's something on the floor, but I don't think even the developers know what that's supposed to be:

Sadly, our Protection from Evil already expired (its duration is very short). This means we can't just blindly pre-buff and run through the dungeon: we need to handle our spells in a more clever way. Another big group of undeads surround the group and you know what this means: another occasion for Jozan to shine!

The rest is just a menial cleaning job. We keep exploring the corridor and... wait, is that a barrel in the wall?

I'm sure there's a reason for that, but we can't interact with it right now and there's nothing except the corpses we left behind us who could answer our questions. We leave the barrel-in-the-wall for now and reach the end of the corridor, marked by ominous spikes:

There's an open way ahead, but the party senses that's some sort of landmark and, since our heroes are easily scared, they all agree to find another area to explore and eventually come back here later. There are still plenty of rooms to explore, so that's not a problem at all. We find a bedroom where someone lived recently, but there's no one inside:

We try to examine the beds and, obviously, Corran breaks everything:

We reach the next room and a bunch of undeads perform the most vile action in the universe: they dare to touch our queen!

With Lilura hurt, obviously Jozan HAS to annihilate these monsters with his strongest Turn Undead yet. We cross a strange barrier of pillars and buckets and get attacked by another group of undeads in a small corridor:

Jozan's Turn Undead takes care of most of them, but a skeleton keeps his ground:

We have to deal more than 30 damage before he crumbles to dust, maybe he was someone of importance?

At the end of the corridor we find a suspicious trail of coins:

Obviously everyone is very scared, but nobody can stop Lilura from following the money:

We almost reached the end of the trail and nothing bad happened... I'm kind of disappointed that we didn't get killed. We reach a strange crossroad where an hopeless undead runs at us (he probably just wants to die quickly) and... wait, this is the place with the spikes we were trying to avoid! Let's just keep our distances and go back (only because we don't want to openly say "flee").

We open a door and "a ghostly hand" immediately closes it from the other side. It's pretty spooky, but we already used up all our dose of cowardice, so we decide to force the door and go forward (even if it's probably a bad idea):

We walk a bit forward and, without understanding what's happening, we find ourselves in something bigger than us:

Two orcs, two humans and two lizardfolks are fighting among themselves and, from the combat log, we discover that they all are ghouls... maybe we should have trusted the ghostly hand. We can't flee from combat (or, at least, I don't know how to), so we approach them and, well, each one of them has three attacks and even just one of them is strong enough to bring Lilura to half health and paralyze her in a single turn:

Jozan has two scrolls of Remove Paralysis, but that would ultimately be a waste of his action, he has more important things to do: Turn Undead! Maybe these monsters are to strong to be affected, but it's still worth a try (if this doesn't work, we can't hope to survive). Jozan goes for it and...

it works: Two of them are stunned! Now we just need to survive two more rounds to disable the remaining four (hoping to succeed every time). The remaining ghouls keep fighting among themselves, but one of them focuses his attention on Corran, paralyzing him and almost killing him in the process. Jozan goes for his second Turn Undead and...

that worked even better! It stunned three ghouls! Now only one remains... maybe we can actually survive this! The abomination approaches Jozan and, with an incredible display of courage, our cleric smashes him to the ground with his magic hammer:

Now everyone is disabled, we only have to slowly chip away their health! Jozan starts smacking them and... wait, what the fuck:

they woke up! So the Turn Undead effect HAS a duration... this is incredible bad news! We can't take them all at once and Jozan has another Turn Undead use, but Corran is at 1 HP... what should we do? Healing him would be pointless (one ghoul in a single round can bring him to 0 HP from full health, so 10 HP at best won't do anything for us), so Jozan goes for his last Turn Undead, stunning the two ghouls that just woke up. Meanwhile, two others are no longer stunned:

Corran takes one down in a single hit, but immediately after that the last orc also wakes up. Fortunately, Lilura is no longer paralyzed. The paladin is the fundamental piece in our survival and he can't go down, so Jozan wastes his turn healing him to an acceptable amount of health:

Corran is ON FIRE! Another hit, another kill:

The remaining orc ghoul assaults Lilura, bringing her unconscious to the ground (VILE BASTARD!):

Both Corran and Jozan run to help our queen, taking down the mischievous monster:

The other two stunned undeads are an easy prey for our strong heroes:

Jozan fires up all his spells and our queen of love and beauty is back among us:

WE DID IT! We survived a seemingly impossible encounter! Let's see how much experience these six bad boys gave us:

N... nothing. We were at something like 1537 before the encounter. They weren't worth anything... well, that's disappointing. Let's just open the nearby chest and hope to find something useful:

Holy shit! A spear +3 (nice, we can give it to Corran) and a staff that can cast Flame Strike two times at caster level 20. That's... strong! In the end, it was worth it! But, probably, we should go back and forget this part of the dungeon for now. At least, now we know that we have to trust invisible ghostly hands.

Sharpedge · Jul 9, 2020

I am not sure if this LP died out quicker than I thought or not.

NJClaw · Jul 18, 2020

Sharpedge said:
I am not sure if this LP died out quicker than I thought or not.

I'm studying for the most important exam of my life. I'm going to go back to killing orcs and skeletons as soon as it is over.

Sharpedge · Apr 6, 2022

Erebus said:
Has any LP of this game ever reached the end of the first dungeon ?

Seems like the answer is still no.

NJClaw · Apr 6, 2022

Sharpedge said:
Erebus said:

Has any LP of this game ever reached the end of the first dungeon ?

Click to expand...

Seems like the answer is still no.

I'm reinstalling the game as soon as I'm done with Elden Ring. I'm thinking about a Crispy/Lilura/Lacrymas/Ontopoly party.

Yet another Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor let's play

NJClaw

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Erebus

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Sharpedge

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baud

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Sharpedge

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Sharpedge

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