And here is the Hamlet - our home base between missions. At the moment, most of it is out of action, but the three buildings you see with exclamation marks are available (and more will become available as the weeks progress. They are (from left-to-right)...
The Stagecoach, where we recruit new adventurers. You can see that there is a Plague Doctor (lots of debuffs including options for Blight and Bleed and Stun) and a Vestal (good healer and strong against the undead). Only two are available at the moment, but we can improve that.
The Graveyard where we can review our fallen (once people start dying).
And the Ancestor's Memoirs where you can review plot bits that have come up (to be fair, the plot for the game is fairly shallow - suffice to say that an Ancestor, whilst digging for power accidentally opened up a passage to hell which started to corrupt the area and fill it with monsters. We have come to organise the attempt to close this passage).
However, back to the Stage Coach for now - as you'll now see on the left, there are a few upgrade that we can buy. The top one (Stagecoach Network) increases the number of new adventurers available each week and is probably the most important upgrade to buy in the entire game as it gives you choice to round out your parties. The second (Hero Barracks) allows you to have a greater number of adventurers in your roster (we currently have 2 out of a maximum of 9). The bottom one (Experienced Recruits) we can't buy yet, as it has prerequisites, but it allows you to have a chance of your new recruits starting at higher levels. For now, I buy the first level of Stagecoach Network, which gives me three adventurers per week and am very sad that I'm one Deed (another type of Heirloom) short of the second level. I could buy the Hero Barracks first level, but I'm going to hold out for the Deed I want in the next adventure. We can then recruit the two adventurers that are available. Welcome...
And, for completeness, here are the character sheets for Reynauld and Dismas:
And onto adventure!
This screen allows us to choose our adventure. There are four areas, with adventures of different lengths and difficulties. The only one open at the moment is the Ruins of our Ancestor's old manor house. It tends to be full of Undead, Brigands and the occasional Spider or similar.
Next comes a chance to provision ourselves for the adventure. We can buy Food (provides a small amount of healing and is sometimes required if a hunger event triggers - also useful for camping in longer dungeons), Shovels (used to dig round obstacles), Antivenom (cures Blight), Bandages (cures Bleed), Medicinal Herbs (cures combat debuffs), Keys (open secret doors if you find them), Holy Water (increases resistances temporarily) and Torches (increase the light level). I buy Food, Torches, a Shovel and a Key - the others are nice, but I can probably do without them and save the money.
Our mission is to explore 90% of the rooms, and you can see the map in the bottom right corner. Mostly, this is fairly straight-forward, but there is an area in the top left where we would need to double back on ourselves, which we want to avoid (as it causes stress). However, as we only need 90%, we can safely ignore one room. As we get closer, we might be able to scout out the corner to know which route is best. For now, we head north.
Our first find is nothing special, but a free torch is a free torch.
And then the first room has a couple of Bone Rabble in it. You can see their resistances and hit points in the bottom right. Like most undead, they are very resistant to Bleed, but most other things work ok.
First action goes to Derek. His four action choices are on the left hand side near his name. The first one is Plague Grenade - it causes a but of damage and Blight. Would be great, but it can only target enemies in spaces 3 and 4 (though it does target both, which is cool), but against a small number of foes, is useless. The second is Blinding Gas - no damage, but it does Stun but it, again, only targets the back two spots. The third is Emboldening Vapours, which provides a damage and speed buff to an ally, and the last is Disorientating Blast, which shuffles the enemies around (potentially useful if some of them have dangerous attacks that can only be used in certain spots in the line-up), clears all corpses (which I'll explain in a bit) and Stuns the (sadly single) target. In this instances, I'm going to buff Reynauld.
Next action to Dismas. His first action is Open Vein - causes quite high damage, with a good chance of inflicting Bleed. This is generally a really good skill, but not against the Undead. Next is Pistol Shot which can target anybody except the front enemy, and does additional damage if the enemy has been marked (an ability some other skills in other classes have). Third is Grapeshot Blast, which targets the front three enemies, but inflicts less than half damage - only particularly useful if you can hit three targets with it or two that are on the verge of death anyway. The last one is Tracking Shot, which does very little damage, but does give the Highwayman a self-buff to accuracy, damage and crit chance. Planning ahead, I want to damage both of them, even if it isn't for very much, so I go with a Grapeshot Blast.
Next (thankfully) we come to Reynauld. His available actions are Smite, which hits either of the front two enemies with a damage buff if they are Undead, Zealous Accusation, which hits both of the front two enemies, but for only a little above half damage, Stunning Blow, which causes very little damage but does have a high chance of stunning the (single) target and Bulwark of Faith, which marks Reynauld and increases his protection (damage reduction) by 25% (and extends the torch a little). Given we've already half killed both enemies, Zealous Accusation seems the obvious choice.
And we are successful, looting 300 gold. The chest is an Unlocked Strongbox which, clearly doesn't need our key. When we open it we get...
A shovel, 500 gold and 2 Busts (another type of Heirloom, but not the Deed we are looking for). We continue north.
This is one of those obstacles I mentioned that needs a Shovel - thankfully, we brought one (and, admittedly, found another lying around).
Sadly, even with a shovel, you take some damage, the torch goes down quite a lot (from the time it takes) and everybody gets a little more stressed. We continue on our way and encounter this little lot on the way north...
A Bone Solder (like the Rabble but tougher and with slightly better resistances), a Bone Rabble, and, at the back, a Cultist Acolyte. Of these three, the Cultist Acolyte is by far the most dangerous, as he has a skill which allows him to cause stress. He's our number one target. Thankfully Dismas is going first, and his Pistol Shot allows him to hit that far. We could use a Grapeshot Blast, but at the moment it's best to focus damage rather than spread it around.
Next is Derek, with a prime opportunity to use Disorientating Blast. Stunning the Acolyte for a round would be lovely (but not guaranteed - he has a 25% resistance to it), but moving him from his current spot makes him more vulnerable (as Reynauld will be able to target him) and should stop him from being able to use his stress causing attack.
The plan works perfectly - as you can see, the order has shifted and he was stunned, but only for a single action as it was immediately his turn. However, that does mean he lost it. The Rabble attacked Dismas and did a little damage, which left it at Matt's turn. His actions (as a Vestel) are Judgement (which causes a little damage to any enemy and heals himself a little), Dazzling Light (very little damage, but high chance of stun and extends the torch a little), Divine Grace (heals an ally) and Hand of Light (does half damage, but inflicts a damage and accuracy debuff on the enemy and a bonus damage against Undead buff on the Vestel). Sadly, Hand of Light can only be used from positions 1 or 2, so isn't currently available. Anyway - Dismas was hurt, so Divine Grace is the obvious choice. After which the Bone Soldier attacks Dismas and misses, followed by Reynauld's turn.
I really want to finish the Acolyte before he gets a chance to act, so I'm going with a Smite. The Zealous Accusation would probably be enough (and would hit the Bone Soldier too), but I don't want to risk it.
Success! However, as you can see, it left a Corpse. Whenever an enemy is killed (unless it is by a crit, Bleeding or Blight), they leave a corpse which clogs up the fighting order until it is destroyed. This can be quite inconvenient, but our party is quite well equipped to handle it. The only person limited in where they can attack is Reynauld, and Derek has a skill which instantly gets rid of all corpses if they become a problem.
Long story short, we are soon successful and claim the spoils of 2 Busts, 100 gold and some bandages.
As we enter the next room, we trigger Scouting (a random chance determined by the combination of classes you are using and the light level) which reveals the top left square of rooms. We can now see that going north leads to a Curio in the passage, a battle with treasure in the room and then a trap in the next passage. The eastern route leads to a curio, a battle with a curio in the room, and a trap in the second passage. All other things seemingly equal, treasure sounds better than a curio at this point, so we go north.
Sadly, when we come to the curio, Matt decides that the loot in it is for him (a key and a precious stone). You may recall that Matt has a negative trait on his character sheet called Kleptomaniac - well, that's what it does.
The battles are getting tougher, this time taking the Bone Soldier and Cultist Acolyte we are familiar with and adding a Cultist Brawler. These chaps are fairly nasty, but can be made largely impotent if you can shift them to the back couple of spaces. Thankfully, Derek has a skill that might do just that. We've also managed to surprise them, which means that we get all go first before they can act.
Sadly, the Cultist dodges Derek's attempt to Disorient, and our plan breaks down immediately.
Unfortunately, our first round doesn't go very well, with Dismas doing respectable damage to all opponents with a Grapeshot Blast, but the Acolyte then resisting Matt's attempt to Stun with Blinding Light. Thankfully Renauld gets a good blow in against the Brawler, but it's still up. It attacks Dismas, causing him to Bleed, and the Cultist gets it's Stressful Incantation attack off against Matt. The Bone Soldier attacks Derek, doing a little damage.
Thankfully, we have the bandage we found earlier to stop the bleeding and another Grapeshot Blast finishes the Brawler. The Acolyte attempts to use an Eldritch Pull to move Derek out of position (which would change what skills he has available), but it is resisted. Derek responds with a Disorientating Blast, which clears the Brawler's corpse, stuns the Acolyte, and moves it to the front. Matt starts the healing before Reynauld is able to finish them both off with a Zealous Accusation.
The spoils are ours - 2 food, a piece of jade (worth 250 gold) and 4 Crests. Still no Deed, but there is the chest.
It's an Heirloom Chest, which have false bottoms which need a key to open them. Thankfully, we have one of those. If we weren't quite so desperate for the Deed (and so early in the game so we can't really afford to dawdle), I'd be tempted to save the key in case we find a secret room (which are really lucrative, but need the keys), coming back here if we didn't find one. However, given the circumstances, we open it up.
And it was not worth it (100 gold, onyx which is worth 500 gold and some holy water). We turn east.
Here is the trap we had warning off. Each class has a different chance to disarm traps (Crusader 60%, Highwayman 90%, Plague Doctor 60% and Vestal 50%). Matt could do with doing it, as it would relieve some of the stress he's picked up, but I think the 90% chance is a better option right now.
Success!
The next room was empty, so we continue east, passing a backpack full of food. Shortly after, we get hungry (fortuitous timing or what!).
Hunger happens randomly. When it does, you can consume 1 food per adventurer and receive a little healing, or go hungry which leads to taking damage and getting stressed. It's always worth having plenty of food on hand in case these come up.
The next room is also empty, but does trigger a scouting chance, so we get to decide what to do next:
The passage south has an obstacle, followed by a Battle with Treasure. The Obstacle will cause some damage and, more importantly, some stress, even though we have a shovel. We could go back and follow the passage we ignored before, facing the trap and a Battle with a Curio - we'd also get stress from that (though less than with the obstacle), but the reward from a Curio is likely to be less than for a Treasure.
I decide to take the south route, facing the obstacle and hope of great treasure (still hoping for that Deed!).
Here we are post obstacle. Matt is starting to get very stressed, and Derek isn't far behind. This next battle, if it includes anything stress inducing, could be quite dangerous. I use up all my remaining torches to get the light level as high as possible (which reduces stress causes and makes me less likely to be surprised) and eat food to make sure everybody is fully healthy. I also use my two holy waters on the two stressed adventurers, which increases their resistance to other stuff, which might help avoid stress too.
Could be worse, but could be better. In order, we have a Bone Defender, Bone Soldier, Bone Courtier and Bone Arbalist. The Defender is difficult to hurt, the Courtier has a stress attack and the Arbalist can hit anybody. However, they are surprised, so let's see what we can do.
Derek opens with a Disorientating Blast, which is completely resisted. Matt tries to stun the Courtier, and misses. Dismas does successfully shoot the Courtier, but it's too little to finish it off, and Reynauld can't reach it - he stuns the soldier instead.
Sadly, the Courtier targets Matt with Tempting Goblet - his stress inducing attack, which takes his stress above 100, and becomes afflicted. In this case, he becomes Irrational, which means that he'll sometimes do a random action instead of what I want. If he hits 200 stress (unlikely) he'll be at risk of death from a heart attack. He does manage to stun the Courtier on his next turn though.
We are eventually victorious though Derek's sanity is also only so-so (part of Matt's affliction is that he spurts out random phrases each turn as well, which stresses out the rest of the party). We claim the loot:
Still no Deed, but we do get a Portrait, more onyx and some Busts. And there is the chest...
It's another Heirloom chest, but this time I lack a key...
finding only more Busts and more Crests. However, at least the adventure is a success and nobody was lost.
Reynauld manages to leave the same way he entered (albeit a little more experienced). Dismas picks up Claustraphobia (a negative trait) and Tough (a positive one which gives +10% max hit points). Derek becomes a Weald Tactician (a positive trait that gives a damage bonus when adventuring in the Weald) and Matt become Curious (a negative trait). Given that he's also very stressed, we'll need to consider if Matt is worth the cost of recovery...
But for now, the week is over and our adventurers can rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment