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    RIP to the original Green (and later White) Power Ranger, Jason David Frank
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    Alright that would be quite easier, thanks EDIT: I have the randomization, but damn if stuff like 3 vs 4, 11 vs 12, 23 vs 24 aren't messed up.
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    ←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Weeks Thirty-Six and Thirty-Seven -- The Power Spike Just a preview of things to come, nothing to worry about. I mentioned last week that there were two goals for this particular run: level up Quinn and Alhazred to match everyone else at level three, and get back the money we’ve been spending on adventurers. The first goal takes one run that involves those two characters and the second one means as many runs as possible with Josephine before she levels up and out of veteran-level dungeons. So we’re going to be doing just that. There are consequences to doing this, of course. Josephine continues to be a liability in combat and two of the other adventurers will be stressed out and not as effective as they should be, but it’s not an impossible task. The only new addition to the provisioning here is the blood. Alhazred still has the Crimson Curse and we need a way to keep that in check. Both Quinn and Alhazred can also play support to Joan here as they can mark more targets for Joan to strike down quickly, and we’re going into the Ruins so Josephine’s blight attack can actually be helpful. This is the first time we’ve actually brought a vampire with us in the party instead of having the condition thrust upon us by bloodsuckers, so let’s actually go through the mechanics of the Crimson Curse. The last time I mentioned it, I mentioned the speed boost and its ability to beat out all the other diseases an adventurer might have, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. There are four states an adventurer with the Curse can be in. “Passive,” “Craving,” “Wasting,” and “Bloodlust.” “Passive” is the least threatening, only inflicting a handful of slight debuffs in exchange for that speed buff. “Craving” doubles both the buffs and the debuffs, but the game also starts treating it like an Affliction, so they can start causing trouble with the rest of the party. For example, they can refuse to eat even when hungry, which makes them take the penalties for missing that meal. “Wasting” amplifies the debuffs even further and turns the speed buff into a debuff as well. At this point, the character needs to receive a vial of blood in the next few turns, or they die from hunger. If they do receive one, their condition returns to “Passive” and the cycle starts all over again. The timer is a little random with this; each status will last at least 31 rounds but can go up to 75 before moving on to the next one. This leaves the special condition “Bloodlust”. If you give a Craving adventurer a vial of blood, they will go into this state, whereupon many of their debuffs are converted to buffs, they get an additional damage buff, and the speed buff doubles to +4. It’s still an affliction, though, and a more dangerous one than Craving’s. They’re liable to attack party members outright. This run goes well enough, though. This is the introduction of the Ruins’ big upgrade, both for the enemies that we’ve already seen and the enemy that’s going to keep us on our toes while we’re here. As you can see, the middle skeleton now starts each fight Stealthed, which makes up for its previously exploitable fragility. More obvious about this fight, though, is the new Bone Commander standing at the front. This is probably the least threatening of the additions that Veteran dungeons introduce, if only because it doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen before. It’s basically just an undead version of the Bandit leader enemy, and we’ve already seen a more threatening version of that with the Falconer version Marvin Seo added. I mean, it’s still threatening. But we make do. There were a couple of mistakes with this run. I assumed that the combination of two small healers in Paracelsus and Josephine would keep people alive in place of one general healer, for example, especially when one of them can cure the intense bleeding I know is coming. I didn’t check the party’s camping skills, so I almost guaranteed there would be an ambush. Honestly, though, the biggest mistake I made was underestimating The Cove again, a place where every permutation of enemies is a threat. This isn’t even some Cove enemy, either! This is just some bandit that decided to show up! Josephine got Crimson Curse’d early in the run and though I didn’t have any blood I did feel I could keep going. I outlined this earlier, the cycle the Curse goes through is pretty long, and we have plenty of blood at home. But the hits just kept coming. The shaman in the back is stealthed, so that didn’t help, then the Thrall is in position three, which means Yui can’t hit it easily. The Grouper in Rank Two is a problem also since that’s the position where it can use its Seaward Slash attack, and the octopus in front can guard the more problematic creatures behind it without being one-shot by Yui. This all culminates in a quad-Grouper fight (as a reminder, one of the more deceptively annoying fights in the game), where everything goes wrong. Three people are put on Death’s Door, with Josephine even taking a Deathblow check before the fight ends, and she refuses to heal back up when I camp. 26.5k gold is still a decent amount, though, and technically, because you don’t gain experience from a failed run, Josephine can still be deployed one extra time before she hits level 5. It might take a bit to come back, because the stress of failure sure runs high, but we haven’t taken an irreparable loss yet. Next time, our adventure in the Ruins has unlocked the next boss, so we’re off to fight the Necromancer. -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→
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    Fen, seeing that Kelsey had conjured yet another weapon to fire the small projectiles at her quickly and released her shield from her arm. Then, pressing both of her hands into the ice shield she quickly expanded it into an ice wall. Though the weapons smashed against the wall, chipping it and sending ice shared flying, due to Fen's constant channeling of magic into it the wall held firm. Glad that her defense was able to hold still, the girl's ears perked up as she heard the footsteps of her opponent rushing around to the side. Taking her hand off the wall, Fen conjured an ice dagger and, as soon as Kelsey had appeared her view, tossed the weapon at the girl. "Haha!" The thrusters on the blonde girl's legs ignited as she jumped launching her up into the air and over Fen's dagger. "Too slow!" "Eh?" Fen was caught off guard, yet again, seeing the vertical movement that the leg implements provided. Figuring that another flurry of projectiles was coming from the girl's weapons Fen quickly summoned a shield to her arm and put it up to guard. "You really like to play defense don't you? Sucks for you I'm made to rip and tear!" Around her shoulders bulky metal objects formed. An opening appeared and out of it streaked several oval-shaped objects. When they struck Fen's shield they exploded on impact. Her shield shattering from the impact, Fen was blown back by the force of the attack and tumbled across the ground. Quickly picking herself up though, she looked at the girl's shoulder weapon saying in amazement, "wow! You are full of surprises Kelsey." "You're dang right I am, why don't you give me some of your own?" She said as she landed and right before she dashed forward. "Ah well, uh..." Fen knew her own limits fairly well at present and knew that she had very little in way of surprises. Her abilities were as they appeared - creating constructs of ice - and the best she could do was form different weapon shapes. And though they could take on the form of any weapons, be it swords, axes, bows, spears, ultimately they were just physical constructs that had nothing unique to them minus their chill. And thus far, every simple weapon she could think of had been thwarted by the weapons that Kelsey had managed to conjure as well. As such, Fen was sure that no simple weapon she could make would actually manage to hit her opponent. Then, as she tried to figure out what to shape she was reminded of the ice box that she made for Aduain and the hat rack she made in front of Julian. "Oh!" The girl exclaimed, as she focused on Kelsey now running towards her. She knew that no normal attack would work still, and if she were to take her by surprise she would have to add some more pressure to it. And so, she conjured a longsword in one hand and two daggers in the other. Swinging her arm up, she lobbed one of the daggers into the air, the weapon spinning in an arc towards Kelsey. Then, immediately she tossed the second one in a direct line towards the girl before readying her sword and swinging. Kelsey shot down one dagger and winced as the other came down on her. "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight!" As Kelsey readied her guns at Fen the girl shouted back, "well uh, what about a sword!" Kelsey was too far for the sword to reach normally. However as the blade was swung, a pulse of magic came from Fen's hand and coursed through the blade, rapidly extending the end of it. Kelsey had already begun firing towards Fen and hadn't seen the attack coming, and as such, when she had tried to do a quick dash back the blade managed to bite into the heavy weapons girl. Fen still winced, as the projectiles of Kelsey managed to still pierce her and she grew a bit more concerned as she saw the strange bar continue to lower. Yet still, she didn't pay too much mind to it as she had managed to mount a proper offensive comeback against the girl, having a bit of smile on her face as she managed such a thing.
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