Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Demetrios1453 Plays the Gold Box Games
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9283542" data-attributes="member: 6801060"><p><strong><em>Pool of Radiance </em>(Part 9): The Slums (Part 5)</strong></p><p></p><p>Back to the Slums for one final push! Brother Baltor, however, has had received some cryptic messaging from his god (I wonder which one? He's LG and has a red outfit, so Lathander sort of makes sense for him. Baroness Bella more likely a worshiper of Tyr) about the dangers ahead, and has decided to slightly change his memorized spells, requiring a quick trip back to the inn.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350040[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>With what's ahead, they'll need all the help they can get, and <em>bless</em> is a nice, if short (6 rounds), buff, giving everyone +1 to hit.</p><p></p><p>Back to the Slums again.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350041[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Alarm still going as strong as ever, I see.</p><p></p><p>The party literally takes one step forward...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350042[/ATTACH]</p><p>and...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350043[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Seems like your typical patrol, but we have a new foe among the horde of goblins:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350044[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Bugbears are pretty rare in the game, so it's neat to see one here. Brin is worried about all the goblins down in the lower room (there are a lot more than the six here), and so casts <em>sleep </em>on the one nearest here. It probably wont affect the bugbear, but it will slow the goblins moving in from the south.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350045[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Well, what do you know. That's going to make this fight a bit easier for sure! Some goblins get past the sleeping ones (there was still a path to get through), and Brin retreats north after taking a hit, as does Buffy. After we clear out most of the goblins up top...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350046[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>And the rest of the battle is over with soon enough. That's at least our 14th patrol, but I always seem to miscount. Perhaps it was the last of them, and why we had a bugbear in the mix. So now we travel over to the western area of the map, and rest up and save in the set encounter room with all the orcs from last time.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350047[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(I've started to take more screenshots to include maps, so hopefully the narrative will a bit easier to follow).</p><p></p><p>We made it all the way encountering no further patrols, so I'm beginning to suspect that I have indeed miscounted and that was the 15th and final one. We had south, and enter a large plaza. The party hears whispered rumors from one of the surrounding buildings:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350048[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Yeah, we found that one already. I head to the door facing west in this room...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350049[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>And Brother Baltor gets the premonition that's time to buff up. (I guess I'm going to blame how I know the places to buff up before a big battle through godly warnings)</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350050[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]350051[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(This text appears for all six characters, I just happened to catch this one). And afterwards, the buff will appear (with rounds remaining) on the GBC bar up top:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350052[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>And what's behind the door?</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350053[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Orcs.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350054[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Lots of orcs.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350055[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>I want to take out those two leaders in the back with their ranged attacks with a <em>sleep </em>spell, but alas, they are out of range, this being the furthest the spell can be targeted:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350056[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>So I target there in the middle. That will split the force in two, with only a trickle being able to get through, so my melee can deal with the group in front, while my ranged take out the ones in the back, starting with the leaders:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350057[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(Didn't get the skull and crossbones in the shot, but that one is dead)</p><p></p><p>The GBC map shows how this has resulted in only a few up front. Some of the orcs are, futilely, trying to find a way around to the right, but that room is a dead end, so they just mill around aimlessly up there. Also, you can see all the info you can get by mousing over enemies on the map:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350058[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]350059[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>More orcs go down, while I just leave a single row to block the back (mainly since I need to be sure to take out helpless ones before they wake up!)</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350061[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(Orcs in the back trying to flank in a dead-end room. Granted, that also keeps them out view for my ranged, so it's smart in another way I guess!)</p><p></p><p>Eventually I take enough of them out that they start to surrender - I was actually quick enough to get a screenshot of it this time!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350063[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Whew. That was a long fight (but not the "infamous" fight we've been talking about; that's still to come!). But actually the party took pretty minimal damage.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350064[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The duration of the <em>bless</em> spell has long since passed. I was thinking about re-casting it for the next room, but no one is seriously hurt, so, let's see who all these orcs were guarding! We go into the room where the orcs were futilely trying to flank the party, and...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350065[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Monster leaders! There are definitely some tougher creatures in here, including a couple we haven't seen before. But thankfully there are only a few in total:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350066[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>There are a couple of gnolls.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350067[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>And an ogre! The ogre especially has a lot of hit points, and can do some decent damage, so we need to take him down as quickly as possible!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350068[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>In the end, we actually take them down pretty quickly, but Baroness Bella took a bit of a beating. So we're going to rest here before continuing on.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350070[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>We next go a bit south. We find a passageway that will take us to the next zone to the west (Kuto's Well), but we'll pass on that now until after we've cleared this area. We then go back to east, through another door:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350071[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The issue here is that there are a lot of goblin leaders with ranged attacks. We need to kill or incapacitate as many as possible, since they can cause some serious damage. Brin casts <em>sleep</em> to catch as many as possible:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350072[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>But one manages to get off two good shots, and we have our first casualty of the game:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350074[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350073[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>After dealing with the goblin next to him, Brother Baltor rushes over to get a heal spell off:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350075[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]350076[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>But she'll remain unconscious for the rest of the battle (which is how the game handles characters that go down but are stabilized during battle), which, thankfully, is over quickly.</p><p></p><p>After casting his other <em>cure light wounds</em> when the battle is over, Brin is back up, hale and hearty.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350079[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>So, what were <em>these</em> guards guarding? Let's go through the door behind them:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350080[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>"Apparently". That calls for a search.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350081[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Of course we do, we're adventurers!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350082[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Excellent! Let's see exactly what they are.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350083[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Brother Baltor will take that, at least until one of the other front liners starts getting hit a lot.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350084[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>We have our first magic scroll, and it's a nice one. We'll scribe that the first chance we get to add it to Bragir's spellbook.</p><p></p><p>And all this tasty treasure XP means that Bant has gained a level. And a lot of characters are <em>this</em> close as well. That's explained by the fact that the three of them are multiclass fighters as well, and XP levels at this point are usually double what you had last level (and only half of their XP is going to each class). Bant is going to be level 3, while they are on the cusp of level 2 (and not quite there because Bant gets a 10% XP bonus for being single-classed).</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350085[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]350086[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>We're going to rest in the previous room where we had a set encounter (and thus is safe to rest in), heal up, and re-memorize spells. And scribe <em>magic missile </em>from that scroll!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350087[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]350088[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Scribing takes rest time as well, so it's added in to the rest time for spell memorization. When the rest is over:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]350089[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>I'm not going to memorize it now, since it only shoots off a single missile of 1d4+1 damage. But as we go through the games, and the magic-users gain levels, it will definitely outpace <em>sleep</em> since the spell gains an extra missile every other level. And 1e <em>doesn't have a cap on spell damage</em>. If we reach level 40, with a missile every other level, we'll be firing the spell off for 20d4+20 points of damage (unfortunately the game, unlike even 1e tabletop, doesn't allow for splitting missiles, so there will only be a single target - but still, that's nice damage). The real fun are the spells like <em>fireball</em> that will gain a dice per level - so at level 40, we'll be shooting off 40d6 <em>fireballs</em> and <em>lightning bolts.</em></p><p></p><p>That done, we now will head south to the Rope Guild, for the infamous fight, and to complete clearing the Slums. All that will be in the next post!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Demetrios1453, post: 9283542, member: 6801060"] [B][I]Pool of Radiance [/I](Part 9): The Slums (Part 5)[/B] Back to the Slums for one final push! Brother Baltor, however, has had received some cryptic messaging from his god (I wonder which one? He's LG and has a red outfit, so Lathander sort of makes sense for him. Baroness Bella more likely a worshiper of Tyr) about the dangers ahead, and has decided to slightly change his memorized spells, requiring a quick trip back to the inn. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 202951.png"]350040[/ATTACH] With what's ahead, they'll need all the help they can get, and [I]bless[/I] is a nice, if short (6 rounds), buff, giving everyone +1 to hit. Back to the Slums again. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 203037.png"]350041[/ATTACH] Alarm still going as strong as ever, I see. The party literally takes one step forward... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204105.png"]350042[/ATTACH] and... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 203227.png"]350043[/ATTACH] Seems like your typical patrol, but we have a new foe among the horde of goblins: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 203257.png"]350044[/ATTACH] Bugbears are pretty rare in the game, so it's neat to see one here. Brin is worried about all the goblins down in the lower room (there are a lot more than the six here), and so casts [I]sleep [/I]on the one nearest here. It probably wont affect the bugbear, but it will slow the goblins moving in from the south. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 203432.png"]350045[/ATTACH] Well, what do you know. That's going to make this fight a bit easier for sure! Some goblins get past the sleeping ones (there was still a path to get through), and Brin retreats north after taking a hit, as does Buffy. After we clear out most of the goblins up top... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 203802.png"]350046[/ATTACH] And the rest of the battle is over with soon enough. That's at least our 14th patrol, but I always seem to miscount. Perhaps it was the last of them, and why we had a bugbear in the mix. So now we travel over to the western area of the map, and rest up and save in the set encounter room with all the orcs from last time. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204229.png"]350047[/ATTACH] (I've started to take more screenshots to include maps, so hopefully the narrative will a bit easier to follow). We made it all the way encountering no further patrols, so I'm beginning to suspect that I have indeed miscounted and that was the 15th and final one. We had south, and enter a large plaza. The party hears whispered rumors from one of the surrounding buildings: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204316.png"]350048[/ATTACH] Yeah, we found that one already. I head to the door facing west in this room... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204452.png"]350049[/ATTACH] And Brother Baltor gets the premonition that's time to buff up. (I guess I'm going to blame how I know the places to buff up before a big battle through godly warnings) [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204523.png"]350050[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204530.png"]350051[/ATTACH] (This text appears for all six characters, I just happened to catch this one). And afterwards, the buff will appear (with rounds remaining) on the GBC bar up top: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204545.png"]350052[/ATTACH] And what's behind the door? [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204600.png"]350053[/ATTACH] Orcs. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204622.png"]350054[/ATTACH] Lots of orcs. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204652.png"]350055[/ATTACH] I want to take out those two leaders in the back with their ranged attacks with a [I]sleep [/I]spell, but alas, they are out of range, this being the furthest the spell can be targeted: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204744.png"]350056[/ATTACH] So I target there in the middle. That will split the force in two, with only a trickle being able to get through, so my melee can deal with the group in front, while my ranged take out the ones in the back, starting with the leaders: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204935.png"]350057[/ATTACH] (Didn't get the skull and crossbones in the shot, but that one is dead) The GBC map shows how this has resulted in only a few up front. Some of the orcs are, futilely, trying to find a way around to the right, but that room is a dead end, so they just mill around aimlessly up there. Also, you can see all the info you can get by mousing over enemies on the map: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 204951.png"]350058[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205205.png"]350059[/ATTACH] More orcs go down, while I just leave a single row to block the back (mainly since I need to be sure to take out helpless ones before they wake up!) [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205217.png"]350061[/ATTACH] (Orcs in the back trying to flank in a dead-end room. Granted, that also keeps them out view for my ranged, so it's smart in another way I guess!) Eventually I take enough of them out that they start to surrender - I was actually quick enough to get a screenshot of it this time! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205504.png"]350063[/ATTACH] Whew. That was a long fight (but not the "infamous" fight we've been talking about; that's still to come!). But actually the party took pretty minimal damage. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205630.png"]350064[/ATTACH] The duration of the [I]bless[/I] spell has long since passed. I was thinking about re-casting it for the next room, but no one is seriously hurt, so, let's see who all these orcs were guarding! We go into the room where the orcs were futilely trying to flank the party, and... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205707.png"]350065[/ATTACH] Monster leaders! There are definitely some tougher creatures in here, including a couple we haven't seen before. But thankfully there are only a few in total: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205759.png"]350066[/ATTACH] There are a couple of gnolls. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205809.png"]350067[/ATTACH] And an ogre! The ogre especially has a lot of hit points, and can do some decent damage, so we need to take him down as quickly as possible! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 205948.png"]350068[/ATTACH] In the end, we actually take them down pretty quickly, but Baroness Bella took a bit of a beating. So we're going to rest here before continuing on. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 210440.png"]350070[/ATTACH] We next go a bit south. We find a passageway that will take us to the next zone to the west (Kuto's Well), but we'll pass on that now until after we've cleared this area. We then go back to east, through another door: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 210557.png"]350071[/ATTACH] The issue here is that there are a lot of goblin leaders with ranged attacks. We need to kill or incapacitate as many as possible, since they can cause some serious damage. Brin casts [I]sleep[/I] to catch as many as possible: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 210639.png"]350072[/ATTACH] But one manages to get off two good shots, and we have our first casualty of the game: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 210949.png"]350074[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 210945.png"]350073[/ATTACH] After dealing with the goblin next to him, Brother Baltor rushes over to get a heal spell off: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211120.png"]350075[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211136.png"]350076[/ATTACH] But she'll remain unconscious for the rest of the battle (which is how the game handles characters that go down but are stabilized during battle), which, thankfully, is over quickly. After casting his other [I]cure light wounds[/I] when the battle is over, Brin is back up, hale and hearty. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211525.png"]350079[/ATTACH] So, what were [I]these[/I] guards guarding? Let's go through the door behind them: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211535.png"]350080[/ATTACH] "Apparently". That calls for a search. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211546.png"]350081[/ATTACH] Of course we do, we're adventurers! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211630.png"]350082[/ATTACH] Excellent! Let's see exactly what they are. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211651.png"]350083[/ATTACH] Brother Baltor will take that, at least until one of the other front liners starts getting hit a lot. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211723.png"]350084[/ATTACH] We have our first magic scroll, and it's a nice one. We'll scribe that the first chance we get to add it to Bragir's spellbook. And all this tasty treasure XP means that Bant has gained a level. And a lot of characters are [I]this[/I] close as well. That's explained by the fact that the three of them are multiclass fighters as well, and XP levels at this point are usually double what you had last level (and only half of their XP is going to each class). Bant is going to be level 3, while they are on the cusp of level 2 (and not quite there because Bant gets a 10% XP bonus for being single-classed). [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211805.png"]350085[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211816.png"]350086[/ATTACH] We're going to rest in the previous room where we had a set encounter (and thus is safe to rest in), heal up, and re-memorize spells. And scribe [I]magic missile [/I]from that scroll! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211831.png"]350087[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211847.png"]350088[/ATTACH] Scribing takes rest time as well, so it's added in to the rest time for spell memorization. When the rest is over: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-05 211951.png"]350089[/ATTACH] I'm not going to memorize it now, since it only shoots off a single missile of 1d4+1 damage. But as we go through the games, and the magic-users gain levels, it will definitely outpace [I]sleep[/I] since the spell gains an extra missile every other level. And 1e [I]doesn't have a cap on spell damage[/I]. If we reach level 40, with a missile every other level, we'll be firing the spell off for 20d4+20 points of damage (unfortunately the game, unlike even 1e tabletop, doesn't allow for splitting missiles, so there will only be a single target - but still, that's nice damage). The real fun are the spells like [I]fireball[/I] that will gain a dice per level - so at level 40, we'll be shooting off 40d6 [I]fireballs[/I] and [I]lightning bolts.[/I] That done, we now will head south to the Rope Guild, for the infamous fight, and to complete clearing the Slums. All that will be in the next post! [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Demetrios1453 Plays the Gold Box Games
Top