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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9586172" data-attributes="member: 7737">Commentary:Facing the six of them, we "don't dare try to fight"...Why the heck not? We are going to face far, far worse odds on other paths of this book and be offered the chance to fight.---… but we can "probably" cast a spell.Aaaaargh!!!!! We are a bloody magic-user. Casting spells is what we do.---(163) if we want to cast a spell or if the Sceptre of Bhukod is with usOhhhhh snap. Now you see the downside of carrying our artifact on this journey.The way this gamebook passage is written, we bring about our own demise if we're carrying the sceptre or if we try to cast a spell. So the death scene doesn't single out the sceptre as the cause as much as some other -- y'know what? You'll see.---A frightened Dalris asks if we did that."I don't know!" we reply, our magic forgotten.Then, we immediately follow that up with: "I didn't do it."In the span of two sentences we go from not knowing if we did something (WIS 3 at work) to forgetting our own magic (INT 19 not at work) to knowing that we didn't do something (gamebook logic at work).---"Arno must have trapped the port somehow with a permanent Detect Magic which is picking up our own dweomers!"As discussed previously, Permanency is an 8th level spell. So if Arno can cast Permanency, he is 15th level compared to our 6th level and we are way, way outclassed.Detect Magic is a valid target for a Permanency spell. However, by-the-book Detect Magic does not cause things to glow blue. It simply allows the caster to "detect magical radiations" on a 1" path, 6" long (so that's 10 yards wide X 60 yards long outdoors). Put another way: the Detect Magic originates from the spellcaster. It doesn't blanket an entire area and stay there.Of course, this was AD&D, when your entire gameplan was to convince your DM to go along with whatever nonsense you cooked up. Especially if said nonsense allowed you to bypass the character-hostile rules as written in favor of some DM fiat in your favor.Arno, being the manipulative psychopath that he is, convinced his DM that a Permanent Detect Magic ought to function as stationary radar emplacement with a make-dweomers-glow-blindingly-bright-blue effect.---"an eerie blue aura springs all around you, as if you, along with Dalris and Rufyl and the entire boat, have been painted with some phosphorus marker."The entire boat glows blue? Cool! Nice to know the fishermen lent us their magic boat.---Overall I find this gamebook death deeply unsatisfying. Not only does the ability score we are asked to roll not make any sense, we are then railroaded directly into death with no opportunity to save ourselves, despite an entire array of spells that might help here.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Light, reversed to Darkness (which OUR Carr Delling did in book 1), to cover the blue glow.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Friends or Suggestion to convince the gnolls that yeah, we're glowing blue, but we're buddies of Arno's.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Armor to not die to some dumb spears.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dispel Magic to shut off the blue glow.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Or any of our offensive spells to blast the gnolls.</li> </ul>But nope! Instead we die like chumps while shielding our eyes.</blockquote>

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