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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9605689" data-attributes="member: 7737">Commentary:Ohhhhhkay. It’s been a while since I worked myself into a frothing rant, but in a book filled with frustrating deaths, this one takes the cake.Let’s start with that timeless pastime, complaining about timelines.We see a corpse just inside the door, its face half-eaten by rats.I do not want these phrases to be in my Google search history:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">"how long does it take to starve to death", </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">"how long does it take for dead bodies to be eaten by rats", and </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">"how long do dead bodies smell". </li> </ol>I’m going to guess the answers are (1) weeks; (2) not very long; and (3) depends on a bunch of factors like temperature and local vermin and insect population.We know it was “less than two months” ago that Arno arrived in Saven to harangue Oram. We can presume he departed College Arcane just after he sealed up its inhabitants. After realizing they were sealed in, some of the wizards ransacked the scroll library and made it out. The rest starved to death, then were eaten by rats, and are still smelly and gross when we arrive.That’s… at least plausible. Now for the nonsense.[SPOILER="major plot point (that we don't really know yet)"]“We want to find every reference we can to some twin adamantite crowns,” we say.No. We. Do. Not.On this path, we are here for this reason:"I need to talk to some of my father's closest friends and fellow wizards at College Arcane. They might know of a way to stop Pazuzu, whoever or whatever it is."The twin adamantite crowns are something that Shanif the Marid apparently could have told us about, but we haven’t met him. [/SPOILER]Everyone else was sealed in here “by spells too powerful to break,” and they “probably” died of starvation.Our interior monologue says that the tower was sealed “by spells too powerful to break”, which is demonstrably untrue — we broke the Wizard Lock (temporarily) on our way in — but even so this "too powerful to break" realization should be the IMMEDIATE trigger for us to GTFO before we join the pile of rat-eaten corpses.Also, they only “probably” died of starvation? Gee, if only someone scouted the tower to find out more. Oh wait. Dalris did. But apparently didn’t learn anything useful in several hours of searching.We finally spot the phrase “Sorcerer’s Crown” “in regards to Bhukod.”As opposed to all the references to Sorcerer’s Crowns that are NOT in regards to Bhukod?We skim the document but it “only” an inventory of stuff Landor recovered from the ruins.”Only” an inventory… ONLY an inventory…!!!Let me get this straight. For what is now 20 years, in the library of College Arcane — not in Landor’s sealed study; in the library — there has been a document that lists every magic item Landor recovered from the Bhukodian ruins. You remember Bhukod, right? The ancient empire of elven sorcerers so awesome and cool that Tikandian rulers have sought it for centuries. That Bhukod. Any reference to which would be a major find.And hey! Here’s a list of a bunch of sweet magical loot that Landor recovered from awesomely cool Ancient Bhukod. Except apparently NOBODY CARED.Haslum, the cautious and kindly scroll master, found this list unremarkable. Beldon, the scheming villain who desperately wanted to get his hands on the Sceptre of Bhukod, took one look at the inventory and thought, “Nah, not important.” Two decades worth of inquisitive magic-users in training pawed through the library, came across this detailed record of powerful magical artifacts, and moved on to the more interesting scrolls.DOES EVERYONE IN THIS SERIES HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE?!?!?!?!?!We realize that door must have been sealed with a Wizard Lock rather than a Hold Portal, and we’ve used our only Knock spell.We have used our “only” nonexistent Knock spell. That’s because this gamebook insists upon crippling our magic-user character by refusing to let him regain his spells. So let’s play by the gamebook’s ridiculous rules. We can only use each of our spells once.If only we had something that could get us out of this. Where could we possibly look for ideas? Oh hey! How about in the same section."Perhaps a few of them made it. Perhaps they polymorphed themselves into something that could crawl under a door."Sadly, we cannot polymorph ourselves into an ox and then call ourselves dumb as one. But we could use Polymorph Other on Dalris. Perhaps into one of the delightful insects that have been feasting on the decomposing bodies in this tower of IDIOTS.Turning our girlfriend into a bug does seem a bit drastic, though. Maybe there's another way. Gotta think of something.Hmm.Hmmmm.Insects that feast on dead flesh… lay their eggs in it… that hatch into maggots (or in D&D terms, Rot Grubs)… what are those things called?[ATTACH=full]398823[/ATTACH]snaps fingers---From gamebook #1, section (45):Beldon leads us up the stairs to the 15-foot-wide landing that contains the door to Landor's quarters and... the other door, which is "an airy, well-lit chamber" filled with "benches, shelves, and cupboards" all "stacked with an amazing variety of books, maps, and scrolls."For the chamber to be “airy” and “well lit” it must have windows. You know, those openings in the walls that let in light and oxygen?But I’m sure in the gamebook, even if the windows definitively existed, they’d be narrow slits through which we cannot fit (unlike their counterparts in Landor’s study). Thus the Fly spell is also off the table.---We are back to being trapped behind a Wizard Lock on the door at the top of the tower and a Fire Trap on the door at the bottom of the tower. If only there were some way to DISsipate the SPELls of these MAGICal impediments to our progress.From my earlier quote of the AD&D PH rules for Dispel Magic, we know there’s only a percent chance that we succeed at dispelling Arno’s mighty magic. The way things are going, if this option existed, it probably wouldn’t allow an INT test at all; it would just narrate how our Dispel Magic is too feeble to work.---Disappointed in the failure of our Dispel Magic to do the job it was designed for, we stand dejected near the door that bars our way. The wooden door. The door, made of wood, which comes from trees, that come from forests, that are sometimes set on fire by lightning strikes.[ATTACH=full]398824[/ATTACH]Even if you believe that Wizard Lock makes a door magically tough (it does not), we could avoid the door at the top of the tower and choose to blast the door at the bottom of the tower.Depending upon which edition of the game we are using, the door would have around 10 to 25 hit points. The bottom door is described in book 1 as massive and sturdy, so let’s say 25 HP.We get to blast it twice with 6d6 spells, an average 21 damage each time. That should be more than enough to destroy the door. Looked at another way: on 12d6 there is a 99.89% chance we deal at least 25 damage.If we somehow roll low, we could follow up with Burning Hands for another 6 damage that has no save and that explicitly sets objects on fire.But this section being an intended inescapable death trap, I’m sure that in the gamebook, the door would survive our spell barrage.---Here we sit, dejected, our spells spent. The whoosh of a Fireball, the zot of a Lightning Bolt, and the pfoebrauknayt ( /feh-brohg-nite/ ) of a Burning Hands have shattered the silence of the grave inside the tower. Does anyone hear the noises as we invoke our dweomers? Or the wails of anguish that escape our already parched lips? (For in this gamebook, no doubt we begin dying of thirst after three hours.)From this book's The Story So Far:You would have failed in your quest had your father not bequeathed to you his loyal familiar, a telepathic pseudodragon named Rufyl.Of course! Our beloved magical assistant, who can read minds and apparently does so all the time, even during otherwise intimate scenes. Rufyl telepathically muses how curious Dalris’s and our thoughts are. "They’re so different, yet so similar! Master Carr is hoping that Dalris…."We tell Rufyl to be quiet and keep his scaly snout out of our thoughts."Come on, you loud-brained chameleon!"Surely this incredibly curious creature will care about our comfort and commingle its consciousness with ours. As I wrote before,Rufyl's mind-reading ability is INCREDIBLY powerful. Game-breakingly so. Sometimes it'll be used in the books to that effect, and sometimes it won't. I will of course rant about the latter times.We will explain our situation, and Rufyl will fly… er, figuratively speaking… Rufyl will crawl rapidly across the land to Thayne's village, where this gamebook's canonical Carr Delling learned magic. There, the sudden appearance of a miniature red dragon will not cause a panic among the elves. They will calmly listen to the pseudodragon and mount a rescue mission.The elves will still need to get through the trapped and extra-thick door, but surely the twinkiest of all AD&D races can handle obstacles so trivial.But no. Of course we don't do any of the above, nor any of a dozen other things a supposedly INT 19 character could come up with. Instead we meekly submit to our death by starvation.[SPOILER="major plot point (that we don't really know yet)"]We take the parchment and study it more carefully. "Presented adamantite crown to Estla at Aerdrie ritual."[...]"The one they call the Sorcerer’s Crown [take a shot]," we add grimly. "Thayne's aunt has had it all along, ever since my father gave it to her at this ritual."Landor presented a magical crown that he recovered from Ancient Bhukod to Estla. The fact that the crown came from Ancient Bhukod already makes it super important. And the presentation was made at an "Aerdrie ritual". Even if we don't know who Aerdie is (although the characters apparently recognize the name of one of the elven goddesses), the fact that it's a ritual at all means that Landor didn't just casually hand over the crown -- although that behavior would be perfectly in character -- he made a big deal about it.Everyone in Estla's village would know about the presentation of the crown. It would've been seared into people's memories for the last 20 years. Thayne would certainly know about the crown, given that Estla is his aunt (or grand-aunt, depending upon the numbered section).But apparently nobody thought this crown was important nor had any powers? Apparently the act of wearing it never did jack squat for Estla? Aaaaargh![/SPOILER]This death section has so much frustrating stupidity concentrated into one place it threatens to collapse in on itself and suck us in with no escape possible.I'll walk over the corner where the book landed after I threw it in disgust and reluctantly pick it up. For you, dear readers, deserve a successful end to this story, EVEN THOUGH NONE OF THE DUMMIES IN THIS STORY DO.</blockquote>

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