Joshua Randall
Legend
All those various paths are <popcorn-emoji>. Thanks!
WIS 3, or BRAVADO 99?!
WIS 3, or BRAVADO 99?!
[Fighting Fantasy] Bloodsword v2
- Thread starter Jfdlsjfd
- Start date
Especially when you picture doing this while falling/floating down for 1,000 meters.
Augustus is under her spell and we command him to land the carpet.
His spectacular strength of mind allows him to try to overpower our graps on his will... but we have a fighter in the group, "your weapon puts an end to his life in a flash". Winny at her best... We really have a psycho-killer in our group.
We find a gold ring, a white amulet and fifteen gold pieces. We can also roll the carpet and keep it (count as three items).
At this point, we have seen Augustus use the white amulet to command the carpet. In a path we didn't take, we know that we can master the white amulet by trying a few time. We won't pass on any item, of course, even if it means discarding a few meals...
Prepare to endure 4 books of us having at will flight, only to be consistently ignored. However, an honest player can't pass up this game. Also, it will provide ample ranting opportunity.
Now, we lost, on a shelf of ice.
344
Ice, ice everywhere. The feverish grey-white haze shines off the pack-ice, dazzling us. White in all direction. How can we survive or even know in which direction to go? We're overcome by despair...
We could fly at high speed toward the North, the rough direction of Wyrd, on our magic carpet.
We could get to 12,000 meters, the cruising altitude of airplanes, and spot the palace of the Warlock-Kyng from its night lights
We could fly at high speed around the pack-ice, until we reach one of the ports of Wyrd, on our magic carpet...
We are overcome by despair, and as we think our quest is about to come to a dire end...
Yes, we do have a crucifix of St-Ashanax! And it jumps to its chain and points in the air, pulled by an unseen force. We say a prayer to thank god for divine guidance and start walking in the direction that was pointed to us.
The weather is awful and we must lose 5 HP each days of the 3 days trek.
We could avoid losing one point per day if we had fur cloaks. We avoid losing one HP for each day were we can eat rations. We can avoid losing one HP by sleeping in a bedroll. We avoid one additional HP by having a brazier to heat us for the night.
We have a total of 11 rations, so one of the character will have to forgo eating one day. We have bedroll and brazier, so we lose 9 HP each and 10 HP for the non-eater...
Plus, since we don't have gloves, we suffer from frostbites until the end of the adventure and must deduct one from our FP.
And this is because we got divine guidance. If we hadn't, we'd have lost between 3 and 1d6+5 HP per day for five days.
His spectacular strength of mind allows him to try to overpower our graps on his will... but we have a fighter in the group, "your weapon puts an end to his life in a flash". Winny at her best... We really have a psycho-killer in our group.
We find a gold ring, a white amulet and fifteen gold pieces. We can also roll the carpet and keep it (count as three items).
At this point, we have seen Augustus use the white amulet to command the carpet. In a path we didn't take, we know that we can master the white amulet by trying a few time. We won't pass on any item, of course, even if it means discarding a few meals...
Prepare to endure 4 books of us having at will flight, only to be consistently ignored. However, an honest player can't pass up this game. Also, it will provide ample ranting opportunity.
Now, we lost, on a shelf of ice.
344
Ice, ice everywhere. The feverish grey-white haze shines off the pack-ice, dazzling us. White in all direction. How can we survive or even know in which direction to go? We're overcome by despair...
We could fly at high speed toward the North, the rough direction of Wyrd, on our magic carpet.
We could get to 12,000 meters, the cruising altitude of airplanes, and spot the palace of the Warlock-Kyng from its night lights
We could fly at high speed around the pack-ice, until we reach one of the ports of Wyrd, on our magic carpet...
We are overcome by despair, and as we think our quest is about to come to a dire end...
Yes, we do have a crucifix of St-Ashanax! And it jumps to its chain and points in the air, pulled by an unseen force. We say a prayer to thank god for divine guidance and start walking in the direction that was pointed to us.
The weather is awful and we must lose 5 HP each days of the 3 days trek.
We could avoid losing one point per day if we had fur cloaks. We avoid losing one HP for each day were we can eat rations. We can avoid losing one HP by sleeping in a bedroll. We avoid one additional HP by having a brazier to heat us for the night.
We have a total of 11 rations, so one of the character will have to forgo eating one day. We have bedroll and brazier, so we lose 9 HP each and 10 HP for the non-eater...
Plus, since we don't have gloves, we suffer from frostbites until the end of the adventure and must deduct one from our FP.
And this is because we got divine guidance. If we hadn't, we'd have lost between 3 and 1d6+5 HP per day for five days.
Joshua Randall
Legend
Oh, the flying carpet is going to provide SO MUCH rant worthy material. I look forward to it!
---
And wow, the equipment requirements to avoid HP loss are brutal. I have played many gamebooks but never one what required so many different pieces of equipment at once.
As for the frostbite -- was there any indication at the time what dangers we might face and what gear might mitigate those dangers? Y'know, like sometimes you'll get a paragraph like, "The climb into the Zanzur mountains will be difficult and only those well prepared with climbing gear can succeed" -- then you'd know that yes, you should purchase the ropes and pitons.
Vs. this was just presented here as a list of gear -- and no hints?
---
And wow, the equipment requirements to avoid HP loss are brutal. I have played many gamebooks but never one what required so many different pieces of equipment at once.
As for the frostbite -- was there any indication at the time what dangers we might face and what gear might mitigate those dangers? Y'know, like sometimes you'll get a paragraph like, "The climb into the Zanzur mountains will be difficult and only those well prepared with climbing gear can succeed" -- then you'd know that yes, you should purchase the ropes and pitons.
Vs. this was just presented here as a list of gear -- and no hints?
It's even worse than that.
There is no specific warning that we need to gear up. On the path we took, we need to decide to get to the inn, talk to the merchants and randomly buy their inventory, but there are other that make you have fights in Port Quanongu so that you basically skip the opportunity to get equpment. The damage could be survived by a single, 12th level warrior with 72 HP, or even a pair of Sage and Enchanter at 8th rank (they'd have 30 HP, so admittedly even if totally unprepared and taking the worst possible route they'd incur 5d6+10 damage, so there is a chance they'd survive...) but for a four-persons party, this is close to a death warrant. We lost half of our HP and got frostbite despite being adequately geared.
Of course, if you read the section with the merchants now, they do mention that winter will be very freezing and that we should buy his fur cloaks but... he's a fur cloak merchants, of course he won't say his wares will be obsoleted by global warming and ethical concern over wild animals treatment!
There is no specific warning that we need to gear up. On the path we took, we need to decide to get to the inn, talk to the merchants and randomly buy their inventory, but there are other that make you have fights in Port Quanongu so that you basically skip the opportunity to get equpment. The damage could be survived by a single, 12th level warrior with 72 HP, or even a pair of Sage and Enchanter at 8th rank (they'd have 30 HP, so admittedly even if totally unprepared and taking the worst possible route they'd incur 5d6+10 damage, so there is a chance they'd survive...) but for a four-persons party, this is close to a death warrant. We lost half of our HP and got frostbite despite being adequately geared.
Of course, if you read the section with the merchants now, they do mention that winter will be very freezing and that we should buy his fur cloaks but... he's a fur cloak merchants, of course he won't say his wares will be obsoleted by global warming and ethical concern over wild animals treatment!
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Actually, over the course of 3 days, we could have had a sage repeatedly cast healing on us to mitigate the effect of the spell, but we agreed to abide by the house rule to use healing once per section only, even if this one is lasting half a weak, while others are litterally instaneous (if a fighter is in the party, go to XXX).
At last, we reach the shoreland. We are a little over a kilometers from the cost when we see a fur-clad silhouette lying, immobile, on the ice.
You can't imagine how satisfied I am that this book, despite being written in the UK, uses sensible metric units instead of medieval-sounding feet and inches. If your game doesn't have 20/12 system for money, don't pester me with non-decimal measurements.
Do we want to help the stranger?
Yes of course. I mean, OK, it might be a trap, but if there was someone ambushed he would be easy to see in the kilometer-wide flat ice shelf.
As we approach, we notice she's a young girl with raven hair, wearing peasant clothings under a thick fur cloak. She's weak, but still alive.
Does it remind you something?
If a Sage is in the party, he can heal the usual way, until she has regained at least one HP.
What? That means that we can usually roll as much as we want? Maybe not, but the wording here is the word of God.
Salvia rolls 4, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4, 1 getting an excess of 1, 0 -1, 3, 2, 1, -1 HP = 6 HP, healing her back from 6 to 12.
Since the dying raven-haired girl hasn't regained an HP yet, we're entitled to keep rolling.
1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 3, 5 = the dice god doesn't enjoy my liberal reading of the rules to help the dying girl. Salvia is back down to 11.
I won't quit.
4, 5, 4, 6, 5, 6, 2, 2, 6, 6. Salvia temporarily back to 1, but generates a healing pool of 26, of which she uses 15 to heal herself back to max, 9 to get Esmeralda back from 1 (had you realized that she was one ration away from dying in the cold trek?) to 10 (her max) and Trixie up to 12 from 10.
To make it short, Salvia again goes full berserk on healing, down to 1 HP but gets 19 HP back and so on in 4 more series (25 HP, 18 HP, 16 HP and 31 HP), for an excess of 29 HP, healing back Trixie up to full (19) and Winny to full (19) and... by a miracle of the god, there are HP left in the pool to help the poor girl.
Note that it would have taken 84 sections to reach full strength on regular rules. I am glad we met that dying girl.
At last, we reach the shoreland. We are a little over a kilometers from the cost when we see a fur-clad silhouette lying, immobile, on the ice.
You can't imagine how satisfied I am that this book, despite being written in the UK, uses sensible metric units instead of medieval-sounding feet and inches. If your game doesn't have 20/12 system for money, don't pester me with non-decimal measurements.
Do we want to help the stranger?
Yes of course. I mean, OK, it might be a trap, but if there was someone ambushed he would be easy to see in the kilometer-wide flat ice shelf.
As we approach, we notice she's a young girl with raven hair, wearing peasant clothings under a thick fur cloak. She's weak, but still alive.
Does it remind you something?
If a Sage is in the party, he can heal the usual way, until she has regained at least one HP.
What? That means that we can usually roll as much as we want? Maybe not, but the wording here is the word of God.
Salvia rolls 4, 3, 2, 6, 5, 4, 1 getting an excess of 1, 0 -1, 3, 2, 1, -1 HP = 6 HP, healing her back from 6 to 12.
Since the dying raven-haired girl hasn't regained an HP yet, we're entitled to keep rolling.
1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 3, 5 = the dice god doesn't enjoy my liberal reading of the rules to help the dying girl. Salvia is back down to 11.
I won't quit.
4, 5, 4, 6, 5, 6, 2, 2, 6, 6. Salvia temporarily back to 1, but generates a healing pool of 26, of which she uses 15 to heal herself back to max, 9 to get Esmeralda back from 1 (had you realized that she was one ration away from dying in the cold trek?) to 10 (her max) and Trixie up to 12 from 10.
To make it short, Salvia again goes full berserk on healing, down to 1 HP but gets 19 HP back and so on in 4 more series (25 HP, 18 HP, 16 HP and 31 HP), for an excess of 29 HP, healing back Trixie up to full (19) and Winny to full (19) and... by a miracle of the god, there are HP left in the pool to help the poor girl.
Note that it would have taken 84 sections to reach full strength on regular rules. I am glad we met that dying girl.
Regaining her strength, she's able to speak. She tells us she's from Wyrd, that she tried to escape with her two brothers but the Eislaken rose from the depth to kill them as it does with whoever tries to flee.
We realize she has lost too much body heat and that she'll die anyway. We arrived to late.
Damn!
We have the opportunity to pry her for one piece of information:
Since I assess that random peasant girls in Wyrd don't know how to defeat the tyrannical ruler that have been making their lives a living hell for six centuries, nor that they know the details of his power source, I am tempted to ask about the Eislaken.
We realize she has lost too much body heat and that she'll die anyway. We arrived to late.
Damn!
We have the opportunity to pry her for one piece of information:
- What is the Eislaken?
- What is the source of the Warlock-King's power?
- How can the Warlock-King be defeated?
- Let her die in peace.
Since I assess that random peasant girls in Wyrd don't know how to defeat the tyrannical ruler that have been making their lives a living hell for six centuries, nor that they know the details of his power source, I am tempted to ask about the Eislaken.
Joshua Randall
Legend
It strikes me that sections of gamebooks that bleed away your HP and leave you crippled are effectively failure/death endings that are inescapable. See, if a section says “You at ethe wrong stew. It’s poisoned and you die.” — you can roll back and eat the other stew.
But if a section says “You lose # HP per time period until you are debilitated. Turn to XXX to continue your journey.” — there is no way to roll back from that. You can’t make some other choice because you always have to cross the ice. You could choose to buy all the gear, but you still lose some HP (I think?). So you are stuck in a never ending cycle of death.
Anyway I support the cheese-out-the-healing.
—
Love/hate the trope of “dying person cannot be saved even though PCs wield ultimate power”. It’s so this poor peasant girl can deliver some plot to us, and I get that, it’s part of the game’s cliches; but it also makes me roll my eyes.
And yeah. She’s presumably not going to know crap about the Witch-King of Angmar, so ask WTF is an Eislaken?
But if a section says “You lose # HP per time period until you are debilitated. Turn to XXX to continue your journey.” — there is no way to roll back from that. You can’t make some other choice because you always have to cross the ice. You could choose to buy all the gear, but you still lose some HP (I think?). So you are stuck in a never ending cycle of death.
Anyway I support the cheese-out-the-healing.
—
Love/hate the trope of “dying person cannot be saved even though PCs wield ultimate power”. It’s so this poor peasant girl can deliver some plot to us, and I get that, it’s part of the game’s cliches; but it also makes me roll my eyes.
And yeah. She’s presumably not going to know crap about the Witch-King of Angmar, so ask WTF is an Eislaken?
You're a psychic because that's exactly what happens here. There is no way (even by taking an entirely different route) to avoid incurring HP losses, though they can be minimal if well geared and take the shortest path: 6 HP. On the other hand the sequence we're right now is linear. And fraught with perils.
Especially when it occurred so shortly before.
She says that it's "a great monster that lurks in the sea below the ice. Its body is vast, with a single eye in the midst of eight long tentacles... Oh, that hideous eye..." and her voice trails off. At the moment of sunset, her eyes close as death comes for her at last. You are sorry for her.
I can see this moment being moving. Especially if we hadn't been able to wield life-saving power willy nilly.
If you wish to take her fur cloak and/or gloves from her body, you can do so.
Spoken in a true adventurer fashion. We felt sorry for approximately 2.37 seconds before getting back to our sense, overcoming grief and reconnecting to our body-looting prana. I really don't know what to make with this suggestion.
I decide to leave the items -- they are not named -- and continue walking toward the coast. At least, we're warned that somewhere below us, the Wytch-Kyng has posted a monster that might assault us from below, with hideous tentacles that will soon pierce the ice to strike at us...
So we can hop on our flying carpet and avoid this thread by getting 30 meters above ground?
... and at some point, we are assaulted by 8 tentacles piercing the ice. A huge red eye can be seen through the ice shelf, looking at us hungrily...
This would be evocative if we hadn't been warned and failed to actually have any chance to do something about it, like, 2 sections ago.
This wouldn't be too bad, but special rule: the Tentacles have range, so they can strike without the need to be adjacent to their target.
Imagine if someone in a multiplayer reading was killed by the climate? He'd be controlling the baddie here, and at liberty to focus-fire on a single opponent each round. His former friends would soon succumb. Forcing the group to retry and, this time, go out of their way to buy all the equipment possible. Let's remember that everyone has frostbite. Now imagine this fight with us having 1-10 HP left.
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