Blood Sword: The Walls of Spyte | And the Story Ends

[Shatari]

I love how I came out of that without a scratch, while the Richard is just shrugging off death blows.

 

[Grimmend]

...We've been traveling for years, and I still don't know your name Trickster...Good job slitting the Magi's throat, by the way.

 

[Lumos]

An awesome game, though I feel it should have had more of an epilogue. Ah well, probably a consequence of having so many paths available to us. I wonder how quickly we would have taken him out if he hadn't had so many buffs? I wonder if anyone would have died...

Also, I bet we'd have auto-won if we had suicided.

Yeah, the ending feels a little abrupt. If he hadn't been buffed, he'd die in about two or three turns in total, which would be rather... anticlimactic. And yeah, if you'd chosen to jump off the roof, you'd win instantly.

I'm wondering if we missed any magic items on the way. Oh, good thing you used all those healing potions, guys. There certainly is a dragon guarding a treasure hoard at some point, but I wonder if there were any OP weapons along the way.

Spoiler

There also were other powerful mini-boss creatures along the way. Maybe further exploring the other areas of that large cavern in the start would've opened up other paths. I certainly thought the main plot would progress through the big doors there, not up the flimsy staircase, but I guess that wasn't correct at all...

Speaking of OP weapons, Mentok's Staff of Might, the details of which he chose to not reveal, gave him +1 FPR, +1 damage, and allowed him to cast Volcano Spray once per fight without preparation and with a Psychic Ability of 10.

Now, what would've happened if you didn't have the Horn of Heroes, didn't save the prisoners, or couldn't manage to kill the disciples in the allotted time (which I think was three turns without the Horn)? For every kill in the fight, including friendlies, you'd roll 1d6 and sum them up, you add 5d6 if you don't take the time to save the prisoners, and then the sum of the "sacrifice strength" determines the outcome. 29+ means instant death for you, 16-28 is a fight with all five magi (pictured below), 7-15 is the same fight, but every magus has 55 HP and 6 PSY instead of 75 and 8 respectively, and 0-6 is the fight you just had. It turns out that I robbed you of the easiest possible final boss, but then again, what's a DM for if not to make things a little more tense and dramatic, and to almost wipe the party?

Spoiler: The True Magi

ALL of them can cast the 7d6 bolts at will, and gain +1 PSY and +10 HP per turn.

Well, aside from the odd "dungeon-crawly" feel of this last book, I really enjoyed going through all of these. It's a little crazy that it took us three-quarters of a year to do it, but I've really enjoyed "DMing" for this.
I think I might want to go again soon...

Anyhow, thanks again everyone for sticking around for the whole thing. Would've been great if we could somehow do the fights in real time, but I doubt it'd be very practical. But this sort of worked, I think, so it's okay.

 

[Xardob]

I think I might want to go again soon...

I'd certainly be up for something like this again.

Anyhow, thanks again everyone for sticking around for the whole thing. Would've been great if we could somehow do the fights in real time, but I doubt it'd be very practical. But this sort of worked, I think, so it's okay.

I think the only way to have the fights in real time would be to get everyone together on discord, or something like that. But coordinating a time that is good for everyone would probably have taken even longer.

 

[Shatari]

...We've been traveling for years, and I still don't know your name Trickster...Good job slitting the Magi's throat, by the way.

It was Bob. Hence why he went out of his way to avoid ever mentioning it.

I'm curious what our Enchanter's name was.

Well, aside from the odd "dungeon-crawly" feel of this last book, I really enjoyed going through all of these. It's a little crazy that it took us three-quarters of a year to do it, but I've really enjoyed "DMing" for this.
I think I might want to go again soon...

I actually enjoy dungeon crawl adventures (this had a nostalgic 2nd Edition feel to it), but the trouble is that we basically set aside the plot way too often in these stories. They'd start off with a goal, and end with story, but everything in between was disjointed. I honestly expected this boss fight right after we found the keys to the door.

I'd love to play another adventure like this. It really scratched the D&D itch I've had, since I haven't gotten to play a proper game since college.

Anyhow, thanks again everyone for sticking around for the whole thing. Would've been great if we could somehow do the fights in real time, but I doubt it'd be very practical. But this sort of worked, I think, so it's okay.

My trouble with any attempt to do any real time gaming (aside from crippling social anxiety) is that my window of opportunity for anything like that is chaotic. I've got an odd roll on the farm where I'm the only person without social commitments, so my work and sleep schedule fluctuate all over the place. I'm currently heading to bed at 8am, but last month I was getting up at the crack of dawn.

 

[Lumos]

I think the only way to have the fights in real time would be to get everyone together on discord, or something like that. But coordinating a time that is good for everyone would probably have taken even longer.

Aye, which is why I never even suggested trying something like that.

I'd love to play another adventure like this. It really scratched the D&D itch I've had, since I haven't gotten to play a proper game since college.

My trouble with any attempt to do any real time gaming (aside from crippling social anxiety) is that my window of opportunity for anything like that is chaotic.

Speaking of D&D itches, I've had one of those for a few months, and was actually wondering whether I could try and run a play-by-post 5e campaign right here on the forum. I've never done (nor played) in one of those, but it sounds as an intriguing proposition... Sure, it'd be rather slow-paced because of its play-by-post nature, but that needn't be a drawback. Maybe I should make a post gauging interest in something like that?

 

[Shatari]

I'm still on 3.5, since (in addition to liking it better than 4th edition) I couldn't afford to update. If you could snap together a basic post of the rules then I'd be up for it, though.

 

[Lumos]

Well, the basic 5e rules are free and can be found online, and everything else... can also be found online on various wiki sites that usually get taken down at some point. More of them always reappear though, so that's never an issue. But that won't be an issue at all, since 5e is kind of like a more streamlined version of 3.5e (AFAIK), and it's easy to pick up even if you've got no experience whatsoever.

I'll probably make a post in this section at some point next week...

 

[Grimmend]

Sounds fun. Looking forward to it.

 

[Shatari]

I'd like to whip up a forum game of Heroes Unlimited or After the Bomb at some point, but I'm a bit worried about how to do that. Palladium is crazy quick with the litigation if they see any sort of fan works, from what I hear. I'd have to keep all the rules pretty much behind the scenes, which could make character creation a pain.

 

[Xardob]

That seems like a pretty retarded view from them. Seems like good exposure for me. I'd never even hear of the books we just played if it wasn't for this game.

 

[Shatari]

Ugh, Palladium is a tragedy of a company. They have some awesome ideas (usually their character creation systems), and then they completely waste them. I love the Heroes Unlimited and After the Bomb and I've had a lot of fun playing them, but I wish they had a saner publisher.

I'm hoping I can wrangle them into a functional game though, because it's so damn awesome when you get together you band of stupidly unbalanced player characters. Both games have a serious "problem" where players can basically be anything they want, and that allows for characters that are unbelievably weak or so damn over the top that you can't hope to come up with a combat situation that will threaten them without vaporizing the rest of the party.

Heroes Unlimited is especially great because you can basically be any type of super hero you want, from a small talking mouse with some limited but very potent psychic powers, to a guy in a 50ft tall mecha, to a Sherlock Holmes wannabe, to literally Dead Pool (compete with insanity), to a discount Superman (you can't be as over the top as Supes, but you can come pretty damn close), and even a ghost inhabiting a humanoid form made up entirely of cockroaches. It's completely broken, but it's broken into the realm of "so bad it's awesome".

After the Bomb is a bit more chill, but still has the massive disparity for player characters. You play as mutant animals in a post apocalyptic America*, and you can play just about any type of animal (feral or anthropomorphic) from a dinosaur (no joke) or an elephant to a mouse or a tree frog. The latter two do not fair well in combat with these rules, but cool thing is how logical that is. Half the fun is finding ways to make what you are work in your favor. The story is terrible (humanity was wiped out by script kiddies for the lulz) and the "big bad" villains are just bleh (comically inept scifi Nazis who are dying out due to their own incompetence, yet somehow pose a global threat), but they only included a few paragraphs of content for the story anyways, so ditching it is no trouble; you have to write everything from scratch regardless.



*If you buy the overpriced books then you can play in other places, but they're incompatible with the new edition so it's a lot of work.

 

[Lumos]

I'll probably make a post in this section at some point next week...

I lied, my sincerest apologies. Have become rather preoccupied with IRL things over the past few weeks, but I might be able to put the time into organising a game soon. We'll know what's happened if I make a post in this section, I guess.