Sunday, May 29, 2011

TOEE - ambushed!

One of the interesting things which I found myself doing while playing TOEE was to compare what was happening in the game with what might actually happen if this were a PnP campaign. Not sure what this says about my psychologically but I suspect that I've been doing this for a couple of reasons.
  1. I started playing TOEE initially primarily because I had been listening to the Penny Arcade D&D podcasts and this was the most accessible cRPG using turn based initiative mechanics which I could find at the time.
  2. The game itself is named after one of the most popular modules from D&D's glorious past which always makes me think back to PnP days.
But of course, the problem is that although the scenario is based on a PnP module, the game itself is being run by an AI and not by a real human. And occasionally, this creates a few problems.

The Ambush
After taking out Lareth the Beautiful, my party was in a pretty sorry state of affairs. Several characters were heavily injured and I had also exhausted my supply of arcane as well as divine spells. In short, time for an extended rest.

However, I was faced with a slight dilemma. Do I rest in the lair of the pirates and risk being attacked by wandering monsters (monsters which I could well have trouble defeating in my current weakened state)? Or do I travel back to Hommlet to rest in the Inn and trust that my druid's survival skill was high enough for me to evade any wildlife?

Considering that my druids survival skill had enabled me to pick and choose wildlife encounters quite well so far, I decided to take my tired party back to Hommlet.

Of course, if the DM were a dick, now would be the perfect time to introduce an ambush.


Oh look, the DM is a dick

With an injured party and no spells or scrolls left, this resulted, not surprisingly, in a TPK. After a reload, I let my injured party rest in the pirates lair and faced off against my ambushers once again - this time with a full strength party.


A full strength party also means sleep spells...

It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say that I was looking to completely wipe these guys off the face of Greyhawk. Seeing as I was on my way back to Hommlet, where I would be able to rest again before heading out, I basically unleashed my full arsenal of spells.
>:)


...and more sleep spells...

In short, I unloaded my sorcerer's supply of sleep spells on the enemy (PS I love the fact that this game provides you with the exact radius of you AOE spells so you can make sure that your party doesn't get caught in the blast). This put most of the enemies to sleep and reduced the odds enough that I was able to take out the remaining bad guys without much trouble.


...and even more sleep spells.

And after taking out the bad guys which were still awake, it was a simple matter of wandering around the remaining enemies and slitting their throats before they woke up.
>:)


pwned

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