In each town, Bim's does the same things: view temple carvings, investigate dungeons/catacombs, sift through found/discarded items, and talk to the outcasts at each town's periphery. All the towns in this area, like Chancehail, belong to the civ, The Kingdom of Day. Neither Chancehails, Minesprings or Flungbraids are the true seat of power. Bim will know he's found the capital when its keep contains the civ's vampire law-giver Ado Grottohugs.
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The only towns remaining are Faintbabies
# to the NW or Rayguard
* to the NE.
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While roaming the peninsula, first southward to sneak into one of the various bandit camps in the area, then later northward on his way to the town of Faintbabies, Bim encounters wolf packs three times.
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In the first instance, Bim plays non-lethal king of the hill. He aims to cause morale failure through bruising damage, cumulative pain damage, or exhaustion. Mechanically, this is to use low grade blunt force to drive them off. With each landed blow a morale failure could occur causing flight. True to description, wolves are territorial, and after driving the first two away, another engages/returns while Bim mills about their claim. Narratively, this is to tier up a few skills for the express emotions menu. Kicker, misc obj. user, sword and knife all tier to novice via light blows to the legs, as all other bodyparts could suffer catastrophic damage despite using blunt quick attacks at 1/2 the momentum of a standard attack.
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Bim became smart!
Dodger ends up at over the halfway mark between competent/skilled.
Now with dodger up, Bim can switch over to playing
archer-ranger which is what he does against the next two packs. In order to archer-ranger with surety and without huge advantage (no shield while firing a bow at under 20 tiles or the Legolas point-blank method), you kinda need to know how to cause attacker roll-to-hit failure (combat message is
The <attacker> misses you!).
In terms of melee or ranged (as I somewhat understand it), the game's combat decision tree looks a good deal like this:
+ Attacker rolls to hit (succeed or fail).
++ If attacker roll to hit fails, then combat message is attacker misses.
+++ If attacker roll to hit succeeds, then defender rolls to dodge/block/parry (succeed or fail).
++++ If defender roll succeeds, then combat message is defender jumps/rolls away (dodge message), attack is blocked, or attack is parried.
+++++ If defender roll fails, then combat message is defender is hit/grabbed.
* Attacker roll to hit is determined mainly by attacker (weapon/natural) skill level versus defender dodger skill level. Side and back attacks countermand defender dodger in determining attacker roll to hit. There are likely a few other factors (spatial/kinesthetic), but what's mentioned are the most significant.
Competent dodger (w/much help from
superdwarven spatial/kinesthetic sense), versus a wolf's dabbling biter/striker, is more than enough to trigger roll-to-hit failure.
While wolves are territorial, they will leave their claim to attack you. It's unknown what L+? ambusher level Bim's reached, but it's enough to cause failed visual rolls to the extent that he needs to pass into the red of a creature's vision arc to register, even in the open with no significant visual stealth factors in play. In this way Bim only engages the 2 hostile wolves from the second pack, and 3 from the third. Wolves who remained neutral were left alone.
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The glut of misses doesn't give as much dodger XP as jump/roll away would. but it's enough to tier armor user to novice. Each miss = Dodger/Fighter/Observer/Armor User XP.
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Topic: What's going on in your adventure? (Read 2131229 times)