After the stingray and the spearwoman bandit, Imush travels north to another dwarven fort where he spends the night.
On the world map he's about 7 tiles away from the lair of Snumud Abbeyberries the Fragrant Song the ettin. "This vile fiend has killed twenty-nine in his lust for murder!" No-kill ettins make great first fight training dummies for peasants, but will have no gear. Multiple-kill ettins may be "statted-up" by world gen, being a bit faster and stronger. When you look at the raws or view the .exe through a hex editor, you see ettins have no base natural skills, unlike say the minotaur or 3 of the 4 megas. Ettins do have [CAN_LEARN] and world gen might give a ettin improved fighter, striker, wrestler, dodger, etc. But you won't know those things until you get there. Imush, though, had moved up to competent fighter and adequate shield user in his first two fights, so this isn't a concern.
When an ettin sprints across the screen at 3 ticks per tile, I tend to have the feeling there's less margin for error with novice weapon/dodge/shield and dabbling fighter/wrestler. Of course, since 42.xx, there are now descriptors for each critter that provide useful information. Snumud is shown as a frail ettin. The margin for error now grows. Snumud moves at 5 ticks per tile at fastest, but slows to about 7-8 when closing the distance.
Imush is at 1.000 walking speed and has positioned himself at the mouth of the lair corridor to have all the options available. If Snumud features grab + charge as his first attack, Imush can dodge away. If Snumud features a strike, Imush can then dodge to matador Snumud and make the strike from the side or from behind to drop Snumud and remove his charge attack.
Snumud enters the adjacent tile from the east and Imush advances the combat cycle one tick at a time until Snumud features his attack. It's a strike along with a charge, so Imush dodges 1SE. Snumud is still charging west, so Imush takes a quick 4 tick steel axe swing at Snumud's foot only tearing the flesh. They repeat the same series of actions once more and Snumud is dropped. The quick attack halves momentum versus standing, but now on the ground, now doubled, it's equal to a standard attack. From here Imush periodically latches on 2-4 grips and uses 4-6 tick steel axe/copper dagger swings on Snumud until he gets the bleed out.
During the combat, Snumud improved fighter/dodger/wrestler/striker to unknown level. Imush raises axedwarf/wrestler/dodger to adequate and observer/armor user/knife user to novice. Fighter is now at adept. It's a good stat haul. In terms of stuff, it isn't. This lair was at the edge of human and dwarf lands so the gear is mixed. The only things fit for a dwarf are the <<bronze cap>> and an iron helm.
Before returning to the fort, Imush stops off at the shrine Oarjumped the Leafy Nuts, home to Idala Hidedrinks the Basin of Animals the brush titan. With competent level defense you can quick attack + dodge away a titan to death, but you can't consistently stand and trade it since you're at a 3 level deficit. At skilled shield user, just 2 lvls down from talented, there's still decent chance of defensive failure, but Idala is a very slow humanoid composed of snow. Snow like water is shearable. Idala can be one-shotted. Of course, that's a waste of XP so Imush runs his attacks from the bottom upwards, shearing off sections of snow until he only has one strike left. At the beginning Imush would have applied grips to Idala to work in some wrestling, but there was nothing to grab. For some reason I didn't think of directional auto-wrestling. So with only one hit left, Imush uses directional auto-wrestling, but because Idala can't be wrestled, the directional auto-wrestle results in an unintentional fatal shield bash. Now if Imush finds a masterwork shield, the starting iron now holds a name.
The useful gear at the shrine Oarjumped the Leafy Nuts is all human. There is a codex which Imush takes with him. He's holding quite the poorly written library.
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Topic: What's going on in your adventure? (Read 2138312 times)