RPG Progress Report

[Exhuminator]

Barely had any time to play anything this weekend between moving stuff between houses and my wife disabling my car (minor wreck). But I did manage to play some 7th Saga. I'm currently in the town of Dowaine, having taken the "dinosaur" submarine under the mountains from Bone and emerging in Lake Fles. Gotta say that whole "remote control" / "find the hidden door" part of the cave near Bone was some major non-intuitive design. I took a glance at a walkthrough and saw that the table of contents lists me has half finished now. But I only have three runes (Wind / Water / Star), I guess the next runes are going to come at a rapid pace. Still enjoying this RPG, if I had as much free gaming time as I usually do, I would have beaten it by now.

[Ack]

Barely had any time to play anything this weekend between moving stuff between houses and my wife disabling my car (minor wreck). But I did manage to play some 7th Saga. I'm currently in the town of Dowaine, having taken the "dinosaur" submarine under the mountains from Bone and emerging in Lake Fles. Gotta say that whole "remote control" / "find the hidden door" part of the cave near Bone was some major non-intuitive design. I took a glance at a walkthrough and saw that the table of contents lists me has half finished now. But I only have three runes (Wind / Water / Star), I guess the next runes are going to come at a rapid pace. Still enjoying this RPG, if I had as much free gaming time as I usually do, I would have beaten it by now.

Sorry about the car, man. I hope your wife is ok.

You'll get the rest of the runes pretty quick, though don't expect to always be able to use them. Have you had to fight any other characters for one yet? I don't remember exactly in the story where you are.

[Exhuminator]

My wife is okay. This is the second car of ours she's wrecked this year. The car will survive, but needs a week's work of repairs done to it, so I'm driving a rental car this week.

Have you had to fight any other characters for one yet?

I've fought and beaten Wilme Pelin. I've fought and lost continuously to Olvan Jaess though. I'm currently level 23.

[Ack]

Yeah, Olvan was my main competition when I played through the game. Thankfully his lack of healing meant the fight went he attack, I attack, he attack, I heal, he attack, I attack, he attack, I heal over and over again until I finally outlasted him. I also ended up in a fight with Lux, the robot. That guy hit hard, but I eventually managed to beat him...for nothing. He had just wanted to fight.

[Exhuminator]

Both characters I've fought just stepped to me like; "Oh you want the runes too? Let's see how tough you are big guy." I didn't know Olvan couldn't heal. I'll have to Wind rune warp back to where he is and kill him now.

[Ack]

I actually went and looked it up. Olvan can actually heal, but he gets those spells a bit later than Kamil does(who I played as), and he lacks MP, so he runs out of healing a lot faster. Hence why I don't recall him doing it.

Lux has no healing whatsoever, just offensive spells that I believe are unique to him. He also can't be the traitor apparently.

[Ack]

Eye of the Beholder

Since I will be busy likely for the rest of the week, I figured I would sit down and hammer out as much as I could last night. This proved to be a great idea, as I rushed through a few more levels.

When I last left off, I was about to start level 9 proper. This floor was a little on the nasty side, with packs of displacer beasts and the occasional rust monster patrolling the halls. Rust monsters are one of the great "fuck you" monsters of Dungeons & Dragons, in the game solely to screw with players and send your gear-dependent tanks scurrying back behind the mages to protect their precious equipment. The one saving grace for rust monsters is that they just don't have much in the way of hit points; I made sure to pull back every one I encountered into a long corridor where Noise promptly fried them with lightning bolts. Zero tolerance is the best policy. As for the displacer beasts...not a problem. I made it through with my tanks largely unscathed and moved on down to level 10, picking up a +5 long sword for Bone in the process.

Now level 10 is small, considerably smaller than level 9. In fact, it's probably only about half the size. This meant I could fly through it pretty quick, and though the mantis men(the Thri-keen) which wander it have the ability to paralyze, I usually managed to destroy them quick enough before they could get a hit off. I rushed through but uncovered important plot points regarding the ongoing dwarf/drow war. It's all a plot by the evil beholder! I rescued the dwarven prince, and he's been welcomed into my party(I threw out the other dwarven fighter in exchange because the prince's stats are better despite being lower level), but he has unfortunately been poisoned. I still carted him back up to his people, so they now have a means to escape. But the antidote is down on level 11, which involves falling down a pit.

With that in mind, I marched my way back down to level 10 and jumped into the pit to get to level 11. The start of this level features a puzzle where I have to rotate three square corridors to escape. I managed to break free to the north where I discovered the dwarven antidote for the prince's poison! Unfortunately for me though I am not entirely sure how to get back to the dwarves above...or even if I need to. I may just test having the prince drink the potion and find out what happens.

The hallways here so far have been plagued with xorn, which is a weird choice. Ok, it's not that weird, it is a D&D monster, but it's not one that I see used very often. Xorn are also tough hombres that can take some hits, but they are kind of dumb. I took out a patrolling pack of them by darting around a corner and smacking them with Bone's sword because they just simply wouldn't acknowledge my presence. With the halls cleared, I'm about ready to finish cleaning up this section of the floor before moving on to the next. We'll see how things progress. Hopefully things aren't too complicated and I can soon move on to level 12, the final level.

[noiseredux]

it is really appropriate that you hide me behind meat shields have me shoot stuff from afar for you.

[Ack]

It's the only way you'd ever be useful, unlike literally everyone else in the party who could go in front or in back and still be worthwhile.

[noiseredux]

still appropriate.