Pool of Radiance AAR: A GrogHeads™ Experience

[bbmike]

Entry #4
Oh yeah...before I forget, I changed MIRTH's avatar to look less...uh...dress-wearing.

But he's still singing into that mic...  :P

[bayonetbrant]

But he's still singing into that mic...  :P

Which begs the question - if it turns out that it's not a microphone he's holding, is he still 'singing'?

[JasonPratt]

Which begs the question -- if it turn out that's not a mic, how exactly did he get it?

It's probably better not to ask such questions. 

[Sir Slash]

I thought it was a Kobold tail. But I have no idea why he would be singing into it. Unless.... you're just into that kind of thing.

[mirth]

I've been singing Tom Jones classics at our foes.

The kobolds really hate it.

[bayonetbrant]

The kobolds really hate it.

It's not unusual

[mirth]

It happens every day.

[BanzaiCat]

Entry #5
Phlan, Phlan Slums

After glumly exiting the Thieves Training/Democrat Party office, I could've slapped myself with my own shield. Looking through our accumulated wealth, I found several gems and jewelry bits. I knew there was a jeweler's somewhere around here, tucked back behind a normal shop, but I couldn't recall where it was, exactly. So we trudged off, finally locating it (and thanking the stars we didn't wander into a tavern where an inevitable all-out brawl (aka 'Monday') would kick off.

We sold all of the jewels, and headed back to the Training Hall. My twin once again demanded that we spar; I told him to go sit on a mace.

Inside the Fighter's Training office, we pooled our funds together and bought training for me (BC), but for some reason it wouldn't let me train anyone else. This is because I realized I pooled most of our funds with me (the frontline fighter) and I didn't share it all back again. So, I was sitting on almost 1,500 platinum, which is about 7,500 gold, and more than enough to up-level all of us.

Oopsie!

I went ahead and hired a fighter from the sparring room - he only requested 1 share from treasure, whereas the uppity mages and other magic-users wanted upwards of 4 shares each. I already have two mages, one of which believes himself to be a fabulous singer. If roller skates were a thing, this guy would totally be the male version of Dazzler.

After leveling me up, we headed back out. I'll fix the leveling oopsie later.  :-[



We carved our way through a few more parties of Kobolds - I almost didn't bother with them, but went for it as we have to clear a certain number of random encounters as part of the requirement to clear the Slums. I think if we leave that the random events reset themselves, though I'm not certain. I hope not, that would be a pain.

After a few victories, we headed westwards. And found a gypsy sitting in a dumpy shop.



Since attacking a "ragged old woman" would result in rather un-heroic slaughter and/or her transformation into Tiamat or Baba Yaga or something equally deadly to 1st-level characters (such as a sniffle), I chose to pay her the few coppers she asked for.



"Strange transformation," sort of like when I do my announcer's voice for the GrogCast. She probably sounds much more interesting, though.



Well, alrighty then! Blood, violence and more in our future. Seems that's all we HAVE seen to this point. Her Captain Obvious powers are extraordinary.

I sense...I sense that...

...

...yes? What?

...you stand...at the forefront...of major battles, yes...

Uh...

And you...you are a dealer in...in...components...specifically, herbs...

Oh, come on...those herbs, they became legal there just the next week!

Herbs? HERBS?!? ♫ Reeeeeuuuunited and it feeeeeeels soo gooooo-ooo-oooood...♫

And YOU...are a bard...wait, no, a lounge act...wait, no...

♫ Biiiitch I am FAAAA-bu-louuuuus...♫

Singing like that in these slums can be bad for your...elf.

Okay, thanks...

GET IT? BAD FOR YOUR..."ELF!" Health? Huh? HUHH??

Okay, mate, gimme four seconds t' remove that pun organ, real surgical-like...

We didn't remove her pun organ. Or much of anything else. She just has a look about her, like she'd drive a wagon through your tavern great room, or something...

In any case, we headed west, then found a twisting passageway going north. We followed it, but found a party of Orcs waiting for us in ambush.



We fought them off, but they took KYZBP out of the fight (we bandaged him quickly, fortunately). What sucks about losing your Cleric in a battle is...there's no healing afterwards.

Still, we defeated the Orcs (there were a lot of them, too), and immediately encamped to rest up. Fortunately we were not bothered, though we had to camp for 24 freakin' hours to get KYZBP up to 1 lousy HP so he could memorize more Cure Light Wounds and patch up everyone else, too.

The passageway ended in a door, which was locked, which wasn't locked for long after we put our shoulders to it.



Uh...Candygram for Mr. Mongo...?

The local FFA must have been having a hog auction, because look at them things all lined up nice and purty-like in the chute!

It only took a few Sleep spells to deal with the majority of them, though I sort of wasted one Sleep spell because of range. Range for spells is not unlimited in POR, unfortunately.

They almost took me down (with my huge 14 HPs) and nearly took down BARTHHEART too, but a few well-timed Cure Light Wounds managed to keep us both in the fight. By the time we got halfway up the chute, the Orcs started surrendering. Soon, the fight was over, but I was afraid something bigger was up further on.

They gave us a beating though, with three of our number wounded. Our rest and memorizations were not interrupted.

Another door beckoned...we could hear mumbling voices behind it. We strained our ears to hear, but could not make out the words. So we did the neighborly thing and curb-stomped the door into oblivion, finding a rather strong meeting of monsters.



Two Gnolls, one Ogre, and one Hobgoblin Leader were here. I was fearful they'd give us a hard time, but they didn't. The Hobgoblin Leader was back in the corner unable to go anywhere, and we made short work of the Gnolls. The Ogre took a couple, three hits to go down, but down he went.

We encamped once again, prepping to go back to Phlan to sell our "found" items and get the others up a level.

------------------------

Seems that HyperSnap 7 decided to stop letting the 'game capture' key work - it's worked for years for me, and now it doesn't seem to want to, so I've had to ALT-ENTER the screen to windowed mode to take screens. I didn't get one of the monster leader battle, which wasn't all that impressive, but it might have been cool to see the Gnolls, which are giant-class creatures, though rather weak in HPs. Sorry that you couldn't see it, regardless.

[Bison]

Man I need to attack that gypsie!  If she turned into a dragon, that would be freaking awesome and totally worth the party wipe to see.

[Sir Slash]

As I recall, one of the games had a Silver Dragon become one of your party. I can't remember which one, maybe one of the Krynn games. But she sure could kick ass.  You're off to a hell-of-a-lot better start than I ever did BC. Even without Mirth's +1 Mace of Tom Jones. Or should it be a, "Staff" in Mr. Jones' case? ^-^

[Bison]

I need to post my team.  I'm rocking a bunch of magical broadswords and stuffs.  Everyone is up to lvl 2 nearing 3 except the 1/2 elf fighter/cleric/magic user who should be level 2/2/2 by the end of the game.  I am going to bypass the trolls until I at least clear out the well.

[BanzaiCat]

I'm going to be much more Churchillian in my approach and clear out the Slums before moving elsewhere. Next will probably be Sokal Keep.

Sir Slash, I am indeed off to a good start, though that's because I played this a lot (admittedly 20+ years ago, but still, a lot) so I recall in general how the game flows. Bison is ahead of the curve when it comes to where I am in the game right now and it seems he's remembering a lot more of the details of the game than I ever did.

[JasonPratt]

Silver Dragon NPC party character? Almost surely Krynn, since high-level dragonmorphing was a main part of the books.

"Ragged Old Woman"? Huh. More like, Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have. {checking} Or maybe not, as she would actually have to look old somehow for that to count. She looks as old as Agent Carter (in WW2 I mean, not modern day.)

[BanzaiCat]

IIRC, attacking the old Gypsy woman just pisses off the locals, making random encounters a lot harder. I never attacked her so I don't know what that battle would have looked like.

Maybe later I'll try an evil-aligned party and try to narrate how they weave themselves into this kind of story, pulling douche moves like attacking old crones and stealing candy from babies.

[bbmike]