Saturday, September 10, 2011

Itash Against Buffalo Castle - Delve #1

Itash the Grim gathered his weapons and equipment and set off to seek his fortune at the famous Buffalo Castle. As he neared the massive fortress he saw three identical wooden doors leading inside.

Trusting in his luck, Itash opened the left hand door. He was faced by a corridor leading into the castle. Itash boldly walked down the corridor until it opened into a large chamber. In the middle of the chamber was a troll sitting on a treasure chest. It looked up at Istash in a bored fashion and yawned. Finding such behavior to be quite rude, Itash launched a bolt of energy right into the yawning trolls face (MR 40). The troll was momentarily stunned by the attack, but rose and charged the small wizard. Itash readied his two daggers and met the charge, although he felt rather weak after unleashing his magical energy. He fell back momentarily against the trolls charge, but Itash's leather armor kept the monster's claws from rending his flesh. Itash then turned the tables and delivered a rapid succession of blows with his daggers until the troll fell dead on the floor. (Cast TTYF for 14 hits against the sitting troll. Strength reduced to 8, trolls MR reduced to 26. Fought six combat turns, lost the first by 5, won the remaining five by 2, 8, 5, 5, and 16). With the troll dead, Itash opened the treasure chest. He laughed in delight as he extracted a large jewel worth perhaps 300 gold pieces!

Looking around the room more closely, Itash saw doors to the north and west. Itash walked to the north door and opened it revealing another corridor. Walking down the hall he eventually found himself in a small room. The only thing of interest in the room was a slot in one of the walls with a sign above it reading "Insert Sword Here." Shrugging, Itash inserted the blade of his Kukri into the slot. The dagger received a temporary enchantment (+20 adds for next combat roll)! Happy with the result, Itash inserted the blade of his haladie next. This time the dagger received a permanent enchantment (+5 adds)! "This is a nice castle," Itash said happily to himself, "very considerate." He also started to feel a little stronger since casting his spell (recovered 1 ST). Faced with two new doors to the north and west, Itash elected to continue his progress north.

Itash walked down yet another hall until he stopped at at door leading east. Itash opened the door and was faced with a mummy (MR 16) stalking toward him. Raising his daggers, Itash attacked the mummy. The temporary enchantment on his kukri proved too much for the undead monster and it fell immediately before him (One combat turn, won by 34). Looking around the room, Itash found nothing of value. A new door led east, but Itash returned to the corridor and continued his trek north until he came to yet another door in the eastern wall.

Opening this door, Itash saw a room with a chest sitting on the floor. Itash advanced carefully toward the chest; treasure or trap he thought. Hoping for the best, he knelled down and opened the lid; he was not disappointed. Inside the chest was jewel worth 100 gold pieces. Itash happily pocketed the jewel and returned to the corridor feeling stronger once again (recovered 1 ST). Finally the corridor branched at a T-intersection leading west and north. Itash chose to continue his northern path leading him to a room that took his breath away. In the middle of the room was a large tree with what looked like emeralds growing on it's branches and rubies lying on the ground. Itash could not believe his luck. Choosing to stay away from the tree, Itash picked up the rubies. There were three, each worth maybe 100 gp each. Itash's greed then got the better of him. There were far more emeralds on the tree so he reached out to pick one. Suddenly, the tree came to life and it's branches lashed out at the surprised wizard. Itash fought back against the enraged tree (MR 25). The wizard's daggers hacked and cleaved the trees limbs leaving it a broken hulk (Won in three combat turns by 7, 8, and 17). With the tree dead, Itash happily collected the emeralds. After a close inspection, however, he found that they were fake and threw angrily on the floor.

Itash now had five jewels and an enchanted haladie. It seemed like a decent haul for a day, so he decided to make his way back to the castle entrance. He moved quickly to the south ignoring the other doors until he finally came to the door leading outside the castle (recovered 2 ST). Unfortunately, coiled up in front of the door was a giant snake (MR 16). Not willing to weaken himself with another spell, Itash readied his daggers once more as the snake struck. His blades served him well again as Itash cut the snakes head off in a single stroke (Won in one combat turn by 17). Itash kicked the snakes body aside and saw a large pouch. Opening the pouch, Itash found 160 silver coins. A nice tip, he thought.

Itash threw open the castle door and strode out into the sunlight. He felt relieved to have survived his first foray into Buffalo Castle although he knew it would not be his last. After all, money does not last forever.

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So ends a wizard's first adventure in Buffalo Castle. Itash did far better than I though he would. Itash received 97 AP for defeating four monsters and an additional 100 AP for getting out of the castle alive. He also recovered 700 gp and 160 sp in treasure as well as enchanting his haladie (2D+9). Not bad for a lone wizard.

Strength recovery after casting spells is always an issue for wizards or rogues in solos. Spell casters are supposed to recover 1 ST per turn not engaged in strenuous activity. For Buffalo Castle I made this equivalent to two paragraphs of movement with no fighting or some kind of searching or similar activity like inserting daggers into the enchanting slot or checking out an unguarded chest.

Itash will certainly head back to Buffalo Castle. There are so many more unexplored twists and turns to go.

5 comments:

  1. It's like D&D. First level Magic-user casts one spell for the day...

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  2. Really nice report. Hope you'll post more in the future -- it was a fun read.

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  3. Well done, Itash!

    I think you proved your point. With a little luck and 2 daggers, a wizard should have about the same survival rate as any warrior under the 5th edition. Things might be trickier under the 7th edition, with spite damage and the monsters rolling the same number of dice until they die.

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  4. Thanks for the comments folks.

    Grall, I agree but of course in 7th edition the wizard has a couple of advantages as well including the Wizardry attribute and more starting spells. The addition of Wizardry would have made me less hesitant about casting spells since they lower personal adds when fueled by Strength. As far as new starting spells, the wizard would have Hold That Pose which make the target helpless for one combat turn. If Itash had that at his disposal he would have certainly used it against the troll, hitting him with TTYF from a distance first, they HTP when he closed for combat. After sticking a couple of daggers in him, there wouldn't be too much left to fight.

    The lack of descending dice would certainly have made the troll much more dangerous, but I think Itash could have pulled it off using the two spells mentioned above. I'm not sure it would have mattered in the other battles since they all had fewer dice than Itash from the start.

    But we'll see what happens next.

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  5. There should be something that happens when you spend time to rest. I don't know what it's like in Tunnels and Trolls, but in D&D you use consumable resources:

    Light (Torches, Oil)
    Food and Water

    And you also have to deal with wandering monster checks every so often - some games say every 2 turns (20 minutes).

    If you don't have those things in the solo adventure, your paragraph thing sounds good.

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