This month's Lone Delver is another by Liz Danforth from Mike Stackpoles's solo adventure Sewers of Oblivion. Sewers is a high power solo adventure useable with characters with up to 425 combat adds (100-300 recommended for the greatest challenge). At the start of Sewers of Oblivion you are attacked by ruffians, stripped of everything, and then tossed down a sewer grate. From that point things start to get bad. I've never been able to successfully complete Sewers, but it is well worth the attempt.
This image above depicts a classic conundrum in solo adventures: do you release the beautiful (or handsome) prisoner?
Why is she locked up in the first place?
It could be that she is very dangerous and maybe needs to be locked up. Delving on your own means that you've got no one to watch your back if you release her and that ends up being the case. Releasing her may get you a dagger in the back.
Better to just leave her there. Right?
But what if it's a test of your compassion? Maybe if you just walk away you'll find yourself locked up in that cell as part of a magical trap?
Better try and let her out.
But what if her captor is standing by waiting for someone to release her? If you try to open the lock he or she may suddenly appear and turn you into a pile of cinders.
Maybe you shouldn't have opened the door to this room in the first place.
This is one of the things which I absolutely HATE in solos - the Insta-Kill. It's realistic, and certainly someone like Conan met and defeated enough of these, but I've never successfully survived an insta-kill.
ReplyDeleteRuffians? Versus someone with 100-300 adds? Damn, I don't want to meet their boss.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the bars are there to protect her from the ROUSes.*
*Rats of Unusual Size
Oops!
ReplyDelete*Rodents of Unusual Size
I usually just leave her there.
ReplyDelete