Pool of Radiance AAR: A GrogHeads™ Experience

[Sir Slash]

Apparently she's heard of you though. Wonder how?

[mirth]

They don't call me Dragons layer for nuthin.

[airboy]

In this week's episode of "Cheaters" our secret camera follows Mirth around the ruins near Phlan.

In an unheard development in the history of the reality TV show "Cheaters," the secret camera followed around someone who ACTUALLY CHEATED!!!

Mirth = Busted.

Will his half-orc "friend" be the next to find out?
Or will it be the kobold "neighbor?"
Or will it be the Goblin "I don't know her" (no hobbing around with Mirth this time)?

Tune in next week for anther exciting episode!

[mirth]

You left out the Hobbit.

[Sir Slash]

That's no hobbit, Sir. That's my sister!  >:(

[BanzaiCat]

Entry 25-b:
Cadorna Capers Continued.

After dealing with yet another of MIRTH's ex-girlfriends of another species, we head a little deeper into the maze of doorways that made up the barracks and evil shrine.

The place is a decorator's wet dream; I imagine there will be quite a few excited individuals floating over to Phlan once these troubles are over, because this place is screaming for some coordination.



I wonder exactly what these bold messages are saying. I wouldn't doubt it if they were references to MIRTH's love life.

A door or two down, though, and the decor goes from 'artsy hippy college graffiti' to 'GG Allin' pretty damned fast.



Could have been GRIMSHACK or whatever the hell her name was sacrificing a baby sloth or something, or maybe a monster operating room, or even the remnants of a Cannibal Corpse concert.

Whatever the reason, we press on, because we just can't get enough offal in our lives right now.

One door we come across is locked. We all know what we door with locked doors, don't we? We bash them, of course.



Jeff Foxworthenegger here is apparently the artistic SKULLCRUSHER.

Journal Entry 47:
A small, wrinkled parchment with roughly-scratched notes.

Hobgoblins transferred out of Valjevo Castle. Now replaced by giants and trolls. Sounds very tough.

Stojanow Gate guarded by bugbears and ettins. Heard ettins didn't like light. Must be charmed or controlled. Sounds tough.

Some smugglers sneak supplies through Stojanow Gate to The Boss. Must check it out.

Overheard hobgoblins say a dragon scared them into leaving a nice lair in the mountains out east. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of creeps.

Welp. Besides having an uncanny resemblance to a particular thief that's terrible at his job (from the neck up anyway) and an uncanny resemblance to GUSINATOR from the neck down to the waist (we won't speculate on the rest of either of their anatomy(s)), if he's the author of this note, he hates Hobgoblins.

The reference to the Kobold Lair in the eastern mountains is pretty obvious too. We might head out there soon; we'll take stock after we're done here in the Textile House.



Anyone that is in chains in a Hobgoblin lair is probably an ally, so we'll free him.



Yeah. Well, if you thought about it, MIRTH already did too, as he breaks out in song.

Note: there's almost as much male chest in that music video as has been in the last two updates, so if you've met your limit, you may skip the video.

While we could probably easily break the chains, we have a Brass Key that we found among GRIMHELLA's possessions, and it seems to fit the lock perfectly.

Though, this guy reminds me of MONGO, and why he wouldn't just break his own damn chains is a mystery.





Well...attacking doesn't really seem like a smart option - I mean if you want to do that, shouldn't you just do it with him chained up?

In any case, we choose to Parlay, and be nice in the process. The guy probably has an 18/00 Strength.



Yeah, I just bet you are!  ^-^

He asks if he can join us when he finds out we're here to clear the block and find the Cadorna family treasure. We could certainly use some anti-suck NPC to balance out DIRTEN's uselessness, so we readily agree.



Already he's letting us know about the secret doors around here...awesome.

He has no equipment, so we hand over a few odds and ends, then take a look at his character sheet.



Not too bad for a Chaotic Neutral Fighter.

We only have a few remaining places to look, and SKULLCRUSHER is aching to smash something, so there will be a grand battle coming up here soon.

[airboy]

Dokken's hair is a beautiful as Mirth's! 

No wonder Mirth gets all of the love.

[Sir Slash]

Hope you had a spare shirt to give him.

[BanzaiCat]

Entry 25-c:
Cadorna, Cadone-a.

With SKULLCRUSHER's bare chest clashing with GUSINATOR's, our Rambo Effect* will mitigate most damage heading our way in the near future.

*The Rambo Effect was a special power you could have in the old RPG, Tales from the Floating Vagabond. This power meant the character can't be hit by ranged weapons fired from Close range. Any farther than that is fair game, though. The minor effect is that enemies will choose this character over his allies 80% of the time.

Heading away from GRISLYSNACK's little unholy enclave, we approach the middle cluster of southern buildings, which is apparently some kind of monster outhouse.



We are appalled.

APPALLED.

Especially when we move through another door and find a Hobgoblin nursery.



I guess they move pretty quickly, because the game doesn't give me the option to slaughter them Old Testament style.

What?

Well...okay, I guess you're right. Best to let them grow up to give future 1st-level characters beaucoup experience points. You're absolutely right, how selfish of me.

Next, we enter something that closely resembles a museum dedicated to Clinton ethics.





I guess SKULLCRUSHER is showing off his bathroom graffiti skills? Ugh.

We keep looking around, but other than signs of showing crackhouse levels of monster occupation, we don't find anything.

Then, passing a wall, SKULLCRUSHER finally speaks up.



We ready our weapons, prepare spells, and pinch off our noses in preparation for whatever this toilet is going to have in store for us...

The secret door opens easily, but surprise? Not so much.



Oh, great. Sure, let's stand here and just watch him stand up and give his megalomaniacal speech before we mix it up.



What happens next?

a) A BATTLE BEGINS
b) A BATTLE BEGINS
c) A BATTLE BEGINS
d) A BATTLE BEGINS

Yes...you're absolutely correct.



The battlefield is basically like a Tetris block that has three squares in a row and a square on top of the middle block. We've entered the room through the top/middle block and the monsters are stretched out across the bottom three.

The OGRE is a big boy, but he's pretty weak compared to the party.

Still, there's quite a few Hobbos in this room, and charging forward would open us up to getting swarmed...not a good thing. Instead, I'm going to hang back, set the frontline guys to Guarding, and have BBMIKE protected behind the line, ready to throw...which spell?

Heh-heh. One moment before we get to that.

With us not moving, the Bawbgoblins (dunno why I just thought of that...no offense to good ol' Bawb, but it sounds funny in my head) charge us, and the result is pretty much what you'd expect.





The little bastards get in a few whacks of their own, though. Like I said, these are pretty weak monsters, but there's a lot of them, and if you get surrounded they have an annoying habit of cutting your guys down since they can attack from all around your characters.

So, back to the spell thing.

BBMIKE is held back so that he can cast...which spell?

a) Fireball
b) FireBALL
c) FIREball
d) FIREBALL



Ehhhhhhxcellent. :)

TARGET ACQUIRED:



Fireball can affect a very large area. Note that in this screenshot, that the only safe squares are the four corners (if I remember right). This means pretty much every monster on this screen is going to get singed.



The OGRE leader takes a mere 11 HP of damage, which sucks, but that's more than 50% of his starting HP, so it's not too bad.



The OGRE must have made some kind of save roll, because the 22 HP that some of these poor bastards take is enough to vaporize them.



Boy, THIS place got cleared out faster than a fart in church.  >:D

SKULLCRUSHER wastes no time in the smoking, Hob-BQ room and charges the OGRE. You can't see it in this image, but he does manage to get a piece of the OGRE, reducing the huge monster to a handful of HP.



Taking our cue (though we would have even if he hadn't), we charge the remaining Hobgoblins now that we've slaughtered more than half of them courtesy of BBMIKE.



And thanks to that FIREBALL spell and SKULLCRUSHER's damage, B-C manages to bring down the OGRE with only one blow.



KYZBP even gets into the melee.



SKULLCRUSHER of course does not give up, either.



Meanwhile, BBMIKE merely stands in the back, inhaling the grandioseness of his FIREBALL spell.





Whoa, look out. Epic levels coming up! One million more encounters like that and we might actually make 20th level...



And the coinage sucks, too, though the gold is definitely being picked up. The copper isn't even worth the effort of collecting it at this point.

Though, the second half of our mission becomes available shortly after we turn our noses up to the copper pieces.



If we break the seal to see the shinies inside, Cadorna will get majorly pissed off. He's kind of a jerk anyway. It's my understanding, however, that there's a way to create a forgery, but it's too much of a pain to follow through with it by taking it to a Thieves' Guild and allowing them a share. I don't know what the treasure is, exactly, but I do remember seeing what it contained, and remember being underwhelmed. Besides, if I want to be a proper role-player, Good-aligned characters really wouldn't be plotting a way to rip off someone they swore to assist, so whatever.

Cadorna is apparently on the lookout for us once we return to Phlan, because the City Watch accosts us upon our arrival.



Well...okay then. You're welcome, a**hole.



What? Nooo! Dammit. I was hoping he'd stick around, though I don't remember there ever being an option to allow him to do so. He'd be a much better NPC than Joe DIRTEN.



Proclimation CCI
Be it known that the council is interested in clearing obstacles to establishing a trade route to the east. Said obstacles currently include an infestation of lizard men in the swamps to the east. A reward is offered to any who can locate the source of the infestation and remove the lizard men as an obstacle to trade. A commission may be obtained from the council clerk.

So, the Lizard Men outpost/keep/hovels/whatever is the second major locale to the east of Phlan, other than the Kobold Caves.

I gotta wonder what our reward is for bringing back Cadorna's precious family treasure.



I half expect a goon squad to come through the door to kill all of us.

Actually, I expect this to happen every time. I'm beginning to dislike Phlan quite a bit.



Meh. Not great, not bad. Over 1,000 XP would have been most acceptable.



Again, not great, not bad. Better to get rewards in Gems and Jewelry now rather than actual coinage, since Encumbrance rules are such a pain in this game and there's no Bank of Phlan in which to deposit our earnings.

Now, I think we're going to head back to the Kobold Caves, though I'd honestly like BBMIKE to have two Fireballs instead of one to deal with that massive three-wave attack in there...we shall see.

[BanzaiCat]

Just a note, I won't be updating this thread for a week or so, depending on how the week progresses.

A few weeks ago I played through a lot of this game and took a massive amount of screenshots, which is how I was able to update this AAR so often this past week. Now, I need to play through it again, accumulate more screenshots, and then get back to postin'. :)

Thanks for reading! Hope you're all enjoying it as much as I am. I'm looking forward to the endgame and moving on to the next chapter of this series.

[JasonPratt]

Enjoying it immensely! Will wait patiently for more installments.  O0

[Sir Slash]

Cadorna = Cheap Ass. I've got some of their Home Furnishings Line. They make great firewood.

[Emeraldlis]

Enjoying it immensely! Will wait patiently for more installments.  O0

Here .....HERE !!! and so say all of us !! Couldn't agree more , I've been reading this for a while now , and it's becoming something I look forward to reading on a weekend , thanks for the entertaining read B_C I've lost count of the amount of ,lol , moments this AAR has given me  O0. Very cool  8)

[airboy]

Just a note, I won't be updating this thread for a week or so, depending on how the week progresses.

A few weeks ago I played through a lot of this game and took a massive amount of screenshots, which is how I was able to update this AAR so often this past week. Now, I need to play through it again, accumulate more screenshots, and then get back to postin'. :)

Thanks for reading! Hope you're all enjoying it as much as I am. I'm looking forward to the endgame and moving on to the next chapter of this series.

Once again - thanks.  Very fun read.

[Sir Slash]

Hey BC. I remember when playing the Gold Box series it was essential to have a "Mirror" in your party's equipment to defend against certain monster's gazes that could turn a character to stone. But was that in this game or did that come later, like Curse of the Azure Bonds or one of the others?