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Post by mcraun on Jul 28, 2012 12:53:44 GMT -5
Had a blast making up my four characters...they seem a bit more tangible to me than the fantasy ones. I was ready to set off and rescue the missing soldiers, failing horribly!
The first fight at the cabin, with the wolves attacking the horses...I got slaughtered three times in a row. The coats do not provide a lot of armor, and 6 attacks coming in at D6+1 tore through me and dropped characters left and right. With starting ST up to 12, it doesn't take much to tear up the party into a bloody mess.
So, I cheated. I eventually "won", but my party was chewed horribly.
I headed out into the wild the next day and found 6 more wolves, this time doing 2D6+1 damage. Even trying a running battle, keeping distance and not becoming surrounded, a single hit would take out my already damaged party. Even a full health party would not survive, I fear. A simple roll of an 8 or 9 +1 is enough to rip through my characters. My coats might take a point or two away, but not nearly enough protection.
What am I doing wrong? I can not get started. I am slaughtered at every turn.
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Post by mcraun on Jul 28, 2012 19:47:02 GMT -5
Went back to it, and fought the initial battle 6 times before I ended up with a result I thought might not kill my adventure right at the start. I got out with 0=3=3=7 wounds respectively (After doc healed 2 of the wounded 3 fora point each).
I went back to the second battle, first play I got destroyed. Second play I got amazingly lucky and killed two wolves on the first round. Two of my party still died, that 2D6+1 damage is monster.
I like trying to figure these battles out, but for this I'm pretty sure you just need amazing luck. As far as I can tell, this adventure is broken. If I can figure out (get luck) and survive the starving wolves, I would have to rest a week, or my party will easily die next fight. As I am on a timer, that probably is not a good idea.
Anyone else play this adventure and run into similar problems?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2012 1:14:53 GMT -5
can you post your character info? (stats, skills, etc. for each character)
i'm curious because i too had similar problems when i first started playing DC games. (i haven't played the westerns, just the ancient worlds). my first few sets of characters were not very 'optimized'.
without seeing your character info, some general advice: - it's very important to invest more in DX than any other stat. since there is no 'magic' in Untamed West, i would not have a 'smart guy' as you put it in another post. i would make all your guys: ST10 DX14 IQ8 - with DX14, you shouldn't need combat skills to hit; apply combat skills to damage instead. - give everyone the medic skill; at the end of combat, every character can 'heal' every other character; so everyone gets 'healed' X times where X is the number of characters in your party; yeah, seems kinda like cheating but i think that's what most people do. - don't overlook the Dodge reaction; with a DX14 you should usually succeed at Dodge; let foe make attack roll. if he hits, Dodge. keep doing that until foe misses. when foes misses, Couterattack instead of Dodge.
hopefully bret (mister frau blucher) will chime in and correct anything i've said that's wrong and offer more advice.
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Post by mcraun on Jul 29, 2012 9:10:24 GMT -5
Well I made four distinct, and to me interesting, party members. Why play RPGs if, as you suggest, I just make my party Cyborg 1, Cyborg 2, Cyborg 3 and Cyborg 4: all optimally designed to tear up the Western plains. Where is the flavor in that?
I eventually figured out how to beat that 2nd battle, but I had to fight it a lot of times, and get amazingly lucky. Those wolves did more damage than a grizzly I fought later...and there was 1 grizzly. 6 wolves doing that destruction...ouch. If you lose the initiative, you are dead. I honestly think it might be more a problem w/ that encounter than my party.
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Post by mister frau blucher on Jul 29, 2012 9:43:54 GMT -5
Hey, Mcraun, welcome to the boards!
Definitely, you want to make interesting characters. ewookie wasn't really suggesting you create min-maxed cyborgs, just to be aware of how the rules can play out. He is absolutely right about using Dodge - it is one of the most valuable tools in the tactical arsenal.
It has been a while since I played through BitD, so I'll go back and check it out, but I honestly don't remember these encounters being that problematic. The 2D6+1 for the second batch of wolves sounds like a misprint. Also, I seem to recall that the wolves fled after several had been killed.
As I said, I'll check the adventure when I get home.
Bret
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2012 11:38:56 GMT -5
Well I made four distinct, and to me interesting, party members. Why play RPGs if, as you suggest, I just make my party Cyborg 1, Cyborg 2, Cyborg 3 and Cyborg 4: all optimally designed to tear up the Western plains. Where is the flavor in that? I eventually figured out how to beat that 2nd battle, but I had to fight it a lot of times, and get amazingly lucky. Those wolves did more damage than a grizzly I fought later...and there was 1 grizzly. 6 wolves doing that destruction...ouch. If you lose the initiative, you are dead. I honestly think it might be more a problem w/ that encounter than my party. if you want to survive long enough for your characters to differentiate themselves from each other (which is done through skills in this RPG or any other RPG), i am suggesting you keep their DX high. DX is very powerful in these games. Combat success depends on DX as well as half the skills. just like the real world, we all start out basically the same and become more individualized as we grow and develop. as far as RPG flavor goes, i would say there really isn't a whole lot of 'role-playing' in these games when you are playing solo or without a gamemaster. the flavor comes from the setting and writing style of the text. there is a spectrum to everything. on the RPG spectrum, these games lean more toward the 'hack-n-slash' side of RPG. for me, that is not an insult. i like my RPGs that way...hack-n-slash with some mystery/puzzles to solve.
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Post by dare2go on Jul 29, 2012 14:17:24 GMT -5
Thanks very much for the comments, and also the tips on strategy.
Several points. The wolves doing 2D6+1 is a mistake--it should be D6+1! Also, keep in mind that a wolf flees after taking 1/2ST in damage points, and the whole pack flees if three flee.
Maybe even that's too difficult. Maybe we should revise this to say that the pack flees if one wolf takes 5 or more damage points. Unfortunately, I can't speak authoritatively on wolves, I just know what I read, and there's not much literature out there on wolf fighting tactics.
Remember in your fights that you can dodge! If you outnumber your opposition, dodging is a good option. If they outnumber you, you should think twice about dodging.
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Post by dare2go on Jul 29, 2012 14:22:18 GMT -5
if you want to survive long enough for your characters to differentiate themselves from each other (which is done through skills in this RPG or any other RPG), i am suggesting you keep their DX high. DX is very powerful in these games. Combat success depends on DX as well as half the skills. just like the real world, we all start out basically the same and become more individualized as we grow and develop. as far as RPG flavor goes, i would say there really isn't a whole lot of 'role-playing' in these games when you are playing solo or without a gamemaster. the flavor comes from the setting and writing style of the text. there is a spectrum to everything. on the RPG spectrum, these games lean more toward the 'hack-n-slash' side of RPG. for me, that is not an insult. i like my RPGs that way...hack-n-slash with some mystery/puzzles to solve. This is a good point. The DCG adventures are mostly hack and slash with some writing thrown in :-) And ewookie is correct about the importance of DX. Unless you're a giant bear, and then you can just jump on your prey (takedown) and tear him to pieces in a grappling fight. Also, don't forget the dodge option. This is a lifesaver. Of course, like ewookie said, once again, it shows the importance of DX. Only in the Time and Space adventures does IQ get more and more important. Or if you're a wizard.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2012 19:05:54 GMT -5
hey, as far as the wolves go... i don't have the Blood in the Dust adventure, so i don't know/can't check...is there an option explicitly stated about whether or not you can use the 'Animal Handler' skill to make the wolves back off? i mean, if there's nothing already there in the text that prevents it, at least one of mcraun's characters that has the skill should be able to exercise it, at least at the beginning of the encounter. if it were me (and not knowing anything about the specifics of the encounter), i would write it so that 'a character may check 3/IQ against ANIMAL HANDLER once per turn as their action. if successful, the wolves lose interest in the fight and leave.' ...and that should demonstrate the value of skills to mcraun (either option)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2012 19:21:13 GMT -5
i know it can get to be a real pain and headache as an adventure author if you have to explicitly state every possible action available to a player. i don't think you should. i've never played a game with a gamemaster where the gamemaster did that. it was like... GM: "<description stuff, blah, blah>. what do you want to do?" of course, with a GM, a new player has the opportunity to ask the GM or other more experienced players "what are my options? any suggestions?" unfortunately, that doesn't exist in solo-mode. perhaps an italicized hint: check your skills at the beginning of the encounter would be sufficient. EDIT: part of why i like pen&paper rpg/games is that it is open. players are free to find their own creative solutions to problems and bend rules as they desire. you can't do that with no stinkin video game. EDIT2: one thing video games DO have though...continues. if you die, you start over at some point in the game with full health/life. one idea is to have a blurbage at the beginning of adventures. something like 'if you die in an encounter, you may restart from the beginning of that encounter with (half/full) life. however, you will receive no XP for the encounter' or 'you lose all XP accrued up to that point and not already invested in stats, skills, spells' ^i think that would be very nice to have given all the 'paperwork' that goes into setting up and playing a pen&paper game
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2012 19:48:39 GMT -5
mcraun, if you use ANIMAL HANDLER at the beginning of the encounter and succeed in making the wolves go away, all of your party gets the XP (unless one of them climbed (skill) a tree and waited for everyone else to deal with the wolves). EDIT: i look at these solo-adventures as a sort of choose-your-own-adventure book with dice and more options than what is printed. they really aren't GameMaster-less. YOU are the GM and the player. i don't know if you have kids so this may not help but... imagine you are playing with a kid under age 12 and they say they want to do something that is not explicitly written in the adventure. since it's your kid, if they want to do something that is even wildly reasonable, you might let them do it...but at a cost or with heavy restrictions or with very limited results. these adventures are interactive stories. they don't test mad hand-eye coordination skillz like video games. if they test anything, they test your creativity and luck with the dice. being able to see through the numbers and the rules (like neo seeing people in matrix code) helps a lot...but i think the main point is to become part of the story...so i think a little quasi-cheating (which is called creativity in the real world) is completely acceptable.
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Post by mister frau blucher on Jul 30, 2012 9:17:19 GMT -5
Hey Mcraun,
Seems like others have chipped in, but a few things:
Regarding the wolf encounters, each flees when they have taken half damage, and when three flee the rest do. It didn't read in your description above that you were playing that way, but maybe so. There are often tactical notes in the encounter descriptions, so double-check the notes as you set up.
Also, ewwokie has a good point about Animal Handler. You can't make them all go with a single check, but a character with animal handler could persuade one at a time to flee with a successful check. This is not breaking the rules, but using them as written.
Anyway, hope this helps. Let us know if not!
Bret
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 10:09:26 GMT -5
Also, ewwokie has a good point about Animal Handler. You can't make them all go with a single check, but a character with animal handler could persuade one at a time to flee with a successful check. This is not breaking the rules, but using them as written. i guess that depends on how you interpret the rules as written. ...leaves a lot of room to interpretation...but that's a good thing!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 10:15:53 GMT -5
...but i do agree with your interpretation
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Post by mister frau blucher on Jul 30, 2012 10:22:13 GMT -5
An excellent point, ewookie. As you and I (and many others) have discussed, there are gray areas. But the important point is one you made above, that you are the gamemaster/judge as well as the PCs when playing solitaire. The game master's interpretation is key.
In this case, it would be too easy (I interpret) to have them all go away on a single roll of the dice. But others may disagree!
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