Some Lone Wolf Challenges

[Nathan P. Mahney]

While playing through the books last night, a couple of challenges occurred to me. I haven't tried them myself yet, but here they are:

Challenge 1) Go through the series counting Weapon-Like special items as weapons. So you only get two. What happens when you find the Dagger of Vashna, the Silver Bow, Helshezag etc.? Lots of tough decisions to make...

Challenge 2) See how far you can get with no Kai Disciplines. None. This one I'm itching to have a go at!

[Thomas Wolmer]

Nathan said:

While playing through the books last night, a couple of challenges occurred to me. I haven't tried them myself yet, but here they are:

Challenge 1) Go through the series counting Weapon-Like special items as weapons. So you only get two. What happens when you find the Dagger of Vashna, the Silver Bow, Helshezag etc.? Lots of tough decisions to make...

Heh. This was how I originally played the books. No major problem really; the Magic Spear I dumped at home as soon as that became possible, the same with the Dagger of Vashna, until book 9 when I after dying a few times decided that it was best to leave the Sommerswerd at home and bring the Dagger instead.

[Ofecks]

Nathan said:

Challenge 2) See how far you can get with no Kai Disciplines. None. This one I'm itching to have a go at!

Book 2, the Helghast fight for the Magic Spear. Even if your CS is 19 you're in the negative (minus 3 or 4, I don't remember), plus you lose 2 extra EP per round. Forget it, you're screwed.

I've tried doing all the books (published here so far, anyway) as stand-alone quests. The only ones I couldn't complete were 8, 9, and 11. 12 was tough, but because of all the CS-enhancing stuff you find along the way, it is definitely do-able. 14 and 15 were also quite difficult (Deliverance is a MUST).

I also tried doing the whole Magnakai series stand-alone. Thanks to some lucky, LUCKY RN rolls, I managed to beat books 8 and 9 but when I found myself at the tail-end of book 11 - not a chance in hell. Even with Lore-circle bonuses and optimal discipline choices, it is impossible without the Sommerswerd and other stat-boosting items (Silver Helm, +4 Alether, etc.). Yes, I actually killed the Chaos-Master, btw. It's those 3 or 4 nasty fights afterwards that did me in.

Has anyone done the GM series stand-alone? How tough is it?

Here are some challenges I thought of off the top of my head:

- No Psychic abilities (Mindblast, Mindshield, Sixth Sense, Mind Over Matter, Healing, and their MK/GM equivalents).

- ONLY Psychic abilities, no others.

- From the very beginning, see how far you can get with 500 EP. You may not restore it in any way. As in, if you end a book with 477 EP, you start the next book with 477 EP, and so on.

- No weapons of any kind, but all the disciplines (and their improvements) at your disposal. Obviously, books 11 and 12 cannot be completed.

- 10 CS/10 EP, but you start with the Sommerswerd, Silver Bow of Duadon, and Dagger of Vashna.

- No money or backpack items. Obviously, book 2 cannot be completed

- Special item limit of 3.

[Darkash]

I had played what I call the "Double Zero" challenge. It's where I play from book 1 with 10CS/20END (In other words, like I picked two zeros when creating my character.) As far as I can tell, it is very possible up until book 11, where things fall apart in an explosive way. Some of these other challenges sound good as well.

[Zipp]

i wouldn't really call it a challenge, but it does add some difficulty if you use a lot of armor.

I always treated the armor as a +EP bonus on top of my score to be applied before combat.

I also, if I was in a realistic mood, treated the armor as losing effectiveness over time. There are a few ways of doing this.

1. Any time you take damage in combat equal to or greater than the armor bonus, the bonus is, after battle, reduced by 1. When the bonus reaches 0, the armor is destroyed.

2. The armor loses it's bonus with each hit in combat. When it reaches 0, reset it, after battle, to it's original value minus 1. So a +4 would now become a +3. When it becomes a +0, discard it.

3. The bonus isn't applied until you "die" in combat. Then, like a potion, you get however many EP back as the bonus on the armor. Each time this occurs, the bonus drops by one.

Also, I played that if you go home to the Monastery between missions, you can fix your armor to it's original bonus.

And some armors, such as the one time find one's, don't use this system. Supperior forging, you know.

[Sol]

Can it be done?

Escape from Castle Death while holding onto all your backpack items! I would love to see some way to hold onto that LOVELY +8 EP potion that can be found in the metal tube.

[columbob]

Sol said:

Can it be done?

Escape from Castle Death while holding onto all your backpack items! I would love to see some way to hold onto that LOVELY +8 EP potion that can be found in the metal tube.

You can also find a pouch of Herbs that, if you have Curing, can give you +6 CS for a combat!

[Sol]

WOW! I found this (Beastmen, right?) but didn't have Curing. So YES - that makes the challenge better, if there is a way.

[columbob]

Sol said:

WOW! I found this (Beastmen, right?) but didn't have Curing. So YES - that makes the challenge better, if there is a way.

That's right, it's on the beastmen. Unfortunately, I don't think you can escape with your backpack.

[Peregrine]

Sol said:

Can it be done? Escape from Castle Death while holding onto all your backpack items!

This one's easy: No. Section 122 (where you lose your backpack) is the only one that leads to 350.

Some of these challenges sound like a lot of fun, by the way. I used to play with the Special Items in Weapon slots rule, but that was only for the Sommerswerd - I got my hands on the Lone Wolf Omnibus (FftD & FotW) from a library, and took the Sommerswerd with me into the GM books (specifically Deathlord... I'd gotten hold of assorted others over the years but that was the only one I owned at the time).

[Sol]

Yoda: "Awwww, can't get your shi* out."

You know, I actually store backpack items at the monostary before entering Book 7. I am not sure if this is technically allowed. But before I started doing this, I would always have a backpack full of great potions by the end of Book 7 and I got tired of losing them all.

I usually take some potions in with me... it is sad to lose these, but I like to play it safe as well.


* = "p"

[Black Cat]

Sol said:

You know, I actually store backpack items at the monostary before entering Book 7. I am not sure if this is technically allowed.

Of course that you are allowed to do this. This is what we call safekeeping. You can do this with everything that you have (Gold Crowns, Special Items, etc). You can do this between each book, except between books 10-11, 11-12 and 17-18, since that there's no way that you can put items in safekeeping at the monastery between these books.

[Nathan P. Mahney]

I've recently had a few attempts at playing the books with no Kai Disciplines. I gave myself stats of CS 19, EP 29, just to make things easier. Alas, the Helghast in Book 2 was just too much for me. Even deliberate;y attacking the weakest passenger on the coach (the merchant) didn't leave me with enough EP to beat the Helghast. I'm sure it can be done, but then there are other Helghast later in the book...

[columbob]

Black said:

Of course that you are allowed to do this. This is what we call safekeeping. You can do this with everything that you have (Gold Crowns, Special Items, etc). You can do this between each book, except between books 10-11, 11-12 and 17-18, since that there's no way that you can put items in safekeeping at the monastery between these books.

Actually, I've been reading the books this week (1-10 so far), and they always mention that you can leave gold crowns and special items in safekeeping, but never backpack items. Are any backpack items found in certain books useful in the following books? (besides potions, meals and the like).

[Thomas Wolmer]

columbob said:

Are any backpack items found in certain books useful in the following books? (besides potions, meals and the like).

Yes. The Oede Herb is the prime example; you can use it to cure the korovax you may get infected with in book 8, which means that you have to have held on to it since book 5, and even kept it in safekeeping during book 7! (Unless you completely skipped that book.)