Post by Victrix on May 20, 2004 4:07:25 GMT
And other such salutations 
I discovered Lone Wolf sometime in the late 80s, played them feverishly as quickly as I could find them, and then binged on just about every other gamebook I could find at the time. Since D&D and the like were hard to get players for (at least where I lived at the time), the books were the next best thing.
Anyone remember the novels where you were attacked by a critter with a picture of a three eyed bounding creature, and another where you adventured with two companions and could wind up sliding down an icy slope endlessly to your doom? Major bonus points if you can name either of those based on those vague descriptions
Anyhow, skip a decade or two, and I find out about Project Aon. At the time, it was still in its formative stages, and I forgot about it for a long while. Now, lo and behold, I come back and I have 15 pristine Lone Wolf adventures awaiting my pleasure! Combined with Statskeeper, and I've spent the last several days having a ball playing them through.
Some questions then, for the veteran players I read through pretty much every topic in the forum before registering, so I've already got some answers, but just for clarifications sake, I figure I may as well query away.
I've made it up to Zakhan Kimah in book 9, and I seem to be completely stuck. With a starting CS of 15 and a current of 33, he is totally untouchable with the Summerswerd (I have no Alether either, as I didn't know you could save items between books). After reading about Vonotars nifty backdoor, I suspect I could get past this point with a bit of work, but reading the other thread about the horrible encounters awaiting me in book 11 make me wonder if there is any prayer of completing them even remotely legitimately without a starting CS of 19.
I didn't realize the benefits of the 'grandfathered' disciplines either, so I sort of wasted picks on Curing and Huntmastery, and I realize I could have completed both Spirit and Fire by now, which would give me a decent CS boost - combined with Alether, I'd actually have a decent chance of killing Kimah in a stand up fight, but it still doesn't look like there would be any way whatsoever to take down the string of encounters in book 11. Is there any legitimate way to complete those without 19 CS?
Mmm. Anyhow. Annoying/amusing/memorable encounters along the way:
Book 2 - Plastered repeatedly in the tunnel (you know which one!). Totally didn't realize how to get the Magic Spear. Finally restarted Book 1, choose Animal Kinship completely by accident, and made my way through the tunnel safely. Never encountered Banedon (now I know why they kept asking me for the Crystal Pendant!), so I didn't realize the overarching story with Vonotar through book 3 (pretty neat)
Book 3 - Killed by poisonous dog critter at the gates of Ikaya repeatedly! Jerk! A question about this book - as the Silver Helm seems to be one of the few items that gives a CS boost, is it possible to miss this item? It seems to be amazingly critical - I was lucky enough to find it on my run through, but I'm just wondering if its a 'gimme' for players of book 3, or if you have to go out of your way to get it.
Book 4 - No serious problems, I think I died to one or two instadeaths along the way south to the gorge.
Book 5 - Croaked once in the sewers, and died again later in the palace, though I can't remember what killed me there.
Book 6 - How the heck are you supposed to get that bow? Died once by going south (wth, it seemed obvious to me to go that way!). Died by running into the town after the dorks who captured my buddy. Died again instantly in the sewers - bah! I should have listened to my own personal sixth sense. Perhaps it was some dim memory of when I played this book so many years ago, but something was telling me "Do not deviate in this sewer passage, or you WILL die" - which I did
Book 7 - I remembered this book being an absolute nightmare from years ago, but other than a quick and stupid death going the jetty side, and a second from walking into the big bad guys room from the front (oops!), I made it through on my third run ok. I was scraping for EPs in the Maze, but came out alright. Incidently, if I had used some of the more restrictive Healing/Curing rules I've seen here, I have no idea how I would have finished this, as my EP seemed to get trashed badly in this book no matter how I went about it.
Book 8 - Curse that blasted Gnaag Helghast! I tried every variation on either path I could think of, but it seemed to be an unavoidable encounter. I even changed my choice of Discipline for this adventure (something I had strictly avoided previously), from Animal Control to Psi-Screen, in the hopes that it would aid me in the battle. Which it didn't Omega informed me of the alternate path to avoid the battle, but I'd already squeaked my way past that fight by then (barely). Pretty unintuitive to not show your pass, but hey!
Book 9 - Where I'm stuck currently. I was bummed too - first run through the book, I made it to Kimah in one shot, no problems. And hit the brick wall of his 44 CS. Yuck. I guess in THEORY, you could play enough to get through via the 'backdoor', but much like the Helghast in 8 and the Animal Control/Magic Spear conundrum in 2, this seems like a pretty aggravating chokepoint. I don't understand the ludicrously jacked up CS for the Summerswerd opponents at this point. Even with all the goodies I've found along the way, I'm still no match for these creatures.
It sounds like 11 is even worse, as you have a choice of Summerswerd (and near impossible battle), or no Summerswerd (and near impossible battles after mostly impossible battle). Is that the whole story there, or is there some other route? Don't want specifics, just wondering if I'm pre-screwed with a 15 CS (assuming I manage to finagle my way past book 9)
I read the topic on the number distribution with some interest, if it was Dever's intent that the random numbers be slightly skewed (6 as was suggested), should there perhaps be an option in Statskeeper to play with this 'weight' applied to the RNG? If this would allow for legitimate completions with lower CS scores, I'd be all for it. Though numerous people have demonstrated that some sections are either borderline impossible (or impossible, depending on how you play) with low CS scores, I did read the 10/20 story with some interest. I genuinely don't mind replaying a book - there almost always seems to be something new to find, but when I run into CS brick walls, its a bit frustrating.
I think I had some other rules interpretation questions, but I'll ask those when they occur to me again. I'm trying to decide if I should 'cheat' book 9 by using the alternate path to Kimah, or restart the whole series. Problem with doing that is I could concievably wind up with a lower CS than I have now, and I'd just wind up stuck all over again (even if I more carefully chose my disciplines to complete Spirit and Fire by book 9). Since the cat is out of the virtual bag on the backdoor, perhaps I should just attempt that and try to forge on to book 11, where I can die some more and come back to complain
And one last passing though, did the Lone Wolf RPG just release? I'll have to pick that up... I need to go dig up those NWN LW modules also
Woo, LW binge!
I discovered Lone Wolf sometime in the late 80s, played them feverishly as quickly as I could find them, and then binged on just about every other gamebook I could find at the time. Since D&D and the like were hard to get players for (at least where I lived at the time), the books were the next best thing.
Anyone remember the novels where you were attacked by a critter with a picture of a three eyed bounding creature, and another where you adventured with two companions and could wind up sliding down an icy slope endlessly to your doom? Major bonus points if you can name either of those based on those vague descriptions
Anyhow, skip a decade or two, and I find out about Project Aon. At the time, it was still in its formative stages, and I forgot about it for a long while. Now, lo and behold, I come back and I have 15 pristine Lone Wolf adventures awaiting my pleasure! Combined with Statskeeper, and I've spent the last several days having a ball playing them through.
Some questions then, for the veteran players
I read through pretty much every topic in the forum before registering, so I've already got some answers, but just for clarifications sake, I figure I may as well query away.I've made it up to Zakhan Kimah in book 9, and I seem to be completely stuck. With a starting CS of 15 and a current of 33, he is totally untouchable with the Summerswerd (I have no Alether either, as I didn't know you could save items between books). After reading about Vonotars nifty backdoor, I suspect I could get past this point with a bit of work, but reading the other thread about the horrible encounters awaiting me in book 11 make me wonder if there is any prayer of completing them even remotely legitimately without a starting CS of 19.
I didn't realize the benefits of the 'grandfathered' disciplines either, so I sort of wasted picks on Curing and Huntmastery, and I realize I could have completed both Spirit and Fire by now, which would give me a decent CS boost - combined with Alether, I'd actually have a decent chance of killing Kimah in a stand up fight, but it still doesn't look like there would be any way whatsoever to take down the string of encounters in book 11. Is there any legitimate way to complete those without 19 CS?
Mmm. Anyhow. Annoying/amusing/memorable encounters along the way:
Book 2 - Plastered repeatedly in the tunnel (you know which one!). Totally didn't realize how to get the Magic Spear. Finally restarted Book 1, choose Animal Kinship completely by accident, and made my way through the tunnel safely. Never encountered Banedon (now I know why they kept asking me for the Crystal Pendant!), so I didn't realize the overarching story with Vonotar through book 3 (pretty neat)
Book 3 - Killed by poisonous dog critter at the gates of Ikaya repeatedly! Jerk! A question about this book - as the Silver Helm seems to be one of the few items that gives a CS boost, is it possible to miss this item? It seems to be amazingly critical - I was lucky enough to find it on my run through, but I'm just wondering if its a 'gimme' for players of book 3, or if you have to go out of your way to get it.
Book 4 - No serious problems, I think I died to one or two instadeaths along the way south to the gorge.
Book 5 - Croaked once in the sewers, and died again later in the palace, though I can't remember what killed me there.
Book 6 - How the heck are you supposed to get that bow? Died once by going south (wth, it seemed obvious to me to go that way!). Died by running into the town after the dorks who captured my buddy. Died again instantly in the sewers - bah! I should have listened to my own personal sixth sense. Perhaps it was some dim memory of when I played this book so many years ago, but something was telling me "Do not deviate in this sewer passage, or you WILL die" - which I did
Book 7 - I remembered this book being an absolute nightmare from years ago, but other than a quick and stupid death going the jetty side, and a second from walking into the big bad guys room from the front (oops!), I made it through on my third run ok. I was scraping for EPs in the Maze, but came out alright. Incidently, if I had used some of the more restrictive Healing/Curing rules I've seen here, I have no idea how I would have finished this, as my EP seemed to get trashed badly in this book no matter how I went about it.
Book 8 - Curse that blasted Gnaag Helghast! I tried every variation on either path I could think of, but it seemed to be an unavoidable encounter. I even changed my choice of Discipline for this adventure (something I had strictly avoided previously), from Animal Control to Psi-Screen, in the hopes that it would aid me in the battle. Which it didn't
Omega informed me of the alternate path to avoid the battle, but I'd already squeaked my way past that fight by then (barely). Pretty unintuitive to not show your pass, but hey!Book 9 - Where I'm stuck currently. I was bummed too - first run through the book, I made it to Kimah in one shot, no problems. And hit the brick wall of his 44 CS. Yuck. I guess in THEORY, you could play enough to get through via the 'backdoor', but much like the Helghast in 8 and the Animal Control/Magic Spear conundrum in 2, this seems like a pretty aggravating chokepoint. I don't understand the ludicrously jacked up CS for the Summerswerd opponents at this point. Even with all the goodies I've found along the way, I'm still no match for these creatures.
It sounds like 11 is even worse, as you have a choice of Summerswerd (and near impossible battle), or no Summerswerd (and near impossible battles after mostly impossible battle). Is that the whole story there, or is there some other route? Don't want specifics, just wondering if I'm pre-screwed with a 15 CS (assuming I manage to finagle my way past book 9)
I read the topic on the number distribution with some interest, if it was Dever's intent that the random numbers be slightly skewed (6 as was suggested), should there perhaps be an option in Statskeeper to play with this 'weight' applied to the RNG? If this would allow for legitimate completions with lower CS scores, I'd be all for it. Though numerous people have demonstrated that some sections are either borderline impossible (or impossible, depending on how you play) with low CS scores, I did read the 10/20 story with some interest. I genuinely don't mind replaying a book - there almost always seems to be something new to find, but when I run into CS brick walls, its a bit frustrating.
I think I had some other rules interpretation questions, but I'll ask those when they occur to me again. I'm trying to decide if I should 'cheat' book 9 by using the alternate path to Kimah, or restart the whole series. Problem with doing that is I could concievably wind up with a lower CS than I have now, and I'd just wind up stuck all over again (even if I more carefully chose my disciplines to complete Spirit and Fire by book 9). Since the cat is out of the virtual bag on the backdoor, perhaps I should just attempt that and try to forge on to book 11, where I can die some more and come back to complain
And one last passing though, did the Lone Wolf RPG just release? I'll have to pick that up... I need to go dig up those NWN LW modules also
Woo, LW binge!
