[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 51 - Island of the Undead (Take 2)

[Thaluikhain]

I agree with that logic.

[SGamerz]

The acid doesn't hurt the spectre, but it would still have been good for us to use it anyway, because we have the diamond that can counter its counter-attack and gain us an additional PRESENCE (and also more STAMINA, but we don't need that anyway).

You move across the etheric terrain determinedly but slowly, given your unfamiliarity with it. The hateful undead creature before you croaks with a venomous, guttural voice and its very speech crystallizes in the ether into black, spiked motes of magical force which fly at you and strike you. Roll one die: you are struck by as many motes as the number rolled, each of which inflicts 1 point of damage to your STAMINA. But you close doggedly in on your final assailant; tum to 242.

Our last layer of protection from the Brass Orb negates this attack and saves us the trouble of having to roll for damage.

The Dire Spectre has one last defence, which it summons now- Between your oncoming rush and its own form it conjures a wall of brittle, , calcified bone, forming a ring all the way round itself. Roll two dice, then add 2 to the total rolled. If this total is less than, or equal to, your PRESENCE, turn to 127- If the final total is greater than your PRESENCE, turn to 319.

Dice roll = 12 + 2 = 14!

Of all the time to roll a double-6! Well, at least we can tell ourselves that even if we'd gained that extra PRESENCE point from using the acid, we'd still have failed.

You have to force your way through the barrier composed of cruel shards of bone, registering the pain in your mind. You lose 3 points from your STAMINA, yet strangely your movement isn't impeded much by this defence, and your legs show no signs of injury. At last you confront your final enemy. Turn to 257.

Not as bad as it might have seemed...

The Dire Spectre will use its talons to rake at your body and face. Each time it strikes you, you lose the usual 2 STAMINA points, but the horror also drains you of 1 point of PRESENCE with each hit and, if your PRESENCE is reduced to zero, you will die, your very soul extinguished by this terrible undead lord. If you do not have a magic sword, you cannot harm your enemy, and you will perish here. If you do have a magic sword, make sure you are aware of the advantages to be gained from the use of Blade Venom and Spectrebane, and any Potion you've taken which may help. You need all the assets you can muster in this final, dread battle!

DIRE SPECTRE SKILL 11 STAMINA 19

If you win, tum to 400.

Draining us of PRESENCE adds an additional way to kill us, but in our case we'd die of STAMINA loss before we lose all our PRESENCE, so it makes little difference.

COMBAT LOG:
Dire Spectre 22, Fred 22. Tie.
DS 20, Fred 24. DS is at 15.
DS 14, Fred 21. DS is at 11.
DS 19, Fred 17. Fred is at 14 STAMINA, 10 PRESENCE.
DS 18, Fred 18. Tie.
DS 17, Fred 18. DS is at 8.
DS 20, Fred 22. DS is at 5.
DS 15, Fred 19. DS is at 2.
DS 18, Fred 22. DS is defeated.

At the final, fatal lunge of your sword, the Dire Spectre shrieks its dismay and its form dissipates into nothingness. You scarcely have time to assemble your thoughts before the Ethereal Oil wears off and you find yourself standing once more in the chamber of the Master of Fire. The magical fire has gone out now, the Black Skeleton is but a pile of bones, and across the room you can see a treasure chest, which may well possess gold, magical artefacts and perhaps more still. It remains for you to get out of these dungeons, and the way home may well be hazardous indeed, but, after what you've been through, you think you are going to make it.

And that's it! Finally, it's over. Thanks to everyone who participated!

You can probably tell that this is one of those books that go through almost all of the content if you take the optimal path, so there won't be any summary of stuff missed. If you have any specific questions on that, I will still answer them. Although there seem to be a general lack of interest anyway. The reason for how long this LP took was partly due to my schedule and lack of availability for updates on certain days of the week, but also partly from how often there's less than 2 people voting, which will prompt me to wait for at least a day before updating. There was never any need for extra life systems or more allowances for enhanced stats from the beginning, since the 1 fully-active player is the same person who hosted the first LP for this book and clearly knows the book well enough to avoid all the bad options, so when the playthrough is mostly led by him, there's pretty much little danger of losing. This is one of those books that tend to kill PCs by attrition after lots of punishments rather than abrupt game overs most of the time, so the odd mistake here and there are never enough to be a real threat with our enhanced stats and all the restorative items provided. Maybe I should have just run this without the enhanced SKILL to make this somewhat challenging.

Well, I hope most of you had fun reading this LP anyway! Again, thanks to all who played!

Final Adventure Sheet:
[spoiler]Name: Fred
SKILL 12/12
STAMINA 14/19
LUCK 12/12
PRESENCE: 10
Equipment: Knife, Backpack, Waterskin, Leather Jerkin, Sword, Rope (x2), Wooden Pole, Gold Key (found in section 40), Potion of Stamina x2 (restores lost STAMINA points up to one-half of Initial STAMINA when drunk, rounding fractions up), Magic Sword (+1 Attack Strength in combat), Shield (x2), Lantern, Bottle of Monks’ Herbal Liqueur x2 (4 doses in total, each restores 4 STAMINA when drunk), pestle and mortar, Herbiary (dog-eared pages: page 311 on the Rat-tailed Fungus, page 175 on the Pitcher Plant, page 266 on the Axeplant), Sapphire (50 facets), Topaz (24 facets), Skeleton Key, Small Pearl, Fire Ruby (60 facets), Tiger Eye stone, stone axe, Tomb Dust, Empty Bottle, Diamond (280-carat), Potion of Luck (restore 1-3 lost LUCK points (roll one die and divide by 2, rounding fractions up), Bottle of Acid, bag of metal spikes and rods
Provisions: 0/12
Gold: 8
Afflictions: Lung Rot
Extra Lives remaining: 24/27
Notes:
1) Message pieced together from torn scraps of paper found in monastery: "There is conflict between the wizards, Caltarelair has certainly quarrelled with one of his fellows and a magic duel cannot be far away. One of them has begun to dabble in magic other than elementalism. Ralsteen the Hermit may have sensed any disturbance at the Circle; I am too weak to risk visiting it. I must hasten to hide the Crystals, and I will hide them in pairs, one pair in..."
2) Parraine will do us a service three times before we bury his bones. He can perform any of the following acts at any time as one service: cure one disease, strengthen our sword so that it inflicts 6 points of damage to the STAMINA of an enemy as the result of a successful hit in combat (can choose this service after we hit the enemy), and he can heal for up to 8 points of lost STAMINA (this cannot be carried out during a combat).
3) The magical password to a door without a lock or handle somewhere below in the dungeons is 'elementarae'.
4) +1 Attack Strength from port for next 2 combats (0/2 remaining)
5) Damage inflicted on Master of Fire before close combat: 6 STAMINA points.
6) Magical Protection from Brass Orb: 0/2 remaining.
[/spoiler]

[JourneymanN00b]

Thank you for running this, SGamerz.

It seems that there is much less activity in this forum in general than there was as the beginning of the year. My wild guess is that something happened in either the video game, board game, or tabletop realm that took up more of their interest.

If you are interested in doing another Fighting Fantasy book, are you able to do Crystal of Storms, Secrets of Salamonis, or Shadow of the Giants, in that order of preference? I think these are the only three books that the forum hasn't done before.

[SGamerz]

If you are interested in doing another Fighting Fantasy book, are you able to do Crystal of Storms, Secrets of Salamonis, or Shadow of the Giants, in that order of preference? I think these are the only three books that the forum hasn't done before.

No, I never owned or read any of the late FF books starting with Blood of Zombies. So feel free to run any of them, and you can be sure that my votes will be as blind and unaffected by spoilers as other players.

Although the only one of the lot I've heard some good things about is Secrets of Salamonis...

[JourneymanN00b]

If you are interested in doing another Fighting Fantasy book, are you able to do Crystal of Storms, Secrets of Salamonis, or Shadow of the Giants, in that order of preference? I think these are the only three books that the forum hasn't done before.

No, I never owned or read any of the late FF books starting with Blood of Zombies. So feel free to run any of them, and you can be sure that my votes will be as blind and unaffected by spoilers as other players.

Although the only one of the lot I've heard some good things about is Secrets of Salamonis...

I'm afraid that I am not in a position to run any of them at the moment. I will provide more details about my ability to run books in the future in my Blood of the Zombies playthrough.

[Thaluikhain]

Thanks for running this.

I feel this way about a lot of books, but this one started out strong, but then seemed to end up in waffly sorta of grind.

[Queen of Swords]

Thank you for hosting this!

I found it a bit difficult to get absorbed in this one, but then again, the gamebooks which I love tend to be the atmospheric ones with interesting worldbuilding, like House of Hell, Curse of the Mummy and so on. The worldbuilding here just wasn't all that distinctive, though I did like the Pocket Dragon.

[pragma]

I also found this fun! I'm glad we finished it, because I was wondering about the details of this one. The bickering wizard backstory made a nice mystery framing, I think.

[SGamerz]

I also found this fun! I'm glad we finished it, because I was wondering about the details of this one. The bickering wizard backstory made a nice mystery framing, I think.

I wish you would have voted more if you were enjoying this. I appreciate JourneymanN00b very much for his active participation, but like I said, an LP is not as fun to run when often the ONLY voter is someone who already knows the book well.