Let's Play Fighting Fantasy #16: Seas of Blood

[Darth Rabbitt]

Twisting, you deliver a sharp kick to the Cyclops' elbow, possibly inducing a hairline fracture. It screams and drops you to the ground - deduct 2 points from its STAMINA. Getting to your feet, you face your stricken opponent. Will you:

Elbow it in the ribs?
Punch it in the shoulder?
Take a flying kick at its chest?

(Cyclops is at 4. I assume we kick again since we know that works.)

Taking a short run up, you jump in the air and kick out at the Cyclops' chest, striking it a heavy blow - deduct 2 points from the creature's STAMINA. It utters a short grunt and stumbles back, lashing out with a huge paw as it does so. Grabbing you by the forearm, it lifts you into the air. Will you:

Back-hand it in the elbow?
Kick it in the armpit?
Bite it on the wrist?

(Cyclops is at 2. I assume we finish it off with the other move we know works.)

Summoning all your energy, you swing violently and smash the creature in the armpit with your foot. Screaming, it drops you to the ground and then clutches its wound - deduct 2 points from its STAMINA. (Cyclops is at 0 STAMINA.)

The Cyclops drops to the ground, unconscious. Victorious, you climb back up the ladder and through the trapdoor, to face the wizened old creature who sent you down in the first place. He cackles when you appear and then ushers you through the gap in the wall, indicating the path you must take to reach the summit of Nippur's mountain.

When you reach the summit, you find Abdul the Butcher and a few of his men waiting for you. "Ah," he says, when you appear, "you made it. Now, let us see which is the greatest rascal!" He drags an enormous chest forward. "I sacked Kish," he boasts, "and even captured a Marad war galley. The treasure is here to prove it." He opens his coffer, inviting you to do the same with yours. To work out whether you have more than Abdul, round the amount of gold you have down to the nearest hundred (e.g. if you have 387 Gold Pieces, round this figure down to 300); when you have done this divide the rounded figure by two. The result is the number that you should turn to.

(405 rounded down is 400, which divided by 2 is 200.)

"Come now," says Abdul, looking at your markedly smaller pile of gold, "it was hardly even a contest - and you call yourself a pirate?" You have been hopelessly trounced. Abdul is, without a doubt, the greater pirate. You have lost the wager.

BUT AT LEAST LEEROY HAD CHICKEN

[Dr_Noface]

Buh.... was it possible to win by selling the slaves?

[Darth Rabbitt]

The slaves would have yielded us anywhere from 70-210 Gold Pieces, for a total of somewhere from 475-615 Gold Pieces. We would have needed 800+ to win (700-799 gets you a "it was close, but Abdul wins" ending; anything less gives us the ending we got.) Had we gone to the gambling pits earlier and got really lucky, we could have netted another 195 gold, (we also could have lost up to 140, though) which combined with the best possible slave profits would have given us 810 gold; just enough to beat Abdul.

It also really hurt that we raided the caravans in the beginning; it eats up 6-7 days of time in exchange for only 63 gold and 2 slaves, and that only if you are Lucky. The shipping raid option would have (in the same amount of time) offered us anywhere from 5 slaves to 68 gold and 3 slaves to 98 gold and 8(!) slaves, but it would require a lot of ship-to-ship fights (which we would have undoubtedly won.) If we switched out the caravan spoils for that and sold our slaves, we would have gotten anywhere from 95-215 more Gold in addition to the profits from the slaves we did get in the adventure. Combined with the gambling, we could have gotten as much as 1025 Gold Pieces! A lot of this shit revolves around random chance though.

If anyone's curious I have no problem posting the good ending to this book; it's simple but I really like it.

EDIT: clarified some things.

[Dr_Noface]

Anything cool we missed? Monsters, powerups, etc?

[Darth Rabbitt]

(First of all: Looking it up, I was wrong on the slaves - they sell for 5-15 GP each, not 10-30. Slaves are a lot less valuable than I thought they were. So we'd have needed to do both of the things I suggested to just barely beat Abdul... this book is even harder than I thought.)

As for your question:

The gambling pits are really cool. You can bet on a local sport involving racing lizards chasing after a live Goblin (first lizard to devour it wins!), fight a boxing Ogre for Gold (first to hit the other wins) and come across your creditor, who asks for your ship as payment for a debt you haven't paid for a long time unless you roll 7 on 2d6 (you can fight his guys if you fail; they have a decent bit of gold on them.)

There are two Giants on one island. You can challenge one to a staff-fight; if you go for his legs and beat him you have a chance of recruiting both of them - they add 3 points to your CREW STRIKE (and can exceed your Initial score.)

There's a boat that has a Warlock on it who summons a Shade to attack you. If you beat it:

The crew and passengers of the merchantman, aghast at the Warlock for provoking you, rush and seize him. Trussing his arms with a stout rope, they push him overboard into the sea, leaving him to drown or be taken by the sharks. The captain climbs into the rigging and shouts, "Forgive us for harboring such an unworthy fellow. We place ourselves at your bountiful mercy!" His crew and passengers vigorously agree. Boarding the merchantman, you seize 120 Gold Pieces and, in a fit of good will, take only 2 of his passengers as slaves - add these items to your Booty.

The other really awesome part is the good ending:

"There," you say to Abdul, flinging your coffer open to reveal an amount of gold substantially greater than his own, "I am the victor. I am the greatest rascal, the best sacker of cities!" Abdul bows his head, admitting your victory. You have won.

Basically the kind of shit that makes you feel like a total fucking badass. Only better "good" ending among any of the FF books I have is Demons of the Deep's.

Fun fact: the only LUCK test we made that wasn't a save-or-die was the one right before we fought the Roc. If Unlucky, it grabs you and you have to fight it one-on-one, where it has much better stats (especially its STAMINA).

[Darth Rabbitt]

Next book is currently a tie between Spectral Stalkers and The Forest of Doom. If the tie is not broken by tonight, I will randomly determine which one will be done next.

[Starmaker]

Whoever might be voting: please notice that Darth previously stated something that led me to believe Spectral Stalkers is really good, and I've been waiting for a letsplay for several internet centuries. Thank you for your consideration.

[Darth Rabbitt]

OK, Spectral Stalkers has taken out Forest of Doom by 3-to-1! I will probably start it at some point on Saturday.