[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy #54 - Legend of Zagor!

[SGamerz]

The wording is "if you use an Open spell" not if you have the ability to do so. Presumably, making teh conscious decision to skip the Open spell lets you not use an Open spell.

But fuck it, use the Open spell.

The actual sentence with the section reference says " If you can use any of these means, turn to 307", not "if you can and want to do so".

But since the votes are to use the spell here, I guess it doesn't matter.

Test your Luck. If you are Lucky, you find a hand catapult with a glowing black stone in its leather pouch which certainly proves interesting. You can use this to attack from a distance much like using a bow, but if you hit your opponent with it, he will lose 6 STAMINA points because of the powerful enchantment on the stone. You can get only one shot from the catapult, however, and you cannot use it in hand-to-hand combat (if you are Stubble or Sallazar Jallarial you must subtract 1 from your SKILL when using this unfamiliar weapon). If you are Unlucky, you do not find this weapon. Turn to 52 to explore elsewhere in the east wing of the castle, or turn to 7 to return to the Bronze Stride.

Luck Test roll = 8 (Unlucky!). We don't find the catapult

Well, it wouldn't be as effective for a wizard anyway....

I really think there's a minor screw-up in the text, because this section doesn't give any description of the room. If we'd risked the trap, we'd have been told that this is an "Exploratorium" belonging to someone named Morane who likes to create and experiment with new devices.

For someone who read the novel before, the instruction for Stubble of all people to take a penalty when using the catapult also seems strange: in the novel Stubble was the one who found it and took possession of the catapult, and used it to pretty good effect against certain monsters later.

Of course, in the novel there was also more than just one stone, allowing the user to use this weapon more than once.

Going back outside, we're left with:

The door to the west?
The left-hand door in the north wall?
The right-hand door in the north wall?
The door with the warning sign?
The other southern door?
The door to the east?

[Sirocco]

Try the other southern door.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Sure, go with that.

[SGamerz]

The room behind this plain is empty but, as you peer in, small hands snatch at your backpack and try to wrench something away from you! You must roll dice to determine Attack Strength for yourself and the tiny, imp-like Grabber (its SKILL is 9). If you have the higher Attack Strength, you can dispatch the squealing Grabber with a single blow. If it has the higher Attack Strength, it will steal a magical item from you and fly away with it, too swiftly for you to pursue. Its first preference will be a Magic Ring, if you have one, next a Potion if you do not have a Magic Ring, then a scroll if you have neither. If you have none of these items, the frustrated Grabber will simply curse you - and you must subtract 1 from your Attack Strength for your next three combats! Now turn to 52 to explore elsewhere.

It doesn't say what happens if our Attack Strengths are the same, so I assume we just re-roll in this scenario.

COMBAT LOG:

Grabber 15, Jallarial 16. Grabber is killed.

We kill it before it can steal anything.

Pick the next door!

The door to the west?
The left-hand door in the north wall?
The right-hand door in the north wall?
The door with the warning sign?
The other southern door?
The door to the east?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Right-hand north door.

[Sirocco]

Yup, why not.

[SGamerz]

A huge chamber, created by knocking down walls between various castle rooms, this once housed the Dragon hatcheries of the demonic servants of the castle, but the eggs in their regular rows have long since shriveled and dried up here. The atmosphere is eerie; you are standing in a gigantic Dragon mausoleum. If you want to search it thoroughly, turn to 370 Otherwise you leave and search elsewhere; turn to 52.

Do we want to search here? If not, where do we go next?

[SlyJohnny]

No.

[Sirocco]

How are we doing in terms of food?

[SGamerz]

How are we doing in terms of food?

We have the equivalent of 5 meals (2 normal provision units and 3 special oatmeal that don't count towards the provision limit total).

[Omegonthesane]

Search the room, we're not getting anything if we don't.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Another vote for searching.

[Sirocco]

Yeah, search, why not. We've got the rations.

[SGamerz]

You must eat a meal during your search here, but you notice that one egg is still seeping thick liquid from a crack in its leathery shell. If you have an empty glass bottle, you may collect some of this liquid. lf you are Sallazar Jallarial, turn to 119. Otherwise, tum to 183.

We used all our empty bottles for healing fountain water, but we've since drank all of them. Even though I having kept those bottles on the Adventure Sheet, there's nothing in the rules saying that the empty bottles can't be re-used. Since I didn't stop to ask for votes regarding how many bottles we used earlier, I rule that we get to re-use any glass bottles that we emptied, so we can get some of the liquid here.

If you spend 1 Magic Point, you can use this fluid to create a Potion of Fire Resistance. You will be able to drink this at any time, except during combat. The effects of the Potion last for one combat. You can halve the damage of any fiery attack - Dragon breath or magic such as a Fireball spell during this combat (rounding fractions up). Now tum to 52 to explore elsewhere in the east wing, or tum to 7 to return to the Bronze Stride.

Do we want to use a Magic point to create the potion?

Either way, where to we go next?

The door to the west?
The left-hand door in the north wall?
The right-hand door in the north wall?
The door with the warning sign?
The other southern door?
The door to the east?

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think the potion is a must miss. In these books it's extremely rare for anything to deal more than 4 damage at a time, or 6 at the outside. Halving that means the potion is saving us 3 STAMINA. The fire damage would have to be bizarrely large or repeated for the potion to be worth more than a Provision, and the Magic Point is worth more than one or even two Provisions.

[Sirocco]

On the other hand, the hints are heavy that we will be facing dragons in this adventure, and they might have a special fire breath attack (a la Hellhorn) that we might need to defend against on every round.
...
I don't know. Keep the goo in the bottle for now, we might need to make that potion later.

Also, try the other northern door.

[Omegonthesane]

Keep the gunk, don't process it unless we get killed by an opponent it would have saved us from at least a section's warning that we will need it

[SGamerz]

We keep the liquid with us and move on.

I only got one vote for which door to open next, so I'll go with the other north door.

Behind this door with the Dragon symbol on it, walls have been knocked down to create a huge single chamber. It is filled with desiccated and shrivelled, egg-like objects, but they are grotesquely large. The equally shrivelled shapes of baby Dragons inside the eggs show what they once were. You have entered one of the Bone Demon's old War Dragon hatcheries! It look as if everything here perished and withered years ago, but, if you want to explore this massive area, turn to 325. lf you would rather search elsewhere in the east wing, tum to 52.

Another dragon-related room to search.

Explore or choose another room (if the latter, please indicate which room)?

[Darth Rabbitt]

Explore the massive area.

[SGamerz]

Seems like there's no other voters, so search it is:

Everything here is as it appears to be, lifeless and decayed. You have merely wasted time, and you must eat a meal during your search. Turn to 52 to search elsewhere.

We just ran out of normal provisions again?

Well, there aren't that any choices left, one of the remaining 2 doors has to lead to what we're looking for....which one first?

The door to the west?
The left-hand door in the north wall?
The right-hand door in the north wall?
The door with the warning sign?
The other southern door?
The door to the east?

[Darth Rabbitt]

East.

[Sirocco]

Isn't west where we came from? East.

[SGamerz]

You are standing in the circular ground-floor chamber of the east tower. The tower rises high above you; a set of stone steps leads up to a wooden platform on which you can see a huge wooden war machine pointing away from you, out through a portal at the top of the tower. There is also what is unmistakably a Tower Chest on the platform. However, the guardian of the tower is not just going to let you take it! Grool, the gigantic, one-eyed, mutant Ogre, hefts a club that must be the size of you, and he growls hatefully as you enter. If you want to take the treasure he has, you will have to kill this huge brute. If you don't want to fight him, preferring to flee, turn to 377. Otherwise, do your best! If you have an onyx wand and wish to use it here, tum to 246 immediately.

GROOL SKILL 9 STAMINA 22

If you reduce Grool's STAMINA to 8 or less, make a note of his Current SKILL and STAMINA scores and tum at once to 69. lf you manage to kill him outright, turn to 252. If you are forced to flee, you may do so at any time; turn to 377.

After all the hype at last we meet Mr Grool in person!

Although we are given the option to just flee, we know that we have to kill him to get some key's so we can skip that.

Let's see what our staff can do!

The onyx staff has four symbols on it: lion, chevron, goblet and star. If you have spent a Magic Point to activate the staff (or if you do so now), you may be able to use it to deal the monstrous Ogre a mortal blow. If you know which symbol can defeat him, and if you have also found a heraldic design on a chest with that symbol upon it, you know how many symbols were on that chest, and what colour they were. Convert the letters of the colour into numbers using the code A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. Add the numbers together, add 8 to come to a final total, then multiply that by the number of the symbols you found on the chest. (Thus, for example, if you think that the lion defeats the Ogre, and you had found four white lions inscribed on a chest, you would tum to paragraph 292: WHITE = 23 + 8 + 9 + 20 + 5 = 65; adding 8 gives 73, and you would multiply that total by 4.) Turn to the paragraph you have calculated; if the name of the symbol isn't the fourth word you read in that paragraph, you are wrong and should return to paragraph 166 to continue fighting. You should also do this if you have the staff but do not know which symbol defeats Grool.

So, I hope you guys have been keeping tracks of all those symbols we saw earlier.

Which symbol do we use here, and what is the number and colour of those symbols we found?

[Sirocco]

The Ogre Mutants falls to the goblets in the blue.

and

The Colossus collapses at last! Weary with the effort, you drag yourself over to the wooden chest and examine it carefully. The small shield design on its lid shows a pair of yellow goblets on a blue background. Inside the chest you find 3 Gold Pieces, a Magic Ring and a scroll with the Skill Spell written on it. Gain 1 LUCK point! Now it's time to search elsewhere. If you haven't explored everything in the barracks area, you can open the yellow door or search the dormitories and parade rooms thoroughly; alternatively, you can leave the barracks and explore elsewhere.

So... 2 x (25 + 5 + 12 + 12 + 15 + 23 + 8) = 2 x 100 = 200.

[SlyJohnny]

Ah, I forgot we found that one! Nice work.