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Dungeon Crawler You!

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schlega said:
@eaglejarl what is Levi's opinion on the xp effects of having a combat monster like BOF Moose in the party compared to the benefits of having a combat monster in the party?
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"It's complicated," Levi said.

"Moose is approximately level appropriate for things on this floor, maybe a little more. Add in the powers of Boring Ol' Fighter and he's going to crush everything under Neighborhood boss level, and many Neighborhood bosses too. Most fights that he gets involved in will yield basically no XP for anyone because the challenge will be so trivial. The exception will be strong Neighborhood bosses, Borough bosses and up, and some elites.

"Elites are powerful mobs that are created and operated by the secondary programs. They act as pro- and antagonists and key henchmen. And yes, 'operated' is the key word; the producers of those secondary programs can update their elites' brains in real time within fairly wide parameters. The exact details are more complicated than I want to go into and aren't relevant to you anyway. My advice? Stay away from elites as much as you can. They will suck you into the plot of whatever their program is, and that ends up with you dead more often than not.

"Elites are labeled on your map, so they're easy to identify and avoid.

"Boiling all that down: if Moose takes Boring Ol' Fighter, he's going to be very powerful. That will be great on later floors, but it puts you in an ugly position now; you can't level at all if he's in the fight, you'll level slowly if he's near enough to rescue you, and if you leave him back far enough that you're getting full XP then what was the point of having him? Plus, he's not going to level, so when you hit the next floor he may end up being slightly underleveled.

"There's also some risk in that the AI and the showrunners are here for the party, not the prep. They will often shape the situation to ensure that everyone is being challenged. Parties that have widely disparate power levels can sometimes find themselves in trouble. Parties that have a major weakness -- for example, too specialized or lacking something to cover one of the key roles -- will frequently get hit in exactly that spot, because it makes for great drama. It's probably good that Calliope got the subspecies she did instead of one of the weird-ass magical things that are more combat focused. You guys needed a burglar and a face. I mean, you could have just listened when I told you about the Pick Pockets thing, but eh.

"Anyway, like I said: it's complicated. You will definitely want the combat power a floor or two from now, but it's going to be a problem here and now."



EDIT: This got decanonized after I was convinced on Discord that canon DCC weighs in against the idea that relative challenge level alters XP earned. See discussion in chapter 27.
 
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That is a problem.
[X] Class: Bounty Hunter the Dog

It's not as good, but it should be more interesting for people to watch.
 
Adhoc vote count started by RandomOTP on Sep 29, 2022 at 12:21 AM, finished with 335 posts and 40 votes.
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Current status of votes.
 
Olivebirdy said:
It's a good problem to have. It wouldn't be bad to have Taylor go fly Moose around the floor, shopping, rescuing crawlers. Looking for opportunities. Moose is very mobile, we could use the expanded contact list and characters who owe us their lives.
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I don't know if I trust Moose to operate independently yet.
 
[x] Class: Seeing Eye Dog
[X] Class: Bomb Sniffer Dog

I like BHtD better, but it would be nice to get some trap finding skill.

@Dreaming Circuit your Bomb Sniffer vote isn't being counted. It doesn't look like it will matter, but you might want to fix it just in case things start to swing that way.
 
That's an opportunity, hit strong neighbourhood and borough bosses for loot to roll up.
[X] Class: Boring Ol' Fighter
[X] (Where) Large
[X] Plan Hard Cash
-[X] A spellbook of Invulnerability
-[x] 500,000 gold pieces
 
I think I'm willing to live with those complications on this floor in exchange for combat power we're likely to want on later floors. (Hitting up a bunch of Neighbourhood bosses/mobs at minimal risks so we get a pile of boxes for rollup also seems like an option.)

This is definitely a very thought-out strategy on my part, and not because HAHA DOGGO GO FWOOSH
 
[X] Class: Bounty Hunter the Dog

Been hemming and hawing, flipping and flopping, but Levi's advice swayed me.
 
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Skippy said:
I think I'm willing to live with those complications on this floor in exchange for combat power we're likely to want on later floors. (Hitting up a bunch of Neighbourhood bosses/mobs at minimal risks so we get a pile of boxes for rollup also seems like an option.)

This is definitely a very thought-out strategy on my part, and not because HAHA DOGGO GO FWOOSH
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Understandable. But also damnit pathfinder is very very good. I'm very concerned about how much firepower we're going to have long-term given our complete lack of combat classes, but I'll think on it some more.
 
I'm very happy we're heading towards Invulnerabilty, so now I'm going to try to campaign more for Seeing Eye Dog and Bomb Sniffer Dog, mostly Seeing Eye Dog.

Bomb Sniffer Dog: Traps can be suddenly and immediately lethal, the target audience finds it funny. While they're not going to be big on this floor, they will be when we're going up against crawler hunters later on. Traps everywhere. Taylor likes traps. We can find a use for any Moose picks up. Then, there's the Dungeon Locator, which will give us information we otherwise wouldn't have. Useful, and we'd be keeping Moose close. Levi recommends this class, it fills a useful hole.

Seeing Eye Dog: There's a synergy here that I don't think anyone's mentioned. With a large minimap with better detail and enhanced observation, Moose's flight matters a whole lot more. He can cover a lot of ground, getting a lot of information across a very large area. He'll get to sense in a radius of his flight radius plus his extended minimap's radius, picking up information about all the mobs, finding stairwells, secret doors, crawlers we'd otherwise miss, treasures and so on. This further stacks with Taylor's ability to split up and teleport and his single inventory, as he could ride Moose to whatever he finds. It also helps Taylor, as with Seeing Eye Dog's incentive to go on scouting flights, Taylor can teleport to anywhere within the hugely expanded line of sight. It helps us meet up with crawlers, expanding our friend list much more quickly than we could otherwise find them, which directly translates to better odds of survival for all of us. We're going to be missing trap skills or pathfinder skills no matter what we pick, so we should try to get someone in our contacts with that expertise ASAP. Crawlers are still all scattered and they'll die a lot, so whoever we can keep from dying might have a better shot later. ...If we want to be morbid, we'd also be able to find and loot their remains before anyone else. There's Danger Sense, which will be a lifesaver, no doubt about it. Sniff Out Crawler: At the lower levels, it means he can always find party members and people he's saved, even if they're not within his extended minimap. Very large range. At higher levels, he can find whoever we want. Say there's a crawler with a particular actionable we need to copy or recruit, or a crawler group we haven't assimilated into raid chat? All we'd need is a name, and Moose could fly right over with a Taylor, even if they're otherwise hard to find.
 
We have come up with a lot of combat tricks to do with our super Yoyo. Are there more even more awesome tricks that we can do with two super Yoyos perfectly coordinated with each other?
 
Dreaming Circuit said:
Understandable. But also damnit pathfinder is very very good. I'm very concerned about how much firepower we're going to have long-term given our complete lack of combat classes, but I'll think on it some more.
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Not that I think we won't have firepower, because we're going to ramp up very nicely long-term with the SysOp and Former Character Actor combination, let alone the Wheeler Dealer and SysOp combination, but we're a SysOp. Our job is to try to get humans through this dungeon. Get crawlers all working together, reassigning buffs and debuffs. A raid coordinator. We work better with cooperation, and Drew's luck ability applies to every ally within a radius. It's not bad to cooperate with others for battles, it's what we're built for.

Pathfinder Escape Plan isn't necessary, though. Other people have it, and we have what other people have. Someone finds a stairwell? It's a quick meetup in the V/D clubs and payment, and our group is next to that stairwell. Secret doors, information about mobs? Seeing Eye Dog does that best over a very large area.

(Edit: I have realized that Pathfinder is the name of the minimap extension skill, not the hidden signpost skill. Whoops. It's still true, though, Seeing Eye Dog gets more information than Bounty Hunter from its own extended map about mobs and it has Spot, which increases acuity. The point I made about stairwells stands, but without Pathfinder or access to the Dungeon Locator signposts, we're going to be relying on Drew's luck for hidden stuff.)

XP stacks with risk. If battles don't give us XP because Moose is too strong, taking weaker combat classes will reward us with more XP.
 
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[] Class: Bomb Sniffer Dog

Locator is a good skill to have, too.

Edit: forgot that I've already voted for it
 
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I'm all about Boring Ol' Fighter but would rather Seeing Eye than Bounty. For narrative reasons. Killing humans, not fun...but imagine:

You're a galactic denizen, watching your favorite crawler fight a losing battle against a surprisingly difficult thunder lizard thing. Ohh no... You're going to have to find another human to watch again--wait! A dog the size of a Hummer swoops down from the sky and knocks the monster backward; a man jumps off its back.

"Hi! I'm the Sysadmin. Your friend Zach H reported you were having some trouble. What seems to be the problem today?"

As the duo flies off, your favorite crawler waves, bewildered and alive. You think to yourself, "who the hell is the Sysadmin?!"

Crossover views galore!

[x] Class: Seeing Eye Dog
 
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