The Bard's Tale: Play on

After reloading, we found the blacksmith without trouble, and bought some basic gear. Swords and shields for the fighters and rogue (armor is a bit expensive), a mandolin and short sword for the bard, staves and robes for the mages. This leaves us with $220, just enough to buy three leather armors for the front rank.

Fighting tactics are a bit limited right now. Magic recharges on its own during the day, but the only spells that are useful right now are Arc Fire, a minor damaging conjuration, and Vorpal Plate, a magician's cantrip that boosts a partner's melee damage. The rest either boost the spellcaster's own AC, which is no help when they're already in the back row, or provide effects that are only helpful in dungeons.

Next goal - find the nearest temple. The streets aren't safe, we will get hurt exploring, and we need a way of healing up, because it isn't free, and we don't have magic healing yet. The album map shows one to the south of the adventurer's guild, but the map isn't quite as precise as one might like. We get into some fights while searching, some resulting in total party kills and reloads, and I take note of which enemies we can and can't handle. Running is an option, and it often works, but not always.

Eventually, we locate it, but not before taking a few raps from some hobgoblins on the way.  

Damn you, for-profit healthcare!

We're going to need a boost to survive this early stage, and the disk provides one. The stock characters might not have the greatest stats, but they come with decent gear, are level 2, and have way more HP. I load three of them in front while Ahab, Kurisu, and Sunfall hide behind them and share in their XP.

 

The best part; I needn't spend any money healing the guys in front. If any of them die, I can just delete them from the character disk and restore from a backup.

Further up north, there's the Review Board, where characters can level up, multiclass, and learn magic, and just next door, the Sinister Inn.

 

All drinks are free (Yeah!) and they recharge Sunfall's song powers. One song even heals, but it only heals the entire party during combat, and heals sloooowly. So how do you not get flattened by hostile monsters while waiting? Simple - you can initiate combat mode any time, anywhere. You could even have your party members attack one another in this mode if you wanted to for some reason.

 

Healing this way seems cheesy and boring. It probably is cheesy, and definitely is boring, but I don't see any non-cheesy ways of surviving this early part of the game, and having half the stock A-Team powertrain half of the beginners is marginally less boring than relying on musical healing.

And this becomes the gameplay loop for a little while. Explore, flee from tough encounters, fight easy ones, and delete/restore the A-Team fighters as needed. If running from a hard encounter fails and I die, reload. If someone dies in a fight that seemed winnable, reload and rethink encounters with that monster type in the future.

Most of the fights are manageable, but they don't reward much XP; I'm getting about 60 per character per fight on average, and you need 2,000 to level up for the first time. Barbarians, who hit hard and appear in groups of 7-9, remain unassailable. Gear improves steadily; the rearguard quickly get armor, shields, and helms, plus gauntlets for Ahab and Kurisu, and Ahab scores a "halbard" upgrade.

The real find, though, is a fixed and repeatable encounter against a powerful Ogre Lord on the other side of town, near the snowed-in gates.

Survival isn't guaranteed. In fact the death of at least one party member is very likely, but it's worth 400+ XP to the survivors, and the victim can just be deleted and restored at the guild.

Eventually, we train Ahab, Kurisu, and Sunfall to level 2, and we reform to help train P-Tux, Viila, and Scribe, but without a bard in the group this is more difficult. Magic just isn't as good as music at this point. After them, Grub and RedSlayer get their turn, along with Sunfall who earns a third level.

Now we're a little hardier, and fit to explore Skara Brae without disposable meat shields up front. We do, but it becomes evident that P-Tux isn't pulling his weight; with no locked doors in the entire city, and no treasure chests to be found anywhere, all he does is sit in the back and nibble on second breakfast to Sunfall's stirring ballads while Ahab and Kurisu tank hits and Viila/Scribe sling their limited magics. Ahab, with only 10 HP, is still a bit squishy as a tank. I have both replaced with hunter Grub and monk RedSlayer, and move Sunfall to the back row.

With this power party, I'm able to sweep most of Skara Brae. RedSlayer isn't quite as useful as Grub and Kurisu, but he's less of a liability than Ahab at this point and can still kill monsters bare-handed. The cash pours in, I even find valuable treasures like Plate Armor, and I can finally rely on temples, which are spread throughout the city, for healing. Everyone but RedSlayer gets equipped with Garth's finest, and we all reach level 3, allowing the wizards to learn new spells!

We're not champions of the city yet, though. Barbarians are still too much for us, and at night, wolves are very dangerous. Even some lesser foes like hobgoblins and nomads are risky to fight when HP starts to wane. Nor can we take on the ogre lords yet. There is, however, a softer training dummy in the southeast not far from the guild; a lone samurai, who typically goes down in the first round without landing a hit and awards 170XP per character.

Beyond him is the Scarlet Bard, a fabled tavern with a wine cellar. The manual tells us that this is the first dungeon we should be exploring.

A note regarding my map - almost all of the "walls" in Skara Brae can be "entered." These represent (mostly) abandoned buildings, which occasionally have monsters squatting inside. But if you're looking for something to fight, you'll have no trouble finding them in the streets, so don't bother.

Monster XP is per creature, and divided evenly among all surviving party members. 

A Guild of Adventurers B Credits C Garth's Equipment D Temple E Review Board F Tavern G Iron gate H City gates I Ogre Lord J Stone Giant K Golem L Teleport M Samurai N Scarlet Bard O Temple of the Mad God

Monster XP Kobolds 60 Hobbits 70 Gnomes 80 Dwarves 80 Hobgoblins 90 Magicians 100 Conjurors 100 Orcs 100 Thieves 110 Skeletons 110 Nomads 120 Spiders 150 Mad Dogs 180 Mercenaries 220 Samurai 1024 Ogre Lord 2816 Stone Giant ? Barbarians ? Wolves ?

Other points of interest:

• The northeast of the map is sealed off by a pair of iron gates, and an unseen tower lies beyond them.
• The southeast, which also contains a tower, is guarded by ogre lords.
• The northwest of the map is guarded by stone golems, who are even tougher than the ogre lords.
• The center of the map has four clusters of temples surrounding it, one of which is ominously named "Temple of the Mad God" and refuses us entry.
• The city gate in the west is snowed-in and impassable, and Sinister Street in the southwest goes on forever, by means of an invisible teleporter.