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Post by Wizard Slayer on Mar 31, 2023 9:31:42 GMT
Personally I would say yes it negates the attack. The Spear lets you win the combat automatically so your opponent shouldn't get an attack at all. The fifth Warrior, the one with the instakill Skill Test, it says At the start of the battle, the Warrior will have time to spin one such missile... No caveats about unless you have the Spear, nothing in the text about having the spear meaning you can ignore the Warrior's special instructions (unlike for the Ring). And the text when you get the Spear says you can use it instead of normal combat. There's even a devilish literal argument to be had that because the Spear only gives death to the living and is stated to be used only instead of normal combat, the Spear can't be used against Shadow Warriors at all since they're neither living nor give normal combat... It makes a big difference to the Gornt odds which interpretation is taken. Clearly the wording of the book can be argued for it to be used, but in that case it's even more clearly permitted by the book to eat a provision during paragraph 335 or 223.
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Post by Wizard Slayer on Mar 31, 2023 9:45:18 GMT
Another thing worth mentioning is the idea that five sequential Sk 9 St 9 combats are severely punishing. Depending on your Skill, the expected Stamina loss after beating a Shadow Warrior is this (not including Luck use):
Skill 7 -27.6 ST Skill 8 -16.6 ST Skill 9 -10.0 ST Skill 10 -6.0 ST Skill 11 -3.6 ST Skill 12 -2.1 ST
So a Skill 12 character with decent remaining stamina should expect to get through them all, as should a Skill 10 or 11 if taking a provision between each fight, even without using the Spear at all.
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CharlesX
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Post by CharlesX on Mar 31, 2023 11:46:13 GMT
Personally I would say yes it negates the attack. The Spear lets you win the combat automatically so your opponent shouldn't get an attack at all. The fifth Warrior, the one with the instakill Skill Test, it says At the start of the battle, the Warrior will have time to spin one such missile... No caveats about unless you have the Spear, nothing in the text about having the spear meaning you can ignore the Warrior's special instructions (unlike for the Ring). And the text when you get the Spear says you can use it instead of normal combat. There's even a devilish literal argument to be had that because the Spear only gives death to the living and is stated to be used only instead of normal combat, the Spear can't be used against Shadow Warriors at all since they're neither living nor give normal combat... It makes a big difference to the Gornt odds which interpretation is taken. Clearly the wording of the book can be argued for it to be used, but in that case it's even more clearly permitted by the book to eat a provision during paragraph 335 or 223. Wizard Slayer, I think your counter-arguments are very clever but ultimately I agree with Sylas - the usual FF interpretation is err on the side of generosity where things aren't particularly clear and while others may disagree I say feel free to use the Spear before he throws the throwing star. I would definitely say before though - more than once I've had a d'oh moment playing LOTSW when I've not unreasonably decided to conserve the Spear only to be killed by a throwing star. I think I might be getting things wrong here - is Sylas saying Shadow Warriors shouldn't be able to do their pre battle attack at all rather than deciding you can use the Spear before the throwing star attack? I think my post here is very much more about the latter point.
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sylas
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"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
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Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Mar 31, 2023 14:22:38 GMT
IIRC using the Spear in combat means you don't have to fight any part of the combat at all, not the beginning, middle nor end - you just treat the outcome as having automatically won. Voivod is the only encounter where it is specifically stated how combat is to be played out. None of the others mention or hint that you can't use the Spear to win. Unless everyone's been playing it wrong all these years, the usage of how the Spear works should be a certainty.
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Post by Wizard Slayer on Mar 31, 2023 19:28:24 GMT
...the usual FF interpretation is err on the side of generosity where things aren't particularly clear... Exactly. Which is why it's legitimate to eat provisions between Shadow Warrior fights at the end. Which is why Sk10+ characters have a good chance of getting through five powerless warriors without using the Spear, whereas the same character would have to face six warriors (one twice) over the course of the adventure using the Gornt route above, all with their powers and two before the Spear is even available. On some of the character attribute combinations, the Hustings route seems to give better odds.
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CharlesX
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Post by CharlesX on Apr 1, 2023 9:05:53 GMT
...the usual FF interpretation is err on the side of generosity where things aren't particularly clear... Exactly. Which is why it's legitimate to eat provisions between Shadow Warrior fights at the end. Which is why Sk10+ characters have a good chance of getting through five powerless warriors without using the Spear, whereas the same character would have to face six warriors (one twice) over the course of the adventure using the Gornt route above, all with their powers and two before the Spear is even available. On some of the character attribute combinations, the Hustings route seems to give better odds. That's very true.
Just unscientifically reading a few out-of-the blue:
SK 11 ST 18 LK 12 Gornt 61.4% Hustings 70.8%
SK 11 ST 18 LK 11 Gornt 67.3% Hustings 67.3% (i.e. similar)
SK 10 ST 18 LK 12 Gornt 28.8% Hustings 30.4%
SK 10 ST 18 LK 11 Gornt 27.8% Hustings 26.9%
SK 10 ST 18 LK 10 Gornt 24.7% Hustings 26.9%
SK 10 ST 18 LK 9 Gornt 20.8% Hustings 24.8%
With a Luck 7-8 Avatar the advantages can be even greater under the Hustings route and can be in the +5-10% area.
SK 10 ST 14 LK 7 Gornt 5.6% Hustings 12.6%
SK 10 ST 18 LK 7 Gornt 13.7% Hustings 22.5%
SK 10 ST 14 LK 8 Gornt 7.4% Hustings 14.8%
SK 10 ST 18 LK 8 Gornt 16.8% Hustings 22.5%
A Skill 12 Hero is mostly better off sticking with the Gornt route, but not if they are SK 12 ST 18 LK 12 (Gornt 85.7% Hustings 87.8%) It seems like a ST 24 Hero tends to be best off with the Gornt route but not SK 11 ST 24 LK 12 (Gornt 76.9% Hustings 79.9%) or SK 12 ST 24 LK 9 (Gornt 36.5% Hustings 36.5% i.e. similar)
For that matter a LK 9 ST 14 Hero is best off with the Hustings route by about 6% with a SK 10 Hero and 4% with a SK 11 Hero.
Any Skill 11 ST 14 Hero is better off choosing the Hustings route by 4.7% at bottom if they have LK 7 or higher under other LK permutations with the maximum benefit being LK 11 at some 12%.
I would say this is worthy of a colour chart like those in say Deathmoor of whether it's worth taking one route or the other or indeed that there is no discernible difference.
Enjoyed writing this for my benefit as well as yours so hope it doesn't come across like a phone directory book.
As Champskees remarks Stephen Hand very much knew\knows how to design a gamebook as this work gives the lie to my earlier suggestion that this is a useless route (which I didn't 100% believe myself even if it were the truth, which it isn't).
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