43) Keep of the Lich Lord Solution

[champskees]

Wow! What a great book! Hats off to Morris & Thompson for producing such a quality adventure. The gameplay is extremely well balanced, and it is obvious that there had been a lot of playtesting and tweaking involved before this went to print. The story kept me engaged and the pace is good, but I must admit that the design of the gamebook is what makes it really stand out.
This walkthrough is designed for a minimum stats character. There are a lot of other great ‘powerups’ and interesting fights that you will miss out on, so I do recommend playing without this solution first.

- Leave Siltport straight away.
- Go south through the hills.
- You do not have the word ‘Pirate’ on your adventure sheet.
- Enter the cave.
- Take the right colonnade.
- Test Skill. Fail = 3 Damage.
- Leave the temple without taking anything.
- +1 Initial & current Luck.
- Enter the inn first (+3 Stamina).
- Go and talk to the merchant.
- Buy nothing.
- You have finished talking.
- Go up to your room & get some sleep.
- Pass yourself off as an adventurer who made the mistake of coming to Stayng at the wrong time.
- Wait a few seconds to see what will happen.
- Agree to help her.
- Allow Elindora to cast a spell on you (+1 Resolve).
- Search the northeast corner (+1 Resolve).
- Take Ring of Fays.
- Go southeast towards Shamdabag Wood and then on to the village of Keladon.
- Investigate the clearing.
- Go over to the elves.
- You have the Ring of Fays.
- Take Polished Shield (-1 Skill to Undead enemies; only one at a time).
- Leave the clearing & carry on towards Keladon.
- Head for the cove.
- Leave Keladon.
- Press on.
- You do not have the Spear of Qadarnai.
- Carry on towards Borgos.
- Camp out & head for Bloodrise Keep tomorrow morning.
- Make your way towards the gatehouse.
- You do not have a copper coin.
- Stride across the middle of the courtyard & enter the keep.
- Add 1 to Alarm Value.
- Test Resolve.
        o Success = +1 Resolve.
        o Fail = -1 Resolve & -1 Skill in next fight.
- Fight Sk 7 St 9 Undead Guard.
        o Use luck once against this enemy.
- Fight Sk 6 St 10 Undead Guard.
        o If you take 2+ wounds against these enemies:
        o Add 2 to Alarm Value.
- Go through the door to your left.
- Head back to the entrance.
- Reduce Alarm Value by 2 (+1 Luck & +1 Resolve).
- Go through the right hand door.
- Test Resolve.
        o Success = +2 Resolve.
        o Fail = -1 Resolve & 2 Damage.
- Fight Sk 7 St 5 Undead Archer.
- Fight Sk 7 St 4 Undead Archer.
- Fight Sk 7 St 4 Undead Archer.
        o Each round Roll 2D6 for each Archer not in combat:
                o 2-7 = Take 1 Damage.
                o 8-12 = Current enemy takes 1 Damage.
        o If you defeat them all in 8 rounds or less:
                o Add 1 to Alarm Value.
        o If you do not defeat them all in 8 rounds:
                o Add 4 to Alarm Value.
                o The remaining archers run off.
- Take 10 Gold Pieces & Iron Key.
- Test Luck.
        o Success = Reduce Alarm Value by 1.
        o Fail = Add 2 to Alarm Value.
                o Test Resolve.
                        • Success = +1 Resolve.
                        • Fail = -1 Resolve & 4 Damage.
                o Fight Sk 6 St 7 Undead Guard & Sk 7 St 6 Undead Guard together.
                        • I recommend not killing the first guard inside four attack rounds.
                        • If you have still not killed one of the guards after four attack rounds:
                                o Add 3 to Alarm Value.
                                o Second Undead Guard runs off.
                                o Side note: The book doesn’t actually instruct you to go back to the previous paragraph to finish off the remaining guard.
- Enter the chapel.
- Add note: You have the Charm of Disruption.
- Add note: When you wish to use it, turn to Para 253.
- Leave him sleeping and pass through the right hand door (+1 Luck).
- Test Resolve.
        o Success = +1 Resolve.
        o Fail = -1 Resolve & Add 2 to Alarm Value.
- Fight Sk 7 St 8 Davmori the Undead.
        o Use luck if you want.
- Go down to the locked door.
- You have an Iron Key.
- Give him time to speak.
- Head back outside the castle.
- Test Resolve.
        o Success = +1 Resolve & -1 Skill in next fight.
        o Fail = -1 Resolve & -1 Skill in next fight & your attacks do 1 damage to enemy.
- Use an item against the Lich Lord.
- Use the Charm of Disruption.
- You have defeated Lord Mortis. You can now look forward to a hero’s welcome in Port Kanthos.

[Peter]

Are you better to go to Menela at the start and get your sword sharpened by the blacksmith?  That gives you +1 attack strength for the whole mission, for the price of an extra battle.  Does this increase or decrease the odds overall?

[kieran]

Feb 16, 2020 4:52:44 GMT Peter said:

Are you better to go to Menela at the start and get your sword sharpened by the blacksmith?  That gives you +1 attack strength for the whole mission, for the price of an extra battle.  Does this increase or decrease the odds overall?

Does the sharpened sword not do an extra point of damage rather than increase your attack strength?

[Peter]

Feb 16, 2020 9:56:05 GMT kieran said:

Feb 16, 2020 4:52:44 GMT Peter said:

Are you better to go to Menela at the start and get your sword sharpened by the blacksmith?  That gives you +1 attack strength for the whole mission, for the price of an extra battle.  Does this increase or decrease the odds overall?

Does the sharpened sword not do an extra point of damage rather than increase your attack strength?

True.  And he asks for 2 provisions in exchange.  Better to skip it.

[The Count]

As easy as this book is, I would have thought it was still advantageous to go for the spear.

[sylas]

The book is easy because you can circumvent all the useful artefacts/bonuses and still win through with very little trouble assuming you know the true path. Despite that, a lot of readers prefer the challenge mode where you MUST defeat Mortis in combat rather than use the Charm. I feel that this is where the book truly shines because you get to explore a lot more places and have more interesting encounters. For a below average hero it can be tricky but it is more satisfying than going the easy route. Not many FF books provide this (unwritten but easy to implement) harder option.

[vagsancho]

This champskees solution is of the easy path, or the hard path?

[sylas]

Sept 22, 2020 22:17:52 GMT vagsancho said:

This champskees solution is of the easy path, or the hard path?

Easy. Notice how short it is.

I always find it amusing to see solutions of this book. The simplest summary is 'head for the end goal'.

[vagsancho]

Sept 22, 2020 22:30:47 GMT sylas said:

Sept 22, 2020 22:17:52 GMT vagsancho said:

This champskees solution is of the easy path, or the hard path?

Easy. Notice how short it is.

I always find it amusing to see solutions of this book. The simplest summary is 'head for the end goal'.

I wonder why Champskees made the solution of the short path and not the long? Is the short path better? With more feeling? I just don't get it. Strange to me.

[kieran]

Sept 23, 2020 7:11:01 GMT vagsancho said:

I wonder why Champskees made the solution of the short path and not the long? Is the short path better? With more feeling? I just don't get it. Strange to me.

He gives the route that statistically gives you the best chance of success and avoids any superfluous steps.

[vagsancho]

Sept 23, 2020 8:27:34 GMT kieran said:

Sept 23, 2020 7:11:01 GMT vagsancho said:

I wonder why Champskees made the solution of the short path and not the long? Is the short path better? With more feeling? I just don't get it. Strange to me.

He gives the route that statistically gives you the best chance of success and avoids any superfluous steps.

Well, that is not my style.

[daredevil123]

Sept 23, 2020 9:34:49 GMT vagsancho said:

Sept 23, 2020 8:27:34 GMT kieran said:

He gives the route that statistically gives you the best chance of success and avoids any superfluous steps.

Well, that is not my style.

Can we see your proposed route for Crypt of the Sorcerer then? Do you fight the Gargantis just for the hell of it?

[a moderator]

I think vagsancho's proposed route for Crypt includes collecting the Talisman of Chaotic Evil, so that you get to become 'a true servant' of Razaak rather than having to kill him.

[daredevil123]

Well, that'd be an awful lot easier than killing him...

[vagsancho]

An aleatory question, just from curiosity:
Is keep of the lich lord better than assassins of allansia?

[kieran]

Sept 23, 2020 14:26:40 GMT vagsancho said:

An aleatory question, just from curiosity:
Is keep of the lich lord better than assassins of allansia?

They're not all that similar to be honest. I think of the two I'd prefer Keep just because it's a lot less linear.

[sylas]

Keep is a lot more interesting and fun than Assassins, not that Assassin's is terrible; it's just not as good.

[Sunil]

You start off at "Port Vernale", but in 400, you are told you get a hero's welcome at "Port Kanthos".

[sunil]

Sorry, Greenspine - didn't realise the previous comments had been moved to the main book thread!

[CharlesX]

A very rough % chance of completing an FF worked out by extrapolating Champskees Table Skill, 3 permutations for Stamina and Luck.

As this table is larger than others I worked out the number of successful permuations for each Resolve box, then divided the total number of permutations by 330 to arrive at a total.

Keep Of The Lich-Lord Odds of Victory 91.63%

Technically 91.62(81recurring).

Resolve 6 Odds 90.67(81recurring)%

Resolve 8 Odds 91.90(27recurring)%

Resolve 10 Odds 92.30(36recurring)%