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Post by schlendrian on Jan 15, 2019 18:01:27 GMT
I always experienced that the Sun Sword with its +8 bonus made combats extremely one-sided, where I mostly lost no stamina at all, even against boss enemies. Have I been doing something wrong there, is there something that balances out the incredible power of the sword or is the series just supposed to have you walk through every villain effortlessly, after you find the sword? How do YOU deal with it?
P.S. at present, I only own the first six books
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Post by philsadler on Jan 15, 2019 20:28:24 GMT
Don't worry. You'll soon encounter enemies that will laugh at you regardless of how strong you are. Also, later on in the series the sword can even make things worse for you in certain situations.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 16, 2019 10:40:17 GMT
Joe Dever kinda shot himself in the foot with the Sommerswerd. By making the bonus so big, he made it very hard to balance later books for veterans and new players. He tried to fix the problem in a couple of the later books by having fights that were harder if you had the Sommerswered which wasn't a bad idea in theory but all he succeeded in doing was making the fights far too difficult with or without the Sommerswerd.
Having such a range in starting Combat Skill doesn't help matters. A player who starts with Combat Skill 10 has a fair chance of survival until about Book 8 and then suddenly they have no chance of progressing. Perhaps a better way to fix both problems was for the Sommerswered to set your CS at 20 and this be the case both for veterans and new players - after all new players are still meant to have been through all the past events in Lone Wolf's life even if they hadn't played the actual books so story-wise everyone should start with the Sommerswerd. Fights could have then been balanced so they were challenging for players with a CS of 20 but still winnable if they had done everything else right. And no need for all that nonsense about some fights being harder with the Sommerswered because everyone would be expected to have it.
I also feel Joe Dever mishandled balancing veterans vs new players regarding getting a bonus Discipline with each book you beat. Having 9/10 disciplines when you play Shadows on the Sand makes it a lot less fun as many checks become formalities. It's handled even worse in the Magnakai series where the need to complete Lore Circles in order to beat the tough enemies of later books limits you in choosing Disciplines, ruling out experimentation in the earlier books for those who want to progress to the later ones.
There's also the problem of how Kai Disciplines are handled in the Magnakai series and Magnakai Disciplines in the Grand Master series. You pretty much need to assume you have all these disciplines from the earlier series to survive the later series (try playing Plague Lords of Ruel without Healing or Curing) but there's very little in the rules to indicate that's true and new players would be completely oblivious to the existence of such Disciplines.
I feel bad ragging on Lone Wolf because it is a great series and many of its issues are from it being by far the most long-running narrative in a gamebook series which should be commended. Just bugs me that it could have been greater still with a few relatively minor tweaks.
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aggsol
Wanderer
Bored...
Posts: 95
Favourite Gamebook Series: Lone Wolf
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Post by aggsol on Jan 16, 2019 22:19:31 GMT
You are right with your assessment. Still it is one of the better gamebook series with a massive book count. the Sommerswerd is the big stinker. what he got right was the complexity. not so simple and not so overly complex some gamebook are nowadays. Still my favourite series to this day.
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Post by philsadler on Jan 17, 2019 8:10:55 GMT
I like LW too. But what I don't like about it are the number of useless 'turn to' refs where you don't have any options, sometimes this even happens several times in a row. Filler material methinks?
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aggsol
Wanderer
Bored...
Posts: 95
Favourite Gamebook Series: Lone Wolf
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Post by aggsol on Jan 17, 2019 9:24:08 GMT
Maybe some of them are for joining paths. IMHO they are used for pacing the reader. Having a new section for a change of scenery or location and jumps in time are beneficial for the reading flow.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 17, 2019 10:00:57 GMT
Maybe some of them are for joining paths. IMHO they are used for pacing the reader. Having a new section for a change of scenery or location and jumps in time are beneficial for the reading flow. While I would agree with that, I think some books go overboard with it: Prisoners of Time or The Darke Crusade for instance.
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Post by schlendrian on Jan 17, 2019 14:01:42 GMT
Thanks for your thoughts I agree that logically, it would make much sense for every player to have the sommerswerd and it'd be easier to balance, so a lost opportunity. As for the filler paragraphs, depending on where they appear they could maybe also be meant for replenishing your stamina via healing.
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Post by champskees on Jan 18, 2019 2:56:34 GMT
Currently doing a massive walkthrough analysis of the series. It has been interesting thus far comparing to the FF series.
Agree with most of what has been said including OP. Book 9 and Book 11 are two early ones that stick out as being a bit anti-swerd, but I think most people overestimate the difficulty of the LW series due to the lop-sided combat system. In FF, if you are a Skill 7 character and you fight a Skill 7 enemy, you have a real chance of being killed (of course Stamina difference will influence the outcome). If Lone Wolf has a CS equal to his opponent, he actually has a HUGE advantage. At CR of 0, the player only loses more EN than their opponent if they roll a 1 (on a D10). If they roll a 4, they deal 2x as much damage. If they roll a 6, 4x the damage. A roll of 8+ and you lose nothing (and deal 10+ damage!). Bear in mind that this is against an opponent with 'equal' CS. In many of the combats, the chance of winning each combat, even with a minimum stats character, is about 97% or higher if you follow the 'optimum' route.
Because the LW series is so massive, there are a lot of grey area issues around the rules, and although many of them have been cleared up, there is still a bit of interpretation required by the player.
The filler paras are annoying but the other thing I don't like is how meaningless a lot of your choices actually are. There are many moments where you have a choice of say three different paths, but they actually all lead to the exact same destination. In most FF, if you pick a path, it is going to lead somewhere different to the other choices. This is probably due to the 350 paras compared to FF 400+, but still disappointing for me, and probably what I consider to be LW greatest weakness.
Anyway OP, I don't know if PDF's are your thing, but Project Aon (a website) allows you to download the original 28 LW books for free! They have even cleaned them up and added clarification and footnotes that imo keep the series a little more consistent, but most helpful are the hyperlinks added to each choice. Hats off to Dever for allowing this to happen.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 18, 2019 11:27:16 GMT
Book 9 and Book 11 are two early ones that stick out as being a bit anti-swerd Book 11 is annoying because it's both pro and anti-swerd: Someone with the Swerd will probably be killed by the Chaos Master. Someone without the Swerd will probably beat the Chaos Master only to fall to the double whammy of the Shadow Reavers (especially if they don't have the Psychic Ring from Book 9) and Villains of Sommerlund which annoyingly the Sommerswerd helps greatly against. Book 9 on the other hand is fairly easy if you don't have the Sommerswerd, but do have The Dagger of Vashna from Book 4. New players will have neither so will probably stand little chance at the final fight. Veteran players will likely have the Sommerswerd and thus stand no chance against the villain, or if they get arrested they will lose both the Sommerswerd and the Dagger of Vashna, forcing them to use the Psychic Ring with only a mildly better chance than a new player. The only way to beat the book without a considerable dollop of luck is to use meta-knowledge to purposefully leave the Sommerswerd behind and bring the Dagger of Vashna along then avoid being arrested - not very satisfying. My understanding is the Mongoose editions did at least tone these fights down a bit, partially fixing the problem. True, though Lone Wolf does have an interesting design quirk of occasionally having quite detailed encounters that can only be found with an unusual combination of decisions, items or disciplines which I always kinda liked. Unfortunately, the need to power game to beat difficult boss fights curtails the level of experimentation needed to discover these.
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Post by schlendrian on Jan 20, 2019 10:42:48 GMT
Thanks for the headsup! Wasn't aware.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 8, 2021 18:55:21 GMT
Thanks for the headsup! Wasn't aware. Two years on (!) how are you getting on? Are you up to book 31 yet?
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