Bay 12 Games Forum

Sent out a couple of squads to recover books from a fallen fortress. One of said squads included a pair of intelligent undead. The moment the squads get back, I get the alert that someone has been found dead contorted in fear.

The intelligent undead became ghosts as soon as they came back on the map. Obviously I had to memorialize the murderous one, but the other one was only a forlorn haunt. On top of that, she's the sheriff. I decided she can stick around.

Quote from: pikachu17 on April 10, 2020, 01:47:15 pm

Hey, I know you can become multiple types of necromancer, but if you do, can you turn someone into multiple types of zombie, thus making it stronger each time?

hmmmmmmm
If you mean as sentient undead, it's very hard to kill one and leave a body that can be raised as a sentient undead a second time. If you mean as an ordinary zombie, I think this requires some science. I'm not sure whether animation interactions get cleared when the creature dies. I suspect they don't, and you can kill a zombie hand or something six times and raise it different ways until it becomes unstoppable.

Ice. I did a lot of thinking to figure out the best way to kill and raise my adventurer multiple times, and what I settled on is that getting encased in ice kills you no matter what, yet doesn't damage the body. It's kind of a pain in the butt, but it works. You do have to pick up the body and take it somewhere else first though. For some reason, the game doesn't like reanimating a freshly-thawed corpse.

Based on my own experience, you definitely can become multiple types of sentient undead simultaneously. You retain all your previous powers when resurrected a second time. I don't know how to check the numbers to confirm this, but based on the fact that after the second reanimation, my heavy kicks were able to send goblins and elves flying several tiles (punches too, albeit far less consistently), I suspect the strength bonuses stack.

Unfortunately, it might be a bit buggy. My adventurer just sort of vanished while I was using tactics mode. The tile where he was standing still causes people to lie down when they enter it, but I can't switch to control him or interact in any way. The game still thinks I have a 2-character party, but the first slot is empty.

As for reanimating NPCs, decapitated corpses can be killed by a stiff breeze. So if you're sticking to dumb undead, that's pretty easy. Granted, it may not be worth it if you want something tough. It gets trickier with intelligent undead. They can't talk, so getting them to follow you requires some finagling. And you have to make sure they're not hostile to you when they die, or they'll remain hostile upon reanimation. And, again, since they can't talk, you can't ask for a cease to hostilities.

That always happens on frozen oceans. I'm not entirely sure why. My best guess is it has something to do with how the game handles variations in elevation? Or maybe not. I have no idea.

At any rate, speaking from personal experience, it's only a matter of time until your adventurer meets the same fate as your companions. I'd recommend getting out of there post haste. The only safe way across is to fly. Not that most adventurers have the option.

Are flying mounts a thing? That would be cool.

Oh yeah, Krugg's real big around here. His old Steelclutches series was a big part of what got me into this game.

As for economics, I generally only trade stuff to satisfy the "acquire object" need. Or to equip companions with better gear. If I actually need to buy something off of someone, I generally trade in artifacts. In terms of purchasing power, nothing beats priceless. And I don't need to hold on to 3 different dwarf bone hatch covers.

Hoo boy, has my adventure taken some twists and turns lately! The end result of which is that I have added a second adventurer to my party, a dwarven death worshiper and vampire/necromancer in the making named Thob Cultknife The Regal Counselor of Griffins. Random name, by the way.

See, what had happened was that I picked up a random swordsdwarf companion who I was hoping to train up into a swordmaster like my previous companion. While I was poking around the fortress where I met him (looking for decent armor, asking about troubles, etc.), somebody mentioned "The dwarf vampire Stukos McNPC is well traveled and may have that information".

Never one to pass up an opportunity for shenanigans, I tracked the guy down, called him out as a creature of the night, disemboweled him, and filled a few cups with his blood. Note that I immediately fast traveled away, so he didn't bleed out. He's just walking around with his guts spilled now.  Anyway, as a necromancer experiment, my adventurer can't actually become a vampire. My new dwarven buddy on the other hand...

So I headed to a nearby Dark Fortress to provide combat training fodder for my freshly-cursed companion. Unfortunately, my habit of jump-slamming goblins into cavern pit shafts came back to bite me again. The dwarf tried to follow the goblin down and wound up stuck clinging to the wall halfway down the shaft. He refused to put away or part with the artifact sword I gave him, and he only has one working hand after getting mauled by a grizzly bear in a random encounter, so he was incapable of climbing up. Or down for that matter.

Well, if jump-slams could get me into this mess, jump-slams would get me out. I knocked him down to the caverns below, hoping his armor would deflect the impact (it did). There was a dwarven fortress a couple map tiles east, so if I could just navigate the caverns for a bit without losing track of my companion or pet giant grizzly bear (did you know they can climb? I didn't), I could get back to the surface just fine.

Or so I thought. The first cavern layer led to a dead end, so I had to climb down to the second layer to proceed. Idk if pre-generated fortresses can even connect to the second cavern layer, but even if they can, the lag at that fortress was so bad that I'd never find it. I ended up retiring  and unretiring my adventurer there just to reach the surface.

Shortly thereafter, my vampire swordsdwarf companion got beat to hell by a bunch of religious goblins during some sort of uprising I stumbled across, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. That's not technically fatal to vampires, but I opted to put him out of his misery anyway. Or I pulled a supervillain-style "you have failed me... for the last time!". Take your pick. I mean, honestly! A fully-armored, seasoned warrior and a vampire to boot wielding an artifact sword getting taken down by unarmed, unskilled civilians? Just shameful.

So, yeah. I'm pretty sick of losing companions to crippling injury and/or stupidity, so I decided to make a second adventurer. Being in more direct control should solve the worst of the problems.

Oh! And I got my demon back. In the 2 weeks or so my adventurer spent in retirement, he made his way into the central tower of the Dark Fortress where I'd lost him. Which, incidentally, has had its population cut in half since I started this adventure. That's over 5,000 dead goblins in Menacesteals alone.

Oh yeah, if they're made of hemp, that works out to like 7☼ worth of coins in a 20☼ pouch, I'm pretty sure. I wonder if you could get the same outcome with leather pouches?




Oh, would you look at that; I am now a Novice Appraiser. Neat.

You can also spend equipment points at character creation to have some in your inventory at the start. And once you've got some alcohol, you can actually duplicate it ad infinitum by dumping it on the ground to create a pool of booze, then filling your container from the pool.