Toggle Background Color

Incursion Part 2: Not Tucker's Kobold 2 – The Polymorphing

Incursion Symbol Guide



So, one feature of Incursion is Reincarnation, allowing you to reuse a character you particularly liked. I decided to pick a Kobold Rogue again, but this one... Has Baleful Polymorph. You can hopefully tell, at this point, that I'm doing this for the giggles rather than the staying power of Kobolds. But each exploration, each death, is teaching us something. So another Kobold Rogue it is.



This run is also to demonstrate some of the problems with Incursion in its unfinished state. Specifically, with spawning. Nonetheless, we pick up the various potions, check out the area to the left enough to confirm that it's full of water (The Limestone Caves often are, although there was a Spiked Chain in there I was looking at a little longingly. Spiked chains are pretty cool if you can get an Exotic Weapon Proficiency for them), and move on. The Vermin Burrow is our next stop, but first...



...We actually discover a trap before it hits us, woo! Now, seeing as we're a Rogue, and we did put points into Handle Devices, we can attempt to disarm this. At +12 total skill, and on dungeon level 1, this is mostly a done deal. The DC of the trap is only 16, so we'd only have a 3/20 chance of failure.

Nonetheless, once its dealt with, we start hiding. The real Incursion has begun here. Vermin Caves can spawn all sorts of animals, although, as the name kind of says, it's mostly bugs, rats, and bug people. This one, however, is different, and illustrates something else to be aware of.



FROM THE SHADOWS, A BOA CONSTRICTOR OUT SNEAKS US. This is pretty damn bad, as it's already grappled us with its sneak attack. Considering our lowish strength, that means we can't attack properly (Our hands aren't free enough), we can't escape without a contested STR check (Which we'll mostly lose), and if it were any other kobold thief, I'd just try my best to quaff a dimension door potion and run the hell away. But we have another option. Baleful Polymorph.



It succeeds, and what was once a Boa Constrictor is now a giant rat. Now, let's talk a moment about Challenge Rating, a concept of DnD. Boa Constrictors are normally CR 2. This means that a Level 2 party would theoretically, according to the game designers, lose a quarter of their resources (in terms of HP, potions, and the like) in dealing with it. We are a level 1 kobold. It is pretty safe to say that, since the Constrictor AI likes to hide and sneak attack, this is not a very fair fight. It's not insurmountable, by any means, but Incursion fundamentally misunderstands CR, in that it picks things that would make a level 1 party slightly tense, and compensates as best it can by... Er... Giving us the hit points of a level 3 rogue, but none of the other bennies of being level 3. It also tries to get around this problem by starting you with lots of Dimension Door and Healing potions, along with silly abilities, but it doesn't entirely manage that, and we'll see evidence of this at the end of the update.



Nonetheless, our Baleful Polymorph succeeded, and we proceed to stab the shit out of the snake that is now a rat. It dies, and, on death, we're amusingly told that it must have been a Boa Constrictor all along. Sometimes I love auto messages out of context.

Sadly, the Vermin Caves were seriously not worth it. An Orcish Light Lance was the only loot, and since it's not a very rogueish weapon at all, we give it the number of fucks it truly deserves (Not a one), and move on.



Failing to pick a lock, as noted before, means that we can only try again once we've rested. Normally, this would be a case of “come back later”, but our only choices are here, or trying to swim. Helping the decision to rest is the knowledge that our Mana will return, so we'll have the chance to Baleful Polymorph something else if we have to. We rest, try again, it works, and move on.



The Ritual Chamber has a Human Bard attempting to hide. Badly. If we could throw him into that pit in the middle, trust me, we would. But no, I have a better option. We're going to quietly sneak up... Quietly... Slowly... And then... When we're close...



...STAB THE HELL OUT OF AN EASY TARGET. Although it wasn't screenshotted, here's what we did. When we were next to the Bard (still unaware of us), we hit 'c', for Combat Options. This has many of the classics we know and love. Charge, Sprint, Trip, Grapple, Coup De Grace (Sadly not shown in this update, but pretty much a guaranteed kill on weaker enemies) and... Great Blow. Great Blow sacrifices some accuracy for extra damage. This neatly cancels out our stealthy bonus, and leaves us exhausted to boot, but it's worth it, as humans are somewhat sturdier than we are, even weakass ones like a Bard, and it still gives a sneak attack damage bonus. With our short sword and main gauche, we cleave him in two, and he's only aware of us long enough to be briefly angry before he becomes very dead. His food ration and potion, we keep. The rest, we leave to rot.

The same trick works on a Rainbow Sprite, who was spotted in hiding, but alas, all we get from that is the XP. Sprite bows aren't really our thing.



The door past the sprite is brightly lit, and I still have an aversion to being seen even briefly, so I take the other door to an arguably worse situation... A graveyard. These, obviously, are guaranteed to spawn undead of some description, which, for us, is not a good situation, especially since the buggers will start wandering for reasons that will soon become clear. The Modron in the screenshot, the yellow C, helps explain why.



That's right, monsters can be hostile toward each other, and Zombies? Are hostile to anything that breathes, and isn't a Necromancer. Undead are among a Rogue's worst nightmares, because a lot of our tricks just won't work on them. Poison? Nope, it has no CON to affect. Our weapons aren't terribly useful, because it takes 5 damage off any attack except slashing (both our weapons do piercing). +2 Armour on top of what it used to have, and extra HP. No, zombies are decidedly not a good idea to tangle with. Which will make a point later in the update a very silly choice. Basically, all I can do here is hope I get something Holy somewhere, and also hope there are no piranha birds to lure them out of the graveyard.

There's some cord armour to the west, but it means the zombies might spot me, and I have no idea what's past the bright spot. Fuck. That. Instead, we go north.



Northward, we have... The “Hedge” Maze. It calls itself a hedge maze, and it is half right, in that it has a maze like pattern. But it's made of mushrooms, and we can just stroll by them (Although the “hedges” block our Line of Sight. This area tends to spawn plant enemies and Myconids, and neither is terribly useful or interesting. We move west.



Past The Statue Garden (Thankfully free of spawns, less thankfully free of loot), we see the first warning sign that something bad is nearby... That's something like twelve rat corpses, including plague rats and giant rats. We move south regardless, because hey, we're stealthed, right? Nothing bad can happen while we're hidden.



The Oddly Formed Hall has an amulet we might want, a greataxe we definitely don't, and... A Skeletal Warpony. A warpony would normally not be much of a threat, at CR ½, and no attacks to speak of. A Skeleton Warpony, on the other hand... Is a problem, because it gains attacks, gains resistances, and DR against anything except bludgeoning damage. Amusingly, despite ½ CR creatures generally gaining HP for becoming a skeleton, CR apparently goes down. Pictured here is me making a very silly mistake (Baleful Polymorph, not Nystul's Magical Aura!) It doesn't work, and I suffer for it.



At 17 out of my 22 HP gone in 2 successful attacks and one combat round, I decide that discretion is the better part of valour, and quaff a Dimension Door potion. I then mutter and grumble about the relative number of undead this run, before healing up and hitting what will prove to be the final area of this run.



The Community Offices. Sometimes they have scrolls, but mostly, they spawn humanoids of various types. I decide to skip an unidentified human and a Myconid, and murder a Bard, because Bards always have useful stuff to loot. This is my first mistake.



My second mistake is thinking that an Air Genasi Priest is going to be a great target for backstabbing.

I miss. Missing a backstab, as a rogue, would normally mean quaffing a dimension door, hiding, and trying again later. This is my third, and final mistake.



Pictured here are half the summons he makes by the third combat round. Another pair finish me off.

Tucker's Kobold, I definitely ain't. So it'll be time for a change.

Next time: A somewhat more successful run with someone a tadge beefier!