Numenera: the Beale of Boregal, part four

This recording comes mostly from a laptop mic, and so the audio quality is dubious. I recommend listening on speakers rather than headphones if possible. Many apologies.

Here begin the spoilers for the starter scenario The Beale of Boregal, and as always be aware that our podcasts are not entirely family-friendly.

Gardening

Link to episode 04

With a bit more experience of the game, I might have tried to find a way to drive the broken hounds elsewhere rather than killing them. It would fit the character better and killing stuff famously doesn't get you XP in Numenera.

As I mentioned last time, there isn't really all that much discrepancy in our combat ability here; the most significant one is a (roleplaying) choice of Asperity's not to take any ranged weapons, which means Tasha and Arvil look cooler due to picking off broken hounds before they even reach us (with, admittedly, multiple jammy rolls). I think the use of illusion powers was good here. We didn't really understand the stat pool economy here, which means we just plain didn't use any Effort, when in fact it would have been quite sensible in a fight when we were very near comfortable civilisation for rest and recover. The downside is that most Effort useful for combat comes from the Might pool as I understand it, which directly undermines the same stat most enemies target, increasing the chance of you getting penalties. This is where abilities based on other stats have a clear advantage.

Similarly, we hoarded our cyphers rather than hurling them around like confetti, which I think (based on further reading and listening) is exactly the wrong approach. Ah well.

There's a substantial talky-over bit here, which is unfortunate. One half is me using my sense-stuff powers to search the garden, and discovering an oddity buried amidst the plants - a crystal sphere that shatters and reforms. The other half is Dan explaining the "Carries a Quiver" focus, which at the time we mistakenly thought distinguished your character by allowing them to use a bow. In fact, bows exist in the normal equipment list, just like crossbows. It was funnier when we thought otherwise.