hi Jason!! this game is so lovely and concise, got a quick question if you don't mind answering:
do all enemies drop a # of souls derived from rolling and summing their ability dice, or is it just bosses like the Alpha Ghoul who drop a # of souls (along with larger enemies like the Scavenger Ghoul which could drop a level-up item)?
Thank you! And EACH and ANY enemy that you can imagine collecting souls for whatever reason could have [roll and sum its ability dice] souls.
(I meant for this "tutorial adventure" to introduce players to the idea that this world's monsters pretty much all have good reason to be hungry for souls, but I suspect I confused the issue by having the first monsters you encounter already be famous for rummaging around corpses!)
it works great as a tutorial, super atmospheric!! the main sticking point was that a player who has killed one pack ghoul has a good chance of being able to buy out Vanda's entire store (pack ghouls averaging 11.5 souls dropped from d6+d8+d6 and Vanda's inventory maxing out at 8 items). because of this we opted to play w the assumption that only major enemies drop souls -- this makes a lot more sense though, levelling up seems less impossible now 😅 thanks again!
Ah, yeah, Vanda doesn’t exactly have a well stocked trading post so much as a ruined shrine, a rumor mill, and a petrified husband she will sell for 5 souls (or best offer, really). Maybe she’ll get some more in stock when you come back from your next quest, though! 😉
(Edit to add: That’s my way of saying the soul values for enemy drops were calculated based on the assumption they’re used mostly for leveling, split between a party of a few players, and if you happen to have any left over for shopping, that’s swell, but I didn’t count on merchants having reliable stock in what’s effectively a post-apocalyptic setting.)