July 23, 2009
IoTM Review: Get Them Underfoot.
In July, the IoTM of the Month for the game called “Kingdom of Loathing” is the Bag o’ Tricks. I really like this one. Really like it. Yep.
First off, just look at those base stats for equipping it. +item? Yes please. And the MP regen and +spell damage just go great alongside a Chefstaff. It makes the early turns of a Mysticality class go so, so much easier, because you actually have the MP to cast spells and deal some damage with them. It’s completely worth equipping for spellcasters even without the other effects, although it perhaps wouldn’t be worth a Mr. A without them.
Probably the most powerful element of the bag is extending 5 random buffs on your person once a day. That can really save you some money, and is really fairly neat. It’s unfortunate that you have to unequip the bag to use this ability, as that can mean a lot of wasted clicks. Still, the bleeding edge Softcore players probably aren’t going to be actually equipping it anyway, when they could shieldbutt their way to victory with a Pilgrim Shield, so this benefit is probably all their going to get out of it. It’s probably worth it.
But the ability in combat is what impresses me the most. Opening the Bag o’ Tricks is a free action, and not only does it give you some strong buffs (+meat, +items, or +ML (Which I don’t have to remind you essentially equals +stats), depending on how you use it, but it also is a free attack every once and awhile. Dealing a free 40 damage every few turns really does help make annoying fights easier, and I rather love the Bag for that.
Basically, the Bag o’ Tricks is the perfect softcore item for me. It makes the game so much easier and more fun while giving me some new systems to fiddle around with and think about, to keep the game from being boring. I doubt it’s bleeding edge, and I rather doubt it will be talked about much outside of this month (although Val did lay out a complicated way where the bag is optimal, at least until you use up your charges of getting Chihuahua Underfoot) but I’m sure I will be loving the crap out of it on subsequent softcore Mysticality runs. I sure as hell am loving it all over the place on this run.