- Joined
- Jun 27, 2014
@Randall Fragg was nice enough to get a thread started on Darkest Dungeon, but it sort of petered out despite some damned fine comedy and he encouraged me to continue it in my own way. As someone who happens to be pretty experienced in this game and also has a firm understanding of how it works, I elected to pick up the torch and carry on in his stead, starting a secondary thread so if Fragg ever has the time and inclination, he can resume his thread (his shit with Tyce was amazing and worth a read).
So, Darkest Dungeon, then. It's an RPG, but not like most others. It's brutally difficult, has tons of atmosphere, and a unique set of game mechanics all its own. You must manage the health and mental health of your soldiers of fortune in a crusade to bring light back to the most god-forsaken corner of the world - a corner that only got as fucked as it was because your ancestor was a dick and unearthed shit that was better left alone. The descendant, who I have affectionately dubbed "Null," has begun hiring soldiers of fortune to take back the hamlet - to deal with the brigands, the monsters, and bring something resembling hope back again. There are generally two ways to play the game: treating your heroes as expendable and being a complete shithead, or fighting tooth and claw to keep the good ones and being willing to make sacrifices to keep them moving. Disease, mental illness, and more will lie in your path, but it's time to get this adventure started.
You will arrive along the old road. It winds with a troubling, serpent-like suggestion through the corrupted countryside. Leading only, I fear to ever more tenebrous places. There is a sickness in the ancient pitted cobbles of the old road and on its writhing path you will face viciousness, violence, and perhaps other damnably transcendent terrors. So steel yourself and remember: there can be no bravery without madness. The old road will take you to hell, but in that gaping abyss we will find our redemption.
A worn stagecoach approaches the ruined hamlet at breakneck speeds - the first two mercenaries working as part of a campaign to cleanse the world of the evil wrought by Null's Ancestor, who brought about horror untold. Some have come here to fight against new evil; others are here simply for a paycheck. the common thread is that they all are here and willing to put themselves in harm's way. And so it is into this that our first two heroes, Jaimas and @Ol'_Slag reveal themselves, after surviving a stagecoach crash, because the Caretaker drives worse than Jace:
The hamlet lies just ahead, but the forest is overrun with brigands and monsters. The pair soon runs into their first encounter, whereupon the announcer chimes in:
Dispatch this thug in brutal fashion, that all may hear of your arrival!
Slag and Jaimas make effortless work of the rogue, with Jaimas giving him a taste of pommel to the face and Slag tearing him to ribbons with his knife soonafter. Our heroes do not even take a hit. Good thing, too: this pair has no healing whatsoever beyond the rations they brought along, and combat at this stage is deadly. The pair press on, coming upon the Brigand's camp soonafter, and promptly raid it for treasure, which is now theirs by international law of go fuck yourself.
The pair then encounter the last two bandits between them and civilization.
This is a much harder fight. I need to cover Bleed, Blight, and Stun a bit since these are a huge part of gameplay. Bleed and Blight do basically the same thing: damage over time. Bleed tends to last shorter, but comes on attacks that do actual damage, whereas Blight tends to last longer but comes on less powerful attacks. These two conditions are the single most common source of character fatalities in Darkest Dungeon. The ability to treat them can save your characters a lot of pain, and the ability to inflict them upon enemies is invariably a good thing. Enemies killed by Blight or Bleed don't leave corpses, either, which makes combat management easier.
Enemies weak against one status effect are invariably strong against the other; Skeletons can't be Bled (you can bleed them with the right upgrades but it isn't worth it beyond bragging rights), but are critically vulnerable to blight. The abominations in the Weald are vulnerable to bleeding but resistant to Blight, and the horrors of the cove are also vulnerable to Blight. These damage types also bypass defense entirely, so for fuck's sake, use them. Stun just makes whoever lose a turn; it can take a lot of bite out certain enemies though some are immune, and it's very hard (if not impossible) to re-stun someone who just overcome being stunned once; use them wisely and some fights are completely trivialized. Fight accordingly.
Anyway, we kill the brigands during the tutorial. Kudos.
Let's check out where our heroes will be staying now:
If ever the Kiwi Farms were to close, this image would pretty much be the perfect synopsis. There'd probably be crude Sonichus drawn on things though. And Autism puzzles. But I digress.
Staying at the fugliest place on earth aside, the group now has a mission. Quickly, they wind up with two new recruits: the Plague Doctor @Shuu, surgeon and biochemist, who seeks to cure the fungal plague that taints this land, and the priestess Ambivalenz, come to silence the walking dead that plague the outskirts of this land. Every hero in Darkest Dungeon actually has legit lore reasons for being in the plot, from Jaimas the Crusader (fighting to eradicate the evil in general), to Slag the Highwayman, whose reason for questing is... Infinitely more personal. I'll be sure to point out these bits of lore, don't worry.
For characters themselves, we have some variety here. The Highwayman is a fast-moving and lethal threat who can fight at any range and has a lot of utility; I'll be quibbling with Slag's moveset for a more aggressive one, but he's solid for the moment. Similarly, the Crusader is a tough armored bastard who can perform a variety of tactical roles, from minor healer to frontline warrior. The Plague Doctor is a status-causer and curer, and I cannot, in any way, shape, or form, underestimate how useful she is, both as a healer and as a source of continual damage. The actual HP she heals is outright laughable, but the fact that she can cure both Blight and Bleed makes her far more vital than most players ever realize. The Vestal, which Ambivalenz is, is a solid healer who also doubles as an offense unit; with some retooling, she can work as a ranged damage dealer or as a support unit.
Starting out, your first two characters are locked; they will always have the same traits and always be the same class. You will always have a Highwayman with Hard Noggin and Quick Reflexes, and, likewise, always have a Crusader with Warrior of Light. However, they will also always start with Known Cheat (Highwayman), and God Fearing and Kleptomaniac (Crusader), respectively. Negative and positive traits are essential in Darkest Dungeon; you want to lock in particularly good ones as early as you can, and remove the especially bad ones ASAP, lest you wind up with a character that is unable to reduce stress or something similarly game-breaking. In this case, you want to lock in Quick Reflexes on the Highwayman, and should strongly consider locking in Warrior of Light on the Crusader. Similarly, you want to remove Kleptomaniac on the Crusader ASAP, because that trait fucking sucks and ranks among the worst in the game.
Your first two characters will always be a Plague Doctor and a Vestal, but their traits, skills, and even color will be completely randomized. In this case, Shuu and Ambivalenz start with mediocre perks but also relatively minor negatives; Shuu has Mercurial which lowers her virtue chance, but provided you aren't building too much Stress (more on Stress later), this won't be a problem. Scattering absolutely sucks on a Vestal, since it reduces ranged damage, but it's only 5% which isn't much and we can remove it later. There isn't much to do in town right now, so with that in mind, it's time for our first "real" mission.
You do provisions next; always bring exactly what you need for every mission, lest you wind up having no ability to handle things. You've got to pay for them yourselves, so finance this adventure and let's get shit done.
Anyway, into the dungeon we march.
The ruins are the "easiest" of the four explorable locations in the dungeon - but only at first. While the enemies here are the easiest and most straightforward - mostly being undead - the second you hit intermediate-level missions, it ramps up difficulty the hardest. Never grow too confident, Kiwis; caution is the watchword if you wanna keep your squad alive.
You may have noticed the white bar under the health gauges; this represents stress. Enemy attacks, loud noises, and general paranoia will increase stress in varying amounts; creepy areas may cause nervous characters to gain 1 or 2 at random; a powerful enemy attack can do 20 or more Stress in one go! If Stress reaches 100, the character becomes afflicted, and will act illogically, raise stress for the others, and generally be much less managable; if it reaches 200, they'll have a heart attack that will either reduce them to Death's Door (zero HP) or give a good chance to kill them outright if they're already there. Probably the least-known-about but most damaging bit of stress-causing is going into a dungeon that is too high in level; the higher the level, the more stress players accrue just by going there. A level 0 going into a level 1 dungeon can accrue about 10-20 stress; send that same character into a level 6 dungeon and they'll eat 60+ stress just by going in. Later on it's not such a big risk because you can mitigate stress, but early on, watch your ass.
Stress management is thus key in this game; it's "sticky," and only a bit of it bleeds off with time. Give your heroes time off, and they'll reduce stress over time; put them in an activity to get their minds off shit (drinking, gambling, fucking whores, praying, whatever) and they'll recover lots of stress and even recover from Affilictions. There is one other way to recover from those; if you have characters that can reduce stress, reducing a character's stress to zero - even in a dungeon - will cure the Affiliction, making classes like the Jester especially vital. Killing enemies, causing critical hits, and so on can also cure some stress, as can various in-game events.
The only other thing to cover is the light gauge. It's the bar at the top. It fades over time and can be refilled with torches. The darker it is, the more likely the enemies are to gain a surprise round, the more damage they will deal, and the more stress you will take - but your treasure find rate, likewise, will skyrocket. Similarly, if you keep the light high, you'll find less swag, but enemies will do less damage and less stress damage, and you will gain the advantage of surprise more often. Low Light or High Light - choose a playstyle and stick to it. Risk versus reward. Some player (and enemy attacks) will adjust the light level; as an example, Jaimas has a morale boost ability that he can unlock that boosts light slightly each time it's used.
Enough mechanic discussion. We fight through the first dungeon, Jaimas curiously manages to not steal anything. Soonafter we run into a good example of why you need to be prepared:
This blockade requires a shovel. Didn't bring one? Fuck you, you're going to pay. Either fuck off or dig through it by hand, losing precious torchlight (because of how long it takes) and stress in the process. Later barricades will also damage you. Have fun with that. Shithead. Maybe you'll bring proper tools next time.
Enemies that you kill but not with bleed/blight leave corpses. These take up enemy positions and have to be destroyed to get them closer (unless you use movement attacks). Just like the player, enemies have to be in certain positions to use certain attacks, and you can (and should) exploit this like a motherfucker. A bone crossbowman brought to the front two ranks can only use a dinky bayonet jab that does very little damage in an attempt to get back to the back ranks; a Bone Noble will use a much less threatening dagger stab. Use this, because it can seriously tone down the threat level of some monsters. Some player attacks, such as Shuu's Disorienting Blast, will destroy all corpses on the field.
Anyway. Some time later, we've cleared our first dungeon, and returned, battered but alive. The game decided that Jaimas wasn't being enough of a prick and thus saddled him with the Curious trait, the third most-annoying after Kleptomaniac and Compulsive. Thankfully Curious isn't as much of a game-breaker so provided I prevent it from becoming permanent it won't be a big deal.
Even better, three new heroes join our cause; @CasualSeppuku the Graver Robber, who seems to be a bored noblewoman in it for the lulz, @Cynical the Antiquarian, a historian with a rather troubling history who seeks to discover the mystery behind the censer she uses a weapon. Finally, our squad recieves @c-no, an Occultist from the east who clearly has trafficked with the dark powers - and now, as the gates of hell yawn open, is prepared to use the very powers they gave him to slam the door shut in their face.
These three new classes are boss. The Grave Robber is a solid fighter and can do a little of everything, but she excels as a second-line combatant. The Antiquarian is a relatively weak character, with poor offensive capability but solid defensive skills and the ability to earn us more cash - making her one of the most critical characters in the game. Finally, @c-no is one of the game's best healers and has both area-of-effect damage and damage specifically good against Elrdrich monsters, which will be more common as time goes on.
This one's a longer mission, so we'll be going camping. This I'll get into later. For now, just understand that this map is about twice the size of the previous.
See? No beating around the bush in this mission.
This is why the Occultist is the game's best healer. He's something of a high-stakes roulette wheel; he may heal basically nothing, and has a tiny chance to induce a weak bleed with his heal, but it often heals for a lot more than the other characters - to compare, Ambivalenz' heal spell heals 3-5 HP per use at base level; C-No's can heal as many as 14 and that's without a critical. Later on, C-No's variability will average out to him being about the same class as Ambivalenz gets the ability to heal up squads, but for now, courage.
Seppuku can mess a Skelly up. Take note, Kiwis: This character rocks in any slot. Load her with ranged skills and she can fight from the back row. Load her with Toxin Trickery and a Pickaxe and she can act as a frontline tank. She relies on her mighty agility rather than raw HP to keep her in the fight, but that's just fine and makes her a damned solid fighter overall. Grave Robber is a class than can be brought on any mission without being a liability, and that's somewhat rare. The downside is that you need to completely retool her skills between missions.
Antiquarians will cause these neat little stone discs to drop. They're basically salable like gems and are worth more and stack higher, so you can hold a bunch. Glorious. Like I said, even one Antiquarian makes stuff easier later, even if Cynical's starting skill and equipment set fucking sucks.
During a long mission, you can make camp. Here you can rest, and more importantly, de-stress and treat wounds.
On long missions, this is why you carry a ton of extra food: it provides immediate healing equal to 25% of the team's max HP and cuts stress for everyone by 10%. It also lets you use camp skills, which can further reduce stress, or boost combat stats for a while. Correctly using camping can have dramatic effects on the survival odds of a party in a given dungeon, so make the most of it.
Here you can see Cynical using one of her skills to provide a free torch.
After breaking camp, everyone's much less stressed, much more healthy, and ready to resume adventure. We run into additional enemies, but thankfully Seppuku's drinking problem heals both bleeding and blights and makes her harder to hit. Unfortunately, she builds a lot of stress due to being gangbanged by a Cultist squad, but we make it through and back to town. We sign her into rehab (read: More drinking), and take stock of the situation.
Two of Slag's more annoying quirks have metasasized, meaning it'll take longer to get rid of the fucking things, but with Seppuku in rehab, we've no choice but to move on and pull Jaimas back into the field whether he wants to be or not. Thankfully, we finally have access to the guild, which means we can finally retool skillsets.
Slag is now infinitely stronger by virtue of a much better and more aggressive set, and Shuu can now actually do her status-healing job. We need more people; we only get one this week, and it's @Cosmos, the daughter of one of the Ancestor's bodyguards who has never forgotten what happened to her because he sided with the Ancestor; nor the sacrifice he made to ensure she would survive. She's grown up to be one of the local militia; canny Kiwis might notice that her uniform greatly resembles those of the Skeletons in the Ruins - more on that later. Her class is something of a glass cannon; slow-moving but hits like a truck and does so from the back lines. She doubles as an eminently useful combat medic; with some retooling she can also work as a support unit, debuffing enemy squads and clearing marks.
The Kiwis prepare to advance into the depths once again, this time with Jaimas boasting his new healing ability. What dangers lurk in the darkness?
So, Darkest Dungeon, then. It's an RPG, but not like most others. It's brutally difficult, has tons of atmosphere, and a unique set of game mechanics all its own. You must manage the health and mental health of your soldiers of fortune in a crusade to bring light back to the most god-forsaken corner of the world - a corner that only got as fucked as it was because your ancestor was a dick and unearthed shit that was better left alone. The descendant, who I have affectionately dubbed "Null," has begun hiring soldiers of fortune to take back the hamlet - to deal with the brigands, the monsters, and bring something resembling hope back again. There are generally two ways to play the game: treating your heroes as expendable and being a complete shithead, or fighting tooth and claw to keep the good ones and being willing to make sacrifices to keep them moving. Disease, mental illness, and more will lie in your path, but it's time to get this adventure started.
You will arrive along the old road. It winds with a troubling, serpent-like suggestion through the corrupted countryside. Leading only, I fear to ever more tenebrous places. There is a sickness in the ancient pitted cobbles of the old road and on its writhing path you will face viciousness, violence, and perhaps other damnably transcendent terrors. So steel yourself and remember: there can be no bravery without madness. The old road will take you to hell, but in that gaping abyss we will find our redemption.
A worn stagecoach approaches the ruined hamlet at breakneck speeds - the first two mercenaries working as part of a campaign to cleanse the world of the evil wrought by Null's Ancestor, who brought about horror untold. Some have come here to fight against new evil; others are here simply for a paycheck. the common thread is that they all are here and willing to put themselves in harm's way. And so it is into this that our first two heroes, Jaimas and @Ol'_Slag reveal themselves, after surviving a stagecoach crash, because the Caretaker drives worse than Jace:
The hamlet lies just ahead, but the forest is overrun with brigands and monsters. The pair soon runs into their first encounter, whereupon the announcer chimes in:
Dispatch this thug in brutal fashion, that all may hear of your arrival!
Slag and Jaimas make effortless work of the rogue, with Jaimas giving him a taste of pommel to the face and Slag tearing him to ribbons with his knife soonafter. Our heroes do not even take a hit. Good thing, too: this pair has no healing whatsoever beyond the rations they brought along, and combat at this stage is deadly. The pair press on, coming upon the Brigand's camp soonafter, and promptly raid it for treasure, which is now theirs by international law of go fuck yourself.
The pair then encounter the last two bandits between them and civilization.
This is a much harder fight. I need to cover Bleed, Blight, and Stun a bit since these are a huge part of gameplay. Bleed and Blight do basically the same thing: damage over time. Bleed tends to last shorter, but comes on attacks that do actual damage, whereas Blight tends to last longer but comes on less powerful attacks. These two conditions are the single most common source of character fatalities in Darkest Dungeon. The ability to treat them can save your characters a lot of pain, and the ability to inflict them upon enemies is invariably a good thing. Enemies killed by Blight or Bleed don't leave corpses, either, which makes combat management easier.
Enemies weak against one status effect are invariably strong against the other; Skeletons can't be Bled (you can bleed them with the right upgrades but it isn't worth it beyond bragging rights), but are critically vulnerable to blight. The abominations in the Weald are vulnerable to bleeding but resistant to Blight, and the horrors of the cove are also vulnerable to Blight. These damage types also bypass defense entirely, so for fuck's sake, use them. Stun just makes whoever lose a turn; it can take a lot of bite out certain enemies though some are immune, and it's very hard (if not impossible) to re-stun someone who just overcome being stunned once; use them wisely and some fights are completely trivialized. Fight accordingly.
Anyway, we kill the brigands during the tutorial. Kudos.
Let's check out where our heroes will be staying now:
If ever the Kiwi Farms were to close, this image would pretty much be the perfect synopsis. There'd probably be crude Sonichus drawn on things though. And Autism puzzles. But I digress.
Staying at the fugliest place on earth aside, the group now has a mission. Quickly, they wind up with two new recruits: the Plague Doctor @Shuu, surgeon and biochemist, who seeks to cure the fungal plague that taints this land, and the priestess Ambivalenz, come to silence the walking dead that plague the outskirts of this land. Every hero in Darkest Dungeon actually has legit lore reasons for being in the plot, from Jaimas the Crusader (fighting to eradicate the evil in general), to Slag the Highwayman, whose reason for questing is... Infinitely more personal. I'll be sure to point out these bits of lore, don't worry.
For characters themselves, we have some variety here. The Highwayman is a fast-moving and lethal threat who can fight at any range and has a lot of utility; I'll be quibbling with Slag's moveset for a more aggressive one, but he's solid for the moment. Similarly, the Crusader is a tough armored bastard who can perform a variety of tactical roles, from minor healer to frontline warrior. The Plague Doctor is a status-causer and curer, and I cannot, in any way, shape, or form, underestimate how useful she is, both as a healer and as a source of continual damage. The actual HP she heals is outright laughable, but the fact that she can cure both Blight and Bleed makes her far more vital than most players ever realize. The Vestal, which Ambivalenz is, is a solid healer who also doubles as an offense unit; with some retooling, she can work as a ranged damage dealer or as a support unit.
Starting out, your first two characters are locked; they will always have the same traits and always be the same class. You will always have a Highwayman with Hard Noggin and Quick Reflexes, and, likewise, always have a Crusader with Warrior of Light. However, they will also always start with Known Cheat (Highwayman), and God Fearing and Kleptomaniac (Crusader), respectively. Negative and positive traits are essential in Darkest Dungeon; you want to lock in particularly good ones as early as you can, and remove the especially bad ones ASAP, lest you wind up with a character that is unable to reduce stress or something similarly game-breaking. In this case, you want to lock in Quick Reflexes on the Highwayman, and should strongly consider locking in Warrior of Light on the Crusader. Similarly, you want to remove Kleptomaniac on the Crusader ASAP, because that trait fucking sucks and ranks among the worst in the game.
Your first two characters will always be a Plague Doctor and a Vestal, but their traits, skills, and even color will be completely randomized. In this case, Shuu and Ambivalenz start with mediocre perks but also relatively minor negatives; Shuu has Mercurial which lowers her virtue chance, but provided you aren't building too much Stress (more on Stress later), this won't be a problem. Scattering absolutely sucks on a Vestal, since it reduces ranged damage, but it's only 5% which isn't much and we can remove it later. There isn't much to do in town right now, so with that in mind, it's time for our first "real" mission.
You do provisions next; always bring exactly what you need for every mission, lest you wind up having no ability to handle things. You've got to pay for them yourselves, so finance this adventure and let's get shit done.
I generally recommend every player bring the following for "Short" missions:
* At least eight food
* At least eight torches
* Antitoxins or Bandages, depending on mission (Weald: Bring Antitoxins; Ruins: Bring Bandages; Cove: Bring BOTH), usually 3 or so, just in case
* 2 Medicinal Herbs
* 1 or 2 Keys (at your option)
* 3 Shovels
* 2 Holy Water
All of these items are used for handling exploration. many items can give beneficial or even outstandingly useful results if you use the right item. For example, you can get better healing out of certain dungeon curios, or unlock coffers or chests with the right items. This means more rewards.
Doubling or tripling this for longer missions or higher difficulties is usually a good rule of thumb, but in time you'll get your own balance of how you want to roll.
Note that you will get freebie items depending on who you bring: Jaimas, for example, being a Crusader, comes with a free Holy Water with every mission. Similarly, Shuu, being a Plague Doctor, provides you with a free Antitoxin! Similarly Arbalests (or Musketeers for all you backers) will give you a free bandage, and Grave Robbers provide a free shovel.
* At least eight food
* At least eight torches
* Antitoxins or Bandages, depending on mission (Weald: Bring Antitoxins; Ruins: Bring Bandages; Cove: Bring BOTH), usually 3 or so, just in case
* 2 Medicinal Herbs
* 1 or 2 Keys (at your option)
* 3 Shovels
* 2 Holy Water
All of these items are used for handling exploration. many items can give beneficial or even outstandingly useful results if you use the right item. For example, you can get better healing out of certain dungeon curios, or unlock coffers or chests with the right items. This means more rewards.
Doubling or tripling this for longer missions or higher difficulties is usually a good rule of thumb, but in time you'll get your own balance of how you want to roll.
Note that you will get freebie items depending on who you bring: Jaimas, for example, being a Crusader, comes with a free Holy Water with every mission. Similarly, Shuu, being a Plague Doctor, provides you with a free Antitoxin! Similarly Arbalests (or Musketeers for all you backers) will give you a free bandage, and Grave Robbers provide a free shovel.
Anyway, into the dungeon we march.
The ruins are the "easiest" of the four explorable locations in the dungeon - but only at first. While the enemies here are the easiest and most straightforward - mostly being undead - the second you hit intermediate-level missions, it ramps up difficulty the hardest. Never grow too confident, Kiwis; caution is the watchword if you wanna keep your squad alive.
You may have noticed the white bar under the health gauges; this represents stress. Enemy attacks, loud noises, and general paranoia will increase stress in varying amounts; creepy areas may cause nervous characters to gain 1 or 2 at random; a powerful enemy attack can do 20 or more Stress in one go! If Stress reaches 100, the character becomes afflicted, and will act illogically, raise stress for the others, and generally be much less managable; if it reaches 200, they'll have a heart attack that will either reduce them to Death's Door (zero HP) or give a good chance to kill them outright if they're already there. Probably the least-known-about but most damaging bit of stress-causing is going into a dungeon that is too high in level; the higher the level, the more stress players accrue just by going there. A level 0 going into a level 1 dungeon can accrue about 10-20 stress; send that same character into a level 6 dungeon and they'll eat 60+ stress just by going in. Later on it's not such a big risk because you can mitigate stress, but early on, watch your ass.
Stress management is thus key in this game; it's "sticky," and only a bit of it bleeds off with time. Give your heroes time off, and they'll reduce stress over time; put them in an activity to get their minds off shit (drinking, gambling, fucking whores, praying, whatever) and they'll recover lots of stress and even recover from Affilictions. There is one other way to recover from those; if you have characters that can reduce stress, reducing a character's stress to zero - even in a dungeon - will cure the Affiliction, making classes like the Jester especially vital. Killing enemies, causing critical hits, and so on can also cure some stress, as can various in-game events.
Target enemies with high-damage attacks (Skeleton Arbalests) and high-stress attacks (Cultist girls, Undead Nobles) first! The sooner you put these fucks down the less chance they'll have to wreck your party. Stun them if you must to delay them, but kill them ASAP.
The only other thing to cover is the light gauge. It's the bar at the top. It fades over time and can be refilled with torches. The darker it is, the more likely the enemies are to gain a surprise round, the more damage they will deal, and the more stress you will take - but your treasure find rate, likewise, will skyrocket. Similarly, if you keep the light high, you'll find less swag, but enemies will do less damage and less stress damage, and you will gain the advantage of surprise more often. Low Light or High Light - choose a playstyle and stick to it. Risk versus reward. Some player (and enemy attacks) will adjust the light level; as an example, Jaimas has a morale boost ability that he can unlock that boosts light slightly each time it's used.
Enough mechanic discussion. We fight through the first dungeon, Jaimas curiously manages to not steal anything. Soonafter we run into a good example of why you need to be prepared:
This blockade requires a shovel. Didn't bring one? Fuck you, you're going to pay. Either fuck off or dig through it by hand, losing precious torchlight (because of how long it takes) and stress in the process. Later barricades will also damage you. Have fun with that. Shithead. Maybe you'll bring proper tools next time.
Enemies that you kill but not with bleed/blight leave corpses. These take up enemy positions and have to be destroyed to get them closer (unless you use movement attacks). Just like the player, enemies have to be in certain positions to use certain attacks, and you can (and should) exploit this like a motherfucker. A bone crossbowman brought to the front two ranks can only use a dinky bayonet jab that does very little damage in an attempt to get back to the back ranks; a Bone Noble will use a much less threatening dagger stab. Use this, because it can seriously tone down the threat level of some monsters. Some player attacks, such as Shuu's Disorienting Blast, will destroy all corpses on the field.
Anyway. Some time later, we've cleared our first dungeon, and returned, battered but alive. The game decided that Jaimas wasn't being enough of a prick and thus saddled him with the Curious trait, the third most-annoying after Kleptomaniac and Compulsive. Thankfully Curious isn't as much of a game-breaker so provided I prevent it from becoming permanent it won't be a big deal.
Even better, three new heroes join our cause; @CasualSeppuku the Graver Robber, who seems to be a bored noblewoman in it for the lulz, @Cynical the Antiquarian, a historian with a rather troubling history who seeks to discover the mystery behind the censer she uses a weapon. Finally, our squad recieves @c-no, an Occultist from the east who clearly has trafficked with the dark powers - and now, as the gates of hell yawn open, is prepared to use the very powers they gave him to slam the door shut in their face.
These three new classes are boss. The Grave Robber is a solid fighter and can do a little of everything, but she excels as a second-line combatant. The Antiquarian is a relatively weak character, with poor offensive capability but solid defensive skills and the ability to earn us more cash - making her one of the most critical characters in the game. Finally, @c-no is one of the game's best healers and has both area-of-effect damage and damage specifically good against Elrdrich monsters, which will be more common as time goes on.
This one's a longer mission, so we'll be going camping. This I'll get into later. For now, just understand that this map is about twice the size of the previous.
See? No beating around the bush in this mission.
This is why the Occultist is the game's best healer. He's something of a high-stakes roulette wheel; he may heal basically nothing, and has a tiny chance to induce a weak bleed with his heal, but it often heals for a lot more than the other characters - to compare, Ambivalenz' heal spell heals 3-5 HP per use at base level; C-No's can heal as many as 14 and that's without a critical. Later on, C-No's variability will average out to him being about the same class as Ambivalenz gets the ability to heal up squads, but for now, courage.
Seppuku can mess a Skelly up. Take note, Kiwis: This character rocks in any slot. Load her with ranged skills and she can fight from the back row. Load her with Toxin Trickery and a Pickaxe and she can act as a frontline tank. She relies on her mighty agility rather than raw HP to keep her in the fight, but that's just fine and makes her a damned solid fighter overall. Grave Robber is a class than can be brought on any mission without being a liability, and that's somewhat rare. The downside is that you need to completely retool her skills between missions.
Antiquarians will cause these neat little stone discs to drop. They're basically salable like gems and are worth more and stack higher, so you can hold a bunch. Glorious. Like I said, even one Antiquarian makes stuff easier later, even if Cynical's starting skill and equipment set fucking sucks.
During a long mission, you can make camp. Here you can rest, and more importantly, de-stress and treat wounds.
On long missions, this is why you carry a ton of extra food: it provides immediate healing equal to 25% of the team's max HP and cuts stress for everyone by 10%. It also lets you use camp skills, which can further reduce stress, or boost combat stats for a while. Correctly using camping can have dramatic effects on the survival odds of a party in a given dungeon, so make the most of it.
Here you can see Cynical using one of her skills to provide a free torch.
After breaking camp, everyone's much less stressed, much more healthy, and ready to resume adventure. We run into additional enemies, but thankfully Seppuku's drinking problem heals both bleeding and blights and makes her harder to hit. Unfortunately, she builds a lot of stress due to being gangbanged by a Cultist squad, but we make it through and back to town. We sign her into rehab (read: More drinking), and take stock of the situation.
Two of Slag's more annoying quirks have metasasized, meaning it'll take longer to get rid of the fucking things, but with Seppuku in rehab, we've no choice but to move on and pull Jaimas back into the field whether he wants to be or not. Thankfully, we finally have access to the guild, which means we can finally retool skillsets.
Slag is now infinitely stronger by virtue of a much better and more aggressive set, and Shuu can now actually do her status-healing job. We need more people; we only get one this week, and it's @Cosmos, the daughter of one of the Ancestor's bodyguards who has never forgotten what happened to her because he sided with the Ancestor; nor the sacrifice he made to ensure she would survive. She's grown up to be one of the local militia; canny Kiwis might notice that her uniform greatly resembles those of the Skeletons in the Ruins - more on that later. Her class is something of a glass cannon; slow-moving but hits like a truck and does so from the back lines. She doubles as an eminently useful combat medic; with some retooling she can also work as a support unit, debuffing enemy squads and clearing marks.
The Kiwis prepare to advance into the depths once again, this time with Jaimas boasting his new healing ability. What dangers lurk in the darkness?
will end up dead or at least insane by what is to come. Also, whoever named the estate should be dragged into the street should anyone get autistic over the being repeated as the the Kiwi Farms estate.
soonafter.
