Curing away Drunkard trait

[funkmonster7]

I see people in the forum talk about this, but how does it work exactly? If I pick Drunkard negative traits for all 4 starting characters, how do I cure them of the trait? Should I cure them? Do I cure all of them at once over 7 days? If I need 4 alcoholic drinks and I only used 2, are the 2 drinks given to the same 2 characters at each rest?

[Golden]

Did some tests.

2 alcohol for 4 drunkards on the first rest only (no alcohol for the others rest) = 2 guys cured

2 alcohol at the first rests, then again 2 alcohol at the third rest = 4 guys still drunkards

Might as well cure them all together when you have good relationship and enough money in case someone want to leave.

[Jim Lahey]

If you're intentionally rolling a bunch of drunks, why not just roll with the punches and have your men behave like a bunch of raging alcoholics. Pickin fights with everybody and stealing to afford their next bottle of hooch, otherwise they start to rage.

[funkmonster7]

I did exactly that, got the Nimble Elbow title, and then when I tried to cure the trait away, it was harder than I thought. Maybe curing 1 at a time would work, but I don't know if it works this way. If I have 4 drunkards but only provide 3 alcoholic drinks, does the last guy doesn't get to drink alcohol?

Meaning I'm wondering if they can be cured one at a time. I didn't intentionally roll a bunch of drunks for the purpose of roleplaying as a bunch of drunks, I was testing out the strategy of having 4 starter characters with 2 good traits each but no negative trait in the end.

But I'm starting to wonder if I'm investing too much into this. I'm thinking that making them all Gluttons would be a small price to pay. I made so much food that +4 food consumption is just a small thing.

[BedlamBetty]

you can take lazy with everyone with no long term impact (just less profession xp per profession use)
But if you really want to take drunkard, it takes about ten rests for the first one to heal.
Get up to 15 happiness, have some honey bought up from cortia and then just deny them alcohol for every rest, use up to 3 alcohol only once if you were unlucky with a minus happiness rest.
Obvioulsy use the campfire to counter the happiness malus as needed and add in the honey when it gets to -5 per rest, it will go even more malus from there, but you should be able to get one healed right before you think you're going to bottom out your happiness.
Once the first is healed, the rest become easier.
Work your happiness back to 15 and do it all over again.

[funkmonster7]

Cool, thanks. With my current playthrough I've taken Lazy instead.

One of my reasons for asking about Drunkard removal is I don't like seeing negative traits on my characters. I used to roll with only 1 trait but I heard other people managed to get 2 positive traits with no downfall (removing Drunkard) so I thought I'd give it a go too. Honestly I think it may be too much work, I think Lazy will do for me.

[BedlamBetty]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Cool, thanks. With my current playthrough I've taken Lazy instead.

One of my reasons for asking about Drunkard removal is I don't like seeing negative traits on my characters. I used to roll with only 1 trait but I heard other people managed to get 2 positive traits with no downfall (removing Drunkard) so I thought I'd give it a go too. Honestly I think it may be too much work, I think Lazy will do for me.

It is a lot of work and because you need to focus on it early, you are likely to miss out on being able to quickly get the cookpot (money is an issue because you need alcohol early) which is going to mean you will get a delicate unit early, so a negative trait anyway.
I'm of a similar ocd type, but I just don't see lazy anymore and have only got one unit with delicate in this playthrough and very late at that (because of eating crocswine meat, so avoid that)
I'll rethink the whole drunkard run after Gosenberg update drops and run a let's play with 4 drunkards, no negatives to demonstrate how it's done.

[BedlamBetty]

Also, running two positives is much better than one
If you've watched a bit of my let's play, I explain why, but:
-bloodthirsty 3% crit hit= 1.5 levels
-strong= 1 level for every 2 points of str strong adds
-nimble= 1 level for every 2 points of dex nimble adds
-thickskinned= 3% guard, guard can only be had from armour and layers and going from 50% guard to 66% guard moves your armour from being twice as powerful, to being 3 times as powerful (meaning the 3% is very good on dedicated tanks)
In the same vein, going from 66% guard, to 75% guard, moves your armour from 3 times as good, to 4 times as good (yes, the more guard you have, the more value each individual percentage point of guard has)

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by BedlamBetty:

Also, running two positives is much better than one
If you've watched a bit of my let's play, I explain why, but:
-bloodthirsty 3% crit hit= 1.5 levels
-strong= 1 level for every 2 points of str strong adds
-nimble= 1 level for every 2 points of dex nimble adds
-thickskinned= 3% guard, guard can only be had from armour and layers and going from 50% guard to 66% guard moves your armour from being twice as powerful, to being 3 times as powerful (meaning the 3% is very good on dedicated tanks)
In the same vein, going from 66% guard, to 75% guard, moves your armour from 3 times as good, to 4 times as good (yes, the more guard you have, the more value each individual percentage point of guard has)

Is the 3% guard multiplicative? Also I don't understand how Strong and Nimble work, they still add 1 Str/Dex for my characters at level 5.

[BedlamBetty]

strong adds 5% str to the unit and nimble adds 5% dex
so 1 is the least you'll get, but every 20 in the stat adds another one, or 1 to 20 adds 1, 21 to 40 adds 2, etc
The guard % is additive.
it's just how percentage based increases work, especially in the case of a direct mitigation of dmg
50% guard means half the dmg is blocked, so the armour is twice as strong (it takes 2 hits to do the same dmg as one hit with no guard)
At 66%, two thirds of the dmg is mitigated, so it takes 3 hits to do the same as one, so the armour is 3 times as strong
That's why that 3% is so good on a tank, because by level 5, with level 5 crafted gear, your tanks are already over 50% guard (53% with the roundel and two tracker's reinforced layers in the armor if i recall)

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by BedlamBetty:

strong adds 5% str to the unit and nimble adds 5% dex
so 1 is the least you'll get, but every 20 in the stat adds another one, or 1 to 20 adds 1, 21 to 40 adds 2, etc
The guard % is additive.
it's just how percentage based increases work, especially in the case of a direct mitigation of dmg
50% guard means half the dmg is blocked, so the armour is twice as strong (it takes 2 hits to do the same dmg as one hit with no guard)
At 66%, two thirds of the dmg is mitigated, so it takes 3 hits to do the same as one, so the armour is 3 times as strong
That's why that 3% is so good on a tank, because by level 5, with level 5 crafted gear, your tanks are already over 50% guard (53% with the roundel and two tracker's reinforced layers in the armor if i recall)

I see.

But is +2 or +3 Str/Dex significant? And also 3% guard. I know they all add up, but just the two traits alone don't seem like much. Wouldn't Volunteer be much better since it cuts wages in half? So, Volunteer + Bloodthirsty for example. +3% crit chance is good though since it is a chance-based feature, reliant on a dice roll to proc.

Another question is, some of my characters got negative traits such as Haemophilia or something, which is +5% bleed damage. That's really, really bad... Instead of dying from bleeding in 5 turns, now it is 4 turns. Is there a way to remove these negative traits?

I'm just lucky the guy that got Haemophilia is my swordsman tank... Because at level 8 he will be immune to bleed anyway.

[BedlamBetty]

no way to cure those traits, at the moment the only trait that can be healed is drunkard

Late game, strong is worth 5 or 6, so 2.5 to 3 levels worth of strength, a slight increase to crit dmg as well, since it scales off str
same for nimble and crit hit chance, which scales off dex
Guard is better on pure tanks, but bloodthirsty is better on dps
If we take my usual set up for example, which is meant to maximize legendary use
sword is pure tank, so strong and thickskinned. Thickskinned also helps the chance to proc shield connoisseur (though it is not necessary) so the pure tanks get 3% guard from thick, 5% from shield connoisseur and the two layers at 3% guard each for a total of 14% guard before armour and shield. That means you can take the crit dmg armour or the crit chance armour, which both have slightly lower guard than the pure armour and guard armour.
it also means that if you can get your guard up to 60-61% from just armour and shield, you'll be at 74-75% guard from the addition of layers, thickskinned and shield connoisseur
I know it doesn't look like much, but since your crit chance on pure tanks is pretty bad, the 3% guard added to high guard is much better, than the 3% crit added to low crit chance

So the brute in the team is a pure tank too, he gets strong and thickskinned for the same reasons as the sword

The axe is pure dps, so she gets bloodthirsty and str. Her crit chance is going to be relatively high, around 25% quite early and hovering around 40-45% by late game (a bit lower than the rangers or archers)
The spear is a back line, so profits from bloodthirsty and strong as well

Volunteer is nice to get from a recruit, but money is not much of an issue outside of early game when you're getting everything going, where dmg output is important all game long (and it happens to scale up as you go, where the value of volunteer scales down, and it takes almost twice as long to go from level 6 to level 9 as it does to go from level 1 to level 6)

Those 4 units to start all have a legendary available to them in game that will skyrocket their dmg output (especially the berserk axe with devotion from Bionn)

No other party is composed of only legendary users and the five free recruits available, who all scale to party level (so you can recruit them anytime and they will be your party level as long as you never explored their location previously) are 2 rangers (only one legendary dagger) two brutes (only one more legendary weapon for brutes in Lund's crappy two hand mace, but there is a brute in every starting party, so nothing to do about it) and one warrior (to use the legendary two hand axe Splitter)

That leaves 2 archers to use the two legendary bows and one more warrior to become a sentinel for Ovation (inspiring the whole party is just too good to pass up, but nor do I personally want to waste the role on a legendary weapon, as ovation is an extremely restrictive skill that reduces attacking action economy on the unit, much better to give him the natural strike axe, with unstable oil on it and it procs an aoo on the basic attack to engage, him being a support tank and all)

You can compose a party however you want and have fun, my suggestions are just that, but based on the use of Legendary weapons, which I go after early (take out the boss of Ludern by level 3) so that I can have them equipped as early as possible and for as long as possible on the units.

You could also choose the traits you want and have fun, but bear in mind that my sword at least is a riposte sword, as that has the most dmg output, so that 3% guard on a unit that purposefully takes a lot of hits is much better than a little extra crit chance, especially in long fights (like full defense bandit lairs, which is the only way I do them) where if the unit bottoms out on armour, they are effectively useless to the team, so the longer it takes for that to happen, the more hits the unit dishes out, where one or two extra crit hits out of 20 or 30 attacks won't make much of a difference

Also, the brute builds into temperance, since that is the most powerful one hand mace user skill at level 8 (although all level 8 skills on the brute are great). Since the brute gains vp from engagement, already quite early I advise engaging with taunt (one vp in one vp out), disengaging (taking the hit) and then engaging with weakening blow (1 vp in one vp out) for vp neutrality on the hits, and the weakening blow places vulnerability on the unit.
Once you have unstable oil, that weakening blow can turn into placing the vulnerability and immediately hitting with a 120% dmg aoo crit to the face, which is certain death for almost any unit (especially if you have the legendary mace equipped) the basic can then be used to kill a medium or light armour unit outright (again with legendary) or engage a high armour unit for very good dmg and a backstab setup

Up to you whether you prefer armour breaker or cruelty at level 5. Both are great, but on the brute captain og unit, I prefer armour breaker, for the free brutality and none ovation tied inspiration it gives

At level 8, you see where the set up really shines. engage with taunt, disengage for the first hit against you, engage with weakening blow, applying vulnerability, hope for an unstable oil hit to proc, but if it doesn't you have an aoo in the chamber which you can get from just disengaging (from the second hit against you with temperance) which also puts deflection on your unit. Once up, you know the first hit is always against deflection (so usually a 1 dmg hit against you) and the second hit procs the riposte aoo (and puts deflection back on the unit)

Anyway, this is getting very long and getting into the nitty gritty of my builds, but hopefully you get where I'm coming from. As always, play how you enjoy playing, this is just advice from over 1200 hours of gameplay on my part. One thing to remember about the game is that it's essentially a jrpg (the higher level you get and the better geared you are, the more godlike your units become when compared to everyone else), so the power fantasy is very strong in the game, some people prefer to challenge themselves with various rules and set ups that make the game harder and that is fun to a certain extent, but my funnest playthroughs have always been when I try to challenge myself early (taking out the bosses as early as possible and doing Ludern by level 4 or 5) rather than creating contrived difficulty through limiting myself in some fashion, but that's just me, you do you and most importantly have fun, don't worry too much about all the numbers, do what you like and see how you go from there.