Baroness with "Command of Vermin" is effectively invulnerable

[Typical_Name]

This technically isn't a bug, but it's probably a balance issue. Something I've noticed - the Baroness has a trait called "Command of Vermin", which causes her to start combat with every empty slot filled by rats. The rats aren't strong at all, but they're sufficient for the purpose of absorbing the first blow in combat... and if you decide to flee combat, the first blow is all you need to avoid. You can just have the army of infinite rodents take blows for you in any given fight, and if you get into combat again, you have another army of infinite rodents. (I think it's the case that they get two swings in, one for the minion and one for the hero, but the Baroness has enough defense to tank basically any hit so long as she stays in shadowed territory.)


Also, mildly related: The AI sometimes stupidly puts its minions to the sides instead of the center (so that they cover the hero), allowing the Baroness to easily butcher the hero in the center.

[Kraehe]

I think that might be the intent of that trait.
Cause lets be honest, even 3 of those won´t kill anything with their 1/1 stats.

[2chuu4u]

It is super OP right now, but I think that it's going to be balanced out in a later patch.
Source: Lurking on the Discord. I'm unreliable sorry :'3

[GC13]

Originally posted by 2chuu4u:

It is super OP right now, but I think that it's going to be balanced out in a later patch.
Source: Lurking on the Discord. I'm unreliable sorry :'3

It is. He's mentioned it in the other thread about this trait too.

[Elpresidente]

I tried your strategy and yes, it work until it doesn't
When the heroes arrive with an escort they will replace all losses with Knights

[Nicholas-BR]

Originally posted by El Presidente:

I tried your strategy and yes, it work until it doesn't
When the heroes arrive with an escort they will replace all losses with Knights

Just run away and fight the hero again next turn

[Typical_Name]

Originally posted by El Presidente:

I tried your strategy and yes, it work until it doesn't
When the heroes arrive with an escort they will replace all losses with Knights

Yes, they do, and when they do that you run away after the first round. Even better, when you do this, the hero loses their armed guard until they get another one to come after you, so you can just turn right around and kill them. (I figured out that the reason they were leaving their center open was because I was killing their minion there before running away, and they don't reshuffle their minions to cover.)
And even if you aren't killing them, you're wasting obscene amounts of their time. Nearly EVERY HERO IN THE WORLD, often including the Chosen One, spends all of their time chasing around the Baroness.

[BobbyTwoHands]

This is a known issue, and I'm going to introduce two different fixes in the next beta-branch update, to see how they work. One will be a nerf to command of vermin itself, and a second is a way for geomancer heroes to attack your high-menace agents at range. The second bit may prove to be frustrating and unfun, so might not make it into the main branch, but I think it's worth trying for a bit on the beta-branch.

Adjustments to what can be done with world panic, especially if world-panic spikes suddenly, may also help, but I've no plans to put something relating to that in the next patch. It can go in if need be after the first changes.

[Typical_Name]

Originally posted by BobbyTwoHands:

This is a known issue, and I'm going to introduce two different fixes in the next beta-branch update, to see how they work. One will be a nerf to command of vermin itself, and a second is a way for geomancer heroes to attack your high-menace agents at range. The second bit may prove to be frustrating and unfun, so might not make it into the main branch, but I think it's worth trying for a bit on the beta-branch.

Adjustments to what can be done with world panic, especially if world-panic spikes suddenly, may also help, but I've no plans to put something relating to that in the next patch. It can go in if need be after the first changes.

Idea: Make it so that running away from an encounter against a military escort deals 1 damage to the agent, similar to the 1 damage each turn you get while standing around a hostile army with sufficiently high menace. This would make it impossible to run away indefinitely, while not making the vermin useless.

(This might have other side effects that I haven't thought of, not sure)

[Twoscythe]

Originally posted by Typical_Name:

Originally posted by BobbyTwoHands:

This is a known issue, and I'm going to introduce two different fixes in the next beta-branch update, to see how they work. One will be a nerf to command of vermin itself, and a second is a way for geomancer heroes to attack your high-menace agents at range. The second bit may prove to be frustrating and unfun, so might not make it into the main branch, but I think it's worth trying for a bit on the beta-branch.

Adjustments to what can be done with world panic, especially if world-panic spikes suddenly, may also help, but I've no plans to put something relating to that in the next patch. It can go in if need be after the first changes.

Idea: Make it so that running away from an encounter against a military escort deals 1 damage to the agent, similar to the 1 damage each turn you get while standing around a hostile army with sufficiently high menace. This would make it impossible to run away indefinitely, while not making the vermin useless.

(This might have other side effects that I haven't thought of, not sure)

Military escorts are supposed to make killing the hero difficult, and force you to run, not give the game a way to kill your agents for free.

Anyway, I've seen several Vermin Baronesses die, even after looting multiple heroes for gear. She is a beast, but she's not as invincible as people make her out to be, especially on higher than Normal difficulty, where Knights and Paladins have a good shot at taking a big chunk out of her, if she's defending and only has rats for bodyguards.

[newarkinvaders]

Originally posted by Twoscythe:

Originally posted by Typical_Name:

Idea: Make it so that running away from an encounter against a military escort deals 1 damage to the agent, similar to the 1 damage each turn you get while standing around a hostile army with sufficiently high menace. This would make it impossible to run away indefinitely, while not making the vermin useless.

(This might have other side effects that I haven't thought of, not sure)

Military escorts are supposed to make killing the hero difficult, and force you to run, not give the game a way to kill your agents for free.

Anyway, I've seen several Vermin Baronesses die, even after looting multiple heroes for gear. She is a beast, but she's not as invincible as people make her out to be, especially on higher than Normal difficulty, where Knights and Paladins have a good shot at taking a big chunk out of her, if she's defending and only has rats for bodyguards.

Do Paladins have higher Def in higher difficulty?

As long as you have enough might to kill the centre hireling in one shot its impossible to take damage. So the only items that you should get are +might or if desperate +attack

[Aunty Herbert]

Originally posted by Twoscythe:

Anyway, I've seen several Vermin Baronesses die, even after looting multiple heroes for gear. She is a beast, but she's not as invincible as people make her out to be, especially on higher than Normal difficulty, where Knights and Paladins have a good shot at taking a big chunk out of her, if she's defending and only has rats for bodyguards.

How did that happen:
When she starts combat, she strikes, kills centre minion, the hero strikes, kills rat, she flees

If hero starts combat, they kill rat, she kills minion, flees.

Either way. next turn, hero stands idle and ponders what quest to do next, hunting and escort have expired, she attacks hero, who has no centre minion, and either kills them outright, or wounds them and flees again after they struck the rat again.

The only way to get her hurt is if she can't kill the minion in one turn, and the minion lives to hit her back. Or if you get greedy and miscalculate what she can kill, and don't tell her to flee in time.

[onelight109]

not invulnerable. every loss raises profile and menace by 10. i think my baronness took out 5 heroes before they ganged up on her and whittled away at her with their escorts.
if the heroes start the combat, they will likely due at least one damage to her.

[Typical_Name]

Originally posted by onelight109:

not invulnerable. every loss raises profile and menace by 10. i think my baronness took out 5 heroes before they ganged up on her and whittled away at her with their escorts.
if the heroes start the combat, they will likely due at least one damage to her.

Nope, she can consistently run away before they can touch her. My Baroness had profile and menace of several hundred, and probably would have had higher if I put my mind to.

[Elpresidente]

I find the baroness hard to level up. Killing heroes doesn't give you xp and after you reach a lot of menance and profile she can't do anything because any hero will try to distrupt her

[onelight109]

nvm its stupid strong. playing as she who will feast, hard difficulty, i had my baronness do a few murders and aggro ALL the heros.
she then proceeded to run cirlces around the map. 4 turns, flee, while my first daughter slowly turned the climate to sand.