Playing without legacy

[Thurman Merman]

Am I missing anything by completely ignoring legacy? I'm loving the game and a huge part of what I like is taking characters from peasants to wisened adventurers and watching them die and retire and have successive generations take over. I'll promote heroes when I finish a campaign but never touch them again (I figure, that person's story is over). When I get the story that lets me pull a legacy character into a campaign I won't do it. But is there some consequence to this of an aspect of the game I'm missing?

I think I've stopped finding as many artifacts and I'm wondering if it's because all my promoted heroes are hoarding them. Is that how artifacts work? If so is there a way to clear my legacy pool's equipment without deleting people? I tried making a new player profile but it makes me replay the tutorial campaign.

[Nathan Panda]

You are missing out only on certain aspects if you choose not to build legacy heroes. I know a lot of players who generally prefer fresh faced recruits whenever possible in each playthrough so you're not alone.

But here are some of the things you might be missing out on:
1. The option to play 2 or 3 of the story campaigns (You need one or two legacy heroes for those from the start, but you could always sideline the legacy characters later on recruit new heroes to fill in their slots)

2. Complete Transformations (If you want a full transformation on your hero, the best and most consistent way is to promote that hero at the end of any campaign as you play. After than, just bring that hero into any future campaign you desire and wait for more limbs to change. But if you don't like doing this, then you can play 5 chapter campaigns and try to get all the parts in one session. However, there is a chance that your transformation may skip chapters.)

3. Low retirement age (Legacy characters have a significantly heightened Retirement age range when you recruit them for any scenario. Some events increase the age cap and can only be saved with promotion. But most of all, each character has three opportunity quests tied to their personality hooks which will increase their longevity by a set amount. It may not be likely for some characters to finish all 3 quests in one campaign, so you usually promote them and bring them in as a legacy hero next time to continue. If you like to use level 1 heroes, then expect to swap them out regularly three or four chapters in since they haven't experienced any events which encourage them to become an adventurer for a longer time.)

4. You'll struggle when on playing Tragic Hero or Walking Lunch (Of course, not a problem if you are only playing on the first two difficulties. But if you decided to up the challenge, you would want some legacy heroes to mentor the newbies)


So far these are the big four things you'd miss out on. As of now, Legacy Heroes do not appear to change the story structure of campaigns or have important events exclusive to them, so a team of new heroes will experience the same events as a team of seasoned veterans that were promoted from previous adventures.

As for artifacts (also known as augments) you get them sometimes after you clear a hostile tile on the world map. When securing that tile, choose the first option to always find a magic item. Do note that heroes cannot transfer artifacts among one another (a different artifact for the same slot will always replace the previous item) and these artifacts are also lost when you promote your heroes. In short, these artifacts only exist to aid you in your current campaign, so there's no way to hoard them between sessions.

Your legacy character will always start with no artifacts in a new game. They only bring over the tier one version of their armor, weapons and offhand item. The artifacts you see them wearing on the legacy screen is only for show, so don't worry because they will always start of with no artifacts apart and only with the three items I mentioned.

[Chaoslink]

You also get the ability to procedurally level up the character over each campaign and build a more ideal set of abilities that you’ll slowly get to keep available on said character. This is particularly important for harder settings. Even on the standard settings though it can be fun to save certain talents for use later.

I know it’s a bit odd to have the character come back young and have a new adventure, especially when you have a whole family, father, son and grandfather all the same age on an adventure together, but it does add a bit more depth to the character building and gameplay.

Not really mandatory, but you are missing out a little by avoiding it.

[mrsandman1924]

The only thing I can think of that hasn't been mentioned is building a Legacy, but that's not for everyone. I just found it so fun when the first character I got killed, a mystic because I really didn't know how to use them when I first started, had a kid show up later in Ulstryx to round out my party, then got randomly chosen as the Parent in Bones of Summer. The more kids her line had the more likely her line was to show up as Legacy characters, leading to a good 1/4 of my Legacy being descended from her, not bad for someone who died on mission 4. It's that kind of random but fitting storytelling that keeps me coming back for more.

[RIB BLUP]

I think its good to have a mix of both. It's good to have as many fresh recruits as you can, so that you can have a better chance at getting exactly the build you want. Bringing in legacy characters whenever you feel your team is lagging a bit in terms of efficiency is one of those things you get better at figuring out over time.

Originally posted by mrsandman1924:

The only thing I can think of that hasn't been mentioned is building a Legacy, but that's not for everyone. I just found it so fun when the first character I got killed, a mystic because I really didn't know how to use them when I first started, had a kid show up later in Ulstryx to round out my party, then got randomly chosen as the Parent in Bones of Summer. The more kids her line had the more likely her line was to show up as Legacy characters, leading to a good 1/4 of my Legacy being descended from her, not bad for someone who died on mission 4. It's that kind of random but fitting storytelling that keeps me coming back for more.

Two of my five star guys came from the first campaign and ended up being lovers. Anytime I could get them both back on a campaign, I would and they have had tons of children and grandchildren at this point. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that created a whole family of monster slayers, somewhat by accident.

[Stress Scream]

Only a little

[Thurman Merman]

Thanks for the answers everyone. I knew that it was a way to get characters to continue advancing and developing in subsequent campaigns but that's kinda what I don't like about. One of the big selling points for the game for me was that characters die and retire and are mortal, legacy messes with that appeal for me. Maybe I'll give it a shot sometime but for now I'm glad to know that I'm not really missing out on much.