Exhaustion

[SpiderHuman]

Hello, I end up to die always because I dont have any cards left, it is impossible to clear all the monsters because of no cards left and my characters will die. I have tried too many times and I am still dying becouse of that. Any advice how to play so I can clear the map without loosing my cards too early?

[Marty78]

Originally posted by screeg:

Tinker is currently gimped and causing the game to hang mid-turn. Don't advise starting with him until the next patch.

Not sure what you are talking about. I have been playing with the tinkerer ALOT in two and four character games (all the way up to level 9) and haven't noticed that at all.

[Ackranome]

Having boots +2 movement is almost a necessity I've found.

I need to traverse certain hallways insanely fast before I become exhausted.

There are "potions of stamina" which will give you back a discarded card - amazingly useful.

"Wound" effects are _great_ in this game. Doing DOTs is almost the most powerful thing it seems in the game.

There is a cloak (armor) of +4 movement called a blink coat you can get later in the game. It is very useful as well to skip movement by using the cloak initially and then giving you alternative methods of choice.

[UdderJuice]

Originally posted by Ackranome:

Having boots +2 movement is almost a necessity I've found.

I need to traverse certain hallways insanely fast before I become exhausted.

There are "potions of stamina" which will give you back a discarded card - amazingly useful.

"Wound" effects are _great_ in this game. Doing DOTs is almost the most powerful thing it seems in the game.

There is a cloak (armor) of +4 movement called a blink coat you can get later in the game. It is very useful as well to skip movement by using the cloak initially and then giving you alternative methods of choice.

The importance of the use of items can not be overstated.

[screeg]

Originally posted by Marty78:

Not sure what you are talking about. I have been playing with the tinkerer ALOT in two and four character games (all the way up to level 9) and haven't noticed that at all.

I'm glad your game's going well, but I'm not the only one.

Re: resting, I don't think I've ever used Long Rest after my first dungeon. Pretty rare that you have the luxury of doing absolutely nothing during at turn.

[deadsanta]

Tinkerer breaks eventually in every game I try, so that would have been my best idea: Use tink skill to give you an extra 5 turns every map. Major Stamina gives you an extra turn, so does minor stamina if you use it on odd-numbered card-hands, and you can have one of each.After that it's just a matter of avoiding using burn-cards unless absolutely necessary/efficient (like you can one-shot a cultist before he summons, saving you multiple turns of dealing with him+add). Generally I try to only use a burn card on turns where I start with an odd number of cards, or wait until a boss or end of map to burn all the good ones.

Don't forget that even if you "die" of exhaustion, if your team wins, you keep your xp and goods.

[tucker_782]

Originally posted by nazgull2k1:

Originally posted by Neoa:

Zarquon I'm guessing you're playing the spellweaver? She has a special card that retrieves lost cards and as such is a little different from other characters. This means as long as you make sure you keep the lost retrieval till the end you can get all your lost cards back once. Hope it helps!

Yes, experienced players call this "The most WORTHLESS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ card in the entire game. Its a Short Rest card. ooooOooO Ahhhhhh... stupid." I can short rest whenever I want, and i burn a card.

Or I can burn a card, so I can short rest!

HOW SUPER DUPER EXCITING! IT ADDS SO MUCH CHOICE TO THE GAME!!

Do you wanna burn a card and rest, or rest and burn a card!?

ITS A GAME CHANGER!!

... /eyeroll

I swap out that turd card every game as the FIRST thing I do. Frankly, I would LOVE to burn that turd card in my boxed game just to make me feel better if I didnt wanna ruind my copy.

I don’t think you are reading that card correctly. It’s to recover lost cards not discarded cards. So you can use those burn cards twice unlike any other class. If used correctly, play that card when you are down to 2 cards left, then you get all of your cards from the lost pile. It’s the reason spellweaver has low stamina.

[ronthelibrarian]

Originally posted by tucker_782:

Originally posted by nazgull2k1:

Yes, experienced players call this "The most WORTHLESS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ card in the entire game. Its a Short Rest card. ooooOooO Ahhhhhh... stupid." I can short rest whenever I want, and i burn a card.

Or I can burn a card, so I can short rest!

HOW SUPER DUPER EXCITING! IT ADDS SO MUCH CHOICE TO THE GAME!!

Do you wanna burn a card and rest, or rest and burn a card!?

ITS A GAME CHANGER!!

... /eyeroll

I swap out that turd card every game as the FIRST thing I do. Frankly, I would LOVE to burn that turd card in my boxed game just to make me feel better if I didnt wanna ruind my copy.

I don’t think you are reading that card correctly. It’s to recover lost cards not discarded cards. So you can use those burn cards twice unlike any other class. If used correctly, play that card when you are down to 2 cards left, then you get all of your cards from the lost pile. It’s the reason spellweaver has low stamina.

I played Spellweaver on the board game and I HATED having to time my turns to where I would have a no-attack or useless turn just to burn the card. However, as someone else said, I started on Scoundrel (still my fav character) so anyone besides these two seem easy as far as card management.

[screeg]

All I do is just reserve the card until the last possible turn. It works for me and she has a bunch of great cards!

[Mairsil The Pretender]

One thing I would add to this discussion, no one mentioned that this problem has a lot to do with the RNG of the map generator. I do find it basically impossible to complete any map that generates in a non-linear fashion. Especially take like the long L shaped rooms in the forest tile set. If you start at the top of the L and there's a door at the bend and at the end of the L, it will take you multiple turns to traverse that room. Period. So you go into the door at the bend, clear it out (again, possibly multiple turns), then you have to spend multiple turns/cards to traverse to get to the end.

I had one map load as a star, with the starting room in the center then 3 paths off of it. So every room cleared meant more backtracking. I just don't think the way the card burning mechanics work in this game that your card pool can tolerate backtracking.

I feel that there is a massive difference between any linearly generated map and any map with branching paths. One I generally complete with tons of cards left and no chance that I could lose, the other I'm scrambling to get enough move distance to just traverse before my card pool is nearly empty.

[screeg]

It's more challenging, sure, but not impossible at all. I'm no strategy wizard but you don't wait until the fight is over, then spend all your cards walking. You need to have a destination in mind when you start. Of course there's also cards with longer moves. I've never seen your star configuration, but I imagine each door lead to only one room. If you're really pressed for time, open a door, call out some harsh insult (but no so harsh they just collapse in tears), and let the mobs come to you in the main room.

[SrCalavera94]

Biggest recommendation for not runing out of cars in scenarios are never waste you movility 5, 4, 3 cards, a long hallway can take more turns out of you than an enemie if you dont have enough movement. And try to not burn cards at the start of the scenario, cause they hurt your longevity,
if you have 11 cards, you burn 1 for an action and 1 to recover, you know have 9, and lost 5 tourns where you would have had 10 cards, it hast to be somthing really worth it to burn 5 turns aerly on. If you have 8 cards and burn a card, that leaves you at 6 after recovery, you only lost 3 turns were you would have had 7 cards to play. Burning late hurts your longevity less and gives you powerfull options for the last scenario rooms were is now do or die. Hope it helps! (one exception to the rule is the spellwaver since she can recover all her lost cards once, she can burn cards more freely if they would do lots of damage early on, i usually burn 2 cards before the first recovery in partys of 3 characters).

[x_equals_speed]

I found the trick to nonlinear paths is to position your fastest character by door #1 and your others by door #2. Have them use a move 4+ 5 card boosted to 6+ with boots to open #1 and then run into #2 and attack something. The party follows and you aim to blitz the second room before the monsters from the first room catch up to you. You don't have to enter #1 to win, just kill all monsters, so you can let them come to you (but you have to be fast with #2 because fighting two rooms of monsters at once will definitely kill you)

Long resting seems more useful to me the later I am into a game. At this point a long rest is 2 points of healing from the rest, 2 points of virtual healing from bringing the shield back, an extra wound from bringing the sword back and 2 extra move from bringing the boots back. 2 move, 4 healing and inflict wound isn't a bad turn ;) At the start of the game where there are no items to refresh and there's no chance rerolling a bad short rest will blow up your level nine card the difference seemed less pronounced, but late game long rests are ace. The extra turn doesn't count against your limit for winning the level since you don't go through cards on the missed turn, but it is an extra turn for all enemies on the map to poke you - the trick is to time your long rests so you're taking them towards the end of a room when there's only a couple of monsters left vs taking them at the start of one where you'll suck up much more damage than the bonus healing.

[jc]

Originally posted by ronthelibrarian:

Originally posted by tucker_782:

I don’t think you are reading that card correctly. It’s to recover lost cards not discarded cards. So you can use those burn cards twice unlike any other class. If used correctly, play that card when you are down to 2 cards left, then you get all of your cards from the lost pile. It’s the reason spellweaver has low stamina.

I played Spellweaver on the board game and I HATED having to time my turns to where I would have a no-attack or useless turn just to burn the card. However, as someone else said, I started on Scoundrel (still my fav character) so anyone besides these two seem easy as far as card management.

Spellweaver is my favorite class. She and Mind Thief are amazing and have quite a bit of synergy to keep ice up. Mind Thief stuns everything, and Spellweaver (+ her ally) blows them up. SW can also stun as well once you get cold fire.

I love that I can use good cards and get them all back once (including cards I had to burn to rest). The recover card is great. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I love how it works, and I think figuring out the element effects along with using items wisely helped me understand the game better.

[zedd]

Dont worry, it just takes some time to learn.

Some PRO tips:
-Look for guides for board game on how to play classes you have (most of them written by legendary author Gripeaway). This will give you basic understanding of what cards are good and what is trash.
-You will find that majority of actions you want to do are non-burn. My usual playstyle is: start by playing 1-2 cards that are active (like summons and buffs), then try to use non-burn cards only in first two rooms and finally dump all the strong burn actions in last room which is usually the room with most enemies. Spellweaver is an exception to this obviously.
-It might seem against common sense, but burning a card early is VERY DIFFERENT from burning it late. Basic approximation is that when you burn a card (this includes things like summons and most buffs), you lose X/2 turns of longevity where X is number of cards in your hand + discarded cards.
-Some classes/compositions are stronger than others. Four men squad is easier than two men if you have the right tools and AOE.
-You might want to try Spellweaver+Elementalist+Cragheart+Tinkerer. I tried this yesterday and finished the scenario with about half of the cards remaining. This combination seemed very OP. But it was kinda hard to coordinate as elementalist needs special care in terms of planning the elements for current/next turn.
-Try to avoid healing in combat. The way this game is designed, doing damage early have similar effect to healing. When you kill enemy before its turn, there is no one to hurt you.
-When opening new rooms, I personally dont have problem to waste turn or two just for the party to gather at doors and be fully prepared for explosive entrance. Long rest is your friend in those situations.
-When playing AOE characters like spellweaver, good trick is usually jump into the middle of action on late initiative and then start next turn with low initiative. This basically gives you two AOE spells in a row with minimal chance of enemy catching you in between.
-Similar with invisibility, timing is also important. You use it on early initiative and second turn you play with high initiative. This way you get immune for two turns. Yes, invisibility here = immunity since unlike other games, you cant attack when invisible and it wont get cancelled. And there isnt many ways for monsters to reveal/harm you either when invisible.
-The keyword SUFFER goes through block. Which is handy against high armored units. Cragheart has lots of those attacks.
-From items, goggles and +X move boots are staple. But I might even consider getting no items and start enhancing cards right from start.

[Raz]

In the board game, exhaustion is a fairly normally occuring thing when you start out.
Tinkerer and the mage can generally run out and die halfway through, even in the first dungeon, though you keep your XP if you 'die', and they become quite powerful later on.

I'm not sure how it works in this game, but in the board game you get XP for using certain skills, and you get to keep them, so you can just keep grinding scenarios and accumulating it till suddenly you're not getting exhausted quite as fast :D

I'm also wondering if this will eventually mimic the board game where you can just randomly generate quests and dungeons forever if you want, outside of the main campaign