Underpowered Legendary Books

[Juason [Too Friendly]]

I just completed my first game, successfully defeating the Dark Lord! That was considerable fun. But in doing so I wanted to provide some feedback regarding what I perceive to be under powered Legendary Books (tier 3) you get to pick from at the end of 3-starring a level.


Architects' Codex- The effectiveness of room is increased by 1% per floor.
- This feels rather weak. A Tier 1 card Masons' book gives 10% to all ground floor buildings. So if we assume you could fit 6 buildings on floor 1, you'd have a combined 60% bonus. To get the same effect from the Tier 3 book you'd need 6 buildings per floor, 4 floors up. Only then do you really begin to see a higher magnitude bonus, and it comes later. My recommendation is to increase the efficiency bonus to 3% per floor.

A good comparison is the Big Book of Runes which would give the 5 adjacent rooms a combined 150% bonus. For every floor you can fit one on!

Another comparison is student/teacher intelligence which is a 10% bonus across everything. A 6-floor tower with my proposed 3% bonus would average out to about this magnitude.

Finally, poor pathfinding makes my tall universities a nightmare. I rarely see much use out of the rooms at the top of my university.

Please let me know if I'm perhaps misunderstanding this!



Big book of Dreams- Dormitories and Private rooms also slightly reduce Hunger and Boredom.

- Mid game I usually have 70+ students, and only housing for 10-15. Late game I might have 120 students and housing/food for 20... So my perception is very few students actively make use of these rooms. A slight reduction in Hunger/Boredom to 10% of my students just pales in comparison to the other books.


Book of high magic- Decreases all conditions for wearing piece of equipment by 1 level for students.

- I am often junking dozens of equipment pieces by mid game as you can't lower the requirement below 1, and they don't stack bonuses.

- Some dungeons give 3-4 copies of the same piece of equipment, which is not only useless in its own right, but contributes to this effect being less pronounced later in each level.

- So, I'd recommend instead this Book also increases the potency of equipment.

- That could be difficult to code so I'd alternatively propose this book also adds a global modifier such as: students are 5% more efficient at generating mana for each piece of equipment worn.




Necronomicon- Each time an explosion occurs or a gate is opened in a room by a student, increases the efficiency of the room by 3%.

- Even if every room on a floor had 10 explosions per level, this would still give less of a bonus (and much later in the level) than Big Book of Runes. And ideally, no explosions or portals are opening and so then this book does effectively nothing?


Anyhow just some thoughts. I'm often temped to start over if I pull all 3 of these books as my choices. But perhaps I'm missing something. The rules are a bit fuzzy and I'd welcome a change of perspective on them!

[Serulin]

One thing I would say is more dorms for sure. They take so much time leaving and returning.

My two best books are more students and houses at the start to jumpstart the early game, and half cost increase for buildings. It basically becomes half cost buildings into the mid/late game.

Runes would be nice but don't have it sadly. Necronimicon should be much higher like 5-10% just with only affecting mishap rooms and making you try to cause mishaps which are a penalty.

Wearables have huge bonises for later ones like 125% mana or 75% less sleep so having them accessable to some who may not focus enough on a given specialization or just like a year earlier could ramp up but idk the numbers. Slightly better students or teachers are mostly worthless with blueprints and other decorations that can fix them during a run.

[worstcase11]

Necronomicron might also depend on the maps and curses you are planning to take through the campaign. If you go to the Volcano map fires in all rooms are basically preprogrammed. If you take stupidity curse, you might as well use the necronomicron to get something out of all the shennanigans your students are gonna cause.
Also I typically reroll the future that makes the kids well behaved - it just comes up too often and does not really pay off, better to aim for something that is offering a nicer permanent buff.
(You also can change the school rules to be a little laxer when students misbehave, if you really want to exploit the necronomicron.)

Well all in all it is not a favourite to pick, but if nothing better is offered I usually take it.

[Serulin]

Originally posted by worstcase11:

Necronomicron might also depend on the maps and curses you are planning to take through the campaign. If you go to the Volcano map fires in all rooms are basically preprogrammed. If you take stupidity curse, you might as well use the necronomicron to get something out of all the shennanigans your students are gonna cause.
Also I typically reroll the future that makes the kids well behaved - it just comes up too often and does not really pay off, better to aim for something that is offering a nicer permanent buff.
(You also can change the school rules to be a little laxer when students misbehave, if you really want to exploit the necronomicron.)

Well all in all it is not a favourite to pick, but if nothing better is offered I usually take it.

Yeah I took that misbehave curse will see if it pays off,ay try that rule change as well see how it goes if the pay off is worth more issues, then again I tend to accidentally make lots of void pots.

[Syrris]

The value of 1% per floor will depend on the map. Maps that force you to build narrow/tall make it much stronger. It's true that Mason gives 10% per ground floor, that's *only* the ground floor, and you won't always be able to comfortably fit the small-sized rooms there without causing pathing issues.

The one that grants a Runic Scriptorium and bonuses may be better - but only because it lets you kickstart the school more easily, much like the extra houses/students one. The 30% efficiency boost is fantastic when you only have a few rooms, and you have a guaranteed alchemy classroom right out the starting gate, but trying to build them en masse for efficiency bonuses brings more opportunity cost than benefit.