Comprehensive Card Hunter FAQ and Glossary

Immediately

Immediate effects occur before blocks.

 

Immunity

Immunity always prevents all damage from a certain damage type. Penetrating damage does not bypass armor that provides immunity to that damage type.

 

Instant Burn

Instant Burn triggers only cards owned by the caster of Instant Burn, it will not trigger cards from another ally’s deck. Instant Burn will neither trigger itself when cast, nor another copy of Instant Burn on the target character, but it will trigger copies of Instant Burn on characters other than the target character. When a burning card is triggered by Instant Burn it does not reduce that card’s round duration.

 

Introductory Level

Standard items have an introductory level and will not drop as loot from the campaign until the player has a renown of an equal or higher level than the item’s introductory level. Item introductory levels are determined by the highest introductory level of the cards on that item. One effect of this is that you can sometimes find low level items with a high introductory level if you go back and replay lower level adventures.

 

Items

Items can be classified in two broad categories, standard items and treasures. Standard items are the building blocks of each character’s deck. Each item is comprised of either 3 or 6 cards, which become part of the character’s deck when the item is equipped on that character. Treasures do not contain cards nor are they equippable, they can either be collected or sold for gold. A player’s entire item collection is shared between the Campaign and Multiplayer modes allowing all their items to be used for characters in both modes.

For more info about items, see:

• Item Types
• Item Rarity
• Item Level Formula
• Item Power Token Formula
• Specialty Items
• Best Items in the game
• Identifying items during game play

 

Keeps

The Keep on the Hinterlands and the Multiplayer Keep allow players to access their item collections, as well as access and change their active party, build and store new party configurations or load saved parties. While all characters and items are present and accessible in both Keeps, the active and saved party configurations are independent. This allows players to use any item or character in both Campaign and Multiplayer modes but keep different team builds active and immediately usable in each mode.

Using Your Keep

1. You can rename the active character by clicking the pencil icon next to their name.
2. Access other characters by clicking their tab.
3. Exchange equipment by dragging it from your collection and dropping it on the appropriate slot. Alternately you can unequip items by dragging them to the collection or clicking them while holding the CTRL key.
4. To remove a character from the active party click “Remove From Party.” NOTE: Equipped items will remain on a character even when they are removed from the active party. If an item seems to be missing from your inventory check to see if it’s equipped on a character who is not in the active party.
5. Non-active party members are stored to the left, to access them or add them to the active party click the left arrow next to the Exit button (or simply drag the screen).
6. The inventory toolbar allows filtering and sorting of inventory items. From left to right:
   • Item type drop down menu: Will bring up all of a single item type (this can also be achieved by clicking on an item slot on the active character).
   • Reset button: Will return the item type filter to "All Items."
   • Toggle button: Will toggle between all items and the usable items for the active character.
   • Set Toggle button (not pictured): Will toggle between all items and items from the different expansions. This button is not available on screens with a resolution smaller than 1280 (width) or 850 (height), but sets can still be filtered in the Search Bar by using the keywords such as: Base, AotA, EttSC, Citadel, Artifact, AA, Aloyzo, Arsenal, Acquisitions, Incorporated.
   • Search Bar: Allows text searching of the inventory, including advanced search operators.
   • Item sort buttons which will sort by: Cost, Rarity, Name, Level and Power Tokens respectively.
7. The Store/Retrieve button will allow players to store party and equipment configurations creating easy access for future use. Helpful hint: Some players will store an empty party (no items equipped on any character, all characters removed from the active party) as an easy way to clear the party clipboard when creating a new build.

 

Keywords

Keywords are a shorthand way to provide information about a card’s effects. Keywords can be identified by underlined text on a card. Mousing over a keyword will provide a tooltip about what its effect does.

 

Lava Terrain

“At the start of each round, occupant takes 8 Fire damage.” Lava terrain causes fire damage but is not a burning card. Therefore its damage is increased by Combustible which increases fire damage, but it is not affected by cards like Kindler, Firestarter or Instant Burn which only interact with burning cards.

The damage inflicted by lava terrain inherits its attack type from the card that created it.

 

Level

Character Level
A character’s level determines its health points (HP) and its available power tokens. Early in the campaign it will also determine the available item slots for a character. In the Campaign, characters can level up by gaining experience points (XP) through completing regular adventures. Characters will not gain XP from quests or Mauve Manticore adventures. Every character level requires gaining 20 XP to advance to the next level. The amount of XP earned is determined by the difference between the current character level and the level of the adventure completed:



XP is earned by all eligible characters upon the completion of an adventure, even if they died during one or more battles. Because a character doesn’t earn XP once its character level is 3 or more levels higher than the adventure being played, the highest possible achievable character level is always equal to the highest level adventure plus three.

Character Level Reduction
If a character is used to play an adventure 3 or more levels below their character level, the character will have their level temporarily reduced to the adventure level plus two. Such a level reduction is indicated by the character level listed on the “Modify Party” screen being in red font. This level reduction will affect the character’s HP and available power tokens but not their item slots. The level reduction will only apply for the duration of the adventure and the character will revert to their normal status upon returning to higher level adventures.

Item Level
Information on item levels can be found here.

Player Level
Player level is a term not directly used in game play, since early on in game development it was replaced by the renown system. However, while player level is still factored in certain game aspects, it is always equal to a player’s renown and thus the two can be used interchangeably.

Renown Level
A player’s renown is always at least as high as the highest level adventure that player has completed. Additionally renown will increase by 1 for every three victories in ranked multiplayer and/or multiplayer leagues. Currently the maximum achievable renown is 21.

 

Lifesaving Block

This card takes into account more than just base damage. The condition requires the attack to have a base damage plus external damage boosts at least as high as the target's current health.

Any damage modifiers that are applied before the block triggers are taken into account. However, certain damage modifiers are added after triggering blocks (see “Attacks > Anatomy of an Attack”) and therefore are not factored for the triggering of Lifesaving Block. These include attacks that increase their damage based on the number of cards in an opponent’s hand (e.g. Punishing Bolt, Devestating Blow, etc.), or cards like Vulnerable and Raging Strike that trigger on damage. Such conditions may therefore be able to bypass triggering Lifesaving Block while inflicting enough damage to kill the character.

No blocks are ever triggered by allied attacks, or beginning of the round effects like terrain attachments or burning cards.

 

Line of Sight (LoS)

Line of sight is required any time a character targets another character or a map square. Line of sight is a straight line projecting from the center of the caster’s square to the center of the target’s square. If any part of the line would cross through a square of blocked terrain or other terrain that blocks line of sight (such as smoke or opponent’s illusionary terrain), the line of sight is blocked.

Blocked terrain can never be targeted. However, a character in (or a square of) smoke or illusionary terrain may be targeted if the only square for which LoS would otherwise be blocked is the target square itself

All squares a character has line of sight to can be highlighted by hovering the mouse over the character. Light green squares show all the squares visible in front of the character, darker green shows all the squares visible behind the character. This distinction can be helpful for cards that are affected by facing, such as blocks.

All squares that have a clear LoS from a given location on the map can be highlighted by CTRL+Right Clicking that map square.

 

Linear

Linear attacks will affect every square in which the line of sight crosses, from the caster’s square to the target square (and all characters in those squares if applicable). This may include squares to which the caster does not have direct line of sight.

Linear effects will affect any character in the target square first, then will affect characters along the path of travel progressing from the caster to the target square.

Linear Cardinal
A linear attack or effect that affects squares in all four cardinal directions.

Linear Diagonal
A linear attack or effect that affects squares in all four diagonal directions.

 

Loot

Loot is the term for the items won through game play. Loot drops in the form of chests after every victory in the campaign and multiplayer (except casual games). Depending on how the chest is won there is a set number of items that will drop and at times a minimum rarity for one or more of the items in the chest.

Loot Rarities
Certain chests have one or more guaranteed minimum rarities for loot drops. This means that at least that number of items will have the guaranteed rarity or better. Therefore a chest with 4 items with one guaranteed rare or better, will have at least 3 commons and a rare, but could have 2 commons and 2 rares, or 3 uncommons and an epic, or any other possible combination that offers at least 1 item that is rare or better. In general the different rarity guarantees are:

Regular Adventure play
All Preliminary Battles: 2 items total, no minimum rarity
Final Battle: 4 items, 2 uncommon or better
Final Battle of exhausted adventures: 2 items, no minimum
Final Battle for first ever completion of Treasure Hunt: 4 items, 1 specified epic
Final Battle of the Loot Fairy adventure: 4 items, 2 uncommon+ and 2 rare+
Final Battle of the Loot Fairy adventure in co-op mode: 6 items, 2 uncommon+ and 4 rare+
Final Battle of the Hidden Bandit adventure: 4 items, 2 uncommon+ and 2 rare+ (all treasures)
Final Battle of the Hidden Bandit adventure in co-op mode: 6 items, 2 uncommon+ and 4 rare+ (all treasures)

Quests
Preliminary Battles: 2 items, no minimum
Final Battle: 4 items, 2 uncommon+ and 2 rare+

Multiplayer Reward Ladder
1st victory: 4 items, 2 rare+
3rd victory: 4 items, 2 uncommon+ and 2 rare+
6th victory: 4 items, 1 epic+
11th victory: 4 items, 1 rare+ and 1 epic+
20th victory: 4 items, 2 epic+
All other victories: 4 items, 1 uncommon+ and 1 rare+

Purchasable Chests
Artifact Chest: 1 item, no minimum
Citadel Chest: 1 item, no minimum
Simple Chest: 2 items, no minimum
Ornate Chest: 2 items, no minimum
Magnificent Chest: 5 items, 1 rare+
Epic Chest: 5 items, 2 epic+

Club Membership
The club membership rarity guarantee is equal to the highest rarity item guaranteed for a given loot chest. Thus for example, for a 3rd victory in MP the club membership will be rare or better. NOTE: This will not always result in the club item being of an equal rarity to the highest rarity item dropped in a given chest, only as high as the highest rarity guaranteed.

Loot Levels
In the Campaign items will drop as loot for an adventure only if the item's level is equal to the adventure level +/- 3 (treasures will drop at +/- 4). Additionally the closer the item level is to the adventure level the more likely it is that it will drop as loot.

Mauve Manticore adventures will drop items based on a player's renown level.

Item level does not play a factor for items dropping as loot in Multiplayer.

 

Loot Fairy (LF)

The Loot Fairy is a roving loot bonus. It inhabits random Campaign adventures from Level 2 and above. The LF can appear at treasure hunts, but never Mauve Manticore adventures. It moves on a 25 hour clock and is at the same location for all players which allows for crowd source searching. If a player completes an adventure where the LF is, they will receive for their final loot chest a chest containing 2 rare or better items and 2 uncommon or better items, if they complete it in co-op mode there will be 4 rare or better and 2 uncommon or better items. The bonus loot will not be received by completing quests or replaying an already exhausted adventure.

 

Mauve Manticore 5

The first map of this series is a puzzle. It is beatable but requires acute awareness and strong knowledge of game mechanics. For those unwilling to rise to the challenge, there are solutions on the forums.

 

Maze Of The Mind

This card will not be triggered by cards of dual card types (like step attacks). It will also ignore move cards that provide a movement of 0 (e.g. Spin Around).

 

Menu
The Game Menu can be accessed in game by clicking the menu button in the upper right corner or by using the "M" keyboard shortcut.

Continue
Exits the menu and returns to the game.

Resign Battle / Leave Battle
Forfeits the current battle, alternately, if spectating a battle it will allow a player to leave the battle.

Options
Allows players to toggle different game options on or off including the auto-target feature, chat audio and pausing opponent’s cards.

Redeem Key
Use to redeem content key.

Forums
Will open the Card Hunter Forums

Help
Will open a basic guide to playing Card Hunter

FAQ
Will open this thread!

 

Minion

A term for a monster that is part of a group.

 

Move Cards

(See also “Default Move Card”) Cards of this type allow characters to change position or facing when played. They are recognized by the blue background color of the card. The maximum distance in squares the character can travel is shown at the bottom left corner with the foot icon. Horizontal, vertical or diagonal steps all count as 1, but restrictions may limit the available paths. Such restrictions are:

1. Enemy character's zone of control. When moving next to an enemy character, the moving character must stop.
2. Difficult terrain. A move cannot continue through squares that count as difficult terrain. When a character reaches such a square, they must stop.
3. Blocking and impassable terrain. A move cannot pass through squares that count as impassable or blocked terrain.

Note that all the above restrictions can be bypassed by certain movement types, or cards that state so in their description. Cards with the free move, fly or teleport keyword bypass some or all movement restrictions depending on the keyword.

When you hover your mouse over, or click on a move card, eligible squares you may move to will be highlighted in blue, and have a facing arrow on them. This arrow shows which way the figure will be facing at the end of the move. Squares highlighted in dark blue are squares that force you to stop when entering them. This highlighting when merely hovering the mouse will not take into account movement boosts that will be applied upon playing the card.

A player may change the facing of a character by playing a move card and selecting the square the character already occupies. They can then choose the appropriate arrow to select their desired facing.

Once you click on a Move card it cannot be cancelled! Be certain you wish to play it.

 

Neoncat Tools

A collection of very useful player created tools for tracking one’s progression in the game created by @neoncat. Currently maintained and made available here by @Stexe.