Will replay these as I can level up other characters to try different teams, but wanted to start posting initial thoughts. 1) I personally dislike levels where you include two (or more) types of creatures that require wildly divergent damage types. You did this occasionally in the campaign (combining slimes and skeletons), but trolls and the flying shrikes are just mean. In this case it's worse, because armor discard doesn't do anything against the trolls (their bonus is based on a trait), so it's even harder to deal with both problems. Making a troll level signals to players to take fire damage, which is still much slower to damage the high HP trolls, including fire immune enemies simply makes things really difficult for what exactly? Just seemed punishing. 2) With the exception of one, low level, melee attack fire is otherwise only a wizard ability. This would be a good place to consider adding a trait/enchantment that grants melee attacks fire damage. 3) The flying shrikes are such fearsome little opponents, that I found them to be far more of a concern than the boss monsters. Their combination of great movement, great armor and vampire attacks is really efficient. They feel a bit too strong, but I want more replays. 4) The big-boss troll can be beaten without ever attacking him. If you pass enough he draws into his blind rage cards, these will cause him to take a small bit of damage over his troll regeneration. Because there's a spot or two on the map where he can't reach you due to his large base, you can simply pass until he dies.
I saw him take damage from blind rage but never more than he healed from troll regen. This sounds like a problem with the map, though, if it can happen. Maybe make it so he can reach everything? Agree that the storges are a bit too brutal. That said, what really felt 'punishing' to me about the 4th map was Whorl's Punishing Beam. That thing is insane! Here's my report on the module. I ran level 18 Human Warrior, Human Wizard, Human Priest. Map #1 (rust creatures + fire sprites) I died like three times on this, skated through on my fourth try. First three plays I didn't see what I could do to improve my chances, I just felt utterly stomped. Fourth play I put in more winds of war and team moves to try to keep the rust creatures off my back, as well as a bunch of shimmering aura on my warrior. I also stocked up on parries and "punishing" attacks—the strike, as well as touch of death and a couple of the bolt, which I was lucky to have. My warrior tanked the fire sprites, my wizard and priest sacrificed themselves killing off the rust monsters. I barely won even after doing my best to tune my party to the map. My big tech here was including a divine item with 3 Purging Bursts, which knocked off poison and fire enough times to save my bacon. Map #2 (rust creatures + trolls) I naively thought I wouldn't be fighting more rust creatures. I also had unequipped most of my fire because it wasn't very good on the first map. I put up some walls to sequester the rust creatures, and the trolls ate through me in a second. My punishing attacks were really bad against them, and I didn't draw any of my blocks. On my second attempt, I crushed the opposition with bashes and parries. The purging was still good here, as was purging strike (Troll Regen falls off before it triggers). Map #3 (storges) This was brutal. I lost twice and had to buy revives, beat it on my third try (got lucky, they didn't get Resistant Hide, Firestorm won). Even there I lost two characters and had to carefully position my surviving warrior to fight off the storges who had survived the flames. I brought a lot of chops, but I think Obliterating Bludgeons are better here due to the drains. Didn't have any of those in my inventory, though, so I had to make do. My priest felt really useless on this map, Martyr's Blessing is a good card but I didn't have enough of them to not just wish I had another warrior or wizard here. Map #4 (troll king, storges, Whorl) HOLY COW this was insane, totally insane, I died and died and died and change my gear and died, rinse and repeat, over and over. I bought another set of revives here and went through all of them before winning. I really like how brutal it was, though. I agree with Oberon that it is punishing to include the troll king AND storges on the same map, but I have no real problem with that for a Level 18 Treasure Hunt. Punish us! Winning was extremely satisfying. Obviously, mileage may vary. I'll also try to report on this with different party compositions.
I'll just note that we designed these adventures to challenge people who've beaten the campaign. They're supposed to be VERY hard. It's possible that they're not hard ENOUGH.
This thing was hard, man. They're beatable, but frustrating. The only way I got through the Storges was to pin my Dwarf Warrior in that little one-tile corridor in the upper-right with multiple Officer's Harnesses, an Enchanted Harness, and an Enchanted Mail and hope to God the stirges didn't happen to draw a Vicious Bite that turn. Took me around ~20 tries to beat that one.
Fair enough, and I welcome more difficulty. But keeping in mind that my test collection is already greater than my (sizable) real collection, this was the hardest of the 3 level 18 treasure hunts. I will fully admit that on my first run through I was just trying to force firestorm, so a more fitting build may work better as well. Once I get them leveled up, I'll try a fighter focused party. I still prefer the bosses to be the main enemy, and to me the Storges are the hardest bit for this adventure. They're on you from the beginning and they don't let up. As a matter of theme, I think it should be "OMG Trolls!!!", or even about the artifact baddy on this level ( I believe it was the mage artifact who is also probably the hardest of the bunch), instead the Storges are the enemy I remember. They're just so good that they pull focus. If the storges get weaker, than by all means make the trolls even harder, I'm just looking for the trolls to be the focus of the adventure. The final troll still needs be altered so he doesn't suicide. The AI for him will keep two attacks, so blind rage does 6 damage, 1 more than troll regeneration covers. It takes a while, but eventually he dies from this. I was down to a priest that only had attacks that did 5 damage, this was how I beat him from full health. All you have to do is stay camped in a corner and pass your turn. It's rather anti-climatic, and I doubt this was intended.
I came back at this adventure today with a very different party. 3 elves, 2X warriors and 1 priest. Lots of high damage attacks, parries, frenzy, reliable mail and maximum elven trickery. This party walked through the lvl 17 adventures today, not needing to retry a single level. I also used more or less the same party (minor adjustments as needed) for the other lvl 18 adventures today. The storge level (lvl3) is the hardest level I faced, hands down. Took numerous retries, and even in the end I only had a chance due to abusing elven trickery. If you use that when surrounded by storges, so long as you are adjacent to a storge from each color/team you can effectively strip attacks from all your enemies and buy a turn. Even doing this, I had to replay this 5 or more times, and the strategy relies on 3X of a specific legendary. The last level was a walk in the park by comparison, using elven trickery on the boss troll was highly effective once I'd dealt with the ******* flying things. Honestly, maybe I'm just being obtuse on this, but how is every one else beating this? - Firestorm can beat it if a) you get lucky or b) you run enough armor removal with it. That's how I beat them the first time, but even that was no walk in the park and required multiple attempts. - I was expecting warriors to be easier, but not so much. Each storge takes at least 2 attacks to kill, more if they manage to heal. Maybe with a focus on chops? How many obliterating chops can you fit on a warrior? All I'm saying is that in an expansion featuring a new dragon, a troll boss and mind flensers, it seems to me that these over-sized mosquitoes are the real threat to Cardhuntria. Woe unto the land if these things get out and start attacking the livestock.
I'm having trouble with the Troll boss, but literally, I ran my dwarf into a corner and killed the storges one at a time. I bet my regular parties couldn't handle these, but I'm not sure. My MP party seems like it'd do well, but I really can't comment until I get a similar party. I've only beaten it once, and I'm currently spamming pizza to stock up on some better gear to see if I can improve my chances.
Finally beat this thing! I hid my Elf Priest in a corner where the Troll King couldn't get me, and waited until turns where I drew an Elven Trickery, or two move cards and a Lifesaving Block, and just whittled him down with Fiery Stabs and waited until his troll regeneration wore off. Not the most glamorous, but I got it! Definitely not gonna play through this again, though. Edit: By the way, came into it with my Wizard wielding two Whorls, and lemme tell ya. Worst idea ever. Drew both Impetuous Blasts first turn and almost killed my own party.
Yeah, it was definitely the storges that were the battle focus for me also. The trolls were an almost piffling afterthought after them, pretty easily dispatched after the storge apocalypse Ebola epidemic had been contained and put down. EDIT: Same goes for the Rust Creatures and the trolls. Trolls presented no problem after the Rust Creatures were handled.
The trolls were the hard part of the 2nd map for me because I had built my party to deal with rust creatures, fwiw.
Yeah they didn't bother me as much. I also found that level worked better if you aggressively went after an enemy so they couldn't surround you.
I leveled up a 1/1/1 elf team since I knew there would be new elf racials and wanted to try them out. This whole adventure was tough, but the absolute hands-down champion card for me was the new Elf Trickery move. Land yourself at the convergence of melee enemies and just watch in amazement as you dump their whole hands. For storges I didn't need any restarts as I kind of naturally got bunched up into the lower right corner which helped tremendously with positioning to avoid the rear bonus damage attacks as well as Tricking them into dumping all their non-movement cards. Punishing Bolt played a major role in eliminating all of the epic weapon enemies as they hold boss-level numbers of cards which worked against them nicely.
Does Elven Trickery work if you don't move (i.e. if you stay in place and just change your facing)? Seems amazing.
Yes it does. and yes it is. The second party I tested this with was 3 elves and each had 2 elven trickery in their decks. It's slightly better than a nimbus IMO, definitely more versatile. So with nimbus you could always walk up to AI enemies and have them drop all their attacks on you. When that was done your entire team could strike. With Elven Trickery it's easier to drain all the attacks from multiple monsters at the same time. Unlike nimbus it doesn't work on non-melee attacks (which does matter in a lot of situations), but it's incredibly good. Personally i don't think it's any more OP than something like dwarven war cry, and I think it's an excellent fit for the low HP elves. But this is going to be very popular/unpopular in MP, I hope it stays balanced due to it being just a move against wizards.
I definitely agree Elves need a busted card. Dodge is sweet but it's only on bad items. Elven Trickery is on a sweet tokenless racial, right? With Flanking and Vulnerable or something? I look forward to seeing it disrupt dwarf-warrior-dominance in PvP a bit
I've gone through this a handful of times, and I've gotten down to where I can run through it with no losses, with the exception of the Grendel battle. The Storge level is now easy for me. Lots and lots of Nimbuses and Wall of Fire keeps them at bay, even if they've got Resistant Hide - They'll still avoid the tiles per AI even though they both fly and have resistant hide. And then my Warrior has two Bejeweled Swords and a Troll's Ire, and he just picks the storges off one at a time. I still run down to only my warrior at the end, but I'm 4/4 on the Storge map since the new build. Edit: Also, looks like once you can get Whorl down, Wall of Fire keeps Grendel all sorts of in a corner. Just keep dropping 'em, and that's GG. Edit 2: Also DEAR OMFG Elvish Trickery is the Tech.
Elven Trickery has made some of the old maps where I had trouble running elf-only parties into cakewalks. The trouble will be getting 3 copies of Superb Trickery on the main server. I guess singles will have to do for a while.
