Hey all, For those who haven't progressed this far and want to be surprised: THIS THREAD CONTAINS SPOILERS! Fairly warned be ye. Specifically I'm curious as to other testers thoughts on the 1 HP challenge mode. Now I both want and expect these modes to be difficult, they are called <b>challenge</b> modes after all, but I'm having some frustration with the 1HP challenge mode myself. My one beef is not the difficulty, but rather the randomness of it. Obviously any game in which you roll dice or draw cards will suffer a little from randomness, that's simply how it works. But in this mode it seems to be so much more problematic. Example: Recently I attempted to complete the 1 HP challenge for Alyonso's tower, defeating the first room by the skin of my teeth and moving on to the second. In the first turn the Bronze Golem drew three movement cards to my one, marching right up to my party and then murdering two in one attack that struck two separate targets. Something about flailing bronze fists. My wizard managed to escape, moving to range and tossing lightning. The Golem then drew two more movement cards to my wizards one, closing distance. On the third turn he drew three move cards, caught my wizard and murdered him. So I lost, no big. The issue I have is that at no point did I feel there was anything I could have <i>done</i> about that loss. Practically from turn one it seemed like the gods of randomness had already decided how this was going to go. Does anyone else have the same issue? Do you see the issue but not see it as a problem? I'd like to hear other testers thoughts on this one. To clarify: I'm not complaining it's hard, hard is good. I'm frustrated it -seems- so random.
Against melee enemies I haven't had too much trouble so far, although I've only attempted the very low level 1 HP quests. Loading up on slide effects seems to be key to avoid being hit in the first place and taking your characters' fate out of the hands of the dice gods. Force Bolt, Force Blast, Simple Bash and Bash have all served me well so far. I think I need to try some more of them before deciding if I think it relies too much on chance, but at the moment I don't seem to be experiencing the same problems that you are. For example, I had no problem at all with the first or second Alyonso's Tower fights. The third fight, however, was a different story and I've yet to best it...
My problem with it is that in addition to the randomness, it essentially collapses the classes you can use down into wizards and maybe a token cleric. Then it just becomes a vastly more frustrating version of a class quest. Why use a warrior when all of their advantages are basically rendered nil by having only one HP. Armor and blocks are too unreliable to use to mitigate that.
In case you are interested, here's the party that I used to complete Caverns of the Troglodytes and Lair of the Trog Wizard: Amaryllis Level 1 Elf Wizard Jade BattlestaffBlasting RodJumpdragger Boots Nerissa Level 1 Elf Wizard Relentless StaffGlowing BangleGlimmer Boots Undine Level 1 Elf Wizard Cherry BoltstaffSimin's Glowing MirrorHidebound Boots Out of curiosity I'm going to try and do Highway Robbery with a party of three warriors and see how far I get. Edit: I managed the first encounter of Highway Robbery without losing a character using this team: Freshbreeze Level 1 Elf Warrior Kobold KillerFool's MaulJumpdragger Boots Hightower Level 1 Elf Warrior Keen BaselardHeirloom AssegaiNovice Boots Longstride Level 1 Elf Warrior Shiny BladeGrey RapierBoots Of The Foolish Edit 2: I have completed the second and third encounters, losing one in each, and I only lost a character to the Goblin Hulk because I was surprised by a Bull Rush. I lost a character in the other encounter due to poor positioning on my part, although I'd all but won at that point. I also swapped Hightower's Heirloom Assegai for another Shiny Blade that I received as loot.
Hmm. I hadn't thought to bring lower level characters to minimize my deck bloat, and you're beating the 1 HP challenges with these?
I don't think I would have thought of it either, but I saw somebody on these forums (maybe Lance?) suggest it. Like I said, I've only just started playing the 1HP challenges beginning with the lowest level ones. Currently my record is: Caverns of the Troglodytes - beat 1st time using the 3 elven wizards above. Lair of the Trog Wizard - same. The Wizard's Workshop - failed on the 3rd encounter twice. Not yet completed. Highway Robbery - beat 1st time using the 3 elven warriors above. For warriors and priests I think mêlée combat would be difficult on a lot of the early adventures (Trogs - reach attacks, Lizardmen - reach attacks, Ruby Demon Portal - ranged attacks, Rescue from Shieldhaven Prison - step attacks). Highway Robbery seemed like the most achievable and I actually didn't find it as difficult as I expected. For the warriors, I built their decks massively differently to normal. Card that I found exceptionally useful were: Simple Bash - the Slide Back 1 effect is great. Do damage and slide the enemy out of range of retaliation. Violent Overswing - on the low level enemies it is usually a one hit kill. Positioning yourself so that you're able to use it can be a bit tricky though. Any of the Stab line of cards for their Range 2, but particularly Shifty Stab - Step 1 so that you can retreat, Range 2 so that you can still attack. Quick Step - the Cantrip keyword is incredible. You can use it to step in and kill an enemy without fear of retribution or you can retreat with a character and then pass to steal first play on the next round. This saved one of my characters on at least one, possibly two, occasions. Finally, this is what the battle looked like at the start of the final turn against Bluk and the shaman: You'll notice that I have Hard To Pin Down and Dodge in my decks. Dodge was triggered once and Hard to Pin Down not at all over all four encounters. I'd say that movement is absolutely key in this quest type, even more so than normal; I always retreated if possible rather than leave myself at the mercy of a die roll. Next I'll try either The Wizard's Workshop again or Dungeon of the Lizard Priest.
I'm trying this mode as well. My build is a human warrior, a dwarf paladin and a elf wizard and It's hard as hell! One of my many difficulties are adventures where 2 or more enemies pool from the same cards, like adventures where monkeys appear. Usually moving very quickly and get close to the party on the first turn; I lose there one char usually. Then its a very difficult battle.
