shnar said:
Corbon said:
Frankly, even Dark Charms have limited affect in encounters in my games now now. Basically they prevent Guard orders, since the heroes are almost never equipped with decent weapons at the end of their turn!
What did Wind Pact do again? I don't think we've used it in our games, bypassing for seemingly other/better skills.
And what do you mean by not having any decent weapons equiped? Are your heroes spending MPs on their turns to unequip stuff every turn?
-shnar
Wind Pact
You may move through pit obstacles without effect. In addition,
when a new area is revealed
, you may immediately look at the overlord's hand and force him to
discard 1 card of your choice
. He receives threat for the card that you force him to discard
New areas include every dungeon level and encounter (clarified by FAQ).
Forcing the OL to discard a card of your choice means that during Lt encounters the OL knows that he will not get his 'best' card in play. If you play that DotMG and AW can be used in encounters then Wind Pact is the only counter. Without it the OL is pretty much guaranteed to win once he has 3 Trap and 2 Event treachery (DotMG and 2x Danger + other). Feats are the only thing that can stop the OL's entire crew hammering a party of monkeys for several turns. With no armour or defensive equipment the OL should easily clean up the heroes before they even get to be heroes.
If the heroes have wind pact then the OL cannot use those really good but really expensive treachery cards - he will lose too high a proportion of his resources. So he chooses a greater variety of smaller value, less excessively powerful, cards, and the game goes back to a to and fro contest rather than a one card kills all bore fest.
In dungeons Wind pact forces the OL to use good cards when he gets them (more or less immediately once heroes are up to speed). This creates inefficiency for the OL, often forcing him into substandard choices and or reducing his options. For example, in the OLs Keep I used a crushing blow on a backup silver range weapon. Wasteful. But it was the only good card in my hand, I didn't have enough threat to break a gold item even if I dropped everything else in my hand, and the heroes were about to finish a level, so it was use it or lose it. I also used an Enraged on a piddling little (well, diamond, but still) Larva Beetle even though there were diamond Master Manticores and Nagas in the next room. I knew I was going to lose it and at least it got me a kill.
It is also particularly nasty during Rumours as they have a lot of tiny areas and the heroes can strip out 2-3 good cards from your hand in just a couple of turns.
Last but not least, the heroes also get to see what is coming. Because of the Wind Pact in my Keep the heroes saw a Dark Relic Card in my hand. They ignored it and pulled the Blood Ape Treachery Spawn instead (2 Diamond Master Blood Apes, whoar!) but then proceeded to ignore the last two chests. Sucks to draw good cards just before an area ends. Sucks even more when Wind Pact works per area but the reinforcement eyes only flip per level!
As for not having any weapons equipped, yes. During Lt encounters if there is a Dark Charm or two in the OLs hand (basically if the OL has any trap treachery, although usually it is known since Wind Pact is a priority skill) the heroes frequently (almost always) unequip their weapons using MP (fatigue usually). After all, with upgraded Traits, plentiful 'other' items, well balanced skills and gold/silver weapons the heroes are often able to one-shot each other, or get very close, and often use AOE weaponry to hit more than one hero.