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Was experimenting with Fedora on the Steam version and managed to make myself nigh-invulnerable with Vampire + Sadistic instantly healing back any damage I took. I assume that any attack that could actually one-shot me would result in my death, but given my thirteen stacks of Tome I have more than enough Resistance to prevent that from happening. Although the result is quite hilarious, , it seems fair that this is possible given the impracticality of actually achieving such a combo without Fedora. Gaining enough stacks of Barrier and Cloak is probably another path to invincibility.

Speaking of Cloak, it was completely worthless this run given that I actually want to take damage, but I did notice that a lot  more damage is constantly slipping through than it feels like there should be considering that I have Cloak permanently triggered. (Each instance of 270 damage in the image is an instance of Sadistic triggering, which in turn means I took damage.) I'm not going to complain in this case, but is Cloak's invulnerability not as absolute as it suggests?

Incidentally, I found a periodic bug where the enemies vibrate in place without taking any action (although they follow me if I move, keeping to the same relative positions). Not sure what the cause of this is or whether it's reproducible.Additionally, I believe someone mentioned this already, but if your character jumps high enough it teleports back to the ground. I suppose it might just be a mechanism to ensure that you can't softlock yourself with enough stacks of Impulse.

Finally, sometimes the last enemy disappears offscreen entirely; this isn't a problem for me because of Thunderbolt guaranteeing a kill sooner or later, but it would be run-ending otherwise.

There's a bug on the web version where the last enemy becomes intangible if (presumably) you haven't moved in long enough:

Not a game-breaking one, because the enemy will start getting hit again if you move, but still something I wanted to report.

Also, aside from what I've mentioned, I think survival might actually be too hard, later on, or at least difficulty scales strangely. The fact that your HP stays at 10 the entire game (barring Dragon Blood upgrades, which are few and far between), while the monsters' stats keep going up, means that after a certain point, most enemies can one or two-shot you. Take this example:

Viper, ATK 21, HP 51/51 (a card I saw in the displayed run, but didn't save)

Just... I can't think of any way to deal with that without the aforementioned strategies of stacking an absurd amount of Magic Shields or being able to one-shot it. I've been playing Elena mainly, but it seems like other characters (without the convenient ability to turn mana into Magic Shields) might run into an insurmountable wall after a while, where your attack is too low to one-shot most enemies (and they'll kill you if you don't). You can't simply avoid monsters altogether, for obvious reasons. I don't know what the other heros' possible ways of dealing with that might be, so explanation would be helpful if you have time. Thanks!

Hello, thank you for your prompt response. I don't think Elena in general needs to be nerfed- if anything I barely use Fire Storm by the late game, because 10 damage really isn't worth 9 mana when many monsters can have 20-50 HP (fireball's 2 damage is just pitiful by then, although it's a decent way of skipping a turn). 

Therefore, I exclusively save my mana for Mana Shield, letting me stack it, but I don't think the ability itself is too powerful, just the infinite stacking- either a cap or making it progressively more difficult to gain Magic Shields beyond a certain point might be helpful (subtract an increasing flat number or percentage from Magic Shield gain, for example). 

Don't get me wrong, Purifiers and Mushrooms are still dangerous, and definitely require strategy to deal with, but Purifiers are easily taken care of by Dynamite given their low "health"- mushrooms are more tricky, and you'll probably have to kill a couple yourself, but generally your rate of Magic Shield gain outpaces the rate of Magic Shield loss from Poison.

Don't worry about Battle Hunger too much- it's only really an issue when you have enough attack to one-shot monsters, which is the underlying problem. Excluding it from survival should be more than enough.

Hope this helps!

Hi, I basically forgot about this game for several months and was pleasantly surprised to see how much new content there was! A few notes:

-Elena seems too powerful later in the game- Mana Siphon and most things dropping mana when you kill them means that you're almost always near or at full mana, and are therefore limited in stacking Magic Shield only in cooldown. If you avoid directly attacking most things you can't oneshot, don't step on Purifiers, and eliminate Toxic Mushrooms with Dynamite and spear traps whenever possible, you can generate and keep an obscene amount of Magic Shields. In addition, if you get your Attack up to the point where you can one-shot most things (entirely possible with a bit of luck) you can usually keep it that way, given your Attack will only decrease by one for each kill. Add my luck in getting this relic:

And you can get something like this:

(I think this is what having won looks like.)

At this point, I'm more likely to get bored and close out of the game than I am to die. Thoughts?

Very fun- surprisingly strategic, and discovering the synergies of different characters with certain cards was quite fun! On my best run, I got up to 23 Magic Shields at one point as Elena, and had figured out that strategic triggering of Dynamite cards allowed me to destroy Toxic Mushrooms without getting poisoned. Then I promptly stepped on a Purifier...

Some things I love:

-All the different relics! They really add flavor and originality to the game.

-Strategic interactions like the previously mentioned one with Dynamite, including:

Attacking mushrooms/Pyros to reduce the cooldown of your spells, or because one of your relics is about to trigger

(As Elena, since I mostly play as her, but I'm sure this applies to other characters too) Scanning the field to figure out whether you can afford to activate your lower-level skills (Magic Shield), especially since for Elena that gives a stacking benefit, or whether the situation is bad enough to warrant your ultimate (Firestorm).

Maneuvering to a position where you can trigger that Spear Trap at an enemy

Figuring out which hits you can afford to take and which you can't

Moving carefully, keeping the cards in mind, so that you don't get stuck in a corner with two enemies that can both one-shot you -_-

Trying not to trigger a Relic Dealer/Retired Knight until you have enough gold

And some things that are just fun:

Getting saved by a relic that you forgot you had

Waiting until that moment your ultimate is finally ready to trigger

Magic Shields, especially as Elena. See above.

Anyway, I think that's it! Looking forward to unlocking Wispwood Forest!

Hey, hope you don't mind me continuing to post my FARA experiences- don't feel obligated to respond immediately, it's just fun for me to share these things with someone. Anyway, dead again at 2,500 points- was battling a few enemies, including a Heroic Dark Servant, a few hundred miles from Relica with a Heroic Mortician mercenary that I was lucky enough to pick up in a nearby town. The fight was going pretty well until the Darkness Meteors hit (I was careless and didn't realize I was standing in the impact radius)...

I never did get to making my Elemental spell, because I had been waiting for a good self-buffing Effector rune. Sorry about that, looks like you'll have to wait a bit for my verification on how the Elemental spell works. (If you're confused about what I'm talking about, read my edit to my other post.)

So, a few new things I've discovered:

Morticians make amazing mercenaries, at least for a caster, with their Fervent Embalming ability, or, as I like to think of it, Raise Dead- you'll be shielded behind your ever-present undead army, and they decay slowly enough for your entourage to grow over time if you keep killing enemies- they don't count toward party limit, but I'm not sure if there's a maximum number of undead a Mortician can control. I was a bit dubious at first when I saw my new mercenary was an Insight-heavy class, since I was looking for someone to keep me out of melee, not another caster, but this was far more effective- instead of one new ally to tank for me, I got several! They do decent damage, too. (Honestly, I'd be in favor of Mortician just being renamed to Necromancer, because that's the impression it gives as of now, and it feels weird to call them a "mortician" (since when did undertakers get magical abilities? There's got to be some normal morticians... Also, Necromancer sounds more impressive to me.)

It seems extremely profitable to travel further from Relica once your equipment and allies are up to it- enemies were regularly dropping Obsidian and better equipment, which was a significant upgrade over my current gear. Also, I never actually completed it (I was on my way when I had that unfortunate encounter with a meteor) but I received a quest to retrieve a piece of equipment (an Arcanium Bracelet, to be precise) from a Dungeon, in exchange for a Grand Chest, which at least sounded quite impressive (I've never opened one before, what are the contents like?) I also did a few quests for the Jade Circle, although I never got into good enough standing to receive any traits. A bit strangely, I received two quests to jailbreak someone from another Jade Circle castle, upon which I had to escape before the rest of the castle started trying to kill me, but which overall improved my standing with the Jade Circle upon completion. (Internal disputes, perhaps? It would seem to fit with their description...) 

I had a bit of trouble with certain elementally-attuned enemies after I infused my staff, as it changes your attack type from "arcane" to "infused element". I'm considering making an elementally themed set of spells next game, to get full use out of the Curse rune- judging from this, I'm guessing an Arrow spell would be mandatory?

Also, any advice on spellcrafting? I'm having a hard time figuring out which effector runes would work best with which stabilizers. Certain runes seem obviously better than others (Silence versus Stupidity, anyone?) but others are a bit harder to figure out. I've shunned the attribute-decreasing runes so far, as they seem to be of rather narrow use (except possibly the Vulnerability rune, but I'm not sure how much that actually affects the stat in question) and am of nearly the same mind on the attribute-increasing runes (Enlightenment is the only one that might be of use while spellcasting, but I already get that as a Scholar- considering using Fortitude, perhaps? Again, depends on the extent of the improvement.) Anyway, any idea of what spells+effector runes I might want as a caster (3 spellslots)? I see you recommend a Rejuvenation rune on one of your spells ("your" in the generic sense) but I'm not sure if, for example, it would work better on a spell that's cast often (attack spells) or one that's cast more rarely (status-effect spells) given that I don't know how long Rejuvenation actually lasts.

I built the Tavern and the Warehouse this run, although the former was mostly useless due to the Shady Gambler promptly blocking the entrance (I was contemplating just murdering him, although it would be a bit awkward to do that in front of everyone) and the latter was mostly useless due to not having completed another Warehouse before my death. I definitely see how both could have been useful, though.

If you're robbed sleeping outside, it appears that you're not actually guaranteed to get back everything the thief stole when you kill them? My Obsidian Scepter was still missing, which hurt.

Anyway, up to 5,000 points now (I cheated with /unlockclasses earlier because I was interested in the Spellthief, but I'm strictly playing unlocked classes now)! Having fun and will post the next update when I have time!

Ah, right, that makes sense. My strategy is kind of the opposite, since I play squishy mage characters that need to stay out of melee at all costs, and therefore want allies to tank for me, while you're running a defensive melee character that prefers ranged support. Anyway, thanks; I'll keep you updated if I have any success!

Edit: Gah, I just realized that my description of the Elemental spell needs verification, as I never actually tried to cast it without targeting anything... If I get the rune again, I'll experiment and give you my results.

Update #1: I have Insight at GODLIKE again with three pieces of Crystal gear (It's quite easy, given that Scholars essentially have base Great insight with their Enlightenment ability, and am looking to up my Resilience and hopefully Charm as well. It seems that I cannot in fact craft all the recipes I know with all tiers of materials (the compatible recipes, of course)- you mentioned something about leveling up recipes?

Also, the Crystal Ingot crafting tip was much appreciated- I don't think I would have ever gotten this much Crystal otherwise, and it's a huge boost to a mage.

Anyway, DeathMage out!

Update #2: Ran into the Arcane Researcher, traded away all my shards. Got, among other things, a Rune of Elementals! Will post my trial results after I find a good spell combination. Also, is Slowness good on a long-ranged spell?

Wait, how do you fish? I'm guessing you dig with a shovel- what do you mean by digging up a beach-map? The tip about crystal is neat, that will be  very useful.  I'm not quite sure what you meant by Elemental not being a direct damage spell? Perhaps I wasn't quite clear; the Elemental stabilizer rune summons an allied elemental in the targeted location, of the element type of the elemental rune(s)  you infused. This can be quite powerful, as it's possible to prevent enemies from ever reaching you as more and more elementals join the fight.  As far as I can tell, normally when you cast an Elemental spell you target a 3x3 square, centered on the elemental. The elemental will only attack targets affected by the area, and will dissipate after they are dead. The Poison rune apparently interpreted that as targeting the entire area... Might work well with a caster-effect rune instead, though.

It seems to be a good idea to hire amateur mercenaries in the beginning and work your way up the ranks, making them drop all their stuff before you fire them (you can give them a trash weapon to trade, since they'll refuse to drop their only weapon). Is there a way to craft an item if you haven't seen it before? I haven't actually managed to find a rope in any of my games so far...

Found out most of those commands already, but I appreciate it. What do you mean park mercenaries at your base? Is there actually a way to do that? What does completing a Den do, for that matter?

Not exactly sure where the faction castles spawn; are they guaranteed to be near Relica? I actually haven't done any quests for a faction yet, and only just realized it was possible to join one.

Well, I think that's it- see you in the Rift!

Thanks for all the answers! Yeah, I actually discovered your notes shortly after I made my post- they're impressively detailed and quite helpful. I'm surprised you say the "artifacts" you get from escort quests can only be useful so long- I've seen some truly impressive stat boosts from them. Is rune infusion that important?

I was wondering about the wand; that does make sense. I've crafted a workbench already, which is quite nice, and looted a fur backpack from someone, which is great. I've managed to craft a Crystal Wand, and received a Crystal Helm and Crystal Heater Shield as rewards (too bad it's not a tower shield). When I don't need the backpack, I wear one of my weapon artifacts as an accessory for the stat boosts. In this way, I've managed to boost my Insight stat to Legendary, and with the Scholar Enlightenment ability (+8 Insight after conversing with someone or learning a recipe, which is quite easy when you have mercenaries) to GODLIKE, which, I must say, is quite nice. 

I had an amusing spellcrafting mishap recently- I tried to combine the Fire, Darkness, Elemental (stabilizer, summon Elemental), and Poison runes, giving me Brutal Elemental of Poison, thinking that the latter two runes would give me an elemental that poisoned on hit. What it actually did was poison everything in a targeted 3x3 square upon casting... including the elemental and my mercenaries. 

*Facepalm*

I don't suppose there's any way you can salvage a spell?

Judging from my recipes, Crystal (Uncommon), Starcloth (Rare), and Obsidian (Rare) gear are best for mages, although I've never even found the second and possess a single shard for the third, so I'll settle for Crystal for now. I'll have to see how my stats progress as the game goes on.

(I have a feeling that classes which start with low health, including Scholar, are sub-optimal because you can't actually increase your health total, unlike stats... We'll see.)

Anyways, hope you enjoy this!

Edit: Oh, how do I find ropes again? I was trying to construct the Warehouse and didn't have the recipe...

Edit #2: Well, I died in a Dungeon at 1,600 points, which was really my own fault... I killed a few enemies (Bright Scribe, Bright Horror, etc, it seemed to be a Light-based dungeon, which was nice because I was using Brutal (Dark Fire) spells) and decided to leave the dungeon and get party health back to full before continuing, rushed ahead of my mercenaries, didn't look where I was going, and promptly got Immobilized in melee range of a Shining Horror, which took me down from half health in two turns... I'd figured out that the best strategy for enemies here was to spam Brutal Elementals, poison or not, on top of them from range until they died, since they took increased damage and would get distracted fighting my elementals (I could summon an elemental each turn, which their damage output could in no way keep up with). Of course, that doesn't exactly help when you're already in melee range, since they generally continue attacking you. I didn't feel like taking a blight, given that I was wearing all of my Crystal gear, my backpack, and the artifacts that I hadn't already given to my mercenaries...

Well, I suppose that's a learning experience: (a.) ALWAYS be careful in Dungeons, (b.) Stay close to your mercenaries at all times in dangerous areas, so that this doesn't happen to me again, (c.) Elemental might be my new favorite rune, although I suspect I won't get it again any time soon, and (d.) do NOT combine Condition effector runes with the Elemental rune. Also, it turns out the longer you do quests for a certain person, the better your rewards get, which is neat (I was getting Refined chests from the Relica Elder.) I'm assuming this also has something to do with Charm.

Edit #3: I checked your notes and I see you recommend not entering Dungeons until late-game, but my stats were actually quite good (GODLIKE Insight, Excellent Resilience) and I think I could have taken that dungeon if I hadn't made that stupid mistake. I'm still glad I entered that dungeon, though; it was nice to actually have a challenging fight..

I've been enjoying FARA recently and wanted to give a few comments on what I've found out so far:

- Hiring mercenaries is mandatory for an Insight/Finesse ranged build, to keep you out of melee range while you rain destruction from afar. Otherwise, without allies, you're pretty much dead as soon as something gets into melee range, and if you dash away your enemies simply follow suit. Sadly, bashing enemies with your staff is, of course, ineffective.

- Can't figure out how to complete the "missing child" quests? I can never find the child in the specified location, and usually abandon those quests. Are you meant to search (search command) the last known location of the child, or is the child simply not guaranteed to be in the targeted location, and may be in the surrounding area instead? Or a combination of the two?

- Escort quests seem very profitable, with a guaranteed artifact as reward, if a bit dangerous, as well as requiring you not to hire more than one mercenary, which is a significant hit to your overall power. It also appears to be a good idea to escort them directly to the desired location, without detours, as they're likely to die otherwise, particularly in dangerous quest locations. You could give them a weapon, of course, but then you'll lose it when you complete the quest.

- Certain pieces of equipment seem to be extremely fragile, especially anything made out of cloth- masks, kilts, etc. I've looted a full set of rune-infused cloth clothing in between towns and had them destroyed before I arrived. I've concluded that the best approach with such equipment is to immediately salvage them for the runes. 

- Blights are an interesting and flavorful part of the game, and I appreciate the wide array available, but it's quite punishing to not only receive a permanent negative condition but lose all of your equipped items, which are usually the best equipment you have available, and your party members, who usually also have the second-best equipment you have available. Invariably, I take a look at the blight I received, the equipment I have left in my inventory, and commit suicide anyway- there's a certain point where it's painful to continue, and I'd rather just start a new game. This also leads to a strange strategy of unequipping all of your items if you think you're going to die, although I can't tell if that's intended or not. The only thing I can say is that, perhaps, the owner of a character with nine key fragments might look at things differently...

- How do you tame animals? The only information I've found is that you need to give food to creatures to tame them- what counts as suitable food? I've found dishes in supply crates, but the Chef and Alchemist class flavor texts also seems to suggest that you can cook meals as well- how is this possible? Finally, I'm assuming that you can only tame certain animals- I've seen NPCs riding Moose and Horses, and Pug the Mage in their reply to my Spellthief Bug post mentioned Grizzlies as well. Are tamable animals found in the wild?

Well, I think that's it; I'll add some more comments if I think of them. All replies appreciated!

Edit: I see hunger and thirst were removed; I was wondering about that.

Edit #2: I upgraded my Crystal Wand to Refined quality, and the attribute bonuses didn't increase? What's up with that? Also, I see that different items require more or less material depending on their size which makes sense. However, for example in this hierarchy: Staves -> Sceptres -> Wands, are the heavy-attack effects of Staves actually objectively better than of Wands? I haven't played long enough to know how useful the different effects are objectively, though it seems like the elemental attunement reduction of Staves would be more useful than the elemental absorption effect of Wands, if you've already infused your weapon (for this reason I'm slightly regretting upgrading my wand, but I'll probably upgrade it to Artisan anyway since I've already used up a toolset). This, of course, applies to other equipment as well. Thanks!

Edit #3: My mercenary, Joniqua, keeps entering "droping" status right now, where they drop anything they're holding. I can't get them to wield anything. How do I fix this? I'm considering just firing them, given that they're only an amateur mercenary... 

Edit #4: Apparent bug, my water-infused Crystal Wand doesn't heal me at all when I heavy attack, even though I get the message. Haven't been able to test it with melee weapons.

Ah, thanks! Really appreciate it. Great game!

Btw, do mercenaries re-generate? This is something that's been bugging me because when one dies it's a significant loss of strength for me, given that I'm currently playing a Scholar that relies on my mercenaries to keep me out of melee range.

P.S. Is there any way to save manually on the browser version? It resets my progress every time I clear the browser cache, which kind of bugs me, instead of saving to my itch.io account. I can do /unlockclasses, but it's still kind of inconvenient, and I'm afraid one of these times I'm going to accidentally delete one of my games. Any help?

Hi,

I just wanted to say that I'm enjoying FARA and all the different classes that are unlockable. Recently, though, something's come up that's bugging me- I can't figure out how the Spellthief's "steal spell" (or whatever it's called) ability works- although it says that it will teach me the last spell to affect me, when I click on it I just get a "no action possible" message or something along those lines, even if I use it immediately after struck by a spell. Any help?

Uh, I accidentally clicked through the ending, and now I have to do the game over again to read it... lol

Very fun game, though! I enjoyed the careful planning that had to be done with each move, and the assortment of different spells. I will say that although fun, Level 3 Invisibility might be a bit too powerful, given that the HP cost becomes increasingly negligible - I defeated the final boss (lobster-demon) by keeping invis constantly up and fireballing them repeatedly.

All in all, an enjoyable use of my time- looking forward to the Steam edition!

Edit: Perhaps it could be made so that you can page back instead of just forward? I accidentally skipped a page and then skipped all the rest trying to click on the previous page to go back.

Oh, I've played that game... I believe it's called Mobs Inc. by Overboy?