#he knows the sort of dmg that sort of fight can cause

[truethes]

nothing warms me more than how kaey.as number one priority this entire event has been kl.ee, followed very swiftly by coll.ei

[noncombativednd]

The Problem with being a DM

Hey everyone, let’s have a talk about Forever DM/GM/ST/MC/Whatever the game calls the person who “runs” the game. Most importantly the fact that the majority of people are fixated on being a DM as a bad thing that some people are just cursed to be forever. It’s not! (What a twist! There is no problem with being a DM!)

No seriously, stop acting like being a DM is bad, and that these DMs are suffering while running it because they are somehow being forced to. People DM because they enjoy it, and I’m pretty sure most people have free will and can just.. not DM if they don’t want to. But let’s hit a bigger issue here, why does the DM have to be so drastically in charge of things in DnD 5e; and why that causes this meme and combative DnD (Hey! I did it! We’re on the main topic!)

If you play other systems, you may already know that you can give more control to the players to help. The fate system has fate points; Powered by the Apocalypse games almost always talk about letting the players help you create the world by leaving empty spaces they can fill up.

But more importantly, even DnD had signs of this. I say had with the fact that they put it very slightly into DND 4e, but have no sign of this in 5e. From the DnD 4e DMG in little boxes called Tips from the Pros. I’ll put some snips about it if you want to read them. In short though, DnD can have those same ideas in them. The players are in just as much control as the DM. Thus, the DM is not the judge, the sole world creator, or the story creator. Everyone helps.

And with everyone helping, guess what? You create a less combative environment. Players aren’t worried that the DM will just pull the rug out from under them. They don’t have to fight just to get some control of the narrative. They can agree as a group if a ruling is fair or not. And the DM.. well they can now focus more on helping everyone tell a shared story... instead of fighting to tell their own.

So stop thinking Forever DM is a thing. It’s not. Being a DM is fun, and you need to realize this so that you can try out the fun of being a DM, too. It’s only as scary as you make it be. It’s only as boring as you make it. But one thing it never is, is a curse.

"The story in the Player’s Handbook about the dragonborn paladin Donaar, who carries a piece of the shell he hatched from as a reminder of his heritage, came from exactly this sort of player background creation. The player, reading the then-current description of dragonborn, exclaimed, “I hatched? Can I carry a piece of my eggshell with me?” Thus was born an interesting cultural detail about dragonborn in that game world." —James Wyatt 

"Something amazing happened one time I was playing D&D with my 9-year-old son. When we finished an encounter, my son took over. He decided that he was going to search around one of the statues in the room, that he was going to get hit by a trap (an arrow would shoot out at the statue), and that he’d find a treasure there. Hey, wait a minute. I thought I was the DM! That was my first reaction. But I bit my tongue. I rolled damage for the trap, and I let him have his treasure. (I determined what it was—I wasn’t about to relinquish that much control.) He never enjoyed the game more. I learned the most important lesson about D&D that day. I remembered that this is a game about imagination, about coming together to tell a story as a group. I learned that the players have a right to participate in telling that story—after all, they’re playing the protagonists!" —James Wyatt

[devianta]

MDZS/Persona 5 xover that literally no one asked for

I just feel like there’s so much potential for this. Think about it, both of these works have themes surrounding the damage gossip can cause, getting punished for doing the right thing (no good deed goes unpunished), what constitutes justice, and the consequences of shitty parenting, amongst other things. 

Mostly I just want to run wwx’s palace. He has a palace, there’s no doubt about that, and I want to run it. I’d kill 500 men for the opportunity. Also, pretty sure his treasure would be his lost golden core. Meaning, that if you successfully steal that shit you get to give to it him and then he’d have a new one without 1) him having to die and be brought back in a new body or 2) having to fuck anyone else up. (Phantom Thievery ftw!) You’d just have to successfully complete the palace. That’s all. 

Can you imagine wwx as a boss? Like, can you imagine that boss fight? He’d have at least 12 health bars. I mean, this is the guy who got shot by an arrow, pulled it out, and threw it back, instantly killing the bitch who shot him. This is the fucker who got disemboweled by his brother, stuffed his intestines back in, and then went and bought potatoes. This guy got a super experimental operation done on him, got stabbed with his own sword by wen chao (at least in the donghua, can’t remember if this happened in the other adaptations), and was then thrown into burial mounds. Like after all that, he was literally thrown off a cliff and he was still able to move around. Wwx is not unlike a termite: there’s really not much that can kill him. During the Sunshot Campaign he managed whole battlefields on his own. He played the flute days and nights on end without rest. 

His boss fight would be near impossible but I would be so willing to try. BTW, I’m imagining this taking place after he’s moved into Burial Mounds with the Wen Remnants but before jzx gets dead. You know, before everything gets irreversibly fucked. So the Stygian Tiger Seal will definitely feature in the boss fight. Most likely it’ll be something you need to steal it during the fight. I’m imagining that he uses to summon endless waves of corpses that prevent you from getting any hits in so you have to distract him in order to steal the seal off him and finally be able to deal actual damage to him. That’ll be stage one of the fight. Stage two will be fighting wwx and shadow wen ning. You have to defeat wen ning before you move on to stage three. Wen ning exclusively uses physical attacks. Wwx never uses physical attacks. He mostly commands wen ning but throws out curse and almighty attacks every one or two turns. Stage three is just wwx and he starts hitting you with a crap ton of curse damage with some almighty mixed in to spice things up. He repels most physical attacks and all curse moves. He’s weak to bless skills but has a 50% dodge rate for them. Beating wwx earns you no money (b/c he’s poor af) but he drops 2x Shijie’s soup (restores full sp to all party members), 5x wen qing’s needles (cures any status condition), 5x curse talismans (does 50 dmg), and one (1) golden core. 

What does wwx’s palace look like? Where is it? I want to say Lotus Pier and the distortion (what he thinks of it as) is a graveyard/mausoleum/something along those lines. But an argument could be made for burial mounds. I’m not sure what the distortion would be though in that case. I feel like wwx sees burial mounds pretty clearly. No, I think wwx’s distortion revolves around Lotus Pier and his family there. Mini bosses? Jiang Cheng definitely. Maybe Madame Yu? Shijie would show up (his palace wouldn’t be complete without her) but she wouldn’t be a shadow you’d fight. She’d offer guidance or healing items. Lwj’s shadow would definitely be there but I’m not sure what his role would be. At that point in the story, wwx’s unknowingly in love with lwj and sees him as a nice guy who asks wwx questions he can’t answer. He believes that he and lwj will inevitably end up on opposite sides of the battle field but ultimately wwx does not want to fight him. He feels that a death at lwj’s hands would be a good death. So he might be a shadow you have to impress or prove yourself to before receiving help. I feel like wwx’s palace would be a bit like Futaba’s in that he wouldn’t have full control over it because he no longer has complete control over himself or his demonic cultivation. Which is why I think there would be shadows in wwx’s palace that act counter to his purpose of pushing others away (not unlike in Futaba’s palace). If anything, I feel like his palace would be like a weird mix of Futaba’s and Nijima’s palaces. Because wwx has that distinct self-blaming loneliness that so permeated Futaba’s pyramid but he also has that single-minded determination and overbearing hubris that featured so strongly is Nijima’s casino. I don’t know. Nijima, in her boss battle, repeatedly yelled “I must win! I must win at any cost!” and I can kinda hear wwx saying something similar but it would be more along the lines of “I must protect them! I must protect them no matter what!” “Them” of course being his family and the Wen Remnants. 

 Other palaces to conquer in the MDZS universe? (It might be easier to list the people who wouldn’t have palaces.) 

Jiang Cheng definitely has a palace. A very purple palace. Lotus Pier, the Revenge. But what does he see his home as? An empty house? Jyl did say in the Untamed that three of them must remain together forever. And what happened? Wwx ran off with the last of the Wens and Jyl got married and left. If anything, jc is lonely. All he wants is his family back. So his palace would either reflect the state of his existence: alone in an empty home with no one to call his own, or it would reflect his deepest desires: his whole family returned to him. What sort of palace ruler would he be? He has that inferiority complex and brother and mother and father issues. (So. Many. ISSUES.) I can see his wwx shadow being completely obedient, because that’s sort of what he wants. He wants his brother home again and fulfilling his promise, to be the other half of the twin heroes of Yunmeng. It might be fun to fight shadow!jc and shadow!wwx at the same time. The Phantom Thieves vs the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng, loser gets sent to the Shadow Realm! (Just kidding. Unless...?) The other possibility is that wwx is completely absent from the palace but his absence is blatantly obvious to anyone that gazes upon the palace, like walking into a bedroom with no bed. There should be a bed there. Everyone knows a bed belongs here but there is no bed. Jc’s palace should have a wwx but wwx is not here. But he should be.

What would jc’s treasure be? His original golden core? Probably not. As far as he’s concerned (at this juncture) the golden core in his body is his original, restored by baoshan sanren. So it’s not that. The puppies that he lost as a boy, that he was forced to trade for an errant brother? A possibility. That was seemingly the start of jc’s problems. First he lost his beloved dogs, then he lost the love of his parents. Jfm focused on wwx to the detriment of jc and madame yu wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how jc couldn’t compare to wwx. If wwx hadn’t come to lotus pier, jc’s parents might’ve been satisfied with him. But I sincerely doubt that. There were clearly problems between J-fucking-M and Mad-Yu’s (can you tell that I think nothing of these two assholes god what I wouldn’t give to kick their asses in the metaverse I’d tear their fucking hearts out to quote ryugi) marriage prior to wwx’s arrival. Wwx’s presence there only brought those problems to the surface. Whether jc is capable of recognizing that truth is another matter. (Sorry, jc but your parents are shit and their marriage was doomed to failure before they even made their bows.) 

Or would wwx himself be the treasure? Jc’s parents are dead; they can’t be returned to life and therefore are unattainable. Jyl didn’t necessarily abandon jc and I doubt he sees her leaving as a betrayal. Jyl’s marriage was more or less inevitable. She’s able to easily visit. There’s no real conflict there. Wwx, on the hand, defected from Jiang sect. Jc has to pretend to loathe him, to not want him back when the opposite is in fact the case. Most of jc’s problems, wishes, and desires center around this one person. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that wwx is the locus of jc’s world, the axis upon which all turns: the triumphs and failures, tragedies and victories. When wwx is missing, jc looks for him. When wwx drops his sword, jc picks it up and returns it to him. Whatever happens to one brother affects the other. Even if/when wwx isn’t obviously present in jc’s life, he’s still there, even if you don’t see one brother next to the other. Even though jc doesn’t know it at that point in the story, wwx is the core of jc’s body and, therefore, it would make thematic sense for him to the be the core of jc’s palace.

Other palaces? Well, Jin Guangshan and Jin Guangyao obviously. Su She is debatable. I feel like he’d be a Mementos run. Besides, he’s not important enough to warrant a palace. Likewise, Jin Zixun would be a Mementos case. Wen Ruohan would have a palace but we don’t get to really know him as a character so I can’t say what his palace would like look except that it would encompass the whole of Ancient China. Wen Chao would likely have a palace even though he doesn’t deserve the attention ripping his palace apart would require. Most likely it would be a cross between Kamoshida’s and Kanoshiro’s. Jgs’ palace would probably look like Kamoshida’s and Jgy’s would probably be like Shido’s. 

Am I missing anyone? What do you think the characters’ palaces would look like? Whose palace would you most like to run? Let me know! 

[silvertsundere]

dnd session 10 highlights

10 whole sessions wao me: human fighter not me: dm, halfling cleric, half elf sorcerer, human paladin, human bard today we kept on exploring this mine place and got some cool loot however sorc pointed out “there must be a reason why we getting all these upgrades” and he’s right so that’s worrying to say the least anyway on with it, it’s p long this time but I tried to condense it

- after beating those guys guarding the office place, warlock npc translates the letter thing sorc and me found last time and we find out that, yes, the tablet we’re looking for is indeed in this mine, however it’s in the like mine’s boss’ room, which we dunno were it is (probably up the stairs that have a locked door) - we decide to finish exploring this floor just in case it’s here, cause we hadn’t checked some places yet - we leave the office and start going down corridor and immediately bump into 3 duergar that were just chilling eating smh - we roll for init and sorc goes, he wanted to cast fireball but he would hit what looked to be (normal) elf slaves so he restrained and used a line aoe spell instead, hits them all but not for much dmg - the baddest, toughest looking one runs up on him and smacks him til he’s only at 2hp - he uses some kinda command shout and the other two move up, hitting the npc warlock and leaving him at 3hp, and the cleric but missing - cleric heals sorc cause 1 more tap and he’d fall over - I run up on the big baddie, do 2 attacks and 2 more with action surge but only hit 3 of them, doing a total of 38 dmg. coincidentally, paladin tries to attack the dwarf that attacked the warlock but only hits the 2nd attack. - bard finishes big baddie with dissonant whispers - duergar that tried to attack cleric before tries again but rolls a 1, misses and becomes prone - cleric smacks him in the head twice with his mace of smiting and tries to run away but still takes dmg from opportunity attack - warlock casts eldritch blast (ofc) at both of them and finishes them both off like a frieza death beam (they were at 1 and 3 hp smh) - after this little fight we decide to talk with the cooking slaves, using the tongues spell since none of us speak undercommon, only to find out they didn’t have tongues - the next couple minutes became a game of charade with half elf sorc asking questions and them trying to gesture answers to us - after a while of this dm got tired of us being too dumb and decided to grab our hand and lead us a bit til we figured it out - they “explain” that they’re enslaved by some sort of magic contract and if we find the scroll we can probably free them - we also ask them to scribble a map of what they know of the mine and they give us some hints like “gem” and “lock” and “bad symbol” and a skull monkaS this was the best part of the whole session - after leaving the cooking slaves we found what looked like some sort of laboratory where a female drow wizard and 2 other (normal) elf slaves were doing stuff - she raised her hands and says she doesn’t wanna fight - and then the cleric recognizes her as the fucking elf from the porn we found last week LOL (ofc he didn’t bring it up cause it’d be awkward) -her name is Lia and she explains that she doesn’t like the duergar either since they’ve just cause misfortune to her people, but she works for them, analyzing ore and stuff, cause this way she’s safe and also gets some decent pay - we explain what we’re here to do, and that we’ve fought a buncha duergar already, and ask if she can help us in any way like, letting us rest in the lab. she says she won’t come help us directly but she can indeed do that. - so she casts an illusion spell on the door so we’re not found so we can take a good ol long rest since we were all tapped out from the like, 4 or 5 fights we had had so far - I said POG out loud cause she let us long rest and everyone was ???? - after we were done resting up she gave us a bottle of oil of sharpness and we carried on on our way - we found a room where this hammering noise we’d been hearing was coming from - cleric asked if blacksmith slave elf man could give us some free stuff since we’re gonna liberate them and all (we rolled to see what kinda wep it’d be) and it was a +2 normal dagger for the sorc - we go up to that one door that dispelled mage hand last time and I was like “dw guys I got a plan” and just chucked my handaxe at it, it broke and we could open it no problem - inside was some really fancy ass gem that was worth 5k gold so everyone was like :eyes: . the mage hand tried to take it out but it was too heavy. I tried and rolled a like 5 str. paladin rolled like a 6 or 7. and etc. in the end it was all up to the bard and he managed to pull a fucking nat 20 and yoink that shit right out. however, it was trapped. and he didn’t get a good enough dex roll and his ac is bad so he got stabbed in the gut for fifty fucking one (51) whole damage and instantly went unconscious at like -14 hp. - ofc being a good healer boy our cleric went and grabbed the gem first and put it in the bag of holding we had just gotten earlier before casting spare the dying on bard. after doing so however he took out one of the bards potion out and force feed him it so he came back ton consciousness and then cast cure wounds, tho he rolled a 1 and 2. - we move on to the stairs and find the locked door just as the slaves had said - it had 4 slots for gems (red, yellow, green and white iirc) but only 3 were filled so we figured that’s what they meant with the gem on the map so we went there. - the place the map indicated was were 3 guards were last time so we went to fight them - they were in a relatively narrow corridor so sorc threw a fireball at them and did some decent dmg since they all failed saves - me and cleric stayed in the back cause we heard a door that we assumed was a patrol coming by - tho we both tried to shoot some spells at the elite drow but both failed - and ofc, this fucking asshole drow did the fucking darkness shit again like last time cutting our vision of them - sorc threw a scorching ray into the darkness blindly hoping to hit someone and he did so that was cool - I’ll skip a bit forward of this combat - I ran up on the duergar that had just attacked the warlock npc and got a crit and a solid normal attack and finished him off - cleric tried to attack one of them with his spirit weapon, got a crit, but rolled a 1 for both damage die.....

- the elite drow that did the darkness thing runs up on the sorc and smacks him p good leaving him at like 9hp - bard uses dissonant whispers to make him run away so sorc can get some breathing room and maybe retreat, he also got an opp attack against him but missed lol - paladin runs up to attack one of the enemies in the edge of the darkness that we could still see and finishes him. however the other two come out and smack him around a bit doing 37 damage, to which he replied “oh not bad lol” cause of his big as hp pool, even tho it’d be enough to knock out some of our squishier members - after we beat them we were looking around til I noticed signs of a secret room at the end of the corridor, which makes sense that there’d be guards here - we open the secret door and find the treasury which had a ton of money and 4 magic items (which ones in a bit) - I notice the warlock going around with some kind of lamp and ask what he was doing to which he explains that apparently duergar usually have a second secret treasury in their treasuries where they keep their actual important things, so thieves think it’s just the first one - we look around a bit and find the secret door and open it and go into the 2nd place - it had a TON more money and 4 more magic items - we had a lot of back and forth about who would get what but this is how the distribution shaked out

me: Sun Blade (+2 longsword with finesse) cleric: Cape of the Mountebank (dimension door once a day) sorc: Wand of the War Mage +2 (+2 to spell attack rolls and ignore half cover) bard: Ring of Mind Shielding (a lot of things look it up) paladin: Ring of Feather Falling (cause he has boots of flying), Mantle of Spell Resistance (advantage on saving throws against spells), Flame Tongue (Normal sword that can deal an extra 2d6 fire dmg and work as a better torch) We gave the pally the mantle cause he’s already tanky so he can be even harder to kill lol There was also a Dragon Slayer sword but idr if anyone took it? I think we put it in the bag of holding, just in case for the futureTM and that’s it. pretty eventful session this time, even if there was only 2 combats, cause of all the rping and exploring lol

next session should be on the 30th of this month unless something comes up if we find the boss I hope everything goes well cause we’re like 3k away from lvl6 lol

[shinykari]

Girl Gang DND: 10 Things I Hate About Tombs OR A Tomb with a View!

PLAYERS: PLEASE TAKE THE SURVEY LINKED AT THE END!!

When last we left our heroines (many moons ago, since I got too lazy to do write ups), they had just murderized a poor, helpless potion shop owner defeated an evil, apprentice-murdering bastard. They got some sweet, sweet loot out of it, and maaaaaybe a girlfriend??? Either way, they did a Good Thing, and Kadie is very grateful to not be dead.

Acting on a rumor they heard in the inn, the girls tracked down Allad Howthess, the 15th Baron Highsword, in his townhouse in a wealthy neighborhood of Westruun. With a bit of gentle prodding, Allad confesses that he believes his family has been cursed, causing them to lose their money, their lands, even their lives--both his father and grandfather died young, which he attributes to the curse. The curse, he says, was brought down on them by the first Baron Highsword, Sevill Howthess, a rich eccentric who in his later years, became increasingly obsessed with ancient Marquetian culture.

After a few fact/rumor-finding missions, including one to an underground gambling hall, where Bergamot's unerring attraction to unsavory characters reared its head in a little crush on the tiefling proprietor, (name in my notes at home). They managed to get back to the inn before a drunken Kharris was kicked out for fighting, and wiped the floor with the sexist pigs who thought a scantily dressed woman alone at the bar would be an easy target.

(DON’T FORGET TO TAKE THE SURVEY AT THE END!!!!)

The next morning, the party set out into the grasslands surrounding Westruun, with Allad in tow. 36 hours of travel later, they descended into his great-great-great-grandfather's dark, dank tomb. Almost immedietly they were attacked by an invisible entity and a pair of undead, and the entrance to the tomb slammed shut, trapping them inside--and fresh air *outside*. Raina and Allad both fell under the onslaught, though a quick curse removal and some healing was all that it took to get Raina back up. Allad, however, had died, and surmising that it would be hard to get paid by a dead man, Callie used Revivify on him, and they continued deeper into the tomb.

Thanks to Steady's Helm of Comprehending Languages, they were able to puzzle out the mechanism under a statue of Sevill Howthess, and entered into a sarcophagus-filled necropolis. As they exited the maze-like structure, the encountered a squarish room with columns set at regular intervals. Kharris soon stumbled into a trap, and was locked in a small square with some sort of sand elemental in the shape of a dog-headed man. Teamwork and quick thinking (and a liberal use of Steady's Spider Staff) got them across the room without any further casualties, and they ended up entering a large room with three large, stone coffins. Even using utmost care, the party was ambushed by three mummies--they got some cool loot, though, including half of a golden tablet hidden under one of the coffins.

A short rest was enough to let them attune to some new items and heal up, but near the end of the time, party members began suffering headaches and tunnel vision as the carbon dioxide in the sealed tomb began building toward lethal levels. They scooched on outta there quickly, and headed to another section of the tomb, this time coming face to face with a Flameskull and its zombie minions while trying to retrieve what was clearly the other half of the tablet. A fireball nearly took Steady out of the battle, but a nasty sneak attack from Bergamot and a follow-up axe slash from Kharris managed to silence the flameskull (at least for now!). Callie's divine powers kept the zombies from attacking long enough for the group to flee when a massive spiral of flame erupted from the well in the center of the room, scorching the ceiling and sucking all the breathable air out of the room.

With only one wing of the tomb yet explored, they headed east, finding this area completely underwater. Callie and Steady (and the translated golden tablet) led the way, and the group managed to find their way through the maze of underwater passages with relative ease. Of course, nothing is that simple, and they found Baron Sevill Howthess himself at the end of the swim. The dead man's ghost possessed Bergamot, and it wasn't until they knocked her out that they were able to send him to his eternal rest and escape.

The party heaved themselves onto the shore of a small pond, and barely able to move, they decided to simply camp there. The next morning, they headed back toward Westruun, but noticed that Allad somehow looked worse than he had the night before. Callie attempted to remove any curses affecting him, to no avail. By the time they arrived in Westruun, Allad was barely able to walk, his skin turning an ashy grey, as he wasted away nearly in front of their eyes. As they made their way back to the inn, they hear rumors of this new, wasting sickness that affected humans and non-humans alike, and that didn't differentiate between the rich or the poor, the young or the old, though more retired adventurers were affected than any other occupation. Another rumor began spreading through town that a resurrection ritual in the Temple Terrace had failed, despite having all the proper components, and that connected the dots. Raising the dead was no longer an option, and those who were once brought back to life are fighting a slow, inexorable slide back into the grave.

Join us next week for another exciting installment: Rifenmist with Possibilities OR Jungle Boogie!

Experience: Everyone gains 2500 XP for beating up misogynists, killing dead things, revivifying dead bosses (for now), and being possessed by other dead things, which should put you all at 11000 XP total. As a reminder, everyone has a secondary character sheet in Roll20, in the event that you would like to roll up a backup in case of permadeath. Additionally, if you want to switch to a new character, this would be a great time to do so, but is absolutely not required. If you want to hash out new character hooks/relationships, you can ping me here or on Twitter @meinterrupted, or, hell, in Discord.

For new characters: All races/classes/subclasses/archetypes in published books (PHB, DMG, Volo's) are allowable, as well as most stuff in Unearthed Arcana. There are also 2 new backgrounds in Tomb of Annihilation: the Archaeologist and the Anthropologist. (My book is at home, but I can provide deets later today if you want. But yes, you can absolutely be Indiana Jones.) You will begin at the same level as the rest of the party, and we can discuss magic items/inventory when it becomes appropriate (i.e. when your current PC dies, ehehehe).

SURVEY: Since we've been playing for awhile, I wanted to do a little check in on how we've been doing so far, as well as get an idea of what you are interested in going forward. Please take a few minutes and fill out the following survey. It is entirely anonymous, so don't feel that you need to spare my feelings. I know there are places I can improve on, and constructive criticism is welcome!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HY28T6B

@podficcerbynight @blackestglass @freaoscanlin @screaming-towards-apotheosis @rescuemepotts

[crijoh]

So First off let me start with some hard facts, nothing spoilerish just what I have done so far.My current time played is 45hours, I have played 63 games, and lost 47 of them a small number of those I was just messing around. But I have won 9 times and seen 8 different endings.The main reason I am posting here is because I want to sort of pool information. I feel I am knowledgeable enough about the game to answer questions but I still have some questions of my own. Mainly because atm the information for the game on the internet atm is severely limited. So if you have questions ask away.I didn't like the game at first, it was hard, I died way to easily and way too often. But after a bit of a learning curve all of the sudden I couldn't put the game down I wanted to beat the game one more time, I wanted to see who the next hero unlock was... For that reason Alone I don't think I will go into the heroes much for those who have yet to unlock them and want to be surprised.Some simple tips to help beginners1 Breaking the monsters stamina exactly causes a stun, when stunned the monsters take full damage.2 If your hero collides with monsters on his way back because you switch him lanes while he is still on the field he will hit them all on his way also spreading fire/poison/water effects to the enemies he hits.3 The Rouges Double Strike can be stacked multiple times for devastating effect on bosses, or that hard mob. It can be tricky to pull off though because you really need all three people to effectively break stamina perfectly to stun.4 As Far as I know neither spells nor items can be swapped to different characters, so choose wisely who you give what to.5 Ghost monsters become vulnerable to physical attack after being hit by a elemental spell, assuming they are not immune to it. There is even a ghost type boss which you will need to use this on.6 When Frozen an enemy can be damaged like he is stunned for full effect.7 If you Stun a Monster by depleting his stamina perfectly and then attack him he will lose one max stamina making him easier to stun the second time.8 Stamina does not protect monsters from poison, Fire, Lighting, Water, or frost damage. These things damage them through the stamina, as will they also damage you through the stamina.9 Be careful of changing lanes into burning monsters as you will light your hero on fire/poison/water him/her. If he/she is at low health already this could kill them.10 Double Damage elemental weaknesses are Fire -> Frost, Lighting -> water, these are the only ones I am aware of atm if you know of others do share =)11 Each boss as a "way" he is meant to be beaten although you don't have to do that way it is probably the first way you will beat him. As you progress further and further into the game you will come up with devastating combos of your own.12 Spells are more powerful then items, and when combine properly they can wipe entire fields in 2-3 seconds. I am not saying don't buy items, but what I am saying is make sure you have a decent number of spells too and that they work well together. Or at least figure out how to not make them mess each other up.13 There are items you can get which will increase the Chance for you to get a certain element spell from a vendor. They work on any vendor and the person holding the item has to be the one to approach the vendor to get the effect14 Written under the monsters stamina including the bosses is the number of attacks they do. This will help you know whether or not you can safely absorb an attack or not.15 Invulnerability spells will also heal the hero of any elemental damage or effect like burning, frost, poison, ect.16 Don't waste your gold on spell gamblers... It really is a waste and often just drains your gold reserves to the point where you can't buy a spell when it comes along. Sure you might get lucky but later the games are very long and the gamblers are numerous you always end up losing bad on them.17 Always do the Item Gamblers, they are cheap 40 gold a try vs the spell gamblers 110, and well worth it early game, and even mid game. But probably not late game when you are filling up on item slots.18 Others may differ on this but I say always buy the unlimited Item key, It really is worth having infinite keys.19 Every item no matter how crappy gives the hero holding it +50 HP even the skeleton key and maps.20 for long games the maps can be a godsend to make sure you don't go the wrong way and waste a precious stamina/hp camp.21 If you are lucky and end up with lots of candles make use of them as best you can to collect all the resources from a map you can.22 Click the left Thumbstick down to look at the items the character has including their weapon. Each hero has a pretty good starting weapon effect which will help you better understand their intended role and build upon it.23 When a hero attacks he leaves an empty space you can move any of the other two heroes into that space, and through some fiddling you can arrange your heroes in advance for each set attacks. This is very useful and important as some fights come a hairsbreadth away from death.24 Use that pause button a lot it is your best friend, later you might also find out about the fast forward button but until you get good at the game don't even think about it. Also be very careful not to unpause until after you arrange your heroes. They can only be arranged while they leave an empty spot so as soon as you unpause they take their spot again which makes in impossible to move anyone.Ok now onto spoiler stuff When you beat the game for the 9th time what exactly happened? The Heroes all got these little chest icons in the bottom left corner of their portraits. I got no new heroes after winning, just some unlocks. As of right now I have 11 heroes 3 of those are the starters. One of them is an upgraded Luchador wrestler with leopard print and brass knuckles.There are still 25 heroes left however, So I guess at this point I just keep beating the game to get new heroes? But how come I didn't get one on my 9th win?[Hero combinations My favorite by far atm is white knight + Tigress + Luchador(regular version) Although I did notice the robot and the dwarf go well together since they are both poison immune. I just found him hard to use since he didn't backstab on his way back from attacking like the others.The white knight seems like a straight upgrade to the rouge in just about every way and you even get a free extra spell.The Upgraded Luchador doesn't get the free attacks on spell casting and his free spell is less useful then the stamina punch.Tigress's life steal is a lifesaver especially since she is always on fire thanks to her own free spell... lol The bard has a Group Regen which is nice but he can't deal dmg very well at all, the tigress on the other hand does very nice melee dmg and can be beefed up nicely as a support dd.The mage even though he is a starter works very well for high damage spell stacking. thanks to his +30% spell damage weapon.While I loved the warrior and his hot potato, the Luchador and his stamina punch was like a direct upgrade.I think I have ranted enough, I hope this write up helped a little and I am sure I missed something. This game is just so fun and addicting, I can't wait to win my next game and see the next hero. via /r/NintendoSwitch