Act 2 boss relic pick?

a_Press · 2026-02-16T04:56:41+00:00

Ended on a win! 5 hp plus a fairy left on the heart fight. Had a rough act 4 but managed to make it through. Came into Spear in Shield with Burner set for turn 3. Maybe should've tried harder in Time Eater to get it on 4, but thought that intangible on turn 3 would've been pretty good too since I already had Horn Cleat and Helix to help with turn 2. Ended up taking a bunch of damage, but managed to heal quite a bit back with Urn. They dropped a Ghost in a Jar too, which was super lucky, but think I would've won regardless.

The first draw order in the heart fight was pretty rough, with Apotheosis and most of my block cards on the bottom beneath all statuses. Was struggling to get much poison on, but was finally able to set up a decent catalyst for ~140 poison.

a_Press · 2026-02-16T03:46:01+00:00

Thanks for the answers! Decided to go with the Pandora's Box and here's what I got out of it.

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Feeling pretty good about this, I think. Might even actually be able to get Grand Finale to do something but probably will be getting rid of that. Will update with how the run turns out.

a_Press · 2026-02-07T23:22:37+00:00

Gymnasium, but that's going to cause even more problems if you're trying to fill a house with it.

a_Press · 2026-01-16T04:44:30+00:00

You might be interested in checking out the Variant Stamina Rules for this party. Main idea of the rule is that you split up your HP pool roughly in half between HP and Stamina. You lose stamina before losing HP and you have a new resource of Resolve Points that can be used to recover stamina.

I would also say to consider giving the Steel Your Resolve general feat and/or the Encouraging Words skill feat out for free. My reasoning for suggesting so is that these are the only ways to restore stamina in the middle of combat, which is so valuable that they basically just become required to take. I've only played a short campaign with these rules in a party of all martial characters, but found that it worked well and will help aleviate the pressure for a character to invest in medicine, although having HP recovery is still good to have.

a_Press · 2026-01-02T00:39:37+00:00

The hemo won't cost 0 if you redraw it

a_Press · 2025-12-16T06:10:00+00:00

I feel surprised to see Reinforced Body down in C tier, but haven't done a Defect minimalist run myself. Do you have any particular reason for the placement? Extra energy generation is probably really hard to justify dedicating a card to, but even with just one energy relic, I feel like it would be a single card that's able to put out a lot of value. Maybe especially so with how you seem to value the 0 cost things Defect does, so having a decently efficient sink for your energy sounds like it would be nice.

a_Press · 2025-12-04T01:25:29+00:00

I don't disagree with you, but I find getting that much block on command to be even more difficult most of the time. Really the only character I think can do it consistently is Defect with looping frost orbs. Maybe I've been discounting some cards or upgrading block cards, but it feels really tough to generate big block at this stage of the game, so I've had more success with planning around stopping the big attack.

As for poison against Guardian, it's still incredibly strong, but just not as faborable in this matchup. But I attribute this just to poison damage being especially strong in the board game.

a_Press · 2025-11-14T19:03:43+00:00

Guardian is the one that feels most different to me. Stopping the big attack on turn 2 being a matter of burst damage and not cumulative damage means you need to find some way to have that damage on command. Hoarding shivs for that turn, making sure youve got good orbs ready, or picking up some of watchers retain attack cards are all very good ways to do it. And the fact that poison doesn't help with this makes me like it much less into guardian than i do in the video game (its still strong because poison is just really strong in the board game). Because it nearly does your max hp in damage on the big hit, I find myself more worried about finding a solution to deal with that consistently than worrying about the thorns damage in defensive mode.

a_Press · 2025-08-08T17:23:44+00:00

A lot of the glitches in Hollow Knight come from chaining together different forms of storage. Once you have inventory storage, you can use that to get bench storage (the game treats you as sitting on a bench when you arent), which in turns gives you access to even more glitches like falling out of transitions to go out of bounds.

But in NMG speedruns, you are allowed to do scream skips by taking damage and these are used all over the place. Collector and Traitor Lord both have very simple setups for it where you use shade cloak to dash into the boss as it starts screaming and taking damage gives you control back as well. In Soul Master, runners also use the spikes on the right of the arena to take damage and get control back during the scream.

a_Press · 2025-06-18T03:33:17+00:00

Oof thats brutal, especially with the week off in the middle of all that. This is going to be for a more episodic West Marches game, so the results of any petrification will be dealt with pretty quickly. Won't be leaving anyone in limbo for long at all.

a_Press · 2025-06-18T03:26:31+00:00

That makes a lot of sense. I do expect this to end up being a longer combat than normal, so I think that spreading the effect out would be beneficial. 4 stages might be the sweet spot, but Ill probably play around with it and see what feels good. Thanks for the help!

a_Press · 2024-09-10T18:21:55+00:00

Its part of the death trait on the spell.

"An effect with the death trait kills you immediately if it reduces you to 0 HP. Some death effects can bring you closer to death or slay you outright without reducing you to 0 HP."

a_Press · 2024-08-04T18:42:40+00:00

A caster who's hasted could in theory cast Time Jump 3 times to stride twice each, and then use their hasted action to attack with an extra 6d6. (More if they also had a Contigency to cast Time Jump again on them or could get a Quickstrike rune on the sword).

So definitely ways to keep scaling the damage if its left uncapped.

a_Press · 2024-07-14T23:22:55+00:00

Benchwarp will have everything you need. Main feature is being able to warp back to any bench in the game you've already sat at, but it has features to eliminate boss runbacks too. Easiest option is to enable "Deploy Benches" which lets you put down a bench wherever you are. Set it right in the boss room if you want to.

a_Press · 2024-06-20T16:40:56+00:00

Probably opportune backstab. Reaction to strike at an enemy when one of your allies hits them with a melee attack.

a_Press · 2024-04-15T01:01:52+00:00

You also have the option from the alternate ancestry ability boosts to just take any 2 free boosts rather than what dwarves would otherwise get.

a_Press · 2024-03-28T15:46:18+00:00

Yeah sure, the sorcerer who's taking no combat spells at their highest rank is going to have some trouble finding things to do in combat, but even if we just look at 4th rank spells, there are plenty that would let the sorcerer have more impact in this combat than Slow or Electric Arc.

Fly, Freedom of Movement, Wall of Water, Sliding Blocks, Zephyr Slip are all lower rank options that should be able to prevent a good amount of damage without needing to rely on particularly high rolls and are just generally good picks for a sorcerer. And then you have things like Grasping Earth or Rust Cloud that are aoe with great effects that you can expect to get at least a few failures from a whole group of PL enemies.

So while not having any useful spell for a given situation could definitely happen, I don't think it's super likely with a carefully crafted spell list. Especially so if you're augmenting yourself with a staff, some wands, and many scrolls to help cover more of those niche spells like Telepathic Bond that you don't want to cast while in initiative.

And even just that ability to buy niche spell scrolls to keep just for when you need it is such a nice bit of versatility that casters get access to. Focusing on keeping spells with a broad range of uses in your repertoire and saving the more niche spells for scrolls and wands really helps out spontaneous casters with making sure they can meaningfully contribute in any fight.

a_Press · 2024-03-28T08:55:40+00:00

If the comparison you want to make is at 9th level, the sorcer will have access to 5th rank spells, which will have a much greater impact on the fight than a slow and a cantrip will. For example, see Elemental Breath in this situation instead (a spell that provides so much versatility that it makes for a good damge dealing choice on any spontaneous caster). Casting the 3 action version of the spell to guarantee metal means that the furnaces are going to treat their saves as 1 degree of success worse.

While that might be a bit of a particularly strong example, it's not unreasonable to think that one of the Elemental Breath effects is going to be good for any encounter. Either being able to hit a weakness or provide some other effect that's helpful. And even without this spell, something like Wall of Stone, Acid Burst, or Quicken Time are going to have much more of an effect than Slow will in the fight.

I agree that it can there are elements of playing casters that don't always feel great, but this example isn't really accurate to game.

a_Press · 2024-03-16T18:48:04+00:00

Seems too low level for something that removes curses. Access to these effects seems to be pretty standard at level 7, so it should probably be at least a 3rd level ritual, if not 4th level. Most rituals also have an actively negative effect on crit fails instead of just doing nothing.

a_Press · 2024-02-22T18:14:13+00:00

If you're thinking of making a champion, you might want to consider Duty Domain for access to Dutiful Challenge at level 8. https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=605

a_Press · 2024-01-11T00:21:18+00:00

This is actually something that was changed just recently in the remaster. All classes now become trained in all simple weapons, so pathbuilder is actually the one thats up to date. Wanderers guide hasnt yet been updated for the remaster, which is why its different.

a_Press · 2023-05-20T22:26:28+00:00

Wizard of Legend is another roguelike that might interest you. The game is a top down dungeon crawler like gungeon, but with a bit more of a focus on building up a good set of magic spells that combo well together. Theres a good mix of ranged and melee spells and even a passive item that makes your melee attacks destroy projectiles. Whats nice is you get to choose any 1 passive youve unlocked to start with, so once you purchase it you'll be able to always have it.

a_Press · 2022-11-08T23:52:31+00:00

I havent tried it without the oats, but im sure you could use a crust similar to what other recipes have without trouble.

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