Heroes

Heroes are characters used by the player when assembling parties and expeditions to explore dungeons. They are divided into several classes, roles, and specializations that define their appearance and abilities. Each character has different skills and can fill different roles in combat. Each class also has unique barks as a reaction to many situations. Different heroes from the same class have the same base stats and can access the same skills; they differ by what they have learned and (more importantly) what quirks they have.

Characters are available to be recruited free of charge through the Ferry, where they are generated with a random name, set of quirks, and class. Pre-made Heroes are also available.

Stats

Each character has six different stats, normally determined by their class and their equipment. Stats improve when the hero's Resolve level increases or their equipment is upgraded, but can also be augmented through the use of trinkets. Stats are also influenced by quirks and diseases, either positively or negatively, and it is possible to acquire temporary effects influencing a hero's stats as a side effect of several Flameseeker activities or curio interactions. Stats are also used by monsters, but only defensive ones (Dodge, Protection, and Speed) are displayed to the player.

Accuracy Modifier

Abbreviated as ACC, the accuracy modifier is the bonus (or penalty) applied to the accuracy of all attacks used by the character. Accuracy, abbreviated as ACC, is the overall chance of landing offensive abilities. The final chance of hitting an enemy is given by the base accuracy of the ability (which depends on its upgrade tier), modified by any quirk, trinket, buff, and/or debuff modifiers, the hero's accuracy modifier, a further hidden +5 ACC, and minus the target's Dodge; the resultant number is the percentage chance for the attack to hit. You’ll need a displayed 95% hit chance for the game to internally modify this to a guaranteed hit. You also gain a +4 ACC bonus for any consecutive miss in a row after the first one.

During the Preparation round, all monsters and heroes have their ACC halved for most skills. Those that ignore this will state "Ignores Prep Round's ACC Reduction". Additionally enemies also have skills that ignore the ACC reduction, often times this is a weaker version of another move, this is not illustrated to the player.

Critical Chance

Additional details: Critical Hit

Abbreviated as CRIT, critical chance determines the chance of an attack scoring a critical hit. A critical hit will cause the attack to inflict 1.5 * maximum damage (note that the actual maximum damage is not an integer and might be less than what is shown), prolong the duration of any blight or bleed inflicted by 2 turns, and apply a unique self-buff based on the hero's class. Critical hits inflicted by enemies will also cause 10 stress damage to the victim (subject to multiplication by applicable Stress modifiers), along with a 50% chance to cause 5 stress damage to each party member. Conversely, when a hero lands a critical hit on the enemy, the hero will receive a 3 stress heal, and each other party member has a 25% chance to receive the same. If an enemy is killed with a critical strike, the stress heal from both events is added up, and the enemy will leave no corpse. If the hero deals a critical strike to a corpse, they will not regain any stress, unless the critical strike comes from an AOE.

In addition to using trinkets and abilities to improve hero CRIT, all heroes will also gain a bonus to critical chance when fighting at low light levels, as a reward for a more risky approach.

It is also possible for a heal to score a critical, in which case the hero being healed will experience 4 Stress heal in addition to a doubled amount of health points recovered. The chance of a critical heal does not use a hero's CRIT stat, but instead has its own fixed critical hit chance. The critical heal chance for single target heals (excluding self-heals) is 12%. Every other heal skill (including self-heals) has a 5% chance to be critical. Critical heals will double the amount of heal (a heal for 0 is never considered as a critical heal by the game). Certain abilities combine both a health heal and stress heal, in which case, the crit doubles only the Health portion of the heal (although the 4 Stress recovery from the crit heal will be added onto the skill's own Stress relief).

Multi-target attacks will suffer a negative modifier to their critical chance. This is a multiplicative modifier which are in ascending order: Double -40%, Triple -60%, Quadruple -70%. This means that if you have a 10% chance to crit, with a 2-Target attack your chance to crit both enemies is 10% * (1 - 0.4) = 6%. The CRIT value for skills on Hero / Enemy pages has been adjusted using this modifier, shown in Bold.

During the Preparation round, all monsters and heroes are effectively unable to crit suffering a -200% critical chance penalty.

Damage

Damage, or DMG, determines the amount of hit points removed from the victim's health when successfully landing an attack. The damage of any attack is calculated on the base damage of the character, which is a range showing a minimum and maximum damage value. This range of values is determined by the hero class and the tier of the weapon upgrade the hero possesses. When successfully hitting with an attack ability, a value between the minimum and maximum damage is determined randomly, and then modified by any quirk, trinket, buff, debuff, and by the attack ability's modifier if any. Finally, before lowering the victim's health points, damage is reduced by the victim's Protection percentage. This mechanic works similarly for heroes attacking enemies, and vice versa.

Dodge

Dodge indicates the chances of avoiding an attack directed at the unit; it is directly subtracted from an attack's Accuracy, and the resultant number will be the percentage chance of the attack landing successfully. As all heroes and monsters have a hidden +5 ACC, minimal result value of 95 is needed to have a guaranteed hit (displayed as 95% hit chance). This mechanic works similarly for heroes attacking enemies, and vice versa.

The base Dodge value of a hero is determined primarily by their class and the tier of their armor upgrade, modified by any quirk, buff, debuff or trinket bonuses/penalties.

Protection

Protection, or PROT, is a value that reduces any direct damage suffered by the character by a percentage. Protection does not influence damage caused by blight or bleed, only direct damage. Protection can be increased by certain abilities that apply buffs, and conversely, it can be reduced by means of some debuff abilities (many of which also inflict a mark). Many enemies make use of protection, and heroes can gain protection values as well by equipping certain trinkets or utilizing certain abilities. The Hard Skinned quirk also provides a base protection value to a hero. Protection is capped, and can't be raised higher than 80%.

Notable for its rarity, there are a handful of hero abilities that ignore enemy PROT in part or in whole. These are the Shieldbreaker's "Pierce" skill or partially by her "Snake Eyes" camping skill, as well as the Grave Robber's "Pick to the Face" ability.

Speed

Speed, or SPD, determines the priority the hero has over other characters and enemies during battle. At the very start of each round of combat, a random number ranging from 1 to 12 is determined for each character, and the SPD value of the character is added to this; the likeliness of order that each character takes their turn is based on this number, starting from the highest and ending with the lowest. A hero/monster with speed of 8 is more likely to act before someone with speed of 5, but this is not guaranteed. For heroes, speed is determined by a base value depending on class and weapon level, modified by any applicable trinkets, buffs, debuffs, and quirks. Taking an action before an enemy unit is advantageous, as it provides the opportunity to disrupt that unit's turn by stunning it, moving it to a disadvantageous position, debuffing its damage, or simply killing it outright, before it can act. In certain specific situations, it is beneficial to have heroes to take their turns in a certain order; for example, using one hero to mark an enemy before performing a follow-up attack with another hero that can take advantage of marks.

Persistent elements

Quirks

Each character is created with a set of random quirks, both positive and negative, influencing their effectiveness in various situations inside and outside expeditions. Quirks can be treated at the Flameseeker by using the Clinic, to remove negative/positive quirks. New Quirks are acquired upon finishing an expedition, or interacting with some curios. Characters can have up to 5 quirks of each type.

In Black Reliquary all positive quirks are locked in by default and no quirk will be replaced if there are no slots left.

Diseases

Dieases have been overhauled now instead of getting diseases straight away Heroes will get a Symptom. These can be removed with a new provision, the Disease Kit, the Clinic, or certain camping skills. However if left untreated they will develop into a Disease like normal which can then only be tended by a Disease Kit reducing its effects, this a temporary solution as there is a chance the Disease will become untended after some time.

Symptoms can be gained as a result of certain curio interactions, enemy attacks or trinket effects.

Stress

As a result of roaming dark dungeons, heroes will gradually accumulate stress. If a hero is too stressed, they will develop an affliction, causing them to acquire heavy penalties, occasionally disobey orders, and regularly inflict stress damage on their companions. Extreme amounts of stress may also cause a heart attack, possibly killing the hero on the spot.

Stress can also be inflicted by some monster attacks and by any suffered critical strike, plus a variety of other events and situations. Stress will not deplete when concluding a quest and will normally need to be healed by using certain hero abilities, or by paying a fee in gold to place the hero in a stress relief facility such as the Galley or Amber Workshop. With Electrum Hearth or/and Automat Side Deck Heroes will heal +5/+15 stress when idle for the week.

Death

The death of a hero in Black Reliquary is permanent. A dead hero will not return from an expedition, causing all their abilities and upgrades to be lost. When a hero dies, any equipped trinkets will be dropped and can be picked up by surviving heroes if they win the current battle.

Death will most likely occur during combat as a result of excessive damage taken, but it is also possible to die as a result of excessive stress causing a Heart attack or by influence of damage over time, such as bleeding and blight, which persist through battles. Certain boss battles or dungeons can cause a hero's death if a retreat or quest abandonment is performed at an inopportune moment, essentially abandoning the hero to die. Death can be avoided by healing the hero when they are on Death's Door (by using an ability, or by using food when not in combat) and by preventing them from reaching 200 stress.

The only way a dead hero can return is via a rare town event called "The Stranger"; even so, the heroes offered for possible resurrection are randomly selected from the Flame Seekers's Funeral Site. The resurrected hero will retain their Resolve Level and any Quirks they had, including locked-in ones. However, they will only have four random abilities at level 1, and no equipment upgrades.

Abilities

Each hero belongs to a class, which determines the hero's abilities, statistics, and appearance. Every class has a set of seven combat abilities and seven camping skills, of which a maximum of four can be active at a time.

Combat skills

At the time of their recruitment at the Ferry, a level 1 hero will have four of their seven combat abilities unlocked (except the Abomination, which always starts with all seven combat skills), and three out of seven camping skills. Each hero may have up to four combat abilities active, but, as long as they have been learned (unlocked) through the Training Hall, it is possible to change the active ones at any time, except when in combat. Learned Camping skills may likewise be changed at any time, except when in the middle of a camp or in combat.

[Note: It is possible to mistakenly select less than four active abilities (and no warning will be given by the game). This will lead to a significant disadvantage if entering combat with less than four active abilities, and the mistake cannot be corrected until after the combat is over.]

Combat skills can be leveled up by using the Training Hall building in the Flameseeker, improving various aspects of them at a cost. This also makes the value of each improved hero higher, discouraging the player to take too many risks while using them, for fear of losing all the resources spent to enhance them.

Stalling

While not a strict categorization, some skills are considered to be stalling skills. In general, stalling skills encompass skills which heal/stress heal/buff heroes or reduce enemy damage output (stuns, damage/accuracy debuffs). The act of stalling involves prolonging a combat as long as possible, while minimize the enemy's opportunity to attack, so that the player can cast as many health heals and stress heals as possible, before the combat ends.

Stalling is now also defined by whether the player uses too many stalling skills per round. The current value is 1, meaning that using any stall move counts as stalling when there are 2 or fewer enemies remaining. Some enemies accelerate stalling, bringing reinforcements rapidly (1 round) if only "accelerated stall" enemies are left alive. Large enemies still don’t trigger stalling, therefore as long as the player can safely manage the surviving Large enemy, they can stall as long as needed.

The player will be warned by one of their party members when the stalling penalty has triggered, causing party wide stress. The turn after this one will spawn reinforcements if the encounter is not ended.

Camping skills

Camping skills must be learned through the Gaspard, with a maximum of four active at a time, though only three of them will be learned at the start. Just like combat skills, they can be changed while inside an expedition, as long as you are not camping or fighting.

Camping skills have only one tier of upgrade (thus they are either learned, or not learned). However, learning them is more costly than unlocking a combat ability. Of the seven camping skills available to any class, three are standard camping skills available to all classes, while four are unique to each class. One of the aforementioned three standard camping skills will always be already learned when a hero is recruited.

Base Heroes

Heroes in Black Reliquary. Those underlined are new from the base game.

Addon Heroes

Heroes that must be enabled in the addons section to be used in-game. Unlike the Dredge and Judicator they are conversions of base-game mods.