Following up from my last post which covered how you upgrade your Guild, today I'd like to talk a little bit about how classes work in Guild of Dungeoneering.
Character Classes
Hero archetypes aka classes are as old as the hills. It's a concept that lets you say that this hero is good at healing and that one is better at smashing faces and basically everyone gets it straight away. So naturally we're using classes in Guild of Dungeoneering! We do have a couple of twists. Firstly a lot of our classes don't sound like the regular fantasy RPG classes as we're willing to let a little humour invade this sometimes overly serious genre. Secondly since heroes always get reset (you can level-up in a single dungeon run, but once you are back in the guild it's back to their starting stats) we are using the unlocking of new classes as a replacement for how you might level-up a single hero in other games. Essentially your guild is the hero you are role-playing as in Guild of Dungeoneering, and thus that's what you level up and customise.
But lets talk a bit about the actual hero classes you'll be filling your guild with. Lets start with the Chump which is the not-very-good dungeoneer you start out with.
The Chump
The Chump. Not the sharpest tool in the guild's toolbox.
Every character class comes with six cards comprising their starting battle deck. These are the moves you'll be using in combat, and you are able to add to them by finding equipment on dungeon runs. But those starting six are very important. Unfortunately the Chump's battle deck is pretty lackluster.
Keep your eyes open when you're punching!
So that's three weak attacks (that's the icon for 1 physical damage), one ok attack and then two weak blocks. And to add to that Chumps have no special abilities. Better find them some sweet loot as soon as possible if you want to beat any bosses. On the plus side they are so awful that they make everyone else look pretty good!
The Cat Burglar
I hope you like cat puns. I meow I do!
The Cat Burglar is one of four classes you can unlock quite early on in the game, what we call the Tier 1 classes (the chump is the only Tier 0 class). Each of the four has it's own special playstyle, strengths and weaknesses so you are very likely to find some of them are better for particular adventures. What does the Cat Burglar's combat deck look like?
Who throws a cat? Honestly!?
So the Cat Burglar is specialised around dealing out physical damage only, including an unblockable attack (pounce), a quick attack (scratch) and two self-buffs (catnip) which let you bide your time before striking even harder – ie when a monster's guard is down and they don't have a block ready. Their downside is that they have absolutely no blocking in their starting deck. Maybe something you could shore up with some equipment? Or you could push their specialty even more with some more quick attacks. The choice is yours! And they do have one starting trait called [Covetous] which gives them one additional choice of loot card after each battle – so you will be more likely to be able to specialise them in a given dungeon run.
The (Aging) Barbarian
A barbarian? Sounds pretty powerful! Woah – this one seems a bit OLD
The Barbarian is one of our Tier 2 classes that becomes available a little further into the game. It sounds like a regular fantasy class but we've decided to make the ones that join YOUR guild really, really old. Well, beggars can't be choosers you know! So what's their battle deck look like?
Remember: every time you play the howl card you should also howl in real life!
Ok, that's a LOT of damage output with 4 cards dealing two physical damage and one even doing three, though a lot of them come with a penalty where the barbarian also hurts themself. Withstand is a unique card which stops them dying for the next two rounds – very powerful! They also start with a special trait called [Deathwish] which gives them +2 health in any battle against a monster of higher level. Finally their AI is special in that they are drawn to attack monsters that are of higher level than themself (most dungeoneers try and avoid these monsters). These things all add up to a class that can take down monsters other classes wouldn't have a hope against early on in dungeon runs. But do Barbarians have the late-dungeon staying power those other classes have? Well I guess you'll have to see!
Adventures & Quests
That's just a quick peek at three classes. There's 14 different ones in the game for you to enjoy! Join me next time when I talk about the Adventure & Quest system and the world map.
Thanks!
Colm
