Fully Grounded: #2 Debris (Patreon)

This is part of the terrain series, other entries can be found at the contents page here.

Terrain from Emporium Miniatures. Link:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/EmporiumMiniatures  

• Number: 2
• Size: 1x1
• Passive: No
• Activate: Yes
• Obstacle: No
• Classification: Resource

The Debris pile is a really weird one, not only was it completely lacking a 7 on the table (classic Poots), but when updated it the 7 was turned into another 'gain a bone sword' instead of becoming +1 basic resource. This is a TERRIBLE update and it means the debris is a piece of terrain that wildly falls off in scaling the later into a campaign you go. That is because 30% of the time, this terrain piece gives you a fixed piece of gear, either a bone sword or a scrap sword.

The bone sword is pretty much useless after the first one or two lantern years because of the way weapon progression is designed in KDM and the Scrap Sword becomes useless once you are past the Weapon Crafter location and onto the Node 3 monsters.

This means that the Debris pile varies wildly in power, with a Scrap Sword gained in LY<4 being a huge boost for a settlement and almost useless for any other settlement (except for turning it into the utterly busted Tempered Spear if you have the 10th Anniversary patterns, another reason that collection of patterns helps improve the game experience).

Another oddity with the Debris is that it is always going to give you something as long as you do not kill the monster before succeeding in your roll. Given that there is a 40% chance of getting a basic resource and the worst result is only a knockdown, this means that you can end up with a survivor sat rummaging through the debris pile for quite a while (or sexily dancing around it to coax out its secrets in the case of when Martyn spent an entire fight doing nothing but interacting with a Debris). 

Unlike most 'gathering item bonuses' on terrain, the Scavenger Kit bonus is neutral for this piece of terrain and there is no reason to go after it. Because while it does remove all the 'no gain' results from the table, it replaces them with Scrap Swords. This is because the Scavenger Kit is located in the Barber Surgeon and any settlement that unlocks that has a) innovated Pottery and b) slain a L2 Antelope - which means they are already advanced to the point where they do not need a Scrap Sword most of the time because the statline on that weapon is no better than most LY 1 monster weapons.

Ultimately the Debris pile outside of the early game is a bit of a bust, you do want to interact with it to get your hands on the basic resource, because every resource matters. But 30% of the time you're going to end up with something that might be completely useless.