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Hunting for Success: Hunt Events #41 to 50 (Patreon)

Published:

2020-10-02 06:21:18

Imported:

2024-02

Tags:

Hunt Event

Content

41. Nightmare

An event which is more interesting for its world building rather than its actual effects most of the time. Nightmare's most typical effect is to give a survivor some Insanity and -1 Evasion. On the whole, that trade is fine, but it can be awkward and problematic if it lands on your tank.

The savior bonus, which has them helping the survivor out and giving them +1d5 survival is a fine bonus, but I find the thematic design of this more interesting than the mechanics and I wish there had been more moments where a savior could do interesting things like this.

Finally there is the, not so great moment. This is where you are inflicted with a Twilight Sword (if there is not one already in the settlement) and are forced to carry it. Because the weapon is cursed, this can be a disaster at the wrong time; and in Stars/Sun getting the weapon early on, even with the slight bonus to the weapon proficiency (which makes its accuracy a more tolerable 8+) means it isn't a great situation.

But, but. This is a better way of getting the sword than 40. Dream is, and you do at least get a small amount of mitigation towards the most awkward and problematic element of the sword (it's accuracy when you are starting out using it). So, it could have been a lot worse.

42. Surgeon

It's the Dark Surgeon from the Great City! This simple event is nothing other than fantastic, having one of the few ways to fix many severe injuries in the game. It also allows one to remove impairments, which is incredibly rare. A welcome respite in the darkness, even if the Dark Surgeon is not a nice person overall.

43. Fresh Kill

An indicator of how the game was originally designed, with each survivor playing in a selfish manner and keeping all resources for themselves. This event gives the survivors +1 basic resource and +1 vermin resource.

The main spot of concern, here is that because the players have no control over who wins, you can't avoid a binge eater getting their hands on a vermin resource and consuming it. If they win the putrid prize, they're going to eat it. Watch out for that.

44. Opportunists

I have never, ever, in the entire time I have played picked fighting the smaller monster. The 50% reduction in resources gained does not seem worth the selection for anyone outside of settlements that are in a losing, death spiral. Still, even a settlement in a death spiral might not want to take this, because at that point they need big resource boosts to get out of the pit and are better off going high risk, high reward.

The trade off is also not equal, the monster loses 50% of its resource drops at the end of the fight, but doesn't lose 50% of its wounds, it loses 5, total.

So I guess the question is, has anyone ever picked this? And if so, why? Let me know if you did.

45. Jagged Valley

One would hope that by the time you encounter the jagged valley, the gear item bandages has become a permanent part of your hunting kit (though if you have a first aid kit instead, for some reason that doesn't work here).

With a pickaxe you also get to try and gain a resource or two. This is a Hissing Cockroach 90% of the time (Costing one survival) and also Iron 50% of the time. Either way doing this forces the draw of an extra hunt event.

The 1 result though is very lethal and any hunt party without survival on all its members (or an OWL survivor doing the investigation) should probably skip out, because potentially trading a survivor for a chance to get a mediocre vermin resource + an iron is not a great risk/reward proposition.

46. River

A forced investigation for all, this event can result in (20%) infection from some massive parasite that causes a broken rib and then does nothing to you ever again, which is a bit weird. (30%) it causes a survivor to suffer 1 event damage to a random location. (30%) It gives you a basic resource but strips your survival to 1 if you are wearing heavy gear (note wearing, not carrying), and on a 9+ you get out of this with no problems and find the monster's trail.

Sheesh, sucks to wear heavy gear right? Just as well the game makes heavy armor so much stronger than non-heavy stuff to compensate... Wait, no, of course it doesn't. Just don't wear heavy armor on hunts unless you are really OK with bad stuff happening to the survivor in it.

47. Banquet Trees

An interesting event for world building, the fruit of these trees calls to the red fluid in the Crimson Candy vials from the Manhunter (which are also made from blood) and most of the time strips 1 survivor from each survivor because consuming the fruit is not very sensible or healthy plan.

A Sickle negates this event entirely, which is another argument for carrying one of these in every hunt party once you have access to leather.

48. Death Wager

The Gambler's first appearance and a very mechanically/thematically sweet event. This one is an archetypal 'roll 1 and die' mechanic which plagues a lot of the Hunt Phase, and I don't think that part of the event is very interesting.

I do love how the event forces everyone to be completely silent during this, it is a wonderful roleplaying moment without putting people into an awkward position where they feel uncomfortable (Weird Dream).

The most broken part of this one? If you have Otherworldly Luck (OWL) then you are always getting +1 Luck. Nice.

49. Pus Fields

It's been a while since we've had a hunt event which actually gave the survivors a choice hasn't it? Here you have to decide if you want to draw another hunt event by carefully treading through the mounds or you can all rush through and risk event damage (plus becoming stinky which matters against the Dung Beetle Knight).

Most of the time, because it is 2 event damage, you will carefully tread through this one and get another hunt event. But for groups with solid evasion and decent leg armor, rushing through is a viable proposition.

I would like to take a moment to just say that this is the kind of thing that makes for a decent hunt event. There is a decision moment, there is risk involved in either choice and you are being asked to pick the best of a bad situation. Good design.

50. Gibbet

Gibbet is a relatively simple decision point, if you have any resources gained from the hunt at this point and you do not need population, then you should refuse to free this man and suffer the 1 brain event damage.

If you have no resources on you, then the decision is to always open the cage, because it is 30% chance of gaining +1 population vs 10% chance of 2 brain event damage (instead of the 1 you get for walking by).

I still appreciate the decision point in this hunt event, even if it is more simple to solve than the Pus Fields.

And here are the counts to date, when we get this series finished we will use all of the data below to pull together general rules about how you should construct your hunt party and what keywords are more likely to harm or help than others! Halfway there!