This mod is extremely tough on Radiant!! The dev designied for darkest though. Trust me it is a mod for masochist.

PBD requires quite a different mindset than when playing the base game. While the goals are the same in each, the ways to achieve those goals are different. Feel free to type out what seems to be giving you the most difficulty in your runs and I can give you some of the strategies to deal with them.

I hear you, I really do. But I've had to restart four different runs after ~3 missions because I lost a hero on each mission and I can't afford that much attrition early given the death limit. For heaven's sakes, I've lost heroes on the two scripted missions, and even once in the tutorial area (the starting Highwayman got killed in the 2-man encounter). I originally assumed that the mod was designed to be run at the higher difficulty level, which probably didn't help. Should reasonable players be playing it on Stygian?

Also, I hear what you're saying that I need to be playing with a different mindset- but given how early in the game I am, I don't really know how many options there actually are at that point. Additionally, a lot of classes seem like they've lost vital tools in their toolkit As a few examples:

The Houndmaster can't viably dodge-tank anymore, since his Guard no longer provides him with any meaningful buff. He also can't stress-heal the party any more (I know his skill cures Horror, but that's situational and unpredictable). Hasn't he lost a lot of his utility as a result?

I don't know how to make the Leper work early-game. He can't functionally buff himself or debuff enemies, because marking himself is just suicidal at this point in the game. His damage just doesn't seem like it's anywhere near enough to make up for his low accuracy- especially given that corpses are important to clear, and if he kills something I can't clear the corpse before it gets an action.


I saw that you replied to a post in another thread that was complaining about DoTs by noting that, among other things, the Antiquarian has a cure to help you. ...I just can't see how a 20-30% chance to cure is meant to feasibly help you here.

Finally- is it kind of cheating or exploitative to look up curios effects in the spreadsheet that you made? On the one hand, DD is about discovery, and I do like the little hints that we're given. On the other hand, I'm tired of running into minibosses I've never seen before with a level 0 party that has a single trinket between them when I only have 10 hero deaths before I lose.

(P.S. I kind of second what people are saying about dungeon runs being unrewarding. I only earn about 3-4K from loot or so on short runs, interacting with all curios favorably. The only time I've managed to break that was when I killed the Necromancer miniboss after meeting him by surprise- and that killed a party member during the fight, forcing me to retreat).

This is a lot to unpack, so forgive me if I forget something

-100% not meant to be played on Stygian at all; highly recommend against it both due to the week/death limits and the increase in enemy HP and crit.

-You shouldn't really be losing a lot of heroes in Apprentice. Maybe a few to minibosses, but Apprentice PBD has roughly the same HP and damage values on enemies as vanilla Apprentice. App PBD is largely meant to be a tutorial difficulty of sorts, allowing you to practice and get used to changes. If you're losing a lot of heroes here, we should discuss the team comps you're using and the enemies that are killing you.

-Heroes have had some changes that are meant to encourage synergy as opposed to spamming, but I recommend that you don't ignore self-marking. Heroes have base PROT and Dodge depending on their class, and this can be incredibly important. Tanks are meant to tank and protect. The HM can be turned into a good dodge tank, while the Leper can be turned into a great PROT tank. If you're having trouble with the Leper's ACC, try pairing him with an Anti or Jester. His skill ACC values are roughly the same as vanilla, and so are the enemy dodge values.

-DoT cure chances are there as added benefits for dealing with DoTs. They're not intended to be reliable, but they absolutely can save you if you're lucky.

-100% not cheating in my view to use guides. The curio system is not really friendly for testing items, and I understand it can be impossible to risk trying an item just to see if it works or not. I support using the curio guide I made for that reason, as well as the potion spreadsheet for accurate values on effects, or even backing up saves so that a ton of progress isn't lost due to one bad streak of luck.

-If runs are unrewarding there are a few things I can recommend. Longer runs are generally more rewarding and arguably easier due to the extra camps. Lore is worth 500 each, but when you collect them all the game will drop 500 gold pieces instead; some of my veteran players do lore runs to read the story and make it easier to get gold. Minibosses are a main source of money, being worth at least 3k gold each; find the one that you can kill the easiest or like fighting the most. Collector is a bit tougher to spawn, but also worth a lot of cash (2.5k-5k).

-It's possible you're oversupplying, so if you think that might be an issue, tell me what you usually bring on a short ruins run and we can see if anything isn't really needed.

Its a good mod. I saw the OP comment that you are a good strategy game player, this mod will check that. I love it but it is brutal as it is intended.

My biggest issue is probably the Black plague. If you don't have any means to cure it, you have to abandon the run. The game can always be cheap with monster crits and such but the debuffs from this disease are way to strong.

A reduction in max hp should not be combined with -100% death blow resist.

Originally posted by Edolf:

My biggest issue is probably the Black plague. If you don't have any means to cure it, you have to abandon the run. The game can always be cheap with monster crits and such but the debuffs from this disease are way to strong.

A reduction in max hp should not be combined with -100% death blow resist.

Yeah, the plague is nasty. Don't forget that Wound Care has a cure chance!

Originally posted by Edolf:

My biggest issue is probably the Black plague. If you don't have any means to cure it, you have to abandon the run. The game can always be cheap with monster crits and such but the debuffs from this disease are way to strong.

A reduction in max hp should not be combined with -100% death blow resist.

Yep and abandoning runs wreaks havoc on your gold supply. This is really my only issue with the mod. You can easily find yourself in a situation with only the weakest of your party available to go on runs... your strongest stressed to the max with no way to cure them and finally not enough money to pay for provisions for a simple run. I mod the mod here, book pages worth a 1000 and gems 3 times as much, and because I overkill on provisions...I still end up broke....lol.

@Maester Silvio

I was so early in the game that I had very little choice with regards to team composition. Given that I had to abandon by ~4 weeks in on a regular basis, I didn't get access to all that much- IIRC I only ever saw BH, Occultist, Leper, Antiquarian, Abom, and Shieldbreaker as additional classes over the initial 4. (I don't think I ever ran the Shieldbreaker b/c they were so weak, and I couldn't fit the Abom into a party due to the religious restriction that early on). Here's a few that I remember:

PD-Vestel-Crusader-Highwayman
?-Jester-Occultist-Leper
Occultist-Antiquarian-BH-Crusader
PD-Vestel-Antiquarian?-Highwayman (I didn't have anybody that could really go in Pos 2)

I was always careful to make sure that every party included a healer and some way to clear corpses, for obvious reasons.

Re: guides, if you think it's not cheating/unfair to do so then why do you warn people against spoilers? I took that as meaning that I shouldn't look at the guide unless absolutely necessary. The game itself gives you some hints about what provisions might interact with what curios- I had thought that the guessing/discovery should be part of the game.


Killing minibosses is great and all, but that requires you to know exactly what's coming, have a party that is prepared to and capable of fighting the boss, and to be able to come out the other side still able to complete the quest. I unexpectedly fought the Necromancer miniboss and was able to kill him with a good deal of luck (I luckily happened to have a party capable of killing him: PD-Occultist-Antiquarian-Crusader), but the Antiquarian died in the process and I had to abandon the mission afterwards due to everybody being almost-dead and very stressed.

Economy-wise, I tended to bring on short Ruins:
-20 food (8 for camp, 12 for the 2-3 food tiles)
-8 torches
-As many shovels as there are obstacles (I think it's 2-3, but I don't remember)
-1-2 keys
-2 daggers
-2 caustic (I was looking to experiment and figure out what they did)
-Holy Water
-Medicinal Herbs

Your comps aren't that bad, and bringing a healer is great. Were you having problems with HP, or mainly just stress?

I warn for spoilers on the guides just in case people are expecting them to be hint-based guides as opposed to the precise outcomes. Exploration and discovery is definitely part of the game, but not if someone is struggling with things. You will get to the point in Apprentice where you can relax and discover or gather gold, but for now we need to make sure you're completing runs successfully.

Curios are definitely a huge source of money, trinkets, and potions. There's not much I can do in-game to link up new items with new curio interactions, so I support using the guide to help out. Additionally, there are 20 lore pages part of the "Derision of the Dead" update that give you immersive, lore-driven hints about odd curio interactions.

Necro miniboss is one of the first most PBD players experience, and he is a stress bomb. There are minibosses of each main boss (excluding the Crew for reasons), so maybe there's one you might feel more comfortable farming.

Your supplies look fine for the length. Maybe try a Medium quest and see if that's a bit easier than the short for you.

IIRC I struggled with both HP and stress, although the former a bit more. I just couldn't kill things before they killed me on a consistent basis, and the fact that I was playing on Stygian probably didn't help- I didn't realize that wasn't normal. When enemies were commonly hitting for 6+ damage, a healer can't keep up. Even when I brought a Jester I was barely able to get any stress healing out of him because I couldn't afford to let enemies live that much longer.

Try it without the stygian, and see if similar issues are occurring. The early weeks are a little tough due to lacking good trinkets, teams, etc... That's why you get the Maester's Hat and have 2 good town events from the tutorials. Those should provide enough of a stimulus to get a head start.