Shops In Rook And Smith Runs

[BlackMagicAngel]

I noticed that whenever I do a Sal run, whenever you take quests on day, you get those "starting" bonuses where you get to pick a card before starting the quest, and as of day 2, the starting bonuses no longer appear.

However, with Rook and Smith runs, I have seen that the day 1 quests do no give starting bonuses, and you have to use the starting deck for awhile before you get drafts for better cards.

Speaking of shops, I also notice that with Sal, you have the shop where you buy and sell pets, negotiation cards, battle cards, and grafts (the artifact thing in the game). But with Rook and Smith, the card only sells 3 negotiation cards and battle cards, and they never sell common cards, and there is also no pet shop to buy/sell pets when you play as Rook and/or Smith.

I can't tell if this is "balanced" or not since you have more draft opportunities with Sal with those "starting bonuses" with Sal, and Rook and Smith don't get them, and Rook's and Smith's card shops never sell common cards, which can hurt a run badly since you can only get common cards from drafts, and I am not able to buy a common card from the store if the drafts aren't giving me what I need.

Has anyone has trouble with runs with Rook or Smith since you don't have those starting bonuses with them, and can't access a pet shop with Rook or Smith when you play as them? Also, are you able to own a pet while playing a Smith, since I have yet to see a picture of a Smith run in which he has a pet on your side?

I'm just asking if the shops for Rook and Smith could have 2 vendors like what Sal has, and offer 3 common cards, 2 uncommon cards, and 1 rare card to buy, and have the option of that pet store, even if you could only access it at night.

(I should mention that I already know that Rook and Smith can access the store during the day and night, and the stuff that the vendors sell changes and restocks once you move into the night phase of the same day or go to the next day. I wanted to know why there isn't a pet store, those "starting bonuses" for day 1 quests, and why the card shops for them don't sell common cards, and it's a combined vendor that sells 2 uncommon cards a rare card for each of your 2 decks that I can't understand myself.)

I just want to hear what other people's thoughts are on this, since when I started my first Rook run, I was surprised that he doesn't get "starting bonuses" from day 1 quests, there's no pet store, and the card store never sells common cards, which I think it should since I don't want drafts to be the only way to get them (and I don't know if Rook has the same amount of draft chances as Sal, since I only played him once, and don't know if anything changed with him since the last update.)

[Rook the Bogger]

I, for one, don't have any problem with Rook and Smith (maybe except Rook's negotation), since when you finally unlock their card packs, the game becomes a bit easier.

The only reason i see for Sal's shop having bigger variety and that she gets more starting cards, is that she is your first character, and so a bit easier to play then others.

Also, Rook and Smith have starting bonuses.

Smith can add 1 negotiaton or battle card at start of campaign to his deck, and Rook can choose beetween Shovel and Blacklist.

[BlackMagicAngel]

10 hours ago, Rook the Bogger said:

I, for one, don't have any problem with Rook and Smith (maybe except Rook's negotation), since when you finally unlock their card packs, the game becomes a bit easier.

The only reason i see for Sal's shop having bigger variety and that she gets more starting cards, is that she is your first character, and so a bit easier to play then others.

Also, Rook and Smith have starting bonuses.

Smith can add 1 negotiaton or battle card at start of campaign to his deck, and Rook can choose beetween Shovel and Blacklist.

Just to ask too, does Sal get any starting bonuses as of your 2nd run with her? I haven't notice yet if they got rid of starting bonuses with Sal yet, since I'm replaying the game after 5 months, and I last played it before the Matte, etc. stuff was added to it.

Also, what problems did you have with Rook's negotiation, before and/or after card packs? Does it have to go with the coin mechanic?

[AuntHerbert]

Yes, the characters are different, and a lot of this difference is in the campaign design. For Rook, I am fairly certain, that you get more "conflicts" per early quests, so more occassions to get extra card drafts. That quest where he organizes a Rise event (Grifting the Mill?) alone has up to 5 negotiations, so 5 card drafts! Sal has only two quests with up to four "conflicts", and in both quests she is asked mid-quest if she really wants to continue. (Oh, the day 3 boss quest also has 3 negotiations and a combat).

About the pet situation: Sal is the "ranger" character, she has way more choice of pets and is the only one who gets an event to train their pet, and can spend extra shill to upgrade them. If played right Sal can also earn waaaay more shills than the other grifters (about 3500-4000 shill max per run, if she really goes for the munnies), which she could spend for example on her pets.

Rook mostly buys mechanical pets i.e. robots, although he also has a fair bit of events that reward him with a conventional pet, if played right. Rook, if played accordingly and a bit of luck, is more of a people's person who can invite the whole camp to free drinks and hire mercenaries quite cheap.

Smith isn't into pets at all. He has two possible random quests that allow him to to get an Oshnu on day 1, but one of them runs away unless you play tricksy and lock it up in the bedroom during day 2. One of his mainline quests allows him to get an untrained Vrock, but only if you follow a very specific line. Given his boisterous character and his rampant alcoholism, animals husbandry probably just doesn't come natural to him.  

11 hours ago, Rook the Bogger said:

I, for one, don't have any problem with Rook and Smith (maybe except Rook's negotation),

Really? Rook can fairly reliably build infinite damage combos with his negotiation decks, that can wipe everyone in two or three turns

 

2 Bluffs and a Dig in a small negation deck, for example, all common cards. Same trick, but rather unreliably to construct, because it relies on uncommon cards, works with Drawback or Dead Draw.

His negotiation is a bit overcomplicated, with the coins, the "randomness", the prepare mechanic, tactical discard, etcetera, (and his main opponents, Rise, Spark Barons, Merchants and Bilebrokers all fiddling with your deck doesn't make it any simpler) but once you figured it out, it's strong as heck. I find his combat style a bit bland. 

 

[BlackMagicAngel]

5 hours ago, AuntHerbert said:

Yes, the characters are different, and a lot of this difference is in the campaign design. For Rook, I am fairly certain, that you get more "conflicts" per early quests, so more occassions to get extra card drafts. That quest where he organizes a Rise event (Grifting the Mill?) alone has up to 5 negotiations, so 5 card drafts! Sal has only two quests with up to four "conflicts", and in both quests she is asked mid-quest if she really wants to continue. (Oh, the day 3 boss quest also has 3 negotiations and a combat).

About the pet situation: Sal is the "ranger" character, she has way more choice of pets and is the only one who gets an event to train their pet, and can spend extra shill to upgrade them. If played right Sal can also earn waaaay more shills than the other grifters (about 3500-4000 shill max per run, if she really goes for the munnies), which she could spend for example on her pets.

Rook mostly buys mechanical pets i.e. robots, although he also has a fair bit of events that reward him with a conventional pet, if played right. Rook, if played accordingly and a bit of luck, is more of a people's person who can invite the whole camp to free drinks and hire mercenaries quite cheap.

Smith isn't into pets at all. He has two possible random quests that allow him to to get an Oshnu on day 1, but one of them runs away unless you play tricksy and lock it up in the bedroom during day 2. One of his mainline quests allows him to get an untrained Vrock, but only if you follow a very specific line. Given his boisterous character and his rampant alcoholism, animals husbandry probably just doesn't come natural to him.  

Really? Rook can fairly reliably build infinite damage combos with his negotiation decks, that can wipe everyone in two or three turns

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2 Bluffs and a Dig in a small negation deck, for example, all common cards. Same trick, but rather unreliably to construct, because it relies on uncommon cards, works with Drawback or Dead Draw.

His negotiation is a bit overcomplicated, with the coins, the "randomness", the prepare mechanic, tactical discard, etcetera, (and his main opponents, Rise, Spark Barons, Merchants and Bilebrokers all fiddling with your deck doesn't make it any simpler) but once you figured it out, it's strong as heck. I find his combat style a bit bland. 

 

Does Smith also have about the same amount of draft opportunities as Rook, since both of them have the same shop setup? They both a vendor that sells just uncommon and rare cards that are hard to get, and the grafts lady that sells grafts. In addition, for Rook and Smith you can visit the vendors twice each day for goods (and a possible 6 chances to get something from the store), compared to Sal only being able to go shopping during the night, and up to 4 times.

And, for the Rook one-turn-kill deck, what cards would you need in order to make it work, and would you need any grafts to pull it off, or you use the deck without them?

Finally, speaking of Rook, does the coin trader also change his coins everyday if you decide not to give you basic card until, let's say, day 3? For me, I took a look at his stock on day 1, and I didn't trade with him on day 1, hoping for better stock. Then, on day 2, I decided to trade a coin with him, and after that, he didn't appear for the rest of the run.

In summary, would you only get to trade coins with him once for the entire run, or would he come back each day if you wanted a different coin after already trading with him once? Also, does his stock of coins change each day, or does the game just decide what 3 coins you can pick from that run, and it won't generate a different set for the entire run, even as the in-game days change?

I keep hearing that the coin merchant is supposed to offer you rare coins if you don't talk to him for like 3 days, but I don't know if you only get better stock with him if you skip him for the first 2 days, and why he doesn't come back at all for the rest of the run after you trade with him once.

Also, when you do start with Rook, do you have any tips on how to beat those Baron people who like to increase the costs of your cards all the time in negotiations, since I know that they're about 50% of the people you'll see while playing as Rook?

And with Smith, same thing about those religion people who like to heal their arguments, and summon arguments that target every argument you have in play, and whatever other major factions are in his story?

[AuntHerbert]

The coin merchant is avaiable every day, but not at all times. Iirc he is there in the morning and in the evening, after the boss fight.

He will always offer the same "common" coins on day 1, on day 2 "uncommon" coins, and there is one more uncommon coin, then he offers, so there is a slight variation, and then "rare" coins on days 3 and 4, which are also always the same.

The recipe for Rooks killer negotiation deck is in the spoiler in my previous post. If you want to read through a lengthy complete breakdown, here is an unfinished excerpt of a tutorial that I am spending my free time on:

 

Rook can assemble decks that can win literally every negotiation in one turn, by redrawing and replaying the same damage card ad infinitum, without paying any actions for it.
For this to work, the deck, after expending all expendable cards, needs to consist at most of 11 cards or less, and needs to contain 2 draw cards and a damage card that can be played for 0 actions. 

The simplest combination is to pick up 2 copies of Bluff and one copy of Dig and upgrade them either to Visionary Bluff and Twisted Dig or to Twisted Bluff and Boosted Dig. With an empty (or almost empty except for a single card) draw pile and discard pile Rook plays Dig to do damage, then Bluff to retrieve cards. Bluff tries to draw 2 cards, but finds at most one card in the draw pile, so it reshuffles the discard pile, which only contains the Dig card, into the draw pile and picks it up. Now Bluff is in the discard pile, and the draw pile is empty again. He plays Dig again, and his second copy of Bluff, and repeats ad infinitum. Both Dig and Bluff are common cards, so the chance of assembling this deck is fairly good.

The same effect can be achieved with two copies of Drawback and matching Hostility cards. Now Drawback costs 1 action to play, but it lowers the cost of Hostility cards it draws by one, so if Drawback pulls up another Drawback, that one can be played for 0 actions. Drawback either upgrades to Visionary Drawback, which can pull 3 cards, so it can handle two damage dealing cards and a slightly larger deck, or to Pale Drawback, which reduces the cost of cards by 2, so it allows for a wider choice of damage dealing cards. Best damage dealers are probably either one of the humble basic Grumble cards, especially Assertive Grumble, which will keep growing in damage, Muck, or Burn, if the goal is to whittle down numerous hostile arguments. Snail Bite can work with Pale Drawback, but the damage increase through gambling has to be done before the proper combo starts going, so it’s probably not a huge gain in damage. 
The main drawback of Drawback is, that it’s an Uncommon card, so the likelihood of finding 2 copies is vastly smaller.

The third variant is based on Dead Draw, but Dead Draw only draws 2 cards, so it can handle only one “damage dealer” card, and it gambles every time it does that, so the extra card has to rig the coin for infinite consistency. The only cards that can rig the coin and do damage are Rigged Pleasantries and Rigged Grumble, which lowers the likelihood of the combo coming together. Snail Hunt and Dig can achieve the effect, with Snail Hunt improvising Dig and rigging the coin and Dig doing the damage, especially when combined with a damaging coin or Tyrant’s Coin to ratchet up the Dominance . Clear Head with the Psychic coin doesn’t do damage itself, but can quickly build up doubt to its maximum of 99, fetch the Soluble Fish achievement and let the Doubt inception wrack its havoc.
Like Drawback, Dead Draw is an uncommon card, so hoping to fetch 2 copies in a playthrough is a bit of a gamble.   

There are some "almost infinite" variants for the damage dealer cards, like the combo of Foul Mouth discarding Bottom Snail, until there are no more actions left to play Foul Mouth. The Chaos Coin is great to get the deck going again, when it is slightly too big and gets stuck.

Die Interaktion von zusätzlichem Kartenzug durch Replenish (Bluff!) muss ich noch austesten. Außerdem muss ich noch testen, ob Grunt oder Discard/Draw combos funktionieren können. Headshot funktioniert mit Dead Draw! Honorable Mention: Spotty, extra actions while setting up.

I am not finished testing all the stuff I want to write about, and it needs to be more readable and prettier, with at least images of the cards I am talking about, but it's a work in progress.

[Wumpus the 19th]

they changed the card draw bonuses at some point. day 1 sal gets negotiation and battle drafts at the start of quests, but rook and smith do not. look through the updates if you want to find when they made this change, though I think it was just a difficulty rebalancing