Status effects

Status Effects are conditions that affect heroes and monsters health, stats and turns.

Duration and stacking
Some status effects, such as blight and bleed, have a given duration before expiring and ending their effect. Many status effects, namely blight, bleed, buff and debuff can stack multiple times until they expire. Despite the game tooltips showing total values, stacks are handled and expire individually.

The default duration of status effects is three turns, while blight and bleed inflicted through critical hits will last five turns instead. Many abilities also have special durations for certain effects.

Poptext_bleed.png Bleed
Bleeding is a damage over time effect, represented by a red drop. At the beginning of an affected hero or enemy's turn they will take damage equal to the bleed strength, ignoring any protection points. It lasts for a specified amount of turns, which can be seen by hovering the cursor over the red drop. Bleed can be cured with a Bandage item. Several Hero combat skills can also remove Bleed effects. Be very careful with a character on Death's Door, as this can kill them before they can use a bandage on their turn. If out of combat, there will be a chance to use food or a bandage to prevent death. The Bounty Hunter, Flagellant, Hellion, Highwayman, Houndmaster, Jester, and Plague Doctor all have at least one ability capable of inflicting the bleed effect on an enemy. Notably, the Occultist can inflict the bleed status on himself and his allies through his skill Wyrd Reconstruction, while Flagellant can inflict bleed on himself with his skill Reclaim. Creatures in the Warrens, Weald, and Courtyard are more susceptible to bleed, while the fishfolk of the Cove are resilient because of their scales, and the skeletons of the Ruins are nearly immune.

Poptext_poison.png Blight
Blight is mechanically the same as bleed, dealing damage over time, but is represented by a green drop rather than red. What sets them apart is that many enemies will have a high resistance to one and a low resistance to the other. As with bleed, blight can kill a character on Death's Door, so be very careful with those who are afflicted. The Abomination, Antiquarian, Grave Robber, Plague Doctor, and Shieldbreaker all have at least one ability capable of inflicting the Blight effect on an enemy. Blight can be removed with the item Antivenom. The Plague Doctor's Battlefield Medicine cures both Bleed and Blight on herself and the target if there is one; the Hellion's Adrenaline Rush and the Grave Robber's Toxin Trickery also cures both the Bleed and Blight ailments, though only on themselves. Creatures in the Ruins and Cove are more susceptible to Blight, whereas the pigmen of the Warrens are resilient because of their unclean living and the mushroom zombies of the Weald are already infested with toxic mushrooms. The Bloodsuckers of the Courtyard are also generally resistant to blight, though the degree of resistance varies (for instance, Supplicants can be reasonably blighted by unaugmented heroes, while Sycophants have high enough resistance that debuffs to their blight resistance or buffs to the hero's blight skill chance will be nearly necessary to blight them).

Note: another important difference between Blight and Bleed is that most blight attacks do little to no damage, yet the blight itself is very strong, such as with the Antiquarian, Plague Doctor, or Grave Robber. Conversely, bleed attacks tend to be actual attacks meant to inflict damage while adding a bleed effect, but the bleeding itself is weak, such as with the Hellion or Houndmaster. There are a few exceptions to this, though, notably the Bounty Hunter's Caltrops and the Uca Crusher's Arterial Pinch.

Poptext_stun.png Stun
Stun is a condition that always lasts just one turn. However, it causes the affected character to skip their turn entirely. Stun is represented by a yellow crescent and diamonds above a character's head. Stun is one of the more helpful status effects, as it can be used to stun a heavy-hitting monster to prevent damage for a turn, or stop a back row stress attacker from using their magic while you work to finish them off.

One should note that any character who is stunned will get a temporary buff after the stun wears off that will grant them an extra 50% resistance to stun (this is to make it difficult for a character to have their turn continually skipped). The buff will disappear at the start of a character's turn. However, if a character is stunned with this resistance still in place, they will gain an additional 50% stun resistance for their next turn, making it 100%. This will continue until the character has a turn where they are not stunned.

The Arbalest's Rallying Flare and Musketeer's Skeet Shot can remove Stun and Mark effects.

Poptext_debuff.png Debuff
Debuff is a condition that lowers the stats of a character, such as ACC, Damage, or Dodge. It is also a catch-all for unique status effects that don't fit in other categories, such as the Siren's Song of Desire. Many monsters inflict debuffs in tandem with their other skills. For example, the Bone Bulwark and Bone Shieldwall's Axeblade will debuff a hero's resistance to move and stun, while their attack Dead Weight will attempt to stun and knock characters back. Additionally, there are some heroes who will debuff themselves after an attack, like the Hellion's Breakthrough or the Jester's Finale; there are also monsters that debuff themselves after an attack. Debuffs can be removed with Medicinal Herbs; however, most of heroes' self-inflicted debuffs (such as Jester's Finale) cannot be removed with Herbs. So far no character abilities can remove debuffs.

Poptext_tagged.png Mark
Marks are a unique condition. No character or monster can resist them, but they do nothing on their own, other than encouraging monsters to attack the marked target. However, there are many hero and enemy skills that will deal extra damage to any character bearing a Mark. One should be careful if one of their characters are marked, since focus fire is particularly dangerous, and that obviously goes double when there is an enemy that can use the mark to deal bonus damage. Heroes that have an attack that can mark an enemy and an attack that deals massive extra damage to marked targets include the Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, Musketeer and Houndmaster. The Grave Robber, Highwayman, and Shieldbreaker have a skill with a smaller bonus on marked targets, but are unable to mark targets themselves. The Occultist can place marks, but not use them. The only regular monsters who deal extra damage on marked heroes are the Bone Arbalist, Carrion Eater, Fungal Scratcher, Cultist Brawler, and both types of spiders. The Crusader, Jester, Leper, Man-at-Arms, and Flagellant can also mark themselves with one of their self-buff skills, to attract enemy attacks to them rather than the more vulnerable members of the team. An Afflicted hero may also mark themselves at the start of the turn. As noted above, the Arbalest's Rallying Flare and Musketeer's Skeet Shot can remove Marks from their teammates, and Flagellant's Suffer skill can remove a mark from one hero.

Poptext_move.png Move
Move is an instantaneous effect that causes the affected unit to change position in their same formation (thus changing the position of at least one other unit). Move abilities can affect the user (Forward or Back) and do so regardless of the success of the attack, or opponents (Pull, Knockback, Shuffle), in which case they can be resisted. Some abilities do both at once. Most moves cause the affected unit to shift a specific number of positions in a predefined direction, but Shuffle instead sends it to a random position (which is always different from the starting one). Due to the high reliance of many abilities on the position of the user, move is generally considered a negative effect, unless used by self-moving abilities to reach specific positions. Many heroes make use of this effect on enemies, most notably the Bounty Hunter, who is able to apply all varieties of move effects. Others have self-moving abilities that tend to be more powerful at the cost of disturbing the formation, but can be useful to change formation during a fight; the Jester and Shieldbreaker are the heroes that make the most use of self-moving abilities.

Poptext_move.png Shuffle
A very rare status affect, represented by the Move blue double-arrow. At the beginning of the affected hero's turn, that hero will move 1 either forwards or backwards randomly, for a set amount of turns. Currently, the only character able to inflict Shuffle status is the Countess. There is currently no way to remove this status effect before it runs out.

Poptext_horror.png Horror
Horror is a stress over time effect, represented by a black skull. At the beginning of an affected hero's turn, they will take stress equal to the horror strength. It lasts for a specified amount of turns, which can be seen by hovering the cursor over the black skull. Using the supply item Laudanum will remove horror from the affected unit, though no hero abilities exist to cure it.

Deadhero portrait.png Heart Attack
A heart attack is an instantaneous effect caused by heavy stress: when a hero reaches 200 stress, they will suffer a heart attack and be brought to Death's Door, or killed instantly without applying deathblow resistance if they're already there. It also removes a moderate amount of stress, so the hero is at a risk of suffering another one if their stress level is brought back up to 200.

Deathsdoor.png Death's Door
When a hero is brought to zero health points (it cannot go lower), they enter Death's Door. While in this state, any further damage, no matter the magnitude, has a chance to be fatal. Whenever this happens, the hero has to pass a Death Blow resist test to avoid death. Additionally, being put on Death's Door deals stress damage to the party, and being on Death's Door causes the hero to have -10 accuracy, -25% damage, and -5 speed, and will suffer from +33% increased stress damage. When the hero is healed of at least one health point, they will temporarily be safe from death, and replace the penalties with the less severe Death Door Recovery debuff. Every hero starts with 67% Death Blow resist (except the Flagellant, who has a base of 73%), and unlike other resistances this stat is not improved by Resolve level, but it can still be improved through the use of trinkets or with the positive quirk Unyielding. Death Blow resistance caps at 87%. There also are trinkets that strengthen the heroes while they are on Death's Door.

Deathavoided.png Death's Door Recovery
Recovering from Death's Door leaves a mark on the hero that lasts for the remainder of the expedition and can be cured only through certain Camping Skills or by completing the expedition. The recovery from Death's Door overrides the Death's Door effect, inflicting softer penalties in the form of -2 accuracy, -5% damage, -1 speed, and +10% stress damage. A hero will get rid of this effect after the quest is concluded, but, were the hero to enter and exit Death's Door multiple times, no further stacks of the penalties will be applied. The Flagellant is immune to this debuff, unless it has been caused by a heart attack.

[[file:Poptext_buff.png|30px]] Buff
Buffs are positive conditions that increase one or more stats or resistances of the unit. Their usual duration is three rounds and they can stack indefinitely until they expire. Buffs are represented by two light blue arrows pointing upward, as an icon appearing over the health bar of the affected unit. Landing a critical hit also gives a hero a unique buff that usually lasts for 2 rounds.

[[file:Poptext_guard.png|30px]] Guard
Guard is a buff that a unit can apply to an ally. Doing so allows the user to receive the attacks of the guarded unit in its place. Generally, this only lasts for 1 or 2 turns, but abilities that guard another unit will also apply a defensive buff (to help withstand the increased punishment) that lasts for 3 turns. Heroes making use of this buff are the Man-at-Arms, who is able to also increase his own Protection to reduce damage taken, and the Hound Master, who fortifies his own dodge so as to evade attacks directed at him or his guarded ally. Guard is also one of the main abilities used by Pelagic Guardians. The Antiquarian can also use her ability "Protect Me" to force guard by any ally in her party, while buffing both PROT and Dodge. A hero cannot guard more than one character at a time, nor can they create a guard chain (I.E. if hero A guards hero B, that guard will be canceled if hero A is guarded.) There are ways to hit a character that is being protected without killing a buffed guardian first. When an area of effect attack is aimed at both the guarded unit and the guarding unit, it ignores the guard effect (but not the defensive buff). Alternatively, whenever a guarding unit is stunned the guard effect will immediately disappear from the protected unit. Shieldbreaker's Puncture ignores and removes a guard from the guarded unit, and applies a debuff that prevents this enemy from being guarded for 2 rounds.

[[file:Poptext_riposte.png|30px]] Riposte
Riposte is a defensive effect that causes the user to respond to any suffered attack, evaded or not, with one of his own, making it a perfect synergy for other defensive buffs and, naturally, the employment of Guard by the unit. Riposte is a very rare effect, notably usable by the Man-at-Arms, who is also able to guard allies to be targeted by more attacks to which they can then respond. The Highwayman also has the riposte ability. It is also possessed by some monsters, most notably the Esquire.

[[file:Tray dot hp heal.png|30px]] Restoration
Restoration is a healing effect that works like Bleed and Blight, but heals the affected instead. Restoration triggers before Bleed or Blight do, and may prevent a Hero from going on Death's Door or suffering a Death Blow from these effects. Restoration is not affected by Healing Skill buffs on the applying hero, but is affected by Heals Received buffs on the affected hero. Currently, the only Hero skill that applies Restoration is the Flagellant's Reclaim, and the only enemy with a Restoration skill is the Scarecrow.

[[file:Poptext health damage block.png|30px]] Aegis
Aegis is a defensive effect that prevents all damage from a set number of direct-damage attacks. Once a hero with Aegis has taken that number of attacks or the battle ends, the Aegis disappears. Aegis only negates direct damage, and has no effect on non-damaging attacks (such as the Madman's Doomsay) or damage from status effects, and does not prevent the infliction of status effects by incoming attacks. Attacks that deal 0 damage will be blocked, and count as attacks on the Aegis.

Currently there are only two ways to have this effect; a Shieldbreaker can use it on herself through her skill Serpent Sway for 2 blocks, or a character can use an Aegis Scale on themselves for 1 block. Blocks stack up to 2.