Morale

Morale is one of the primary attributes that affect your character in Grim Tides. It represents your ability to remain composed in the face of psychological disturbances or trauma. Failure to maintain Morale will only hinder your performance and may even cause you to retreat to Farhaven with your tail between your legs.

Effects of Morale

Morale is important for two reasons: It affects your stats, and influences the appearance of Elementals. It is also an additional healthbar that must be managed as well, and if it is fully depleted your dungeon run will end with you running back to Farhaven like a coward (*this will **not** delete your save file on Permadeath*). This cannot be prevented by the Phoenix Feather or the Stone-Heart Fragment. If this happens, you return to Farhaven with 6 points of morale restored.

The lower your morale is, the more stat debuffs you will encounter. This starts with a small decrease in critical and evasion at 6 points, then damage decreases at 5 and an extra turn on cooldowns at 4. Thus, it is important not to take on triple encounters when at these levels.

The exact debuffs are as follows:

 6
 5
 4
 3
 2
 1

Morale Sinks
Just as easily as your health, your morale can be drained by enemies. The two most common methods of morale loss are being struck by critical hits and taking damage from abilities that reduce morale. Morale loss comes as a chance to lose it when an enemy uses an ability, with the exact percentage varying from foe to foe. This chance can be reduced multiplicatively by your Fear Resistance. Critical hits have a high chance to reduce morale as well, and is not influenced by your fear resistance. However, morale loss is completely prevented if you have consumed the Flame of Ignus.

Other morale sinks can come from events outside of battle, generally when you fail a dungeon event or encounter an unlucky city event. Morale loss can also be player-induced with spells, namely Aspect of the Beast and the Necronomicon's **Cosmic Horror**.

Maintaining Morale
Morale can be quickly recovered using items, such as the Imperial Brandy and Blood Moss Wine, while fear resistance can be increased using Blood Moss and when increasing charisma. When in Farhaven's Salty Rat tavern, you can also order calming drinks with a base price of 15 gold to restore two points at once. However, it is important to relegate them from general to emergency use only, and instead generate morale without any costs.

The most powerful morale increaser is Spirit Shield, a spell that immediately restores 1 morale and increases your fear resistance substantially. While not practical to cast every battle due to having to use a turn, it can be a way to quickly gain uses for the Necronomicon, or as a benefit for stalling easy battles. Alternatively, perks such as **Sadistic Tendencies** can let you forget about morale loss over time, especially if you are a hacking or stabbing player, while **Wanderlust** lets you passively regenerate morale when exploring and fits any build.

Trivia
* Morale is similar the Sanity stat in Grim Quest, as both are additional healthbars that measure the player's mental stability. However, the player's exact health and the enemy stats in Grim Tides do not become obscured on low morale, unlike in Grim Quest.