Release - Beta 12

## Monster Hunt

Hark! The beasts approach!!

In this release we wanted to expand on the ideas of monster hunting and beast slaying introduced in the DLCs.

 You begin by selecting a favored enemy beast, indicating you are ready to start down the beast hunting path. This will give you an immediate +5% bonus to damage, melee and ranged attack against your chosen foe.

Now you will need to begin hunting your enemy, for each one you kill, you will become better at fighting them, after killing 100 strength worth of enemies, your bonus grows by +1% damage, melee and ranged. This bonus scales indefinitely, the more you kill, the stronger you become.

When you reach a total bonus of +10%, word will spread of your achievements, and heralds will seek you out with brand new contracts to hunt more difficult versions of your chosen foe. These contracts will be exceptionally difficult, but offer huge rewards and unique legendary items.

## Redback spiders

Elite spiders that have a poison dealing 10 damage each turn, decreasing by 1 damage per turn over 10 turns. Damage is doubled when in a web.  The have increased AP so they can web and bite at the same time, or bite twice in a turn. Increased stats and improved AI.

Drops Redback poison, can be used to craft:

Redback spider helm - made from the carapace of a redback spider, grants the web skill

 Redback dagger - made from the fangs and poison gland of a redback spider, inflicts redback poison

To hunt them and unlock their contract, take the 'Favoured Enemy Webnechts' perk

## White Wolves

 Elite direwolves with increased AP so they can attack three times in a turn applying overwhelm. Or howl twice increasing their allies resolve by 30 each time.  All other stats increased, and more cunning AI. Increased stats over frenzied direwolves.

Drops white wolf pelt that can be used to craft:

        White wolf helm - decreased the morale of adjacent enemies by 20

  white wolf cloak - decreased the morale of adjacent enemies by 20 and increases armor by 30

If you take the right path through the contract, you can also unlock a rare white war wolf pet

To hunt the whit wolf and unlock the contract, take the 'Favoured Enemy Direwolves' perk

      == Skin Ghouls ==

Elite nimble ghouls with groteque elongated arms that can reap in an arc over two tiles, applying 5-10 damage, a 5hp bleed and a 25% chance to decapitate or disembowel. Those values are multipled by the ghoul's size so a Tier 3 skin ghoul can hit all of your units within 2 tiles for 15-30 damage, with 15 bleed, a 75% chance to decapitate and a 75% chance to disembowel. Increased stats, improved AI, and footwork.

Drops Skin Ghoul skin that can be used to craft:

           Skin Ghoul Helmet - Medium armor that grants the wearer the ability to devour corpses to heal

  Skin Ghoul Armor - Medium armor that grants the ability to heal each turn

 Skin Ghoul Blood potion - Can be used to heal 10% of your missing health per turn, over 4 turns

To hunt them, take the 'Favoured Enemy Nachzehrers' perk

  == Demon Alps ==

Elite Alps who cast a burning realm with four shadows per turn. They levitate and summon fields of flame filled with tormented souls, combined with a horrifying scream and the ability to feast on corpses. Increased stats and improved AI

50% chance of dropping Demon Alp Skin

80% chance of dropping a Demon's Third Eye that can be used to craft

 Demon Alp Helm - Grants horrific scream

  Demon Alp Trophy - Grants +10% experience gain

 Normal alp trophies now grant +5% experience gain

 50% chance of dropping helm rune stone

To hunt them and unlock their contract, take the 'Favoured Enemy Alps' perk

## Greenwood Schrats

 Elite Schrats with an even tougher shield that spawn many more greenwood saplings, who in turn spawn regular saplings. They just keep on multiplying. Increased stats

50% chance of dropping ancient green wood that can be used to craft:

           Heartwood shield - regenerates 20% durability each turn in combat

Heartwood sap potion - grants 3 turns of perfect focus

 50% chance of dropping a shield rune stone

To hunt them and unlock their contract, take the 'Favoured Enemy Schrats' perk

## Rock Unholds

 Elite Unholds with thick armor that regenerates in addition to their health regenerating. Increased stats

Drops Rock Unhold Bones and Hide that can be used to craft:

  **Helm of the Mountain** - heavy armor that regenerates durability each turn

 **Armor of the Mountain** - heavy armor that regenerates durability each turn

 The contract to hunt these beasts is unlocked by a bro selecting 'Favoured Enemy Unhold' perk,

## Stollwurm

Elite wurms that can burrow across the map and regenerate health each turn. Increased stats

  Drops stollwurm blood and scales That can be used to craft

**Stollwurm helmet** - very durable, gives immunity to knockback and grab, immunity to surround maluses, and 0 fatigue from being hit (stalwart, steadfast and battleheart)

**Stollwurm scale cloak** - Adds 80 durability and immunity to stun and acid

**Stollwurm blood** - grants 3 turns of indominatable

 50% chance of dropping an armor rune stone

The contract to hunt stollwurms is unlocked by a bro selecting 'Favoured Enemy Lindwurm' perk.

## Coven Leader

 Elite Hexe that can charm for five turns and hex multiple mercenaries each turn.

50% chance of dropping Glowing hexen hair that can be used to craft

     Hexe Leader charm - Grants +10 Resolve

           Gnarled staff - grants Hex spell to the wielder

   Potion of Ichor - Grants +20 Health and Fatigue every turn for eight turns, also applies goblin poison for three turns

 50% chance of dropping weapon rune

## Dynamic Perks

Over the past few releases we've been trialling custom perk trees for different backgrounds, and your feedback has been overwhelmingly positive about this idea. While running these trials, we have also been building up a perk library, with the goal of massively increasing the perks available to all mercenaries.

With this release we have gone all out and **given every mercenary you hire a unique perk tree**. We have assembled a library of over 260 perks, then arranged them into groups of perks that have synergy together.

We then assigned those groups by hand to each background, so that every background had guaranteed access to thematically appropriate perks.

However, those background groups only make up half of each mercenary's tree. The other half is randomly picked from the perk groups, providing variety while retaining the synergies.

Each mercenary gets 6 of the 15 weapon groups, 2 of the five defence groups, and eight from the 13 traits, 8 enemy groups and 6 class groups. This provides millions of possible combinations.

The wiki has more about the Perk groups and what each background has

## Medium armor skills

There is a very strong nimble vs battleforged divide that drives mercenaries to the extremes. We wanted to break this dichotomy and encourage other kinds of armor.

New Perk '**Balance**' grants up to 30 bonus melee and ranged defense if your current body armor is equal to twice your current initiative. The bonus decreases for every point of difference between the two, to a minimum of +5.

 New Perk '**Lithe**' - Like nimble, but with the 15 fatigue floor raised to 30, and the damage mitigation reduced.

 New Perk '**Matching Set**' grants up to 5 fatigue per round if your helmet and armor values match.

## Stealth skills

Devious backgrounds can get a little sneaky

New Perk '**Camouflage**' - Master of concealment and blending in. Can hide from enemies in any terrain until next attack or moving adjacent to enemy. Can't be activated if adjacent to enemy.

New Perk '**Blend In**' - Makes enemies 50% less likely to attack you instead of someone else

## Unarmed skills

Unarmed skill has always been strong in legends, it scales off initiative and hitpoints. Now there are three new perks to give more depth:

New Perk '**Kicking**' - Active skill to push back and fatigue enemies

New Perk '**Grappling**' - Active skill to stun and fatigue enemies

New Perk '**Unarmed Mastery**' -Reduces fatigue and increase armor penetration unarmed attacks

 Of course brawlers are guaranteed all three, and a nice punching damage buff.

## Bard class

You'll find minstrels and troubadours have some new tricks up their sleeves, having gained:

**Daze** to off put enemies

**Entice** to control the battlefield.

 New Perk '**Drums Of War**' - active skill to reduce the fatigue of all allies

## Healer class

Monks and Nuns have also got some new abilities, with 'Bandage mastery' to stop the bleeding, and 'medical ingredients' that will help pay for:

New perk '**Field Triage**' - lets you spend 5 medicine to heal 1 hit point in battle

## Repair class

Blacksmiths and Seamstresses are not to be outdone, in addition to two tool storage perks, they have picked up

New perk '**Field Repairs**' - lets you spend 5 armor parts to repair 1 point of damage in battle

## Chef Class

Butchers, bakers and servants can help out too with:

New perk '**Field Treats**' - lets you spend 50 food to bring mercenaries from wavering to steady

## Staff Skills

We have had staff mastery for a while, but it was mainly used by the seer. Now we have added two more perks to make staves a more interesting option

 New Perk '**Staff Spins**' - Any staff hit that would usually daze, also stuns

 New Perk '**Staff blocks**' - Wielding a staff grants +20 melee defense

## Greatsword skills

Sword mastery split into sword mastery and greatsword mastery.

* Sword mastery - Riposte has no pentalty to hitchance, Slash, Gash and Lunge gain +5% chance to hit
* **Greatsword Mastery**  - Split, Swing, Overhead Strike and Great Slash gain +5% chance to hit
* Greatswords are Greatsword, Longsword, Warbrand and Rhomphaia
* Greatswords have **Great Slash** Instead of Slash. Great Slash costs 3 more fatigue, but grants +30% armor penetration.

 New Perk '**Forceful Swings**' grants +10% damage to AOE attacks

## Spear skills

New Perk '**Spearwaller**' grants -25% fatigue usage on spearwall, stacks with spear mastery

New Perk '**Thrust Master**' grants +15% damage on the 'Thrust' skill

## Other new skills

New Perk '**Assured Conquest**' - 10% melee skill, melee defense and range defense when at confident moral.

New perk "**Smackdown"** knockback enemies when you have more health and fatigue than them. added to hammer group

New perk "**Smashing Shields**" deal +10% shield damage on any hit, added to axe group

'Sling mastery' adds much more accuracy than before, though slings also begin with less accuracy. Sling staves gain 'bash'

## Better obituaries

Boyski's has given us permission to integrate his Entire Better Obituaries mod into Legends, showing each mercenary's background, traits, stats and talents.

## Shield Rework

You didn't think we'd throw new monsters at you without some new tools to fight them?

We have added 35 paintable **tower shields,** these gigantic shields offer maximum protection at a hefty weight cost.

They come with the '**Fortify**' skill to shields surrounding allies

They also have the '**Safegaurd**' skill to sacrifice some of your own defense to shield someone else.

  Towershields available at armorsmiths or near military attached locations, or will spawn on shieldmaidens and some soldier classes.

 At the light end of the shield range we've rounded out bucklers and offhand daggers

 Bucklers gain "**Buckler Bash**" skill to daze enemies

 Parrying daggers gain the "**Engarde**" skill to lower enemy defenses

## New events

Thanks to a new contributor Anrio, we have some new events.

* Adds barbarian vs shieldmaiden event
* Adds blacksmith crafts armor event
* Adds blacksmith fixes equipment event
* Adds butcher vs donkey event

## New Starts

We have two new starts that ake full advantage of the dynamic perk system's randomness, by being completely random starts.

* New start: **Random Trio**. Three random level 2 backgrounds. Very useful for trying the new perk trees and adding extensive replayability.  It is possible to get any combination of any legends background, including three warlocks. Some of these combinations may have unexpected interactions.
* New start: **Random Solo**. Level 4 avatar of a random background.

## Existing Starts

Warlock:

* Warlock's deathly spectre reduced from 90% chance to resurrect to 66% chance
* Warlock can trigger cultist events

Berserker:

* Berserker rage nerfed. lowered to 1 stack per hit from 3 and 3 stacks per kill, from 5. Falloff per turn raised to 2 from 1.
* Nudist nerfed.  requires no clothes, damage reduction scaling reduced from 40 to 30%.
* Berserker gets kick, grapple and unarmed mastery

 Crusader:

* True believers are no longer effected by allies fleeing or dying.
* Crusader gets shield bash, shield push, shield mastery and field repair. Undead enemy perks now scale.
* Crusader will find monks as he should

Noble:

* Noble non-supporter cost lowered from 50% to 25% to standardise with other starts
* Noble gains first triage, tools drawer and field repairs. Favored enemy groups spread out.
* Noble warriors and soldiers are a bit more expensive due to having good perks

Ranger:

* Big Game hunter nerfed. Calculation fixed so you correctly gain percentage damage rather than multiplier damage. Effectively 100 times less damage. Can still one hit kill things, but you have to be low on health, as intended.
* Ranger hires should trigger in big cities
* Ranger gets 'blend in' and 'camouflage' perks to enable sneaky play.
* Favored enemy perks spread out
* Fixes Second Wind perk from crashing battles
* Fixed nightvision to correctly apply

Seer:

* Teleport nerfed to 40 fatigue, to match darkflight.
* Levitate fixed to only apply for one turn

Sisterhood:

* There are now Wildwomen, they are good fighters and one starts in your front line. All wildling events updated accordingly the wildwomen spawn in the same places as wildmen, though less likely.
* Peddlers and cultists have 10% chance of being women, events updated.
* Archery contests can attract female nobles, Disbanded troops situations can attract shieldmaidens
* Female background balance pass, this increases the variability of backgrounds, allowing for outliers who are significantly better or worse than the average. This applies to:
	+ Farmhands and milkmaids, Millers and bakers, Minstrels and troubadors, Servants and housemaids, Tailors and housemaids, Thieves and pickpockets, wildmen and wildwomen, Disowned and adventurous nobles and ladies.
* Adventurous female nobles now have potential to roll the highest ranged skill of any background. They also have a perk to become the best archer in the land.

 Deserters:

* Deserters have guaranteed skills for spears, dagger, shield and heavy armor. They are fit, large, trained and devious.
* Deserters will find more deserters, retired soldiers, disowned nobles, bastards and swordmasters for hire. Their hires have a 60% chance of being cowards
* Deserter volunteers will arrive twice as often.

Raiders:

* Barbarians have guaranteed skills for greatsword, axes, hammers and light armor. They are large, vicious and sturdy, and have perks for hunting civilians, mercenaries and nobles.
* Fixes raider recruits having too many traits
* Raider volunteers arrive twice as often

Lone Wolf:

* Hedgeknights are guaranteed skills for: Greatsword, polearm, axes, heavy armor. they are Trained, Fit, Vicious and have a perk for becoming the best swordsman in the lands.

Cultists:

* Cultists are guaranteed skills for Cleaver, Flail, cat'o'nine tails and medium armor. They are Vicious, Tenacious, Devious, Martyrs
* Cultist volunteers and sacrifices happen twice as often.
* Cultists have a 10% chance of being women, all of their events updated accordingly

Poachers:

* Poachers are guaranteed skills for bow, slings, shortbow, light armor. They are Agile, Fast, Vicious and have skills for hunting beasts.
* hunting events happen twice as often.

Militia:

* Every background now has gauranteed perk groups and random perk groups. This makes militia the most variable of all starts.

 Trader:

* Fixes tool tips on bribe, hover on an enemy and then view the tooltip