Difficulty

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Wildermyth has two difficulty settings: combat difficulty and overland difficulty. These are described as follows:

Combat difficulty mostly controls hero health, monster health, armor, and damage. High combat difficulty means heroes are more prone to getting killed in a given situation.
Overland difficulty mostly controls the pace of calamities, time pressure on the overland map, and the frequency of infestation and incursion. It can end up having a big impact on combat difficulty, too, because of calamities!

Hero stats

The starting stat values for a young adult human depend slightly on the combat difficulty level. They are:

  Storyteller Adventurer Tragic Hero Walking Lunch
Health 7 6 5
Speed 1 (+3.4 for 2 natural legs)
Armor 1 0.4 0
Warding 0
Melee Accuracy 105 100 97
Range Accuracy 100 97
Stunt Chance 15 14
Bonus Damage 1 0.4 0
Potency 1 0.4 0
Dodge 50 45
Block 45
Recovery Rate 40 30 25
Retirement Age 45

Monster strength

The starting stats of each monster depend slightly on the combat difficulty level.

Additionally, Calamity cards that strengthen your foes are drawn at timed intervals on the overland map. The interval is shorter at higher overland difficulty levels. Calamity cards are also drawn after every battle, and the number of cards drawn in this fashion depends on the overland difficulty level.

Storyteller Adventurer Tragic Hero Walking Lunch
Card draw interval 220-240 160-180 120-140 100-120
Cards per draw 2 4 5 6
Cards per battle 1 1.35

Some calamity cards boost monster stats. For these cards, the magnitude of the boost depends on the combat difficulty level:

  Storyteller Adventurer Tragic Hero Walking Lunch
Protection +1 Armor +1 Armor, +1 Warding +2 Armor, +1 Warding
Health +20% +25% +30% +40%
Damage +1 +2

A number of calamity cards are removed at the end of each chapter, and this number depends on the overland difficulty. In particular, a small fraction of the total number of calamity cards are removed, and a larger fraction of the calamity cards collected above a threshold number are also removed.

  Storyteller Adventurer Tragic Hero Walking Lunch
Remove one card per 7 9 11 14
Remove this fraction of cards above threshold 80% 70% 33% 0%
Thresholds:
Chapter 1 6 7 10 -
Chapter 2 10 12 18 -
Chapter 3 14 17 26 -
Chapter 4 18 22 34 -

Missions

At higher combat difficulty levels, enemies draw more monster cards in each mission. Typically, enemies draw one extra monster card at Walking Lunch difficulty, but the effect can vary by mission.

Within a mission, doors have a chance to start open at higher combat difficulty levels. The range of a monster's Alarm call also varies with combat difficulty level.

Storyteller Adventurer Tragic Hero Walking Lunch
Open door chance 0% 25% 50% 50%
Alarm range 8 10 12 14

At Storyteller combat difficulty, monsters do not avoid hazards.

Infestation

The chance for a tile to become infested and the chance for small groups of heroes to be ambushed in an infested tile both depend on the overland difficulty level.

Incursion

Split incursions are more likely at higher overland difficulty levels. The frequency and speed of incursions vary with overland difficulty:

Storyteller Adventurer Tragic Hero Walking Lunch
Incursion interval 380-540 360-480 330-390 290-330
First move delay 40 30 25 20
Time to destroy station 50 30 25 15
Time to destroy town 60 35 30 20
Time to destroy defenses 30 20 15 10

An incursion's starting size (the number of sites or defenses it destroys) varies with overland difficulty:

Storyteller Adventurer Tragic Hero Walking Lunch
Chapter 1 incursion size 2 3 4
Chapter 2 incursion size 3 4 5
Chapter 3 incursion size 4 5 6
Chapter 4 incursion size 4 5 6 7
Chapter 5 incursion size 5 6 7 8
Additional size per infested tile 0.34 0.5

An incursion's size also more greatly boosts its strength (the number of monster cards it draws) at higher overland difficulty levels.

Chapter

When a chapter has a time limit, the limit depends on the overland difficulty.

Legacy Points

On Storyteller overland difficulty, mission victories grant 3 legacy points instead of the usual 2.