One Deck Dungeon locks up its own dice

Actually, totally correct. @Mercanis was correcting my typo! How come none of you jokers told me I’d misspelled a show-off word like “martinet”? Way to leave a guy hanging.

-Tom

Ahh, you ninja changed it. Apologies to @Mercanis.

I wasn’t aware of the English meaning @ddtibbs provided.
In my language, a martinet is a small whip that was used to punish children (not so long a time ago — my parents possessed one and I played a lot with it. I may be sharing too much.).
It shares the same name as the vernacular used for the small kingfisher birds in France. I looked up in Alain’s Rey wonderful historical dictionnary, and a proposed origin is that that whip shares the shape of the little bird’s tail.

I’m enjoying this but out of 6 runs on novice I’ve gotten to the dragon every time, but lost to the dragon every time. I’ve gotten irritatingly close quite a few times, 5 skulls with a 6th queued but I died before it took effect most recently. I’m at a loss as to what I’m doing wrong. Any advice for a newbie? I try to take more dice preferentially (so items), then XP when I can’t take more dice. I only take skills if they’re transparently fantastic, so very rarely. Maybe I’m not managing my time well enough? I’m usually level 3 when I get down to the dragon, and I still feel like I’m always a couple of dice short of being able to comfortably deal with him.

So, yeah, any advice to help push me past this sticking point?

Just to ask a dumb question – you are playing on progression mode, right? And assigning your XP after each run?

Also, try using two characters, if you aren’t. It’s easier. I don’t know which skills you consider “transparently fantastic”, but definitely (especially against the dragon) anything that helps you makes 6s is good.

Don’t be afraid to flee from stuff if you’re going to take a lot of damage, or even if the reward just doesn’t help you very much (traps are generally bad because they are all or nothing, if you fail to clear the trap you take a lot of damage).

Getting to level 4 is quite nice because you get an extra black die, but I usually don’t get there either. I think my time management skills are lacking as well.

I am. Clearly, eventually, I’ll accumulate enough advantage to push through, but it feels like I shouldn’t need to. :)

I’ve been running archer & paladin. I’ll keep the skill advice in mind.

Yeah, I’ve been fleeing a little more lately. I think I haven’t really got the knack of time management. For example, sometimes I’ll take a trap or encounter and use the archer’s ability which gives you hero dice in trade for time. I feel like I’m often spending so much time to pass these safely that I’d have been better off fleeing them. Maybe I’m not assessing what is and is not worth my while successfully.

Regardless, thanks for the thoughts. I don’t want to get so frustrated that I put the game aside, because I quite like it.

Probably. With some classes, most traps are worth skipping until you find a game changer, and playing over and over you’ll know what monsters to not fight with a given one.

I seem to remember that the Paladin and Wizard were quite strong against the first dungeon, but that my Archer and Fighter had quite some issues with it. But it was a long time ago.

Hmm, I’ll try switching up the classes. I’d thought, with the 2 armored red boxes on the dragon, that the archer might be a good choice. Then I stuck to it in the name of progression, but maybe that’s not the right way to go.

Thanks for the advice!

Two characters is probably a bit easier, but also a lot more complicated. I’d recommend sticking to one while learning the game. The paladin is probably the strongest option for the dragon.

Definitely take extra dice a lot of the time, but cherry pick skills that let you gain more dice than you use up, or let you manipulate existing dice. Particularly ones that use dice in colours you are strong in and generate dice in colours you are weaker in. I find the blue skills are particularly good for this.

I almost never flee from anything. Even taking a bit of damage is worth it to pick up more loot. About the only exception is a single-colour trap in the wrong colour early on.

These skills are generally good, but not much use against the dragon, where you are going to need all three colors of dice anyway. I think there might be a strategy in taking one of these skills early, but then turning it into XP before you fight the dragon, but I haven’t tried it.

Oh yes: absolutely what rho21 wrote, I didn’t think you might be doing two players runs. Always go solo at first, it is way more manageable.

Sure I need dice of all three colours, but flexibility is key. If one round I roll awfully on my red dice, I need to be able to fix that problem. A power that lets me convert a blue 3 into a couple of new red dice probably solves my red shortage. If I roll really well in red, I don’t need to use that power.

Two or three conversion powers of different types and one that boosts dice and I can pretty much guarantee being able to fill all the boxes on the dragon without difficulty.

One thing I am CONSTANTLY forgetting is that you can change the basic skill you get (from Veteran). Just click the skill name in the character selection screen. Also if you have more than one “focus” (skill group) beyond “basic” filled in, you pick which one you’re going to use for that run from the same screen.