Ah cool!
I say huck the Helmet and Hammer at Karstah. I trust her to get it done in a timely enough manner and I don't think we need it now. Other stuff I'm ambivalent.
Happily though, the Master Rune of Everfrost presents a very good option for our Dragon Gronti's weapons; either the claws or the Breath or both. In terms of the Breath I already have an idea of the Master Rune of Everfrost + Force (This transforms it into a projection of cold infused force) + Cold (Makes it even colder and elementally more intense).
Anyway! Postmortem time! First up we got the battle with the Greater Daemon.
The Battle with Gus.
This daemon spent six rounds manipulating the Waystone while the Meargh held Snorri off - that was what she was particularly good at in this battle and her inadvertent help with his set up stands as a major component for the second phase. Baseline Gus was not actually that scary, I'd actually rate them as less scary than the Meargh because he had so many pieces of Equipment ripe for breaking.
Because of a combination of Snorri's Grudge and Chaosbane Trait, the slugging stats were at 155 for Snorri and 160 for Gus. Gus also automatically canceled one Win we have every round due to Unnatural Agility (something he shared with the Meargh). However,Gus lagged in the Magic Round by ten points and that means that Snorri was going to have a somewhat consistent ability to cancel our Losses. If it was just this Snorri would win hands down, it would simply take some time. However, Gus invoked a special environmental event due to the holy to Slaanesh six rounds they'd had to work.
The Howl of the Unreal is a fascinating environmental buff and it made Gus way more challenging of a fight, and also inserted some curious dynamics into the fight which became particularly apparent at its end.
The Howl of the Unreal.
Magic erupts from the Waystone, the machinations of the Greater Daemon come to pass and a torrent of power floods the room to levels not seen since the darkest days of the Incursion.
Magic Rounds are no longer about loss cancellation, but "controlling" the torrent.
If Gustalixx (the Keeper of Secrets), retains control. They will roll 1d6 and gain
1 = 2 Wins Cancelled
2 = 1 Wounds recovered
3 = 2 Wounds recovered
4 = Summon a Herald
5 = Nulify the effect of one of Snorri's items for the next round.
6 = Auto Win the next round.
If Snorri gains control you roll 1d4 and gain
1 = 2 Losses Cancelled
2 = 1 Wound recovered
3 = +30 to Combat
4 = Auto Win the next round
Its very important to note here that Snorri has a smaller pool to choose from. He's actually advantaged here due to the limited number of choices, and he's further advantaged by throwing +45 against Gus's +35 in the Magic Rounds. This bears out in the first round.
Snorri is swept, Gus completely winning the first Combat round. But Snorri wins the Magic Round with one win and a crit (which usually counts as two wins). Snorri gains control of the Torrent and then rolls a 3 on the Torrent control. Because Gus won the Combat Round he was at +175, but Snorri was at +185. Seething with magic the two combatants face each other down.
It's also important to note a part of the mechanics that will always impact Snorri, there's no way to change this particular widget as I understand: Snorri rolls dice to select his Equipment target for Zharrgal and the Eye and so he can end up choosing less advantageous pieces of equipment. This doesn't really hinder him, but it has implications for the speed of a fight. If the dice had landed on the ladle, it'd have broken fast, and Gus probably would have lost control of the Torrent permanently since the ladle boosted their magic as well. Instead, we picked the Pan, a T5 with 5/5 durability and giving Gus a +20 bonus. It takes a little while to break, but its a worthy break when it does.
Anyway, on the second round they tie. This means that Snorri retains control and the +30 buff he has is retained. This also is the time that Soul lays down the adjudication that a character can only change what their Buff is when they wrest control of the Torrent from their opponent and this has wide reaching implications, and majorly contributes to Gus's inevitable death because it prevents Gus from doing things like switching to Summoning a Herald to save themself with 1d2 per round Regen (Which is Freakish holy shit).
Gus starts suffering from auto losses because their Slaanesh special conditional swings him by 30 points and knocks him out of Snorri's tier. The fight from there is a pretty normal stall fight, and Gus gives a quite good showing, especially when Gus wins back control of the Torrent: At that point Gus rolls the autowinning buff, but we've destroyed the Pan and Gus ends up locked into a situation where they would die due to Skarren's DoT before they can defeat Snorri. If Gus had Mutli Wound, or the option to change their buff, that would not have been so. Granted it kinda didn't matter because Snorri wrested control back from the daemon shortly after Gus won it back, and then Snorri clapped Gus's ass like a drum consistently after that.
At the end of the day I would say that Gus's Torrent made them interesting, and also doomed them to their timely demise.
Annnnnd now we get to talking about Snorri himself, who is very interesting.
Snorri has 5 +1 (Mhorni keeping you safe) = 6 wounds
Snorri regens 1 wound every 2 rounds, every round deal 1 damage to equipment regardless from Zharrgal, roll DC 30,40,45 to add 1 damage depending on item quality from the Eye.
Skarren deals 1 wound every 2 Rounds to any enemies without regen, and Snorri doesn't need to win the rounds. Rounds 1, 3, 5, 7 etc
Mhorni DC 30 every 2 rounds. If you pass, Breaking procs double and damage doubles (not including Skarren). Rounds 1, 3, 5, 7 etc.
The number of Wounds Snorri can inflict in a round caps at 3 (when Mhorni doubles his wound damage, and Skarren procs)
Snorri inflicts a -35 to Enemy Casting just by being in the same scene.
Snorri's raw power in his combat bonus is very high, and due to Skarren is applied to an entire zone of the battlefield/the battlefield as a whole if its small enough. But where he really has his build is in his large list of special rules.
I figure that since we have reached a relatively stable interpretation of all of his kit it was time to write up the whole thing, look at its implications, and summarize the specific levers in his build that need to be used to kill him. And I do want to emphasize Need here: Snorri's special rules make him impossible to defeat unless certain key circumstances are met. The intent of this is to promote understanding of Snorri's abilities in the thread, and to provide Soul with a reference for balanced enemy design.
First up, Snorri's effective Wounds are 11, because of his Regeneration which essentially extends his wounds. Here's the pattern below, and why I say 'extend'.
6 -1
5 -1 + 1
5 - 1
4 -1 + 1
4 -1
3 - 1 +1
3 -1
2 -1 + 1
2 - 1
1 - 1 + 1
1 - 1 <- Dead
The next thing to discuss is Snorri's always on features: Zharrgal's equipment breakage and Skarren's DoT. He does not need to win rounds in order to have these activate. This makes them
exceptional Tier crossing tools. Zharrgal's equipment damage is constant every round, and if his higher tier enemy is higher in tier because of Equipment Zharrgal will eventually solve that problem. Zharrgal is thus what I would consider a advantage destroying/ground gaining Tier crossing tool, and in some senses a defensive tool against higher tiers because it eventually makes them
stop being higher tier and reduces incoming damage that way.
The Eye is a quality DC dependent piece which supplements Zharrgal that simply amplifies the speed of this advantage destroying effect.
Skarren does 1 Wound every odd Round (1, 3, 5, 7 etc), and it means higher Tier enemies can still die to him before they kill Snorri. So long as they are engaged in battle they are taking damage. It also means that Snorri has a minimum threshold of damage that he inflicts while Skarren is still functioning,
which puts a minimum on enemy health. What I mean is that if an enemy has 5 Wounds, it needs to kill Snorri inside of 9 rounds or it dies (1, 3, 5, 7, 9 for five odd rounds). This is normally impossible without some way to do more Damage Per Round or to Have Regen to negate Skarren.
Now we get to Mhorni, who is a broken little fucker tbh. He gives Snorri access to Multi-Wound on a DC 30 on odd Rounds, so 40% of the odd Rounds. Snorri's maximum damage then is 3 Wounds on odd Rounds, because Mhorni activates on the same time table as Skarren damage procs. Mhorni also boosts Snorri's Breaking to either 2 Damage, if the Eye didn't activate, or 4 if the Eye did. The Breaking element makes enemy design very difficult, because Equipment is exceptionally vulnerable.
Finally we have Snorri's -35 to Enemy casting, and his +45 Magic Round bonus. Snorri's huge penalty here means that he tends to dominate in the Magic Rounds, and thus store Loss Cancellations for himself. Furthermore, it has wide ranging implications in scenarios like the Howl of the Unreal, or if the enemy has abilities dependent on rolling well in their Magic Rounds. In order to equal Snorri in the Magic Rounds, a character needs a minimum Magic Round bonus of 80.
Now, moving on to the levers/special rules that one has to use to kill Snorri. Reading through the above break down I hope the outlines of some of them are being conveyed successfully.
There are five special rules that I would point to being particularly of use to kill Snorri: Breaking, Multi-Wound, Regeneration, Anti-Regen methods, Item Enchantment Nullification.
One special rule that is of limited use for an enemy is Win Cancellation: Snorri doesn't necessarily need to Win a Round to use his build. It can be supplementally helpful for an Enemy to cancel our wins however.
And there is one situation without special rules that I would note as being sufficient to kill Snorri: an enemy being a tier above him, with 7 Wounds.
Let's break down why for each of these.
Starting with the very simple beat stick beast. If it is a tier above him straight forwardly due to just being that swole, it auto wins rounds, and Snorri can't cause Wounds to it from Combat Rounds. Skarren however can cause Wounds, so it needs a minimum of 7 Wounds to survive and it will kill Snorri the end of Round 11 and have 1 Wound remaining. A creature that is a tier higher with 6 wounds can achieve a mutual kill. If the creature is not a tier higher than Snorri, then it needs more than 7 Wounds, and Snorri's Magic Round Loss Cancels start to become relevant.
To give a very rough estimate, an entity with 8 wounds that is 45 points above Snorri and a Magic Round bonus equal to him after Winds Denied has a chance to die, but is very likely to kill him after 11 Rounds. As the gap between them gets smaller and the weaker they are in the Magic Round, the more Wounds the enemy requires to survive long enough. The number of Wounds an enemy needs to win against Snorri also expands
rapidly, because of Snorri pulling out unlikely wins and Mhorni doubling those so the enemy takes three damage on some rounds. As the enemy's combat score gets closer to Snorri, the less unlikely those 'unlikely wins' become, and the more relevant Snorri's Loss Cancellations in the Magic Round become.
A beat stick with 15 points over Snorri, but equal bonuses in the Magic Round, is in a situation where Snorri wins a Round about a quarter of the time I think (Someone should check my statistics there). Baseline it takes 11 rounds to kill him. A quarter of 11 is 2.75 Rounds Snorri might win, so I'm just going to round to 3 Rounds in order to find the upper bound. Baseline to survive to Round 12 is 7 Wounds. The Maximum Damage Snorri could cause if all his wins land on an odd round is 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 12 Wounds in 11 Rounds. So the beast would need 13 Wounds to survive to Round 12 and not die in a mutual kill.
So if its a Fimir enemy, that Fimir needs a bonus of +160 and 13 Wounds. Higher than Gustalixx, and that 160 has to be all immune to Breaking.
Moving on to the special rules. If an enemy has Breaking, they can break at least some of Snorri's Equipment. They
cannot cancel his Regeneration, because Barak Azamar is Unbreakable and literally doesn't care about Breaking. Zharrgal and Skarren are not so blessed, but because they are both made of Adamant (+1) and made with Dwarf Craft (+1) Skarren probably has 7/7 durability and Zharrgal probably has 6/6 durability at least. If they can be broken at all, which as is actually unclear.
Breaking is basically a special rule we've not run into before in hostile hands, and I expect its of variable use. It's the Special Rule I'm probably the least concerned about, unless the enemy is throwing 3 to 4 points of Breaking around.
Multi-Wound is definitely more concerning because it basically means an enemy needs far less HP itself to kill Snorri conventionally. Using the measure of 11 Rounds, a Mutli-Wound that procs on 10% of the odd Rounds (A DC45 Multi-Wound proc) means that its possible but unlikely it will proc on one of the six odd rounds that exist across 11 Rounds total. This is dangerous in the hands of the 160 and 13 Wound Beatstick, because if it activates once, that knocks Snorri's survival time down to 9 Rounds, thus reducing how many Wounds the Beatstick needs to survive.
A DC40 Multi-Wound proc is much more dangerous, as that's one in five rolls on a d50, or 20%. Across six activation rounds, its much more likely to activate then. In the hands of the 160 Beater that's very likely to kill him in 9 rounds, meaning it only needs 12 Wounds. If you get to Multi-Wound doing 2 Wounds instead of 1 every odd Round, you basically negate Snorri's Regeneration and he dies on Round 5. In a lot of ways, Multi-Wound is one form of Anti-Regeneration: Literally just out damage their regeneration rather than cancel the ability to regenerate.
Regeneration is another key to killing Snorri. If you have Regeneration or Multi-Wound, you can kill him, and not need to follow the Beatstick statline I've outlined so far as closely. Obviously how much regeneration you have for a fight is going to heavily tilt this one way or another. Regeneration of 1 Wound every Round is definitely enough. I don't have a lot of things to say about this; its just good.
Anti-Regeneration effects, to cancel Snorri's own regeneration come in a number of potential forms; soul cutting, vitality sapping, cursed wounds. A number of things, all of which have yet to manifest in the game. With it you can rip Snorri down to 6 Rounds of survival time. And you may also force him to weaken Skarren to the point it is within the Safeties. This may either weaken or disable its DoT entirely unless Snorri just chooses to risk Skarren hurting him. It's actually pretty straightforward here, and means characters need far fewer Wounds, only enough to survive through Round 6.
Finally, finally, we have Item Effect Nullification. This has also not occurred, yet, but we've seen it: The Torrent could have turned off one of Snorri's items. In terms of danger to his build its pretty bad. If it shuts off BA's Regen then there's the cascade with probably needing to weaken or deactivate Skarren, and basically breaks the core of his stall build. If it turns off Skarren, the enemy needs
far fewer Wounds to tank the stall spiral, and means Snorri just stalls against a higher Tier enemy and then probably dies by GM adjudication if he can't get Skarren back on or if BA gets turned off. Turning off Zharrgal means that a Tier higher enemy will take a
lot longer to weaken, though we'd still have the Eye of course. And that's the order of severity I'd lay down: BA is the worst to turn off, the Eye is the least bad. Skarren is somewhere in the middle.
Overall I think the most common key effect we've seen is Regeneration on the part of enemies. That rule by itself lets them hypothetically get into a position to kill Snorri, but we've yet to encounter an enemy that leveraged it to the fullest. Item Nullification is probably the scariest special rule effect I've discussed. An enemy needs one of these special rules to have a chance, or to just Be Really Swole.
In terms of tools
@Andmeuths that Snorri could use to destroy the levers in his build, an immediate one that got brought up on the Discord is Snorri obtaining Anti-Regeneration or more damage output. Anti-Regen on a conceptual level is currently out of reach as far as I can tell, so we're looking for more Multi-Wound options. One lead for this is starting an Understand Project to Understand Purification into a Weapon rune, and then using that on the next piece of kit we make for Snorri. Conveniently, we can do multiple Understand projects on the same rune.
What we could do here is a Runestaff, Axe, Warpick, or Spear (As
@Xepheria perfers) that has Purification + Lightfright (Shoot lasers that burn and cause fear) + Fury, or any number of similar inscription set ups that go for "The Sun is a Deadly Laser". That has high energy as a primary component of its function, so it has strong synergy with our current Set as is.
In terms of an Amulet what we're best served by is an Amulet that raises Snorri's own +45 Magic Round bonus and increases his -35 Winds Denied penalty. This may involve the Master Rune of Thungni, or some rune not yet invented. The other use case for it is helping regulate the energies from Forging at the Anvil during a full Storm of Magic. At the moment I think we should look into the Master Rune of Thungni and see what it does more clearly. From that we can understand if its a good option.
