Choose whether to retreat before the first hero acts in a round. Once a hero commits an action, party movement is locked until the round finishes. Attacking and then trying to sidestep immediately is not the same tactic as in a real-time dungeon crawler.
A shot that misses and a hit marked Blocked need different fixes. Use the hit-chance calculator for Evasion, Dexterity and Blind; Armor and Sharpness explains the physical-damage threshold after an attack connects.
Bring the fight into a corridor
When several enemies can approach, pull back to a narrower passage before attacking. Fewer approach tiles can reduce how many opponents engage at once. Save food for resting between those encounters rather than fighting each group with the previous fight’s depleted resources.
If a level-1 party fell into Hollowgrave, inspect its equipment before assuming the whole party is too weak. A hero unable to act from the rear is a missing source of damage every round.
Give the rear row a usable action
| Equipped action | Rear-row check |
|---|---|
| Ordinary close melee weapon | Cannot reach from behind the front row |
| Weapon with Reach | Can supply a physical attack from the rear |
| Bow, crossbow or sling | Use the ranged weapon and check its requirements |
| Spell | Confirm the selected skill and available casting resource |
A quarterstaff with Reach gives a caster an alternative to spending mana. Inspect the actual weapon’s property rather than assuming all swords, spears or staves behave identically.
Skill and weapon must match
Right-click the active skill slot to select the ability you intend to use. Check its weapon requirement: a skill needing a sword will not become available just because the hero is holding a different strong weapon.
Use abilities explicitly marked as free actions before the ordinary action when you want their benefit on that action. A potion can also restore a hero without spending the combat action, so use the appropriate recovery or cure before committing a critically wounded hero.
Item skills in the current patch
Patch 1.0.5 fixes staff item abilities doing zero damage on Paladins. It also fixes item skills incorrectly consuming Blood Mage bones or HP and mana with Archmage’s Seal. If an old guide treats those bugs as class restrictions, use the corrected behavior instead.
Swapping a staff or loading a save is not a current method for refreshing its spell cooldown. The relevant exploits were fixed in patches 1.0.5 and 1.0.4 respectively.
Sources
- VoidEngineer’s combat and equipment referenceActions, rear-row Reach restrictions, active skills, item use and weapon requirements.
- Players recovering from early Hollowgrave fightsRest between encounters, pull enemies into tunnels and equip usable back-row weapons.
- Fahad Suleman’s combat observationsInventory consumables do not spend a hero’s action.
- Patch 1.0.5Item skill cost, Paladin damage and staff cooldown fixes.
