"Did you hear what happened at the Wayside Inn?"
"No -- what happened?"
"While everyone was partying to Liars' Night they got robbed."
"Seriously!? Who robs a party?"
"It was 'A Masked Man', apparently."
"What a jerk. I hope they catch him."

The local Liars' Night festivities at the Wayside Inn were interrupted by a masked thief! They stole magical items and escaped, and now it's up to the Champions to stop them!

Liars' Night 3 introduces Avren, the Half-elf Warlock/Sorcerer trickster, and brings back Donaar Blit'zen, the Dragonborn Paladin, and Krond, the Half-orc Eldritch Knight. Players have until Monday, October 28th at 12PM Pacific to complete their Liars' Night 3 unlocks and objectives.

New Champion: Avren

Avren is an embodiment of mischief; a trickster god in humanoid form. Long ago, he tricked an ancient being into giving him magic and immortality. This power also came with a curse: whenever Avren dies, he will return to life with a new body and varying abilities. While Avren's body may change, however, his soul and his undying love for his wife, Sofious, always remains. The two have remained married for centuries, seeking each other out to reunite in each lifetime.

Avren is a pure Support Champion. He uses his Mirror Image ability to boost Champions in the formation based on assigned roles (DPS, Support, and Tanking), increasing even further for Champions with more than one role. Avren also raises Global DPS based on the number of Champions adjacent to him in the formation. When you want to add Avren to your party, you can swap him with Jamilah (Slot 11).

For more information about our latest Champion, check out the Idle Champion Spotlight: Avren dev blog!

Year 2 Champion: Donaar Blit'zen

This copper, draconic gentleman claims to know more than one hundred different dragons. Chromatic, metallic—just tons and tons of dragons—I’m hoping we can leverage some of these connections in our dealings. None of the dragons I’ve contacted have gotten back to me, but they’re probably just very busy right now. This is one of the busiest times for dragons… or so I’ve been told by my new best friend, Donaar Blit’zen.

Donaar is a Support/Healer Champion. He uses his Command ability to debuff enemies, while also healing damaged Champions and buffing those behind him. When you want to add Donaar to your party, you can swap him with Celeste (Slot 2).

For more information about Donaar, check out the Idle Champion Spotlight - Donaar dev blog!

Year 1 Champion: Krond

Born to an academic human wizard who was researching an orc tribe and the leader of said tribe, Krond has experience in both worlds. Raised as a fearsome warrior, he began focusing on the arcane arts after his mother was killed in a goblin raid. Krond wears intricate leather and cloth armor and carries a bonded warhammer.

Krond is a versatile DPS Champion, able to choose one of three DPS specializations. Krond's formation ability, Survival of the Fittest, increases his DPS for every strong (STR 16+) or evil-aligned Champion in the formation. When you want to add Krond to your party, you can swap him with Asharra (Slot 6).

For more information about Krond, check out the Idle Champion Spotlight - Krond dev blog!

Changes from Highharvestide

We got a lot of community feedback before, during, and after the recent Highharvestide event, and we have taken it into consideration for this and future events. We have removed the year-lock mechanic and made all three years of the event available to everyone from the very start. We have also increased the number of token drops players will receive, though we may adjust it again in future events. Finally, on some platforms we have slightly re-arranged the base event dialog in order to highlight the brand new Champion in each event. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback about our initial Year 3 event structure.

Year Three Variants

• Costumed Fans — Two costumed fans join the formation, ready to be Champions. They are not Champions, and as such are unable to do damage.
  Reach Area 75.


• Next Time, Champions! — Every time you face The Masked Man, they try another trick! Each time the party encounters The Masked Man (Areas 5, 20, 35, and 50) they have a different attack:


• Area 5: Caltrops/Dagger Throw — The Masked Man throws caltrops at the party, damaging all Champions for a minor amount, followed by a dagger throw to a random target in the front row.


• Area 20: Double Dagger Attack — The Masked Man's damage is increased by 100%.


• Area 35: Invisible — The Masked Man is invisible, and does not appear until he is on the front row and attacking with his normal dagger attack.


• Area 50: Mirror Mirror — Three versions of The Masked Man appear, each with armored health. Only one of them is the real version, though...

Reach Area 125.



• The Clone War — One of Avren's cloning vats was stolen and the body turned undead. Now, a Zombie Avren stalks the party, trying to kill its progenitor. Avren begins the adventure in the formation and cannot be moved or swapped out. In each Area, a Zombie Avren attacks the formation. Zombie Avren cannot be killed; instead, after 5 seconds it gets back up and begins attacking again.
  Reach Area 175.
  Completing this adventure unlocks the Zombie Avren skin.

Year Two Variants

• The Chaotic Decisionist — Donaar has decided that he's going to lead the way on his first adventure. Donaar starts this adventured unlocked and in the front of the formation, and he has decided that he can't move from that location. Only Champions with a chaotic alignment can be used.
  Reach Area 75.


• Nightmare Fuel — A flaming scarecrow spawns in every Area. After each encounter with the Masked Man, an additional scarecrow will spawn every Area, stacking cumulatively.
  Reach Area 125.


• Pirate's Night — Bruenor tried to bring the fun for Liars' Night by dressing up as a pirate. Unfortunately, a drunken sailor has mistaken him for another pirate who owes her some money. She spawns in every Area with one of four different special abilities. Bruenor is locked into his Pirate Bruenor skin for this variant, which unlocks for you once you complete the adventure.

Year One Variants

• Stealthy Pickpockets — Invisible pickpockets spawn and sneak towards the formation, becoming visible after five seconds. When they reach your formation, they steal 2% of your total gold each time they attack.
  Reach Area 75.


• Costumed Foes — A variety of costumed humanoids enemies attack the formation, each with different special abilities.
  Reach Area 125.


• It's Getting Darker — The night gets even darker, with each successive area getting darker and reducing your gold find while monsters gain additional health.
  Reach Area 175.

See the in-game FAQ for more information!

"It was quite the party: fun, festive, and perhaps a tad too much ale. But then some masked jerk managed to sneak in and take off with a bunch of our magical items! Can you help us?"

It's all fun and games until someone loses their magic items — now it's time to get the Party back together for another Liars' Night!

Liars' Night 2 runs until Monday, November 5th at 12:00pm Pacific, introduces Donaar Blit'zen, the Dragonborn Paladin, and also brings back the new-and-improved Krond, the Half-orc Eldritch Knight!

New Champion: Donaar Blit'zen

This copper, draconic gentleman claims to know more than one hundred different dragons. Chromatic, metallic—just tons and tons of dragons—I’m hoping we can leverage some of these connections in our dealings. None of the dragons I’ve contacted have gotten back to me, but they’re probably just very busy right now. This is one of the busiest times for dragons… or so I’ve been told by my new best friend, Donaar Blit’zen.

Donaar is a Support/Healer Champion. He uses his Command ability to debuff enemies, while also healing damaged Champions and buffing those behind him. When you want to add Donaar to your party, you can swap him with Celeste or Regis (Slot 2).

For more information about our latest Champion, check out the Idle Champion Spotlight - Donaar dev blog!

Returning Champion: Krond

Born to an academic human wizard who was researching an orc tribe and the leader of said tribe, Krond has experience in both worlds. Raised as a fearsome warrior, he began focusing on the arcane arts after his mother was killed in a goblin raid. Krond wears intricate leather and cloth armor and carries a bonded warhammer.

Krond is a versatile DPS Champion, able to choose one of three DPS specializations. Krond's formation ability, Survival of the Fittest, increases his DPS for every strong (STR 16+) or evil-aligned Champion in the formation. When you want to add Krond to your party, you can swap him with Asharra or Evelyn (Slot 6).

For more information about Krond, check out the Idle Champion Spotlight - Krond dev blog!

Year Two Variants

• The Chaotic Decisionist — Donaar has decided that he's going to lead the way on his first adventure. Donaar starts this adventured unlocked and in the front of the formation, and he has decided that he can't move from that location. Only Champions with a chaotic alignment can be used.


• Nightmare Fuel — A flaming scarecrow spawns in every Area. After each encounter with the Masked Man, an additional scarecrow will spawn every Area, stacking cumulatively.


• Pirate's Night — Bruenor tried to bring the fun for Liars' Night by dressing up as a pirate. Unfortunately, a drunken sailor has mistaken him for another pirate who owes her some money. She spawns in every Area with one of four different special abilities. Bruenor is locked into his Pirate Bruenor skin for this variant, which unlocks for you once you complete the adventure.

Year One Variants

• Stealthy Pickpockets — Invisible pickpockets spawn and sneak towards the formation, becoming visible after five seconds. When they reach your formation, they steal 2% of your total gold each time they attack.


• Costumed Foes — A variety of costumed humanoids enemies attack the formation, each with different special abilities.


• It's Getting Darker — The night gets even darker, with each successive area getting darker and reducing your gold find while monsters gain additional health.

See the in-game FAQ for more information!

Krond was originally released during our first Liars' Night event in 2017. Initially, he was seen as a powerhouse thanks to his strong Ultimate. Unfortunately, an error in the calculations for the Ultimate happened to sneak through our QA pass, so we had to dial him back. It was all downhill for Krond from there. We don't normally like to "nerf" champions, but the bug presented us with a choice we had to make and so we toned down his power. Between that tweak and the design idea that we could split the power level of his cantrips between 3 equipment pieces, he was seen as a sub-par Champion for much of the past year.

As we started our TLC pass for Liars' Night, we had a discussion on if we should wait for a big rebalance pass, or use the coming event to give Krond some redemption. We decided to take some time to work on him now, bringing some newfound glory to our Half-Orc Fighter. These changes are live in the game as of the Grand Tour 6 update today, so everyone who has Krond can have a week to get used to him before he's available for everyone in Liars' Night Y2 starting next week!



We started by looking at Krond's slot, and how it has grown this year. Evelyn is a go-to tank in the meta, so a sub-par DPS just wasn't going to cut it. Additionally, Krond is a CNE-exclusive Champion, so we have a bit more leeway to make major changes to the character. Given that, we wanted to take a look at the champion from the ground up.

Survival of the Fittest

Knowing what is coming in the upcoming Tanking & Healing update allows us to do a bit of future design with nu-Krond. We started by creating a new Formation Ability titled Survival of the Fittest. Because everything in his design is tied to his specializations, we wanted to give him a "build around me" ability that might make you think about a different formation. We decided that Krond has been looked down on for so long that he's probably pretty cranky. He's missed out on a TON of adventures and he's ready to create his own crew. Survival of the Fittest was born from that idea: Krond's damage is increased 100% for each champion in the formation (multiplicative) who is Evil (Arkhan, Jarlaxle, and Makos at the moment), or has a Strength score of 16+ (Arkhan, Azaka, Barrowin, Binwin, Donaar, Jamilah, Krond, Minsc, Tyril, and Wulfgar). Eventually, this should allow Krond to create a new formation type, focusing on heavy hitters and evil Champions.

Ability Scores & Alignment

Given his new focus on strong and evil Champions, we imagined Krond benched from almost all adventures and quietly stewing and working out. We increased his Strength to 18, and tipped his alignment from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil. That's right. Nu-Krond isn't messing around!

Equipment

We wanted to break Krond's equipment away from the focus on his specializations. So we merged the 3 equipment items that each boosted a single cantrip power into one equipment item that boosts Krond's chosen cantrip. With the 2 extra equipment pieces we gained, we gave Krond another self DPS equipment item and an item that increases his bonus from Survival of the Fittest, pumping up his power level.

Base Attack

In balancing his damage, we decided to shave a half second off of his base attack cooldown, lowering his cooldown from 5.75 seconds to 5.25 seconds. We also doubled his base attack damage.

Cantrips

We buffed upgrades to Eldritch Strike to give Krond's follow-up attacks more of a kick, positioning Krond as a DPS who excels at longer drawn-out encounters. We also increased the damage modifier of Krond's Thunderclap and Fire Bolt cantrips, though his Shocking Grasp is still the best bang for your single-target buck, if that's your thing.

Ultimate

While Krond's original ultimate packed quite the punch, we had to dial it back in a major way shortly after he was released. We've fine-tuned his Arcane Charge for a better balance between over-powered and feather-tickling.


In the end, our entire focus was to pull Krond out of the DPS dead zone and get him in fighting shape. As we mentioned above, we're aware of some of the tanking & healing updates we'll be making, and we were able to take into account how much better new Arkhan is going to be. We're confident you'll be satisfied with nu-Krond's power level, and even happier when nu-Arkhan comes around in the coming weeks. We'll be watching the discussion online and on discord to see how well he's received, so let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, or on the official Discord!

The Champions are celebrating together at a Liars' Night party at the Wayside Inn when suddenly a masked pickpocket crashes the festivities, stealing magical items and escaping into the night...

October brings our first Halloween event to Idle Champions: Liars' Night!

This limited-time adventure runs from today until Noon PST on Monday, November 6th 2017, and introduces Krond, the Half-Orc Eldritch Knight!

New Champion: Krond

Born to an academic human wizard who was researching an orc tribe and the leader of said tribe, Krond has experience in both worlds. Raised as a fearsome warrior, he began focusing on the arcane arts after his mother was killed in a goblin raid. Krond wears intricate leather and cloth armor and carries a bonded warhammer.

When you want to add Krond to your party, you can swap him with Asharra.

Features:

• Added the Liars' Night event, our second limited time campaign event! The event will run until Monday, November 6th at noon PST.
• Added a new Champion: Krond, the Half-Orc Eldritch Knight.
• Added a new event Divine Favor: Leira's Favor.

Changes:

• Several Champions have had their stat blocks updated, however, none of the changes affect any existing abilities (e.g. Hitch's "Friendly") at this time.
• Champions with multiple components to their attacks (e.g. Hitch with daggers) will now show their base Damage with both parts separated: "XXXXX+YYYYY Damage" to make it easier to determine how much damage each part of the attack will do.
• Updated the Seeking Allies adventure icon in the Tomb of Annihilation campaign.

See the in-game FAQ for more information!