Combat System and Strategies

 Combat System: 

Fear & Hunger isnt an easy game, instant death and tricky hazards are common things! In order to survive during your delve, you have to know the basics! This section of the wiki will try to explain in detail how the encounters work and how you can minimize the damage to your Party.

 Dismemberment system: 

The majority of the enemies (including your's characters) are composed by body parts(Generally head, torso, limbs...genitalia...).One can single target this poart during the fight. Every body part have (only for the enemies) his own Hp pool, and when it reachs ZERO it will be usually cut it off, or it will remain visible but seriously wounded, it actually dosent matter, because the results is the same: the enemy cannot longer use that part!

Why is this so important? The main idea is that you have make your Enemies helpless. You'll cut the arm the was holding a sword, so he can NO LONGER attack you in that way. You can just chop his head off for a clean death! Aim at his eyes so he will start missing you, or just rip off his testicles because that assholes deserve that!

In the same fashion Enemies can usually do the same to you...and there is NO going back. They can broke your legs forcing you to crawl for the rest of the game, cut off the arm that you use to lift the shield so you can no longer use it.. and so on...

Very few enemies (such as Ghoul) will not die untill ALL of their parts are destroyed, and can still attack even without head and limbs, but they are uncommon

Stay sharp, be carefull, avoid combat you think you cant take...and of course check the enemies list page in this wiki to know what are you gonna to face and how avoid the worst!

''' You gonna misss... '''

Sad but true... despite what i just explain above, the game is programmed in the way that is quite hard to hit the Vital organs of the enemies. So, even if you know that chopping the Guardian's head will instat kill him...doing so is another story. Instead of keep aiming at the most obvious weak point, hoping for a luky strike, make the enemy helpless first! than it will be easier to deal with! Magic is a valid alternative since it cannot miss! (but it will cost you precious mind power that can easly cause you madness(see further)

 Coin Toss / sudden death: 

A lot of the Enemies, expecially at the beginning of the game, possess a special kind of move sets (usually telegraphed by messages during combat that you really should pay attention of) that involve a Coin flip. You have to choose Head or Tail, and if you choose wrong...usually is just Game Over(Best case scenario), or in some other cases they'll inflict various kind of status that you canno heal and gonna make your game experience just miserable.

 Last Stand (dont low your guard!): 

Almost ALL the Enemies in this game have a special rule that we will call it here "last Stand" Basically the Last stand says that upon death, there is a 50% chance for the Enemy to do one last action before ending the battle. And there is NOT much you can do about this, if not tryng to keep your HP high, or use guard on the more vulnerable memeber of your party so avoinding the same fate of your foe!

 Fears: 

Sure, the main hazards in the Dungeon may appear to be the damage the enemy can deal.... but thats not it.

Every Characters start the game with a FEAR...and you can catch many more of that! Usually the Fear is linked to a certain type of Enemies, for istance the Phasmophobia (the fear of ghost) will be activated while facing a Ghost Foe. THe Fear usually include dealing less damage and reciving more.

The main problem is that your characters can develop new Phobias during the game! One easy way to do that is letting your mind power go around zero! So staing too long in dark places and using your skills a lot isnt a good idea! Try always to keep your Mind UP by stayng in lighted place, drink alcohol and smoking tobacco!(in the game...in real life is NOT that healty).

 Status: 

Oh look! a little stupid Cave Gnome! very low HP and he's so easy to hit, what could go wrong?

As said above...the raw damage is NOT your only problem. A lots of Enemies (expecially the small one) can inflict you status debuff: special kind of problem that you'll keep carry with you even after the battle! Why is such a problem? well since the "random nature" of the game, you are not guaranteed to find an antidote while you are poisoned, or a bandage to stop bleeding from the Gnaw of the Cave Gnomw said above!

Furthermore: some status are impossbile to heal!

Again is a wise strategy, to check the enemies list to see what kind of trouble are you going to face if you attack them, but dont be fooled! The dungeon itself is a good source of negative status! Touching the rotten meats will probably give you Parassites, and jumping into holes will often results ina broken leg!

 Kiting: 

Put togheter all what you've read since now and start applying some strategies! Kiting is one of them, and is particularry effective with the first kind of Enemies you'll probably meet: The Guardias, that have a beginner-Trap-move that involve a Coin toss(see above in this section) that will of course kill you instantly.

Kiting consist in attack an Enemy, inflicting damage or cutting off some of his limbs and immediatly FLEE from the battle and than attack em again!

The damage you have inflicted are still there, but all the specil move the Enemy was preparing has been resetted, giving you more and more extra shot in "realative" safety.

 Conclusion: 

Avoid combat is usually a good idea(you can bypass enemies, flee from the battle etc) also because you're NOT become stronger each battle you make, not mechanically at least, but you get experience (in real life) and sometimes some quite usefull item that really'gonna help you in your delve. The moral of the story is : Be sure to be  you  to choose what to fight and when.