Last night saw the introduction of the spring 2013 challenge
path in the Kingdom, the Avatar of Jarlsberg.
Following in Boris’ footsteps, the avatar of the patron god of
pastamancers and saucerors excels with the overlap of food and magic, baking
enemies and summoning potatoes. AoJ is
the first of the special challenge classes to focus on mysticality, so it
promises to give a great new Kingdom-dominating experience.
Along with a new path come two excitingly detailed
features. First is a more complex set of
skill trees than any we've seen before. Four
skill trees, each with eight skills and a few branches, give the Avatar of
Jarlsberg more skills and more options than any class that came before it. The effects of most of the skills are pretty
standard (elemental resistances, increased or decreased combat frequency,
increased monster level, and combat skills), but a few are pretty sexy (like
summoning food items, or turning those food items into familiar-replacing
companions), so there’s a lot of potential.
AoJ also presents a new food-crafting system. Instead of acquiring food in the usual way
(“Jarlsberg didn't trust food he didn't make himself”), the Avatar gets access
to Jarlsberg’s Cosmic Kitchen, complete with a cookbook showing how to combine summoned foods with combat skills to make consummate foodstuffs. There are additional instructions, too,
allowing for immaculate or even sublime consumables. The interplay between the skill trees and diet
provide for a new, thrilling perspective on the Kingdom’s normal diet mechanics.
It’s a bit too early to see if there are significant changes
to the game’s story (although there’s almost certainly a new final boss), but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the main Council quests have interesting twists for the Avatar.
All-in-all,
I’m eager to experience all the ins and outs of the new challenge path, so I'm going to get to it.
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