License to Adventure
From A KoL Wiki
License to Adventure is the Summer 2017 special challenge path, introduced on May 15, 2017. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "You're a trained Loathing Operative, serving on His Majesty's Secret Service! Prepare to save the world over and over."
The whole thing is basically a huge reference to the spy action book and film series James Bond.
Restrictions
- You cannot eat.
- You can't risk being slowed down by a full stomach.
- The magical sausage is an exception, and can be consumed as normal.
- Your liver capacity is equal to (level + 2). This reaches a maximum at level 11. (There are also some path skills which can further increase your liver capacity a total of +3.)
- You can only drink "martinis", defined here as any booze that uses a
icon.
- You're not sure this beverage was shaken, and what the heck kind of glass is it in!? Never!
- You cannot use a familiar. Not even in a Crown of Thrones or Buddy Bjorn.
- Your familiar doesn't have a license to adventure and can't accompany you.
- You cannot adventure in The Sea. Attempting to talk to An Old Man gives the following message:
- That shack you saw on the main map was just a picture of a shack drawn on the ground.
Available Martinis
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For the purposes of this challenge path, a martini seems to be a drink that uses the Modifiers listed are the path upgrade connections Barry (+1 adv) and Ben Dover (+4 adv to booze with base 10 adv or less), and tuxedo shirt (+ 1-3 adv for drinks with the internal "martini" flag). The following are available in hardcore:
The following as also options for pulling in softcore:
Some unfortunate exclusions:
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Divergences
- Your mission begins with an introductory adventure.
- Each day, before you spend your first adventure, you are diverted to a meeting at the LI-11 HQ. There, you are informed by a superior that a villain has established a lair at a specific place in the Kingdom and you are assigned to eliminate it. If you adventure anywhere else for too long before completing the assigned lair, your spymaster superiors will get angry with you and you will eventually begin receiving the Disavowed debuff before every adventure.php encounter. You can only spend 10 encounters in adventure.php locations before receiving the debuff. This includes things like entering the Gift Shop in the Shore and turnless encounters, but not things like the Tavern Cellar or Witchess fights, which also do not give Disavowed even after this limit has passed.
- Disavowed gives -1% to all stats, -1% to item drops, -2% to meat drops and -1 stats per fight, for each encounter spent ignoring your mission, and applies at the start of combats so it even hampers you on that turn.
- The Super Villain's Lair is a zone that may appear off the coast of Seaside Town, the Nearby Plains, or in the Big Mountains. It contains several dozen combat encounters with a single type of minion -- e.g. aquanaut, Soldier, Ski Patroller, etc. -- one or two combats with a Villainous Henchperson, and finally, a combat with the villain himself. Minions yield meat but no items, while henchpeople can drop a variety of quest-relevant items, and defeating the final villain rewards you with Victor's Spoils and two pounds of Social Capital to spend back at headquarters.
- Once a Lair is cleared, you can adventure freely in the Kingdom for the remainder of the day without accumulating any more of the Disavowed debuff. A new Lair will need your attention tomorrow.
- Instead of the Naughty Sorceress, you fight "Blofeld". You do not need the Wand of Nagamar.
- Attempting to bring an astral consumable during reincarnation yields the following warning:
- Your purchase from the Deli may not be appropriate with this path. (A spy only drinks shaken martini beverages and doesn't have time to eat.) Are you sure that's what you want?
Skills
- You choose one of the six basic classes and keep your permanent skills.
- You gain access to an additional skill tree at LI-11 HQ, where you can spend social capital on various bonuses.
- Social capital is earned in the following ways:
- +1 for starting a run
- +2 for defeating a Villainous Villain
- +1 each for reaching Level 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15, for a total of +5
- +1 for each completed Normal and +2 for each completed Hardcore License to Adventure ascension, up to a total of +23.
- +1 for each used copy of Lazenby's Life Lesson, shares the 23 cap with ascensions.
Text
See The Council of Loathing/License to Adventure
Strategy
- The only usable astral consumables are astral energy drinks.
- Astral mask or astral shirt are good candidates for astral pets, as the path mechanics render the astral pet sweater useless.
- Lairs
There are a total of 60 minions in each Lair. Clearing a Lair can be accelerated by making the correct choices in three non-combat adventures that appear in the Lair.
- First, you are confronted with A Strange Panel with three colored buttons. Choosing the correct button eliminates 10 minions from the lair; choosing incorrectly can result in 7 more minions being added, making the zone take even longer to complete. The correct button can be identified by examining post-combat messages after defeating minions. You will be informed of a radio report warning lair staff not to press a {color} button, lest some {result} occur. You will want to look for messages that would put minions in peril, e.g. "Don't press the navy button until our guys have their gas masks on!" and note the base color (e.g. blue, green, or orange) that is closest to the shade of color described in that message. When you encounter the noncombat, push the appropriate color button and enjoy the carnage.
- Second, you are confronted a choice of three doors. One will cost 1000 meat to enter; selecting that door and spending the meat banishes 10 minions from the zone. Another door requires you to have a random one of the three Daily Dungeon legend keys -- Boris', Jarlsberg's, or Sneaky Pete's -- in inventory. The key is consumed upon use, but selecting that door eliminates 15 minions. The third door is for a "massage room" with a "spies welcome" sign. That door is always available, but selecting it seems to add about 13 more minions to the zone. There is also a fourth option to skip all of the doors; this is the best choice if you have neither 1000 meat or the required key.
- Third, you will be confronted with a panel with "strange symbols" and a choice of three settings. If you have already obtained the Universal Symbology Guide skill from LI-11 HQ, the three settings will be labeled with a description like "roaring fire" or "monorail shutdown"; otherwise, the labels will be illegible, and you will have to guess randomly at their effects. Selecting the correct button will eliminate 20 minions from the zone; selecting incorrectly can result in 10 minions killed or even adding 15 minions to the zone.
- Obtaining the Universal Symbology Guide as one of your first skills at LI-11 HQ is an excellent plan, as poking blindly at the buttons can greatly increase the number of minions.
- The lair can also be accelerated by using spider webs, razor-sharp can lids, and Knob Goblin firecrackers in combat against a Villainous Minion (not a Villainous Henchperson!) once per day, which will each remove 3 minions from the Lair in addition to its normal effect. One of each item may be used against the same minion each day. Firecrackers can be acquired when unlocking Cobb's Knob, while alley spiders make viable targets for the Time-Spinner or Duplicate.
- Using a Can of Minions-Be-Gone will remove 5 minions from the Lair.
Since Secret Villain Lairs take lots of adventures to clear and are completely optional, you could not do them instead of doing them to save roughly 20 turns each day. For example, in a three-day Hardcore run skipping the lair on the second day (and no longer adventuring once you get down to enough turns that rollover won't put you over 200) is viable.
Rewards
- Finishing a License to Adventure run that began while it was still the current special challenge path -- that is, between May 15th, 2017, and August 14th, 2017 -- gave players 100 (in Hardcore) or 50 (in Normal) extra karma points the next time they visit Valhalla.
- Players will receive a Thwaitgold bug statue upon defeating "Blofeld".
- Players in Hardcore gain the stainless steel equipment for their class.
- Players defeating "Blofeld" while the path was current received a License To Kill.
