I remember the first time I encountered Lost Souls. I’d got together a half-decent band for the first time, and they’d just earned around 2000 crowns for vanquishing an orc stronghold protected by several warriors and warlords, and one of my mercs with high resolve (a bargain-price gambler who had held his ground against an orc warlord after having his shield smashed and being pushed onto low ground) had just been made a Captain, and I thought that we’d fare well in encounters that taxed our resolve. Then we met the Lost Souls and almost everybody fled immediately. The Captain lasted only one extra turn before fleeing, and that just meant that he was surrounded and instantly slaughtered – the same fate that awaited the rest of my band (since the Lost Souls caught us again immediately if we retreated from the field).
After that I always took care to give most/all of my mercs the Hold Out perk fairly early on, so that combat skills were retained even if they fled. But then Hold Out was moved to Level 2 of the Defence Tree, and I was more concerned to increase Resolve when levelling up, or to buy lots of rounds for the whole company and hope that no one got too drunk (always remember to save campaign before buying a round) …
Then, today, I encountered some Lost Souls for the first time in aeons (I’d always avoided them after that initial encounter). No one had Hold Out, but most of them had over 50 resolve and one of them began each battle at confident morale, and a few of the others were starting at confident morale on account of some subtle psychogenic effects of ethane alcohol …
To my amazement, almost all of my mercs held their nerve in proximity to the Lost Souls, and in almost all cases they killed the accursed creatures with a single strike.
The SOLE exception was a wychfynder. I’d never recruited a wychfynder before, owing to a distaste for puritanical scum, but +20 resolve in the face of attacks that impose fear, panic or mind control sounded just a little too tempting, and I assumed that it would be useful for fighting Lost Souls. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Whereas everyone else kept calm and slaughtered a Lost Soul with a single strike, the wychfynder pissed his pants and fled in an instant, and only survived (with a few hit points) thanks to a timely intervention from a quick-handed comrade …
So … which attacks DO impose fear, panic and mind control, and why are the attacks of Lost Souls not considered as belonging to this category?
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