Since that first run through the stand-alone version of BtSL, I’ve played through the campaign once to get the Ironman achievement and then focused entirely on unlocking the Honest Looting, Memorable Moment, and Apocalypse achievements. None of which turned out to be very straightforward.
The ‘Apocalypse Can Wait’ one is simple enough on paper… you just have to pray the random enemy/item generation works in your favor (I’m about to start the 20th run now and just have to kill the Captor/Captive one more time). ‘A Memorable Moment’ is a bit more complicated. I’m not sure of the exact requirements (like ‘Tricks of Time’ it apparently has an unmentioned perquisite), but it popped for me after dying to the Fallen Priestess when she was the last boss “blocking the path”.
‘Honest Looting’ caused some trouble at first since there’s apparently little to no useful information around regarding its requirements. As it turns out, it requires killing an exorbitant number of bosses/mini-bosses. At the start of this 20th run I’ve killed 77. You can check your own progress by extracting the player.json file from your save, opening it with a text editor, and searching for “vendor”.
While playing on Normal difficulty my best was 60 floors (this was before I understood how the vendor inventories expanded), worst was 10 floors (damn elementals), and over the course of this odyssey I’ve experimented with quite a number of different character builds. Some notes:
– Kineticist’s Kinetic Blade works with Vital Strike to bypass the Gather Power charge time (but doesn’t do extra damage)
– Kinetic Blade doesn’t work with Attacks of Opportunity or Cleaving Finish (but does with Cleave)
– Magus Spell Combat works with Flurry of Blows and Kinetic Blade
– Sword Saint works with polymorph if you specialize in a relevant natural weapon
– Sword Saint works with any Motherless Tiefling or Dragon Disciple build if you pick Bite as your weapon
– Sensei’s Wisdom attack bonus works when armored
– Sneak Attack ranged users are insanely good here thanks to the confined quarters (Grenadiers as well)
– You can dual-wield throwing weapons with Two-Weapon Fighting for tons of attacks
– There’s no need for a healer due to the abundance of potions
– Browse the vendor stock before deciding on what team to use for a run
– Try to avoid buff-intensive builds; yes you can rest frequently, but re-buffing every floor is time-consuming
– Past the 30th floor golems (Greater Autumn & Golden) and Wild Hunt (Monarchs) become prohibitively annoying
– Before the 30th floor never underestimate elmentals
– Kill any Geokineticists you come across quickly
– Stinking Cloud is a godsend against the Fallen Priestess and Wicked Chanter
– Secret areas can spawn in a floor’s first room
– It’s often possible to use Stealth to get through a floor with a solo character