At each level, your Aethermon learns a new Battle Card. Let’s level up!

Last lesson we discussed the combination currency XG, which you can use to buy special items, and to level up your Aethermon. At each level, your Aethermon learns a new Battle Card. Let’s look into it!

There is a set deck for each Element which only they have access to, with internal strategies and synergies between its cards. This represents each Element’s preferred combat style, as mentioned earlier. Additionally, there is a ‘Normal Moves’ deck, which everyone has access to. 

At the start of the game, when you choose your Aethermon and receive your starting hand, you shuffle eight random cards from the Normal Moves deck into your element-specific deck. These are the cards you will be choosing from in future.

When you level up, you take the top three cards from your Future Moves Deck, choose one to learn, and shuffle the other two back into your Future Moves Deck. 

All Battle Cards (including Normal Moves, but excluding ‘baby moves’) have a Star/Heart Value totalling five, representing how powerful the move is and how many additional health points your Aethermon gains when learning it. By paying attention to your Aethermon during battle, you will be able to ascertain whether they need additional firepower, additional resilience, or more tricky combos available to them right now.

And you never have to worry that choosing move B over moves A or C will mean that A and C are gone forever – since they get recycled into your Future Moves Deck, you just have to wait until they show up again.

An outline of the Experience/Gold combination currency.

In the last lesson we talked about the basics of battles. This time we’re digging into the rewards for a battle, and the currency system in Aethermon: Adventure. 

As you and your Aethermon adventure, you will gain XG, a combination currency that represents both Experience and Gold. XG can be earned as a reward for battle victories: you will earn a little XG in a victory against a lower level opponent, a moderate amount of XG in a victory with an opponent of the same level as you, and a lot of XG in a victory against a higher level opponent.

XG can also be earned through completing quests as you venture across the map. After all, battles aren’t the only kinds of experiences you can learn from!

In this world, courtesy of your membership as Junior Aetherren, you’ll find most items for FREE! Important items such as potions and elixirs will be refreshed every time you visit one of our AetherLegue Waystationstm! This is also an opportunity to refresh both your Aethermon’s HP and your exhausted Battle Cards, which will return to your hand.

Occasionally you may get the opportunity to acquire especially valuable goods like Artefacts – these will cost you XG. (Don’t worry if you don’t have any XG handy, you can always take a Minus XG token, which you can pay back at your next opportunity).

Aside from being tradeable for goods and services, XG can be used to power up your Aethermon! Every time you acquire 5XG, your Aethermon can use it to level up, increasing its HP and moveset!

This is a valuable opportunity for your Aethermon, so we’ll discuss more about levelling up in the next lesson.

Learn the beats of a standard battle, the most common battle type you’ll encounter.  

There are four different types of battles you should prepare to encounter when adventuring, AetherRen:

• Standard battles – these are the regular kind you’ll encounter when on the road;
• Mini-boss and Boss battles – these are more challenging battles that you have to seek out rather than them coming to find you;
• Team battles – these require you to team up with a fellow AetherRen and work together to defeat your opponent; and
• AetherRen battles – these are the opposite, where fellow AetherRen can challenge you (or you can challenge them!) to a joust!

This lesson, we’re looking at how standard battles play out.

A typical battle involves two participants – in this case, you and your opponent. (An Aethermon and AetherRen should think like one person when engaging in battles.) Battles take place over a series of rounds.

Each round:

• Each participant must play one regular Battle Card (elemental or normal moves);
• Each participant may choose to play one addition (q)uick Battle Card.

(Q)uick Battle Cards are naturally prompt in their effects, and are thus resolved immediately by following the text on the battle card. (If both participants play a (q)uick Battle Card, resolve them by the speed of the regular card.)

Regular Battle Cards are resolved in order of speed, where the Battle Card with the higher speed is resolved first.

• Your Battle Cards will have a speed of either 1, 3, or 5.
• Opponents’ Battle Cards will have a speed of 2, 4, or 6 – as you can see, this means there are no ties.

Once you have used a Battle Card, it is exhausted and cannot be used again until you visit a Waystation – we’ll discuss these more in future. Baby moves do not get exhausted and are thus always available for you to use.

Battles continue with each participant playing one or more Battle Cards per round. If either participant has their HP reduced to zero, they are defeated and the battle is over.

Most opponents you will face at this early stage of your adventure will only have one Battle Card, that they repeat on each round of battle. As you seek out more advanced opponents (rivals, Dojo leaders, other AetherRen), you will encounter more complex challenges.

A simple metric to estimate the value of Battle Cards each time your Aethermon grows.

The Battle and Progression System used in Aethermon: Adventure (and Aethermon: Ascent) is designed to reproduce the experience of battling in JRPGs – albeit much easier to track, given that you AetherRen will be tracking it, rather than a computer.

To that end there are a few strategies we’ve taken to simplify the overhead on AetherRen. For example, almost all the battle cards are marked with a ‘Star/Heart Value’:

• Star Value is indicative of how powerful a move is. Cards have one to five stars. A two-star move is stronger than a one-star move, etc.
• Heart Value is directly inversely proportional to Star Value, and indicates how much additional HP an Aethermon gains when it learns this move. Cards have zero to four hearts.

Cards’ Star/Heart Value always totals five: if a card has one star, it also has four hearts; if a card has five stars, it has zero hearts.

This makes for an easy reference point for AetherRen to quickly ascertain stronger and weaker Battle Cards, and if you find yourself agonising over which of your choices will best benefit your strategy in the long run, it can help cut through the indecision.

Additionally, this works as something of a balancing mechanism. Obviously five-star moves are powerful at any point in the game, but an AetherRen choosing a five-star move too early will have to contend with the tradeoff that their Aethermon may be too weak to survive a battle long enough to pull that move off and vanquish its foe.

Conversely, even weaker one-star moves come with the advantage that your Aethermon gains some additional health, so that if you have been struggling to survive battles you can cover your weakness, even past the early game.

Each of the eight Elements of Aether has a different battle strategy. Let’s learn about them!

The most obvious expression of Elements on an Aethermon, aside from their appearance, is their style of battle. Each Element has synergies and strategies that are distinct to their members, although the exact form of expression may change for each different Aethermon family line in that Element!

Let’s look at how the Elements are expressed in the starter Aethermon:

Earthformed (Batuursa)

Earthformed Aethermon gain more and more (A)rmor as a battle continues. Often, if they can last long enough in a battle they can achieve victory just by removing their opponent’s ability to deal damage.

Fireforged (Sparkitty)

Firegfirged Aethermon burn brightly with powerful abilities that require sacrificing future battle cards. This can earn them victories against more powerful opponents, but requires more frequent returning to Waystations to replenish their moves.

Moonlit (Velvenny)

Moonlit Aethermon are the Kings and Queens of healing, frequently finding victory by outlasting their opponents. Blessed with abilities that can restore health and stamina, a Moonlit Aethemon is capable of bringing themselves back from the brink of defeat. 

Naturegrown (Eleafy)

Naturegrown Aethermon have powerful self-buffing abilities that increase the potency of subsequent attacks. If a Naturegrown Aethermon is able to stack enough of these buffs at once they can unleash a devastating onslaught.

Skyward (Cervistral)

Skyward Aethermon love flying. Most Skyward moves not only deal damage on the turn they are played, but launch the Aethermon into the skies, giving them a defensive bonus during their opponent’s turn and an offensive bonus to their next attack.

Sunkissed (Languravi)

Sunkissed Aethermon are the masters of disrupting their opponent’s strategy. Their (P)ure attacks cut through an opponent’s defense; while their (C)leanse attacks remove any Buffs or Debuffs their opponent’s battle plan may be relying upon.

Thunderstruck (Raivalp)

Thunderstruck Aethermon are all about speed. Their attacks can be so fast that they land before their opponent can act. Winning fights before incurring damage matters to these Aethermon, as they get bonuses when attacking with full health.

Waterborne (Aquus)

Waterborne Aethermon can control the power of their abilities, but this comes with an ebb and a flow. This means they can deal the exact damage required to win a battle, saving energy for a critical moment against a future foe.

Of course this is all a little hard to follow without knowing about the Battle and Progression System, so let’s talk about that next.