Character Guide: Lini

[jolyonb]

Ok folks, time for some more fun. Yes, I'm procrastinating. Today's character: Lini, one of my favorites!

 

General Notes

 

Lini starts out as a very weak character, probably the weakest except for Lem. She can be a pain to nurse through the lower levels. However, once she gets going, she really becomes a superstar. Her primary ability is to have an animal companion help her on any check. Yes, you read that right. That animal companion can be upgraded to add 1d4+4 to ANYTHING. This means that Lini is the most versatile location-closer around, and can handle her own quite well. Furthermore, as things progress, she becomes the strongest divine spellcaster in the game.

 

I find that Lini doesn't do a whole lot to help other characters. She can occasionally heal others, but for the most part, she's perfectly happy being off by herself. There are a couple of cute synergies where other characters benefit her, but she's not great at helping in return. So, you'll probably see Lini mostly off by herself, closing locations that nobody else wants to be around.

 

Lini's versatility makes her one of my favorite characters to play. You just have to get her through the low-level drudgery. Once you get her going, she'll perform well in solo play as well as in any party.

Edited December 14, 2016 by jolyonb

[jolyonb]

Skills

 

Str: d4

Dex: d6

Con: d8

Int: d6 (Knowledge +3)

Wis: d10 (Divine +1, Survival +2)

Cha: d8

 

There's a few ways you can take Lini. I recommend treating her primarily like a divine caster, and pumping wisdom to begin with. It's curious that she has +3 to knowledge checks; there's very little else she'll use Intelligence for. However, it does help in closing some locations. Once Wisdom is maxed, I suggest strength, to accompany whatever weapon you decide to get her to use.

Edited December 15, 2016 by jolyonb

[jolyonb]

Powers

 

Hand Size: 5. No options here

 

Proficiency: None initially, but upgrades for light armor and weapon proficiency.

 

Animal Trick: Display an animal from your hand, add 1d4 to your check. Works on any check. This is seriously useful! Upgrades add +1 to your rolls. That's like adding +1 to all of your rolls for Lini. Prioritize this!

 

Wild Empathy: If you play a card with the animal trait, instead of discarding, recharge. You start with this, and will use it a lot.

 

Beast Form: Discard a card to upgrade a Str/Dex die to 1d10 instead of 1d4/1d6. Again, you start with this. I find that I don't tend to use it much.

 

You have three power selections before roles kick in. Your first two bumps should go to Animal Trick. For your third, I wish it could go to animal trick again. But, you're forced to pick a proficiency, so go with Weapon Proficiency. Armor Proficiency is a terrible power to take.

 

 

Roles

Shapeshifter

 

Beast Form: Three possible bumps here.

• +1/2 whenever you use beast form (so, 1d4/1d6 -> 1d10+1/2)
• Add fire trait whenever you use beast form

These bumps pale in comparison to bumping Animal Trick, and I'd bump hand size too before looking at these. The benefits are just too small.

 

Animal Collector: +2/4 to checks to acquire animal allies. I'm sorry, all of these are survival skills. Why are you having trouble with them in the first place? Pass.

 

Wild Warden

Ritual Training: +2 to divine checks when playing/recharging a spell. Second upgrade: +4. This one is also really nice. +2/4 to casting and recharging spells is a biggie!

 

Enemy Lore: Animal. Bonuses to beat up on animals? There are so few animal monsters, and they tend to be pretty low on the pecking order. Pass.

 

Both

Hand size goes up to 6 (shapeshifter) or 7 (wild warden). This might be worth a bump, but it's got strong competition from Animal Trick.

 

Animal Trick caps at +3 (shapeshifter) or +4 (wild warden). Another +1 to every check I make? Hmm, yes please.

 

Miraculous Wisdom: Change 1d10 on wisdom checks to 1d12. This is such a tiny benefit that it's really not worth a power feat. Pass.

 

Verdict

Clear winner for Wild Warden. An extra +1 on animal trick over Shapeshifter means that the first beast form feat is subpar in comparison at best, and then Ritual Training turns Lini into a beast of a divine caster (pun intended!).

 

Strongly recommend Wild Warden, but you have to decide: Do you bump Animal Trick? Do you take Ritual Training? Do you bump hand size? Tough decision. You choose.

 

 

Munchkinism

Thyraxus points out below that in story mode, you can get Lini to "skip" a power feat by skipping an appropriate adventure (probably "Undead Uprising" works best), and then complete all of AD3. After unlocking roles, you can go back and do that mission, and assign the power feat to a slot that only became available after selecting a role, and hence select a feat other than weapon proficiency.

Edited December 15, 2016 by jolyonb

[jolyonb]

Card List

 

Weapons: 0 (+1)

Spells: 6 (+2)

Armors: 0 (+1)

Items: 2 (+2)

Allies: 3 (+3)

Blessings: 4 (+1)

 

Because Animal Trick is so important to Lini, and because you have Wild Empathy, there is a clear priority here for picking up another three allies. However, I strongly recommend giving Lini a weapon as her first card, because low-level Lini is really quite weak and pathetic. With a weapon and an animal friend, she has a chance of beating combats. With just her d4 strength die and an animal friend, you'll be discarding a lot of cards to turn d4 into d10, but you still have no static bonuses, so combat will still be dicey.

 

Once you get beyond weapons/allies, I like spells, because Lini's about to come into her own as an amazing divine caster. And more boom is more fun, right? An extra blessing will never go astray, and I also like to give Lini an extra item, for reasons you'll see below.

Edited December 14, 2016 by jolyonb

[jolyonb]

Inventory

 

Weapons

After you pick up your weapon slot, you will want to get Lini a weapon ASAP. She stands a much better chance in combat with a weapon + animal trick, and you can still use Beast Form to boost the skill dice to 1d10.

 

Before picking up weapon proficiency, you want to get her a crossbow that doesn't need weapon proficiency. In order of desirability:

B: Light Crossbow

B: Heavy Crossbow

L1: Frost Sling +1 (Treasure)

L2: Light Crossbow +1

C: Deathbane Light Crossbow +1

 

Once Lini gets weapon proficiency, we can start to have fun. The Shock Longbow +1 (B) is a solid initial choice, and will help for fighting off low-level monsters. However, you'll tend to do better with a melee weapon: give her the biggest, baddest weapon you can find! Something like a Greataxe +1 (L2 treasure), or a Greatclub +3 (L4). To benefit these weapons, you'll want to bump strength once you're done with wisdom. Even though strength is d4 while dexterity is d6, there's a reason to go with bumping strength: Lini can only have one weapon in her deck at a time. If she encounters a combat without a weapon, then she'll be using her strength check by default, so you might as well put bumps there instead of in dex. Also, melee weapons tend to have better dice than ranged weapons. Note that you can use the monk amulets as a surrogate weapon too, which also use strength.

 

One approach I do like is to give Lini a scythe.

L2: Scythe +1

L4: Keen Scythe +2 (Treasure)

L4 Loot: Fanged Falchion

These weapons all have the property than any d4 rolled on the check will have a 4 upgraded to a 5 (6 for the L4 items). They all have 2d4 on the weapon, as well as 1d4 from Lini's strength, as well as 1d4 from Animal Trick. Any help from Lem/Valeros/Harsk also comes in the form of d4's. Play a Blessing of Gorum? Get another two d4's. Using a variety of spells/items that help you out on a combat roll (e.g., Incendiary Cloud from an arcanist, +2d4 and fire!)? Add more d4's! Your little Lini can become quite the machine with a scythe in hand, and she can usually deal with lower level combats without expending serious resources.

 

 

Armor

Lini don't need no stinkin' armor!

 

 

Spells

Lini is a great divine spellcaster, so make sure to kit her out with great divine spells. I like a balance of utility/cure/boom spells for Lini (1/2/3 is my default distribution). A lot of spells are downright terrible, but do your best to pick reasonable things as you move up to better spells. Here are my picks.

 

Utility. If I have to pick one of these, it's Augury/Scrying (depending on what I can auto-recharge). Throw in a second, and I'll pick Greater Aid.

B: Strength. Sometimes it's nice to actually be able to buff the party.

B: Augury. Always good to be able to search through the deck.

1: Fiery Weapon. Sometimes it's useful to have the fire trait, but note that this is only on a weapon. Once you've got a scythe, note that this adds 1d4.

3: Greater Aid (Treasure). One of the strongest buff skills in the game, this one is well worth having in the deck. (I pass on the lower versions of aid/guidance.)

3: Scrying.

 

Cure. You probably want two in your deck. There are three levels of cure spells. Major Cure is a strict upgrade of Cure, but note that Mass Cure requires a second character to be present to use.

B: Cure.

3: Major Cure.

4: Mass Cure.

 

Boom. Alas, there's not many boom spells. I tend to hoard a lot of Holy Lights in Lini's hand at low levels, unless there's strong competition from Kyra.

B: Holy Light is the best boom spell for quite a while.

B: Inflict is a poor man's Holy Light, but it's a good placeholder while you wait.

3: Swipe is just fun. 1d8+3 isn't huge, but this spell can help other characters too, and it's great if you really want an item.

5: Sunburst (Treasure). The biggest boom spell in the game. So much fun!

 

At lower levels, you won't have enough boom to rely upon for all combats, and you'll be forced to melee/ranged combat regularly. At higher levels, especially if you picked up a couple of extra spell card slots, you'll find that you'll often be able to use a boom spell for harder combats, while low-level combats will typically be taken care of by a straightforward melee combat check.

 

At higher levels, Lini will be such a potent caster that she'll be able to basically auto-recharge any spell that she uses (possibly not Mass Cure or Sunburst, but those should still be very good chances), and most offensive spells will suffice by themselves to beat a combat (often guaranteed, when animal trick is included).

 

 

Items

Lini's never going to have many item slots, but there's a few items that are really worth considering.

 

The monk amulets are worth getting, because they act like surrogate weapons.

C: Amulet of Mighty Fists

L2: Amulet of Frozen Fists (Treasure)

L3: Amulet of Shocking Fists (Treasure)

L4: Amulet of Fiery Fists

They all add magic to your melee attack, which can be important. The last one also adds fire, which can also be important for particular monsters. All of them add some bonus to damage too. Note that you can't use one of these in addition to a weapon.

 

If you're using a scythe, consider adding an orb to your inventory that adds +2d4 and is rechargeable! Firestorm is recommended, because some monsters need fire to kill them dead. Alas, all of these are treasure, but I seem to pick them up fairly regularly.

L3: Orb of Firestorm (Treasure)

L4: Orb of Ice (Treasure)

L4: Orb of Storms (Treasure)

 

General Purpose

B: Caltrops are good at low level. They can really help Lini stay alive! Once she gets going though, ignore these.

B: Crowbar is useful for a whole range of checks that Lini isn't so great at. Furthermore, with an animal friend, she can auto-recharge it!

L2: Ring of Protection. Lini doesn't get armors, so this is useful in keeping her from annoying auto-discard monsters.

L4: Headband of Inspired Wisdom. +2 to all wisdom/divine checks? Sounds good to me.

L4: Greater Luckstone. Lini will basically auto-succeed on the recharge check on this, so it's effectively a +2 on recharge card for her, as well as an insurance policy.

L4: Staff of Heaven and Earth. Barrier? What barrier? Lini has plenty of spells to burn on this.

 

 

Allies

So long as you take animals only, I don't care what you take. I'm fond of the following:

B: Crow

B: Fox (Treasure)

B: Giant Weasel (Treasure)

C: Saber-Toothed Tiger

L3: Monkey

L3: Cat (does double duty on recharges!)

L4: Eagle

L4: Bear

L4: Lizard

L5: Velociraptor

 

 

Blessings

Fill up with whatever you like; there's no bit benefit for any particular type for Lini. I like the following:

* Blessing of Gorum is worth it for Lini's melee combat checks. With Beast Form, changes 1d10->3d10, which is respectable. Also good for scythes.

* Blessing of Erastil is good if you're using a bow, but if you move to a scythe, switch to Gorum.

* Blessing of Pharasma is good for supplementing spellcasting.

* Otherwise, I like a mix of Milani/Gozreh/Sivanah/Cayden Cailean.

Edited December 15, 2016 by jolyonb

[jolyonb]

Locations

 

Lini really rocks at most locations, once Animal Trick is going. I particularly like her at Mountain Peak, The Old Light, Woods, Glassworks, Habe's Sanitorium, Shimmerglens, Halls of Wrath, Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony, Shimmering Veils of Pride, and Vault of Greed.

 

Other

 

This presentation has been very focused towards getting Animal Trick strong, then pursuing a caster track, and playing some tricks with weapons in the meantime. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that the alternative track of getting Animal Trick strong, but dumping points into Strength and really pursuing a fighter-style track while utilizing spells to buff up combat abilities will also work (I'd still go Wild Warden instead of Shape Shifter, however). Many of the tricks that you would want to use for such a track have been touched upon in this guide.

 

Comments/Questions/Feedback welcome.

Edited December 14, 2016 by jolyonb

[Thyraxus]

All in all, this is pretty much exactly how I play Lini (one of my favorite characters too, due to her versatility).

 

One comment regarding her choice of weapon: you might want to clarify why going ranged might seem like an attractive option at first, due to her DEX die at d6 looking at least a little better than her d4 in STR, but is in fact a really bad idea, at least as soon as you start investing skill feats into boosting her (spell-less) combat ability. Because she only ever has at most a single weapon in her deck, she will end up not having one on hand for combat a lot of the time - so you will be defaulting back to unarmed melee (if you don't happen to have a "boom" spell on hand at that moment either), where any DEX bonus is completely wasted. But if you add those 2 pips to strength, you still benefit from them even when you're unarmed. Then give her the biggest, baddest two-handed weapon that you can get your hands on. Scythe is a nice option, or something with a big extra die like a Greataxe +1 (treasure card) or the Greatclub +3 from Deck 4 will do just fine. And once she manages to cycle that into her hand, she'll be clobbering monsters left and right and only need to break out the big nukes for henchmen and villains.

 

Also, keeping a Strength spell in her deck for the harder combats (not just to buff the other characters, but also to make up for her own lack of a melee skill bonus) is important, even if you are more inclined towards going the caster route - you'll not always have a Holy Light in your hand, so you need to keep your options open.

 

On Animal Allies: I think the Cat from Deck 3 deserves a mention. The nice thing is, you can use both its reveal power and Animal Trick at the same time (meaning you can use both even if it is the only ally in your hand). So, on spell recharges, you get another +2 at virtually no cost - always a nice thing to have.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Thyraxus

[aznxknight]

My first build for Lini was indeed pretty much what is already posted. 

 

However, I have a different take on Lini, but it's probably more for advance players.

 

Take the route of Wild Warden and max her hand size and animal trick. No weapons. I am trying to establish that Lini is not the best in combat, with that said it is better to keep her away from meeting enemies by parking her at locations with the fewest amount of monsters. During my "prototype" of her, i had a hard time finding a weapon in the first place and resulted in just using spells to attack enemies. So at that time i felt weapons were kinda useless for her and decided to make a new Lini focusing on attack spells instead. Swipe and sunburst are great, with swipe being able to average a roll of 21 (18+3 from swipe) and that's not too bad considering it has 2 other abilities to be used (grab an item or decrease combat difficulty on any combat check). 

Also it is possible to hoard up on spells and nothing to use it on, or half blessings, half spells. This is the time to start exploring as long as you have a cure and attack spell in hand. The main purpose of the cures is to cure herself to reshuffle the deck. That way it increases the chances to draw back those attack spells and repeat the cycle. Because she already has wild empathy, this only increases her exploration opportunities. And if anything, if she has nothing else to do with her cards and she meets a monster: Animal Trick + Blessing of Gorum + Beast form gives an average roll of 23 and she can cure herself right back to normal. Just about anytime there's nothing to do and there's at least 2 cards in her discard pile, i would suggest curing anyway to cycle her cards.

 

3 attack spells, 2 major cures, 2 scrying, 1 restoration is my current spell list for this build.

A noteworthy item: Staff of Heaven and Earth to take care of any trap in the game (remember she has a butt load of spells).

 

Will it work for you?

To me it's a lot more reliable than trying to find her weapon. Plus i have both an extra card slot and probably power slot to maximize her use with this build.

Edited December 14, 2016 by aznxknight

[Darkren]

What does it take to get a sunburst?

[Ethics Gradient]

What does it take to get a sunburst?

It is a Rare AD5 Treasure Card you get from opening chests.

 

Based of some old stats from AD4, expect to get maybe 2-3 copies of Sunburst per 100 chests you redeem.

[aksFourpaws]

Knowing how tricky some treasures are to get I would suggest Heat Metal as an alternative to Fiery weapon, Common Adventure Deck 2.

 

It gives 1d4+1 to a Combat check at your location (no Weapon needed) and can add 2 Dice against Barriers with the Lock or Trap trait.

Sure Aquire and Recharge rolls are 1 higher than the other two, but I feel Line has the least problems with that of all the divine Casters.

 

Also I feel one should increase her handsize as soon as possible. 5 Cards can be really small, when you have to hold onto an animal Ally and maybe worse start a game with your healing Spell(s) in hand.

 

 

I feel always a bit uncomfortable with omly 3 Combatspells and no Backup in my Deck, but i might give it a try in my second playthrough. by now I have a few more Options to fill my Deck out.

[Thyraxus]

To me it's a lot more reliable than trying to find her weapon. Plus i have both an extra card slot and probably power slot to maximize her use with this build.

With cure, she can cycle her deck pretty fast until her weapon comes up. Although, holding on to it after that then locks another of her hand cards (the first is the animal companion) so doing that only is really worth it after some hand size bumps.

 

Not using a weapon doesn't really free up a power feat, since before being able to choose a role for more options, you get 3 of those and have only 4 slots to place them into: 2 of those are +1s to Animal Trick (so, basically must-haves), and the last then has to go into either Weapon or Light Armor Proficiency (I wish hand size was an option!). Since armor is a lot less useful than weapons, especially for a character like Lini who can usually just heal herself after a botched combat check, Weapon is the obvious choice - and once you got that, you might as well make use of it.

 

That is, unless you go out of your way to complete the scenarios out-of-order so you complete Deck 3 before you have to pick your 3rd power feat... but that's just munchkinism

 

Seriously, though, that is something I once tried with Lem (who really doesn't need Weapon Proficiency, because he's perfectly happy with his Deathbane or an Acidic Sling +3 once Deck 5 comes into play), but I never felt the need to do the same thing with Lini; giving her a big honking two-handed axe or club just feels right :D

[jolyonb]

Thanks for the feedback. I've updated a few things in the guide to reflect your comments.

 

Do folks think these guides are useful? Should I continue to write them up for other characters?

[TheSapient]

Thanks for the feedback. I've updated a few things in the guide to reflect your comments.

 

Do folks think these guides are useful? Should I continue to write them up for other characters?

 

I don't participate much in the discussions here, but a definitely enjoy these guides and adopt many of the ideas presented.

[Amentep]

I've found them interesting to read to understand characters I haven't used much yet (Harsk and Lini) or to see some long term thought on the one I have (Merisiel)

[aznxknight]

Not using a weapon doesn't really free up a power feat, since before being able to choose a role for more options, you get 3 of those and have only 4 slots to place them into: 2 of those are +1s to Animal Trick (so, basically must-haves), and the last then has to go into either Weapon or Light Armor Proficiency (I wish hand size was an option!). Since armor is a lot less useful than weapons, especially for a character like Lini who can usually just heal herself after a botched combat check, Weapon is the obvious choice - and once you got that, you might as well make use of it.

 

That is, unless you go out of your way to complete the scenarios out-of-order so you complete Deck 3 before you have to pick your 3rd power feat... but that's just munchkinism

 

 

That's exactly what i did and that's how i was able to capitalize her assets. As i said before, this is my version 2 of her and i just happen to like this build more than relying on a weapon i can barely find. Different play styles, but the thing is unless I'm farming, i keep in mind that i usually place her in locations where there are the FEWEST monsters possible. 

Edited December 17, 2016 by aznxknight

[ScubaDD]

Thanks for the guide

 

I appreciate it

[Thyraxus]

Regarding weapons: I picked up a Keen Rapier +3 and that is a nice option for her too (also has that "4 counts as 5" ability, and as far as I can see, of all weapons with this property it is the one with the highest constant bonus at +3, which is always a good thing to have).

 

I did notice, however, that if you read the card text exactly, the implementation of this "die promotion" in the game may actually not always be correct. Do notice, for example, that the text of the Keen Rapier +3 says "If any d4 rolled on this check is a 4, treat it as 5." whereas the text for the Keen Scythe +2 is "If any d4 rolled for this weapon is a 4, count it as 6." - in the strictest interpretation that would mean that with the rapier, you can add as many d4 as you want (Orb of Firestorm, Blessing of Gorum, various support spells that add another d4 etc.) and a 4 on any of them would be a 5. But on the scythe, in this reading you should theoretically only be allowed to promote those 2 d4 that are added to the check by the weapon itself, not any of the dice added by other means!

 

I don't think the developers actually bothered to make this distinction, though. But if the above interpretation is correct, that's actually wrong (but in favor of the player, not against, so I'm not complaining :D)

Edited January 4, 2017 by Thyraxus

[Sines314]

Thanks for the feedback. I've updated a few things in the guide to reflect your comments.

 

Do folks think these guides are useful? Should I continue to write them up for other characters?

 

Oh I quite like them. Some characters aren't hard to build, but it's nice to get inspiration with what to do with them, and how they might fit into a party. Definitely do all the characters, especially if you can fit in some extra notes on their alts.

[nsr]

Regarding weapons: I picked up a Keen Rapier +3 and that is a nice option for her too (also has that "4 counts as 5" ability, and as far as I can see, of all weapons with this property it is the one with the highest constant bonus at +3, which is always a good thing to have).

 

I did notice, however, that if you read the card text exactly, the implementation of this "die promotion" in the game may actually not always be correct. Do notice, for example, that the text of the Keen Rapier +3 says "If any d4 rolled on this check is a 4, treat it as 5." whereas the text for the Keen Scythe +2 is "If any d4 rolled for this weapon is a 4, count it as 6." - in the strictest interpretation that would mean that with the rapier, you can add as many d4 as you want (Orb of Firestorm, Blessing of Gorum, various support spells that add another d4 etc.) and a 4 on any of them would be a 5. But on the scythe, in this reading you should theoretically only be allowed to promote those 2 d4 that are added to the check by the weapon itself, not any of the dice added by other means!

 

I don't think the developers actually bothered to make this distinction, though. But if the above interpretation is correct, that's actually wrong (but in favor of the player, not against, so I'm not complaining :D)

 

I think I read somewhere in the rules that the dice you add are all the same, no matter what the source, so you don't have to remember who contributed what.  So maybe it should be the text that is wrong.  But my recollection may be wrong, I don't actually play the boardgame, just saw the rules on a forum while trying to learn this game.

[Ripe]

What is the size of a party Lini you base your Character Guide on?

 

Because in all of our plays with 6 character game we never gave bothered giving Lini a weapon... there was no point in it. Not to mention that she got additional ally (just 1, not 3) only after maxing out spells. If she's only Divine caster in party (and with 6 characters that is most likely) you'll have enough Divine combat spells so you pretty much make sure you always have one in hand (also, don't be afraid to cast Cure in order to reshuffle your deck, even if you have only 1 card in discard!).

 

Also, giving Lini Staff of Hungry Shadows IF you have arcane caster in party is waste of a great item. Ability to reduce another characters combat check by up to 18 (with 10+ being norm!) is simply too great to miss and you miss it if Lini get the Staff!. Hell, that reduction might make a difference between defeating Karzoug or loosing the game. Giving Lini Ordikon's staff is another issue since she can get a great use out of it.

[Sines314]

I'm running a 5 person party, and I gave her a weapon, and make regular use of it. Divine Attack Spells just aren't all that great, and there aren't that many of them. Furthermore, a Weapon can make room in the deck for more non-attack spells, since a single weapon is re-usable, whereas an individual spell needs to be recycled. With several animal allies, Lini can afford to take a lot of extra turns, as the animals will get recycled back into her hand regularly, and so it's really helpful to have an attack option that stays with you. Throw in that Lini is all but gauranteed to get Weapon Proficiency as her third Power Feat (the alternatives are Light Armor Proficiency, or skipping a quest so you can put 5 points into her Role Card) and you get quite a lot for very little.

 

For reference, Lini is this parties only divine caster, so she's not sharing with anyone. There are just too many good reasons to give her a weapon.

[Ripe]

As a rule, I don't want to rely on getting 1 card out of 16-21 for anything and with only 1 weapon you're not guaranteed to even get it during a scenario (especially in later AD's when you cary Major Cure or Mass Cure). Not to mention that in order for Lini to use weapon you MUST discard a card to activate Beast Form otherwise any weapon you play is worse then using Inflict (remember, discarding an animal ally to activate Beast Form does not recharge that ally... if it does, it's a bug) .

 

As for combat spells, Holy Light + Beast Trick is pretty much enough to take out anything up to AD4. Swipe is also a great combat spell for Lini since it also reduce difficulty of the check by 3, but even Inflicts will usually do the trick since we're talking d10+d8+d4+7 by the end of AD3 for an average of 20-21! And that's without playing a single blessing on a check...

 

Yes, Lini is guaranteed to get Weapon Proficiency for 3rd power feat and if you really want her to use weapon, simply start her at same location as Amiri, Harsk or Valeros (and have them act before Lini!) so they could give her a weapon before going somewhere else. That way you ensure she will have a weapon in hand from begining of scenario while also spending her card feats on more useful card types. And by the end of AD5 Lini should receive Ordikon's staff which will be all the weapon (taking Item slot!) she'll need.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Ripe

[Sines314]

Fair enough to have Lini given a weapon instead of giving her a weapon slot. Though I find that a bit more convoluted than I like. Frankly though, with her cycling her animal companions and spells, I find she burns through her deck quickly enough to get to her weapon anyway. Sometimes you get unlucky, sure, but othertimes you get it at the start. And yes, weapons aren't really going to be superior than Holy Light. But I like having the weapon on hand to be able to deal with lesser threats, which might not even need a beast form boost later on. And I think you get enough card feats that sparing one for a weapon isn't so bad. Though I can fully understand how just having another character provide one for her, and how that's much easier. Especially if you've got Amiri, who isn't able to recycle her extra weapons in the same way that Harsk and Valeros can.

[Ripe]

Yes, she will cycle rather fast with animal companions used for their power or explore and spells but what do you discard to trigger Beast Form? Because you need to discard otherwise weapon is far, far weaker then Inflict... and even with Beast Form, they're still weaker.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Ripe