Dream Quest

Dream Quest

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Guide to Dream Quest
By brokenfixer
I couldn't find a guide to this great game!
   
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INTRODUCTION
There is a Dream Quest wiki at http://dream-quest.wikia.com, although it isn’t perfect.

Ideally, all the information in this guide is also available on that wiki, but not vice versa.

For example, the wiki contains deck descriptions for each of the monsters and bosses whereas this guide does not. If you’re really interested in the Hag’s decklist, you’ll need to go to the wiki (and probably improve it…). Basically, I wanted to have useful commonly-needed information from the wiki compiled in a single document here, rather than always having to navigate through multiple pages.

Spoilers: Strategy discussion throughout this guide includes spoilers such as workarounds for nasty monsters.

Inaccuracies: Information is based on my limited play rather than from the code, so drop chances and such are always ballpark estimates.

“If you enjoyed…”
I believe that Dream Quest will appeal to old-school players of Shandalar and Etherlords. I have also greatly enjoyed Monster Slayers (I found it to be easier than Dream Quest) as well as Slay the Spire and Card Quest and Hand of Fate and Card Hunter.

Happy Dreaming!
DUNGEON FLOORS
The game consists of three progressively-more-difficult dungeon floors. Each dungeon floor has a variety of beneficial buildings (such as healthpacks and shops and treasure chests) and enemy monsters (worth enough experience for you to gain three character levels). On Velociraptor difficulty setting, you can continue to the fourth dungeon floor, which is empty except for the final boss (Lord of the Dream).

Each floor has a Boss, who has the maximum monster level for the current floor as well as immunities and/or a nefarious power or two. You cannot progress past the current floor until you have defeated the Boss. After you kill the Boss, a stairway down will appear, allowing you to descend to the next dungeon floor (you cannot return).

The color of the tiles and the intro text description identifies which monsters and bosses you will encounter on the current floor. This enables you to adapt to elemental attacks and immunities.
• Crypt (Purple background, rock walls) = Undead
• Dungeon (Grey background, brick walls) = Goblins, orcs, kobolds, trolls
• Forest (Green background, tree walls) = Poison, sylvan monsters
• Clouds (Yellow background, cloud walls) = Electricity, flying monsters
• Volcano (Red background, mountain walls) = Fire monsters
• Ocean (Blue background, seaweed walls) = Frost, aquatic monsters


Similarly, the intro text provides spoilers about the abilities and powers of the endboss, the Lord of the Dream:

Floor 1 Messages
• “when he sings, those who listen slowly go mad” forces you to give him advantages (three wishes)
• “when he dances/speaks, thoughts wither and die” causes your cards to weaken (decay)
• “those who disobey are cruelly punished” demands or forbids with ‘do’ and ‘do not’ (decrees)
• “when he beckons, all must give him gifts” steals your cards to add to his deck (gifts)
Floor 2 Messages
• “his skin shatters swords” = physical resistance
• “his body breaks storms" = elemental resistance
• “his will bends time" = hasted (takes double turns)
• “his gaze halts arrows in flight" = 15-second time limit for your turns
Floor 3 Messages
• “his father was a titan" = armored (damage reduction)
• “his mother was a vampire" = vampiric healing
• “his father was a serpent" = poisoning
• “his mother was a harpy" = piercing


Floor 1
(A strange place)
Size: 8x8
Character Level: 1-4 (sometimes 5)
Boss: Level 4, worth 16 XP

Always has 13-14 XP worth of regular monsters (levels 1-4), which is just enough to get you to level 4 before taking on the floor 1 Boss (even without other sources of XP like Linda's Lemonade Stand).

Floor 2
(A stranger place)
Size: 10x10
Character Level: 5-7 (sometimes 8)
Boss: Level 7, worth 28 XP

Has 41? XP worth of regular monsters (levels 5-7) and occasional floor 1 monsters as Level 4 Elites. There is enough XP to reach level 7 (cumulative 70 XP) before taking on the floor 2 Boss. Warning: some monsters can hide invisibly - search all apparently-empty floor tiles if you're stuck at character level 6.

Floor 3
(The strangest place)
Size: 10x10
Character Level: 8-10
Boss: Level 10, worth 40 XP

Has 82? XP worth of regular monsters (levels 7-10) - enough XP to max out (reach 10th level) before reaching the floor 3 Boss (...assuming that you didn't miss invisible monsters hiding on Floor 2). The floor 3 Boss is level 10. Killing it ought to max you out if you are not yet max’ed.

Once you defeat the Boss on floor 3, the stairs down will exit the dungeon ("You win!"). This is known as clearing the dungeon and unlocks a few achievements.

Floor 4
(The End?) appears on Velociraptor-difficulty only!
Size 10x10; completely revealed and empty map with no walls and Lord in the center
Boss: Lord of the Dream

The lair of the Lord of the Dream...
This floor always has white background with no walls. I guess they had already blown their entire art budget doing the previous three floors. The floor is completely revealed and has The Lord of the Dream in the middle (a photonegative stick figure called "level 10 Boss" with 1000 HP).

Good luck!
BUILDINGS (dungeon encounters that are not monsters)
Buildings are listed below according to their frequency of appearance - from most common to rarest.

Health Pack (healing)

Frequency: You’ll encounter a lot of these – perhaps 7 per floor.

When you walk on this, you immediately heal and the pack disappears.
Floor 1: heal 3
Floor 2: heal 6
Floor 3: heal 9

Strategy: Use abilities like Teleport and Smash to avoid stepping on these until you actually need them.

Gouda’s Gummy Goodness (shop)

Frequency: A reliable staple – you will encounter 2 to 5 of these per floor.

Each shop offers 3 cards or buffs for sale. Oftentimes, these cards are useless or harmful to your strategy. Instead of a card, you could be offered a buff for purchase, similar to Linda’s Lemonade Stand (such as 3-5-7 hp or 1-2-3 mana or 3-4-5 xp for 10-20-30 gold respectively) or a permanent action or equipment slot (for 30 gold).
Floor 1 cards typically cost 10-30 gold (especially weak cards cost 5 or 7 gp).
Floor 2 cards typically cost 25-55 gold.
Floor 3 cards typically cost 50-130 gold.

Strategy: Because gold is scarce, you will purchase a select few (less than a third) of these cards – make sure that they’re adding long-term strength and synergy to your deck!

Treasure Chest (free item)

Frequency: You will find several of these (usually 0-4) per floor.

Each Treasure Chest typically offers you one shop item for free. In addition to cards, the Treasure Chest might contain buffs such as hp, mana, xp, an action, or an equipment slot – or a small pile of gold. Occasionally, the chest offers two or three items. You can take any of the items that you want. You can come back at any time to take more. When you take all the items, the chest disappears. You can also intentionally discard the items instead of taking them.

Strategy: Since the card is a freebie, the quality bar for acceptance is lower than for a store-bought card. On the other hand, I leave more than half of the treasure cards behind, because often they’re a great card but for a completely different class or deck-build.

Healing Pool (healing)

Frequency: Maybe 50% per floor. You may find 1 or 2 of these per game.

Each healing pool enables you to Heal Max (heal to full hp) once, for free. In addition, you can always pay 1 gold to heal 1 hp here as much as and whenever you like.

Anvil (card upgrades)

Frequency: Maybe 33% per floor; I find about 2 of these per game.

Each anvil enables you to upgrade 1 card once for free. After that, the price increases to 5 gp, 10 gp, 20 gp, 45gp?. Note: each anvil encounter gives 1 freebie; after that, the price reverts to the cumulative price across all anvils encountered in the current game. Therefore, buying at any anvil increases the price at all anvils.

Strategy: Paying gold to change an Attack-1 into an Attack-2 isn’t good when new cards that you add to your deck cause 5-15 damage. I will stack free and cheap improvements onto a single card (for an Attack-4 or a Mana-3). This is because in addition to cleansing (deletion), you can use discard effects to filter through weak cards. Worthwhile anvil uses: the fully upgraded Holy Strike-3 causes 6 damage and heals 6 hit points for a 12-point swing. Sorcerous Strike-3 (6 damage and gain 6 mana) has situational advantages over mana cards, e.g. holding two attack cards in your hand can persuade the Sphinx to stop forbidding you from casting Spells.

Linda’s Lemonade (buffs)

Frequency: Maybe 33% per floor; I find at least 1 or 2 of these per game.

Each Linda’s Lemonade offers buffs in three attribute categories. The buffs are stronger on deeper floors.

Floor 1: 3 HP / 1 Mana / 3 XP
Floor 2: 5 HP / 2 Mana / 4 XP
Floor 3: 7 HP / 3 Mana / 5 XP

Each lemonade stand lets you choose 1 buff to 1 attribute of your choice for free. After that, price becomes 5 gp each; then escalates for each purchase in each category separately: 5 gp, 20 gp, 45 gp, 80 gp. For example, the first mana purchase always costs 5 gp even if you don’t buy it until floor 3, after which later mana purchases cost 20 gp then 45 gp. Meanwhile HP and XP purchases remain 5 gp until you buy one of those buffs.

Note: each stand gives 1 freebie; after that, the price reverts to the cumulative price across all stands encountered in the current game. Buying at any lemonade stand increases the price (in that category) at all lemonade stands.

Strategy: You can sometimes rig the XP buff to give you a full-heal from leveling up. Other times, you don’t need XP at all, because you’ll coast to level 10 (max XP) with fights to spare. You might need mana to improve a spellcaster with poor mana. Often characters don’t need mana at all. 5 gp for HP is a good deal; usually I find that 20 gp is overpriced for any of Linda’s buffs and I won’t pay that much without a specific need.

Monastery (delete cards)

Frequency: Maybe 25% per floor. Some games have no monasteries and sometimes you encounter two on the same level. I feel like I encounter less than 1 per game on average.

Each monastery enables you to delete 1 card from your deck for free. After that, the price for the next deletion escalates: 10 gp, 25 gp, 40 gp, 55 gp, 80 gp (+15 gp each time).

Note: each monastery gives 1 freebie; after that, the price reverts to the cumulative price across all monasteries encountered in the current game. Buying at any monastery increases the price at all monasteries.

Strategy: Most decks don’t have as much deletion as they need, so I frequently spend 10 gp (or even 25 gp) here. Unfortunately, the monastery becomes cost-prohibitive: notice that 10+25+40 gp is a huge chunk of your total earnings across an entire playthrough, which can block you from making other necessary purchases.
BUILDINGS - continued (Rare Buildings)
Altars (permanent boon and bane)

Frequency: Maybe 25% per floor. You might find 1 or 2 of these per game.

When you pray at an altar to a god, you receive a specific permanent boon and bane. After you’ve prayed to a particular god once, during future runs the text will explain its effects. There are six different altars in Dream Quest. You can stack effects of different altars if you find more than one.

Altar to Alcoran: All upgradeable cards in your deck are upgraded. All monsters are levelled up once. Strategy: A really weak boon, so be sure that the bane is not a problem. But level 10 foes are already max’ed and won’t improve.

Altar to Aston: Gain a free equipment slot. All monsters get an equipment slot with a Sword. Strategy: Mediocre – this boon is simply the 2nd level Equipped talent. Some builds benefit because they badly need another equipment slot. Some builds can shrug off the bane using damage reduction or physical resistance or Crush/Crumble/Obliterate.

Altar to Cairn: Heal fully and gain 30 max health. All monsters get permanent damage reduction 1. Strategy: Potentially great, especially if you use it when badly injured. Damage reduction appears to only apply to physical and is bypassed by elemental and piercing. Monks (piercing) and spellcasters benefit greatly from this altar. Other classes can choose the 7th level Sublime talent (all damage becomes piercing). But Cairn doesn’t work well with a Cruel-Sword-Circle-ping-to-death build.

Altar to Gauss: Draw +1 card each turn. Your deck gets 4 Curse cards (curse cards do nothing). Strategy: A great altar for the Monk class, who can cleanse. This prayer also helps a deck that is very large and/or has discard-cycling-tutoring to burn dead cards. A deck that is already lean becomes unreliable with 4 Curses, but this can be mitigated if you already have unused Monasteries queued up or are willing to use the 7th level Purify talent (delete 3 cards).

Altar to Jeremiad: You have innate vampiric regen (heal 1 hp per 3 damage dealt), but cannot heal any other way (other than leveling up or Immortal talent). Strategy: I’ve had trouble with this altar because I rely on dungeon healing pools and health packs. This should be powerful for fast-kill no-heal decks like Electrocute or Meteor. It does not appear to regen from poisoning the enemy.

Altar to Liara: Monsters have 15% fewer hp. You start each combat at Poison-3. Strategy: Great. I always pray at this altar. Some enemies have hundreds of hit points, so this is a huge benefit with a tiny and easily-managed cost (0-6 damage, depending on the speed of your deck).


Crazy Old Man (destroy phylactery card)

Frequency: if the floor boss is the Lich, there will be a Crazy Old Man encounter.

The Crazy Old Man offers you a card called Lich Kick that destroys in-play phylacteries. Obvious spoiler: If you cannot destroy the Lich’s phylactery (a piece of equipment that starts in play), you cannot defeat the Lich.

Strategy: Don’t take this card until you’re ready to attack the Lich. After you defeat the Lich, you may want to use a later cleansing, if available, to get rid of this otherwise-useless card. If your deck already contains Crush or Crumble or Obliterate, you can decline the Lich Kick card.


Mushroom Patch (copy card from your deck upon quest completion)

Frequency: Rare – maybe one in every five games.

When you stomp on the mushroom patch, you activate the mushroom quest. The quest is not very sophisticated. Eight giant green mushrooms will be scattered randomly on empty dungeon spaces. Walking onto these giant mushrooms will instantly activate them (like healthpacks). Each giant mushroom has a random effect. In my experience, these effects are about half good and half bad and can typically be ignored. There are mushrooms of healing or damaging. Other mushrooms will slightly increase or decrease base mana or base hit points or current experience. The green mushroom “Lost!” will teleport you randomly.

Strategy: You can sometimes leverage green mushrooms by careful timing – loss of experience points can’t hurt you if you’re already at zero (just leveled). If you’re unhurt then healing hp won’t benefit you. I have successfully used green mushrooms as a “Hail Mary” to teleport to the other half of the dungeon when trapped on the wrong side of a Level 7 Elite. Conversely, don’t activate the mushroom patch and clutter up your map with green mushrooms if you’ve got a level advancement encounter sequence planned out, because you can also get teleported into a bad situation.

Important: You complete the quest by stomping again on the red mushroom patch (after collecting all eight green mushrooms). When you do this, you will instantly be forced to duplicate a card from your deck. Do not complete this quest until you’re ready – I have carelessly completed the quest early and been forced to duplicate a dumb Attack-2 because I forgot to buy the Holy Strike-3 at the shop.


Hillditi’s Happy House (transform up to three cards in your deck)

Frequency: Very rare – maybe one in every fifteen games.

The doctor (mind flayer) will remove a card from your deck and replace it with a random new card, up to three times. Unfortunately, you must offer a card that corresponds to at least one of the doctor’s two “Likes” and does not correspond to the doctor’s “Dislike.” Each Like or Dislike is either a Card Type (action, attack, mana, spell, etc.) or a “Begins with the letter ___” or a “Contains the letter ___.”

If you screw up, the card you offer will be removed and replaced by a permanent Curse card (that does nothing but clog up your deck).

I believe that the new card is randomly generated with a gold-price that is (on average) slightly greater than the card being eaten.

Strategy: The wiki claims that getting a double-match will result in a better (more valuable) card, and that the result often matches your class card-list, but in my experience random variation exceeds any guaranteed improvement. Don’t expect to get a useful card: the way deck archetypes work, even an expensive card can be useless for your particular deck. On the other hand, Hillditi sometimes likes attack-1 or mana-1 cards that were headed for a cleansing, which can give your deck a big boost. Some wiki commenters reported getting Curses back from Attack-1s even when they matched the like and not the dislike, so your mileage may vary. Be careful not to confuse the requirements “begins with the letter” versus “contains the letter”!
MONSTERS
Getting blindsided by a nasty special ability is a big part of Dream Quest. I’ve been destroyed in some promising adventures because I haven’t looked up secret abilities beforehand, but if you can’t get used to getting murdered sometimes, I don’t think Dream Quest is the right game for you. Here are the non-boss monsters that seem to incite frothiness on the forums. Your mileage will definitely vary. If you want additional information, please look on the wiki or the forums … don’t forget Polymorph!

Hand of Glory: Every other turn, you are forced to play all your cards out against yourself. The only solid defense is Periapt of Protection – the thief’s card-cycling forces you to use your entire deck against yourself, and even with a spellcaster it is difficult for you to “not draw” your Electrocute off of an unlucky Wisdom or Inspiration.

Sphinx: Prohibits you from playing any of your most common card type (“you can’t cast spells!”) (It can’t target mana card type, for what that’s worth.) Based on my experience, I would say the Sphinx peeks directly into your current hand and specifically outlaws your most common card (“you can’t play actions!”). If you're careful, you can rig the results of a Teach to distort your hand to hide your most powerful card(s).

Hag: Apparently transforms all but one of the cards in your hand into Curses. Repeatedly. The turn-1 Curse of Doom that does 50 piercing on turn 5 is kind of an afterthought. Demons are kind of rookie Hags: they add curses to your deck without exiling your own cards.

You can look monsters and bosses up in your bestiary once you’ve encountered them.
ACHIEVEMENTS
As you accomplish certain milestones in the game, you will receive Achievement awards. Each Achievement gives you a very small bonus – typically, it adds one specific card to the card pool that populates shops and treasure chests in future games, or adds one specific talent to the talent pool that you are offered when leveling up.

Achievements include:
• 10 class unlocks
• 31 talent unlocks
• 50 card unlocks
• 18 passive abilities

Here are the 18 Passive achievements that provide permanent benefits. Be aware that non-Passive achievements, such as obtaining access to a powerful card like Deck of Wonders or Battle Cry, are oftentimes just as beneficial as starting with +1 HP.

Passive Achievements (18)

• Die once: gives a Talent on Floor 1
• Reach the Second Floor: gives +1 HP per levelup
• Walk 500 steps: gives +1 Healthpack per floor
• Kill 5 Dragons: gives +1 Treasure Chest per floor
• Add 30 cards to your decks: gives +1 HP
• Kill 20 creatures: gives +1 HP
• Kill 5 Akami: gives +1 HP
• Kill 5 Undead: gives +1 HP
• Gain 100 Mana: gives +1 mana
• Kill 5 Elementals: gives +1 mana
• Deal 200 damage: gives +3 gold
• Kill 5 Adventurers: gives +3 gold
• Kill 5 Goblins: gives +3 gold
• Kill 5 Ussuri: gives +3 gold
• Kill 5 Faeries: gives +3 gold
• Reduce Lord of Dreams to under 850 HP as Professor: gives better cooldown on Professor’s Research ability
• Reduce Lord of Dreams to under 850 HP as Bard: gives an additional Tavern as Bard
• Reduce Lord of Dreams to under 850 HP as Dragon: improves Dragon’s Hoard ability

Buying Achievements

You earn victory points during your games (by killing monsters and clearing floors), and you can use these victory points to purchase achievements that are proving difficult to accomplish.

From the passives listed above, “Kill 5 Dragons” takes a particularly long time and has a great benefit and only costs 500 victory points to purchase outright.

Difficulty Levels
A key difference between difficulty levels is that: Kitten does not award achievements or victory points; Grizzly only receives half victory points (and removes Floor 4 / Lord of Dreams); Velociraptor gives full victory points and Floor 4 content.
ACHIEVEMENTS - continued (Guide to Weird Achievements)
There are achievements that you probably won’t stumble into during normal play…

How to get the Merciful Achievement (defeat a Boss without fighting another monster on that floor)

This achievement gives you access to the Charismatic talent (Floor 3; gives 5 bonus locations on this floor)

  • Use Grizzly Bear difficulty, not Velociraptor
  • Take Thief for an extra treasure chest; or take paladin so that you have a Holy Strike that you can level to 3; or take Samurai for Kai Strike ability; or take Bard once you’ve unlocked two taverns (e.g. swap decks with boss)
  • Use Crumble as your initial talent
  • Find a Linda’s Lemonade Stand and take Free XP and then 5gp XP to get to level 3 without fighting
  • Pillage useful freebies such as treasure chests, anvil, monastery, etc. … I purchased a Protean for 15gp with my Thief
  • If you’re lucky enough to encounter an ‘easy’ Floor 1 Boss, you’ll be strong enough to kill it (don’t forget combat powers)

How to get the Pure Achievement (empty your deck and then start a fight with a monster)

This achievement gives you access to the Sublime talent (Floor 3; all your damage is piercing)

  • Use Grizzly Bear difficulty, not Velociraptor
  • Take Monk and choose Preparation as your initial talent
  • Meditate and Preparation-Meditate instantly removing Attack-1s
  • Fight five more battles so that you can Meditate and Prep-Meditate again
  • Finding an anvil on floor 1 is very powerful, because your deck eventually needs to be something like: Attack-4, Attack-4, Slice, Heal
  • Your deck is going to be very vulnerable to monsters that manipulate your deck. But you should be avoiding combat anyway, because levelups might force you to accept unwanted cards
  • Because you are not shopping, you end up with a lot of gold, so you should be able to cleanse about three cards at a Monastery on floor 2 (…if you’re lucky enough to get one)

How to get the Clarity Achievement (obtain a base mana of 50)

This achievement gives you access to the Archmage talent (Floor 4; all spells are free)

  • Use Grizzly Bear difficulty, not Velociraptor
  • Take Necromancer: you need Siphon Soul to increase your base mana pool
  • Early Necromancer is a fragile class, so I think you’ll have better luck taking what you need to survive rather than choosing the +2 mana talent (healing/health are valuable since you can convert 5 hp into a card draw later in the game)
  • Prefer Haste to Acid Lance – I did not have good outcomes with poison builds, because I couldn’t hit the soul siphon window once the poison snowballed
  • Getting a siphon against difficult Floor 2 and Floor 3 monsters can be quite complicated: I often had to purposely play spells in a sub-optimal order to reduce the effectiveness of Electrocute or Shrink to hit my 1-5 hp window
  • A defensive build is viable – for example, I used holy strike 3 / frost shape / storm shape to stay alive long enough siphon an invulnerable ghoul using shrink-shrink-shrink-soul siphon
  • I’ve heard that Siphon Soul can be duplicated using Mana Swell; it might also trigger repeatedly on multi-death monsters like the Revenant and the Phoenix although I haven’t had the chance to confirm
  • The level 10 talent Ascendance can provide +5 base mana
  • Most descriptions of success on this achievement involved a bit of luck – in particular, getting late-game levelups that offer +6 base mana AND finding a Floor 3 Lemonade Stand to go nuts on (I bought the 0gp, 5gp, 20gp, 45gp, and had money for but didn’t need the 80gp)
  • With a bit of luck, you only need to be around 25 base mana at the end of floor 2 to reach 50 base mana at the end of floor 3

How to get the Rich Achievement (obtain 300 gold)

This achievement gives you access to the Tiltowait talent (Floor 4; puts the Tiltowait card in your deck: an action card that inflicts 20 piercing damage)

I’ve been told to use a Bard and stack the doubling song using Preparation
CARDS AND DECKBUILDING
What cards you encounter in the shops and chests is determined by your class and by what cards you’ve already acquired!

This can be verified by reusing the same seed and looking at the card selection: “the layouts aren't completely fixed for Wizards, at least, in that there's some kind of elemental affinity that means that a Blizzard in an ice wizard run will be an Acid Rain in a poison run.”

For example, a warrior is very likely to get offered (multiple) Hamstring and Elemental Slash-2 but very unlikely to see Acid Lance. You want to be able to recognize and cash in on off-class opportunities like Circle and Deck of Wonders. It helps to know that wizards on Floor 2 are frequently offered meteor/electrocute/acid rain/blizzard and mana surge, while a warrior might see pierce-2 or elemental slash-3.

Card draw and deck cycling

Certain cards are amazing because they more than pay for themselves, which means that they will improve almost any deck under almost any conditions. In particular, Circle provides so much card advantage for action-hungry decks that it is worth using your level 2 talent to Copy it if you’re playing an action-cycler like the Thief.
• Circle (-1 action): gain 1 action and draw 1; at the end of turn, gain 1 action and draw 1
• Swiftness (-1 action): gain 2 actions and draw 1
• Bleed (-1 action): inflict 1 poison and gain 1 action and draw 1
• Wisdom (mana): gain 3 mana and draw 1

More often, cards are only situationally powerful – they use up one resource while gaining others. For example, here are cards that work great if you have a ton of mana to spare … or are using Conduit or Archmage to cast for free:
• Soulfire (-5 mana): 10 piercing damage; return this card from discard to hand at end of turn
• Haste (-4 mana): draw 2; 10% chance of an extra turn
• Shock (-4 mana): 4 electrical damage and draw a spell
• Mind Sear (-2 mana): choose either 5 piercing damage or draw 2

Certain cards are action traps (they use up actions for very little benefit) or card traps (they don’t replenish with a draw-1 effect) or both
• Slice (-1 action): 1 dmg and draw 1
• Attack-4: 4 dmg
• Jasra’s Jarring Jolt (-2 mana): 1 damage of each elemental type (fire, frost, elec, corros)
You’re stuck with these in your opening deck and you don’t have enough cleansing to get rid of all of them, so don’t go out of your way to collect more from treasure chests.

General advice

• Don’t waste gold in shops on cards that are not amazing.

• Don’t waste a levelup bonus on a ‘meh’ card – choose that +6 HP buff or Equipment Slot instead if the card being offered is feeble (assuming that you have a choice).

• Pulling cards from chests is more flexible, but you want to avoid cluttering your deck with a stinker. I’m pretty lenient about putting gold-free card-draw and tutoring into my deck – I love Divine Inspiration and I also often pick up Inner Focus and Sift despite their net drag of -1 action and -1 card respectively. But when I’m on floor 3 and I’m cleansing that Flame Charge treasure card I grabbed on floor 1, I’ve generally made a mistake.

• Succeeding in Dream Quest is often about improving your deck by just barely enough to squeak by to the next levelup, so that you’ve saved your gold for later.
CARDS - EQUIPMENT
Unlike other cards, equipment cards remain permanently in-play once you’ve drawn them and play them. Equipment cards provide an ongoing effect. There are no limits – you can acquire and use as many equipment cards as you like. Equipment cards can be destroyed by opponents’ spells such as Crush or Obliterate, which return them to your discard pile, or exiled completely by Crumble.

Equipment Slots

You can sometimes acquire an equipment slot from a shop (30gp) or treasure chest or levelup. Each equipment slot allows you to have one equipment card in play before the battle begins. This saves you the tempo of having to draw it and then play it during the first run through your deck. To manipulate your currently slotted equipment, click on the View Deck icon in the upper right. Once you are looking at your decklist, you can turn on and off equipment by clicking the brown E in the upper right of each card (assuming that you have at least one equipment slot).

Strategy note: If you play an equipment card from your hand, you can use the warrior’s double strike combat ability to duplicate it, which you can’t do if the equipment starts in play.

List of equipment cards (possibly incomplete)

• Shield (20 gold): 20% dodge
• Pendant (20 gold): gain 2 mana at the start of each turn
• Troll Blood Charm (20 gold): after you win the combat, recover half your lost health
• Gauss’ Hourglass (20 gold): if you did not play any cards this turn (maybe due to curses or banshee screams), draw twice as many cards at the start of next turn
• Sword (25 gold): inflict 1 damage per 2 attack cards played
• Dancing Scimitar (25 gold): inflict 3 damage at the start of each turn
• Poison Dagger (30 gold): inflict 1 poison per 2 attack cards played
• Soulforge (30 gold): when you kill a monster, level-up the card that dealt the killing blow
• Staff (35 gold): inflict 1 physical damage for each 2 mana that you gain
• Periapt of Protection (35 gold): invulnerable to damage during your own turns, so you are immune to Poison and self-harm (Hand of Glory’s Dance Puppet)
• Armor (40 gold): 3 shield at the start of each turn
• Scimitars (40 gold): any time you play a (non-temporary) attack card, a temporary duplicate of it appears in your hand – essentially doubles all attack cards in your deck
• Greatbow (40 gold): inflict 1 damage per 1 action card played
• Bloody Knuckles (40 gold): if you are less than half health, draw a card at the start of turn; if opponent is less than half health, draw a card at the start of turn
• Jeremiad’s Bracer (45 gold): 10% dodge; draw 1 card each time you successfully dodge
• Phoenix Feather (50 gold): resurrect on death, then delete this card from deck
• Donnerschwert (Storm Blade) (50 gold): inflict 1 electrical per 1 attack played
• Jasra’s Tome (55 gold): draw 1 spell at the start of each turn
• Jeremiad's Kris (60 gold): each time you play an attack card, inflict 1 damage for every 2 action cards in play
• Darting Daggers (60 gold): at end of turn, deal damage equal to twice unused actions
• Deck of Wonders (65 gold): creates a temporary free random card in your hand at the start of each turn. This item is surprisingly powerful as a workaround to some dangerous opponents that can lock your deck or delete your cards.
• Flamebrand (70 gold): creates a temporary Fireball card in your hand at the start of each turn.
• Boots of Speed (75 gold): draw 1 card and gain 1 action at the start of each turn
• Vampire Sword (80 gold): heal 1 per 3 damage caused
• Cloak of Flame (85 gold): inflict 2 fire damage each time opponent plays an attack
• Celestial Plate (90 gold): damage reduction 2 and regeneration 3
• The Bleeder (120 gold): when you play an attack, opponent is Weakened 1
• Jasra's Emerald (130 gold): when you play a spell, draw 1 card
CARDS - MANA
Wizards (and other spellcasters) have extensive access to Mana Surge (level 2; +10 mana), which provides a baseline to evaluate staple mana cards. This means that Mana-1 cards (level 0; +2 mana) are generally getting Cleansed from your deck, although you might end up anvilling to Mana-3 (+6 mana) for lack of better upgrades.

You’ll notice that level 1 mana cards like Wizard’s Stone Charge and Flame Charge and Priest’s Clarity and Piety and Salve are particularly bad for the spellcasters by level 3 because they can’t keep up. Compare these to a fully upgraded Sorcerous Strike (3), an attack which gives you +6 mana and causes 6 physical damage and diversifies your deck against the Sphinx.

Meanwhile, the level 3 mana cards are insanely strong (e.g. compared to a pathetic Clarity card): Overload = double your current mana; Mana Swell = gain 5 mana and duplicate the next spell that you cast; Conduit = all spells are free this turn.

List of mana cards (possibly incomplete)

Level 0-1 Mana Cards
• Mana (1/2/3) (5/10/15 gold): gain 2 / 4 / 6 mana
• Flame Charge (12 gold): gain 3 mana, inflict 3 fire damage
• Frost Charge (12 gold): gain 3 mana, inflict chill 1
• Stone Charge (12 gold): gain 3 mana, gain 3 shield
• Static Charge (12 gold): gain 3 mana, draw 1 mana card
• Salve (12 gold): gain 3 mana, heal 3 hit points
• Piety (15 gold): gain 3 mana, remove 1 counter from all your prayers
• Clarity (20 gold): gain 3 mana, your spells cost 3 less this turn
• Wisdom (20 gold): gain 3 mana, draw 1 card

Wisdom is a fantastic card under all circumstances because it replaces itself. Static Charge is more situational because you lose the draw if you don't have a mana card in your undrawn library. The other level-1 cards are very weak and gunk up the deck. Piety potentially has a niche use with Curse of Doom.

Level 2 Mana Cards
• Kinetic Charge (30 gold): gain 1 mana per 1 damage you receive
• Mana Surge (35 gold): gain 10 mana
• Raw Power (35 gold): gain 5 mana and next elemental damage is piercing
• Elusive Power (35 gold): gain 3 mana and hide (counter opponent's next card)

Mana Surge is strong. Elusive Power works great against almost any opponent, although it does not synergize with an Exhaustion strategy. Raw Power is not my go-to for penetration, although you’ll definitely need something when your meteor deck or electrocute deck crashes into a fire-immune or elec-immune respectively. Kinetic Charge is hard to fathom, and I've never used it.

Level 3 Mana Cards
• Inspiration (50 gold): gain 5 mana and draw 1 spell card
• Conduit (50 gold): all spells cost zero this turn
• Mana Swell (60 gold): gain 5 mana and duplicate (for free) the next spell that you cast
• Overload (60 gold): double your current mana (max gain 30)

All of these mana cards are great. There are very abuse-able combos such as Mana Swell duplicating Soul Siphon or Blight. Inspiration is reliably a benefit in my endgame deck, because I typically have and need spells. Beware that Overload can betray you if opponents zap or choke out all your mana.
TALENTS
As you descend to each new dungeon floor, you must pick 1 talent. Talents typically give you a passive bonus or a new dungeon ability. Many of these talents must be unlocked by completing achievements first. In fact, you don't get a floor 1 talent unless you've had a character die ("If at first..." achievement).
• On Floor 1, you can choose any of the Floor 1 talents.
• On Floor 2, you can choose any of the Floor 1 or 2 talents.
• On Floor 3, you can choose any of the Floor 1, 2 or 3 talents.
• On reaching character level 10 (max level), you can choose any of the Floor 1, 2, 3 or 4 talents.

Name
Floor
Effect
Unlocked By
Cowardly
1
Gain the Flee dungeon ability (cooldown 1) allowing you to run from combat
Not Dead Yet
Crumble
1
All walls on this dungeon floor are removed
Pious
Heal
1
Gain the Heal dungeon ability (cooldown 5) allowing you to heal to full hit points
Holy Savior
Cowardly
1
Gain the Flee dungeon ability (cooldown 1) allowing you to run from combat
Not Dead Yet
Healthy
1
Gain 5 Health
none
Magical
1
Gain 2 Mana
none
Portent
1
Reveals the environments and boss monsters of all three levels of the dungeon, and the three abilities the Dream Master will have if you make it that far (no cooldown)
Academic Savior
Preparation
1
Gain the Preparation dungeon ability (cooldown 5) allowing you to reset cooldown on your other dungeon abilities
Sneaky Savior
Sixth Sense
1
All monsters are revealed on all floors
A Little Nap
Smash
1
Gain the Smash dungeon ability (cooldown 2) allowing you to destroy a wall
Strong Savior
Teleport
1
Gain the Teleport dungeon ability (cooldown 1) allowing you to teleport to a location you choose
Sorcerous Savior
Training
1
Choose a card from your deck that can be leveled up and level it
none
Clear Mind
2
Reduce the cooldown of your dungeon abilities by 1
Musical Savior
Copy
2
Choose a card from your deck and gain another copy of it
Still My Turn
Ding!
2
Level up (max level 10)
Ding!
Equipped
2
Gain one equipment slot
none
Pious
2
Add the Wisdom, Ward, and Prayer of Wrath cards to your deck
Holy Champion
Polymorph
2
Learn the Polymorph dungeon ability (cooldown 5) allowing you to randomly transform a monster
Immortal
Quick
2
Gain one action
none
Rich
2
Gain 30 gold
none
Sneaky
2
Add the Backstab, Jab, and Alacrity cards to your deck
Sneaky Champion
Sorcerous
2
Add the Mana Surge, Fireball, and Charm cards to your deck
Sorcerous Champion
Warlike
2
Add the Slash, Shield, and Crush cards to your deck
Strong Champion
Charismatic
3
5 additional beneficial objects appear on this dungeon floor
Merciful
Cruel
3
Your opponents take an additional point of damage from each of your physical sources
none
Desperate
3
When you have 15 or less life, draw three additional cards each turn
Altered Reality
Fiery
3
At the start of each turn, draw a temporary Fireball
Disciplined Savior
Heroic
3
Upgrade each card in your deck that can be upgraded to its maximum level
Sanctimonious Champion
Immortal
3
The next time you would die, heal completely instead and become invulnerable for one turn
none
Invisible
3
You have a 30% chance to prevent opponent's action or spell cards from having an effect
Wild Savior
Purity
3
Choose up to three cards from your deck and delete them
none
Sublime
3
All your damage is piercing
Pure
Archmage
4
Your spells no longer cost mana
Clarity
Ascendance
4
Gain 20 health, 5 mana, and one action
none
Impervious
4
You take half damage (rounded down) from all elements
A Little Trip
Master Thief
4
Items in shops are free
Dream Master
Poisonous
4
At the beginning of your turn, poison your opponent 3
Poisonous Savior
Smart
4
Draw one additional card each turn
none
Terror
4
Your opponents' hand sizes are reduced by one
none
Tiltowait
4
Add the action card Tiltowait to your deck which deals 20 piercing damage
Rich
Vampiric
4
For every 3 points of physical damage you deal each turn, gain 1 life
Undying Savior
Well-Armed
4
Start each combat with a Sword, Shield, and Armor in play
Sanctimonious Savior

TALENTS - continued (Guide to Choosing Talents)
As you might expect, certain talents are much more powerful for certain character classes or deck archetypes.

Choosing from the Floor 1 Talents

Heal: is great as a floor-1 staple (or Healthy if you’re missing the unlock)

Preparation: enables you to abuse the Monk’s Meditate, but also finds utility with Find Treasure and Portal and Teleport and Smash and Healthy and so on

Cowardly (Flee): is very powerful to use as a mulligan (flee instantly if you don’t like your opening hand, then go kill a weak monster to reset the flee counter). Specifically, some spellcasting decks often have a one-turn kill, but occasionally badly misfire. By contrast, fleeing late in a combat after you’ve been near-fatally wounded (oops!) is not useful, unless you have a healing pool or linda’s levelup in reserve.

Crumble: Dream Quest is usually polite about giving you monster encounters in increasing difficulty order. This talent is more useful when you have a specific building requirement, or if you’re farming tricky achievements.

Magical: Some character builds work very well with an extremely small base mana (e.g. 4) and no mana cards, combined with a brutal low-mana-requirement spell. The canonical example is Wrath of God (costs 2 mana to draw 5 cards, discard all non-attacks) with the actionless Colossus Strike fighter.

Training: I’ve heard of using this on Holy Strike (e.g. Paladin) or Sorcerous Strike

Sixth Sense: because this benefit extends to all three floors, the information provided compares favorably versus (for example) +5 max HP. Sixth Sense is immediately abusable with the Necromancer’s level 1 Portal ability (swap positions with a known monster).


Choosing from the Floor 2 Talents

Copy: is great as a floor-2 staple assuming you’ve found a winner such as Circle or Holy Strike-3 or even Acid Lance.

Polymorph: is a floor-2 go-to once you’ve reached the point where you recognize which enemies, if any, hard-counter your current deck

Equipped: is strong enough that I’ll choose this on speculation. Even decks that don’t require equipment will benefit from Deck of Wonders, Boots of Speed, Jasra’s Tome, Periapt of Protection, Troll Blood Charm, Celestial Plate, and more.

Quick: – usually I know if I need it

Rich: can be surprisingly helpful, since most classes run short of money

Ding!: is usually a trap, since you’re going to encounter enough experience to reach max level without squandering a valuable talent


Choosing from the Floor 3 Talents

By now you’ve built a specific deck archetype and you can tailor the floor 3 talent to your deck.

Sublime: changes all your damage to piercing. This is great for everyone except the Monk (already has it) and the Poison Mage (poison cannot pierce). Sublime is especially useful for protecting a fire mage (or electrocution mage) against monsters with total immunity (although you do have the ‘vulnerable’ combat-ability if you can muster a one-turn kill).

Cruel: is specifically for a sword-ping-deck that has a whole bunch of 1-point damage sources that will be doubled by cruel; it works pretty well.

Purity: feels like a waste, but quite a few decks that I’ve built still had at least three cards worth of junk that just had to go, and I used this to good effect.

Immortal: I often choose this talent and I’ve never had cause for complaint. The times that it hasn’t saved me, no other talent would have made the difference. I suppose I’d choose Invisible instead but I haven’t unlocked it.

Heroic, Fiery, Charismatic, Desperate: for me these feel a bit too desperate. To the extent that I’ve tried these they’ve been a disappointment.


Choosing from the Floor 4 Talents

I haven’t defeated the Lord of the Dream yet, so you’ll have to go elsewhere for advice that applies to the endboss.

Many decks can be built around Archmage, although you have to figure out how much deck space to commit to mana during the long pre-ascendance. Ideal would be to have unused monasteries waiting on level 3 for after you reach archmage; more likely you’ll have to build in aggressive card filtering like Meditation (Divine Inspiration also combos with filtering).

Usually I’ll choose Impervious or Smart or Terror rather than Ascendance. All of them result in noticeable performance improvement.
CONCLUSION
Hmm - that's all I've got room for!

Let me know if you have any corrections suggestions questions or advice.

May you achieve all your dreams!
4 Comments
Cthylla 13 Mar, 2021 @ 12:52am 
a note to the All Natural achievement (druid class unlock): giving your cards to Happy House does not count as deleting cards.
i accidentally gave it a Haste card on my first paladin run but still got All Natural achievement after clearing the dungeon.
肛门偏左 2 Jan, 2021 @ 5:11am 
有hxd汉化一下吗:steamfacepalm:
Tebok 19 May, 2019 @ 4:16am 
This was awesome thanks!

(anyone interested in throwing out some class-specific guides?)
tatticadanito 18 Feb, 2019 @ 1:51pm 
Thanks a lot for the guide, I feel like something like this was missing for a lot of time.