In both games, there is a chance that you can "roll" a person with the skill "Lichenology," the study of lichens, that gives you the base bonus of +2 Meds Per Day and knowledge of Gardening and Herbalism. This is huge, as you use a set -2 Meds Per Day to stay healthy each day. Lichenology effectively cancels that per-day charge. This means any extra meds you find in the game are there for your use via the Infirmary, to create medications that you can carry with you, or to put in a rucksack for trade with other groups for various missions.
What I've noted in SoD2 is that any time I've been lucky enough to either roll a survivor with Lichenologist or when I've found a book that grants that ability in-game, the game gets harder. Much, much harder! The game targets Lichenologists like no tomorrow.
I recently completed my last game at the default difficulty level and decided to try to get all four bonuses at the Dread difficulty level. I played and finished one game prior to the Juggernaut update. While playing, I found a Lichenology book at a vendor, bought it, read it, and immediately the game stepped up a level. Every time I took that character out of the base, zombies were attracted to her no matter how carefully I played. It seemed like every mission she ran had a Juggernaut or a feral, plus at least one shrieker, nearby. I always had to be extra careful, do every mission with a helper, and drive to even the closest locations so I had the relative safety of a vehicle to get into to either mow down hordes or to make a fast escape. In the end, it didn't matter, as she was caught between two Juggernauts and ripped in half.
Aside:
Strangely enough, I have the same problem with auto mechanics. I had one game where I went through 6, yes 6!, auto mechanics. I had another game where I had one auto mechanic, she was killed by a feral and a horde fairly early on, and I never saw another auto mechanic to poach into my group nor did I find any mechanics books from that point forward to make my own auto mechanic! Boy, I found it next to impossible to complete that game. I kept destroying the vehicles I found with little chance to repair them, as I wasn't finding many repair kits in my scrouging and I couldn't make any of my own without an auto mechanic! Talk about Hard mode -- having to run from one side of the map to the other sucks!!
I finally finished that mission, got the Trader bonus, and started a new game. I selected to start with an auto mechanic and a lichenology survivor from previous games, plus a new character (Medicine). When I started the game, I told my wife, "Well, I'm starting in hard mode! I'm starting with a Lichenologist!" She laughed. While playing, I have had the hardest time whenever I take either of those two out for missions. (If you're wondering why I even take those two skills out of the base it is because you get worthwhile bonuses from having them be Citizens and Heroes. It is worth it to play them enough to get those bonuses.)
Recently, I came across a vendor who was selling a Lichenology book and purchased it. I found a character with no quirk skills, poached him into my group, read the book to give him the skill, and played him trying to reach Hero status. I told my wife, "Well, the game is going to swarm my base with Juggernauts and tear me apart-- I just made another Lichenologist!" Literally, within 30 minutes of creating him, my base was swarmed and there were two Juggernauts and they each specifically went after the two lichenologists! I managed to survive that encounter, but it gets worse...
Later, trying to get him to Hero status, he was mobbed by a horde containing two shriekers and a feral, which I barely survived even with a sidekick along-- everything ignored the helper character and targeted the Lichenologist. I switched to another character and a horde almost immediately attacked the base, including a Juggernaut. The Juggernaut targeted the new lichenologist character and ripped him in half, killing him! Inside my base! During the attack, of the eight characters I had at the base, only two came to help the character I was running, so it was just three against the horde and juggernaut, even though the other five were right there and should have come to help. Out of all the games I've played, this is literally the first time that a) not everyone came to help out on an attack inside the base and b) that a character died from a solitary Juggernaut attack inside a base! End result: I'm back to only having my original character with the Lichenology skill. Luckily, she's already at Hero status, so I never let her leave the base (although I have to be careful every time a base attack occurs!).
At this point, with the consistency with which the game is targeting my Lichenologists, I can only assume that the programmers have purposefully written code that targets those characters. I played five games to completion at the normal difficulty and, whenever I had a Lichenologist (made via book or rolled), they were unduly targeted. I'm on my second game at the Dread difficulty and the targeting is even worse and feels unfair. I have to be extra careful when using them, I have to take extra help on every mission, and I have to watch out for those characters during base raids. It takes a lot more effort and I'm having to dress them in bright clothing so that I can easily pick them out of a crowd and keep an eye on them.
I tell you, I don't care how long it takes, I'm strongly considering that for my next Dread-level game I will start with three Lichenologists and see if I even make it through day 1 before an endless horde of Juggernauts and ferals attacks them and wipes them out!
Addendum
Addendum
I have finished my previous game and started a new one. Of the seven games I've played to completion, all but one had at least one Lichenologist in it, and I have two that survived of my 50 survivors I've kept. I pulled both of them into the next Dread-level game and I rolled until I got a third Lichenologist. We'll see how the game reacts to that!!
Addendum 2
Since starting the new game with three Lichenologists, the game has done some weird things. When you first start a game, even at Dread difficulty, the first game-day is usually fairly free of special zombies. However, this game started with a Juggernaut right off the bat near my base. I managed to avoid it, even though two missions took me right by it.Next, I was out scrounging for Materials with my newest Lichenologist when the game just quit to Windows. No error messages, no BSOD, nothing but a slight pause, and then I was looking at my desktop.I simply take this as further proof that the programmers have it out for Lichenology specialists within the game.
Addendum 3
Beyond my three starting Lichenologists, today I collected three more people for my survival group. Two were mechanics and one had no quirk skills. I was using one of the mechanics to reach Hero level out doing some missions. A horde was between me and the objective so I threw one molotov cocktail-- and, even though it landed directly in the middle of the group, not one of the zombies was killed. I threw a second and a third with the same effect. By that point, the horde was on me and I tried to get away. But my truck struck a huge pile of nothing (literally, I showed my wife -- it was the side of the road, nothing was visible at all, but the front end was torn up and the truck started burning... they type of burning that leads to the truck blowing up after about 10 seconds or so) and blew up, greatly injuring me. The horde tore me apart after that. Now, my one "working" vehicle was half-way across the map and destroyed. I had to pick another character to take over for the dead one.
I chose the non-quirk skill person, so I could start working her up to Hero. She was back at my home base, so I was teleported back there... into the middle of a horde base raid! Crap! I was immediately attacked by a feral that was already inside the base and none of the remaining survivors were helping me. I nearly died before one decided to shoot it. Then a Juggernaut attacked. The base all turned to it and we slowly whittled it down and killed it. Then a second and third Juggernaut attacked! One of my three lichenologists was killed (the new one I had rolled for this game), my other mechanic was nearly torn apart and is grossly damaged, I've used up nearly all of my ammo, and the character I'm using now has more injuries than my Infirmary can overcome. This is all happening on surviral Day 5, by the way. Day freak'n 5!
Again, this seems egregious, especially compared with any other SoD2 game I've played, even the other games at Dread level. The easiest game I played, by far, was the one with a starting Fishing and two starting Recyclers that never had a Lichenologist and only picked up one mechanic.
You will not convince me that it is completely random that when I have a lichenologist (or three!) in the group that the game doesn't target them specifically or become harder in general. Never.
Addendum 4
I recently started a new game after the major updates of early 2021. I used three existing characters of my 50 survivors, including a Lichenologist. Of course, on the fourth mission out of the gate, I was surrounded by a mob, had three (!) screamers (with one being inside a building, so I couldn't immediately kill him) plus a Juggernaut in the mix. ALL of the mobs immediately keyed on the Lichenologist I had brought as backup and to help carry stuff (it was a "clear for materials" type of mission). I couldn't grab aggro from her to, literally, save her life, even when spraying the mobs of zombies with auto-fire from my machine gun. She was eventually torn apart by the Juggernaut in a very bloody display.
This is just par for the course, as you can see from the ongoing story above. The programmers hate Lichenology/Lichenologists!
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