I like the concept of grimoires. In exchange for not only the opportunity cost of losing a deployable slot, you are also losing maximum health, and therefore the amount of downs. Naturally, the rewards for this big risk you’re taking should be high, right?
Apparently not, because the only reward that gets increased is Imperibux, and not by much either - I see maybe a 10% increase to it on Damnations? Maybe 20%? Either way, Imperibux aren’t the resource that everyone is short on all the time; it’s Plasteel, which is completely unaffected by extracting with a grimoire.
As it stands, even with a skilled group, I don’t consider the risk of taking a grimoire worth the reward it gives you. The possibility of everyone in the mission eating it drastically rises for no real reason. Grimoires should multiply crafting mats by at least 1.5x to make me consider actually looting them.
Books were important in VT2 because it was the only way to consistently roll Emperor’s loot at one point in the game’s cycle.
Books in Darktide were heavily watered down to be entirely optional, but the reward is so little that it’s not even worth dropping crates for Scriptures anymore—and that’s after the buffs they made to books.
Books are supposed to improve Emperor’s Gifts but I recently finished an Auric HIST with all 3 Scrips and got a 325 purple with a tier 2 blessing and tier 3 perks.
I also find it dreadfully boring as a “side objective” and recently just made a thread about it.
It would be better if they changed it so any mission can randomly spawn scriptures and grimoires, as it would make acquiring them a lot more consistent and they’d be there for the party to pick up if they really want to take them.
Add to that the fact that grimoires corrupt a minimum flat amount of HP instead of a percentage, disproportionately hurting humans, Psyker & Veteran especially.
Flat 25% penalty per grimoire would be fine imo, makes it easy to gauge risk/reward in pugs and not a complete clownshow if someone picked up a grim at the very start of the run and the whole team is at 1hp by the end and will cause instant death if a poxwalker looks at you wrong.
The current system would be fine as a modifier in premade runs though, maybe as a game mode in itself rather than needing to pick up grimoires.
Would even make having a set of corruption trinkets available worthwhile, but asking people to swap back and forth constantly for quickplay would be messy i think.
What really makes grims horrible is how they burn up med packs. If you have the talent that cleanses corruption when you stand on a medpack, then that medpack will be wasted within seconds.
That alone is reason enough to not want to pick them up.
Field Improv + Grimoires chewing through medpacks feels like a ridiculous oversight, I agree. The way they lower max health shouldn’t be through the Corruption mechanic, since medicae stations suffer the same kind of problem.
I agree. finding them, carrying them around, not being able to carry ammo or health crates, the corruption, freaking things dissapeare when you go down…and whats the reward? 10-20% more of a resource most people are already swiming in…