Partitioned Nuzlocke Challenge
Ever wanted to do a Nuzlocke, but been daunted by the necessity of exalting your dragons and ridding yourself of supplies? Tried a Pinkerlocke but disliked the randomness of it? Like normal gameplay? Desperately wanted a secondary lair so you could do a Nuzlocke without having to go all-in?
This is the challenge for you!
Feel free to discuss how your own Nuzlocke (or Pinkerlocke!) is going here, share tips, and mourn your losses!
The Premise: A small group of dragons strike out on their own. They may be wanderers, the remnants of a once-great clan, or dragons attempting to carve out a clan and lair with their talons on the edge of dragon-controlled lands.
The Point: Survival will be a constant struggle. Food, materials, and treasure are all very valuable - as are dragons. Failing to collect food or succeed in battle will have permanent, often devastating consequences for the clan.
The Method: Your Nuzlocke dragons act as a sub-clan. They cannot breed with or interact with your main clan in any way. Supplies gotten by your Nuzlocke dragons belong to them alone - and vice-versa.
Getting Started
Partitioning Treasure / Gems: All of your money goes into the Vault. Yes, all of it. Your starting dragons are penniless and can't afford to buy a burger off the dollar menu, let alone crimson silks and retired festival items. (Side bonus: this really helps you save money!)
- If you're an AH flipper: Keep your AH funds out, and your Nuzlocke funds in the Vault. If you have a ton of cash lying around, keep the amount in the vault which is savings a round number, and the amount for your Nuzlocke less than it by a factor of 10 or 100.
For example: You have 548,923 T in your funds for buying things on the AH, 2,500,000 in the Vault as savings, and 5979 in Nuzlocke money. Your vault will be 2,505,979; easy enough to tell what goes where.
- Alternate method: Wherever you track your Nuzlocke, keep a record of your funds for the Nuzlocke. You can only spend the amount you possess in this fund on your Nuzlocke dragons.
Partitioning Items: There's no way around this one: all your stuff has to go in the vault. You can get away with having apparel, specialty, skins, and familiars in the hoard, but not food, materials, battle stones, or trinkets.
- If you are a Baldwin brewer: Keep one stack of cheap food, materials, and trinkets for melting. Baldwin materials can stay in the hoard. For recipes, pull the required non-alchemical components out of the vault.
- Consider converting a bunch of food to food points before you do this. It get annoying to constantly pull food from the vault to feed your main lair!
- If you keep familiars in the hoard, make sure to track which familiars are found by your Nuzlocke dragons! These are the only familiars they can use.
Partitioning Dragons: Pick one or two adult dragons to be your Nuzlocke starting dragons. They can be dragons from your lair or newly-purchased dragons. They MUST be level 1, with no battle experience. In the bio of this / these dragons, note that they are Nuzlocke dragons. Keep them together in your lair - I suggest also marking them with a piece of cheap apparel (the same for every dragon in the Nuzlocke) to visually differentiate them from the lair.
Hatch an Egg: Hatch an egg of any kind! This is your second (or third) dragon for the Nuzlocke. Lore-wise, they could be an orphan, a runaway, or whatever else you'd like.
Nuzlocke Gameplay
Food: Calculate the amount of food your dragons need. Each dragon consumes 3 food points per day; if you're starting with 3 dragons, that's 9 food points.
- Keep in mind the breeds of dragon you're using. If you're starting with 2 wildclaws and a fae, you'll need 6 points of meat and 3 points of insects each day.
- Food MUST be gotten by grinding in the Coliseum or by purchasing it in the AH with Nuzlocke funds.
- Convert enough food to feed your Nuzlocke dragons. Keep track of the number of food points you have stored for them - this is the most tedious part, since there's no way to partition food points.
Gathering: If you choose to gather food, it does not count towards the Nuzlocke. You must convert it for your lair or put it in the vault. Materials, chests, etc. found in digging or scavenging count towards the Nuzlocke.
- Scavenged eggs will increase your population. You may hatch the egg, or sell it and buy a G1 off the AH with the proceeds. Any profit from selling the egg belongs to your main lair; stick it in the vault!
- Chests should be opened, and the proceeds belong to the Nuzlocke dragons.
- Familiars found belong to the Nuzlocke dragons. These familiars may be used by the Nuzlocke dragons, or "released" (sold or melted). No proceeds of released familiars go to the Nuzlocke dragons. Familiar bonding proceeds do!
Coliseum: Battle is dangerous! If a dragon faints in battle, it is exalted - no exceptions*. The proceeds go to the Nuzlocke dragons.
- Battle stones must be bought using Nuzlocke funds!
- You can change up your dragons' starting stones (i.e. replacing scratch / slash with meditate / contuse) free of cost. Just put it in lore (if you have lore) why they're physical fighters / magical fighters!
*just kidding, there's exceptions!
- No matter what, a fainted dragon must be dead in Nuzlocke lore. That means they can't interact with the Nuzlocke in any way, including later offspring joining the clan for any reason.
- If you want to sell / raffle off / etc. a Nuzlocke dragon, you can. Use the average exalt payout for a dragon of that level for your Nuzlocke's funds.
Nesting: Nuzlocke dragons are allowed to breed with each other, but not outside the Nuzlocke. For every hatchling, flip a coin: if heads, the dragon survives. If tails, the chick has died - exalt it. The proceeds go to the Nuzlocke dragons.
Apparel: Your Nuzlocke dragons can wear only what they find in chests, drops in the Coli, or what they purchase with their funds! I suggest sticking it all on them so you don't accidentally melt it. Also, because it looks hilarious!
Optional Rules
No Immigrants: All dragons in the clan must be from the original set, found as eggs, or offspring of adults in the clan. No dragons may immigrate / be bought from the AH for the Nuzlocke clan.
Unchanging Hides: Dragons may not be gened or scatterscrolled. Optionally, you can't give a dragon a primary gene until level 10, can't give them a secondary gene until level 15, and can't give them a tertiary gene until level 20. Dragons can be scatterscolled at level 25. Remember - all funds for this come from the efforts of your Nuzlocke dragons!
Serendipity: For every egg you find, whether in the coliseum or by scavenging, you may purchase one breed change for any dragon.
This challenge was inspired by the original Nuzlocke Challenge and the Pinkerlocke Challenge!