Path of Achra: Comprehensive Gameplay Basics & Walkthrough for Beginners

Welcome to the lands of Achra

Are you looking for a walkthrough to optimize your settings based on your preferences, create your first character, know the basics of the game before starting?

Are you searching for a guide to save yourself some time by someone who has already completed the first cycle?

If your answer is yes to these questions, you are at the right place! 😀

1. Overview
2. Introduction
3. Table of Contents
4. What You’ll Learn
5. Before We Get Started
6. Terminology/Abbreviations/Jargon
7. Game Settings
8. Menus of PoA
9. Gameplay Objective and Basics
10. Frequently Asked Questions
11. Math of Mechanics
12. Principles for Your First Run
13. Conclusion

• Optimal settings
• Menus of the game
• Gameplay objective and basics
• Principles to your first run

• This guide was created for the game version up to patch 1.4.4 “O Struggler”
• This guide is intended for beginners, specifically those who want guidelines to learning the game
• This guide is NOT for getting your first win. It is for setting up the game and giving a ‘head start’ to mechanics and objective of the game
• What is in the guide are suggestions, not the rule. There are exceptions and circumstances that must be considered
• Due to the nature of guides, this will be spoiling content/learning. However, you had to search for this to find this, so that should not be a problem

• Roll: To roll means a number is generated then it is input into a calculation. E.g. A roll from 1-10, 1-1000, 50-1500, 1000-1200, etc.
• Path of Achra (PoA)
• Life/Hit Points (hp)
• Damage over time (dot)
• Damage (dmg)
• Attack (atk)
• Weapon (wep)
• Elemental (ele)
• Two-handing (2h)
• Dual-Wield (dw)
• Sword and Board (snb/s&b)
• Area of Effect (aoe)
• Experience (exp)
• Enemies (mobs)
• Resistance Percentage (res%); (resistance percentage multiplier, e.g. 16% fire resist on 70 direct unblockable dmg, would be 70 * (16/100) = 11 (i.e. 11.2)

Your game settings influence the presentation of the game as well as optimize it to your preferences.

Launch Path of Achra if you haven’t already.

This is the main menu of Path of Achra. If you want to view in full screen, you may press Ctrl + f, or maximize it whilst keeping the task bar with windows key + up arrow.

Once you see the main menu. At the bottom left of the screen, there will be a ‘menu icon’ symbol as shown in the illustration.

These are the settings I recommend to LEARN with.

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• Floating text; these are the damage numbers, heal numbers, and status effects that appear over everyone’s head if it is on true. This should be on true as a beginner and later turned off.
• Wide message log; instead of the combat log showing 1 line of text at a time, it will show as many as it can in a window with it wrapping the text into the next line if it is on true. This should be on true always.
• Detailed numbers; this shows the exact calculation of what happens. If you change this, changes will take effect on the next instance of combat text. I highly recommend turning this on until you fully understand how armor, dodge, block, resistances, rolls, etc. work.
• Save winners only; in another menu, i.e. maqbara, are your past runs, you may rerun them in an infinite version of PoA. Entirely preference.
• Victory markers; these are flashing markers that indicate that you’ve won a run with this selected. Entirely preference.
• Unit speed bars; familiars will have a progress bar beneath them indicating how close they are to their next action.
• Show attack range; this will allow you to see a units range by hovering over them
• Fast mode; this will shorten animations to make your runs faster. I highly recommend this being on true.
• Vsync; this syncs the fps of the game to your monitor fps if it is on true. By having this on false, your game will run significantly faster if possible
• FPS cap; this is the maximum fps you will allow the game to run at. This sort of depends, you may want there to be no fps cap if you’re using no Vync.
• Hide big life bar; this will hide your life bar, glory bar and the game turn progress. This should definitely remain false.
• Gamepad support; optional

Take a look at controls and guide whilst you’re here. In the next section we will be talking about the other menus. Press escape.

This is the main menu of PoA. At the bottom left, the ‘menu icon’ is what you may click to enter the settings for the game, which we have already set.

The path: The Main Game
Maqbara: The Maqbara is a sort of memorial of your previous runs. These characters can be played again in the path of dust which continues infinitely.
Lore: The lore is further unlocked through ingame feats (hover over them to see requirements).
Credits. A list of people that contributed to PoA
Quit: Exit the game

Select ‘The Path‘. There are a combination of 3 criteria you must choose from to create your character; culture, class and religion. I highly recommend to just play for fun, experiencing the game and get a feel for how each play. This will gain you insights to what can be done which you will then start to use to figure out how to proceed through a run. To do this, without having too much antagonistic features, randomly select by pressing tab, then check the description of your class and try to get an idea of what they’re trying to do, then just check your culture and religion. The only thing you’re looking for is something that does not literally go against what your class is trying to do.

First, let’s look at the controls. Currently, these keybinds cannot change.

• Auto Play; At the top we have the controls for your character. Holding either tab/right click/0 on your numpad; your character will automatically pick up each item (Tip: press another button repeatedly as your holding upon picking up an item to do it faster).
• Change target; alt
• Stand still; space/Middle mouse button. Standing still is a character action where your character, instead of ‘attacking’ per se, will wait or perform another action/s triggered by on ‘stand still’. More on this later
• Enter door/Confirm Death/Start game; enter. If you’re holding right click, etc., you will automatically go through doors. If you’re in a situation where there are more enemies and you want to enter the door (consider this if overwhelmed but generally you should avoid having to do it), pressing ‘enter’ would be necessary, otherwise your character will attempt to attack the nearest enemy by holding autoplay with enemies remaining.
• Recite prayer; 1/2/3. Each run, you will have a chosen religion. Each God will have several prayers (unlocked throughout the run). Usually these prayers have effects of their own and/or used to trigger something ‘on prayer’.
• Numpad 1-9/asdw & qezc; directional movement of character (to stand still, hold 5 on numpad or S)

There are essentially 4 general actions you can make with your character in this game. This may seem like simple, and that is because it is. The complex part of PoA is the build variety, which I will get into in another guide.

• Attack: Your character makes an initial attack to an enemy
• Step: Your character steps to another tile
• Stand still: Your character waits an action
• Pray: Your character recites one of the prayers of your chosen religion

Next, let’s look at the guide. This can be found in the settings menu. The goal is to get to the next level. You may kill enemies by attacking them, though it is not necessary (meaning you can go to do the door at any point and proceed sacrificing exp and possibly items).

Killing enemies provide exp and Glory may be considered a ‘level’ in this game, sort of. However, you do start with 2 glory and 10 skill points. For every glory you gain, you gain 1 point which can be used to upgrade and obtain new powers to progress through the levels.

Powers (abilities/skills) in Path of Achra (PoA) are ALL triggered by events. An example of an event is ‘on block’ or simple as a character action such as ‘on step’, or ‘on attack’. You will learn more about this in the next section.

Mostly everything that happens is considered an event. Whenever you heal, move, kill an enemy, recite prayer, enter an area, all of these are considered an event. Events are important because your powers, culture, class and religion do something ‘on’ these events happening. There are literally dozens of events, below are some of the most common examples of events.

• On attack; when your character attacks in any way or form
• On Step; this is one of the 4 actions you can directly trigger something with. It is simple stepping to a tile that is not occupied by an enemy unit. If it is a friendly unit, you will switch places with it.
• On Prayer; this is one of the 4 actions you can directly trigger something with. This is whenever a prayer of any time is used.
• On Stand Still; this is one of the 4 actions you can directly trigger something with. This is when your character waits as an action.
• On entrance; when your character enters a new area.
• On game turn; a game turn is independent of a player turn and enemy turn. In this guide, I will not get into detail of game turn relative to the player and enemies. But know that as your speed increases, the more ‘actions’ you have per game turn at certain breakpoints, likewise for enemies.
• On ‘initial’ attack; this is one of the 4 actions you can directly trigger something with. This event is different from ‘on attack’ in a way that that this is triggered specifically if your character action was directly attacking an enemy. An initial attack is different from a regular attack because it is possible to attack an enemy without explicitly issuing an attack command. As an example, let’s look at technique. Technique allows you to have extra atks on an adjacent enemy on step & initial attack. This means, if you EITHER step and there is an adjacent enemy or you specifically attack someone, you WILL get extra attacks from technique. However, if you attack an enemy through a power such as Bheith Nocht, this WILL NOT give you extra attacks utilizing technique because the attacks from Bheith Nocht ‘do not count as an initial attack’ which can be read in the skills description
  
• On kill; this is on killing ‘any’ unit. Ally units usually count towards this trigger.
• On death; this can be found on some enemies such as ‘dancing flesh’ which inflicts doom on the killer. Enemies have powers and passives of their own, make sure to check them out when you can.

Some events require certain conditions to be met.

• Two-handing/Single-handing; On some weapons, particularly swords and axes, will have ‘attacks area if two-handing’. This means if the item is in your main hand, whenever you initially attack an enemy, all other endemies around you will also be hit for the initial attack.
• Encumbered/Unencumbered; Encumberance is a stat that accompanies weapons and armor, which signifies how heavy it is. For each point of str you have, it negates the effects of encumberance. This encumberance when in effect or not can be used as a condition that allows certain items to be in effect.
• Inflexible/Flexible; Inflexible is a stat that accompanies weapons and armor. Inflexibility can be negated through powers and items. Your speed and dmg bonus from willpower is divided for each point of inflexibility you have.

• Scorch: This is how scorch works; PER stack, you deal 10 fire dmg. Per 20 stacks, it is repeated. As an example, if a monster has 69 stacks, it will be hit for 69 * 10 which is 690 damage. Then it is repeated 3 more times (69/20 = 3) which is 690 x 3 on top of the initial 690 for a total of 2760 damage.
• “On dealing <damage type>”; this can be triggered from damage by culture, class and religion, it is NOT triggered by allies.
• “Adjacent units”; this is referring to units that are adjacent to YOU
• Powers with multiple triggers/conditions can be applied for each unique trigger met.
• Block%; this is the percentage chance that you will block. The number next to it is essentially maximum you will block for. In another guide, I will go in-depth on this.
• Damage types as they appear in combat log;
  • Pierce; pierce
  • Slash; cut
  • Blunt; pummel
  • Fire; burn
  • Lightning; shock
  • Poison; poison
  • Death; curse
  • Ice; chill
  • Astral; blast
  • Psychic; psyblast
  • Blood dmg; rend

This is the math of the following aspects of the game. I was thinking about going into detail but maybe that is a bad idea. If I do make another guide (probably on getting first win), I will insert a greater depth to these mechanics concerning checks and rolls.

• Accuracy; This is the likelihood an ‘attack’ hits the target
• Dodge; The likelihood an attack is ‘dodged’. When an attack is dodged, the damage is fully mitigated, regardless of what it is.
• Hit; Hit can be considered your base initial attack damage. As you play the game more, you will know why I’m using the phrase ‘initial attack’. When you initially attempt to initial attack a unit, your ‘on attack’ triggers will initiate. As an example, if you had the power ‘astrokinesis’ which has a trigger for ‘on hit’ and ‘on attack’, the ‘on attack’ will trigger when you make the attack. If the enemy unit dodges, you will NOT trigger the ‘on hit’ portion of this power.
• Block; Your character has a certain chance to block and a permanent 10% chance to fail a block. When you block an attack, the damage is mitigated based on your block amount and a few other factors.
• Armor; Armor works similar to block, except, your armor is either in effect or not by rolling the 10% permanent chance to fail. When you block, it is almost always for the full amount.
• Resistance; Elemental and physical resistances takes effect during instances of direct damage. That is unfortunately beyond this beginner guide, just know that you should somewhat consider your resistances because they literally mitigate damage by the percentage that is there, and then some.
• Damage Taken; After all the above, and much more, are considered, the hit is considered an attack that connects with the unit and that unit takes damage as well as triggering ‘on hit’ abilities.

You are at the end of the guide. This is a bonus section, on things to consider before starting your first run. I highly recommend that when you’re in character selection to randomly choose culture and religion, then select a class, and play that class a few times, changing the culture & religion after each run. This will get you extraordinarily familiar with the game within days. If this is a game you see yourself playing for some time, just experience the various possibilities first just to see what they can do before you start coming up with theories and builds (you never know what you will find/how can you assemble something together if you don’t know what all there is).

• A form of healing
• A mode of defense
• Damage with some form of stacking buff/debuff (meditate, inflame, charge, repulsion, scorch, etc.)
• Synergy amongst all the above
• Things to look out for once your run has started

I know you want to do damage, but this isn’t the game. This is a roguelike. Some form of defense is mandatory and healing is close up there with it. Healing can be something obtained via your culture, class, religion and/or a prayer. A single form of healing may be wanted, because the only other way you will heal is by sacrificing items or leveling up vigor. By leveling up vigor you will gain max hp, your hp is fully replenished and you will cleanse all debuffs on you.

You will absolutely need some form of defense. Either through dodging hits entirely or mitigating damage through block and/or armor. This should be determined before your run starts based on your culture, class and religion. If you’re stacking dex, your defense will probably be dodge or block, whereas if you’re stacking str, your defense is armor or block. If you’re stacking willpower, your form of defense will probably be through block and/or allies. You may consider having several debuffs on your enemies and/or buffs on yourself to help with survivability.

Damage is highly important. Once again, from the character screen, you should have an idea of the kind of build you’re going for. You can select up to 7 powers and up to a maximum amongst 3 unique elements. As a beginner, you may want to focus on two or one for a particular reason (which I won’t talk about in this guide). Something to keep in mind, is that this game has extremely high player agency. You can wear no armor, armor with low encumbrance, armor with high encumbrance and armor with high inflexibility all on the same character. As for weapons, there is extremely high diversity here as well, you can literally equip 2 shields if you desired, or two-hand (2h) a shield by equipping it into your main hand, or go barehand + shield by having your main hand empty and the shield in the off hand. You can equip a weapon in both hands, regardless of what kind of weapon it is or the size, be it a knife, sword, axe, polearm. Ideally you should stack at least one form of buff on yourself (and/or debuff on an enemy) that increases your damage output.

Build variety and complexity is the depth of this game. There are literally millions of combinations, of course, some better than others. There are several cultures, classes, religions and powers you can independently choose from. As an example, warrior gains accuracy, armor and block from poise. Strength has the ‘most’ synergy. You may think dexterity or strength is fine, but dexterity only ‘adds’ block on top of the block gained by poise. Whereas strength ‘multiplies’ the block gained, multiplies the armor gained, adds flat armor, increases hp, and multiplies hit which sort of benefits from poise. This is Stage 0 build; where a build is focusing on ‘stock’ character customization, such as class (which is what I recommend you centering your build around). The reason why you should center your build around your class as a beginner is to LEARN the game. Later on, you can progress to more complex builds.

Once you run has begun, whenever you find yourself on the continent screen or the world map, pay attention to the items you can receive and the mobs that will appear. Ideally you’re checking the enemy’s range, speed, dmg type, and resistances and maybe their powers. If you find yourself dying to a particular mob more often than others, take a second and view that mob’s powers.

Thank you for reading this guide, I hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to help, giving a like and rating could help make it more noticeable for others.

If you want to contact me, I am in the ‘The Path’ Discord. You can find the link to the discord from the steam store page for PoA.

If there are typos, mistakes, confusing parts, etc., let me know.

My Discord is Darth#7422. You can send me a message if you like 😀

About me:

• I paused at Cycle 2 (2nd difficulty) to create this guide
• Love fitness, gaming, cooking
• Favorite genres are roguelikes, mmos, and strategy games