Collecting heroes is half the fun of a hunting-town tycoon. You want the day a rare hero walks through the gate to feel special, which means rare heroes have to actually be rare. But rarity has a dark side: bad streaks, the feeling that the game is cheating you, and the fear of losing what you already have.
Paw & Sword handles this with two rules that pull in opposite directions. Rare heroes are rare on purpose, with a pity timer that puts a ceiling on bad luck. And once a hero is yours, they never leave. This post explains both.
Why rarity is worth keeping
Heroes in Paw & Sword come in seven ranks, from Normal through Rare, Superior, Epic, Legendary and Heroic up to Mythic. Each rank has its own look, and every class keeps the same cat across all of them. Most heroes you meet are at the lower ranks, and that is fine: a well-geared Normal hero still hunts, earns gold and has a personality.
Rare summons exist for the moment, not the maths. A reveal that is usually ordinary makes the unusual one exciting. If every summon were Epic, none of them would feel like anything.
The problem is variance. Random draws come in streaks, and a long bad streak does not feel like statistics. It feels personal. That is where the pity timer comes in.
How the pity timer works
A pity timer is a guarantee that kicks in after a run of bad luck. In Paw & Sword's current build, it works like this:
- You get an Epic-or-better hero at least every tenth summon. The counter resets whenever an Epic or better appears, whether it came from luck or from the guarantee.
- Upgrading the Summoning Shrine shortens that cycle, so investing in the building visibly improves your odds.
- The very first cycle is shorter: your first Epic arrives within your first five summons, so every new player sees what a high-rank hero looks like early.
The exact numbers may still change before launch. The principle will not: the worst case is known and visible.
Honest guarantees
A guarantee is only worth something if it is true. Two small rules keep it that way.
First, the summon screen states the guarantee in plain words, "Epic or better at least every Nth summon", with the number that applies to your town right now. You should never have to look it up on a wiki.
Second, a bundle or offer is only labelled as guaranteeing an Epic when the pity rules actually make that true for the number of summons it contains. It is easy to write "guaranteed" on a button. It is better to make the button's claim follow from the rules, so it can never quietly become false after a balance change.
Why heroes never leave
Heroes in Paw & Sword have needs: health, stamina, hunger and mood. If you neglect them, their mood drops. In an earlier version, a hero whose mood stayed at zero long enough would eventually pack up and leave town. On paper that adds stakes. In practice it was miserable.
Think about who that rule hurts. An idle game is played in short visits, sometimes with long gaps. A player who goes away for a weekend should come back to a town that kept running, not to an empty bed where their favourite cat used to sleep. Losing a hero you waited weeks to summon, because of a busy week at work, does not create tension. It creates a reason to uninstall.
So the rule now is simple: heroes never leave. A hero at zero mood sulks instead. Sulking heroes fight worse, which you will notice in the field, and the game nudges you to fix it. Their needs are always visible on the hero card. A trip to the tavern helps, and a hero who is broke and miserable can even get a little cheer on the house.
Stakes without loss
Mood still matters. A town full of sulking heroes earns less and loses more fights. The difference is that the cost is temporary and fixable: take care of your heroes and they bounce back. That matches how losing works elsewhere in the game, where a lost boss fight costs time, not progress.
If you allow notifications, the game can also remind you when a hero has been sulking for a while. The point is that neglect should never be a surprise: you find out while it is still a quick fix, not after a week of bad results.
The two rules fit together. Rarity gives you moments worth waiting for. The pity timer limits how long the wait can be. And the no-leaving rule means that once the moment arrives, it is yours to keep.
