WotR difficulty settings

Difficulty changes incoming damage, enemy statistics and the rules around combat. Changing an individual setting creates a Custom combination, so the preset name alone does not describe that campaign.

Damage to the party

Casual halves Normal's damage multiplier. Unfair doubles Core's multiplier. Hard keeps Core's multiplier but changes enemy statistics and enables additional enemy behaviours, which can still make attacks more dangerous.

Enemy statistics are a separate setting. Compare enemy bonuses by difficulty before changing both controls at once.

Enemy numbers and behaviour

Story through Daring use the standard enemy-count setting. Core, Hard and Unfair use the enlarged setting. This can enable additional enemies at placements that require it; it does not multiply every encounter's population by a fixed amount.

Additional enemy behaviours are enabled on Hard and Unfair. Enemy critical hits are disabled on Story and Casual, reduced on Normal and Daring, and normal on Core, Hard and Unfair.

Death, resting and retraining

Story revives dead companions after combat. Casual, Normal and Daring enable Death's Door instead. Core, Hard and Unfair disable both protections.

Story and Casual enable removal of negative effects on rest. Normal and higher disable that assistance. Story, Casual and Normal allow retraining; Daring and higher disable it unless the individual setting is changed.

Check achievement requirements before lowering a setting

Some achievements require a minimum difficulty. The save records its minimum difficulty, and restoring a harder setting later does not necessarily restore eligibility. Custom is not a blanket ban: the achievement's required preset is compared with the recorded settings.

Achievements can also require a particular campaign, Crusade difficulty or single-save mode. Check the specific achievement rather than treating all of them as Core-only.

Change the setting that addresses the problem

When incoming hits are too punishing, adjust damage to the party. When enemies are too hard to hit, compare their stat adjustments. When recovery after a fight is the problem, review the death and resting settings.

Keep those choices separate from spell difficulty classes. A lower incoming-damage multiplier does not, by itself, change the saving throw needed to resist an enemy ability.