Chad's Best Character Ever: Seelah

Seelah was one of the characters that when I first read her card in RotR (and having not yet played) I thought she was horrible. Discard for 1d6? Miss out on boons? Later have to bury a card to heal? No thank!

Then my wife played as her and I realized she was awesome. Add to any of her check! Get through locations faster (and later set aside those really good boons)! Heal without losing an exploration!

I can't wait to see what other surprises are in store for me in Wrath of the Righteous.

Woohoo! Glad to see another member of the First Church of Seelah. She was my favorite character from the first AP and I can't wait to try her revamp this time around.

I played her through RotR, and she was awesome.

Melee: Strength +3 is a welcome addition to Seelah. d8 +2 seemed a little weak.

It is true that Seelah is built to handle many situations - after all, she was a great candidate to solo run RotR. With a good understanding of probability, you can maximize your gains while still burning through decks without sacrificing too much. You don't always have to Detect Evil, after all.

While I totally disagree with Seelah being the best in RotR, she is good and this one is just downright awesome. I really like that party buff ability, particularly the draw part. Anyone who wants to play this Seelah at my location table is welcome!

This is neat to see. Seelah and Valeros are the only characters I've played through every scenario of RotR (although I got most of the way with Amiri), and Seelah was my favorite of the two.

0 items scarred our RotR Seelah so much, he's Merisiel in S&S, and I think he would have gone Damiel if he hadn't been too slow. Not that he didn't enjoy the character, I just think he found the whole thing a bit ... sad

I'm playing RotR Seelah through OP right now and she has become an insane beast. First scenario of AP5 and she's rolling with 6 hand size, potentially shooting two useless boons to the bottom of the location deck per turn, and adding a 1d6+2 to every check that even remotely requires it. Maybe not on Lini's free 1d4+4 levels, but it's working. Items, who needs 'em? I want nothing but more blessings and more spells which... I can't get any more of, so who knows what those last few card feats will be!

Of course, it took a lot of time to build her up to this point. Most astonishing to me is that I waited until my third power feat increase her hand size, something I thought I'd never do, but the ability to recharge spells for her power, and clearing 2x cards a turn, were too value. Her tiny 4 card hand and lamentable Favorite Card: Armor meant that Seelah spent a lot of those first 3 APs punching enemies to death with her bare hands (and a helpful d6 from her patron deity?), as any good paladin should be prepared to do.

The other Sharks have suggested that I tell you all that there will be some dissenting opinions (theirs) on which is the Best Character in the weeks to come. I'm sure that their posts will be witty, eloquent, well-reasoned, and incorrect. I'm looking forward to it already.

Further, it is my sad duty to report that the Paizo.com tech team, awesome though they are, was unable to accommodate my request to title the post "Seelah: You're the Best", and have it play this song after the page loaded.

Luckily, you're all singing it now.

The other Sharks have suggested that I tell you all that there will be some dissenting opinions (theirs) on which is the Best Character in the weeks to come. I'm sure that their posts will be witty, eloquent, well-reasoned, and incorrect. I'm looking forward to it already.

I'd be shocked if everyone had the same opinion on relative character strengths! I love how much strategy and playstyle variation exists in this game; it allows for all these wonderful debates.

If I where to play Seelah in Wrath it would have to be the Wardstone Sentry. But I am pretty sure I will be playing Kyra the Cleric.

It's a minor point, but this new Seelah is the first character I've seen that has a type of card in her starting deck (namely items) but no feats to take more of those cards. So she'll be on one item forever.

We found RotR Seelah fairly poor, and the new one looks worse - the discard for D6 is only necessary because she starts on a D8 for melee, and typically doesn't have a weapon in her starting hand (and only starts with 1 spell, so can't fight as a caster).

RotR she sort of worked, if you sank all your feats into being able to recharge spells, and then took blessings and spells for all your card feats (but that made it even less likely that you'd get a weapon).

The new version, you're just burning cards to survive, with no prospect of recharging them until you get to role-card level.

The scrying power is fairly terrible, as it moves all the boons out of the way - so if it's good you've lost it, and if it's basic you don't get to banish it, making it less likely that you'll get something good later.

The lack of items is also hideous - so much of the decent loot is items - the party she was in couldn't even use the book that got you three divine spells per game.

The other Sharks have suggested that I tell you all that there will be some dissenting opinions (theirs) on which is the Best Character in the weeks to come. I'm sure that their posts will be witty, eloquent, well-reasoned, and incorrect. I'm looking forward to it already.

Yeah, yeah. When I crush your argument next week, I'll remind you of this paragraph.

If I may IMHO interfere in the MikyChady debate, I want to say a tremendous thanks to Mike for ONE reason: this debate is irrelevant.
And it is because there is NO "Best character ever".
And that's exactly why this is a fantastic game.
We played all S&S with a group with characters as different as Oloch, Ranzak, Alahazar, Jirelle, Amiri or Feya. And absolutely everybody had a blast.
True there is always a little tuning to make it perfect that can be done in some places or others, but a) really not much and b) Mike and Vic are so good at actually doing that tuning.
I personaly played Kyra along the whole RoR and we are trying Seasons of the Shackles with Sajan, Seoni, Siwar, Vika and Zarlova. Don't ask why we built that strange group : just because it looked like it would be fun... and yes it is. The idea of just wondering "who's the best" seems so totally illogical Captain...

Now had the question been who is the "Best Player Ever", I have an answer : my twenty-y-old daughter Estelle.
She understood immediately that this is a "cooperative support deck management plenty-o-fun and i'm-the-cutest-so-the-rest-of-the-world-can-follow-my-lead" king of game. She plays Alahazar and Siwar, never wins a fight or defeats a monster whatsoever, totally controls the whole game, never fails a scenario. I hate her.

RotR she sort of worked, if you sank all your feats into being able to recharge spells, and then took blessings and spells for all your card feats (but that made it even less likely that you'd get a weapon).

The new version, you're just burning cards to survive, with no prospect of recharging them until you get to role-card level.

Just because the recharging was a great way to go in RotR doesn't mean it's necessary. This is a better-than-bard power that *nets cards* in monster-heavy settings. Just make sure your party has plenty of heals (Seelah will help you draw into them), and go to town with the new Seelah being the best support character yet.

(And remember, while in the abstract it can be scary to burn your deck down low, doing so with a low-hand-size mandatory-three-armor character is not nearly so risky.)

Different strokes for different folks, MightyJim. I'm a boon-badger myself, so Seelah's not my cup of tea, but it's tough to deny that she can be ruthlessly effective for a group that just wants to plow through and win.

And now, thanks to Chad, I'm imagining the tournament montage where Daniel-san and Johnny take everyone else down.

The Seelah/Ranzak combo is the best. Shove all the boons to the bottom, opt to not close the location, and then let Ranzak go nuts acquiring everything there.

We found RotR Seelah fairly poor, and the new one looks worse - the discard for D6 is only necessary because she starts on a D8 for melee, and typically doesn't have a weapon in her starting hand (and only starts with 1 spell, so can't fight as a caster).

We can disagree about the merits of Seelah, but we should be able to come to consensus on basic probability. The new Seelah has a four card hand and four weapons in a fifteen card deck. This gives her a roughly 75% chance of having a weapon in her starting hand (which gets slightly worse when you factor in the favored cards rules),

Different strokes for different folks, MightyJim. I'm a boon-badger myself, so Seelah's not my cup of tea, but it's tough to deny that she can be ruthlessly effective for a group that just wants to plow through and win.

We had a group that didn't really bother too much about Boon-gathering. Got to adventure 5, and found themselves completely and utterly stuck, as we weren't sufficiently tooled up to deal with anything the location threw at us.

Obviously, everyone's free to play how they want, but I can't see any long-term viability to getting rid of all the boons.

The scrying power is fairly terrible, as it moves all the boons out of the way - so if it's good you've lost it, and if it's basic you don't get to banish it, making it less likely that you'll get something good later.

I'm unsure where you get the idea that Seelah makes you lose boons, at least in the latter haalf of the campaign.

By the time you reach AP4, you get the ability to move the boon underneath the top card. In the off chance that the new top card is a villain, you lose access to the boon. In any other circumstances it helps you acquire the boon, since you have gained information on the roll to acquire the boon and cans end the character with the best chance to make the acquisition roll.

Also, if you close a location with a basic boon the boon is still banished, so it doesn't effect the long term prospects in the slightest.

I played Seelah in RotR and never regretted it! She was definitely my favorite character of the group.

The new Seelah is definitely looking strong - esp some of the tricks with the role cards.

i.e. Inheritor's blade with an armor that 'reveals' to reduce damage = "Oh look, the villain does damage to EVERYONE? Reveal..reveal..reveal..reveal. There we go all taken care of."

or for Wardstone Sentry - the d8 against any Demon/Undead (by the time you have a role, most of her weapons should be magic anyway), or the Charisma +2/4 for any before you act check.

This is almost making me want to play Seelah again, even though I had my eyes on some of the new characters. Guess I'll have to wait until I get to see everyone :D

Calthaer wrote:

Different strokes for different folks, MightyJim. I'm a boon-badger myself, so Seelah's not my cup of tea, but it's tough to deny that she can be ruthlessly effective for a group that just wants to plow through and win.

We had a group that didn't really bother too much about Boon-gathering. Got to adventure 5, and found themselves completely and utterly stuck, as we weren't sufficiently tooled up to deal with anything the location threw at us.

Obviously, everyone's free to play how they want, but I can't see any long-term viability to getting rid of all the boons.

You don't get rid of all the boons with Seelah. You pick and choose. You may be saturated with a particular type already, and which case you can go to that location and skip the ones you'll probably throw away anyway.

Seelah isn't suited for the beginner - you have to calculate a lot of probabilities with regards to your location and your character. But if you do, she'll reward you.

With the OP rules about deck upgrades being a little different, I didn't even bother taking 'under the top card' boon feat as Seelah. If a boon we like gets shuttled to the bottom of the deck, we'll opt not to close the location and burn through the boons real quick. But really, I think that's happened maybe two or three times, when we found an AP-current weapon for Seelah or an AP-current spell for Amaryllis.

Even playing 5 locations with 2 characters we rarely feel pressed for time (unless we burn too many blessings on the Kraken's +d12). With 8 blessings now, Seelah can play them to explore whenever she wants an Major Cure them right back. With an Augury in her deck, she's a scouting/exploring machine, and she just keeps getting better, where some of my disappointment with Damiel in S&S (who, don't get me wrong, is amazing) is he starts out unbelievable and after that, most of his power upgrades were just coasting. With Seelah, though she probably has the clunkiest start of any character I've played, every power feat with her is me going "I have got to get me one of these."

And who wants MORE weapons? :D 2-3 has always felt right for me for just about any character I've played. RoTR's Merisiel's starting 2 was too few for her, but she could recharge anything she wanted to keep her hand moving, Damiel's starting 1 was a real problem with all the villains that make you recharge/discard cards, but anything more than 3 just starts clogging your hand. Even with just 3 in my deck, I'm often looking for excuses to get rid of them, sometimes just straight-up discarding some if I can't find a monster. Finding the Spellsword was a huge boon, since now I can purposefully fail a recharge (or just not use Seelahs d6+2 and leave it to chance) and get the weapon out of my hand that way.

Seelah isn't suited for the beginner - you have to calculate a lot of probabilities with regards to your location and your character. But if you do, she'll reward you.

This is what really makes the character sing for me, fanning out my discard pile and saying "well the next card in my deck is STATISTICALLY probably not an ally...

(and then you flip it over and it's bye-bye Evangelist)

She requires a touch of higher level play than the average character. If you can be bothered to remember what order you recharged your spells/armor, you can flip cards to add to checks with impunity. Either way, it's kind of a constant thrill of 'what will happen next?' with her.

RotR Seelah was a powerhouse when I played her. I'd go off and clear out the location people most hated while the others in the group colluded to work on their own, and I'm pretty sure I went through as fast as at least 2-3 of them.

Though, yes, I did get a bit of the "You're a dirty card counter" jokes as I cheerfully recharged my blessings and spells for a bonus to almost everything.

I do have a different best character theory for Wrath, though, as shall be seen!

True there is always a little tuning to make it perfect that can be done in some places or others, but a) really not much and b) Mike and Vic are so good at actually doing that tuning.

In the "credit where credit is due" category, that credit is due entirely to Lone Shark (with a solid assist from our playtesters, of course).

RotR Seelah was very powerful and fun to play, not sure about the new one, depends on Righteous.

I think the titles of her two new role cards are switched. The Blade has an ability to absorb combat damage for someone else, which sounds more like a sentry. The Sentry listed has an ability to boost her check against a demon, which sounds more offensive. Though it has the movement ability as well, which could be both offense or defense.

So who's next on the preview block? Looking forward to Adowyn or Crowe.

Wardstone Sentry is more of a job title for those who defend the wardstones against the demons and their hordes, hence a focus on fighting against those foes.

Note that the Blade has to take Combat Damage to reduce it to her allies, representing Seelah charging into the battle and taking the hit herself. Hopefully she brought her helmet :)

It is also likely that the Inheritor's Blade will prove useful in any set, while the Wardstone Sentry is best suited to her vigil on Wrath of the Righteous, rather than the Shackles.

In the "credit where credit is due" category, that credit is due entirely to Lone Shark (with a solid assist from our playtesters, of course).

Trust me, Vic weighs in a lot with "Mike, I don't think this thing does what you think it does…." That has saved the design team's bacon on more occasions than I can count.

If I may IMHO interfere in the MikyChady debate, I want to say a tremendous thanks to Mike for ONE reason: this debate is irrelevant.

And it is because there is NO "Best character ever".

Quiet, you! Leave us to our pointless yet entertaining bickering!

I rest my case: entertaining it is, ergo non pointless.

There is a best character. It's the one you have the most fun with. :)

That said, I have approximately ALL the popcorn on hand for when the others proclaim who their best characters ever are.

I know it's been a while since the last post, but I was just curious, and was hoping maybe that I could gain some insight from the designer.

Why does Seelah use Wisdom for her Divine Skill when the Pathfinder Paladin uses Charisma as her spellcasting attribute?

I created a forum thread asking this question, to see if there had been an official response previously, but I didn't receive any responses that suggested so:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2s7gd?Why-does-Seelah-use-Wisdom-for-Divine

So, a couple of people have said they're using Seelah in OP. How are you doing this, with the paladin class deck not out yet? Is there something I missed that makes her playable with one of the other decks?

I'm a little confused here, where did you see people saying they are using Seelah in OP? You're correct in that she isn't legal yet.

Is it maybe someone was playing a class deck character with her in an Adenture Path?

That was me. We played through Season of the Shackles at home. My wife played Amaryllis, I played Seelah with the Cleric class deck, so not tourney legal.

Ah, okay, just checking. I thought maybe I was missing something. My group was disappointed the paladin decks weren't out in time to start this season.