RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Hi all,
I've been following several threads about the quality of each of the characters, and I'd like to propose an update to Seelah. It's a fairly simple update, as you'll see. I'll bold the differences in the following text.
Revised Seelah (Female Human Paladin) -
Strength d8 (O +1) (O +2) (O +3) (O +4)
Melee: Strength +2
Dexterity d4 (O +1)
Constitution d8 (O +1) (O +2) (O +3)
Intelligence d4 (O +1) (O +2)
Wisdom d8 (O +1) (O +2) (O +3)
Divine: Wisdom +2
Charisma d10 (O +1) (O +2)Hand size 4 (O 5)
Proficient with Weapons, Light Armors, Heavy Armors
You may recharge an Armor card with the Shield trait from your hand to add 1d6 (O +1) to your Melee combat check. You cannot use this power if the check includes a weapon with the Two-Handed trait.
You may examine the top card of your location deck at the start (O or end) of your turn. If it’s a boon, put it on the bottom of the deck.
During your turn, you may discard (O recharge) a blessing from your hand to choose another player at your location to recharge the top card of his discard pile.Favored Card Type: Armor
Cards List
Weapon 3 (O 4) (O 5)
Spell 1 (O 2) (O 3)
Armor 3 (O 4) (O 5)
Item -
Ally 2 (O 3) (O 4)
Blessing 6 (O 7) (O 8)
Just to give you a quick idea of what these new powers are supposed to represent: The ability to discard an Armor with the Shield trait is meant to be equivalent to a Shield Bash in concert with a weapon attack. The ability to discard a blessing and recharge the top card of an ally's deck to recharge is supposed to represent a Paladin's Lay on Hands healing ability.
Having a combat use for the Armor cards will make Seelah's favorite card type choice finally make sense, and we'll have a character who will actually want to have Shields instead of full-body armors, which otherwise are strictly better in almost every instance.
Revised Seelah (Crusader)SAME STATS
Hand size 4 (O 5) (O 6)
Proficient with Weapons, Light Armors, Heavy Armors
You may recharge an Armor card with the Shield trait from your hand to add 1d6 (O +1) (O +2) (O +3) to your Melee combat check. You cannot use this power if the check includes a weapon with the Two-Handed trait.
You may examine the top card of your location deck at the start (O or end) of your turn. If it’s a boon, put it on the bottom (O or underneath the top card) of the deck.
During your turn, you may discard (O recharge) a blessing from your hand to choose another player at your location to recharge the top card of his discard pile.
O When another character at your location is dealt Combat damage, reduce that damage by 1.
O Add 1d8 with the Magic trait to your check to defeat a band with the Undead trait.
O When you play a Blessing of Iomedae, you may recharge it (O or shuffle it into your deck) instead.Favored Card Type: Armor
SAME CARD LIST
Revised Seelah (Hospitaler)SAME STATS
Hand size 4 (O 5) (O 6) (O 7)
Proficient with Weapons, Light Armors, Heavy Armors
You may recharge an Armor card with the Shield trait from your hand to add 1d6 (O +1) (O +2) (O +3) to your Melee combat check. You cannot use this power if the check includes a weapon with the Two-Handed trait.
You may examine the top card of your location deck at the start (O or end) of your turn. If it’s a boon, put it on the bottom (O or underneath the top card) of the deck.
During your turn, you may discard (O recharge) a blessing from your hand to choose another player at your location to recharge the top card of his discard pile.
O During your turn, you may bury a card with the Divine trait to choose a player at your location to shuffle 1d4 +1 random cards from his discard pile into his deck.
O When you play a Blessing of Iomedae, you may recharge it (O or shuffle it into your deck) instead.Favored Card Type: Armor
SAME CARD LIST
I like it - the Shield Bash adaptation for the Favoured Card Armour is a very, very good idea.
I also like the Lay on Hands ability. I think you have the balance of the game well in hand here with the discard ([ ] or recharge) option.
Since I had to look it up anyway...
You may discard the top card of your deck to add 1d6 (+1) to your check. If the top card was a blessing ([ ] or spell), recharge it instead of discarding it.
You may examine the top card of your location deck at the start ([ ] or end) of your turn. If it’s a boon, put it on the bottom of the deck.
Creative build, but I actually prefer the discard for a D6 on any check. You can play the odds to increase the likelihood of a recharge. It's versatile and fairly powerful...and lets me yell "My god loves me" when it's a blessing.
I would prefer the shield bash ability over the reveal a card and put it at the bottom if it's a boon ability to help with combat when weaponless. The current ability is great for getting to the villain and henchman though.
I don't like when I have to start without a weapon, but I think folks are underestimating the paladin. We'll see as I've only played the first three scenarios with her
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Creative build, but I actually prefer the discard for a D6 on any check. You can play the odds to increase the likelihood of a recharge. It's versatile and fairly powerful...and lets me yell "My god loves me" when it's a blessing.
I would prefer the shield bash ability over the reveal a card and put it at the bottom if it's a boon ability to help with combat when weaponless. The current ability is great for getting to the villain and henchman though.
I don't like when I have to start without a weapon, but I think folks are underestimating the paladin. We'll see as I've only played the first three scenarios with her
Do you think that dropping the scouting ability for my "Shield Bash" idea would be better? It's certainly an option. Perhaps I could keep the other one and have Lay on Hands be specifically for the Hospitaler? Hmm... I'll have to test these out in an actual game.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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I also think that the Lay on Hands power will make Seelah VERY useful in a large group, since a caster who failed on an important recharge check can say "Seelah, I could really use a recharge on that card" and she could drop a blessing to allow it. I should probably limit that one to once a turn though.
I have really liked playing Seelah. She is one of 4 characters that I was able to take through all 8 scenarios by herself. The others were, Merisiel, Seoni, and Kyra. All female characters no less.
Her abillities are pretty good. Discarding a card for the d6 is very useful on any check. I used her power feat to include recharging of spells along with blessings, and her card feat went to another spell, so she has a pretty good chance to recharge her cards when she uses the power She has one cure spell and Poog of Zargonel incase something gets discarded that she really needs.
Her other ability is really useful, and was the reason I won a few of the scenarios, where other characters failed. The most notable reason for why this ability is so strong has to do with the Shrine to Lamashtu location. Other characters would get torn up by damage when blessings were revealed, escpecially if they had no way to heal, and usually this is the last location where the Villain was.
With Seelah, handling this location was easy, since she could always move a boon to the bottom of the deck at the beginning of her turn, and that got alot of those belssings out of the way. So, she could race through the location deck to get to the villain for the victory.
As for any problems with armor, I did not have too many. Yes it is rough not starting with a weapon sometimes, but at least i would have an armor to take the damage on an early monster encounter.
Here is what her deck looked like at the end of BO.
Longsowrd +1
Shortsword+1
Greatsword
Cure
Aid
Saber-toothed Tiger
Poog of Zargonel
Magic Shield
Shield of Fire Resistance
Chainmail
Blessings:
Gods
Iomedae
Sarenrae
Lamashtu
Irori
Pharasma
I also used 2 skill feats to strength.
Maybe the reason she was successful and fun to play was because she managed to aquire some really good cards.
I'm a Seelah fan. So far, I've won every solo and two player scenario I've used her for. Surprised to see that some folks aren't impressed with teh character.
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I'm a Seelah fan. So far, I've won every solo and two player scenario I've used her for. Surprised to see that some folks aren't impressed with teh character.
The game's a lot easier with 1-2 characters. I think I could with any two characters, though a couple might have trouble truly solo. She's playable, just sub-par, even in a larger group.
Cartmanbeck,
Your idea is creative and has merit, but the scouting ability has been very helpful in the 4-6 player games I've played with the paladin. I do like the shield bash to alleviate the frustration of not starting with a weapon in hand, but if I had to choose, I'd take the scouting ability. I think it can really accelerate exploration.
Fromper,
Limited sample size for me...half dozen games with 4-6 players with most of the characters in the mix (not seen cleric played), I don't see the paladin as underpowered at all. Good explorer, good combat, solid at any check with the d6 bonus, some healing in a pinch. Maybe I'll change my tune as we play more, but I don't see what you see thus far
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I think certain characters are significantly better or worse based on the number of characters in the group. Seelah sounds like she might be better in a large group.
The limited scouting to help find the villain and henchmen faster is more important with a large group. Also, you get less turns per player with a large group, so it won't matter as much if her power boost ends up discarding non-blessings, because everyone can afford to discard more per turn when they have less turns.
I still think the lack of a weapon starting in hand can be really annoying, though, regardless of the number of characters in the group. I've tried her solo, and she was in a 3 person group with me, and she ended up discarding often enough to need healing, which she couldn't provide herself, because she kept accidentally discarding her Cure spell. She was pretty sub-par in a group that size.
The limited scouting to help find the villain and henchmen faster is more important with a large group. Also, you get less turns per player with a large group, so it won't matter as much if her power boost ends up discarding non-blessings, because everyone can afford to discard more per turn when they have less .
I agree with this completely. I also agree that going weaponless is annoying. However, I believe that the d6 discard for any check offsets this. When you do have a weapon, the paladin is a very strong combatant with her d8+2, weapon and d6. Also, if I recall, you can take a feat to recharge a spell with the d6 along with the blessing.
I'm playing the paladin in a 6 player campaign and a 2-5 "drop in" campaign (varies based on who we get that night). It will be interesting to note power levels as the characters advance.
We intentionally designed each character to have distinct play styles, and some play-styles won't match some players. It's possible that a high-Armor character like Seelah just isn't as much fun for you as (say) Kyra, Valeros, or Lem would be. We think that's ok.
I encourage people in general to try other characters if they're not having fun with a specific choice. In Seelah's specific case, she encourages a few play-styles that aren't very close to Kyra (a divine healer who can fight) or Valeros (a weapon-user that will rarely be hurt), even though she's a divine healer weapon-user who can fight and will rarely be hurt).
If you're concerned about over-all power level, I assure you that Seelah isn't underpowered for the game, but I'm also pretty certain that she's not for everyone.
Thanks for playing!