Yeah, but her attack skills are far worse than any other character. Yeah, she can discard a card to get a d10, but that's a significant hit to do it. Plus, her Divine is only +1 unlike every other spellcaster's +2. Not to mention that Divine attack spells are weaker unless you luck into the only 2 copies of Holy Light in the game, then she's basically on par (though that d10+1 instead of d12+2) with Ezren/Seoni. Oh, and she has to have an (animal) Ally in her hand to get that d4+2, and she can only have a hand size of 5 until after AP3 (then it is 6 or 7 max for AP's 4-6). If Lini didn't have that constant d4, I doubt anyone would enjoy playing her as she'd be the worst character in the game.
P.S. Don't forget that Divine-only spells have higher recharges too as they are all 8's or higher. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it is.
Actually, Lem and Harsk with the Divine feat (only available after the Hook Mountain Massacre) are also only +1.
And Harsk only gets d6 on his check :-/ (max +3 bonus)
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Maybe we should limit the number of blessings that can be played per check ? I do like the blessings only add a D4 rule. Could give some of the classes a "+1, +2" power line for blessings as well.
edit: the druid having an extra D4+2 to EVERY SINGLE check is pretty OP.
This is already limited to one type of boon per check.
1 weapon, 1 spell, 1 blessing, 1 armor, 1 item.
It's limited to one type of boon per character per check...
So in a six-character game you can have six blessings on one check.
I think I could go for a variant which said to shuffle the villain/henchman into the bottom 7 cards of each location deck, to guarantee that it is neither the 1st nor 2nd card you hit in that location - IF you are really finding the game too easy.
But I'm *still* not finding the game too easy. Or even very easy at all (mostly playing with 5 or 6, but sometimes with 4) - which is pretty much spot-on IMO. Occasionally (like last night - AP3, Sc3 or 4) we get a session where the villains/henchmen are the first or second cards in several locations, but for every game like that we have two where time runs out *long* before we had any real chance of winning. And even in last night's game - where the villain was facing something like 5d10 for each of the two combat checks - my character (Lem) was a single draw from death and had to stop participating in the explores (after an unlucky early roll wiped out both weapons, and with no other offence in the deck; now rectified, I hope).
Either there's some powerful approach to this game that after 4 months and 30+ games we're still not finding, or we're not all playing the same game. It's not just down to player count or character choices - we've tried all of the characters and pretty much all of the player numbers.
I think I have a great idea for henchmen (side note: part of this idea does come from another game). I think it would be do-able, not that hard to implement, and make the henchmen a little more powerful and a bit more like a sub-boss. The suggestion I will say bellow can apply to bosses as well (other side note: sorry if someone has mentioned this idea already; I'm a bit new to the forums!)
Here's my idea. For a harder and more interesting game, maybe the henchmen / boss should be able to equip a weapon and gain those bonuses! Just think about it, rather than just some flat rate of difficulty, they could possibly become a great challenge if they roll high. I was thinking the first henchman you fight is normal, no weapons. After that any other henchman can have like a basic weapon with a die roll increasing their difficulty. Here's where another idea comes into play...several cards sometimes require you to pass a check "x," otherwise "y" occurs. So for a weapon that might have an extra dice if weapon is discarded the enemy can also have this extra dice if the player rolls a 6 dice prior to combat and gets a 1, then the enemy gets the extra dice on top of the initial weapon dice.
Maybe for those seeking a little extra treasure in their game, the same roll of the dice principal could be in place. After the combat, if you are successful at beating the baddie roll a 6 dice and if you get a 6, you can obtain the weapon. Anything lower than a 6 will render the weapon "unusable" and banished to the box.
I probably explained myself very poorly, but the main thing I want to get across is being able to provide henchman / bosses that extra random chance of additional danger. They already have their base difficulty plus whatever the maximum roll of the dice could be. So, even if the "extra" dice idea is a bit too tricky to implement, I don't think it's too hard to just add the base dice of a weapon card.
(I copied and pasted from another thread. Sorry for duplicate / confusion. I think this post belongs better here)
It's limited to one type of boon per character per check...
So in a six-character game you can have six blessings on one check.
I'm considering adding a house rule or two to make the game more difficult, since starting the game, we haven't even come close to losing a scenario.
We're considering either adding "add a die to a check" to mean 1d4 unless stated otherwise, or removing the 'per character' part of 'one type of boon per character per check'
We've already added the rule "On losing a scenario, each character must banish one random boon from his/her deck per open location", since there's such a huge punishment for death, but there's not really a punishment for losing a scenario (aside from starting the adventure over).
I'm personally leaning towards the 1d4 die check rule, since for our group, easily applying Blessing of the Gods to almost double a weapon's effectiveness seems to be what makes the game the easiest
I actually randomize the set up of the locations and then have characters limited to moving one card per move unless they use levitate or something similar that creates special movement options. I also then roll the two dice for each character and from those results they have to choose a starting location. Once a location is closed they can skip past a location but otherwise they must take time to travel to different locations. I also randomize the locations selected for a scenario from all the possible locations on the card. Not every party approaching black fang's lair is going to encounter a temple. The exception to this is a scenario such as battle at the dam. I keep the dam in that case but randomize the other locations,
I posted some thoughts below about increasing the challenge of the game in another thread. We have continued to test these and they seem to add challenge and provide a greater sense of this being an rpg adventure. We have not found any play balance issues but have actually found so e new uses for cards that did not seem to have much use (eg levitate). I offer these thoughts here for your consideration.
I am a long time gamer (started with original d&d, but new to Pathfinder. My wife got the Pathfinder Adventure Card game for us on Christmas. My wife, 19 yo daughter and I have played it almost every night since Christmas. We have made it through the Skinsaw Murders and are about to start on the 3rd adventure pack. We have kept our games focused on getting through the story, and I try and add some context and make it as much a role playing game as I can given the constraints. I like the game and we have had a grand time, but have only come close to running out of time once (got to the last 3 cards of the blessing deck) and only one character came close to death and she simply flipped her blessing card over and bided her time while my wife and I finished the adventure. While I do think there is room for making the game more challenging, I would suggest there is a way do do this and add more to the role playing aspects and player interaction rather than simply making it harder. Here are my suggestions.
To add a sense of the party being together, have the party all start at the same location. I always lay the locations down in a straight line. That location can be selected by the party and is always the left most location in the line. I also like the idea of the locations reflecting some distance, but instead of making the characters have to move to only adjacent locations I wanted to make create a sense of distance and with increasing distance comes greater risk. So the following rule,is added.
To move to a new location roll a D6. If you roll the distance traveled or less on the D6 you encounter a random monster from the box. So if you move to the adjacent location your distance is a 1 and the monster only appears if you roll a 1 on the random move monster die. If you are moving over two locations then the monster appears on a 1 or 2' and so forth. I would keep the locations in a straight line until you play with 6 or more locations and then I would make then in a circle.
If the monster is not defeated then the character can't move nor can he explore that turn. If he defeats the monster the he continues his turn as usual.
Also the levitate spell allows you to move without making a check.
This increases the challenge by adding additional combat checks and the potential loss of a turn if not defeating the monster. This will cause you to use up some of your items and or possibly another chance to take damage. It also makes it a little tougher to have the occasional situation where you turn up two or even three henchmen on turn one.
We tried this on the "angel In The tower scenario and made the tower the 4th location in the sequence. This made it so we had to try and get someone there to avoid turning over the top card of the discard. The first character ran into a monster and did not defeat the monster, but the second character made it there. It added an interesting twist to the start of the game. In the end we barely defeated the Angel with only two cards remaining in the blessing deck and it was fun having to make an additional monster check for each move. It certainly added a new level of tactics to the game as we tried to figure out how to cover all the locations and reduce our risk of running into a random monster during traveling between locations.
Sehyo, a couple questions.. if you encounter a monster while traveling to a new location and evade it, do you still go to your new location or do you HAVE to defeat it?
Can you move from the leftmost location to the rightmost location in 1 move (and vice-versa)?
When counting spaces to move, do you include closed locations?
(btw I love this idea and I'm gonna try and convince my gaming group to try it out asap)
@Jjiinx
Evading is as good as defeating. The only way you fail to move to the location is if the monster defeats you. The reason this added set of events work is it provides only a minor drain on your resources. It does not necessarily add increased difficulty immediately but over time it slowly whittles your group down making the encounters towards the end of the session more challenging.so since evading requires you to use card effects it is serving the same purpose.
Moving from the left most to the right most. When we have 5 or fewer locations we consider the locations as if they are laid out in a straight line on a map and we lay them out that way on the table. So the right most location is the farthest away for the left most or with five location you will score a monster on a 4 or less on the D6. When we have 6 or more locations we consider them to be in a circular pattern and so yes you could consider the left most and right most adjacent but we actually lay them out that way on the table when we play with 6 locations.
We still count closed locations for travel. The logic is that the physical distance has not changed. The location is not the danger it once was but the surrounding area is as dangerous as it ever was.
Hope you have fun with this like we do.
@Sehyo
Thanks for answering my questions! I agree with you on all points, you have a very good set of rules! (I'd believe they were official if I didn't know any better ^-^)
Roughly how much would this increase the difficulty? Do you think we would be able to play with this travel rule alongside the house rule stating "add 1 die to a check" to mean "add 1d4 to a check" without making the game too difficult?
Of course if the game becomes too difficult when using both these rules in sync I suppose we could simply change which die we roll on a travel (a d8 instead of a d6 for example)
Any insight you may have would be greatly appreciated! (I really love this game, and creative house rules like this only make it better!)
Don't know if this has been said but Kyra's default ability to heal can only be used once per turn and she can NOT explore that turn unless you burn a blessing or ally to continue exploring that turn.
She is epic to have in a party, especially a large one, but the larger the party the more you are playing against the timer. If you have a boss or henchman at the bottom of the deck it can get tricky.
@Jjiinx,
I know how you feel. I love this game as well.
The travel rule doesn't make the encounters harder, but adds a slight possibility that each player will have to face more encounters during a 30 blessing game. The encounter also comes before they explore, so they will be going into the explore at the new location having used one card in their hand. I would say it is much less of a challenge than if you changed all add a die checks to a 1 d4 add.
The travel rule is supposed to only slightly increase the difficulty. It is really more to expand the feel of the players experience that there is a world besides the locations on the table and there is the possibility of something bad happening I between the locations. I also wanted to make moving part of the tactics of the game. Since the party now all starts out at the same location, I see the players now talking to each other, planning who is going to stay, who is going to move and who the best player might be to try and make the long journey to the farthest locations.
I played with Sehyo's travel rules, H4appy's lose a card per open location, and added in 5 wandering monsters into the blessing deck and rather enjoyed the games I played solo yesterday... Thanks to everyone for their great ideas to up the difficulty. I do think the difficulty level of the game makes sense from a general audience standpoint. If I were playing with my kids - one they are not going to max out every choice they make the way an experienced 1st edition AD+D player like myself might, and two if I were to introduce this game to a more general audience, having people win makes them want to come back again - great for me! I also think it would be great for a compilation of the difficulty variants to be added - much like they did in Marvel Legacy - but people do a good job of doing that here. For what it's worth I also tend to randomize my advancements. Each time I get a power, skill or card feat I roll two dice to get two separate options counting all open boxes (so for a skill feat there are four chances I will get a bonus in Intelligence for Ezren although I only check the +1 box if I roll the +3 box etc... ) The idea here is that the character may have other agenda's then "maxing" themselves out. With three skill feats my Ezren only has a +1 bonus in his intelligence, and has +2 in wisdom. He is a bookworm with a bent on application of knowledge to life... Which works well in his group without any divine casters. If a location needs wisdom I send Ezren. I am a big advocate of having a lot of randomness and figuring out how to play combinations I personally never would have chosen...
Has anyone here played with the house rule that "add 1 die to a check" (such as blessing of the gods) should be interpreted as "add 1d4 to a check"? It seems like a huge difficulty adjustment and I'l love to hear any insight regarding it!
Has anyone here played with the house rule that "add 1 die to a check" (such as blessing of the gods) should be interpreted as "add 1d4 to a check"? It seems like a huge difficulty adjustment and I'l love to hear any insight regarding it!Haven't tried this but I use a house rule that blessings played on other characters always add d4s. I've used this in a lot of games and it works well.
Cool, I'm gonna add this to the Increased Difficulty Rule thread :D I like this a lot more than the Blessing of the Frauds rule
If you are playing solo as in 1 character, I'd suggest just trying more characters first. I like to play 3. But if by solo you mean multiple characters all played by you, then please feel free to ignore what I've said as it wasn't relevant.
Ok. I've got a suggestion, though I've never tried it. What makes the game easy is that you have 30 turns and only 30 cards in the locations. And if you encounter a villain or henchman that isn't the last card and get to close a location early, then you don't even have 30 cards. So...
Option 1: Make the Villain and/or Henchman encounters harder if they happen high in the location deck. Add to their check to defeat either the total number of cards left under them, or half the number of cards left under them (I haven't tried it so I don't know which would work better).
Option 2: Don't let henchman allow you to close locations early. So to close a location you'll have to either defeat the villain or remove all the cards. That means losing an encounter (and not clearing a card from a location deck) will have more risk, since you would have an increased chance to need 30+ turns.
Just suggestions. I don't do either of those, so maybe they are stinkers of ideas.
Sehyo, if you don't defeat the random monster you encounter when moving, do you take damage as usual, or just can't move/explore?
Elvis. I play it so that if you do not defeat the travel encounter you take damage as usual and you can't move/explore.
Since this will end in quite a wall of text I start with a disclaimer: English isn't my first language. I learned a lot of my English from reading rulebooks and watching Series/Movies in their original language. So there might be a few strange to wrong sentences.
Having finished Hook Mountain this weekend, I feel I am ready to make my comment on difficulty.
First of all I find all the Ideas at least interesting and used some of them in slightly different form. So while I might be overly critical I am still Fascinated and Interested in the ways you all improve your enjoyment of the game.
Hook Mountain was a lot easier, than I have expected beforehand. Fighting 20+ Difficulty bosses seemed a lot more difficult beforehand.
If someone is interested here is my complete winningteam.
I will only talk here about my Characters if needed.
Personally i don't feel increasing the difficulty is as easy as changing Blessings or the position of the Henchmen/villains.
Mostly because the Characters are way to different, to be impacted in the same way by Changes.
I will start with two current examples from my recent games:
Place Villains and Henchmen on Bottom
Here I have to admit, that I play a scout-hravy party. But during "Angel in the Tower" 7 out of 8 Henchmen/Villain where in the bottom Half of their deck. (something that probably happend a lot more during the whole AP) I was still able to finish the Scenario in below 20 Turns and 3 permanently closed Locations.
Having 2 Characters with natural Scout-Ability and Hastes for repositioning between Turns for temporary closings speeds up most Scenarios.
Being limited to more conventional exploration-methods may make this option more efficient.
blessings give only d4 (to other Characters)
First of all I have one big Problem with limiting the usefulness of blessings played for other Players: The Rule hits Ezren a lot harder, than the rest, since he can't have any Blessings unless he encounters them. He isn't exacly big on Allies either, so this will make him a clearly worse Character.
Other boons are rarely added more than once in my Games (except armors and Shields or Daggers) so I think limiting them will not make as big of an impact as limiting Blessings.
For general weaker Blessings:
Having only an average of 4 Blessings per Character (4.5 at the end of hmm) doesn't give me a lot of Blessings for better Checks. Then again during hmm I used only one or two Blessings against Villains. And i fought Mammy Graul 3 times and Barl Breakbones 2 times.
Most of my blessings are needed for Exploration, Seoni turns a few every Game into Fireballs and Seelah prefers to have a few remaining in her deck, so I think twice if I really need a Blessing for a Check or take the risk of rolling. And while it happened before I can't remember when I used more than one Blessing on a Check before.
Again I expect that my scout heavy party shifts the difficulty somewhat here, since i can often bring the right Character in the right location.
Replace some Cards in the Blessing Deck with Monsters/ Characters traveling more than one Location may encounter a random Monster
I feel Caster classes will be more hamperd by this than fighter Classes, since they actually have to spend handcards. Maybe choosing randomly between a monster and a barrier would be better.
each Character Banishes a Random card for each not permanently closed Location
I admit there should be some penality for failing a Scenario but I have a personal aversion against randomly destroying several hours of work.
I played with a variant of this rule, which is admittatly a lot tamer, that I will talk about after all my comments.
all Characters start at the same Location
I actually tried something Similar before registering to the Forum. And it feels like a really big influence on the Game. Again I will explain my Variant below.
If you take Damage without cards in your Hand bury the topcard of your deck
I really like this Rule, even if I don't like to bury Cards.
While I rarely explore without cards in my hand, there a a few encounters which can empty your hand before a Check if you are unlucky.
and now for the Experiments I did so far
Most of what I've tried so far hasn't been tested during the offical Adventures so there might be problems I am not aware of. So your own results will probably vary.
During the time until hmm reached my neck of the wolrd I experimented with my own Scenario and changing little things in the Gameplay. (If there is Interest i can Post my notes so far for your entertainment; one Way or the other)
Which lead to some deja vues when I started with hmm.
Here are The Rules I changed during the Tests:
- Limiting Monsters
This sounds strange at first and Maybe counterintuitive. In Essence there are by now 4 big Monstergroups: Human, Goblin, Undead and Giant. Normally I use only one or two of these big groups and add from the other Monsters for Flavor.
While I encounterd a lot less of the bigger Monsters, which I either overkill via Blessings or most of their Damage is wasted, I encounter a lot more Monsters like Enchanters/Scouts/Traitors, Goblin Pyros/Commandos/Warchanters or incorporeal Undead which can deal damage without a Check or are generally annoying.
This didn't exactly increased the difficulty, but made it a little more even over multiple games.
(This is also the only rulechange I use in most regular Games as well)
- Location Placement and Movement
all Locations are placed in a somewhat logical pattern,as determined by the players or, in my Scenarios, by me.
All Players start at the same Location determined the same way.
Whenever a Character moves he can only move to an the next open Location in the pattern or any closed Location in between. (Teleport might ignore this point.)
This makes at the beginning/end of Turn and entering/exiting rules a bit more relevant.
Plus encountering the Villain early can be more problematic, if you are not in a position to temporarily close Locations.
- running out of the blessings Deck
When you run out of time during your next atempt replace a random Boon with a random Monster in every not permanent closed Location. This stacks if you fail the same Scenario multiple Times. If a Character died during this atempt you can't use his/her Cards during Deck rebuild.
This is obviously a lot tamer than its Inspiration. For me it represents the Villain bringing his lackys in position, destroying assets and hunting away possible Allies.
- limiting the Henchmen
Now this is a strange point at first look.
The story behind this is during one Scenario I replaced one Henchmen per two Characters with a Guard Ally, since the Cityguard is hunting the Villain too. This leads to up to three Locations wich can't be closed, before all Cards are dealt with and are essentially red Herrings. Of course there are official Scenarios where this Rule is somewhat against the core of the Scenario.
I've thought of some others to try in addition to my "make things harder if they happen early rule". Again, as a disclaimer, I've not tried any of these. I'm just more interested in it theoretically as an observer. These are not related to each other. I like idea 1 the most:
Idea 1: If during a turn a blessing is played to add to a check, discard 1 blessing from the blessing deck. It would only be 1 discard max per turn, no matter how many were played (though I suppose you could make it 1 to 1 if you wanted). Blessings played for exploration would not affect the blessing deck. This will force you to risk more "borderline" rolls in order to save a turn, thus resulting in more failed rolls. And if you do play the blessings, it just made the game shorter.
Idea 2: All henchman do Before the encounter combat damage. Either make it 2 combat damage (armor can still be played) or make it 1d4 combat damage the may not be reduced. If the henchman already does some damage, add this anyway.
Just thought of another idea. I was thinking how I played Attack on Sandpoint with some friends the other night and defeated the villain without running into the henchman Tsuto Kiajitsu. One options you could play is that the villain is undefeated until all the unique (aka proper name) henchman have been defeated.
Or you could go a step further and say the villain is undefeated until all henchman are defeated.
In either case you could just place their cards by the scenario card to keep count.
This would still work in scenarios without a villain since it only applies to the villain. So Here Comes the Flood would play just fine.
Just something I thought about and thought I'd share.
Location Placement and Movement
all Locations are placed in a somewhat logical pattern,as determined by the players or, in my Scenarios, by me.
All Players start at the same Location determined the same way.
Whenever a Character moves he can only move to an the next open Location in the pattern or any closed Location in between. (Teleport might ignore this point.)
This makes at the beginning/end of Turn and entering/exiting rules a bit more relevant.
Plus encountering the Villain early can be more problematic, if you are not in a position to temporarily close Locations. ..
Four paws. Thanks for trying out these different ideas. By the way your English is fantastic. I am very impressed. Thanks for your analysis of the ideas as well.
The location placement and movement is the only rule addition I have added. I didn't do it to make the game more difficult. I added this rule to give my group a less abstract experience. I wanted the location to have meaning and provide a sense of geographic dimension. It does add a slight increase to the difficulty, but more importantly, as you expressed above, encountering the villa nearly is actually a big problem. He/She will inevitably escape and it is very likely to a location we have not yet had a chance to close. I also start everyone at the same location. This provides a sense of beginning together and we are setting out to defeat this adventure together. By the way I do allow the teleport capability to avoid the monster check I use to make the Character have to test an see if a random monster appears while they travel to their new location.