+1 to that - increase his hand size as soon as you can.
And don't only play with a tank. It's much more fun if one real-world player has one tank and one other character (e.g. control Valeros AND Ezren, or Amiri AND Merisiel). That should mix things up for everyone.
One of my group Hates (note the capital H) PACG. His first (and only) game was as Amiri when he stepped into the "Heroes of Sandpoint" scenario. I.e. the one with no henchmen or villains. He was very bored and refuses to play again (more fool him).
+1 to that - increase his hand size as soon as you can.
And don't only play with a tank. It's much more fun if one real-world player has one tank and one other character (e.g. control Valeros AND Ezren, or Amiri AND Merisiel). That should mix things up for everyone.
One of my group Hates (note the capital H) PACG. His first (and only) game was as Amiri when he stepped into the "Heroes of Sandpoint" scenario. I.e. the one with no henchmen or villains. He was very bored and refuses to play again (more fool him).
Of the 4 characters that have a initial hand size of 4, Valeros is probably that has the easiest time dealing with it (but he should increase his hand size early too). Sajan can deal with it okay, it looks like; Seelah and Amiri tend to have a harder time without a discard -> recharge power.
Valeros can recharge weapons he discards; and he tends to have a lot of them.
I finally found Amiri's hand size too limiting to the point where I was discarding cards on purpose to redraw some, so I might pick up the trait but I really want the super-carry (I spent the first power feat on Heavy Armor; Kyra was out for a bit and someone needed to use the heavy armors)
I never found Valeros' hand size to be a problem, though I did increase it with one of his power feats. Really, the ability to cycle through your deck by discarding weapons has a tendency to let you get the cards you need (assuming you're in a scenario with a decent amount of combat anyway).
Honestly, I'm far more concerned about the fact that Lini's hand size can never be increased that Valeros' starting hand size of 4.
In our testing, we found that some people really liked having a stable hand that lets Valeros nearly-always be good at the things he's good at. Other people really didn't like it, and I generally try to get them to try Seoni or Ezren ASAP.
Problem with Valeros is your turn often looks like this:
Hand contains two-three weapons and something that's not a blessing (e.g. armor/item)
You explore...
...and find a boon that you're not very good at acquiring (e.g. a blessing).
Your turn is over.
You didn't manage to play any cards, use any powers or do anything of much interest. You don't have any cards that can interact with other people's turns. You wait for five people to have their turns and then you go again... not much fun!
Our main path's Valeros has taken to carrying Longbows just so he can do something on other people's turns, even though his bow-based combat rolls are much worse than the Melee ones (...until he becomes a proper weapon master that is).
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Problem with Valeros is your turn often looks like this:
Hand contains two-three weapons and something that's not a blessing (e.g. armor/item)
You explore...
...and find a boon that you're not very good at acquiring (e.g. a blessing).
Your turn is over.
You didn't manage to play any cards, use any powers or do anything of much interest. You don't have any cards that can interact with other people's turns. You wait for five people to have their turns and then you go again... not much fun!
This.
If I were playing in a smaller group, I might not notice it as much, but with four players, it's getting to me.
Our group just played through the first two pre-AP scenarios with Valeros, Seoni, Merisiel and Kyra. IF I were to replace Valeros, who would you recommend?
Perhaps Harsk? He quickly gets very good at shooting things and can always help others by recharging cards. His hand size is a bit bigger and he has a bit more variety.
Having played through a couple of Adventures I'm not sure we really *need* a fighter in the party. The others are all capable of killing things when they need to.
For my Valeros character I often uses the discard weapon option when attacking (Assuming he has more than one weapon in his hand) Valerose then uses his power to rechare the weapon so no great loss. This gives him a bit of turn over in his hand.
@agraham - my point was that only works if you find a monster. Most of the locations are less than half monsters so when you find something you cannot bash then your turn is pretty much over.
Yeah I wonder if there will be a card that let's you look at your draw deck. That might make him more useful.
@Markon - already do all of those except giving Valeros blessings. He doesn't tend to get healed so giving him blessings seems to be a bit of a waste. The original owner might as well use them and has more chance of (needing) a heal which would bring them back into play.
He's a bit more fun with a 5 card hand but the problem with his +1d4 power is that the real world player doesn't have anything to do when it's activated, except say "Don't forget your extra d4". Most other assist powers (e.g. Harsk, Lem) at least give the character's controller some potentially interesting choices to make.
When playing a fighter, no one should be surprised when he's not all that useful if there's nothing around to fight. Sure, he's pretty wretched at acquiring boons (other than allies anyway). He is, however, superb at killing some of the more dangerous foes/henchmen/villains in the game, so it can be really nice to have him around. Additionally, there are a decent number of locations where monsters abound (I'm looking at you Nettlemaze), so your Valeros player should be all over those locations to maximize his usefulness.
No character should be able to easily excel at everything important (that's a staple of good RPG design), but I think Valeros excels quite well at his intended purpose even with a starting hand size of 4. Increasing his hand size only makes him slightly more effective at the things he's good at.
I searched past threads on the boards and the sentiment seems to be that thread necroing isn't necessarily a super negative thing. Especially since there's quite a few players who are starting to get into RotR as opposed to S&S.
I do question the wisdom of resurrecting a thread where the original posters aren't necessarily even actively posting at this point. But the culture of this messageboard (at least in the RPG forums) doesn't seem to indicate that thread necromancy in and of itself is bad.
Threadnomancy for a purpose is a good thing - if you find a post about a ruling, and have a relevant question, then by all means, post away. But making a comment just for the sake of it on an old thread does no one any favors.
Is it more acceptable if you have Darago as your avatar?
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I do question the wisdom of resurrecting a thread where the original posters aren't necessarily even actively posting at this point.
I post. But not as much lately.
Also, I stand by my initial comment that increasing hand size for Valeros (or any four-card wonder-characters in the game) is an excellent choice for one's first power feat.
Is it more acceptable if you have Darago as your avatar?
Just more amusing.
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I agree with Calthaer, up his hand size. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, as a rule, you should hit minimum 5 hand size as soon as possible, regardless of character. Maybe there are characters that you want another power first (some Oloch builds come to mind), but you'll always want to hit that 5 card hand size sooner or later, and I posit that it's probably equally good, if not better, to take that extra card immediately. As a rule of thumb.
Calthaer: Actually, I found increasing CD Valeros' hand size to be a much better prospect than RotR Valeros. RotR Valeros has problems with explore velocity and stuff, but his combat enhancement power is so good (especially if you have someone who can't fight well by themselves) that adding a +1 and a +2 is worth it. I remember really wanting to give Amiri a 5 hand size as well.
Orbis' and your playstyle probably requires you to have a 5 hand size, probably. CD Valeros needs the extra hand size because he already wants to keep 2-3 cards in his hand permanently at all times (a good weapon and a utility ally to reveal for 1d6). I find Oloch is too ineffective if you don't take a non-hand size card feat immediately (either moving the enhancement to the start of the turn if he's your buffer or +1 to Spontaneous Cures).
I think it's a valid strategy. I don't think it's the only effective strategy.
By the way, RotR Valeros can go up to a 6 hand size, would you give him 6 cards in hand after 2 power feats?
Calthaer: Actually, I found increasing CD Valeros' hand size to be a much better prospect than RotR Valeros. RotR Valeros has problems with explore velocity and stuff, but his combat enhancement power is so good (especially if you have someone who can't fight well by themselves) that adding a +1 and a +2 is worth it. I remember really wanting to give Amiri a 5 hand size as well.
Orbis' and your playstyle probably requires you to have a 5 hand size, probably. CD Valeros needs the extra hand size because he already wants to keep 2-3 cards in his hand permanently at all times (a good weapon and a utility ally to reveal for 1d6). I find Oloch is too ineffective if you don't take a non-hand size card feat immediately (either moving the enhancement to the start of the turn if he's your buffer or +1 to Spontaneous Cures).
I think it's a valid strategy. I don't think it's the only effective strategy.
By the way, RotR Valeros can go up to a 6 hand size, would you give him 6 cards in hand after 2 power feats?
The 6th hand card would vary based on what is wanted out of the character and individual preferences (obviously this is all preference, but still). But 5 hand cards is a threshold I feel every character needs, regardless of style or preference.
Just my opinion.
Calthaer: Actually, I found increasing CD Valeros' hand size to be a much better prospect than RotR Valeros. RotR Valeros has problems with explore velocity and stuff, but his combat enhancement power is so good (especially if you have someone who can't fight well by themselves) that adding a +1 and a +2 is worth it. I remember really wanting to give Amiri a 5 hand size as well.
Orbis' and your playstyle probably requires you to have a 5 hand size, probably. CD Valeros needs the extra hand size because he already wants to keep 2-3 cards in his hand permanently at all times (a good weapon and a utility ally to reveal for 1d6). I find Oloch is too ineffective if you don't take a non-hand size card feat immediately (either moving the enhancement to the start of the turn if he's your buffer or +1 to Spontaneous Cures).
I think it's a valid strategy. I don't think it's the only effective strategy.
By the way, RotR Valeros can go up to a 6 hand size, would you give him 6 cards in hand after 2 power feats?
Some might disagree, but for me, no. The difference between 4 and 5 for most characters is huge. For 5 and 6 it is much smaller, especially for fighting types that don't need to cycle to stay effective the way casters do (since they can keep weapons in hand). I believe when I played RotR Valeros, I went +1, hand size, +2. My GF went +1, +2, hand size, but she's generally had less appreciation for large hand sizes (One of her first characters was Seoni, and the way a few bad rolls can literally murder her, one can become very gun-shy about large hands).
For my preference, 4>5 hand size trumps almost every other power feat. 5>6 is something to get when other feats are less appealing (like S&S Lem, got 6 Hand Size after getting +1 to his recharge power). Nowadays if I character can get 7, I want it. Had Radillo at 8 by the end of RoRL. I wouldn't say that was too much, but I wouldn't prioritize over any power that's at least semi-interesting. Radillo, like Damiel, is just really front-loaded with her cool powers. The ones you want the most are the ones she starts with.
I think the 5 card hand size will be taken, sure, but I'm not talking about whether it should be taken at all, but whether or not you should take it first.
I would say I'd take it over a lot of powers first:
-Amiri's Heavy Armor Proficiency and Rage enhancement, for sure. Dragging another character to your location is actually very useful; this one is a tossup for me.
-For Sajan, no question he should take hand size 5 first. Possibly 6.
-For Seelah, solo Seelah I think actually can't afford hand size 5 right away; unfortunately she needs to increase her average effectiveness on every single turn, so I think I'd prioritize other things over hand size; it's really hard to say because she also wants a weapon really badly because of FCT Armor and hand size 5 helps with that.
-For RotR Valeros, I like the static enhancements a lot, but hand size 5 is valid as the first power feat.
-For Lirianne, I think she needs the 5 card hand size more as she has the risk of misfire, even though it rarely happens. The enhancement bonus is really good, but she can't really afford it with hand size 4.
-S&S Valeros' bonus is capped at 1 rather than 2, so I think I take hand size 5 over that. Shuffling weapons into the deck is mostly irrelevant for me.
-Oloch really needs the other power feats to be more effective. Hand size 5 doesn't make him more effective IMO, he still can't really use his display feat without the ability to pull it back into his hand at the start of the turn.
-Tarlin, I would take the hand size 5 first. Having more cards to discard to the ability is almost as effective as having an enhancement to the Cure ability.
-Tontelizi could use hand size 5 first, because Polearms can't be discarded except on fails, so he'll get more dead cards in hand.
-CD Valeros I would definitely take hand size 5 first, again because 2 things need to stay in his hand.
-Vika I would do hand size 5 because her other feats are pretty awful. The recharge Bludgeoning to enhance can't be used all the time, and recharging instead of discarding an armor would be good if it worked on more than a few armors.
So that's my thoughts on it. I guess I agree with you guys for the most part.
I definitely would prioritize 5 hand size over almost any of those characters. Never played as (or with) Valeros, but combat checks aren't so hard that I'd be missing that +1. For me, I think the free d4 was enough until hand size was sorted out. For Lem, though, I went +1 before 6 hand, but I went 6 hand before I went +2. Bigger hand size is just too important to me. Bigger hand means more chance of drawing blessings and allies, spending those blessings and allies, and then healing them back, increasing your likelihood to use them multiple times in the same scenario.
The only character I've definitely, 100% decided I'd take something before 4 hand is Oloch. I came around to it on conversations on this board! He basically can't use his defining power until he's got the feat that lets him return displayed cards at the beginning of his turn, and you really want to get that going with him because it looks fun and unique.
Maybe Seelah? Being able to recharge spells as well as blessings is pretty crucial, but probably not super-crucial before she starts putting card feats into spells. If you've just got one Cure in your deck, just count the cards well enough to not accidentally discard it. Seelah's scouting power doesn't really get its due until role cards, but I could see the argument for taking the Start and End power for double scouting, especially if she's solo. I just know it'd be painful when you start a scenario with 3 armors and no weapons in hand, as I did in early RoRL when I was playing her, even after taking 5 hand as her first power feat. D:
For me it's mostly just fun theory crafting, though; I almost exclusively like support roles and most of the tanky types have limited support options. So Oloch is one of the only 4 hand characters I'm interested in playing. I mean, don't get me wrong I'd play them ALL if I could, but there's only so much time in the day, and we've already gone through RoRL like three and a half times. So, since we have to pick and choose, I want characters with a least one fairly broad support power (I'm not gonna say no to Valeros's free combat d4, but I'd infinitely prefer Lem's universal one) and lots and lots of blessings or items to spend. Oloch's the best of the bunch, as far as that's concerned.