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Oops, forgot to post this yesterday!
How did everyone do in their expeditions to salvage the shipwrecks of the Shackles? I'll save my opinion on the scenario for now... But I think there are a couple of issues with it that can create a level of variability in challenge that is almost too swingy.
How about you guys?
I played this scenario with a 3-player group last weekend: Lem (S&S), Tontelizi, and Wrathack. We were feeling pretty good coming right off of a pretty safe win from the Brine Dragon Hunt so we thought we'd be having a nice little vacation to get some treasure. It didn't work out quite that way. As Lem, I was planning on going to the Holy Isle to chain explore while using blessings and then get them all back after I'd close it, but first I went with Wrathack to double-team a location. I ended up losing my Cure at some point and desperately went to the Holy Isle to try and get it back since it's a Divine card. However, I didn't have enough blessings anymore to chain-explore. I slogged through and eventually closed the location and got a bunch of cards back, but in the mean time Wrathack ended up getting beat down by the Owlbeartross and ended up with just enough cards to have a hand to draw at the end of his turn. He stopped exploring for fear of death Tontelizi was doing fine with Cannibal Isle, but we were running out of time with Wrathack's dead turns. I eventually got my Cure back and was able to heal Wrathack, but by then it was too late. This was the last location we needed to close and it had one card left in it, which was the special boon that we needed for closing the location. Stupid Turtle.
So yeah, a lot of this was due to bad luck, but it can really be a tough scenario. You have to close all of the locations and you don't have a villain to auto-close locations that you may struggle with. On to of that, if you fail against the "henchmen" boons, they're gone and you have to dig through the entire deck instead of it getting shuffled back in and maybe having another chance.
I also tried this scenario solo last night with Olenjack. I hadn't been able to pass a single scenario with him yet and I figured this should be safe enough for him and hopefully he can snag a Weapon 1 upgrade to make him more playable. Unfortunately, he had some horrible luck and like Wrathack, he ended up meeting the Owlbeartross. It almost killed him and he had to quit, still without that elusive Deathbane Light Crossbow. I really need to run him with a group.
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We split into 2 tables of 3.
Table 1: Harsk, Seoni, Flenta
We had a lot of trouble closing locations. Nobody was particularly good at closing several of the locations and Flenta failed the Cannibal Island Melee close check of six 3 times. We didn't have any healing and thus were unable to get back cards that we used and so couldn't explore extra very much. Harsk did manage to pick up and cast a single clutch heal on himself, otherwise we would have done even worse.
Eventually we cleared all the locations of cards but still had 2 remaining open when time ran out.
Table 2:
Radillo, Lem and a sorcerer. I was busy playing table 1 so I know fewer details here. They succeeded with only 1 card left in the blessing deck but at the cost of poor little Lem's life.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I soloed this one with Meliski the bard and found it to be very easy for at least this one character.
First, when choosing the extra boons for the locations, I went with types I wanted upgrades for, and failing that, a type I'd be good at acquiring. The bard deck has several allies and items whose only point is to make it easier to get boons - the Codex, the Retainer, and so forth. That coupled with Meliski's fantastic reroll ability meant I never failed an important boon roll the whole scenario, and I spent my blessings on combats and closings. Breezed through it, got to pick from something like 16 cards for an upgrade.
First fail for the group... Five player table... got all but one location closed on and the card we needed to allow us to make a close check was the next in the stack.
We were having a hard time keeping track of what card triggered the close condition in each location (especially since we still have some newish players. When we play again I think during setup I'm going to put the extra boon card under the location card and then put a henchman in the location deck. When you find the henchmen pull the boon card out from under the location card.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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There might be a minor issue with that plan, as if a boon that normally isn't in a location deck gets shuffled into one it becomes an extra way to close the location. I don't recall if the location that requires you to shuffle a boon into an open location to close is in that scenario but that would be one way to get two "closing" boons in one location.
We were really scared about this scenario. We also had a Meliski, but he's also notorious for rolling badly in PACG. So we went for things we thought we could acquire for the locations we acquired them from.
We made it through the scenario with 4 blessing cards in the deck. This was with a fair number of the locations close to the bottom. I had a few turns with only 2 cards in my pile but I actually didn't feel like I had an issue.
However, most of the loot was B (one 1 Ally and one 1 Spell) and the reward roll was a spell :'( but if it was an Armor that would have been bad too.
So I only got a deck upgrade for my troubles (the Main Gauche that I've been wanting to use the 1d6 for)
We did this scenario 2 weeks ago with the usual Montreal gang: Arabundi, Kyra, Vika and Siwar.
Everyone wanted a chance at better weapons, so we prioritized them for the extra loot. Our setup was:
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CANNIBAL ISLE - Weapon
FLOATING SHIPYARD - Weapon
SHIPWRECK GRAVEYARD - Ally
SEASIDE WAREHOUSE - Spell
HOLY ISLE - Weapon
FRINGES OF THE EYE - Weapon
Siwar started us off by encountering a Boarding Axe at the Holy Isle, but she failed to acquire it.
Kyra was also at Holy Isle. She got a Blessing of Abadar, which led to Lookout Duty which she easily aced. She continued to meet a Smuggler… which didn’t live too long. Kyra was feeling on a roll, and continued to get a Blessing of the Gods, into a Blessing of Gorum, into a Strength scroll. All done, and closed Holy Isle in one turn!
Meanwhile, Vika was exploring Cannibal Isle when she happened on a blooodthirsty Pirate. He was promptly hacked with a swing from Vika’s Greatsword.
Arabundi was rooting around the Seaside Warehouse, and found a bizarre Buckler Gun amongst the empty crates.
Kyra moves to Shipwreck Isle, but gets mesmerized momentarily by an Illusory Wall.
Vika is still at Cannibal Isle and meets another pirate; a Shackles Pirate, more precisely. Out comes the Greatsword again, and down goes the enemy. She scouts a bit further ahead, and meets up with a Crimson Gogward.
Siwar moves on to the Seaside Warehouse, where she finds a scroll of Force Missile, enabling her to close the location.
Kyra comes to her senses, but gets snared by the Illusory Wall again.
Arabundi shows his courage and decides to head towards the Fringes of the Eye. He finds a Rapier floating among the wreckage, which turned out to be an Ambush! Luckily for him, Abadar hears Kyra’s pleas for help, with support from the rest of the Gods via Siwar.
Vika is still at Cannibal Isle when she happens upon an amazing find: an intricately carved pike radiating eldritch cold (Icy Boarding Pike). It unfortunately slips from her grasp just as she was about to seize it, and floats away, never to be seen again. Looks like Vika will have to close the location the hard way.
Kyra meets a Smuggler trying to steal her Blessing of Gorum, but she quickly slashes him with her Rapier to leave him with a mortal wound.
Vika next encounters a ferocious Cecaelia. Luck is on her side this time, as her trusty Conch Shell enables her to hear the creature coming before it attacks.
Uncertain about his ability to face the dangers of the Eye, Arabundi heads instead to the Shipwreck Graveyard, when the ship’s sails and rigging catch on fire! Time to gather the Bucket Brigade!
Kyra acquires a Dolphin with help from 2 blessings, enabling her to close the Graveyard.
Siwar heads to the Fringes of the Eye, and is suprised to meet an eccentric gnome named Conchobar Turlach Shortstone. Using her feminine wiles, she easily charms him. The gnome proved to be a dangerous distraction as Siwar momentarily leaves her post, and the ship veered off course towards a rocky outcropping, threatening with Hull Damage. Luckily, her Burglar quickly reacted to avoid the disaster, and our Shackles Pirate Ship was able to sail away with loot aplenty in her hold.
We try again tonight!
Things started out fairly well, finding and defeating the villain early on. Soon after, we found the villain again with an explore effect that allowed us to leave the villain on top. Then a series of not much happening, with plenty of bad rolls.
I think you're responding to the wrong thread: there were no henchmen or villains in Salvage Operations.
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I've played this one twice; once playing Meliski with an Abarundi at the table, and a second time playing Lem with a Tarlin, Wrathack, and Olinjack at the table.
In the two player game, we decided to put Blessings everywhere we could, and Armor where we couldn't; We both had divine so a guaranteed Divine 5 seemed like a reasonable thing to do. Armors typically were easy to pick up. (The exception being the buckler gun I failed to get in my second game). It was definitely rough going early on, but we picked up the pace and finished it with some time to spare (although less than we were used to in a two-player game).
In my second game, we got lucky with a couple of quick location closes, but then were stymied by some "remain on top" barriers: the Enemy Ship and Illusory Wall. In true Lem fashion, I parked myself at the Holy Isle with Olenjack, and let him chain explore through much of the deck and adding to his checks; by the time he emptied the deck I'd emptied my hand. I closed the location on my next turn, repopulating my hand; we won soon after.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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Just played this tonight for the third time.
The first time we were nowhere near winning when the blessing deck ran out.
The second time we came close, but some bad luck with having to burn through a lot of explorations before getting a chance to close the location made things just a bit too difficult, especially with a very unlucky dice roll trying to close one location, and one setup error (so we had to run through one entire location deck without encountering a chance to close the location).
So - third time's the charm, right?
We had five players at the table tonight, but we thought we'd give it another try.
By the time we were half way through the second round we had closed five of the seven locations, and were gathering for the final challenge. One round later another location was closed, and we were down to three cards in the remaining location - two monsters and the extra boon. We ended up winning on the 15th turn of the game, with half the blessings deck unused!
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After all the combat-heavy(er) scenarios, THIS is the one that had us down to our last blessing, last die-roll, holding our breaths.
When selecting boons to be our "henchmen", we picked things we WANTED rather than things we could easily GET. For example, at this point, Grazzle (with one skill feat in Charisma) does not have to roll to get any Blessing takes Divine 5 to acquire. So, he puts Items in the two locations he is most likely to be able to close. We failed to acquire BOTH of those Items.
Third-last blessing, Merisiel gets the Floating Shipyard (you'll note that none of us have above a d6 Intelligence) down to two cards. He discards his entire hand and pulls a blessing.
Second-last blessing, Grazzle clears and closes the Seaside warehouse, clears his hand, and pulls several blessings, which is the only reason we had a shot.
Last blessing, Brielle (with one blessing and no allies for explores) turns up a Blessing of Gozreh from the blessing deck! She handles the last two cards of the location, and receives a Blessing of Erastil from Merisiel (all she had) and a Blessing of the Gods (mimicking Gozreh) from Grazzle to roll a whopping 4d6 for the close. She has never felt more educated in her life.
Bare victory. Grazzle grabbed Holy Light, Merisiel was rewarded with another the Blessing of Erastil, and Brielle sought the favor of Achaekek, the mantis god of assassination.
Brielle ALSO got a good draw on the Scenario reward when she picked up a Rage Totem, so that there was one fewer item in her deck that could NOT be used as a weapon. So long, Potion of Bark Skin...