Bill Racicot |
In the Rum Punch scenario for Skull & Shackles, you add any allies you acquire to an ally pile. When you fight the villain (Nefti Unwesha), you can add all of those allies to your hand, and reveal them for a bonus on your check to defeat her. Once you've defeated the villain, the scenario ends and you get a reward.
The reward for Rum Punch is that you can keep all of those allies from the ally pile, but since you have almost certainly already added those to the deck of whoever fought the villain, those allies are already in the party and available for trading around when you rebuild your decks at the end of the scenario. That is, you can keep those cards regardless of the reward.
Since you gain all of those allies before fighting the villain, I don't understand what the reward for completing the scenario adds.
I assume I'm missing something crucial - can someone help me figure it out please?
Thanks!
Mechalibur |
Bill Racicot wrote:In practice, really, that means this scenario has no reward. :(Only if your practice includes not forgetting. :) The person that forgets about that will find this scenario quite rewarding.
But you wouldn't have to put away the allies you acquire if it weren't for the effect of the scenario in the first place. All scenarios are rewarding in the sense that you can get great boons in the location decks, but Rum Punch doesn't give anything besides that.
Funnily enough, there's another scenario like that in part 4: Red Rum. The reward is that you get to keep all cards you would have acquired anyway. I guess "rum" is keyword for lame reward :P
zeroth_hour |
They are anyway. I was able to set up dual Tot Flask Damiel with a Potion of Healing before AD1. Other goodies like Find Traps, Aid, etc are also available at the B level.
Rum Punch does give you more chances to acquire allies because it allows you a chance to acquire allies from locations you close and to me that's an implicit part of the rewards from the scenario. But that's pretty much it.
ParadigmEffect |
Well Perils of the Lost Coast in RotR had crappy rewards too. Draw a random item? From a base set pool? nty lol.
I think the idea of the base set intro adventure is to help you get a slightly better deck than a deck full of basic cards when you start actually adventuring, and to get new player's feet wet.
isaic16 |
Well Perils of the Lost Coast in RotR had crappy rewards too. Draw a random item? From a base set pool? nty lol.
I think the idea of the base set intro adventure is to help you get a slightly better deck than a deck full of basic cards when you start actually adventuring, and to get new player's feet wet.
I agree that the base set adventure is not designed to give you good rewards. However, the issue many are having here is that it's not even a token reward. It is, literally, no reward at all if you placed the scenario even close to optimally (ie, you grabbed all the allies in the pile before facing the villain for the last time). For being one of the first adventures that a new player may be experiencing, that's gotta feel kinda crummy. I don't think it would have changed the scenario much to also have everyone draw an ally from the box afterwards, and it would have ensured that you got something for winning, even if it is crummy.
Hawkmoon269 |
Ack!!! So there is a reward (though it is minor) and I'm pretty sure I didn't notice it when I played it.
When you close a location, you may attempt to acquire any allies left in that location deck.
When you acquire an ally, put it in an ally pile next to this scenario card. Before you attempt a check to defeat Nefti Unwesha, you may put any number of allies from the ally pile into your hand.
Reward: Gain all the allies in the ally pile.
So, how will there be any allies in the ally pile when you win the scenario assuming you picked everything up in the pile at the time when you attempted to defeat Nefti Unwesha? If there were allies in Nefti Unwesha's location when you defeated her on the last encounter.
Explore and find Nefti.
Temp close all still open locations.
Encounter Nefti.
Pick up all allies in ally pile.
Defeat Nefti.
Close Nefti's location.
Attempt to acquire any allies in Nefti's location, if successful place by scenario card.
Check to see if Nefti can escape.
Win scenario.
Gain reward of those allies recently placed in ally pile.
There is a chance it will be none. The bigger reward for this one is getting to attempt to acquire the allies in the first place. But the technical scenario reward makes sure you have a shot at any allies from Nefti's location as well.
jones314 |
You might logically decide to not pick up all the allies before you face Nefti and put them in your hand. If the scenario doesn't end right there, you possibly have a lot of allies that you have to discard. So the scenario reward ensures that you can pick up just the allies you need and the others will still be available later.
Plus you might defeat Nefti in the last open location and there's still allies left in the location. The scenario rule says that you get to attempt to acquire those allies, even though you've already won.
jones314 |
Jones -- it's actually because you haven't won yet. Closing the location comes before checking for escape.
Right but like Hawkmoon pointed out, the scenario doesn't end exactly when you defeat the villain or when you close the location. There's still the "when permanently closed" bit and sometimes that's really important. The scenario card tells you that you take any acquired allies, including those you might get after defeating and cornering the villain, and put them next to the scenario card. So collecting those allies isn't an empty reward.
Maybe a lot or most people get no extra allies as a scenario reward but there are certainly valid reasons why the reward exists and benefits at least some players.
jones314 |
The most recent few messages leave me with a new question:
At what point do you win and the scenario is over?
Generally you win when the villain has nowhere to go, that is you pass all checks to defeat and any requirements of the villain and there's no other locations open. Yay, you win! But the scenario is not quite over.
The location where you defeat a villain closes automatically, so you don't have to meet the check requirement. But there's still the "when permanently closed" bit on the card. Look closely at it because sometimes good or bad things can happen (possibly even killing your victorious hero!). And occasionally the scenario card tells you to do something after closing a location.
Now, I'm pretty sure, things are done. You don't have to finish your turn and reset your hand.
It's a different kettle of fish when you lose; maybe someone else can explain ...
But tl;dr most of the time, the "when permanently closed" text has no real effect at the end when you win, but not every time, so you probably haven't missed anything crucial.
Hawkmoon269 |
Encountering A Villain
Attempt to Temporarily Close Open Locations.
Encounter the Villain.
If You Defeat the Villain, Close the Villain’s Location.
Check to See Whether the Villain Escapes.
If the Villain Has Nowhere to Escape to, You Win!
So you only win after you check to see if the villain can escape, which is after you close the villain's location (that means you apply the "When Permanently Closed" power of the villain's location and you apply this scenario's power too). You probably know whether you are about to win or or not, but you technically don't win until you look around at all the locations and say "They are all either permanently or temporarily closed, so the villain can't escape, so we win!"
Once you've checked that the villain has nowhere to escape you don't need to continue with your turn beyond that point. The win and the scenario ends immediately.
jones314 |
As usual, Hawkmoon said it better than I did. But I am still tempted to rephrase what I tried to say.
Beat the villain, close the location automatically while doing the "when permanently closed" (usually, but not always, uneventful), check that the villain has nowhere to go and end the scenario with a win. Stop.
Calthaer |
Five scenarios is a bit of a lengthy trawl through just the base cards. There are so many rather dull boons that a team has a good chance of getting all of the good ones before AD1, especially with more players. It also makes it ten scenarios before you get a card feat.
They may have felt like they had to slow down the boon-upgrading a bit, hence no "real" reward for the scenario.
Frencois |
Frencois wrote:It's possible we are using different senses of the word "reward"Bill Racicot wrote:In practice, really, that means this scenario has no reward. :(Well you got to play it, have fun, and keep all boons you aquired so i wouldn't say no reward.
Just kidding. Indeed there is no SPECIFIC reward. But I don't see a problem with that. In any RPG, you don't always win a loot or level each time you play a game. You just get the story going and get nearer to the next loot or level.