After a week hiatus we went back to adventuring with the new role card rule in place. I got Beastmaster of course, I think the d4 to all checks is an amazing ability (too bad there isn't an Animal ally in the deck that doesn't recharge or discard to use, that would have made it super fun)
While it's getting a little scarier now that Meliski is even worse at fighting than before, we're still managing. The Teleportation Chamber is not fun, by the way - we just kept skirting around it until we could close the nasty thing. The Giant Champion wasn't great either, but it's the combination of the two that could have killed us - if two people step in the TeleChamber at the same time, they could be unlucky and keep encountering the Giant Champion (I forget the name) which means a bury of 1 every time it's encountered.
Other than that, we burned a few more resources than normal in non-villain fights, I could see the sudden spike in difficulty burning more than a few adventurers.
Things I think are anti-fun - uncontrollable and unmitigatable bad events. I know they can work in tabletop RPGs, but GMs moderate that type of game to prevent it from doing too much damage. I would say that this one is borderline - once we knew the trick to the TeleChamber we were able to sidestep it.
My group for this one was a solo group of Harsk, Meliski and Jirelle. Meliski has a 3 weapon which is d8+2 and has a +2 to Strength; with a d4+2 from Harsk, he's still hanging in there on combat.
I did spend a lot of blessings in the early game on regular monsters, encountering several with a 22 check. I used all 3 of my Cures to get back blessings I had spent on checks and exploring. That said, I held back a little on exploring with blessings to save them for checks. I nearly ran out of time.
With this low-intelligence, non-craft party, I didn't enjoy encountering a Cryptic Runes whenever I met a card with the Alchemical trait. Tot Flasks and potions weren't worth the hassle, as these characters inevitably fail the acquire checks anyway.
When I met the second villain, the entire party was at the last location, with each character having an armor in hand. I just punted on the Cryptic Runes and took the damage, to save my blessings for the Eel. This worked out and I won, with few turns to spare.
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I've ran this scenario twice. Once at our game day and once to get my wife caught up.
The weekly game had Kyra (me), Zarlova and Tontelizi. The removal of the basic and elite cards ramped up the difficulty greatly, but we moved through the locations one by one. Luckily between the three of us, we could handle any of the 22 difficulty combats that was thrown at us. Only Zarlova was able to handle the cryptic runes and of course if he was the one that encountered them. Armor became a great friend to us during this scenario. We ended up encountering the henchmen first followed by the villains. We had to save the bridge for last as none of us could handle the dex/ranged check to close the location. We were just hoping to push a villian there to close it automatically. We did beat it, but it was a rough scenario for us.
As for catching my wife up, she's playing Siwar, so there was quite a few times where we would both get hand wiped because she couldn't handle the 22 combats as well as Kyra. I used lots of cure spells and Kyra's special ability to keep us both going. This one was a lot worse than the first play through due to party composition.
The following issue was brought up in 0-3C - How Did You Do?:
Curious. I never noticed that, and I've confirmed that there are only 6 Scurvy Zombies in deck 2. Proxying with Ruffians is the right thing to do, and I'll make sure the scenario text on 3C is updated to reflect that. Thanks for the bug report.I'm playing this one with 6 characters, so I need to setup 8 locations. There's Selissa the villain, and I need 7 Scurvy Zombies henchmen. There are only 6 Scurvy Zombies in deck 2. I'll use Buccaneers as proxies but I'm starting to feel there is a lot of proxying needed in organized play.
Is this a known issue for this scenario? Could it somehow get fixed?
There is the same problem in this scenario: we're 1 Cyclops Savage short for playing with 6 characters.
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10-4.
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We gathered six of our most seasoned adventurers and set out to the Isle of the Damned. We split up, each taking on the locations best matched to our particular talents. Durango was the sole wizard in our group but, thankfully, he somehow managed to encounter most of the Explosive Runes, dispelling them with ease.
Most of the rest of us encountered giants and, despite the difficulty, dispatched them. Our prowess notwithstanding, we began to run low on time. We had managed to find one of the villains early on at the Teleportation Chamber, so we fanned out and stood sentinel at the remaining locations while we ferreted out the other.
Our luck held, and it was Durango, yet again, who faced the final villain. We secured our locations against escape, while he blasted the Runes protecting the foe. Durango stared the villain down with the cold gaze of one who had power over life and death. He readied his spell....
Then we realized that four of us were sitting on Blessings of Erastil. We urged Durango to throw his humble Allying Darts instead. As the tiny shard of steel sailed through the air, it began to positively glisten with the favor of the God of the Hunt. It found its mark, and we were victorious.
The following issue was brought up in 0-3C - How Did You Do?:
There is the same problem in this scenario: we're 1 Cyclops Savage short for playing with 6 characters.Curious. I never noticed that, and I've confirmed that there are only 6 Scurvy Zombies in deck 2. Proxying with Ruffians is the right thing to do, and I'll make sure the scenario text on 3C is updated to reflect that. Thanks for the bug report.I'm playing this one with 6 characters, so I need to setup 8 locations. There's Selissa the villain, and I need 7 Scurvy Zombies henchmen. There are only 6 Scurvy Zombies in deck 2. I'll use Buccaneers as proxies but I'm starting to feel there is a lot of proxying needed in organized play.
Is this a known issue for this scenario? Could it somehow get fixed?
0-4C: By Rum and Thunder suffers from the same problem. (Only 6 Daughters of Imerta and we need 7.)
I've reviewed all the scenarios, and fixes are coming in the next week or two. Use Ruffians as proxies. (This is basically a templating error.)
I've reviewed all the scenarios, and fixes are coming in the next week or two. Use Ruffians as proxies. (This is basically a templating error.)
Ah. So I stopped worrying because you said that, but it seems nothing was done to fix 0-4D: The Impossible Bottle (we need 8 henchmen, there are 7 Ruffians).
Ah. So I stopped worrying because you said that, but it seems nothing was done to fix 0-4D: The Impossible Bottle (we need 8 henchmen, there are 7 Ruffians).
Thanks for the heads-up. Obviously there are no sets of 8 henchmen in Skull & Shackles, so I trust you can figure out what to do (they're proxies, just use any henchman.)
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Don't have my cards with me atm so can't check, but are there not 8 Shipwrecks due to the Free Captain's Regatta scenario? Otherwise I'd say just go with 4 Ruffians and 4 Bucaneers. It honestly doesn't matter what henchman you proxy with as long as you don't use every copy of a henchman you need for something else (like using every copy of Riptide Grindylow and then encountering Owlbeartross as your first explore).
Obviously there are no sets of 8 henchmen in Skull & Shackles, so I trust you can figure out what to do (they're proxies, just use any henchman.)
Buccaneers, Enemy Ships and Shipwrecks go by 8s.
Sigh. I'll update the file next week. Nothing in my *card counts* goes by 8s, because they refer to the base set and the character add-on deck as separate products.
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Recently Flenta, Agna, Zarlova, and I spent some time looking for some rum. Yum, rum! Sadly, the alchemists who owned it weren't interested in letting us buy some. Dum dums!
So anyway, we spread out around the island and started looking for clues to the rum stash. Almost immediately Zarlova found an old Cyclops ruin, complete with Cyclops, and her spells quickly got rid of them.
Meanwhile, I had gone towards a huge bridge, which is apparently a local fishing hole as my friend the Sage and I talked to all sorts of folks: an old sailor, a lady who handled ship's provisions, and a very angry alchemist lady!
This is when we found out that the alchemists were protecting themselves and their concoctions with scary runes that blow up! I couldn't read them, so I poked at them at random and they just disappeared. Lucky me! Then I zapped bomb lady full of force missiles, because getting blown up isn't fun.
While we were doing that, Flenta was looking for a hidden cache of weapons she'd heard was on the island, while Agna wanted to see if she could capture a dinosaur. (Eep!) She didn't catch a dino, but she did find a parrot to talk to.
I had a vision that special magical knowledge was hidden in a nearby secret cave, while deep inside that cave was one of the Cyclops guards. Zarlova and I headed over there and found a very fancy circle diagram. She said it was some kind of malfunctioning teleporation device, and quickly proved how malfunctioning by getting teleported away. She came back, then Agna and her animal friend appeared and just as quickly disappeared. It turns out they'd been sent to where Flenta had just found that weapons cache. Agna's animal friends grabbed everything they could see, leaving Flenta with an empty chest. Aww...
Agna and Flenta kept looking for dinosaurs while Zarlova and I tried to find a way to shut down the teleporter. Just when Zarlova thought she had it under control, something exploded, teleporting in the Cyclops guard and filling the whole room with storm clouds! I defeated the guard, then the teleporter exploded and I appeared next to Flenta's weapons chest.
To make a long story short (Too late!) I scryed that bomb guy was just inside the nearby jungle. We spent a bit of time preparing, then Zarlova went in while Agna prepared to beat up a dinosaur and Flenta and I were ready to help out. And we did it!
Oh! One more thing: as we were heading back with our rum and new genie friend, we found that Heartbreak Hinsin had stowed away on our ship! Apparently he and Lady Smithee had a bit of a spat, and he had been looking for a way to give them both some space to cool off. We were nice and didn't make him walk the plank.
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Overall, this one went pretty smoothly. Two locations closed on the first two turns, one because Zarlova got lucky and drew a henchman and one because I hit a string of Charisma Allies and then got our first Villian.
We forgot the Cryptic Runes the first time someone (me) should have encountered them (before fighting the boss) but we went back and replayed it a bit. A couple of Blessings gave me 4d4, and I rolled just enough without having to bury the last card in my old hand (Lightning Touch) for a reroll.
I was greedy in this one as well; when I cast Scrying on the Teleportation Chamber for monsters I got the Henchman, a normal monster, and a second Spell 4. (Zarlova had already gotten a Spell 4 on her first explore there.)
We drew a Storm for the close for the Teleportation Chamber, which caused some confusion. We ended up saying it closes, but apparently that's incorrect. Ah, well.