Momentarily putting aside the various issues with shortages of armour, numbers of henchmen and the like - have people actually beaten this?
We've been playing this one on and off for a week - it hasn't yet overtaken Toll of the Bell or Bizarre Love Triangle for sheer number of play-throughs, but I feel like it's only a matter of time.
For a start, the ship is anchored, so various cards - Svingli's Eye, Tessa Fairwaind, Blessing of Hshurha - are nerfed.
There's the additional location - 7 to get through with 4 characters, instead of the standard 6. And some of them are really nasty - The Torture Pit and the Shrine to Norgober are particular pains, and can really eat into a character's health, just by being there, even without failing checks or running into big nasties that require you to sink lots of cards into them.
The henchmen themselves can be fairly brutal too - the generic one which banishes divine cards is horrific for Alahazra, who only has spells for fighting with, and nasty for our Lirianne who is a bit under-powered on combat, and often needs blessings (Seltyiel and Jirelle are normally ok, with D4+3 from Lirianne). Kipper's d6+1 damage would be bad enough, if it weren't to a random character, easily having the potential to wipe someone's hand before they can make their check.
Then, assuming you do finally get to the villain, survive the additional round with the henchmen, and have enough cards in your hand to physically fight him twice, you've still got to beat the clock - which aside from being extra tight due to 7 locations, is also losing D4 cards every time you fight the villain, and d4 cards when you shut the Gannet Island.
I know I've seen one person post that they've beaten this, but aside from blind luck, this one just looks near-impossible (I dread to think what will happen when our 6-character party reach this point...)
I am 2-0 against . My first party of Feiya, Oloch, Rzanak and Jirelle, a party which breezed through everything else in ap4 and ap5, struggled mightily against the scenario, for all the reasons you describe. This party tends to stick together and power through each location in turn. As a consequence, the various henchmen and repeated battles with the villain punched us in the face over and over and we ended up winning by the skin of our teeth.
My second party sounds quite similar to yours with Seltyiel, Alahazra and Lirianne (though we had Damiel for our 4th instead of your Jirelle. Given my difficulty the first time through We approached the scenario with caution. For the first time in Skull and Shackles we committed to winning through temporarily closing locations rather than closing each location permanently. Alahazra devoted herself exclusively to scouting, along with some help from a couple of scouting items used by other characters, and early game the party avoided exploring "blind" until we could locate the villain. Once we found the villain we aggressively moved to close three other locations, still using scouting to help us avoid the nastier henchmen fights. We waited until we had three locations closed before moving into the Shrine to Norgober and the Torture Pit staying only long enough for the temporary close and avoiding the start of turn horror show those locations cause. Seltyiel went in and finished off the boss (though Damiel could have served just as well. I am holding on to my Seltyiel hate!), and since we were finishing the scneario it didn't matter much that people like Alahazra got kicked around by henchmen.
We won the second game early, it only took 14 turns to complete. But the commitment to temporary closing that allowed us to win with relative ease meant that we left some great boons on the table. And the strategy was only possible because of what Alahazra brings to the table as a Stargazer.
Side question for MightyJim. Have you managed to find Sniper's Goggles for Lirianne? In my experience that solves the combat problems you are running into with her.
70 cards in the locations, 30 cards in the blessings deck (minus the d4s worth for fighting the villain and closing the location) - if Alahazra scouts every location, that's another quarter of the time wasted.
To have a hope of getting through the locations, you have to average 2 or more explores a turn - there's no way to scout that properly.
Our latest attempt collapsed when Seltyiel ran into the villain using the bonus explore at the sea fort - kipper was the only henchman and wiped everyone's hands except Jirelle. Rolling 28 on a d8 +4 turned out to be beyond him...
Lirianne does have sniper's goggles - when she can draw them
...if Alahazra scouts every location, that's another quarter of the time wasted.
If Alahzra is encountering boons when she scouts, that time is not wasted. Instead, it can be a net gain.
70 cards in the locations, 30 cards in the blessings deck (minus the d4s worth for fighting the villain and closing the location) - if Alahazra scouts every location, that's another quarter of the time wasted.
To have a hope of getting through the locations, you have to average 2 or more explores a turn - there's no way to scout that properly.
Our latest attempt collapsed when Seltyiel ran into the villain using the bonus explore at the sea fort - kipper was the only henchman and wiped everyone's hands except Jirelle. Rolling 28 on a d8 +4 turned out to be beyond him...
Lirianne does have sniper's goggles - when she can draw them
I think you vastly underestimate Alahazra's scouting potential.
You have 70 cards, with 31 boons and 39 banes, which means that slightly less than half the time Alahzara scouts a location she can clear a card.
My alahazra deck is 75% divine cards, and includes two items that you can banish and the imp, which increases her effective ration of divine cards even further. If she focuses on exploring she has the ability to routinely scout a least six cards a turn. In a four player game that allows her to scout the majority of cards that you will encounter over the course of the game.
edit: fixed the math on boon composition
I would also add that having characters with multiple armors helps a lot in this scenario. I know everyone hates on armor, but, just as in RotR, armor becomes a very strong card down the stretch in S&S. Having those armors around helps tremendously with both Kipper and Barnabas.
Our Alahazra doesn't have the power to encounter the boon, so we can't use that.
Even if she did, she has to recharge a divine card every time she looks ahead - that's a maximum of 6 peeks per turn - with an average of 8 cards needing to be encountered between each time she resets her hand.
The Henchman who banishes the divine card is also immune to Fire, which means that sphere/wall of fire are completely useless. By this point, the sphre spells are also pretty weak if used just the once.
Given the plethora of monsters, Ring of the Iron Skull is also an amazing card in this scenario.
What's the timing on encountering the henchman spawned by the villain?
Must the other characters finish their henchmen battles first? (before you continue on your fight against Old Barnabas?
Our party of six have now arrived at this point (Damiel, Feiya, Lini, Ranzak, Lem, Oloch)
As I was getting out the henchmen and the locations, everything started flooding back like a hideous repressed memory. Didn't have the energy to even try right now, maybe after a lie-down in a darkened room...
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My partner and I have been playing through S&S as a duo, and have been stuck on this scenario for the past few weeks. We've come *very* close, down to the last dice roll falling short by 1 or 2, but other times we just get trashed by the Shrine of Norgerber or the Torture Pit.
Half of the time we didn't even realized we had to include an additional location, so imagine our surprise that we were playing on 'easy mode'.
There's a ridiculous amount of luck required in order to corner Barbaras without getting annihilated on the way -- by the time we actually fight him, we've depleted our decks and cannot finish him off.
We're playing a Duelist Jirelle and a Brawler Meliski (Bard). We're almost to the point of giving up and just starting Wrath of the Righteous instead.
Any strategies for this? We've both accumulated 2-3 Blessings of Norgerber each and hit the Shrine first, together, to try and share the damage while we dig through it. Then, we usually split up and try to corner Barnabas in the Gannet Island in order to use our ship to our advantage, but that ends up blowing 2d4 blessings from the blessings deck if we fail. Oy.
Jirelle should be the one that takes on the villain so you don't chunk off as many blessings fighting him (you only lose 1 blessing if your check has Swashbuckling, versus 1d4 -- remember that you automatically lose if you need to discard blessings from the blessings deck but can't, even if you beat the villain while all other locations are closed, meaning you can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory if you're running low on time). Close as many locations as you can, focusing on the nasty ones first so that you have a tiny bit of time to heal up before taking on the boss. Try to get 3 weapons in your hand for the final fight so that your chances of losing all of them are low. The rest should be blessings and other combat boosters. Have each person carry an armor for the henchmen fight before the villain. Don't spend any resources fighting the henchmen, just bury the armor to prevent all the damage it deals. You don't need to win against the henchmen Barnabas summons in order to win.
I don't know how much healing power your Meliski has, but hopefully it's a lot. You'll need to burn most if not all of your blessings and allies to explore again to power through the locations, and you'll need to get a lot of those back to help on the tough checks as well. Cure, Holy Feast, Crystal of Healing Hands (or something like that), Impossible Bottle, Hannelius Fitch (or something like that), etc. should ideally all have spots in someone's deck.
If all else fails, take out the Torture Chamber or Shrine to Norgorber and run with 1 fewer locations (in other words, the normal amount). Or, designate one location where allies are not replaced by monsters as a place where your friends are gathering in secret for the attack on Harrigan.
And, I'd caution against going to WotR if you ragequit on this. WotR is even more brutal at the beginning, although with only 2 players you avoid a lot of the super difficult stuff. If you do give up, just give yourselves the reward and move on to Adventure 6 as if you won. It's easier :).
And, I'd caution against going to WotR if you ragequit on this. WotR is even more brutal at the beginning, although with only 2 players you avoid a lot of the super difficult stuff. If you do give up, just give yourselves the reward and move on to Adventure 6 as if you won. It's easier :).
With small parties, it's not so much of an issue. I've always played with parties of size 3 and have never raged as much in WotR as I have at various points in SnS.
With small parties, it's not so much of an issue. I've always played with parties of size 3 and have never raged as much in WotR as I have at various points in SnS.And, I'd caution against going to WotR if you ragequit on this. WotR is even more brutal at the beginning, although with only 2 players you avoid a lot of the super difficult stuff. If you do give up, just give yourselves the reward and move on to Adventure 6 as if you won. It's easier :).
I ran a party of 2 through WotR and the B scenarios were definitely some of the toughest I've had to deal with. The really hard stuff later on in AD2 was a slog, but otherwise doable without insane luck, and there were some tough scenarios later on, but B stood out to me as me needing to use every bit of tactics I had in order to pull through without dying.
This scenario gets so much easier if you got Augury spells from class decks. Also, Jirelle + Power Feat that lets you explore after defeating a monster + Ring of the Iron Skull = easy win.
We'll see what happens when my group's current goblin trio of Mogmurch, Reta, and Ak get to this scenario. We've been struggling with a lot of the scenarios so far and have had to replay several due to running out of time.
OK. This is not fun. All of AP5 was far too hard and punishing in my opinion, now it just feels like the game is laughing at me.
I will give $20 to the first person who can win this scenario with the following:
Alahazra
Feiya
Class Deck Ezren
I've tried 4 times. I've tried them together, I've tried them alone. This is just too punishing. I've had to play other scenarios more than 4 times but I can just see the math on this one, it is simply not possible.
1. Banishing cards with the divine trait? Well that just banishes all your spells too, since most have the divine trait as well.
2. A roll on a d4 to see if, after all that work, you lose the scenario by having the villain steal cards from the blessing deck... just "because"? Wow.
3. One location that damages you at the beginning of each turn.
4. One location that damages before and after.
5. Your ship is anchored.
6. Any other characters encounter the henchmen more than once because the villain says to, oh and by the way, its BEFORE the villain fight, so if they do poorly, they can't help you.
7. Henchmen that do random damage before the encounter.
8. A Henchman that damages you if there are more than 3 cards in her deck, then evades and you need to deal with her again.
9. A villain that steals your armor or 1d4 other cards... TWICE.
Something went wrong with game balance and design here. Players should not get 75 hours into a game and then be told there is NO chance of winning unless you have specific characters with specific skills and cards (and even then this scenario is not fair or fun).
Here are the rules to get the $20:
(I have no idea how I will get this to you, I could cut you a check or see if I can get my Paypal account going, or buy you something on Paizo.com and ship it to you.... I will figure something out, but the offer is real...)
Cool. I'd totally down be down with this if I wasn't between apartments with my games in storage. I'm guessing someone on these boards can crack this puzzle. (The scenario is a real beast, I agree -- one of three in the set that seem unbalanced in a serious way.)
What roles did you choose? Also, did you mix in the Wizard class deck cards or are you just using Ezren's character from the class deck?
I think you vastly underestimate Alahazra's scouting potential.
You have 70 cards, with 31 boons and 39 banes, which means that slightly less than half the time Alahzara scouts a location she can clear a card.
My alahazra deck is 75% divine cards, and includes two items that you can banish and the imp, which increases her effective ration of divine cards even further. If she focuses on exploring she has the ability to routinely scout a least six cards a turn. In a four player game that allows her to scout the majority of cards that you will encounter over the course of the game.
This!
Its been a long time since I played this. But my group of Alahazra (Stargazer), Jirelle (Pirate Queen), and Damiel(Grenadier) completed it. Stargazer Alahazra not only thins decks, but allows Jirelle and Damiel to prepare for any bane.
Sadly i'm at work, when I get home I'm going to look up the scenario again to see if I can remember how we did it.
Echoing Hawkmoon -- if you let us know what roles and feats you chose for each character, along with their current decks, we'd be able to provide far better assistance.
I did this scenario recently and here's just some general advice. I had a much easier time with this scenario but my party was also a bit more balanced in terms of skills (Lini, Merisiel, Valeros, Fieya)
1. This is just going to be hard for your team. Use spells that are replaceable Aqueous Orb is a good one since its AD2 (i think) and can be replaced at end of scenario (just choose not to attempt to acquire any other spells while playing and you'll get it back no problem). I'd also rely heavily on Feiyas power feat to reduce difficulty.
2. scouting is very important. You want to fight the villain once. and only once.
3. I would coordinate a team effort to close this in one round (3 turns for you). It will be hard with 3 characters but can be done. This prevents your party from taking the damage since your characters didn't START there. That is how i did it, though I had 4 characters. For you you would want to make sure Ezren is the first character to move to this location since he can't bury/banish to close. My party coordinated efforts once Lini cycled through her deck and got her BoNorgorber.
4. I used Lady Cerise to temp close this location after scouting the villain. Was only there to take one damage at the end of turn. Obviously this doesn't work if the villain is in this location so just take turns going through it if you're not finding the villain. You could also just coordinate a group effort like Shrine of Norgorber.
5. I hated the ship mechanic and tried to mostly avoid using cards that synergized with it with the exception of Feiya having 5x BoHshurha. I don't recall this scenario being much more difficult because of the ship being anchored though since my party had good blessing coverage for non-combat checks and we had BoAchekek for hench/villain.
6. Yeah, you'll have trouble with this again due to party composition. I would suggest getting armor from sea fort so your party can take the BYA damage from henchman OR choose not to play more divine cards and banish the armor to reduce damage to 0.
7. again, armor from sea fort or by other means if you have any spells or items to reduce damage.
8. Scouting will help with this. And Holy Feast is really strong in this scenario since you'll be tripling up at Shrine of Norgorber and possibly other locations once you scouted the villain.
9. Unfortunately more armor will be important for your party since STR punches in the face aren't going to be your most reliable. I'd stick with multi-use spells to make the 2nd combat check easy. You could also prep in advance for this if you've scouted to make sure that you at least have 1 armor before the first check to get your display spell out there and then be able to use it on both checks. At that point it would matter less if you had to recharge/discard multiple cards.
Hope that helps a bit. I'm normally up for a good challenge but I'm in the middle of busy season at work and then also taking night classes so I'll have to save this for a few months if I remember it then. Best of luck!
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I'll give the challenge a go (solo) some time this week.
It's definitely the climax of the whole adventure path. Deck 6 felt like an epilogue afterwards. In my opinion it's set about right for the hardest scenario in the whole path, it's tricky to find a balance between supplying a suitable challenge for experienced and optimised parties and being achievable for others.
With a 3 person party and Alahazra you should be scouting literally every card you explore, and then at least a few of the problems you mention will go away.
For larger parties, or parties without Alahazra, where scouting everything isn't an option, the one piece of missing advice is to pair up! You won't win the scenario if you lose a fight with the villain, and the best way to avoid failing the villain is to have someone else at the location with yu. That each player only needs one spell/weapon and one armour/d4-cards in their hand. Even better, make sure one of each pair has the swashbuckling trait available. Then you almost actually want to find the villain, for a free close and only 1 blessing lost from the deck.
Excellent, thanks all:
The Wizard deck is shuffled into the box.
Alahazra:
4 skills in Charisma, 1 in Intelligence.
3 cards in spells, 1 in armor, 1 in blessings.
Stargazer role card
Powers: hand size 7, light armors, (or the blessings deck or any character deck), When you use the above power to examine a card from a character deck, that character may recharge it, ,You gain the skill Perception: charisma +2
Cards: Aqueous Orb (x2), Dehydrating touch (x2), Raise Dead, Blazing servant, Resist Energy, Holy Feast, Old Salt, Rotgut, Rickety Hake, Conch of the Tritons, Blessing of: Achaekek / Abadar / Norgorber / Gozreh / Milani / Sivanah, Immortal Dreamstone, Reflecting buckler.
Feiya:
4 skills in Intelligence, 1 skill in Wisdom.
2 cards in spells, one card in items, 2 cards in blessings.
Sea Witch Role card
Powers: hand size 7, (or barrier) 2 plus the adventure deck number of the recharged card, if any.
You may recharge a card to add 2d4 to your Fortitude (or survival) check.
When you play Blessing of Hshurha, or you play any blessing on any check to defeat a bane that has the Aquatic trait, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
Cards: Safe Harbor, Life Leech, Hydraulic Push, Wall of Fire, Icy Prison, Resist Energy, Displacement, Geyser. Blessing of Hshurha (x5), Blessing of Milani, Headband of Epic Intelligence, Impossible Bottle, Farglass, Lady Cerise Bloodmoon, Alise Grogblud, Lizard.
Wizard Class Deck Ezren
4 skills in Intelligence, 2 in Dexterity.
3 cards in spells, one in armor, 4 in items.
Hedge Wizard role card.
Powers: hand size 7, (or put it in your hand), (or you may do both), When another character at your location acquires a card that has the Magic trait, that character may immediately recharge it, You may discard a card that has the Arcane trait to add 1 die to any check by another character.
Cards: Scrying, Augury (x2), Freezing Sphere (x2), Animated Weapon, Control Weather, Safe Harbor, Dehydrating Touch, Quickened Ray, Blizzard, Parrot, Pyromaniac Mage, Haneilius Fitch, Wizard's Hook, Force Sling +3, Letter off Marque, Sapphire of Intelligence, Ring of Regeneration, Magic Studded Leather Armor.
History:
I finished RotR with 6 characters: 2 groups of 3 and all well balanced. By the end of the game I was just plowing through, so I wanted to control the difficulty a bit. I hate permadeath, but can't turn it off mentally (I wish I could) so it stays on. So, for SnS I needed a way to control the difficulty to get more challenge, but not get too upset if someone dies along the way.
I started the game by mixing in the Character deck and 3 class decks: Wizard, Fighter and Sorcerer. I bought a blank notebook and made a 2 page spreadsheet with all 35 scenarios listed and 9 columns to track characters and take notes:
Oloch, Flenta, Amaryllis, Seltyiel, Lirianne, Damiel, Class Deck Ezren, Lini and Lem.
By the time they all reached Dangerous Waters, it was clear that most didn’t have the skills needed for SnS and I reset to:
Oloch, Jirelle, Lirianne, Alahazra, Feiya, Damiel and CD Ezren.
The others were retired. I removed the Sorcerer and Fighter class decks.
These 7 I took through in groups of 2 – 4. Mostly 3 at a time. I tracked when they passed the scenario and how many failed attempts they had. Things were ok, but obviously Wisdom/Survival and swashbuckling are huge in this box set. Alahazara’s power is very helpful, as is Ezren’s CD Scrying and Augury. All 7 got through AP2 and finished The Secret of Man Catcher Cove.
After that, I culled a bit and left Lirianne and Damiel behind. They didn’t add much to the flavor I wanted in the game so I retired them so I could finish this in my lifetime...
Then, one late evening after work, I was not paying attention closely and Oloch died. That was totally on me, I should have read the cards better to know his danger. Still don’t like permadeath, but that one was avoidable, I should have thrown the match...
So, it was still ok. I had 2 teams to get through: Alahazra and Jirelle (the dream team: they plowed through 11 consecutive scenarios with not one failure) and Ezren and Feiya, (my “special” team…).
Alahazra and Jirelle would complete a scenario and then Ezren and Feiya would try it now that I had experience with it (those same 11 scenarios took Ezren and Feiya 23 attempts to pass and Free Captains Regatta finally required Jirelle to help).
Then, AP5 happened….
An Unforgivable Act: Alahazra and Jirelle got SUPER lucky and passed it on the first try with some very good dice rolls and circumstances beyond their control. Ezren and Feiya failed 3 attempts, and came close to dying… Finally I started using Alahazra along with them and then they got through on attempt 6 (12+ hours in this one scenario = not so much fun).
Islands of the Damned: Jirelle died. I was being super cautious, but she got totally miserable rolls one time, then again, then the henchmen steals d6 cards from her deck after a hand wipe: rolled a 4. Just enough to kill her by one card. Dead and out of the game permanently. Not. Happy.
Now, I have a team of 3. Lets see if I can finish this game I started on February 12, 2017…
They got through the next 3 scenarios but it takes at least 2 attempts each scenario. Not too bad, if that could continue…
So there I am “Best Served Cold” On top of a mountain I started climbing very, very carefully almost exactly one year ago….
.Help.
It's definitely the climax of the whole adventure path. Deck 6 felt like an epilogue afterwards.
This is actually good news. I worry that even if I could get past this, I would be up against a wall for all 5 scenarios in AP6...
Excellent, thanks all:
The Wizard deck is shuffled into the box.
Alahazra:
4 skills in Charisma, 1 in Intelligence.
3 cards in spells, 1 in armor, 1 in blessings.
Stargazer role card
Powers: hand size 7, light armors, (or the blessings deck or any character deck), When you use the above power to examine a card from a character deck, that character may recharge it, ,You gain the skill Perception: charisma +2Cards: Aqueous Orb (x2), Dehydrating touch (x2), Raise Dead, Blazing servant, Resist Energy, Holy Feast, Old Salt, Rotgut, Rickety Hake, Conch of the Tritons, Blessing of: Achaekek / Abadar / Norgorber / Gozreh / Milani / Sivanah, Immortal Dreamstone, Reflecting buckler.
Feiya:
4 skills in Intelligence, 1 skill in Wisdom.
2 cards in spells, one card in items, 2 cards in blessings.
Sea Witch Role card
Powers: hand size 7, (or barrier) 2 plus the adventure deck number of the recharged card, if any.
You may recharge a card to add 2d4 to your Fortitude (or survival) check.
When you play Blessing of Hshurha, or you play any blessing on any check to defeat a bane that has the Aquatic trait, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.Cards: Safe Harbor, Life Leech, Hydraulic Push, Wall of Fire, Icy Prison, Resist Energy, Displacement, Geyser. Blessing of Hshurha (x5), Blessing of Milani, Headband of Epic Intelligence, Impossible Bottle, Farglass, Lady Cerise Bloodmoon, Alise Grogblud, Lizard.
Wizard Class Deck Ezren
4 skills in Intelligence, 2 in Dexterity.
3 cards in spells, one in armor, 4 in items.
Hedge Wizard role card.
Powers: hand size 7, (or put it in your hand), (or you may do both), When another character at your location acquires a card that has the Magic trait, that character may immediately recharge it, You may discard a card that has the Arcane trait to add 1 die to any check by another character.
Cards: Scrying, Augury (x2), Freezing Sphere (x2), Animated Weapon, Control Weather, Safe Harbor, Dehydrating Touch, Quickened Ray, Blizzard,...
Is there a reason you're all short a power feat? Just checked and you should have 6 total (three from the initial set of four and three from the role card).
Is there a reason you're all short a power feat? Just checked and you should have 6 total (three from the initial set of four and three from the role card).
I think they each have 6 (edit: I see, I missed some - here is the complete list):
Alahazra:
Stargazer role card
Powers:
1. hand size 7
2. light armors,
3. (or the blessings deck or any character deck)
4. When you use the above power to examine a card from a location deck on your turn and it is a boon, you may encounter it.
5. When you use the above power to examine a card from a character deck, that character may recharge it,
6. You gain the skill Perception: charisma +2
Feiya:
Sea Witch Role card
Powers:
1. hand size 7
2. (or barrier)
3. 2 plus the adventure deck number of the recharged card, if any.
4. You may recharge a card to add 2d4 to your Fortitude
5. (or survival) check.
6. When you play Blessing of Hshurha, or you play any blessing on any check to defeat a bane that has the Aquatic trait, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
Wizard Class Deck Ezren
Hedge Wizard role card.
Powers:
1. hand size 7
2. (or put it in your hand)
3. (or you may do both)
4. When another character at your location attempts a combat check that has the Arcane trait, add 2 to it.
4. When another character at your location acquires a card that has the Magic trait, that character may immediately recharge it
5. You may discard a card that has the Arcane trait to add 1 die to any check by another character.
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Ok, it's done.
Finished (first attempt) with 16 blessings still in the blessings deck. Though, I will freely admit I was extremely lucky with henchmen being unusually close to the top of the decks, and with a few other things (not checks though, had very very good odds on every check). In fact if I made another 10 attempts I wouldn't expect to have that many blessings left in any of them. But I would still expect to succeed on most of them. Even though this scenario did take me ~4, then ~2, then 2 attempts when I played it through "for real".
I honestly wish I'd had a bit less luck as it would make a more convincing demonstration, but that's how it went.
I'm confident with this setup though, because I learned from this that Alahazra's scouting and boon-sniping is crazy-good. So many free encounters. Glad to see you did take that feat. Plus, in the whole game, I did one blind explore, and that mostly because it was triggered by Ezren's ability and technically you can't scout in between - I could have declined it but I was feeling lucky.
I took photos as I went. I'll write it up properly so you can actually see the whole story, but probably won't have time until the weekend. Hopefully it gives you some ideas. I used my own decks/feats not yours because that was the original challenge, but hopefully it's still useful. Not interested in $20, especially since I could easily have cheated (I didn't, but just saying it would have been trivial to), just enjoyed the exercise/challenge
OK Last night I pulled the box out and looked at the scenario to jog my memory. I definitely remember the Erinyes Devil due to our Damiel not feating for alternate types of damage. He was not happy about it. Upon looking at all the Henchmen, I see why you are having problems.
I will give $20 to the first person who can win this scenario with the following: Alahazra, Feiya, & Class Deck Ezren
You have your work cut out for you due to the lack of diversity. In our game Alahazra revealed every card and Damiel tried to keep the regular monsters clear and Jirelle focused on Henchmen when they popped up.
Ok, it's done.
Finished (first attempt) with 16 blessings still in the blessings deck. Not interested in $20, especially since I could easily have cheated (I didn't, but just saying it would have been trivial to), just enjoyed the exercise/challenge
Excellent work! I am humbled by your achievement and look forward to the details.
You are most kind to refuse the reward but, honestly, I would love to send it to you! It would feel right. Thanks again! I will wait for your details, setup my game and get ready to plow through (knowing, as you said, that I shouldn't expect to get through on the first try...).
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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I'm confident with this setup though, because I learned from this that Alahazra's scouting and boon-sniping is crazy-good. So many free encounters. Glad to see you did take that feat.
Don't you remember my first Favorite Character blog post (link) (where I lied and said it was Alahazra)? Her boon-sniping is the best of the best.
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The decks + feats I chose:
Ezren
Alahazra
Feiya
I don't have the wizard class deck, so with this party especially I was left with a desperate, desperate shortage of attack spells - clear proof of this being Frostbite in deck 5 (yuck)!
I don't personally think removing all the elite was right. We still found a basic bane in scenario 6.6 with a 6-player party. With 3 players and only 4 scenarios of banishing it's safe to say most of the elites will still be there. If it was up to me I'd just banish all the basics - it's about the right total and just leaves a few more elites and a few less basics. But those were the rules so that's what I did. But since I'm doing that I might as well remove the boons as well. I kept just the cures (I never banish a cure), the bandana item (it's great in just this one scenario for the villain power - I thought having it in my actual deck was just too cheesy but couldn't bring myself to actually remove it), and all the armour. Why all the armour? Well, no-one wears armour so why not, and also... well you'll see.
Ready
Everything all set up, and starting hands. Notice Meliski proxying for Ezren. Ezren was my actual character in my very first play through in RotR (the RotR Ezren of course), but that was using a friend's box, and I don't have M&M yet, so I don't have a copy of him. I wouldn't normally proxy characters I don't have but this is a specific challenge. I chose Kraken for the ship because it's anchored anyway so the ability means nothing and Kraken will resist the odd bit of random structural damage that might come up.
Turn 1
Feiya buries her charm animal and immortal dreamstone. Ugh, Coral Capuchin, what a horrible card that is, at least it wasn't on the dreamstone...
Three Scouts
Alahazra scouts three locations. Found a henchman already! The beginning of the high in the deck henchmen luck.
Closing the Beach
Feiya does a drive-by using the Pteradons, auto-getting Safe Harbor and auto-failing the trident, without getting stuck with those nasty locations at end of turn, followed by taking down the Erinyes Devil. The yellow d20 I use to track my total +bonus. If there's a penalty I subtract it off. This +14 from a base of +7, +3 from Freezing Sphere, and +4 recharging the Safe Harbour to Feiya's ability. I forgot the d6 from the Pteradon (oops!). And then, bury a card to close, and I can think no better use for a Capuhcin.
Turn 2
Alahazra's turn. She scouts and encounters a Falcata +1, fails.
Fifth Scout
Scouts and acquires a blessing of Sivanah, which replaces the card it was scouted with.
Five and a half...
And under that, Luccaria (so she was 3rd from the top overall). Trying to deal with Luccaria in the Shrine to Norgorber is enough to fail an entire scenario. So, better idea, let's just... not deal with at all. This is now the location I'm going to temp-close when I fight the villain. The good thing about scouting everything is I can just decide stuff like that.
Sixth Scout
And there's a wizard hook. Acquired!
Seventh Scout
Still scouting/encountering with Alahazra, there's a potion of flying. One of Damiel's favourites! Oh wait I'm not playing him any more :(. It's still worth picking up, so I used an Old-Salt, figuring I'm recharging away a non-divine card to get an explore+move, which is better than just discarding for an explore. But then I roll a 1 anyway :(
Alahazra's hand is now empty except for the wizard hook. Since I've been doing all this right after "1. Advance the blessings deck", I move on to "2. Give a card" and hand it over to Ezren. Having no cards I decide not to then explore blind and her turn is finally over.
Farglass
Well, not quite yet. Ezren does some scouting of his own during her turn, with Farglass. I stacked his deck with Pirates to help recharge it, but he hasn't drawn any. However, what he does have is the Ring of Regeneration, which recharges the farglass anyway at the start of Ezren's turn. The two-deep scout pays off, finding a henchman second from the top (that's now 1, 2 and 3 cards deep). I show them here in the order they were in but obviously I then put them back with the henchman on top. Since Ezren doesn't have an ally to bury we'll just leave that one for later.
Turn 3
Alazhazra (with her new hand) scouts a(nother) falcata, and since that's not very interesting she scouts again and finds a wand of flame for him. He decides to stay at Gannet Island and acquire it for a free second explore. This was my one blind explore of the scenario, since there's no opportunity to scout in between acquiring the wand and choosing to explore again.
Koko
It pays off though, finding a Koko. Everyone taks a damage. An extra d8 for the fire trait you say? And I just picked up a wand of fire? I also discard frostbite to the wand's power and burninate the Koko with extreme prejudice.
Turn 4
Alahazra now scouts some more for Feiya, finding a Jolly Roger and a very attractive cultist. She's all set up to fight so she goes to the Sea Fort for the cultist. Here's where I looked at the rules again and discovered that you can't move someone with you if the ship's anchored even if you start out on the ship. Been doing that wrong, though it doesn't come up much anyway. Wanted to take Ezren with me for +2 but oh well.
Norburger Cultist
Dehydrating touch, recharging the Pirate's Favor to her ability and a blessing of Pharasma because I can and I hate failure. One dead cultist.
Leather Armor
Alahazra scouts again, and lo and behold it's an armour. Because I (somewhat arbitrarily) ticked constitution Feiya can auto-acquire it, so she takes another turn with a blessing (I think) and acquires it. Now I can actually close the Sea Fort! And now you also know why I didn't remove the basic+elite armours.
Turn 5
It's now Alahazra's turn, and she's found herself an armour as well. Encountered for free and acquired.
Jolly Roger
She scouts an anemone, and now she's run out of cards again. But, she can actually use her explore this turn since there's an already-scouted Jolly Roger right there. I don't even want it but I rolled an 8 and acquired it. I display it next to the ship and it plays no further part in the scenario.
Turn 6
Ezren likes to fight, so off he goes and takes out the anemone. I left more chance of failure than usual on this roll. From memory, I initially went totally over the top, but then pared it back.
Turn 7
Alazhazra scouts Kipper (henchman 6 cards deep this time for those who are tracking it), and Feiya, having an armour to close the location with, takes him on. This is me selecting Ezen (1-2, 3-4 and 5-6 from left to right) and discarding 2 cards. No big deal.
Smoke me a Kipper
Here's the fight. From memory, Gozreh is recharged to her power and the Achaekek is being used as a blessing. Again leaving nothing to chance here and Kipper is smashed into the henchman pile.
Healing
End of Feiya's turn, and yikes! She's been failing recharge checks and now only has 3 cards left, she's at risk of death. Fortunately she's drawn her healing item (not that fortunate, since she's been through the whole deck and cycled all the way to cards she earlier recharged), and rolled well. I put that card in there because she can recharge with a craft check, but I forgot to roll it and just buried it anyway. Oh well.
Found him!
Alahazra scouts and... there he is (that's 4 cards deep). No better contribution to passing a scenario than scouting the villain. We can now explore blind everywhere else with much less risk (not sure I actually ever did though).
Turn 8
She now scouts the already-seen Falcata +1 but it's her turn this time and she can fail it back to the box. Underneath is a Marine.
Closing the Docks
There's now a monster face up on top of every deck, so much for trying to scout-encounter boons. Alahazra has an ally to bury, and Gilbrok doesn't banish divine spells, so she's in a good position to take him down. I've used Black Spot as a spell, and discarding Blazing Servant as a "blessing", and Feiya's given a Pirate's Favour as well. I'm subtracting 1 from each dice, which I've already accounted for in the +8 (6 base, +2 for her own ability, +5 black spot, -5 for 5 dice). Bury Dindreann and just 3 locations left.
Turn 9
Ezren takes out the marine comfortably (I've subtracted the veteran bonus from his base bonus). Buries a card from his deck at end of turn.
Turn 10
And, there's the last henchman (4 deep).
Devil in the pit
Feiya takes him out. I banish my first card (not counting the basic armour to close the Sea Fort), a B. of Pharasma (Alahazra's). This was utterly unnecessary, but even if it wasn't a one-off challenge this is the climax so live a little.
Closing the Torture Pit
Sorry, what's that? A closing check. Oh, right. What is it again? 11. What's my dexterity? Hmmm... d4. I knew noone was good at this, but d4... oh well. Fortunately, I have Old Salt. Have I mentioned just how good Old Salt is? I throw all the blessings (and Ezren-power-"blessing") at it, roll like garbage... and still get a 13 thanks to my salty, salty friend.
End of turn movement
At this point she uses Control Weather to move Ezren off this horrible location. One less card buried that way. Why didn't I do it at the end of his turn and save a bury then as well? Poor planning, no other reason. At least he gave his +2 on the Erinyes Devil this way. Feiya buries a card at end of turn, she's getting low again and Alhazra with the healing is at another location all the time.
Final Encounter
Alahazra moves into place (not shown) to temp-close the Shrine. Ezren encounters the villain and Feiya uses Dimension Leap - another card which is not that great in my opinion in general, but is decent in this scenario to skip out of those nasty start of turn location powers.
Now, at this point, really, I should have just waited a full round for everyone to draw a full hand of cards. But, well, where's the fun in that, seriously? I've had such good luck with the shuffling, why blow this chance to get a record finish in this scenario. I do have an excellent shot anyway, the only thing that could mess me up is someone encountering Kipper in the pre-villain battle, and the wrong player taking the damage.
Temp Close
Yes that's why I put those blessings in the decks - poor choice for a 1 scenario challenge otherwise, but really really good for this shrine.
Henchman pile #1
1-4 from top to bottom, Alahazra's roll.
Lazy option
Remember this chain mail? I could banish a bunch of cards and roll a bunch of dice against this henchman. Or I could just not, and banish this armour to reduce the damage to 0. Since there's no penalty for failing, don't even shuffle the monster back into a deck, let's just do that then.
Henchman pile #2
Feiya's roll, it's Gilbrok. And by Gilbrok I mean Hurrah it's not Kipper!! Hey, here's a question also, do you work out who everyone's fighting then resolve everything (in whatever order you choose)? Or do you do randomise, encounter, randomise, encounter (etc. for more players)? Is summon and encounter one atomic unit and we need to do the whole thing befoe we do another player? Who knows. I picked the strictly harder option so that I didn't feel bad if I was wrong. I think that's right anyway but normally in a group we might do it all at once to save time.
Gilbrok again
Feiya has so many attack spells she can afford to recharge one for her power while using another. I think I forgot I was subtracting one from each dice rolled here, but I got away with it anyway.
Check 1, recharge power
On to the villain encounter. I just autofail the "evade" check so I'm rolling for 28s. Ezren has no armour and recharges these two cards.
Fighting Barnabas
Ezren uses these cards. I end up being two chicken to use any cards from Feiya here because she could roll a 4 on her d4 recharges. In hindsight that was a good reason to do these checks in the other order. I reveal not discard the hook and then recharge it with the ring to Wall of Blades. This is why Wall of Blades sucks by the way, no-one has spare cards in their hand during the critical fights. I could have just discarded the hook for another d6 instead of 2d8 and would have had the ring to discard to add a d12 to Feiya's check. 2d8 is actually worse than d6+d12, but Ezren needed more help. The +6 difficulty cancels Ezren's base and we're left just rolling lots of dice. They didn't land like that I've moved them into two 10s and a 2 with a 3, 4 and 4 left over.
Check 2, recharge power
Feiya's turn, she only recharges 2 cards. Now I know I could have used the Black Spot to help Ezren, who in turn could have taken the other option and given back that d12. But if I'd then rolled a 4 here I was screwed.
Fighting Harrigan
In any case though Feiya blitzes it (the Pteranodon is recharged to her power for its adventure deck number, and there's an unseen blessing from Alahazra).
d4 blessings
Discard 2 blessings to Harrigan and we're finished, with 16 remaining!
So, overall you can see I got quite lucky with early henchmen. Overall dealt with 20 cards out of 60 compared to an average of 33. But I hope you can also see that I had enough resources spare, between 16 turns and never using the dreamstone explores that it would have been winnable with even ordinary luck. Feiya was getting low on cards but Alahazra was cycling three (rechargeable) healing cards through her deck. And hopefully some of the sloppy play makes it feel all the more achievable. I was a bit cheesy with all the movement effects and the selective banishing but hopefully that gives you some ideas as well.
Hahahha!! Kudos, the cheese wheel and glass of wine are great touch!! :D
Otherwise ,any particular reason you started with this turn order? (we usually start with Alahazra, so she can clear out a hand-full's worth of boons if that's the way our luck rolls).
(Also, this scenario had been FAQ'd so you should have had 1 Sentinel Devil instead of an Erynes Devil, but who's counting...:D
Great work!
Amazing! I will check this out in detail later, unfortunately my busy season starts now so my play time will be severely limited. But your detailed session is greatly appreciated.....
I sent you a 20$ gift certificate from Paizo.com and please accept it with my thanks! It may take a day, it was purchased but I couldn't see a way to send it to you, so I sent an email to store@paizo.com, they would probably get the email on Monday.
Thanks again!
Hahahha!! Kudos, the cheese wheel and glass of wine are great touch!! :D
Indeed...
@Irgy, this was a lot of work to write up, and fun to watch. Thanks for doing it. Now - could you seed the villain & henchmen into the bottom 6 cards of each location, and do it again? :)
Note to any other kibitzers: the Jolly Roger is displayed next to the character who plays it, not the ship.
OK. I'm finally back to this and it still goes poorly.
Thanks for all your input. A note about my play style: I will not knowingly or easily risk character death. Having a character get down to less than their hand size is an EVENT in my games. I cannot play a game for a year + and then have it all thrown away to start all over. I put paper cutouts into each draw pile with the hand size written on them above the card where they would be below their hand size in the deck, to warn me when that happens. I may go very slightly into the hand size IF it seems the scenario can be won with not too much risk. BUT I lost Jirelle by taking risks one time and she got just a horrible set of rolls, then had to bury 1D6 from her draw pile, rolled a 5 and DIED. If I was not cautious, I'd be restarting this game every few months and never finish it...
So, rather than try and get this team of 3 through, I had brought Damiel and Lirianne up through AD2 at the same time as the other team and had left them there. So, I brought them up to "Best Served Cold" to see if they could help out...
Damiel:
Skill feats: dexterity x1 ,intelligence x4
Card Feats: Spell x1, Item x 3, Blessing x1
Grenadier role card
Powers:
x hand size 7
x weapons
x You may discard a card to add 1d6 (+1)... x add an additional 1d12.
x when you acquire a boon that has the alchemical or liquid (x or firearm) trait you may immediately explore again.
Lirianne
Skill feats: dexterity x 4, wisdom x1
Card feats: weapon x2, item x1, blessing x2
Deadeye role card
Powers:
Hand size: 5
You may shuffle a card from you hand into your deck to add 1d4: x +1, x +2
x When you encounter a bane, you may attempt a Perception check with a difficulty of 5... to evade it.
x When you move to a different location during your move step, you may examine the top card of that location deck (x and shuffle it into the deck).
Attempt #4:
First, I attempted just Damiel and Lirianne together since they came all this way alone...
Turn #1: Lirianne uses her scout ahead ability in a safe location, finds a monster and dispatches it.
Turn #2: Damiel has an Augury in his hand but I don't like to use it right away, I want to get the deck down a bit to make it worth it. He takes a chance and meets Barnabas. He has no armor in his hand and rolls a 4, has to recharge 4 cards. Now he can't beat Barnabas. Because he failed to defeat, he also has to discard d4 cards from the blessings pile... just because. Rolls a 4. Then has to discard 4 more blessings cards because he didn't defeat the villain. Excellent, this is super fun. Turn 2 and I'm down 1/3 of the blessings deck in a scenario that already has one more location than normal.
Threw the match: closed down this location and used the Letter of Marquis to see if they could at least get some good boons. They got a blessing of Norgorber (good to save for this scenario the next time) and were able to banish some basic / elite weapons.
One week later, I have time to play again
Attempt #5
This time I got out Alahazra and made a team of 3.
Turn #1 - Lirianne uses her scout ahead to a safe location which she could close. Encounters a monster and dispatches it.
Turn #2 - Alahzara uses her power to examine some locations and get some boons eliminated. Also, gets SUPER lucky and finds Barnabas at the Shrine of Norgorboer and an Eriyene Devil at another location.
Middle game: Leave Barnabas alone, got an armor but had to banish to close a location. Played tactically and got it down to 3 locations with each character at one and a good number of blessings left. But then, Damiel failed in his roll to close the Torture Pit. Lirianne defeated Barnabas, but he escaped to the Torture Pit and discarded 2 more cards from the blessing deck (d4 = 2). Now down about 13 cards left.
Now I know where he is and after a few more, found Kipper and closed the Torture pit, emptying it but for Barnabas. But one location had forced Damiel to bury an armor and no one has one in hand now.
Set up the end game: Damiel and Lirianne at the Torture Pit, Alahazra at Docks with an ally ready to bury and temp close (again).
5 blessings left, ready to try again to defeat Barnabas:
Lirianne's turn:
So, scenario rule says to encounter a henchman: Alahazra draws Kipper, Kipper gets to shoot someone... just because, he rolls a 4 + 1 = 5 and now rolls to shoot.... Lirianne... just because. Hand wipe, scenario failed again.
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My advice for this scenario is to never explore with a hand that can't defeat the villain. If you have an (n-1)/n chance of filtering out a single non-villain card, and a 1/n chance of failing on the spot, then on average you're not even ahead.
Scout if you can, and if you can't then pair-up, and avoid exploring without sufficient cards. If you're paired up, then you only need 5 cards in hand (each) to ensure you each at least keep your weapon for the combat. Obviously Kipper can still ruin anyone's day, but at least never encounter the villain on your own.
Even if it means you have to close more locations before you cover them all - there's not a lot of point covering all the locations if by spreading out you'll fail the villain anyway.
Damiel has an Augury in his hand but I don't like to use it right away, I want to get the deck down a bit to make it worth it.
Don't ever wait on Augury. It's the most valuable resource you have, and the sooner you use it the sooner you cycle back to use it again (this is the most important reason). It's also bad to hold onto it - it's a dead card, you risk having to discard it, and it slows your whole card-cycle down.
But also, there's no profit to waiting either - in fact quite the opposite:
* If you're trying to save explores by finding the henchman/villain, use it as early as possible. There's less chance of hitting with it, but if you do hit then you save more explores, and when you do the math and balance those two factors exploring sooner comes out ahead.
* Since the villain+henchmen are monsters, if you don't find them you still might find normal orange-border monsters and put them on the bottom. You also get more benefit out of doing that the earlier you do it.
* If you're trying to scout the henchman/villain to be prepared, it's a 3/10 chance to scout the henchman regardless of whether you use it early or late - the only difference is whether you fail by missing the Augury or bumbling into the henchman before you get around to using it.
You do get more information to decide where to use Augury if you wait, but that doesn't make up for the costs of waiting. In fact, you probably could be playing it for the second time by the time you have a good idea where to use it most effectively.
Sorry to hear it's still troubling you. Overall it sounds like you came very close on #5. Some suggestions:
* Once you know where the villain is and you're setting up for the final fight, aggressively discard cards that don't help and try and have multiple blessings on hand.
* Take those closing checks as seriously as the checks to defeat. Spread your blessings/bonuses until your chance of failing either is about equal.
* I would generally try to close four locations and double-team the villain, even when I know where he is. You just need less resources overall when people share the two checks.
* Don't procrastinate the hard locations (torture pit and shrine to norgorber), preferably get them out of the way early. Depends on your hand though of course.
Don't ever wait on Augury. It's the most valuable resource you have, and the sooner you use it the sooner you cycle back to use it again (this is the most important reason). It's also bad to hold onto it - it's a dead card, you risk having to discard it, and it slows your whole card-cycle down.
Excellent advice, thanks. I also hadn't been thinking about needing so much armor to get through this one scenario in particular, so I had been banishing all the easy to get armors to have a better chance of upgrading their armor, so now there are very few armors to get easily. It seems a better tactic would be to only banish things like shields and keep the easy to get armors in the game that allow you to banish them to ignore all damage one time.
I tried using the Letter of Marquis to get some armor, but none of the characters have a high constitution so it doesn't work out so well and the characters don't have a lot of time in this scenario for extra explores anyway because:
1. Barnabas takes blessings "just because".
2. There is one extra location.
3. One location takes 1d4 blessings just to close.
Attempt #6
They were able to setup an end game but Damiel was not able to close the torture pit despite throwing the only available blessing at it, leaving the location open with no henchmen.
We found Barnabas, but then Lirianne failed a check at a barrier, which moved her and the barrier to a random location (where Barnabas was...) and then he got shuffled back into the location. Fortunately they were lucky enough to scout him again and the best we could do was:
Lirianne ready to fight Barnabas alone at the Beach.
Damiel at the Torture Pit ready to temp close.
Alahazra at Gannet Island ready to temp close.
2 blessings remain in the blessing deck.
Now, to win:
Damiel and Alahazra would have to survive defeating 2 henchmen (again) and still be able to help Lirianne.
Hopefully Kip doesn't come out and wipe someone's hand, "just because".
Hopefully Damiel can temp close that location (which WILL require one blessing and some luck)
And then, Lirianne would have to defeat Barnabas twice on her own and she did have one armor to recharge and then she could get lucky and defeat him the first time and then get lucky again and NOT have to discard her only weapon when he has her discard cards ("just because") and then get lucky again and defeat him the second time.
But none of those long odds matter, because Barnabas discarded 2 blessings from the blessing deck ("just because") and then Alahazra can't temp close Gannet Island anyway.
Scenario failed.
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Attempt #7
Got lucky. Very lucky.
Scouted Barnabas early and he was at the Torture Pit so I don't need to worry about closing that location.
Found and acquired 3 armors. Found and acquired 2 blessings. Found and acquired 2 good pistols. All 3 characters were at Gannet Island when it was closed and got another armor.
Very lucky: found and acquired a Dagger Pistol, which, despite it not being a solid weapon for Lirianne at this point, has the crucial (to this scenario) Swashbuckling trait so, if used, will stop Barnabas from discarding d4 blessings cards and just discard 1.
Bad luck
Took a chance on a non-scouted explore though and hit Luccaria who caused a bit of damage to Alahazra. But then I knew where she was and decided it was best to just try and temp-close her location without trying to find her again.
Final setup:
4 blessings remain.
Alahazra is at the Shrine to Norgorber ready to temp close with a Blessing of Norgorber.
Damiel is at the Docks ready to bury an ally that Alahazra passed off to him on her last turn.
Lirianne is at the Torture Pit ready to take on Barnabas with 2x pistols (one is the Dagger pistol) and 3 x armors to recharge for Barnabas.
I decide to use a blessing to try and get her to pass the difficult Perception roll and not have to add 6 to the difficulty: fails.
Alahazra encounters a random henchmen and does poorly against it (Eryiene Devil) but she also has armor and simply discards it for the damage.
Damiel encounters Kip, also Kip randomly does damage to... Damiel. Damiel also has an armor so no real damage done. Damiel wins his fight.
Now, Damiel and Alahazra have 3 blessings between them, one is the Blessing of Achakek so both of Liriannes attacks will get +2d8 rolls.
She buries both weapons: Success
Just for kicks, I roll a d4 to see how many blessings Barnabas would have discarded: 4, which would have failed the scenario.
I want to say I've enjoyed this scenario but cannot. Just too random, too much punishment and if you don't get everything exactly just right and get real lucky, forget it. If Lirianne hadn't gotten that Dagger Pistol during the scenario, it would have failed.
I really like this game, but all this randomness kind of kills it for me. The Swashbuckling trait and armor requirements just feel like a punishment, they don't feel like they add anything to the game, like they are saying: You didn't take Oloch and a swashbuckler, shame on you!
Now, I've got 3 characters past this scenario and 2 (Ezren and Feiya) that have not completed it. Most likely they will not. I will continue on with Damiel / Alahazra / Lirianne and finish the game and then decide what to do. If AD6 seems like something Ezren and Feiya could handle with some help, I will come back with the Hurricane crown and then have a reason to do this scenario again so I can finish with Ezren and Feiya, or just move on to something else.
Thanks for your help guys...