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I want to side step the debate about whether wrath is ‘hard’, ‘fun’, or ‘too random’ (though, for what it’s worth I love it and love the increased difficult), and instead focus on the relative balance of the base set scenarios. The base set scenarios are, in my mind, far more challenging than those of AP1. They have a difficulty curve that looks like an EKG chart. Moreover, I think they are poorly designed, because rather than pulling people into the game and gradually introducing them to more difficult scenarios, they front load the most challenging aspects of the game.
This isn’t just an opinion; data supports the idea that base set scenarios are incredibly challenging, as we can see from looking at Boon/Bane ratios, scenario rules, and the banes themselves.
Bane ratios
Here are the ratios of banes for the 10 scenarios in the boxed set, as well as the number of non-henchmen barriers (a number I wanted to include because of the particular challenge posed by cards like Demonic Hoard and Arboreal Blight). This ratio is particularly important, because boons general don’t threaten your hand and consume relativity minor amounts of resources. Banes are what makes the game difficult. I assumed a 5 person party for the purposes of the data set, but the general trends hold true regardless of Party size
B1 17/70 3
B2 36/70 10
B3 32/70 7
B4 25/70 7
B5 41/70 14
AP1-1 26/70 4
AP1-2 31/70 9
AP1-3 24/70 6
AP1-4 23/70 3
AP1-5 28/70 6
First, the basic scenarios have a lot more banes, particularly when you get past the soft ball that is B1. Most of the basic scenarios have more banes than every single scenario in AP1. What’s more, with the exception of AP1-2, barriers make up a smaller percentage of the banes in AP1, and you never get inundated with them like you do in B5, a scenario which all but assures you will have to face the worst of the barriers multiple times.
Banes are rough, and the base scenarios makes you fight many more of them.
Scenario Rules
This problem is compounded by the scenario rules, specifically the scenario rules that effect closing locations and cornering the villain. B2, B4 and B5 all offer additional rules that make it more difficult to win the game. Makes you have to go through the entirety of most location decks to permanently close a location, B4 has a villain which some characters may not be able to defeat who spawns an additional location, and B5 requires you to corner the villain twice and has a villain who can evade.
In contrast, none of the scenarios in AP1 make it harder to close locations. In fact, both AP1 and AP 3 make scenarios easier. AP1 closes location when you encounter henchmen and AP3 adds additional henchmen into locations, making a close more likely.
Bane Quality
This one is more abstract, but the banes in the base set are more dangerous than those in AP1. The two most fearsome barriers in the game thus far both come from the base set. The most challenging monster, the carrion golem, is also from the base set. Most of the monsters that deal automatic damage (Mongrel Wizards, Mongrel Archers, the banes from Demon Rogue whose name I forget, etc), come in the base set. As a result, adding AP1 makes the game easier than just playing the base game. The threat of the worst of the banes becomes diluted, and you encounter the truly hideous cards less often
Net result – Or, ‘Why so many people hate The Elven Entanglement’
Nothing embodies how these factors come together better than B2, the elven entanglement. B2 has more banes in general and more non-henchmen barriers than anything in AP1. Those banes are quite dangerous, and you are very likely to face multiple copies of the hideous barriers. What’s worse is the scenario rules will turn additional boons into banes. And the lack of henchmen that allow you to close locations mean you will have to churn through a ton of extra cards and almost certainly rely heavily on temporary closing to win.
This is one of the most challenging scenarios in the whole of the PACG. IT SHOULD NOT BE THE SECOND ADVENTURE IN THE BASE SET. I love challenge and difficulty, but the game should build to this kind of test, not throw it to you out of the gates. This scenario is hard enough for experienced players, but it will turn novice players off of the game.
In general, the designers have done a wonderful job with PACG, but I think they missed the mark, and missed it badly, with the relatively difficulty of the base scenarios.
After playing Adventure 1 and 2, I can say with certainty that the base set cards are actually harder than AD 1 and 2.
Especially barriers. The AD1 barriers are all temptations and Rally, with mostly just upside.
Everyone just needs to hang in there. Things get even easier once you get your Mythic path (+2 to all prime attribute rolls tend to help). And more interesting.
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Agree with this sentiment. Wrath is lots of fun for the hard-core PACG enthusiast, and the challenge is part of that fun. In smaller groups where it's easier to get together for a game, this set can be fun.
Wrath does not appear to be for larger groups of players who have busy lives (finding it harder to get together regularly). These groups probably don't desire to take the time to play scenario numerous times to get chance on their side for the win. There are definitely strategies that can help stave off death, but for several of these scenarios (e.g., Elven Entanglement), there isn't much that really help ensure winning.
I agree with all of the above. The issue is when you have friends taking time and effort to join you for a game, try and fail B2 three times, they just dump the game and turn to a funnier one.
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I wholeheartedly agree with you on all counts here. I don't necessarily have a problem with the overall challenge. I have a problem with this overall challenge happening so quickly. Even if we assume that this adventure path isn't designed for new players (everyone did S&S or RotR already), the base set is still when you're learning a new character, as well as new boons and banes, and trying to get better than basic starting gear. The level of difficulty should be set such that there is time to acclimate, which just isn't the case.
Honestly, I was really hopeful after the first scenario, since this had been a problem (though much, much smaller) in S&S (Even RotR had much higher bane counts in the base adventure, but made up for it with much easier scenario conditions). However, the absolute brick-wall-level leap in difficulty from B-1 to B-2 is just poor design. It feels like there's no difficulty slope.
One last point, perception does matter. At this point, everyone on these fora know that the Adventure gets easier once you get to the Adventure decks, for one reason or another. However, someone less invested in the game has no reason to assume that. So, if they feel that the Base set is too hard, they aren't going to look at the first adventure and say, 'hey, maybe we should try that, it must be easier.' They are going to say 'Well, I guess this game wasn't made for us.'
I think that's one thing I want to make clear, since I know I've been nagging on this way too much. I'm not bothered by the difficulty for the sake of myself and my players (we're entrenched enough that we can change the game ourselves), my worry is that the difficulty is going to be a barrier to entry for new players, which will make it harder for the game to grow and sustain itself. The game should get hard. Possibly balls-to-the-walls stupid hard. But if it doesn't start on the lower end of the spectrum, the hardcore players won't appreciate the raising of the stakes (the existence of RotR mitigates this problem somewhat), and the casual players will never get invested long enough to experience the triumphs.
TL;DR: If a game starts easy, there's some level of expectation that it will get hard. If a game starts hard, there's an expectation that it will stay hard, and likely get harder. A game that starts hard doesn't present a sense of escalation to hardcore gamers, and scares off casual ones.
I have had the misfortune of playing through the Elven Entanglement two times. The first time we slogged through it, we pulled 3 Arboreal Blight barriers. As you can imagine, such luck was pretty damning and we ultimately failed. On the second play-through, it went better.
What absolutely annoys me to no end about the scenario are the carnivorous stumps.
How I felt yesterday: *Explores* "Oh good. An ally. A mastiff. I was worried it'd be a monster. Oh, wait. It has the animal trait. I guess I couldn't differentiate between a stump and a dog. *rolls*" It was very, very annoying. I think I fought one of those stumps 5 times or so. True enough there are far worse monsters to be stuck fighting (Fiendish Trees, Mongrel Wizards) but it gets old quickly.
Even worse, the rewards you get for such a difficult scenario are pretty garbage. A random spell or weapon? Doesn't really help Balazar that much...
Additionally, all the summoned monsters REALLY make playing Balazar irksome. When a regular monster is substituted, I cannot use my ability to take the monster's card when I defeat it which would somewhat help mitigate all the damage I take from the "before/after combat X damage" monsters. So every time I encountered one of those stupid stumps, that was another card I was screwed out of it.
All things considered, I agree with the sentiment that The Elven Entanglement is out of place being the second scenario in the basic quest.
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Could be some wisdom in what you’re saying about scaring off new gamers, Mr. Birk 898. And I’m curious about isaic16’s comment about the possibility of the AP starting out very hard and not really escalating in difficulty. For if one day demons and devils no longer seem scary, there go some of our best metaphors.
But allow me to play Khorramzadeh’s advocate for a moment. Just for a little fun and reminiscing.
I enjoyed the breakdown of bane ratio stats. It’s helpful to see them laid out so well. These numbers definitely demonstrate something. But do they necessarily mean the B scenarios are poorly designed? …Why?
You see, growing up on tabletop games, I remember well that the easiest time for a PC to die was generally in the early levels. This was sort of a given. Everyone just seemed to know it. There certainly was more chance to put up with early on, and just about everything was threatening to your character. In fact, it was a celebration-worthy feat getting through that first bottleneck, indeed. Endure the trials, and only then the world begins to reveal its boons. As with the fool’s journey, games often started out awful and merciless. Survive, and the game got easier. In fact, it only got hard again after our hero mistakenly believes that he’s mastered some aspect of the external world...
So I guess we've been doin' it in reverse now, and for many long years. Since the beginning of WoW, at least, we like our challenges to always be gentlemanly and wait until we are ready. That's cool. It's kind of like the duel between Inigo and the Man in Black, and THAT certainly was cool. But it’s not the only ‘non-broken’ way to have fun. Near perfect scaling is something that us gamers have simply been indoctrinated with, and so now we demand it or we feel that some mechanic is flawed. I’m guilty of this reflex, too. It’s just, my doctor would like to see me cut back is all.
But, could we ever consider this callous, nooblet-hating lethality of yore as a legitimate and potentially rewarding alternative these days? There was certainly a natural balance and benefit to our experiences with character loss tending to happen to us earlier rather than later. For one, catching up was much easier! Getting to experiment with a variety of novice builds before getting our footing gave us a larger picture of the game as a whole, and it didn’t put us too far behind our mates at that stage. As a bonus, a low-level character death or two helped instill a feeling of genuine threat at a relatively low time-cost (compared to the loss of a high level character)—yet we’d also somehow carry that memory with us, eventually far into the advanced levels; and thus was maintained the illusion of dire consequences even at the point where characters sometimes began to enjoy something akin to invulnerability.
Someone here made a point that the threat shouldn’t be so high when we are first acclimating to our characters. Feels like a solid point. But, what about acclimating to loss and recovery? That is part of this game, too. Would you rather get your first taste of having to restart right away or much later? I’m for now when I can catch up faster. What’s that? You say you’d prefer Nevar? I guess that’s good too.
On repeating scenarios, I could only repeat what I’ve said in another post, so I won’t. It’s also a much less fun discussion than death.
At any rate, if the B scenarios are really going to be many peoples’ tutorial experience with all of PACG, I hear what you’re saying. But then wait a minute. What about the group out there that shelved RotRL because they were outraged over what little fight was put up by ol’ Pillbug “Pushover” Podiker? Like, those guys probably exist too, right? Maybe if they started with WotR, they wouldn’t have had to give up and move on to skydiving with Bengal tigers or something… To think of the lives, and tigers, that Wrath may have even saved.
Well, I suppose all I really mean is that I’m not so sure I’d call these scenarios poorly designed. That kind of implies that the makers set out to achieve a mark and missed it. The scenario configs really seem to me to be a purposeful ‘choice’, rather. Perhaps it is the wrong choice. But I guess if it is a choice, it can only be wrong for some. That is, UNLESS the designers truly intended to start out mild and then gently and evenly build the challenge level. THEN, your table would present some damning evidence that the gods must be crazy, sure. But who among us knows a dev’s mind, eh? We don’t even have any in captivity to study—for they seem to know how to spot our tangle traps, you see (even despite the label stating “100% Unpredictable”). But until we’ve got one strapped to the examining table, I feel I must yield that even such a peculiar bane/boon ratio progression as that boils down to a matter of preference rather than Unintelligent Design or something. Peace, & thanks for a stimulating and informative analysis.
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I don't want to say anything that short-circuits or redirects this useful discussion. I will say that we are reading it and seeing what you guys have to say.
I too am enjoying this discussion. I've only played the first adventure with a party of Adowyn, Balazar, and Crowe. It turns out that we played Balazar wrong - we used Glibness to add to his check and we put defeated Summoned monsters into his hand. We're trying to get back to playing it the proper way. Having said that, we did find it harder than RotR, but since we've been breezing through RotR (up to AP4-2 without really coming close to losing), I felt this was a good thing. However, I am quite worried about the other adventures as I've read so many disconcerting things about them.
If it does turn out that AP1 is easier than the introductory adventures, that does seem a bit strange to me. As soon as we're done with the basic adventures, I'll report back.
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I enjoyed the breakdown of bane ratio stats. It’s helpful to see them laid out so well. These numbers definitely demonstrate something. But do they necessarily mean the B scenarios are poorly designed? …Why?
You see, growing up on tabletop games, I remember well that the easiest time for a PC to die was generally in the early levels. This was sort of a given. Everyone just seemed to know it. There certainly was more chance to put up with early on, and just about everything was threatening to your character. In fact, it was a celebration-worthy feat getting through that first bottleneck, indeed. Endure the trials, and only then the world begins to reveal its boons. As with the fool’s journey, games often started out awful and merciless. Survive, and the game got easier. In fact, it only got hard again after our hero mistakenly believes that he’s mastered some aspect of the external world...
This is certainly a valid consideration, and one of the best points in favor of the higher difficulty. However, I think the problem with it is, simply, this isn't an RPG. The advantage RPG's have in this regard is twofold, 1. they are more storytelling medium than game and 2. there is a DM adjudicating the process. This means that losing isn't always a failure, and the game can be more easily tailored to different tastes (as a DM, I have fudged more dice than I can count to save PC's from the RNG gods). I believe (and you are more than welcome to disagree, as this is subjective) that with this being a Card-based (rather than role-playing) game, with no independent judge, that the design of the game itself has to provide a level of rising tension as part of the process.
So I guess we've been doin' it in reverse now, and for many long years. Since the beginning of WoW, at least, we like our challenges to always be gentlemanly and wait until we are ready. That's cool. It's kind of like the duel between Inigo and the Man in Black, and THAT certainly was cool. But it’s not the only ‘non-broken’ way to have fun. Near perfect scaling is something that us gamers have simply been indoctrinated with, and so now we demand it or we feel that some mechanic is flawed. I’m guilty of this reflex, too. It’s just, my doctor would like to see me cut back is all.
This process far predates WoW, in fact I'd argue you could find it as early as Pac-Man (man those ghosts sure got faster as you leveled up), and became a staple by the time we saw Final Fantasy and Dragon's Quest in the mid-'80s. The reason I bring up Video games in the comparison (besides your reference), is the fact that they represent the most widespread use of the player-vs-independent-force construct that is used in this game. I would argue that we have seen years of testing the different methods of introducing players to this medium in Video Games, and the result seems to be conclusive in that a steadily increasing difficulty curve is the most popular method to attract players.
But, could we ever consider this callous, nooblet-hating lethality of yore as a legitimate and potentially rewarding alternative these days? There was certainly a natural balance and benefit to our experiences with character loss tending to happen to us earlier rather than later. For one, catching up was much easier! Getting to experiment with a variety of novice builds before getting our footing gave us a larger picture of the game as a whole, and it didn’t put us too far behind our mates at that stage. As a bonus, a low-level character death or two helped instill a feeling of genuine threat at a relatively low time-cost (compared to the loss of a high level character)—yet we’d also somehow carry that memory with us, eventually far into the advanced levels; and thus was maintained the illusion of dire consequences even at the point where characters sometimes began to enjoy something akin to invulnerability.
You are correct. This is a perfectly valid alternative. Going back to the video game analogy, we see games like Super Meatboy and I Wanna be the Guy designed to punish the player. However, even in those games, the hardest challenges are saved for the end, since accomplishing the hardest parts early makes the rest of the adventure boring.
Someone here made a point that the threat shouldn’t be so high when we are first acclimating to our characters. Feels like a solid point. But, what about acclimating to loss and recovery? That is part of this game, too. Would you rather get your first taste of having to restart right away or much later? I’m for now when I can catch up faster. What’s that? You say you’d prefer Nevar? I guess that’s good too.
On repeating scenarios, I could only repeat what I’ve said in another post, so I won’t. It’s also a much less fun discussion than death.
I agree again, this is a reasonable point. However, as I said before, if the hardest scenario is the first, then you aren't acclimating them to loss that they will experience throughout the adventure. You're acclimating them to loss that they will never experience again, which defeats the point.
At any rate, if the B scenarios are really going to be many peoples’ tutorial experience with all of PACG, I hear what you’re saying. But then wait a minute. What about the group out there that shelved RotRL because they were outraged over what little fight was put up by ol’ Pillbug “Pushover” Podiker? Like, those guys probably exist too, right? Maybe if they started with WotR, they wouldn’t have had to give up and move on to skydiving with Bengal tigers or something… To think of the lives, and tigers, that Wrath may have even saved.
There may very well have been people that were turned off by those easy scenarios. I think the general consensus was that RotR base set was too easy. But this is a false dilemma. The solution is somewhere between those extremes (I'd argue a bit below S&S as well, but others say that is about right, so we'll settle there). In addition, as I said in my previous post, there is an inherent expectation that challenge increases, not decreases, so it's much easier to sell 'it's easy now, but just wait until AD2' than it is to say 'I know you're struggling now, but once you get through the base set, it's all downhill from here!' (And actually, that brings up another point against this. If it's too hard, you have to replay the scenarios repeatedly, and it takes up a lot of time. If it's too easy, you breeze straight through and can get to the hard stuff faster).
Well, I suppose all I really mean is that I’m not so sure I’d call these scenarios poorly designed. That kind of implies that the makers set out to achieve a mark and missed it. The scenario configs really seem to me to be a purposeful ‘choice’, rather. Perhaps it is the wrong choice. But I guess if it is a choice, it can only be wrong for some. That is, UNLESS the designers truly intended to start out mild and then gently and evenly build the challenge level. THEN, your table would present some damning evidence that the gods must be crazy, sure. But who among us knows a dev’s mind, eh? We don’t even have any in captivity to study—for they seem to know how to spot our tangle traps, you see (even despite the label stating “100% Unpredictable”). But until we’ve got one strapped to the examining table, I feel I must yield that even such a peculiar bane/boon ratio progression as that boils down to a matter of preference rather than Unintelligent Design or something. Peace, & thanks for a stimulating and informative analysis.
You may be right that this is the design they are aiming for. I believe everyone at Lone Shark Games knows what they're doing, so it's entirely probably you are right. If it is, though, my argument would be that it was a poor business decision on their part. Whether I'm right or not I can't say, but at least I can let them know...
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You see, growing up on tabletop games, I remember well that the easiest time for a PC to die was generally in the early levels. This was sort of a given. Everyone just seemed to know it. There certainly was more chance to put up with early on, and just about everything was threatening to your character. In fact, it was a celebration-worthy feat getting through that first bottleneck, indeed.
I get what your saying, but it doesn't apply here. Youa re arguing that the strength of low-level PCs relative to the threats that they face make low-level D&D (just to pick an example) more dangerous than high level D&D.
I'm not arguing the relative power of low level PACG characters, I am talking about absolute difficulty of scenarios. AP1 isn't easier than the base scenarios because your characters have gained more cards and a skill feat or two. AP1 is easier in absolute terms.
To go back to your rpg example, if you had first level characters who were consistently fighting hire level enemies than what those same characters fought at third level, that would probably be bad campaign design (unless your GM had a very deliberate story reason). in 'Wrath' you first five games are against more challenging scenarios, in absolute not relative terms, than your second five scenarios (when you your characters are actually more powerful). That's bad design.
I don't want to say anything that short-circuits or redirects this useful discussion. I will say that we are reading it and seeing what you guys have to say.
Nice to hear you are listening, Mike. I just wanted to reiterate that I continue to be impressed by the work of your team, and really enjoyed playing through AP1 of wrath. But, on my second play through I debated just skipping the base scenarios and jumping right into the AP, and that prompted me to post.
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Disclaimer: The only Wraith I've played thus far is the first 3 adventures of the Season of the Righteous, so the 1 cards are mixed in. My fiancee and I split our time between the Skull and Shackles box adventures and the Season of the Shackles, and as a result we're in the middle of both.
Given all I've heard about the difficulty of the Base Set, I wonder if it would be reasonable to play the B adventures with a temporary Mythic Path as if the deck number was 1. That idea comes from running the intro adventure "Demonic Politics" a bunch at PaizoCon. (As an aside, I thought the demo was rather well designed; I liked the damage mitigation via blessings mechanic).
isaic16,
I hate you.
I'm just kidding, naturally! You put that together really well and a whole bunch of it makes sense to me.
However, I think I miscommunicated the bit about scaling. I didn't mean to say that it begun when WoW did. I recognize that the creepies in video games often gradually got harder. I was hoping to point out that the point where the average gamer began outright rejecting anything BUT nearly perfectly scaled challenges happened sometime in WoW's heyday. In fact, that game had a lot to do with the phenomenon that sealed the lid on what stuff like Everquest started. How those games trained a generation is common knowledge among big game studios these days. I'm sure you know, and I'm really just parroting here. Too big and off topic an area to go into, this. So back to cards, eh.
Now, isaic16, perhaps you failed to realize something after all. About all this WotR 'difficulty' and 'challenge' hullabaloo: did you ever stop to consider that the demons might be making me post all this nonsense in hopes to get players to spend their days endlessly repeating scenarios? Of course, officially, I must deny such absurdity. But, unofficially, be a dear and maybe spare us a blessing already?
@ Joshua Birk 898:
I still do not understand why a later adventure or scenario MUST be more difficult in ABSOLUTE terms. This is always bad design?
Listen. The way you are describing it is actually the way that I Prefer it! Honestly! BUT, this is a MUST, or else its a bad design? No exceptions?
I fear that I'm not gonna be able to get it. But thanks for your patience, my man.
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Honestly, The Elven Entanglement could be made into a much less frustrating scenario in one of two ways.
1. Allow Tangle Traps to allow players to close their location.
Or...
2. Reduce the number of locations for the scenario by 1, to compensate for the lack of closing-capable henchmen.
Hooloovoo's mention of examples was an inspiration! Hooloolooja.
Mr. Joshua Birk 898, perhaps an example can help me see a bit more clearly if nothing else will, eh?
So if I am to understand that a later challenge must be—in terms of “absolute” difficulty—harder to win than an earlier challenge, otherwise a design error has been committed; and this is true in every case with no exceptions, then might I beseech your insight and explanation as to the following:
In RotRL AD1 Scenario 1, Sandpoint is set afire by a goblin army. There’s a villain and henchoids and everything. In the following Scenario #2, the rejoicing people of Sandpoint hail the defending characters as heroes and the whole scenario plays out as a villainless, henchless ally-grab—essentially a whole scenario as a reward.
Now to help me understand: First, I might be wrong here, but I would assume that you found scenario #2 to be relatively appropriate, fun and design flaw free. Yet 2 comes after 1 (I’ll cite Big Bird as my source). Okay, I’m being serious here. Is the reason that this does not qualify as a violation to your rule because:
1) This is but one scenario, and not a whole Adventure deck.
2) It seems reasonable, story-wise, that the experienced ‘absolute’ challenge level gets weaker because the heroes earned a reward. And the scenario is cool.
3) Wait a moment! Now that I think about, this is a design flaw indeed! Those b@st@rds did it to me again!
Now, I’m really curious. If 1) is true, then isn’t this purely an arbitrary opinion (one that in most cases I am likely to agree with you, but still just an opinion)? Moreover, if any part of your answer relates to 2), then isn’t it possible, even just Possible, that the devs could make a whole Adventure Deck that felt cool and rewarding, even though it is altogether weaker than its predecessor? No amount of imagination and/or fun could prevent them from earning a design demerit?
Of course, I’m not talking about WotR AD1, as you surely must know. Not in the least. Regarding WotR specifically, I’ve really only offered thoughts on AD0. Your and my opinions on AD1’s difficulty could very well be the same. But it’s your base concepts of scaling and design flaws and hard rules without any possible exceptions to ‘em and such that’s been intriguing me most.
Anyway, I still don't get it, do I?
Have you considered the difficulty of these cards after obtaining the Mythic cards at the end of AD1? These cards have to scale for a considerable amount of time, and we spend more time with the Mythic abilities than without. I'd give it til we've played AD2 before we declare how "balanced" it is.
For now, we'd need to consider whether a new group, a time-starved group, and a mid-core group would ever reach the end of AD1. I should have my AD2 soon, and I'll be glad to share (spoiler-free a'course!) data on it when I get it. :)
The more time that you've put into a character, the more a death will suck. If you want to have a party bake scenario, putting it before anyone has gained any feats minimizes the negative consequences to the entire campaign. (This is the same principle as video games killing low-level characters being not so bad.)
Wrath has AD1 loot to resurrect the entire party and from AD2 onwards characters may have a mythic role to resurrect a character. If you want to scare players with death, you need to do so early.
I assume that player reaction to killer scenarios would be affected by text telling you that you are going through the Fire Swamps (from which nobody has every returned) and up the Cliffs of Insanity (also a bad plan), after which things will get a lot better. Helps if players actually read the flavour text, of course. Maybe a scenario rule where you add an extra zombie henchman for every character that died during a previous run-through would get the point across.
Hooloovoo's mention of examples was an inspiration! Hooloolooja.
Mr. Joshua Birk 898, perhaps an example can help me see a bit more clearly if nothing else will, eh?
So if I am to understand that a later challenge must be—in terms of “absolute” difficulty—harder to win than an earlier challenge, otherwise a design error has been committed; and this is true in every case with no exceptions, then might I beseech your insight and explanation as to the following:
In RotRL AD1 Scenario 1, Sandpoint is set afire by a goblin army. There’s a villain and henchoids and everything. In the following Scenario #2, the rejoicing people of Sandpoint hail the defending characters as heroes and the whole scenario plays out as a villainless, henchless ally-grab—essentially a whole scenario as a reward.
Now to help me understand: First, I might be wrong here, but I would assume that you found scenario #2 to be relatively appropriate, fun and design flaw free. Yet 2 comes after 1 (I’ll cite Big Bird as my source). Okay, I’m being serious here. Is the reason that this does not qualify as a violation to your rule because:
This is a card game. It has to work as a card game. If something only works from a narrative perspective, that's a problem.
The being said, the game has always had ebbs and flow in absolute difficulty from scenario to scenario. So no, i don;t think the RotR AP1-1 to AP1-2 a problem. Part of why it isn't a problem is that the difficulty reduction isn't nearly as pronounced as it is in Wrath, nor is it sustained over multiple games.
I acknowledged in my first response to you that their could be exceptions. That said, I am far more interested in the specifics than debates and abstract principles.
So if I am to understand that a later challenge must be—in terms of “absolute” difficulty—harder to win than an earlier challenge, otherwise a design error has been committed; and this is true in every case with no exceptions...
This is a straw man argument.
What I hear Joshua saying is that the base set adventure should not, on the whole, be more difficult than adventure 1. No one is saying that there shouldn't be variations in difficulty within an adventure.
Characters get stronger as they progress through the game: they have more feats and better cards. It makes sense that the difficulty increases as the characters improve. I don't see the point of making an earlier adventure, on the whole, harder than a later adventure.
I don't want to say anything that short-circuits or redirects this useful discussion. I will say that we are reading it and seeing what you guys have to say.
Thanks Mike, I really really appreciate your position on this. As you may have guessed due to my numerous posts, I'm a deep deep fan of your game. And I value the time and effort that you and the guys around are putting to make it different and better each time. But I'm also a strong believer that whatever the number of tests you've done, sometimes there are some tries and errors happening. And the best way to manage those is to let the players give an unbiased first impression. So great that you guys are letting that happen.
In this specific case (launch of WotR) there seems to me that they are some consistent feedbacks from at least an non negligeable part of the players that feel that harder was good but that the game was this time lacking the "time to adapt" introductory scenarii. I. e. a game designed only for veteran players. Would be OK for an extension of a previous game, but that's not how it is presented. Just food for thoughts for Mummies time.
Actually, if I may add to what I already reported on my own experience, I would say that the Arboreal/Horde/Golem... early carnage created a double move back from my players. A) Nobody likes having a character dying in scenario 2 or having to play 4 times the same scenarii and B) Because of the stress to actually defeat a scenario everybody in my group is now too scared to spend just one turn looting (*) - and if you add that to the no-skill-feat no-power-feat rewards, there is a feeling of no-reward during all AP0 that is even made worst by the fact that you add to play some 10 times to actually complete AP0. Except for veteran players like me who know that it will be fun later (because we know you :-)), that may be something you can change a bit for next time.
Just my $0.02.
(*) We play with 6 players, meaning our game is on the average only 5 turns per player. In B2 scenario, it actually is more like 3 or 4 turns only that you will "play" (with at least a little choice of action) due to the many times when you'll start your turn with very little cards in any. The way my players saw it was : there is no room left in that 3-4 turns window to loot anything... too frustrating. Also, there is the drawback that with 6 players chances are someone else will encounter the boon that could be good for you and won't be able to acquire it (in S&S you could afford to spend resources to acquire a boon for someone else. In WotR the feeling is you never can afford to spend resources for anything else than direct immediate survival - that could be "fun" as a oppressing feeling, but if we had also the feeling that it was balanced by a way to get some reward anyway). To give you an idea, even with 10 games played during AP0, and even starting with by-the-rulebook suggested decks, only half of the cards in the decks have been slightly improved (and yet we are not sure replacing BoA is an improvement because nobody can guess what mythic is really about).
Sounds like I'm not the only one struggling with the base set on wrath then!
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I was also a little bit stunned at the difficulty of The Elven Entanglement. After our first failed attempt I hit the forums to make sure we weren't doing something wrong. I'm not calling this encounter a design flaw though. As a longtime board gamer I prefer co-op games to be punishing, but I was a little surprised to see full throttle difficulty in the second adventure. We finished it after four tries with no deaths on any attempt, but it was close a few times. Some people have declared it can only be completed by luck, but I feel our group tightened up our tactics to make it possible.
All of our players are PFS vets, and we were a little upset that we didn't get the opportunity to face "Stompy" from the first encounter of the PFS scenario.
This is a straw man argument.
What I hear Joshua saying is that the base set adventure should not, on the whole, be more difficult than adventure 1. No one is saying that there shouldn't be variations in difficulty within an adventure.
Characters get stronger as they progress through the game: they have more feats and better cards. It makes sense that the difficulty increases as the characters improve. I don't see the point of making an earlier adventure, on the whole, harder than a later adventure.
This is honestly all I wanted to hear. I'm glad that it was clear to you, e, but I couldn't detect that Joshua Birk 898 was allowing for exceptions at all, under any circumstance.
Now I understand.
Exactly because this is a game, and not electrical engineering, the language of extremes, 'always and nevers', can only hinder creative mechanics design. I'd just hate to see some reader get the wrong idea, like I did, that there are unbreakable rules that are always wrong.
In my opinion, and many others', the idea that led to the creation of many great games came from someone being told that some design mechanic or practicality could never ever work.
This is a straw man argument.
What I hear Joshua saying is that the base set adventure should not, on the whole, be more difficult than adventure 1. No one is saying that there shouldn't be variations in difficulty within an adventure.
Characters get stronger as they progress through the game: they have more feats and better cards. It makes sense that the difficulty increases as the characters improve. I don't see the point of making an earlier adventure, on the whole, harder than a later adventure.
This is honestly all I wanted to hear. I'm glad that it was clear to you, e, but I couldn't detect that Joshua Birk 898 was allowing for exceptions at all, under any circumstance.
Now I understand.
Exactly because this is a game, and not electrical engineering, the language of extremes, 'always and nevers', can only hinder creative mechanics design. I'd just hate to see some reader get the wrong idea, like I did, that there are unbreakable rules that are always wrong.
In my opinion, and many others', the idea that led to the creation of many great games came from someone being told that some design mechanic or practicality could never ever work.
I don't think the absolutes were intended by Joshua. I think that this is a case of 'rules have to be firmly set in place so that, when the rules are broken, it's a big deal.' (I think that's a Mark Rosewater quote I paraphrased, but I'm not sure). Essentially, an adventure like 'Local Heroes' (or a better example is the Pixie from RotR AD4, I forget his name, but he had an acquire check of 2, clearly an outlier) stands out as a contrast specifically because it's so different. If the difficulty of an Adventure Path swings wildly from one deck to the next, there's no sense normalcy, so an outlier like Local Heroes or possibly Redrum in S&S AD4 doesn't actually feel all that special
One could argue that some of the Base Set scenarios, then, were designed to be outliers in the opposite direction. Indeed, I'd be willing to bet that's exactly what they had in mind for Elven Entanglement. The problem here is twofold. First, doing this in the base set is problematic, since you've had less time to set up the status quo, so a change in it isn't going to register as strongly. Second, the fact that the entire Adventure, with the exception of scenario 1, is so difficult, it becomes a new normal, not an outlier.So, to sum it up, I think having one really tough scenario in the base set would be fine to show the possible range of difficulty, but having the majority of the adventure be harder in an absolute sense gave the wrong impression of the AP as a whole.
Also, W/R/T prefering characters die early, I actually think the ACG does a good job with that, and works similar to the RPG. The way it handles it is that over time, particularly as you get card feats, death tends to become less of a threat. However, running counter to that, the scenarios get harder, and it becomes easier to fail without dying. I feel that is the right way to design in these situations. Early game, success should be relatively easy, but death is a big risk. Late game, Death is less of a risk, but failure is much more likely.
Finally, somewhat O/T, but but going back to the perfect scaling argument: First, I think WoW is really not the right target for that, since it's had deadly foes in early areas for much of its lifetime (Stitches in Duskwood, Fel Reavers in Hellfire Peninsula). In just about every game even now, you will have things like boss battles or timed missions which are designed to increase the challenge for a brief period of time, only to return to the status quo shortly after. The big problem with games like that, though, is that the scaling factor is so low that people who are even decent at those types of games will improve at a rate much faster than the challenge increases. This means they are always ahead of the curve, even for the difficulty spikes, so the difficulty progression feels much smoother.
Pulling this discussion topic back to PACG, I think that was most people's problem with RotR. It wasn't that there weren't difficulty spikes, it was that the difficulty curve was below the rate of improvement the average group would experience, so it never felt challenging, even when it was supposed to be. S&S got the scaling right, so each scenario was challenging, but the difficulty spikes often felt random and cheap (Toll of the Bell), and the difficulty valleys were often boring or unrewarding (Redrum being both). My hope with WotR (which I still believe it can hit, despite my complaints) is that it will keep a good scaling factor like S&S, but that the peaks and valleys will feel much more organic like they did in RotR (where the valleys were some of the most interesting and fun designs, and the peaks didn't rely heavily on randomness).
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I'm glad you like the way the challenges were presented in SnS, isaic16.
We had a blast with it. There certainly were sufficient moments for us where we looked over the scenario and suddenly felt the pang of being out of our element.
Slightly off the topic of difficulty, but more on variety, we also really really enjoyed how frequently different abilities came into play in Shackles. This was a big improvement (for us) over RotRL. Instead of players always maxing their character's primary abilities, we felt compelled to put a lot of thought into selecting our skill feat checkboxes.
I'm glad you like the way the challenges were presented in SnS, isaic16.
We had a blast with it. There certainly were sufficient moments for us where we looked over the scenario and suddenly felt the pang of being out of our element.
Slightly off the topic of difficulty, but more on variety, we also really really enjoyed how frequently different abilities came into play in Shackles. This was a big improvement (for us) over RotRL. Instead of players always maxing their character's primary abilities, we felt compelled to put a lot of thought into selecting our skill feat checkboxes.
A lot of people have said this about S&S, but I just didn't see it personally. The combat checks accelerated in difficulty much faster than in RotR, so I didn't see how it was feasible to invest in other stats. Further, if you only put a point into something like Survival, that wasn't enough, since by the end of the AP, you're looking at DC 14+ checks, so having d8+3 instead of d8+2 does exactly jack towards helping you. That means you can't just put a point towards Con and a Point to Wis, you had to go all in.
This means you either have to fully invest in a non-combat stat, and hope you're the character that runs into it the most, or invest in combat, and hope that at least a decent number of non-combat checks you run into crossed over with that ability. And since the scouting ability in S&S (non-Alahazra division) was much worse than RotR, you really couldn't guarantee that the fighters got fights and the Survivalists got survival.
Again, I've seen enough people touting this that there must be something there that I'm not seeing, but I never felt like I had a choice. I just felt like I was punished for having the gall to use Str as my primary combat stat.
Edit: If someone can show me an example of a character that greatly benefitted from gaining points in a skill that wasn't either a casting stat or combat stat for them BEFORE they filled out their casting or combat stats, I'd love to hear it. This isn't sarcasm, I really want to understand what everyone else was seeing so I can utilize it, too.
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I played Valeros. But as it turned out, our party of 5 had way more kill power than we did the ability to succeed at general checks, such as to close. Being that when Val was up for a combat check I tended always to discard weaps for extra damage (in his case, recharging them), early on I had found myself having sufficient damage output, especially among a team that handled combat well. Thus, as handling closes and barriers presented a bigger threat to our group's success, I felt free to elect to place his first skill feat somewhere other than strength.
I get that this sounds like blasphemy for some, but for our particular group makeup, that choice proved many times over to be the right choice...for us.
I played Valeros. But as it turned out, our party of 5 had way more kill power than we did the ability to succeed at general checks, such as to close. Being that when Val was up for a combat check I tended always to discard weaps for extra damage (in his case, recharging them), early on I had found myself having sufficient damage output, especially among a team that handled combat well. Thus, as handling closes and barriers presented a bigger threat to our group's success, I felt free to elect to place his first skill feat somewhere other than strength.
I get that this sounds like blasphemy for some, but for our particular group makeup, that choice proved many times over to be the right choice...for us.
I can see that working for someone like Val, who's already a solid combatant (since he can recharge almost all the time). In fact, our Valeros player started with Con before going Str now that I think about it. However, again, he committed to it, completely filling out Con before moving (at this point to Str, since the checks were starting to get pretty rough). Is that roughly what you did with Val, or did you spread the points a bit more?
I admit, I'd forgotten about Valeros, so that is a good point, thanks for the reminder!
I placed skill bonuses in non combat stats for most of the characters in S&S. I will open the lid and have a look
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Appreciated, that.
I fear that somebody is really gonna hate this, though:
My Val ended up with points spread out as much as is humanly possible. I avoided strength for a while. I admit that by the third or fourth point, I regretted the drop off in attack power. I probably would have done it a little differently, but close to the same thing.
I think it was Con, Chr, Dex, Wis, Int, Str, Str in that order.
I know it sounds crazy at first, but the journey made some sense out of this. Consider:
When we got to Valiea(sp?) we rolled d12s for her, and having lucked out, she allowed me to spread out even further. Con was great. Chr was less great, but for our group it was still helpful. Because we had some great hitters on the team, I started using Val more to support their battles with his 1d4+x. Thus I also started carrying almost half support weapons. Said weapons, crossbows and blasting pistols and such, could be recharged by Val to add bonuses to others' combat instead of discarded. But, in case of being caught with just a crossbow in hand for my own fight, +1 Dex was welcome too. Wis was fair. And Int? This was partly just to spite our Ranzak player who couldn't raise his intelligence at all. Silly, I know. But Ranzak's gain in intellectual respect for Val was worth it (so was his feelings of betrayal). Also, by that point, I was on a roll spreading out...and the phenomenon couldn't be stopped. Then, all into strength; and as I said, I really should have done that sooner.
But...by the time we got our role cards, some real magic started to happen with this. The best part ahead: In addition to being all around slightly better at various barriers with this spread, Val's first role card power was the Tactician power that lets you move when another player encounters a villian. At first, I thought how nice it'd be that I can bring combat bonuses on location. But what ended up happening was that tactician Val, with his wide array of skill bonuses, became the ultimate emergency temporary closer. A bacon saver, too many times. Once Val added the power that he could recharge allies to add their deck number +1 to any of his checks, his ability to move and successfully temp close almost anything anywhere reached a new level. Especially because at that point we really noticed that those little plus 1s to all his skills really mattered. You could feel their weight.
I placed skill bonuses in non combat stats for most of the characters in S&S. I will open the lid and have a look
Thanks! I'm definitely curious how that works for less combat focused characters (Merisiel taking anything besides Dex just seems like a bad idea to me)
Appreciated, that.
I fear that somebody is really gonna hate this, though:
My Val ended up with points spread out as much as is humanly possible. I avoided strength for a while. I admit that by the third or fourth point, I regretted the drop off in attack power. I probably would have done it a little differently, but close to the same thing.
I think it was Con, Chr, Dex, Wis, Int, Str, Str in that order.
I know it sounds crazy at first, but the journey made some sense out of this. Consider:
When we got to Valiea(sp?) we rolled d12s for her, and having lucked out, she allowed me to spread out even further. Con was great. Chr was less great, but for our group it was still helpful. Because we had some great hitters on the team, I started using Val more to support their battles with his 1d4+x. Thus I also started carrying almost half support weapons. Said weapons, crossbows and blasting pistols and such, could be recharged by Val to add bonuses to others' combat instead of discarded. But, in case of being caught with just a crossbow in hand for my own fight, +1 Dex was welcome too. Wis was fair. And Int? This was partly just to spite our Ranzak player who couldn't raise his intelligence at all. Silly, I know. But Ranzak's gain in intellectual respect for Val was worth it (so was his feelings of betrayal). Also, by that point, I was on a roll spreading out...and the phenomenon couldn't be stopped. Then, all into strength; and as I said, I really should have done that sooner.
But...by the time we got our role cards, some real magic started to happen with this. The best part ahead: In addition to being all around slightly better at various barriers with this spread, Val's first role card power was the Tactician power that lets you move when another player encounters a villian. At first, I thought how nice it'd be that I can bring combat bonuses on location. But what ended up happening was that tactician Val, with his wide array of skill bonuses, became the ultimate emergency temporary closer. A...
Thanks! That does help me visualize it much better. I can see how that ally power would allow those +1's to play a much bigger part. And I can also certainly appreciate adding a +1 just for the heck of it (and to spite Ranzak. I mean, look at him! He clearly deserves it!)
It's a different thing, but I played Arabundi in Season of the Shackles . I distributed my skill points evenly to wisdom and dexterity. I did this for ship fights, closing checks, and recharging Cure.
So far my Amaryllis only has increases to Charisma. Primary casters are almost required to focus on their casting stat, both for combat and for recharging. After that's finished I'm thinking Constitution.
I'd love to have more Wisdom for ship checks, but d4+1 vs. d4 doesn't mean that much. :/
I generally don't max combat stats unless that's all the character is good at. Even then, I usually don't put more than two feats into the same stat before getting a role card.
Take Feiya, for example. Her main stat is intelligence. She's okay at Charisma, but not great. Since you can't put more than 4 feats into Intelligence, you need to put at least 2 feats into something else. Since Charisma is her second best stat, why not invest in that.
So when gaining Skill Feats, I went with Int, Cha, Int, Cha, Int, Int.
The Charisma bonus doesn't do much at the end of the game, but it helps a bit in the early/middle portions where the checks are less difficult.
For a character like Oloch who has trained skills in multiple areas, I will usually end up with +3 to the combat skill, +2 to their best second best skill, and +1 to their 3rd best skill where applicable (so Oloch would be Str+3, Wis+2, Con+1). In order, I went Str, Wis, Str, Con, Wis, Str.
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In my Season of the Shackles home game, Flenta is alternating Str / Int since she is out Int / Knowledge expert, Lem is alternating Dex / Cha since he has both spells and weapons, and Amarylis is going full Cha (though we expect that character to make the Con/Fort checks we know about).
In any case...
I think there is one spot in which AD1 might be worse: the quality (though not the quantity) of barriers. It only adds five, but each is brutal in its own way:
-Bilious Bottle: Sticks to a location, cursing it with either 1d4+1 damage, a bury, or the most merciful option of a discard (which banishes the Bottle) when you do the location's first explore in a turn. (Possibly worse: it's not AS the first exploration, unlike task barriers.)
-Crazed Cultists: Spreads Cultists of Baphomet to everyone at an open location - and they must be defeated to defeat the barrier. Worse yet, the Cultists get a second undefeated power due to the barrier: forcing you to banish an ally if you still have one after the damage. (On top of peeling the blessings deck, by the way.) And woe betide your party if Crazed Cultists is pulled as a first exploration, since these Cultists have the minotaur power to do BYA damage.
-Poison Spike Pit Trap: Relatively innocuous, failure does a mere 2d4 damage (1d4 combat then 1d4 poison.) The box has two.
-Sin Eater: Can't avoid it, and it removes your Stealth, Diplomacy, and ability to acquire allies until you have a chance to check against it --- turning one of the few good barriers in B into a dead draw while this guy's floating around.
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Maybe... just MAYBE mind you...
I've noticed a lot of the difficulty in WotR comes from the actual Adventure/Scenario cards --
Why doesn't Paizo consider a scaling difficulty adventure card? There's easy/medium/hard/nightmare for *many* other games, and punishing many casual players (and children) with rules that are tearing families apart seems cruel.
If "Side B" of these cards (I realize that can't happen currently cause of the way they're structured) provided at least a "rules suggestion" or alternative rules for the more casual players, that would be nice.
Because like many of the players here, I didn't get to pick the character I WANTED to play. I had to pick the "best" character to play.
And that's just no fun. I should be able to succeed (or at least come CLOSE) if I play well/careful/patiently no matter who it is. And I can't say that's true. There are good groups and there are bad groups.
Hard to tell the order of what happened when but
Jirelle. +3 Dex +2 Con +1 Wis I never got around the the Diplomacy + 3 Cha feat but I had intended to! Jirelle was so reliable she really IS the pirate queen.
Lirianne got max Dex +4. +2 Wis ( this happened early as she was an excellent closer and barrier defeated with this stat. +1 Con. Vailea gave her the 4th Dex
Seltyiel +3 Str +2 Int +1 Con. A very combat focused character, eventually discarding spells for +3d6. Could also discard spells to add 2d6 to any ship/barrier check so was not terrible there. The Int was really for recharges.
Feiya put emphasis on her primary and eventually got to +4 Int, her +2 in Cha was the 2nd best of that stat for the group. So she certainly used it. ( probably went +2 on both before finishing Int
Damiel? I'm seeing a pattern here. +3 in Int, +2 in Dex and +1 Con. His stats became less important after getting shapechange, he was super effective. The less said the better ;)
Alahazra hardly ever fought. I did maximize her primary to +4 Cha and +2 Wis as my main divine character
The final +3 or +4 were achieved quite late for this group. I saw the combat checks starting to edge up in AD 5&6 and compensated.
Thanks for all the feedback on the stat distributions! It looks like it's, for the most part, not actually about having crazy stat distributions, but more about looking to invest in secondary/tertiary stats earlier, when it's more useful. That does make sense, and I'll have to consider it.
One thing I consider with off-stats is the size of the dice involved.
Taking a look at the primary stat, say it's a d12. I'll probably have a blessing on any big check, and rolling 2d12 + 2 vs rolling 2d12 + 3 isn't too big of a relative change. I mainly put stat points here to increase my minimums, so I can auto-succeed more often.
Of course, adding +1 to a d4 or a d6 roll really doesn't make a difference due to how much work it'd take to get somewhere reasonable.
But how about 2d8 vs 2d8 + 1?
2d8:
2: 1.5%
3: 3.1%
4: 4.7%
5: 6.3%
6: 7.8%
7: 9.4%
8: 10.9%
9: 12.5%
10-16: traverse the above list in reverse order, starting from 8.
On a DC 10 check, your odds of success go from 43.7% to 56.2% (56.2/43.7 = 1.29, 29% increase in success rate). On a DC 14 check, you go from 9.3% to 15.6% (68% increase in success rate, although it is admittedly still low).
So, while I do spend most of my feats on my prime stats, I am quite willing to put +1 or so into a d8 stat (esp Con in S&S).
Damiel? I'm seeing a pattern here. +3 in Int, +2 in Dex and +1 Con. His stats became less important after getting shapechange, he was super effective. The less said the better ;)
Shapechange is banished at the end of the scenario w/o Divine or Arcane, so Damiel loses it, no?