Having the Temple in this scenario really nerfs the villain (as long as you don't encounter her at the Temple).
We were nervous about anyone who wasn't Sajan facing the 20/20/17 combat checks of the villain fight, until we realized we could do this:
Lini, alone at the Waterfront, encounters Avalexi.
Avalexi summons the Sandpoint Devil, which Lini encounters.
Lini evades the Sandpoint Devil and moves to the Temple, discarding two cards, by means of the Temple's power..
This power, which is active even when the Temple is closed, is:
Any character at another location may evade an encounter and move here, discarding 2 cards instead of the normal 1, then reset her hand and end her turn.
Lini is still in an encounter with Avalexi, but has been instructed to end her turn.
The Wrath rulebook, which is governing, says:If you are forced to end your turn during an encounter, shuffle the encountered card back into the deck, or if it was summoned, banish it; it is neither defeated nor undefeated, and the encounter is over.
Avalexi is shuffled into the Waterfront.
Now we know where she is, and can coordinate our efforts. We closed a few locations, then sent Sajan in alone to take her out.
Chief Technical Officer
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We were nervous about anyone who wasn't Sajan facing the 20/20/17 combat checks of the villain fight, until we realized we could do this:
Setting aside your strategy for a moment, the Sandpoint Devil summoning isn't mainly about making the villain harder. If that had been the goal, we'd make the person encountering Avalexi fight the Devil. (Or we'd have just made the villain harder.) But we've actually made it SUPER easy for someone else to fight the Devil, so upping the difficulty is clearly not the goal here. Rather, the summoning power is mainly providing some incentive for characters to group up at the same location. Many parties will want to send two or three characters to handle the villain encounter: one or two to take on the Sandpoint Devil, and another to take on the villain. Your strategy lets you avoid grouping, but it also costs somebody two cards. (Don't get me wrong—it's still a very good strategy, but it's not nearly "broke the scenario" territory.)
Now we know where she is, and can coordinate our efforts.
Evading the villain has that result in any scenario. Which means the Temple lets any character with two cards to spare do that in any scenario. But that's not overpowered—Merisiel can do that for free in any scenario. Anybody with one of several cards in hand can do that in any scenario.
You're right about grouping. That was exactly the strategy we were going to follow before we figured out the Temple strategy -- doubling up Olenjack/Maznar and Lini/Seelah to split the combats, letting Sajan fend for his bad self. (Olenjack can evade with an ally in hand, but the player playing him loves to explore, and keeps spending his allies on exploring.)
Someone might ask: why not just evade Avalexi?
The answer is: the Sandpoint Devil is summoned before you can evade Avalexi.
When you encounter Avalexi, a character at your location summons and encounters the Sandpoint Devil.
When-encountered powers happen before evasion.