S&S Bizarre Love Triangle ... strategy?


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


So, we're going to be doing our fourth attempt at this one next week. Three failures, two with casualties.

We have four players, playing Seltiyel, Gronk, S&S Merisiel, and Olenjack.
We houserule the timer to 32 cards, so everybody has an even number of turns under ordinary circumstances.
We are aware of the FAQ ruling and are closing locations when we defeat a villain.

Is there some strategy for siphoning all the villains into the same location we just haven't figured out yet, or is this one really luck-dependent?


Haven't played this one in a while, but Find the villains without encountering them. Merisiel, for example, should evade them. Then, force them together by selectively temp closing locations when you do encounter them.


Easier said than done ... I'm the only person with any evasion ability and we've no scouting outside of one Farglass.

Looks like it's Alahazra time if I kick the bucket again just to get through this (BLEEEEEP)ing scenario.


Hawkmoon gives the main strategy I can think of. This one of the two scenarios in S&S that is particularly luck dependent. It's drawn a fair amount of criticism for that reason. I think Paizo avoided mechanics with this flaw in the later sets.


Worst Case Scenario strategy (i.e. - you run into first villain with 0 closed locations):

- spread your heroes 1 per location (easiest close check per character), you have 2 uncovered locations
- you run into villain in location X; make your temp closes, beat the villain; villain now shuffles into 1 of 2 uncovered locations - A and B
- if you have a movement power, move the active character (Character X) to the uncovered location with the easier check to close (let's say Location A)
- proceed exploring the corresponding locations with the rest of the party
- if someone stumbles on Villain - make your temp closes, beat the villain; villain now shuffles into 1 of 2 uncovered locations - A and B; if Character X has moved to Location A - the villain can only shuffle in Location B - this is now your 'den' location, where you want to gather the villains!

- After a full cycle of turns, explore Location A (moving to it if needed) with Character X; if you run into villain (Y), temp-close other locations and beat the villain. Now:
=> Variant 1: if there's no other villain in location A, Villain shuffles in location B - this is now your 'den' location, where you want to gather the villains!
=> Variant 2: if there is another Villain (Z) there - villain Z is now in Location A, while Villain Y can now be in either Location A or B. Therefore, Location A is now your 'den' location, where you want to gather the villains!
=> Variant 3: if there are 2 other villains in Location A - congrats, you win the game!

If you had Variant 2:
- make every effort to examine the two cards in Location A deck; if you discover that Villain Y is NOT there (Variant 2.1) - then it's probably better to assign Location B as your "Den"; on their next turn, Character X (or any other character that has closed their original location) should make effort to to defeat Villain Z in location A; now both Villains Y and Z will be in Location B
- Continue exploring each character's corresponding location (no one should be exploring location B yet, even if they had closed their original location and they have the opportunity to move and continue to explore; they *could* move and explore Location A if you have Variant 2.1). If your run into the final Villain X:
=> if you have Variant 2.1 (you *know* that Villain Y is NOT 1 of 2 cards in Location A) - temp-close all locations *including* Location A; now both Villains X and Y are in location B, and you only need to chase Villain Z there as well)
=> otherwise, temp-close all locations *except* Location A; now villain Z is there and both Villains X and Y can be in either Location A or Location B. This is where the HARD part of the scenario comes in, heavily dependent on how many perma-closed locations you already have (you'll have at least 2).

(If you have scouting to ascertain how many of the 3 cards in Location A are villains - the rest should be cake-walk...-ish. If all 3 are Villains - congrats!; if 2 - dump all character not needed to temp-close elsewhere into Location B, so they can chase the Villain there into Location A); if only 1 - use the chars not needed to temp-close elsewhere into Location A, so they can chase the Villain there into Location B)

If no scouting is available, your possible game-states are:

Variant 4: all 3 villains in Location A
Variant 5: 2 Villains in A, 1 in B
Variant 6: 1 Villain in A, 2 in B

How you approach, should depend on many factors, including Timer, extra explores, ability to defeat Villains and soak their BYA damage...

- if you have the time and extra explores to spare, dump all character not needed to temp-close elsewhere, into Location B. If you hit a Villain, temp-close all EXCEPT Location A, defeat it and now:
=> if no other villains are in Location B - then all 3 are in location A - congrats!
=> if another villain is in Location B - now you have 1 villain in each Location A and B, and the third Villain is in either of the two location. If you have no scouting - prepare for the suckage, as it's now down to luck to chase villains back-and-forth between locations A and B to corral them in the same location

- otherwise, if you're low on time, or you feel pretty confident about handling the villains - dump all character not needed to temp-close elsewhere, into Location A. You STILL have a chance to get bad luck and not chase all villains from A into B for some time, but due to low amount of cards in the location - you should be able to go through them quickly; when you finally close Location A, you should be able to pretty quickly hit 1 of the 3 villains in Location B

The above strategy can be rendered even easier if you have access to scouting or you hit your first villain with some already closed locations (though unlikely, considering the lack of Henchmen), or much harder, depending on any failed Closing/Villain-defeat checks. However, you should be able to extrapolate the logic that applies to your particular game situation. Good luck!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

You should decide in advance which location you want to funnel the villains to. I recommend the Hatchery because permanently closing it just makes future fights harder. I also recommend leaving the Jungle empty since permanently closing it early puts barriers in open locations. Then spread out and explore as normal. When someone encounters a villain everyone else should temporarily close their location decks so the villain can't escape to there.

Eventually, as long as you're able to temporarily close your locations, the villains will have been shunted to either the Jungle or Hatchery. At that point you should converge on the Jungle and power through it. You'll likely have to fight a villain or two, but as long as you can beat them they'll be shunted over to the Hatchery. At that point you just have to get through the Hatchery until you find the first villain. Defeat it and victory is yours!


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Ok, well I simulated it. Obviously not the whole game, but just comparing strategies for where to explore in what order, and assuming you don't fail anything of course.

The results for 4 players (format is [method]: [average number of explores required to win])
rolling: 42.68
random: 41.76
funnel: 41.59
spread: 39.97
chase: 39.54

(10,000 iterations of each method)

The methods:
"rolling"
Everyone piles in on location 1, then location 2, etc. Although this had the most explores, it's better than it sounds, because many of those explores were additional blessings from chasing away the villains. If you have a reasonable chance at picking up blessings and thus earning those explores back then it's competitive with other approaches. It also has by far the least closing checks required of any method (average 1.63 closing checks per game) so if you expect to need a blessing on each closing check this might even be the winner.

"random"
I literally assigned players to random open locations at every stage. The only strategy I forced was to never temp-close every location (since that's clearly stupid). I also had to put in a fix for a case where it could loop infinitely exploring 2 locations with 3 villains and pushing one back and forth! What's notable is how not-that-much-worse it is than all these sophisticated strategies.

To describe the others, I'll first introduce some strategies. The general approach of leaving one location open to funnel into has been described already. What I want to describe is two improvements to that:
A) First focus [almost] everyone on one location and close it, even if it means emptying it of all 10 cards. This avoids the awkwardness of funneling to two locations the first time. I'd actually recommend focusing two locations, so that people aren't locked in to their locations and can shuffle around to e.g. heal each other without leaving locations uncovered to do it.
B) Once you know you've chased one villain to a location, don't ignore it. Send everyone who's not tied up to that location and explore it. The reason is that locations with a villain take 5.5 explores to close instead of 10, and as tough as the villains are they're not worse than another 4.5 explores.

My preferred algorithm "chase" then is as follows:
1. First focus on one location and close it (as described). Or two - I haven't given them above, but the results were pretty much the same for two as one.
2. Then spread out. At any time, you have one "funnel" location which is unoccupied, one player at each other open location to temp-close, and everyone else (if there's anyone left) at the "focus" location.
3. Whenever you find a villain, you temp close and funnel them to the funnel location. Then, switch the funnel location to a new location, and the funnel location becomes the focus (because you know there's a villain there to help you close it faster).

The difference between "funnel" and "chase" illustrates the advantage of focusing on the locations where the villain is rather than isn't (since the two algorithms differed only in this way). This did come at the cost of on average 1 more villain encounter per iteration.

The difference between "funnel" and "spread" illustrates the advantage of closing one location first (since the two algorithms differed only in this way).

The results for 6 players were similar but the differences a little bigger.


Sorry for not understanding the scenario rules for 'Bizarre Love Triangle', so let me be specific:

4 players, including Merisiel, thus 6 locations:

Let's say the players spread across 4 locations and Merisiel is the first to encounter a Villain. Assuming she could defeat it based upon her deck resources and others' in the party, should she encounter it or evade it?

If she encounters it and defeats it, what occurs to that Villain, that location deck of cards, that location's open/closed state, etc. If this is a positive result, do added Blessings come from box or Deck?

Thank you.


JimmyJinNJ wrote:

Sorry for not understanding the scenario rules for 'Bizarre Love Triangle', so let me be specific:

4 players, including Merisiel, thus 6 locations:

Let's say the players spread across 4 locations and Merisiel is the first to encounter a Villain. Assuming she could defeat it based upon her deck resources and others' in the party, should she encounter it or evade it?

If she encounters it and defeats it, what occurs to that Villain, that location deck of cards, that location's open/closed state, etc. If this is a positive result, do added Blessings come from box or Deck?

Thank you.

Well, let's clarify. Are you saying that this is early game and Merisiel found your FIRST villain? Then I'd say evade it, the villain stays in that deck and you can funnel the rest into that location. If not, probably should fight it; just to close the location or to make that location the 'only villains' location, so you can again funnel the other villains into that location.


Ironvein wrote:
JimmyJinNJ wrote:

Sorry for not understanding the scenario rules for 'Bizarre Love Triangle', so let me be specific:

4 players, including Merisiel, thus 6 locations:

Let's say the players spread across 4 locations and Merisiel is the first to encounter a Villain. Assuming she could defeat it based upon her deck resources and others' in the party, should she encounter it or evade it?

If she encounters it and defeats it, what occurs to that Villain, that location deck of cards, that location's open/closed state, etc. If this is a positive result, do added Blessings come from box or Deck?

Thank you.

Well, let's clarify. Are you saying that this is early game and Merisiel found your FIRST villain? Then I'd say evade it, the villain stays in that deck and you can funnel the rest into that location. If not, probably should fight it; just to close the location or to make that location the 'only villains' location, so you can again funnel the other villains into that location.

Thank you for your response, but I'm mainly focusing on technical scenario procedure. If she takes on the first Villain and, say, defeats it, does that banish the remaining cards in that location deck? Does that cause added Blessings from the box into the game? etc.


JimmyJinNJ wrote:


Thank you for your response, but I'm mainly focusing on technical scenario procedure. If she takes on the first Villain and, say, defeats it, does that banish the remaining cards in that location deck? Does that cause added Blessings from the box into the game? etc.

Pretty sure that defeating the villain would still clear the location of cards except for any other villains in it. And defeating it would still mean taking extra blessings from the box for remaining open locations, that's still normal.

The only complication is whether the location closed due to defeating the villain and that depends if there are other villains remaining in it.


This really depends on your group. This thread is over 2 years old so I am assuming this isnt the same party make up that was posted in the original post.

My groups have found it beneficial evade bosses if possible to minimize the amount of times they need to be encountered due to the BYA dmg and the fact the check to defeat is not a combat check. Or if we scouted a villain, we avoided the location until the correct person was ready to address that Villain.

What I got out of Irgy's Write up two post above is that this scenario is achievable doing any of those methods. Use the one that is better for your group. If you have a bard or Feiya, the "Rolling Method" might be better as you can get support from your fellow characters.

My group avoided "Munarei" (the Int-based Naga) like the plague due to use not having a character with a high base INT stat. We needed multiple blessings for our d6 to get a 3d6 average of 10.5. On the other hand we had no issue chasing Selissa or Sarlis around due to most of us having a good Wisdom or Charisma stat.

IF you have characters that can easily temp close, then funneling is a good method. I wouldn't burn lots of resources on temp closing.

Being all these Villains do BYA dmg, unless you have healing or ways to avoid the dmg I wouldnt chase. If you do have healing/mitigation, Chasing is a very effective Method.


JimmyJinNJ wrote:
Thank you for your response, but I'm mainly focusing on technical scenario procedure. If she takes on the first Villain and, say, defeats it, does that banish the remaining cards in that location deck? Does that cause added Blessings from the box into the game? etc.

If she is the first encountered Villain, then yes. There should be no other villains in the location. Search it to make sure, then basnish all the cards and close the location. Take the Villian and blessings from the box and shuffle one into each open location that was not temp-closed.


Slacker2010 wrote:
JimmyJinNJ wrote:
Thank you for your response, but I'm mainly focusing on technical scenario procedure. If she takes on the first Villain and, say, defeats it, does that banish the remaining cards in that location deck? Does that cause added Blessings from the box into the game? etc.
If she is the first encountered Villain, then yes. There should be no other villains in the location. Search it to make sure, then basnish all the cards and close the location. Take the Villian and blessings from the box and shuffle one into each open location that was not temp-closed.

Thank you all. I had hoped that was the consensus, but the scenario card wording says that the defeated Villain is undefeated when the other two are not also present in the location deck. This seemed to me to create an endless cycle of loss of resources and blessing deck cards/turns.


JimmyJinNJ wrote:
Thank you all. I had hoped that was the consensus, but the scenario card wording says that the defeated Villain is undefeated when the other two are not also present in the location deck. This seemed to me to create an endless cycle of loss of resources and blessing deck cards/turns.

Is is incorrectly worded. They posted an FAQ:

https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1gu#v5748eaic9sj8

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Card Game / Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion / S&S Bizarre Love Triangle ... strategy? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion