a6ra's page

Thanks, Frencois, those are some elegant solutions. To be fair, we were just learning the game, and We did that one scenario a bunch of times so that my wife (who had never played anything even remotely RPG before) could get some buffs. also chasing the villian around making him spill blessings into the location decks... And well, yeah. Now we're ridiculous. It worked a little too well, but it's a genuine exploit. But I like having a house-rule in place to counteract that. Nice. I do like hard games, though. Thanks for the helpful suggests.
-a6

Thanks guys. That makes sense. I wonder why I missed that in the rules. Oh well. We were playing correctly. I think I'll just add extra locations. It's not the basic equipment that really changes things, it's the erastil/pharasma blessings; they are stunningly powerful, at this point.
a6

I wanted some clarifications about some of the rules, because I am afraid we may be playing wrong. Our characters are way too powerful, and even the bosses (so far) are a cakewalk.

Bonus Stacking

If I have a modified skill, say Dexterity, with a bonus of say +3, and I am playing Merisiel, for example, and I play a blessing to add dice to my check, is the +3 counted once, or for each die? If I play a blessing of erastil on a combat check, adn I'm using a Deathbane Crossbow, am I really now rolling 3 d12 +9 + a d8 (and whatever else I care to add). The rules seem to imply that this is so, but my wife and I, who are playing Merisiel and Seoni, are just just stomping through, it's ridiculous. We chose not to stack the bonuses because be we just mopping the floor with everything we encountered.

It might be a combination of the characters and their special powers, but we are so far not finding the game very challenging. Playflow seems to be: locate villian, evade villian, close other locations except one, seoni goes to where villian is, merisiel temp-closes other location, and seoni blasts said miscreant all to s@~$. We rarely even take damage, except via traps, and special abilities.. I suppose we should just add more locations, or wait for later scenarios, but right now it feels overpowered.

But the question remains. Do bonuses stack like this?

We also played Blackfangs dungeon 3 or four times before completing it, and loaded up with blessings of erastil and pharasma, so when we began Burnt offerings, we were pretty overpowered. That raises another question. IF you play a scenario over and over again but don't win. (Both characters could choose to just "pass" and end the game, for instance, or run out of time before dying). This is a legitimate way to optimize your decks? I gathered that getting rid of your Blessings of the Gods Asap and replacing them with character specific blessings is the first major goal in making a character strong, and hanging around blackfang's or the poison pill, long enough is enough to get those blessings, so that by the time ROtRL starts, our characters have loads of good stuff. But then we end up with overpowered characters, and it's too easy Am I cheating, or just "gaming" the system? How do other players handle the fact that you can so easily become dis-proportionately powerful in this game? Is adding locations the answer? Disallowing bonus stacking? Considering a failed scenario to equal character death?

Thanks a lot guys! I also think this game is great. One of the best in my collection, for sure. The complexities are just an indication of it's depth. I do hope one day for a expansion that provides cards with all the errata added in, and with the rulebook updated to reflect the clarifications that have come out of all these discussions, but either way this remains a majorly winning game. I felt a little silly asking this somewhat detail-obsessed question, and I'm thankful for the serious answers.
-a6ra-
P.S. Do you guys ever bring in "occasional" characters, say like a Lem that nobody in particular is responsible for, but who just comes along on various scenarios?

So dying super sucks. Cool. So, if Merisiel died on the Poison Pill, she would have to go back and do Brigandoom again if she wanted to get the skill feat from winning Perils. Alternatively if she went on (with the party) and completed Perils without going back and repeating Brigandoom, the rest of the characters (who did not die) would get a skill feat, but she wouldn't. Is this about right?

And she couldn't just go back afterwards and do the missing scenarios in the adventure, because they'd be out of order. So, if she dies in a scenario, the skill feat for completing the adventure is forfeit, (Except if she goes back and does them all in order, presumably solo). Do I have it straight?

Lets say that you were playing Perils of the lost coast as Merisiel. You died on the Poison Pill, and remade the character (as Merisiel). When the party completes BlackFang's Dungeon, do you also get the skill feat from completing those scenarios in order?

Assuming yes to the above, what if you died as Merisiel, and decided to use Lem instead? Would you still earn that feat?

What if you simply decided to use different characters for different scenarios? Would the character who won the last one in that adventure get the feat, or would none of them?

What if some players decided to occasionally (but not always) use more than one character?

Basically the question is: are PLAYERS earning the feats or the Characters?

I looked to see if this had been asked before, but couldn't find it. I apologize if this is a redundant question.

-a6-