mlvanbie's page

I guess my original question was this: this set now has disincentives for scouting with the triggers (mostly bad, but not all bad, kinda like barriers). So are there counterbalancing benefits to examining? Are there more rewards to scouting to match the new risk?

Scouting location decks was already too powerful (gone are the days of multiple Augury and Scrying spells), so there is no need to compensate for the much-needed additional risk. What the designers have done is add more opportunities to examine decks. (Don't forget that in addition to all the spoiled examine cards, Alahazra returns in this set.)

John Compton wrote:

I think I'm going to really enjoy how Grazzle plays.

I think he's really fun, but he is very easy to accidentally kill.

Physician, Cure thyself, then heal the rest of the party while the Cure is on the bottom of your deck.

Example henchman proxy card on DriveThruCards. I would have made the art be the letter A.

Would people be happier with proxying cards if there were standard proxy cards to shuffle into decks?

7x Proxy Henchman H
3x Proxy Henchman G
1x Proxy Villain V
1x Proxy Villain W
4x Generic Proxy X
4x Generic Proxy Y
(or maybe Generic Proxy A through F, doubling up on A and B)

Most scenarios would work with these 20 cards and nobody would forget to make the proxy substitution. Scenario rules could specify both a proxy letter and normal card. Seemed to work fine in Apocrypha.

I will immediately switch to any type of character if Mike gives her as flavor text the following :

"Nothing can go wrong. Everything is under control."

Class deck Alahazra? So much scouting....

Alahazra doesn't need three cures; she is going to recharge most of her hand scouting decks. Because you are constantly recharging cards from her hand you will get back to the spells you want. If you need a spell two turns in a row then make sure that it doesn't get recharged and discard a Divine spell at the end of your turn to take the spell back into hand.

One of her starting powers gives +2 on attack spells, so you will start the game with d12 + 4 + (2d4 or d6) on attacks. Soon, you will also have various Spheres of Destruction which will allow you to make several combats in one turn, just like a fighter with a weapon.

One of the best spells early on is Find Traps since S&S is full of barriers. Adding two dice to any check against a barrier is awesome and saves Blessings.

Usually I didn't attack monsters until things were well-scouted and there weren't many cards in hand (due to recharging to scout). Once I had Stargazer I would remove all the boons from the tops of decks (sitting at a location with a useful power) and then hit several locations with monsters on top using Pteranodons to move and explore with +d6 to my combat check.

I didn't read Robes of Besmara correctly so I mistakenly thought that an armour slot would be useful. Later, I used it for the Stanching Buckler so that I could turn damage into card draws, getting rid of useless cards in exchange for awesome Divine ones. I would have a massive deck so taking Before You Act damage was pretty much an advantage.

Thanks! However, I think that the question and the explanatory text also need a reversal:

When I use Slip to examine the top of my location deck, do I have to attempt the check to put the card on the bottom of the deck, even if I don't want to put the card on the bottom of the deck?

Slip is your friend—if you want the card to stay on top, that's OK by him.

3. Is that squirrel on the stump the true source of evil for this monster? I'm not try to prejudge all squirrels here, but there was this one where I went to college, its tail was missing most of its fur and it would attack the other squirrels all the time. I'm pretty sure it was evil. I can see that squirrel taking up the study of the Arcane and animating dead tree stumps to bring destruction to the world purely for its own pleasure.

In university I was attacked by a squirrel while I was riding a bike. Fortunately, it bounced off the front fork.

Refined ways of preventing recursion are not actual rules. All we have is the FAQ entry for summoned locations.

I don't prefer the new text. The before you act text now depends on a fairly obscure rule to work. The after you act text is also confusing because it should apply to all characters. You seem to be writing these as if the before/after you act text only applies to the character that made the original encounter, but that text is defined as part of all encounters that are not evaded. I think that it would be better to have a paragraph in the rules that explains group encounters. It might tell people to ignore the before/after you act text, but what if you want to have before/after effects such as damage? You shouldn't need to deviate from the standard template to support this. Perhaps 'after everyone acts' text could be introduced.

The old version of Silas seems to deal damage if you try to evade, but the new one would not.

The new Silas and Tangletooth seem to give you multiple chances to close the location.

The evasion situations may cause confusion. Even if the cards are technically correct, it isn't useful if people still end up playing incorrectly or having rules arguments.

The new Occluding Field is much improved.

I wasn't asking for anything different. However, ...

Being on a ship could have been a scenario. Go to the Port cannons location, draw a card for an encounter:

- incoming boarding party! (BYO Blunderbuss)
- dodge a cannon ball
- shoot at another ship using your Gunnery skill
- repair damage Task
- find a crew member to add to your squad

Try to get your ship to a final destination before your ship sinks due to the Blessings deck running out. Various types of failed encounters could discard from the Blessings deck. Control Weather could be the new Holy Candle.

It would have been different.

How does getting a class deck in the middle of Season 1 work? Won't everyone be leveled-up and uninterested in scenarios that won't kill your new character?

I see literally no reason, balance or otherwise, not to allow two strength spells to work.

My broken Ezren deck (cycling two each of Detect Magic and Augury) relies on displaying multiple Strength spells. With an Incendiary Cloud and Wand of Enervation he can punch harpy henchmen to death (amongst other henchmen).

Displayed cards are great because they recharge at the end of turn, allowing you to have a thin deck during the turn. Playing them pulls more cards from your deck. Eventually you are holding onto you attack spells while doing infinite Auguries to find henchmen and villains.

Swipe is good for picking up useful things, but they can't stay in your hand past the end of the turn.

The characters will still have different powers, card feats and stats. Not needing to put in 10 cards to support a single character means that there will be more ways to create each character. If you have two finesse fighters and two strength fighters then you can split the weapons between the two types and there will be different better and worse weapons but they will all be useful.

The idea with the add-on deck is that there would be supplemental sets of cards so you could then have Flentas and Spellblades (either Wizard+weapons or Fighter+arcane spells). Warpreist and Paladin would be the divine equivalent. Divine plus animal Allies would be Druid; combine them with Wizard to get Witch for Feiya. Or maybe Druid was a class deck so you replace the spells with arcane ones to get Witch.

Andrew, the recharge rule written on the card is for the end of your turn. As written, you can't recharge it before then.

So you could play the card on another player's turn, discard it in a combat with multiple combat checks, Cure it into your deck, draw it with Ezren's power (or equivalent), give it to someone else and have them cast it before the end of your turn. They could help you on a combat check and discard it.

You could argue that it should be recharged at the end of your turn (from the other player's discard pile), but what happens at the end of the other player's turn? Do they recharge it out of your deck or hand (maybe you were Radillo)? What if you had two copies of the card? Then there would be only a 50% chance that the card came from the other player's discard pile instead of your deck.

This isn't the only card with this pattern. More orbs are in several decks. What if you eat pizza in the middle of this sequence and can't remember which type of orb you were using an hour earlier?

I should be clear that I think you can play as many Belts of Giant Strength as you have in your hand. Just not all of them an infinite number of times.

:

For now: You can't because I said so.

I've reached Stage 3, bargaining. How about just some of them an infinite number of times?

mlvanbie wrote:

Two Cures is enough for self-sufficiency, although I also have a Staff of Minor Healing (with small numbers of players I want to go through my deck quickly). If you have a Cure in hand, you can blow through all your good cards or have someone else use all their Blessings. I will also cast it after drawing to make sure that I don't lose it.

Note that if you look at the new living rules there is no opening to play cards after you reset and draw your hand.

True, I am doing it on the next turn after the blessing flops. This difference is only interesting if there is a start of turn fight effect on a location.

If I also have Augury/Scrying, I may want to play that before the Cure so it shuffles in. All done before the move step.