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So, my group has a question. We just started the new Wrath of the Righteous campaign and one of us randomly got assigned Seelah.

Our question is regarding Seelah's first power. It is phrased thusly, "When you attempt a check before you act, you may use your Charisma skill instead of any listed skill." We have gone back and forth about when this power can actually be used, and it all seems to center around the location of the comma. Grammatically, it seems that the only time you can substitute your Charisma is before you act. That is, before you move, explore, or choose an action. For instance, when you are forced to make a check at the beginning of your turn or on another player's turn. The only problem with this interpretation is that it seems almost useless as this scenario rarely arises.

Others in our group want to interpret it as "When you attempt a check, before you act you may use your Charisma skill instead of any listed skill." (note the location of the comma). This interpretation would basically mean she can substitute her Charisma for any check, so long as the decision is made before you act (ie, roll the dice, use other cards, etc), which seems amazingly overpowered, since she would basically have a d10 on every skill.

Can someone please settle this dispute for us? And if the first interpretation is correct, am I correct in saying that it is rarely used?

Thanks!

LOL, I understood what you are saying - you are very, very clear. I was just saying that the card's wording is ambiguous. It took several rounds of play for it even to occur to us to use the interpretation that says "you can move away from here without discarding", which I now agree is almost certainly correct :) So we are agreeing. I promise :)

Hate to get into this here, since it has nothing to do with Lini, but the first part of the temple reads:

"When you move or are moved here, discard a card".

Here's my play group's problem. This could easily mean "When you move to this location, are moved to this location, move from this location, or moved from this location, discard a card". This of it as saying "When you move [ie, you are here and decide to move]... or when you are moved here..." A second interpretation is that it could simply mean "When you arrive at this location [for any reason]..." The rest of the text on temple does not contradict the first interpretation since it refers only to a subset of cases (ie, when using the temple to evade). We have chosen to use the second interpretation, so we simply start a character there so we never have to pay the penalty (since evading to the temple seems like a bad idea anyway), but for a long time, some of assumed that we had to discard a card if we chose to leave before it was closed. It would appear that Hawkmoon uses this interpretation as well.

The FAQ refers to similar text on treacherous cave and they fixed it by changing it to "You must succeed at a Constitution or Fortitude 6 check to either move or be moved to another location."

I guess in my mind, it read as 'use a d10 INSTEAD of strength or dexterity' instead of use a d10 AS her strength or wisdom'. I have to admit that makes Lini MUCH better than I thought in the early game.

The more I look at the actual text, though, the more I am unconvinced that the text says what the designers meant. Like several cards, I think a rewording is in order. Even after reading the FAQ, my group is not sure how leaving or traveling to the temple works :)

I appreciate all the awesome feedback... can someone verify that if I give Lini a skill feat of +1 strength that it applies to her in her shapeshifted form? The ability reads "You may discard a card to roll d10 instead of your strength or dexterity die for any check." The way I read this it means if I have a +2 in strength, I can roll d4+2 OR d10... if I interpreted it wrongly, however, one of my major assumptions about her weakness was wrong, and she can, in fact keep up (at least a little) in the early game as her average combat roll (without blessings) climbs from 8 to 9 to 10 (and more with power feats, obviously).

Reading the comments carefully, almost everyone commented on her power late in the game, and a few of you verified what I was afraid of - that she is extremely vulnerable to damage in the early game. I wouldn't debate for a minute that d4+4 (or even +5) to every check will make her awesome in the late game, but she can barely even help in the early game. I spent a few hours building a paladin to catch up with the party and have replaced Lini now, because I just wasn't contributing enough.

If I choose to play Lini again, I guess I should assume that combat will usually hurt me unless I save blessings for it or use another party member's help (such as Fighter or Bard in the same location or Ranger in a different location), since without a blessing (but with an animal) she will average an 8, which usually loses. Sound right?

BTW, I apologize for exaggerating in the post's title - as I explained in my initial post, she (so far) seems decent at most things (except combat), but not great at anything (remember, I am in the early game).

Regarding my preferences, I love the game and have thoroughly enjoyed playing the different characters. At the end of the day, though, I am a looking for the best way to contribute to my party and I will play a character class with no flavor if necessary to feel like I am accomplishing as much as possible. This game has much less combat than many games like it, making non-combat characters more powerful than in most games, which I congratulate the designers on, however, with the exception of 'local heroes' every scenario I have played so far depends on a little bit of tough combat.

Thanks again for the feedback.

First post here, so please be patient.
My current party (and first attempt at the druid) is Fighter/Wizard/Druid. We just finished the third scenario of the adventure pack 1 after completing adventure B.

Here's my deck currently: 4x Blessing of the Gods, Dog, Saber-Toothed Tiger, Crow, Detect Magic, Cure (2), Find Traps, Augury, Detect Evil, Token of Remembrance, Holy Candle. I have previously turned down a Toad (which I think was a mistake), and three other excellent allies since I felt I needed to keep animal allies at all cost. I also turned down inflict at one point because it seemed awful (maybe I misread it). I have not had the chance to get Holy Light.

It may be worth noting that I have played in three other parties as a fighter, a cleric (who I think is amazing), and a sorcerer (who I love). My sorcerer is currently on adventure pack 4, so I have some familiarity with the game mechanics coming up for my druid.

Here's her highlights... Obviously my druid is good for wisdom checks, particularly survival checks, which makes her quite good at closing locations, acquiring blessings, avoiding certain combat penalties, and telling stories to scare children into being good. Survival and knowledge seem to be two of the least-used skills, however, so that's one minor problem. d8 Charisma makes her capable at acquiring allies, but neither the wizard nor the fighter are particularly bad at that. Her Cure spells are quite handy, but nothing really special. Her other spells help her stay out of trouble or speed up her explorations, which is okay. Her discarding ability makes her decent at any dexterity or strength check, but not good enough to matter (more on that later), and her reveal ability is clearly her best asset, adding 1d4 to any of her checks, making her mediocre at almost everything.

Here's the big problem - being mediocre at everything means failing at almost every combat and barrier and only picking up things that others could have gotten anyway. Usually, she will have an animal ally in her hand, so I will assume a 1d4 added to everything for this analysis (although in reality, she takes so much damage that she often loses her allies). Her combat is almost always 1d10+1d4 for an average combat roll of 5.5+2.5 or an unimpressive 8. 8 is not enough to kill much of anything, so you will fail at combat, discarding a card in the process, most of the time unless you discard a second card which is a blessing for an average roll of 13.5, which will usually be successful (but most characters are successful when they use a blessing). Dexterity checks for traps and the like give the same result - an average of 8 unless you bless it, which is usually failure. What is really terrible about the druid, however, is that she doesn't get better at combat!!!! While the other characters I have played can add skill points to a primary stat that increases there combat proficiency, the druid cannot improve - she adds skill points to Wisdom which generally means improving her ability to recharge her questionable spells and that is all! If I reach adventure 4 like my sorcerer, I will still have an average unblessed combat roll of 8!!! Sure I will have better spell for some combats, but that just makes my discard ability even less relevant.

For comparison, look at the wizard in my party. Yes, I know he gets no blessings, so rarely gets to explore more than once (I, on the other hand, have to hold my blessings for combat, so I fail to see the advantage here). We have packed him almost full of combat spells, so he almost always attacks for 1d12+2d4+4 (we have had two skill upgrades), for a typical attack valut of 6.5+2.5+4 or 13 - more than 50% higher. Plus, he almost always recharges his spell, sometimes draws a free spell when casting, and sometimes gets free explores - and remember this is without having to discard!

Our fighter, when using a simple longsword without discard gets 1d10+1d8+5 for 5.5+4.5+5 or 15 - almost twice my score, plus his ability gives him an additional 1d6 quite often for the price of recharging his weapon. Yeah, he is slow because of his small hand size, I get that.

So, I am terrible at combat, not good enough at dexterity to matter (average of 8, remember), can cure occasionally (although I often lose cure to damage or fail to recharge since I need a 6 on d10), and am decent at other stuff like getting items or allies. Doesn't the druid seem absurdly under-powered to you since almost all scenarios require some tough combat? I'd really like some analysis or advice to improve here, since I can't find a way out!