Abusing Seelah's Power

[Darkbird]

So me and my wife just finished our first game in which her ranger died halfway through.

I was playing as Seelah. I limped along through the game using a really, really cheap tactic, and was wondering if anyone else had run into it.

Basically, her power allows her to discard the top card of her deck to add a 1d6 to a check. If the top card is a blessing, it recharges instead of discarding.

With one card left in my deck which I KNEW was a blessing, I basically knew I could use my power once on every check scott free, and was getting an extra 1d6 to every check.

Has anyone else had this happen? It was pretty awesome.

[Fromper]

I wouldn't call it cheap at all. I'd say it represents the "never say die" attitude of a holy warrior on the brink of death. If you're down to one card in your deck, use whatever advantage you can get.

[Darkbird]

Typical Roy response. :P

[Jaunt]

It's pretty awesome. I'd also say it's definitely within the spirit of the game. I mean, she starts with 6 blessings. You're already 40% of the way to a nothing-but-blessings deck. Also consider Lini, who gets 1d4 on every check and all she has to do for it is hold one freaking animal ally, and she starts every single game with one. For reference, 1d4 is 5/7ths as good as 1d6. You might expect the d6 to be 50% better, but it's not (or maybe you have an instinctive grip on probability, and you already knew that).

For further enjoyment, consider that Cure is a Basic spell, and Lini gets something like 6 spells, 4 blessings and 3 allies who all can recharge or discard to explore, and her hand size is 5. And she can discard to get mean in combat. If someone hands her a mace, she probably won't even have to. So her turn ends up looking something like explore, kill, explore, kill, explore, discard to either bearform out or add another die via blessing, cure up any damage suffered, and do the whole thing again next turn.

So while the blessing deck is a very awesome thing to pull off, I wouldn't cross the line of calling it "cheap". And also while Seelah scared me at the first look, Lini is a hulking, murderous beast hiding inside that little body.

[the_Widowmaker]

I've played Seelah throughout the Burnt Offerings AP with my wife playing the druid. This power was very useful indeed.

Note however, that if you kick down a door and find a trap there- you are dead. Like, really dead. You have no items and you can hope to have a burglar ally in your hand to have a chance, but really if you are running on empty you have got a very large chance of kicking the bucket if a damage dealing skill check comes out.

This of course is softened by the "scry" ability at the start of the turn, but if you are playing with true lethality it's pretty risky to burn through your deck just to get to those blessings.

Keep in mind if you are doing that throughout the game you could remain fairly healthy and get your ratio of blessings to non-blessings up to 2/3 or even 3/4 relatively easily, you just have to avoid buring blessings in hand for explores unless you have a heal effect in the party.

[magnuskn]

I wouldn't call it "cheap", but rather "surviving by the skin of your teeth". If you get damaged by a monster, you are dead. I had much the same experience with Seoni a few times, where the deck had been wittled down to the spell cards and I survived by dint of recharging them constantly. One time, I was down to zero cards in my deck and a full hand, surviving by playing Invisibility over and over, until I ran into a barrier which gave me 1d4 new spells (the actual plan was to evade encounters until I'd run into the boss and therefore win the game before redrawing up to my hand size).

Some games get very intense, even solo ones. :)

[Darkbird]

Perhaps cheap wasn't the right word; EFFECTIVE!

With my wife's character dead, the entire scenario fell to me. It was quite entertaining to skim by just BARELY clinging to life as a paladin, my faith in the gods the only thing keeping me moving.

[Captain Bulldozer]

I wouldn't call it a cheap tactic really. Powers are supposed to be useful, but also situational. Seelah's adding a die power is great when you get a blessing, but pretty underwhelming at any other time. You just happened to either get lucky or manipulated your deck to achieve that goal. (props to you if it was the second!) Really, adding 1d6 is not at all bad, but many cards that you'd potentially discard to use that ability would easily add a better roll instead (plenty of weapons/spells/allies/etc. add rolls of at least a 1d8, even many with the basic trait).

Honestly, I find some other powers, like Kyra's healing, to be a little more crazy (with Kyra it's not to hard to design your deck so that almost every card has the divine trait, meaning almost every card is a healing spell). Still, all of these powers, so far, seem quite well balanced with respect to the game as well as with respect to the powers of other characters. THAT is what I think should really be important here.

[Jaunt]

Seelah's much better in a larger game where you don't get the chance to draw your entire deck. The important part of her power is that it stacks with everything, also, and can work with anything. Yeah, a sword is going to be better than that 1d6, but if you have 1 sword in your hand, what are you going to dig for? Another sword? Armor?

Kyra's not that amazing, in my experience. At 4+ characters, exploring quickly is a real priority and she's not the best at exploring both because her heal burns both a divine card and an exploration, and second because she struggles a bit with combat with no innate way to increase her check (excepting undead).

Also, it could be my imagination, but it seems to me that the Character Addon characters contains the most powerful characters. Compare Lini to Lem, or Amiri to Valeros, or Seelah to Harsk. As for Sajan, dude's a class of his own with 8 blessings.

[Russ Taylor]

Kyra's a machine for me right now, with holy light, detect magic, and cure. She burns her hand down to nothing with extra explores, then catches a breather with either method of cure.

I find Valeros more durable and just as deadly as Amiri, and Lem more versatile than Lini. Harsk and Seelah...Seelah's better in combat, but I find Harsk more useful. I actually think the base and expansion cards are quite well balanced, there's something about each character I like.

Sajan's pretty brutal, though, agreed there.

[Akasma]

I think you do what you have to do within the rules to win and that being smart about it is the way to go. Good job!

As far as Kyra goes, I am playing her in my 3-player campaign and she is THE fighter for the group. She has killed ever single Villain so far, we shall see if this continues come October.

I think it is all in the way you choose to play her. For me, she is on a righteous crusade and nothing will stand in her way. I do need a good weapon and use it liberally, rifling through my deck until I get a weapon. Once I have it, game on, I'll mow everything down in my path.

Best of luck!

[Nathaniel Gousset]

I have a question about Seelah discard power and the new timing rules.

Can Seelah use the power to boost her attack + to boost the recharge roll on a spell she used in the same attack ?

I saw our Seelah player use her power A LOT... For nearly every Check made . A discarded long sword + Holy blast + D6 + recharge = ugly overkill.

[h4ppy]

The recharge is a separate 'check' so, yes, she can use the power again.

[Hector Garza]

I had similar situation with Valeros playing solo. I was down to last 3-4 cards which included a longsword +1 which I was able to recharge instead of discard for an extra dice.

I thought for sure I was gonna die but fought off last few cards with some good rolls. It was epic.