If Peril of the Lost Coast is difficulty 0, then Adventure Pack 1 is also 0. We found it much easier than the intro.
Maybe because we now know what to do.
The fourth scenario was a bit of a nail biter, but I found the fifth one easier.
I guess the answer to the OP is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? :)
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I only playtested the high level (decks 5 and 6) but I would say that the difficulty scales well with the characters. We did a 6 player play test and I also did some solo play. Other than Perils of the Lost Coast, all of the low to mid-level scenarios are new to me.
I think it is fair to say that each adventure deck will become more difficult than the last. I would say that the failure rate may increase as the difficulty level rises. This is mostly due to running out of cards in the blessing deck. The difficulty of the checks to beat some monsters will eventually get into the high 20's and low 30's.
There will be some scenarios which will break the mold of the typical set up. These will present a challenge as they will require a different strategy to complete.
Ultimately luck will play a factor. Sometimes the location decks are easier based upon the random items within. Sometimes the group gets favorable shuffles and encounters henchmen and villains at the right times. We did not play test the rule about pulling out lower set cards starting with Adventure deck 4. I expect that this will help balance the decks to become more difficult as the lower powered banes are removed from the game.
Thanks for the feedback, @1970Zombie
I'm slightly disappointed that the highest monsters are only low 30s. We rolled 46 for the final defeat the villain check in the last scenario of Burnt Offerings yesterday, but we had time to get everybody in place first.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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A poster on boardgamegeek did a thorough analysis of the difficulty that scenarios need to have in order to be a viable campaign type game.
Basically, if you want to have a 50% chance of surviving all the way to the end, each scenario can only have like a 1-2% chance of death. Thus the illusion of "easiness" - if there was even a 10% chance of a TPK in a scenario, almost no group would ever see Hook Mountain, let alone Xin-Shalast.
I suggest they consider adding in a "hard" or "nightmare" mode that ups the difficulty for those who want it to be a rare accomplishment to see the entire plot.
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I suggest they consider adding in a "hard" or "nightmare" mode that ups the difficulty for those who want it to be a rare accomplishment to see the entire plot.
House rules to create a hard mode are pretty easy to invent.
One person in another thread (or it may have been on BGG) suggested shuffling the villain/bandit into the bottom half of each location deck, to prevent running into it too early.
Another suggestion is that it's easy to just raise/lower the number of cards in the blessings deck to increase or decrease scenario difficulty.
And, of course, there are custom scenarios. I kind of wish the rulebook had a section on creating custom scenarios, actually. Something to consider for version 2.0 of the rulebook (I'm assuming it'll be a whole new rulebook for next year's base set).
I suggest they consider adding in a "hard" or "nightmare" mode that ups the difficulty for those who want it to be a rare accomplishment to see the entire plot.
House rules to create a hard mode are pretty easy to invent.
One person in another thread (or it may have been on BGG) suggested shuffling the villain/bandit into the bottom half of each location deck, to prevent running into it too early.
That was me on BGG :)
The other top tip I've seen is to 'drop' (banish) one card per open location from each character's deck if the timing deck runs out. Gives you incentive to close as many as possible even if you know you can't get the villain.