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Ever have a session that was actually too easy because everything went right?
My group's last session, Harsk, Kyra, Amiri, and Seoni beat Black Fang so easily that we've decided not to take the rewards and replay that scenario again, for the challenge.
On the very first turn of the game, Kyra stood there at the Temple accumulating and discarding blessings to explore over and over, until on her fourth exploration, she stood face to face with the dragon itself - Black Fang was there, defiling the Temple! We decided that losing the fight wasn't a bad thing, since she could just heal herself next turn, and at least we'd know where the villain was. So nobody pumped up her combat check, and she stood toe to toe against the beast with nothing but her mace. She rolled well enough to only take two damage, and Black Fang got shuffled back into the location deck.
We then got even luckier at other locations, encountering henchmen among the first three cards at three different locations, so we were able to close two of them early, though one close check was whiffed. While this was happening, we used scouting techniques to get through the Temple cards without exploring randomly, until we saw that Black Fang was on top.
So it only took two turns by each character (7 or 8 turns of the blessings deck) before we were ready to move into position for the final fight. We thought about exploring more just for shopping, but the easy locations to do that were already closed, so we figured we'd go for the jugular.
At that point, people spent their turns moving into position, discarded stuff they wouldn't use in the hopes of drawing more blessings, and got ready to close their locations. Then Amiri's turn came up, and she moved to confront the beast!
Amiri flipped the card to reveal the villain, and the other three had to act to close their locations. Seoni cast the Glibness she'd picked up earlier that session, and easily made an Arcana check to close one of them. Harsk and Kyra needed to burn through blessings to make sure they would succeed in closing their own locales. That left Amiri face to face with the dragon, which had nowhere to run when defeated. Just one problem: Amiri didn't have a weapon in hand!
Amiri proved we were right to send her for the final fight, despite not having a weapon. On top of her initial 1d12 +2, She buried a crowbar to rage for an extra 1d10, and revealed the Sage's Journal for another 1d4. She, Kyra, and Seoni all spent blessings to give her another 3d12, and Harsk provided cover fire with both his character power and a discarded crossbow for another 2d4. Needless to say, Amiri easily beat the target number of 12, and victory was ours, with just 11 cards flipped in the blessings deck the entire session!
Now I know the Sage's Journal is supposed to represent being better prepared for a fight because you've learned about your opponent. But Amiri winning that final fight with that as her only weapon led us to the only obvious conclusion: Amiri is so strong that she can actually slay a dragon by smacking it over and over with a heavy book!!!
In the alpha playtest game I played two Paizocons ago, we beat Ripnugget on the absolutely last possible turn by virtue of Ezren punching him to death in the face.
Um... one thing.
If you found the Villain on your first turn in a four player game then how did you know where the Villain would run to?
Even if you temp closed three other locations, the Villain would still have had a choice of 3 locations to run to and you would have lost two blessings from the timer deck.
There's no mention of temp closing locations in your tale so I'm not sure if you just forgot how to deal with undefeated villains? They don't stay in one place!
If any locations are not closed, the villain escapes. If you defeated the villain, count the number of open locations, subtract 1, and retrieve that number of random blessings from the box. Shuffle the villain in with those blessings, then deal 1 card to each open location and shuffle those location decks. If you did not defeat the villain, do the same thing, but retrieve the blessings from the blessings deck instead of from the box.
(Note that if you did not defeat the villain, there is always at least one open location: the one in which it was just encountered.)
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Gah!!! Somehow, I totally missed that losing a fight to the villain doesn't shuffle him back into the same location like any other bane. And here I thought I had all the details of the game down at this point. Just goes to show that there is enough complexity that most people aren't going to remember all the details, even those of us who spend time her discussing lots of stuff.
I found that to be the most confusing part to learn first up. It is great mechanic though, it adds a lot of tension to the game. I imagine we have all made similar mistakes on our first 5 or so games.
Yep, that villain was supposed to go elsewhere! No wonder it seemed so easy!
Not to split hairs here, but... if they failed to defeat the villain, the villain MAY have gone to another location. Failing to defeat the villain leaves the current location open, and is one of the places he may escape to.
@Deekow - yes, that's right. The point is that you wouldn't know where they were, though (but they might be in the same place).
Very true. If the villain shows up in a 6p you have to do everything you can to defeat it.
But the awesomeness of the game comes through here... do you throw your blessings at helping to temp-closing locations (or banish cards, etc) or save them to help on the actual check against the villain?
The more you temp-close the less you'll lose from the timer deck if you lose. But the less blessings you'll gain from the box if you win.
Genius ;)
During the first scenario of burnt offerings, doing a 5 man game, Harsk Moved to a location, did 1 explore, then used his ability to look at the top card and it was the villan. So first turn into the game we knew exactly were the villan was, we spent the rest of the time gathering loot and closing without a ton of worry.
Then in scenario 2 we couldnt aquire the allies for the life of use and had to burn nearly every deck to the very end and ended up with 1 blessing in the pile at the end.
Scouting is remarkably useful! Especially in 5/6 player games where time is so precious.
Gah!!! Somehow, I totally missed that losing a fight to the villain doesn't shuffle him back into the same location like any other bane. And here I thought I had all the details of the game down at this point. Just goes to show that there is enough complexity that most people aren't going to remember all the details, even those of us who spend time her discussing lots of stuff.
Somehow that is what I like in games. When I can't hold the complexity of the game entirely in my mind at one time it somehow makes the game more engaging for me. I guess having the ability to be surprised due to not knowing all the possibilities and emergent gameplay plays a lot into that.
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During the first scenario of burnt offerings, doing a 5 man game, Harsk Moved to a location, did 1 explore, then used his ability to look at the top card and it was the villan. So first turn into the game we knew exactly were the villan was, we spent the rest of the time gathering loot and closing without a ton of worry.
Then in scenario 2 we couldnt aquire the allies for the life of use and had to burn nearly every deck to the very end and ended up with 1 blessing in the pile at the end.
I've done that with the Spyglass, Explored once, used Spyglass and left him there while I got prepared. 2nd scenario I think.