So far I have only played three solo gamees. I have a couple questions that came up during those quests.
1. How does the game handle multiple opponents? In one game the villain summons wrathful sinspawn. Do I fight that spawn and then the villain? What happens if I lose to the sinspawn? Does the villain get shuffled back into the deck and the combat end?
2. What is the point of a death mechanic when your deck runs out when you have a finite number of turns anyway under the blessings deck? 12-15 turns (depending on recharges) seems awfully short.
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1. Each encounter would be a separate check. If you don't defeat the Sinspawn, you still have to encounter the Villain. It just means you will probably be weakened without any cards in your hand
2. Because if you die...end of character. Start a new one. If you run out of Blessings deck, then the scenario is over, but your characters aren't dead. You can rebuild your character decks and restart the scenario.
1. Thanks. Couldn't find anything about it in the rules.
2. Fair enough. Just seems an unnecessary penalty to me. Every other deck building game I've played just reshuffles and carries on. Maybe after a few multiplayer games the point will make sense.
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Without the specter of a time limit on the Blessings Deck....there is no reason for the Blessings Deck. Also, one of the genius moves by the designers is making the Blessings Deck static. 30 cards. No more. No less. Doesn't matter how many PCs you are using. The reason why it is genius is that it makes you change your play style depending on how many PCs you are using. If you are only using 2...then you can use those Allies and Blessings to help with checks. If you are playing with 6, you better use those cards for extra explores and hope the other players can use their powers to help you clear checks. I think that is one of the best parts of the game.
How many of the other deckbuilding games that you're used to give you permanent benefits for losing a game?
The only other deckbuilding games I've played are mostly considered just one offs, where losing is losing period and winning is winning period.
PACG's mechanics allow for losing and still gaining strength progressively. Without a penalty to offset that, it'd be pointless to do so; just go through all the cards, build whatever deck you want with the most powerful items and spells and allies, and go after the final scenario, because that's pretty much what lacking that penalty would allow, it'd just take time.
Not having the penalty and chance of death would also take away much of the suspense and forethought in playing a scenario. People would just throw everything at each encounter, just trying to rush through since they have nothing to lose except time put into the current playthrough.
We played the basic Savage Coast scenarios tonight with 4 players. With multiple players it all worked very well and everyone throughly enjoyed it. I will have to try some more solo play over the next week and re-evaluate how the 15 card player deck works with just one player.