Forgive if there's another thread on this.
After playing 2 heroes at home through up to Skinsaw, I got to play at a Con with 6 players. I figured this would allow me to see if I had bad assumptions or misinterpretted something (I did but I contributed to others understanding as well)
Anyway as we were reviewing the 6 hero decks it became immediately obvious to me that having only 2 hero decks set up in my home game was causing the lack luster boon selection during our play. As I've said we're up to Skinsaw and my Valeros deck is hardly different from its initial setup.
So I set up 4 other heroes and then parked them in the box to improve my chances.I used Seoni and Ezren to help my friend's Kyra find better divine and I used Merisiel and Harsk to move out some of tiny blades!
Anyone else do this?
I would consider this not playing in the spirit of the game and so I would not do it.
I disagree respectfully, John. The system is designed to have up to 6 players built at all times. There is no requirement to put characters' cards back into the box if a character isn't being played, so I think Trundell is okay doing his 6-build. But you obviously don't have to build unused characters if you don't want to.
He's basically using the unused decks as a way to get rid of the crappier cards. If I was going to do this, I would simply remove them, but I find it more exciting to get the good cards in the midst of the crap. I had an awesome moment where I finally got one of the Staffs of Minor healing (after sending it back to the box after closing a location, adventure after adventure), or whatever it's called, and it rocked. It would have been a lot less exciting for me, if I had thought "Maybe that staff wouldn't have been there, if it weren't for me putting several of the item cards aside", but if that doesn't bother someone, that's up to them.
For what it's worth, I know if a character of mine dies, I will be very annoyed, because I won't want to play with a gimped character, but I don't have hours and hours to spare to re-make them, plus if I did re-make them, I feel like then the party as a whole would be AHEAD on loot, with all the adventures that were ran..... so I guess my point is, to each their own. It's a clever way to cut out some of the crappiest cards, without making it a guarantee that they will get awesome loot every time.
I think having unused decks already set up is a cheap way of improving your odds. Yes, the game (with add-on expansion) is designed to have 6 decks built at any given time, but it's also assuming you're using all 6.
I personally think that the distribution of cards is a part of the balancing mechanism. As you add players, you have fewer turns in which to acquire cards, so it makes sense that the rate of better cards should be greater. If you're playing with fewer players, you have more turns in which to explore and acquire, so the rate of good cards should be lower.
In the Base set, there are just over 240 boons. If you set aside 4 character decks that you're not using, that's 60 basic cards that you're never going to see; that's 25% of the entire pool. This is a huge advantage when coupled with the fact that you've got 3 times as many turns (6 player=5 turns, 2 player=15 turns).
Also a factor is the difficulty in acquiring these better cards. With more players, people tend to be more stingy with their blessings, so you're less likely to have help in acquiring it; in a 2-player game you can afford to pitch in a blessing and not think twice about it.
I'm kind of torn on this. Fyi, I saw that a lot of people were playing like this before AP2 came out over on BGG. If you have the Add-On and playing a solo or 2 character game, I'd say go ahead and make 2 more decks, but there would be a caveat. You'd have to remove all of the Add-On cards first. If that meant removing the GreatSword, too bad and same with the Tiger. That way you're only improving the odds of finding better stuff a little bit while returning that probability back towards what the base set was meant to be. Building 6 total decks would require some serious mathematical breakdown to convince me it isn't breaking the intent of the game.
I'm running 3 right now, and I've had pretty good luck finding good things. I'm through Local Heroes now, and I have the DLC, GreatAxe, Icy Longspear+1, 2 Acid Arrows, the Holy Candle, both Masterwork Tools, just picked up Father Zantus, and 2 Spyglasses. The only bad luck I've been having is with the spells as I've been running across a lot of Divine spells and seen either of the AP1 d6 spells that Ezren needs to get.
I am using the Character add on deck. So if in an alternate universe where I don't have acquisition disorder I'd have never bought them and ADDED them, then my game experience would be better.
May be instead of setting up the four other players I'll just back out all the character add-on deck.
Flat the Impaler wrote: I think having unused decks already set up is a cheap way of improving your odds. Yes, the game (with add-on expansion) is designed to have 6 decks built at any given time, but it's also assuming you're using all 6.
I personally think that the distribution of cards is a part of the balancing mechanism. As you add players, you have fewer turns in which to acquire cards, so it makes sense that the rate of better cards should be greater. If you're playing with fewer players, you have more turns in which to explore and acquire, so the rate of good cards should be lower.
In the Base set, there are just over 240 boons. If you set aside 4 character decks that you're not using, that's 60 basic cards that you're never going to see; that's 25% of the entire pool. This is a huge advantage when coupled with the fact that you've got 3 times as many turns (6 player=5 turns, 2 player=15 turns).
Also a factor is the difficulty in acquiring these better cards. With more players, people tend to be more stingy with their blessings, so you're less likely to have help in acquiring it; in a 2-player game you can afford to pitch in a blessing and not think twice about it.
I was torn as well which is why I posted. After I posted I noticed solo players using 4 heroes. So basically their game play is more rewarding than us playing one each.
I'm backing out the character add-on and then we'll play 2 heroes each.
This will improve our loot opportunities AND make it easier to win. Now that certainly seems counter to the spirit of the game doesn't it.
kysmartman wrote: I'm kind of torn on this. Fyi, I saw that a lot of people were playing like this before AP2 came out over on BGG. If you have the Add-On and playing a solo or 2 character game, I'd say go ahead and make 2 more decks, but there would be a caveat. You'd have to remove all of the Add-On cards first. If that meant removing the GreatSword, too bad and same with the Tiger. That way you're only improving the odds of finding better stuff a little bit while returning that probability back towards what the base set was meant to be. Building 6 total decks would require some serious mathematical breakdown to convince me it isn't breaking the intent of the game.
I'm running 3 right now, and I've had pretty good luck finding good things. I'm through Local Heroes now, and I have the DLC, GreatAxe, Icy Longspear+1, 2 Acid Arrows, the Holy Candle, both Masterwork Tools, just picked up Father Zantus, and 2 Spyglasses. The only bad luck I've been having is with the spells as I've been running across a lot of Divine spells and seen either of the AP1 d6 spells that Ezren needs to get.
On the other hand, it sounds like the game is less fun for you when you are not doing this. So maybe you should keep doing it in the privacy of your own home. It's not hurting anybody, after all. It's just like when we used to play Monopoly but started out with more money and had more than one "Free Parking" rule. It's just a houserule situation. No need to worry unless you are in a tournament.
Playing with two players is easy enough that you can empty every single location deck of boons. Whereas with 5 or 6 you generally need to close locations as soon as you fight the henchman.
My 2 cents is that the game has less time pressure with fewer players and this is balanced out by having more time to explore but slightly more basic boons in circulation.
As such I would not want to take extra cards out of circulation and doing so is making the game slightly easier, which, imho, is not a requirement for our play group.
You also need to remember that those decks don't stay basic for very long - when you're playing with six characters they start picking up non-basic boons which then puts the basics back into circulation.
If you just build four starter decks and set them aside then those basic boons are just out of the game forever.
I also don't think it's a big deal if you develop your deck slowly. Often my characters will have 0-1 new cards that they want to keep at the end of a given scenario. I don't feel that's a big problem - after all, they're working hard to rid the world of a great evil, not shopping in the bazaar!
Feel free to house rule it, but don't then come back and say the game it too easy!
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