In the spirit of sharing and strategizing, I’d like to create a series of threads, one for each character. The idea would be to explain how you play that particular character and why. What cards do you feel you NEED to stock in your deck or try extra hard to acquire because they are central to your strategy of how you will play this character? What skill, power and card feats did you choose and why? If they are helpful enough, maybe Paizo will even sticky them. But that is up to them.
To be clear, this isn't about the belief that there is only one way to play a character. Because there is only one way to play a character: the way that makes it fun for YOU to play. This is more about sharing ideas that maybe someone else hasn't thought about before.
I decided to try this because there are more than a few forums asking for advice about a certain character. And I've personally (and other have as well I think) discovered I wasn't actually following the rules when I see things others have posted.
And I also thought about the fact that I've not felt interested in playing Seelah. But then I thought, maybe that is just because I don’t realize how to play her. So maybe there are others out there too that might discover through this that a character as experienced is not the same as the character as theory and realize they might like to try a new character they would have assumed they’d hate playing.
And it can also provide feedback to the design team. They’ll see the things we are doing with their characters. Maybe they’ll be benevolent and add more things to help the way we play. Or maybe they’ll be malevolent and add things to hinder the way we play. But either way they’ll have feedback.
When posting, please be so kind as to follow these guidelines:
- Specify the size of the group you play the character (or this version of the character) in and what other characters are in your group. That can effect your decision making for your character. You might want Seoni to carry Speed if she's with Sajan and Mersiel, but she might be better off with Glibness if its just her and Lem.
- Limit your posts to things that are central to your strategy. For example, Holy Candle is a great card and probably every group wants to have someone have it. But unless there is a reason your character has to have it for your strategy, please don’t mention it. In other words, “My version of Merisiel has Holy Candle because I cycle my cards pretty well,” might help thinking about whose deck to put Holy Candle in, but it isn't helpful about your strategy for playing Merisiel. But saying, “I give Sajan items like Holy Candle because he can get their full value of use and then bury them, which helps him cycle his blessings around faster,” is a part of your strategy for Sajan and something others might want to consider trying.
- For now, let’s limit it to discussing just what is on the standard class of each character and save the role cards for when Deck 4 gets released. But if you choose a card or a feat because you are working towards a certain role card, feel free to state that. If this is popular, we can make threads for the role cards later.
If this is not something anyone else would like, then I apologize for wasting your time reading the preceding paragraphs. You can hold out hope that it will be so unpopular that it will soon fall way down the list of threads, never to be seen again.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. In the next few minutes I’ll start a thread for each character with a similar name to this one. If you want to share please do so in a spirit of cooperation and kindness.
I'd like to ask how often you use her cure power instead of a cure spell? I see you made it more powerful by putting a power feat there. Sacrificing an exploration, at least in a big group, seems very costly. And you end up discarding a card on top of that. But I assume you wouldn't take the power feat if it wasn't more useful than the weapon proficiency you already said you didn't need. Though I have been in situations where I felt I'd pay anything for a cure.
I've been playing Kyra in most of the games I've played so I'd have to say I like her. Never go adventuring without a cleric!
In the main game I'm playing with my wife, I play Kyra along side Valeros and Lem. My wife plays Meriseil, Lini, and Seoni. We've kind of worked out the turn order purposely for Kyra, it goes Meriseil and then Valeros to get the heavy hitters going in first, followed by the best support team ever, Lini and Lem. Then it's the boom canon Seoni and the healer to make sure things go smooth.
I've focused on Kyra as a healer so the power feats have been to increase her natural healing. Skills have been to Wisdom (x2), Strength, and Constitution. Cards were Blessing and Weapons.
The key cards are
1 Cure spell
2 Consecration spells (thinking of losing these if something better comes back into our rotation)
1 Augury spell
The other two specific cards are the Holy Candle and Father Zanthus. Both of these go specifically to Kyra because in addition to being great cards, they are also both Divine so therefore can be used for her healing power (instead of the cure spell) therefore saving blessings for exploration or enhancement.
She is trying to collect a good amount of Sarenrae but I want to keep a little variety of blessings as well.
She has some weapons but other than being ones that don't need proficiency nothing special about them. If there is a holy weapon (if it has the divine trait) then she would most likely take that.
Since heal isn't a check, you can't play blessings to aid it. It's always 1d4+whatever, sorry. :(
And J Scot, I think you'll be "losing" those Consecrations regardless, since they're banished as soon as you use them. :D
My wife has played Kyra in both a two character run-through with Seoni, and a four character run with Seoni, Valeros, and Merisiel. We've played through the starter box. (Expecting the rest tomorrow!)
We've only failed one time, when Seoni had several really bad runs of luck with the dice during Approach to Thistletop. We ran the Blessing deck out due to Kyra wasting too many turns to heal Seoni up, which was probably my fault for extending too far with the erstwhile sorceress.
We periodically check each character's remaining deck, and if it's low, Kyra uses a held divine card to patch the character back up. She also carries a Cure since that saves time in healing up multiple characters. I believe she's currently using two Holy Light and one Cure on the two player game and she's using two Holy Light and two Cure in the four player game. None of the other spells particularly interest her. She uses the Spyglass for scouting.
For advancement, she's taken +2 to STR to boost her melee. She hasn't found any magic weapons in the four player game, but carries the Flaming Mace +1 in the two player. For her Power advancement, she's boosted her Healing power. For her Deck advancement, she took an extra spell.
Her basic tactic is hold on to one Divine card at all times, and wade in with the mace or a Holy Light when exploring. She'll take multiple explores if she has the resources in hand, but tends to do more one explore turns than Seoni. In the four character game, she tends to explore more than in the two character game.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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My girlfriend and I play a Kyra/Seoni team with me playing Kyra.
Unless the end of the scenario is close, I try to keep us below 5 cards in discard at all times. This is especially important for Seoni as a bad combat can wipe out nearly half her deck.
So far, as of end of scenario 3.4, I've taken:
Str+2
Wis+2
+1 weapon, +1 spell, +1 item
Generally I've been putting card feats where I feel weak; with two weapons I wasn't drawing them as often as I wanted; also being restricted to one item was a little cramped.
I've taken the healing boost, weapon proficiency, and the undead boost. I feel like extra hand size is a bit of a trap, as it makes you more vulnerable to damage. 5 has seemed like plenty of cards most of the time.
As for my deck, I'll try to remember as I am not with my cards but I have:
Flaming Mace +1, Bastard Sword +1, Impaler of Thorns
Elven Breastplate, another magic heavy armor that can recharge at reset
Cure, Fire Sneeze, Flaming weapon?, Augury
Staff of Minor Healing, Chime of opening
Acolyte(I think, I just switched out from toad, which I almost never used)
2 blessing of sarenrae, assorted other blessings (I have a torag and a gorum, don't remember the other two)
My plan is to go exorcist and immediately take the power to recharge sarenrae blessings. That's free explores/dice boosts. Yeah, the 2 dice power is underwhelming but auto-recharge is worth it. Auto-recharge to the top of the deck seems super sexy. Healer just seems like overkill in a 2 player game.
I don't know if the staff is purely necessary. I offered to trade it to Seoni but she likes her item assortment very much.
I had the dogslicer+1 for quite a while, it works very well with Kyra's d6 strength die.
I like deck scouting so augury is very nice. More than once have I pulled a henchman or villain up to the top of the deck by choosing "monster".
my Kyra is less "heal the party" and more "death machine on two legs".
just finished hook mountain (some of the encounters are fantastic and different), and her build from memory is:
skills:
str d6+2
dex d4
con d8
int d6
wis d12+1
cha d6
powers:
hand size 6
weapons proficiency
can use her first exploration to heal for 1d4+2
if she defeats a bane with the undead trait, she can shuffle 1 random chard from her discard into her deck (from her role card)
cards:
spells 5
blessings 7
cards in deck:
I have given a couple of characters played by other players minor staves of healing, just cause they need them way more. that being said, my deck is something like what follows:
heavy pick +1 (wanted since skinsaw, got with our last mission in hook mountain), bastard sword +1, elven breastplate x2, father zantus, toad, curex2, aid, detect evil, token of rememberance, and various non-botg blessings, including 2-3 sarenrae.
as my friend (who is playing Merisel) and I tend to split up, each of us needed to be able to handle combat checks on our own. and, with my build, I find that I can.
And J Scot, I think you'll be "losing" those Consecrations regardless, since they're banished as soon as you use them. :D
Dave, that is correct but I was more thinking that I would swap them for another available spell before they got used and banished. Had them for at least 3 games now and haven't used them once.
The wand in question on the faq is one like Wand of Force Missle, which says "For your combat check, bury this card and role 4d4..." So in that case there is a clearly defined check. A combat check. Blessings at played to add dice to a check, so playing a blessing would be allowed, but since the character using the wand is not using a skill, there was confusion about what die to add.
When playing cure, there is no mention of a check (because there is none). Since blessings add to checks, you can not play a blessing to enhance cure.
Yeah, the issue isn't that it's not attached to a skill, it's that it's not attached to a check. It just says "roll a die" not "for your heal check roll a die" so blessings are a no-go.
Which makes sense. Getting a 3d4+1 heal would make it even more OP than Cure already is. :D