AFAIK the rules state that cards may be played when the card allows it. So I just have a quick question regarding this rule, since it seems super open (probably intentional)
When you start your turn, after discarding a card from the blessings deck, you can play cards at any time, as long as they may be played, right?
So the turn overview, when you add in when the player may play cards that don't explain when they can be played (such as Detect Magic), would read something like this?
Advance the Blessings deck.
-May play cards here-
Give a card to another character at the same location (optional). Move to another location (optional).
-May play cards here-
Explore the top card of the location deck (optional).
-May play cards here-
Try to close a location if it doesn’t have any cards (optional).
-May play cards here-
Reset your hand by discarding any cards if you like, then discarding down to or drawing up to your hand size.
End your turn.
Hi @jjiinx - take a look at the turn sequence docs on BGG then post an update here to let me know if you have any more questions!
Basically your summary looks correct for playing cards/powers outside of encounters and you just need to remember that you can only play cards/powers that affect the check/damage during an encounter. (e.g. no Cure during an encounter)
Hi @jjiinx - take a look at the turn sequence docs on BGG then post an update here to let me know if you have any more questions!
Basically your summary looks correct for playing cards/powers outside of encounters and you just need to remember that you can only play cards/powers that affect the check/damage during an encounter. (e.g. no Cure during an encounter)
Thanks a lot! I'm glad we've been playing that correctly, I've been looking for things we're doing wrong because since we've started the game we haven't come close to losing a game, so I figure either the game is crazy easy or we're doing *something* wrong. As a bonus for someone to figure out if they'd like, I'll post a combat example with my group and if there are any flaws in it, we'd greatly appreciate knowing ^^
Seoni Encounters Jubrayl Vhiski (10cc)
Seoni refreshes 2 cards from her hand and immediately draws 2 new cards (Jubrayl's and BRIGANDOOM!'s effect)
Seoni plays Lightning Touch to roll 1d12+2+2d4
Lem, at Seoni's location, refreshes a card in his hand to add 1d4 to the roll
Lem, Merisiel, and Kyra each discard a Blessing of the Gods to add 3d12
Seoni rolls 4d12+2+3d4 (overkill? yeah, totally)
Seoni kills Jubrayl Vhiski without any issues
Jubrayl Vhiski flees to another Location, his current location is now permanently closed for free, all other cards in that location are banished
For our group, something like this isn't unheard of, we never seem to have a shortage of Allys (for searching locations) and Blessing of the Gods, so overkilling a Villian or Henchman is no problem. We usually end a game with 10+ blessings remaining in the blessing deck and we haven't lost once.
If we're doing everything correctly in this scenario, then we're probably going to change "add a die to a check" to mean "add 1d4 to a check"
Everything looks fine in that sequence of events. (Its "recharge" instead of "refresh" but as long as you put the cards on the bottom of your character deck, then its fine.)
The only thing I'd note, because you don't mention it explicitly, is that when Seoni ends her turn, she's the only one that resets her hand, so Merisiel and Kyra will be starting their next turn 1 card short and Lem will be starting his 2 cards short. Each character only resets their hand at the end of their own turn.
Not saying you did or didn't do that, just that it does have an impact on their next turns, so its important to note.
Everything looks fine in that sequence of events. (Its "recharge" instead of "refresh" but as long as you put the cards on the bottom of your character deck, then its fine.)
The only thing I'd note, because you don't mention it explicitly, is that when Seoni ends her turn, she's the only one that resets her hand, so Merisiel and Kyra will be starting their next turn 1 card short and Lem will be starting his 2 cards short. Each character only resets their hand at the end of their own turn.
Not saying you did or didn't do that, just that it does have an impact on their next turns, so its important to note.
Ah yes, sorry for the typo, Seoni recharged her spell, and at the turn reset her hand. So if all that is correct then so far afaik, we have been playing the game correctly. I'm gonna be going through the updated PDF instructions with a fine tooth comb to find any ways that we're unintentionally making the game easier than it's supposed to be.
I wouldn't normally be obsessing with the difficulty (although I do LOVE a challenge), if it weren't for the other reports that their games usually end down to the wire.
I personally tend to be closer to the end of the blessing deck. h4ppy reports he doesn't get close to the end of the deck under the normal rules, so he does some things he feels makes it more difficult. I've not seen h4ppy be wrong about anything in the game that wasn't either a minor detail or something that virtually everyone else was also having difficulty in understanding, so I'd say he seems to understand the game very well. So, assuming we are both playing correctly, we have two different results. This may be do to:
Why h4ppy and I might get different results with the same understanding of the rules
- I'm greedier than h4ppy and spend cards acquiring more than he does.
- I'm unluckier than h4ppy and tend to roll worse results, not have good cards in hand for what I encounter (hypothetically: my Kyra tends to not have weapons or attack spells in hands when encountering a monster while h4ppy's does) or encounter banes my character is not good against (i.e. for me Valeros finds the Siren alot, Kyra finds the Collapsed Ceiling, while for h4ppy maybe Krya finds the Siren and Merisiel finds the Collapsed Ceiling) Those are all just examples. I'm not aware of which characters h4ppy actually plays.
- I'm worse at playing the game, h4ppy is better. He could have a better understanding of what card, power, or skill feats to give his characters (hypothetically: maybe he thinks giving Kyra a weapon card feat is better, while I give her a spell card feat, and maybe to some extent he is objectively correct). He could also be employing a better strategy than me in terms of dividing up the party, how many cards to play for exploring, what cards to keep between scenarios, etc.
Since h4ppy seems to live in the U.K. and I live in the Delaware in the USA, its unlikely we'll be able to ever see first hand how each other play. I'm willing to say that different people have different experiences with the difficulty of the game. Some of that is random luck and some is skill.
As for increasing the difficulty, I suggested a while back an idea. I'm not the best person to try it since I don't find the game too easy. But for someone who does, I'd love to know whether you thought it helped solve your problem with how difficult the game was. Here is my idea:
When you encounter a henchman, in the determining the difficulty step of the Attempting a Check sequence, add to their difficulty to defeat the number of cards remaining in the location. So, in a typical scenario, if the henchman is the top card, add 9. If he's the last card add 0. If you get a summoned henchman, do the same with how ever many cards remain in your location, not counting the encountered card.
Optionally to tweak it:
Increase the difficulty further by doing the same with the villain.
Increase the difficulty further by adding a "base" amount (i.e. number of cards + 2)
Increase the difficulty even further by multiplying the number of cards by 2. (i.e. max of 18, min of 0)
Decrease the difficulty by diving the number of cards left in the location in half and rounding up. (i.e. max of 5, min of 0)
This solves the problem that most people complain makes the game too easy which is if you encounter a henchman too early, you can easily defeat him and close the location saving your a boatload of turns. So in this variation the henchman is more difficult early in the location.
Thematically, for those that need it, think of this as you expecting the henchman to be in the most secure part of the location, which you are working your way towards. But then he catches you by surprise so he gets the upper hand.
I like the idea of tougher monsters, but I fear it would over-complicate the combat when fighting villians/henchmen, of which I adore the brilliant simplicity.
I read somewhere else that someone added difficulty to their game by adding a die roll whenever they moved to a new location, they'd count the number of locations they were moving away from their current location and roll a 6 sided die, attempting to roll a number higher than the difference, if they failed the roll they'd have to encounter a random monster instead. (So if you were moving 2 locations away you'd encounter a monster on a 1 or a 2)
I really like the idea of random encounter while traveling, it adds the feeling that these locations aren't directly next to each other and actually must be traveled to and that there's actual monsters in between these locations. It also adds an easily adjustable level of difficulty to the game by changing which die you roll when you travel (d4 for a harder game, d6 for standard, and d8 or higher for easier difficulties)
Another small difficulty adjustment in addition to this one was "players start out at the same location", while making the game slightly tougher at the beginning, also helps you feel like you've arrived as a party, rather than a group of random spread out heroes.
I'll discuss these changes with my group and if they're all for it I'll be sure to report back with details regarding how this affected the game's difficulty, felling, and enjoyment when we try out a few 'hardcore' games
@JJiinx - how far have you gotten into the game so far?
The (B) scenarios are meant to be training ones (and are intentionally really easy), the (1) scenarios are also very simple. Once you get to Hook Mountain (3) there is definitely a challenge to be had and you might find yourself back-tracking on some of your added difficulty rules ;)
Having said that, nobody here has died yet and we've only timed out once, but some of them have been very close calls on the timer and/or more exotic victory conditions.
@JJiinx - how far have you gotten into the game so far?
The (B) scenarios are meant to be training ones (and are intentionally really easy), the (1) scenarios are also very simple. Once you get to Hook Mountain (3) there is definitely a challenge to be had and you might find yourself back-tracking on some of your added difficulty rules ;)
Having said that, nobody here has died yet and we've only timed out once, but some of them have been very close calls on the timer and/or more exotic victory conditions.
Okay thanks! I assumed the B quests were like a tutorial, but when we got to 1 and they were still easy we were a little shocked. We haven't quite made it to 2 yet.
Right now out only house rules are the Party and Travel and Rest, we're considering the Blessings Falloff one (I figure that one should be fine since the encounters are designed to be defeated by only 1 character, so nerfing assistance from other players wouldn't be that bad)
OK, well be strong and commit fully to the choices you make. There's no point making the early game harder then 'turning off' the extra rules when the going gets tough later on!
OK, well be strong and commit fully to the choices you make. There's no point making the early game harder then 'turning off' the extra rules when the going gets tough later on!
Of course! It's just a difficult decision because the game was balanced around the core rules and we're scared that the game may have an impossible scenario with certain house rules. We'd hate to make it to Expansion 5 only to find out we've made it utterly impossible.
Party & Travel is definitely not going anywhere, because it's one of those rules that not only adds difficulty, but adds atmosphere to the game. Rest isn't going anywhere, because it's a nice little convenient addition that can have a high cost.
The only one we're on the fence about is the Assistance Falloff because we don't know how many late game 4-6 player scenarios are balanced around Blessing of the Gods/Etc assistance.
We might play with the rule on and if we ever find it to be impossible we'll debate weather or not to simply remove the rule or reset and play the campaign over again without the rule.
With the blessing fall off make sure you read the role cards first... some of the roles have a power to force any blessing of X into 1d12, so bear that in mind.