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 play Sajan in a duo with my wife as Merisiel. (We've talked about taking a vacation together with Valeros and Lini.)
I go all out for good blessings, Erastil chief among them. For the two of us, I have Holy Candle so I can basically get a card out of the way of my blessings cycling because I don't want to run into a string of drawing 4 or 5 items/allies in a row.
I took hand size for his power, though given its just us too I'm partially regretting not adding magic to his unarmed combat due to the number of monsters that require magic to defeat. I took dexterity for my first skill feat, and constitution for my second because I'm overly excited about the Drunken Monk role. I added a blessing for his first card feat and an item for his second.
I have Amulet of Mighty Fists, but sometimes feel its wasted since its only 1d4. I'm hoping Amulet of Fiery Fists (which I haven't seen yet) will excite me more.
Yeah. I know its not a weapon. I'm more saying that since it is reveal, sometimes I feel like its "stuck" in my hand and keeping a blessing from being there instead. So I feel like I'm sacrificing a 1d10 (or 2d10 if I have enough Blessing of Erastil) for a 1d4. I wonder if maybe I'd have been better off taking a check box to add magic instead of hand size, dropping mighty fists, and getting some item that helps non-combat and discards or recharges instead so that the space in my hand is free for a blessing to find its way back. I took ring of protection recently too, so now I find myself having to discard cards when resetting my hand just to clear space. And I don't like having to do that.
So I'm about half way through Hook Mountain and got a card feat last night. I've been taking feats to help prepare Sajan for his drunken master role that I've been planing. So I got out his role card to do some math on his fortitude check. The one thing that has disappointed me about this role is that I'm not convinced that most of the potions will be useful. But our Sajan's group is Merisiel, Ezren, and Amiri, so Sajan is going to become the healer via the potion of healing, which he'll hope to be packing up to two of.
Anyway, I noticed the Zen Archer is actually pretty sweet too. He can still play all his blessings when playing a weapon but now he can do it with a bow which he can also recharge, like he's got a rapid shot trick or something. But since I really need that healing, I'm not diverting course on this one. Plus combat is probably the one thing Sajan doesn't need help on. But I think I am going to take the Weapon proficiency power feat at some point and hope to get a good reveal/discard ranged weapon that I can treat like another amulet and then take a weapon card feat.
I'm thinking I might not take the +6 to checks to acquire boons with the liquid trait, since I don't yet see the usefulness for acquiring anything other than the PoH. But that could obviously change in later adventures/scenarios.
So right now my Sajan, through 3.2, has 2 skill feats in dexterity, 2 skill feats in constitution, power feats in hand size 5, add the magic trait, and 2 cards feats in items, and 1 in blessings.
Item wise, he's packing Amulet of Mighty Fists, Amulet of Fortitude, Ring of Protection, Holy Candle, Crown of Charisma, and Chime of Unlocking.
I've given him Father Zantus after we found him so I can spend some blessings or allies assisting others or taking an extra exploration for a round or two then heal them back into my pile by burying Father Zantus.
I do love playing him, especially when I get to roll lots of dice. He's half the reason I went out and bought some more dice than the set the game cam with. Its just so much fun to roll 7 or 8 d10s in a single roll.
So I've been thinking more about Sajan's Drunken Master role (which I chose for him at the end of Hook Mountain Massacre). The group managed to pick up a potion of healing, so he immediately chose the power to attempt to recharge items with the liquid trait and is now our groups healer.
But during my state of withdraw from the game, while playing a solo group to get my fix, I was looking at the other potions and wondering if I was going to bother keep any other potion in his deck between scenarios.
So looking at them more, I think I'm also a "definite" on Potion of Glibness if/when I find acquire it (basically turning it into another Crown of Charisma for the group, but one I can use on other characters too). I'm a "maybe" on Potion of Energy Resistance (so far it just hasn't come up enough yet, but given the other character powers and the progression of monsters, I'm assuming we'll be see more and more of the "trait" damages in the coming decks.) I'm also a maybe on Potion of Gracefulness because of how it will help with a lot of barriers. He's been carrying around Amulet of Fortitude to help with the recharge, but which also lessens the usefulness of the Potion of Fortitude. And since he can only keep 6 items at most, Amulet of Fortitude, Potion of Healing, Potion of Glibness, Amulet of Might Fists (eventually Fiery Fists) are already filling up his item slots pretty quickly. I plan on giving him a Weapon card feat eventually and letting him pack a weapon with a good reveal power so that might replace the Fists, freeing up another item slot.
A lot of this has to do with the fact the group he's in can explore together more easily than others. The risk to exploring together is that if you encounter the villain, you aren't able to temporarily close locations. But he's in a team with Amiri, Ezren and Mersiel. So if Amiri is with anyone else she always moves at the end of her turn to an unoccupied location. And Ezren has two Haste spells, so he can move people at the end of their turns too. Ezren also is carrying Augury and Scrying, and Brodert Quink, and with a few Spy Glasses spread around the group it is less likely we'll have a surprise encounter with the villain and all be bunched up at 1 or 2 locations. And anyway, its also beginning to be more common that the villains have negative effects if encountered alone, so there is a counter-incentive now to spreading out.
Any how...anyone else out there that has or plans to take Drunken Master and has given this much thought? What are you planning to keep in the deck?