House Rule: Passing the Encounter

[Lollingsgrad]

Our group have been trying to enjoy PACG but we feel that the ways you can help in a characters check are too limited. For instance we find ourselves getting frustrated when our bard is forced into a strength check with the barbarian standing next to him on his location. It also bothers us that there is a definite advantage to spreading across locations (temporarily closing locations when the villain appears) and yet only a few characters provide an advantage when you share a location with them. Admittedly this bothers us on a thematic level more than a mechanical one, but it bothers us enough that suspension of disbelief isn't enough. We want to run a house rule to change this without making the game to easy and this is what we've come up with:

If you fail an encounter, another character at your location who has not yet encountered the card may advance the blessings deck to immediately encounter it. You still suffer the consequences for failing the encounter (e.g. damage). After the encounter you complete your turn as normal.

Do you think this would make the game far too easy? Any specific examples where it would be totally broken?

[csouth154]

I think this would make the game much harder than intended, actually. Advance the blessing deck and encounter ONE card, then it goes back to the original character's turn, then advance the blessing deck again when it's the second character's normal turn? Do I have that right? If so...uh...good luck with that. In a two or maybe even three character game, you might get away with it...and I stress "might"; but more than that and you stand a very good chance of timing out frequently.

[Lollingsgrad]

csouth154 wrote:

I think this would make the game much harder than intended, actually. Advance the blessing deck and encounter ONE card, then it goes back to the original character's turn, then advance the blessing deck again when it's the second character's normal turn? Do I have that right? If so...uh...good luck with that...

That's the idea, you can choose to advance the blessings deck to encounter the card again with another character at that location. I don't want it to be something you necessarily always want to do if you fail. There's a number of reasons you might want to do it. Maybe it's the henchman and you want the location closed. Maybe it's an item that barbarian desperately wanted and just had to watch the bard roll his d4 for it and put it back in the box. The aim is to make it feel like you're actually a party rather than two characters independently exploring the location but without breaking the game.

[csouth154]

Well...go for it. I think losing a card from the blessing deck is a more than fair price to pay.

[csouth154]

I would say that, for henchman, it should go back to the original character's turn for the closing attempt, though. Maybe allow ANOTHER advance of the blessing deck to let someone else try if they fail, then back to the first character's turn again.

[Hawkmoon269]

As far as "breaking" anything, there would be a few problems.

Some monsters and barriers do things if undefeated that would negate your idea. For instance, some monsters say that if undefeated you are to put them on the bottom of the location deck, or move them to another random location. Some say that they are to stay faceup on the location deck and be the first card anyone encounters. And one barrier in particular has a check for one skill to defeat it, and if you fail it stays faceup, but takes a different skill to defeat it while faceup. And some cards say to banish them after the encounter no matter what the outcome. So you'd have to figure out how you would handle those things.

You'd also basically be stealing turns from some characters. If Amiri was the second character a lot, she might always want to encounter the other characters failed encounter, but by doing so, she'd be taking turns from other players. Right now, 30 blessings splits evenly for every group except 4, and even then it is close. But with this change some players would loose turns because another player wanted to do something.

And what about a 2 check villain? A second character can already help with that, so would this apply to them as well? And if so, suppose there are 3 characters at a location. Character A encounters a 2 check villain. Character A attempts check 1 and fails. Character B attempts check 2 and succeeds. The villain is undefeated. So Character B flips a blessing. Now Character C attempts check 1 and character B attempts check 2. You've not only given yourself two chances to defeat the villain, you've avoided the loss of blessings if he flees and you've let the encounter involved 2 other characters besides just 1 other character.

And in terms of boons, your decks would probably become pretty awesome pretty quick, since if a character encounters a card that they have little hope of acquiring you'd give yourself two shots at acquiring it.

How much have you guys played? I'm asking because there are some things I think that might take care of what you are feeling later. One thing the game is supposed to do is make you have to make a choice to group up or spread out. And there is a mix of that. And there are quite a few scouting powers and card, so you tend to gain the ability to be less surprised by what you encounter. Not that you'll know everything that is coming, but you can know a good bit.

I'm personally not very "thematic" with the game (much closer to the "Its a card game" than "Its an RPG" on the Card Game-RPG Spectrum.) But I think I could figure out ways to explain why things happen. Why can't Ezren attempt to acquire a spell Valeros fails on? Maybe because Valeros goes "Hey what is this piece of paper?" Then destroys it while he picks it up. Or maybe he uses it as a napkin. Or maybe he sees it lying on the ground and thinks it is just a piece of paper since he can't understand what it say and Ezren doesn't notice it all. Things like that.

But, all that being said, no one will really know how your idea works until you try it. If you try it and like it, then by all means use it if it makes it more fun for you.

[Lollingsgrad]

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

Some monsters and barriers do things if undefeated that would negate your idea. For instance, some monsters say that if undefeated you are to put them on the bottom of the location deck, or move them to another random location. Some say that they are to stay faceup on the location deck and be the first card anyone encounters. And one barrier in particular has a check for one skill to defeat it, and if you fail it stays faceup, but takes a different skill to defeat it while faceup. And some cards say to banish them after the encounter no matter what the outcome. So you'd have to figure out how you would handle those things.

I can't quite think how to word it but my idea is that they stay right there as if they are neither defeated nor undefeated whilst another character encounters it. Meanwhile the original character suffers any negative affects of failing to defeat the card except any that would require you to move the card anywhere. It's easier to play it than to explain I think.

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

And what about a 2 check villain? A second character can already help with that, so would this apply to them as well? And if so, suppose there are 3 characters at a location. Character A encounters a 2 check villain. Character A attempts check 1 and fails. Character B attempts check 2 and succeeds. The villain is undefeated. So Character B flips a blessing. Now Character C attempts check 1 and character B attempts check 2. You've not only given yourself two chances to defeat the villain, you've avoided the loss of blessings if he flees and you've let the encounter involved 2 other characters besides just 1 other character.

This is a good point. I think I would count anyone who rolled one of the checks on the villain as having encountered it.

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

You'd also basically be stealing turns from some characters. If Amiri was the second character a lot, she might always want to encounter the other characters failed encounter, but by doing so, she'd be taking turns from other players. Right now, 30 blessings splits evenly for every group except 4, and even then it is close. But with this change some players would loose turns because another player wanted to do something.

Another good point, fortunately my group craves the teamwork aspect of a coop game and so the personal loss of a turn isn't much of a problem for them.

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

And in terms of boons, your decks would probably become pretty awesome pretty quick, since if a character encounters a card that they have little hope of acquiring you'd give yourself two shots at acquiring it.

...

I'm personally not very "thematic" with the game (much closer to the "Its a card game" than "Its an RPG" on the Card Game-RPG Spectrum.) But I think I could figure out ways to explain why things happen. Why can't Ezren attempt to acquire a spell Valeros fails on? Maybe because Valeros goes "Hey what is this piece of paper?" Then destroys it while he picks it up. Or maybe he uses it as a napkin. Or maybe he sees it lying on the ground and thinks it is just a piece of paper since he can't understand what it say and Ezren doesn't notice it all. Things like that.

I think you're probably right on this so I think we'll only apply this to combat then since that's the only place it's really annoying us. Having your caster getting bashed around whilst your fighter watches on is just so, so theme-breaking for me that it renders that game down to the bare cogs and switches. It matters more to some people than others but I suppose you have to expect that when you bridge the gap between pen-and-paper and board game.

[John Davis 2]

Lollingsgrad wrote:

Do you think this would make the game far too easy? Any specific examples where it would be totally broken?

You are definitely making what is already a pretty easy game easier and also potentially removing some of fun too - a lot of the memorable moments happen when an unprepared character has to fight a difficult opponent. If you want to be able to choose which character encouters each enemy, stock up on spyglasses, augury spells etc.

[Spazmortis]

I think this is a great idea! It adds some risk vs reward which is cool. Sure, you can advance the blessings deck to encounter it again but your wasting time!

And in the case of monsters, your going to have to encounter it later anyway, so its not really wasting any time.

Nice work.

[Spazmortis]

I have been thinking about ways to work this into the game without stealing other peoples turns.

How about when you are exploring your location while another character is there. You find an item that they really want, they can ask you if they can try to pick it up. Maybe you run into a monster and ask for help. If the other player has not flipped a card from the blessings deck yet they can do it now to interfere in your turn and encounter the card (if you agree). After they are done it goes back to you, you still have to draw and encounter.

What do you think?