I got the pathfinder card game a couple of days ago and have really enjoyed playing it but I am struggling to get past the first scenario.
The first time I played the cleric and my friend played the monk. The henchmen and the villain were near the bottom of each location and the blessing deck ran out. I found the cleric frustrating since its melee attack was so poor and it didn't seem to have enough offensive spells.
The next time I played the bard and my friend played the wizard. The bard died because I kept having to switch my offensive spells out for the cure spell (on myself), and had nothing to attack monsters with, so my hand of 6 cards kept getting wiped out. The wizard made it to the end.
I then tried a barbarian solo. Vs. monsters was easier but I had nothing against traps, and those, along with a couple of low rolls against monsters, killed my barbarian. Twice.
It just seems that a couple of missed rolls against monsters will end the game. Using blessings and discarding weapons for the extra die helps, but doing that burns through cards too fast.
Am I missing something because I have seen many posts saying how easy the game is and I'm not finding that at all.
The first scenario (Brigandoom) is often said to be the hardest in the game, because your characters are the least advanced and have the simplest decks.
It sounds like you would have won the first time except for bad luck with henchman/villain placement. Perhaps you could have used allies and blessings to explore a bit more aggressively?
Kyra isn't a strong fighter, although she's better against undead. I've given her +2 Strength, which helps. Once she gets weapon proficiency she can use better weapons. Till then she'll often need a blessing for fights. Luckily she can cure them back into her hand.
Bard/wizard is a tough combo for the first scenario. You did choose "weapon" as the bard's preferred card, so he had his weapon in his hand, right?
I'm guessing you've suffered a combination of misjudging risks and bad luck. I've played single-character, two-character, and four-character solo and no one has ever died, although I've lost a couple times.
Lem and Ezren might not be the best combo, since you aren't diversifying spells. Though I personally believe that any combo or group of characters can succeed (just not all equally as easily).
You might want to switch up their starting decks a bit. You can give them any card with the Basic trait. Thieves' Tools might be a good thing for them to pack until they get their skills upgraded or pick up some other things to help with barriers.
Watching a video of someone playing might be the best way to see some ides about playing. Just keep at it, you'll get it.
Good luck on your adventure!
You might want to switch up their starting decks a bit. You can give them any card with the Basic trait. Thieves' Tools might be a good thing for them to pack until they get their skills upgraded or pick up some other things to help with barriers.
This. The starting decks are reasonable cards to pick if you are in a 4 person game or so, but they can be pretty poor choices if you are solo. Thieves' Tools are an amazing early game item for any character.
Also, may I suggest trying solo play with Merisel, the Rogue? I've found her to be the best solo character, because she can always add 1d6 to her combat check if you are solo, and she can evade any encounter you are unprepared for.
Don't get discouraged; I've played the game a bunch, and I recently had back to back Brigandoom! deaths with the wizard and the ranger. That said, I used the stock decks in the rulebook for those, and chose to press on instead of letting the timer run out and trying again.
(The two deaths were a result of suboptimal plays on my part. Ezren was lucky enough to find and acquire Thieves' Tools, but wasted them on a chest containing weapons instead of holding on to them for the Slashing Blade trap that killed him. Harsk's death was... embarrassing, I don't think I want to share that story right now)
The first hero I tried playing solo was Ezren. I think I tried Brigandoom 5 times, failing each time.
I tried it again with Merisiel and did much better. In fact I've gotten all the way through AP 1 with Mersiel solo although part 5 took me 4 tries, but none of those resulted in death. I tried solo Lini and died twice in the first 3 before giving up. I also tried the monk and finished the intro on my second try.
I've played through the opening with 2 heroes twice. Both times there was a death in Brigandoom. Both pairs were otherwise able to finish the into scenarios. (One combo was Seoni/Valero, other was Lini/Seoni)
Seoni died promptly after staing "I can't see how we could possibly lose" and then encountering the wisdom 8 monster, using invisibility to evade it and then promptly encountering it again and dying. Lini went on to finish and Seoni went back and played Brigandoom solo after playing parts 2/3 with Lini.
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Additional Thoughts:
I think Ezren is pretty bad in a 1-2 person group since his ability to explore multiple times is very meh.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll have a look for some videos when I have a bit more time.
Question: I thought in order to use thieves tools the character had to be trained in Disable?
I think one of the most annoying things for me was when I was trying to close a location after I failed to close it after the henchman turned up. I was playing the barbarian and there was a Spectre and a Ghost I couldn't defeat as I had nothing magical.
Another question: if I'm playing a scenario and it's not going well - can I bail out and keep the items I've already acquired?
The first power on Thieves' Tools adds to your disable check. That will only be super helpful for someone with the disable skill, since anyone else must use a d4 for disable. But the second power on it just automatically defeats a barrier. Everyone can really benefit from that.
With the ghost or spectre situation like that, since the henchman was already gone, you should go to another location and find the villain. If you defeat him, he will flee and hopefully end up in that location. If you defeat him, the location automatically closes, so you won't need to succeed at the closing requirement.
You can't just stop the game, but you can stop exploring, because exploring ifs optional. So long as nothing would happen each time you turn overthe blessing deck, you can essentially walk away. And when the scenario ends, win or lose, you rebuild your deck the same way.
After a bit more playing, I am finding it easier (but still challenging). I think I was recharging or discarding cards when it wasn't worth it so I didn't have them when I really needed them. Choosing when to use a card seems to be the key to success.
I think I had a run of bad luck on my earlier scenarios. Better/more shuffling perhaps!
Yes I concur - I think Brigadoom is one of the hardest scenarios I've done. Trouble in Sandpoint/Glassworks is worse though, that's just horrific.
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Although this might not be your situation, I also found in my early games that I wasn't paying enough attention to my characters' powers, nor thinking strategically enough about the best order of locations and (in the case of 2 characters) when to split the party and when to join forces. Like many tabletop games, basic strategy comes with practice and exposure to the various ways the game mechanics can intersect, and then things get really fun!
I concur that Merisiel is pretty able on her own. I recently got her through Perils of the Lost Coast without a loss or even a close call.
I play solo with 3 characters. Barbarian, Sorcerer and Priest and only on Brigandoom did I risked dying from the timer. Doing Act 3 right now. I have some problems on Dex based stuff but not too much.
I do struggle with Dexterity checks on my Cleric too. Trying to get some blessings or allies to help but they never seem to appear.
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Played my first game yesterday, played both the Druid and the monk, worked pretty well closed 3/4 without much issue and beat the villain in the process(who fled to the last location which had 3 cards remaining)
Unfortunately The monk died to a power 10 monster getting a total of 7 out of 3d10+1(guidance) :(
THe druid soon followed, so felt like stumbling at the goal line.
Was fun though(Not sure if I played the game entirely how it was intended, but I think alright 10 cards at each location inc the boss and henchmen)
After getting experienced with the game and playing it a lot, I take my original statement back. It's not harder at all. It's just some classes work better solo or in pairs. And it's also a game about knowing when to use a card, and what kind of cards to aim for. For example with the cleric, taking all offensive spells rather than cures I find helps a lot, and getting weapon proficiency ASAP makes life a heck of a lot easier.
(Still loving it!)
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There's one house rule which I use for my solo games which makes things less frustrating when playing with only one character.. and that is to allow a blessing to be played *after* a roll is made, rather than requiring it to be played prior to the check.
I don't see it as a huge advantage but it prevents you from 'wasting' a blessing which can help when you have to make two tough checks back to back and there is no second character to help you with that other check ;)
I don't see it as a huge advantage but it prevents you from 'wasting' a blessing which can help when you have to make two tough checks back to back and there is no second character to help you with that other check ;)
Balancing that risk is one of the only choices you have to make in the game. If you don't have to choose to play the odds sometimes, and take a risk on a check with only a 50-50 shot so you can save your blessing for a harder one (or another explore), you'll tank the difficulty.
You lose games pretty rarely in Pathfinder after you understand the mechanics, I can't imagine ever losing a game if you could play a blessing after the check. Note the few things that let you nudges a check upwards after it's failed, Luckstones (as Andrew mentioned) and Seoni's power, require you bury a card to gain only one or two points. And the few weapons that let you reroll checks (like spears) don't let you gain an extra die by discarding.
You are right in that it does lessen the dilemma of buff vs explore since you are probably going to waste 2-3 fewer blessings on combat checks in each scenario..
..but considering how many checks I fail by 1 even when I *do* use a blessing, heh, I certainly wouldn't say it makes things like Luckstone redundant :D
However, for those Combat:x THEN Combat:y encounters when you are playing a solo spell caster, I find it just influential enough that you can attempt it with two attack spells and one blessing in your hand if you have to, where as you might otherwise have to go in to it with two of each (or three of each against Breakbones. Grr)
Obviously you're free to play it how you wish, but I think playing a blessing to add an extra die after a check would make the game too easy. Losing sometimes makes the winning that much sweeter :-)
I'm playing Sajan (buddy) and Harsk (myself) while replaying some old scenarios while I wait for the pack 4 to come in the mail. It's kind of hard to get the traction, but there's strengths to every party. Although, I did find the Valeros/Lem combo was really broken. I played that with a buddy and we stormed through the game. It didn't really take much. He's boosting me, and I'm boosting him on everything. I would think that Limi/Lem would be even worse since the add-ons would be 2d4 base with all the bonuses.
Note: I wouldn't change your characters if you really like them. You're playing the game for fun so find the kind of fun you're looking for. It is something I have learned over the past years in gaming and life.
TL:DR
Find what works best for you. Don't fray it up with the rest of the sheep. Reading creates leaders.
I really only play 2p. We have finished AP6 with 4 different sets of characters:
Seelah and Harsk
Lem and Meresiel
Ezren and Kyra
Sajan and Amiri
We enjoyed each set of characters and I doubt there is a duo that is unplayable or too difficult. Lem And Meresiel were fun to play even though their abilities are not cohesive. We had the advantage of doing AP6 with Harsk and Seelah first to prepare a little with the other duos - especially Sajan and Amiri, a pair with limited healing ability.
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My wife and I have been playing a Druid/Rogue combo and we are 3 scenarios from the end of the game. We have come close to dying only a handful of times. We have completed almost every scenario the first time through, though a few on the very last turn. A few scenarios we had to play over because we ran out of time, only one in my memory that we have to play 3 times to beat it.
This is my second playthrough. My first was Barbarian/Ranger. We also had the exact same situation - beat most first time, a few we didn't, 1 or 2 that took 3 times to beat. Came close to dying a couple times.
Maybe with 1 player it is harder, but 2-player seems to have that same difficulty to it. It feels consistent.
My wife and I also play. She runs the druid, and I run the paladin. We have a great combo with those two. Cure makes life A LOT easier when both characters can heal themselves and the other player. Might be worth a try.
I just see the Paladin as a painful experience. No items just makes me cringe. I don't even mind the extra armors since they come in more handy, but it is still painful. I enjoy having items that help with check or defeat monsters/henchmen/villains.
I just see the Paladin as a painful experience. No items just makes me cringe.
Will be interesting to see what future Seelah incarnations bring - such as in the class deck and WotR. Personally I enjoyed playing Seelah, she can become quite a solid fighter and healer by the mid-late game, but I have to agree in smaller parties her lack of item capacity would be a huge pain. In those instances, Kyra would be a better choice if you wanted a fighter/healer type.
Items being my favorite card type, playing Seelah without all those great Staves of Minor Healing, Rings of Protection, and Holy Candles was a bit rough but do note: she can discard (or recharge, potentially) the top card of her deck to add a d6 to any check. While not really on the level of Lini's d4+4 animal, it does a lot to shore of her somewhat lackluster stat spread, and adds a fun bit of memory and card counting to keep track of where your spells and blessings are in the deck. She can also scout for free every turn, basically without downside once she hits her role card and can put boons beneath the top card instead of at the bottom of the deck. Seelah it's one of the most obviously OP characters, but she has some cool tricks.
Lem and Ezren might not be the best combo, since you aren't diversifying spells. Though I personally believe that any combo or group of characters can succeed (just not all equally as easily).
You might want to switch up their starting decks a bit. You can give them any card with the Basic trait. Thieves' Tools might be a good thing for them to pack until they get their skills upgraded or pick up some other things to help with barriers.
Watching a video of someone playing might be the best way to see some ides about playing. Just keep at it, you'll get it.
Good luck on your adventure!
I've actually found Lem and Ezren to make a pretty nice team. Lem can handle healing for both of them, as well as be pretty decent at barriers with the right cards, and Ezren is world class at blowing stuff up. The two important weaknesses in that pairing are STR and WIS (WIS arguably being more important) so building accordingly might be a good idea.
Items being my favorite card type, playing Seelah without all those great Staves of Minor Healing, Rings of Protection, and Holy Candles was a bit rough but do note: she can discard (or recharge, potentially) the top card of her deck to add a d6 to any check. While not really on the level of Lini's d4+4 animal, it does a lot to shore of her somewhat lackluster stat spread, and adds a fun bit of memory and card counting to keep track of where your spells and blessings are in the deck. She can also scout for free every turn, basically without downside once she hits her role card and can put boons beneath the top card instead of at the bottom of the deck. Seelah it's one of the most obviously OP characters, but she has some cool tricks.
I think that the +1d6+3 compares pretty favorably to +1d4+4.
I've actually found Lem and Ezren to make a pretty nice team. Lem can handle healing for both of them, as well as be pretty decent at barriers with the right cards, and Ezren is world class at blowing stuff up. The two important weaknesses in that pairing are STR and WIS (WIS arguably being more important) so building accordingly might be a good idea.Lem and Ezren might not be the best combo, since you aren't diversifying spells. Though I personally believe that any combo or group of characters can succeed (just not all equally as easily).
You might want to switch up their starting decks a bit. You can give them any card with the Basic trait. Thieves' Tools might be a good thing for them to pack until they get their skills upgraded or pick up some other things to help with barriers.
Watching a video of someone playing might be the best way to see some ides about playing. Just keep at it, you'll get it.
Good luck on your adventure!
I find Lem and just about any nuke 'em character works well - the nume 'em character handles combat and Lem handles the other checks, with them supporting each other, obviously. And wisdom checks shouldn't be too hard between Lem's aid ability, blessings, and perhaps acutal Aids (I actually really like that spell).
Items being my favorite card type, playing Seelah without all those great Staves of Minor Healing, Rings of Protection, and Holy Candles was a bit rough but do note: she can discard (or recharge, potentially) the top card of her deck to add a d6 to any check. While not really on the level of Lini's d4+4 animal, it does a lot to shore of her somewhat lackluster stat spread, and adds a fun bit of memory and card counting to keep track of where your spells and blessings are in the deck. She can also scout for free every turn, basically without downside once she hits her role card and can put boons beneath the top card instead of at the bottom of the deck. Seelah it's one of the most obviously OP characters, but she has some cool tricks.I think that the +1d6+3 compares pretty favorably to +1d4+4.
Except in the cost. Reveal is a lot nicer than recharge.
Agreed about the cost, but I we should have the numbers correct. Its not 1d6 vs. 1d4+4.
And the cost of recharging from the top of your deck is very different from recharging from the hand (which is what we normally think about when we talk about recharging ).
I wrote d4+4 because I remember that one, and couldn't remember Seelah's maxed power, but I was thinking more about the costs to user the power, which Orbis covered. Lini's also doesn't require you to slim your deck down to almost nothing to have it work most efficiently. Feel like Seelah's also missing stats in a few places that her power won't really be able to cover in later decks (d4 Dex, mostly), where Lini can at least discard a card.
Still there's a thrill in turning over that top card and finding a Blessing that's way more fun than keeping a permanent Crow in your hand.
My son and I are new to the game and finally beat Brigadoon with a Valeros, Sajan combo and had a ton of fun using the suggested card list. Before we start the path though I think we will change the cards up a bit. We had died the first 3 attempts trying to pair Valeros With Ezran (though we came close) and with the druid - got obliterated.
Sometimes it comes down to the roll of the dice, and when and where you encounter cards. I definitely will plan to skip encounters as we play through the adventure if things start going against us as dying and rebuilding the deck we will do our best to avoid, and as someone stated, even losing a scenario can still result in a better chance the next time if you found some good items, blessings, allys, along the way.
I reccomend you bring along a divine caster any time you're having issues with dying. A cure spell or two goes a long way...
Soling with Valeros against the one location that has 3 blessings and hits you for 2 points of damage each time you get one.. I avoid that one like the plague and just push the villain over to it to minimize my chance of hitting a blessing.
Pretty much the same with any location that Valeros would have a big issue or impossibility closing unless I got lucky with my deck draw for an ally or boon that could help me close it. I always try to encounter the villain there in order to avoid having to close it.
Given that defeating (or losing to) the villain at another location can easily ADD blessings to location decks, you might want to rethink that Shrine to Lamashtu strategy! With 3 blessings in its deck, you have decent odds of only encountering one of them before you encounter the henchmen, and assuming you acquire that blessing, it's really only a one card loss. Add blessings to that deck and the odds of losing quite a bit more go up a fair amount.
I started playing this about a week ago, and didn't really consider solo-play with more than one character at first. After some bumps and bruises, I started to get an idea of which characters worked well by themselves. As most of the bane cards in any location deck are monsters/henchmen/villains with combat checks, I found that characters who were more likely to pass those checks worked best for me. They could still have problems with a barrier or difficult-to-beat monster (I learned to really, really hate Sirens), but otherwise, it was pretty easy. My best characters for that were Valeros, Merisiel, and Harsk.
Playing one character meant that I didn't ever have to worry about the time running out. Only a combination of having the villain/henchmen be on the bottom of each deck and some bad die rolls would enable the blessings deck to run out (and assuming I never once used a card's power to continue exploring). Of course, playing one character means that you have no shot to temporarily close a location when a villain escapes, but that actually worked to my advantage. I learned to look at the locations and see what the closing requirements were, then made sure that the most difficult (or detrimental) location to close would be the last explored, since defeating a villain automatically closes the location. The villains I'd encountered so far all seemed pretty easy to beat. I know that they will get harder as things go along, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
One place that I did get hurt at alot was that Shrine of Lamashtu that showed up in Black Fang's Dungeon. One time playing it with Harsk, I found Black Fang in the first location explored. So when he escaped, I had to get a blessing and shuffle it and Black Fang and then shuffle a card each into the two remaining decks. Yep, I found Black Fang in the second location and chased him to the last one (the Shrine) so I now had 4 blessings in there. I hit three of them on three consecutive draws (for 6 total points of damage). Ouch. But fortunately for me I had only discarded 3 cards at that point (and 5 in my hand made 8) and I had 7 cards left in my deck. After all the blessing damage I still had 3 cards in the deck when I found Black Fang at last (for the last time) and ended the scenario.
I did play the first scenario of Burnt Offerings with each of the three solo, and it was a little more difficult (but only a tiny bit). However, looking at the next one, I'm actually a little worried. Fighting monsters is not the focus, but gathering allies instead. Most of the allies I've seen require checks I'm not confident that these three will make. In most cases the die rolled will be a d6, so careful use of blessings to add extra dice to the checks will be very important. Moreso, because I might have to team them all together to increase my chances of successful ally recruitment, which means I might find myself having to burn blessings to continue exploring locations before the timer runs out. Should be interesting...
Despite being a bad character overall, Seelah is pretty good in the Shrine of Lamashtu. If she sees a boon, she just moves it to the bottom of the deck :P
I'd have to disagree with her being a bad character overall. I thought the same thing, but then my wife picked her. She can be great. The problem is, at first glance she has two powers that appear to have too high of a cost: Her examining power moves boons to the bottom of the deck and her check assistance costs her a discard.
But boons to the bottoms aren't as bad as you'd think (and she can mitigate after she gets her role card). And the discard cost can become a recharge for spells and blessings, which if you max out can be a sizable chunk of her deck. Always use her 1d6 power when trying to recharge Cure. Better to have another card in your discard than have Cure in your discard.
Seelah starts slow, but she is a beast by the time you reach the mid point of the game. I think she may be one of the stronger characters at end game. She is adding 1d6+2/3 to all of her roles, recharging 5 blessings and getting a free scout + deck manipulation every turn.