Increased Difficulty Mode

[Hawkmoon269]

Just toying around with something here. I finished Assault on the Pinnacle last night and when we closed locations I was looking at all the cards I never encountered. A lot of them were barriers. There are no barriers in play during "Into the Eye" so I was sad to see them go back to the box un-encountered. Of course I'll play through multiple times, so hopefully I'll run into them again.

But it got me thinking. Now that all the cards are released, how do you think PACG would play with boons being added as normal, but banes being added a deck (or maybe half a deck) early? Basically, you've got the same equipment, but the difficulty is a deck harder.

Can anyone think of a problem with this? Anyone actually doing this already? I'm not sure I'm even going to try it, it was just a mental exercise in PACG Theory.

[KShell]

I like the difficulty of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path as is, but if your group is finding the game to be too easy, I think that this would be an excellent variant - especially for larger parties. Since groups of 4+ generally worry about the game's "clock" more than its banes, this variant would help to increase the risk of character death. I might even suggest playing as if the Adventure Deck number was +1, in order to beef-up the base set banes with the Human trait.

For smaller groups, the banes seem to be well-scaled for difficulty, so I would probably prefer adding more locations if my group were in need of a difficulty adjustment. This would have the opposite balancing effect, making small groups think more about the blessings deck than they normally have to.

[Hawkmoon269]

I generally like the difficulty too, but I think on my 5th or 6th time through something like this would be interesting. It would help balance the fact I already know the winning strategy to employ.

[Greyhawke115]

I think this is a great suggestion for a replay. Once I get through the Adventure Path I think I will try this "Iron Runelords" variant.

[k7e9]

Our group have tried two ways of increasing difficulty (RotR)

The first variant was that we shuffled 5 random monsters and 5 random barriers together and added one to each location.
That increased the number of banes in all locations, and the locations had one extra card in them. Also, you do not know exactly how many monsters or barriers each location holds.

For the second variant we used a number of locations as if we were one extra player (so we are 3 players, but set up the game as if we were 4). That adds an extra location to the game and we realized that in a three player game some locations never get used, so that was fun.

Both of these work well for a more challenging game. I do think that adding banes one deck early could work as well. We will try this the next time we play through RotR.

[Balkar]

How about before you start Adventure 3 and 5 you pull out all of the Basic and Elite banes respecivly.

Or for something harder pull out all (Current adventure deck - 2) banes before you start the adventure?

[Andrew L Klein]

You'd be surprised how often even in Adventure 6 a B level Siren can scare the crap out of you.

[Balkar]

True, but what is scarier? A level B Siren or anything out of the adventure 5/6 deck?

There might be situations where Valeros is sitting pat on 4 weapons, ready to cycle them, and nothing to boost wisdom. But the Siren is more the exception than the rule.

[Andrew L Klein]

For most of the characters to me, a Siren. Adventure 6 had some nasties, but a Combat check is a lot easier to boost that a specific skill.

[Dave Riley]

Siren being a veteran makes it all the worse. One time in RoRL we banished both Sirens from the same location deck after closing it without having encountered either of them. Now they never go away, and they stack up to Wisdom 14. D:

One thing I noticed was just how much effort you had to sink into comprehending AP6 monsters. Pratically every one of them has like three different powers. It certainly felt like a vindictive little jab at those who felt like RoRL was too easy.

Though ultimately, my greatest nemesis ended up being the lowly AP3 Manticore, who showed up constantly seemingly just to mess with me. On the final scenario of the game, I encountered one at the first location I went to, lost a chunk of my hand to it, but oh well. "It's only a 12," I say, "I just need to roll a 5 or more..." as a 1 and a 2 show up on my d12 and d8. Shuffling the Manticore back into the deck, next turn Damiel moves to another location, only to uncover...

...the other Manticore. >:|

[Balkar]

Right, I forgot that Siren is a Veteran. But like I said, the Siren is more the exception than the rule here.

[Ironvein]

I had a slightly different approach to making the game more difficult....

The 'Speed Run' or 'Time Waits For Noone'.

Basically, you play each scenario once and ONLY once.

If you lose a scenario, you miss out on the reward and are forced to continue without it.

Adventure rewards only gained if more than half of the scenarios were completed successfully.

Adventure Path reward only if half the Adventures are deemed successful.

The catch: On any scenario failure, any villain or henchman that are still in play are carried over to the next scenario as added complications.

Those include:

1) Any Villain/Henchman still within an open location at the end of the scenario.

2) Any Villain/Henchman that existed somewhere outside of the traditional format (bane piles, inside the blessing deck, any 'next to this card', etc.); basically anything that hadn't already been returned to the box when the scenario ended.

3) Any Villain/Henchman that COULD have been summoned due to a scenario or location power. (Location powers being the most common).

When setting up the next scenario; build as normal. The carried over cards are then distributed evenly among the locations; adding random barriers to the mix if the distribution is uneven. Victory conditions are treated as normal (either by the scenario power or the scenario's villain being defeated).

Making new characters during this mode is treated as normal (Basic Equipment til deck 3; than anything from 2 decks back), but the character starts with the same number of feats that the team has managed to secure upto that point.

This can be more difficult as if you fail on the scenario that provide feats or loot, they are forever lost making further progress more daunting.