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Dave were you aware your post came off as rather insulting?

I deleted a snarky reply of my own in case you didn't intend it so.

May I point out you admit in your very own post that you upped the difficulty level so that the game was no longer trivial? In that light, I am unsure what your point was.


Troymk1 wrote:

Mechalibur, I think I failed a scenario 2-3 times in the entire cycle. Sometimes via caution as I was close to losing someone and didn't let them explore aggressively. Sometimes just down to crazy luck.

I commend you on your iron-man approach however!

I just find it weird that it's actually beneficial to lose scenarios so that you can replay them as much as you want. That's why we implemented that rule.

It was a bit sad when my party died in S&S though (if you get a bad start in Press Ganged, it can get really hard to catch up).


Sorry if I came across as prickish, I wasn't trying to be, only concise! I feel like half my posts here are some variation of a "we play 2 characters 6 locations" spiel, so I didn't want to bore anyone. I only wanted to point out that even adding additional locations to fully clear isn't a sure fire way to tank the games difficulty through extra boons (mostly you just see more daggers, dogs, and wooden shields) and that playing a six character game may've augmented and decreased the difficulty in its own way, that you might not've factored in.


Dave Riley wrote:
Sorry if I came across as prickish, I wasn't trying to be, only concise! I feel like half my posts here are some variation of a "we play 2 characters 6 locations" spiel, so I didn't want to bore anyone. I only wanted to point out that even adding additional locations to fully clear isn't a sure fire way to tank the games difficulty through extra boons (mostly you just see more daggers, dogs, and wooden shields) and that playing a six character game may've augmented and decreased the difficulty in its own way, that you might not've factored in.

6 characters, 8 locations gives you a statistically insignificant greater number of items and now the very few good items are divided up between 6 players/decks. With two players you toss the crappiest cards and keep the best in your two decks. With 6 players somebody is stuck with the junk cards. Your average power per character is going to be higher in a 2 player game. The advantage in 6 player game is more blessings on the harder checks but, for the most part, those aren't needed in RotR


You're right that two character games will have on average better cards per character. I was talking about end of scenario rewards. Six weapons gives better odds at one being worth something to someone, more than two.

I also think per-character power levels are kind of irrelevant for this discussion? While means not everyone is going to get everything they want, more boons going around can have a cascading effect. When you find Sign of Wrath, that Disintegrate you picked up has to go somewhere. Valeros gets a Flaming Ranseur, he hands Kyra the Shock Greatsword. I don't really expect anyone (who isn't paid by Paizo) to put in the effort of cataloguing the character record threads, but there's probably a lot of evidence in there about boon distribution across varying party sizes. There's also something to be said for having a potential use for everything you draw. In our Kyrasiel party many cards were completely useless. Drawing any Arcane spell might as well have been drawing a Dagger.


Dave Riley wrote:

You're right that two character games will have on average better cards per character. I was talking about end of scenario rewards. Six weapons gives better odds at one being worth something to someone, more than two.

I also think per-character power levels are kind of irrelevant for this discussion? While means not everyone is going to get everything they want, more boons going around can have a cascading effect. When you find Sign of Wrath, that Disintegrate you picked up has to go somewhere. Valeros gets a Flaming Ranseur, he hands Kyra the Shock Greatsword. I don't really expect anyone (who isn't paid by Paizo) to put in the effort of cataloguing the character record threads, but there's probably a lot of evidence in there about boon distribution across varying party sizes. There's also something to be said for having a potential use for everything you draw. In our Kyrasiel party many cards were completely useless. Drawing any Arcane spell might as well have been drawing a Dagger.

Per-character power levels certainly are relevant---they determine the average quality of cards-in-hand for dealing with encounters (that is, deck quality, which is what's under discussion). 6 characters will use three times the card slots of 2, but will not find three times as many of the best boons. Now, having more total cards has its advantages as well (more available blessings/etc to boost checks), but it's important to recognize the downside that in a large group, not every character can have masterwork tools, or multiple Swipes, or whatever the best card for your strategy is. And if your party needs 9 melee weapons instead of 5, then your average melee weapon in hand will be the 5th-best one you've found, rather than the 3rd-best. Loot cards, too, will make up a much smaller proportion of draws.

In terms of acquisition-rate, you're absolutely right that there's an advantage in having more characters with non-competing needs---adding an Ezren to a Kyrasiel group will only add a little competition for items and allies, while increasing the pool of useful cards to find. 3 non-overlapping characters may be the sweet spot for rate of upgrades. But beyond that, anyone else will add more competition for cards than they will additional good boons to the pool. The total number of upgrades found will still increase, but the average quality of cards-in-deck will end up lower.

[And now moving from non-productive debate about relative difficulty levels to potentially-useful talk about differences in party composition...]

---As an aside, this is just one more reason that Damiel is even more awesome than we already think, because he wants a bunch of cards that no one else wants *at all* (alchemical consumables) as his best-in-slot cards, and so doesn't dilute his fellow party members' decks as much as most characters do. Like Magic: the Gathering draft archetypes that make good use of late-pick-for--everyone-else cards (mill/self-mill/combo decks when they're viable, or super-low-curve aggro), Damiel has a very easy time getting a very strong deck (is anything in deck 1 of S&S close to the level of Potions of Heroism?).

To a lesser extent, the same is true of everyone who wants (or at least does fine with) lower-demand cards, like Lini & Agna with low-deck animal allies, or Arcane Pretender Flenta with undesirable high-deck-number spells (Raise Dead, anyone?), and even everyone with good powers that can productively use up junkier cards (Lem, Damiel again, Harsk, Amiri, Lirianne, etc). If one is making a 5-6 character team, being able to make effective use of the lower-quality cards in one's pool is an important thing to consider, and can mitigate the larger spread from best to worst card in the party.

---Conversely, 'greedy' characters like Feiya, who scale really well if they get more of the high-power (or high-deck#) boons, seem like they belong in small parties (or ideally, small parties with characters who can use junkier cards).


Dave Riley wrote:

You're right that two character games will have on average better cards per character. I was talking about end of scenario rewards. Six weapons gives better odds at one being worth something to someone, more than two.

I also think per-character power levels are kind of irrelevant for this discussion? While means not everyone is going to get everything they want, more boons going around can have a cascading effect. When you find Sign of Wrath, that Disintegrate you picked up has to go somewhere. Valeros gets a Flaming Ranseur, he hands Kyra the Shock Greatsword. I don't really expect anyone (who isn't paid by Paizo) to put in the effort of cataloguing the character record threads, but there's probably a lot of evidence in there about boon distribution across varying party sizes. There's also something to be said for having a potential use for everything you draw. In our Kyrasiel party many cards were completely useless. Drawing any Arcane spell might as well have been drawing a Dagger.

While it is true that the larger party will find more use for the cards they acquire, they have a different problem. With 2-person party there is a 50/50 (or better, depending on skill overlap) chance that any card that is useful to the party will be encountered by a character that can handle the check to acquire. With a 6 person party, those odds are much lower. Those high power Arcane spells that Ezren and Lem wanted when we were playing weren't getting acquired when Kyra encountered them or vice versa for Divine spells. At least not without risking failing the scenario by throwing multiple blessings you need to explore at the check to acquire.

And, to me personally, intentionally throwing the scenario to get more boons (and replaying scenarios expressly to get more boons) felt like borderline cheating. At that point, why not just go to the box and pick the cards you want?


We played through RotR 2-character with Ezren and Merisiel. We didn't boon-hunt, and got to around Adventure 5 or 6, and just got stuck - Ezren still had a Force Missile amongst other things, and we just couldn't power-through.

We ended up playing one scenario 5 times - each time, we timed out, because we'd just lost too many monster combats and/or couldn't close locations. By the time we'd done all those play-throughs, we had better boons, and once we finally cleared the scenario, went straight through the next few without too much delay.

in general, we've found that using a blessing now to get a better weapon pays for itself later when you don't have to use a blessing on EVERY combat check, because you're so underpowered.

That said, the ship that allows you to discard a blessing from the deck to add D12 to a check to pick up a boon looks far too tempting- will have to be careful if we end up seizing that one again...


MightyJim wrote:

We played through RotR 2-character with Ezren and Merisiel. We didn't boon-hunt, and got to around Adventure 5 or 6, and just got stuck - Ezren still had a Force Missile amongst other things, and we just couldn't power-through.

We ended up playing one scenario 5 times - each time, we timed out, because we'd just lost too many monster combats and/or couldn't close locations. By the time we'd done all those play-throughs, we had better boons, and once we finally cleared the scenario, went straight through the next few without too much delay.

in general, we've found that using a blessing now to get a better weapon pays for itself later when you don't have to use a blessing on EVERY combat check, because you're so underpowered.

That said, the ship that allows you to discard a blessing from the deck to add D12 to a check to pick up a boon looks far too tempting- will have to be careful if we end up seizing that one again...

We would occasionally use a blessing to get a boon. That makes sense. But if Merisiel encounters Disintegrate, a 14 Intelligence/Arcane check, you'd generally have to spend 3 blessings to make it not impossible. Not worth it, even if Ezren really could use that spell. That is less likely to happen in a 2-player group (and in that case you'd be maxed out at two blessings anyway), but in a 6-player? Much more likely, even if you try to focus your spell casters on the locations with the highest spell counts. The location with one spell that one of your multiple non-spellcasters is in could be the location with the best spell.

Of course that is actually a bad example as Merisiel could just evade the boon... Swap that out for Seelah. She is suitably dumb.


nondeskript wrote:
While it is true that the larger party will find more use for the cards they acquire, they have a different problem. With 2-person party there is a 50/50 (or better, depending on skill overlap) chance that any card that is useful to the party will be encountered by a character that can handle the check to acquire. With a 6 person party, those odds are much lower. Those high power Arcane spells that Ezren and Lem wanted when we were playing weren't getting acquired when Kyra encountered them or vice versa for Divine spells. At least not without risking failing the scenario by throwing multiple blessings you need to explore at the check to acquire.

The biggest problem for us wasn't not acquiring things the other guy wanted. With Kryasiel you have swipe in one char and evade in the other. So you are pretty much fine. In low player parties the value of swipe goes up massively.

The real issue was just not even having a chance to acquire things. With only 4 decks there might not even be any armor, or like 1 armor, across all of the decks. So your chances of getting the new hotness from a deck you just started are very small even if you are prepared for acquiring it with anyone. Bit worse for us, even, as we threw in the character add on pack which diluted things further (we wanted some of the cards from it).


I agree. I just think that adding locations quickly swings that too far in the other direction, since two players are much more able to burn as many cards as possible on their turns and use.heals to cycle them back in there decks.

In my experience this is how it balanced out:
Fewer characters get to encounter more of the boons in the locations leading to a high per-character boon encounter rate. This is counter balanced by fewer locations leading to less total boons to encounter.

More characters have more locations meaning more potential boons to encounter but they are getting fewer explores due to less ability to cure cycle cards back into character decks so they end up with less opportunities to encounter these cards (unless they don't mind losing scenarios due to running out of time)

Of course that was just my experience. I'm sure some people played 6 player games and had no trouble milking the locations for all of the boons, but I don't know how. We had to struggle to set up Cure/Kyra heals and most of the non-Cure/Kyra heals are weak or one-time use.


Well this thread fell by the wayside while I was on vacation. (Not that I'm saying it's because of that)

I laughed at Seelah being suitably dumb.


Orbis Orboros wrote:

Well this thread fell by the wayside while I was on vacation. (Not that I'm saying it's because of that)

I laughed at Seelah being suitably dumb.

Okay, here's a new topic then:

Best role cards for the S&S characters?

Obviously hard to tell without knowing the banes in the adventures coming out, but here's what I think (without any justifications whatsoever!).

Ranzak: Kleptomaniac
Alahazra: Stargazer
Jirelle: Pirate Queen
Lem: Sea Singer (tentative)
Lirianne: Deadeye (anyone notice her Musketeer role mentions she'd be good with swords, even though she'd still be terrible with them?)
Merisiel: Shadow
Seltyiel: Marauder (tentative)
Valeros: Tactician!
Damiel: Chirurgeon (tentative)
Feiya: Hexer (tentative)
Lini: Aquamancer
Oloch: Shield of Gorum

Overall, I think the roles are a lot more balanced this time around. There are still a few that seem to be clear winners, but we'll have to wait until the next parts are out to be sure.


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I was wondering where you were :) I'm replaying RotR now with Ezren & Len (standard location count) to try out whether or not a suitably motivated player can break the game with Ezren like you can with Radillo. I forgot how much more time you get with only two players. We only got through half of the blessing deck once in the first 6 scenarios, and that was just due to some bad luck on some closing checks. With 6 characters we almost always were on the last round when we finished any scenario, even with a holy candle.


Mechalibur wrote:
Orbis Orboros wrote:

Well this thread fell by the wayside while I was on vacation. (Not that I'm saying it's because of that)

I laughed at Seelah being suitably dumb.

Okay, here's a new topic then:

Best role cards for the S&S characters?

Obviously hard to tell without knowing the banes in the adventures coming out, but here's what I think (without any justifications whatsoever!).

Ranzak: Kleptomaniac
Alahazra: Stargazer
Jirelle: Pirate Queen
Lem: Sea Singer (tentative)
Lirianne: Deadeye (anyone notice her Musketeer role mentions she'd be good with swords, even though she'd still be terrible with them?)
Merisiel: Shadow
Seltyiel: Marauder (tentative)
Valeros: Tactician!
Damiel: Chirurgeon (tentative)
Feiya: Hexer (tentative)
Lini: Aquamancer
Oloch: Shield of Gorum

Overall, I think the roles are a lot more balanced this time around. There are still a few that seem to be clear winners, but we'll have to wait until the next parts are out to be sure.

I do like that, in general, they seem to be more balanced insofar as not all of them have clear winners, but on some of them... When the reason they're balanced is because they're both equally lame...

Sorry. S&S Lini really has me soured. Now that the initial glamour of 2x Toad and 2x Restoration on her has worn off, she's really boring. And if I do anything else with her, she's just bad... We're at AP5S3 or 4 now and all she does every turn is Resto and Aid the others (cure once in a blue moon). She doesn't even explore because she can't handle the monsters without help and it's better to just have her keep something other than a weapon in her hand. It's really powerful, getting a free Restoration every turn (including others'), but when that's all you can do it's not game breakingly good and it gets boring.

If I was a game designer with the knowledge that I have now (much of it is hindsight, granted), I would have given the Lini with the free d4+x S&S Lini's deck list and the Lini without the d4+x RotR Lini's decklist. Her poor weapon stats (d4 and d6) are much easier to swallow with the free d4+x and the Lini without the reveal won't want those weapons and could play caster style (6-8 spells). I think that would go a long way towards balancing them better, if they just had their decklists swapped. As is, I will always pick RotR Lini over S&S Lini. The better animal-ally-to-deck ability is not enough to make up for the other faults. Not with the Parrot, not with Double Toad/Resto, not with anything I've seen yet. I won't say they can't make an animal ally that good, but I can't think of one that would do it and also be healthy for the game overall.

...

Rant over, sorry. XD

...

Oh, and I still want to run Oloch as his other role solely for the extra hand size feat. :3


Okay, I thought of something that would make me consider S&S Lini over RotR Lini. But they'd essentially have to make allies do more than they do right now.

hypothetical card wrote:

Saddled Pony

Adventure Deck B
Ally
Basic
Animal
Saddled

For your combat check, you may bury this card to roll your Survival skill + d6.

Discard this card to explore your location.

hypothetical card wrote:

Saddled Boar

Adventure Deck 2
Ally
Elite
Animal
Saddled

For your combat check, you may bury this card to roll your Survival skill + 2d6.

Discard this card to explore your location.

hypothetical card wrote:

Saddled Panther

Adventure Deck 4
Ally
Animal
Saddled

For your combat check, you may bury this card to roll your Survival skill + 3d6.

Discard this card to explore your location.


S&S Lini needs aquatic banes to shine be less awful. No surprise that she disappoints in RotR.

edited at Orbis' request.


Mechalibur wrote:

Best role cards for the S&S characters?

Feiya: Hexer (tentative)

I am going to disagree and make the case for Sea Witch.

Yes, Hexer gets to increase Feiya's core power from 2+AD# to 3+AD#, but that's just about all it has going for it.

Sea Witch can recharge an animal ally to get a spell from the discard pile. That is FAR better than discarding any ally to get a spell.

The Sea Witch can recharge blessings against aquatic banes. Half the monsters in S&S are aquatic, which makes it far more useful than recharging to get allies (we need more info to make the call on Hshurha vs. Pharasma)

The Hexers ability to reshuffle a non-villain, non-henchman monsters is incredibly situational, and her card draw ability takes multiple feats to even approach usefulness. In contrast, fortitude and survial checks come up all the time, and I can't wait to get that extra 2d4.

I agree with you that its not a clear cut case, but Sea Witch seems the better choice from where I am sitting.


Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
S&S Lini needs aquatic banes to shine. No surprise that she disappoints in RotR

She needs them to be less bad, but she still doesn't shine. I tried playing as though her transform ability had a recharge (like it does against aquatics). Not a lot of help. And I didn't test out the Aquamancer stuff, but they're hardly game breaking.


Joshua Birk 898 wrote:

I am going to disagree and make the case for Sea Witch.

Yes, Hexer gets to increase Feiya's core power from 2+AD# to 3+AD#, but that's just about all it has going for it.

Sea Witch can recharge an animal ally to get a spell from the discard pile. That is FAR better than discarding any ally to get a spell.

The Sea Witch can recharge blessings against aquatic banes. Half the monsters in S&S are aquatic, which makes it far more useful than recharging to get allies (we need more info to make the call on Hshurha vs. Pharasma)

The Hexers ability to reshuffle a non-villain, non-henchman monsters is incredibly situational, and her card draw ability takes multiple feats to even approach usefulness. In contrast, fortitude and survial checks come up all the time, and I can't wait to get that extra 2d4.

I agree with you that its not a clear cut case, but Sea Witch seems the better choice from where I am sitting.

The extra difficulty reduction isn't why I went with Hexer actually. It's the ability to look at the top card of your deck whenever you play a spell, and put it in your hand if that card is a spell. Granted, you need two power feats to do it, but it seems incredibly useful.

Sea Witches +2d4 to fortitude and survival seemed good at first, but then I realized that make you end up rolling 3d4 total, or 7.5 average which is kind of lame. Bonuses to constitution or wisdom don't even help - she doesn't have the skill based on an attribute, so she has to stick with a base 1d4. If you have someone like Lem, who can add extra to those checks, I'll admit it's really nice to have.

On the other hand Sea Witch *can* recharge an animal to get a spell back, which is just fantastic. I'm really not convinced on my position at all to be honest :P

Sovereign Court

Hey gang!
Just wanted to say HI! This is a random chat post right? Hehe.
I love this game, I only wish I could play it even more! It already takes most of my free time :)
Just wanted to say I think it's great how the community and the developers are always around here and the communication that goes on in here is REALLY impressive.
Thanks for the great game Paizo!
My favorite character so far has been RotR Lini (and I never thought of using frog + resto combo), and I think Jirelle is a close second so far with S&S. I'm looking forward to playing Flenta though I expect many questions to arise.
I've so far managed to resist buying all of the class decks. I have Fighter and Cleric on the way though. Also, I want to try Ranzak, mostly to annoy a certain person with which I played through most of RotR :D
I have a regular game night with some co-workers that I've actually considered dropping out of just so I can go play OP and have a regular game every week! Shhh... don't tell them I'd rather play this game ALL the time rather than all those eurogames :)
We have played PACG almost every game night since Rotr started, until we finished it, and it's great! We've got TOO MANY people into it! There's usually at least 8 people who want to play it now. Anyone out there figure out how to add an 8th without throwing the balance all to heck?! hah!
I think I've talked too much! :D
Bye!
Cajun


CajunAtx wrote:

Hey gang!

Just wanted to say HI! This is a random chat post right? Hehe.
I love this game, I only wish I could play it even more! It already takes most of my free time :)
Just wanted to say I think it's great how the community and the developers are always around here and the communication that goes on in here is REALLY impressive.
Thanks for the great game Paizo!
My favorite character so far has been RotR Lini (and I never thought of using frog + resto combo), and I think Jirelle is a close second so far with S&S. I'm looking forward to playing Flenta though I expect many questions to arise.
I've so far managed to resist buying all of the class decks. I have Fighter and Cleric on the way though. Also, I want to try Ranzak, mostly to annoy a certain person with which I played through most of RotR :D
I have a regular game night with some co-workers that I've actually considered dropping out of just so I can go play OP and have a regular game every week! Shhh... don't tell them I'd rather play this game ALL the time rather than all those eurogames :)
We have played PACG almost every game night since Rotr started, until we finished it, and it's great! We've got TOO MANY people into it! There's usually at least 8 people who want to play it now. Anyone out there figure out how to add an 8th without throwing the balance all to heck?! hah!
I think I've talked too much! :D
Bye!
Cajun

Lol

Yes, this is just a chat, posts like yours are welcome. :D

Quick note: RotR Lini still buries Toads - the combo is with S&S Lini, who can put them atop her deck instead of burying them.

As to the 8 players, rotate around and play two games of 4. That's what i'd do anyway.


Mechalibur wrote:


Sea Witches +2d4 to fortitude and survival seemed good at first, but then I realized that make you end up rolling 3d4 total, or 7.5 average which is kind of lame. Bonuses to constitution or wisdom don't even help - she doesn't have the skill based on an attribute, so she has to stick with a base 1d4. If you have someone like Lem, who can add extra to those checks, I'll admit it's really nice to have.

Feiya is someone like Lem. If your check is to defeat a monster or barrier, she will drop a huge static bonus. But, your general premise still stands. It would be a lot better if she got a Jirelle style skill inquisition.

Pirate Queen for life!


Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
Mechalibur wrote:


Sea Witches +2d4 to fortitude and survival seemed good at first, but then I realized that make you end up rolling 3d4 total, or 7.5 average which is kind of lame. Bonuses to constitution or wisdom don't even help - she doesn't have the skill based on an attribute, so she has to stick with a base 1d4. If you have someone like Lem, who can add extra to those checks, I'll admit it's really nice to have.

Feiya is someone like Lem. If your check is to defeat a monster or barrier, she will drop a huge static bonus. But, your general premise still stands. It would be a lot better if she got a Jirelle style skill inquisition.

Pirate Queen for life!

Or if she has a statstone. Replace that unlisted d4 with her Intelligence die, then add 2d4 for 1d12 + 2d4.

Admittedly, still not as great as simply gaining a skill, but still usable. And maybe there will be some spells or items or allies that make it more worth it.

And combine it with difficulty reduction power with a high adventure deck number card to make a 7.5 average all you need.

Sovereign Court

Orbis Orboros wrote:


As to the 8 players, rotate around and play two games of 4. That's what i'd do anyway.

While this would have been possible with RotR - we had 2 copies in the group, it's not possible with S&S. Only I have a copy. Plus, everyone really likes playing together! :D


CajunAtx wrote:
Orbis Orboros wrote:


As to the 8 players, rotate around and play two games of 4. That's what i'd do anyway.

While this would have been possible with RotR - we had 2 copies in the group, it's not possible with S&S. Only I have a copy. Plus, everyone really likes playing together! :D

Take turns? This game, ABCD play together while EFGH watch and chat with everyone. Next game EFGH play and ABCD watch. Next scenario, CDEF play and ABGH watch, and so on.

While watching, everyone can chat and have a good time.


Orbis Orboros wrote:
CajunAtx wrote:
Orbis Orboros wrote:


As to the 8 players, rotate around and play two games of 4. That's what i'd do anyway.

While this would have been possible with RotR - we had 2 copies in the group, it's not possible with S&S. Only I have a copy. Plus, everyone really likes playing together! :D

Take turns? This game, ABCD play together while EFGH watch and chat with everyone. Next game EFGH play and ABCD watch. Next scenario, CDEF play and ABGH watch, and so on.

While watching, everyone can chat and have a good time.

Maybe add 2 other random locations... maybe 10-20 more blessings in the blessing desk and go from there. I must admit, it might change the game significantly, but it is a co-op game. If the whole group can figure out a way to include everyone, then have at it... the point is to have fun. :)


Hawkmoon269 wrote:
Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
Mechalibur wrote:


Sea Witches +2d4 to fortitude and survival seemed good at first, but then I realized that make you end up rolling 3d4 total, or 7.5 average which is kind of lame. Bonuses to constitution or wisdom don't even help - she doesn't have the skill based on an attribute, so she has to stick with a base 1d4. If you have someone like Lem, who can add extra to those checks, I'll admit it's really nice to have.

Feiya is someone like Lem. If your check is to defeat a monster or barrier, she will drop a huge static bonus. But, your general premise still stands. It would be a lot better if she got a Jirelle style skill inquisition.

Pirate Queen for life!

Or if she has a statstone. Replace that unlisted d4 with her Intelligence die, then add 2d4 for 1d12 + 2d4.

Admittedly, still not as great as simply gaining a skill, but still usable. And maybe there will be some spells or items or allies that make it more worth it.

And combine it with difficulty reduction power with a high adventure deck number card to make a 7.5 average all you need.

Does a statstone work if you're doing a skill you don't have though? I actually don't have my cards on me right now, so I forget the exact wording.


Mathwise, a d12 + 2d4 is (on average) the same as d12 + 5... not a bad place to start, esp since blessings give you a d12. It does cost 2 cards which can be expensive, and only works if you have that stat stone in your hand. And you can use her other recharge power for another +1 to 8 (5 on average) if it is a monster or barrier.

Of course 3d4 (avg 7.5) + her recharge power is nice on its own when you hit a barrier. But that won't help with closings.


Statstones work on non-combat checks, so there doesn't seem to be reason why they wouldn't work on a skill you don't have.


nondeskript wrote:
Mathwise, a d12 + 2d4 is (on average) the same as d12 + 5...

Nooooooooo! Remember, static bonuses are far better than average die rolls because they reduce variance. In a game where you are rewarded for not rolling low (rather than for rolling high) take those guaranteed dollas


Joshua Birk 898 wrote:
nondeskript wrote:
Mathwise, a d12 + 2d4 is (on average) the same as d12 + 5...
Nooooooooo! Remember, static bonuses are far better than average die rolls because they reduce variance. In a game where you are rewarded for not rolling low (rather than for rolling high) take those guaranteed dollas

I totally agree that a guaranteed +5 > 2d4, I'm just saying that 1d12 + 2d4 is still pretty good. And you didn't have to spend 2 or 3 skill upgrades to get there.


I agree with that.

Scarab Sages

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So off topic....

Know Direction is interviewing Mike Selinker and Tanis O'Connor tomorrow, Wednesday, September 17at 8:30pm in EDT.

https://www.facebook.com/events/634581179988070/

If you watch live on youtube, you can type your questions for Tanis and Mike and they will *hopefully* be answered live. =)


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There is no off topic here!


Orbis Orboros wrote:

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There is no off topic here!

that sounds like a challenge...

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Just thought I'd let you all know that I am VERY close to having the Skull & Shackles B, C, and 1 cards ported into the OCTGN gaming space, so if anyone besides myself is ambitious enough, you should be able to scan in your cards and start playing by the end of this week. I'll update on here and on the PACG Facebook page when the update has gone out.

If you're not familiar with OCTGN or playing the PACG online using that program, I have a quick-start guide that I wrote up.

PACG on OCTGN: Getting Started


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It's a testament to my laziness that I haven't tried that out.

...

The fact that I don't have a computer at home doesn't hurt, though.


So I wanted to break out of the current Oloch thread for a bit and ramble on character effectiveness.

To me, there are three things that a character should do. The better a character does at the more of these things, the better the character is, in my opinion. The three things are:
*Combat
*Exploration
*Utility

Combat is pretty basic. To pull their weight, a character should be able to handle combat. Inability to do so means a hand wipe and potential death on combat checks in worst case situations, and wasted resources like blessings in best case. Fear of failing combat checks can turn into fear of exploring, and characters in that rut have only utility to rely on to help the party. Combat is also important to help win, due to the importance of defeating henchmen and the villain. Workarounds, such as Ranzak's ability to pass monsters on to his buddies, can help but are inferior to actually being able to kill stuff. Any game with only characters that are mediocre or worse at actual combat will struggle. Combat is perhaps unique in the three things in that it is the one that I personally feel must be covered to some extent or the character really suffers. A character must be simply stunning in its other traits to make up for lacking any true ablity to handle combat.

Exploration - let me start by saying I'm all about efficiency and potential. Just because you don't NEED extra explores in an official one player game doesn't mean this doesn't factor in. You certainly need extra explores for large party games, or common "alternate game modes," as I'm going to call it, such as increasing the number of locations when you play (a common way to up difficulty without hardly bending the rules). If your character only explores once a turn, it is hard for that character to contribute; they are pulling less of their weight than they could otherwise by getting through location decks more slowly. Fewer explores means fewer boons for the party, fewer banes out of everyone else's way, and... well, you guys have played the game, you get it. Exploration is usually tied to a character's deck list, but powers have an effect on it as well - several characters have ways to generate additional explorations a turn and a few must give up explorations for their abilities. Hand size also plays a part - the smaller your hand, the fewer cards you can have in it to spend on exploration (further compounded by having to hold onto cards to deal with your encounters).

Utility covers a myriad of things. Lem giving others d4's on their checks? Lini casting Restoration on someone (and maybe looping it back with Toad)? Ranzak helping redetermine your plunder? Kyra healing you? These are all examples of utility. Some are more useful than others. Some are more unique than others. But it's an important thing to have. I would also put the ability to make various non-combat checks here - pretty much anything useful that's not related to exploring or combat. It's a broad category. But it's important. A character that can explore a lot and destroy all the things in combat will be of limited use without any utility, and a party of characters without utility is probably going to fail, although the same can be said of exploration and combat.

So. When I evaluate a character, I look at all these things.

The best characters, in my opinion, do all three and excell at one or more. This is easiest for a spellcaster, generally speaking - they can explore with allies and blessings, handle combat with spells, handle utility with spells, and have a large hand size to offer choices during a turn and allow multiple explorations. But other characters can do this as well. Harsk is a good example - he has good combat stats, an okay hand size that is comparable to a spellcaster's because he can use one weapon instead of multiple combat spells, and he offers utility with handing out d4's, never mind his scouting ability (equal parts utility and exploration).

Other characters offer spikes in their distribution of these traits, and still do great - Seoni, for instance, offers massively powerful and consistant combat and strong exploration (lots of allies and blessings, good diplomacy for free explorations by finding and acquiring more allies, access to Haste that recharges with ease). She also has a large hand size - she just lacks utility. Valeros is similiar - very good combat, but mediocre utility and exploration. S&S Lini spikes differently - she can support like no other in RotR using Toad and Restoration, or simply support well with various Divine spells, can explre with ease using animal allies, but her combat suffers (in my opinion it suffers too much for general play, but my God is that Toad / Resto combo good, and when she has access to it I say this Lini is really good).

Those two categories are for the best characters. The characters who are moderate in their usage of these traits are lower. Oloch is a great example - good combat, good utility, but very poor marks in the explration category. Or Seltyiel, who has great combat, okay exploration, but pathetic utility. The list goes on.*

So, I just wanted to share these thoughts with you guys. What do y'all think?

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*I don't think any of the PACG characters are truly worthless, whey've done a pretty good job for the most part. Some appear to be pretty far down there (Siwar and S&S Lini without Resto, for instance), but on the whole characters are well done. I do think that any character so far can be made to work (even if it does take forward planning from the moment you choose your party).

---

EDIT: This turned out way longer than I thought. 0_o

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

I don't think S&S Lini is as bad at combat as you do. I think you're disappointed by her changes from Runelords. I've played Lini through the end of AD1, with the add-on deck in there, and her combat situation does start shaky but gets a lot better. The fact that she can recharge to get d12 versus many monsters and barriers(a lot of barriers are Aquatic too) gives her decent combat and utility. It also gives her good deck cycling to help compensate for what I see as one weakness - she's a lot better with a weapon so getting it in your hand and keeping it there is a priority. And she is fantastic at exploring. With less monsters and more barriers in S&S lack of a strong combat ability (I would classify her as "okay" at combat, not weak or strong but average) is not as crippling as it would be in Runelords.


Let's take it for garanted that she has to use her transform ability every combat check, but also that she gets to recharge. So for every combat check, she's revealing a weapon and recharging another card. That's terrible. Spellcasters just recharge the card and weapon users just display the weapon but she has to do both for the same benefit.

I'm disappointed at the *combined* changes from RotR's super Lini. I could handle weapons with her poor stats if she had the d4, or spells without the d4 if she had more of them. My biggest gripe is that they should have their deck lists swapped - it would make them both more balanced instead of one over the curve and one under the curve.

Again, it's not that she's worthless. None of the characters are. But she's not as good. What exactly does she do that someone else doesn't do better? That's the main thing. Can she survive making combat checks revealing a weapon and recharging a card? Sure, but it's a handicap that other characters don't have to deal with, and other than Toad/Resto I don't see her bringing anything to the table to justify said handicap.


I'm definitely in Orbis's boat, no character really feels bad, but there are definitely characters I just wouldn't want to play.

However, I think there's fairly few characters who wouldn't rate at least "good" at combat. Maybe Lini early on when her ally power isn't very good, doesn't have a good weapon, and Divine attack spells suck (which they will continue to do throughout RoRL). Everyone else has plenty of ways to handle their own. All the weapon users are borderline too good at combat (too many weapons, small hand size, results in less explores) and Seoni is just a beast, characters like Merisiel have a decent balance. Like, as the only caster I played in RoRL, I had to adjust my thinking when we moved into S&S and I had to think about stuff like "recharging spells" and "having an attack on hand." Is there any character that's really bad at combat?

My preference is definitely to max the Utility category, even over explores, and S&S really produces that. I don't want no Valeroses, give me a Lem. Jirelle's broad spread of abilities is kind of astonishing. With Survival, Fort, and Acrobatics it seems like she's got every skill she'll need for barriers and pre-combat damage checks. You don't even think about killing ships with her, you completely ignore a ton of structural damage (Enchanter 2.0's got nothin' on her), and she can get ways to reroll dice on every check provided she's lucky enough to pick up the bandana (which we weren't :(). Then there's blessings of Besmara once she's in AD1, so you can start constructing ways for her to add 2 dice to any of her checks. S&S has really impressed me with its requirement that characters diversify, where in RoRL it was more like: spec for combat, use Masterwork Tools, suck up all the damage Tools can't solve. But in a way that comes with it's own disappointments. Lirianne seems like a super cool character, but her really sharp focus on combat with almost nothing else (d12 Wisdom, tho) makes her tough to fit into a really small party, and we only ever play duos.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

See Orbis, I think that's one way our playstyles differ. I think of being able to recharge a card as a bonus. Recharging a card of your choice isn't a penalty, it lets you cycle things you don't need right now out of your hand for better stuff. In an ideal world your entire deck is useful all the time, but we both know that doesn't always happen. Sometimes you've seen all the barriers in a location and that Masterwork Tools is dead weight until you move. It also lets you get armor out of the way - I'm probably not going to spend a feat on proficiency so armor can never recharge on its own, but it makes good fodder for her ability.

New Lini is super at getting extra explores. IME she routinely has turns with 3+ explores from shuffling animals into her deck, and her recharge ability means her hand never stalls with a clump of no animals.


I try to design my decks for that ideal world where the entire deck IS useful all the time.* I see recharge as a penalty because it reduces your available cards. And, perhaps because I always have a divine caster with cure in my parties, I'm okay with discarding at end of turn to get rid of Masterwork etc. I'd rather recharge, sure, and I often have Lem (for instance) recharge to help a check that doesn't need it, but I don't want to HAVE to recharge (as opposed to keeping the card) if I can avoid it.

*It is for this reason, and that Masterworks has an upper limit, that I have come to worship Abadar (lol). I still use tools and stuff, but BoAbadar is one of my most sought after cards. Always useful and super good against barriers. Perfect.

EDIT: PS, I approve of most of Dave's points in his post. We're not ignoring you, buddy. :D


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Yeah, recharging seems not as good as revealing but I agree with rayric that it can be real useful for moving through your deck. Right now, I'm playing Alhazra and I try to recharge Cure and not Fireblade. At the end of my turn, I keep one Divine card to swap with Fireblade, (if that's in discard) and the rest get recycled to scout locations. I often draw back up five cards so I get a Cure back. I like her because she has options on other player's turns. And for combat, her +2 to Attack spells is nice. The Divine attack spells seem better this time too.


Recharge cycling is one of the reaons I love spellcasters so much. :D


Orbis, I think we have almost identical criteria for judging character effectiveness, except for now I only judge characters based on the sets they come in. Jirelle is pretty awesome in S&S, but holy crap is she terrible in RotRL. I don't hold that against her though, since she wasn't designed for that set. It's the same reason I don't even consider the Toad/Resto silliness with S&S Lini.

There's also the matter of cycling/hand size which influences everything: combat, utility, and exploration. I think it's funny that sometimes when I play Lirianne, I want to misfire her gun so I can shuffle in a card from my hand so that I don't have to discard it at the end of my turn :P In a way, I think she'd be a little better without weapon proficiency.

As an aside, I actually like S&S Lini more than her RotRL version. Definitely less powerful, but I had to give her up in my RotRL game; she just felt really boring and was kind of a turn hog if she gets her restorations :P


Mechalibur wrote:
Orbis, I think we have almost identical criteria for judging character effectiveness, except for now I only judge characters based on the sets they come in. Jirelle is pretty awesome in S&S, but holy crap is she terrible in RotRL. I don't hold that against her though, since she wasn't designed for that set. It's the same reason I don't even consider the Toad/Resto silliness with S&S Lini.

I consider them regardless of set, excepting the obvious ones like Jirelle and Liriane (It only makes sense to give them a freebie in cases like that, as I will in the next set for Lini's if there aren't any animal allies, for example). This is probably because I love the idea of using them in various sets. More options is better, and you can always play your favorite character that way.

Mechalibur wrote:
As an aside, I actually like S&S Lini more than her RotRL version. Definitely less powerful, but I had to give her up in my RotRL game; she just felt really boring and was kind of a turn hog if she gets her restorations :P

I'll comment on the Resto part - share the Resto's by playing them on your pals unless you specifically have a reason to play it on yourself (like needing to draw something for combat) and problem solved.


Doesn't solve the boring factor for me, but that's personal preference.


I'll say this on Oloch and his effectiveness as a character (at the start, of course. He can certainly grow):

Over the weekend we started S&S and played through the first two adventures. 2 players, 4 characters. I took Oloch & Damiel. And while Oloch was definitely helpful to have, he is a fairly boring character in the early going. I spent most of my time with him focusing on healing others rather than exploring at all. I probably explored on about half of Oloch's turns. It mostly came down to bad luck getting any of his 4 weapons into my hand and having to discard them for high checks when I did have them. But with a hand size of only 4 cards and not wanting to trash my armor for no reason since it can either be a cure or a +1 to any check there was more than once that Oloch simply reset his hand and passed on to Jirelle (Jirelle & Alahazra were the other two characters). It didn't bother me at all because I had Damiel to play with as well, but if I was just playing Oloch it would have been fairly frustrating. I think that hand size boost will have to be my first power feat, just to get weapons into his hand quicker. I usually used my armor for the +1s and I couldn't care less about getting those back in my hand at the start of my turn.

Damiel, on the other hand, is just sick. If I was trying to show a new player how fun the game is, I'd give them a Damiel deck and let them go to town.

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