Mostly I like Merisiel because I like items. You might say they're my Favorite Card (though I wish they weren't hers!) Throwing out Holy Candles and Revelation Quills and Magic Spyglasses was my jam. I rolled up on Seelah when we started our playthrough--because Paladins are next best after Rogues--and said "no items? seriously? ever? :("
Eventually I bumped her up to 3 weapons, that kept her enough. She's a super pro at killing barriers (I imagine she's less so in S&S) and just from an aesthetic standpoint beating the average barrier feels cooler to me than beating the average monster, because monsters mostly just make you discard cards but barriers might make you discard cards because of SPIKES. Or you might get cards! Way more fun.
I wouldn't go to bat for her evade power being the best in the game (hi, have you met Lini), but it got its uses in our games. Summoned monsters? I'll be over here takin' a nap. Kyra encounters a falling bell? Ain't no thing. Ooops, there's a Mass Cure on top of this location? Well I'll just Acrobat evade and leave it on top. And so on and so forth. Tons of fun uses for evade. There's no question than an evade is a "waste" of an explore, but if you don't got the tools on hand to beat any given thing (and you won't always) (unless you're hitting it with a +5-8 lini roll) having an evade in your pocket can be pretty nice, 'coz losing one blessing for another explore is better than wiping your entire hand.
Also I just like Rogues. Even if Merisiel were bad she'd still be my favorite because Rogues are cool.
I'm a big fan of spell-casting in the PACGReally? You're joking.You got me. I actually prefer using characters with 4 card hand sizes, plenty of Armor, and Favorite Card Type: Armor.
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Okay, I couldn't even type that with a straight face XD
Glad to see you have finally converted to the church of Seelah!
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Nice! But the million dollar question: Did they have any promo cards? Many stores, including my local store, seem to be having trouble getting the promos. Now I really don't regret that I decided to subscribe.I just wanted to celebrate the fact that my gamestore had all the class decks, the character add-on deck, and AP2 when I went Friday.
That is all.
One of my stores had promos in stock this past week... I didn't check which ones though. If it matters I can ask when I go back in for game night later this week.
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Went to my local shop today, they didn't get anything PACG in their shipment on Thursday, but apparently they've had issues with their distributor lately and are considering changing. Hopefully it will come in with the shipment they get Wednesday / Thursday. I told my VC I'd make the drive to meet people this Saturday at a con and would love to hit a PACG table.
Plus, any character with a free evade for me is just wasting a power slot for something that I never have done, and never will do.
Seriously? I evade loads of times. Like if I don't have a weapon on hand (it's not her favored card time, so it happens somewhat frequently), I can still explore in relative safety. If I find a disintegrate spell that I have no chance of getting with d6 intelligence, then I'll evade it for Ezren to pick up. All you lose is a turn, which generally isn't a big deal.
I just don't see how it's remotely plausible to never be in a situation where you would want to evade. It's impossible to always have the perfect hand for everything, especially early on.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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It's also worth evading when you encounter a bane that has "unless condition X is met this card is undefeated." If condition X isn't met there is no upside to making the check, and there is the risk of substantial downside, up to and including mandatory damage and/or losing blessing deck cards.
There's no reason to ever fight Hirgenzosk if you don't have to, for example.
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Or if you aren't spread out for the villain.
My wife played Merisiel in RotR and is doing so again in S&S. With S&S already rewarding your a bit more for grouping together, we can know that if Merisiel encounters the villain while we are all grouped up she can evade it and we'll know which location it is in. We can then get a few of them permanently closed, especially the ones that are going to be risky to close and then spread out to be ready to temporarily close for the final encounter. All the more a good idea when there are locations you are going to struggle to temporarily close. All our characters this time have poor Intelligence. Temporarily closing a location with an Intelligence check is probably going to take some blessings that we won't be able to use for the villain. But knowing we can permanently close that location means we can spend blessing to do it and then have full and ready hands for the villain.
Or if you aren't spread out for the villain.
My wife played Merisiel in RotR and is doing so again in S&S. With S&S already rewarding your a bit more for grouping together, we can know that if Merisiel encounters the villain while we are all grouped up she can evade it and we'll know which location it is in. We can then get a few of them permanently closed, especially the ones that are going to be risky to close and then spread out to be ready to temporarily close for the final encounter. All the more a good idea when there are locations you are going to struggle to temporarily close. All our characters this time have poor Intelligence. Temporarily closing a location with an Intelligence check is probably going to take some blessings that we won't be able to use for the villain. But knowing we can permanently close that location means we can spend blessing to do it and then have full and ready hands for the villain.
Huh, I thought for sure that if you chimed in, you were going to mention Illusionist Ezren. :D
Well, that too. But he can't do that until adventure 4. Plus I'm thinking mostly about S&S. Our RotR group, which included Illusionist Ezren and Acrobat Merisiel both with their evade powers topped off and also possessed a few Spyglasses (both magical and non-Magical), Augury, Scyring, and Brodert Quink, we basically either knew what was coming or could avoid it if we didn't.
Have people had a chance to look at potion of flying from the class decks yet? If you though Damiel was good now, wait until you get your hands on one of these. I think it also strengthens the case for packing multiple Tot Flasks.
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What's it read?
"Red Bull Gives You Wings"
POTION OF FLYING - ITEM 3 (Fighter Class Deck ver.)
Liquid
Alchemical
Check to Acquire: Intelligence or Craft 10
Powers: Banish this card and choose a character at your location. That character may move; if it's that character's turn, he may explore his location. Any movement restrictions still apply.
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Yep, that's pretty nice. I called into work today and just started my solo run with Damiel. I'm about to start Cat and Mouse (Adventure 1, Scenario 2) and this is my current deck:
Weapon: Heavy Crossbow
Spells: Aid, Cure
Armor: Magic Chain Shirt
Items: Alchemist's Fire, Noxious Bomb, Potion of Glibness, Potion of Healing, Sapphire of Intelligence, Thieves' Tools
Ally: Cabin Boy
Blessings: Achaekek, Abadar, Erastil, Gozreh
And yeah, I haven't really had much trouble yet. For my skill feats I've put one in Dexterity and one in Intelligence.
Holy crap that's powerful. You don't even have to move. And you can recharge it if you're an alchemist... it's a better Haste. Like twice as good. It... Wow. If you can recharge it, that's up there with Restoration's power level (post errata), maybe better. Good grief. That should NOT be AP 3. Probably not even 4. I wouldn't make that less than a 5. Wow. If they keep making things like this, Alchemists will be so OP they'll be no fun to play with.
Assuming an alchemist CAN get a hold of this. It's balanced if it gets buried* or banished. I really hope this doesn't show up in the AP, or, if it does, it gets a power level errata. I know some people don't like those, so hopefully it's not in the OP, but... I can't get over how good this is with an alchemist.
*EDIT: I'm not even sure of this. There's a lot of characters' decks I think I would splash this into if it buried, as I say in my next post.
Sorry, but Potion of Flying (3) is on the Skull & Shackles Deck List PDF.
So, yeah, do you need a hug?
Sorry, but Potion of Flying (3) is on the Skull & Shackles Deck List PDF.
So, yeah, do you need a hug?
Maybe...
I know I'm sounding over the top, but... this card is just so ridiculously good with recharges. Plus you can search for it if you have Tot Flask. If it said to bury instead of banish, I would honestly consider it with any character in the game that doesn't need their item slots for something in particular. And that's with only using it once per scenario. This can be used multiple times a turn with the right Damiel set up. Just... wow.
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It's a little late in the game for this, but what would you guys think if the Alchemists let you recharge Basic and Elite potions and bury the others, instead of recharge all of them? That type of thing, anyway - I'm sure there's a potion or two that would need it's traits altered for this, but I'm curious what you guys think of the concept of recharging the less great ones and burying the crazy ones.
I'd really like to tell you what Damiel was like at the end of the playtest, but Mike has asked us nicely not to talk about it. You probably would have found him to be a lot more balanced the way he was, but there was a particular problem that resulted from it. Just a little hint, he didn't automatically recharge the cards, he had to work for it....
As far as burying non-basic, non-elite cards instead of recharging them, that could work, but it could also restrict creativity. I don't know if I'd keep anything but basics and elites of that type if this were the case.
The fact that these potions (Heroism & Flying) are completely flexible between making Damiel a one-man-wrecking-crew, and upgrading a suitable party member to be an even-better wrecking-crew (think Ranzak/Wu Shen/anyone with a power for free explores/cards that scales with explores) makes them utterly awesome, and lets Damiel be a party-friendly rock-star.
The real question is: what range of character effectiveness is healthy/fun for the game? If many of us are optimizing parties to the hilt already, and having great fun with it, is there any problem if there's an easy one-character, no-combos-needed path to a high-powered party? The hardcore optimizers might need to lay off, or pair Damiel with some low-tier characters to still have an appropriate challenge, but I doubt that an average, some-synergy party is going to come close to trivializing the game, even if they have a Damiel with all his best cards. Presently, I feel great handing Damiel to a new player, because I know they'll be effective and have fun.
It definitely seems like Damiel gets his peak power much earlier than most other characters (with potions that are *much* better than similar-tier spells---Heroism vs. Aid, anyone?). Perhaps people who feel like Damiel is too strong, too soon, should just push his best boons back a deck or two, to slow his power curve?
There are also barriers that summon monsters and villains that summon monsters in both AP's. And the Guard Tower, Meri just laughs at that stupid [swear-word] location. Also, she should have a love-child with Ilsori Gandethis (or however you spell his name). That combo is awesome.I suppose that's a scenario where I would use it. However, I could probably count on two hands how many summoned monsters I personally had to encounter in the whole RotR path with my 4-man group.Have you seen Shark Island? Yeah, Merisiel says, "Sharks? What sharks? *grin*"
Exactly my thought, once I realized she had that combo she was cooking !
Now looking forward to Deck 3~
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That's pretty powerful. I can't see playing it unless someone was about to encounter the villain, to split people up for more temp closes. Being a recharge for Damiel, I'd probably throw it once or twice on someone who just closed a location. Even not playing it outside of those two examples, it's a must have the second I see it!
That's pretty powerful. I can't see playing it unless someone was about to encounter the villain, to split people up for more temp closes. Being a recharge for Damiel, I'd probably throw it once or twice on someone who just closed a location. Even not playing it outside of those two examples, it's a must have the second I see it!
You can:
*Explore with it
---Standard explore, like blessings and allies, but you get to recharge! It's Haste where you auto-pass the recharge check!
*Move to a different location (and then explore!)
---Leave the Guard Tower or similiar to avoid beginning of turn effects
---Leave after evading something (bane or boon) another player is better equipped for
---Move to another location after closing the one you're at
---Split the party up for temp closes, help-other-location powers, while-alone-at-your-location powers, etc
---Join another player to play "at your location" effects on them
*Allow another character to explore
---Give them more use out of entire turn effects like Clouds and Potion of Heroism
---Grant them explores that you can't take because time will be up before your turn
---Maybe you're built for support and don't want to explore personally
*Allow another character to move (and then explore!)
---Leave the Guard Tower or similiar to avoid beginning of turn effects
---Leave after evading something (bane or boon) another player is better equipped for
---Move them to another location after closing the one you're at
---Split the party up for temp closes, help-other-location powers, while-alone-at-your-location powers, etc
And all of that is just off the top of my head.
I'm with Orbis. Haste is a good card. Once you acquire it, your casters don't let it good. Potion of flying is WAAAAAAAAYYYYYY better than haste in the hands of Damiel. And ToT Flask puts it over the top.
(Combining threads) I'm expecting there's an errata lurking here somewhere... it's a Potion of Flying, not a Potion of Landing. You move, encounter, then plummet to the ground and suffer insta-death!
I'd still take two. And double down Tot Flasks to boot.
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I'd still take two. And double down Tot Flasks to boot.
I don't want two of any card in my deck if I can help it. In a 4-man balanced party, I'd rather spread out my options.
Except for Fire Lance. I want 500 of those.
That's pretty powerful. I can't see playing it unless someone was about to encounter the villain, to split people up for more temp closes. Being a recharge for Damiel, I'd probably throw it once or twice on someone who just closed a location. Even not playing it outside of those two examples, it's a must have the second I see it!You can:
*Explore with it
---Standard explore, like blessings and allies, but you get to recharge! It's Haste where you auto-pass the recharge check!*Move to a different location (and then explore!)
---Leave the Guard Tower or similiar to avoid beginning of turn effects
---Leave after evading something (bane or boon) another player is better equipped for
---Move to another location after closing the one you're at
---Split the party up for temp closes, help-other-location powers, while-alone-at-your-location powers, etc
---Join another player to play "at your location" effects on them*Allow another character to explore
---Give them more use out of entire turn effects like Clouds and Potion of Heroism
---Grant them explores that you can't take because time will be up before your turn
---Maybe you're built for support and don't want to explore personally*Allow another character to move (and then explore!)
---Leave the Guard Tower or similiar to avoid beginning of turn effects
---Leave after evading something (bane or boon) another player is better equipped for
---Move them to another location after closing the one you're at
---Split the party up for temp closes, help-other-location powers, while-alone-at-your-location powers, etcAnd all of that is just off the top of my head.
*Explore with it
--- I'll save that for my generic allies and blessings. A card that allows a move mid turn isn't getting spent just for an explore, unless I just closed a location (or the current player did)*Move and explore
--- Our group is well balanced, we don't go to bad "Start of turn" locations unless we can handle it easily (Oloch loves his Shark Island), or we have cards that nullify the effect (Amulet of Fortitude on Fort-or-bury checks). Obvious exceptions for when it's the last location, and at that point we burn through so fast we don't care
--- You know now that I don't evade :) Plus, evading shuffles the card into the deck unless I've missed something? It wasn't in the original RotR rules what you actually do, and I don't know that it was ever actually said, I've just gone by shuffling since Ezren had an evasion power that implied that to me. So you could keep going anyways.
--- Yup, this (after closing) is one of two times I would use it (and even only using it in two cases, I still really really want it!)
--- The temp close is the other time I'd use it. I'd only use it for "At a different location" or "Only character at your location" powers if it was for a villain kill (and then drop my Call Weapon to shuffle it back near the top!)
--- Saving it for post-close is much better in my opinion, plus I can use it for Damiel's +2d6
*Allow another player to explore
--- +2d6 on a check we know needs it would be better to me
--- Ok, I can see using it when I won't get another turn. So, once every... 3 or 4 scenarios
--- I will never ever play support. Well, not primarily. I do run Damiel as decent support, but mostly I just use him to hit like a truck.
--- BONUS! Same as exploring myself, I'm not using a Move+Explore just to get an explore that a million other cards can give
*Move another player to have them explore
--- Same reasons as all the ones for moving myself to explore, including that I would definitely do it when they close the location on their turn and split us up for temp closes
I didn't say it has no uses, it definitely does, and people will use them for more than I will. I was saying that I personally wouldn't play in many examples myself. The majority of what you listed seems like a waste of a great card to me. Especially using it without even moving, I have allies and blessings in my deck, I'm not losing out on an anytime-move for something a chunk of my deck can already do.
Except it's not a waste - you recharge it and can even search it back up again! The only waste would be to have it sit around in your hand doing nothing until you get around to using it (remember, you can Tot it back when you need it!). Also, yes, there are a bajillion other cards that let you explore. But how many of them not only recharge, but go in your item slot and are searchable?
Finding ways to explore without discarding cards is one of the most useful powers in the game. The Potion is a one shot answer to that problem, plus it adds additional benefits. Its far more efficient at exploration than blessings (unless you are someone like RotR Kyra) or allies (unless you are someone like RotR Harsk and Lini with animals)
My initial impressions is that S&S characters have far fewer ways to generate explores without discarding than those in RotR. That makes the relative power of this card even better.
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We have Oloch and I hold a Cure - recharge vs discard isn't a big deal. It doesn't sit it in my hand. If I don't need it yet, I drop it for 2d6+1 to a combat check, or to add a Craft die to my potions in combat. No card is just going to sit around in my hand, but extra dice like that is more valuable to me than an explore.
As for Tot Flasking it back - I've said it before, I don't like Tot Flask. I find it to be a mediocre card at best, and that one I'm not even saying just for my playstyle. In general, I just don't see pulling a Liquid from my deck as that great except on very rare occasions when I really need a specific item like a Potion of Healing.
How many other explores are rechargeable, items, and searchable?
Recharge -- don't care, that's what heals are for on the rare occasion I desperately need a certain card back.
Items -- My items are my combat and auto-pass potions, I don't want explores. Potion of Flying gets in because it can continue a turn after a close, or allow us to win when normally we'd have one location noone is at to temp close. Even then, depending on loot, we may want to search those more anyway
Searchable -- I don't like Tot Flask so I'm not searching for it anyway.
Joshua -- maybe non discards to explore are fantastic for you, but in our group, it's just "Huh, that's cool". The recharge to explore means little to me. It's the moving and explore to manipulate the game and eliminate a problem that I like.
I should point out, my group realized something last Saturday. We tend to play the very opposite of what people recommend, and then do extremely well. Whether it's PACG, PFRPG, Zombicide, or anything. The characters that we play usually end up being considered the worst online for X reason and Y reason, but we turn those reasons into amazing power. What other people considered the most powerful parts of the game, we look at and think it's just OK, and then we beat the game using strategies people say aren't very good.
Should I be worried that our Damiel player is just going to overwhelm the game? Is his power level way too high compared to the other players? I mean we have an Oloch on our team, and if Damiel eventually gets to do whatever he wants with multiple explores and insane firepower while oloch gets his one exploration a turn that's not going to be much fun for anyone.
Should I be worried that our Damiel player is just going to overwhelm the game? Is his power level way too high compared to the other players? I mean we have an Oloch on our team, and if Damiel eventually gets to do whatever he wants with multiple explores and insane firepower while oloch gets his one exploration a turn that's not going to be much fun for anyone.
This is a legitimate fear that I have. Damiel just looks good when you look at his character card and remember what was in RotR, but there are some bonkers potions in S&S. I don't know if it will actually be a problem, but if you're worried about it and the Damiel player is willing, you might consider having them switch characters. I'm not saying you should switch. Just... why risk it?
See, we don't know if Damiel will ruin the game for everyone else. We don't have enough playtime, particularly with stuff beyond AP2 (like potion of flying). But I do worry that he's too good. I mean, seriously, is there anything he doesn't do? All I can think of is non-diplomacy charisma checks. But even then he could have a statstone, and will have blessings and Potion of Heroism. But he handles combat, most of non-combat, healing, exploration, and buffing all simultaneously.
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We're in Adventure 2 with Damiel, Oloch, Class Deck Seoni, and Jirelle. No one has come out too far ahead in the power curve. Yes, the potions for Damiel are kinda crazy, but you have to recharge them. There is no reveal option, so you are cycling through cards more. Also, Damiel doesn't get any special extra explores or anything, this is just one item from Adventure 3. Oloch has his blessings, can still gain allies, still gets all the ways to explore as everyone else.
Should I be worried that our Damiel player is just going to overwhelm the game? Is his power level way too high compared to the other players? I mean we have an Oloch on our team, and if Damiel eventually gets to do whatever he wants with multiple explores and insane firepower while oloch gets his one exploration a turn that's not going to be much fun for anyone.
If your problem is that you don't like having less dynamic characters with one-explore turns, then the answer is simple: don't play low-hand-size/slow-exploring support characters like Oloch! Let the Oloch player swap for Lem/Alahazra if they want a support with more to do, or to a different fighter-y type with some spellcasting (like Arabundi). Oloch's a perfectly good character, but playing him does mean accepting that other players will get more turn-time than you do.
If your problem is that you don't like having less dynamic characters with one-explore turns, then the answer is simple: don't play low-hand-size/slow-exploring support characters like Oloch! Let the Oloch player swap for Lem/Alahazra if they want a support with more to do, or to a different fighter-y type with some spellcasting (like Arabundi). Oloch's a perfectly good character, but playing him does mean accepting that other players will get more turn-time than you do.
Not a huge deal either way, I'm not convinced one way or another that Damiel is that broken, but a few vocal folks here are basically saying that he is.
Olock is teaming up with Ranzak so he will get lots of opportunities to bash skulls and get into the action.
The main concern is overall power level. When you play with 6 players as my group does, everyone wants to feel useful and be able to engage with the game in a meaningful level right? If you have one uber-powerful player running amok at a clear level above everyone else - doing multiple explores, destroying everyone in their path, curing and basically doing whatever they want to do, then that's a problem.
Not saying Damiel is at that level or will ever get there. I played Lini in RoTR and although she was extremely useful and tons of fun, I never got the sense she was OP like Orbis did. In combat she could clearly struggle at times. What she was amazing at is closing locations, supporting and acquiring boons.
However Damiel is clearly stronger in combat than even RoTR Lini and has a ton of flexibility as well.
If your problem is that you don't like having less dynamic characters with one-explore turns, then the answer is simple: don't play low-hand-size/slow-exploring support characters like Oloch! Let the Oloch player swap for Lem/Alahazra if they want a support with more to do, or to a different fighter-y type with some spellcasting (like Arabundi). Oloch's a perfectly good character, but playing him does mean accepting that other players will get more turn-time than you do.Not a huge deal either way, I'm not convinced one way or another that Damiel is that broken, but a few vocal folks here are basically saying that he is.
Olock is teaming up with Ranzak so he will get lots of opportunities to bash skulls and get into the action.
The main concern is overall power level. When you play with 6 players as my group does, everyone wants to feel useful and be able to engage with the game in a meaningful level right? If you have one uber-powerful player running amok at a clear level above everyone else - doing multiple explores, destroying everyone in their path, curing and basically doing whatever they want to do, then that's a problem.
Not saying Damiel is at that level or will ever get there. I played Lini in RoTR and although she was extremely useful and tons of fun, I never got the sense she was OP like Orbis did. In combat she could clearly struggle at times. What she was amazing at is closing locations, supporting and acquiring boons.
However Damiel is clearly stronger in combat than even RoTR Lini and has a ton of flexibility as well.
There are different thresholds for what "OP" means to an individual.
I think RotR Lini is the best character in RotR and very good, but not godly or anything. She's just better. If the very best character other than Lini and Damiel were a ten on a scale of one to ten, Lini would be no more than a twelve, probably more an eleven.
Damel may not be any worse than this. I don't know. I see rediculous potential here, though. It probably takes a TCG player to see how insanely good Tot Flask's second ability is, but anyone can see that a rechargeable Potion of Heroism is better than Aid or Potion of Flying is better than Haste. Just straight up. On top of that, Damiel can still use non-combat spells, has good stats, and can make insane combat checks.
Is he a pre-Restoration-Errata Lini or pre-Errata Radillo? No. But the more new potions I see, the more irrefutable I find the evidence that he is the best character and I worry about just how much better he is than everyone else. I mean, Lini just had a lot of Divine spells and a bonus to all checks, making her consistant. That's all, really. Damiel does so much more with each super potion released.
Let me put it this way - in RotR, Damiel would still be top notch, and S&S is just handing him super cards that only he can use properly like candy. Without those, or if every character could use them just as well, he'd simply be good. But...
Eh, I'm starting to repeat myself. I'll hush up.
I think there are two separate questions (potentially calling for different solutions):
(A) Does Damiel make the game too easy?
We aren't in a great position to assess this yet, since we don't know how difficult the rest of S&S is going to be, or if it will include challenges that Damiel isn't ideally suited for beating. That said, exploring/healing/buffing is pretty universally applicable, so this is definitely a possibility. Or he may turn out to be like RotR Lini---the top of the power curve, but not game-breaking.
(B) Does Damiel overshadow other characters, making the game less fun?
To make some comparisons to tabletop rpgs, which are also co-op, and also often have significant disparities between character power levels:
Is Damiel more like 3E Clerics/Druids, who often felt strictly superior to other classes, even at those classes' specialties (combat/scouting/etc.), and by high levels it could definitely be unfun to play a non-caster alongside them, feeling useless?
Or is he more like optimized 4E Warlords, who also often brought vastly more firepower to the table than your average character (through the power of force multipliers), but did so *through* the other characters by granting them extra buffs and attacks. Warlords could decrease game difficulty just as much as 3e casters could, but I don't think anyone at my tables ever felt overshadowed by the powerhouse who let them auto-hit and make gobs of extra attacks.
In practice I think you can likely avoid (B), if it's a problem, by using most of Damiel's potions on fellow party-members. I doubt your party's Ranzak or Oloch will have less fun if you efficiently grant him Heroism & Flying every round through Tot Flask cycling.
(A) is what I'm more worried about.
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Not a huge deal either way, I'm not convinced one way or another that Damiel is that broken, but a few vocal folks here are basically saying that he is.
Absolutely. None of these shades of grey; such a thing cannot stand. Characters either have to be ridiculously awesome and the coolest and most powerful and bestest thing I have ever seen, or they are abysmally awful and useless completely.
Not a huge deal either way, I'm not convinced one way or another that Damiel is that broken, but a few vocal folks here are basically saying that he is.Absolutely. None of these shades of grey; such a thing cannot stand. Characters either have to be ridiculously awesome and the coolest and most powerful and bestest thing I have ever seen, or they are abysmally awful and useless completely.
Actually, there's a whole lotta grey. A LOT of grey. The thing is, the grey isn't interesting to talk about. They just fade into the background. There's a lot of characters like Agna, Qualzar, Vika, and Bekah that are simply unremarkable. Solid, not great or horrible, and therefore mostly unintersting to discuss. I mean, did you even remember what classes those characters were, never mind a distinguishing feature? Good for you if you did, but it would surprise me. Thery're not bad, they're just unremarkable, which makes for poor discussion.
I actually remembered all of them except Agna when I read off their names, although I only remembered Qualzar because of the most recent blog post.
I remembered Bekah because Bard is my favorite of the classes that have Class Decks so far, but yeah, she is pretty unremarkable.
Vika is actually the fighter I would definitely choose if it wasn't for S&S Valeros being an option.
And as for Agna, turns out I just didn't know her by name. The more I look at her character sheet, the more I'm considering playing her instead of Harsk.
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I come before you today to admit that I have seen the light! No longer do i dwell in the dark for I have found Bard and his name is Meliski!
My name is Sarah (Hi Sarah) and It has been 3 days since I gave up my bard hate...
Posting at lunch brings out my silliness i think....
Anyways, I was not a fan of Lem inRoTR. Just not my cup of tea. The Bard deck was last on my list of class decks till I decided to just buy them all. Never thought I would ever touch it for more than pregens, let alone play one! Now i find myself inthis weird world of Bard love in which I found great joy in having others reroll a die. You failed to get that weapon? Roll a die again! It got so bad I was skipping my turn as I had recharged all of my cards to help my friends. And I was ok with that! I did it three turns in a row!
So weird..... Queue the Twilight Zone theme song.
:)
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Not a huge deal either way, I'm not convinced one way or another that Damiel is that broken, but a few vocal folks here are basically saying that he is.Absolutely. None of these shades of grey; such a thing cannot stand. Characters either have to be ridiculously awesome and the coolest and most powerful and bestest thing I have ever seen, or they are abysmally awful and useless completely.
Truth. Sometimes it seems some things get blown up out of proportion and Damiel is on that slippery slope where every next alchemical thing that comes up leads to believing he is just more and more OP.
I've played through Fever of the Lost Sea with Lirianne, Jirelle, Lem, Merisel, Valeros, Alzahara and Seltiyel thus far. Just put together decks for Damiel, Ranzak, Feiya, Lini and Oloch this morning, so I haven't yet used Damiel other than collecting together his basic cards, but seeing peeps talk about him I think about an old Magic article by Chad Ellis - The Dangers of Cool Things - and he seems to fit that mold. You get so fixated on doing these powerful things that you miss the simpler, easier solution right off to the side of it.
Now, Damiel is capable of doing ridiculously cool things... that is very much obvious. He can make some crazy combat checks and use his tot flasks as tutors and give extra explores and buff others and he recharges everything... but I'm still not sure that all the cool factor in the world makes him better than any other character.
For whatever its worth I think Jirelle is pretty ridiculous. She is well rounded and helps the party out with structural damage. Her ability to reroll bad dice is pretty awesome. She makes use of a ridiculous amount of the boons in the set. She is super functional, not fancy, not super cool, but wicked functional.
I've played through Fever of the Lost Sea with Lirianne, Jirelle, Lem, Merisel, Valeros, Alzahara and Seltiyel thus far.
How did you find Seltiyel? That's a character pretty much acknowledged to be the "worst" on the message boards here. Interested to see other opinions of him, although our group isn't playing him.
I don't think Damiel is broken or overpowered, but I do think he is the strongest character in the game. And we don't even need to get into "ridiculously cool things" that he can do. As a general rule alchemical items are better than the equivalent spell (potion of healing being the exception). Aid is a great spell, potion of Heroism is just better. Haste is a great spell, potion of flight is better. Alchemists fire and Noxious bomb just give more dice than their magical equivalent.
That's before we even consider things like tot flasks or Dmaiels power. Do i think anyone should avoid playing him? Absolutely not. But every game has stronger and weaker characters, and Damiel is the former.
I don't think Damiel is broken or overpowered, but I do think he is the strongest character in the game. And we don't even need to get into "ridiculously cool things" that he can do. As a general rule alchemical items are better than the equivalent spell (potion of healing being the exception). Aid is a great spell, potion of Heroism is just better. Haste is a great spell, potion of flight is better. Alchemists fire and Noxious bomb just give more dice than their magical equivalent.
That's before we even consider things like tot flasks or Dmaiels power. Do i think anyone should avoid playing him? Absolutely not. But every game has stronger and weaker characters, and Damiel is the former.
The fact that fresh off the box he can hit for d10+d8+4d6+5 with basic potions is nuts. I just don't know why they would make these potions so ridiculous right off the bat, no one else comes close to that kind of power with so little effort.
The disparity between him and other characters is just a little surprising. I didn't have that feeling with anyone in Rise of The Runelords. Seoni and Amiri could hit hard but both had lots of drawbacks (fragility with Seoni, lack of exploration/handsize with Amiri). Damiel has a large handsize, well rounded stats and besides allies, he can get enough card feats in anything he could ever want. Im just not sure what the design thought process was in making a guy this stacked.
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It probably takes a TCG player to see how insanely good Tot Flask's second ability is,
I've been playing TCGs like Magic for a long time when I say it's a mediocre card to me. A tutor is amazing in a 60 card deck where you frequently only draw one card per turn. In a 15-20 card deck in PACG, where cycling through your cards is massively easier, and a character like Damiel where you just recharge half your cards to get more card drawing, a deck search power in PACG doesn't even come remotely close to a search in other games.
Yeah, I didn't keep Tot Flask until I got my first Card Feat and put it in Items. It's nice to have for things like having Potion of Heroism two turns in a row or getting ready when you know something is coming, but I don't think it's all that required.
I've played through Fever of the Lost Sea with Lirianne, Jirelle, Lem, Merisel, Valeros, Alzahara and Seltiyel thus far.How did you find Seltiyel? That's a character pretty much acknowledged to be the "worst" on the message boards here. Interested to see other opinions of him, although our group isn't playing him.
I like him way more than I thought I was going to. I hate his d4 on Wisdom, but aside from that he can do some pretty sick things in combat. He can make do past most barriers with the help of Abadar. He is interesting. He is not optimal. The fact that the average spell in S&S is not as good (IMO) than in RotR doesn't help. But nonetheless, he is fun.
I play solo with every character in different parties that I put together. I like using different characters that do different things.