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It's time for our weekly PFSACG check-in! How did everyone fare over the last week against the chum-filled waters of The Lone Shark?
Our table of three won on our first attempt. My Valeros was a true shark-slayer; on a single exploration, I encountered and defeated three Hammerhead Shark henchman. One for starting at Shark Island, another on my exploration, and then a third shark to close the location. Of course, sharks are apparently no match for Valeros wielding a greatclub. Whack-a-shark is the new thing in the Shackles.
I really enjoyed the uniqueness of the scenario. Kudos to the design team! In just the first few adventures of Skull & Shackles as well as the organized play, there's been a lot more variety in the scenarios over Runelords. I can't wait to see what else comes up.
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We won by the skin of our teeth, but we had a wizard, a cleric, and my Merisiel. To avoid fighting sharks right away, we started on Lonely Island and then moved over to the same Shark Island. That way only one person had to fight a shark at the beginning of their turn.
We had to split up later on so that we could close locations when the enemy came out.
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So, I just realized we totally played this without Lonely Island. Just 5 players and 5 shark islands.
We had Harsk, Lem, Radillo, Seoni and Zarlova.
Harsk was easily able to fight multiple critters per turn in addition to recharging lots of cards to help the rest of us out and was easily our super star. Seoni did alright against multiple fights but was burning cards dangerously quickly. Lem, Zarlova and Radillo all struggled a big with the multiple fights but eventually Harsk encountered a strength 21 Adaro Barbarian, which caused Zarlova to temp close the only remaining location. After that and spending a blessing to help Harsk she was down to few enough cards in hand that she would die at the end of her turn if it got around to her. Luckily Harsk defeated the Adaro Barbarian.
I'm really happy to see Harsk with a d10 dex being the combat badass dwarf that he should be. I was a little sad about the shinny new Find Traps being useless that I had picked up after Scenario 1.
The scenario felt especially dangerous with no safe haven to start at/
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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See, I don't think you're supposed to have Lonely Island if you have more than 1 player. If you look at the scenario sheet, it shows the locations as:
1 Lonely Island
1-6 Shark Island
I'm pretty sure that means that with more than 1 character, you're supposed to JUST have the Shark Island locations. Perhaps this could use some clarification, though.
See, I don't think you're supposed to have Lonely Island if you have more than 1 player. If you look at the scenario sheet, it shows the locations as:
1 Lonely Island
1-6 Shark IslandI'm pretty sure that means that with more than 1 character, you're supposed to JUST have the Shark Island locations. Perhaps this could use some clarification, though.
I would actually read this more as:
If you are by yourself you play with a Lonely Island AND a Shark Island, as both locations are included for the 1 player situation... then you would add Shark Islands to fill in for additional players.
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See, I don't think you're supposed to have Lonely Island if you have more than 1 player. If you look at the scenario sheet, it shows the locations as:
1 Lonely Island
1-6 Shark IslandI'm pretty sure that means that with more than 1 character, you're supposed to JUST have the Shark Island locations. Perhaps this could use some clarification, though.
I would actually read this more as:
If you are by yourself you play with a Lonely Island AND a Shark Island, as both locations are included for the 1 player situation... then you would add Shark Islands to fill in for additional players.
Correct.
Also, it is still one location short of the regular scenario even with Lonely Island.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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See, I don't think you're supposed to have Lonely Island if you have more than 1 player. If you look at the scenario sheet, it shows the locations as:
1 Lonely Island
1-6 Shark IslandI'm pretty sure that means that with more than 1 character, you're supposed to JUST have the Shark Island locations. Perhaps this could use some clarification, though.
I would actually read this more as:
If you are by yourself you play with a Lonely Island AND a Shark Island, as both locations are included for the 1 player situation... then you would add Shark Islands to fill in for additional players.
I thought that at first, but looking back at some other scenarios that had strange location numbers, if they wanted you to have them for 1-6 players, it always says 1-6. This one only says 1. Though with another location it would be both easier (cuz you can move there to stop fighting sharks) and harder because it's another location to have to beat.
You're meant to always have Lonely Island.
I really hope I can play this soon. The local FLGS have not yet become official retailers yet. I'm not sure if this is because they don't see the need, or they just don't understand how to do it. And I'm waiting patiently to become an official VL. (taps toes and sighs)
Hosted this one tonight. I wanted to try to run as many of the first six scenarios as I could, but we ended up having a six character party with two brand new players so that ran a little long. We lost the scenario and a bard (Bekah) died. This scenario seems to be especially rough for large groups and can be really hard on wizards and sorcerers with all of the shark summoning.
Everyone except for poor Bekah's player had other commitments after that scenario so the two of us gave the Lone Shark another shot with him trying out the Ranger this time. With Tarlin and Wrathack (a rather unlikely team) we were able to beat the sharks back!
The big group will probably try The Lone Shark again next week and I'll probably go back to my main man Lem. Hopefully we'll be able to get through some other scenarios, too.
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We played this last Tuesday.
The official Montreal group is composed of Vika the Fighting Smith (fighter), Arabundi the Far-Sighted (ranger), "Killer" Kyra (she kicked serious ass during On the Horizon!), and Siwar the Courtesan (bard).
We also misunderstood the location directives and had 4 Shark Islands to explore and close. We were worried about all those combat checks to do every round, especially Siwar (no weapons, no armor, 1 attack spell, 1 evasion spell, and a whole lot of useless items and allies).
Siwar faced a feral bunyip on her second turn and had to lose her entire hand to damage since she had nothing to deal with it.
Two turns later, Vika faces the Pirate Captain! We managed to defeat him by combining our efforts: blessings from Kyra and Siwar, and some covering fire from Arabundi. We let the Merchantman get wrecked from the Captain's parting cannon shot (2 structural damage after the encounter) after figuring that there's very little chance to encounter enemy ships*.
A few turns later, Arabundi is hovering near death after a difficult encounter with a hammerhead shark. We're halfway through the blessings deck at this point, and still no sign of a henchman... or villain, for that matter.
Siwar finally meets the first henchman shark on turn 20. She's unable to fight it, and decides to stay and lick her wounds, and hopefully draw a useful spell. Kyra and Arabundi decide to spread out to find the villain, while Vika joins Siwar so they can both help each other fight off the incessant shark attacks.
Kyra finally finds the villain at "her" Shark Island. Vika and Siwar are able to temporarily close theirs, and so does Arabundi, leaving only one open island. Kyra manages to defeat the adarro barbarian with some help from the rest of the crew, driving it to its last refuge.
With time running short, we decide on a risky plan: Arabundi will stay on his island and not explore, while Siwar does the same on her island, letting Vika and Kyra focus on exploring "villain island". Allies and blessings are discarded furiously to maximize the exploration range of the two heroines.
Turn 27: Vika meets up with the sea barbarian for one last battle. This is it! Either we succeed, or we crawl back defeated to our wrecked ship. Arabundi kills his shark with a light crossbow and a blessing of the gods, while Siwar kills hers with a Lightning Touch empowered by Pharasma, courtesy of Kyra. Vika handily slays our ichtyoid enemy, and we jump for joy!
After all this combat and brushes with death, we all hope our next adventure will be more peaceful...
* Up to now, only barriers and henchmen cards seem to be able to summon enemy ships. We can assume some villains will be able to do it eventually. If there are no barriers, and you know that the henchmen don't summon ships, the odds that our ship would take further damage are very low.
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Here in Kansas City, we ran this scenario over the weekend and it was rough! We had Wu Shen, CD Lem, Agna and Flenta.
We closed one Shark Island pretty quickly and followed it up with Lonely Island shortly there after. Agna used her ranger senses to find the villain and we then closed one more shark island. At that point, Wu Shen and Lem decided to take on the villain and ended up getting a 49 on the check.
We ended up having about 10 rounds left and lots of sharks to make shark fin soup out of.
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At ZappCon in Fresno this weekend, my Kyra visited Shark Island THREE times before she was victorious.
The first time, she was joined by Seoni and a new player playing a sorcerer. As such, Kyra was the only one that could take a shark bite, and we lost the newbie quickly. After that, despite heroic efforts, Seoni died too and Kyra ran out the clock, frantically slashing sharks left and right searching for the villain in the last location.
For the next attempt, Seoni's twin sister Seoni joined the crew, along with Merisiel and Harsk. We did better, with Merisiel taking on hordes of sharks by herself, as she is wont to do. The remaining heroes steadily whittled down the shark hordes, but failed to close two locations when the Hammerheads reared their... heads. This caused us to come nearly as close as humanly (or elfly) possible to win without winning. We were down to one location with only a Hammerhead, Harsk standing ready to strike, and one location with only the villain, when the last timer card ran out.
Undaunted, but seriously peeved, the party tried again. This time, we got our bad luck out of the way early, with Merisiel having a horrible first encounter (nasty shark bite). We systematically closed location after location, finally descending upon the dastardly villain on his island. Seoni found him and took vengeance for her sister, with plenty of shots fired from Harsk and Merisiel, and a tripled-up blast of magic, courtesty of Kyra's Blessing of Pharasma. The body was not recognizable.
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We ran through the first four scenarios at ZappCon, and The Lone Shark was the only scenario over the weekend to not only have table failures, but multiple character deaths as well.
From my previous post, my initial playthrough of the scenario was fine, but I realize we had a very optimal party for dealing with shark after shark.
Out of all of the scenarios thus far, The Lone Shark I think may be the most punishing for non-optimized tables. The tables that didn't have a solid melee-focused character to continually reveal weapons to deal with the Hammerheads were the ones that failed and perished.
We offered The Lone Shark again at our OP night this week for those that haven't successfully finished it yet, and players groaned at the thought of subjecting themselves to it once more. And sadly, they lost again.
The potential for three Henchman combats in a single turn (start of turn, explore, closing location) is manageable by a Fighter, but Clerics, Bards, Wizards, etc. have just been mangled by the adventure. In a typical scenario, this can be worked around by avoiding the deadly location until the party is prepared and ready to tackle it. But with almost every location built that way, it's a bit too punishing.
I just wanted to leave some feedback for future scenario difficulty and balancing. The general consensus from my local players is, "The Lone Shark is a awful, no-fun scenario that I never want to play again." I don't want to frustrate and burn-out players so early in the campaign.
Sorcerers have Mirror Image (B) and innate magic. Wizards might have Sphere of Fire (1). They may even have weapons, but it does sound harsh.
Those characters are Wizards and would really like to get a Sphere of Fire (or borrow another Sphere of Destruction from the box).
Four out of five Sorcerer choices have innate magic. Amaryllis does not, but looks like a cool character.
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I'm aware of their classes.
A Sphere of Fire would be nice. But considering this is the second scenario in the entire campaign, what are the odds of having one? Slim.
I think the difficulty of the scenario is fine for something later in the season. But as the second scenario, it presents a very combat-heavy challenge when most characters are only utilizing basic cards that may not even function well in their decks.
We breezed through this scenario despite not having a real build for it.
It helped that I found the Adaro Barbarian my first explore.
...
We were kind of scared that having so many sharks was going to wear on us, but we handled it okay. Scouting saves the day yet again, because I left a Hammerhead Shark on top of a location which allowed me to go to the other location after I lost one fight against the top Hammerhead Shark (and conserved resources instead).
Then I murderized the Adaro Barbarian, but I actually needed a Meliski reroll for it. Oh well.
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We had a party of five and we started well. Closed two locations right away because Hammerheads on top of the location deck. Then the pain kicked in. Bad rolls plagued us so too much damage incurred. One death then we ran away. We're trying again soon.
Everyone said it was horrible overall.
[Funny, wasn't as bad when we played at GenCon.]
Last night was Melindra, Kyra, Tontelizi, Olenjack and Seoni. We all left the table with shark bites.
Man, I couldn't imagine Olenjack did very well in that scenario unless he was able to upgrade to the Deathbane Light Crossbow already or if he stayed at the Lonely Island. May I ask who the unlucky death was?
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Man, I couldn't imagine Olenjack did very well in that scenario unless he was able to upgrade to the Deathbane Light Crossbow already or if he stayed at the Lonely Island. May I ask who the unlucky death was?
Olenjack did start at Lonely Island. We closed it on the first round. We also closed a Shark Island on the first round. Melindra did not fare so well last night. Her spells were clumped together in her draw pile, no weapons in hand and could not handle sharks that round. Took full damage that round and had four cards in her draw. Kyra had just discarded her hand and her second cure because of damage so she couldn't cast cure prior. It was a mess overall.
It is a combat-heavy scenario (and anti-evasion).
I played through the scenario last night with Seoni, Harsk, Kyra, and Siwar. We breezed through it with a bit of luck, but I feel like the team strategy would have worked even without two early closes.
We all started at the lonely island, but everyone moved individually on their first turns except for Siwar. She stayed at the Lonely island with an ally in hand for closing purposes. Seoni and Kyra teamed up to clear out islands in fewer turns and Harsk hung out by himself to add combat support.
Seoni and Kyra cleared out 2 of the Shark Islands before Seoni found the villain in the third. Harsk and Siwar temp closed their locations and Seoni did her thing to finish of the scenario.
So I tried this one with Ezren last night in a group of five. I started a turn and summoned a shark. No attack spells up so I roll melee and take the damage. I ask the group, "should I chance the explore?" they say, Sure why not?" I flip and there is a Shark Henchmen. We all either gasp or sigh. My group blows a bunch of blessings and with 4d4 Ezren punches the shark dead. It's at that moment we all realize Ezren needs summon another to close location. More gasps or sighs. The group uses the last of it's blessings and with 4d4 again. Ezren the Shark Puncher was victorious.
Oh and we won the scenario with about 7 blessing cards left. Good times!
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So, now that we've got the Tier system going, my gf and I have decided to tier up some characters for Gen Con so we can play in any Adventure. We dragged my roommate in, and so we have CD-Merisiel, Grazzle, and Brielle.
CD-Merisiel had a few tough rolls, but found her stride (a quiet stride, that approaches from behind) and kicked major butt. Her lack of Disable skill is getting old, however.
Brielle found herself beating Hammerheads to death with a Mattock, a Crowbar, or (my favorite visual) a Caltrop Bead. That's right, Mr. Toothy McHammerface. You just got served by an angry 3-foot woman wielding and overweight sling bullet.
Grazzle didn't quite get to shine in ship combat, which is a shame, what with his Survival and Craft skills, but as a Divine Caster Extraordinaire, he was amazing. Until he overextended to heal the other two, got a crappy roll on his cure, and died.
Merisiel and Brielle DID pull out the victory, and Grazzle's twin clutchmate, Grazzle, will join us for 0-1C.