A Round of Applause for Malcolm_Reynolds

[Hawkmoon269]

I just want to recognize this post and give a round of applause to Malcolm_Reynolds for completing all of Rise of the Runelords with 6 Skull and Shackles characters. And, based on the card inventory, did so with only RotR boons.

Congratulations to you Malcolm_Reynolds. An amazing accomplishment that surely took some dedication. Your love of PACG is unmatched.

Seriously, pretty awesome. I'd love to here some of your comments on how it went. What worked, what didn't. That kind of stuff.

[Raynair]

Its pretty awesome to see his makeup is almost identical to our 6 person group that is playing through S&S right now (with the exception of Valeros instead of Ranzak).

Good job though, Malcolm. And I would also like to hear about what worked and what didn't.

[Andrew K]

I love seeing the cross-path milestones like this.

I'm trying a Rise of the Runelords run right now using only class deck characters. I randomly selected a class that wouldn't be in it, which left me 6 classes. Then, a d4 to randomly select a character from each.

If we get lucky, someone will find a way to make every RotR scenario compatible with 51 players, and someone will run through the whole path using every single character at the same time!

[Malcolm_Reynolds]

Thanks, Hawkmoon. I was wondering if anybody was still reading the milestone threads.

I had an extra three weeks' time between not getting Raiders of the Fever Sea due to the mixups and finally getting it, so I thought I'd try this out while I waited.

I have also run two 6-character solo parties through RotR (though not posted online) using all 11 characters (Lem being the only one common to both).

The final victory snapshot isn't entirely representative of most of the game, as the two final card feats gave extra cards and I tailored the decks for the final scenario at the end of 6.4.

The party worked very well together. Jirelle was the only one who seemed a little out-of-place because so many of her powers and power feats were useless. Loading her up with finesse weapons and that ally-healing power made her very effective. She was frequently close to death in the first half of the game. She was also my best Survival character and could handle the Mountain Peaks single-handedly.

Ranzak was also dangerously low on cards early in the game because of his large hand size. Getting him two Staves of Minor Healing (which I will miss in S&S) and other cards he could recharge to use alleviated much of the danger. He was my favorite to throw at boon-heavy locations like the Temple and Garrison and was alone at locations more often than not.

Damiel was, unsurprisingly, a beast. Most of the game he held one of each type of Potion (except Ghostly Form) and a Masterwork Tools. He spent a lot of time at Prisons or wherever the potions he had on hand would be most useful (like for closing locations). His bombs were a huge asset and could usually afford to throw a potion that wasn't needed.

Oloch held his own pretty well. His small hand size and frequent case of no weapons in hand reminded me of Seelah, but once he got the power to heal people who blessed his combats nobody held back to help him out. This is the only game in which I had characters hold all five copies of one blessing (Gorum). His display-to-help-others was really useful several times to guarantee a critical success or to bolster a check for the player right before him, and the reveal-armor to protect others was supremely useful against the Giants near the end.

Feiya was a lot of fun for the ability to reduce the difficulty of checks, especially when she got to do it in addition to the Wand of Enervation/Staff of Hungry Shadows. I made sure she got the Sihedron Medallion from set 3 for that reason. Like Ezren, though, she did often have no attack spells in hand, which made me glad for the just-discard-spell-then-use-Animal-ally option. The hexing was also a big benefit when she had to fight with no spells.

Lem was great support as usual. I personally missed him being able to have more spells, but being able to help himself from the start was really useful, as was the ability to shuffle Cures when recharged.

There weren't many scenarios I had to do more than once, and those were usually due to time/not being able to explore fast enough. Failed Underneath Sandpoint once because of three failed checks to close. I found it interesting that for both the Sihedron Circle and Mhar Massif I kept the whole party on one stack at a time (a strategy I had not employed before). For SC this allowed casters to pass spells around to bury, and for both it let Lem and Feiya capitalize on helping others and Ranzak to snatch boons others couldn't. All my scouting powers let me encounter Karzoug only once and on the 12th turn (several turns were just to reset hands to prepare for Karzoug). With Lem & Feiya's recharges leading to empty hands and Oloch's bury -> recharge I had breathing room. Though Ranzak did give me a scare when he went on an extra-explore spree and I wasn't ready for Karzoug (fortunately the dragon was the second-to-last card).

Nothing stands out as problematic. Having run through the game with several parties already I had a good handle on party balance and knowing what to pursue and what to let go. Being intimately familiar with each card before you play is really important for large solo groups - I am not at that point yet with S&S.

[Dave Riley]

Malcolm_Reynolds wrote:

Ranzak was also dangerously low on cards early in the game because of his large hand size. Getting him two Staves of Minor Healing (which I will miss in S&S) and other cards he could recharge to use alleviated much of the danger. He was my favorite to throw at boon-heavy locations like the Temple and Garrison and was alone at locations more often than not.

We just started up a RoRL and on the first scenario of AP1 Ven Vinders gave us a Staff of Minor Healing. It was like the wool had been lifted from my eyes. "O-oh yeah... I used to love these things..."

Congrats on making it through!

[Orbis Orboros]

Dave Riley wrote:

Malcolm_Reynolds wrote:

Ranzak was also dangerously low on cards early in the game because of his large hand size. Getting him two Staves of Minor Healing (which I will miss in S&S) and other cards he could recharge to use alleviated much of the danger. He was my favorite to throw at boon-heavy locations like the Temple and Garrison and was alone at locations more often than not.

We just started up a RoRL and on the first scenario of AP1 Ven Vinders gave us a Staff of Minor Healing. It was like the wool had been lifted from my eyes. "O-oh yeah... I used to love these things..."

Congrats on making it through!

It takes up a precious explore slot, but there's always the Surgeon.