Hey guys/gals,
I have been playing the adventure path with my son without much trouble, but with Approach to Thistletop we have been stymied.
Background:
We are playing one character each, Amiri for him, and Ezren for me. After 5 attempts so far hes getting a little frustrated and I haven't been able to come up with a good plan.
Character progression:
He has modified Amiri by adding +1 to dex skill checks, +1 to wisdom skill checks and increased his hand size to 5 cards.
I have modified Ezren by adding +1 to strength checks, +1 to wisdom checks, and increased my hand size to 7.
One of two things happen:
1) We run out of time, simply because we either can't close locations quickly, or we end up losing battles, without really progressing the closure status on the decks. We get close, but not really close enough to be able to tighten it up much, if any.
2) We lose battles making it likely that one of the characters is going to die. Since exploring is optional, this basically causes one character to decrease the timer without having a positive result. Healing potions haven't helped (when we've been lucky enough to find them). We have taken risks, and although neither of our characters has died, it really hasn't paid off.
We have been splitting the party up because it hasn't been too helpful to keep them together. Party members have been focusing on the areas which they are most qualified to close after exploring.
Right now, I think the mix of these two characters simply might be too un-matched to the scenario, and I am considering adding one or two more characters in the mix (for a total of two characters each). I'm not sure I really want to go this way, and I would really be bummed if we had to start with new chars.
Any advice on what might help us out?
Does Ezren have Augury? That can really help set up the decks. With two people, you usually don't have to spend blessings or allies much for extra explores. So you can use them to get the best spells and weapons, which hopefully you have now, or to make sure you overkill combat most of the time. Both your characters can pack a punch on the big majority of monsters and if you lose more than a few combats you are putting monsters back in to the decks too much. (Not the Woods though, right?)
What we do before we roll the dice in combat is count the number of dice and add the bonuses. This is the lowest possible roll. Then add the dice quantities plus the bonuses for the highest possible roll. Add the lowest and the highest and divide by two. This gets the expected roll. In this game, it's best to add cards so that you can get an expected number 3 or 4 or 5 higher than what you have to beat in combat, imo. Especially with Amiri's and Ezren's swingy d12s.
Check out GreyElephant's videos, they show how to power through a lot of scenarios with their fighter/rogue duo. And they might not be the most optimal duo but it's the pair they wanted and they do alright.
I don't think you need to add more characters if you don't want to, but I will say that I think the game can be really fun that way. My wife and I each play two characters at a time for a group of 4 and it is great.
I'll also say, you don't need a healer. That same group my wife and I ran was Ezren, Amiri, Sajan and Merisiel.
When you only have two characters, you are going to struggle with some closing requirements. So use the villain's fleeing to your advantage. Since when you defeat the villain his location will close automatically without needing to succeed at the "when closing" requirement, you want to get the villain to go to the locations you can't easily succeed at the when closing requirement. With your two characters, any location that has a dexterity requirement will probably be most difficult. So don't go there. Instead, go to the other locations and force the villain there.
With 2 characters in Approach to Thisletop, your locations will be:
Woods - Succeed at Wisdom or Survival 6 check
Treacherous Cave - Succeed at a Wisdom or Survival 7 check
Goblin Fortress - Summon & Defeat a Goblin Raider henchman
Nettlemaze - Summon & Defeat a Random Monster
I'd let Amiri take the two Survival checks and Ezren the two summon and defeat locations.
You say you are loosing battles. Are you playing blessings and allies to explore? If so, don't. Play them to boost your checks. You have 30 turns and there are 40 cards in the locations. Odds are heavily in your favor that you won't need to encounter every card. So don't both expending resources to explore until you are at least halfway through the blessing deck. And then only if you see you aren't getting through locations.
The one thing I would advise you is maybe redo your skill feats. It isn't technically in the rules, but I think it would benefit you greatly and you aren't that far into the adventure path yet. I'd put both of Ezren's in Intelligence and both of Amiri's in Wisdom. I know you are probably trying to minimize your weaknesses, but think about it this way. Ezren's weakness is that he has no blessings. He'll need those skill feats to make his combat checks potent. Amiri is fine for Strength and Constitution via her power, and Survival is a very common check.
Don't be afraid for Amiri to bury cards to succeed at a check. Especially if she acquires cards she won't be likely to play. They should become fuel for her rage.
I'm curious what spells you have for Ezren? If you want to share that, it might be helpful.
Don't give up hope!
Hawkmoon, good point on the villain, we have been defeating the villain, and then have been attempting to close locations. That will definitely help.
As far as with combat, we are using the blessing (amri has 4, I have 0), we have been using them solely for checks. Unfortunately, its often for barriers, and not for combat. Ezren rarely has trouble defeating foes, but amri seems to have luck issues (low die rolls).
One of the major challenges we have been having is a mixture of bad luck rolling on amri's part, and back luck with the locations of the henchmen/villains, which tend to show at the bottom of the location decks more often then not. I haven't really found a good way to shuffle cards when they have less than 20 or so cards. This is a constant thorn. I do shuffle through other means, but its nowhere near as reliable. I know people are saying flay the cards out and pick them back up in some random order, but man is that time consuming.
I will consider re-aligning our skill feats and see what kind of difference that makes. We have been focusing on the correct locations for the right skill set as you suggested. Ezren does the Goblin Fortress and the Nettlemaze and Amiri does the woods and the treacherous cave. It can get a little stressful in the fortress with the goblins being possibly boosted twice, but its been survivable so far.
I'd also consider stocking some Thieves' Tools (and Masterwork Tools when you can find them). They should help with the barriers. Again, it isn't really in the rules for you to switch out cards, but you've tried the scenario 5 times now. I think its ok to change up your decks a bit if you are choosing basic cards. You'll still learning what you'll need to succeed.
I haven't really found a good way to shuffle cards when they have less than 20 or so cards.
To ensure randomness, you can cut each deck with a d10. Roll the die, and remove enough cards so that the card from the die roll is on top (ie if you roll a 1, remove no cards; if you roll a 4, remove three cards), then put any removed cards on the bottom of the deck.
One way to shuffle a small deck is to add a chunk of cards facing the other way to make shuffling easier. Then split the wrong-facing cards out from the small number you wanted shuffling. I use some pile shuffling and then a few cuts and maybe a side shuffle. There is a lot of shuffling ten to twenty cards in this game.
We beat it tonight, last blessing. The only reason we made it is by closing the locations by defeating the villain! Thanks for the tips!
If you are losing battles, I would strongly consider upgrading your primary combat stat. RotR is combat focus and characters like Ezren benefit tremendously from maxing out intelligence. Yes, some stat diversity is good, especially in a small party, but you need to reach the point where you reliably win combats.
Huzzah!
We beat it tonight, last blessing. The only reason we made it is by closing the locations by defeating the villain! Thanks for the tips!
Congrats!