Need to add more Blessing for 5 and 6 players

[George 4]

I think one of the biggest changes that needed for organized play is to add more cards to the blessing deck for 5 and 6 players. The huge difference between organized play and playing SNS at home is your control over what decks other people are playing. If you are playing SNS at home you can work out with your friends what characters go well together and make a strong party.

In organized play you have to take who ever shows up. If someone pays $20.00 for a deck then they are going to want to play that character. It is possible you are going to have 3 people who all want to play Flenta in a party. In addition, it is not going to take players long to figure out the odd of success are much better with 3 or 4 players. They will start actively discouraging a fifth or sixth player from joining a table. (This happened to me at GenCon when I tried to join a table with a Generic ticket and was told they had 5 players and did not want another player)

In addition, with 5 players you get at most 6 turns and with 6 players you get at most 5 turns. A couple of folks watching our last game noticed that fact and called it "Another reason why they would not play the Pathfinder Card game". It is making it hard to get new players. We should be adding 5 more blessings to the blessing deck for 5 players and 10 to 12 more for 6 players.

[Hawkmoon269]

The guide to organize play does actually mention that a table size of 4 is the preferred size. And it is probably largely for this issue.

But turning players away is ridiculous. I'd hate to think that would ever happen. If you are regularly getting 5 or 6 and regularly failing, I'd really see about getting a second base set. That way, instead of being stuck at 6, you'll be having 6 with room to grow!

[Melemkor]

I believe the blessing deck is exactly what keeps the game challenging at 5-6 players. With that many players, you can cover practically any card you see... but getting it done before time runs out?

I *really* like the aspect that the game presents different challenges depending on how many players you have.

[pluvia33]

Yes, 5-6 character games are just a different dynamic compared to 3-4, just as duo and solo character games are different. You really need to figure out the different intricacies of the game with different numbers of characters to be able to succeed at them.

Six character games can be rough, but they're definitely doable. During the playtest for S&S I was in a 6-player/6-character group. We lost our first two scenarios, but after that we won almost every single one after we figured out how to properly work together. Now, bringing this into OP can make it more difficult since you can end up playing with different people each time. Some people may not be familiar with how the game should be played with large groups.

However, this can also make it a good learning experience for people to figure out how the game works at different party sizes when they would have otherwise only played the game with 2-4 players.

[Theryon Stormrune]

We were lucky tonight to have a total of 7. Split 3 and 4. But if I had 6, I probably would have split it as well.

[ThreeEyedSloth]

The most I'll seat at a table is 5, unless 6 show up and I just don't have access to a second base set. Normally we have upwards of 3 boxes available though, which means I try to keep table sizes around 3-5.

[Sarah Bull]

Theryon Stormrune wrote:

We were lucky tonight to have a total of 7. Split 3 and 4. But if I had 6, I probably would have split it as well.

I am splitting up 6 into two tables for the reasons listed above as well as eanting space to encourage walk ins. :)

[Sniggevert]

Currently, I have 1 box available (my own), so it's 6 and I'm sorry if there's more. I'm hoping to get the store to get their copy for being a Paizo retailer, so I'll have that for most play and mine can be used for a secondary table if it comes to that.

[WesWagner]

On 5-6 player games you need to make risky checks, hope they succeed and use your blessings and allies for explores. That is just the dynamic.