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After last week's teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling from my local players surrounding The Lone Shark, we all found Brine Dragon Hunt to be a much more relaxed and familiar adventure.
It's about as straight-forward as scenarios get, but that's certainly not a complaint. Especially fresh off the heels of a very unusual, unique, and difficult one.
How did everyone else's groups perform against the Brine Dragon?
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Well, our table had to tackle it twice. We brain-faded a couple of times and failed to close two locations because we couldn't meet the requirements. That cost us too much time.
The second time went like clockwork. We beat the villain twice early on, and closed locations fast. We had horrific luck in the loot department, though - only one item 1 in a sea of Bs.
Fun anecdote: Kyra practially swept Holy Isle in one turn. She acquired blessing after blessing, burning them to keep going, then encountered the henchman on the last card of the location deck. After closing the location, she cast Cure on herself, and shuffled five of those blessings back into her deck.
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We were up to a table of 5 this week. I could have played and made it 6 but was worried about us potentially finishing in time so just helped keep things moving.
Our party this time was: Lem, Lem, the enchanter bard, the enchanter wizard and Harsk.
Many d4s were given around as the players were constantly recharging cards to help each other out. Henchmen were pretty far down and most blessings were needed to provide help on various barriers or monsters so exploring was slow. Eventually Harsk scouted the location of the villian, and the other players spread out so they could temp close the other 2 locations. Harsk's turn came around and he was able to defeat the brine dragon to win the game. I think there were 3 cards left in the blessing deck and 2-3 of the players had 3 or fewer cards in their decks.
All that said it definitely felt easier than The Lone Shark.
Next week I think we'll have 6 again so I'll set up 2 tables and play to play 2 tables of 3.
I did a quick solo run of this scenario with my Tarlin this morning since he finished The Lone Shark in a duo game last week. I had very little trouble with the scenario. I went for the Sea Fort first so that I could get the bonus against Aquatic monsters, but ended up facing Kelizar there. I didn't pay attention to it during set-up, but then I saw his breath weapon.... Yeah, with my d4 Dexterity, I just accepted that I'd be taking the 1d4 damage whenever I fought him. No problem, though. That's what healing is for. So I lost my first fight against the villain, but luckily he moved to a new location so I was able to run the Sea Fort down and close it pretty easily. I moved to the Fog Bank and lost my first fight against Onwu Azu thanks to a really bad role, but I eventually had my revenge and was able to close the location.
I moved to the final location and met Kelizar about 4 cards down. I took 3 pre-combat damage from the breath weapon, but I still had my weapon and that was all I needed. I took a hand size increase and a Basic Spell for an upgrade giving me a second Cure. I had a Flame Blade before, but after my first few games with him I realized that he has little need for attack spells when he's so awesome at melee! The "carry a big stick and heal yourself" strategy is working pretty well for me right now in solo play.
I'm having a meeting at the game store today and hopefully we'll be able to play this as a group, although a lot of people still need to beat the Lone Shark. Hopefully it all goes well!
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My son with Tarlin and I with Siwar (thought a nice complement to each other) had a rough time. Mainly with trying to avoid damage from the Brine Dragon's breath weapon (we both failed). Since Siwar was most useful when at Tarlin's location, we had to make multiple checks to finally corner the villain, but it was painful. Without Tarlin's ability to heal, and with Siwar's cure already spent, Siwar started her turn (4 to go to lose) with 2 cards in her hand, and 2 in her deck. I had to explore and acquire a boon to survive. Luckily, there was a Blessing of the Gods. So I auto-acquired it, and managed to live. Then we had incredibly lucky success to encounter the dragon with 1 turn left, and scratched and clawed enough bonus dice and bonuses to beat him by 4. Exciting! I thought I was dead, and also that we had no hope to win, and this is why this game is great - if you try as hard and as smart as you can, you can still muscle a chance somehow to win, most of the time.
Did this scenario with the Montreal group -- less one member -- last Tuesday.
In the first round, Siwar encounters a Giant Rock Crab prowling the Harbour. Thankfully, she uses a Fear spell to dispatch into the unexplored Sea Fort. Someone else will have to deal with it (or so she thinks!).
Arabundi then faces a Smuggler at the Fog Bank, but easily dispatches him, and Kyra does the same against a tough Marine patrolling the Holy Isle.
Even though Siwar cannot wear armor, she picks up a suit of leather armor, immediately followed by a suit of fortified leather armor. Too bad she won't be able to keep them; they fit her so well... :-)
Arabundi meets the first Onwu Azu in the Fog Bank. He makes quick work of it with a longsword and a blessing of the gods, and then heads to the Coastline.
On Siwar's turn, a Jinx Eater is surprisingly able to resist her many charms and declines to join her troupe (rolled a 2 on the acquire check!). She sends her fox away to continue her exploration, and encounters the second Onwu Azu. Everyone decides to pitch in to help her defeat the bloodthirsty fish in hand-to-hand combat... success! Thanks to 2 blessings and a well-timed arrow shot from Arabundi. She sends her trustworthy Codex adrift in the direction of the Holy Isle. Luck is on her side, however, as she picks it up again the very next round.
Kyra gets the third Onwu Azu on her turn. It gets whacked by a solid quarterstaff hit, and added to the pile of dead fish on the deck of the Merchantman.
Arabundi stays at the Coastline, while Siwar moves to the Sea Fort. Her friend Mr. Giant Rock Crab has been waiting for her all along, and this time, she can't dismiss it so easily, and gets a nasty swipe from its claws. No matter; what are the odds she'll face it again?
Pretty good, it turns out, as she meets it on her next round for the third time. Now, however, she's ready to deal with it once and for all with an Inflict spell all charged up. Who wants some giant crab soup? :-)
It turns out the Sea Fort harbours a small colony of rock crabs, and she's unprepared when she encounters one for the fourth time... and the fifth! Are they following her? Kyra finally puts an end to the nightmare stalking her comrade by killing it on the sixth encounter.
After all this commotion, it falls on Siwar to meet the brine dragon for the first time. Arabundi closes the Coastline, but Siwar's hand is nearly depleted. Unable to evade the dragon's acidic breath, she sacrifices the fortified leather armour she picked up, while Kyra uses her chain shirt to do the same. The fight is a stalemate, and the dragon returns into the briny depths of the Sea Fort.
Kyra and Siwar are close on its trail, however. When Siwar encounters it next, the whole party is ready.
Final combat: Lightning Touch + Blessing of Pharasma (Kyra) + Blessing of Erastil (Arabundi) + Crossbow (Arabundi) + covering fire (recharge from Arabundi): 4d12 + 4d4 = 31. That's one dead brine dragon!
We had a table of 4 this time: Meliski, Wu Shen, Radillo and Agna (me). It wasn't too hard; the Onwu Azus were the only special thing.
Meliski encountered the Villain once, failed utterly miserably. We're like "The Dragon can't be there a second time" and yup. We passed the second time with all of us dumping blessings for him. But we were able to temp close and the Dragon escaped to one of the locations - and scouting saves the day yet again because I was able to locate the villain and put it on top for a super setup win.
I still don't have an Offhand card so even though B weapons were there, I took the Blessing instead. Milani has come up on top of the Blessings deck enough times that I think I'd relish the recharge.
Next is phat loot (aka Salvage Ops)
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Played a table of 3 this past weekend to show off OP to a couple of friends, who while they have played a lot of the RotRL set had never played the S&S set before. It was Mersiel (S&S version), Tarlin, and me (Lem S&S version). Lem had completed the first to scenarios, so had a little boost, but the other two were straight out of the box.
We ended up stomping the scenario fairly handily. We got very lucky with early henchmen in 2 or 3 locations, and Lem easily blasted the Brine Dragon out of the water with a well placed Lightning Touch boosted by a couple of blessings and his own recharge to aid ability. We still had about half the blessing deck left at the end.
I think the fact that we focused on aid and boosting others helped us considerably on top of the lucky draws for closing locations quickly. It was a fairly balanced group with Mersiel traveling alone and Tarlin and Lem sticking together to aid as possible.
I enjoyed this scenario.
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Years later, under the tier system and with five more class decks out...
CD-Merisiel, Brielle, and a brand new Grazzle are being hunted by the Brine Dragon. Brielle had been practicing her crowbar katas, while Merisiel had been putting fine touches on her back-stabbery (do you know how difficult it is to "twist the blade" when you're an archer?).
New Grazzle was much more focused on his card-counting, and was able to heal the others a few times with no lasting damage to himself. Brielle was, as usual, a tiny little murder machine, but she finally ran into some allies and got to use her berserker-fuelled diplomacy (she insists it's brutal intimidation, while Merisiel says that watching a halfling woman berserk is like watching a kitten attack a shoe: fiercely adorable). Merisiel was loving her new Deathbane Light Crossbow and combined with her +1 to Sneak Attack, she made an unholy mess of all things Monster.
Comfortable victory, and excellent deck upgrades with Grazzle snagging Life Drain, Merisiel picking up an Elven Chain Shirt, and Brielle acquiring Amiri's Frost Giant Sword +1.