So my friend and I have been playing RotR. We're trying to evenly get all 11 characters (I have the seven character card packs, but we haven't used them yet) through the AP. By "evenly" I mean we're still in adventure one. We typically each play two or three characters, depending on who we've got that needs to run the earliest remaining scenario.
Yesterday we ran "Approach to Thistletop" with Ezren, Sajan, Seoni, Amiri, and Merisiel. Seoni and Sajan survived, the others all died. We didn't finish the scenario, even though we cheated and redealt the blessings deck when it got low (once). I suspect we made two mistakes: 1. not having a healer along (we could have brought Lini or Lem instead of one of the others), and 2. At least two of these guys increased their hand size after the last scenario, but with the same deck size - no card feats yet. This may have been a bad move. Ezren in particular was up to hand size seven, and fairly late in the scenario died because he took a big chunk of damage.
Some rules questions came up during the session:
The rules speak of "powerful spells or items that can actually bring a character back from death". Haven't seen anything like that so far. Are they in later chapters? I suppose they must be.
At one point my friend suggested using a Cure spell on a deader. After all, the card doesn't specify that the character you're curing has to be alive. OTOH, you're supposed to gather up the character's entire deck when he dies and, effectively, bury it. So there's no discard pile from which to remove cards with a Cure, and no character deck into which to put them. So I decided we can't use Cure (or similar spells/items) on a deader. Right?
We have a couple of characters who have some skill feats. Example: Dexterity is now d10+3. When a card says "add his dexterity die to his roll" does he get an extra d10, or an extra d10+3? After all, his current dexterity "die", i.e., what he rolls for dexterity, is d10+3. I vaguely remember reading something about this somewhere, but I couldn't find it yesterday.
This scenario is tough, given all the fighting and the bonuses the goblins get. Any tactical or strategic suggestions? I'm thinking maybe "don't split the party" might work better here. We (particularly Merisiel) were pretty split up yesterday.
We had a couple other rules questions, but I don't remember them now. I suppose I should keep a notebook.
Raise dead spell is in a later deck that allows you to revive a character from the dead.
You are right, a Cure has no discard pile to work with so would not help a dead character.
If you're adding an extra die, you just add the die. If it's actually a dexterity based check of some sort, then yes you get the extra +3 as well.
I've never played that scenario in the card game, so no real tactical advice, sorry.
First piece of advice, you don't have to take this, is to play less characters. The game's sweet spot is about 4 players I think most will agree (at the very least, Organized Play suggests tables of 4). You can do just fine with more or less than that, I'm just making a suggestion.
Now, on to your questions:
-Back from the dead cards:
The only card in the game (that I'm aware of off the top of my head) is "Raise Dead" from AP5. It brings the player back with 10 cards.
-Curing dead folk
Nope, you can't. Once they're dead, they're dead. Nothing can bring them back unless it specifically says so.
-What is a "Dex die"
Short answer is that it's just the die itself, no modifiers. I suggest you download the Skull and Shackles Rulebook and FAQ, as it's more up to date and awesome. Just ignore ships and loot (unique to S&S). It can help with some of these questions ("Before the Encounter" is a big one too)
RULEBOOK LINK
FAQ LINK
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To clarify, because Snigg's comment sounds poorly worded, you get the initial +3 for the Dex check, but no cards that give dice or anything will ever add it again in RotR. Only posting because Snigg sounds like he's saying that on Dex checks your cards like blessings will add a +3 as well, which isn't the case (I'm sure he knows that, just clarifying since it might sound otherwise to some).
Thanks for these answers, folks. Helpful, though not necessarily what we wanted to hear. :-)
I remembered another question about dead characters. How far back does their new incarnation have to go? These new deaders, it seems to me, are going to miss out on several feats or skill increases or what have you if they don't go back and redo the scenarios (including "Brigandoom" scenarios) where they got those increases. OTOH, I remember reading somewhere in the rules something that said, or at least implied, that they only have to repeat the scenario they died in, because they can't progress beyond it until they finish it. If that's the case, is there any way for them to regain those bonuses, or are they forever going to be a level or two behind the characters who didn't die?
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Technically, they go back to the beginning. That new character hasn't completed anything at all. They could, of course, start later, but they'd be missing all previous rewards. Some people houseruled and just gave their new characters the previous feats, and used the deck rebuilding rules to build a new deck (Basics only, unless on Adventure 3 or later, than anything 2+ adventures less). Personally, our Harsk died in Adventure 2, and we had a blast replaying all the scenarios to get him back through. Maybe that would have been different if he died in Adventure 6, who knows?
Tactically, deaths should be very rare. For almost all scenarios, if someone's deck is getting low enough that damage can kill them, they can just go to a "safe" location (i.e. anyplace that has no harmful location effects and that no one else is exploring), and do no more exploring, waiting out the blessings deck.
So to me, it sounds like you may just be playing too aggressively. The official penalty for death is starting all over from scratch - the game designers expect you to play in a way that avoids character deaths if at all possible. Losing a scenario isn't harmful, and in fact it can garner useful cards for the next attempt at it. Death is disastrous.
Since you weren't playing that way here, my advice is to just house-rule this time that they didn't die after all. The game is supposed to be fun, and with as much replaying of scenarios as you're already doing to advance all the characters, going back to the beginning doesn't sound like it will be fun for you. Make these characters repeat this scenario to complete it, and move on with the game - but in future, don't push characters that close to the edge.