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I know we already had a thread discussing this scenario, but I didn't want to skip any in this series. :)
This scenario is deceptively difficult. It seems straightforward, but each of the three times I've played have resulted in just barely winning with multiple characters on the verge of death. Which is odd, because there's nothing about the scenario that makes it artifically harder. I think it was just due to bad luck with banes multiple times in a row.
Speaking of bad luck, when my local group played, my table ended with a total of 13(!) cards of plunder due to the treasure stack as well as multiple enemy ships. 7 of them were weapons, 5 were spells, and 1 ally.
Can you guess how many of the plunder cards were from set B?
ALL OF THEM.
Not a single set 1 or 2 card out of all those rewards. -_-
Ugh... group failed... with a character death.
What makes this hard is Krellroot. He forces you to work your way through a whole location and depending on the location this can be hard with start of turn checks/damage/effects. Then if you don't trap him he does it all over again at another location.
We just ran out of steam. By the end almost all our blessings were in the discard pile. Had a plan to win. Knew Krellroot was at the bottom of Mancatcher Cove. Knew we had three turns left. Cleric Heggal was to clear out Mancatcher Cove except for the last card so fighter Flenta could swoop in for the win while the other character temp closed two other locations. Only the 2nd to the last card Heggal finds is Ambush with no chance of success and no Blessings to help. Suddenly he's fighting Krellroot with -1 to all his dice and only two cards left in his deck... and somehow pulls of a win (seriously lucky dice) but we're unable to temp close one of the locations and Krellroot escapes. We know the game is over at this point (only two turns left and two locations to get through) but figure let's explore for booty... what a bad decision. Qualzar hits Goblin Keelhauling with nothing anywhere to help him and only three cards left in his deck. Ouch!
Surprisingly difficult little scenario between the locations and Krellroot.
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We replayed this on Monday to get one of our players caught up... it was a trainwreck. 3 out of 4 characters were a card draw away from death, and you want to know why?
We had two Storms appear during the same round. And both ended up traveling over to Scar Bay after failing to roll 6s, where we had discovered Krellort and already shunted him to the bottom of the location deck.
Ugh. -_-
On a last ditch effort, we split up among the open locations and I headed there, burned down the location stack with the help of Man's Promise, and encountered Krellort with Arabundi on the very last blessing.
On 3d8+5, against 15... I rolled three 1's.
Ugh. -_-
Thankfully I had exactly enough cards to draw up at the end of my turn to not die. But needless to say, we did not win.
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I visted my buddies down in LA for the weekend and we played through as many scenarios as we could over the weekend. We got as fas as this one where we finally failed.
We had 2 storms show up, we managed to encounter each storm only once but each time we took 5. We failed one of our combat checks against the villian on our last attempt to end the game before we ran out of time.
As others have noted, this was a difficult one for us, and we ended up running out of time on 2 previous occasions before changing our strategy. We realized that spreading out to cover multiple locations so as to be able to quickly close one once we meet Krelloort was not possible, and was actually detrimental because it would force us to waste resources to fight the Sea Devil Prince. So we instead opted to pair up to help us close locations as quickly as possible.
Starting positions:
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Arabundi and Siwar at Tempest Cay
Kyra at Scar Bay
Vika at Floating Shipyard
Siwar goes first, and faces a crocodile. She had no offensive capability in her hand, and so is forced to take the full 5 points of damage. Bad start!
Arabundi is next, and is much more lucky, as he meets the first sea devil. He kills it with help from Siwar, and closes Tempest Cay with her help as well. He is moved to Pinnacle Atoll.
Arabundi continues exploring Pinnacle Atoll, and after 2 rounds, finds the second sea devil. The combination of archer's bracers and returning throwing axe proves to be quite effective at felling down the fishfolk henchman. Next!
Arabundi moves to Windward Isle, and secures his position as MVP for the night by encountering the third sea devil. It's a close call with rolls of 6, 1, 1, 1 on 4d8, but he tankfully succeeds with bonuses totalling +7.
Meanwhile, Siwar has moved to Scar Bay to help out Kyra. She encounters a bloodbug, but this time, she has her vindictive harpoon to fight it, and Arabundi is able to help her with some covering fire because he is at Winward Isle. Unfortunately, she misses by 1, and we now have to resolve the interaction between the 'undefeated' effects of the two cards (as mentioned in this thread). After a bit of discussion, we decide that the harpoon's power takes priority over the bloodbug, and it is returned to the top of the location deck. Siwar discards her useless raconteur to explore again, and succeeds in defeating the bloodbug.
More fighting comes her way in the next round as she encounters a nasty cecaelia, and she defeats it by reluctantly burying her harpoon.
Arabundi is stopped in his exploration of Windward Isle by being assigned lookout duty. He is unable to avoid it, and the barrier stops any further progress. Siwar and her helpful burglar move over on the next round to quickly resolve the situation.
Vika has moved to Mancatcher Grove, and faces our fourth Sea Devil, but she is unable to defeat it due to some unlucky rolls.
Meanwhile, Kyra almost singehandedly kills the fifth sea devil at Scar Bay.
Time is running out... We now know Krelloort is one of the last 2 cards at the Floating Shipyard, and the only other open location is Mancatcher Grove. After a quick tally of our allies and blessings to maximize our explorations, we formulate a plan for our last turn. Vika remains at Mancatcher Grove gets ready for combat against the sea devil so that she can temporarily close that location while the rest of us face Krelloort.
Siwar explores Floating Shipyard, and encounters a lucky find: a dehydrating touch spell -- perfect for fighting imposing aquatic monsters! Kyra sends a blessing to her fellow spellcaster to make sure she acquires it. Siwar then discards her dilettante ally to explore again and face Krelloort.
Vika uses a warhammer and a couple of blessings to defeat the sea devil guarding Mancatcher Grove.
It's now or never! First check against Krelloort: 3d12 (dehydrating touch) + 2d12 (blessing of Pharasma from Kyra) + 2 = 34.
As we had agreed, Arabundi takes the second check against the monstrosity, and we unleash our full capabilities:
+ Arabundi: shock musket +1 + archer's bracers + blessing of the gods
+ Kyra: black spot spell + blessing of the gods
+ Siwar: ally intervention + blessing of Erastil
= 6d8 + 1d10 + 1d4 + 7 + (difficulty reduced by 3) = 43. We finally did it!
I wonder why I'm not having a problem with this. I think it's because both times I played it, it was a duo. And we had super scouting capabilities (more so the first time because Wizards have 2 Augury).
I can scout every turn. That combined with 2p (so I have 15 turns) makes it so that I can check most of the cards to see if the villain is there. In fact, I went down to the bottom of a deck and Krellort was down there (I was lucky I guess, it was the third location). 2 of the other henchmen were near the top.
We didn't use the Man's Promise (to my surprise). We used Truewind because Man's Promise is for when you need to rush through a deck quickly, which we didn't. Truewind's recharge powers, on the other hand, were pretty good for preventing death (though we didn't use that either).
This one was my first loss in OP.
Every previous scenario, we played as two tables of four; for this scenario, we played as one table of six. We got unlucky in our henchman/villain placement, failed to defeat a couple of banes, and in general didn't appreciate how much more aggressively you need to explore in a six-player game than in a four-player game.
We closed five locations, and never saw Krellort.
To add insult to injury, I lost the roll-off for the deck 2 weapon.
This one was my first loss in OP.
Every previous scenario, we played as two tables of four; for this scenario, we played as one table of six. We got unlucky in our henchman/villain placement, failed to defeat a couple of banes, and in general didn't appreciate how much more aggressively you need to explore in a six-player game than in a four-player game.
We closed five locations, and never saw Krellort.
To add insult to injury, I lost the roll-off for the deck 2 weapon.
Congratulations on not losing until now. I've lost scenarios 1A and 1B many times. And six-player games can be rough if you're not used to them. It's a totally different dynamic compared to a four-player game, but it's totally playable if you know how. During the S&S playtest my six-player group failed the first few scenarios, but almost never failed after we got a feel for how to work as a team. The problem with the different group size dynamics in organized play is that all players may not be used to or may not enjoy certain party sizes. Some may hate small 2-3 character groups while others may hate large 5-6 player groups. Personally, although this can be considered a weakness for OP, it can also be seen as an opportunity to experience different forms of play that you may have not tried otherwise.
Anyway, I don't really have much to say about my group's run through the scenario. We ran through all four of the Adventure 2 scenarios in one night to help catch us up to current releases. It was a three-character party: my Lem, a Zarlova, and a Wrathack. Other than the villain/henchmen difficulties being a bit higher than we're used to, it wasn't too big of a deal. Krelloort's mechanic that sends him to the bottom of the deck if he's not the only card was kind of nice since it meant we'd know where he was after our first encounter with him. We won with little trouble and were pretty excited about our unharmed treasure stack, but sadly we didn't get a single non-B weapon. Sad day. I can't wait for the beginning of the Basic/Elite purge in Adventure 4.
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Amaryllis' Accounts of Adventure!
Yesterday I was all ready to meet up with my friends to take on these nasty fish guys, but poor Agni caught something from those nasty Grindylows and wasn't in any condition to adventure with us. Then while Seoni, Zarlova, and I were helping Flenta pack up all of her books and scrolls Wu Shen stopped back and whispered death was calling her to help these three guys I hadn't met before finish off a dragon. Well, there's still a Queen to rescue, so the four of us set off to the Islands of the Sea Devils!
Things went OK for a while; on my second try poking around the Pinnacle I beat up a Sea Devil until he told me Krelloort wasn't there. We continued on, running into a couple more Sea Devils and some other nasty creatures. I ran into a plant that grabbed me and wouldn't let me cast my freezy spells so I punched it until it let me go. Zarlova (Seoni? I need to take better notes) found one of those Cecilias that stick their song in your head. (Broken hearts are so sad. ::sniffle::)
After we explored three locations things started to slow down. Flenta, frustrated that she was all loaded up with Weapons but couldn't even find a shark to hit with them, decided to wander into the bar at the Floating Shipyard and the traditional Barroom Brawl broke out. She and Seoni got caught in the middle, and both were ejected minus some of their equipment. After getting healed up they went back with Zarlova and found the brawl was still raging. Flenta finally broke it up, but not before Zarlova and Seoni both got more lumps. :(
While Zarlova was busy patching them up (she spent most of the second half of the adventure healing) and everyone finished off the Shipyard I wandered over to the Windy Island. It's a great place to relax, clear your mind, and get ready for what's next. That's where I found I had that jaunty pirate hat we all like in my backpack the whole time! Weird how it disappears sometimes, but I like it much more than that silly Escape Cape that only works when it feels like it. Maybe someday I can learn to zap myself around without it?
The whole group gathered together and descended upon the Windy Island. Right before we found that last Sea Devil a Storm whipped up! Flenta came through, finding another Sea Devil right before the Storm hit. We managed to save the ship and the storm wandered over to Pinnacle Atoll. I hear they got completely wiped off the map, and now there's some nasty Shoals over there. Keep an eye out for them.
Anyway, with the day nearly over we slowly trickled to Mancatcher Cove and explored it as fast as possible. I was the first to trip over Krelloort, but he wouldn't stay to get the zapping he deserves, the meanie! Instead he sent one of his infinite Princelings to beat me up while he ran away. I started telling Mr. Prince my story about how we spent a few days beating up shark after shark after shark and eventually he got this weird, sorta Confused look in his eyes and started hitting a tree with his head. I felt this was a good time to sneak away.
Everyone else wandered over one at a time, exploring everything they could, until it got back to me. We were all looking at the cave where we knew Krelloort had to be, and while all I had was one attack spell I had to try. And we failed. Sadly, without two attack spells I just couldn't handle him. The cards I drew weren't enough to help Zarlova either, and that was all the time we had to stop Krelly. Poor matriarch lady! Maybe we can get another expedition together and try to rescue her again. :(
Until next time!
-- Amaryllis
Mike's Notes
Nobody died! It was looking bad there for a bit, especially for Seoni. At times we were all pretty beat up; Zarlova had her hands full keeping us healed up enough to keep going.
The sheet our GMs have is old, so we forgot to use Raker Shoals instead of Pinnacle Atoll. Thankfully, no giant monster appearances.
Flenta had her Crowbar when she found the Large Chest. She ended up with the prize of the night, a Weapon 2 in a game where she was the only one who had Weapons in her deck.
That plant monster (I don't remember the name) that needed an 11 and makes you roll to cast Attack spells or use weapons. After failing the first roll, I rolled a d6 for Strength with a Blessing (might as well play it if you're going to lose it anyway) and got a 5 and a 6! Pow! Biff! Bam!
We all forgot that when a bane has multiple checks you can split it up between characters at the location! Flenta could have totally taken one of Krelloort's two checks. :(
Early on in the game I watched an Ally 2 disappear when someone else encountered it while I was holding my typically useless Crown of Charisma. (Meanwhile I ended up using good cards with my bury-to-reroll ability 3 times.) After discarding it and getting it back after Curing, I actually got to recharge the Crown later on to pick up an Ally. He was promptly used to explore again.
We almost forgot to get the Loot cards. At least with Besmara's Tricorne Amaryllis has a chance to close the Wisdom locations. Not a very good one (d8+d4) but without it Amaryllis is a non-closer. I'm not looking forward to 0-2D, if we ever get there.
The treasure pile we didn't get was entirely B cards. Yay?
I expect we'll probably succeed at this one in two weeks. It's doable. Weird how things shake out, but doable.
PS: As far as I can find, Amaryllis isn't in the Paizo avatar collection. :( For now she insisted I pick this rainbow gem thing; she says it and the Sovereign Court symbol both remind her of her fireworks.
Mike, I am happy to point you to this.
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That doesn't make her picture available as a Paizo Messageboard Avatar. (I could have extracted the picture from the NPC Codex PDF if I needed it outside of the forums.)
Let me know if I missed it, but I searched for her name as well as paging through all of the halflings and sorcerers and a good chunk of the entire list.
Did one of the Paizo and related folks use that pic? (Staff avatars are unique. That's probably why Flenta isn't in there either.)