I have a group of friends that just started the RoR campaign.
The general consensus on the forums seems to be:
1) RoR is fairly easy and;
2) There are some overpowered cards in the campaign.
So my question is, do you think it would be more fun to play RoR if we removed these OP cards from the set?
Here's a list of potential cards to remove: Holy Candle, Haste, Restoration. Are there more?
Thanks for your input.
I have a group of friends that just started the RoR campaign.
The general consensus on the forums seems to be:
1) RoR is fairly easy and;
2) There are some overpowered cards in the campaign.So my question is, do you think it would be more fun to play RoR if we removed these OP cards from the set?
Here's a list of potential cards to remove: Holy Candle, Haste, Restoration. Are there more?
Thanks for your input.
For my 2 cents, I think you need a range of card power levels. Part of the fun of playing is getting, or trying to get the awesome goodies. So maybe find other ways to boost the difficulty level.
That said, Holy Candle is awfully powerful. Rather than remove it, maybe make it a tougher call to keep as an item. Like maybe d4 extra Blessings or banish instead of bury or bury another card with it or banish on a 5 or 6, etc.
Which cards are overpowered?
Consecration banishes itself, that's a pretty big difference. I don't remember Invoke especially, but I think it's a Consecrate that buries itself instead of banishing? That's a bit more on-par with Holy Candle, though it still requires you to bury the blessings, if I'm remembering it right. Holy Candle is random, but it costs you nothing but the item slot; we kept through our entire first play
You also get Holy Candle from the early stages of the campaign That makes it very different from a spell that you can only access in the closing stages of an AP.
I watched a video with Mike and Tanis talking to a podcast and one of them said that Holy Candle might have been a regret, so I've gotten in the habit of removing it from the game.
I personally wouldn't call Haste overpowered. Yes, it is an exploration card that can be recharged, but any character taking it is giving up a spell slot for it, which seems to balance it.
Yeah, actually the Arcane casters seem a lot worse off in S&S for want of Haste.*
My suggestion, *if* you're going to alter your box, would be to remove the easy banes, not the good boons. Particularly since that affects the characters equally.
EDIT: *As in, they seem weaker than they should be, to me.
I personally wouldn't call Haste overpowered. Yes, it is an exploration card that can be recharged, but any character taking it is giving up a spell slot for it, which seems to balance it.
This is true. I saw it more as an upgrade from detect evil and detect magic.
Works on all card types, but at the cost of a higher recharge check.
If you think haste is overpowered then by association detect magic and detect evil are lesser versions of it.
Ditto. There's been a few scenarios where our 5-person party would've lost without Holy Candle.
I'd say if you want at least a little bit more challenge, don't let anyone play Lini.
You're worse off having Lini early on. Later on I'd say that everyone's powerful enough that Lini being better isn't a big deal. Either way, it would only be slightly less challenging for the party as a whole - mostly things would just be easier for the Lini player.
The great thing about the game is how customizable it is. If you don't like certain cards, you can take them out, or proxy them for cards you'd like more of. Personally, I like a good variation of cards of all power levels, and I don't think any of them are so overwhelmingly powerful that they need to be removed from the game.
Ditto. There's been a few scenarios where our 5-person party would've lost without Holy Candle.
I'd say if you want at least a little bit more challenge, don't let anyone play Lini.
Our 5 player group would have definitely lost at least 3 scenarios without holy candles help. Now, we didn't lose a single scenario the entire game, so if you think that actually losing a couple would have made it more fun or challenging, then yeah Holy Candle should go.
You're worse off having Lini early on. Later on I'd say that everyone's powerful enough that Lini being better isn't a big deal. Either way, it would only be slightly less challenging for the party as a whole - mostly things would just be easier for the Lini player.Ditto. There's been a few scenarios where our 5-person party would've lost without Holy Candle.
I'd say if you want at least a little bit more challenge, don't let anyone play Lini.
There is definitely something to this argument. IF you are finding things too easy it may be that you should look to the characters rather than the cards for increasing difficulty.
For instance ROtR Kyra in one of her roles may take a power feat that not only allows her to use blessings of sarenrae without discarding them but she can put them back on the top of her deck as well. She can use those blessings and have them back at the end of her next turn.
In my two character game this was atrociously broken. Once I got them in my hand every turn I had blessings I could use at no cost, every check made was aided by a blessing eventually.
I would never tell someone to change characters, to not play a certain character they were set on (unless they were just ridiculously over the top, which no one is in PACG), or to build them suboptimally. That's just wrong to me. Despite how strong some powers can be, I would want to look elsewhere.
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It's puzzling to me that there's such a to-do about Holy Candle, but no mention of Augury / Scrying, or characters that allow for multiple explorations (e.g., Ezren's "explore after the magic trait" or Lesath's "explore after victorious combat"). Explorations are fungible, and while extra turns give an unknown quantity of potential additional explorations (depending on the number of exploration-cards remaining in players' hands by the time the extra turns occur - which could potentially be very few), it's likely not significantly higher than Haste or Augury (which may hit 0-3 cards of the specified type, potentially removing them to the bottom of the deck and "saving" explorations). Augury and Haste, however, can be played multiple times, whereas Holy Candle is a bury, and is one-and-done.
There seems to be consensus around the idea that exploration cards are the most powerful, and that cards that accomplish multiple explorations (or potential explorations) upon play are more "overpowered." Could be why these all seem to be gone from Skull & Shackles, and why it's generally deemed more difficult - extra explorations are largely more expensive, at a rate of one per card (ally or blessing), requiring more healing to accomplish the same amount of exploring.
I'm not entirely convinced, however, that extra raw explorations are inherently more powerful than cards or powers that assist in victorious combat checks. Winning against a villain or henchman can have just as much exploratory "power" as an exploration-specific card.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out in Wrath of the Righteous.
Augury and Haste, however, can be played multiple times, whereas Holy Candle is a bury, and is one-and-done.
The difference being that Holy Candle buries for a multiplicative effect. Each of those turns gained is opportunity for more blessings and hastes and auguries TO be played.
Each Augury is still an additive effect each time played.
But you are quite correct that Augury is significantly more powerful than haste. It doesn't even come close, Augury makes it such that you don't have to utilize resources, where extra explorations do in order to beat banes that come.
Augury and Haste, however, can be played multiple times, whereas Holy Candle is a bury, and is one-and-done.
The difference being that Holy Candle buries for a multiplicative effect. Each of those turns gained is opportunity for more blessings and hastes and auguries TO be played.
Each Augury is still an additive effect each time played.
But you are quite correct that Augury is significantly more powerful than haste. It doesn't even come close, Augury makes it such that you don't have to utilize resources, where extra explorations do in order to beat banes that come.
Eh, depends if you find the monsters or not. A lot of the time I play augury and look for monsters, one of the following happens:
1. One monster is moved to the bottom (about the equivalent of playing haste.)
2. No monsters are found, all I receive is some card information (haste probably would have been better)
3. Monsters are found and moved, but because of another effect, like a villain escaping, they get shuffled a second time (augury ends up with little effect)
4. Henchmen is next card anyway, don't end up changing the order (haste would have been better to have in hand)
5. Accidentally shuffle a boon that I really wanted further down.
I'm not saying augury is bad, but I hardly think it can be definitely said it's so much better than Haste that a comparison isn't even close.
I agree. Now, I'm known for being the weirdo who isn't big on scouting, so take this with some salt, but I would take Haste over even Scrying any day of the week. Both is better of course, and Augury/Scrying are indeed good, but I like the guaranteed benefit of Haste vs the may or may not provide concrete help of the scouting spells.
Either way, I don't see any of the Arcane Spells as game-breaking. the only two cards that come to mind for me as being over-the-top good are Holy Candle and Restoration. And even then, Holy Candle isn't broken in small groups and Resto is only crazy with excellent recharge re-use ability (Lem says hi).
Thanks for everyone's input, I'm definitely going to do something about Holy Candle (I won't remove it, but the effect will banish instead of bury) and I'll continue to think about Haste/Restoration.
Just to make it clear, I didn't say RoR was easy, that's just the impression I get from reading the forums for the past 4 months.
Having said that, I'm completed RoR solo up to Hooked Horror with Lini with very few problems, no deaths, and not even a failure, so that experience supports the theory.
Yes, if you finish an AP and you never fail a scenario, I consider that too easy. YMMV.
As Orbis illustrates, the debate about haste vs. Scry is purely theoretical. In practice, the usual answer is "Let's take both of them."
One group I was in (5 players) finished Rotr with three losses and the other group (three players) lost once. I played halfway through solo and lost four times. Three or four characters I think are the easiest to win with. So that can influence how much you tweak the difficulty.
I thought swipe was the be-all end-all of cards. Its an auto-acquire and an untyped damage spell that you can also use on other player's combats.
I used haste for a brief period with Ezren but my brother revolted when I would get infinite explores.
We used holy candle in the beginning but we realized we'd never even come close to running out of turns with scouting and extra explores and there are items we couldn't part with to fit the candle in.
Scouting is vital when you would get completely trashed by encounters you aren't prepared for. If there is a bane neither of you can beat, you need to be able to put it on the bottom of the deck. If you have a healer then scouting becomes less important because you just recycle everything.
Lini and Damiel are both ridiculously over the top characters who can solo 8 locations all the way through the AP.
Kyra is really strong as another poster has mentioned as is Radillo. They can't quite solo 8 locations through the whole AP though.
Ezren would be ridiculous if he had any blessings and there weren't a handful of monsters that can't be defeated with spells.