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This is just for Organized Play legal characters.
Recent threads have talked about rewards and when we have to take them. We get power feats at 1C, 2D, Adv 3, and 4C. At the end of Adv 4, we get a role and a power feat.
That means we get four power feats prior to choosing a role.
Do you want all four base power feats? How many would you choose (from the base ones) if you got the choice?
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I think it's pretty rare to even want 3 - generally I get frustrated at having to take the 3rd one when i know that if i waited 2 scenarios i could take a far better one with a role card
it's particularly painful for characters with big hands getting closer to death.
Chief Technical Officer
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I think it's pretty rare to even want 3 - generally I get frustrated at having to take the 3rd one when i know that if i waited 2 scenarios i could take a far better one with a role card
it's particularly painful for characters with big hands getting closer to death.
You know what they say about characters with big hands...
Yeah, I already messed this up for my solo Olenjack character since I finished Adventure 3 with him before scenario 4C was available, but from now on (unless they decide to change the 4C reward and move that power feat to, say, 5A), I'm going to be sure to not finish Adventure 3 with any of my characters until I've finished Adventure 4. That way I'd only have to take 3 power feats before selecting my roles. I'll suggest the same to the rest of the people in my group unless some of them are totally fine with taking all four of their base power feats. This would also give players plenty of time to finish scenarios 3A, 3B, and 3C before the group tries 3D.
You know what they say about characters with big hands...I think it's pretty rare to even want 3 - generally I get frustrated at having to take the 3rd one when i know that if i waited 2 scenarios i could take a far better one with a role card
it's particularly painful for characters with big hands getting closer to death.
Big gloves?
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You know what they say about characters with big hands...I think it's pretty rare to even want 3 - generally I get frustrated at having to take the 3rd one when i know that if i waited 2 scenarios i could take a far better one with a role card
it's particularly painful for characters with big hands getting closer to death.
More damage? Usually casters? Can palm a basketball? WHAT DO THEY SAY VIC
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Yeah, I already messed this up for my solo Olenjack character since I finished Adventure 3 with him before scenario 4C was available, but from now on (unless they decide to change the 4C reward and move that power feat to, say, 5A), I'm going to be sure to not finish Adventure 3 with any of my characters until I've finished Adventure 4. That way I'd only have to take 3 power feats before selecting my roles. I'll suggest the same to the rest of the people in my group unless some of them are totally fine with taking all four of their base power feats. This would also give players plenty of time to finish scenarios 3A, 3B, and 3C before the group tries 3D.
Ugh... I hate that the system can be gamed like this. If you really wanted to game it you could skip 2D and 3 Adv, play through 4 Adv but take no level 4 upgrades, then get your role card and go back complete 2D and 3 Adv and pick those power feats from your role card.
Here is my question. Why wait to have the role card until the end of adventure 4. The role card typically comes half way through the AP. Getting to only play with it for 1/3 of the AP is kinda a bummer.
I wonder if the APG wouldn't benefit from feats not being related to rewards. Rather each completed scenario gives you 1 XP and each completed Adventure gives you 2 XP (these would be 1 time rewards... can't mine a scenario over and over again for XP.) Then in the Guide to Organized Play you have a chart that says a character with 2XP gets a Skill Feat, 4XP a Power Feat, 6XP a Card Feat, 8XP a second Skill Feat, etc. (numbers made up.) At ##XP get a role card and a Power Feat.
This would mitigate the pain a missing a scenario with a Feat reward and keep things a little more balanced amongst party members who had to miss a week do to such crazy things as Life!
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Chief Technical Officer
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More damage? Usually casters? Can palm a basketball? WHAT DO THEY SAY VICYou know what they say about characters with big hands...I think it's pretty rare to even want 3 - generally I get frustrated at having to take the 3rd one when i know that if i waited 2 scenarios i could take a far better one with a role card
it's particularly painful for characters with big hands getting closer to death.
They have small decks.
Shade's XP system adds bookkeeping, but it's manageable; the data is all there on the chronicle sheets. Using XP neatly solves the problem that not everyone can make it to every session, and prevents gaming the system by deliberately playing scenarios out of order.
I think it's worth considering.
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The XP idea sounds like a decent idea to me, honestly. It would have to be balanced and tweaked, obviously, but it seems like a good compromise. And, as a bonus, it would mean that the reward in the scenario design could be tailored to each scenario, rather than having some 'have' to have feats instead of any other reward.
It also wouldn't require much extra bookkeeping. The chronicle sheets could be made less adventure-specific, perhaps so that a running tally of XP could be kept without having to switch from adventure sheet to adventure sheet if players played multiple adventures out of order, as could happen in Organized Play.
Just thinking out loud.
Yeah, I already messed this up for my solo Olenjack character since I finished Adventure 3 with him before scenario 4C was available, but from now on (unless they decide to change the 4C reward and move that power feat to, say, 5A), I'm going to be sure to not finish Adventure 3 with any of my characters until I've finished Adventure 4. That way I'd only have to take 3 power feats before selecting my roles. I'll suggest the same to the rest of the people in my group unless some of them are totally fine with taking all four of their base power feats. This would also give players plenty of time to finish scenarios 3A, 3B, and 3C before the group tries 3D.Ugh... I hate that the system can be gamed like this. If you really wanted to game it you could skip 2D and 3 Adv, play through 4 Adv but take no level 4 upgrades, then get your role card and go back complete 2D and 3 Adv and pick those power feats from your role card.
Personally, I feel that this situation kind of backs people into a corner and encourages gaming the system a little. And yes, you could technically also skip scenarios 1C and 2D. Then you would only be forced to take one power feat (the one for scenario 4C) before you gain your role. You could even just start your character at Adventure 4 by the rules in the Guide.
I don't really see a problem with this because it comes with risks. For one, you're going to be underpowered (literally) when you play Adventure 4. You would also be missing out on, at minimum, the Adventure 1 card feat and all of the Loot cards from the first three adventures. An even bigger risk is that if you take a set indicator 4 deck upgrade during your run to get your role (something that's very easy to do thanks to the start of the Basic/Elite purge), you would only have one shot to win your Adventure 1 and 2 scenarios. If you fail, you won't be able to replay them. If you play it safe in this aspect and never go higher than a set indicator 2 upgrade, you'll run into the same problem during the Adventure 4 run. If you don't take at least a 3 upgrade, you can't replay an Adventure 4 scenario.
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They have small decks.More damage? Usually casters? Can palm a basketball? WHAT DO THEY SAY VICYou know what they say about characters with big hands...I think it's pretty rare to even want 3 - generally I get frustrated at having to take the 3rd one when i know that if i waited 2 scenarios i could take a far better one with a role card
it's particularly painful for characters with big hands getting closer to death.
Well played sir.
All right... the XP idea started bouncing around my mind. If we use RotR as a base then characters end with 6 Skill Feats, 7 Power Feats and 8 Card Feats (although 2 of those Card Feats come from completing Adventure 6 and the Adventure Path so 6 is the practical number of Card Feats for game play purposes.) 6S, 6C, 7P.
For completing a Scenario you gain 1 XP.
For completing an Adventure you gain 2 XP.
XP Feat Progression (sorry can't seem to format a good table)
1
2 Power Feat 1
3
4 Skill Feat 1
5
6 Card Feat 1
7
8 Power Feat 2
9
10 Skill Feat 2
11
12 Card Feat 2
13
14 Power Feat 3
15
16 Skill Feat 3
17
18 Card Feat 3
19
20 Power Feat 4/Role Card
21
22 Skill Feat 4
23
24 Card Feat 4
25
26 Power Feat 5
27
28 Skill Feat 5
29
30 Card Feat 5
31
32 Power Feat 6
33
34 Skill Feat 6
35
36 Card Feat 6
37
38 Power Feat 7
39
40 Card Feat 7 (fudging the pattern here at the end as this feat won't matter for game play but its nice to get something at the end and for some reason at the end of RotR you end up witha bunch of extra card feats.)
Simple pattern. Helps mitigate the gaming of the system. Anyways, something to talk about. I personally don't think the added bookkeeping is unmanageable.
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The problem with the idea of playing with the system is that in a lot of cases, we didn't know what the rewards were. So as we're playing and getting a little more backed up with scenarios, we're able to look ahead now and see what the rewards will be.
I like the idea of an XP system but then it really becomes scenario/adventure independent. On paper it looks good but in practice as we are hitting harder and harder scenarios in terms of checks, having the rewards independent may not work.
Besides, I am not complaining about the placement of Skill and Card feat rewards. Those are in pretty good places progression-wise. It's the power feats that are skewed towards the base power feats when we really need to be able to use more towards roles (if we wish). Large hands/small decks isn't always a good thing.
A simpler approach might be being able to save feat rewards within 2 adventure (deck) levels. So if you receive a skill, power or card feat while playing a scenario in Adv 3 or 4, you can wait until Adv 5 to apply the rewarded feat. That way, you can earn the reward yet apply it when it is more beneficial to the character rather than have "throw-away" feats.
This would mitigate the pain a missing a scenario with a Feat reward and keep things a little more balanced amongst party members who had to miss a week do to such crazy things as Life!
To me the XP idea seems like a step backward on this goal. You're taking a system where people who miss a session might miss out on a feat if it was that scenario's reward, and turning it into a system where no matter which scenario they miss they will be guaranteed to be behind the party in getting each subsequent feat for the rest of the campaign. Especially if the role card is given at a set XP.
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On the Class Decks that you can download and look at online, it says to choose your role card after adventure 3.
That is meant if you are using the Class Deck with the base set(s). You get your role after Adv 3.
And like Andrew said, in Organized Play, the reward from (completing) Adventure 4 is choosing a role and gaining a power feat.
I wonder how much of this is due to the delayed release for the guild play. Perhaps that adjusted the number of scenarios per adventure and therefore skewed some of these things.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Besides, I am not complaining about the placement of Skill and Card feat rewards. Those are in pretty good places progression-wise. It's the power feats that are skewed towards the base power feats when we really need to be able to use more towards roles (if we wish).
How do you know you won't be getting as many power feats after you get your role card in Season of the Shackles as you do after you get your role card in S&S or RotR?
(For the record, I'm not saying you do—Tanis is probably the only person who is likely to know at the moment.)
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Chief Technical Officer
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I wonder how much of this is due to the delayed release for the guild play. Perhaps that adjusted the number of scenarios per adventure and therefore skewed some of these things.
Didn't change a thing mechanically—you might recall that it just caused us to queue up the first four and release them all at once instead of releasing them week-by-week.
One problem is that four power feats on the base card forces some characters, like my Arabundi, to have an eight-card hand. That's a liability I'd rather not have.
Are scenario rewards optional? In RotR I thought they were automatic. I know in OP there is a Taking Reward box, but I thought that the only time that would not be checked after a victory was if you had already won the scenario in a previous session.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Are scenario rewards optional? In RotR I thought they were automatic. I know in OP there is a Taking Reward box, but I thought that the only time that would not be checked after a victory was if you had already won the scenario in a previous session.
See this post.
I wonder how much of this is due to the delayed release for the guild play. Perhaps that adjusted the number of scenarios per adventure and therefore skewed some of these things.Didn't change a thing mechanically—you might recall that it just caused us to queue up the first four and release them all at once instead of releasing them week-by-week.
Ah. For some reason, when you said you were spacing things out differently than planned, I took that to refer to the number of the scenarios per adventure, and not just the dates of release. Probably because the number of scenarios per adventure stood out to me as different from what I'd come to expect.
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Besides, I am not complaining about the placement of Skill and Card feat rewards. Those are in pretty good places progression-wise. It's the power feats that are skewed towards the base power feats when we really need to be able to use more towards roles (if we wish).How do you know you won't be getting as many power feats after you get your role card in Season of the Shackles as you do after you get your role card in S&S or RotR?
(For the record, I'm not saying you do—Tanis is probably the only person who is likely to know at the moment.)
It is possible that we do get just as many once we attain our role. (We get one right away after our role.) But I think the problem is that there are too many prior to the role without a lot of viable options. And I wouldn't think the overall distribution of power feats taken was designed to have you opt for all four base power feats (prior to getting your role). Maybe three out of four.
This would mitigate the pain a missing a scenario with a Feat reward and keep things a little more balanced amongst party members who had to miss a week do to such crazy things as Life!To me the XP idea seems like a step backward on this goal. You're taking a system where people who miss a session might miss out on a feat if it was that scenario's reward, and turning it into a system where no matter which scenario they miss they will be guaranteed to be behind the party in getting each subsequent feat for the rest of the campaign. Especially if the role card is given at a set XP.
What I like about the XP idea is that if you miss a session you're only 1 behind and you will get the reward eventually. In the current system if you miss the reward and its a feat you've lost that feat until you go back and play it... however the rest of the group has already played it and has no reason to go back and play it again. They want to keep progressing forward.
It gets especially tough when you miss a session in the middle of the AP. A group in Adv. 3 has a player miss a session and miss a skill feat. Now the groups options are to play through it again with only one character getting the scenario reward, have character who missed solo the scenario, or create new characters and run them through adventures until they are at a point to take on an Adv. 3 Scenario (have level 2 cards). (It may be possible for the other players to Take One for the Team also.)
At least that's been my experience so far.
An XP system would also minimize the gaming of the system discussed above where players seek to play the scenarios in a particular order to maximize how they gain feats.
An XP system would also minimize the gaming of the system discussed above where players seek to play the scenarios in a particular order to maximize how they gain feats.
I agree with this part and that it would be nice to have some way to combat this.
But I don't think it's true that players who miss a session would ever catch up in this system, at least any more than they would as things are now. Assuming you can only get XP for each scenario once so that people can't just grind, if the group never goes back to replay the one you missed you will still be down a feat by the end of the AP. It might just be a different one than you would have missed otherwise. You would have, for example, only the feats 38 XP gets you while the group has the feats that 40XP gives.
A scaling XP system where feats cost increasingly more but later scenarios are worth more would remedy the falling behind problem, but then you're back to the initial problem of people playing later ones first to get ahead.
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I think it's worth noting that when the next adventure starts, there will be TWO sets of level 1 scenarios to choose from (and 2 level 2 and 2 level 3, etc.) So with an XP system, if a player is behind, the other players don't have to go back and replay the same scenario they played two weeks ago---they can play an old Shackles scenario that they haven't played or may have forgotten the details of. I think there would need to be some rules in place, like only getting 5XP on a character per adventure level, which would be enough to get you a power feat, a card feat, and a skill feat, or that you can only get credit for a scenario one above or below your maximum card. So maybe one week you might end up playing an adventure for no credit, but it wouldn't be the same adventure you had just played.
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As a Siwar player, I find it to be a complete waste, and find myself wishing I could hold onto the reward for later, or something, ANYTHING other than taking Weapon Proficiency in a deck without any weapons in it, and in a deck that needs a ton of power feats once the role is obtained. I picked Siwar exclusively because the manipulator role looked so fun to play; finding out that I wouldn't be able to use my role til so late in the campaign was already really disappointing, and finding out that I am wasting such a valuable feat on something that literally does NOTHING unless I also waste a card feat later on to acquire weapons, then use that weapon instead of a spell in the few combats I will ever be in with the manipulator role....
Another example of why I started this thread. Having to choose either useless power feats or not choosing power feats because they might be detrimental. Especially when we need them for our roles.
As a Siwar player, I find it to be a complete waste, and find myself wishing I could hold onto the reward for later, or something, ANYTHING other than taking Weapon Proficiency in a deck without any weapons in it, and in a deck that needs a ton of power feats once the role is obtained. I picked Siwar exclusively because the manipulator role looked so fun to play; finding out that I wouldn't be able to use my role til so late in the campaign was already really disappointing, and finding out that I am wasting such a valuable feat on something that literally does NOTHING unless I also waste a card feat later on to acquire weapons, then use that weapon instead of a spell in the few combats I will ever be in with the manipulator role....
Interesting - I took a weapon as my first card feat with Siwar, had already take a skill point on dexterity, and was on the verge of taking Weapons proficiency in advance, so she could hit the ground running when she finally got something to fight with...
...before I noticed that most of the weapons requiring proficiency were strength based, and thus utterly useless to a character without finesse/melee off of dexterity.
I just had a thought while waiting for scenario 4D to be released. You can play scenarios in any order. Also, as far as I know, you can apply rewards in any order. Therefore, as long as there isn't any kind of lock-out mechanic for scenario 4D similar to the one in scenario 3D, characters should be able to simply save scenario 4C to be the final scenario they play in Adventure 4. They could then take their role reward from completing Adventure 4 and then apply both of their power feat rewards. Does anyone know if this would go against the rules at all? Of course this doesn't help with groups who are all caught up and plan to play the new scenario the week that it comes out, but delaying one scenario is better than delaying your Adventure 3 completion to maintain the standard power feat progression in relation to gaining your role.
If you haven't played 4C, have you completed Adventure 4? - I've not seen anything of Adventure 4 yet, but typically you'd need to play all the scenarios to complete the adventure.
Right. I'm saying that you play scenario 4C last out of the Adventure 4 scenarios. Then you're completing Adventure 4 and scenario 4C at the same time and getting their rewards (a role and two power feats) at the same time, so you should be able to apply them in any order (as far as I know).
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Right. I'm saying that you play scenario 4C last out of the Adventure 4 scenarios. Then you're completing Adventure 4 and scenario 4C at the same time and getting their rewards (a role and two power feats) at the same time, so you should be able to apply them in any order (as far as I know).
Except you complete 0-4C; reward is Power Feat. You apply it.
At that point you've completed 0-4 Adventure; reward is choosing a Role and gaining a Power Feat. You choose a Role then apply the Power Feat.If you're trying to play with the sequence, it doesn't work. You might as well ask to hold your rewards until you want to.
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Right. I'm saying that you play scenario 4C last out of the Adventure 4 scenarios. Then you're completing Adventure 4 and scenario 4C at the same time and getting their rewards (a role and two power feats) at the same time, so you should be able to apply them in any order (as far as I know).Except you complete 0-4C; reward is Power Feat. You apply it.
At that point you've completed 0-4 Adventure; reward is choosing a Role and gaining a Power Feat. You choose a Role then apply the Power Feat.If you're trying to play with the sequence, it doesn't work. You might as well ask to hold your rewards until you want to.
Yup, 100% agreed.
If you're trying to play with the sequence, it doesn't work. You might as well ask to hold your rewards until you want to.
My point is that I don't see anywhere in the rules that there is any sequence order given between when you receive scenario and adventure rewards. It seems like you gain them both at once when you successfully complete the last scenario in an adventure. If it is intended to be otherwise, then it should be spelled out.
This is a thorny issue. When I first read this, I thought the Theryon Method was definitely right. But after some thought, I realize that the Pluvia Method is how we actually play: if the final scenario of an adventure gives you Loot cards, and the adventure gives you a card feat, we'll often take the card feat and then fill that new "open spot" with a Loot card. This wouldn't be possible if Theryon was right--in that case, you'd have to take your loot, rebuild your decks, and then get the card feat--meaning before you start the first scenario of the next adventure, you must take a Basic card in order to fill the "open spot" you earned. Does anyone play that way? Are my groups just outliers?
I don't think that's how it works. Rebuilding happens between games (p.19 S&S Rulebook.) You complete a scenario and gain the reward (in your example the loot cards which go into the general rebuild pile.) Then you see that you've completed the adventure and gain that rewards. Then you are between games and you rebuild you deck.
As much as I'd like pluvia33'S idea to work... I don't believe it does. You can't complete an adventure without completing a scenario. So you have to complete the scenario (i.e. get its reward) before you can complete the adventure. Logically speaking they can't happen simultaneously because they can't happen independently of each other (i.e. you can complete the scenario without completing the adventure but you can't complete the adventure without completing the scenario.)
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Depends on how strictly your reading the rules. The paragraph telling you to take an adventure reward for completing an adventure comes right after the paragraph telling you to rebuild your deck and put extra cards back to the box. That paragraph is preceded by the paragraph telling you to take scenario rewards.
So, RAW, it goes Scenario Reward > Rebuild & return cards to box > Adventure Reward.
I feel like the intent would have been for all rewards to be simultaneous, but I certainly don't see an overall issue with having to take adventure rewards after the rebuild, requiring Adventure Reward Card Feats to have you pull a card from the box instead of your plunder and earned cards. Hopefully later seasons won't have 4 power feats prior to the role card and we just look back on this and say "Well, that didn't work well, glad they changed it."
So, RAW, it goes Scenario Reward > Rebuild & return cards to box > Adventure Reward.
I feel like the intent would have been for all rewards to be simultaneous, but I certainly don't see an overall issue with having to take adventure rewards after the rebuild, requiring Adventure Reward Card Feats to have you pull a card from the box instead of your plunder and earned cards.
Actually, if that is the chronology based on the sequence of sentences, you won't even be able to pull a card from the box to fill an Adventure Reward Card Feat because that is part of the Rebuild phase and you've already passed that. You'd have to play a scenario a card short and then fill the card feat slot from finishing the adventure when you come to the next Rebuild phase.
These two sentences appear in the rule book:
"If the players defeat the villain and prevent him from escaping, or they achieve a different condition for winning listed on the scenario card, your group defeats the scenario and earns the reward listed on the scenario card."
And then:
"If you’ve successfully completed all of the scenarios on the adventure card, you earn the reward on the adventure card."
To me, this is saying that when you have completed the last needed scenario in an adventure, you have earned the reward for the scenario and the adventure at the same time and it doesn't say you can't apply these rewards in any order.