Fantastic! Congratulations.
I am thinking, though -- AD5 is pretty late in S&S to be having trouble giving the Swashbuckling trait to checks. We usually are pretty adept at that by that point. (Obviously, this varies quite significantly by character, though.)
I want to say I've enjoyed this scenario but cannot. Just too random, too much punishment and if you don't get everything exactly just right and get real lucky, forget it. If Lirianne hadn't gotten that Dagger Pistol during the scenario, it would have failed.
I really like this game, but all this randomness kind of kills it for me. The Swashbuckling trait and armor requirements just feel like a punishment, they don't feel like they add anything to the game, like they are saying: You didn't take Oloch and a swashbuckler, shame on you!
This is exactly the reason why I think SnS is much harder than WotR and can't understand why the general consensus is the exact opposite.
@elcoderdude
SnS never feels like you absolutely need the swashbuckling trait. There are cards that reward you for having it and cards that you punish you for it, so you might as well ignore it.
Glad you finally got there!
Just for kicks, I roll a d4 to see how many blessings Barnabas would have discarded: 4, which would have failed the scenario.
I get it now, pistols have the swashbuckling trait so you only discard 1 blessing. But when I first read this, my heart absolutely sank as I thought about having to be the one to you that you can still lose (and possibly had lost) the scenario after having already won it! Re-reading though I can see you knew that already.
Btw you said you had 4 left, and you lose when you can't discard another blessing, not when you discard the last one, so if there were 4 left then you'd be fine. But I think you're saying you had 4 at the start of the turn but 3 during the fight.
I want to say I've enjoyed this scenario but cannot. Just too random, too much...
Yeah, some enjoy a challenge but there's limits, and it's not for everyone. Enjoy deck 6, it's still hard but there's nothing as hard as this one.
This is exactly the reason why I think SnS is much harder than WotR and can't understand why the general consensus is the exact opposite.
WotR is harder specifically for parties of size 6 and specifically in the B set. I wouldn't say harder than Best Served Cold necessarily, but hard for more scenarios. Plus there's more that you can do about Best Served Cold because it's deck 5 - which doesn't help the first time through but on subsequent runs it does.
I think this is the first scenario where swashbuckling helps in a way that really matters (other than for Jirelle of course), so it's not something you necessarily know to set up for.
Glad you finally got there!
Just for kicks, I roll a d4 to see how many blessings Barnabas would have discarded: 4, which would have failed the scenario.I get it now, pistols have the swashbuckling trait so you only discard 1 blessing. But when I first read this, my heart absolutely sank as I thought about having to be the one to you that you can still lose (and possibly had lost)
Thanks for keeping me honest! Yes, that one particular pistol has the swashbuckling trait, so only one blessing was discarded. And yes, I was not so clear: there were 3 blessings remaining after the turn started.
Fantastic! Congratulations.I am thinking, though -- AD5 is pretty late in S&S to be having trouble giving the Swashbuckling trait to checks. We usually are pretty adept at that by that point. (Obviously, this varies quite significantly by character, though.)
I stopped thinking about swashbuckling when Jirelle died and none of my other characters use melee. I should have been paying closer attention to see that some pistols have swashbuckling, but the first few times I tried this scenario I was with 3 characters with exactly one weapon card between them....
Part of the experience of playing solo means that sometimes my head gets stuck on something and can't pull back and see the bigger picture... thanks for all your help.
Because I had so much time invested in Ezren and Feiya, I decided I wanted to get them past this too.... But they also lack armor and swashbuckling... so I setup 5 characters and did the scenario again...
Attempt#8
With 5 characters and Alahazra scouting ahead, we got a few of the 8 (!) locations closed, but in the end, we were just unlucky: Barnabas was on the bottom of the Torture Pit and we ran out of time.
Attempt #9
OK.
We found Barnabas late in the game but we got quite a few locations closed by then.
Ezren is ready to finish his turn. 5 blessings remain.
We are all spread out at different locations and ready for Damiel to encounter Barnabas but he can't do it alone.
Damiel uses Teleport at the end of Ezren's turn to move Lirianne to Barnabas at the Torture Pit (why does he keep ending up there?!?).
On Damiel's turn, he moves to the Torture Pit, 4 blessings remain.
Damiel encounters Barnabas but has no armor = discard ... 3.
Each character has to encounter a henchmen, fortunately Kipper and Luccaria are in location decks that are about to get temp closed...
Feiya encounters an Erinye Devil, Ezren plays Blizzard to add 2d6 to her (and everyone's) rolls. Feiya has no attack spells, but recharges a card to use her power to lower the difficulty. With the Blizzard, it's enough.
Alahazra encounters an henchmen (I forget exactly who met which henchmen...) and uses the Conch of the Tritons = all done.
Ezren encounters a henchmen and uses Dehydrating Touch, with Blizzard this is enough = all done.
On to Barnabas:
Damiel has 2 cards left: Alkali Flask and Blasting Pistol. He uses the flask, and discards the pistol to add his craft skill. Success.
Lirianne Buries her Musket +1. With Blizzard and one remaining Blessing, its a wrap...
Between all those rolls, the characters also had 4 blessings to discard, so it was mostly a done deal, though it could have failed.
I should have noticed earlier that swashbuckling could have come from a pistol too, but before I got Lirianne up to this scenario, no one was using one.
I also wonder if I could have skipped my "first explore" and then use an ally that allows an explore? Many of those allies add the swashbuckling trait to the explore; that would have solved the problem too..
Thanks everyone....
Congrats on another success. Could it be that you are getting better at this scenario? :)
I also wonder if I could have skipped my "first explore" and then use an ally that allows an explore?
Yes, this is legit. If you want to use your free explore, you have to use it before any other means of exploring, but you can skip your free explore to use an exploration you pay for (so to speak).
This is exactly the reason why I think SnS is much harder than WotR and can't understand why the general consensus is the exact opposite.WotR is harder specifically for parties of size 6 and specifically in the B set. I wouldn't say harder than Best Served Cold necessarily, but hard for more scenarios. Plus there's more that you can do about Best Served Cold because it's deck 5 - which doesn't help the first time through but on subsequent runs it does.
I agree on the bigger parties, but even then it comes down a lot to the actual characters you choose for the parties. The armies and carrion golem are mostly a problem for primary casters, so it's much easier if you play characters based on weapons that can easily make multiple combat checks per round.
I also still think that SnS has way more 'Gotcha!' moments/banes than WotR. Sure, WotR is hard, but at least it's pretty transparent in what it expects from you:
Be good at combat and have ways to reduce damage.
SnS is much harder than WotR without scouting and basically forces you to get high Constitution and Wisdom, which just isn't possible with all kinds of characters.
Most of the non-combat checks are equally hard in the latter half of WotR and SnS, but I think WotR has fewer of them and even prepares you better because of more feats. Consider the Seaweed Siren in SnS AD6; nothing in WotR comes even close to the punishment you'll face with any character that doesn't focus on wisdom (and even if you focus on wisdom you'll need to spend several resources!).
Basically, SnS expects you to play characters with very specific skillsets, or at least to be able to scout so that you can assign the right character to the right job, whereas WotR just focuses a lot on combat, which is accessible to everyone.
I agree on the bigger parties, but even then it comes down a lot to the actual characters you choose for the parties. The armies and carrion golem are mostly a problem for primary casters, so it's much easier if you play characters based on weapons that can easily make multiple combat checks per round.This is exactly the reason why I think SnS is much harder than WotR and can't understand why the general consensus is the exact opposite.WotR is harder specifically for parties of size 6 and specifically in the B set. I wouldn't say harder than Best Served Cold necessarily, but hard for more scenarios. Plus there's more that you can do about Best Served Cold because it's deck 5 - which doesn't help the first time through but on subsequent runs it does.
Um.... what? Armies require every character in the party to attempt a different skill check to defeat the army. SO: if the army lists 2 Combat checks, 2 characters can attempt Combat, but after that characters are attempting Wisdom Knowledge Acrobatics etc.
I don't understand how this is "mostly a problem for primary casters". Most six-character parties are hard-pressed to make the 6th and possibly the 5th check versus armies.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry; I was a bit distracted while writing the post - when I was writing armies, what I actually thought of was the Demonic Horde and Arboreal Blight, everyones favourite barriers:
In my experience, they are most problematic when a caster gets to fight more servitor demons than he has attack spells or is caught without any attack spells. Martial characters have a much easier time with multiple combat checks when they can reveal their weapon and rely on blessings support, so those barriers become much easier for those parties.
Armies are a main reason why it's hard for big parties, I won't deny that.
Consider the Seaweed Siren in SnS AD6; nothing in WotR comes even close to the punishment you'll face with any character that doesn't focus on wisdom (and even if you focus on wisdom you'll need to spend several resources!).
When I mixed in the banes and boons for AD6 I saw that monster. Monsters like that are the reason I try to never, ever allow a character to go below their hand size... Most characters would have their hand wiped out I think. Better to end the game when the characters are weak rather than take a chance and have a character die so far into the game.