Playing The Armada with The Wormwood as our ship. Seltyiel, no cards in hand encounters the Magpie Princess, rolls 2 on the d4, and summons The Deathknell and The Domintaor, which leaves him facing a dexterity 23 check.
He fails (evidently)
We banish a ship from our fleet stack.
There is no opportunity to repair the ship, so at the start of the next character's turn, we have to banish the Wormwood and exchange it for the Merchantman. If the Merchantman is in our fleet stack, does this reduce it by a further 1? (Taking us that bit closer to losing the scenario)
Does anyone have any tips for this scenario other than putting your highest class ships in your fleet stack?
I'm mostly concerned with how people are dealing with the villain encounter. It feels really unbalanced. The combat checks and extra damage are hard enough without the summoning of the ship and henchmen.
Thoughts?
...a related question.
Is it actually intended that all the summonings (the Drowning Devils for everyone not making the check, and the Abrogail's Fury for the one making the check) occur twice per encounter with Admiral Thrune?
As written, the summon occurs before you act which would cause it to trigger before each act, and Thrune is combat 30 THEN combat 30.
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I've not gotten to this one yet, and I don't have the cards in front of me, but the "before you act" things don't repeat with each check. They happen before the "attempt the check" step of the encounter. So when you go to make the second combat 30 check, you don't apply "before you act" again. In other words "acting" includes both Attempt the Check and Attempt the Next Check.
If they wanted something to be repeated for each check, they might say "before each check to defeat" or something similar.
I think that is what you are asking, but again I don't have the cards right now, so maybe there is something that is different from what I'm thinking.
I've not gotten to this one yet, and I don't have the cards in front of me, but the "before you act" things don't repeat with each check. They happen before the "attempt the check" step of the encounter. So when you go to make the second combat 30 check, you don't apply "before you act" again. In other words "acting" includes both Attempt the Check and Attempt the Next Check.
If they wanted something to be repeated for each check, they might say "before each check to defeat" or something similar.
I think that is what you are asking, but again I don't have the cards right now, so maybe there is something that is different from what I'm thinking.
Nah, that's exactly what I'm asking. There are times when I'm glad to be wrong; this is certainly one of them.
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@Ashram:
1. Divination, divination, and the realisation that knowledge is power.
If you have ways to examine location decks (spyglasses, Alahazra, etc,) abuse them to find the Admiral; she's not someone you want to fight twice.
2. Abrogail's Fury is Wis/Surv or Dex/Ranged, so it is somewhat forgiving.
Even with the 1d4+1 ships that will buff Fury, this is within reach for several characters. Note that you can also evade the ship and go straight to its commander, so consider having Merisiel trigger the encounter.
3. Make sure as many characters as possible are holding armour or an evasion method.
Characters that can afford to fail against the summoned henchman, or can evade it, get to keep all the stuff they'd use to support the villain encounter.
4. Have two characters at the villain's location (or, heck, everyone,) as this encounter has no penalty for stacking up. This should maximise your support options.
Thanks for the advice. That's pretty much in line with what I was thinking.
The encounter still seems pretty unbalanced, though. I don't want this to come across as a rant, because that's not my intent. I just want to provide my two cents about the issues I have with this particular encounter:
There's only so much scouting that can be done, so there is still a good chance that you'll catch the villain without knowing for sure that she's the next card. If you have Alahazra, this is less of a concern, but what if you don't?
The summoned henchmen can easily take out casters who aren't set up for a fight/evasion. The ship can force the active player to recharge most, if not all, of their hand. Sure, Merisiel can evade the ship, but what if she isn't in the group or isn't the one who stumbles across the villain?
The post combat damage also makes it so that characters without armor will likely not be able to make both combat checks on their own, but what if you're playing solo?
I think that the individual pieces of the encounter aren't too problematic on their own, but I do question putting them all together into a single villain.
Again, this is just my two cents.