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One of the players in our group plays Lem, and he is starting to become frustrated. I will try to explain what he is feeling, and am hoping to gather some feedback to share with him.
He is finding that due to the support role, he is not able to reliably hit any of the numbers to overcome any of the banes.
He does not have a strong enough offense to overcome current (adventure 6) henchmen or villains, his cure spell never really scaled to keep up with the damage that is coming in, and he is not able to make most of the skill checks now that the numbers are hitting the 20's fairly regularly.
He does not know how he should be using allies, the character design gives him allies as his largest deck percentage, but outside of using them for explores and an odd d6 here and there, they aren't generally benefiting him or the group.
He was loaded up on cures for a while, but found he spent most of his time cycling his deck for cures and blessings as there wasn't much else he could do, so he dropped most of them and now isn't finding an effective way to blast things.
His survivability is low because instead of investing in armor, he went for more spells and blessings as that is how he felt most useful, and now he frequently finds himself losing his entire hand to the very difficult checks we are facing.
When checks were in the teens and twenties, using a few blessings to allow him to complete checks seemed doable, but now that we are looking at checks in the 30's and 40's in most cases it seems more effective to just have him lose his hand each time something bad comes up.
Is Lem fighting the mechanics and trying to do something that his character just really shouldn't be trying to do, or is he not seeing the synergy that exists on the cards?
Maybe some suggestions for ways to alter his deck into a more formalized role would help...
Deck:
Allies: giffer tibbs, swab, old salt, ederleigh bings, dindreann, audessa reyquio
Items: ruby of charisma, masterwork tools, spyglass
Weapons: spellsword +2, invigorating kukri 1
Armor: howling skull armor
Blessings: zogmugut, abadar, achaekek, gozreh X2
Spells: geyser X2, cure, quickened ray
I believe he is the seasinger (seachanter?) archetype
Taking any feedback that anyone may have. The rest of the party includes Seltyiel, Jirelle, and Ranzak. What is Lem doing in your groups to not feel like an innefecient healbot?
I play Lem (S&S) in organized play so my deck make-up is going to be a bit different from your party member, but hopefully some of this will still be useful.
The first major difference between our decks is that it looks like he is primarily relying on attack spells for combat. Personally, I like to stay way for spell combat unless I am playing a full caster (wizard, witch, sorcerer, etc.). I consider Lem's d8 dexterity to be plenty sufficient for combat, so I load him up with finesse weapons and max out his dexterity skill as quickly as possible. I see that this may be a bit of an issue with your party as he would be competing with Jirelle, but I tend to hog the Brine's Sting and Aiger's Kiss loot cards in all of the games with my regular group and am also currently sporting a Keen Rapier +3. Again, this can be an issue when you have to compete with Jirelle who needs all of the swashbucking and finesse weapons she can get, but even if he settled for some of the awesome ranged weapons, their reliability can be much better than dealing with spell combat (although in that case he may be competing a bit with Ranzak).
When it comes to spells, my Lem has nothing but support. Sadly, one of his most useful spells, Scrying, is not available in the normal S&S box, but his other three spells are: Cure, Holy Feast, and Raise Dead. There are also some other S&S non-attack spells that could be great for him. Shapechange is just ridiculous (even with dexterity maxed out, 1d12+2 is usually much better than 1d8+3 and giving that to strength and constitution as well for the rest of scenario is an insane improvement!). My home game solo Damiel loves Blazing Servant and had been using little-old Aid well up through Adventure 3 until he got that. Divine Fortune can also be a good choice. Well of Blades and Righteousness can also be really good combat buffs for Lem which should have zero competition from the rest of the party since arcane Seltyiel is the only other caster.
Armor, I never took any and never will. I regret it sometimes, but usually I can deal with it by recharging enough cards off-turn to reduce my hand size and again recharging more during my turn so I almost never take much damage. Then when I do, I'm usually cycling Holy Feast and Cure like crazy, always playing Holy Feast first, hopefully giving heals to other party members, then playing Cure on myself to get Holy Feast back into my deck and recharging (aka shuffling) Cure back into my deck (usually recharging a card to boost the spell's recharge check making it almost guaranteed). So yeah, damage usually isn't a problem.
Items in the bard deck kind of suck, so I never took an Item card feat. Playing with the S&S box, his Lem shouldn't have that problem. He has some solid items, but in the late game as a Sea Singer Lem, I wouldn't rely so much on the Ruby of Charisma anymore. When it comes to non-combat checks, he should be amazing. My Lem's motto is THROW D4s AT IT!! Between having up to 3 extra d4s on noncombat checks to defeat and up to a d4+3 for a recharged card, the Ruby of Charisma starts to feel like dead weight and only retains some of its usefulness when you have a mid-combat or location check with something like wisdom or constitution, but even then the d4+ on a recharge is usually adequate. My Lem usually takes the Impossible Bottle during organized play either to protect the ship or to have a little extra healing power when ship combat isn't very prevalent since he's usually the only one with craft. Since S&S doesn't have Augury or Scrying, the Spyglass is a good choice, although replacing it with a Magic Spyglass (or if he had taken the Farglass loot) would be a good upgrade.
I don't really have any particular advice for allies. The bard deck allies are pretty amazing, but so are a lot of the S&S allies. Old Salt is especially awesome in the late game. I usually like allies that can help with my dexterity combat checks.
And finally, with blessings my Lem still has a Blessing of the Gods (blessings can be really hard to upgrade in OP, but he usually swaps it out for Pirate's Favor), Erastil (dexterity combat, of course), Milani, Achaekek, and Norgorber.
As far as powers go, my Lem has a Hand Size 7, 1d4+2 on a recharge, and 3d4 on non-combat checks to defeat banes. So he is great at dealing with barriers and can usually hold his own against most monsters, especially if he has just a little help.
I hope this is useful for your party member. S&S Lem is one of my favorite characters in the game, so I'm a bit sad to see someone struggling with him.
Does your party have a Scout? A character who can look at the top card of a deck at the end of their turn? Like Harsk or Agna? Put Lem after them so he can support while exploring "safely".
Support characters I think are supposed to be mostly bad by design. Does your Lem player have the Sea Singer power feat to use Diplomacy to defeat an Aquatic bane? Is that useful (I assume he maximized Charisma)?
He also doesn't have to explore if he feels it's too dangerous. Our Meliski in OP is also a spell-based support and we recommend he doesn't explore if it's too dangerous (the reroll is already valuable enough).
Does your party have a Warrior like Valeros to give Lem bonuses in combat? that can help a lot too.
Here are a handful of suggestions, some of them might work.
Allies: Have a better plan for what to do with them I see two primary options. One would be to grab a ton of allies that have recharge powers and take advantage of Lem's natural ability to cycle cards to see those allies again and again. For this plan I would go with two old Salts, the Surgeon, Fitch, and the Imp, perhaps with dindreann rounding things out (but only because I can't think of a 6th at the moment).
The other option would be to go with the aristocrat combo. Take Royster McCleagh and as many aristocrats as you can find. (tessa Fairwind, Heartbreak Hinsin, Lady Cerise Blood mourn,Audessa Reyquio and Lady Agasta). This combo lets you generat ea ton of extra explores, is incredibly resistant to damage (as long as you hold onto Royster), and can cycle cards in big ways to help a check or dodge damage (with Agasta).
Spells: That spell list is incredibly lackluster. Have you had awful luck acquiring spells, or are other characters poaching the higher level spells? Seltyiel doesn't need high power attack spells to succeed, stick him with the geyser's (and with quickened ray, which is great for him). Those Geyser's should be replaced by Freezing Shephres (or walls of fire), cure should be holy fast, I would think about mixing in Divine fortune, Control Weather, Resist Energy and Wall of Swords as well. That spell list is the big problems your lem is having.
Items: I would switch the spy glass with the farglass if I ran aristocrat allies. I would also consider swapping in conch of the triton (I don't like either tools or stat gems on characters who lack d12s late game).
Party comp: I think some parties get in trouble by thinking of "support" as a one way street. Lem may help the rest of you all the time,but its imperative that you have ways that you can help lem as well. And everyone else in the party is a taker, not a giver.
edit: also, is Ranzak carrying a spell that he hands to Lem every game? Because he should be doing that if not.
The more I think about this, the more I worry that your problem comes down to team composition (which I realize is an unsatisfactory answer). Ranzak, Jirelle, and Seltyiel make life very difficult for Lem. All of them need help, and give only small benefits in written. I suppose swapping in Merisiel would make your life even more difficult, but you as it stands you have one of the most challenging parties you could devise in terms of Lem's functionality on his own terms.
For what its worth, I think this party could work very well if you swap Seltyiel for someone like Oloch. But as it stands you have built lem as a spell caster, and he has to use a very limited number of spell slots to both carry attack spells to defend himself and the divine support spells to support the whole of the party. That's a rough spot to be in. But get him those freezing orbs and you should be able to blast your way through any non-villain in the game.
Lem is definitely a challenging character to play well, but by end game he should be a powerhouse.
I see the problem, S&S Lem. S&S Lem sucks (imo) because he doesn’t have enough spells to support spell combat and support. S&S Lem makes you use Dex weapons for combat and spells only for support.
If you want to use spells for combat, you should try using class deck Lem or Rune Lord Lem. See below.
1) Weapons: I personally think Lem is at his best when he uses spells for combat. S&S Lem can't and I just find his D8 underwhelming personally.
2) Skill Upgrades: Did Lem spread out his upgrades or did he focus on CHR? If he focused on CHR, he should have no trouble smashing any opponent with his spells. I always tell my players that they should always consider upgrading their main attack stat, because if they don’t they are falling behind as they advance each scenario.
S&S Lem needs to upgrade Dex first followed by Chr.
3) Card Upgrades: One of the weaknesses of Lem early on is that he doesn’t have enough spells for both spells combat and support.
S&S Lem can only have 4 spells, which means only support.
4) Defense Items / Armor: End game there is unavoidable damage and everyone needs some protection. Lem needs items or armor that do that, like a Reflective Shield, Sihedron Medallion, or Ring of Protection. Otherwise, you’re losing a lot of cards and will spend most of your time healing yourself. Lem has one of the largest hands, so this shouldn’t be a problem.
5) Blessings: Are other character’s supporting him with blessings for Henchmen/Villains?
Cure spell should be good at every level of play, although upgrades should be available to Lem.
Allies: All his allies should help him make his recharge roles (or attack rolls). I’d mostly use allies for attack/recharge roles and if you have a lot of attack spells in your hand, use them for extra explores. By adventure 6, you should have better than +1d6, should be more like 2d8, which is a huge boost to combat or recharging. Anything that boosts charisma boosts his spell attacks.
Deck:
Allies: giffer tibbs, swab, old salt, ederleigh bings, dindreann, audessa reyquio
Items: ruby of charisma, masterwork tools, spyglass
Weapons: spellsword +2, invigorating kukri 1
Armor: howling skull armor
Blessings: zogmugut, abadar, achaekek, gozreh X2
Spells: geyser X2, cure, quickened ray
I’m not familiar with S&S, but weren’t there any better upgrades than this?
For spells, where is Bewilder? Dominate? Mass Cure? Holy Feast?Items: Staff of Heaven and Earth instead of MW Tools? Anything better than Spyglass?
Blessings: Pharasma for spells or Erastil for Dex weapons? Lamashtu? Milani?
Bottom line: Do as Pluvia suggested for S&S Lem. If you want a spell combat Lem, use a different version.
Well, to start with, there's no reason to use Geyser over any Orb/Sphere spell because the weakest of them is better than Geyser. So if you're trying to spell blast, take the Sphere spells. That being said, S&S Lem is better with weapons than spells, so you shouldn't really take blasting spells. Your friend's weapons appear to be support oriented and not combat oriented, so it makes sense that he'd have trouble using them to kill things.
S&S doesn't really offer stronger Cures as the game progresses, but it does offer Holy Feast, which is great if you can retrieve it somehow (such as with Hanelius Finch or the other Lems' abilities).
Lastly, as a general Lem tip, what I've found tends to work best with the Lems is to focus on support. Take spells like Animate Weather, Aid, Divine Fortune, and Incindiary Cloud (in RotR). You can then either support your own combat (typically weapon based) to kill things when needed or support your friends. Layering things like the d4+x ability, a spell or blessing, and a weapon can make combat trivial even for Lem. And only explore once or twice a turn (typically just use your free explore so it's not wasted), using the rest of your cards to help your friends.
Personally, I have found Lem to be great, and I feel S&S is one of the best. The reason is simply that he is the only one that can always use his support power on himself. Combine that with a decent finesse weapon (you should pretty much always have one with your favored card type), and you should be at least competitive on most combats (that's d8,d4+7 by adventure 6 before even adding the weapon, and even a decent weapon like Brine's Sting gets you to an average roll of 21 without even having to discard). As others have said, being able to use weapons for all your combats means that you can devote all your spells to support, at which point Lem just gets ridiculous. Divine Fortune is absolutely amazing, and Dimensional Leap is fun to have to make sure you are always in position to support. Control Weather is one of my favorites as well.
I'm in a 6-person game, so I can't help much with allies (pretty much every ally in the game may as well only have one of two lines of text: I explore, so I can go in your deck' or 'I don't explore, so don't bother with me').
Some of the issues here speak to a bit of a frustration I have found with S&S. Spells are very very difficult to find. There are a lot of basic spells to work through, and many scenarios offer nothing but 2 or three spells in totality to grab. Our 6 character group has Alahazra, Oloch and Damiel as spellcasters (and Ranzak but he doesnt really count) and it has been a bit frustrating trying to find halfway decent spells for everyone.
Some of the issues here speak to a bit of a frustration I have found with S&S. Spells are very very difficult to find. There are a lot of basic spells to work through, and many scenarios offer nothing but 2 or three spells in totality to grab. Our 6 character group has Alahazra, Oloch and Damiel as spellcasters (and Ranzak but he doesnt really count) and it has been a bit frustrating trying to find halfway decent spells for everyone.
But S&S is supposed to be a low magic setting. I understand your frustration, believe me I do, but I think they did things well - yes, there are fewer spells in the box (number of cards)and fewer spells to acquire (fewer show up in scenarios) but the overall quality is leaps and bounds above RotR (in my opinion). There are some duds, to be sure, but just look at those sphere spells... So, yeah, not a lot of spells (fits with the theme), but you're not overly punished for it, I don't think.
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S&S Lem is the worst Lem to use as a spellcaster. IMO what really hurts him in this regard is his inability to swap out a card from the discard pile with a card of the same type from his hand. It was always easy with Runelords Lem to get that Cure back in your hand, if you needed it; not so with S&S Lem. In addition, Lem looks like he has to be the "healer" in your party, so this is even worse - you really have to waste a lot more of his spell cards on Cure-type spells than you'd otherwise have to. Failing a recharge on a healing spell really hurts S&S Lem, especially in your group.
The others seem to have good strategies - use Finesse weapons and be selective about taking allies that don't have to go in the poor guy's discard pile, especially as he probably has to Cure everyone in your group. Use your spell slots for Cures, if you can, or other support spells.
The reason is simply that he is the only one that can always use his support power on himself.
I missed that. So that changes a lot.
The reason is simply that he is the only one that can always use his support power on himself.I missed that. So that changes a lot.
Ah, yeah, that would explain the disappointment. Yeah, that changes the character's value substantially, so I can see why he felt underpowered.
Chief Technical Officer
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The other option would be to go with the aristocrat combo. Take Royster McCleagh and as many aristocrats as you can find. (tessa Fairwind, Heartbreak Hinsin, Lady Cerise Blood mourn,Audessa Reyquio and Lady Agasta). This combo lets you generat ea ton of extra explores, is incredibly resistant to damage (as long as you hold onto Royster), and can cycle cards in big ways to help a check or dodge damage (with Agasta).