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My buddy and I have been stuck on "Approach to Thistletop" for five months now. We've tried various characters in groups of 2, 4, and 5. Either some or all of the characters die, or we run out of time, or both. Clearly we're doing something wrong, but what? A suggestion was made here that we were being too aggressive, so we held back, especially when our decks were running low. We ran out of time. We tried again. We ran out of time. Our group today (well, yesterday now, it's after midnight) was Lem, Merisiel, Sajan, and Seelah. Is this a bad mix, or do we just suck at this game?
We're about ready to house-rule that we skip this scenario and move on, but I really don't want to do that. :-(
Did that scenario at least 5 times solo and twice recently with 6 players. It was hard with Lini solo, but besides that, not at all.
It's a very combat heavy scenario so if your characters aren't good at combat, it's a problem.
1) Everyone should stack on the 1st 1-2 locations (depends on group size) until they are closed (with the exception of Meresiel). Minimizes the chance of the boss escaping.
2) Try closing Goblin Fortress first, when everyone is fresh and at full health. If you get Gogmurt on this location it can be tough (+2 to goblins with another +1d4 from the scenario), but at least with allies on that location they can handle the second combat check. Or heal you if you lose a lot of cards.
3) Play with a healer (with at least 2-3 cure cards) like Kyra, Lem, or Lini. At least if you get in trouble, there's a way to recover.
Character Notes
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1) Put upgrades into combat stats, at least initially.
2) Sajan is weak initially without blessing upgrades. Either harvest blessings from scenarios with lots of blessings, or consider using a different character.
3) Mersiel. Should always solo a location. Don't be afraid to recharge stuff in your hand you don't need, even when you don't need to buff your combat check. Don't be afraid to discard when you're doing an important combat check. Don't forget you can evade any encounter.
4) Lem: Not that good in combat initially, maybe have him focus more on cures. Or using S&S Lem.
5) Seelah: Cannot afford to lose her Cure when recharging. Use allies and/or her power to avoid this happening. Don't be afraid to use her power in almost every combat or check. Don't be afraid to use her scouting power on monster heavy locations (Nettlemaze). Should have all magic chainmail, so she can recharge her armor to get other cards. Should have all 2H weapons, they are just more effective.
Can you just arbitrarily change a character's deck to meet those criteria? I thought they were pretty stuck with whatever they managed to get along the way.
So long as you don't die, you can rebuild at the end of each scenario. So if you want Lem to be a healer, give his attack spells to someone without arcane. Once they banish them, you can pull cures (or any other basic cards) from the box to make good the shortfall.
Can you just arbitrarily change a character's deck to meet those criteria? I thought they were pretty stuck with whatever they managed to get along the way.
I think there is an exception when you've tried the same scenario for 5 months.
I don't think the group you listed is a bad mix, but it is hard to see where exactly you might be having the biggest problem. If you really want to figure it out, you could share some more info about your decks and maybe try to log the scenario. But that can be tedious.
You've got 2 characters that can carry Cures. I'd make sure they use them regularly. Lem especially, since you can choose to not attempt the recharge and then swap it back from your discard pile. If you are with a character that has 5 cards in their discard pile, you might want to think about just going ahead and playing Cure.
Seelah, I'd encourage you to use her +1d6 power to help with the recharge on Cure.
And I'd recommend spreading out. Tangletooth adds to the normal reasons for that. I'd maybe have Merisiel be alone and then group Lem with Sajan and let Seelah be on her own. Use Seelah's power to examine the top card every turn, and keep in mind that after using it, she doesn't have to explore. She can move to another location, especially if she saw a bane that might give her problems.
With 4 characters I often take it slow for 10 to 15 turns, not spending too many resources on exploring. Then I gauge how many turns are left and where we are with locations. If need be, step on the pedal then.
Good luck. Your devotion to defeating those goblin tribes is quite admirable.
As usual, all of Hawkmoon's suggestions are good. If you want to give us more details on your deck/feats etc, people might be able to suggest specific options.
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Five months...how many actual sessions is that? Have you only tried it five times, ten times, etc.?
If you have been stuck on a scenario for five months and you have tried it more than five times, I would actually suggest logging the entire scenario and posting it to these forums for feedback. If you're having this much trouble in an early scenario, you should probably "fix" whatever's wrong now so that you can get better. Later scenarios will be harder, and Skull & Shackles (if you go on to that) will be harder still. Number of characters and character classes to use are really only two variables in a whole host of things that could be "wrong" here...as pointed out, there's also which characters tackle which locations, whether you gang up or not, how aggressively you explore, and with which cards (do you use the more-versatile blessings first, or allies?), are you using character powers to their best effect, what decks does each character have, etc.
It will be tedious to log a game, as Hawkmoon points out: you should record full starting decks for all characters, and then the details of each turn (which character is up, which blessing's on top, what action(s) the character takes in which order, which checks are attempted / cards played / rolls made, etc.). It's a shame this is so hard to do.
I did this - once. It was a lot of work, but the end-result was interesting and useful. To be sure, all the Myers-Briggs "Sensing" types who major on the minutiae will pick it apart for every small error you make, but you can learn a little bit from that. You'll probably learn a lot more when MB Intuitive types point out some general strategies that you can use to succeed not only in this particular scenario, but in the ones to come.
Yeah, Hawkmoon is right, deck construction is kind of important in this game. Also, even though Lem is a support character, he's hard to play without his own support (because he doesn't have a good sustained way to fight) and the other guys you have aren't great at support. Even somebody like Valeros who you don't think is a "support" guy is great at supporting Lem because he enhances combat, which is the thing that Lem isn't great at.
Don't be discouraged; Approach to Thistletop is the first "hard" scenario in RotR and there is a jump in difficulty so it's not like you suddenly got worse. It's supposed to be tough.
As Jason said, if you are playing with Lem as your "primary healer", he should have 2 cure spells. Since seelah is limited to only one, the chances are too great that you won't have a cure spell when you need it otherwise.
Choosing not to recharge Lem's spells is often a good idea to keep the ones you want to reuse (cure or a strong attack/support spell available for his hand). Kyra really is the only divine character that doesn't "need" 2 cures in her deck since her class feature lets her use divine cards to heal instead of exploring.
1. Also, remember that you can play most spells (all blessings and some character powers/allies) when it isn't that character's turn. If Sajan finishes an encounter and is low on cards, Lem or Seelah can cast cure on him (if at his location) before he explores again or ends his turn.
This can save someone from dying at the end of their turn if you use a cure spell or potion of healing before they reset their hand.
I mention those things because my group originally didn't realize that you can play cards besides blessings when it isn't your turn if the card doesn't forbid it (Allies often only benefit YOUR checks. Weapons and Attack Spells can only be used on your combat checks, etc.)
2. Characters that favor a particular card type (Sajan for blessings) may not be good at acquiring them. Have Lem/Seelah acquire blessings (Divine skill) and pass them to Sajan during the game or after your sessions to allow Sajan to upgrade. Lem will also be good at acquiring allies (CHARISMA) and can pass those to other players during or after the game.
3. Make sure that you are rebuilding your decks after each scenario. I've heard of some groups that never knew they could add cards to replace the banished items when rebuilding at the end, etc and are down several cards the next scenario. This also includes passing around allies, weapons, etc when they aren't the most useful for one character.
4. The only major downside I see to the characters that you chose is that Lem is the only character that will be able to acquire/use arcane spells. The game is slanted toward arcane magic (for the magic types) and he often can't fit more than one attack spell in his deck as well as the divine/support spells he really wants to include.
5. Try to acquire every ally/blessing that you can. Unless it's a special one that someone wants (Sajan/Merisiel want Blessings of Erastil), it's probably not worth discarding more than one card to help acquire them. Any recharge bonuses (like lem's 1d4, or potentially Seelah's) should be used in almost all cases to acquire these card types. This will help fix the "running out of time" dilemma. Running out of time really means that you don't have enough bonus exploration (which is a common issue for everyone for the first few scenarios/adventures).
6. Remember to have Sajan recharge multiple blessings on his own combat check, rather than have someone else use a blessing on him which sits in their discard.
Those are suggestions though. Not hard and fast rules. Play in a way that you have fun.
Good advice, thanks, everyone. I don't have the deck information here. Next time I get to it, I'll record the starting decks and character info and post it here. And we'll try to record our next game.
In five months we've played at least half a dozen times, but I haven't paid much attention to the exact count.
At higher levels at least, my ROTR group played Lem almost exclusively off turn. By the time his turn came around he could explore maybe once beyond his free exploration, if he ran into something bad he usually only had one/maybe 2 cards in his hand to lose. It also almost guaranteed that people had good odds of succeeding on their own checks. If you play him like this, you do need at least one other person who can do lots of exploring on their turn.
Sometimes it's a good idea to have Sajan (or whomever) to explore a lot (3-5 times in a turn) if there is a support character like Lem to cure them soon after.
Weapon based characters can also get hung up with not cycling their decks. If you keep your same hand of cards (displaying the same weapon each encounter) for merisiel/seelah without using their powers that recharge on use, then they rarely get to explore more than once or twice since they don't draw their blessings/allies.
Well, I said I'd record the starting decks, but I didn't.
We'd started the scenario a couple of weeks ago, and didn't get back to it until yesterday. Failed again, and Lem died again. So we said to hell with it, decided that we'd successfully completed it, grabbed the loot (yeah, yeah, I know and I don't care) and moved on to the next scenario. This time, Lem never explored. Merisiel did not go off on her own she stayed with the others. And Seelah and Sajan kicked ass closing the locations. We had it down to one location, and ran out of time. So we restarted the clock and continued. And finished it in just a few more turns.
But it's really, really, annoying to me to have to fudge the rules like that. Howinhell do people get through this thing?
And we still have five chapters to go. :-(
Not to mention two new and probably more complex base sets.
Maybe I should take up knitting. :-(
Well, to fully take advantage of Merisiel's powers she needs to be by herself. And remember, she can totally evade her encounter.
I have a RotR game going right now solo. 4 characters. I am using Valeros, Ezren, Merisiel and Kyra. The classic 4 classes. I am up to Adventure 5 and have had no REAL problems.
I have never played with Lem or Sajan so I can offer no advice there. And my first experience with Seelah is coming right now in my solo WotR game.
I LOVE Merisiel. *flip location deck card* Horrible monster. *Evade*. She is the perfect character for Temple of Lamashtu.
While Merisiel is awesome, the Shrine is not her friend.
So, according to what you wrote, a more accurate location power for the Shrine could be:
If a blessing is revealed during an exploration...............
Wouldn't such a power apply to things Augury? I don't think that is the intention.
The confusion comes from the fact "before the encounter" happens after "when encountered". The new wording in Skull and Shackles fixes that.
Ed. Are you guys spending a lot of blessings on getting boons?
Quickest way I know to get in trouble in this game is focusing on getting 'stuff'
I play with a guy like that. He is always using resources to incrementally improve his deck rather than focusing on what needs to get done and what his blessings could have helped at instead
I was thinking, maybe it's a really basic problem with the way you're computing combat or skill checks. Maybe reading through the new Wrath of the Righteous play guide would help (or at least verify that you're doing everything correctly), it has lots of examples.
Like the others said, the only other option is for you to tell us exactly what is in each person's deck and how you typically play.
Ed. Are you guys spending a lot of blessings on getting boons
Nope.
I was thinking, maybe it's a really basic problem with the way you're computing combat or skill checks. Maybe reading through the new Wrath of the Righteous play guide would help (or at least verify that you're doing everything correctly), it has lots of examples.
Like the others said, the only other option is for you to tell us exactly what is in each person's deck and how you typically play.
Maybe. I'm reading the WoR rulebook now, if that's what you mean by "play guide".
I'll see if I can remember to get the decks so I can post 'em here later this week.
I played this scenario twice last night with Valeros, Merisiel, Seelah and Kyra. The first attempt was met with bad initial draws for all characters and having to dive very deep into the first two locations that I focused on. My next attempt was not going very good, but I got to the middle of the blessings deck and everybody just had a really good mix in their hands. Kyra got out her Holy Candle and I rolled a d6(added 6 random blessings from discard back into blessings deck). I had Valeros and Kyra double teaming the Guard Tower with just the use of their standard weapons. The key though(and it was just luck) was getting Merisiel to encounter and evade the villain(she was off on her own as usual). It was then left to Merisiel and Valeros to dive back into the villain location and get to him fast with Seelah and Kyra covering the two open locations with blessings in hand to do temp closings. I personally had much more trouble with the previous scenario to this one.
I really felt like having 3 characters that were proficient with weapons(Merisiel, Kyra and Valeros) who also had weapons in their hand that they could just reveal, were key to my success. On average, I could count on taking out monsters at 12 without having to resort to blessings at all. Part of this was Valeros having an Ally to reveal to get add a d6 to another character at the same location. (Oh yeah, the Valeros I was using was the Fighter deck version).