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So I have the pathfinder card game (Rise of the runelords), and my friends and I have been playing it (casually) off and on for a while now. Just having fun about once a week or so.
Anyway, I just recently stumbled across the 'class decks' that have the alternate characters in them, and I was taking a look at them. They look fun, but I was wondering if anyone had played them? How are they? Just looking at them, I have some opinions, but never played them.
As for the Bards, Meliski looks interesting, rerolling a die could possibly be better than Lem's +1d4 thing. Although he has no starting weapons, so that could really hurt him in the early adventures.
Clerics: Tarlin looks kind of like Seelah, a heavy hitter with a bit of magic (probably for healing.) Better at normal fighting than Kyra but worse against undead. Zarlova is also interesting, basically a cleric version of Ezrin. High wisdom and Arcane (plus the eventual mystic thurge) makes her the master of magic, but no starting weapons and few cleric spells with the attack power probably make her early game VERY difficult. It's nice to see some OTHER characters with high int other than Ezrin (he's the only guy with a decent int in the base game!)
Fighters: I'm really interested in Flenta and Vika for different reasons. Flenta gets a high int and a few spells, plus free spell recharges whenever she cats. That and her melee is nothing to sneeze at. Vika gets the craft skill (something super rare) and it's attached to her strength! Downside is that there aren't a whole lot of good magic bludgeoning weapons.
Rangers: Agna looks like she has the capability of just CRUSHING anything with her off-hand abilities. Probably one of the best straight-up fighters in the game, but she never gets the divine skill, so healing might be a problem. Arabundi starts off with spellcasting, and a decent array of very useful skills, like knowledge, so he seems playable as a sort of supportish character.
Rogue: Olenjack is what I think Misrael should have been. Ally heavy, can reveal allies to deal a bunch of damage, and a decent int. Plus he's charismatic so that can help with picking up allies and all. Only downside is that he only has 2 starting weapons and his strength is a d4, so if he has to fight and doesn't have a ranged weapon, he could be in trouble!
Sorcerer: Amaryllis seems good, especially because she can try and grab discarded spells from her discard pile once (or twice) per turn, which is great for keeping herself alive. Valendron also looks decent, with good spread-around skills instead of being super specialized, so he can take care of a variety of hazards.
Wizards: I am interested in Dargo, the 'undead killer' especially since there are quite a few undead in the game. However, he seems to loose to Ezrin if he's up against non-undead. Melindra seems have some of the best stats (dex-disable for barriers, int, and chr for picking up allies.) However, she might be lacking in the combat department.
Anyway, Just looking into these alternate characters, and I wanted to see what you all thought.
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The problem with the alternates is that if they don't have good support they can be very weak for a party. For instance, we have a party of Flenta, Olenjack, Seoni and Kyra. They have had tough times overall. But when I swap out Seoni and put in Harsk, it's a lot better. Sadly, at that point, we were combat light overall. But I wonder if it was because of Flenta and Olenjack that we were. Flenta wasn't the best fighter and Olenjack is definitely weak on combat. I'm hoping now that Flenta and Olenjack have gotten through a couple more scenarios they've been hardened. I need to do some make-up work with Seoni, Ezren and Harsk.
So I'm going to say that I like the alternates but they need to be balanced in a party.
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The problem with the alternates is that if they don't have good support they can be very weak for a party. For instance, we have a party of Flenta, Olenjack, Seoni and Kyra. They have had tough times overall. But when I swap out Seoni and put in Harsk, it's a lot better. Sadly, at that point, we were combat light overall. But I wonder if it was because of Flenta and Olenjack that we were. Flenta wasn't the best fighter and Olenjack is definitely weak on combat. I'm hoping now that Flenta and Olenjack have gotten through a couple more scenarios they've been hardened. I need to do some make-up work with Seoni, Ezren and Harsk.
So I'm going to say that I like the alternates but they need to be balanced in a party.
Really? You had problems with Flenta? She seems like she's pretty solid. Okay, granted she doesn't have a whole lot of armor, but she has Str:d10 and melee +2 and 4 weapons, seems like she could hold her own pretty well. Plus she has a few spells that she can bust out if she needs the magic trait. I mean, she can't help out like Velros can, but she seems solid.
Vika has been solid in our party (Alahazra, Jirelle, Lirianne, Ranzak, Seltyiel, and Vika). Like other fighters, she doesn't explore a lot but demolishes monsters and does well against barriers with Disable skill.
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Really? You had problems with Flenta? She seems like she's pretty solid. Okay, granted she doesn't have a whole lot of armor, but she has Str:d10 and melee +2 and 4 weapons, seems like she could hold her own pretty well. Plus she has a few spells that she can bust out if she needs the magic trait. I mean, she can't help out like Velros can, but she seems solid.
I should have expanded a bit ... more about skill checks where she becomes light early on. The actual combat wasn't bad but her strength and con isn't as good as let's say Valeros. And I'm only talking about early on when it's the base skills and die.
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Vika has been solid in our party (Alahazra, Jirelle, Lirianne, Ranzak, Seltyiel, and Vika). Like other fighters, she doesn't explore a lot but demolishes monsters and does well against barriers with Disable skill.
I didn't really talk about the classes in S&S (which are designed for use with S&S) but the class deck characters that the original poster was talking about. Again, a lot of the alternate class deck characters compliment well with base characters.
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The nice thing about Olenjack is the fact that he can recharge allies to evade an encounter. This might seem initially like a worse version of Merisiel's "free" evade, but I actually think it's better. With 2/15 initial cards being weapons and 5/15 being allies, you're very likely to end up in your starting hand with either a card you can use or a card you can recharge (and, subsequently, to get the weapons through deck-cycling). Don't feel like working out the probability for this, though, since it's not a static chance for all trials (the odds of drawing a weapon OR ally increase with each card drawn, up to the hand size of five).
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One of the thing that gets me is that out of ALL of the characters from the original game (including the Character deck) only Ezrin has good int. So, basically, he HAS to be on your team. We tried running without him for a while and it just HURT. I mean, our Harsk and Sajan were good enough at dex that they could get past some traps and barriers some of the time (we didn't have the rogue), and the barb could strength anything down, but no one had a decent knowledge or craft check, so we just gave up on potions or really anything that involved int. Our Lem could arcana things with his charisma, but when it came to codacies and the like, we were SoL (we didn't have Lini with us, we had Kyra, so our know ledges were bad too).
That's kinda why I like these alternate characters. You can actually have a high-int fighter or a cleric with good int and wis. I just wanted to see how they actually fared.
Also, what do you think are the most useful skills in RotR? I've never played S&S, and I imagine it's different, but in RotR, it seems like the main skills that are always called up are: Combat (whatever it happens to be for you), Disable, Arcane, Divine, Knowledge and Diplomacy. As Harsk it seems like I hardly ever used my fortitude buff or my survival.
As Harsk it seems like I hardly ever used my fortitude buff or my survival.
Sounds like you haven't gotten to adventures 5 and 6 yet. Give it time.
Really? You had problems with Flenta? She seems like she's pretty solid. Okay, granted she doesn't have a whole lot of armor, but she has Str:d10 and melee +2 and 4 weapons, seems like she could hold her own pretty well. Plus she has a few spells that she can bust out if she needs the magic trait. I mean, she can't help out like Velros can, but she seems solid.I should have expanded a bit ... more about skill checks where she becomes light early on. The actual combat wasn't bad but her strength and con isn't as good as let's say Valeros. And I'm only talking about early on when it's the base skills and die.
I think d10 +2 Melee is acceptable. A comparison:
d10 +3/d12 +2 Melee (functionality equivalent w/o Blessing): All Valeros/Amiri,
d8 +3/d10 +2/d12 +1 Melee: Flenta, Tontelizi, Vika, Agna, Wrathack, Tarlin, CD Kyra (she qualifies but without FCT Weapon she can sometimes spend half a scenario without a weapon), Oloch
d8 +3/d10 +2/d12 +1 Finesse Melee: Wu Shen, Jirelle, S&S Merisiel
d8 +2/d10 +1 Melee: Seelah, Seltyiel
d8 +2/d10 +1 Finesse Melee: Lesath
I've been surprised at how weak Lesath is in combat though; without an evasion technique, I expected him to be a lot stronger than he is. d10 +1 Melee with only Finessable weapons (preventing you from using the strongest 2H melees) is painful; his small hand size prevents him from doing the explores necessary to take advantage of his base monster display ability.
I think the iconics are supposed to be front and center; thus Valeros and Amiri being the best at Melee, Harsk and certain Merisiels being the best at Ranged, etc.
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Really? You had problems with Flenta? She seems like she's pretty solid. Okay, granted she doesn't have a whole lot of armor, but she has Str:d10 and melee +2 and 4 weapons, seems like she could hold her own pretty well. Plus she has a few spells that she can bust out if she needs the magic trait. I mean, she can't help out like Velros can, but she seems solid.I should have expanded a bit ... more about skill checks where she becomes light early on. The actual combat wasn't bad but her strength and con isn't as good as let's say Valeros. And I'm only talking about early on when it's the base skills and die.I think d10 +2 Melee is acceptable. A comparison:
(Snip)
I think what the poster was trying to say was that Flenta was FINE in combat, but lacked a bunch of other stuff to help her out when she wasn't fighting. She didn't have the Charisma skill to pick up allies, didn't have the wisdom to avoid that @%&$#! Harpy, and her dex wasn't anything to write home about. Plus her int is only d8 (with a +2 knowledge) so she only has a 3/8 chance of closing locations like the academy (or there's another one that needs arcane 6), without a blessing.On a completely different topic, I'm now playing Seelah, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to level her up. Any suggestions?
My first two skill feats went into charisma (I know, I know, but she's the only charismatic one in the party, so I had to boost it more than just the straight d10.) I'm now stuck between upping Strength for the melee bashing, and wisdom, so I can recharge spells and the like. If we get that far, I think I'm going to put her into crusader for the undead-killing, but I'm open to suggestions. She's a lot more finicky than playing Harsk, that's for sure!
I'd spend the rest of your skill feats on strength and wisdom. Also, focus your power feats on the d6 check boost. She'll quickly become one of the most versatile characters in the game.
One of the thing that gets me is that out of ALL of the characters from the original game (including the Character deck) only Ezrin has good int. So, basically, he HAS to be on your team. We tried running without him for a while and it just HURT. I mean, our Harsk and Sajan were good enough at dex that they could get past some traps and barriers some of the time (we didn't have the rogue), and the barb could strength anything down, but no one had a decent knowledge or craft check, so we just gave up on potions or really anything that involved int. Our Lem could arcana things with his charisma, but when it came to codacies and the like, we were SoL (we didn't have Lini with us, we had Kyra, so our know ledges were bad too).
I never felt like Intelligence is required at all. Around 2/3 of intelligence checks seem to also have arcane as an option, letting Seoni or Lem be great replacements. The others are knowledge or craft checks, which generally aren't really that big of a deal if you fail, or have another option... and Lem is good at knowledge anyway.
I never felt like Intelligence is required at all. Around 2/3 of intelligence checks seem to also have arcane as an option, letting Seoni or Lem be great replacements. The others are knowledge or craft checks, which generally aren't really that big of a deal if you fail, or have another option... and Lem is good at knowledge anyway.
Hold that thought.
Meliski is amazing because he gives you an excuse to drink more beer than everybody else at the table.
A little late to the party (had a busy few days with work and school), but since it's Veterans Day, I have time now. As I bought all seven of the class decks, I've had a good deal of experience with a lot of the class deck characters, both first hand and second hand. Now, all of my experience with these characters has been through the organized play system with the Skull & Shackles set, but most of this should translate well enough to Runelords as well.
As for the Bards, Meliski looks interesting, rerolling a die could possibly be better than Lem's +1d4 thing. Although he has no starting weapons, so that could really hurt him in the early adventures.
The Bard class deck was actually the first one I bought Lem had been my favorite character in the game since the initial playtest, until Damiel came along. Meliski didn't interest me at first, but looking at him now with playing the game more recently after OP started, I really see the value in him and want to try him out. One of my main problems with the Bard characters is that I enjoy solo-character play and a lot of the character abilities are made for helping other characters. Because of this I'm actually using the S&S version of Lem as my current OP Bard.
Clerics: Tarlin looks kind of like Seelah, a heavy hitter with a bit of magic (probably for healing.) Better at normal fighting than Kyra but worse against undead. Zarlova is also interesting, basically a cleric version of Ezrin. High wisdom and Arcane (plus the eventual mystic thurge) makes her the master of magic, but no starting weapons and few cleric spells with the attack power probably make her early game VERY difficult. It's nice to see some OTHER characters with high int other than Ezrin (he's the only guy with a decent int in the base game!)
In my opinion, this is one of the best Class Decks. Tarlin and the class deck version of Kyra are very good weapon based combat clerics. After taking two power feats, Kyra hits VERY hard as long as she has a sword. Heggal looks like a very fun bard-like cleric while Zarlova would be a very nice spell casting cleric. I can see her as being especially nice as an alternate character in a home AP instead of an OP class deck character.
Fighters: I'm really interested in Flenta and Vika for different reasons. Flenta gets a high int and a few spells, plus free spell recharges whenever she cats. That and her melee is nothing to sneeze at. Vika gets the craft skill (something super rare) and it's attached to her strength! Downside is that there aren't a whole lot of good magic bludgeoning weapons.
I haven't had the pleasure to have a Flenta in my group yet, but Vika is my fighter. She is a rather solid fighter and having the Craft and Disable skills as a fighter is very nice.
Rangers: Agna looks like she has the capability of just CRUSHING anything with her off-hand abilities. Probably one of the best straight-up fighters in the game, but she never gets the divine skill, so healing might be a problem. Arabundi starts off with spellcasting, and a decent array of very useful skills, like knowledge, so he seems playable as a sort of supportish character.
Agna is my ranger. I don't really see her as CRUSHING everything with the off-hand power unless you go Aggressor and pump the power up to the max. Most fighters can be just as good or better with their recharge-instead-of-discard weapon powers. I'm actually planning on going Beastmaster instead and taking the power to reveal animal allies to boost any of her checks. I also find that one of her best features is that she can recharge animal allies instead of discarding them. Using that for the extra explorations she needs, she shouldn't need too much healing. I also have another ranger player in my regular group and he started with Wrathack and took Arabundi for a spin this past weekend when one of the players wanted to replay The Lone Shark again with a new character. They both look like pretty solid characters. I think I might make an Arabundi at some point to try out a ranger with spellcasting from the beginning.
Rogue: Olenjack is what I think Misrael should have been. Ally heavy, can reveal allies to deal a bunch of damage, and a decent int. Plus he's charismatic so that can help with picking up allies and all. Only downside is that he only has 2 starting weapons and his strength is a d4, so if he has to fight and doesn't have a ranged weapon, he could be in trouble!
Olenjack is my rogue. So far I have only played him solo and I don't know when I'll actually start bringing him to the group since I've completed almost all of the OP scenarios out right now with him. He's a lot of fun to play solo, but he does take some work to get started. Upping his ally-display ability to (2) is practically required for him to function unless he has a lot of support. He also needs some good ranged weapons to hold his own in combat. And yes, being stuck without a weapon can suck for him, but remember that his favored card type is Ally and he has a power to recharge an ally to evade a bane. Hopefully if you don't start out with a weapon, you can evade the first few monsters you meet, cycle your deck, and find one of your weapons. Also, if you're really interested in playing Olenjack, I would definitely recommend buying the Rogue Class Deck and adding its boons to your box. The new Poison items in it really help Olenjack function, especially if you plan to take the Spider role. I also played with a Wu Shen player Saturday and she seemed pretty fun and effective, although its a little sad that she (and most of the rogues) have to take weapon proficiency as a power feat. Lesath, who is the only one that comes with weapon proficiency, looks like a lot of fun and will probably be the next rogue I make.
Sorcerer: Amaryllis seems good, especially because she can try and grab discarded spells from her discard pile once (or twice) per turn, which is great for keeping herself alive. Valendron also looks decent, with good spread-around skills instead of being super specialized, so he can take care of a variety of hazards.
Sorcerer turned out to be my least favorite of the Class Decks. I was a bit disappointed that RotR-Seoni's auto-recharge power wasn't a standard sorcerer thing that at least three of the four characters would have (like innate healing for Clerics and adding a d4 for Bards). Two of the sorcerers can get auto-recharge as role powers, but ever since the game was first released the auto-recharge just made perfect sense to me as something sorcerers should do based on the RPG as although they have a smaller variety of spells than wizards, they could cast those spells more often. Anyway, so most of my experience in OP has been with RotR-Seoni, but I did have one player use Valendron and he seemed to enjoy him well enough. Although I do think its a little weird that he starts out with two weapons and no armor, but he has the ability to gain Light Armor proficiency and not Weapon proficiency.
Wizards: I am interested in Dargo, the 'undead killer' especially since there are quite a few undead in the game. However, he seems to loose to Ezrin if he's up against non-undead. Melindra seems have some of the best stats (dex-disable for barriers, int, and chr for picking up allies.) However, she might be lacking in the combat department.
Although I haven't played him much yet, Dargo is the wizard character I currently have built. He seems like fun, but he has a bit of a weird Skill and Card List distribution. He starts with 2 weapons and 2 armor, but never gains the ability to have Weapon or Light Armor proficiency and he has a d4 Strength and d6 Dexterity while having a d6 Charisma and d8 Constitution and Wisdom. Something just feels really off about that. But his necromancy ability seems like a lot of fun, so I went ahead and built him. I think I'll probably be a lot happier with Melindra, though, so I'll likely build her soon. I got to see her in action when a friend tried her out Saturday, but she ended up as shark food (RIP) and he built Radillo as his new character. He seems happier with her.
I never felt like Intelligence is required at all. Around 2/3 of intelligence checks seem to also have arcane as an option, letting Seoni or Lem be great replacements. The others are knowledge or craft checks, which generally aren't really that big of a deal if you fail, or have another option... and Lem is good at knowledge anyway.Hold that thought.
Even while holding that thought, I'll point out that you can actually develop a strategy for Ezren that has him using Knowledge a fair amount. Give him 2 Codices and Brodert Quink. They all have checks to recharge (or discard for Brodert) that are Knowledge checks. The Codices also help him acquire cards, which when used on cards with the Magic trait trigger his exploration power.
I played Ezren all the way through twice, once as Illusionist and once as Evoker. Both times he had all three of those cards for a significant portion of the adventure path. Coupled with the Monkey (much to Harsk's protests) he could often close a location in a single turn. Brodert would make sure the henchman was the 8th card, the Codices would grant him two explorations. If there was a spell or two (which I often chose for his location) then even more explorations. And then 2 Hastes as well. From his Codices and Hastes alone he'd get his free exploration and 4 from his power. And 90% of the time he'd recharge those cards. And it was easy to get others to play blessings on your check to acquire that Longsword +2 if you promised to give it to them.
So maybe Knowledge isn't as "required" in RotR, but it can still be really useful.
Now we'll just have to wait to see what Mike is having us hold for. But it would be awesome if there was a villain that had a Knowledge 30 check to defeat!
Wow, and our Ezren is complaining about not being able to explore because he has no blessings. I'll have to bring that strategy up!
Yeah. It can sort of be hit or miss. Sometimes I'd explore like 6 times in a turn, with out ever playing a card to specifically explore. But other times the cards in your hand or what is in the location can break the sequence. But when you hit the sequence he can be amazing.
He just screams for teamwork, and can make it easy to get that teamwork. I often say something like, "Hey Valeros. I've encountered this Longsword +2. There is no way I'll get it with my d6 Strength. And to be honest, I don't personally want it. But I'd get to explore again if I did get it since it has the Magic trait. I'll play my Codex, and if you'll play that Blessing of Torag I've got a good shot at getting it. I'll give it to you when I can. And think of it this way: If you used that blessing to explore for yourself, all our group would get is an extra exploration. If you use it for me to acquire this weapon, you'll get a weapon and our group would get an extra exploration this turn."
My favorite was Illusionist Ezren. These were the key cards he had:
2 x Codex
1 x Monkey (Crow early on)
1 x Brodert Quink
2 x Swipe
2 x Haste
2 x Augury/Scrying
1 x Invisibility
1 x Enfeeble
Rest of spells for combat.
Swipe, Codex, Monkey/Crow all help him acquire cards. Augury, Scrying and Brodert Quink all help him stack the deck to set up his acquiring. Invisibility lets him through monsters on the bottom of the location deck (if you close via a henchman or villain, a monster on the bottom of the deck is the same as a defeated monster). Enfeeble does the same but can let him also leave it on top of the location if it is a henchman or villain.
He was a machine.
Anyway, now back to what people think of the class deck characters. I really like CD Ezren, particularly Hedge Wizard. Since he can give the Magic card to other characters at his location, he can keep those Weapons that he won't want from clogging his deck (and as Hedge Wizard still explore). I didn't like having to upgrade to putting the top card of my deck in my hand (and I'd love if that power let me do stuff with Magic trait cards on top of my deck instead of just spells). Hedge Wizard also lets him pick up the bonus to his Arcane and Knowledge checks, which sort of gives him back his recharge bonus and also Evoker's attack bonus. Plus the "spells as BotGs" power for dice looks awesome.
Of all the ways of play, I like the Wizards' the most because they're good at manipulating their deck. They're the most complicated to play, but most rewarding.
My Ezren initially stuffs his deck with as many Detect Magics as he can get his hands on; even though they don't trigger his power, they still pull things into his hand (triggers his play spell ability and Magic/blessings) which can trigger his power. Starting with Codex is also good. Augurys are good. Swipes are good (as your spellbook fills up you'll need more attack spells because Ezren has trouble with sustained attacks; I try to fill 1/3 to 1/2 of my spell slots with attack spells, and Swipe is still an attack spell, so it's great.)
Some way of getting extra explores is also welcome, since the power is triggered by explores; Brodert Quink himself also has a discard to explore.
Actually, for the Hedge Wizard, it looks like his pseudoblessing power (discard a card w/Arcane ([] or Magic) to add 1 die to any check for another character) is the most powerful.
I think what the poster was trying to say was that Flenta was FINE in combat, but lacked a bunch of other stuff to help her out when she wasn't fighting. She didn't have the Charisma skill to pick up allies, didn't have the wisdom to avoid that @%&$#! Harpy, and her dex wasn't anything to write home about. Plus her int is only d8 (with a +2 knowledge) so she only has a 3/8 chance of closing locations like the academy (or there's another one that needs arcane 6), without a blessing.
On a completely different topic, I'm now playing Seelah, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to level her up. Any suggestions?
My first two skill feats went into charisma (I know, I know, but she's the only charismatic one in the party, so I had to boost it more than just the straight d10.) I'm now stuck between upping Strength for the melee bashing, and wisdom, so I can recharge spells and the like. If we get that far, I think I'm going to put her into crusader for the undead-killing, but I'm open to suggestions. She's a lot more finicky than playing Harsk, that's for sure!
Echoing Ashram the 1d6 check power is amazing. She takes damage sometimes using it, but it's as powerful as Lini's check power. If you're a good deck tracker, it's even more powerful.
Flenta has a bit of a problem because she doesn't dump a stat (d4 to a die). So all her skills are mediocre, and PACG is a game of "pass the most", not "fail the least", so a bunch of mediocre skills hurt. Bekah looks even worse (she doesn't have a good skill).
I haven't played her yet, but it seems the best way to approach using her, in contrast to the other fighters, is to go all out cycling. She starts with a 5 card hand size; she can cycle her weapons; she can also pseudo-cycle her spells; if they're bad ones, play them on bad checks and see if you get a better utility spell.