Speed of 6-player games in WotR


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


In my group's playthrough of WotR (which despite my myriad complaints, has been, on the whole, great), we noticed a new problem which may need to be considered in future AP's.

In WotR, there's been an increase in the number of cards that affect all characters. In RotR, we had Skeletal Horde and Goblin Raid, but those tended to be smaller in number and the checks were easier, so it did not take long to complete them. Here we have Demonic Horde and Arboreal Blight just in the base set, and in large quantities. Unlike the RotR hordes, these are designed to be challenging and stay challenging up until the end. While this is certainly cool, we've found that, for very large groups, it tends to slow the game to a crawl. Odds are good that you have a support character of some kind, so you need to give them blessings, you need to take the damage from Blight, and you need to randomly roll 6 times for the demonic horde. In the end, it ends up really strains our fun, especially when you encounter one of these barriers 3,4,5 times in a scenario. It got worse in Adventure 1 with the Demon Horde summoning Sloth Demons. When we had 5 characters at a location, and had poor luck, we ended up having to make 25 Fortitude checks. FROM ONE CARD. That single encounter probably took 10 minutes.

That was annoying, but wasn't quite to the point I needed to post until we started encountering the armies in Adventure 2. These were beyond frustrating for a 6-player group, since it combined the annoyance of having to set up and execute 6 different (often blessing-required) checks with the fact that, if there are 6 players, you can't skip any of the checks. That doesn't seem so bad until you realize that this involves 4 different non-combat checks, each of which are a secondary skill. What do you do in the entirely likely event that no one in your group has one of those skills (in our case, no one had stealth)? It's a DC 12 check, so you literally have to have every character throw a blessing at it to make it even a decent success chance. And since it's a secondary skill, the army card doesn't help, since you don't get a primary skill unless you have the secondary skill attached to it. At the very least, I feel there should be 7 checks available, so a 6-player group has something they can skip.

To sum it up, effects that hit everyone has the effect of badly slowing down the game once you get to 5-6 player games, and it having a noticeable effect on our enjoyment. I think more consideration should be taken to how badly large-scale effects change the flow and pace of the game in large groups, and should avoid effects that badly slow the game (like the Sloth Demon's fortitude save or the before-and-after damage of arboreal blight). Also, making sure that 6-player groups aren't stuck with no choices on the check they are stuck with on required checks. This isn't a difficulty issue (6-player games do tend to require more difficult checks because of the added synergies and the card volumes), but rather just an issue of games, and individual encounters, taking too long, to the point where I'm just bored instead of thrilled.


Yes, I playtested in a 2-4 player group but it was really easy to see how a 6 player group would be considerably more challenging.

Yes the armies would be tough with 6. Once you've done them once though, everyone should know what check they're going to do.

Regarding combat, by the time you are in AD 2 you have surges which should make most combat checks trivial and they should use no extra resources.

As for slowing the game down, it really comes down to the slowest character at the table. We had most of the common henchmen out on the table at all times, we just briefly looked at it and did our checks. Took no time at all, same time as a single player check. But yeah, I play with some slow guys in my home game (of 6 players), so I know what you mean.


Jason S wrote:

Yes, I playtested in a 2-4 player group but it was really easy to see how a 6 player group would be considerably more challenging.

Yes the armies would be tough with 6. Once you've done them once though, everyone should know what check they're going to do.

Yeah, I think the bigger problem with the army was that we had no one with stealth. Each time we found one of the armies, the question became 'okay, do we have 4 blessing? that's what it takes to make this reasonable to accomplish.' It went a bit smoother after that, but just really frustrating.

Jason S wrote:
Regarding combat, by the time you are in AD 2 you have surges which should make most combat checks trivial and they should use no extra resources.

Combat 16 is still pretty tricky for a secondary combatant (or a Wizard who's out of spells), and the whole banish melee weapon effect of the blood demon is tricky. Combine that with not being able to run combats simultaneously since you don't know who's fighting and when, and Demon Horde still really slows things down. If you're referring to Arboreal Blight, then I agree it's a lot faster by AD2.

Jason S wrote:
As for slowing the game down, it really comes down to the slowest character at the table. We had most of the common henchmen out on the table at all times, we just briefly looked at it and did our checks. Took no time at all, same time as a single player check. But yeah, I play with some slow guys in my home game (of 6 players), so I know what you mean.

I think the problem is at least partially that we each play multiple characters, so the amount of brainspace being used makes it really tricky. It's actually really similar to when a computer has a lot of stuff open at once. As long as only one thing is being used it's fine, but when you start streaming video, playing a game, and downloading files, the whole thing slows down. With six people all playing their own character, it may be easier to manage (to an extent, having that many people I'm sure comes with its own organizational challenges).

Overall, I think each of these individually is okay. It's the fact that they're all in the set, and in high numbers, that adds up to the point it becomes frustrating.


Yeah, the army must be ridiculous with 6, it was bad enough with 3.

The worst part of checks that everyone needs to make is that *someone* is bound to not make it with 6 players.

Our Zarlova and Meliski never seemed to have trouble making combat 16 in AD2. Maybe it was the rerolls. Our Valeros, Agna, Tarlin, and Amaryllis never had problems with combat 16 either in AD 2. Again, rerolls and strong combat ability.

Running multiple characters (with checks for all characters) must need more concentration, making it less relaxing. In Wrath, might be an option to run with less characters.

Your suggestions for 6 players are valid, maybe they'll consider doing something in subsequent ADs.


I was going to make my own post about this, but since you already made one I will jump on yours.

The difficulty of some of the scenarios (particularly AP2-2 and AP2-3) scales exponentially with the number of players. In AP2-3 a single player will have to make one check one time to defeat the demonic armies. In a six player game, you have to make six checks six times to defeat those armies.

Requiring everyone to succeed at all of their checks posses an incredible burden for larger groups. Jason posited that six person group would need to throw four blessings at each army. I would argue that his estimate is conservative. you need to use a lot more than that to ensure everyone succeeds. Keep in mind that if a player has a 90% chance of success on a check, the odds of everyone making that check are basically 50/50 (53.1% if we want to be technical). Even if your odds are 95% of making each check, your group as a whole only has a 73.5% chance of making all six checks without a failure. Given the range and difficulty of these checks, you are going to have to throw multiple cards at some of these checks to give the group as a whole reasonable probability of success.

The relatively difficulty faced by large parties in Wrath will be much more severe what they faced in RotR or S&S.


This does not bode well at all for my six player solitaire game :/

And I too have no one with stealth ( and this would the first time it would have been at all useful )


I have a couple follow-ups after discussing with my play partner:

First, I want to make sure we keep focused here. There are already a bunch of threads on difficulty, and I wanted to focus more on pace of play issues here. Now, that is influenced by the difficulty, since harder checks tend to take longer, but the end result is that high player-count games have gone from being quadratically longer per player to being exponentially longer per player. And those longer games are really starting to distract from the fun parts.

2. After discussing further, I'm fairly certain that playing multiple characters is not the primary driver of the slow pace. She doesn't get caught in analysis paralysis like I do, and the fact that we don't need to cokmunicste with 5 other people probably makes up the difference


isaic16 wrote:
...To sum it up, effects that hit everyone has the effect of badly slowing down the game once you get to 5-6 player games, and it having a noticeable effect on our enjoyment. I think more consideration should be taken to how badly large-scale effects change the flow and pace of the game in large groups, and should avoid effects that badly slow the game (like the Sloth Demon's fortitude save or the before-and-after damage of arboreal blight). Also, making sure that 6-player groups aren't stuck with no choices on the check they are stuck with on required checks. This isn't a difficulty issue (6-player games do tend to require more difficult checks because of the added synergies and the card volumes), but rather just an issue of games, and individual encounters, taking too long, to the point where I'm just bored instead of thrilled.

My point exactly. Since I'm sure there was some testing with non-optimized (in terms of characters' selection) large groups, I wonder if maybe there wasn't enough feedbacks from those tests.


To provide some numbers for context, in the Base Set + Character Add-on (required for 6 players), there are 9 barriers that require every player to attempt an encounter (3xDemonic Horde, 3xArboreal Blight, 3xRallying Cry). In each case, there is some effect that slows the game down (Demonic Horde, all servitors so far have required at least 2 checks as part of the encounter, plus the random encounter at the start; Arboreal Blight adds the before and after combat damage, which requires players to choose cards to discard unless they have a shield or helm; Rallying Cry requires you to check the type of check involved beyond just diplomacy, and since it's all-or-nothing, the group has to decide if someone with a poor chance is worth propping up with blessings and such).

Hope that helps a bit with giving context. As a comparison, there were only 3 such barriers in RotR Base (Skeletal Horde. Goblin Raid was added in AD1), and none in S&S; and the RotR cards had no additional checks beyond the combat itself.


IF you think this problem is bad in the base set, just wait until you get to AP2 when two scenarios throw henchmen at you that require everyone to succeed on check.


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Having played both of those scenarios yesterday, I will say that there was a bit of audible swearing when Aribundi failed to roll a 12 on 2d8+6 on 3 of 4 consecutive encounters of said henchman...

...I hope that the designers avoid these "everybody fights a thing" barriers in the future for the reasons stated in this thread. They didn't have them is S&S and I think the game was better for it.

If these barriers must continue to be a thing, they should at make it so that not everyone needs to pass their check or that the summons are limited to one location (or perhaps only open locations).


Quick correction, there were actually 5 group checks in the base set (there were a couple goblin raids), but that doesn't change the fact that Wrath had a lot more and they actually required success.

Edit: Also, the RotR barriers only cared about open locations, and even after set 2 still had fewer barriers than WotR base.


isaic16 wrote:

...I wanted to focus more on pace of play issues here. ...

...I'm fairly certain that playing multiple characters is not the primary driver of the slow pace...

Actually as I always play with a group of 5-6 veteran RPG real players I can even add that this takes even more time. Trust me, it's way easier and faster to decide if you play the blessing on the check of player A or the one on player B or if you keep it for later if you are actually playing solo A and B.

When you have two real players that respectively play the paladin and the wizard and did that for the last 30 years (yes some of us are that old), there is a bit of discussion when time gets tough before playing anything.
That's cool for us (roleplay is a big part of the PACG fun, else why not go back playing MTG).

So indeed cards that involve every player tend to slow down things but they create interaction so I'm not at all against.

Where I can go your way is when cards indeed create analysis paralysis if you stop roleplaying and start min maxing.
Example : you have 6 players, that's 6!=720 potential orders to resolve the card if everyone has to do a check. Now you can start a lot of maths (I'm too good at that to keep it fun) to optimize the order depending on the respective odds of success, number and type of blessings or other odds-changing cards available, and so on.
10 times worse if you have for example mutliple checks per player or if the check odds are unknown before attenpting (e. g. Mongrel opponent).

Don't get me wrong : I think that those kind of barriers are a great addition to the game. Especially as they add interactions/discussions (which you may not realize if you play with only 1 or 2 real players). But I hope that they stay tuned in a not too deadly level, else you somehow force the players to enter the 6!+ brainlock optimization puzzle and you lose the roleplay and pace.

Bottom line : I hate playing a barbarian and having a game forcing me to do maths! :-)


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Frencois wrote:


Bottom line : I hate playing a barbarian and having a game forcing me to do maths! :-)

Who knows, maybe the Barbarian Class Deck will have a smart barbarian with good Knowledge. :)


Frencois wrote:
isaic16 wrote:

...I wanted to focus more on pace of play issues here. ...

...I'm fairly certain that playing multiple characters is not the primary driver of the slow pace...

Actually as I always play with a group of 5-6 veteran RPG real players I can even add that this takes even more time. Trust me, it's way easier and faster to decide if you play the blessing on the check of player A or the one on player B or if you keep it for later if you are actually playing solo A and B.

When you have two real players that respectively play the paladin and the wizard and did that for the last 30 years (yes some of us are that old), there is a bit of discussion when time gets tough before playing anything.
That's cool for us (roleplay is a big part of the PACG fun, else why not go back playing MTG).

So indeed cards that involve every player tend to slow down things but they create interaction so I'm not at all against.

Where I can go your way is when cards indeed create analysis paralysis if you stop roleplaying and start min maxing.
Example : you have 6 players, that's 6!=720 potential orders to resolve the card if everyone has to do a check. Now you can start a lot of maths (I'm too good at that to keep it fun) to optimize the order depending on the respective odds of success, number and type of blessings or other odds-changing cards available, and so on.
10 times worse if you have for example mutliple checks per player or if the check odds are unknown before attenpting (e. g. Mongrel opponent).

Don't get me wrong : I think that those kind of barriers are a great addition to the game. Especially as they add interactions/discussions (which you may not realize if you play with only 1 or 2 real players). But I hope that they stay tuned in a not too deadly level, else you somehow force the players to enter the 6!+ brainlock optimization puzzle and you lose the roleplay and pace.

Bottom line : I hate playing a barbarian and having a game forcing me to do maths! :-)

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that there's definitely advantages with the player interactions. However, do you agree that a situation like the Sloth Demon forcing literally dozens of checks to be rolled in a 6-player game when you get Demon Horde badly slows things down without sufficient gains? That's the one that really stands out to me.

Pathfinder ACG Developer

First World Bard wrote:
Who knows

I know!

I won't _say_, though. I think CD Barb may be the deck I've most wanted to play that wasn't a spellcaster, though.

_Maybe_ it is due to the inclusion of a very bookish character. Conan the Librarian, anyone?


What's good being a librarian if you can't read ... :-)


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Frencois wrote:
What's good being a librarian if you can't read ... :-)

Unlike 3.5 Barbarians, Pathfinder Barbarians are literate. (Unless you find an archetype that removes it). No more skill point tax to read books!

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

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First World Bard wrote:
Frencois wrote:
What's good being a librarian if you can't read ... :-)
Unlike 3.5 Barbarians, Pathfinder Barbarians are literate. (Unless you find an archetype that removes it). No more skill point tax to read books!

Fo those of you who aren't familiar with older editions of D&D, in 3.5, barbarians were the only characters that couldn't automatically read and write. To become literate, you had to either spend skill points or take a level in a different class. So if you didn't spend those skill points when you created your character, you only had the option when you leveled up. A 3.5 barbarian that I played once leveled up in the middle of a dungeon, and got to explain to his party that he had now killed so many goblins that he could suddenly read and write all of the languages he spoke.

And that's why illiteracy is not a barbarian class feature in the Pathfinder RPG.

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