We have had a game going on every Monday night and I find the Blessing Deck size is okay for 4 players or less, but when you get to 5 (or 6) it decreases the number of turns each player gets to 6 (or 5) respectively. That makes it hardly worth taking the time to set up a game for 5 or more.
Experimenting a bit I have found increasing the size of the Blessing Deck to 7 cards for each player (i.e. 35 for 5 players) makes a good balance and give all players an even chance to play their characters and enjoy the scenario.
I do admit we have not had a 6 player game yet, but it will probably come soon. If I should find something else works better for 6 I'll append this thread.
You can house rule what you like, of course. However, adding 5 blessings to the blessings deck significantly decreases the challenge of the game. More players gives you less time but way more firepower, and its a careful balance.
If you're adding blessings to increase the time you get to spend playing, and are interested in in keeping the challenge level up, I suggest also increasing the number of locations by one (i.e. use the number of locations for 6 players when playing with 5 players).
Increasing the # of locations but also increasing the # of blessings, just so that everyone has more turns but it stays similarly balanced sounds pretty good.
Otherwise, if you do change the # of blessings to match the # of players, you might want to consider limiting the ability to flood checks. If every check has a maximum of one of each card type, rather than each character in each step, for instance.
Yes, that means that if 6 players each have a blessing, only one gets to throw it on the final check on the villain. Ditto one ally, one weapon, etc. A lot like a solo player.
Note also that you'll want a minimum bound on it; 1-3 players are going to be in trouble for explores at 7 per player.
No we kept it at 30 for 1-4 players. I thought there was a limit of 1 card type per combat? Guess we were doing that anyway so we'll keep it up. Thanks for the info Keith
However I do like the idea of adding an additional location, I'll talk that over with the other players and see what they think, thanks Greyhawke!
I should note we are all new to the card game and have not even opened deck 3 of the Rise of the Runelords set. But we are having an awful lot of fun in the game. So far NO ONE has missed a session.
I thought there was a limit of 1 card type per combat?
The limit is 1 card of each type per check or step per player. So in a 4 player game, each player could play a Blessing on a given check, for a total of four Blessings, for example. Keith suggested you consider changing the rule so that the group as a whole can only play 1 card of each type per check or step.
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So maybe, if you played no more of 1 type of card on a check so far (regardless of # of players), instead of changing the # of blessings you could try the way all other groups of 6 play the game.
You could have up to 6 blessings on a check, some ranged weapons and you should have some allies and items that can be played on other players checks.
Then the game is not about what every character can do in her turns; each one of you can participate in the other players turns.
Michael, from what I gathered in the original post, the issue is the amount of turns each person has. With a 5-6 person session, you are getting 6 or 5 turns each. The OP was complaining that it might not be worth the effort to unpack the box for that many turns.
But here's the thing. Whether it is 1 or 6 players, there are still the same number of (potential) turns. But if the OP wanted to add more blessings to give each player more turns, then the balance of the game is thrown off because of the time factor. So the idea of adding an additional location and/or allowing only one of a card type per check is a way to balance the additional time.
You are correct Theryon. The idea is NOT game balance... it is how much enjoyment and fun the players get from the game! Some "players" may enjoy watching others play but my group is more active and each wants to run their character too.
If the players are NOT enjoying the game then they will soon move on to something else and the game will be discarded into the dust pile of history. So Enjoyment & Fun have top priority!
Once everyone is enjoying the game, balance can be easily achieved so the game is also challenging. I like the idea of adding an additional location and I think the other players will too.
Yep, I personally think that more blessings with 6 players' worth of locations for 5 sounds like a good plan.
For 6 players, that solution would get a bit trickier :)
For 6 players, that solution would get a bit trickier :)
I was trying to think this through myself, and the best I could come up with that was quick and easy was to pick one of the locations and build it twice. The trick is, which one?
I would probably look at the following factors and choose the one that seemed the most difficult overall when considering these factors:
-Total number of Banes (Monsters + Barriers)
-Adventure Deck Number of the location
-Start/End of turn effects
-Difficulty of closing
The key is to make sure to pick something challenging and not something without banes that gives lots of cool loot. :)
Even then, I am not sure its quite enough to offset the addition of 5 additional blessings in a 6-player game, but it is a place to start and adjust up or down to hit the challenge level you are looking for.
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Or you could try mixing up 5 random monsters and 3 random barriers and adding one of them to each location.
Or you could try mixing up 5 random monsters and 3 random barriers and adding one of them to each location.
Sounds like a good experiment.
Or you could try mixing up 5 random monsters and 3 random barriers and adding one of them to each location.
I like this better, as adding another location in a 6 player game will lead to problems with not enough Henchmen.
Adding another location is easy... There and many unused location cards in the box, just draw one at random for 6 players.
Here's another thought...
Many games have different levels of Difficulty. Novice, Average, Heroic and the like.
Maybe Paizo could come up with something official like that based on how many extra locations were used. Something the players could try for to see if they are good enough. Maybe you would win extra card draws or get to choose a card from your tier as a prize? I know I could set it up in my home game but if Paizo made it official it might encourage other groups.
Yea I got to thinking about difficulty levels after writing the above.
I'm gonna make 4 of them, Novice, Average, Heroic, & Champion
Novice, for New players, 1 less location stack but No Feat awards.
Average, as exists now.
Heroic, 1 extra location with a random Henchman in it. Get to draw a random card of your current tier.
Champion, 1 extra location card with a random Villain in it. Get to choose a card of your tier (or lower).
It'll take me a while to try them out, if they work I'll note it here for those interested.
Yea I got to thinking about difficulty levels after writing the above.
I'm gonna make 4 of them, Novice, Average, Heroic, & Champion
Novice, for New players, 1 less location stack but No Feat awards.
Average, as exists now.
Heroic, 1 extra location with a random Henchman in it. Get to draw a random card of your current tier.
Champion, 1 extra location card with a random Villain in it. Get to choose a card of your tier (or lower).
It'll take me a while to try them out, if they work I'll note it here for those interested.
This looks interesting - i definitely like the idea of variable difficulty - however, having the extra/reduced reward, seems to slightly defeat the point. "struggling with the game? - fine, we'll make it easier, but you get no feats, so will be stuck forever with a 15-card deck etc."
As I say, I like the idea, but feel like it needs something else - although I can't figure out what that would be.
We finally got together a 6 player group last night to try a 42 card Blessing Deck out.
Two of the players were new to the game never having played the card game before, so we did the Basic RR Lost Coast series. We played 4 scenarios between 7 PM and 12:30 AM (did Brigandoom twice) and had some interesting observations.
The 42 card deck worked well and everyone got to play their character enough in each run.
With 7 draws each and 8 locations we had several near deaths. I was playing the paladin and used my 1 Cure spell on each run to save someone. (We had no cleric)
With 6 players Luck plays a greater part, in one session we found the henchman in 3 locations and closed them off before the 1st round of draws was completed.
Luck also plays a bad part as there are more players to draw a boon that YOU might want but they don't have the skills to acquire it. A lot of good boons got wasted as they were drawn by the wrong person. So only a 16% chance you'll be the one to get any specific boon in the locations.
There needs to be some way to fix this. Yea I know you could toss a Blessing of the Gods on the person who got the boon, IF you have one in your hand!
I'll have to think on this one.
Anyway the 2 new players loved the game (with our house rules) and can't wait until we schedule another session.
Between augurying and spyglassing, you can substantially raise the probability that the people that can best acquire a particular boon will have the opportunity to move to the target location deck and acquire it.
Also, Swipe is *awesome* for exactly this reason - our Ezren was often sent after the toughest weapons.
Finally, with 6 players, there are often enough blessings in hands that, if a boon shows up that's really *that* valuable, you can pump up even d4s to a reasonable chance of success. (There are very few boons that we go after that much though, most decent ones land in the "take a shot; if we fail, it'll show up later" category.)
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Many house rules designed to make the game "harder" end up bumping the difficulty in odd ways when taking into account the overall AP - for example, adding extra locations makes that scenario tougher, but also adds more boons to acquire. Same thing happens with seeding henchmen in the bottom half of each location deck - you have more opportunity to upgrade your deck. This can result in later scenarios being easier because you have better stuff.
What I would suggest for an extra location is to build a "difficulty level" location, with equal monsters and barriers(although even barriers are sometimes Cache which give good stuff). Maybe 1/player? Don't put a henchman/villain there and it can only be closed when empty. For "hard" use 1/player, "very hard" 2/player, etc.
Or add actual locations but implement a "class deck" style upgrade rule where your deck can only change by one card each scenario.
You are correct Theryon. The idea is NOT game balance... it is how much enjoyment and fun the players get from the game! Some "players" may enjoy watching others play but my group is more active and each wants to run their character too.
If the players are NOT enjoying the game then they will soon move on to something else and the game will be discarded into the dust pile of history. So Enjoyment & Fun have top priority!
Once everyone is enjoying the game, balance can be easily achieved so the game is also challenging. I like the idea of adding an additional location and I think the other players will too.
If the problem is people getting bored because they're spending most of their time watching others play their turns in 5-6 player games, I wouldn't recommend trying to solve this by making the game longer. (If everyone just wants to play more total turns in a play session, you can just play more scenarios!)
I definitely have friends who can't abide the passive downtime of large co-op games. If this is the issue, then maybe split into two smaller groups and play side-by-side (make up some house rules for interaction/card-swapping/etc if you want)? If you only have 5 players, you can just throw in a 6th character to the mix to be played as a secondary/npc. I find that 2-3 players with 3-4 characters total is a great way to play around the sweet spot for party size, while letting all the players be more active on average.