Hi there folks-
We were playing through Skull and Shackles 5-1 last night ("An Unforgivable Act") and something felt wrong about what happened. Here's the situation, tell me if we did something wrong. This is a 4-player game, 6 locations.
3 Sentinel Devil Henchmen
2 Named Henchmen (can't remember the names, we will go with "Conan" and "Harley Quinn")
1 Villain "The Diva"
Special rule goes like this: If "The Diva" would be defeated, check to see if "Conan" and "Harley Quinn" have been defeated. If they have not, "The Diva" is undefeated.
Location #1 is the first to be closed, encountering and defeating a Sentinel Devil
Location #5 is the next to be closed, defeating "Conan"
Location #2 is next, encountered and defeated Sentinel Devil
At Location #4, we encounter "The Diva". #6 is then temp-closed, leaving only #3 open during the Villain battle (and of course #4, the villain's location)
We "defeat" the villain, but of course, we haven't found Harley Quinn yet, so she is "undefeated. We take the top card of the blessings deck, shuffle it together with the villain and split them between #3 and #4.
#6 is the next deck closed, it contains a Sentinel Devil.
So at this point we know that either
1) The villain is back in #4
2) The villain and Harley Quinn are both in #3.
Using the Farglass, we discover the Villain in location #3, second card down. This means that Harley Quinn is also in location #3.
We close location #4.
Here's the question:
Hasn't this created a situation wherein the team has to keep encountering the villain, "undefeating" her and shuffling her back into the location afterwards until such time as Harley Quinn ends up *above* the villain so that she can be defeated first?
That's what happened, and we ran out of time. I couldn't find anything wrong with the rules of all this, but it seemed pretty brutal.
We spent a decent amount of time after the game strategizing about how to prevent this the next time, and I think we will either
a) Empty a non-start-of-turn-penalty location and leave it open as a planned "trap" for the villain (50/50 shot)
or
b) Perm close 2 locations, and then temp close every time to make sure the villain stays put in her current location until we can close her in. The problem with this is that the Check-To-Close in this scenario are downright nasty (*banish 2 blessings?- ouch!)
Thanks-
Tim (aka Wu Shen the nearly-dead-rogue)
Strategy a) is a VERY good one.
Not only in this scenario, but there are many scenarios were the chances to ultimately defeat the villain varies a lot depending on where you confront him.
So emptying but not closing a location where the villain has no benefit may be clever.
We are playing with 6 players.
Usually we have players exploring in different locations at the beginning of the scenario.
If you meet an henchamn fast (top part of the location deck), then you should close (wining time). But if you encounter an henchman with 2-3 cards left after - especially if you know you already defeated all the banes and if the location is a bad place for a villain to be, then definitively you should look into the benefit to refrain from closing.
Depends on the exact scenario and situation, but a good reflex to have.
As far as you can tell, did we do everything right? When you defeat a villain but the rules consider them undefeated, you do not close the location? Do the random blessings for distribution come from the blessing deck?
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You did play correctly. Only a defeated villain would close the location, and when undefeated the blessings come from the blessings deck. It can definitely get nasty with the wrong strategy, and even worse with a bit of bad luck thrown it.
Your "A" strategy is best I think. Empty it without closing, and then burn through the rest of the locations. Who knows, you may find the two named monsters early on and not even have to use the dummy location!
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I remember this scenario - we ran into the villain as about the second card.
I find that effects like this leave a bad taste in the mouth- you fight the villain, and pass the checks, but because you haven't randomly run in to some other character yet, not only is the scenario ongoing, but you get all the punishment of "failing" such as the milled blessings.
As a general rule, I think this sort of situation would be much better handled with a "you cannot win the scenario unless you have defeated X, Y and Z"
perhaps there's an RPG reason why all these need to be defeated, but the game doesn't really translate that as anything more than an irritating mechanic. I might use drive-through to reprint the Henchmen as Conan and Harley Quinn though, I think that would make the chase more palatable...
We were playing through Skull and Shackles 5-1 last night ("An Unforgivable Act") and something felt wrong about what happened. Here's the situation, tell me if we did something wrong. This is a 4-player game, 6 locations.
...
We spent a decent amount of time after the game strategizing about how to prevent this the next time, and I think we will either...
Update on our next try, things went better, but not a lot!
Location 1: First Villain/Henchman encountered is the VILLAIN! The Diva is defeated but undefeated and there goes 3 blessings off the deck. She is now somewhere in locations 1,2,3 or 4.
Location 6: Finally close it, it has CONAN. One down!
Location 5: Close this with a Sentinel Devil (last card in the stack, grumble), and then we realize what we had missed ALL ALONG... the Safe House! Once you close this location you can just banish a card (not a small payment, but still) to evade the Villain and avoid her moving-around shenanigans. Can't believe we didn't notice that before.
Location 1: We find the Villain here again, but this time we are smart enough to duck into the Safe House. Now we know where she is!
Location 2, 3, 4 we spend a good deal of actions digging through these dangerous locations and finally defeat Harley Quinn! There are three blessing left in the deck.
Location 1: We find the Diva, temp close 3 and 4 and win the game with 2 blessings left on the timer.
TOUGH scenario for us, glad to have it over with.
Augury does wonders.
I don't think Augury and Scrying appear in Skull & Shackles. You only have them if you add them in as Class Deck cards.
I could be wrong, but I think that recharging a card at the Safe House lets you look at the top card of the Safe House, not any location.