| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've acquired this game and my friends and I are loving it. But we've mostly played fighter, cleric and wizard. We have only found out that the rogue and especially the bard classes are very different in playing style. Which is good, in my opinion. But 1 character struggling might cause the entire party to struggle.
In my experience they both tend to struggle a lot to get through a dungeon on their own, compared to the other classes. Won't you get into trouble with the amount of turns, when you have 1 character always hanging around with another character or taking much longer to work through a dungeon deck? Those are my experiences with these classes so far.
My friends and I have been thinking on how to play these characters differently. And I think the rogue needs to enter a dungeon, explore 1 maybe 2 things, and get rid of barriers and items. And evade the rest, especially the villain. Since it's hard to face him alone as rogue. And then move to another dungeon the next turn and rinse and repeat. And won't all this evading slow down your progress as party?
I'd like to know if there are other ways to play this character. Or are there rules for this character that I've overlooked? Do I need certain items, weapons, allies?
The rogue can call evasion and hand the villain over to the fighter.
Maybe the Rogue can trade all the combat to a fighter at another table for all the traps. :)
I played Lem (Bard) for quite awhile and I found that by pairing up with Valeros (Fighter) made my combat checks much easier. Especially when I could convince someone to toss me a blessing. As the bard I was able to heal people pretty well and keep the cards I needed to in my hand by swapping them around with my discard.
The rogue can be great for barrier disabling, and depending on the locations (Woods I think) enemies are defeated even if you evade. Using the right cards (A certain ally and item) the rogue can look ahead to see if they really should go somewhere else before they even explore. Also, the rogue should be alone to capitalize on their discard bonus for combat checks.
It is true though that some characters do not do so well on their own. I always loved to have a fighter buddy as Lem, or another bard buddy even, and I almost always stood a chance at acquiring a boon for someone else.
Key lesson : synergy
(I'm at work or I would provide better info, sorry)
...depending on the locations (Woods I think) enemies are defeated even if you evade.
At the Woods, undefeated monsters (other than henchmen & villains) are banished. An evaded monster isn't undefeated (it's neither defeated nor undefeated) so it isn't banished at the Woods.
I thought I was remembering something wrong... thanks for the correction.
RotR Merisiel can actually do very well on a combat check when she is the only character at her location.
And, while evading too much will slow you down, knowing where the villain is can be a key piece of information.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In my experience, Merisiel tends to crush combat checks as long as she's on her own. I haven't noticed her being slower than any other character, because I'll only evade when doing so would slow me down (ex: make me discard cards without banishing a bane).
If you're evading boons so that other people can get them, then yeah, Merisiel might have a slower turn.
Perhaps what trips you up with Merisiel is her major problem - Favorite Card: Item. With only a couple of weapons in your deck, you're most likely to begin without one, and then you're in the silly situation where you hope to get just the right Barrier or Boon to use those items clogging your hand. For me, I always had her start at the same location as Valeros and had the fighter give her a weapon on his first turn; even if it's his only weapon - he's pretty much guaranteed to get a new one soon.
As for Lem - with a couple of Dexterity feats he can become a pretty reliable archer. I got him a Deathbane X-bow +1 and then I always chose 'Weapon' as Favorite Card before drawing starting hand. Since he only has 1 Weapon in the deck - that at least guarantees that you'll ALWAYS start with your best weapon and you may explore without worries if even if you don't have a combat spell on hand.
Ah, that is true; I forgot how dicey it was to start with a weapon early on. I invested in weapons with my first card feats for Merisiel to improve the odds. Between that, a staff of minor healing, and some aggressive recharge/discard for sneak attack, I could reliably start or cycle to a weapon pretty fast I found, and once I had one I was in great shape.
The Valeros (or Harsk or whatever) weapon handoff trick is smart too.
At least 2 weapon card feats for Merisiel! (Any Merisiel, whether it's from RotR, S&S or Class Deck)
Part of the issue is that she really needs a weapon to get sneak attack going, and you need to sneak attack to cycle your cards so you can get to the good stuff. So she's really slow when she can't fight.
To expand on Hawkmoon's answer: if you get lucky and run into an evade-able villain with Merisiel, you've just struck the jackpot in terms of scenario-finishing-speed: now by spreading out the party to be able to temporarily close the other locations, you just need to work back through the villain's location to find them again, and you've won!
Another speed benefit from having an evade in your back pocket: you can afford to push your luck by exploring when you/your teammates aren't set up to beat the villain/other killer banes. So (assuming your party runs sufficient healing) you can be pretty pedal-to-the-metal in terms of exploring, without the downside of hitting a Whammy that other characters have to risk.
Part of the issue is that she really needs a weapon to get sneak attack going, and you need to sneak attack to cycle your cards so you can get to the good stuff. So she's really slow when she can't fight.
1d8+2d6 (base Strength with a discard sneak attack) is pretty solid in B and 1, tbh.
Also, there is an ally named Ilsoari Gandethus in pack 1. He allows you to examine the location deck and shuffle the monster (if it is one) back into the deck. However, there is a 1 / 12 chance of encountering a very dangerous villain if you use him. Give him to Merisiel and she can use his power each turn and evade the dangerous monster if you roll up the 1 / 12...
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
Also, there is an ally named Ilsoari Gandethus in pack 1. He allows you to examine the location deck and shuffle the monster (if it is one) back into the deck. However, there is a 1 / 12 chance of encountering a very dangerous villain if you use him. Give him to Merisiel and she can use his power each turn and evade the dangerous monster if you roll up the 1 / 12...
Merisiel is actually quite good against any summoned card where there is no gain from winning. Sometimes a bane will not be defeated unless the summoned card is defeated, in which case she generally needs to fight it, but often it's just "summon and encounter," in which case Merisiel laughs and dodges the summon. She's also very good at locations that make you summon and encounter a card at the start of each turn, provided that card can be evaded.