I've added a review of Adventure deck 3, which can be seen here
Not surprisingly for those familiar with adventure 3, this contains spoilers.
as always, I'd be interested to know people's thoughts
Very much mirrored my own experience with 3
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Interesting; thanks for writing.
I have yet to even open AD3 or 4, and don't see myself doing so in the near future. They lost me in 2 and I don't know if I'm too motivated to get back on this horse.
In fairness I will at least give it second try before I definitively conclude that they've dropped the ball on this whole set, but I am not really enthusiastic about doing so.
Obviously, I can't speak for Calthaer, but if we hadn't decided to split the party, I think our 6-character group would have given up on siege of Drezen, and just ground to a halt.
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I have been thinking about this to understand why I'm of the opinion that Wrath is so much worse than other sets. A great deal of this is obviously personal preference. As I think about the types of comments people make on these and other boards, I want to highlight three types of players that I observe:
Bane-smashers: These gamers probably want a challenge. A satisfying scenario for this group is like a puzzle that is difficult to solve. When they tell the story of their game-session, they highlight how difficult the win-condition was and what steps they took to accomplish this goal. In this group's view, punishing and grueling banes only serve to make victory sweeter. A satisfying scenario here is one that is Hard. They'd rather save blessings for a Check to Defeat. Probably dislikes Runelords because it's "too easy."
No-time-RPGers: These gamers might say things like: "I don't have time to play a paper-and-pencil RPG with my friends, and PACG scratches that itch." They're interested in the theme; maybe they didn't like S&S because it was too-pirate-y. Maybe these guys are bothered by the fact that a bunyip shows up in the general store. This group is happy with a scenario if they can weave an interesting story from the game in the theater of their own mind.
Deck-builders: These gamers want to build and optimize their deck. The banes are secondary, and exist only as a sounding board against which the deck (and the collective party deck) can be thrown. Getting a steady stream of boons to cycle in and out of a deck to try different combinations is, for this group, really fun. The story of this group's play-sessions highlight the boons they acquire, and they'd rather throw a blessing at a Check to Acquire than a Check to Defeat.
Given that Mike has publicly stated that Diablo (a bane-smashing game if there ever was one) is one of his favorite video games of all time, it is perhaps not surprising that Wrath seems to favor the Bane-smashers somewhat heavily. I am not a bane-smasher - I'm primarily a deck-builder. Diablo is not one of my favorite games; I prefer Pokemon, and the Elder Scrolls, and other games where finding and collecting rare and useful things (Legendary Pokemon, Nirnroot) is made a key part of the fun. I dislike Wrath not because of the difficulty level but because of the so-called "rewards."
The banes in Wrath are brutal, and after all of that I feel like I rarely get anything for it - the boons are weak. Not to mention the fact that, when a location has more than 5 banes in it, it by definition makes boon-acquisition much less likely. I loved seeking the Holy Candle, the "stat gems," and other cool boons of the prior sets. There really aren't any boons in Wrath that are too exciting, that would make you delighted to discover. As Troymk1 has said:
As a sidebar we could also discuss the lack of stand out boons. None of the temptation barriers have tempted me in the least. This has more to say about the strength of the boons in the set rather than my intrinsic will power
That is why I'm not terribly enthusiastic about picking Wrath back up. In my view, jumping through hoops is boring if there are no treats. If the hoop is on fire, then there better be a BIG treat. Wrath's bland, meatless, desiccated boons don't offer much in the way of motivation. Wrath feels far more like a chore to me than fun.
That's my opinion, at least - I realize not everyone will share it. Sorry for the length, but wanted to meaningfully answer your question.
The banes in Wrath are brutal, and after all of that I feel like I rarely get anything for it - the boons are weak. Not to mention the fact that, when a location has more than 5 banes in it, it by definition makes boon-acquisition much less likely. I loved seeking the Holy Candle, the "stat gems," and other cool boons of the prior sets. There really aren't any boons in Wrath that are too exciting, that would make you delighted to discover.
That is where Balazar comes in, who turn almost every card in the set into a boon. Sure, he may not be able to keep some after the scenario (monsters), but it sure is a lot of fun to acquire them. I'm having the time of my Pathfinder-life playing him. Especially exciting are Unfettered Eidolons :-)
Your "Bane-smashers", "no-time-RPGers", and "Deck-builders" seem to roughly correspond to the Spike, Vorthos and Johnny player profiles in Magic the Gathering respectively.
Roughly
Spike: Plays to show skill
Johnny: Plays to show creativity
Timmy: Likes memorable experiences
Vorthos: Flavor above all else
Melvin: Likes interesting rules interactions
"Bane-smashers" play to show skill - specifically their ability to take on the hardest challenges and overcome them. They'd love the PACG Open.
"Deck-builders" don't necessarily care about winning the best challenge - they want to have the coolest deck, and part of that is trying out different boon combos and powers.
"No-time RPGers" are Vorthos.
There are aspects of PACG that will appeal to Timmies of all kinds (Power, Social and Diversity), so they should appear in playgroups. I think I have one in my OP playgroup (and he plays Seoni, which is actually a fairly Timmy oriented character.)
Melvin is hawkmoon :)
I agree that WotR is a more Spike oriented set.
As far as base set boon power goes, I don't think there's a B boon on the level of a Holy Candle (but I don't think there will be a boon period on the level of a Holy Candle anymore). Chad Brown mentioned that they moved some of the more powerful boons that would have been in B into 1 instead, so B level boons are weaker but 1 level boons are stronger (remember the Dogslicer and the Wand of Force Missile in 1 in RotR?)
I do think there are good B/1 level boons in WotR - Glaive +1, Portable Altar, Wand of Cancellation (1), Potion of Restoration (1), Belthis Loumis, Fiery Glare, Eagle Knight Dress Uniform (1), Archer's Bracers, Quadnys Orlun (1), etc. I don't think they're necessarily all obviously useful like the good cards were in previous sets.
EDIT: now that I think about it, things like Wand of Cancellation, Potion of Restoration, and Fiery Glare are also Spike-oriented cards - 2 of those are designed to burn away boons you don't need (which is exactly the opposite of what you'd prefer) and the Potion of Restoration allows you to draw 2 cards, which is fairly boring on its surface, but powerful.
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PACG-wise, I'm a bane-smashing deck builder who likes interesting rules interactions. I want to wrest awesome boons from the twitching corpses of dangerous baddies who had a few tricks I didn't anticipate.
The 2nd round of the PACG Open is a pretty good example of how I like to play :)
I do think there are good B/1 level boons in WotR - Glaive +1, Portable Altar, Wand of Cancellation (1), Potion of Restoration (1), Belthis Loumis, Fiery Glare, Eagle Knight Dress Uniform (1), Archer's Bracers, Quadnys Orlun (1), etc. I don't think they're necessarily all obviously useful like the good cards were in previous sets.
Fortune Teller, Life Drain, Ranseur of the Gargoyle, Lance +1, Demonbane Light Crossbow +1...
Plenty of good boons. Just perhaps more of a necessity to have them than previously.
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If you ask most people that love Diablo, it wasn't just killing things that hooked them. Diablo was notorious for being one of the first loot-chasing games that people dove into. The pursuit of better and better gear was what kept people playing that series for years after release.
The story of the Diablo games is purely peripheral. It's there to keep things moving, but killing things to get better and more rare loot is the main crux.
The Elder Scrolls games are the opposite. Gear is less exciting or unique, but the lore and story presents itself in a way that draws players in and they want to explore that world.
That's why PACG hooks me in the same ways that I fell in love with Diablo. The pursuit of better loot each time I play is a strong drug. And now, they've tied the difficulty into the same loot curve -- you want better stuff, and you also NEED better stuff to consistently overcome.
"Bane-smashers" play to show skill - specifically their ability to take on the hardest challenges and overcome them. They'd love the PACG Open.
"Deck-builders" don't necessarily care about winning the best challenge - they want to have the coolest deck, and part of that is trying out different boon combos and powers.
"No-time RPGers" are Vorthos.
There are aspects of PACG that will appeal to Timmies of all kinds (Power, Social and Diversity), so they should appear in playgroups. I think I have one in my OP playgroup (and he plays Seoni, which is actually a fairly Timmy oriented character.)
Melvin is hawkmoon :)I agree that WotR is a more Spike oriented set.
Another Spike-oriented aspect of WotR are the corrupt boons----cards with disadvantages are anathema to a certain type of player, whereas leveraging them properly can be a big draw to players who just care about the results and don't feel bad about drawbacks.
Boon power-level does climb quite a bit once you get a few AD in: things like Steal Soul, the Tome of Mental Prowess, and the Black Robe are pretty boss.
Things I quite like about this set:
* Uncorrupting a corrupt boon you want to use is a nice achievement/mini-quest. It sometimes (when certain cards need to be in hand at the right time) requires an approach to the scenario that makes winning/survival more challenging to accomplish, and I love that sort of tension between competing primary/secondary goals.
*Fun build-arounds. Cards and powers that reward specific deck composition (like armor/items that trigger on playing blessings of a particular god) give another objective in deck-building, and more diversity in what an 'optimal' deck looks like. I'm spending a lot of effort trying to achieve a specific party blessing-composition to best leverage Imrijka's 'reshuffle-matched-blessing-discard' power, the Iomedae-healing armor on a 2nd character, and Seoni's corruptor corrupt-cards-are-wild-blessings power, which is entirely unlike what we'd want in a different party. For game longevity, that's great.
*Cards that scale w/AD#. It's nice that character power level is smoothed by not always needing to luck out with a high-AD weapon to be on-curve. Having raw combat values scale automatically, and higher-level weapons get cooler in other ways is both more interesting than just raw numerical upgrades, and makes progression less swingy.
When I said that about the boons it was during the early story arc, I believe I have found some cool stuff since then, and if I recall I got Imrijka a cool bow from a temptation barrier
The point I was making back then was that B was so darned difficult due to a number of reasons, you can't just look at the check to defeat numbers to tell the story adequately
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The Elder Scrolls games are the opposite. Gear is less exciting or unique, but the lore and story presents itself in a way that draws players in and they want to explore that world.
That's why PACG hooks me in the same ways that I fell in love with Diablo. The pursuit of better loot each time I play is a strong drug. And now, they've tied the difficulty into the same loot curve -- you want better stuff, and you also NEED better stuff to consistently overcome.
TES does have exciting and unique items, many of which require quests or extensive exploration. Also, I usually like to play with alchemy, where finding rare and powerful ingredients is a whole game in itself. The contrast I'm trying to make is largely the fact that Diablo is all about killing things to get loot, whereas TES allows you to sneak past everything and just get right to the good part without having to smash things.
The number of exciting boons to be had have been limited in my experience by their late and / or non-appearance (see note on locations that are all-bane). Deck upgrades have so far been sparse enough that I'm thinking what boons I'll want in my deck 5-10 scenarios from now under the assumption that I'm simply not going to get another chance to see that card again. Even if I do see it, the blessings required to get the card often have to be saved for some ridiculous combat check, on pain of death. Having tons of good cards in the box that you can't afford to spend resources to get? They might as well not be there at all.
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Huh. I'm not seeing that at all.
My 5-player group is at the start of Adventure 1, and everyone has made quite a few meaningful deck upgrades already. In fact, Crowe has already replaced all 5 of his starting Basic weapons with better cards.
My 3-player group in Adventure 3 is pretty decked out with significant upgrades as well. And it hasn't felt any harder to acquire them than previous sets.
Also, there are multiple locations even in set B that are purely boons, no banes. More boon-only locations than Runelords or Shackles had, in fact.