Tarlin - An Observation, A Rant, and Request for Advice.
So in my local PACG Society, all the clerics have been tested out except for Tarlin. Most think he is a sad sad cleric and have no urge to play him. Since all the other clerics have seen action in our local games I thought I would give him a try (this was the observation).
While the first two scenarios proved to be kind of restrictive due to his hand size of 4, it didn't take him long to flex his muscles. For the rest of WotR adventure 1 and most of adventure 2 he has no problem Smashing his way through adventures. He always has a weapon, sports a +8 to his combat checks, can hold three cures in his deck, and has a Melee/Fortitude to match any fighter. He has Superstar written all over him (this was the rant).
Now I'm Looking ahead. At the end of Adventure 2, I will have his Strength maxed out. This means my combat effectiveness wont scale much anymore. Granted this is the same problem everyone runs into. Most fighters can recharge weapons for greater effect. Being the Demon of Adventure 2 (blood demon) is a combat check 17, I'm going to guess they get a lot worse.
I was planning on increasing hand size to 7 for my first 3rd power. Taking the Peacemaker Role along with allowing anyone to recharge blessings on my combat/charisma checks at the end of Adventure 3.
After this I didn't really know what would be better.Im tossing around two different powers.
First - Recharging an Armor to pull weapons back to my hand would allow me to Discard weapons for increased combat effectiveness.
Second - Recharge a weapon to recharge a random card. This would stop weapons from piling up in my hand or graveyard. It also can heal spells and blessings.
Any tips? Anyone tried him out before (this was the advice). Also, I posted this so that Tarlin can get some love.
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Most characters tend to branch out from basic math increases around that time. You'll be able to discard weapons more for extra dice, your mythic path bonus will increase, your bonus from your boons will slowly increase, and increased hand-size and cures will make it easier to burn allies and blessings for bonuses.
As the number of Mythic banes increases, you'll also be able to safely change a die to a d20 more often.
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Not sure why your local group think Tarlin sucks, he actually rocks. (All of the clerics are actually very good). He's also my secondary character in Wrath.
Starting out with 4 cards sucks (period) and Tarlin especially needs to get armor upgrades to get armor out of his hand (which is a priority with a hand size of 4/5). He also needs hand size upgrades as a priority. His ally should be the Sage so he can recharge his cure spells and he should start with 3 cure spells in his deck.
Tarlin's offensive ability is as good or better than most characters. If Tarlin has a problem, everyone has a problem (except for Alain :) ). Don't like Blood Demons? Then stack under a Banner of Valor, you won't even need a weapon.
Peacekeeper role is the best. So many good options to take. I'm almost at my role but so far I like:
1) Blessings of Iomedae recharge. With 4 Iomedae blessings, Tarlin won't have many cards in his discard pile and these blessings will get cycled into his hand more often (compared to healing them back to his hand). Allows him to explore faster.
Only downside is that I don't find Iomedae (Chr) buffs to be very useful compared to combat or Wis buffs. Mostly likely will be used for explorations.
2) Hand size 7. Hand size is a great power upgrades. More options and more opportunities to use blessings and pretty much everything.
3) Recharge weapons. I assume that with more 2H weapons I'll be able to use my heal ability more. I also assume I'll be discarding weapons to increase combat in AD3. I also assume that a hand size of 7 will let me have weapons "sitting in my hand" doing nothing without clogging up my hand too much. If that wasn't true, I'd get this much sooner since I sometimes discard weapons in AD2 to get blessings into my hand.
4) Other blessings heal friends. I'm already proficient at healing my friends, so this is only nice to have. Also, I find I'm using blessings on others a lot more than I receive in turn. :(
5) Exploration heal +2. You're still gaining cards overall and this is a great emergency heal.
6) Recharge armor to get a weapon. I don't think this is very useful for the simple reason that you NEED armor to protect your hand size of 7 and you only have 2 armor. Plus you can already recharge magical armor. More often than not I've buried 1-2 armors per game, no need to use them to heal myself when my healing abilities (from the prior powers) will already keep my discard pile empty. Already in AD2, I find that my discard pile is empty, with blessings of Iomedae recharging, weapons healing, and combat blessings healing me, I don't see self healing as a problem.
7) Recharge weapon to recharge an ally. Not very useful.
TLDR: Tarlin is awesome.
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Stuff
Thanks, was just looking to swap ideas with other people that like Tarlin.
Not sure why your local group think Tarlin sucks, he actually rocks.
Not really sure why, I think it is due to his kit appearing lackluster. Probably the only reason I looked at him in depth was no one had played him. After studying his powers, I realized that while nothing was flashy, he is SOLID.
Thanks for the Armor comment. That does make sense.
As for the recharge on the Iomedae, I figure with the combat power I probably wouldn't need that power. Or if I took it, holding off until later.
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Like I said, I find my blessings are being used on other characters much more than they are being used on me. If I use a blessing of Iomedae to explore or on someone else, I won't get a card recharged with the combat/chr power. Sometimes other players use blessings on me, but I'm healing them anyway so an untargeted 1 recharge is good but not great (I'd rather be assured a blessing). But maybe your games are different and you play with more support characters, in my group I am the support character, so that changes things.
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I chose Peacemaker and took the "Recharge Weapons" power as my first power. Now I will be jacking up his deck with lots of two-handed weapons and recharge them all to make his deck rechargy and lean.
I am not playing him in OP, so while Iomedae recharge sounds nice...I have had a hard time acquiring those blessings (only one in like 30 scenario-plays). Maybe (or maybe not) your groups also have similar troubles getting higher-deck blessings to use as deck upgrades for OP; not sure.
I likewise think Tarlin is awesome - definitely the best cleric, and tailor-made for Wrath of the Righteous. Outside of OP, he even has a promo card made specifically for him - Improvised Dinosaur. Or at least that's how I tell the story.
@ Jason S - Good points. I have mostly run with a bard and a ranger, so I do a lot more face smashing leaving most of the support to the bard.
@Calthaer - What is this Promo card? and where can I get it?
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It was sent out to subscribers with Adventure Deck...5, I think? It's a 2-handed weapon with...interesting properties. Nice to see a non-Goblin promo card, too. I am not sure where you'd get it outside of eBay, now:
Here's one where you can see the card's powers.
If you buy from certain FLGSes you can probably ask them if they have the promo in stock, since it's the AD promo (Valais was the Game Trade Mag promo). Since AD5 just came out recently most of the FLGSes probably still have them in stock.
I should have it, I will check when I get home. I have not opened my Adventure Deck 5 yet.