Hi all
At long last, the review of Adventure 6 is up on the website.
This was by far the hardest review to write so far. As I've said in the review, it nearly killed Pathfinder for us.
As always thoughts welcome - particularly would like to know whether others shared our experience.
Good review. We're about to start deck 5 but are already dreading the return of armies in deck 6 (had to temporarily drop down from 5 characters to 3 characters after failing one of the earlier army-based scenarios 3 or 4 times in a row). I will mention that, unless there is something odd about the scenario, Kyra is solid against both of those armies since her power is good against both Undead & Demons and they are both Demons. Thanks for the reviews!
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Even the three player games were that bad? I didn't really have much trouble with my tag team of Seelah and Arushelae. Some of that can probably be attributed to the fact that Holy Radiance is a beast of a weapon in Seelah's hands. Something like 2d8+d10+19 before any character powers, blessings, or anything besides the weapon, with another 1d10 vs demons and likely another d4+2 from Arushelae's Gift. So I look at something like Ravener Terendelev and go, well, I have to get a 16 on a d10+13 for that BYA check, then my average combat check is 3d8+1d10+1d4+19 (average 40-41) with no cards spent, so I don't have to spend any resources on the actual combat roll...so speed bump. Then I get my mythic charge back after killing it.
And it seems to me that the armies should be a lot easier when you have the Champions of Mendev giving you some of the skills needed. I mean, you would pick the skills that no one in the group has first so as to get them, right?
I don't generally play in large groups, but I can say my experience with a 2 character group was not frustrating at all.
I would have rather called it The Good, the Difficult and the Epic.
WotR isn't "bad", it's "hard".
I do still think that the first games (AD0) were too hard for beginners, especially large groups, and that there was a bit of a design error there.
But for later games, it's meant to be hard and I don't see it as a flaw (as your title may suggest).
IMHO.
Terendelev is much more of an issue for his before-you-act than his actual combat check.
If you get a demonic horde, and you have more than one character at your location, then each character at your location is probably losing multiple mythic charges, and taking multiple lots of cold damage, before you even start thinking about the combat check.
I think we used the champions of Mendev twice- yes we took the skills no-one had first, but you still have to spend a mythic charge to get it, and whilst +5 is good, unless it's on a skill you already happen to be very good/mythic at, you're still going to have a lot of work on your hands to manage to get to 20 on a check. D8 + 7 isn't actually any likelier to roll a 20 than D4 + nothing is.
Obviously with armies, any reduction in player count makes a difference. Maybe the jump from 3 to 2 is more than I'd expect.
WotR isn't "bad", it's "hard".
Glad you enjoyed it. Obviously, any review is subjective, and different groups will have different experiences.
for us though, whilst it was "hard" the bigger issue was that it just wasn't fun.
Once you allow for the splitting into multiple groups, it was probably only an average of 2 attempts per group per scenario (although the distribution skews heavily towards the army-based scenarios) there are others which have caused us more difficulty.
Playing only 14 games of Pathfinder in 2 months though, that's unprecedented in the 18 months or so we've owned the game. The type of challenge was more than "difficult" it was miserable - and it left us not wanting to play the game.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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It is a lot easier to get to 20 with blessings on d8+7 than d4+nothing though.
I confess I forget what brings out Ravener Terendelev but if he can strike anywhere that's a good reason not to stack characters together. Also he can be evaded unless the scenario or location says otherwise.
It almost sounds like your group hoarded mythic charges in order to have an "auto-win" against the villain. I took a very "easy come, easy go" attitude toward mythic charges. Especially by adventure 6 when most henchmen give you charges back when defeated. I had some close calls against villains because I'd often be down to 1-2 charges by that fight.