I put this thread up mainly because one of my players had a complaint about it.
The actual scenario wasn't super hard - we assigned one of our players (Harsk Vanguard) as the Queen's "escort". This means the escort had to basically go to a location and stay there for the whole scenario to complete it "easily". While this makes the scenario very interesting in terms of the story, it makes the queen's escort very bored, because they can't really explore (there's no point).
We also got "lucky" in the sense that the queen's escort location wasn't where the villain resided.
Not sure how to "fix" this. The scenario would be much harder to complete if we didn't do it this way, but whomever is the escort is going to not going to be able to do much except support with support tools.
Sacrificing 1/Nth of your explores and potentially being bitten if the villain ends up in that location doesn't feel like it would be the most effective (or fun) route, though it certainly might be the safest.
IME, it works well for someone fairly resilient with some armor to just escort around playing normally.
It'd be tough to run enough trials to compare the difference in success between the two styles, though.
Well, the first 8 turns we had 6/8 of our die rolls come up 1-2. If we weren't incentivized to do the "pile up the monsters at a location" strategy before, we're definitely inclined to do it now.
But even if you played it normally at the beginning, as soon as a location is closed, you know the villain is not there, so having the escort be at that location (provided they can temp close it) is probably better even sacrificing 1/N of your explores for it, if N is greater than whatever.
The scenario text says that you roll the die for an extra monster each turn, and assume that the escort's turn is a single explore (not really, but this is simplification), that means that you'd get an EV per round ("round" being when from a character's move step to their next move step) of:
2p: 0.66 monsters
3p: 1 monster
4p: 1.33 monsters
5p: 1.66 monsters
6p: 2 monsters
(I think I got the math right; it seems that the pattern is pretty regular)
Given that a location in that scenario is about 0.3 monsters per explore (discounting explore allies), I'm alright with removing the possibility of 1+ monster a turn (4p+). I agree it's not exactly the funnest way to play.
Lastly, since you lose the scenario at the end of the turn if the Queen is gone, it's possible for people to farm that scenario by constantly sacrificing the Queen and filling up with deck upgrades (there's even the Armory and Occult Library to pull weapons, armors and spells from). I think that it's ridiculous to do this, and I would probably not be happy with signing that many chronicle sheets.
We played this the same way zeroth hour did, with the same result. We parked Merisiel at the Guardpost with Queen Galfrey in hand. Merisiel did do some exploring but eventually gave up. By the end of the scenario she had 10 extra monsters in her location.
6/8 hits early on is pretty grim, that'd definitely influence things. And yep, that's the correct pattern. It does assume that no one else does anything at that location, that you leave the person there the whole time, never hand off the Queen, etc... but I guess those are dealable assumptions.
It is thematic at least. I like that Merisiel is a good pick for the duty, as well.
That said, it probably means that a reasonable alternate mechanic would be that you roll to _summon_ a monster on whoever has Galfrey, and that you let people pass her around much more easily. The questions to answer there would be what to do about just evading them, and just how easy to make trading the Queen. End of turn can give to anyone at your location, and then check for a summon? If you fail to defeat, discard a blessing?
Protecting the players from a string of horrible dice is potentially good to build into it; we don't tend to do it, but the flavor could be cool.
Could also do it in reverse, like:
At the end of each turn, the character holding Queen Galfrey must roll a die, starting with a d4. On a 1 or 2, that character must summon and encounter a random monster. If the monster is not defeated, discard a card from the blessing deck and the character may give Queen Galfrey to another character at her location. If the monster is defeated, increase the size of the die rolled one step (d4->d6->d8->d10->d12->d20).
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I soloed this one (with CD Merisiel) so there was no safely waiting in the corner for me...I was mostly concerned about my closed locations reopening before I had a chance to move away but luckily that never happened.
Mostly adding monsters just adds time, which is something you have a ton of in single player. Even AD4-5 monsters aren't that much a threat to a tricked out mythic character hoarding all the loot substitutions.
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CD-Valeros, CD-Sajan, CD-Kyra, and Meliski. Our evening was set for 1-5D early, and then 2-1x in the evening. But when none of the evening regulars showed up, and we FAILED the first shot of 1-5D, we just replayed.
Due to one of our players misunderstanding the Ally Orengofta (I won't mention any names on the grounds that I might incriminate myself), that fat maggot pulled 3 blessings offa our deck. Then, an early encounter with the Villain by Sajan when he had no magic weapon in his hand (blah blah blah fifth amendment blah) ripped off a couple more. We ended with two locations open, the Queen perfectly safe, and no time. Those 5 lost blessings would have given us a better shot.
The second time round, locations closed much more quickly. Sajan was once again without a magic weapon when he met the Barbarian Hordes (and, thus, the Shadow Demon), and after a bit of tension involving not being able to use his precious Slashing Weapon powers, his Venemous Fighting Fan appeared, and his self-confidence was restored.
Meliski, in both attempts, was charged with holding the Queen. We picked Meliski because, no matter how many 1s and 2s got rolled, he could STILL be effective at least once a turn by exploring off the bottom of the deck. If he felt good about his hand, he could kill a monster just to get the card offa the pile. However, in the second attempt, he met with a Corruption Demon and ended up in the Middle of Nowhere. Since monsters could NOT open that location by being placed there, there was no damage to just leaving him there, safe with the Queen. The rest of us were able to focus on finding, cornering, and defeating the Villain.
TELL US WHERE THE QUEEN IS!!
"Nowhere."
THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING HUMAN!
"Nowhere."
FOOLISH MORTAL DIE!!
Kyra cleaning her blades "Is the helm muffling my voice?"
IMHO, there should be a "random" effect (to be designed) pushing the Queen to move from one character/escort to another. That would be fun...
Totally an option - that said, I like the idea that the party can make a decision about who is protecting the Queen. The character with lots of armor and damage mitigation and ability to do combat at any moment is a better pick than the armor-less healer with light combat options.