I'm playing Sajan, so I'm not feeling your pain...
I am interested in seeing how our CD Lini makes it through 2-3C, though.
Dex and Wis have always been important in RotR, this just ratcheted it up to 11.
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Alahazra's d4 was a bit painful, but I assure you it's possible to still succeed.
And c'mon, 2-3C is only possible in a setup like OP. Learn to love the crazy. ;)
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I have concerns if two people have the same CD in 2-3C. Otherwise, it looks cool.Uhhh... We have two monks (Athnul and CD-Sajan) and two Alchemists (CD-Damiel and Mother Myrtle). I sense... pain.
Ok. I've read the scenario. This IS a problem.
First, the use of individual sets of sleeves is going to horrifically complicate setup and teardown.
If our players don't care about yours/mine dichotomies with identical cards, it's less of a problem.
If people DO care (perhaps one's more careful with sleeving/gently shuffling than someone else), then we're going to have to make sure the whole box is sleeved, and that everyone (re-)sleeves their decks into identical sleeves to the box, and THEN add some sort of identifier (torn piece of paper, perhaps) on cards from the identical decks. (Or we'll have to unsleeve everything and hope that shuffling our unsleeved cards won't make our OCD hearts explode.)
For example, we have 6 players when we play SotRu: CD-Sajan (uses green sleeves), Grazzle (doesn't use sleeves), Athnul (uses magenta sleeves), CD-Damiel (uses black Ultrapro sleeves), Mother Myrtle (uses Pathfinder sleeves), and Darago (also uses Pathfinder sleeves). The box we generally use isn't sleeved.
So, as I mentioned, we have four different sets of sleeves, two Monk decks, and two Alchemist decks. If we leave our own sleeves on, we'll be able to spot boons from class decks (except the oracle deck) from a mile away. It'd be like free scrying-lite. Since most of us bother to sleeve our decks to protect them, we probably won't be horribly keen on unsleeving all our cards and shuffling them together. That means sleeving the box, and everyone resleeving to identical sleeves (with markers for the extra-OCD among the Monks and/or Alchemists).
I'm coming across all whiny (and I AM whining, to some degree), but what I'm REALLY hoping is that someone cleverer than me has a better solution.
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I've just played through 2-3A, B and C last night and this morning with my solo Enora run.
2-3A was hard. Really hard. d6 Str/Dex means a 1 in 3 chance of being able to move. Failed the scenario bigtime on my first attempt - didn't even get one location closed. Two effectively 20 checks on the villain, which also requires you to have passed the start of turn movement check...yikes. That's just rough for a poor solo spellcaster. Took a second Augury as an upgrade for my failed scenario, and tried again with a new approach - relentless scouting. Closed Thassilonian Dungeon pretty quickly - the "improved" cultists are not a problems with Enora's ability to negate Fire damage - and then a lucky Augury found the villain in the second location and left it on top. Got the other location closed, then lost most of my blessings to an unlucky hand wipe. d12+2d6 should not roll a 4!. So now I've got the villain perfectly positioned, but I only have one blessing left in my deck. Got down to two blessings left in the timer, decided to give it a desperate shot since I was in no danger of dying. Needed a 17 on d12+2d6 for the first combat check, got an 18! Second check was much smoother as I BoPharasma'ed it. Glad to put that one behind me.
2-3B was not that tough. The gimmick isn't really very gimmicky for a solo character - I was never going to be sharing a location with anyone, and the forced movement simply meant I had to do the locations in a certain order. Never saw one of the new henchmen - 2 Auguries meant I ended up fighting Xanesha three times.
Just did 2-3C this morning before work. It was neat, although with only three locations I got a lot of my own cards back. Lucked out and got some nice AD3 attack spells like Swipe. Amused that I ended up spending blessing more on the before you act check than on the actual combat. Got to be able to use those attack spells. Didn't actually take an upgrade from this one - the Wizard deck is distinctly lacking in good AD3 spells. Once you have Scrying the other two require other players or a weapon. Looks like there are no new attack spells until AD5, which is a bit scary because I'm still running Force Missile.
I have read over much of this adventure and have concluded that the dev team hates those of us with d4 dex and wants us to suffer.*
*In retrospect, we maybe shouldn't all have chosen characters with d4 or d6 dex.
Oh geez. Oh geez! *worried* *doesn't have the scenarios so will just be worried for the next week*
And I just now realized the Alchemist deck doesn't have a stat stone (booo). So that d4 dex is staying a d4 dex.
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I have read over much of this adventure and have concluded that the dev team hates those of us with d4 dex and wants us to suffer.*
*In retrospect, we maybe shouldn't all have chosen characters with d4 or d6 dex.
Oh geez. Oh geez! *worried* *doesn't have the scenarios so will just be worried for the next week*
And I just now realized the Alchemist deck doesn't have a stat stone (booo). So that d4 dex is staying a d4 dex.
To make you less worried, the first scenario requires a Str or Dex 5 check to be able to move. And the henchmen have a Dex check or take d4+1 Fire damage after combat. Neither thing is insurmountable, but a character with both d4 Str and Dex is going to have a hard time.
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To make you less worried, the first scenario requires a Str or Dex 5 check to be able to move. And the henchmen have a Dex check or take d4+1 Fire damage after combat. Neither thing is insurmountable, but a character with both d4 Str and Dex is going to have a hard time.I have read over much of this adventure and have concluded that the dev team hates those of us with d4 dex and wants us to suffer.*
*In retrospect, we maybe shouldn't all have chosen characters with d4 or d6 dex.
Oh geez. Oh geez! *worried* *doesn't have the scenarios so will just be worried for the next week*
And I just now realized the Alchemist deck doesn't have a stat stone (booo). So that d4 dex is staying a d4 dex.
There's also one where poison trap difficulty is increased by 1d6+1 (or something similar to that).
My CD Alahazra is so screwed. She only has one Ruby of Charisma.
Have I mentioned that Mother Myrtle is spectacularly screwed?
Whenever Dexterity or Strength is involved, Mother Myrtle is screwed. She just falls right into the Pit Trap, can't get through the Trapped Passageway, and might as well just give up all hope of opening that Locked Door. Unless she somehow has her Acid Flask.
At least mine can attempt to recharge blessings now?
*prays for Mother Myrtle*
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There's also one where poison trap difficulty is increased by 1d6+1 (or something similar to that).My CD Alahazra is so screwed. She only has one Ruby of Charisma.
It's d6+3 I believe, so total 8+d6. That's the one I haven't done yet. I have one BoAbadar, so that's a 3d6 against one of them. Might have to play "scout out the villain and beat him 3 times" again. It's possible to get super lucky and find a Masterwork Tools during the scenario, but can't count on that at all.
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It's d6+3 I believe, so total 8+d6. That's the one I haven't done yet. I have one BoAbadar, so that's a 3d6 against one of them. Might have to play "scout out the villain and beat him 3 times" again. It's possible to get super lucky and find a Masterwork Tools during the scenario, but can't count on that at all.
There's also one where poison trap difficulty is increased by 1d6+1 (or something similar to that).My CD Alahazra is so screwed. She only has one Ruby of Charisma.
Also, if I could acquire a masterwork tools, I would be in less of a pickle.
Decent chance normal thieves tools work, too. Good luck!
I'm coming across all whiny (and I AM whining, to some degree), but what I'm REALLY hoping is that someone cleverer than me has a better solution.
While I'm not arguing that its particular clever, one way to diminish the problem of recognizing cards is to draw the cards from location decks differently.
The idea is to draw randomly from an ordered deck instead of drawing the top card of a random deck. You thus do not see the top card until you draw it and lose the information that the top sleeves would convey.
One can also show that the probabilities do not change between the methods by appropriate extensions.
THE METHOD:
When setting up location decks, start with all the sleeved cards and put the cards from the box on top. DON'T SHUFFLE THE DECK.
Now, whenever you have to manipulate (e.g. draw, examine, discard, banish, bury, etc) the top card from the deck, roll a die and use that number to determine which card is currently the top card of the deck.
E.g., if your location deck has 10 cards, use a d10 and if you roll a 6, treat the 6th card counting from top to bottom as the top card. If your location has 9 cards, use d10 and re-roll if you get a 10.
Use a d8 for 8 and 7 cards, d6 for 6 and 5, d4 for the rest, with re-rolls as necessary to not shift the probability.
For best results, use a d10 as marker of the cards left in the deck so that you can pick the correct dice quickly.
Whenever you need to fix the order of the top cards of a deck (e.g. augury), put them face up on top and manipulate the top card as usual until the top card is face down again, then go back to the method above.
Whenever you need to fix the order of the bottom cards of a deck (e.g. augury), put them face up below the deck and draw randomly from the face down cards as above until you are left with only face up cards.
Whenever you need to shuffle a deck, just flip all cards face down and continue as usual - this method actually saves all the shuffling!
I use this method when I play solo since I'm not able to shuffle the decks properly by myself (villains and henchman either all end up at the bottom or the top of the deck when I shuffle normally..).
In particular, if all your cards look the same, you can effectively save time from shuffling.
You will still see the sleeves once the card runs low and get additional information, and its not really applicable for character decks since the recharge mechanic can not be properly conveyed, but in your scenario it's a compromise between heavy set up and scrying lite that does not immediately tell you where each character should explore to get his own boons back.
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wow ...
I already sleeve my base set so I just showed up with extra sleeves. Everyone sleeved their decks with the same sleeves used on the base set. Made it very easy.
If you have two of the same class decks, grab a Sharpie and mark the bottom corner of one of the decks.
wow ...
I already sleeve my base set so I just showed up with extra sleeves. Everyone sleeved their decks with the same sleeves used on the base set. Made it very easy.
If you have two of the same class decks, grab a Sharpie and mark the bottom corner of one of the decks.
Sure, that is the prefered solution and also what I did. If its an option, it is clearly superior in every way.
Independent from the scenario, the method I proposed is just a means to generate randomness via die rolls if shuffling doesn't work out for whatever reason.
However, in the situation that people want to play the scenario without ever resleeving any cards (for whatever reason), it's additionally a little less transparent than playing with a mixed set of sleeves in the normal way.
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We finished our playthrough of 2-3 tonight, and in general, it went more smoothly than I expected. I actually enjoyed 2-3C quite a bit. Setup wasn't that big a deal, and it was fun to have the wrong cards. I was really worried about 2-3D because of all the dex/disable checks, but with a combination of an agility and find traps spells, blessings (esp of Abadar), and stat gems, we didn't have a problem. And now we have role cards and an option to play a new character with the best deck ever.
Glad to see you embrace the crazy :)
Setup wasn't that big a deal,
I disagree completely
and it was fun to have the wrong cards.
This was fun but not worth the hassle.
So we revisited season 2. Came to "2-3C: CURSES! FOILED AGAIN" and we just skipped it. All of us remember the pain in the *** this was.
I do want to commend the designers for thinking out of the box and how unique the scenario was, but in the end we didn't want to deal with this.
P.S. We all have sleeved cards, that could have added to the Trepidation.
2-3C is a definitely a love-it-or-hate-it scenario. I think it's my all-time favorite OP scenario. Our Olenjack player -- who is a build-a-well-oiled-precision-deck kind of player -- hated it with a passion & would never play it again.