| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Alahazra (Wandering Prophet) has a power that lets you draw a card whenever you examine a character or location deck. Given the high number of cards that recharge to allow a peek at a deck and cards like the detect spells, this allows for easy cycling through Alahazra's deck multiple times in one turn to remove all of x card type from a location deck.
Take, for instance, the following Alahazra deck:
-5 blessings (any type, but particularly nasty if they're Nethys)
-Clockwork Butterfly*
-Boatswain*
-Any third ally, potentially another recharge to examine
-Seer's Headdress*
-Scrying Mirror*
-Detect Magic*
-Augury*
-Detect Demon*
-2 other spells, potentially also examining location decks and recharging
The cards marked with an asterisk all recharge and allow you to examine a location deck. Most are basic. With this deck, once you can auto recharge Augury (divine 8, and you could use a cat or mythic path or something), then playing any asterisk card immediately replaces itself. Potentially, and without undo difficulty, you're deck consists of nothing but asterisk cards and blessings. You then have to play out all your non examine cards, which you will draw a full hand of immediately by playing examine cards, at once you're clear of the cards that don't examine you can infinitely loop through your deck. As you do, Detect Magic and Clockwork Butterfly allow you to encounter all Blessings, Allies, and magic trait boons at your location, and Detect Demon lets you encounter demons, if you want. Augury provides any shuffling needed.
As to those who think this setup is unlikely, remember that most of the cards are basic, and a lot of them are even in the Oracle Class Deck. Furthermore, Alahazra's ability to examine extra cards encourages building this exact type of deck.
I'm seeing the Radillo problem here, although slightly less powerful because you can't throw in a Teleport. I don't have any pretty solutions yet, though.
Thoughts?
That's not going to work in Mummy's Mask. You may be in for a surprise if you try it.
Also, the Oracle class deck doesn't have an Augury in it.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Listen. You can't disappear from the forums for a while, pop back in because of how cool the Goblin Class Decks are, then go all "Restoration" on a character. It just isn't proper.
Just kidding. In all seriousness, I was going to point out that such a build would only take a "horde" or someone else's actions forcing you to encounter a monster to get you killed, then I remembered CD Alahazra also has a power to define her combat checks. And that she has feats for that power that let her recharge the cards she feeds it if they are spells or blessings.
This sort of gets at the issue of how concerned the designers should be about CD Characters being played in non-organized play. zeroth_hour2 points out the lack of Augury in the Oracle deck, which would limit such a thing, but it also isn't too hard to imagine people using the CD characters in regular "home" play. (I know I do it).
I'll have to think on it more to give more of a response than that. But for real, glad to see you posting again. Don't disappear for so long again.
That's not going to work in Mummy's Mask. You may be in for a surprise if you try it.
Also, the Oracle class deck doesn't have an Augury in it.
Why, banes that do something when you examine them? And it not being a problem in MM doesn't make it okay.
No it doesn't, which really surprised me. It does have a scrying. And it's not like it's hard to find some way to shuffle a location deck.
Listen. You can't disappear from the forums for a while, pop back in because of how cool the Goblin Class Decks are, then go all "Restoration" on a character. It just isn't proper.
...
But for real, glad to see you posting again. Don't disappear for so long again.
You're going to make me blush
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not saying it's not a problem - I just haven't thought through the scenarios hard enough yet.
Tanis' blog for the Oracle class deck talked about the lack of Augury.
I too agree with Hawkmoon - you're a valuable member of the community :)
|
Relevant to this discussion: Oracle class deck does have Wolf and Lookout, both of which allow scouts. It's entirely possible for CD Alahazra to get half her deck as scouts.
That said, I've had very few opportunities where things like clockwork butterfly and detect magic have really worked in my favor in SotRu. Most of these scouts don't actually give an explore.
But, then, I am generally using Scrying for things like scouting the omnipresent Warrens, rather than attempting to exploit the system.
...
Tanis' blog for the Oracle class deck talked about the lack of Augury.
I too agree with Hawkmoon - you're a valuable member of the community :)
I'll have to read that.
You guys sure know how to make a guy feel appreciated :D
Relevant to this discussion: Oracle class deck does have Wolf and Lookout, both of which allow scouts. It's entirely possible for CD Alahazra to get half her deck as scouts.
That said, I've had very few opportunities where things like clockwork butterfly and detect magic have really worked in my favor in SotRu. Most of these scouts don't actually give an explore.
It's very easy. I'm about to start a game with her in S&S, and all my allies and items recharge to examine, and I have 3 detect magics, for a starting deck of 8/15 recharge to examines (not for this exploit, I anticipate that getting fixed, but because it sounds fun as I can still combat with her power).
But Detect Magic and CW Butterfly will let you encounter if you do it right - like by examining the deck to determine when to play them. It's perfectly acceptable before the exploit, but once that gets going it's infinite potential encounters at a location.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I too agree with Hawkmoon - you're a valuable member of the community :)
You guys sure know how to make a guy feel appreciated :D
Yes now we just need the mummies promo cards out there to get Myfly back on line and we'll have the core veteran team together again ;-)
Welcome back Orbis.
Indeed, welcome back Orbis!
I was going to hold off on commenting until I got home so I can check out how doable this is with only Oracle CD cards, but my opinion is that if a CD character would be broken in a home game (aka where you aren't limited to just cards in the CD), then that's bad too. If they're broken in a way that requires cooperation between multiple players though, that's more fine -- if the group does exploit it, then it means the group as a whole likely finds that kind of activity fun so there's less of a reason to block it. It's when a solo character can apply an amount of cheese that makes other players not like it very much that I take issue with it.
Indeed, welcome back Orbis!
I was going to hold off on commenting until I got home so I can check out how doable this is with only Oracle CD cards, but my opinion is that if a CD character would be broken in a home game (aka where you aren't limited to just cards in the CD), then that's bad too. If they're broken in a way that requires cooperation between multiple players though, that's more fine -- if the group does exploit it, then it means the group as a whole likely finds that kind of activity fun so there's less of a reason to block it. It's when a solo character can apply an amount of cheese that makes other players not like it very much that I take issue with it.
Cooperation is not necessary.
So after spending some time thinking hard on the matter, I still don't have any good ideas. Things I've considered:
([ ] Then you may discard a card to draw 2 cards)
This keeps the power functionally the same; if you play a card to examine a deck, you don't net a loss in hand cards, and if you examine without playing a card, you net a +1 to hand. However, provided there's never a card that heals and examines or let's you draw a card, Alahazra can only activate this power so many times before it kills her. This makes her substantially more fragile however, and gives her unprecedented levels of digging through a character deck. It's very aggressive but very powerful, even without the infinite loop.
([ ] And you may draw a card at the end of the turn) {Or similar}
This is a huge nerf to her, and is pretty much just +1 hand size
([ ] Then you may draw a random card from your discard pile)
This seems like it would work except that it just makes it so you go infinite not when your deck is low, but when your discard is empty. For example, infinite Augury's and Detect Magics by declining the recharge when your discard is empty. Also you heal yourself by playing lots of recharge examines. This is actually worse the more I think about it.
([ ] Then you may {do something other than draw, like heal a card} )
This seems like the least broken fix, but it's a completely different power, so...
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
I'm not sure this build is actually a problem...yes, in an ideal circumstance you sweep through a location in one turn. But until you get a method of shuffling, you could be stymied by a bane that you can't defeat sitting on top. Even if you use this to sort to the henchman/villain, you may not be able to close the location either.
Remember you will have dumped your own blessings to set up the engine, and the other players have limited cards to help on your "superturn."
Basically, I think this is a strong build but I'm not sure it's broken in actual play.
Going through a location in about a turn was pretty normal with solo Lini. In later RotRL, a fairly normal Ezren managed to go through multiple location decks in a turn, closing them despite the needing to pass Survival checks. My S&S Alahazra would scoop the boons off the top off all the decks and then kill the banes at 2 to 4 locations (Pterodactyls are great allies).
The main issues are:
* Augury/Scrying is too good when a character has multiples of them; you might need to make them discard/bury instead of recharge/discard to make them fair (although some characters want their favourite cards in the discard pile)
* Examining cards is too powerful without the compensating banes that will be in MM (you get enjoyment from mastery but lose the fun of pushing your luck -- at least in theory, in my games their was so much examination going on that 'OMG, are you really going to do a blind
explore?!' pretty much did get said)
* Many of the spellcasters have powers that let them go infinite
* Alahazra is just awesome
I'm not sure this build is actually a problem...yes, in an ideal circumstance you sweep through a location in one turn. But until you get a method of shuffling, you could be stymied by a bane that you can't defeat sitting on top. Even if you use this to sort to the henchman/villain, you may not be able to close the location either.
Remember you will have dumped your own blessings to set up the engine, and the other players have limited cards to help on your "superturn."
Basically, I think this is a strong build but I'm not sure it's broken in actual play.
The build is based on the premise that you have some way to shuffle, just like the Radillo exploit. Even if we narrow this down to just Augury, that still leaves any game with Augury as a problem. I don't think it's right to say, "not every adventure path has Augury, so this isn't a problem."
With the ability to auto recharge Augury, the "super turn" easily becomes "examine your location deck, and encounter all blessings and boons with the magic trait. You can then enter your move step, move to another location, and do the same thing."
Healing aside, your deck will naturally approach this stage over the course of a scenario if your deck is built to capitalize on Alahazra's extra scouting power. I discovered it while considering roles because my deck was already built in such a way that it would reach this build naturally (I was already cramming it with recharge to examine cards). I think it's completely plausible that a player could accidentally fall into the infinite loop, or near to it, before they realize it; then they have to decide whether to handicap themselves or not. "Hmm, I'll only play TEN spells this turn. Any more is too much."
I honestly think this is worse than the Restoration exploit, not because it's more powerful, but because I think it will happen at some point for half the CD Alahazra players.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think this exploit is serious, and I'm surprised not to see more concern about it. Especially since the cards required are so low-level.
The examples given of Lini and Ezren don't seem to address the point. Lini is slowed down by combats, and Ezren relies on the location decks having magic boons he can acquire. This Alahazra exploit is fully under the control of the player and can be used in every scenario, starting in early scenarios.
I think this exploit is serious, and I'm surprised not to see more concern about it. Especially since the cards required are so low-level.
The examples given of Lini and Ezren don't seem to address the point. Lini is slowed down by combats, and Ezren relies on the location decks having magic boons he can acquire. This Alahazra exploit is fully under the control of the player and can be used in every scenario, starting in early scenarios.
One correction - not early scenarios; the exploitable power is on a role card, so not until AP4
Thanks, I missed that.
Any updates or new thoughts on this?