My friend and I are starting a SotS adventure. I have the most up to date scenario versions and noticed none of the scenarios give a bonus deck upgrade, unlike Season of the Runelords. Is this correct or am I missing something?
There were no scenarios that gave a bonus deck upgrade in SotS, correct, but there were many scenarios that let you draw a random card of a type from your class deck box, which is better than nothing.
Season of Plundered Tombs actually has very few scenarios with bonus deck upgrades right now.
How often do people find that there are more than 1 upgrade available in a scenario? When you do, in particular - do you have a small group? Is it almost entirely at the beginning of a new tier? How often do you finish up a tier still needing upgrades that you could have gotten earlier with a bonus upgrade?
I'm not that big a fan of bonus upgrades, because I don't think they're that helpful except for frontloading upgrades to early in the tier instead of over the course of the tier (which I don't think has a very positive effect). I like to use them very sparingly, like when I want a scenario to give out a bonus item or blessing or similar, then adding in a bonus upgrade on top is good.
PluTo in particular has a lot of access to give out - traders, loot, card access to things like remove curse for the MM mechanics, and deck options for new characters, so I wouldn't expect to see a lot of bonus upgrades.
How often do people find that there are more than 1 upgrade available in a scenario? When you do, in particular - do you have a small group? Is it almost entirely at the beginning of a new tier? How often do you finish up a tier still needing upgrades that you could have gotten earlier with a bonus upgrade?
I'm not that big a fan of bonus upgrades, because I don't think they're that helpful except for frontloading upgrades to early in the tier instead of over the course of the tier (which I don't think has a very positive effect). I like to use them very sparingly, like when I want a scenario to give out a bonus item or blessing or similar, then adding in a bonus upgrade on top is good.
PluTo in particular has a lot of access to give out - traders, loot, card access to things like remove curse for the MM mechanics, and deck options for new characters, so I wouldn't expect to see a lot of bonus upgrades.
Keith, that assumes that you pick the right option the first time every time; I will often use "extra" deck upgrades to experiment with low tier options at higher levels for my deck. If you look at my retired Damiel that I used for all of SotRu, specifically my 2-6 plays, I juggled around with different item combinations (and even though it's not listed in the plays, I also juggled around with different substitutions of the Robe of Runes as well; I found the Chest of Keeping too fiddly so I tended to sub that out most of the time.)
You can also get really unlucky; our current PluTo play had around 8 or so deck 1 upgrades available, with 5 players most of the time (If I look at my play upgrade notes I would have a better idea - I really wish the session submission was a bit more granular. Even just adding a field for the AD number would be nice). I have a single deck 1 upgrade on my Varril, and it's an Armor.
We _are_ running out of things to deck upgrade, but that's a function of the lack of variety of upgrades (on Tier) rather than our characters being fully decked out. I don't see this as being a huge problem as Traders and Loot make up for the gap, as you said (except during Specials)
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I do think that SotRu had quite a few bonus upgrades where we got spoiled. Looking at PluTo, I'm fine without having so many bonus upgrades. But there are some scenarios where the point is to plunder the tomb and gather stuff. That's when I feel like it thematically deserves a bonus upgrade. (But you and I have had this conversation before, Keith.) I would prefer not to have as many bonus upgrades in PluTo and later seasons. With traders, towards the end of Adv3, we should be able to make better use of the merchants.
How often do people find that there are more than 1 upgrade available in a scenario? When you do, in particular - do you have a small group? Is it almost entirely at the beginning of a new tier? How often do you finish up a tier still needing upgrades that you could have gotten earlier with a bonus upgrade?
We usually play OP with 2 or 3 characters. So not a big group.
But the main reason we look for the bonus upgrades or draw-x-from-box rewards is to balance the scenarios that gave one character zip.Playing the Wrath season now, and two scenarios in a row had 1 or 2 spells and blessings, respectively. Odds of my summoner getting a current-tier spell? Pretty low. Odds of getting something usable? Barely decent.
Then we have a scenario where we acquire 3 or 4 spells, allies, and blessings. Pick one, bemoan the others.
So I find we always end a tier with slots left to upgrade. And not just that elusive blessing or a second ally, but something primary like a spell or weapon.
And I can't say one way or the other whether it's front-loaded. It's totally scenario-dependent.
On the flipside, while loot access is nice, it's very party dependent. And getting it in four out of five scenarios is a little monotonous. :)
Maybe if I could burn a die bump to grab a second upgrade?
Or if that were the organizer reward for reporting a whole adventure? Given to anyone at the table, of course.
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I'd be happier with rewards like "Each player can draw a card of *type* with AD#(within 1 of scenario) from the box." Especially adventure 2 - still so many B cards in the box, no purging yet. Looking at my chronicles of seasons past, I generally only get 1-2 upgrades in all of adventure 2. PluTo was no exception - got 1 armor and 1 ally; nothing else was even AD1. And the ally was from the freebie that we add due to the adventure. (It was in my deck so I presumed it was okay for use as an upgrade)
Most bonus upgrades go to waste for me.
I tend to favor those a lot in high AD, since you have so little time to get those juicy boons. (see Season of the Righteous)
Interesting points, all. Thanks!