OK, to get this out of the way - "you can't really lose the scenario" is not part of the discussion. Our goal in playing this would be to get the Mumminophrah's Favor loot item, as we see that as the 'canon' story, and the right way to defeat the scenario.
So, this was the most fun-smothering PACG scenario we've played since the Siege of Drezen (players had PTSD flashbacks of fighting those consecutive Armies; assuming a fetal position and rocking away in a corner were involved) AND the most unrewarding one since Black Magga (Congratulations! Your reward for beating the scenario is all those crappy cards you had to acquire anyway, in order to defeat the scenario!)
My question is, how would you approach this scenario with a big party if you want to gain the loot at the end?
The big issue seems to be that while the Cultist Charioteers get all the cards you fail to defeat/acquire in their single stack, the other cards are spread into individual player stacks. And to be sure of acquiring the Loot when the Finish Line is encountered, at least one character must have a stack with 1 more cards than those in the Charioteers stack.
We played 2 turns in total, encountering the wrong boons with the wrong people (i.e. they went to the Charioteers), then we restarted, as we realized this was not going to work that way. We adopted the following strategy:
- players 1-4 do "empty" turns, giving 1 explore card to player 5
- player 5 does one mega-turn, encountering as many cards as possible; in their turn, player 6's Zadim recharges cards to examine the next card, or discards weapons to boost player 5's combat
- player 6 Zadim has an 'empty' turn and refills their hand.
Even with this tactic, a couple of encounter Trigers and all those pesky Cameltrops made sure Player 5 was just 1 card ahead of the Charioteers when the Finish Line came up (so just barely enough). Even then, you can probably imagine how most of the players didn't have the time of their life, just passing cards along, doing empty turns, and optimizing their hands.
To point out, for any given card, the odds are heavily against you, as you roll 6x (d6+d8) for the Charioteers and take the biggest result. Someone better at maths can tell me what average this gives, but with possibly a couple of exception, the result was always upwards of 10.
- So, for Boon Acquisition, we need to beat a check of 16 (which is often undoable for even the most well-rounded character, unless you throw in 3+ Blessings)
- for Combat, we had to beat checks of 21+ (not *that* bad with Zadim in the group, but quite unpleasant and resourse-eating otherwise)
So, to reiterate, can y'all give a better alternative strategy for gaining the Loot, that doesn't involve concentrating all encounters on 1 character? Thanks in advance.
Poor Longshot, seems you are still stuck with that story
As I said previously, it seems we had a much easier time with 6 players.
It involved indeed giving key cards from one character to another and clever usage of blessings to boost difficult aquisitions.
And relying on Mavaro, Ahmotep and Maat to cleverly modify some rolls afterwards.
Clever examinations (examining a boon rarely makes you lose it, so many examine powers allow you get to tigger and get rid of banes and reorganise boons so that the good guy will encounter it).
Some thinking on whether it is best or not to reexplore on your turn depending on what you have left to secure the next roll if needs be.
Deciding which boons you don't fight for.
We love cameltrops.
Now I must admit that our group is always quite balanced between heavy hitter and support guys. And in this kind of scenarios, support guys rock. If you have only Zadim-like characters, with tremendous dice in combat but d4 in some other areas, may be more of an issue.
But if I remember well, at that time in the adventure, all the basic boons are still in the locations, so they are pretty easy to get (anyone can beat a CON/FOR 2 check for basic armor).
Poor Longshot, seems you are still stuck with that story
Heh, yeah :) That's the reason the party would consider we "failed" the scenario if we didn't get the Loot, but it's not strictly relevant to the required tactics.
We love cameltrops.
Can you elaborate on that? It seems you adopted the same tactics that we did - but then your Main Guy should've had quite the bigger stack compared to Charioteers, so the Cameltrops should've been hurting you?
But if I remember well, at that time in the adventure, all the basic boons are still in the locations, so they are pretty easy to get (anyone can beat a CON/FOR 2 check for basic armor).
But - that's the thing. In this scenario, the boon's check is irrelevant, as you're really competing with the Charioteers' result. So every single boon has a check to acquire 15+
In the testing of this scenario that I did with a large group, the group handily won. With time not much of a factor (finishing faster can mean fewer cameltrops, but there's no pressure on ability to get through all the cards), we pretty much drowned every check in bonuses, then were good about healing back up as needed.
It's a very different way of playing the game, and not one that should apply all the time; that said, this is a single scenario that you can easily get through if it's not fun for you.
Looking back over the play throughs I have on record, it looks like discarding Wadjet for acquires and discard/recharging Abadar for barriers and after the fact Maat, Mahga, Lottery Urn, Bastet were all pretty awesome/necessary for making things happen.
Chief Technical Officer
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It has been long enough since I played this with my group of 5 that I don't recall the specifics of our strategies, but I remember thinking that as we approached the endgame, there wasn't much doubt that we were going to earn the loot. (And I don't think "empty turns" were a significant part of the strategy.)
I remember thinking that as we approached the endgame, there wasn't much doubt that we were going to earn the loot. (And I don't think "empty turns" were a significant part of the strategy.)
It just occurs to me that this scenario is heavily influenced by the order of cards in the location decks.
- With Zadim and Ahmotep on the scene, and a couple of BoMaat on hand, even a single 1-die Blessing mostly assured that will trump any Combat check
- with at least 1 BoAbadar or Find Traps around at any given time, we were also assured to beat any pesky Barrier
So, if the top cards in Camel Race happened to all be Monsters and Barriers - the Cultists wouldn't stand a chance of getting even a single card.
Ironically enough, the real 'bane' for us were the boons. A measly BoAncients suddenly turns into a Divine 16+ challenge that no one but Divine casters can hope to match. You just have to have the right person encountering the right boon, and even then - you need to throw at least 1 Blessing for a 50/50 chance.
I see now how luck of the draw on the location (card types and checks to acquire) can turn this scenario into a park walk. We just don't like leaving things to luck. So, pardon the rant-iness of my OP :)