Or maybe is it a 300ish expansion, not 110 cards (small) or 500+ (base set) box. A self contained Adventure 7-9 to be used in conjunction with any previously release Base Set AP or OPAP.
It would also allow players to dust off those "retired" Adventurers from completed APs to come back for a "final fight of true skill and courage."
If an Adventure 7-9 (or similar) was added and few boons were added (loot only), this should ramp up the difficulty with scaling monsters/henchmen/villians (for those that want a harder challenge). But we would get a chance to increase role variants and get those Adventure 6 boons, and have a chance to shine (or die).
Plus, it could be done after any AP from any Base set with any Character from any set... so the ability to replay Adventure 7-9 (hardmode) would feel equally unique based on which base set (or character deck) was used.
Just a thought.
Then you would not use your level 9 loot ;)
But yeah only minions, traps and doom expansion that would be so difficult that Wrath would be pale comparison to it... I would like it :)We don't need new loot or boons!
We need misery and fame!
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Then no loot. Just Banes and locations along with Adventure and Scenario cards.
Who needs loot when you get Glory!
I assume you neither know of this blog post nor played WotR.
Using the setup as described, you get to have every feat available, and the final scenario won't give you any Loot. It is overall exactly what you describe. When you finish WotR (either vanilla or like in the blog post), I don't think there is any incentive for continuation of the characters.
I did read that post, although "exactly" is not quite accurate.
That post is a mod... Not the same thing.
As this would be a separate Adventure path not needing a specific Base Set (as your example is specific, mine is not). And you could earn more role feats, not given. This would also include a new Adventure (as I am sure there are plenty of shorter unused Pathfinder Adventures out there that need slaying), new locations, new banes, not reuse old versions in a new way. I am not interested in an old wine poured from a new bottle...
And unlike yourself, I would very much like to continue on with my "retired" characters.
Also, I wouldn't spend $20 each on 3 adventure expansions to a set I do not own, but I would spend $30-40 on a box set that can be added to any box.
Just some points of contention.
Or from a different perspective, this idea.
What if an Adventure Path ranged from the 4-6 difficulty range? And could also be added to any base set?
I have read where others want some differing scenario/paths and they would like them shorter, as a 6 Adventure is sometimes hard to get a group around collectively for such an extended journey.
It could ease the playability of casual groups by dedicating less time by reusing an already recorded character for less scenarios.
This could also open the doors for more adventures without having to buy more base sets and expansions for those who just want more stories and cannot afford continuous base sets and expansions.
$30-40 for more fun with what I already own vs. (at msrp) $60 base, $20 for 6 expansions ($180 total)(although I am aware that if you purchase used or from Coolstuffinc this price can be greatly reduced).
I would be more inclined to spend $30-40 every 6-8 months than $180 every 16 months or so...
Yes, along those lines, my current vision of breaking the "One base set and 6 expansions" model would include:
* A universal base set box, as others have said before. Which honestly could be the RotR box, though I could understand if they wanted to sell a new product rather than up-value one that's possibly already saturated.
* Standardising the concept of "levels", presumably in a way such that level n corresponds to adventure deck n.
* Writing adventures which might start at a level higher than zero.
So you could buy and play a level 3 campaign, which might leave you at level 6 at the end of it, being equivalent to decks 3-5 in the old system. You could either bring along your characters who you've leveled up to level 3 already playing some other product, or if you hadn't done that and just wanted to jump straight into this interesting looking level 3 campaign you could make new characters according to some set of standard rules (e.g. you'd pick 3 card feats, 3 power feats and 3 skill feats, and start with any cards of your choice from deck 1 and lower).
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I did read that post, although "exactly" is not quite accurate.
That post is a mod... Not the same thing.
As this would be a separate Adventure path not needing a specific Base Set (as your example is specific, mine is not). And you could earn more role feats, not given. This would also include a new Adventure (as I am sure there are plenty of shorter unused Pathfinder Adventures out there that need slaying), new locations, new banes, not reuse old versions in a new way. I am not interested in an old wine poured from a new bottle...
And unlike yourself, I would very much like to continue on with my "retired" characters.
Also, I wouldn't spend $20 each on 3 adventure expansions to a set I do not own, but I would spend $30-40 on a box set that can be added to any box.
Just some points of contention.
I think we are having a misunderstanding, given that you do not own WotR and most likely never played it.
AD4-6 of WotR scale exactly like you would expect AD7-9 to scale, both in terms of boons as well as banes. If you start with a retired character from another set at WotR AD4, then you will earn *all* missing feats - power feats, skill feats, card feats. There won't be anything left to learn. Once you finish WotR, you also have all the strongest cards in the entire game, as the game makes sure of that. At this point, your characters can not getter better in any way, and given that the incentive of boons falls away, I doubt there is good reason to continue playing those characters. Even if you just want to use them to stomp some monsters - you can do that by replaying the last scenario, which is one epic fighting gauntlet.
You want something modular that works with any AP, and I'm telling you that the fact alone that WotR can continue the other APs implies that any modular continuation for RotR, SnS and MM will automatically not work on WotR in terms of difficulty.
Besides, I doubt such a modular approach can work just because every set focuses on different mechanics, and if you don't add any new boons, then most cards in your deck might become very inefficient. If you come from SnS with a pirate themed deck, and there are no banes in your expansion that interact with them, they become useless. On the other hand, if your banes require pirate themed cards, then you're out of luck if you come from RotR or MM. You see the issue here? It doesn't get better if your expansion is also supposed to work with future APs.
Besides, if you don't want to see the same 8 location over and over through the new 15 scenarios, you need a whole lot of new location cards as well. With a price of 20$/100 cards, you're easily in the 40-50+$ range again. I get that buying a new set just to continue the old one is too expensive in terms of what you want to do, but getting it used might be cheaper than what you would buy anyway, while getting you more at the same time.
I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think the game is set up in a way that supports expansions that work on several APs simultaneously. Mike's proposal works and fits into the pathfinder setting with regards to power scaling in terms of narrative, and WotR is already build around getting the most out of your characters.
My 2 immediate desires would be
- personal or group stash to trade with prior to a scenario
- character advancement not tied to specific scenarios
This is coming purely from the Adventure Path line; I've never played the society scenarios so maybe those things already are factored in.
This is coming purely from the Adventure Path line; I've never played the society scenarios so maybe those things already are factored in.
There's no stash equivalent, but you earn the ability to swap out cards in your deck with Loot cards from the game box. Plundered Tombs (using the Mummy's Mask set) also has an adaptation of the Trader mechanic, though so far we've only been using it to get Basic Blessings.
Character advancement is tied to completing scenarios, but not specific ones: when you complete your first/second/fourth scenario at a Tier you earn a skill/power/card feat. Occasionally you might earn an extra feat of one type or another.
The APs still play best if you play them with the same group in order, IMO.
My favorite ideas from this thread:
Have an optional rule section to make the game officially easier or harder, including removing permadeath, the stash area and the many other great optional ideas. Having a page of optional rules that make the game harder or easier would be helpful to the "the game is too easy / hard" discussions and add some variety.
A generic level 7 - 9 campaign. Not boring generic, but one that is box set agnostic and could accommodate characters who completed any adventure path.
Better box design.
A better base box idea that builds on cards you already have instead of having to buy a whole box set again.
Better avenues for storytelling like an official book with the game.
I would like less shuffling and setup, but I'm not sure how to do that without losing what the game gives in variety. But when I flip the first card on a location deck and I get a henchman, I have mixed emotions. First: "Yea, I get to close the location!" and then "boo. I shuffled all those cards for nothing..." and "look at that great loot I now can't get".... Maybe those cards could be used at the end of the game AFTER you defeat the villain if there are blessing cards left?
At the risk of sounding like a kiss-up, if we are serious about helping to design a game, we should read a book about it. I was looking for one this past winter and read a good one:
Have an optional rule section to make the game officially easier or harder, including removing permadeath, the stash area and the many other great optional ideas. Having a page of optional rules that make the game harder or easier would be helpful to the "the game is too easy / hard" discussions and add some variety.
I just want to say I don't like the idea of there being a general mishmash of optional rules. I really like having a single recommended way to play. I'm all for there being a hard mode, but I'd want it to be of the form "For hard mode, do X", not "Here's a big list of stuff you can do to make it harder".
I feel like we already have that big list of options. What we don't have is a good reason to pick one thing from the list over another, or a sense that when we do pick something it isn't just arbitrary.
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As can easily seen from this thread, different people have different preferences for what would be the 'right' way to implement a 'hard mode'. That means that having a single recommended way to play (or, technically, a second recommended way to play - we already have one) is guaranteed to upset people if that one recommendation doesn't match what they want.
The advantage of a big list of things you can do is that each group can choose the ones that they are happy with, and play the way they want to play. A "one size fits all" approach only works if that one size does, in fact, fit.
I still think there are two kind of changes/evolutions/additions that can be possible for the game: those that would force to change the cards and those which don't.
In the second case, it is your game. Whatever you want for your game (hard mode, stash, locations movement....), just do it. Try, experience, feel free to change your mind, and get the game closest to YOUR idea of fun. Write your own scenarios or characters to start with. Write your own additional cards too. You can even create new support cards types for specific adventure. In all those cases, you can use the game as is.
What is way more tricky is what would we change in the way cards are written for all the existing banes and boons.
The advantage of a big list of things you can do is that each group can choose the ones that they are happy with, and play the way they want to play. A "one size fits all" approach only works if that one size does, in fact, fit.
This.
Also, and I should have mentioned this before as one of my reasons for a page of options: Not everyone is a die hard grognard or super player. Some people, I believe, buy the game, play it and if it is too hard, discard it. Not everyone runs to a webpage to look up strategy and can calculate statistical probability in their head (or would think that is interesting anyway...).
One page of options to make the game easier or harder would appeal to the group of people who aren't here at all to discuss the game. They just grab some characters, play with friends or family and, if it's too hard, put it on a shelf and never play again. I lean more toward the grognard side of things, but some people just want to pick a character because they "look cool" and want to play. Those people especially would benefit from a page of options.
In fact, and I bet someone at Paizo has this information, I wonder how many base sets have sold as compared to say... AP6's? That would tell us how many people actually gave up on the game....
At the risk of sounding like a kiss-up, if we are serious about helping to design a game, we should read a book about it. I was looking for one this past winter and read a good one:
Uhhhh... you realize who wrote that book?
(Hint: he's the designer of the game you're playing :) )
At the risk of sounding like a kiss-up, if we are serious about helping to design a game, we should read a book about it. I was looking for one this past winter and read a good one:
Uhhhh... you realize who wrote that book?
(Hint: he's the designer of the game you're playing :) )
I'm thinking that's the "kiss-up" part. :)
To Doppelschwert:
I think I follow. As I have only played through a few sessions of WotR I never made it beyond AD1. I have 2 questions:
1. When does the Mythic section kick in?
2. When do D20s start getting thrown around?
If these answers are the end of AD3, then a feasible AD4-6 "could" be possible.
I can see the problem with having useless cards from certain base sets, but that can be manageable (design team issues).
A short romp around different story lines that are not necessarily tied to any one base set is really what would be interesting.
I also see the potential issue with useless boons, although that was specific to a AD7-9 and not an AD4-6.
The 7-9 could be a "hardmode" which as you said can become highly problematic. Is then a potential solution to make short Adventures a 4-6 level? Which then includes anything a typical AD expansion box would? Possibly with some tinkering...
Thoughts?
One of the things I've always found annoying in the game and wish was different was the Attack trait. When trying to explain the game it is super confusing. "No, you are not using Attack, you are using a weapon. Attack is for combat spells"
I really would like it to be called basically anything else.
I think I follow. As I have only played through a few sessions of WotR I never made it beyond AD1. I have 2 questions:
1. When does the Mythic section kick in?
2. When do D20s start getting thrown around?
The answer to both these questions is: the start of AD 2.
If these answers are the end of AD3, then a feasible AD4-6 "could" be possible.
I'm not sure why you reach this conclusion...
The idea of playing Wrath with characters who have completed another set is that the characters you bring over never become Mythic. The reason Wrath AD4 is a challenge for AD7 characters from another set is you don't get any d20s.
One of the things I've always found annoying in the game and wish was different was the Attack trait. When trying to explain the game it is super confusing. "No, you are not using Attack, you are using a weapon. Attack is for combat spells"
I really would like it to be called basically anything else.
I see your point but on the other end for old RPG players like me, an attack spell is very meaningful. Any other term would create confusion too.
No simple solution I can think of.
I am trying to find out if at all possible we (or myself on Drivethru if necessary) can have a short (3 expansion, roughly 300 card) Adventure set in a new local that follows a different Pathfinder story line without all the need for the current model (base + 6 expansions) using any current base set.
The idea behind a 4-6 is that roles hav already been chosen and your adventurer already had a decent deck at that time.
This is no longer a hardmode expansion as Doppel has already pointed out the WotR model and I understand why now.
It just appears that WotR is a bit of a stickler on making a generic expansion due to mythic paths already being chosen and D20s being present.
Unless a shorter adventure comes by the way of 1-X and includes all boons/banes/locations at which point we are just removing the Base set from the current product model.
I am just trying to see if this idea can cohesively work.
At all... if not, then I suppose its back to RotR and S&S for me...
As can easily seen from this thread, different people have different preferences for what would be the 'right' way to implement a 'hard mode'. That means that having a single recommended way to play (or, technically, a second recommended way to play - we already have one) is guaranteed to upset people if that one recommendation doesn't match what they want.The advantage of a big list of things you can do is that each group can choose the ones that they are happy with, and play the way they want to play. A "one size fits all" approach only works if that one size does, in fact, fit.
People who want to do it their own way can already do it their own way, and can continue to do so in the future. Having a more official "hard mode" is irrelevant to them, in exactly the same way the a big list of potential house rules is irrelevant to me. We're just two groups of people with different needs that can be satisfied independently.
People might have different opinions on the "best" way to make a hard mode, but I still don't think I'm the only person who'd rather have an official version than just play the version I personally think is best.
I also don't think opinions on the different ways to make it harder are actually as divergent as you suggest in the first place. About all the disagreement I can find here is Longshot's comment that picking randomly from a list is not as good as something that's extending the existing scenario rules, which as far as I can tell everyone agrees with (I certainly do).
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Maybe not quite what you are looking for here but I'd like to see add-on packs that cover more monsters from the bestiaries, magical items, barriers, generic locations and so forth. Basically stuff you can add to your game.
I've played the games but I'd like the game to be more open. In fact i'd like to sort of run the PFACG like Pathfinder itself and create my own campaigns/adventures. Adding extra card packs of things that could be used as such or just added in to enhance the games would be nice.
Our situation: We are playing RotR as two players (Wizard, Fighter). We are about to start AD 5, scenario 2. We have lost 2-3 scenarios (because of below increases), but otherwise have ripped through the game will not much resistance. We generally finish in 18-25 turns. We have attempted to increase the difficulty by the following:
1) Increased locations to five.
2) Increased all combats by AD number, including henchmen and villain.
3) Removed majority of d10 weapons from game.
4) Removed spells that centered around scrying/exploring of location deck. Removed d12 spells, such as Poison Blast.
Despite the increases, game is not very challenging at this point. The cumulative effect of items, blessings, weapon power discards make our rolls very high. The increases in adventure difficulty have not kept pace with our increases in power. It is not even close. In effort to make more balanced, we replayed AD 5.1 with new house rule:
For weapons, you reveal the card to add the traits of the weapon to your base ability check. If discard/bury/recharge power of the card is better than base ability check, you roll it INSTEAD of your base ability and discard/bury/recharge.
Spells work mostly the same way for those with the discard-recharge dynamic. You reveal to add the traits to your base ability check. If the discard/bury/recharge power is better, you roll it INSTEAD of your base ability and proceed with normal checks to recharge or discard. We handle display spells as they come up.
We won the scenario with four locations and no increase in difficulty in 26 turns. It was a lot more challenging. We each lost to a Mummy and buried over half of our cards. We are going to play AD 5.2 soon with 5 locations to see how that turns out.
I play in an alternate game WotR with four players and I am noticing the same character power creep in AD 1.4
In effort to make more balanced, we replayed AD 5.1 with new house rule:
For weapons, you reveal the card to add the traits of the weapon to your base ability check. If discard/bury/recharge power of the card is better than base ability check, you roll it INSTEAD of your base ability and discard/bury/recharge.
Spells work mostly the same way for those with the discard-recharge dynamic. You reveal to add the traits to your base ability check. If the discard/bury/recharge power is better, you roll it INSTEAD of your base ability and proceed with normal checks to recharge or discard. We handle display spells as they come up.
I'm not totally sure I understand what you are describing here. Can you walk me through an example? Let's say I'm Ezren. I've got to make a Combat 12 check. I've got Force Missile in my hand. What are my options?
I think he meant that you would either reveal Force Missile to use your Arcane skill and add the traits of Force Missile, resulting in 1d12+ Arcane Mod, or you would discard Force Missile to use 2d4 and add the traits of Force Missile, and I think the Arcane Mod is added as well (he didn't mention that the Mod is added explicitly, but I don't see any incentive to ever discard a card otherwise).
Instead of [1d12]+[2d4]+(2+Int Mod), you either reveal for [1d12]+(2+Int Mod) or discard for [2d4]+(2+Int Mod).
In short, you choose between using the die of your skill or the dice added by the weapon/spell for each combat check.
I'm not sure how blessings interact with these changes, but I struggle to see how this nerf still makes the game easy (even though it's understandable that vanilla RotR may be too easy when played with only 2 characters). Hitting numbers above 25 seems pretty hard with this setup.
I'm not totally sure I understand what you are describing here. Can you walk me through an example? Let's say I'm Ezren. I've got to make a Combat 12 check. I've got Force Missile in my hand. What are my options?In effort to make more balanced, we replayed AD 5.1 with new house rule:
For weapons, you reveal the card to add the traits of the weapon to your base ability check. If discard/bury/recharge power of the card is better than base ability check, you roll it INSTEAD of your base ability and discard/bury/recharge.
Spells work mostly the same way for those with the discard-recharge dynamic. You reveal to add the traits to your base ability check. If the discard/bury/recharge power is better, you roll it INSTEAD of your base ability and proceed with normal checks to recharge or discard. We handle display spells as they come up.
Yes. Ezren, has a Arcane d12 +2 skill. He would reveal the Force Missle to add Magic, Arcane, Attack, Force, and Basic traits. He can then use his Arcana skill as a combat check. Since the discard power of Force Missile is 2d4, it does not benefit him to do anything but reveal.
Let's look at Posion Blast to illustrate the effect of the house rule. Ezren could reveal the Poison Blast to add Magic, Arcane, Attack, Poison traits and use d12+2 as his combat check. Alternatively, he could discard (then recharge attempt) for a 2d12+2 combat check instead.Keep in mind we are making changes in the 5th adventure deck. If I did this from beginning, I would suggest changing core design of all characters using a d2(maybe),d4,d6,d8 as attribute dice; no attribute would use d10 or d12 initially (but could be developed through Power Feats later).
Ah. Ok. I didn't understand that you weren't using the Arcane still with the 2d4. Got it. Thanks for clarifying that for me.
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I guess my main issue is that the game is way too expensive. At around $80 or more for an entire set it's somewhat prohibitive to buy a full AP. Couple that with the fact that it takes a LOT of time to finish a full campaign so you can't really start up and end a game in one game night with friends.
In addition, the PACG Boxes are way too big to be realistically portable, so I can't take them to a friend's house the way I can my GMing supplies for a Pen and Paper session.
My suggestion would be to Publish Modules as a separate self-contained single part game product. Something like Masks of the Living God, which might only have 4 new (or even returning) characters, and isn't expandable with new adventures but would come in a smaller box and be cheaper, more portable, and quicker to play.
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I like the idea of optional rules / scenarios / etc. The Island of the Blind promo scenario (or whatever it was called) was neat.
It's fun to try to hunt rare cards, or cards that give rare experiences - like the Sandpoint Devil. Also, rare boons.
The traits on cards - it would be neat to see more interesting interactions between traits. There are some on character cards (like Meliski and the Gambling trait), and Mummy's did more with this (like the Trigger trait). This was cool.
Alternate paths or adventures is a good idea. A world to explore, with card sets tied to locations - any of which one could choose to travel to and adventure in. Maybe even the idea that the first adventure of an adventure path results not in defeating a villain, but in exploring a town and finding out what villains are out there to defeat...getting a quest to look after.
Also, side-quests...like the ability to go back and kill Hirgenzosk when I become a super-pirate and turn his shell into a sweet set of armor.
My suggestion would be to Publish Modules as a separate self-contained single part game product. Something like Masks of the Living God, which might only have 4 new (or even returning) characters, and isn't expandable with new adventures but would come in a smaller box and be cheaper, more portable, and quicker to play.
See your point but personaly wouldn't buy a RPG-like game that isn't expendable.
And would feel bad if Paizo was offering PACG stuff that I cannot add to my existing game.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Come to think of it, for "expert" level, you might have the party roll a d8 before playing. The increased difficulty effect - which could be thematic - would depend on what was rolled.
1: Tough Road: Add one additional location (e.g., in a 4-player game use the 5-player setup)
2: Rumors of your Arrival: Add one additional monster per location
3: Prepared Enemies: Add one additional barrier per location
etc
+1 to the above.It's easy enough to adjust the difficulty of the game today - there's no need to add "official rules" to do that.
My issue is that our VC will not let us do anything like this and keep it as an OP game. Since we don't want to lose the OP tag on our characters and have them legal we cannot instute increased difficulty.
I feel this mostly only applies to games with less players. I feel like in MM a 5 player table is balanced. If we end up with only 3 on a table its a joke.
I think he meant that you would either reveal Force Missile to use your Arcane skill and add the traits of Force Missile, resulting in 1d12+ Arcane Mod, or you would discard Force Missile to use 2d4 and add the traits of Force Missile, and I think the Arcane Mod is added as well (he didn't mention that the Mod is added explicitly, but I don't see any incentive to ever discard a card otherwise).
Instead of [1d12]+[2d4]+(2+Int Mod), you either reveal for [1d12]+(2+Int Mod) or discard for [2d4]+(2+Int Mod).
In short, you choose between using the die of your skill or the dice added by the weapon/spell for each combat check.
I'm not sure how blessings interact with these changes, but I struggle to see how this nerf still makes the game easy (even though it's understandable that vanilla RotR may be too easy when played with only 2 characters). Hitting numbers above 25 seems pretty hard with this setup.
We played AD 5.4 this AM with the above changes. We have also instituted blessings give a flat d6 or d8 (for those that have "discard for 2 dice" powers). Blessings use 5E advantage mechanic- roll two dice and take best.
Scenario was very tough, we finished on round 30. We discovered villain as 2nd card on top of last (fifth) location deck and used 2 rounds to prepare. We lost to her once in another location. Difficulty is 25 but Wizard able to play Wand of Envervation to decrease to 19. I played Shortspear +3, Blessing, Ally to add +6 combat damage, blessing from Wizard; check was d12+3(spear)+d6(best of)+d6(best of)+d6(ally)+5(STR+melee skill). I would have won w/o the Wand decrease.
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To provide a degree of counterpoint to some of the discussion that has taken place…
I like the current Adventure Path arrangement (my support for modular products is for such products to be an augmentation/addition to the line, not a replacement). Each of the adventure paths provides us with a unique, yet finite challenge and “setting” (though all fall within the larger setting of Golarion). I like that Rise of the Runelords gave us a “basic” version of the game while each of the succeeding APs has provided their own minor tweaks. I would like to see Paizo/LoneShark continue with the current Adventure Path arrangement and minor additions/variations thereof. While it would be nice to see a new AP each year, you can’t rush art or quality. So I see the modular products or variant scenarios/adventure ideas as a way for us to be presented with challenges to maintain our interest in the game.
And I don’t find the cost of the game prohibitive. Yes, a complete AP will cost someone $180 (minimum), but some players are able to get by on much less (nothing or $20 if they purchase a single class/character deck). If you look at the return on investment, one player going through an entire adventure path is looking at 33 or more scenarios, each taking about 1 hour to play (33+ hours). That’s about $5.50 per hour. A movie costs 3 times that amount. Most of us don’t play solo, though, so a group of 3 players going through an entire AP one time is paying $2 per hour (I’m rounding here). For larger groups, the cost per hour drops (unlike with a movie). And then you can factor in replays, with many of us playing through an AP more than once. Now some players are much less enthusiastic about the game and might limit themselves to just the base set (no character add-on deck or class/character decks or subsequent adventures). That’s 8 scenarios. A single player solo playing through the scenarios in the base set is paying $7.50 per hour, half (or less) the cost of a movie. If a group of 3 players limits themselves to the base set scenarios, they’re paying $2.40 per hour. For those on a budget, OP might be the way to go, limiting your expenditures to $20 for a single class/character deck. As long as one person in the gaming group can afford to, and is willing to, pay for the AP, most other members of the game group get by on paying little or nothing for the hours of entertainment they’re going to get in return (not including refreshments, etc.). Overall, I wouldn’t mind it much if some improvements to the game resulted in a slight increase to the cost of a base set. What those improvements might be is up for discussion, but I think that the overall return on investment shows that we’re getting a fair deal.
There have been a lot of recommendations/requests for ways to make the game more difficult. I think that it’s important to keep in mind that not all groups are the same, and that ratcheting the difficulty up across the board would probably be a very bad idea. There should be a baseline difficulty to the game (comparable across all APs in the aggregate, though each AP might present different aspects of difficulty to keep things fresh and distinctive). Methods of increasing game difficulty should be optional. I could see several ways of presenting players with official options (rather than homegrown options). First would be to provide some basic options in the rulebooks. Things like “adjacent” locations (such as we’ve seen in the electronic version of the game) wouldn’t work in this as they would require some additional game contents. Things like reduced blessing deck sizes, permadeath, modifications to blessings, etc., however, could very easily be provided as a stable of options that players might choose from, whether deliberate options or random (e.g., roll a d6 and suck up the pain). A second method might be to provide options as a free downloadable product from the website. A third option might be a new type of deck, allowing the designers to tailor increased difficulty options to the AP. I’m not sure that we would necessarily need 109 such cards, so this type of product might be only 54/55 cards (or might be combined with other suggested additions for a full 109-card deck). Overall, I think that the difficulty of the game is about right (insane challenges of WotR notwithstanding), so increasing the difficulty, if implemented in some way, should be kept within the realm of options and not mandatory.
The more I think about this, the less I think it’s necessary. I like the finite quests, allowing a story to be told without feeling like I’m going through a never-ending grind. Once the final scenario is completed, I can present the victors and show that they’ve achieved something, rather than having more and more to complete. The character advancement options are about right for the APs and it’s possible to make each character feel somewhat unique, taking that character through the same AP again and advancing them in a different way. With 7+ adventures, players would reach a point where it would feel like the characters always end up the same (regarding skills, cards, and powers), with the only differences being the composition of their decks. The finite APs also gives us, as players, a readily identifiable objective. PACG is not a casual game, requiring some level of commitment on the part of players if they want to see an AP through to its end. It’s already difficult enough with the aforementioned 33+ hours of playing time required to get through an AP. Having levels at 7 and beyond simply increases that challenge and would limit the appeal of the game on as broad an audience as it currently has. Any justification for 7 can be used for 8, and then 9, and then 10, ad nauseam. 7+ adventures as options sounds fine, but I don’t see a need for the current AP construct to be modified to make 7+ a regular thing. The current option works well enough, as long as you’re (a) not talking about trying to take characters through after completing 6 of WotR, and (b) you have WotR. It would be nice to see some alternatives, but where the current option allows you to play 7+ without necessarily having to buy more products (assuming you already have all of WotR), any other options will require players to purchase more products – either that or a lot of shenanigannery to make existing banes challenging enough for 7+ characters. Sure, someone could suggest proxies and downloading for-print versions of cards, but we all know how that option is so unsatisfactory – true enjoyment of such an option would really require new cards.
Besides, I think this whole idea falls outside of the realm of what Vic and Co asked for in the first post and Mike’s subsequent description of cleaning/speeding up the current game. In fact, I think that many of the ideas that we’ve collectively presented are probably “too far” (and I’m certainly among the ranks of the guilty). ;)
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I'd just like to add one further point: one of the main goals of Organised Play is to present a uniform play experience no matter where the game is being played. If we have different groups choosing different difficulty levels, that totally defeats that purpose. It would also probably lead to undue peer pressure to attempt to persuade any new players joining the group to "choose" the difficulty level that everybody else has selected.
The PFS RPG tabletop rules were changed a few seasons ago to explicitly address problems caused by that sort of thing; I don't see ACG OP opening the door to let those problems back in.
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I'd just like to add one further point: one of the main goals of Organised Play is to present a uniform play experience no matter where the game is being played.
I would like to argue that the difficulty is already changing with the number of players. I find 5 player games the perfect challenge. While in 3 player games, you're just going through the motions for your chronicle.
I would like to see them allow & clarify playing characters with different class decks. I think this would help revitalize the older class deck characters.
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I don't know if this is just our group being negligent or an actual problem with other people, but some type of marking on the card that indicates there's a BYA or AYA clause on the card, kind of like Trigger.
We have a lot of 'wait, back up, you need to (take damage/recharge cards/whatever) before the fight' and it gets frustrating. I find myself wanting to draw all the cards just to make sure they're fully read before any dice are touched.
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I'd just like to add one further point: one of the main goals of Organised Play is to present a uniform play experience no matter where the game is being played.I would like to argue that the difficulty is already changing with the number of players. I find 5 player games the perfect challenge. While in 3 player games, you're just going through the motions for your chronicle.
I'm not sure I agree 100% - I think the increase in table size calls for a different tactical style of play rather than simply increasing the difficulty.
But that's beside the point. To get back to the topic of this thread: it results in a different challenge, and it's a simple option that could be made available to players. In Organised Play at the moment you are allowed to add as many NPCs/pregens as you wish if you are playing in solo mode. The minute there are two real players at the table, though, no NPCs are permitted. It would be straightforward to allow NPCs at more than just solo tables, which would let small groups experiment with the different play styles.
I would like to argue that the difficulty is already changing with the number of players.
It's not solely about difficulty. Difficulty also changes with the characters chosen, makeup of the group, how the cards shuffle, dice roll, etc. I think there's a great deal of feature in the ability to customize the play experience / difficulty with party makeup, and the uncertainty from random cards, shuffle, and dice is vital to the play experience. That said, there's a general expectation of shared rules interpretation and play style.
I find 5 player games the perfect challenge. While in 3 player games, you're just going through the motions for your chronicle.
Perfect to pointless is a pretty sharp jump for 2 players. Depending on the chosen party, I've found that 3 tends to care more about healing and how to make certain checks on a tricky barrier or close (blessing availability, right skill selection), while the 5 tend to care a lot more about maximizing explores per turn. Is there some other magic bullet that makes the difference there? Do you primarily play with some of the most effective characters, so 3 just don't run into troublesome checks or damage?
I have to admit my OP group altered difficulty by adding locations. Season of the Runelords wasn't enough of a challenge for us, so we added 1 location, and eventually 2.
This is not a straight difficulty increase, as it does give you a greater exposure to boons; but it does add to the time pressure. (We had a four-player group.)
Difficulty-wise, I'd say overall the game is fairly well balanced for different numbers, except where it isn't. And by that I mean a generic scenario is fairly well balanced, but particular cards and particular scenarios break the balance fairly dramatically. And it's the extremes (1 and 6) that suffer the most because they're the ones already pushed to the limit in certain aspects and they're the ones where things get the most degenerate.
I actually think 1 is harder than 6 in terms of chance of failure per scenario. But, it also doesn't matter, because failure is also less of a big deal. The only cost of failure is time, and it's one person's time, the least amount of setup/shuffling, and no organising of groups involved.
Some things that break the balance and make 6 the next hardest (and also the hardest feeling, in terms of stress levels):
- The usual suspects from WotR, with armies in particular having a big step up even just from 5.
- Bizzare Love Triangle. The proportion of henchmanless locations goes up with the number of players.
- Scenarios forcing everyone to the same location then hit us with some "everyone at the location" effect.
- Any time the generic henchman is the most challenging part of the scenario. Sometimes indirectly, for instance RotR 3.5 "Into the Mountains" on Legendary difficulty in the app...
- Anything that (especially unavoidably) loses blessings from the blessings pile.
In any case, I've been thinking about this, and maybe an easy mode is more palatable than a hard mode. I'd obviously hope normal mode is then able to be tuned up a little of course. But then at least there's not this problem of not knowing what mode to play or needing to design everything twice.
I agree that with 5 its more about maximizing explores.The time crunch becomes real due to having 2 additional locations (so possible 20 more cards to go through). Im not sure if we play with the most effective characters. Its random on what people are playing. We dont set up our groups and they do vary a bit depending on who makes the sessions.I find 5 player games the perfect challenge. While in 3 player games, you're just going through the motions for your chronicle.Perfect to pointless is a pretty sharp jump for 2 players. Depending on the chosen party, I've found that 3 tends to care more about healing and how to make certain checks on a tricky barrier or close (blessing availability, right skill selection), while the 5 tend to care a lot more about maximizing explores per turn. Is there some other magic bullet that makes the difference there? Do you primarily play with some of the most effective characters, so 3 just don't run into troublesome checks or damage?
I have to admit my OP group altered difficulty by adding locations. Season of the Runelords wasn't enough of a challenge for us, so we added 1 location, and eventually 2.
This is not a straight difficulty increase, as it does give you a greater exposure to boons; but it does add to the time pressure. (We had a four-player group.)
I wish our VC would have let us do this. That is a fair trade off I believe, increased difficulty in the form of time but you have chance for more boons. I would be cool with officially allowing that.
I wish our VC would have let us do this. That is a fair trade off I believe, increased difficulty in the form of time but you have chance for more boons. I would be cool with officially allowing that.I have to admit my OP group altered difficulty by adding locations. Season of the Runelords wasn't enough of a challenge for us, so we added 1 location, and eventually 2.
This is not a straight difficulty increase, as it does give you a greater exposure to boons; but it does add to the time pressure. (We had a four-player group.)
OP is meant to be a consistent experience. elcoderdude probably isn't reporting his group's sessions (and your VC has to), so in order for that variant to be official it'd have to be tested for all types of groups. And it also runs into JohnF's stated problem of groups peer pressuring others to do something they don't necessarily like.