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I've been playing this game nearly two years, and I think I may have been doing two things wrong the whole time.
1) Boarding pike and many other pole type weapons has a clause, "If you fail this check, you may discard this card to ignore the result and reroll the dice." Should I reroll the same dice from the failed check? We have been playing it as more or less an entirely new check, meaning any blessings played on the initial check are lost, but also a new weapon can be used to replace the discarded pike.
2) If a card in your deck is underperforming or its functionality can be replaced by a different card, can we replace the offending card with a basic card of the same type? The specifics behind this question are that I have the spell Find Traps in my hand, but after the game was given Masterwork Tools by another player. No new spells were acquired during the previous scenario. Am I able to replace Find Traps with another spell with the Basic trait., or am I stuck with the spell until a new one is acquired during gameplay? We have been playing it the second way.
I actually hope we have been playing wrong on both counts, even though it will be a bit embarrassing.
You're half right.
1) You just reroll the dice you just failed with, and hope you do better.
2) Need to find a new spell to replace it. Unless you're playing Mummy's Mask; in which case, to a trader with you! :)
On point 2, there is a easy way to get rid of the spell so you will be able to chose a basic new one at the end of the scenario: give it during the scenario to someone who hasn't the arcane/divine skill. Then that character plays it when the opportunity comes (encountering a trap in this case), and it gets banished.
On point 2, there is a easy way to get rid of the spell so you will be able to chose a basic new one at the end of the scenario: give it during the scenario to someone who hasn't the arcane/divine skill. Then that character plays it when the opportunity comes (encountering a trap in this case), and it gets banished.
This is a really good strategy, but you sometimes need to combine it with diligence in making sure the person in the group who likes trying to acquire low quality boons just for fun doesn't wind up acquiring another spell you don't want, like viper strike. Fortunately my usual group doesn't do this, but I've seen it before.
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Meanwhile, I'm just sitting there thinking "Find Traps is useless? Is Green Eyed Liar playing Wrath or something?"
Yes, I consider Find Traps to be very useful even with Masterwork Tools in the deck. Find Traps can be used on anyone!
Re (1), for an equivalent pair of powers on banes, compare:
"If the Giant Hermit Crab would be defeated, reroll the dice. The Giant Hermit Crab is defeated or undefeated based solely on the results of the new roll"
to
When you attempt a check to defeat Caizarlu Zerren, after you make the roll, roll 1d6. on a 1 or 2, start the check over. Cards played on the previous check do not affect the new check.
I think you were playing the pike's crab-like power as a Caizarlu-like power.
Re (2), as Keith already said it works the way you're playing it, but it is related to something I raised in the "what would you change" thread over in general chat. A more extreme case than what you describe is when you take a card feat, and get stuck with some purely worthless card that someone else acquired, when you'd rather have a particular nice adventure-deck-minus-two card that you've missed so far.
In your case, consider "lending" the find traps spell to someone who doesn't have the divine skill... (edit ok I got seriously ninja'd on that point)
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Meanwhile, I'm just sitting there thinking "Find Traps is useless? Is Green Eyed Liar playing Wrath or something?"
Yes, I consider Find Traps to be very useful even with Masterwork Tools in the deck. Find Traps can be used on anyone!
HA!
I am currently in the middle of Tempest Rising from Skull & Shackles.
No, I am not saying the card is useless, I do feel it is underperforming in my current deck. I play S&S Oloch, and my "anti-Barrier" cards include: Blessing of Abadar, Find Traps, Masterwork Tools, and Topaz of Strength.
Great point about Find Traps helping teammates anywhere on the board.
In hindsight, the last two scenarios have been very light in the number of Barriers than this campaign normally has. The next one is really heavy on Barriers, so I might be singing a different tune in a day or so.
A more extreme case than what you describe is when you take a card feat, and get stuck with some purely worthless card that someone else acquired, when you'd rather have a particular nice adventure-deck-minus-two card that you've missed so far.
For us who are more grumpy-old-RPG-addicts than uber-brain-freezing-deckbuilders (;-)) this is exactly where the fun begins: when you have to do with what you have when for whatever reason it starts to be far from optimal.
Re Find Traps being "bad", I think you're in an unusual situation, in that as a two-player Oloch party you don't really need cards that help the second player with barriers (or indeed anything, other than the really big combat checks). In a larger party where there's more "other players" than "you" in the first place, and you can't just cheese-out Oloch's bonus on literally everything, it would still be quite useful.
A more extreme case than what you describe is when you take a card feat, and get stuck with some purely worthless card that someone else acquired, when you'd rather have a particular nice adventure-deck-minus-two card that you've missed so far.For us who are more grumpy-old-RPG-addicts than uber-brain-freezing-deckbuilders (;-)) this is exactly where the fun begins: when you have to do with what you have when for whatever reason it starts to be far from optimal.
I'm not saying it isn't fun to be stuck with bad cards. The problem as much as anything else is the things that you can do to get yourself out of the situation. Those things have the uncomfortable combination of being both unnatural and optimal.
Though as far as bad cards go I'd argue it's usually not all that fun in the card game. In the RPG you can be creative. In the card game, you generally just end up discarding them as effectively blank cards to damage/powers/hand-size/etc.
I admit it is fun though when that random potion you didn't want happens to exactly match the check you weren't expecting.
Agreed but giving a non-valuable card to another character is as fun as playing secret santa.
Especially when it ends up saving that other character's life (after all it is one additional hit point).
I agree you cannot be as creative as in the RPG, but trust me, we can be creative in many ways.
And as you say, there are many ways to use blank cards...
And think about it: usually you can't play two spells on the same check... but if you give that not-so-valuable spell to the barbarian, not only he will have fun for once casting something but you may be able to work out a combo since you both will cast on the same check.
We play with a group of 5 or 6. Inventing combos is part of the fun...
Frencois: so there's two aspects of gameplay that's kinda described here (which I don't find to be valid over each other, it's just a contrast) - the aspect of discovery, which is about exploration of space, and goal orientation, which is about moving towards a goal.
My old roommate and I were fairly opposite on that desirability scale, even though we're fairly competent at both. He tended more towards discovery (eg games like Myst) while I liked goal orientation (eg games like Factorio). Our game interests still overlapped a lot even within that space.
But it's not a matter of fun versus not-fun - different people have different metrics for fun. I always try to tamp down my inner Timmy (MtG marketing term) for flashy combos - it reinforces cognitive biases, so I dislike that - but understand other people like that sort of thing.
I actually hate secret santa - most of the contexts I had secret santa, people aren't super creative when it comes to gifts so it never hit any desires for me. I did get a fun transformy robot for my friend once and it was amazing for him :)
Lastly, I think part of it too is that as a person who doesn't have a lot of time, I recognize the "eventually getting there" mentality, but games are more streamlined nowadays because we don't have as much time as we used to :( and I never played with random treasure (my GM would give treasure according to our desires - never exactly what we want, but stuff that would help us without us having to go through the hoops of trading through to get what we want)
Not trying to invalidate your view, but giving (hopefully) a more full perspective :)
I'll throw my anecdote on the pile. :)
In my digital Runelords playthrough my Lini had a Find Traps and I found it to be a pretty bad option for her. I rarely had it when someone encountered a Barrier, much less a Barrier where they needed the extra dice.
Unfortunately, I had trouble finding Divine spells that were better so she was stuck with it for a while. I think it got replaced with an Aid or Greater Aid eventually, but I would have preferred a Divine Combat spell. Ah, well.
Agreed, the fun obviously differs from one player to another. Was just saying that if you don't like a rule, change it. It's your game. But maybe it doesn't need to be officially changed if some others like it.
Agreed, the fun obviously differs from one player to another. Was just saying that if you don't like a rule, change it. It's your game. But maybe it doesn't need to be officially changed if some others like it.
That's fine unless you're someone for whom following the printed (or at least intended) rules correctly is more important than almost any other issue. This was in fact the one thing we actually did do wrong semi-deliberately the first time through, and I actually regret it now.
Anyway if you want to write your own rules why even argue about what the official ones should be. If there's only one category of people interested in following the rules correctly then doesn't it make more sense to write the rules with them in mind?