I thought it odd, but I couldn't find a FAQ or even a thread:
The Scenario has 1 Villain, 1 Shipwreck henchman, and the rest - 6 in 6-p game- are henchmen Vrykolakas.
It also has the Jaws of Dagon location, which is closed by "summon and defeat Vrykolakas". There are, however, only 6 Vrykolakas in the box - and they are all mixed in the location decks.
So, if you happen to have the Shipwreck in the Jaws, and that's your first Henchman - which happened to us last night - you can't summon a Vrykolakas to close the location!
I know the rulebook covers this and we were basically screwed. But I don't believe this was intentional design, so I thought I'd put it out here for a potential FAQ.
It's easy to avoid if you're aware of it. You can leave one Vrykolas out for reference and proxy it. Or, you could just avoid the Jaws of Dagon location until you've found a henchman elsewhere.
Personally though, if this came up unexpectedly I would shamelessly houserule in this situation that you do still fight a Vrykolas, and just find some way to get the text for one in order to do it (an admittedly awkward task).
I'm expecting a FAQ entry similar to this one though. And also wondering why this hasn't come up before?
On the plus side at least you've managed to find Alise Grogblud :) (assuming I'm correctly remembering which scenario this is)
My last play through we missed her completely.
When you defeat the henchman, it goes back to the box, just in time to be summoned.
Except if that henchman was a Shipwreck and what you need is a Vrykolakas...
And also wondering why this hasn't come up before?
Well, it IS pretty corner-case:
- player must be unaware of the issue in advance (as you mentioned - or he could proxy)
- Shipwreck must be in the Jaws
- you must not have found and/or defeated one of the other six henchmen beforehand...
Still, I wonder about the odds that I'm the first on the forum to experience that, years after the release... Maybe, other people just rolled with it *shrug*
It would also come up if you tried to temp close the location before defeating any henchmen.
I honestly thought this was mentioned before, but as of yet haven't found anything about it.
Just played this scenario the other night, albeit with 4 players. I'd suggest a proxy. Use two ruffian henchman (or any henchman) and then keep a Vrykolas to be ready to summon.
Although if I had not been aware/planned ahead then I guess I'd have a neutral party (non-player) inspect the decks and insert a proxy for me. The proxy route seems the closest to the rules:
sometimes you will be told to summon cards or to add cards to a deck. When this happens, retrieve the cards from the box. However, if you're told to summon a card that's already being used, just imagine you have another copy of that card for the new encounter.
Barring that, I probably would probably avoid the issue and just not temp/perm closed until one was r eady because I hate spoiling the game for myself, though this doesn't really help when you're already crunched for time.
It would also come up if you tried to temp close the location before defeating any henchmen.
LOL. This would ALSO have had occurred the other night! Fortunately, we have already scouted a couple of Vrykolakas, and we're in the habit of leaving examined cards face up...
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Or somebody could just put the text of the monster online in case this ever happens in real life.
VRYKOLAKAS
Monster 5
Combat 20 or Wisdom Divine 16
The Vrykolakas is immune to the Mental and Poison traits.
If undefeated, succeed at a Constitution or Fortitude 13 check or bury the top 1d6 cards of your deck.
If defeated, the Vrykolakas deals 1d4 Poison damage to each character at your location, and you may immediately attempt to close the location this henchman came from.
If there was a data base that was accessible that contained all the cards you could just look it up.
I think this would be great for a lot of reasons.