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OK we must get something wrong because this scenario is at least as bad as the dreadly Best Served Impossible.
Since
I'm not "that" cruel (sic)
it must be us missing something. We nearly TPK a whole 4 or 5 players party at least 4 times.
Now we aren't playing class decks, but rather standard MM characters (Channa Ti, Ezren, Simoun, Zadim) and Bekah using the boons from the box as usual for standard play. So we may be a bit less optimized than class decks characters, but so that it may explain recurring failure.
OK let's go and list why it's even worse than Best Served Cold... spoiler for those who do not want to know...
With 4 players (Bekah, Channa Ti, Simoun and Zadim), the cumulative panic comes from:
- (5+1)*6+4=40 banes in the siege deck,
- 30 turns in the blessing deck... 5 of which are sandstorm
- The 6 henchmen are meant to make you lose time and health (pretty much they account for at least 2 encounter each) :
> Akvan will have to be defeated many times and each time will make you encounter a nasty villain that in turn will usually make another character lose her next turn
> Shira will usually make you bury a card
> Usij Cultist will damage everyone at your location no matter what and make you lose a full turn if you can't defeat it
> Ghawwa will make you encounter another henchman (Pairaka)... even multiple times if you dare examine
> Druj-Nasu will make you encounter another henchman (Beheaded)
> Disciple of the Forgotten Pharaoh will also make you encounter another henchman
- You just must defeat any bane you encounter because if not a) you just lose the turn of another character (1d6 acid damage) and b) you'll have to defeat Akvan once more
- It seems clever to examine a lot using Mnesoset (I mean if you are lucky to trigger a free encounter that you actually can defeat, you just won one of the 40 dread cards) but that will trigger every barrier in the universe, which in turn (unless defeated) will trigger 1d6 acid
- Oh and did I mention that unless you can reduce that acid, you suffer a scourge too. At some point you'll get something like Curse of Fevered Dreams that will kill the only real benefit of Mnesoset (i. e. Hand Size 8).
- At some point you'll automatically spawn Lightning Storm and other nasty stuff like that, that you won't be able to be safe from due to the sandstorms.
- And at some point, your caster will encounter something like that guy who will destroy his hand and someone else hand... plus a scourge.
- Icing on the cake, you get the Five-Pointed Sun that will kill you whether you are there (1d4 cold damage) or not (spawning monsters).
Too many damage altogether : we always end up having two characters (because acid fires on random characters) that cannot reset their hand at the same time around mid-game and no means to heal them both, so we quit.
Maybe it's due to Bekah being a mainly support character... so she never really explore for fear she would fail to defeat. But I feel bad if a scenario doesn't allow for support characters.
Anyway, any idea what we miss?
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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One tactic that helped me get through all of adventure 3-6 is using the trader before the scenario to try and score a "reveal to prevent any damage" armor card. There are several deck 6 armors that reveal to prevent 3 damage, and having one of those in hand takes a lot of the teeth out of the forced damage. You are guaranteed to get a deck 5 or 6 card when you trade during adventure 6 so your odds are pretty good.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Okay, so I looked back at our playtesting of this scenario, and it looks like we won with four blessings left and 6 players. We had Estra, Skizza, Mavaro, Alase, Enora, and Ramexes.
It does look like we had forgotten to remove Elite cards from the box though, so that may have made a difference. I counted 9 Elites in the Siege deck. We had a total of 53 banes in the Siege deck at the beginning.
I might try this one with a couple characters in the next few days and see what I come up with.
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We handled it without too much trouble, although it did feel tough, but we had a really powerful team:
1) Cogsnap, aka Twitch Tonic combos aren't Mother Myrtle levels but are still pretty ridiculous if you can add some allies (can sometimes take a turn that clears a dozen cards or more from the siege deck in one go), and a reveal to prevent elemental damage armor
2) Zetha, aka "Did you mean roll a Stealth check?" + lose some of the 3 monsters she draws each turn to avoid all the damage (and she enjoyed removing Elites and Basics so she hit higher monster numbers).
3) Feiya, aka "Recharge for Hex + Staff to reduce everyone's difficulty of the check by some double digit amount, then if possible use Tethisura to start each turn with a new hand anyways" with a deck skewed to the highest AD possible for hexing, even if the card wasn't too good for Feiya.
We did it originally with Zetha, Mother Myrtle, Shadra, and Tup. I remember thinking the setup and monsters for it were rough, but pretty sure we defeated it in plenty of time.
Completely different story when I tried to catch up a fellow player, the team of Ekkie and Tup got wrecked on the first attempt. Think Tup almost bought it on the third turn but fortunately was able to use Mnesoset to reduce my ridiculous handsize down to only 8. =) Tried it the second time and managed to get a good armor to help when Safety Bubble didn't cut it for the auto cold damage at Five Pointed and still had to resign due to damage taken along the way from the various monsters/henchmen/barriers. Think we managed to chew through about 2/3 of the siege deck on the second attempt.
It's an incredibly rough scenario since you have to deal with everything that comes up. Not sure I've come up against another scenario that seems to require the ability to multi explore, fight, tackle a potentially wide assortment of skills for the numerous barriers, negate damage, and heal all at the same time. It's challenging to say the least.
It makes me appreciate the relatively easy victory we had on the first time through.
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It is a hard scenario, no doubt. We pretty much all used the armor trader. The spell trader sadly can't get Safety Bubble (AD is too low) and I don't remember any other spell of that type in 5-6.
Thanks everyone
Yes I guess the issue comes from us using the "standard rule" and therefore :
a) We had no previous access to traders knowing the scenario... and since we keep on failing, we have no new opportunity to meet a trader
b) When we last accessed the traders, they were only offering random AD4-5 boons, and nobody had any reason to select armor at that time
c) Anyway our party is made of non-armor oriented characters
d) Worse, each time we retry we may start with worse decks (e. g. we encountered the nasty chest that forces you to shuffle a weapon in your location... and since you are avoiding at all to explore/close locations, we never got those shiny weapons back)
e) Ezren has Safety Bubble but we played a few games without him and even when he's here he needs to draw it fast for it to be efficient (only happens once)
f) Indeed we could "cheat" by agreeing to lose a few games exploring locations for boons in order to improve our decks but thematically I hate that "solution"
Bottomline I wished that OP scenarios had a "standard rules" option (with a rewording of rewards and of some rules in critical scenarios like this one).
Anyway, all that doesn't really give me a good strategy... well we'll try again...
The season definitely assumes you're picking up some resistance to energy and armor - and the rewards even give you a bunch, too. Elemental Treaty and Safety Bubble are super helpful.
But, yeah, the power in literally every AD that says "horrible things happen from acid, electricity, and/or fire damage" was partially me trying to strenuously warn people to get some of those cards to avoid too much shock by the end when all the Div come out :)
If you ended up down a spell (cause you gave one away and it got banished), getting the other Safety Bubble from the box would not be bad. Mnesoset is super helpful for cycling the optimal cards into your hand by letting you recharge all sorts of stuff, including to avoid Triggers. This scenario would actually be a fun one to Vision :)
I went back and skimmed our playtest (the one Tyler mentions above). I really enjoyed this scenario. I can see that without good Elemental damage reduction it can be overwhelming, though.
We thought of 2 good uses for the "shuffle defeated barriers into locations" rule:
1) Everyone could shuffle barriers into their own location (with all the characters at different locations). This is the "protect the boons" strategy. You lose less boons this way.
2) Pick 1 location (the one occupied by the character who is best at blocking damage)*. Shuffle all the barriers there. This has 2 benefits: Everyone else can just examine their location when they are called on to examine (say by a Sandstorm). And it helps in regard to the "one location must be open" rule, because the barrier location has a lot of cards to lose.
*OK, Sandstorms mess with the "damage-resistant character is at the barrier location" idea, I acknowledge.
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We finally won that scenario after 4 tries and the standard rules... with one dead character.
We lost many loots and destroyed our decks in the process.
If we finish the adventure, we will be heroic.
... cool....
Oof. Who died?
Also, do you guys give out a die bump each AD? Having a big stack of +1s to throw around and/or being able to prevent up to 8 or so deaths at this point is a big deal for OP, even ignoring the reroll factor.
Oof. Who died?
Also, do you guys give out a die bump each AD? Having a big stack of +1s to throw around and/or being able to prevent up to 8 or so deaths at this point is a big deal for OP, even ignoring the reroll factor.
No way.
We decided to play it using "exactly (sic!)" the standard rules from the box rather than anything OP. So we get skills/cards/power feats for winning scenarios A/B/D of each adventure, and rewards (*) but no additional stuff.
(*) The only thing we adapt (because you must) are the rewards. For example replacing things like :
"For the rest of the Adventure Path, 1 character may temporarily replace 1 ally in her deck with the loot Khai-Utef."
by
"Reward : loot (Khai-Utef)" (so one of us just add it to his deck as in standard rule).
"For the rest of the Adventure Path, 1 character who has Kafar on his Chronicle sheet may temporarily replace 1 ally in his deck with Kafar and 1 character who has Nefti the Bard may temporarily"
by
"You get Kafar as Cohort from then on".
For example in this scenario, you do not close locations, so if you examine certain chests, you have to shuffle some of your stuff in the location... and it is lost. Bye bye loots.
Oh OK when we play "standard" we house rule that when you lack a card after a scenario (and rewards/traders if you did win), we give a random basic card. it always felt wrong that you can chose a powerful card to replace a missing one. Usually it is of little impact (except for the fun to have to deal with a dagger for a short while), but now it is gonna be though.
Yes our Ezren died but we had the Lantern displayed so he was back alive and kicking for 3-6B.
... and died again in 3-6B because he had no strength to escape the Sulfur Pits and met on his first two turns a construct immune to Attack trait (bury whole 7 cards in hand twice). And saved again by Lantern.
We are heroic.
36-C this week-end will be fun.
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Hah. Well, it sounds like you guys are clawing through them and making good use of your loots, even without the inherent benefits that OP gets. Good luck with the remaining scenarios!
Judging from the write up here, I'm not looking forward to this scenario; we also play using the standard rules, and we also have Bekah in the party. We're still in AD3 however, so maybe I'll try to steer the party into preparing for this scenario in the long run. I hope it's a little easier with just 3 players rather than 4-5.
The general advice is to observe that there has been a power in every adventure that says that Acid, Electricity, and Fire damage are bad, and by AD6 you should be able to consistently reduce them.
I found that Steel Ibis Lamellar covered me just fine for it, personally. If each character has at least 1 good armor (more than half of the AD3-5 MM armors will do) or spell slot for Safety Bubble, you should be in good shape. Non-OP actually are much more able to consistently prepare for it - the problem is that if you're not prepared by 6A, you get blocked by the siege scenario.
Also, the ability to evade is pretty darn solid in general for dealing with pesky summons, if you can get it.
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Our first table has been stuck on this for the past 2 meet-ups. Our second table that I play at just finished 3-5E and we'll be starting 3-6A this weekend. I am not excited after reading this thread! Will have to look into the armor trader since our table historically hasn't used traders (though the first table does). Thanks for the tips!
Judging from the write up here, I'm not looking forward to this scenario; we also play using the standard rules, and we also have Bekah in the party. We're still in AD3 however, so maybe I'll try to steer the party into preparing for this scenario in the long run. I hope it's a little easier with just 3 players rather than 4-5.
Our group definitely recommends playing with no more than 3. We have played (OP rules, good mix of characters) multiple times and lost. Have now also played B and C multiple times and lost. Given that each game is taking an average of 3 hours, we are about ready to ditch Adventure 6 and move on the the next season... (We have 7-10 in the group depending on the day and only 2 boxes)
If you're stumbling a lot, shaking things out with a little with some other scenarios might be good. There's also a pretty good chance that Ultimate decks will have an impact to make things easier going forward, so coming back later may help out since you can pick up some upgrades and feel like you're making more obvious progress.
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I gotta nitpick a little here. (No offence, Keith. :)
But, yeah, the power in literally every AD that says "horrible things happen from acid, electricity, and/or fire damage" was partially me trying to strenuously warn people to get some of those cards to avoid too much shock by the end when all the Div come out :)
I don't know how those have appeared to other groups, but we're into Adventure 5 and these powers have been barely more than flavor text in my experience. I can't remember the last time one hit anyone in our group. I mean, I'm playing Siwar. She has no Armor slots and I have not given her any Damage Reduction methods at all until the Golden Serpent Armband loot substitute. I've been hit...once? Twice? (Admittedly I tend to hand off combats to others now that I can, but you'd think they'd be hit more often because of it. They have not.)
It sounds like we're going to be hit hard in Adventure 6 and I'm probably going to die, especially if we continue to be forced to have someone play Mnesoset as I'm the only candidate in the group. If that happens that's just how it goes, but I can't agree that the build-up so far has been very impactful.
If you're stumbling a lot, shaking things out with a little with some other scenarios might be good. There's also a pretty good chance that Ultimate decks will have an impact to make things easier going forward, so coming back later may help out since you can pick up some upgrades and feel like you're making more obvious progress.
"Let's shelve this for a few months" is a great way to lose any campaign group, especially the more loosely formed Organized Play groups in many locations. "Afterwards, buy more stuff and waste even more time replaying until you can use it" adds insult to injury. I'm sure you're well-meaning, but for folks playing now this comes off poorly. :(
The one upside, I guess, is that if you replay enough scenarios you might get enough AD5 cards you don't mind giving up to use the Armor trader. (After 3-5C, I have 1 AD5 and 1 AD4 card.)
Hmm. I assure you that these adventures were tested/successfully won - including by 5 and 6 player groups. That said, it's certainly the case that the desired difficulty level of this game varies pretty widely.
So, if anyone wants to playtest something for me, try adding this as an adventure rule for 6 (instead of just being a scenario rule in 6D):
"You may bury a blessing to reduce all damage dealt to you by 2."
Let me know how it goes, and if it feels like it improves your options for success? It's a pretty small/subtle bump, but it may be enough.
...
I don't know how those have appeared to other groups, but we're into Adventure 5 and these powers have been barely more than flavor text in my experience.
That's pretty good - Alchemical Laboratory, Scorched Obelisk, and Usij Cultist are all good ways to trigger that text, while Guardian Vault and Five-Pointed Sun are great for triggering splash damage of other types. The Elemental Arachnid is a more random bane to run into, but is also a really big deal with no Elemental Treaty.
especially if we continue to be forced to have someone play Mnesoset
Nope, nothing like that in AD6.
"Let's shelve this for a few months" is a great way to lose any campaign group
Given that Season of Factions Favor uses the exact same box, it doesn't require shelving anything at all. I may be more used to doing multiple different campaigns in parallel, sometimes taking a bit to get back together (FirstWorldBard and I took over a year to get through a season with one group), but it's definitely worth remembering that it's a game and the goal is to have fun. If that means skipping a particular scenario, playing some scenarios out of order, or whatever it takes to have fun, I firmly advocate it.
"Afterwards, buy more stuff and waste even more time replaying until you can use it" adds insult to injury.
I don't really advocate replaying, in general. There's so many scenarios and characters that I always want to move forward.
If you enjoy the game, especially in Organized Play, I recommend checking out the Ultimates, even if you just need to borrow someone else's to get a feel for it. I think they add a ton of fun and card options that make it a lot more fun for me to gather boons in Organized Play. Your mileage may vary.
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Dahling, dahling! Such things require context! More information about my hireli...err...adventuring companions, for example.
That's pretty good - Alchemical Laboratory, Scorched Obelisk, and Usij Cultist are all good ways to trigger that text, while Guardian Vault and Five-Pointed Sun are great for triggering splash damage of other types. The Elemental Arachnid is a more random bane to run into, but is also a really big deal with no Elemental Treaty.
Damiel simply adores cataloging everything found in places with bubbling bottles like the Alchemical Laboratory, and he does well with opening locks, traps, and Vaults. Padrig and the Hat-bearer cackle in glee when faced with Obelisks. I know we've seen a number of Cultists, but they're all such a blur. Oloch, dear, have we dealt with any Usij Cultists?
I can't recall us ever visiting a place named the Five-Pointed Sun, dah--
That's because I, Mnesoset, the Spinel Sage, was there, woman! Covered in scourges, we barely completed our search of the Five-Pointed Sun in time while avoiding all of the creatures that had built up there. How your friends manage to get any use out of you is beyond my comprehension. Be thankful they have been there to protect you from all that surrounds you in these cursed desert lands. Self-absorbed we--
::shivers:: Strange, I just felt a chill, dahling. Perhaps I shall step out into the heat for a moment.
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I think there's too many minds in here. Regardless, back into real-world issues:
"Let's shelve this for a few months" is a great way to lose any campaign groupGiven that Season of Factions Favor uses the exact same box, it doesn't require shelving anything at all.
Sure it does; it means shelving the Plundered Tombs campaign while you wait for the rest of the Ultimate decks to come out. At least it does for me; given how Adventure and Adventure Path rewards work and that the scenario stories are actually related, I don't feel this game lends itself to playing characters scattered all over the Seasons or (in most cases) even playing the scenarios out of order.
Pausing a campaign always runs the risk of the group (or individual members) getting interested in something else and never returning to it, whether that something else is another Adventure Path, a completely different game, or some other activity altogether.
I don't really advocate replaying, in general. There's so many scenarios and characters that I always want to move forward.
You don't have much choice if you're doing Guild play. Adding 100+ cards to your "deck box" doesn't put them in your deck. You have to play/replay scenarios and hope you find useful card upgrades. Even if you're fine with playing in multiple Seasons, there's a limit on how many different scenarios you can play before Tiering out.
None of this has anything to do with the usefulness of the Ultimate deck cards; I'm sure they're fine in that regard.
I may be more used to doing multiple different campaigns in parallel, sometimes taking a bit to get back together (FirstWorldBard and I took over a year to get through a season with one group)...
I'd expect that from a designer. :)
I only play in one group that plays one scenario every other week. With failures and the occasional missed week it takes us more than a year to go through a whole campaign. It also means I have less play time than other forum regulars, but I think it's good to share those experiences anyway.
...but it's definitely worth remembering that it's a game and the goal is to have fun. If that means skipping a particular scenario, playing some scenarios out of order, or whatever it takes to have fun, I firmly advocate it.
I'm with you here, but if you're in a Guild play group and you want to complete the Adventure Path within that ruleset you don't have all the same options.
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In case you're wondering what Siwar/Mnesoset were alluding to earlier, it's the scenario we played last week: 3-5C, Mnesoset's Mindscape. This was the worst slog I can remember from any PACG scenario. It took nearly four hours to play, with us rushing to get the game picked up before the game store kicked us out.
As mentioned above, our group is Oloch, Damiel, Balazar, and Siwar (all CD versions). Siwar was the only real choice to play Mnesoset, as two of the others are completely broken without their powers and one becomes an even weirder hybrid. Siwar/Mnesoset synergize OK, but I missed my normal powers.
At one point poor Balazar was only short one Scourge from those available in Adventure 5, while Oloch wasn't far behind. I had two curses for almost the entire game: the combo of "explores are now examine/explore/maybe reset your hand" and "after you reset your hand, recharge it and draw a lot less". Damiel had a couple on and off throughout the game. Our Curse removals were mostly dedicated to taking off the "lose turns from the Blessings deck" and "lose your free explore" ones.
So where did we get all of these Scourges? Not from the Adventure power, but from all of the forced examines. At the start of the game we left the Five-Pointed Sun alone and scattered around the others. Lucky rolls gave us closing opportunities early, but unfortunately I (as Mnesoset) wasn't able to siphon off any safe Barriers.
This left us with a couple of nightmares with a lot of Triggers with damage and summons that give Curses and all sorts of nasty effects. Nobody was able to roll low enough to get a close chance or churn through enough cards to get those Trigger effects out of them quickly, so it was a long, slow grind until we finally got everything but the Five-Pointed Sun closed. Luckily, I was able to avoid an Ambush and get that shuffled into the last deck, so we had a chance. With only a few turns left (some lost to curses) and knowing the top couple of cards on the pile were Trigger monsters, Damiel had one final shot to roll high enough to hit a Barrier. He did! A few Triggers and a close later and we'd won the game.
So I don't know if we just got a preview of what to expect in Adventure 6, but we should be there soon.
I'll put in a vote in favor of this scenario, and of difficult scenarios in general.
A major criticism I've heard from people who have played a bit of PACG, but haven't become serious fans, is that PACG is too easy. I've seen this on forums. I've heard it from numerous people I've played with. It's one of the reasons my original OP group disbanded.
Our 6-character group won PluTo 6-A the first try on turn 26, so it is doable. Some parties are better suited for it than others -- we had MM Estra in our group, for instance, which helped big time. (Any 6-character group that includes characters like Siwar are playing 'hard-mode', IMHO).
The scenario is tough, but you are also given tools to manage that. Make full use of your traders. You should have one or more Elemental Treaties displayed.
Make sure you are making full use of this:
Display the Mnesoset role card by the scenario. On your turn, you may recharge a card to play one of the powers on the role card.
In conjunction with this, for instance:
You may recharge a card to ignore a power that happens when you examine a card.
Re-reading, I just realized that Parody is registering strong criticism, but he hasn't yet played the scenario this thread is focused on.
Perhaps if someone struggling here could post the characters in their party with their role choices, we could offer more specific strategic advice.
Too few scenarios in all of PACG are truly difficult. I enjoy the ones that pose seriously challenging puzzles.
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On difficulty in general:
It can be fun if you have easy access to replaying scenarios (e.g. playing a party by myself at home), but when you are playing with a group that doesn't have a lot of time, it can become pretty discouraging.
We're currently lucky if we can meet once a month to play 2 scenarios, so if we had to spend all that time to replay scenarios that we don't even win in the end, that's definitely outside of the fun region (not that that happened yet, but it's also a good motivation why I don't want to play with parties of more than 4 people, 3 being even better). After all, we could also play other games or watch some movies in the same time.
I don't know how those have appeared to other groups, but we're into Adventure 5 and these powers have been barely more than flavor text in my experience.That's pretty good - Alchemical Laboratory, Scorched Obelisk, and Usij Cultist are all good ways to trigger that text, while Guardian Vault and Five-Pointed Sun are great for triggering splash damage of other types. The Elemental Arachnid is a more random bane to run into, but is also a really big deal with no Elemental Treaty.
Again, we're only in AD3, but I have to agree with Parody so far; for almost half of the AP being over, we've been hit by those powers maybe once or twice as far as I can recall. I wouldn't even rule out that we sometimes forget about them just because they are so rare.
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Re-reading, I just realized that Parody is registering strong criticism, but he hasn't yet played the scenario this thread is focused on.
What I've been posting has nothing to do with the Scenario itself, but the repeated statement "The Adventures' Scourge power should have been a big warning." I think we've played enough to comment on that.
The rest is just generic play comments, most of which we've talked about in a bunch of threads, and my desire to share a story. :)
I wouldn't even rule out that we sometimes forget about them just because they are so rare.
I always forget what type we have to avoid:
Parody: "Hmm...this monster does Fire damage. Hey, does that get me cursed today?"
GM: (Wakes up the tablet and swipes back a few pages to the Adventure "card".) "No, it's Acid damage this time."
Parody: "OK, I won't worry about it then." (Or whatever relates to the situation.)
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One other tip is to carefully read all the cards and scenario rules involved. For example, we might have failed 3-6B once due to overlooking the possibility of using Pharaoh's Key to add the element needed to defeat a henchman. And we definitely failed it once due to thinking we had to climb up one closed location at a time (after a Sandstorm).
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So my GF and I defeated it on our second attempt with 3 players. We had a second table today do it on their first attempt of the day, though I think it may have been their 3rd attempt total from the prior weeks.
Five-Pointed Sun is quite cruel in this scenario. I had Linxia camped there as much as she could with multiple shields/armors to negate the damage. I don't think our Warpriest was really prepared to handle it, nor was our Witch. We got fairly lucky with the sandstorms in that: 1. someone moved to Five-Pointed Sun 3/4 times (won before 5th drawn) and 2. we were able to examine and defeat several cards from this--yay triggers. Aside from that, our Warpriest was really self-sufficient during their encounters and then Feiya with shapechange was just a beast at tackling barriers. I don't think I explored more than once per turn an any of my turns except one so they picked up my slack there.
In the end though, I think a lot of it came down to luck (more than usual). Our first game of the day was VERY one-sided against us. The second game was the complete opposite and we constantly had good spell/blessing coverage. In that second game we only undefeated one card from the siege deck.
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So, if anyone wants to playtest something for me, try adding this as an adventure rule for 6 (instead of just being a scenario rule in 6D):"You may bury a blessing to reduce all damage dealt to you by 2."
Forgot to mention, the table I was at we did not use this in either game. I'm not certain about the other table running 3-6A
Finally won this one yesterday! Were able to play with only 3 in the party thanks to having 3 boxes (for the 10 players in our OP group). Elemental Treaty helped but not enough since you have to reduce damage to zero to avoid banishing boons. My character (Darago, Wizard) isn't proficient with armor (or anything else, unfortunately) so I had to bury both of mine. Nor would the optional bury a blessing rule have helped as we needed all of our blessings to beat barriers - and still almost lost due to a barrier none of us could beat that kept shuffling back in (I finally got it with 3 blessings using 4 d4 to get a 12). The only reason we were able to win was the Paladin's ability to examine at the beginning of every turn, so with triggers he plowed through several cards per turn. We did optimize loot usage for the scenario and we had the retail bonus heals, though we'd also done those on previous tries and lost.
I agree with everything Parody has said. You have to repeat if you want to finish a level and gain rewards (like die bumps). And with multiple tables (since all of AD6 seems better with fewer people) there are some missing out on the wins so others need to repeat to catch those folks up. There may be cards in the new decks that could help but saying we have to spend more money to win isn't a good answer. You only get tier rewards when winning (& not if repeating to help others) so those have been limited as well. Yes, the scenarios are supposed to be challenging (though through multiple seasons the past few years I don't recall many ever seeming too easy!), but not this difficult. I haven't tried 6B yet but I've failed at 6C 3 times & this was my 2nd attempt at 6A.
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Good news: thanks to me remembering that elcoderdude mentioned that Mnesoset should have had a power to ignore Triggered effects*, we made it through 3-5E today without too much trouble! I only had to recharge 5 cards when we checked for victory!
Bad news: one member of our group missed the game because she was home caring for a sick bunny, so we're going to have to play it again before we can move on to Adventure 6 and the big siege. Maybe next month? :(
* Our GMs have the Plundered Tombs PDFs on a tablet, so when we played 3-5C we hurriedly copied the powers onto the back of a spare reporting sheet. That one got missed. Oops.
If you enjoy the game, especially in Organized Play, I recommend checking out the Ultimates, even if you just need to borrow someone else's to get a feel for it. I think they add a ton of fun and card options that make it a lot more fun for me to gather boons in Organized Play. Your mileage may vary.
Playing Darago, there are so many cards in this deck that would have made this Ad less difficult! I almost didn't mind our 2 losses Saturday because I got to add 2 Ultimate Magic cards (e.g. an elemental armor I don't have to banish!) to my deck.
Update on our progress: my table won 6-B on our first try! the others finally succeeded at 6-C on Valeros' 6th try. Then this past Saturday my table (Darago, Amli, cleric whose name I'm spacing) lost at 6-C twice. I've now attempted it 5 times but will give it one more with my new Magic cards and when our Paladin with examining powers returns next session.
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This week we replayed 3-5E to catch up our missing player from last time. (Her bunny is OK, by the way. :)
It was another slog, though this one only took three hours or so. Oloch played Mnesoset this time and it worked OK, though even with Hand Size 8 he had some problems holding on to cards. I think Siwar's the better choice.
One funny moment: early in the game we ran into a Living Sandstorm. Later on the resulting Sandstorm from the Blessings deck ate the last card from one of our carefully prepared locations, so we were forced to undo another location that had extra Barriers in order to fix the problem. This meant everyone but Siwar was at the other location digging down to its second Barrier while Siwar sat at the Five Pointed Sun and absorbed damage so it wouldn't get even more cards. Brrrrr!
Next time we finally get to try the death scenario!
Last update: Failed at 6th try of 6C (party of my wizard, cleric - her 5th attempt, warpriest - his 4th I think & paladin - 3rd try?). We maximized Loot for extra explores, used both Hallow and Consecrate to add 10 turns, and were even a bit lenient with rerolling when dice were impeded. Wizard even fought & defeated Sepid once despite having to subtract 1 from each die due to using an attack spell. Our biggest problems were barriers and Sepid's before-you-act dext. check, as well as having 3 characters who could only move randomly. I will not play that scenario again and will not finish Adventure 6; time to move on to something that is more fun that stressful/frustrating. ;) (Our other table failed at their 2 attempts at 6E, but as they have succeeded at the rest will probably give it another go in hopes of completing the adventure & receiving the bonus.)
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We started this one last night. Unfortunately, we had to suspend the game because we reached the store closing time before we could finish it, so we'll pick it up in two weeks.
The good news is that we are doing very well; thanks to a lot of luck, some die bumps, and a couple of amazing turns we have more turns left than cards in the Siege deck (9 turns vs. 7 cards, IIRC). So far we've only failed cards from the Siege deck twice, one of which was the "boss". I can definitely see how frustrating this one could be!
During setup, we picked up three Elemental Treaties and a Remove Curse from a combination of Loot substitution and Sunburst Market. I (as Siwar) also traded away my combat cards for other useful ones from the Loot substitution pile and the Spell trader. (Normally I take Neferekhu for the Wisdom + emergency Combat and try to get a combat Spell from the trader.)
As the Treaties came up we put them at the Five-Pointed Sun, which became a safe haven of sorts. Once it was the home away from home for everyone except Oloch, who had gotten randomly stuck at the location that hurts you when you move away.
Balazar and Siwar were the only ones at the Five-Pointed Sun on my second turn. That let us team up for a huge stomping by combining Mnesoset's powers, Scrying, Tetisurah, and Khai-Utef for a bunch of explores; Siwar used her power to feed the Monsters to Padrig and we split the Barriers.
When we resume I'm hoping that we can Scry the boss to the bottom of the Siege deck and whittle the rest away in relative safety. Victory is by no means assured, but we're giving it everything we've got!
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Yet another Sandstorm scattered us all over the game. We had to fight the not-a-Villain a second time, spending all sorts of resources to make sure it ended up on the bottom of the siege deck for that third and final encounter. It took every turn, but in the end we were able to defeat this Scenario!
Sadly we didn't end up with any AD6 boons, but we can at least move on.