I'm currently playing through some homebrew SnS scenarios with a party of MM Yoon, Siwar and Lesath, and I've realized that Yoon is a big factor why it's not feeling challenging at all lately.
With 9 blessings and the ability to recharge one from her discard pile each turn, I basically have unlimited blessings support in a 3 player game: No matter the check, Yoon can throw a blessing on it, and the combat checks feel especially trivial since she she has a lot of BoEstrasil, which can add 2 die to everyone in this party. Since Yoon can recharge blessings for her combat check, she gets to cycle her deck fast as well, so the BoEstrasil come up again quickly.
In fact, her blessings power feels much more versatile and stronger than the 1d4+1 from Siwar, which is quite strong already but at least locked to the location she is at and couldn't be played on herself pre-role. It's gotten to the point where I don't even need to bother with healing anymore, since I succeed on almost all the important checks (banes and the boons I need) without discarding anything other than Yoons blessings, and so there simply is no need (for villains and henchman, I have all the blessings from the other characters available on top of that).
I can only imagine this being even better when just playing Yoon alone, while still being effective with higher player counts just for the sheer amount of blessings.
So, while I think this is a problem that should be adressed with a faq somehow, I'm not quite sure how to solve it.
One approach would be to change her combat power from recharge to discard, so that there is less cycling, and a greater need to spend the blessings on yourself rather than anyone else. Used on her combat check, the power still gives at least 1d10+2, which is still much better than what a normal blessings would have given for a discard (1d6 for strength or 1d8 on dexterity).
A more radical approach would be to just remove the power that recharges a blessing at the end of her turn, bringing her more in line with the monks, or changing it to something similar to the CD Yoon power for healing.
I dunno, is anyone else experiencing the same issues with her?
I'm not quite there yet, but once I finish AD5, I want to play through Best Served Cold to confirm my assessment and get back to this thread.
I don't have personal experience, but it's very rare I play through an adventure path and not feel like one character has far exceeded the others on my tables. Sometimes its a consequence of how a character scales in larger/smaller parties, sometimes its other issues.
In RotR, the Harsk player simply didn't contribute nearly as much as Kyra or Ezren, on my table.
In S&S, the Damiel player (and post-role, the Alahazra player) seemed nigh unstoppable, and certainly far in excess over Jirelle, Seltyiel or Lirianne.
In WotR, the Balazar player felt like they exceeded Crowe in just about every way after the first couple of adventures, with colossal combat checks (with exceptionally high static bonuses) and effectively unkillable. And we weren't even playing with Alain or Adowyn, which are highly regarded from that set.
In MM, I have much less experience, and can't really comment. I'd certainly say that some, like Yoon and Ezren, seem far more powerful on paper than Simoun, for example.
It's a problem that doesn't seem to have been entirely nailed out, but it's worth noting that PACG is not an especially challenging game (especially in 3-4 player parties) as a general rule. More importantly, as long as the characters play sufficiently differently there can certainly be freedom for players to feel like they contribute and all have fun - even if one particular character may be technically acquiring more boons, defeating more banes and exploring a lot more.
As for Yoon specifically; I'm sure there could be houserules to limit her effectiveness, and surely they'd have to attack her capability to re-use blessings so easily. The important thing to consider, though, is that is she outshining other characters or is she enabling other characters as well as being powerful herself? If her strength lies largely in being able to always contribute a blessing, then she performs best in a well-rounded team that can bring the biggest dice of their favored skills into the right checks and situations. Which doesn't really make the team feel like they're not contributing, and the rule of fun generally trumps all other rules in a purely co-operative game.
As an aside, I think a set of houserules in an attempt to buff/nerf characters from base sets such that typically 'weaker' characters perform better and typically 'stronger' characters perform worse could actually be a compelling start to justify a re-play of an AP, even better if you're laying more houserules on to dramatically adjust the experience of PACG.
With 9 blessings and the ability to recharge one from her discard pile each turn, I basically have unlimited blessings support in a 3 player game: No matter the check, Yoon can throw a blessing on it, and the combat checks feel especially trivial since she she has a lot of BoEstrasil, which can add 2 die to everyone in this party. Since Yoon can recharge blessings for her combat check, she gets to cycle her deck fast as well, so the BoEstrasil come up again quickly.
Just to clarify: Yoon only gets to recharge a blessing from her discard pile at the end of her own turn, not at the end of every turn.
At the end of your turn, you may recharge a blessing from your discard pile.
I'm not sure that you didn't already understand that. But since you said "each turn" I didn't know if you mean "each of Yoon's turns" or "each and every turn, no matter the character."
I'm surprised that some of the non-combat checks are limiting her a bit, since her powers relate mostly to combat checks. But I haven't personally played her.
I'm aware that she can only recharge at the end of her turn, but thanks for bringing that up. In a 3-player game, she can recharge 10 blessings, so that puts her at 19 blessings per scenario if you cycle her deck enough. The other characters also have 11 blessings combined which adds up to 30 blessings per scenario; I never took full advantage of all the blessings (keeping some of them back for henchman/villains/closes) and it is still plenty to cover all the important checks that come up during a 3-player game.
You can use Sajan as an aggressive buffer as well due to all his blessings, but they end up as damage you'll have to heal or risk the chance of dying, and it also limits what you can do without them.
With her role feat, she can use her primary power against barriers as well, so that covers all banes except monsters with non-combat checks (she can also get decent at charisma, and for everything else there are always blessings).
But I'm more concerned about the many blessings that can be played on everyone. I've played several APs with all kind of party compositions of size 3, and the game never felt as easy as it does with Yoon.
When I played through SnS with Agna, Meliski and Angban, it wasn't that easy, even when I made excessive use of Agna's +1d4+2 on her role.
Note: Changing the subject a bit, but I didn't particularly feel like making a new forum thread for this question yet.
Speaking of the power level of characters 'never running out of blessing/support', I was wondering if you had ever played with Linxia (from Hell's Vengeance 1) with the Ultimate Combat Add-On boons (either OP rules or normal rules)?
Upon looking over her, I was struck by the enormity of her self-heal (or 'steal-heal') power, especially with how it interacts with Ultimate Combat Add-On armors. There are multiple shields, right down to deck B, which can be recharged for varying bonuses in combat (including dice rerolls, static bonuses, etc), as well as shields that can be displayed for effects.
With one of her role cards (admittedly, the one that looks a bit weaker), she can extend that self-heal to trigger off playing Heavy Armors (whilst the remaining role card can double the heal strength). The Mummy's Mask rulebook make it clear that displaying a card for its power, as well as using a power on it whilst displayed, are both 'playing a card for its power', so a few of the Heavy Armors in Ultimate Combat are just "Display, heal. Use it, heal again". To say nothing of the very large list of armors that have a "Reveal this to add X to your Y check" power on them, whether for Constitution, Fortitude, Diplomacy, etc.
It seems like, whether in OP or normal play, it's trivial to end up with a bunch of armors that, as well as protecting you from damage, can be displayed, revealed and recharged at the drop of a hat, in a great variety of checks, to clean your discard pile dry turn after turn. Her class deck also has access to blessings which functionally read (or can read) "Discard your hand to succeed at a check, then draw up to your hand size", further allowing her to chain together explorations off the back of draw power and an incredibly generous self-heal, or at least that's what it seems like on paper. I feel like she could repeatedly use useful boon effects off her various tiers of armor, whilst each shuffling 1-2 cards back, potentially multiple times a turn (really only limited by how many times she comes across checks where they can be legally used).
Any experience attesting to/against this in terms of power level?
I have a tier 6 Linxia, using Ultimate Combat for season 3. I think she is strong, but I do not think she is overpowered. I use Knight of the Rack with the upgraded 2 cards healing power feat. I have kept the 3 armor slots (no card feats). I find that this has been sufficient. Perhaps the strongest thing Ultimate Combat offers specific for Linxia is the Reflecting Shield (Armor 5), though if you're using the Heavy Armor power feat then there are some nice armors for her, particular Rhino Armor which is a heavy armor and reveals to reduce damage.
Linxia is really good at combat, and mediocre with Charisma. Good with Diplomacy. She is OK in Dex/Cons/Int/Wisdom. My strongest feature for her is that same power-feat, but I focus on using the Corrupted boons (blessings in particular). I don't use the higher level blessings. I stick with the ADB and AD1 blessings. 2xBoArchdevils, 2xBoShax (1 from Ultimate Combat), and 1xBoBelial. I found for most of AD5, these were all that I needed to proc the self-healing power feat and keep my discard empty.
One of Linxia's biggest limiters is her deck consistency. She is shuffling her deck a TON, so if you are planning to count on a particular card (Like, say that ONE spell card feat) then don't hold your breath. Also she has only 5 blessings, only 4 of which you can generally count to be in your deck at end of turn (unless you are sitting at a location which pings you for damage and allows you to shuffle your discarded blessing back into deck via using a shield). So out of 20 cards in deck and I'm drawing 2-4 cards per turn then I have an OK chance to draw a blessing, but not great chances to draw that spell or that book of the damned I’ve been waiting on. So while self-healing is nice, it does limit her quite a bit if you’re wanting to utilize it because it can be difficult getting cards you need into your hand. Having versatile, non-specific cards goes a long way for her.
I don’t think she’s overpowered because outside of killing things and keeping herself healed, she doesn’t seem to really outpace anyone else at the table. Other characters seem to be able to explore more heavily (perhaps because they aren’t banishing/burying allies). She struggles against barriers without the use of a noncombat gem that Ultimate Combat offers (which didn’t come around until I was tier5).
Overall, I like her. She’s fun to play, but I wouldn’t say she’s my strongest character I’ve played. Perhaps one of the toughest to kill though.
Thank you for the input!
I recognised Barriers would be the big hurdle (auto-pass blessing support aside). I know there are comparably rapid exploration characters (various Druids and Alchemists come to mind, or Spell Sage MM Ezren), but most need to slow down at least somewhat to heal or suffer from inconsistent combat checks as a drawback, and I saw Linxia as avoiding that. Rather than rely on recharge/shuffling cards for explorations like the classes/characters I listed, she could just reliably heal over and over without even truly expending cards (on account of how many Reveal or Display powers on shields/heavy armors there were).
I also kind of liked the idea of being able to stack her deck with additional blessings by 'stealing' them from other characters at your location when the opportunity presents itself. But the inconsistency with drawing key cards certainly would inhibit specific checks, and closing checks and non-combat henchmen/villains are a huge component of PACG that hold her back. She still strikes me, at least with Ultimate Combat (though we've yet to see the full card list from the other Ultimate Add-On decks), as the most powerful HV1 character... but again, that's only in my theorycrafting rather than practical experience.
You did mention not trying out higher AD# blessings. I don't have my cards on me to get their exact texts, but I do recall there was at least 2 (asmodeus-themed) blessings that allowed to fully redraw your hand and auto-pass a check, at the cost of your hand at the time. I think they buried your hand rather than discarded it if they were corrupted. If that was the case, do you think it would be viable to try to build a deck that heavily utilised these blessings to both cover her weaknesses and all-but-double her explorations in a turn? The requirement - and a heavy one at that - would be the need to consistently prevent them from burying your hand (though you can also just use them after you've exhausted your hand for the turn anyway).
I never played Linxia so far, but as redeux pointed out, the difference compared to yoon is her deck consistency, which makes her balanced (just like a lot of other characters that get to heal a lot).
Yoon can specifically heal blessings (and choose which ones on top!), so if you acquire some blessings (or are given some from other players), you can make her deck consist of almost all blessings plus some cards you want to keep on your hand while having enough cards to redraw your hand at any time if things go south.
Everything you don't need can be discarded for additional dice on her kinetic blast power, and you get an almost pure deck of useful cards you have almost complete control over. Since her role also covers barriers, there is almost no downside.
As an experiment, I've played Yoon the last couple scenarios as if she hadn't the ability to recharge her blessings at the end of turn, and everything feels completely in line now. She still can buff everyone, but she has to slow down and think about healing much sooner, and can't afford to just blast away all her cards to get a better deck composition in fear of dying.
Thank you for the input!
I recognised Barriers would be the big hurdle (auto-pass blessing support aside). I know there are comparably rapid exploration characters (various Druids and Alchemists come to mind, or Spell Sage MM Ezren), but most need to slow down at least somewhat to heal or suffer from inconsistent combat checks as a drawback, and I saw Linxia as avoiding that. Rather than rely on recharge/shuffling cards for explorations like the classes/characters I listed, she could just reliably heal over and over without even truly expending cards (on account of how many Reveal or Display powers on shields/heavy armors there were).
I also kind of liked the idea of being able to stack her deck with additional blessings by 'stealing' them from other characters at your location when the opportunity presents itself. But the inconsistency with drawing key cards certainly would inhibit specific checks, and closing checks and non-combat henchmen/villains are a huge component of PACG that hold her back. She still strikes me, at least with Ultimate Combat (though we've yet to see the full card list from the other Ultimate Add-On decks), as the most powerful HV1 character... but again, that's only in my theorycrafting rather than practical experience.
You did mention not trying out higher AD# blessings. I don't have my cards on me to get their exact texts, but I do recall there was at least 2 (asmodeus-themed) blessings that allowed to fully redraw your hand and auto-pass a check, at the cost of your hand at the time. I think they buried your hand rather than discarded it if they were corrupted. If that was the case, do you think it would be viable to try to build a deck that heavily utilised these blessings to both cover her weaknesses and all-but-double her explorations in a turn? The requirement - and a heavy one at that - would be the need to consistently prevent them from burying your hand (though you can also just use them after you've exhausted your hand for the turn anyway).
BoAsmodeus(3), BoGeryon(5) and BoPrinceofLies(5) have a "bury this card and all cards in your hand." Asmodeus and Geryon are not corrupted, and Prince of Lies is corrupted but the corruption text deals with discarding instead of banishing it when used. In either case you're burying your hand which IMO is too high of cost when I often need to keep my damage resistance in hand to prevent getting scourges. I suppose for a last-ditch effort it would be OK
Steal-healing blessings into your deck isn't something I've tried yet. Our table usually has at least one cleric or paladin who is able to heal (as well as my 1xCure) so we heal characters like normal. I also don't like the idea of taking blessings from characters who are in a position to need a heal, though I suppose if it was someone who was fairly tanky then it probably wouldn't hurt. At that point it's more or less about the timing of things, since we're often running 5-6 players and needing to maximize our explores at separate locations.
I played Lazzero and Ugraz through WotR (non-OP). I think Lazzero is the strongest from HV1. He can ignore the corrupted trait on blessings on his ( [] or any) check, and with Asmodean Advocate he can use some of the blessings to add d12's. For example, BoMammon can add 2d12 to any check without fear of the badstuff. That is --really-- good. Same goes for using the other blessings that synergize with this power feat.
His Asmodean Advocate role has a power to auto-recharge ( []or shuffle]) a spell and []characters at this location gain this power. That made him invaluable in my WotR play-through as I constantly stacked the highest recharge costing spells on Lazzero and didn't have to worry about him making the recharge check. He also has a scouting ability which I found very useful. His skill coverage is a little better than Linxia and I didn't particularly notice him suffering in combat any. Ultimate Magic wasn't out yet when I was playing Lazzero but I think it would be able to make him into a powerhouse.
I also played Urgraz and found him to be good as well. Though I would say Lazzero and Linxia had him beat. My favorite ability from Urgraz was preventing another character from banishing boons with his Tyrant role card.
Yeah, checked my deck after I got home. Alas. Thanks for all of the helpful info!
I'm currently playing through some homebrew SnS scenarios with a party of MM Yoon, Siwar and Lesath, and I've realized that Yoon is a big factor why it's not feeling challenging at all lately.
It seems that some characters are more powerful than others (Alahazra in SnS for example) and more powerful in certain party sizes.
In my opinion, now, this is OK. If a character seems too powerful, there are things we can do to keep a challenge. First, we could not use that character in our game, or not in the party size it excels at. Maybe that is more of a character for a player who isn't a grognard (like a single mom with a couple of teenagers who just wants to play, not have to calculate statistics in her head :) ).
Also, when a character starts to shine too much (which, I agree, MM Yoon does) and I want to continue playing them, I will make more thematic choices to their feats. For example, just don't take any Blessing card feats for Yoon and this will diminish her power without needing to house rule anything.
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It’s weird, when I played as Hasrk through RotRL, I thought he was tops. His ability to aid other combat checks, his own combat checks being really good, and his ability to heal after his role card really made him a really solid character.
“Man, this combat’s not lookin’ too good”
“Have a d4+3, I’ll recharge this quarterstaff I just acquired”
“Never mind, I’m good.”
Since I mentioned Linxia's potential power level here.
So, I just substituted in Linxia for a early AD3 scenario in Season of Plundered Tombs, and I was honestly shocked by how amazingly consistent her self-heal is.
Every shield (all of which can be used freely or in combat easily, thanks to Ultimate Combat, and recharge), every blessing (many of which auto-recharge as well) and more is constantly healing her, and I had previously overlooked the exceptional potential of the Corruptive Plate and Corruptive Half Plate cards; and their ability to add the Corrupted trait to whatever you want.
Staple that onto a card that you can reveal for a power easily, like a belt or the Evangelist ally or something like that, and Linxia can heal herself at least equal to the number of checks she makes in a turn. If you want to get particularly silly, put it on a card that can be freely 'played' many times in a turn outside of an encounter to heal yourself a bunch. If an Adowyn player gives you Leryn (WotR), for example, you can give Leryn the Corrupted trait, play it (heal 1), recharge a card to put it back into your hand (heal 1), and repeat to heal yourself 2*X cards, where X is your hand size.
Going out of your way to heal 5+ cards a turn is trivial, but wholly unnecessary. It seems easy to play Linxia in such a way that she never has a discard pile, all "Discard" or "Recharge" costs are easily converted into "Shuffle into your deck". Which means her greatest limitations are her deck composition and hand size. She wants as much of her deck as possible to be blessings, with the occasional spell and at least 1 good weapon, and then just explore or support every check as much as she wants.
Her weaknesses, such as against Barriers, seem to be pretty easily solved with the right supporting cards, like the Divine Fortune spell. Inability to recharge spells successfully is entirely irrelevant, since her discard zone basically doesn't seem to exist. I shudder to think of what she could achieve with a teammate intentionally feeding her the right cards from their own discard piles, because she turns gameplay into something more resembling a Deck-Building Game (where deck sizes aren't a concern), and her only real limitation is hand size if you have a friend helping mess with your deck construction.