Grazzle strategy: How much healing is too much?

[Bigguyinblack]

Grazzle's stats:

STRENGTH d6 □+1 □+2
DEXTERITY d6 □+1
CONSTITUTION d8 □+1 □+2 □+3
INTELLIGENCE d4 □+1 □+2
WISDOM d10 □+1 □+2 □+3
CRAFT: WISDOM +1
SURVIVAL: WISDOM +2
CHARISMA d8 □+1 □+2 □+3 □+4
DIVINE: CHARISMA +3
POWERS
HAND SIZE 6 □ 7
PROFICIENT WITH Light Armors
You automatically succeed at your check to recharge a spell (□ and you may shuffle it into your deck instead).
At the start of your turn, you may discard any number of cards from the top of your deck. Each other character may shuffle random cards from his discard pile into his deck; the total number of cards shuffled must not exceed (□ 1 plus) twice the number of cards you discarded.
□ Add 2 to your check that invokes the Attack trait.

FAVORED CARD TYPE: SPELL
CARDS LIST
WEAPON 1 □ 2
SPELL 6 □ 7 □ 8
ARMOR 2 □ 3 □ 4
ITEM 1 □ 2 □ 3
ALLY 1 □ 2
BLESSING 4 □ 5 □ 6

As most of you know Grazzle is one of the characters from the Oracle class deck with a fairly unique ability. He can discard cards from the top of his deck to heal other players no matter what location they are at. For details on exactly how his power works read here.

But Grazzle is an odd character. His highest die is a d10 for wisdom. But he doesn't use wisdom to cast For that he uses his d8 charisma.
So using a basic attack spell he is rolling 1d8 +3 +2d4 for an average of 12.5. One of his power feats adds 2 to his attack rolls which helps but he still isn't going to be your main choice to take on enemies.

He has another less unique ability in that he always succeeds on recharging his spells.

The Oracle class deck only has one Cure spell. You can add Major Cure at 3rd and Breath of Life at 6.

Ultimate Magic adds another Cure, Restorative Touch at 3rd, and Rejuvenation at 6th.

And that isn't even counting healing from allies, items, or blessings.

And let's not forget the level 4 spell in UM Channel the Gift that lets a character at your location search their deck for a spell and put in their hand.

So Grazzle will have as much healing as you want.

But while healing will free up your allies to be more aggressive in exploring or discarding cards, Your healing ability happens before you explore, Not instead of.

Unless you plan to hide in a closed location you need to get out there and help the team by hunting for those henchmen or villain.(s!)

So exactly how do you build your deck?

Starting out things are easy. 1 cure, Maybe 2 if you are using Ultimate Magic. Holy Light plus several more attack spells to choose from. Maybe toss in an Eloquence or Detect Magic as your 6th spell.

But what direction do you take him in as you rise in levels? Do you focus on utility spells and skimp on attack spells? Hope your 2 armors will save you if things go wrong?

I would like to hear from players of Grazzle or people who have played with Grazzle.

[AkbarabkA]

I'm currently playing Grazzle with a group of 5-6 players in Wrath of the Righteous. We're currently in AD6. I haven't played any other adventure paths, so I can't say how general my experience is.

I have always had 2 cure-like cards in Grazzle's deck, and this has almost always let me heal my party as much as, sometimes more than, they desired. I chose to skip the (□ and you may shuffle it into your deck instead) power feat, and this was actually helpful. When I played a cure and recharged it, I knew exactly where it was afterwards (at the bottom of my deck), and a little card counting guaranteed I wouldn't accidentally discard it with his core power in the future. I did have a couple of times when I accidentally discarded both cures early on, and things did get a little scary in those games.

I went with Grazzle's Bone Diviner role which lets you recharge a card with the Divine trait to examine decks at occupied locations. As a result, I have tried to maximize the number of cards in my deck that have the Divine trait. I often spend most of my hand to examine locations for my allies on their turns, and then maybe get a couple explores in myself depending on what I have left, or maybe cure myself. Recharging all these cards also lets you cycle your hand, so you can get your cures back quickly.

I tended to pick up allies and items that let me extend the size of my hand (e.g. draw more cards, or hold cards until later) or let me recover spells from my discard (in case I discarded a cure). Part of this is so I could more reliably cure myself, but another part was to let me examine more locations and cycle my deck faster with the Bone Diviner role.

I began the game with a couple of utility spells (Strenth and burst bonds I think), a couple of cures, and the rest were combat spells. By the end of the game I had dropped essentially all of my utility spells for combat spells. This was mostly because WotR is so combat heavy (this has been my experience, and the forums seem to agree from what I've seen), and I wanted to make sure that I had some combat in hand even after recharging a bunch of cards for examinations.

For card feats I maxed out spells first and started picking up combat spells. After that I added items (I love items!) and blessings. I think allies could have been a good choice too. I haven't gotten much use from my armor or weapons personally.

I have not had much trouble with combat. Between his +3 to divine, the +2 to attack cards from his power feat, and another up to +4 on charisma, I actually find that Grazzle tends to have a higher flat bonus than most of the other characters for combat checks. WotR is also pretty generous with feats, and the mythic mechanic can put some silly flat bonuses on your checks, so perhaps Grazzle's combat doesn't shine as much in other adventure paths. I was the only primary caster in our party, so I got first shot at all the sweet combat spells, which made combat that much easier.

Overall, my Grazzle is able to heal everybody until they complain and be able to top himself off afterwards with a cure; to examine locations like there's no tomorrow; and to almost always have a combat spell in hand so he can handle a couple explores or a summoned bane. He is pretty satisfying and fun to play. The main downside is that he is sometimes over-relied on by other party members for examination, and so his turns can be a little short and dull due to a depleted hand.

[James McKendrew]

A key point of his ability is that you need to have at least one Cure in your hand before you use it, so that you can then turn around and heal Grazzle with it. This also prevents you from discarding all your heals. Being able to automagically recharge your Cure spells, and (after a power feat) then shuffling your deck means Cures cycle more quickly. If you use your power every time you start a turn with a Cure in your hand, you can generally keep a small party quite healthy. (Obviously, there are gonna be times where you lose Cures as damage, etc., but, if there weren't risks, it'd be a dull game).

As for combat, the power feat that allows him to add 2 to his check that invokes the Attack trait absolutely SMASHES any disadvantage of having a d8 casting stat. d8+2 is ALWAYS better than d10.

Just remember that, if you choose the Bog Medic and take the power feat that lets you recharge any Divine cards, those recharged cards do NOT count towards the total used for your healing. Example. You choose to discard 5 cards for healing. One of them is your Cure, so you recharge that. You decide to go ahead and discard the other four cards. Your healing is based on twice the number of cards you discarded. You discarded 4 and recharged 1, so twice 4 is 8 (plus any bonuses from other power feats).

[Slacker2010]

AkbarabkA wrote:

I would like to hear from players of Grazzle or people who have played with Grazzle.

I played with a Grazzle through Season of the Runelords. His healing is bordering on broken. With a little skill, no one in your party has to worry about dying. Our Grazzle took the Bog Medic Role and would top off the group group every round. Being these cards are not coming from your hand, and they are coming off your deck, gives you a huge card advantage.

It got really silly with us trying to defeat scenarios before 15 turns passed. This was to give us a challenge. Every one of us would burn our entire hands each round to dig location decks.

Prior to getting his role card, he felt more balanced. We had another player with a cure in his deck that would always hold it to help keep Grazzle healthy. Teammates wouldn't waste resources because we didn't want to tax Grazzle too much.

As stated in the previous post, he never had issues with his d8 casting stat. The bonus to attack spells covered combat and his auto recharge ability covered recharge checks.

[elcoderdude]

Grazzle's healing is very strong -- I have wondered if it is too strong -- and Season of the Runelords isn't the toughest Season, as it uses the easiest set -- but I have to ask if you played Grazzle correctly.

See this thread on common Grazzle misplays. You didn't make either of those mistakes, did you?

[Slacker2010]

For his original release we did. But the moment it was clarified on the boards we swapped over.

I was involved in that thread.

While that ruling did help, the option to recharge the divine cards you want still made it easy. Key cards and his cures could just go right back into his deck.

[elcoderdude]

Yeah, I was rushing & didn't check the thread.

How many players in your party? I'm still puzzled to think numerous players were discarding nearly their entire hands and Grazzle was healing all of them every turn.

[Slacker2010]

The game was only 3 of us. Grazzle, Alahazra, and Sajan. I find that smaller ground are easier, but we didnt have any more regular players. I wanted to add locations but our VC would let us do this an keep the game in Organized play.