4-6E was I think the first scenario we thought was genuinely difficult. Though that could just be we were playing 5p without a lot of specific undead killing stuff.
One of my players did complain about the Nyctessa exception to the damage, he thought it was too blatant a tie-in for the HV2 deck (I never managed to play 3-2P so I don't get to play Nyctessa).
There is definitely a lot of attrition with the extra location, so I would say it's borderline in difficulty (we actually almost finished the scenario anyway, so even though we failed it was fine).
We were bothered about the non-trigger trigger, though I imagine it was exactly to prevent Estra shenangians.
What were your thoughts?
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We were bothered about the non-trigger trigger, though I imagine it was exactly to prevent Estra shenangians.
What do you mean by non-trigger trigger? Do you mean the third scenario rule that prevents cornering the villain the first time you encounter him? I know MM Estra has a powerful examine ability and this could let her encounter the villain sooner than normal, though I'm not sure if the Villain-evasion scenario rule was really designed around that. I suspect it probably was just to make sure the scenario remained difficult.
Overall though, I didn't have too bad of a time with this scenario though we played it with three players - Talitha (me), Tarlin, and Feiya. We got it on our first try. It definitely did seem harder than normal, though I can't recall specifics (this was several months ago when it was first released). I vaguely recall we were starting to run out of time though.
I agree that the Nyctessa exception was somewhat odd. I liked the tie-in of being able to play proxy heroes but then giving them specific benefits within a scenario, while encountering a villain no less, doesn't seem quite fair or fun. Let her start the scenario with an random non-basic and non-elite monster instead if you want to give her a minor buff in the scenario but not something blatantly strong.
One thing I liked, whether by design or accidental was the villain only being AD2...My Staff of Empty Souls wasn't as effective against the villain as it was the rest of the scenario. The staff of Empty Souls was a clear winner this scenario with Chisisek's tomb/Sepulcher.
And the Undead difficulty increase of 1d12. I'm not sure how I felt about that. It seemed too swingy. The final villain encounter I rolled low. Whereas earlier in the scenario I rolled high on the villain difficulty increase. I wonder how it'd look if using 2d6 which does increase the average slightly but would make it a little more consistent.
Overall though, these are just minor nitpicks from me. I enjoyed it. I do think this would be a lot harder with a larger group though, so I'm glad I did it with a smaller group. May be worth splitting up your group on the replay if that is an option.
No, the scenario text that says any examined Undead are encountered anyway (and you also have to recharge a card).
By the way, this does not apply to non-undead in locations that have the "all monsters you encounter are undead", because they haven't been encountered yet.
We finished this one. We have all 8 people at my store there, and one of our people managed to cheese it with Nyctessa. When I meant cheesed, I meant this is literally the scenario Nyctessa tends to trivialize since almost everything is undead.
It's not necessary, the table that didn't have it also finished fine. We had 2 tables of 4 and we were okay.
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For clarity/reference, Nyctessa gets a bonus here because you're fighting _her dad_.
For clarity/reference, Nyctessa gets a bonus here because you're fighting _her dad_.
Wait, what? Why was there no reference to Nyctessa when you fight him the first time earlier in the season? And why was she mind-controlled by him in the 4-P2 scenario where you unlocked her? Can a Dhampir even be enthralled by a Vampire?
(Coming from someone who doesn't play the RPG, but this just seems weird. Another oddity this adventure was being sent a bloody bag of Xhandul's teeth... then later saving him in the scenario rewards and accompanying him. So he wasn't killed - he was just de-toothed and then let go, and then you protected him from getting killed, even though he was clearly already captured and de-toothed?
Or is it gameplay and story segregation, that in the story he was totally killed to show off how serious the villain was, but the designers didn't want him to be the only one of the henchman-trio to not become a supporting sort-of-cohort later?)
Anyway, a 5-player table I played at via PbP recently got through the scenario in exactly 15 turns, having cleared almost all of the location decks of cards. Whilst I don't think we particularly found it difficult (it certainly wasn't a close game, and none of us played Nyctessa), it was certainly the most challenging scenario we completed post-role, and I enjoyed the difficulty spike for the (psuedo-)finale to the Adventure Path.
(Do note I ended up with a sort-of-infinite loop of explorations/movements with MM Ezren, but that wasn't really by exploiting any particular boon or character power (okay, maybe a little bit by exploiting a character power) but rather by exploiting a bane's effect. And I have the utmost certainty that we would've beaten the scenario without me doing so, it just would've taken another 5 or so turns.)
I actually liked the massive Undead difficulty increase, since it really forced you to push yourself to surpass the combat checks - particularly to avoid scourges - and ensured you or your team needed to keep blessings in reserve to ensure you could beat the unfortunate/occasional "Difficulty 35" or so buffed Undead. A pleasant change of pace when I normally see characters just easily sweeping through most banes in AD6.
It might be worth noting that the 4-7 capstone scenario (Duel) features even more powerful banes - by a large amount - and even more scourges and probably even more card costs, and we just completed that in 8 turns, without any kind of semi-infinite exploration loop. Mostly on getting very lucky with the henchmen placements (and isolating the villain very early), but I'd still happily be handed an even harder scenario if there was one on offer.