Starting a new campaign and playing way worse

[Ysalmari21]

So, I just finished my first campaign, a playthrough of S&S with Alahazra, Jirelle, and Saltyiel. I ran through it with little difficulty, I only had to replay a handful of scenarios, and half of those were because I misread or completely missed a scenario rule. I am now starting a new playthrough with Feiya, Lirianne, Merisiel, and Oloch, and am doing waaaaay worse. 4 scenarios into the base set adventure, and I've already had to replay two of them. What's going on? Do 4 players dramatically change the difficulty or strategy involved? Will it take my brain longer to sitch over to new character play-styles? Does my party make-up suck? Or did I just run out of beginner's luck? Would love to hear what others' experiences are, especially playing solo with multiple characters.

[Hannibal_pjv]

The difference between 3 and 4 characters Are not so big. You have to run faster with 4 characters aka you need extra explores more that with 3 characters, but not too Many.
So you have to use allies and blessing more to explore, less to boost your checks.
But as I said the difference is no so big in this case. So it have to be something else.
S&S is a Little bit swingy and it requires some strange skills like graft more that other adventures. Maybe that?

[Jenceslav]

I have played so far only up to start of AD3 with Jirelle, Lirianne, Alahazra and Damiel, but tried the first two scenarios also with a different group (Damiel, Feiya, Merisiel, Jirelle, Lem). I believe that some scenarios are harder (AD B-2 Rum Punch and the AD 2-3 The Toll of the Bell were finished with great luck at the last possible turn). Rum Punch ended that way in both playthroughs :) Sometimes, the insanely hard scenario becomes easier due to randomness (Henchman in the first turn, for example), but "easy" scenario can also turn into impossible.
But I don't believe that the amount of heroes is much of an issue (even though it increases card count from 50 to 60), but maybe the party composition is. Or you have to find the proper boons to suit the party. So far, my experience is that Damiel and Alahazra are outstanding in combat, Jirelle is close behind due to her rerolling power. Oloch and Feyia seemed to me a little too situational with their abilities but I believe they may be great, once you find one of the correct playstyle...
So, hold on and it may improve.

[Slacker2010]

I think its probably a little bit of everything.
*3 player is easier than 4 player.
*Alahazra is one of the strongest characters.
*Jirelle is also amazing in SnS as her combat and utility are solid.
*I found Lirianne and Merisiel in SnS both lackluster.
*Oloch specificly excells in smaller groups.
*You have significantly less healing and more people to address.

In addition, some of it is probably luck. You only have 4 scenarios as a data pool. While the group your playing isnt as strong as the last group, there isnt really a reason they cant handle the advneture path.

[Yewstance]

Slacker2010 wrote:

I think its probably a little bit of everything.

*3 player is easier than 4 player.
*Alahazra is one of the strongest characters.
*Jirelle is also amazing in SnS as her combat and utility are solid.
*I found Lirianne and Merisiel in SnS both lackluster.
*Oloch specificly excells in smaller groups.
*You have significantly less healing and more people to address.

Agreed with all of those points. Alahazra is excellent, Merisiel and Lirianne are mediocre (though I like some aspects of Merisiel). I'd like to also add...

Your 4 party group has only a single character with a decent Wisdom/Survival score, which significantly hinders you against ships, especially since you've lost the remarkably potent quality of simply having Jirelle around to ignore dozens of negative consequences. Later in the game, Oloch will be able to deal with this (See below), but not much in the early game.

Oloch can work fine in large groups (my table had him as one of its 6 characters for a full run, and he was valuable), but he's very weak in the early game, in my opinion.

When Oloch's 'display' power is bumped up to providing +2 per card, and when his hand size increases, he begins to become much stronger when he can start providing +8 or more to a check, allowing people to cover their weakest areas and defeat checks they'd otherwise have no chances with. But otherwise, he's only 'okay' at combat, he has a weak spellcasting ability, and he has a lot of card slots for weapons and armor. Armor is, in S&S, the weakest card type, and weapons aren't that helpful to have multiples of in your hand (though Oloch can admittedly turn both into other effects).

It's also probably worth noting that Merisiel and Lirianne don't have particularly impressive Role Cards either, in my opinion, whilst all 3 of your original characters had powerful role options.

Oloch's are fine if only for the much-needed hand size increase, and Feiya can make some amazing things happen with her colossal hand size and ability to effectively carry virtually all of her spells on tap for re-use with her ability (especially with one of her role cards allowing her to recharge animals for that use).

With all of that said, I fully concur with the final statement made...

Slacker2010 wrote:

In addition, some of it is probably luck. You only have 4 scenarios as a data pool. While the group your playing isnt as strong as the last group, there isnt really a reason they cant handle the advneture path.

Most importantly, if you're having fun with the new party, you absolutely haven't locked yourself into something you can't win - it'll just be a little trickier - but that can be part of the fun!

[Ysalmari21]

Thanks for all the input! I wanted to try playing through with every character, so I separated them into 3 parties that I thought would work best (my other party will be Damiel, Lem, Lini, and Valeros). I guess I didn't realize my first party was so powerful, but I guess that's good to have for a first run-through.

[Frencois]

Another thing that you have to have in mind when playing larger group: each character doesn't have to loot as much as you do in smaller groups.
And they need much less to be generalists or optimized, because they have an easier way selecting appropriate locations and splitting the job.

Anyway you have less turns/characters so they have to be focused on doing whatever it takes to finish the scenario in time.

[Calthaer]

Early scenarios are hard. You have no feats to bring your stat rolls up to a minimum level, so if you don't have proficiencies things can be real swingy. Shifting the base adventure from 3 scenarios to 5 exacerbates this...it's a longer slog before you can make choices to affect your chances.

Your party is fine...stick with it and, with some card updates, the plunder will pile up on the deck and your crew will be whooping with glee. To one of Yewstance's points: look for those magic armors that you can recharge at turn end to cycle Oloch's deck through his small hand size.