When the Core set comes out I was considering playing Rivani and adding the UM deck.
But I notice Rivani and WotR Enora have similarities.
Both have d12 Int die.
Both have Arcane and Knowledge skills.
Rivani can recharge a card to use Knowledge for many checks vs barriers.
WotR Enora can use Knowledge for all checks vs barriers once she gains her Occularium Scholar role.
Their deck lists are nearly identical to start with. Enora gets more max items while Rivani gets wasted feat options for weapons. But they both get 9 spells max.
Rivani gets some location deck manipulation ability while Enora gets some durability with the ability to recharge spells from her discard pile.
They will both have access to the same cards.
Have any of you played either character? Any thoughts on which one to play?
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(I will quickly say that I reject the notion that Rivani gets a wasted weapon feat. That weapon feat means she can scrape by with one less Attack spell; maybe even more than 1 less attack spell, since she has an excellent Ranged skill (equal to her Knowledge skill, in fact). One good ranged weapon will carry you through numerous combat checks with her, so you can happily stick all of the awesome utility spells like Fire Snake, Charm Person, Fly, etc.)
Some quick personal opinions on each of them, relative to the other. (Assuming you're specifically using OA1 + UM in both cases.)
WotR Enora, Pre-Role:
PROS:
Features a certain degree of self-healing and damage resistance. Discarding spells to incidental damage (with or without her power) is a relatively low cost since she can easily recharge them from her discard pile. (I recommend having methods of intentionally shuffling her deck to best re-use recharged spells.)
Great boon acquisition skill.
Larger potential hand size.
Maximal Knowledge skill also means the basic Mind Thrust spell is strongest with her.
CONS:
Cannot deal with Attack-Immune enemies.
Poor against all non-Intelligence barriers (though your spell selection with UM can help offset that). That seriously hurts in the barrier-heavy Mummy's Mask.
Highly conditional damage resistance power; unlikely to come up almost ever in S&S and RotR, most frequently going to come up in Mummy's Mask.
Weaker Arcane skill (basically; Rivani gets the equivalent of an extra skill feat over Enora with Arcane).
WotR Enora, Post-Role:
Eldritch Savant is pretty poor, in my opinion. It has very conditional 'elements-matter' benefits and an incredibly conditional 'draw at the start of your turn' power. The only real benefit is the larger hand size; which to be fair, matters if your boons are of a higher quality than your powers are going to offer.
Occulariam Scholar becomes great against all barriers, can inherently buff all of their checks, plus gets a potentially strong examination power. But, it does restrict her item slots pretty significantly to fully utilize a lot of its bonuses.
Rivani, Pre-Role:
PROS:
Better Arcane skill (about 15% better at combat and recharging spells than Enora).
Can push her Arcane skill even higher by dumping junk acquired cards (I would recommend the power feat "or any boon" before "or recharge").
Can use weapons effectively, and therefore deal with Attack-Immune enemies, or get away with more utility spells - as long as you can make sure your weapon ends up in your hand at some point.
Flexibility in skills (Perception, Ranged, Acrobatics, Craft, Disable) makes her far better against barriers, and far better at acquiring every card type on average except Spells and Items (Ranged Weapons, Craft makes appearances on Armors, Items and Blessings, etc).
Note the Perception skill is relevant with a lot of OA1 boons.
An excellent examination power that helps avoid danger (barriers she can't face, for example), isolate villains or even get bonus 'explorations' off some Triggers.
Also, a wonderful carrier for the Unconventional Firepower convention boon that was recently given out to a lot of players. Strong ranged weapons are great for her to save on Attack spells, and there are even a couple of great firearms that offer benefits to Perception and/or Arcane-using characters.
Ultimate Magic also has the "Mind's Eye Blade", a weapon which works great with Rivani.
CONS:
Smaller hand size.
Lacks self-healing.
Needs to expend cards for most of her powers.
Rivani, Post-Role:
Psychic Duelist offers a great hand size, self-healing, weapon-proficiency (for some neat end-game ranged weapons; though not so much in these class decks), maximized Arcane skill and...
...the option to specialize in using Signs. I'm mixed on this power. Adding 1d12s with basically all of your blessings (at least on yourself) is really great, but I think Signs in general are really weak - especially since they only ever add 1 die. The fact that they recharge under various circumstances is not much of an upside when basic blessings printed in Add-On decks tend to recharge basically always (see: Blessing of the Green Faith. Blessing of the Quartermaster, etc), so they're outclassed really easily.
Er, plus, the power benefiting "other players playing blessings on a check that you've also played a blessing on" is about to be rendered almost pointless with post-Core rules about playing multiple cards of a type per check.
Phrenic Master gives evasion powers, stronger examination powers, and damage resistance - a pure, defensive expert, fully capable of controlling what she encounters, and when.
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I personally feel like Rivani is more interesting, offering a better variety of power feat options and being more fun pre-role. There's also some really creative ways of using her with various player boons and ultimate decks, due to her skill variety (Craft allows her to handle Ultimate Wilderness plants; Acrobatics is used with a suite of specific weapons, etc). I especially recommend Rivani over Enora in Mummy's Mask seasons, where her skillset (in particular the ability to use Perception and better anti-barrier skills) are going to be more relevant.
Plus, she's the better caster.
WotR Enora, post-role, however, is an absolute beast, and is one of the most flexible casters in the game due to the natural anti-barrier and book bonuses. If you're looking for how they'll play in the end-game, Enora might just scrape out as better.
As a question, though; no interest in Ultimate Magic Enora? She can use the same Class Decks, and I find her a more interesting character than WotR Enora.
This was specifically OA1 + UM which is why I said the weapon slot was a waste. But I guess even 1d6 +1 is decent if you are adding 1d12 +6.
My main issue with UM Enora is an issue I have with all stat based games. I don't like characters that want to specialize in more then one thing.
UM Enora is an Int based arcane caster so of course you want to increase her int. But she also has a power that uses her Charisma in combat.
Sure I can just not use that or only use it when I lack combat spells but it feels like either a wasted power or incentive for me to try and level charisma along with intelligence.
Her White Mage role also encourages boosting charisma.
Rivani does have craft but UW has very few good spells.
And this is for season 6 so no clue what skills will be useful.
Hm. Well a few more thoughts in response to that, then.
Weapon Slot: Both class decks have some decent ranged weapons. Mind's Eye Blade has numerous benefits (benefits with Rivani's powers, extra examinations), and Occult Adventures has at least 2 strong ranged weapons for combat; the Planar Crossbow and the Javelin of Lightning. The Javelin in particular I consider one of the most powerful weapons out there, even if you don't use Rivani's ranged skill. By banishing it (which can be turned into a recharge often, plus it can be re-gained easily from Tier 3+) it averages a combat check of almost 30.
Skill Feats: I personally find it less fun to play characters who only provide reasons to increase 1 stat. I feel like there's less options for build variety, and after maxing their 'core' skill I feel like I'm almost wasting my extra skill feats. That said, I think it's fine to just focus entirely on Intelligence for UM Enora - the Charisma is still a nice backup (and decent for acquiring allies) - even if it's a couple of skill feats behind it's still a damn sight better to use that power than nothing if you don't have an Attack spell on hand or if its against a difficulty 8 monster or so.
Plus, you can max Intelligence and still start increasing Charisma around Tiers 4+ (you usually get at least one bonus skill feat by the end of Tier 4, so most seasons net you about 7 skill feats in total). Unless you're playing the WotR season, in which case you get, like, 11 skill feats or so.
(Her high Charisma; skill feat'ed or not - combined with the auto-include Binder's Tome allows her to excel at ally acquisitions, which I feel makes up for being worse at acquiring items than WotR Enora. I prefer to acquire allies far more than items.)
Season 6: Ah, well that throws a lot of my assessments out the window. A lot of unknowns. But it does bring up some new points...
I believe there's been a mention in the convention playtests that there's no more 'light armor proficiency'. If that's the case, and light armor proficiency becomes inherent, then Rivani gets an upside because she has an option for an armor slot (and UM/OA1 has some great armors, such as Phoenix Cloak).
Of course, one of Rivani's post-role powers becomes really bad with the new one-per-check rules, as mentioned.
Rivani's ability to gain an examination/heal instead of moving becomes better after Core hits, since once your location is closed you get a free move wherever you want. Since she'll never start her turn at a closed location, there's usually never a need to move at all, so that power becomes a bit better.
Flipside, Enora's ability to reduce certain damage types dealt to anyone at her location is better post-Core, which explicitly makes changes to encourage players to stick together at locations more frequently (such as new closing rules). That's a pretty great supportive move now that sticking together is easier and pushed more than ever.
I have played WotR Enora and, while by no means a *weak* character, she's a pretty *boring* one to play, particularly pre-Role.
Just by looking at her, Rivani definitely seems like the more interesting of the two. YMMV, of course.
(Power-wise, I agree with all of Yewstance's analysis. I would probably call Rivani the "stronger" characters, due to her versatility with skills, but either way - they're pretty close in the "raw power" department, imho)
Yewstance wrote: Also, a wonderful carrier for the Unconventional Firepower convention boon that was recently given out to a lot of players. Out of curiosity, for those of us who can't attend said cons, what is that boon?
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Longshot11 wrote: Yewstance wrote: Also, a wonderful carrier for the Unconventional Firepower convention boon that was recently given out to a lot of players. Out of curiosity, for those of us who can't attend said cons, what is that boon?
There's online play-by-post conventions run almost year-round, so if you want to try your hand at PbP you too can nab some boons :)
Unconventional Firepower: You may add one weapon that has the Firearm trait and one item that has the Ammunition trait from the Gunslinger Class Deck to your box. These cards must have an adventure deck number equal to or lower than your current tier.
Each time you advance a tier, you may exchange one of these cards with another card of the same type from the Gunslinger Class Deck, following the same restrictions.
I don't have the gunslinger deck or the boon. But I agree it would help the poor ranged weapon issue.
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