Wanderlust
2011-10-10, 07:52 PM
Hi Everyone,
I recently received my copy of the Shortening and so far have been able to play 2 games. In the first, we used both the time limit and the wandering Xykon rules, but we hit our time limit before Xykon left his lair due to teaching new people to play. The second time we played, it was with 4 somewhat experienced players, although we were still on a learning curve with all the new shticks, loot, etc.
The problem we ran into was that it seemed nearly impossible to get past Xykon's attack/defense - 4 times. In the traditional game it would always come down to one player surviving long enough to get to the lair and then dumping all of his loot on one chance at killing Xykon. In the game we played, Xykon had accumulated enough of a horde that his stats were at 26. The best combat shtick anyone had gave a +6 or +7, leaving a gap of nearly 20 points to overcome (including the dice roll). Since nobody wants to pitch a bunch of loot and still rely on a really lucky dice roll, we would offer up almost all of our loot to other players for assistance to overcome his numbers.
Varsuvius was the first to try, and despite everything he tied with Xykon and resulted in a draw (rolled a 3). We quickly realized that each of us was going to have to dump all of our loot and still rely on a good roll (assuming all players were on the same floor) to harm Xykon, and the odds of doing this 4 times in a row before he could get back to the safe haven seemed slim.
One thing that hindered us was that we interpreted Turn Undead in such a way that it couldn't be used, since it says it cannot target Xykon and since he was the first monster in the stack we assumed it wasn't an option. I've since read that you can use Turn Undead, you just have to beat Xykon's defenses and it would affect all other undead in the room if you hit, just not Xykon. This seems to be the simplest way of getting Xykon's numbers into something more manageable, but we didn't know it was an option (I'm curious if other people have seen Durkon's Turn Undead wipe out the whole horde leaving Xykon stranded).
We were playing Durkon, V, Haley, and Belkar. Haley tried using Sniper to thin out the supporting horde, while Belkar used the shtick that allows him to move the lowest defense monster to the top of the stack to fight (I'd also like some input if this is a legal move or not). Aside from those and fireball, we couldn't think of anything else at our disposal to reduce his horde (nobody had any I Forgot They Could Do That Screw This! cards to eliminate his Assist ability).
What we ended up doing is adding an on-the-fly house rule that basically allowed a character to continue battling through the stack if they hit Xykon, just as if they had killed the top monster in a stack. This allowed those lucky enough to hit the first time a chance to whittle down the horde so that the next players had a better chance of hitting Xykon. By the time Xykon was fleeing, he only had 3 supporting monsters and so Haley was able to finish him off with a ranged longbow attack.
So if anyone has any suggestions or would like to share their experience on the subject, I'd appreciate it. The four of us playing were completely understanding of Xykon being tough, but I'd like to know if there's another approach to make defeating him a little more plausible.
Thanks!
I recently received my copy of the Shortening and so far have been able to play 2 games. In the first, we used both the time limit and the wandering Xykon rules, but we hit our time limit before Xykon left his lair due to teaching new people to play. The second time we played, it was with 4 somewhat experienced players, although we were still on a learning curve with all the new shticks, loot, etc.
The problem we ran into was that it seemed nearly impossible to get past Xykon's attack/defense - 4 times. In the traditional game it would always come down to one player surviving long enough to get to the lair and then dumping all of his loot on one chance at killing Xykon. In the game we played, Xykon had accumulated enough of a horde that his stats were at 26. The best combat shtick anyone had gave a +6 or +7, leaving a gap of nearly 20 points to overcome (including the dice roll). Since nobody wants to pitch a bunch of loot and still rely on a really lucky dice roll, we would offer up almost all of our loot to other players for assistance to overcome his numbers.
Varsuvius was the first to try, and despite everything he tied with Xykon and resulted in a draw (rolled a 3). We quickly realized that each of us was going to have to dump all of our loot and still rely on a good roll (assuming all players were on the same floor) to harm Xykon, and the odds of doing this 4 times in a row before he could get back to the safe haven seemed slim.
One thing that hindered us was that we interpreted Turn Undead in such a way that it couldn't be used, since it says it cannot target Xykon and since he was the first monster in the stack we assumed it wasn't an option. I've since read that you can use Turn Undead, you just have to beat Xykon's defenses and it would affect all other undead in the room if you hit, just not Xykon. This seems to be the simplest way of getting Xykon's numbers into something more manageable, but we didn't know it was an option (I'm curious if other people have seen Durkon's Turn Undead wipe out the whole horde leaving Xykon stranded).
We were playing Durkon, V, Haley, and Belkar. Haley tried using Sniper to thin out the supporting horde, while Belkar used the shtick that allows him to move the lowest defense monster to the top of the stack to fight (I'd also like some input if this is a legal move or not). Aside from those and fireball, we couldn't think of anything else at our disposal to reduce his horde (nobody had any I Forgot They Could Do That Screw This! cards to eliminate his Assist ability).
What we ended up doing is adding an on-the-fly house rule that basically allowed a character to continue battling through the stack if they hit Xykon, just as if they had killed the top monster in a stack. This allowed those lucky enough to hit the first time a chance to whittle down the horde so that the next players had a better chance of hitting Xykon. By the time Xykon was fleeing, he only had 3 supporting monsters and so Haley was able to finish him off with a ranged longbow attack.
So if anyone has any suggestions or would like to share their experience on the subject, I'd appreciate it. The four of us playing were completely understanding of Xykon being tough, but I'd like to know if there's another approach to make defeating him a little more plausible.
Thanks!