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Elvenghast
2006-11-25, 12:11 AM
I've tried playing a couple of times now with some of my friends. Both games have been very rough to start, lot's of turns spent resting which causes things to go very slowly. Part of the problem seem our inability to draw any of the monsters with low attack ratings early on so there's certainly some random chance involved but the characters just seem really weak compared to the average monster.

Also, both games the person playing Roy has gotten very frustrated with his inability to be at all effective. Even at lower levels he can't seem to compete with the other characters. For example, the meager bonuses to his attack don't come close to Durkon's beginning stats.

So what are we doing wrong?

-Elvenghast

Jefepato
2006-11-26, 02:07 AM
For one thing, you probably need to ask for help from other players more, especially early on (it helps a lot). Or just shuffle the deck better -- there's a lot of weaker monsters in there.

But if Roy is having trouble competing with the other characters, I'm not sure you're even playing the same game as the rest of us. Most people complain, if at all, that Roy is too powerful. (Great Cleavage in particular is just mean.)

ref
2006-11-26, 02:49 AM
I don't know what you might be doing wrong? Are you giving the characters three schticks to begin with? Are you limiting the battles to a single monster in the first level? I guess you're probably doing that, but it never hurts to check...

Wanderlust
2006-11-26, 06:45 PM
I'm not really sure what the problem might be there. I've certainly had games where both (or all) players seem to have drawn very powerful monsters in their battlehands, thereby making the first level of the dungeon seem like the 4th. I guess the trick there is to just move to new rooms and hope for more manageable monsters, and maybe come back to the first floor after you've gained some shticks.

I was thinking about a solution that might help you out until you're more familiar with the game. It may take a while, but try it out if you like:

Sort through the battle deck and seperate the monsters into 3 piles, one for each floor of the dungeon. Have only low- to medium-ranged monsters in the stack for the first level (monsters with 10 or lower as their highest att/def for example). Second level monsters can be mostly medium monsters, with a few low and higher end guys thrown in to mix it up. The 3rd level will be most of your tougher monsters, with some medium and a couple low end monsters thrown in as well.

One thing you should avoid is recycling the first level easy monsters back into the battle deck and using them again for easy experience. Once you deplete the first level battle deck, shuffle those into the second level deck, so your characters will face tougher monsters. This will help limit 'farming' the first level. Once you get the hang of things though, your characters will want to head down to the second and third levels to fight tougher monsters for better rewards. Hopefully at this point you've gained some solid shticks and loot enough to offer support from your fellow players. Try this method once or twice, until you're familiar with each character's play style. I'd randomly shuffle the "Screw This!" cards into each deck, also.

I've not tried this approach, but I've considered it many times when teaching new players. That way it won't be so overwhelming when you explore your first room and find a black dragon or Thog staring at you.

Hope that helps.

PS - Roy is a very powerful character. He is better on attack in almost all situations, so sometimes it's good to go into a room and use a defensive shtick, and then attack the monster next turn. Also, the "Charge!" shtick turns a defensive roll into an attack; very handy!

jmucchiello
2006-12-03, 10:01 AM
I'm not really sure what the problem might be there. I've certainly had games where both (or all) players seem to have drawn very powerful monsters in their battlehands, thereby making the first level of the dungeon seem like the 4th. I guess the trick there is to just move to new rooms and hope for more manageable monsters, and maybe come back to the first floor after you've gained some shticks.We had the same problem as the OP in our one and only game and it really turned some of the players off to the game. Our problem was most of our starting loot had only NPC drool so once you asked for help, the loot left play. Die rolls causes early loses and then nobody could help each other and the easiest room on the first floor had stats like 6/6. Vaarsuvius fireballed a couple monster, but that just leaves the loot in an empty room so the next character can fight the 8/8 critter. Additionally we ended up with the unusually large room (+1 battle size), hall of the dead (-1 battle size), the spikey room (+1 wound when defeated) and the no experience room (obsolete monsters or something) on level 1. This made it hard to get new monsters into play. After 2 hours only one player had used up their battle hand (nobody had more than 2 screw this cards). Did I mention we hit two traps early with evasions of 9 and 12, the 12 had a range of 2 and hit everybody. This dropped a lot of loot into the +1 battle size room.

Sort through the battle deck and seperate the monsters into 3 piles, one for each floor of the dungeon. Have only low- to medium-ranged monsters in the stack for the first level (monsters with 10 or lower as their highest att/def for example).10 or lower? Without extra schticks, defeating 6/6 monsters is difficult. Elan is +1/+1 at best. And if there are no starting loot that Elan drools over, he can't improve without getting extremely lucky in the first few battle. (I played Elan and while I could grant +3 to everyone else (Bard Song). Nothing similar helped me at all.)

I've read through the rules thread, we didn't misplay any of the rules. Were we just incredibly unlucky?

The Doctor
2006-12-04, 06:54 AM
We only played one game (the 'short' version... which took us 6 hours...)
Roy did very well, though Haley did better - mostly because she had a 'truce' with Elan, who swapped llot over and over to give each other support. We later concluded that people shouldn't give aid so often... it was how Haley won (she never actually stole loot).
Belkar did bad but that was mostly because the player didn't like attacking other PCs.
I played Vaarsuvius, which was difficult. I had to rest far more than others, had a few unlucky rolls, and was soon behind on loot, which meant no support... I think V is hardest to play well until he has the right Shticks.
Overall, Roy and Haley did best, though they may also have been a bit more lucky.

Arcade
2006-12-04, 10:23 AM
Without extra schticks, defeating 6/6 monsters is difficult. Elan is +1/+1 at best. And if there are no starting loot that Elan drools over, he can't improve without getting extremely lucky in the first few battle. (I played Elan and while I could grant +3 to everyone else (Bard Song). Nothing similar helped me at all.)

I've read through the rules thread, we didn't misplay any of the rules. Were we just incredibly unlucky?

I would say you did sound incredibly unlucky. Also, if the monsters and the rooms were so tough, you should have just gone to a different room. There must have been one decent room to fight in on level 1, especially since you can have 8 rooms per level. Unless you end your turn in a room with monsters, you can skip right over them, which is often necessary.

A +6/+6 monster is like fighting an kobold pacifist. Elan is the weakest, combat character, but everyone else should be able to fight with a +2 bonus. So that means you will lose 1/4 of the time, tie 1/12 of the time, and win 2/3 of the time. With 4 wounds, you can mop the floor with those monsters than take a quick trip to the dungeon entrance to rest up.

Even +8/+8 means you will only lose a wound less than 1/2 the time if you have a +2 bonus. A single loot icon means you only lose a wound one in 4 times. And if you don't have the loot, then you just head back to the entrance (since you're on the first level anyway) and get back your health and unflip your schticks.

Lord Greywarden
2006-12-04, 04:25 PM
Um... just out of curiosity, to cure a minor bit suspicion:

How many d12s are the "unlucky" ones rolling during combat?

The Giant
2006-12-06, 07:16 AM
10 or lower? Without extra schticks, defeating 6/6 monsters is difficult. Elan is +1/+1 at best.

See, this doesn't make sense to me. Even without any shtick at all, a 6/6 monster should be beaten 50% of the time, on a roll of 7-12 on the d12. We specifically designed the game that way, since 6/6 is the baseline for easy monsters. With his starting +1 shtick, Elan should beat a 6/6 monster 58% of the time.

Are you literally not rolling anything above a 5?? If so, I would think that would be self-evident to your gaming group that it was purely bad luck, and not the game's fault.

Are you rolling a d12 for the monster? Because you're not supposed to; the monster's Attack or Defense is a static number, it is not a modifier to a die roll. It's your Attack + d12 compared to Monster's Defense (NOT Monster's Defense + d12).

The Giant
2006-12-06, 07:26 AM
Also, both games the person playing Roy has gotten very frustrated with his inability to be at all effective. Even at lower levels he can't seem to compete with the other characters. For example, the meager bonuses to his attack don't come close to Durkon's beginning stats.

I think you, also, must be doing something wrong. Roy starts with the Greenhilt Sword, +2 Attack/+2 Defense/Range 0, while Durkon starts with Thor's Hammer, +2 Defense/+1 Attack/Range 0. This means that both characters are exactly the same on Defense, and Roy is BETTER at Attack. I don't understand how Roy's stats could be defined as "meager" when they are, in fact, better than Durkon's.

The only thing I can think of is if you are using Durkon's Big Heavy Armor shtick incorrectly. Big Heavy Armor cannot be used to defeat monsters at all--the best you can ever get when using Big Heavy Armor is a draw, meaning that the monster stays put and you get nothing. That's why Big Heavy Armor has a +6 Defense--because it CANNOT be used to actually win a battle!

Alternately, you might be incorrectly adding all of the shticks together, which might lead you to believe that Durkon has a +8 Defense with both Thor's Hammer and Big Heavy Armor in play. This is not the case. You can only use ONE battle shtick in each battle--you use Thor's Hammer OR Big Heavy Armor, not both. Which means you have to choose to either have a +2 Defense from Thor's Hammer (and be able to kill the monster), or have a safer +6 Defense from Big Heavy Armor (but know you can't do better than a tie).

If you aren't doing either of these things by accident, maybe you could describe exactly how you are calculating each character's "starting stats" that leads you to believe Roy has it worse than any other character?

PrometheusRex
2006-12-12, 10:54 AM
I'll chime in here briefly on the subject of Roy...

One of the first (out of, like, three) games I've played, Roy actually did have a tough time starting out. But, it wasn't so much an issue of bad die rolls as it was a) an inexperienced player still figuring the game out and, much more important, b) the other players drew just about every "Flying" monster in the deck really really early, and Roy has about the worst selection of Range > 0 shticks out of anyone. But, that was pretty obviously a fluke, I think.

snow61
2006-12-14, 10:53 AM
I'll chime in here briefly on the subject of Roy...

One of the first (out of, like, three) games I've played, Roy actually did have a tough time starting out. But, it wasn't so much an issue of bad die rolls as it was a) an inexperienced player still figuring the game out and, much more important, b) the other players drew just about every "Flying" monster in the deck really really early, and Roy has about the worst selection of Range > 0 shticks out of anyone. But, that was pretty obviously a fluke, I think.

In the 2 games we have played Roy has had a very tough time also. Haley has actually been the easiest character with her range abilities and the ability to get such a high attack role.