SteveDJ
2014-02-09, 12:19 PM
Help! Finally cracked open the Deluxe Edition (bought a month ago) and played for the first time last night. Alas, it didn't go well - constantly being defeated by monsters, and unable to really ask for assistance.
Our setup: Mixed everything together (original + shortening), but otherwise stuck with the original rule set. We wanted to make our first time just basic, w/o optional rules.
There were just three of us playing: Belkar, Roy, and Durkon. The others were used as NPCs. Just started with 3 shticks (of six choices), and 3 random Loot.
We ran into two big issues early on, and that seemed to gimp our whole game, such that after 3 hours, Durkon STILL hadn't been able to draw any new shticks, and Roy only had drawn 1 more. Belkar was the only one making real progress, and that was because we started trying overly hard to make it easy for him (and us).
The two problems I saw:
1) The NPCs would "suck up" all the Loot, as we'd call on them for assistance. Once the loot was gone, it wasn't "in the game" to continue circling between players, so thus ended our ability to ask for assistance. Without assistance, monsters became much more difficult to defeat. Ah, the monsters...
2) Second problem. We were ALL dealt in our initial Battle hands many Far-Too-Difficult monsters to start the game. For example: Sabine, Red Cloak, Samantha, a couple dragons, and a couple others with double-digit attack and defense. And, LOTS of flying monsters.
If it hadn't been for Belkar's Leaping Attack, none of us would have had any range options, and thus all these flyers would've just been complete stoppers for us.
Alas, the rules require that you must play through your whole Battle hand before you can draw more cards. Thus, we were forced to lay out these overpowered monsters in the first few rooms. This made it nearly impossible to have rooms that we could clear, and obtain more Loot.
No Loot means no assistance, no schticks... generally a very poor experience for the game.
So I'm posting this to ask for suggestions. Obviously the first one: starting with 6 schticks and 6 loot (instead of 3) should help. But having NPCs sucking up so much loot over time still seems to be a big drain on "the system".
We've considered each playing TWO characters next time (so, no NPCs) but worry that might get too confusing, especially for us noob players.
I've also considered house-ruling that we should be able to discard the "toughest" monster (or 2) from our Battle hand, or somehow denying them being placed on Level 1, or something ... holding them off until later in the game... or something.
Suggestions? Thoughts on our experience?
Our setup: Mixed everything together (original + shortening), but otherwise stuck with the original rule set. We wanted to make our first time just basic, w/o optional rules.
There were just three of us playing: Belkar, Roy, and Durkon. The others were used as NPCs. Just started with 3 shticks (of six choices), and 3 random Loot.
We ran into two big issues early on, and that seemed to gimp our whole game, such that after 3 hours, Durkon STILL hadn't been able to draw any new shticks, and Roy only had drawn 1 more. Belkar was the only one making real progress, and that was because we started trying overly hard to make it easy for him (and us).
The two problems I saw:
1) The NPCs would "suck up" all the Loot, as we'd call on them for assistance. Once the loot was gone, it wasn't "in the game" to continue circling between players, so thus ended our ability to ask for assistance. Without assistance, monsters became much more difficult to defeat. Ah, the monsters...
2) Second problem. We were ALL dealt in our initial Battle hands many Far-Too-Difficult monsters to start the game. For example: Sabine, Red Cloak, Samantha, a couple dragons, and a couple others with double-digit attack and defense. And, LOTS of flying monsters.
If it hadn't been for Belkar's Leaping Attack, none of us would have had any range options, and thus all these flyers would've just been complete stoppers for us.
Alas, the rules require that you must play through your whole Battle hand before you can draw more cards. Thus, we were forced to lay out these overpowered monsters in the first few rooms. This made it nearly impossible to have rooms that we could clear, and obtain more Loot.
No Loot means no assistance, no schticks... generally a very poor experience for the game.
So I'm posting this to ask for suggestions. Obviously the first one: starting with 6 schticks and 6 loot (instead of 3) should help. But having NPCs sucking up so much loot over time still seems to be a big drain on "the system".
We've considered each playing TWO characters next time (so, no NPCs) but worry that might get too confusing, especially for us noob players.
I've also considered house-ruling that we should be able to discard the "toughest" monster (or 2) from our Battle hand, or somehow denying them being placed on Level 1, or something ... holding them off until later in the game... or something.
Suggestions? Thoughts on our experience?