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So, played this with a friend via TTS and had a lot of fun, planning on playing it with more friends there, and I might be getting some physical copies for Christmas. It's been fun so far, but the starter decks are pretty dang bad (well, Daisy's was alright, but things like Roland getting Mind Over Matter...); does anyone have advice on preparing decks for the core and maybe Dunwich characters using only core (and again maybe the Dunwich cycle) cards for people to use instead if they don't feel like deckbuilding for their first game(s)? Technically TTS has access to infinite copies of all the cards, but the above seem to have the most straightforward investigators, and limiting stuff will help prevent people from being overwhelmed I think.
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Dec 11, 2018 00:14
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| # ? May 23, 2024 19:37 |
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It depends somewhat on the number of players you have, but some really general advice is to play to each investigator's strengths, and don't put too much into shoring up their weaknesses. With 1-2 players you really need to be able to multi-task, but with 3-4 players you can get away with heavier specialization. I've posted it before, but this is a really good Roland deck with an in-depth write-up, and the version I linked is the one that includes cards featured in only the core set and the Dunwich Legacy cycle (deluxe box through Lost in Time and Space). I've carried a lot of DadouXIII's advice into all my decks, so that's a good starting point.
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Dec 11, 2018 05:44
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Thanks for the link and such. This is helpful. Bit of a tangent, but why are there two "Amnesia" and two "Paranoia" weaknesses, versus one of all the others, in the core set? They're not any more interesting than the others, though they seem potentially more punishing I suppose. Carcosa apparently does this two with two "Overzealous" to one each of the other two, when it's conceptually the least interesting and mechanically the most punishing of the bunch. Then Dunwich just has two of all three, while I think Forgotten Age only has one of each. It just seems kind of silly to me. Is there some official reason for this, or a good reason to not just include one of each I have when putting the weakness deck together? It seems more fun/interesting to not have people doubling up on weaknesses, plus most of the ones that would be removed are the ones that really suck to have anyway.
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Dec 11, 2018 10:08
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A few cards had enough copies included for 2 decks. Knife and the gain 3 resources card come to mind. I assume it was so you could build 2 of their starter decks.
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Dec 11, 2018 10:27
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I'm talking about basic weaknesses, though; barring scenario stuff you only have one of those per deck, as I understand it, plus of course your investigator's unique weakness.
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Dec 11, 2018 10:43
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There's not really any reason for this other than the game designers wanted those effects to be more common. You can of course mod the weakness deck in any way you want, but be aware that some scenarios do interact with it (like pull a basic 'madness' weakness from it, for example). Not that it's a huge issue, but so you know. At this point it's really uncommon for people to draw the same weakness even when playing 4p, but if 2 players drew Overzealous I'd be tempted to do a re-draw, because that weakness can harm you and the group like no other.
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Dec 11, 2018 12:18
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Overzealous is a huge punch in the dick. Then again the one that leads to perma-death from Forgotten Age (forgot the name) is no joke either.
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Dec 11, 2018 14:17
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Orange Devil posted:Overzealous is a huge punch in the dick. Doomed. I actually like the idea of that one because it's really thematic, though it also can eventually become devastating (while being possibly the mildest weakness prior), yeah. You probably need to do a lot of deck management if you get it. Or just lean into it, draw through your deck as much as possible while clearing stuff, and die less than halfway through the campaign so your next character has time to build back up. Anyway, thanks. I'll keep all that in mind. Different topic, has anyone tried doing things with Carolyn Fern? She seems really interesting; she's one of few characters who doesn't get full 0-5 access to any class, but on top of that, where the others still either get access to some of their class's main things anyway or are meant to be really broad multiclass characters, she sits entirely outside of of her class's main roles, being a non-combatant Guardian, plus she's the only person I've noticed who has cards they'd normally have access to expressly forbidden (no level 1-5 weapons). Meanwhile, her 0-5 "heals horror" thing only gets her access to 4-6 new cards, depending on how you count upgrades, but some of those are also really good. She seems like she could be pretty neat. The thing is, besides healing horror I'm not sure what you actually do with her. You're not much of a fighter, even with Shriveling and/or level 0 weapons. Going pure support seems questionable at best; presumably you need to be at least somewhat proactive. She has good intellect and access to a lot of Seeker cards, so primary/secondary clue-finder seems like a role she can pick up, but you don't want to just be a discount Daisy, so presumably you need to lean into the non-killy Guardian stuff too. (Or at least the non-weapon killy stuff, like dynamite, cops, and attack dogs.) I'm curious what other people have done with her. I doubt I'll be playing her soon, since I want to stick to simpler stuff at first (and my friends' schedules are making it hard to get sessions of this going), but I'd like to try her eventually. Edit: Oh hey, speaking of, the non-book version of her is arriving with the next deluxe thing, with a much more practical unique asset and less catastrophic unique weakness than the promo version. Nice. Rita looks interesting too; she'll be even better at evasion stuff than Wendy, though if she's sharing an expansion with Carolyn she probably only has 0-3 Survivor access plus two other factions at 0 or 0-1 along with the 0-5 Trick access. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Dec 12, 2018 |
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Dec 12, 2018 08:51
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Roland Jones posted:Edit: Oh hey, speaking of, the non-book version of her is arriving with the next deluxe thing, with a much more practical unique asset and less catastrophic unique weakness than the promo version. Nice. Rita looks interesting too; she'll be even better at evasion stuff than Wendy, though if she's sharing an expansion with Carolyn she probably only has 0-3 Survivor access plus two other factions at 0 or 0-1 along with the 0-5 Trick access. Carolyn looks fun but I do not like Rita. Maybe her card access will change that but from what we can see she's in a pretty low tier for me.
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Dec 12, 2018 15:55
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Speaking of weaknesses, is there some kind of list of weaknesses from each set? Between my multiple cores and a bunch of half-made decks my weakness collection is super screwy.
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Dec 12, 2018 17:58
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IcePhoenix posted:Carolyn looks fun but I do not like Rita. Maybe her card access will change that but from what we can see she's in a pretty low tier for me. Rita's pool is Survivor 0-5, Neutral 0-5, and Trick 0-3 The Trick access doesn't add a whole lot but let's you use a few Rogue cards. The most powerful being Ace in the Hole and Sleight of Hand.
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Dec 12, 2018 19:04
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Rita is one of my GF's favorite characters in Mansions of Madness. I can't imagine this version of Rita appealing to her at all.
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Dec 12, 2018 19:34
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food court bailiff posted:Speaking of weaknesses, is there some kind of list of weaknesses from each set? Between my multiple cores and a bunch of half-made decks my weakness collection is super screwy. I think this should be it, it's from the deck editor at ArkhamDB: 
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Dec 12, 2018 20:10
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Ripley posted:I think this should be it, it's from the deck editor at ArkhamDB: They also have an advanced search page where you can look for cards with the sub-type 'weakness' and specify which expansion set.
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Dec 12, 2018 20:12
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Obama 2012 posted:They also have an advanced search page where you can look for cards with the sub-type 'weakness' and specify which expansion set. True, I always forget which of the weaknesses have two copies so I just find the deck builder helpful for that part.
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Dec 12, 2018 20:22
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I might be in the minority in that I really love Rita's unique effects. I end up playing Rogues a lot, so I've become quite partial to evading, whereas I used to think it was kind of a wasted action. The survivor card pool isn't my favorite, though, so that might end up being the real turn-off for me.
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Dec 12, 2018 20:24
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IcePhoenix posted:Carolyn looks fun but I do not like Rita. Maybe her card access will change that but from what we can see she's in a pretty low tier for me. Rita seems like a real solid solo investigator to me.
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Dec 12, 2018 20:26
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Rita looks nifty, looking forward to the other investigators. Also, since we were talking weaknesses, I wrote a (very dumb) review of Mob Enforcer  .
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Dec 12, 2018 20:37
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Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:I might be in the minority in that I really love Rita's unique effects. I end up playing Rogues a lot, so I've become quite partial to evading, whereas I used to think it was kind of a wasted action. Evading is very good and an extremely underused mechanic by a lot of players IMO. But I don't like her options on what she can do to follow it up. The run away mechanic is cool but she doesn't have the lore to take advantage of it. She can use it to help her fight (which is cool) but needs weapons to really be effective. If you're building fighty you generally want to be doing multiple damage per attack. I'm also just not a fan of anyone that starts with a base 5 in health or sanity
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Dec 12, 2018 21:22
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Rita looks really powerful to me. Ace in the Hole + Will to Survive should lead to some super powerful turns. Also with Ornate Bow she should be able to put out decent damage. 5 sanity can be mitigated somewhat by Peter Sylvester. Also 3 mind and the usual survivor tricks will also help some with the mitigation. Carolyn suffers a bit because she doesn't really do much that other people don't d better (mainly Daisy or Norman). She has a real solid econ engine, and I think there's been enough added cards since we ran her before to make her a bit more useful, but unless your team can afford a dedicated support player she's kinda meh. She can chip in with some investigation help, but with her limited access to seeker cards she can't really work as the main cloover. Also for some reason she actually has less stats than most people (11 vs. the 12 that is average) which makes her dipping much into spellslinging somewhat downgraded. She really should've had a 4 mind.
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Dec 12, 2018 23:49
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Yeah, I'm not sure what's up there. 11 total stats versus 12, but 6/9 for health stats. Meanwhile Rita is 13 total stats and 9/5 health, a total that 12 point characters usually have. I'm not 100% convinced that the extra point of health is worth losing 1-2 points of stats, especially since the non-Pete Dunwich characters got 15 total health while having 12 point stat lines (and Pete arguably has a 15 point stat line as long as he has Duke, so 11 total health stats (again, before counting Duke) seems more than fair). I think Carolyn should have good potential still, and has some good stuff she can do outside of pure support and off-brand Daisy shenanigans, it's just not exactly straightforward getting there. She's outside the archetype her class normally fills and thus needs a different approach. Fortunately she's getting actually-useful signature cards now, which is already a step up from the promo version at least; how many signature weaknesses have as much potential to gently caress up the whole group the way To Fight the Black Wind does? Edit: Just realized that Carolyn actually has the exact same stats as Daisy if you moved one point of intellect to health, on the topic of comparing the two.
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Dec 13, 2018 02:54
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Yeah I don't understand their balancing with some of the characters. Both Lola and Carolyn seem to suffer from a similar problem in that their statlines are lower than they should be due to their flexibility in card selection, but with the way the game's set up neither is able to really properly leverage that flexibility. In theory, Carolyn should be able to have a decent supply of money, handle some off-clue gathering, and obviously keep people sane. I think her best role would be using some of the mobility stuff like pathfinder/shortcut to move around and use her (theoretical) money supply/healing to keep the other investigators focused on doing what they need to (either fight or get clues). I'm thinking stand together, charles ross, esq, a healing package, etc. Maybe even teamwork and the new ally they previewed for guardian. Chuck some dynamite when necessary/appropriate. Maybe even do some sealing to keep the chaos bag clean. That's basically how I see her being the mst effective. She felt really bad when we had her in our group before, but she didn't have all the tools and as was mentioned, her flaw is really bad especially considering her signature card isn't really that good
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Dec 13, 2018 06:37
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So, while writing out a longer post agreeing with and expanding on the above, I actually wound up convincing myself that Carolyn's stats and restrictions and such are... Fine, really. More good than bad on balance, even. The Weapon 1-5 restriction actually only denies her four cards, and even if she could take that stuff you probably wouldn't be spending points on those things over the stuff she's actually good at anyway. Same for Guardian 4-5; it's almost all weapons, and of the three cards that aren't only one seems like it'd be good for her anyway, and even it isn't exactly on-brand for a psychologist. You don't pick Carolyn to shoot stuff, and if you have to have a weapon Guardian 0 gives her some solid options right out of the box. Plus, she can still take, upgrade, and actually afford dynamite, if you really need to kill stuff. Stat-wise, her skill point total is 1 point below average while her health and sanity point total is 1 point above average, which together makes her... Average. There's a good argument to be made that a skill point and an "endurance" point aren't exactly equivalent, one having active uses and the other being passive, but not being frail is still good. At this point, I'm thinking that FFG figured they're roughly equivalent, didn't want a 5 health Guardian, and/or wanted Carolyn to have average "physical" stats and more intellect than willpower (which fits things like her new signature weakness) without giving her the exact same stat line as Daisy. 15 0-1 cards in two other classes is pretty dang good really; it's three times as many as the Dunwich crew and the other "triple-class" characters, Marie and Finn, get, and that extra level opens up options like Pathfinder and Ancient Stones (the latter of which have only one valid upgrade for Carolyn, making Shrewd Analysis a no-brainer if you get them) and stuff; she can fit a lot more off-class stuff in than they can, and some of it will be better too. She has less access to any of her classes than Roland or Daisy, but making Carolyn into an off-brand Daisy instead of playing to her unique strengths is a flawed approach from the start, and we already went over why she doesn't really care about the Guardian options she's missing. Bringing back Marie and Finn for further comparisons, since they're probably the most similar characters to her that we have full info on, Carolyn's 0-5 "heals horror" access isn't the best, but it's not terrible either. It further enables her theme and main trick, gives her access to a few cards that are really good in her hands, and makes some 0-1 Seeker/Mystic cards not count against the 15 card limit. It's not quite as amazing as how Spell 0-5 access gives Marie thirteen new cards and makes her effectively a full Mystic (there are seven level 4-5 Mystic cards, but six are spells, so the only Mystic card she doesn't get is Grotesque Statue), but it isn't as bad as Illicit 0-5 only having a single card that Finn didn't already get from Rogue 0-3 or as a signature card. TL;DR: Carolyn is basically fine. She's very different, particularly compared to every other Guardian, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's bad. I think she really has two main problems: Requiring a unique approach that hasn't been fully explored and refined yet, and having an imaginary cat that doesn't do anything and an infinite doom engine as her signature asset and weakness respectively. The former will get better with time, and the latter is going to be fixed as soon as The Circle Unbroken comes out. Heck, it's fixed already if you proxy Hypnotic Therapy and Rational Thought; you're already probably proxying Carolyn herself anyway. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Dec 13, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 09:53
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Roland Jones posted:Carolyn's 0-5 "heals horror" access isn't the best, but it's not terrible either. It further enables her theme and main trick, gives her access to a few cards that are really good in her hands, and makes some 0-1 Seeker/Mystic cards not count against the 15 card limit. I don't think this part is quite true, unfortunately. Not that I necessarily trust FFG's preview articles since they are notorious for getting rules incorrect, but the article for The Secret Name (first mythos pack in the Circle Undone cycle) features the dual-class cards that will be introduced in that cycle. They specify that despite, say, Tennessee Sour Mash being Survivor/Rogue and Ashcan Pete being Survivor, because it is both Survivor and Rogue at the same time, it takes up one of his five slots from other classes: FFG's maybe correct article writing posted:If, however, an investigator has limited access to one of the classes on a multiclass card, that card occupies one of the investigator’s limited slots! For example, let’s say that "Ashcan" Pete (The Dunwich Legacy, 5) wants to add some Tennessee Sour Mash (The Secret Name, 117) to his deck. While the drifter has unlimited access to survivor cards, he can only have up to five level zero cards from any other class. Tennessee Sour Mash is both a survivor and a rogue card, and therefore it fills one of his five other-class slots. But with these multi-class cards’ diverse uses, like increasing your willpower with a swig before smashing the bottle over an enemy’s head, they are well worth including in any investigator’s arsenal. The same probably holds true for Carolyn: a Seeker and/or Mystic Card level 0-1 that also heals horror will still take up one of the 15 Seeker/Mystic slots. A Seeker/Mystic card level 2-5 that heals horror only meets one of those conditions and so would not count towards the 15 slots. Either way, that was a good write-up! I always really enjoy reading folks' in-depth analyses of and play styles and playthroughs with investigators. It takes me a while to really catch on to how some of the investigators work, and these kinds of write-ups always help things click into place. Baron Fuzzlewhack fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 01:15
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Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:I don't think this part is quite true, unfortunately. Not that I necessarily trust FFG's preview articles since they are notorious for getting rules incorrect, but the article for The Secret Name (first mythos pack in the Circle Undone cycle) features the dual-class cards that will be introduced in that cycle. They specify that despite, say, Tennessee Sour Mash being Survivor/Rogue and Ashcan Pete being Survivor, because it is both Survivor and Rogue at the same time, it takes up one of his five slots from other classes: FFG was asked about it, and they said that her card should say "15 other 0-1" etc etc. The "other" there is important, since it means that the cards prior are not part of that 15. Edit: Gonna copy the thing here actually: quote:Q: How does the restriction on number of Seeker/Mystic cards interact with the 0-5 "heals horror"? If I take 2 Clarity of Mind, does that count towards my 15 Seeker/Mystic cards, or is it separate because it falls under my 0-5 "heals horror" cards? A: If a Seeker or Mystic card heals horror, it counts towards that deck building option, not her 15 limited Seeker/Mystic slots. In other words, her card should actually read “15 other Seeker and/or Mystic cards”. (Also, the Seeker symbol next to the word Guardian should be a Guardian symbol; we’re aware of this error.) Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 02:16
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Oh, nice! Yeah that's a significant difference and gives her way more flexibility. Thanks for pulling that up.
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Dec 14, 2018 02:43
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Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:I might be in the minority in that I really love Rita's unique effects. I end up playing Rogues a lot, so I've become quite partial to evading, whereas I used to think it was kind of a wasted action. I agree with this. Personally, I think her flexible ability in both movement and damage combined with high natural agility is going to be pretty epic. Combine with Peter and Track Shoes and you have evades unboosted at 7 and Ornate bow attacks at 10. I play most of my games on hard a that native five is not to be underestimated. Also with track shoes and her ability, she almost have Elusive-like movement, as she can start engaged and still manage to move four spaces in a single turn (but there needs to be an enemy in the way). Her low sanity is quite easily mitigated with Peter and Keepsake. She needs another agility weapon to become reliable enough as main battler though. So, she seems quite strong in that she can both evade and battle, her weakness being her deckbuilding, and a weakness from my perspective, the Survivor card pool. Zerf fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 17:24
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I definitely forgot about the Ornate Bow as an option for Rita, and am a bit nonplussed at myself for forgetting about Peter I still think she comes up a bit short for me, though. Maybe if the next pack or two add some cards to help her out I'll change my tune. Orange Devil posted:Rita seems like a real solid solo investigator to me. How are you planning on getting clues after you run out of "succeed by failing" survivor cards? If her lore and strength were swapped I would like her as a character a whole lot more.
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Dec 14, 2018 18:08
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Eavesdrop obviously. Also Sleight of Hand with Flashlight.
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Dec 14, 2018 18:27
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Orange Devil posted:Eavesdrop obviously. quote:Also Sleight of Hand with Flashlight. RIP to your ornate bow then, if you were using it 
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Dec 14, 2018 18:33
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Look, maybe I misread her intellect value or maybe you're just being really negative right now.
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Dec 14, 2018 19:20
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Orange Devil posted:Look, maybe I misread her intellect value or maybe you're just being really negative right now. Maybe both! Her lore is two. I do not dig it for clue finding. Especially in a solo scenario. But, as I've said before in this thread (not that I expect people to remember), I generally play with three or four players so my experience with rating stuff is based on that.
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Dec 14, 2018 19:26
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IcePhoenix posted:Maybe both! Her lore is two. I do not dig it for clue finding. Especially in a solo scenario. Mine too! I think one of the main issues with Rita is that she competes with other Survivors stats, which means that you really have to want to both evade and battle in order to consider her - if it's only for battle, Silas and Yorick probably fares better, and if you want evade, she gets stiff competition from Wendy, who is better at cluefinding, has better will, balanced health/sanity and an awesome ability. Still, I find her interesting, because the one extra damage can be really useful and combos well if you encounter health 4 enemies with the bow. Action-compression with evades has turned out quite good with Finn in FA, so I'm quite eager to try her out in a way - but if the Rogue in CU is a combat rogue, that's who I'll roll next 
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Dec 14, 2018 20:17
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Y'all ever play with random investigators when playing 3 or 4 man groups? I recommend it, it can lead to interesting decisions like "ok looks like we don't have a main fighter, how do we pack enough combat in our decks to manage anyway?".
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Dec 15, 2018 13:31
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Orange Devil posted:Y'all ever play with random investigators when playing 3 or 4 man groups? Lol that's a great idea. Has it gotten easier the more cards have been released? At this point the cardpool is so big you can force nearly any character into nearly any role
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Dec 17, 2018 03:41
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oXDemosthenesXo posted:Lol that's a great idea. Has it gotten easier the more cards have been released? At this point the cardpool is so big you can force nearly any character into nearly any role For sure.
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Dec 17, 2018 19:28
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Orange Devil posted:Y'all ever play with random investigators when playing 3 or 4 man groups? Or you can take it to the next level
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Dec 18, 2018 06:36
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Obama 2012 posted:Or you can take it to the next level Are upgrades randomized too? I might try this on a standalone scenario and see how much XP it takes to get an even mildly cohesive deck.
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Dec 18, 2018 20:33
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Codeacious posted:Are upgrades randomized too? I might try this on a standalone scenario and see how much XP it takes to get an even mildly cohesive deck. Officially only your starting deck is supposed to be randomized: Fantasy Flight posted:Ultimatum of Chaos:
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Dec 20, 2018 06:09
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| # ? May 23, 2024 19:37 |
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That thing seems to ignore the 0 XP restriction when I use it. Also it has no idea how to handle Carolyn and gives her all sorts of crap she can't use.
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Dec 20, 2018 06:20
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