Namyra

Thank you, thank you. *bows, and also blushes a little* I had no plans on doing this at all, I meant to play Legendary with a party of somewhere around 2-4 characters, but when StormbringerGT posted the challenge, well, I had to accept it, so poor Lem became my first Legendary playthrough somehow, all by himself. And it appears that the halfling bard, for lack of a party to use it on, instead inspired me with his Bardic Performance. That and I found his dialogues very entertaining. So somehow halfway through I decided I had to write about this in character. I don't write him as well as you people do, but I hope I managed to match his tone at least a little. And I'm glad people enjoyed reading about his (mis)adventures. I'll also definitely continue this as new adventure decks come out, I had fun both playing through with solo Lem, and writing about it!

Thank you!

My experience so far is the following: Normal on solo (Seelah), Heroic with 3 characters (Kyra, Ezren, Harsk), and Legendary solo (Lem). And two more playthroughs on Normal (so to speak) in the physical card game when it first came out, one with 4 characters, one with 2. I've also played all of Skull & Shackles twice, Wrath of the Righteous once, both full organised play seasons (at home) once each, have started on Season of the Runelords, and played through a complete homebrew version of Carrion Crown that a friend of mine made as well. I'm pretty impressed with the difficulties, this is one of very few games where higher difficulty doesn't just mean enemies have bigger numbers or you have fewer resources or something like that.The Heroic scenario powers are all a small (but most definitely not insignificant!) change but they seem well-considered and thematic, which is great. The restricted movement on Legendary adds a new tactical element that I found quite interesting as well (and I expect might get even more interesting with a bigger party, as with 3 locations it is mostly "which end of this straight line do I want to start at"). The wildcards are cute, though as people have mentioned before, they're not necessarily equal in difficulty. I find Night Approaches to be one of the worst, even for a solo character, and certainly for the party of 3. It probably gets even worse for a party of 4-6. For solo Lem, +3 difficulty to banes is quite terrifying, +3 difficulty to boons is less terrible but does mean he has a hard time acquiring things (and it is not nice to have it combo with Night Approaches at all). Unlike what people said here before, I find Driving Rain the second worst. In adventure deck 2 at least it is already +2 to all checks, which is pretty bad for all non-combat checks, really hurts recharging spells especially, and also makes Goblin Warchanters even more the bane of everyone's existence than they already are normally. I also think out of the Heroic scenario powers, the one outstanding one is on Approach to Thistletop, especially since the scenario also contains the Goblin Fortress, and having goblins at +2d4+2 difficulty is really quite brutal. It's probably less bad for a more combat-oriented character or a larger party, but for solo Lem that one was pretty harsh. I agree that 1d4+1 or +2 might be better, as it keeps it a little more stable, and you don't get +7 or +8 outliers like that. Those d4s are fickle beasts. I'd imagine the one on Undead Uprising might be horrible if you get too many undead random monsters in a large party, but larger parties can usually cope with higher difficulties better as well, so it might balance out. Local Heroes for the wrong party might be harsh too. I'd imagine losing 3 turns when you're already having a hard time acquiring allies and thus closing locations could be difficulty for a medium to large party with few or no characters good at acquiring allies. It was fine for Lem, though of course I got a Snake as the only ally in the Woods, and had no blessing, so had to trudge through the entire Woods. Joy. I don't think Heroic/Legendary are too easy, I needed a few tries on some of the scenarios for sure (some of that might be because of the Lem Challenge, admittedly). The game's not super easy depending on your party as is, anyways, I've certainly failed some scenarios (some more than once) in the physical game here and there. I think Heroic and Legendary both are certainly an added challenge, and it's well worth replaying things on higher difficulties not just to prove you can do it but because things change in an interesting way.

I've had my fair share of horrid luck with solo Lem on Legendary during 1-5 Thistletop Delve. You can read more about it on my report on the Lem Challenge here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86545-spoilers-lem-challenge-complete/

I've risen to StormbringerGT's Lem Challenge, see: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86315-the-lem-challenge/ and have completed it earlier today. Full report here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86545-spoilers-lem-challenge-complete/

And completed! Due to massive spoilers, see here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86545-spoilers-lem-challenge-complete/

Lem turned out to be surprisingly capable solo (even if 3 of his 4 power feats are completely useless, though 2 of those will be lovely once he has a role card and gets Solo Performance), and while he had his share of difficulties, I did manage to beat all adventures released so far with him solo on Legendary difficulty. I started out with a fresh deck, as I thought buffing my deck and his feats by playing him through Normal and/or Heroic first would be both counter to the challenge and boring. Many scenarios I managed on the first try, some took me more (in one case, CONSIDERABLY more, may the gods damn you and drag your soul screaming to the Abyss, Nualia). I will admit that with perma-death on, I would've failed. I think now, knowing how to best play him solo, I could succeed with that on as well (though I'd probably have to forfeit and retry scenarios occasionally), but while this was an interesting challenge and quite fun to play (and read, Lem's dialogues are very entertainingly written) as well as educational, I do not have enough ambition to replay it with perma-death on. I'll leave that to you, dear reader, should you wish to best my attempt. As proof I have made screenshots of each scenario, at the point where all but one location were closed (you can see it is indeed Legendary by the movement pathways between locations), and again at the moment of the villain's defeat at the single remaining location. No party members show up in any of them, Lem was indeed alone the whole time. Fairly late through my playthrough, I noticed that I could also prove that I indeed defeated a villain on Legendary by displaying the scenario powers on the left while making my roll to defeat, which shows there are two wildcards, and it is thus Legendary difficulty, so I did that on the last few villains. I also realised I should make screenshots of both checks to defeat on villains that have more than one, as making only the second is not enough to defeat the villain entirely. I also forgot to show the closed locations on 2-5 Angel in the Tower. So my proof is not perfect, but the best I could do at the time. Further chapters will be better with my newly gained insight. http://imgur.com/a/Im40K Lem did have a streak of singularly atrocious luck, especially during 1-5 Thistletop Delve (and also with the sought-after Deathbane Light Crossbow +1, which he found, and failed to acquire, twice, both times well-blessed). Some highlights from 1-5: First try, wildcards of 5 fewer cards in the blessings deck, and discarding a card from the blessings deck whenever failing to acquire a boon, which combines marvellously with the scenario power of increasing the difficulty of checks to acquire boons by 3. I should've known this was going to be rough already at that point. Later on, alone with Nualia in the last location, last turn of the game, she deals d4 damage before the fight, if it had been 2 or less, I could've coped, of course it's 4, and I didn't have my Amulet of Life at the time, thus losing too much of my hand to deal with both of her combat checks. No time to recover, since it was already the last turn, 0 cards left in the blessings deck, after all. Again alone with Nualia in the last location, again the last turn of the game, damage before combat is fine (thank you, Amulet of Life). First combat check: 4d8+1 with an Erastil-blessed Returning Throwing Axe +1, need a 14, get an 8. I realised after I should've recharged the axe for an extra d6 as I was going to cast a spell for the second check anyways, but considering what my 4d8 rolled, that would've been a long shot (1 in 6) in retrospect even so. First combat of the game: a puny Mercenary with a Scorching Ray, d10+2d6+3, need a 14, get a 10. No biggie, can cope with some failure. Second combat, an even punier Bunyip, with another Scorching Ray, d10+2d6+3, need a 13, get a 9. That was one of the quite few actual deaths (most failures were due to time running out, like those two attempts on Nualia above). First card in the game: Lyrie Akenja. For her initial damage, she rolls 0, all is well. Need an 11 to beat, no problem at all with a Scorching Ray, though I do fail to recharge it. Need a 7 on d10+3 to close the location, no blessings in hand to make it practically certain, roll a 4. Okay, fine, have to do the whole location. Next card is Explosive Runes, d10+3 vs 12, fail of course (still no blessings), deals 2d4 damage, 5 or less would be fine, I have a Cure in hand and 5 other cards, of course it's 7 so have to discard the whole hand. The hand was as follows: Cure, Scorching Ray, Holy Light, Father Zantus, Aldern Foxglove, Returning Throwing Axe +1. So in my discard are now my only Cure, my other 3 spells that I could have exchanged for that Cure in the discard, my only weapon, and the one other card in my deck (Father Zantus) that's basically my emergency recovery button. I.e. unless a miracle somehow gets me a card, any card (except for Aldern), back from my discard, I roll 1d4 (Lem's Strength) for combat for the rest of the game and have no way to heal. Said miracle (a Cure or Healing Potion maybe) does, of course, not happen. First card in the game: Attic Whisperer. Roll 4 or higher on d6 to avoid 1 damage, roll 3. Discard a blessing. Oh well, no big deal. Combat check with Holy Light against a weak undead is surely no problem: 1d10+2d12+3 to beat 10. Roll 9.As for the entire story, Lem tells it best himself: "As I stepped off the boat to the quaint frontier town of Sandpoint, the locals immediately saw something in me (naturally!), and approached me to alleviate their predicament. Their bandit troubles proved more tenacious than I first expected, but eventually justice (and more importantly, good taste) prevailed and both Jubrayl Vhiski and Pillbug Podiker were soundly incarcerated, the latter after being smote by my considerable wit, I might add. The comedy I was inspired to write about Jugrail Whiskey and his dimwitted minion Pitbug is doing well in theatres as far and wide as (I dread to think of it) Cheliax, I'm told. But I digress. "The locals' dragon problem turned out less impressive than I'd hoped, though I can't deny that even dragons as young as poor Black Fang have a certain imperious air about them. No posturing helped this specimen however before the might of my word and my trusty crossbow. "Looking forward to the upcoming Swallowtail Festival, I was dismayed that the festivities were interrupted so abruptly by none other than goblins. Though, in their defence, they do exhibit an uncanny knack for entertaining song. Most of their verses even rhyme! "Swiftly driving them back from the town and even rescuing a young nobleman from splendid Magnimar by the name of Aldern Foxglove in the process (which turned out rather unexpected later, but I'll come to that), I spent the next few days having words with the locals and evading said far too enthusiastic nobleman... everyone loves an adoring fan, but one can take things too far, and that one certainly did! "Indeed I ended up rescuing the fetching and altogether pleasant Ameiko Kaijitsu, proprietor of the local watering hole (and former bard!), from not only her villainous brother but also certain death at the hands of some sort of demonling (the encounter made me shudder as I was reminded of events from my childhood). "Deciding to rid Sandpoint of its considerable goblin problem once and for all, I made my way to their fortress (if the ramshackle assortment of planks and stones atop an ancient ruin can, indeed, be called a fortress), meeting heavy resistance. There was some talk of the "long shanks" who had fought them back... surely they were mistaken or greatly exaggerating, as my shanks really are not quite that long, not even by goblin standards. A goblin druid (what a novel idea!) in particular proved quite troublesome, and worse yet, he did not even sing! He did, however, eventually see reason and agreed to a truce, leading me on the trail towards the true culprit behind recent events. "The ruins below the goblin fortress were inhabited by a most irksome young woman by the misleadingly comely name of Nualia and her ilk. It took me several forays into the depths, driven back again and again (though I took any opportunity to help myself to some of their most precious belongings... better in my hands than theirs!), but eventually justice and wit prevailed, and the deluded woman lay defeated. After hearding the girl's tragic and depressing story later, I must confess I had a pang of sympathy. Either way, the whole ordeal will make for a most thrilling play, full of tragic characters, plot twists, and even some light comedy. I believe I will call it "Burnt Offerings." "Barely returned to the town, I was taken aside by the local sheriff, who requested my assistance with a delicate matter. A murder spree had beset the town, and worse, the dastard who was behind it, calling himself only His Lordship, seemed to have some mysterious connection to me! Naturally, I was on the case immediately, the chase leading me to such illustrious locales as the local water mill (what a gruesome scene!), a practically abandoned asylum for the mentally ill (chilling!), and the surrounding ripe golden autumn farmlands. "The last would've been more picturesque hadn't the entire region been overrun by zombies and ghouls, some even grotesquely tied to poles and left to bake in the sun like common scarecrows! Dispatching with the mastermind's underlings, I eventually tracked His Lordship to none other than Aldern Foxglove's ancient family manor, long fallen into disrepair. The place has truly earnt its local nickname of "The Misgivings," just the sight of it was almost enough to dampen even this halfling's indomitable spirit, and worse yet, the house was also haunted! "Determined to save the poor boy from the leader of the pack of ghouls and ghasts that had recently so plagued the locals, I was shocked to discover that not only did the one I believed to have rescued turn out to be a doppelganger of some sort who mysteriously disappeared, leaving only a macabre mask behind, the true Aldern Foxglove was revealed himself to be His Lordship, transformed into an undead mockery of his former being and quite mentally disturbed. Upon his defeat it became clear that there was yet another pulling that broken man's strings, and I was off to wondrous Magnimar in search of further clues. "Barely finding time to take in the sights of the big city, I uncovered murderous machinations set in motion by one of the city's own Justices, a most untrustworthy elf who, upon breaking free from the charm another had placed upon him, was quick to betray his erstwhile mistress, the mysterious Xanesha. He directed me towards a precariously dilapidated clocktower, her alleged lair. "Fighting my way to its top, I found the pinnacle of the so-called Shadow Clock, located as it is in the shadow of the truly awe-inspiring Irespan, to be utterly deserted. Instead, Xanesha was lurking in a nearby temple, seemingly hidden even from the eyes of the gods, though not this halfling's keen nose. She proved a worthy adversary as well as a marvellous sight of her own, half woman, half snake, but most certainly no angel in a house of gods, and ultimately was no match for me, I'm happy to report. I shall call this chapter of my story "The Skinsaw Murders," after the name of the cult who was responsible for most of them. Can't give away the plot or the mastermind just from the title after all, now can we! "I believe I have earnt myself some rest now, though Xanesha evidently has a sister, who appears to be similarly up to no good in the nearby village of Turtleback Ferry, albeit in a much subtler manner. Naturally, this humble halfling will have to use his considerable powers of deduction to sniff her out. Surely, it will prove to be another most captivating chapter of an as of yet ongoing story!"

It's a known bug, whenever you use Inspired Grace, the check you're currently attempting changes into the check to acquire/defeat on the top card of the location deck. Most of the time you don't notice it because you're actually doing that very check. But if you use it on a check like Cure recharge, it will actually tell you what the next card in the location deck is, and assume that check. Or if you use it on a "before you act, do X" kind of check, it will turn into the check to defeat of the same card. If there's no card in the location deck left, it'll turn into a "None" check with difficulty 0 and only the bonus d6 from Inspired Grace. See: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86307-bug-seelahs-inspired-grace-gives-her-visions-of-the-future/

Online Multiplayer! Skull & Shackles! Season of the Shackles! Season of the Righteous! Season of the Runelords! Mummy's Mask!

In 2-2 Crow Bait, the scenario power on Heroic/Legendary says "If you discard cards as damage from a combat check, bury 1 of those cards." I took 5 damage from a combat check, discarded the Sihedron Medallion to reduce it by 4, then discarded another card for the remaining 1 damage, and the scenario power triggered, as expected, but also offered the Sihedron Medallion to be buried, which I did not discard as damage, but for its own power to reduce the damage. Minor issue, really, but you shouldn't be able to choose the medallion in this instance.

Right, so, I pored over the rulebook (Wrath of the Righteous in this case, since it is the most up-to-date) again, and I was wrong earlier (apologies to Hannibal for that). Choosing not to acquire a boon does indeed count as an automatic fail, as written on page 10, second column, I quote: "Attempt the Check. If the card is a boon, you may try to acquire it for your deck; if it’s a bane, you must try to defeat it (see Attempting a Check, below). If you choose not to acquire a boon, it counts as failing to acquire it." Clear as day. Thus will indeed keep triggering Night Approaches, as horrible as that may be. However, just as clear is that choosing not to acquire a boon does indeed banish said boon. Let's take a look at page 11, second column, I quote: "Each boon card has a section called Check to Acquire. This section indicates the skills that can be used in checks to acquire the boon and the difficulty of the checks. If you succeed in acquiring the card, put it into your hand. If you fail, banish it. You can never automatically succeed at a combat check." We've established above that it is absolutely clear that choosing not to acquire a boon fails to acquire it. And here it is written that failing to acquire a boon banishes it. Et voilà. Everything clear? Don't think we even need the FAQ for that, though thanks for trying to clear things up, Borissimo et al. Can we put this thread to rest (or at least the thoroughly derailed part of it, it's quite the train wreck by now)? Yes? Thank you.

I don't have a screenshot of it, but yep, I can confirm the Goblin Warchanter forgetting about its difficulty increase after the "before you act" check. And I agree, he's absolutely among the most terrible cards in the game, up there with the Siren, Satyr, and all golems.

It's not autofail, though. The rules state, upon encountering a card, "If the card is a boon, you may try to acquire it for your deck", the keyword here being "may". If you decide to pass on that, you do not try to acquire it, thus you also do not fail to, so the Night Approaches wildcard shouldn't trigger.

I've had similar things happen a few times, with cards either stuck in the center of the screen, or stuck on top of each other in my hand and not selectable/draggable anymore. It seems to happen when cancelling out of using/discarding/otherwise handling a card sometimes. The first time it happened, I lost my Acid Arrow to it entirely, because I just continued to play with the cards stuck on top of each other like that and at the end of the scenario, the Acid Arrow was just gone. Now I just restart the app when it happens and that seems to fix it.

Additionally, there is currently no option to pass on acquiring a boon, but this will be added soon™. (I really hope it's soon, the wildcard that discards a blessing from the blessing deck whenever you fail a check to acquire a boon is an absolute nightmare without this feature.)

I'm currently having an amazing streak of bad luck in that very scenario on my Lem Challenge (solo Lem on Legendary) run. I'll post my highlights once I've actually beaten it, as there might be a few more amazingly bad rolls coming my way until then. I can just feel it.

I'm fully on board with this, I've found myself discarding a blessing a few times and since I generally drag and drop rather than zoom in and press the button, wondering why the hell it didn't want to work before I realised, oh, matches the top of the blessing discard, I have to drag to the deck not the discard, oops.

Yes, that's correct, at least that's what I figured that meant!

Of course that's how I'm going to do it! Started on it now, but as you said, it's kinda hard to prove (I'm making screenshots of the map with all but one location closed, showing the connections between locations to prove it's Legendary, and screenshots of Lem defeating the villain at that location to prove he won and you can also see he's alone in both of those).

The scenario power for 2-1 Undead Uprising on Heroic/Legendary is quite long, and inconveniently the first paragraph is exactly long enough to fit in the box on the scenario selection screen, with no indication that the box can be scrolled (it can, I checked after). I should've known, as the box should say "1/2 Wildcards" at the bottom (which it does, if you scroll down), but I didn't realise until I had started the scenario that there was an additional scenario power there. Maybe there could be some kind of indication that the box is scrollable, a scrollbar or something of the sort? Additionally, the scenario power is so long it doesn't quite fit in the box during the scenario, though there would be enough space if the text had less padding left and right. Though this might be a bigger problem in some other scenarios later on with long, complex scenario powers that will likely completely overflow the box then. Maybe the box should be dynamically sized?

On Heroic difficulty, the scenario power name for 2-4 The Cult Exposed is blank. You can still tap the blank button to bring up the power, but it's a bit unintuitive. Not sure if it was the same on Normal difficulty, I didn't notice it there at least.

Yeah, okay, that is awesome ;D

In 2-3 Foul Misgivings, playing on Heroic with Ezren, Kyra, and Harsk, Ezren got a Stalker Mask loot when he closed the Academy (Kyra was there too) when Harsk encountered The Skinsaw Man at the Prison. Is that intentional? I don't see it listed anywhere in the scenario or villain card text. Edit: I also just noticed that the Aldern Foxglove I specifically kept in Ezren's deck to use to get rid of Haunts in this scenario appears to be gone... is that what happened? Did he somehow get replaced with the Stalker Mask? If so, and that's intentional, that's pretty cool I must admit

That makes little sense though. I can look at the discard and deck before and after and know exactly what gets healed back. Just like I can look at the discard in the physical game before I heal (as I am always allowed to examine my discard pile), then do it after and I know exactly what's missing and thus what got healed back. So in my opinion, it would just be a small QoL improvement if I didn't have to do the extra tapping on discard and/or deck to see what was healed back. I'm perfectly fine for it to be optional however, if some people don't want to know.

I know, that's exactly my point, that button gets disabled/disappears in some situations, like for example during the "do you want to close y/n?" popup. And you do not get the "Examine" button from the map on locations you already know cards from, like you do on the location your currently active character is at. That's the two things I would like.