How many characters do you put into your party?

[Tobold]

This is just an open questions, looking for various opinions and advice on how many characters to put into your party.

 

I've been playing mostly with a party of 2 characters. I was under the impression that while adding more characters increases the versatility of the group, the added locations make it very hard to actually finish the scenario in time. Even with 2 characters I once finished only on my last blessing. What is your experience with larger groups? How many characters do you usually use?

[Dunesparrow]

Hey there.

 

It has been my experience, that Playing with a party of 3-4 is balanced and playing with 6 is the most difficult.

 

No matter how many characters you have, you will only have 30 turns, but the more characters you have the less turns each of those characters will have.

 

2 Characters - 15 urns a character - 40 Cards in locations

3 Characters - 10 turns a character - 50 cards in locations

4 Characters - 8 for 2 & 7 for 2 turns a character - 60 cards in locations

5 characters - 6 turns a character - 70 cards in locations

6 characters - 5 turns a character - 80 cards in locations

 

4 is a good number of characters as you can create a versatile party where each character has role with the potential for some overlap:

 

Arcane 

Divine 

Melee 

Ranged 

 

Thanks

[Zavender]

Very first party was 6 characters.  I played two scenarios before giving up and restarting with 4.  Once I finished Adventure 2 I went back and did heroic missions with 4 new ones.  Once I get those done, I might go back and use the remaining three for legendary.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Zavender

[Hannibal_PJV]

I Also would say that 3-4 is optimum. But anything goes.

For me it is

Healer

Fighter

Rogue / thief / Acrobat

Fireball caster

 

And because these roles can be combined Also two character company is very possible.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Hannibal_PJV

[PinkRose]

I started a 5 person team for the Basic Scenarios of:

Harsk

Ezren

Seelah

Kyra

Lem

 

Then doing a 4 person team for the heroic Basic Scenarios:

Merisiel

Lini

Valeros

Sajan

 

Then I'll run through Legendary with the last two so everyone is at the same place.

Seoni

Amari

[Tobold]

2 Characters - 15 urns a character - 40 Cards in locations

3 Characters - 10 turns a character - 50 cards in locations

4 Characters - 8 for 2 & 7 for 2 turns a character - 60 cards in locations

5 characters - 6 turns a character - 70 cards in locations

6 characters - 5 turns a character - 80 cards in locations

 

I did the same math and that was what scared me away from trying groups of 4 or 6 characters, 60 to 80 cards in locations in only 30 turns sounded hard to do. But it turns out that my math was wrong. While there are 10 cards per location, you usually close them after finding the henchman or boss, who could be anywhere from the first to the last card. So in average you need 5.5 card draws per location:

 

2 Characters: 22 explorations needed on average

3 Characters: 27.5 explorations needed on average

4 Characters: 33 explorations needed on average

5 Characters: 38.5 explorations needed on average

6 Characters: 44 explorations needed on average

 

If you add various effects that give you more than one exploration per turn, e.g. allies, or spells like Augury, or Seelah's boon-discarding power, the 33 explorations for 4 characters seem quite doable. And if you find the boss somewhere in the middle of the game and can use your other characters to temporarily block all other locations, you win even faster.

 

I also noticed that playing with 4 characters feels very different than playing with 2, for example nearly always having a character who can easily do the closing condition of a location, or far more mutual help with blessings. I like it!

 

Thank you for the advice, all! 

[Hannibal_PJV]

Yes, in 4 character groups every character can concentrate to two Main skills and be Expert in those. Easy closing locations.

With 6 characters you can have really good one skill wonders where every character has one skill that They Are very good at. Smaller croups has to divide their skill upgrades more.

[Wode79]

I've been running a group of four. Good variety, just about everything I find is useful for someone, but I don't feel I need to use all my allies and blessings for explorations. In the table-top version, I played most of Runelords in a group of six and time was almost always our biggest challenge.

[Brainwave]

More characters - running out of time becomes a more serious problem, less characters - not being able to make checks becomes more of the problem.

 

Just looking at blessings - with 2 characters the max amount of blessings you can add to any particular roll is 2 but with 6 characters on the party that's 6 potential blessings that could be added to any roll, and that doesn't include bonuses from other cards or character powers. On the other hand you have 4 more locations to close with the same amount of time that 2 characters have, which means doing things like covering as many locations as possible to temp close all the extra locations if the villain is encountered becomes a more important strategy.

 

Beyond that, I would recommend for a newer player to play a game or 2 with a smaller party to just figure out the game without having to manage too much stuff going on. For someone more experienced, I found more characters to be more fun, as there's a lot more going on, you can make better use of all the different boons you will find, theres more ability to help in various ways on any particular check, etc.

[269Hawkmoon]

4 is a minimum for me, but 6 is most common. In the physical game, I can handle four at the most, but since the app tells me when another character can help me, it takes some of the heavy lifting off my brain.

Edited May 2, 2016 by 269Hawkmoon

[Tobold]

After some playtesting I noticed that playing with 4 characters is easier than playing with 2. The less characters you have, the more turns each individual character gets. So if in your turns you use cards that get discarded as opposed to revealed or recharged, you risk running out of lives. With 4 characters I can play my cards far more aggressively, while with 2 characters I need to play really conservatively to not burn through my cards.

[torm3ntin]

I will try a 3 char party.

 

Who you guys think pair well with the 2 initial free characters?

 

Probably someone who could solo as well.

[Hannibal_PJV]

Mersiel is dexterity monster and she has good strength. Kyra has Wisdom. Try Seoni for good charisma or Waleros for strength and constitution and weapon cyling.

Seoni is arcane spell caster, very good at it, but can die easily without healing. Valeros is a tank, but slow, so safer but more boring alternative.

 

So try to have a good character to each slot.

- strength

- dexterity

- constitution

- intelligence

- wisdom

- charisma.

 

So that you have right Person to the right job!

 

One other thing is that it is nice to have one dexterity fighter (Merciel for ranged weapons), one Divine caster (Kyra), one melee fighter (Kyra) and one arcane caster (Seoni) so that you can keep all those cool cards you find during adventure.

 

There Are Many characters who can full these slots and you can easily manage without some of these with clever game play. If you don't have anybody with intelligence in you croup. Force the Main villain in that location and leave it last to fight. And so on.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Hannibal_PJV

[Blave]

After playing the first adventure once to get a feel for the game, I bought everything and went with a 6 man party (Valeros, Kyra, Merisiel, Harsk, Lem, Seoni) for the first "playthrough" (up to chapter 2 so far, anyway).

 

Having never played the card game before, I didn't have any big troubles even with 6 characters. I don't think it's much (if any) harder than having 4 or less characters. More characters mean more blessings and allies, so you can easily use more to explore faster. More blessings also means you can push pretty much any check into auto-success regions by using blessings and abilities of mutliple (or all) characters. Granted, you can only do so a couple of times per scenario, but for the REALLY important checks (closing all remaining locations when facing the villain or beating the villain) it works very well.

 

More characters open more locations which come with overall more boons to aquire and chose from. More characters also mean you can use more boons, so if you aquire a good one, chances are that someone in your party has the required skill (and space in the deck) to actually use it.

 

Bottom line: 6 character parties work fine.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Blave

[Wode79]

Oh, for the table-top, I played Valeros in a group with Harsk, Merisiel, Seoni, Lini, and initially Kyra. Late in deck 3, Kyra's player had dropped out and Kyra died (coincidental and bad luck), and we brought in a new player as Seelah.

 

With 6, I didn't get a lot of chances to use Valeros's +1d4 to combat ability, because we were spread out. Harsk was very, very useful. Val and Seoni were our usual boss nukers. After Seelah joined, she spent a lot of time being Valeros, just better (I wasn't usually beating up henchman with my bare hands).

 

In game, I'm continuing Kyra and Meri, and also have Seelah, Amiri, Sajan, and Ezren as a group of four.

[FatePAC]

I started with the 2 free characters then after i got enough gold to buy 2 more characters, i disbanded the party and made a new party with the 4. Then i decided i liked the game enough to buy the bundle. So i disbanded the party again and played with 6 members. Merisiel, Kyra, Ezran, Seoni, Harsk and Amiri. 6 because they can carry more stuff and those 6 because they have each have D12 in one of the 6 stats.

[PinkRose]

Seoni and Amari were having a real tough time on Legendary. But they were able to finish up Heroic.

They have no healing and discard A LOT of cards.

Going through with my 5 person dream team on Legendary now.

Harsk, Seelah, Kyra, Ezren, Lem.

[Brainwave]

I thin Seoni and Amiri might be tougher than the Lem challenge. They both lose cards to use their abilities and no heals. Ack! Father Zantos just became your most valuable card.

[PinkRose]

And when you roll a 4 and need a 5 for a Potion of Healing, ACK!

[Decius]

I thin Seoni and Amiri might be tougher than the Lem challenge. They both lose cards to use their abilities and no heals. Ack! Father Zantos just became your most valuable card.

But you don't need to use their card-discarding abilities often. Seoni is going to cast her spell all the time, and once Amiri gets a good weapon she doesn't have to rage in ordinary circumstances.

[LAntorcha]

I play with 6 char team, and think there are 2 ways to approach:

 

- Want to squeeze the locations for boons?

Maximize your options at the locations that have your desired type of boon. Get them. If you lose... Forfeit.

 

- Want to accomplish VICTORY?

Close 2 Locations ASAP and move each character to their best closing locations, while scouting for the Villain. Then Hit the Villain Hard!

[Narkon27]

I started playing with two (Kyra and Meri), then started another game with three after I added Valeros. After I finished all difficulties in campaign, I started playing exclusively quests, although now that I have more characters unlocked, I want to get to know them before I start another group.

 

A party of 2 is probably the easiest, but I like the idea of a party with 3-4 members because it feels more like the RPGs I loved in the past and is not terribly more difficult. I attempted a 6 hero party only once and gave up. Not trying that anytime soon, or if I do it will be only on Normal difficulty and definitely not permadeath. Lately, I always take 4 heroes in quests because I want to level them fast and doing 3 of them at a time takes a little longer. With a 4 member party I have actually won a couple of times with 0 cards in the blessing deck and even then it was Lady Luck that helped me, as I found the villain in a 13 card location. I almost quit in the previous turn because I thought I had lost.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Narkon27

[Kgk4569]

I almost quit in the previous turn because I thought I had lost.

"NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!" - Galaxy Quest

[naturemage]

I think a party of four is the sweet spot.

 

Simply, on one side of the scale (teams of 1) you've got a leisurely trek, closing one card per turn. The challenge here is that you don't have very many skills to help respond to threats. RNG is your biggest enemy.

 

On the other side of the scale (teams of 6) you've got a wide variety of skills to help resolve threats. The challenge here is that you need to close between two and three cards per turn to be sure of victory. Recharging discarded allies & blessings becomes a serious problem.

 

With a party of four you've got a reasonable group of skills and only need to go through one to two cards per turn. If you've got at least one healer you're usually fine.