How do you survive without healing?

[Tiltowait]

Just curious, if you don't have a divine in the party about the only methods of healing are specific locations or a potion. 

Since your card are literally your life, what's your tips/strategy for when you don't have a healer?  

 

When I'm running Seelah+Kyra they had tremendous stamina because of they double up on healing and make easier to recover when the RNG acts up. But I also like the other characters (Meri, Ezren, etc...)

 

I'm debating running arcanes and taking one of their spells as a Cure.  Sure it's a one shot that way...but it's better than no heals at all.  

 

Advice welcome!

 

Thanks!

[firestormkirby]

How far are you into the game? Around the middle of AD2, I am usually running no healing at all. Once you get a few card feats, healing is unnecessary. I almost always put my card feats into blessings and Allies solely for the extra explorations. Then there are good enough offensive cards, combined with leveling up the appropriate skill feats, that most characters don't need additionally help when defeating simple banes. If you have the right support spells (not healing) then any character can get past the difficult banes. 

 

But I can't give you specifics becasue I have never had a problem* with characters dying. So my counter question to you is, What is giving you so much damage?

 

*I have had characters die, but it was entirely preventable. Most of them were me discarding too many cards and not having enough in my deck. Just a quick deck check would have prevented this.

[Nym]

Damage in this game comes primarily from one of two different places, combat or some secondary effect. Secondary effects can be annoying, especially later in the game, but they're rarely bad enough to merit healing. As for combat damage, you shouldn't be taking any. If monsters are hitting you more than once or twice per scenario, then you're failing too many combat rolls. The solution to that problem isn't healing; it's figuring out how to roll more/bigger dice so that you never fail those rolls in the first place.

 

In my six-character legendary party, I have, at most, two cures spread out across the full team, and even that is excessive most of the time.

[Pengw1n]

Try to build around recharging cards - and cards that are revealed from your hand instead of discarding, and you won't need as much healing.

[DrDior]

Organize your card loss management. 

 

1.  unlucky low rows.   Overcome those with universal spells, items and weapons.  Those that you can recharge are very important.

     Harsk has sniping ability.  Its great for parties, especially when you don't have healers around.  Fully rechargeable.

                  Later you can give him a role power that lets him recharge range weapons at will.

                  That gives you two attacks to another location in one turn.  Wow!

      Seelah, I give her greater or improved guidance and recharge it with inspired grace.  Very handy.

                               Inspired Grace must also work with your spells.

       Ezran.  Ever wonder what those orbs are for?  Many of them can be used in any location and provide that little extra boost.

                           Improving his recharge ability is key.

                           Also, give him Incanter allies to help recharging.   Then, give him a couple area of effect spells.

 

2. Barriers.  Except for Seoni and Ezren, your items should be to defeat barriers.  Masterwork tools, chime of unlocking, pole.

                    If you take a damage point, you have something that you can discard without a grievous loss.

                    But all of these are great for defeating barriers.

                    Since everyone likes to load up with blessings, give each character a Blessing of Abadar.  Really!  It matters.

 

3. Closing a location.  If you don't defeat a location, you lose in the card race.   Closing can be really tough at the lowest levels. 

                    Have a variety of (blessings) attribute boosters and spread them around your characters.

                    Switch them among characters until you find which combo you like  most.

                    At higher levels, you characters can often handle closing locations without help from boons.

                    By the time they have role powers, some of them can recharge a certain blessing and life is simple. 

 

4.  Difficult monsters.

                    This is really easy to overcome.   First, go out of your way to get any Blessing of Lamashtu you come across.

                    Each character should have one.

                    Its two dice affect works on monsters that require a wisdom or dexterity combat roll (no weapons).

                    Have a smattering of Blessing of Gorham and Erastil.  One or two of each in the party should be enough.

 

If you have taken care of the above, you are set to play at the more difficult levels without healers.  (I don't count the Seelah as a healer

 

Close to done.  You need to consider your selection of characters.

       Ezran has no blessings.  Don't let that keep him out of your deck.

                    He is a real location closer.  He can work through a location faster than any other character.

       Seelah.   Ceaseless Crusade is a great asset to get through locations.  Don't worry about tossing something good.

                    You will get many opportunities to get the best stuff down the road.

 

Finally, make sure you know how to handle locations. 

                    Amiri, her ability to leave a location at the end of a turn changes a difficult location into a cakewalk.

                    Merisiel, simply evade the monster that shows up at the start of your turn

                    Lini,  she was made to handle "survive or discard a card"

 

 What do you think of this?   Give me a "Like".  Thanks!

Edited September 23, 2016 by DrDior

[269Hawkmoon]

In the physical version of Rise of the Runelords, my wife and I ran a team of Ezren, Sajan, Amiri and Merisiel successfully through. Ezren, Sajan and Merisiel are all pretty good at recharging cards. Amiri isn't, so my wife just had to be careful with her. Swap Valeros for Amiri for an even safer group.

 

There are a few non-spell ways to get some healing. Father Zantus. Poog of Zarongel (if you have the promos), and Staff of Minor Healing are pretty key early on. Eventually, Sajan took the Drunken Master role and could recharge Potion of Healing, but even before then, none of them died.

 

As others have said, focus on recharging and play carefully.

[Tiltowait]

Hey everyone thanks for the tips.  I did buy the full game ($24) because I have the tabletop version and this is a lot easier to lug around that the lead box full of cards   

 

@Firestormkirby: Nuala, Enchanter, Goblin, Hellhound, etc...all the ones that ding you for up to 4 damage before you can act, or after with unpreventable damage. Also when I run into 'if you don't have X, the bane is undefeated' linked with 'if undefeated discard/bury' effects.  Skeletal Horde Barrier is another unpleasant bane to run into.  

 

@269Hawkmoon: Not sure what you mean about promos, I have all the promos for the tabletop...but there don't appear to be any in the app.  

 

I'm still taking it slow because I have terrible luck. I try to build my deck expecting to roll crappy...if I expect to roll average or even 1 below average, my characters die.

Most difficult foes are the ones that zap you before you go, and typically I run into them early before any of my character have any damage prevention, again typical bad luck. Losing an entire hand right at the get go without anyway to get the cards back makes it really difficult to come back.  Not impossible, just really tough. 

 

I also tend to run into the 'unavoidable, cannot be reduced' damage frequently. The few games I did win, they were usually down to 1 or less cards in their draw deck.  If I 'save' blessings, then the characters just die earlier. 

 

I expect it gets better as they develop, this was certainly true on the tabletop (my friend and I ran Merisiel and Lini all the way through), it's just rough during the early days.  

 

I'm bouncing back and forth between story and quest mode.  There are pros and cons to each.  The app is pretty solid though so overall I'm liking it so far.  

[MauGibrin]

Surviving early on is the biggest challenge of the game; you start with no magical weapons, no great allies, awful items and only blessings of the Gods (which are decent, but can never be recharged). *But* you can redo any character's deck before you start the first adventure, and if you are having trouble keeping your characters alive, you could help yourself to better cards (as long as they are Basic...):

 

- Trobadours and Sages can help you survive the most dangerous barriers with a recharge (only explore with them after all the barriers are gone). Guards cannot explore, but might help keep a fragile character alive.

- Bludgeoning weapons (mace, quarterstaff, sling) don't make monsters harder to beat - so skeletons will be 8's instead of 11's...

- Spells that are easy to recharge (like Detect Magic) might be less powerful, but are also a Life Point you almost always keep.

- That amulet that prevents 3 damage (forgot its name, but it works with fire, cold, acid, etc) is also Basic.

- Don't neglect (or discard) armor unless absolutely necessary - specially when facing a villain that does damage before you act (like Black Fang or Nualia)!

 

I have run several parties without any healing, and while you have to be more careful with some characters (I'm looking at you, Seoni) than with some others, it's not so hard to keep everyone alive until you find better gear and increase your stats. Just play safe when the consequences of failure would be too dire, and take bigger risks when they wouldn't...

 

Hope that helped!

 

Mauricio

[269Hawkmoon]

@269Hawkmoon: Not sure what you mean about promos, I have all the promos for the tabletop...but there don't appear to be any in the app.    

You get promos in the app if you purchased the bundle for the entire RotR set. That would be the only way to get Poog of Zarongel. And he has a healing power.

[brandondash]

poog of zarongel

father zantus

staff of minor healing

 

and of course... don't burn cards unless you absolutely have to

[Nathan Davis]

As someone who is often challenging himself with different (non-ideal) party compositions, I often find myself with out a healer. For me it's a balance. If I'm running with 3 or fewer characters, I use blessings and allies for exploring less so that I can preserve my deck size. For 5 or 6 characters I explore more aggressively but try to make sure there's enough support (i.e. Blessings) to share when a check matters. In either case, there tends to be a point when the Blessing Deck is down to 15 where I up my exploration amount per turn.

[Celedhring]

Yeah, there's a point where you don't need too much healing anymore. In particular when you start stocking cards like Augury, Scry and other location deck manipulation boons, plus characters with feats that allow you to optimize your explores (like Seelah's crusade). The key is to get to the henchmen quicker without having to discard many cards to get extra explores, or face too many banes.

 

The lack of needed healing is precisely why I love Kyra, btw. In the rare occasion where a heal might be critical (a fumbled bane roll, a nasty scenario/location power), I can instantly provide it without having to plan for it. I'm already regretting picking Seelah's healing feat for instance. I have yet to use it in 20+ games.