Solo runs

[Achilles]

Hey all,

 

I was inspired by the "Complete Local Heroes with only Lem" daily challenge and ended up finishing the game just to see if I could. Along the way I learned a lot about the game mechanics and how to play a character I initially thought of as being very weak.

 

Well, that was time well spent. Let's try it with all the characters.

 

I started off with those I didn't know very much about and just tried to see how far I could take it. Some were comparatively easy (Seelah). Others I quickly discovered were pretty hopeless (Valeros). In fact, the Valeros run bummed me out so much that I might take a break before finishing the roster, but I thought I would share some quick notes.

 

Ezren - Wow, I blessing are pretty damned important. He didn't make it very far before I gave up. He's good in a group, but not designed for solo play.

 

Kyra (Exorcist) - Got as far as 6-4. Try as I might, I couldn't get her past Most High Cleoptra.

 

Lem (Virtuoso) - I had to cheese a bit with blessings and allies (I love you, Rogue Ape), but his ability to manipulate his deck makes him insanely powerful.

 

Sajan (Drunken Master) - I really wanted to be a lore-snob and take him Zen Archer. I hemmed and hawed over this one to the extent that I made a decision matrix. After all was said and done, there was no contest.

 

Seelah (Crusader) - Made it all the way to 6-5 but the lack of items really made the last fight pretty much impossible for her.

 

Tontelizi (Legbreaker) - The location closing checks in 5-5 were just too much for him. Plus his powers are buggy as hell. I probably won't try again after he's fixed, but it was fun. Note that his d8 (+2) WIS arguably makes him a better character than Valeros.

 

Valeros - Continuing from above, the d4 WIS combined with the fact that he starts the game with only 3 blessings really hurts him. I gave up after Foul Misgivings.

 

 

Amiri, Harsk, Lini, Merisiel, and Seoni are still on the to-do list. If I ever get around to them, I'll update this thread.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

[Hannibal_PJV]

Linis Animal tricks makes her good candidate for solo play. Others of the rest has it more trouples during the way. Interested to hear the rest of your travel story!

[Bullwinkle]

Interesting. I’ve soloed all the characters to the end, including the expansion characters, except for Ezren and Seoni. I found them all quite reasonable when taking the right feats. Seelah was the easiest by far—I even beat Karzoug with her on Legendary with a hand size of 4. I presume you had problems with her because you had no good way of stopping damage? If you can get it, the Steel Ibis Lamellar will make all her problems go away. Even so, I’d have thought her regular armours good enough to prevent enough damage to beat 6-5.

 

I don’t recall having that much trouble with Valeros. His low Wis is a pain, but blessings and allies can do a lot to mitigate that weakness. (The Blessing of Thassilonian Virtues, if you can find it, is a game-changer, though of course that can’t show up until deck 5.) The best strategy would usually be to leave any Wis close locations for last, so you don’t have to close it at all; beating the villain will do it for you.

 

For some reason, the hardest for me was Sajan; I failed with him more times than anyone. I’m not sure why. Maybe I just never got a good handle on when to burn a blessing.

 

I ditched my Ezren run because he was too much of a pain. Like you said, he's just not built to solo. Didn’t even bother trying Seoni, for much the same reason.

[Achilles]

It seems I have much to learn. There were parts of the game where I would believed it impossible to succeed with anything fewer than 6 cards (1 armor card to bury for BYA damage, 1 weapon and 1 blessing to discard for a reasonable chance to succeed round 1 combat, and finally a weapon and 2 blessings for a reasonable chance to succeed round 2 combat). Heaven help you in 5-5 where you have to soak up BYA damage, AYA damage, succeed a fairly tough encounter, and then have enough blessings left over to success the very steep close location requirements

[Bullwinkle]

I didn’t think I’d win it, either. When I got the wildcard that reduced hand size by 3, I almost forfeited the scenario, but I figured I’d run it because maybe I’d find a good item so the time wasn’t wasted. And I was sure I’d fail along the way. I ran into Karzoug three times—and lost three times—before finally getting him down to the only one in the deck.

 

(Curiously, the small hand size probably saved me. Though I kept losing battles, Iomedae's Favor allowed me to recharge my blessings, and my remaining hand was so small that getting hit for 10+ damage only lost me a card or two at a time, which my Cures could repair.)

 

That final battle, I had an armor (don’t think it was the Lamellar), a blessing (can’t remember if it was Iomedae or a Combat blessing), and two weapons (Mokmurian's Club and Karzoug's Burning Glaive). Armor took the BYA damage. Club discarded + discard from deck for first roll, rolled super high, beat the difficulty by around 7. Glaive discarded + blessing + deck discard for second, needed 40, rolled a 41.

 

I just sort of sat there for a moment, stunned. I worked out the odds later: I had a ~50% chance of winning the first roll, and ~20% of winning the second, so I had a 1 in 10 chance of winning the fight. Definitely Seelah's finest hour. And not something I’d recommend! Goes to show, however, the rolls don’t always go against you.

 

(Side note: for characters that can use Divine spells, I often give them two Cures. This lets you discard cards for effect liberally on every turn, then Cure them back to your deck. Having a second Cure means even if you don’t recharge the first one, you can still get it back later. This is a super effective cycle: burn hand, Cure, burn hand, Cure. Makes Lini, Lem, and Seelah nearly invincible—and utterly fearless.)

 

Anyway, regarding soloing in general, there will be times when certain characters hit a scenario that’s particularly ugly for them. At this point, all you can really do is play to your strengths, mitigate your weaknesses, and hope for a little luck. With Valeros, the all-Wis closing scenario is terrible, so what you’re really hoping for is to run into the villain at each location. There, you can use V's strengths to beat the rolls and let the villain close the deck for you, so your Wis doesn’t really matter. If you get a henchman instead, the best strategy may be to leave the location open (don't waste blessings trying to close it) and chase the villain there later. Since you’re solo, you only rarely have to worry about running out of time.

 

Even good soloers occasionally have a problem. Merisiel, for example, is amazing, but Here Comes the Flood is an absolute nightmare for her. A paucity of blessings, allies, and healing means she has to hope desperately to find allies at the top of the Village deck AND that Black Magga doesn’t devour that location, or she's basically screwed. That scenario made me want to snap my iPad in half.

 

FWIW, even Ezren and Seoni are soloable. Someone here did it, and explained how to handle some of the nastier elements (Ethics Gradient, maybe?) but admitted you still have to get lucky.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Bullwinkle

[Achilles]

Merisiel - runs face first into a brick wall in 5-4. I'm assuming that taking weapon proficiency and arming her with something other than a rapier or daggers would help here. Otherwise this is pretty much end of the line for her. Azren's poison immunity and the Hall of Sloth's 1-card-per-turn restriction are each huge obstacles for her. 

[Bullwinkle]

Yes, solo Meri needs weapon proficiency. I usually take it even before the first hand size upgrade. Then even a Returning Throwing Axe in her hand gets d12+4+d8+1+d6+2d6+1 (minimum) = 27.5 avg, just by recharging the axe and discarding to backstab. It's not overwhelming, but a very reasonable chance to knock out whichever villain's in that location.

 

Although on further calculation, your dagger's not as bad as you think. Even unable to discard it, you should have a 24 avg. damage, more if you took more than two ranks in backstab. You're very close to a 50% chance, and that's given an only 1 in 3 chance of seeing Azaven in that location. Any other villain is a minimum avg of 30.5.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Bullwinkle

[Achilles]

54% if everything aligns perfectly. If it’s Ordikon, and you succeed the check, then you have to then hope that he doesn’t roll a 1 or 2, forcing you to encounter him again. If you fail, then you have to soak up however many points of irreducible damage he decides to dish out.

 

If it’s the J-dude, then you need to be adequately equipped for two encounters (the BYA summon + him).

 

Best bet is Azaven...which again is a coin flip. A better person might be willing to tolerate a dozen tries at this. I’m throwing in the towel after half that many.

[Achilles]

*sigh*

 

I can’t believe I let you goad me into trying one more time. And, of course, that’s the time I breeze through all 3 locations with no setbacks. Curse you.

[Bullwinkle]

Ha!

[Hannibal_PJV]