Nerf Roy? Buff V?

[Zeiss]

Has anyone run into balance issues between characters? Our group has only ever seen Roy smash his way through everything unless we pulled out all stops to keep him from doing it, and we've only ever seen V sit and twiddle his thumbs because his schtick deck is sub par.

[Tempest Fennac]

I've never played the game, but is it Roy's Greater Cleavage which is causing the problems? I know someone said a while back that it can easily be countered if Roy encounters a tough or flying enermy.

[Mando Knight]

If this were another game (namely, D&D), I'd find this title funny. Nerf a single-class Fighter and buff a single-class Wizard? Never!

Don't really have much to say on the game (don't own it myself...), but the thread title is funny, I think...

C'mon, everyone needs a little overpowered-ness sometime, and Roy's is right here.

[Tempest Fennac]

I know what you mean. I suppose this at least balances with D&D due to the opposite being true with that game. :smalltongue:

[Patrick]

While I don't think V is actually a weak character, I do agree that Roy feels a little bit over-the-top powerful. V is a very tricky character to use - I guess he's the most "advanced" of all of them - but he's got a couple of useful abilities. My favourite? Black, the Raven - one of the best Schticks of anyone. It works especially well if you set off a trap in a room with a bunch of people. I think V's issue is that he is the weakest in PvP, so just to balance that by staying far away from players, and killing all the monsters you can.

Roy's Cleave is a bit powerful, plus the schtick that lets him flip another players schticks is potent... I don't know what I'd remove from him, really

[Kiero]

Roy? Not Haley? Almost every game we've ever played, it's been Haley who's won.

I do agree V is rubbish, though. Defense is king, if you have to rely on Attack to do any good, everyone else will simply overtake you.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

Ok, this is gonna sound a bit harsh but... are you trolling? This topic is like 6 months old and you are not adding anything particular to it.

Even though, on the subject, what type of games are you playing? Players/length?
The more players there are, the less relevance the character chosen has. With fewer players yes, sometimes even luck can't help you.
If in your games Roy is too powerful, don't ask/give him assistance, if he can't win the first fight (try to put him the toughest monster always) he can't plough through the stack. Actually, Roy is only really good when he gets his Greenhilt Swords, before that he is not a threat. In general Roy gets the best deal if the party cooperates although he gives no benefit/reasons for the rest to do so.
If Haley is the problem in your games, find out why and react accordingly. If it is because she gets too many loot get the game to be as short as you can manage. The shorter the game, the more importance shticks have when counting points. If it's because there are no monsters you have to stop her (once she gets Obscure Alchemical Arrows) coordinate to get her monsters with Support or powerful onces so she loses battles or has to burn out the loot. It takes her a quite some shticks to be good at fighting at 0 range AND good at getting loot
.
A simple solution for any character you feel is overpowered is to sit them next to Durkon with W.W.T.D. (so Durkon will be the one playing monsters to them). This way, Durkon will always have the right monster and Screw This! to hold back that player who is doing great, and Durkon does get a benefit from the rest of the party getting beaten. To realize how powerful W.W.T.D. is, play a 2 player game with Durkon having it as a starting shtick instead of Cure wounds or Big Heavy Armor, specially against Roy.

As said by Patrick, V is not weak but tricky to play. The economy in the game is turns and what you can get in it. Fighting monsters in defense is the one that gives the most benefit (X's and 2 loot when possible) but it's the most risky one, since you are forced to fight in Defense against monsters chosen by other players. As a player based on Attack (as V and Belkar) you want the players based on Defense fail their battles (or be forced to go with Hide or Armor) so you can go and get them on Attack later on. While players based on Defense will have the most benefit when they do get their battles done, they shouldn't be able to do it every turn. Players on Attack should be able to either get X OR loot in every turn (since they get to choose when to Attack) to fight monsters in a favorable position to get X or to go and pick left over loot if there is any).

[paladin_carvin]

I'm gonna hafta agree with the Haley bit. She has won all but one of our games! Only Belkar does horrid, though V isn't particularly liked... well, 'cept my lil' brother in law, he did decent with hir/hem. Elan doesn't do great, but whoever who plays him usually has the most fun ^_^

[Kiero]

Ok, this is gonna sound a bit harsh but... are you trolling? This topic is like 6 months old and you are not adding anything particular to it.

Well thanks, Forum Policeman for pointing that out...

This is a slow-moving forum that doesn't get a lot of activity. Topic in question was on the first page, and quite high up it too. I'm adding my actual experience of playing the game to the topic.

As to your suggestion of less co-operative play, no thanks. The game is slow as it is without slowing it down still further with antagonistic or competitive play. That's the reason why Belkar is banned from our games without modification that makes Twin Daggers of Doom get Defense bonuses against monsters, rather than the stupid Wounds bonuses against other players.

Antagonistic play doesn't make the game more fun, just boring as everything slows down.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

sarcasm aside, i was not referring to a forum rule (which honestly i don't really know them well) but the point of your post, but nevermind that it doesn't matter anyway.

I think that you are making a judgment error when saying Haley is the best and V is rubbish. As i understand, the intended balance includes how players should play their characters. Playing cooperative or competitive makes your character stronger or weaker compared to others overall. Being only cooperative turns the tide towards some characters making others lag behind.
As i read, your problem is game length, not balance. To solve that you put the focus on a (faster) cooperative game which, in turn, shifts balance.
So Haley is great and V sucks in your games, not in the game itself. And if I'm guessing right, not only time is what drives you away from PvP but it also doesn't fit the style of your table. I understand that... though i enjoy screwing other players my brother loathes it... that's probably why he always plays Roy.

I never had a full house, but in my games with 4 players we never went overly 4 hours of play (don't know if that's acceptable for your table). We always did the short version of the game and ignored either loot or shticks requirement to enter Xykon's Lair. Hostilities doesn't happen often but aren't rare since attacking another player or retaliating an attack is usually not the best course of action. I agree that time is an issue and i always have that in mind when playing to avoid the game going on for too long.
The balance problems in our games only appear when Roy he gets his Greenhilts Swords (and Great Cleavage) going. Other than that, games are usually decided by the dice, battle hands (Screw This! and monsters) and who kills Xykon.

[paladin_carvin]

The peculiar thing about this game is that the balance wavers depending on how long the game lasts, who is in the game and how aggressive everyone is towards each other.

[Forderz]

If Roy (or anyone) rolls badly, they are going to suck. In every game I've played, Haley has gotten Obscure Alchemical Arrows around level 2, and become unstoppable. I thin for my next game I'm going to manually put that in around the bottom 3rd of the deck, because that one card is disgustingly overpowered. V has never had a problem, not even during the first time we played. Belkar is hilarious to play as as long as no-one gangs up on him, instead just bribes him to attack other players.

[paladin_carvin]

If Roy (or anyone) rolls badly, they are going to suck. In every game I've played, Haley has gotten Obscure Alchemical Arrows around level 2, and become unstoppable. I thin for my next game I'm going to manually put that in around the bottom 3rd of the deck, because that one card is disgustingly overpowered. V has never had a problem, not even during the first time we played. Belkar is hilarious to play as as long as no-one gangs up on him, instead just bribes him to attack other players.

Wow... Every game I've played that never got out till late. It's a bane to my fiance (who always plays Haley) because without it you are helpless against impervious monsters.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

I think that Obscure Alchemical Arrows should be flippable when you use it although in my games so far it was not necessary to force it as a house rule. Being flippable avoids abusing the +2 against undead and forces her to rest to use it again to fight an impervious. As i understand Haley should be weak against undead compared to other type of monsters, but with OAA and Longbow she gets +4 (+6 if boosted) which is really strong when she shouldn't be.

[prj]

I think that Obscure Alchemical Arrows should be flippable when you use it

That sounds like not a bad idea.


As i understand Haley should be weak against undead compared to other type of monsters, but with OAA and Longbow she gets +4 (+6 if boosted) which is really strong when she shouldn't be.

My understanding is that she's supposed to be weak against Undead until she gets OAA. :smallwink: Sneak Attack still doesn't help aganst Undead. She's strongest against Fiends, since then she can use both Sneak Attack and OAA.

[Tempest Fennac]

I suppose it could be argued that the arrows shouldn't be flippable due to how using the power only requires Haley to use arrows from a different quiver (admittedly, if it's as powerful as it sounds, it probably should be flippable in the name of balance).

[Kiero]

I've played games with four, five and six players (different mixes every time). Even with repeat games with the same group, we've never had any game under five hours. Even with people who've played before. We haven't tried with some of our own shortening rules in a complete game, but we'll try it out some time.

Either way the fact that Haley has a load of stack-able, non-flippable attacks, along with having an easy time of getting more Loot than anyone else makes all the difference. Even if she doesn't kill Xykon, in our games she often comes first, or at least second. Roy and Durkon tend to be about level, Elan depends on who's playing him (I've often done quite well as the "social glue" making the Loot economy work, since that's the only way Elan is effective).

As before, there's no "error of judgement", a character who relies on Attack is categorically weaker than one with good Defense. Why? Because they have to wait a turn to do anything, and once they've unleashed someone else (especially whoever is playing Haley) can nip in and steal their Loot. The weakness is even more pronounced if their Attack schtick is flippable - then they not only spend turns not moving to attack, but spend turns not moving to recharge as well. They're screwed compared to characters who can enter a room, fight on the defensive and kill stuff, then grab some Loot and move on.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

Well, i have already made my point about attack/defense so it's no use to repeat each other. I still think that the style of your table is the one that is making some characters stronger than others since it doesn't seem to happen to many other gitpers.


Elan depends on who's playing him (I've often done quite well as the "social glue" making the Loot economy work, since that's the only way Elan is effective).Uhm... that's not the only way. Elan is the one that has "has a load of stack-able, non-flippable" battle shticks, geared to defense. With boosted X-Treme Diplomacy, Chain Shirt, Conscience Angel he has a +6 defense. That's actually better than Haley's +5 longbow defense on range 0. Sure he needs more shticks to get to that bonus and starts with a +1 against Haley's +3, but the point is that if he gets some kills and a good shtick draw early, he can be really good at fighting monsters at defense.
Exactly this happened on a recent game where Elan was leading by far in a table with Roy, Haley and Belkar.

Relative to the subject, i want to say a couple of things.
All the characters benefit from being on the same dungeon level than the rest of the cast. You can get/give assistance (strong point for Elan), range attack left over monsters or players in a weak position (V and Belkar), pick left over loot (Haley) and give out heals for Durkon.
The lower the dungeon level, the most X and loot you can get on average per turn. On level 1 you get 1 X and 1 loot, on level 2, 2 Xs and 2 loot, on level 3, 3 Xs and 2 Loot (and so on). This is fighting at range 0, which is Roy's strength (specially against bigger number of monsters). So for Roy (and any player focused on killing monsters) fighting deeper on the dungeon brings bigger rewards per turn.
This, compensates the drawback of being the first to leave the same dungeon level as the rest. You won't have assistance at first (except for the NPC), but if the fight is not hard enough, you get a bigger reward than the rest of other player's fights. You will also lose some fights too (because they'll be harder), but as long as you don't lose the last wound and you can ask for heal or move to safety for a rest, you are ok.
Also when one goes down and start having fights, for the rest following down is best in most cases, because more points are played per turn. No need to explore each dungeon room or to stay to cleanse the level.
This is what i find that tends to make the game last longer than it should. Players stay on a level fighting monsters until they feel they are strong enough to go deeper when they could go down faster, more often on level 2.
On the game mentioned above, i was playing Haley. I got bad luck and wasn't able to do anything my first 3 turns. Then on level 2 i got sent back to the dungeon entrance by a supported Ogre with Deadly. Being so far behind, and everyone fighting monsters on level 2, I raised the bet and went alone to level 3 (with few shticks and low on loot). I got lucky and won my second fight, giving me in 1 turn 1 shtick and 2 loot. Pressing down resulted in me tieing for second place with Roy when otherwise i would have lagged behind by a lot.

[Kiero]

Funny what a difference the Schticks make. In our game last night, Haley's player didn't get any boosts for Longbow. Which meant she was hit-and-miss in a lot of fights, even after getting Sneak Attack boosted, and Obscure Alchemical Arrows.

On the other hand, the moment Roy got a second Boost on Greenhilt Sword and Great Cleavage, he was unstoppable in a fight. After that he surged ahead in the Schtick-stakes, being the only character to get all 20 before the game was done.

Elan had the most Loot, ironically Haley the least (she also didn't get that one that lets you pick up three Loot).

[Felixaar]

No, I'd say roy's the one who needs a Buff. Though admittedly, I may be biased from that game where I managed to roll nothing but ones...

Midnight Son and SweetRein will remember that one.

[remmah]

Bought the game for my girlfriend last month.

Had quite a few games since then.

As far as i have seen, there are few areas where characters excell and ´are bad´.

Roy is very strong if you get battle administration charge and more swords in the beginning of the game. He is almost unbeatable then. But if you don´t get those and people throw flying monsters in your way, or anyhting your sword doesnt hack through. You´re not going anywhere.

Haley is absolutely powerful in the early game, and has good potential but i haven´t actually seen her win any games.

Durkon starts a bit slow if people don´t let you heal them. But he is great when you got started up. Healing is not to be underestimated.

Belkar is good in the beginning, but you don´t get much stronger with him unless you start to roleplay him as well. You have to attack other people and hold them back for him to prosper.

Elan is by no means powerful, but he certainly is fun. And that´s how he should be.

V is the hardest character of them all. She is hard to play and has a slow start. She is also very vulnerable to attacks. You need to be lucky for other people to leave you alone a bit since you pose no threat. If you get started and get multiple fireballs and lightning bolts you can do plenty of hurt though. I agree she is overall the worst character.

[MergedLoki]

So far i've only played one game. I got V. which i was unhappy with at first lol but it worked out (4 players). V and Roy cleaned up the dungeon. Roy'd go in on the lower levels, and either get thru the battles and I'd scoop up some loot. OR roy would lose and i'd launch a fireball into the room to finish the monsters off. worked out good.
Roy DID seem horribly over powered by the end. Killed Xykon without even having to really add all his bonuses up so that kinda sucked. Just cuz u know. byt he end there was NO challenege for him.

[Lissou]

I've played many games. Most of them were just me and my husband, only one had another player on top of that.
I too have never had a game last less than 5 hours. When we were 3 playing, we stopped when hitting the 5 hour mark and hadn't even reched Xykon's lair (and yes, we always chose the faster game possible).

Being only 2 doesn't really help depending on who you're playing. We had a game being Belkar and Elan, it was next to unplayable since Belkar relies on player fights while Elan relies on player cooperation.
I like the game, but I have to say it's way too long. It gets really boring after a while, and you just want it to be over.
We only played the fastest version of the game with the least possible players. i can only imagine that the weekend killer with 6 people would last the whole 48 hours.

I guess it's just something to keep in mind.

Now, about the characters being unbalanced... I too have experienced V as very weak, unable to kill anyone, having to rest every other turn or so. It didn't help that the player didn't get attack shticks for the longest time and had to rely solely on the starting ones. Since he didn't kill any monster, he ended up staying with only the starting shticks while everybody else (aka my husband and myself) was accumulating shticks.

The only two characters who have ever won in one of our games are Haley and Roy (we ended up cancelling the game between belkar and Elan after many hours of going back to the entrance to get healed).
But I realise it doesn't mean much when you're only 2 people playing.

We've never played with Roy vs Haley that I can remember, maybe we'll have to try that.

[Weezer]

I've found that roy seems to be overpowered compared to the other characters, his greater cleavage rips apart most enemies, but I may be getting a skewed view because whenever I play the game we all cheat horribly. I dont think that had much of an effect though because everyone cheated equally bu can never be sure.

[Tobz]

Using the 'Lucky Bastards' variation rule theoretically will slow Roy's ability to 'autofight' through monsterstacks, while at the same time boosting Vaarsuvius because of his better fumble:kill ratio (though it's less common for V to be able to autofight a stack of monsters using Fireball).

It's probably not enough to balance them out though.

While I agree that it's definitely possible to win with V, or not even getting past the second level with Roy, the chances of this happening and the skill of the players involved are nowhere near the same.

And this becomes even worse, far worse, when you play 'Nerdcore' so V can't hang around the Entrance anymore for safe resting. Something Roy hardly ever needs and V can hardly do without.

[Rumtummy]

Roy is up, V is down. This seems to be a common theme but what is the problem, really? the first of two issues is that Roy is the little snowball that ends up flattening a town. It's simple enough to just remind your kind-and-considerate gaming group to USE their Screw This cards and flying monsters. you win the game by counting up your shtick and loot so make him give away more loot. ...yeah, yeah we all know that. I'll get back to this farther below.

skip ahead to issue two concerning V and his fragile advantage with area of effect at range. I've been toying with bringing my home brew variant rule idea #1 into games specifically to address this exact thing:
before moving, any player starting in an empty room might toss four (of any combination) faces worth of loot into an adjacent, explored room to attract monsters. ooh shiny!

the safety of ranged combat this affords V (and a leaping Belkar, i might add) should balance out with slowness of gaining loot. for example: V would need to move into the room (now full of loot and corpses) the turn AFTER ranged combat. this would populate the room with MORE monsters (and this time at 0 Range) unless another player had already jumped into the lootiful room like it was a pile of autumn leaves, in which case you'd only get to draw once and from slimmer pickings. Assuming you rest on the third turn that's a net of three loot over three turns. AND every bit of that loot is open to other player's quick feet and greedy impulses.

aaanyway, this gives V the same strategy as Roy of hunting down X's, saving up loot and seeking a quick game-over before the other characters are able to soak up too much loot.

going back to the first issue, Roy's picking up of speed as time goes on... consider my silly-sounding home brew variant rule #2:
Roy takes only 2 steps a turn, rather than the normal 3.this has little effect on an early Roy that is exploring new rooms each turn. this has everything to do with keeping late game Roy from running over and taking advantage of free piles of loot, other player's new rooms (like the Armory, +2/+2 to weapon shticks), other player's new stairs, etc. a Roy having lost his last wound would be a sad sight indeed! the idea is to add some strategy to Roy's otherwise nearly play's-itself style.

these are both going in to my next game. not that anyone usually picks V or Roy outside of a 4-5 man game, actually...

[Wanderlust]

I have played quite a lot of games, and I tend to play V and Durkon (I like to let new players and my wife use Haley and Roy). We almost never use Belkar. Here's what I've found that has helped even the balance:

Roy's Great Cleavage shtick doesn't specify that the cumulative bonuses only work with the Greenhilt sword, so we've ruled that Roy won't get the bonus when he uses the Bag of Tricks. This way, if the first flying monster is three deep in the stack, he won't get to add the huge bonus to his attack. You can't cleave with a bag of rats and ferrets! This has stopped Roy many times from cleaning out a stack of Monsters and gaining multiple levels.

V is my favorite character to play, as he is one of the most challenging. I haven't won a game yet, but I'm getting closer each time. Positioning is everything for him, and picking up Blackwing early is key. Also, being verbal about trading loot for the Very Old Scroll to boost your Magic Missile shtick is very important. Boosting MM up to +5 defense will help you walk into new rooms and be able to survive the initial monster(s). I typically camp in player occupied rooms and launch my ranged attacks. I always get more shticks than anyone else, but fewer loot cards.

Durkon is difficult in my gaming group, but I think it's because other players don't rely on his healing as much, so his primary method of acquiring loot is shut down. We usually only play 3 floors, also, so most players would rather just flee the dungeon to fully heal than get healing from Durkon. A good strategy with Durkon is to explore far out on each level, and then look for stairs as far away as you can from the dungeon entrance. This will make players consider getting healing for Durkon instead of hiking all the way out. Durkon is tied for my favorite character.

Someone above mentioned that haley can't use her sneak attack vs. Undead mosters. I don't have the cards in front of me, but I don't think my group has been using this rule if it's true (my wife always plays haley, and she is just as sneaky as the character!). I'll have to look into that next time.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

V is my favorite character to play, as he is one of the most challenging. I haven't won a game yet, but I'm getting closer each time. Positioning is everything for him, and picking up Blackwing early is key. Also, being verbal about trading loot for the Very Old Scroll to boost your Magic Missile shtick is very important. Boosting MM up to +5 defense will help you walk into new rooms and be able to survive the initial monster(s). I typically camp in player occupied rooms and launch my ranged attacks. I always get more shticks than anyone else, but fewer loot cards.Contrary to Durkon, V benefits a lot from having the stairs lined up, as close to the exit as possible. This way you have almost guaranteed that you will be able to zap any room with a fireball. Also being able to heal all wounds and unflip shticks without the risk of being attacked while resting allows him to be more reckless and take risks. The only drawback that going back to the Dungeon Entrance has over resting is that you can't make a ranged attack right off, instead you'll have to go on defense. Still, you can access the desired dungeon level just in 1 turn. And even if you can't fight in that turn, you'll be in position to do ranged attacks to any left over monster around in the next.


Durkon is difficult in my gaming group, but I think it's because other players don't rely on his healing as much, so his primary method of acquiring loot is shut down. We usually only play 3 floors, also, so most players would rather just flee the dungeon to fully heal than get healing from Durkon. A good strategy with Durkon is to explore far out on each level, and then look for stairs as far away as you can from the dungeon entrance. This will make players consider getting healing for Durkon instead of hiking all the way out. Durkon is tied for my favorite character.Other ways to make people rely on your healing is to have some PvP going in the group (and for this having Belkar as a player helps). Also, getting Clank Clank Clank! helps a lot since players can't rely on Hide (specially hurting Haley) so they have to convince you to flip it (opportunity to blackmail them for loot) or get a wound. Also using WWTD to always have the right Monster or Screw This! card when needed is awesome. The great thing about Durkon is that even the 'bad' shticks are almost always good, he doesn't get that much affected by shticks draws like other characters.

[Wanderlust]

I agree. Durkon has a lot of great shticks, and on average I feel like his stuff is more useful than some of the other characters. It's weird; individually his shticks seem more useful, and yet his overall power level isn't as high as some of the 'big guns' (Haley and Roy).