|
Jack Wraith
United States
Ann Arbor
Michigan
-
The Class decks are the expansion which seems to have the most 'give or take' among the Runebound community. While most people feel that small expansions like Terrors of the Tomb are essential, or that a couple of the expansion endings, like Scepter of Kyros, are better than the original, or enthusiastically shift into the new worlds of Isle of Dread and Sands of Al-Kalim, the Class decks have at least as many people who own but exclude them, as those who regularly play with them. Our playing group is similarly mixed.
Comparing the whole of Runebound to its most obvious predecessor, Talisman, as we always do, the Class decks seem to bring back that trait that was most frequent: character combat. Character battles are fairly few-and-far-between in Runebound for a number of reasons. The game is often challenging enough without inviting reprisal attacks. It's more difficult to be in the same area as another Hero (rolling a d6 for movement around a ring can actually often create greater odds of interaction than the terrain dice.) And the combat system is so involved between Heroes that there is often no guarantee that victory will be the attacker's. That being said, we still do get in 1 or 2 player fights a game (usually when someone snags a good item and someone else decides to relieve them of it.) When we play the Class decks... it actually doesn't markedly increase. However, the direct interaction between Heroes DOES increase and the class actions are often a good substitute for combat.
The focus of the Class decks seems to be making the game itself more challenging and varied and fun; not in encouraging the creation of super characters who can then lay waste to their fellow adventurers. I think the intent was to create more texture, rather than to create more power. However, as noted earlier, the game challenge being what it is, my current group is often reluctant to use the Class decks (my old Talisman group would have demanded their use, every game, so perhaps it's more a player thing than a game thing.) There are four types of cards in each deck: Feats (which can be played on yourself or a Challenge facing an opponent), Spells (which can be played on yourself or an opponent), Challenges (played on an opponent), and Locations (which can usually be played on either, but occasionally just yourself.) If the card has a red Menace symbol, the card is played on yourself. If it has a gray Menace symbol (stipulated as blue in the rules, but ours all appear gray), then it is played on an opponent or his/her challenge. The Locations will stipulate how they can be played.
The decks use a system of Menace tokens to determine both when good feats/spells can be played on themselves and when negative feats/spells can be played on Heroes by their opponents. Each player has a pool of 10 Menace tokens. Each card has a cost. If you have a negative feat/spell played upon you, you remove Menace tokens from your character sheet equal to the cost of the spell/feat played, which can only be played against you if you have sufficient Menace to remove (i.e. if my intended target only has 4 Menace tokens, I can't play a card that costs 5 Menace on him or his Challenge.) If you play a positive feat/spell on yourself, you accumulate Menace equal to the cost of the card. So, playing positive effects on yourself opens the possibility for deadlier cards to be played against you. However, Menace also accumulates for encountering regular Challenges in the game at the rate of 1 Menace per experience point of the challenge (e.g. 1 for green, 2 for yellow, and so on.) What that often means is that, if you have a group that isn't gung-ho about tossing new Challenges or hampering conditions onto other players, your respective Menace will quickly max out at 10, and you'll have no space to play positive things on yourself, so your deck becomes strictly an offensive weapon and you actually open the way to positive feats/spells for your opponents by using it. The Menace system encourages interaction but your group MUST be willing to participate in order to make the system really work. A couple reluctant players and it will kind of bog down into an occasional detail. This is not to say that constant attack on other players has to be a feature of the game, as the Epic symbol system (only one Epic feat/spell can be played per player turn) restrains this somewhat. The cards also have timing symbols to indicate when during the turn they can be played (a boot for Movement phase, an imp for Adventure phase, and a book that symbolizes the card stating when it can be played.) Each player starts with a hand of six cards that is refilled at the end of their turn.
The decks also come with 5 Talents which can be acquired in place of experience counters and have to be acquired in order, 1-5. Some of them are worthwhile, some are amazing, and some of the higher (presumably best) ones are questionable. Furthermore, both talents and spells/feats are tied into a Proficiency system, in which feats/spells which match a current talent proficiency are cheaper to play, while acquired talents must match a current proficiency symbol in order to be acquired. This system plays into the idea promoted by the designer of building unique Class decks for each player. Our group has yet to try this because I'm the only person who owns the Class decks and it would be difficult to resolve some of the pre-game conflicts over who got access to this or that card. Consequently, we've only played with the decks as originally sold, which are all quite linear in proficiency access.
Battlemage: Highly regarded as one of the best of the decks, Battlemage contains such offensive beauties as Feral Hunger (discard 1 wound from the challenge for each wound it inflicts), Storm Rider (a powerful Ranged and Magic monster which can cause you to discard Rune items before combat), and the brutal Withering Touch (if this challenge inflicts any wounds on your Hero, discard all of your experience points) which has a stunningly low cost for the setback it can inflict on an opponent. It also has excellent cards for the Battlemage player, such as Abandoned Chapel (make a Spirit test, including a bonus for having a Divinity proficiency, and remove all wounds from your Hero if you succeed; only take Menace if you fail), Righteous Zeal (attack during an extra phase for this combat), and Banish (discard the current Challenge and take Menace equal to its cost.)
The talents are all quite useful, with the best being the fourth available, Battlemage (a Weapon item inflicts +3 wounds and if you roll 6 or higher above the Challenge's Body, you inflict +2 wounds on it and your Hero), leaving the fifth, Deathblow (if your roll is 8 or higher than the relevant attribute, the Challenge is killed), rarely taken. As the name implies, the deck does somewhat favor melee- and magic-oriented Heroes, but since that covers such a wide selection of Runebound characters, it remains quite popular with our group.
Wildlander: The Wildlander deck doesn't have any attribute preferences like Battlemage and some others, but it does have a distinct weakness in that many of its beneficial feats and spells are tied to the Wildlander character being in a forest space on the board. Given that there may or may not be Adventure tokens in the forest spaces or forest spaces near your Hero, you can see the problem. However, this deck also has a number of good movement cards, like Flash Flood (until the end of turn, all spaces are considered River spaces; this is a dual-use Location card that can be played on either your Hero or an opponent.) Some good beneficial cards are Herb Lore (discard all wounds and fatigue from your character or an Ally and refill your Class deck hand) and Master of the Wood (refill your hand for a very low cost) but, again, both must be played in a forest space. There are some good offensive cards, like Scorpion Sting (until the end of combat, if this challenge inflicts 1 or more wounds on a Hero or Ally, that character may not attack for the rest of the combat), Sundering Strike (if this challenge inflicts enough wounds to knock out your Hero, you may not cancel wounds with any feats, spells, talents, or items), and Frost Giants (a tough creature which eliminates the Escape phase in mountains; again, terrain restrictions.) It also contains one of the best anti-Ally cards in the game in Flesh Golem.
The lower Talents are all useful for movement purposes, so those that are often frustrated with the terrain dice might like Wildlander. It has to be said, though, that the two higher talents are excellent (Wildlander: after you defeat a challenge, discard all fatigue and take another movement step, then proceed with your experience step as normal; Harvest from the Hunt: after you defeat a challenge, remove all wounds from your Hero and allies.) However, I would still have to rank Wildlander near, if not at, the bottom of the class decks.
Shadow Walker: This deck is one of the strangest and most narrow of the Class decks. It's based primarily around tossing dragons (yes, dragons) at your opponents and doing otherwise sneaky and assassin-like feats. I'm not quite sure how 'assassin' equates to 'dragons' but, there it is. This deck has several interesting offensive cards, like Blood Moon (until the end of your turn, enemy spells and feats do not count as having the Epic symbol; useful for performing a 'kill the leader' turn), and Born of Ashes (play immediately after a Challenge is defeated; Shuffle this Challenge card back into its deck. You do not receive any rewards from this Challenge card), and, of course, the dragons (Frost Dragon, Emerald Dragon, Plague Dragons, and an actual Dragonlord who becomes a Rune item (with a very narrow ability, however.)) This deck has great Location cards, like Dragon Eggs (If you defeat a Challenge this turn, take this card. Discard during your Market step to receive 6 coins) and Dragon Rage (Move the closest red adventure counter on the board to your space) and spells like Linked Fates (During the first round of combat, if this Challenge inflicts any wounds on your Hero, this Challenge takes an equal number of wounds.) However, the majority of positive feats/spells require the presence of the word 'dragon', either on the card you're facing or want to retrieve or whatever. So, in some cases, it will be even more restrictive than location-focused decks like Wildlander.
The Talents of this deck are very melee-oriented and their genuine value tends to end with the third, Poison Adept (if your Hero makes a successful ranged or melee attack, inflict +2 wounds... Helloooo, Silhouette!) The fifth talent, Shadow Walker, is almost ridiculously situational and poor. While the deck has cool tricks and story elements, I'd have to think it falls into the lower echelon of the Class decks (besides being thematically odd.)
Runemaster: I find the Runemaster deck extremely interesting because it has a pro/con theme running through many of its cards. Your opponent can still attack with his favored Body attribute, but if he does, he has to discard all of his Weapon items (Stone Skin.) Your opponent's Challenge suddenly has +3 life, but its Melee damage value diminishes by 1 for every wound it takes (Mark of the Hydra.) Some other good offensive cards are: Fireball (can only be played if the current Challenge has a high Spirit value; your Hero takes 1 wound (brings me back to the days of tossing Fireballs around Talisman to cycle through the spell deck as the High Mage)) and the horrible Festering Pestilence (Take this card. Your Hero takes 1 wound at the end of each of your turns. You may take 3 Menace during your Experience step to discard this card; obviously, you wait until someone has reached the limit of their Menace to play this...) Runemaster also has some good beneficial cards like Bestow Blessing (Discard all wounds and fatigue from your Hero and all Allies), Polymorph (Discard this Challenge and replace it with a Challenge from your hand; preferably a weak one, obviously), and the excellent Construct Golem (discard an Artifact and Armor card and gain a quite worthwhile ally.)
Runemaster's talents aren't as explosive as some other decks, but they're all useful. They, like many other cards in the deck, do tend to focus on getting more use out of the spells in the deck, with Mark of the Devout (the 4th) being the outlier which makes it easier to have cheaper and more Allies. Of course, having more Allies to commit to combat in the ranged and melee phases is exactly what many Magic-using characters often need, and Runemaster is clearly focused in that direction; far better for Landrec the Wise than, say, Bogran the Shadow. However, there are lots of good tricks in this deck, so I'd think it would be at least fun to play for any Hero.
Spiritbound: This is a deck that seemed to be aiming in the direction of lots of summoned creatures... but then the designers came to the realization that allies are one of the best things to have in Runebound and cut the creatures back to lasting for a turn and then tossing in a few other minor tricks with the rules that the other decks don't cover. Consequently, the usefulness of the cards is often in question (i.e., Is it worth altering my Menace total to play this?) However, this is without doubt the deck with the lowest average Menace cost across the board, with only one card exceeding a Menace cost of 4 and most below that. Consequently, the Spiritbound player should be able to cycle through his deck somewhat faster than others, accumulating benefit via quantity over quality. Some good offensive cards are Fire Blast (Your Hero takes wounds equal to this Challenge's magic damage value. Then the Challenge takes wounds equal to your Hero's magic value), Rapid Regeneration (Unless you defeat this Challenge, discard all wounds from this Challenge at the end of the first round of combat), and Lightning Bolt (Test Resist. If you fail, you take damage equal to this Challenge's magic damage value.) The positive cards are mostly tricks, like Gate of Regiroth (Play during your Refresh step. Remove your Hero from the board and immediately end your turn. During your next Movement step, place your Hero figure on any space on the board (get to the last Blue encounter... or run far away from the Hero you just beat to take an item from...)) and Siphon Glyphs (Play at the beginning of your Movement step. When you spend movement dice to rest, you may discard 1 fatigue and 1 wound from your Hero. You may rest even if there is no fatigue on your Hero.) The other useful cards in the deck are the couple of one-turn allies. Not great but, again, being able to cycle through your deck more quickly will often mean that you get those allies back in your hand fairly soon.
The talents for this deck have a different curve from the rest in that the first, Priestess of the Wolf (Before moving, you may replenish a green Adventure counter on a space with a green sunburst icon), is excellent in the early game when you're still trying to get your Hero rolling and may not feel safe about taking on yellow Adventures. But talents 2-4 are rather sub-par and make it hard to justify spending that many experience points only to reach the fantastic 5th talent, Spiritbound (You may discard 1 wound on your Hero for each wound you inflict on your enemy.) Overall, my reaction to Spiritbound is 'meh'. It's not frustrating like Wildlander or Shadow Walker can be, but it's also not thrilling like those decks can be.
Blade Dancer: Without question, the best deck of the set as far as our group is concerned, which may just be a reflection of our group's playing style. But it's hard to argue with the collection of great cards which is in this deck, like Town Portal (Place your Hero on any town space. Proceed to your Market step; Welcome, Diablo players!), Dominate (Play during your Market step. You may hire one Ally card in your town's market stack for free.), Commanding Presence (Until the end of the first round of combat, all of your Allies add their Mind, Body, and Spirit values to your Hero's.), Parry (Play immediately after you fail a melee combat roll. Take no wounds and treat the result as successfully defending.), and on and on and on. I could almost literally list out every positive feat in this deck, because they're all really good. The deck is, of course, focused on melee, but like Battlemage, it can provide a good counter-balance for characters that have at least some melee ability, but tend toward ranged or magic. And it's not all focused on melee, as there are a few tricks like Summon Vortex (Play during your Refresh step. Discard an Event card in play.) Offensive cards are almost as good, like Magic Drain (Activate all of your Items and take this card. During your next Refresh step, you must discard this card instead of Refreshing your Item cards.), Treasure Hoard (Instead of discarding your coins and highest-cost Ally or Item, place them on this card. Any Hero that defeats this Challenge may receive all coins and market cards on this Challenge; Talisman!), Changeling (This Ally becomes a Challenge that you must immediately fight. Add +10 to Body, Mind, and Spirit values.), and Gyre and Grak (a tough challenge that automatically knocks out any Hero who fails a melee combat roll by 10 or more.)
The talents for Blade Dancer are also all excellent, top to bottom. From Dagger Expert (You may use your Mind value and ranged damage value instead of Body and melee) to Balanced Training (which is the 2nd, but doesn't require you to have a 1st talent to take; +2 to all skill tests) up through Bound Blade, Combined Attack, and Blade Dancer (take two consecutive melee phases.) Bound Blade (3rd) is often the most favored, as it allows you to search the Market deck for the first sword you find and gives you a bonus when using it. It's kind of unfortunate that one deck so clearly stands out among the rest from a balance perspective, but Blade Dancer does, without a doubt, IMO.
In the end, I would rank the decks like this:
1. Blade Dancer
2. Battlemage
3. Runemaster
4. Shadow Walker
5. Spiritbound
6. Wildlander
However, they all have the ability to be entertaining, so no one should feel especially hampered by being 'stuck' with Wildlander. Indeed, someone that is able to take advantage of the multiple movement cards in Wildlander may find it to be the best of the six, simply because of how easily they can get to towns and adventures. I find them to be a great addition to Runebound, even without the added complexity of building unique decks and I'm planning on talking my group into using them the next time we play... which should be tomorrow.
-
-
How much 'viciousness' do they add to the game? I have a friend who enjoys playing Runebound, but dislikes games with mean-spirited 'zot the leader' gameplay (e.g. Munchkin).
Do you think that removing menace accumulation for challenges would be a good way to allow someone that didn't want to get zotted to simply elect not to bring any menace upon himself?
-
Jack Wraith
United States
Ann Arbor
Michigan
-
ergot wrote: How much 'viciousness' do they add to the game? I have a friend who enjoys playing Runebound, but dislikes games with mean-spirited 'zot the leader' gameplay (e.g. Munchkin).
The potential is there to add quite a bit. Take a look at Withering Touch. How would you feel if you had just conducted a harrowing battle against a Red challenge, maybe lost an ally and had been reduced to one wound... and then got no experience for it? They certainly make Runebound into a somewhat more competitive game between the players and not just between the Heroes and the Challenge decks. If you're OK with that, then you should give them a try. Some people in our group are fond of remembering little slights and attacks like that for years ("Remember when you attacked me right after I got the Rage Blade and then you lost it when you got knocked out by the next Blue challenge you took on?")
ergot wrote: Do you think that removing menace accumulation for challenges would be a good way to allow someone that didn't want to get zotted to simply elect not to bring any menace upon himself?
It's certainly something to try. That way, you'd only be inviting attacks if you played positive effects on yourself. I think they added that mechanic as a way to encourage use of the Class decks, but it may be superfluous, depending on the group's play style.
-
Matthew M Monin
United States
Branford
Connecticut
8/8 FREE, PROTECTED
513ers Assemble!
-
Any sense of how they work in two player games? I gather that using the negative effects works well for bashing the leader when two or more players are ganging up. Does it help in two player games also? Or does the person who is behind just fall even further behind because he is the sole target of the leader's nasty card play?
-MMM
-
Jack Wraith
United States
Ann Arbor
Michigan
-
My experience with two-player Runebound is zero, so I can't say much there. My guess is that it will depend a bit more on the card draw for both players, as cards will be played and drawn at a much slower pace than in a 4-6 player game (which is our typical number.)
-
Enish Froon
United States
Oregon
-
Jackwraith wrote:
Shadow Walker: ... The fifth talent, Shadow Walker, is almost ridiculously situational and poor.
Just curious, what exactly is the effect of this ability?
-
Steve Jung
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
-
Shadow Walker is the Clint Eastwoodesque's Comeback ability: your hero gains +10 to all stats vs. any undefeated challenge.
Bogran was featured with this ability on the Rants section in FFG site. Bogran kicked ass with it at the cost of losing 1 turn...cause of his hero ability (escape any challenge).
-
-
Jackwraith wrote: Wildlander: (....) However, I would still have to rank Wildlander near, if not at, the bottom of the class decks.
I just got done with a game where I absolutely cleaned house with Mordrog and the Wildlander deck. The level 3 talent (move into forest squares on any die face AND +6 to each attribute when in a forest square) is stupendous.
Yes, you need to stick to the forests for the full effect of the ride, but you can do really well. I leveled up my talent to the 3rd level on greens and then went after the yellows and blues in the forest; absolutely unstoppable.
Finally, note the terrain that 5 of the 6 red jewels are on.
Wildlander is not flashy, but it is very far from the bottom. Going merely off what I saw of the other decks, I would pick it every time. Too bad we roll dice for first pick. 
-
|
|
Posted Sat Dec 30, 2006 7:03 pm
