My team is about to engage my Syren Lieutenant. I am concerned about this fight as without a house rule it looks unwinnable for the players. If I park my Syren at the opposite end of the board and just leave her there they cannot get to her and her Syren's call will wipe them out in time.

I am wondering if I limit on the distance of the Syren's call might do it. My players suggest 10 squares but with Tobin Farslayer, the most unbalanced character in the game, in the team this would mean taking 13-16 points of damage ~%90 of the time. A battle action would most likely end my lieutenant in a round. I am not looking for an unwinnable fight but rather a challenging fight.

Any suggestions?

Has anyone found that the Syren's Call is a total party kill power %100 of the time? I think they are challenging her a little early in the game, copper level.

If the party is foolish enough to attack the Siren in copper level, they deserve the beatdown they are going to receive. TPK them, and they'll learn.

Siren's call a TPK? How on earth could that ever cause a TPK? If you put the Siren on the other side of the map all they have to do is use Rest orders..... With the 12 price potions from Gafford, the party should also make sure they have a healthy supply of cheap Vitality potions before starting this battle.

But I would advise your party that they need to have several cannons and ship upgrades before challenging the Siren. A melee hero with Shark Tattoo and the store hammer is also very helpful, but to fight the Siren with very few ship upgrades is suicidal. Also, how hard it will be for them depends a lot on the map you draw, some are easier than others. I don't believe the fight is broken, and I feel very sorry for you having to fight Tobin Farslayer, I think he's ability could murder her with a cannon.

Kartigan said:

And by 12 price you actually mean 25g since that's how much they cost in Gafford right? They are normally 50g and Gafford knocks them down to 25g.

I was under the impression that the farslayer ability did not extend to cannons as he quickly becomes able to sink a skip with a single attack.

Actually I don't think there is a more broken character in any of the expansions. The guy is a murderer with a very minor drawback, movement.

Oops I forgot to address the TPK. I can keep the Syren totally out of range of them and then send wave after wave of skeleton after them. Our first sea battle I did nothing but circle with razorwings, out of range till I had at least 30 treachery. Used that to move extra fast and buy a ton of attack dice to one hit kill players. It was a nightmare, TPK. I want a challenge not an exerscise in total discouragement. Their only option then is to walk the distance to the farthest corner of the map and try to kill her there, if she chooses to sit still. I think that a combo of skeletons and sharks ought to make that a rough idea.

With 5 mvmnt and swim even if they do try this I will get away, using treachery for extra movement. The house rule we are considering is that if the sea battle does not include an enemy boat then if the players can sail off the opposite edge of the map it is a victory. Otherwise again I sit at great distance till I have 30-50 treachery and make a suicide run to kill on guy at a time, between waiting for the full 50 treachery and the next wave.

Honestly I limited myself to one lieutenant in the copper campaign or they will not be able to stop me from destroying 5 cities before the end of silver.

A few extra bits, from one of the players in the campaign.

First, unless we want to lose a city, we have to attack the siren. Maybe losing a city in the first six weeks of the campaign is not that serious, but at the moment it seems like it is.

Everyone talks about getting the Shark Tattoo, but as I recall, it's something like a 10 week journey just to get to the town with it. In our current game, that would probably mean that we lose at least two cities (probably more) , just to get the ability to swim.

Yes, we have Tobin farslayer in the group, but our cannons are magic based, not ranged. We choose to upgrade our skills and not the boat. However, even if we did have ranged cannons, I don't think that the scenario below would change that much. Especially once a creature got behind, or in front of the boat.

As for the Siren being a TPK, here's the scenario we envisioned.

Overlord parks the Siren on the far end of the map, and waits. The heroes have to maneouver to her/it, which is going to take a long time, and looks to be **** near impossible. The Siren keeps circling out of range around the edge of the map. As long as the Siren stays out of range (which seems VERY easy) the heroes get to either 1) wait, or 2) leave. Oh, and let's not forget option (3), crash into rocks. [sorry a bit bitter after our first sea encounter].

If the heroes leave, the siege continues.

If they wait, the overlord will end up with EVERY threat token in his hand, and then he will rush the boat with some creatures. If the creatures do not TPK, then he waits again and repeats the rush.

All the while, the heroes are losing stamina and waiting to get rushed by a horde of creatures.

If the Siren's ability had a limited range, then the heroes would have some chance to getting within range.

If there was some motivation for the overlord to attack the boat then the encounters would make sense as well.

It seems that in EVERY outdoor encounter, the overlord can choose to keep one creature far away from the heroes, rush the boat with the other creatures (and whatever reinforcements they have available) and see what happens. If the heroes turn out to be too tough to fight, then he just announces that the last creature is just going to stay out of range F.O.R.E.V.E.R. and let the party decide if they want to stay, getting rushed every 50 turns or so. Or, leave the map, having wasted a couple of hours of real time.

Hopefully that throws a bit more light on things, and doesn't sound too much like whining.

I need to learn to type faster.

I TPK'ed my party using Captain Bones and Death Head. Since Siren can reinforce skeletons, and the skeletons can explode, and i can deploy on the same side of the map as the ship, it only takes 2, maybe 3 rounds of suicide skeletons before you send in the siren to mop up what little is left.

Oh, and cannons are a joke in any encounter not involving an enemy vessel.

I think as a general rule of thumb, no party should ever attack a LT unless they have at least 2 cannons, *AND* some serious ranged takedown power. Also, players need to make sure both cannons are placed on the mounting on each side of the ship closest to the stern (rear) as possible. Why? Because the designers were sneaky with the deployment rules and The Revenge has two blind spots with it's cannon mounts of exactly 5 squares (on each side of the ship). not to mention the fact that since ships can't turn, and I haven't seen a way for the heroes to mount a cannon on the bow (front) or stern, any swimming/soaring models moving head-on with The Revenge can ignore all the cannons. It also means that in any encounter where the OL is allowed to choose which board edge he can deploy on (which is almost all of them) with swimming/soaring models, a smart OL will be able to exploit the blind spot on the stern of the ship on turn one, by deploying units on the same board edge as The Revenge, minimizing death by cannons, and allowing swift death to take it's course.

Of course, if the party is equipped with plenty of ranged punch, they can cover their blind spots, since most likely they have their best melee character manning the helm.

Thankfully for the player, the OL can sack as many towns as he wants to and the player wont lose.

Fizz said:

Uhh, I beg to differ.

According to the Seas of Blood rule book, page 8, under "Besieging and Razing Cities", second paragraph;

Razing Cities accelerates the overlord's plan for conquest and severely hurts the heroes. If the Overlord ever razes at least five of Torus Albes' cities, he immediately wins the game .

That seems to say that the players WILL lose is enough cities get razed.

groodude said:

Hm, I never thought of this, as I imagine it's pretty rare for an OL to get that many Threat tokens in an Encounter in RtL. Is there a limit to the Threat an OL can spend on "rushing" his monsters? I suppose 5 Gold Dice is the most he can spend to beef an attack (15 Threat), and if the creature is on the far side of the map, 30 or so to get them to where he wants to put them?

-shnar

groodude said:

See, that's my bad. I totally read over that when reading that big bold part that says "There is no single city the overlord may raze to win the game."

Personally, I think that rule should be out the door. Hell, I think the OL razing cities is one of the worst descent game mechanics ever put into place, and I am an OL! But that's a siege for you, they had it really busted with RtL when the OL could have 3 LTs on week 3 and could really lay wast to towns. SoB made it a tish better by making it so that the OL had less LT's and removing the whole raze the home city and lose crap. But it seems many OL's focus on sieges and nothing else because:

1) It's insanely easy.

2) It damages the players permanently, by removing safe havens to heal up, train for new skills, buy potions, etc...

3) The players can do next to nothing (or are woefully iill-equipped to handle it at copper) about it until the middle of the campaign, but by then the damage has been done.

If I were writing siege, here is how I would do it:

-

Lieutenants place siege tokens RAW.

Each siege token on a city reduces the value of all attributes on a city's buildings by 1, to a minimum of 0. Once the number of Siege Tokens equals the defense of the town), the city is considered Overrun and no more Siege Tokens can be placed on the city. The Overlord gains one additional conquest token per week for each Overrun city. Siege tokens remain on a city even after a Lieutenant leaves the city.

As long as one Lieutenant is present at an Overrun city, the players may not perform any actions at any of the cities' building (ie: No restocking, training, visiting, etc...), but may choose to encounter the Lieutenant at the city as RAW. If the players force the Lieutenant away from an Overrun city during an Encounter with that Lieutenant, they may remove one siege token at the end of that game week if there are no other Lieutenants present. If the players KILL a Lieutenant at an Overrun city, they may remove one additional Siege Token at the end of the game week. The players may never remove more than two Siege Tokens per encounter per week, regardless of how many Lieutenants are killed or forced to flee. The players may not remove any Siege Tokens as long as a Lieutenant is present!

If at any time the number of Siege Tokens is less than the Defense of the city, that city is no longer considered Overrun, and the players may use the building normally (with existing Siege Tokens still reducing their effectiveness).

New Game Week Action: "Rebuilding". The Players can spend their game week action to remove existing Siege Tokens. Players who spend their action "Rebuilding" may not make any other game week actions (they may not Visit, Restock, or Train, their efforts are focused on rebuilding the city). For each player who spends a game week action rebuilding, they may remove one Siege Token at the end of the game week. If all four players spend a game week action rebuilding, they may remove all the Siege Tokens from the city at the end of the game week. Each player who participates in rebuilding a city may roll one power die. On a "Blank", the party receives one Conquest token.

groodude said:

I can understand your predicament, but I think this is the major source of your problem. Attacking the Siren with an un-upgraded boat is impossible, the heroes simply cannot win. My heroes had a similar situation in their campaign, getting destroyed when they attacked the Siren in early copper with no boat upgrades, only one hero managed to sail the ship off of the map avoiding a TPK. I raised 1 city, it's now late copper and they are coming to attack me again as I'm about to raise a 2nd. They've bought 1 Hawkeye cannon and the Reaper figurehead, they have Kirga who has Eagle Eye, Precision, and 4 ranged dice as their only ranged hero.

That means that when the battle comes, they will be able to shoot a cannon with Kirga, and have something ridiculous like 10 bonus range before they've even rolled the dice. Plus with precision, I won't be able to hide behind rocks or anything either. With each shot, they'll scoot the Siren closer to their ship, and this battle is already looking like it could be much rougher for the Siren, although not totally un-winnable. Unfortuneately we had to quit last session before playing out this LT battle, but I'm already thinking it will be much easier for the heroes this time around, depending on the map they draw it could be rough either way. But if they had a fully upgraded ship, with more cannons, plus the reaper figurehead and the forecastle they'd be a force to be reckoned with. I realize that this would put them behind in their character growth, but I think that's a key thing of Sea of Blood, you have to upgrade your ship first, characters 2nd.

I could be totally wrong here, and I don't mean to sound condescending, its your game and you're free to house rule it any way you want. But my group is definitely going to play though a whole campaign and hopefully several different LT encounters before we start house ruling things. As it is, attacking the Siren with no cannons is un-winnable for the heroes, period. I believe that with a well upgraded ship however, the encounter becomes VERY winnable for the heroes, I could be very wrong as I haven't even played a full campaign yet. But I'd like to before I start house-ruling things.

shnar said:

Wouldn't it be 30 threat for 5 gold dice? I thought it was 2 threat per upgraded dice. And what hero party is going to sit their for that long letting the OL get that much threat? If you can't target them and the OL is just piling on the threat, why wouldn't you run away?!?

Big Remy said:

Lol, um I meant 1 HALF, must've forgotten to put the slash O.o.

Kartigan said:

In our first sea encounter, the starboard side of the ship started next to some rocks and the port side had a single space between it and another rock. The current was a red die, pushing us starboard. It seemed better for us to anchor and fight it out. That's when we realized that the overlord could sit and gather as many threat tokens as he wanted. So, after it was demonstrated to us that we could not shoot anything, due to the monsters hiding behind rocks, we decided to try and get away. We pulled up the anchor and were pushed into the rocks and died. With a 2 rolled on the current die and only one empty space beside the boat, there was something like a 1 in 6 chance (for the first 3 or 4 turns) that we crashed, no matter what we did.

[And, yes, I am bitter about that encounter]

In the second sea encounter (which we set up before we had to call it a night), we saw that, once again, we can not win the encounter if the overlord decides not to fight us (Spiders hiding behind rocks). And, the thing that seems most annoying about the encounter, is that the overlord could send every spider, except one, against us, in an attempt to kill us. But, if that attempt fails, he would just keep that last spider out of range and hidden and the heroes get not a **** thing.

Perhaps I'm missing the point of the sea encounters, but it seems that it is either a total party kill, or a waste of time that will result in the heroes fleeing the map. Have other people seen the same thing?

That first encounter does sound beyond stupid, no wonder you're bitter about it I would be to. I wonder if it's some kind of misprint because that seems just silly. As for the second one, the whole "hide the spider behind the rock" thing would also be very annoying. Remember though, that the breath template goes through rocks, and so if you have a Dragonbreath cannon you can shoot through the rocks and hit the spiders anyway, also the Runeblast cannons could target spaces near the rocks you could see and use there Blast to reach the other side and the spider.

Even so, both of those encounters sound like frustrating experiences. Our group has yet to have a random encounter even though we're almost through with copper (only rolled one, and it was a non-combat), so the only sea battle experience we had was the first time the group tried to fight the Siren in early copper. They were still in mostly shop gear, 2 were at half health, no ship upgrades, and I'd just upgraded Eldritch to silver so it wasn't pretty. I am hopeful that with adequate ship upgrades encounters (random or with a LT) will become the fun sea battles they're supposed to be, and not the frustrating experiences that you're describing. If not though, as you say some house ruling may be required.

As the Overlaord of this Campaign I gotta say I kinda like your idea FIzz. A friend of mine and I are working on another campaign House Rules campaign for Descent and we sort of used a similar rule, that cities could be rebuilt. I think that allowing all four party members to blow a turn to fix a whole city is way too easy but I think that perhaps using the extended actions rules to let them roll dice to participate in a repair would work for me. Its just too easy to destroy five cities.

The city destruction win is a great way for the Overlord to win the game and his prize will be that none of his friends ever want to play the game he spent hundred of dollars on and many countless hours painting miniatures for. Woot! What a victory!

Great idea Fizz. A house rule that I am going to give some thought. If I make it too easy to fix the town the party will not bother to go over and stop me from wrecking it. If it takes 4 weeks to wreck allowing one full turn and a bonus of conquest tokens would make it just to easy to ignore the shennanigans of the OL.

It may seem too easy to repair a city if all the heroes spend a turn, but it's an action where they cannot do ANYTHING else. That same turn could yield some nasty actions for the OL. Additionally, normally the siege tokens would go away if the lieutenants leave, so easier removal would make sense.