This may be stemming from Arkham experience, but I have all of the Challenge Decks and I'm starting to add them in.
If I choose to just keep adding them on top of each other, will I run into issues with game balance? It seems that with the standard adventure, you will see far less events allowing you to continue lower level challenges and the Dragon Runes / Morgath will be harder to come by.
Anyone have experience with this?
Events/Encounters get a bit rarer, but some Challenge decks do have at least Events in decent ratio to non-Events. I currently have 4 Challenge decks mixed into the base game decks and haven't seen any issues. Dragon Runes don't becomes any rarer since all the Red cards in Challenge decks are Dragonlords (might've one or two non-Challenge cards, but it's a moot points since you draw until you get a Challenge). Margath does get diluted, but win by 3 Runes is the more common way around here anyways. Hail Mary Margath charge, come from behind wins are less likely to happen, rightly so IMO, but still possible.
As Dam is saying the Events/Encounters get a little bit diluted, but usually Challenge card expansions add some Events/Encounters to the Green/Yellow Challenges, which is welcome, while they add Challenges to the Blue deck, which has less. There's no problem with Red Challenges since all become a Dragon Rune, OR give you a speedy and brutal way to face Margath (Skeleton of Margath and some other too, maybe Spirit of Margath).
I separate decks after each play, since I want to keep things separate and mix at will. I also tried to play with ONLY expansion cards and it works fine, no bugs to report yet.
Thanks for the feedback, all that said what about mixing Challenge Decks into Adventure Variants?
El Davicho said:
Thanks for the feedback, all that said what about mixing Challenge Decks into Adventure Variants?
It depends on the Adventure Variant. Some do allow mixing, some do not because they replace a complete deck and rely on its own balance to carry on the game.
As a reference, these AVs do not allow mixing:
- The Crown of the Elder Kings: the Blue challenges are Vassals and you need to defeat 3 of the same kind (Knave, Knight, Lady or Duke) or of the same "seed" (Secrets, Blood, Hate,... perhaps there's a 4th one I forgot). If you mix cards you'll screw up this mechanic.
- The Sceptre of Kyros: the Blue challenges are Giants and these will be used in the alternative Endgame, additional cards are not welcome.
Other AVs allow mixing since they keep new cards well separated from the basic deck. I didn't play the Cataclysm and the Avatars of Kelnov yet, but the first is adding a complete new mechanic (cursed cities and city-related challenges) and the latter is basically a booster for the base game, which replaces Red Challenges and adds some stuff into the other decks IIRC.
The_Warlock said:
El Davicho said:
Thanks for the feedback, all that said what about mixing Challenge Decks into Adventure Variants?
It depends on the Adventure Variant. Some do allow mixing, some do not because they replace a complete deck and rely on its own balance to carry on the game.
As a reference, these AVs do not allow mixing:
- The Crown of the Elder Kings: the Blue challenges are Vassals and you need to defeat 3 of the same kind (Knave, Knight, Lady or Duke) or of the same "seed" (Secrets, Blood, Hate,... perhaps there's a 4th one I forgot). If you mix cards you'll screw up this mechanic.
- The Sceptre of Kyros: the Blue challenges are Giants and these will be used in the alternative Endgame, additional cards are not welcome.
Other AVs allow mixing since they keep new cards well separated from the basic deck. I didn't play the Cataclysm and the Avatars of Kelnov yet, but the first is adding a complete new mechanic (cursed cities and city-related challenges) and the latter is basically a booster for the base game, which replaces Red Challenges and adds some stuff into the other decks IIRC.
Now for Crown of the Elder Kings and Scepter of Kyros, can I leave the expansion cards in the decks that ARE used (Green, Yellow) and just replace the Blue deck as the intructions say?
ASIDE: A good topic/question I hadn't considered much (as I haven't played many of the variants). Good answers as well, guys, with some useful information (though I had noticed the basic adventure expanders always had more red dragon rune cards).
El Davicho said:
Now for Crown of the Elder Kings and Scepter of Kyros, can I leave the expansion cards in the decks that ARE used (Green, Yellow) and just replace the Blue deck as the intructions say?
Yes. If the AV setup does instruct you to replace a deck with cards from expansions, then you don't mix. If you leave the basic deck in play and add the expansion cards instead, you can freely mix other challenge cards there.
If I remember correctly, the above mentioned expansions use Events and Encounters from the basic decks, which are discarded with no effect, to introduce the new Events and/or Challenges. In this case, putting additional cards inside will dilute the deck. This does not affect gameplay, since these new cards are useful for setting and story but have no consequence for victory as the Blue challenges do. However, if you dilute these decks too much, you will see only some of the AV cards and get only a part of the story. I suggest that you mix only one or two Challenge expansions at a time, not more. If you want more variety, take out the basic cards that you know very well and use decks made of Challenge card expansions. Carefully read the Adventure Variant instructions in order to know whether the Events/Encounters are needed or not. You have to leave them in if they are used for AV mechanics.
Although being a game that can be repetitive in its gameplay, Runebound has great possibilities of expansion and gives you control over the story: if you know how to mix cards, you can almost create a story on your own.