Darkest Night

[CatharzGodfoot]

So tonight me and a couple of friends were trying to figure out what to do, and the option of buying a new game came up. I said "I know what we can do" and we headed down to Kinko's. $5 and two hours later (ugh) we finally started playing (one friend had already left to go to work).

The game went pretty well. I played a knight, my girlfriend played a priest, and my friend played a scholar. First round I did a hard ride to the castle with hopes of searching. The necro stayed there, blights started popping up, and I didn't accomplish much. The priest and the scholar hung out in the village searching, stuff happened, the priest went to sleep.

The game ended thusly, in the forest: We had the auto-elude scholar power up. The knight kept killing blights with Oath of +1 attack die and Charge!, while the Scholar managed to get the final key needed to get a relic, and used a combination of the reroll card, the +1 attack ability, and the relic to smack down the necromancer.

So far the scholar was by far the biggest contributer. I'm probably going to try out the wizard next time around.

One question: Does the necromancer really only roll one die, or does he first roll to search and then roll to determine random movement?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Played again. This time we shuffled all of the blights into one deck, which was way more convenient. Characters were Priest, Prince, and Knight ( the noble crowd). The priest is really boring to play (I never really felt useful).

[Manxome]

Yes, the necromancer really only rolls one die for movement. The path numbers are arranged so that he can still get everywhere (eventually) even if he only follows them on low rolls. Though if you want to roll separately to search and to move (on a failed search), the only problem I think you'll run into is that you'll have to house rule how the Rune of Misdirection works (normally it lets you roll twice for his movement and choose one result).

Shuffling all the blights into one deck creates the possibility of some excessively safe/brutal locations, and reduces differentiation between locations, but it'll probably work OK if you can't stand to separate them out. You may still want to keep the Monastery blights separate, though; they're carefully chosen to preserve the concept of the undead not actually entering the Monastery and to prevent players from dying while inside.

The scholar is probably one of the stronger heroes, though all heroes' effectiveness varies depending on what powers they draw and how they're played.

Could you elaborate on your experience as the priest, and maybe say how your expectations differed from the reality?

[Orion]

The Scholar is indeed awesome, although his effectiveness is highly variable. Research Materials is incredibly powerful, and advanced, and getting it early makes a huge difference. The Auto-evade one is also really nice.

Still, substituting the rogue works almost as well for most lineups and strategies.

My experience with the priest differs from Catharz -- I find him *extrememly* strong, though problematic.



Though in the early game he doesn't attack, the priest is a surprisngly effective treasure-searcher. I generally plunk him adjacent to the monastery, where he can help out returning heroes, and avoid the necromancer's notice. With the highest starting grace & secrecy, he has to go rest only EXTREMELY rarely. he Rogue and Scholar search more effectively, but run out of grace faster.

Where the Priest really shines in his advanced powers, almost all of which are extremely powerful. They rock so much (and he has enough difficulty getting treasure) that my rogues and scholars usually ferry unopened treasure chests back to the Priest(especially since I don't like advanced rogue powers)

If he picks up either Censure or Blessing of Might, he can attack with 2 dice, which suddenly makes him WAY more useful. With both, he's a 3-die attacking power house on par with the knight is power and resilience (alternately, he can put the might blessing on the knight...) Any of the advanced blessings are awesome, and Miracle helps a LOT for defending the monastery in the endgame.

That said, there are at least three ways for the prist not to live up to his potential.

-- The priest'sbasic powers are awful, definitely the worst set in the game. Benediction and Intercession are super special-purpose and redundant at that. Sanctuary is good, though I think's it's slightly worse than Foresight, Sprint, etc. the max hp blessing is definitely useful, but it's effects aren't immediately obvious, and the turn he spends casting it at the beginning makes him seem even less effective. If he doesn't get advanced powers quickly, he flounders. (Composure sucks too)

-- He's very skill-intensive. Mircle and Sactuary have costs that make newbies reluctant to use them when they should; he gets better one you learn how to use them. Plus,the proper use of blessings is both critical and nonbvious. Don't put the +prayer blessing on the prince or the rogue, for instance; you will sorely regret it.

-- He's very much a "fourth man." His lack of dependable starting tactics means he can't go out and destroy dangerous blights early on, and he depends on other heroes keeping the necromancer's attention so he can search in peace. It soudns as though Catharz is playing only 3 heroes at a time. In that environment I imagine you'd want all your heroes to be capable of blight-busting, and of dealing with the necromancer's attention, both things I try to have my priest avoid.

ETA: by the way, I thought I ha dposted this already, but my problems with secrecy in the first couple fo games were because I was playing wrong. In those first two, I had searching cost a secrecy, and I had the necromancer puruse on ties -- switching to the correct rules makes the Rogue's Eavesdrop and the Prince's Scouts/Safe House much more reasonable.

[CatharzGodfoot]

So how do ties work? I was under the impression that all values had to be met, not exceeded.

Also, I realized that the reason our games had been way too easy was that we had the necromancer redirecting attacks when he defended.

[Orion]

My understanding is that, unlike every other mechanic in the game, the necromancers pursues a hero if he *exceeds* their secrecy.

[Manxome]

1204099522[/unixtime]]My understanding is that, unlike every other mechanic in the game, the necromancers pursues a hero if he *exceeds* their secrecy.

That's correct, though you can also think of it as the heroes always winning in the event of a tie.

1204087196[/unixtime]]Also, I realized that the reason our games had been way too easy was that we had the necromancer redirecting attacks when he defended.

I don't understand what you mean by this.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1204140032[/unixtime]]

1204087196[/unixtime]]Also, I realized that the reason our games had been way too easy was that we had the necromancer redirecting attacks when he defended.

I don't understand what you mean by this.

I didn't phrase that very well, did I?
When the necromancer attacked a character with 0 secrecy and the character successfully defended (by rolling an attack higher than 6), we had the necromancer destroy a blight. That just makes the game too easy (the necromancer never got past Darkness 11 in both games played like that, making things anticlimactic).

[Manxome]

You were playing correctly, then; you're supposed to be able to cause damage if you win, even when he attacks you.

If you find killing the necromancer is too easy, raise his power from 6 to 7 (this means you can't possibly hurt him without a holy relic or the Find Weakness tactic). I've played several games like this and find it helps a great deal in reducing early-game "lucky" kills, and it'll probably be a standard rule if I get around to publishing another set of revisions.

[Orion]

Umm... his Strength already *is* 7

And I've always played that you have to deliberately attack him to destroy a blight. Forsome reason, I min-interpreted the phrase "sucessful attack."

I kind of like that rule. Admittedly, it does make killing the necromancer essentially impossible, but without it, I think gathering 3 relics would be almost *too* easy.

[Manxome]

1204172368[/unixtime]]Umm... his Strength already *is* 7

Oh. Well, it wasn't when I printed my own original copy. Guess I'm mixing up the chronology.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1203978784[/unixtime]]
Could you elaborate on your experience as the priest, and maybe say how your expectations differed from the reality?

I was mostly trying to play a support role, but it was actually pretty rare that I'd be in the same place as another player. So I spent a lot of time searching, which was moderately effective. I think that the problems came from my inexperience and a disconnect between players.

Once we were playing by the actual rules (except with a more perceptive necromancer) with four people, the utility of a priest (which we didn't have) became a bit more apparent. A 'holy veil' power which allowed the Priest to increase other's secrecy, however, might be nice. Maybe there is one I just didn't notice...


As I was looking over the cards it really became apparent how much work you put into balancing and fleshing this out. Kudos for making a very well balanced game with a good amount of tactical depth and replay value which can be played in about two or three hours.

[Manxome]

Thank you; I'm glad you enjoy the game.

I believe only the Rogue and Prince have powers that can raise secrecy at present (unless you count Teleport, which only gives the same secrecy as a regular move). Heroes actually don't have very many tools to manage secrecy; I think the best strategy is probably to meticulously keep it high until you reach a point in the game where it ceases to be important, which means the Rogue has a harder time using his secrecy-fueled powers than one might expect. Stealth (spend grace instead of secrecy) is a rather handy Rogue power in the endgame, especially if you team up with a Priest.

[Orion]

I love how many subtle flavor points come out the the rules. For example, the power now/ power later curve actually is balanced in the context of this sort of game-- so, for instance, Priests and Scholars get far more benefit from their advanced powers than Rogues and Knights (IME, of course)

Incidentally, we don't worry overmuch about keeping secrecy high-- quite the opposite. If we have a Rogue, he will eavesdrop until he runds out of secrecy. This demands that we have a Knight or Prince holding the necromancer's attention. This means that the Priest can us eSanctuary pretty liberally if desired. Generally we try to have 2 fighting heroes who trade off the necromancers attention between them.

[Manxome]

Amusingly, if the Rogue chooses the Vanish power (basic) and finds a location with zombies, he automatically recovers 4/9 secrecy (on average) per turn, at a cost of 1/9 grace. Not a bad deal.

Having someone hold the necromancer's attention is certainly viable (as is intended), but that player can get beat up pretty fast without some good powers and/or a relic, and it requires a significant investment to get your secrecy high again once it's low. The key thing that you don't want to do (but which newbies may be prone to doing) is to have all the heroes trying to avoid the necromancer but letting their secrecy fall; you end up wasting a lot of time running if you do that.

But giving all heroes time to dig for powers in the early game is also handy, especially if you don't have a Knight. And Rune of Misdirection + all heroes having high secrecy allows you to run the necromancer around in circles in places you don't care about for a substantial portion of the game, which is rather effective.

If you're still finding the game too easy, starting the Darkness a few points higher is an easy way to apply a handicap.

[Orion]

Yeah, I love abusing Vanish + Zombies. It can actually get pretty ridiculous -- the best was when we had a rogue with vanish and Blessing of Wisdom in a square with double zombies. Good times!

The Knight,if you have one, can survive the Necromancer's attention for a long time. And moving back to, then praying at, the monastery usually has secrecy pretty full by the time grace is.

Yeah, we haven't played the Wizard very much yet -- partly cause I mostly play with newbs, who tend to avoid it, partly cause he did pretty poorly the first time we used him. (we've since gotten him to work a little better) Any one of his runes is powerful and effective, though I question the wisdom of making a power set that incompatible; even the Oaths have less redundancy.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Las game we got a huge amount of use out of the wizard's teleporting, and Rune of Nullification probably saved our asses when three +1 darkness/round blights appeared in four rounds. Once the necromancer started popping out ~2 blights per round, the 1/6 chance of nothing per blight was actually pretty handy.

Having a refresh time on most of your powers isn't so bad when you can do stuff like teleport to the monastery, pray, and teleport back out.

[Orion]

Maybe I should followup the Priest Discussion with some other Class Reviews

The Scholar

Basic Powers: Solid
Advanced Powers: Awesome
Strategic Complexity: Moderate
Overall: Awesomesauce

THE BASICS

Thoroughness: This isn't as good as eavesdrop, but you still take it. Superior searching is why you *took* the Scholar. If it lets you avoid even one Waystone, Bottled Lightning, etc., it pays for itself.

Foresight: Seriously solid. The Scholar wants to be searching, not attacking, so using elusion as a primary tactic is fine. Keeps him going through treks to and from the castle.

Preparation: I like this power, more than it probably deserves. My scholars rest infrequently, so they don't get much use out of it. Generally, I re-roll failed searches; if I can jumpstart the game even a little faster, it's worth it, because the scholar more than an other character is an accelerating trasure grabber.

Find Weakness: This is traditionally the power I skip, though it's definitely a good one. Worse than adding a die in every situation except fighting the necromancer. I could imagine taking this over preparation.

ADVANCEMENT

Research Materials is made of WIN and makes the entire game vastly more pleasant.

Consecrated Blade also helps quite a bit; I'll often take it rather than an inappropriate defensive emplacement.

Forgotten Sanctuary: I *LOVE* this power. Getting it early game make me very happy. Especially getting it early in the castle. Using the castle to get your scholar early Research Materials + Forgotten Charm is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Counterspell, Ancient Defense, Ancient Charm: these powers don't do much for me when they pop up in random places. I ften have my scholar carry his treasure chests from the castle to the mountain or forest befor eoening them. Setting up multiple of these in one location makes slaying the necromancer way easier. I could imagine using the Ancient Defense on a location with Desecrated Ground, just to make sure it never came up.

Question: Is it acceptable to place the Counterspell in the Monastery? Because that would be pretty damn sweet.

Conclusions:

The Scholar is a solid, solid character.

Primary Strategy: Go to the village or castle and start searching, searching, searching. Ignore everything else in the world. Use defensive abilities to void eviction. Eventually gather relics for a victory. In the late game, potentially use offensive tactics to blight-bust. Start: Preparation, Foresight, Thoroughness

Alternate (Untested) Strategy: Start Find Weakness, Foresight, Thoroughness. Stay close to home, searching up powers and placing defenses close to home. Eventually find Consecrated Blade, if possible. Take advantage of high stats and good tactics to fight the bad guys, and ultimately participate in the stand against the necromancer.

We almost always bring a scholar on our team, although we find a rogue substitutes quite effectively for most game plans. A Prince might also play a similar role in terms of setting up favorable terrain for the big battle.

[CatharzGodfoot]

So far we've always used Find Weakness with the scholar. Preparation + Find Weakness and the rogue or knight to kill blights and you have a 30% chance of killing the necromancer within the first two or three turns.

[Manxome]

1204276010[/unixtime]]Find Weakness: This is traditionally the power I skip, though it's definitely a good one. Worse than adding a die in every situation except fighting the necromancer.

Not quite true:

• It's better than rolling an extra die when the target number is 6 (33.3% vs. 30.6%), which makes it better when attacking the Vampire blight and the Giant Horde event (though you'll usually elude the horde)
  
• It's better against a target number of 2 (100% vs. 97.2%), which occurs when fighting Shades, Shadows, or Fearful Demons while wielding a Holy Relic (also when attacking power 4 blights if the Rogue saps them and you've got a relic).
  
• Most importantly, it's better when there's an Unholy Aura at your location (-1 die on attack checks), since it can't reduce you below 1 die.

It is typically worse than rolling another die, though.

1204276010[/unixtime]]Question: Is it acceptable to place the Counterspell in the Monastery? Because that would be pretty damn sweet.

I see nothing wrong with that.

1204308621[/unixtime]]So far we've always used Find Weakness with the scholar. Preparation + Find Weakness and the rogue or knight to kill blights and you have a 30% chance of killing the necromancer within the first two or three turns.

I don't see any way you can get a shot at the necromancer on turn 2 without at least 3 heroes all working together. Are you starting with 1 blight pre-created in every location (except the Monastery) when the game begins?

Also, that 30% is just the probability of the attack succeeding if you get the opportunity. The odds of getting that opening (even if you're trying for it) are a lot less than 100% when you factor in predicting the necromancer's position and destroying at least 2 blights within a small number of attempts.

It is a bit awkward that the Scholar has this small, weird chance of an early victory that no one else has, though. I suppose one could declare that the Necromancer just outright cannot be harmed without a holy relic; Find Weakness is still better than +1 die when attacking him with a relic.

[Orion]

Character Review: the Rogue

Basics: Superb
Advanced: Mediocre
Strategic Complexity: Moderate

THE BASICS

Vanish: This is a really good tactic. YOU WILL TAKE IT, AND YOU WILL LIKE IT. Actually, gaining secrecy off it is surpriisngly hard early on, but whatever. It keeps you alive pretty effectively while you runaround. B+

Eavesdrop: Awesome. I almost always use the rogue as one of main mains earchers, so this is awesome. If you have a decoy hero, you can eavesdrop your secrecy away pretty carelessly. A-

Contacts: My brother loves this power, but I never really use it. Honestly, by the time I manage to use my secrecy, I'm probably running low on grace. Plus, it still doesn't make hiding clearly better than, say, moving, which gives secrecy and puts you where you belong, or praying, which gives secrecy AND grace. C

Ambush: This is an extremely useful tactic which sadly wanes in value toward the end of teh game. An out-of-the-box 3-die attack is great for blight-busting, necromancer assassinating, and emergency monastery defense. However, in the end game, when blights are popping up 2-3 per turn, it's hard to get enough secrecy saved up to use this. B

ADVANCED POWERS

Sap: I really can't imagine the circumstance in which I would use this power. You'd be better off just attacking it and hoping to destroy it NOW then wasting a turn setting up someone else's attempt. This way you don't risk the loss effect twice, but you still pay secrecy. This power really ought to be free, though I recommend this never having used it. D

Shadow Cloak: A solid, if not game-altering upgrade. Allows prolonged survival under Confusion, and makes it easier to soak up secrecy on Vanish. B+

Diversion: Again, why not just attack the thing? At least this one *immediately* shuts down the effect. C-

Stealth: I can see the value in this, though in the couple of times I've used rogues, it hasn't really come up. C+

Sabotage: This is expensive to use, but if the opportunity happens to prevent itself, go for it. This is an automatic success, and *better* than destroying a blight. B-

Skulk: Meh. The drawback is minimal, but it's not that much mor eeffective than Vanish. Rather redundant, since there are several uneludable fights. B

Rogue Strategy One: Eavesdrop, Contacts, Vanish -- the deep immersion strategy. Get out there, and search, search search. If you have grace left when you run out of secrecy, hide. try to get powers that buff your elusion, and possibly sabotag,e to help with the late game.

Rogue Strategy 2: Ambush, Vanish, Eavesdrop -- roam the land, using your tactics to surviv eand kill things.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1204317518[/unixtime]]

1204308621[/unixtime]]So far we've always used Find Weakness with the scholar. Preparation + Find Weakness and the rogue or knight to kill blights and you have a 30% chance of killing the necromancer within the first two or three turns.

I don't see any way you can get a shot at the necromancer on turn 2 without at least 3 heroes all working together. Are you starting with 1 blight pre-created in every location (except the Monastery) when the game begins?

Uh, actually no. Next time I play we'll do that. I hope there isn't anything else I'm missing.


On a completely unrelated note, D&D 4e really seems an awful lot like this board game.

[Manxome]

Looks like the URLs to these documents got broken, too, so if anyone decides they want them:

Darkest Night
Reformatted for 8.5x11 print-and-fold

[Manxome]

Anyone still playing this? I was toying with ideas for additional heroes, here's what I'm currently looking at:

Druid

Animal Companion (Basic)
Tactic: Attack with 2 dice. If you fail, this card is exhausted.

Camouflage (Basic)
Tactic: Elude with 2 dice.

Visions (Basic)
Bonus: Exhaust after drawing an event card to discard it without effect.

Sprite Form (Basic)
Action: Remove other forms from play.
Blights do not affect you unless the necromancer is present. You cannot gain grace.
You may deactivate this card as an action.

Wolf Form
Action: Remove other forms from play.
+1 dice on attacks and elusion. You cannot gain grace.
You may deactivate this card as an action.

Raven Form
Action: Remove other forms from play.
+1 dice when searching. Move 2 spaces when you take a move action. You cannot gain grace.
You may deactivate this card as an action.

Tree Form
Action: Remove other forms from play.
Whenever you would get an event, gain 1 grace (up to default) instead.
The only actions you can take are hide, use a form, or deactivate this form.

Celerity
Bonus: After activating a form, you may immediately move as a free action.

Vines
Tactic: Exhaus to attack or elude with 3 dice.

Tranquility
Bonus: +1 current and default grace


Bard

Trickery (Basic)
Tactic: Attack or elude with 3 dice, but subtract 1 from your highest die.

Finesse (Basic)
Bonus: After any hero at your location (possibly you) makes a roll, exhaust to add one die to that roll.

Rally (Basic)
Action: Exhaust and lose one secrecy. Every hero at your location (including yourself) gains one grace (up to default).

Clear Melody (Basic)
Action: Until your grace decreases or you use another melody, the search difficulty is one point lower wherever you currently are.

Malicious Melody
Action: Until your grace decreases or you use another melody, you and all heroes at your current location roll one extra die on all attack rolls.

Restive Melody
Action: Until your grace decreases or you use another melody, you and all heroes at your current location can refresh one power of their choice at the end of each turn.

Soulful Melody
Action: Until your grace decreases or you use another melody, whenever you or a hero at your current location are instructed to lose or spend grace, roll a die. On a roll of 5-6, disregard the effect.

Footwork
Bonus: +1 dice on elusion

Coordination
Bonus: Any hero at your location (including yourself) may use the tactic powers of other heroes at that location

Glory
Bonus: Whenever a hero at your location (possibly yourself) destroys a blight, that hero gains one grace (up to default).



FYI, Trickery has the same success rate as rolling 2 dice when the target number is 4, with higher odds for lower targets and lower odds for higher targets. Unless of course my math is flawed.

Any thoughts?

I'm also looking at tweaking powers of the original heroes, mostly to strengthen the weaker powers a bit.

[Cynic]

I'll see if I can give the game a try out this weekend. I'm going to print it out and see if I can get my normal gaming group to play it. We are missing about half of them so the game is going to be canceled so I'll see if I can coerce them into giving this a try. I've always been interested.