Cursed Rings chaotic run

[Fain]

I don't know if this is in the right section of the forums...

Right before Aerunis had to leave for her home after coming all the way up for SacAnime, we decided to play some Rakasa using the Expansion (of both Fordra and Monsir) and the Alchemy cards. Among all the different objectives that were given to us on the cards, we decided to play the Cursed Rings quest.
The objective of this quest is that upon exploring the new, harder areas, the hunters are now cursed via rings that they found. Each one does a different effect such as Hunger or Fear for that specific hunter. In order to break the curse, we must defeat a Dragon thats tied with one of the Cursed Rings.

Here are some other rules we set up:
-2 hunters for both players. (We've given them names and personalities as well)
-Day and Night cycles with a time limit of 2 days and 2 nights after the curse hits us. When the time is up, anyone who is still cursed is dead. Not mostly dead... ALL DEAD.
-Each new day and night, certain areas gain random boosts.
-The Dragons' stats are doubled to balance the difficulty.
-All land tiles are face down, playing exploration mode.
-In order to even explore the new higher level areas, we have to find Seal cards in the lower level decks first. (Each Hunter managed to find 1 seal each, so that worked out nicely)

Since we don't have the newer pieces yet such as the Clock... We made use of some dice that I had (a D4, D6 and D12 to be exact) and a white board to keep numbers in mind. We also cut out some pieces of paper as makeshift extra land tiles. I still much prefer if we had the actual pieces, but these things still worked...

As the game began, each of our hunters had names, personalities and relationships with one another that really enhanced our game (In a funny way, if at all). Half of the hunters were eager to group up and hunt together. The other half... not so much, which made for some funny moments. It wasn't until everyone was hit with a curse that they all had to buckle down and cooperate with each other, 'lest they want to meet a quick death.
The newer areas and cards really kicked our asses until we had access to our Essence cards, which weren't in play yet until the curse hits us. Essence cards allows us to boost one of our stats by whatever number is on the card.

Since we had no idea how to use these cards in the first place, heres what we settled on:
-In order to charge our Essence, we had to kill and sacrifice a monster we're fighting and whatever level the monster is, it charges a certain number of essence. (IE: A 1-star monster will give me 5 essence. A 2-star monster will give me 10 essence. Etc, etc...)
-Since we're sacrificing said monster for the Essence, we're not able to use that card for its spoils. It goes straight to the discard once we're done.
-We're able to use as much Essence as we had in one fight. (IE: Using a 5 and 10 Essence to boost Speed and Attack. But not both cards onto 1 stat)

Anyway, after much fighting, running and dying... We managed to kill the Desert and Mountain dragons and free 2 of our Hunters from their Curses. Unfortunately, Aerunis had to leave before we could finish the game. The game is still set up on my table and I plan to finish it once I get some free time. (Trying to control 4 Hunters, oh boy...)

Our current status: 36 Hours (Turns) remain. 2 Dragons (Forest and Ocean) remain. 2 hunters still cursed. Mountain and Ocean about to receive a boost. One of the hunters is very close to making the Grim's Kiss potion.

After playing this with Aer, here's my opinion about what we just played: I love and fear the Expansion cards. They're something to look forward to and yet I dread drawing a 5-star monster since it's bound to kick my ass even with Quick Draw. I absolutely love the Alchemy cards. Aer might've been giving me bored looks while I spend quite a long time mixing together ingredients to make potions. But I didn't care.
I apologize if this was a REALLY long read. But I had to share this experience before I end up forgetting details.

tl;dr: Played with Expansion and Alchemy cards with additional rules. Half way through game, Aerunis had to leave. Will finish game later.

[dvatch]

that is AWESOME!!! love the game scenario that sounds like an awesome adventure! so we will be ordering the new pieces and get those sent out to you and we are setting up the expansion rules for you to have with you though you pretty much got the essence recharge correct. You can pay in the village to heal essence cards you just pay whats on the particular card your looking to recharge or you kill a sacrifice a monster and recharge up to the star of the monster you sacrificed.

[Fain]

FINALLY got around to finishing this game.

I forgot to talk about the Hunters in the game. The first one is H(iye)(rowe). Pronounced as Hero because I haven't, nor am I going to figure out the correct spelling! The young, upstart hunter who does his best to get along with everyone and hunts for glory. He's rocking a Defensive Ocean equipment set. The second one is Yvena. Has a bit of a fiery personality. Sometimes complains and doesn't like working with others. Shes reliable once you earn her trust. She uses a Defensive Mountain equipment set. The third is Tetra. Based off of my character in Monster Hunter, shes a emotionless, yet experienced hunter. She uses a Speed-Shot Forest set. And finally Shana. She is also based off of Aer's character in MH. An experienced hunter whose friends with Yvena and Tetra. Shes rocking a Berserk Desert set.

At the beginning, Yvena and Hero started in the same village and they got off to a rocky start due to being surrounded by anything other than the Roads. Meanwhile, Tetra and Shana got a bit of a head start being at the opposite village next to many roads. Yvena had a hard time trusting Tetra at all because Tetra went solo for most of her time. Shana and Hero did their best to stick to them since either one could need help. It wasn't until the Cursed Rings were found that the entire group had to work together to break the curse.

Hero was stricken with the Hunger curse. He had to eat his kills or use his essence to fuel himself otherwise he will faint.
Yvena was stuck with the Fear curse. All of her prey ran away from her if her speed couldn't match theirs (and she was a defense build, so...).
Tetra was hit with the Haunt curse. Whatever the last strongest enemy she fought was, it's stats would be added to her next fight.
And Shana was attacked with the Limp curse. She could only move to a new land tile every other turn.

Their first priority was getting rid of Yvena's curse since she would be unable to do anything but assist in her status. Shana's was next since the 2 Dragons linked to them were next to each other. Tetra would be the 3rd one to unlock her curse as it was starting to heavily penalize her in her fights.


So besides the in-game time limit, I also had a time limit in real life to finish it. So I made all the Hunters have one goal: Kill the last dragons as quick as possible. Tetra was assigned as the apothecary and made potions for the hunters. Including the legendary Grim's Kiss potion! Which added -40 to all stats to their target at the cost of your helmet. (or both your helmet and your life if your helmet didn't have a Def stat of 3+)

Tetra and Shana made their way towards the High-Lv Forest area while Hero stayed with Yvena in the HL Mountain to help her upgrade her gear as she was one of the only hunters to exceed 3-Star gear. Eventually everyone made it to the Forest area and found the Forest dragon. Yvena's new upgrades were just what was needed to take it and interrupting monsters down. But then came the Ocean dragon up next...
Hero made good use of his own strength and the Grim's Kiss potion but was only able to take down the feet and tail. After that, the Dragon's head Atk + interrupting monsters made it tough to take out. It even made Yvena and Shana faint! Tetra realized that things were not looking good, so she ran around the areas to gather as much materials to another Grim's Kiss potion. Hero ran to the village to buy as many Grappling Hooks as he could to act as the courier. On the last day, they scrounged up enough ingredients to make another Grim's Kiss potion. Tetra handed it off to Hero who then zipped his way back to Yvena and gave the potion to her as she was the strongest of the 4.

The potion + high defense was all that was needed to take down the last of the Dragons and thus... the curse was broken!
I tallied up the points of who took down the most dragon parts. Shana and Yvena both had 3 parts each. Hero and Tetra had 2 (Tetra would've had a little bit more but she sold the parts to make more potions). So team Aer wins! (Booo...)

My final thoughts on the game: It really ramps up the difficulty once you enter the expansion set. And when you throw in the new buff mechanics, things really start to look stacked against you. I would've spent more time grinding in high level areas to make sure everyone was ready, but the time limit also pressured us to keep moving. All in all, it's really interesting to see the new mechanics of the game mixed in with the expansion+alchemy cards. I also said it before, but I really love the alchemy set! I also think that maybe the prices of items need to be increased a little bit once you hit the high level areas if only because you'll have so much money by then that you're able to buy 8+ Grappling Hooks for no reason... (I'm looking at you, Aer) But maybe that's just me.

PS: I took pictures! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c0smvdeyg692d4y/AABHstlWGMjbpko89K2OkVC2a?dl=0

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