There seems to be a long discussion here in the threads about difficulty and whether campaigns are too hard or too easy. Lord Stafford's Treasure in particular has arguments on both sides, with some complaining that it is too difficult, while others argue "no, you can do it if you do X and you try really hard." Here's my opinion on the matter, particularly this encounter. The final encounter in that campaign is too difficult for Level 8 characters. Given the time limit, and the strength of the enemies I would classify it as a lvl 9, or 10 encounter. Players would need to grind for too long to earn the equipment needed for a lvl 8 party to pass this encounter. I've failed at least 5 times so far and restarted the encounter from the beginning and my party is lvl 9. By the way, I've been a DM for years, so I am no stranger to scaling difficulty to player levels and abilities. P.S. This is my opinion alone and intended as feedback for Blue Manchu. If you disagree with me I don't really care to hear it. I don't want to start a forum war on difficulty levels... or rather another one.
A lot of the modules are too hard. This definitely needs to be addressed. I'm not even bothering with the campaign. Why frustrate myself? I'd rather just play MP. I hope they make some changes.
Well, I just did it tonight, and I started playing on Saturday and have played and won every campaign (and two treasure hunts) exactly once, buying hardly any equipment. That's not to say I didn't lose a few battles. But it's perfectly doable. I thought the final battle was relatively straightforward, so long as you kill the mercenary quickly without losing anyone. Bring plenty of damage, obviously; neither dogs nor Stafford have either much defence nor extraordinarily lethal attacks, so once the merc is down you can just move along killing as you go. I guess winning will depend on a reasonably decent first draw so you can take him out while the dogs are still stuck in the tunnel. Armoured dogs seem to cause some people problems. But if you are hitting them with zaps or strikes that do 5 damage, or penetrating strikes that do 3, the damage will get through and they will soon die.
I never farmed equipment for any dungeon, and while this one was a bit tricky i got it after a few retries. There are a few cards that make it a lot easier (for example teleport or other that let you ignore rough terrain), but i never had any of these. Its just a dungeon on a very aggressive timer.
I found a few campaign missions hard, but most of them quite easy. The ai makes a lot of mistakes and a few key cards help in almost any mission. I wouldn't try with an all elf or all mage team though. Sometimes it's just grinding your hp against theirs. I completed the whole thing with dwarven wizard, human warrior, human priest. Key cards (once they're available) have been any high damage card, whirlwind (for emergencies & victory point levels), dissolve armor (for any kind of annoying armor or immunities) and when it became available: holy nimbus. I kinda like that you have to rebuild your deck for each dungeon. Maybe my perception of easy is different. I like that it is just a bit challenging. I think it could definitely benefit from a slight 'make-it-easier' tweak.
Yeah difficulty of the adventures can really fluctuate based on item drops and if you're not lucky enough to get something that works with your party and playstyle a good number of them can be hard to get through. I think that's the primary difficulty with this sort of a progression + random power gain game. The numbers (given item rarity etc) may work out fine for all adventures, but you are always going to have probability outliers and even if you are within the curve the power items received may not be used by the players putting them at a disadvantage. What makes you think it would be better as a lvl 9 or 10 adventure? You don't gain a whole lot of resources during that time period so I'm just curious as to why you feel 8 is too low but those would be acceptable?
I actually breezed through Stafford's treasure on my first try, although I've bounced off it in replays several times since. the adventure that's actually giving me trouble is freaking Melvelous. The first two fights are easy, almost trivial, but the third one kicks my ass every time. I think the difficulty is a little high (as judged by the reccommended level) across the board, which means when a map is only a little harder than the average it stomps you.
I'm with Ereklich, the last one was the hardest in Melvelous. Maybe a different strategy would have made it easier, though. I tried to stick in the starting room and let the fire demon come to me, but it never really worked out that well and he did a lot of damage every time. But I was afraid if I attacked him hard from the start Melvelous would join in.
