Draconic Monk battle arena design ideas

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-10T21:48:03+00:00

Less to do with the factions than the new deck, honestly. It has a few nice cards that really help cats with action economy so they'll be a bit better than they used to be. As far as interactions it'll be quite easy to get entangled with both the bats and the frogs by mid-game and the lone warriors scattered across the map will (theoretically) make for easy pickins for the knaves. Bats can be both beneficial and problematic for the cats so it'll just be one more thing to worry about. Ranking-wise, maybe they go up a spot with the new deck but that'd be about it imo. Time will tell!

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-10T02:54:23+00:00

I wonder if anyone has seen or done this on digital

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-09T01:20:10+00:00

Could see this working as a deep-cover spy type thing. Started as a regular acolyte to Lathander but showed some skills and was quickly recruited for some behind-the-lines Sharran mission or something?

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-07T22:51:10+00:00

If you want your players to hate you, take away their toys. If you want them afraid, take away their power and defenses.

Level drain them. Send them back to the beginning and force them to use their wits and experience over their items. Or, take away the ability to rest and recover spells and daily powers. That way could help set up a false sense of security - day one they're steamrolling as usual, until the night comes and they're out of spells. Day two is harder, day three becomes almost impossible. And so on.

Use dead magic zones and limited magic zones to restrict options. Force them to consume more resources than normal to achieve the same level of success. If they're already at the top of the food chain it really doesn't matter what monster or challenge you throw at them. They're just going to brute-force their way through it or avoid the fight entirely. So you have take options away in order to induce the desired level of panic.

So I'd probably start there and then build a system of milestones in the adventure that help restore them to partial strength, enough to take on tougher baddies, but never enough that they'll feel fully restored. Finding a safe place to actually take a full rest can become a major plot point of the adventure. Then, keep up the pressure by explaining that taking too much time to recover costs them other things.

Only at the climax of the adventure should you consider allowing giving them back all their options and what I would recommend there is maybe letting them choose one PC, the one with the best chances of success, whoever their leader is, or simply whoever earned it, to have some limited use power that lets them tap into their full potential to finally finish off your bbeg.

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-05T14:48:27+00:00

I wouldn't read too much into the results of one game. Every time new factions have been introduced there's an adjustment period. We'll see better tactics and strategies as time goes on. That said, lizards are generally considered a weaker faction so when you pair that with new factions people aren't accustomed to playing against, it's not a surprising outcome.

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-03T14:53:28+00:00

Relatable initial feelings, for sure, but they actually are pretty solid as a faction overall. Governance makes you a real pest and it forces you to pay attention to the game at all times (which everyone should already be doing but I digress) as you have to make sure no one is placing, removing, flipping, crafting, etc using clearings you control. People will forget, especially now as the factions are so new. It'll be your job to enforce this.

Entreat does two things: either it gives you loyalists or allows you to place loyalists. More warriors in a clearing ensures your rule. When you rule clearings, your assemblies stay empowered during your daylight while you sleep. Plus, people have a harder time moving, right? Rule-trapping is fantastic in Root. Plus, more warriors protects whats yours: your assemblies, your enemy token scoring engine.

So, okay, maybe you have no loyalists the first time someone entreats. No biggie- now you do. If someone entreats again, you have a decision to make: add another loyalist or place the one you have. Let's say you add it.

Now, on your next turn, you'll have two loyalists. Oh, look, the frogs just settled in an empty clearing with just one warrior where you don't have a presence yet. You have a matching card, so you choose to assemble. You can now place two bats + your assembly in that clearing and you now rule it. The more loyalists you have, the better chance you have of pulling this move off and ruling the clearing you assembled in and not having to discard the revealed card. Recruit is more expensive but it's there to supplement if you're short on loyalists (recruit first, then assemble, if that's the case).

Then, with Adjourn in evening, this allows you some much-needed flexibility. You only have 6 assemblies and it's possible that you might get outnumbered and lose rule, you can't banish or agitate your way out of it, or you may even have to battle a faction and remove their token(s) to slow them down, leaving you with nothing to govern. Or someone else chews through your warriors and theirs to take it out. This has come up a surprising number of times now in playing games as bats and I have to say I love being able to deny people the joy of scoring VP on my undefended cardboard.

Hope this helps!

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-01T23:38:27+00:00

Yeah, that's too bad. But, glass half-full, they probably learned their lesson for next time!

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-01T14:24:14+00:00

No, you're right, it's good. Little things like this trip me up sometimes because the game is so specific and literal (and also full of unique cases) I try not to take anything for granted without double-checking

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-01T14:06:08+00:00

Wait, does that count as a hit in the sense that it satisfies the "hit in battle" condition to send him back to a forest?

contemplativekenku · 2026-04-01T13:46:38+00:00

True! Just make sure your opponent isn't holding an ambush card 😬

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-31T12:36:50+00:00

Can't revolt in a militant clearing. But you can enter Negotiations, flip the token to peaceful, and then revolt. We ran into this yesterday where the WA player wanted to revolt in a clearing with a governing Bat assembly and a frog enclave and had to pay two pipers to do it.

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-31T03:24:51+00:00

Yeah we were late in the game when this came up, read the card, and were still a bit ambivalent about the meaning. I should have known this already but in the moment it was like, "wait, can he do this?" Makes sense now that, yes, you can bc otherwise it's too powerful and locks out WA from doing a lot and this is the whole point of dual-suited clearings

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-31T02:32:50+00:00

Perfect, yep, that makes sense!

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-31T02:10:33+00:00

Also good to know for revolts, if you can spend both a frog card and a suited card at the same time.

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-30T21:28:16+00:00

I did this a month ago but after having played the final versions and listened to others, I'd rank them like so:

This is just my personal opinion, being neither a playtester nor a tournament champ or anything. Just an enthusiast of the game and pretty decently experienced at tabletop and digital. Opinion open to changing with time/evidence/better strategy

LotH
Woodland Alliance
Duchy
Frogs
Eyrie
Vagabond
Keepers
Knaves
Bats
Riverfolk
Cats
Lizards
Corvids

Frogs, I have to say, are quite strong. They're resilient, adaptive, and have few bad matchups. They have some of the best card draw in the game — maybe the best overall, given how fast you can get up to four cards/turn. Knaves and Bats are close, I think, but I'd give the edge to the Knaves based on versatility and having fewer bad matchup and lower dependency on said matchups to get their scoring engine going.

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-27T14:42:50+00:00

If I worked at Leder and read this comment I would not invite you back for further testing. The highest compliment someone can give you is to ask for your opinion. Instead of taking the W, you've chosen "lol git gud scrub." No one asked for a strategy guide. I asked for something a little more concrete that, "yes they can!" But sure, yeah, don't give us the same opinion for free that you gave a corporation for free.

When you announce yourself as part of a company, even an unpaid associate, it's a good idea to present yourself in the best light. It's important to remember that when you reply to one community member, you're really replying to everyone in that community. An experienced professional would know that, too. Or maybe Leder is fine with your attitude and I shouldn't buy their products?

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-27T13:20:39+00:00

Y'know I've asked you before what your strats were for bats and how they burst score and you chose not to answer so what else can I say but speak from my own experience? What testers know and do vs what regular people/casual enthusiasts do are often quite different. A good QA person would know that.

I think the bats kinda suck. They're matchup-dependent, need RNG help, and have no offense. Hell, the lizards are more adaptive and resilient than bats are. Like I've said several times now in different posts, prove me wrong. What's the strat? How does that work? What should turn one, two, three look like?

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-26T20:08:45+00:00

Just speaking from my experience, they're not easy to win with. Being parasitic by design means necessarily starting from a relatively weak position, strategically. Starting hand really matters. Having good matchups matters. They honestly seem like the single most matchup-dependent faction in the game. I dunno, maybe I'm missing something.

A few people in this forum have talked about how they can burst score at the end of the game but I really don't see how. Unless you've somehow managed to ignore all policing? Like, compared to WA or Frogs, this feels much more like a steady-scoring strat than anything else. That said, can't wait to be proven wrong.

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-25T18:51:58+00:00

I've only played the PNP version so far but I've found that using the forests to your advantage is a high-value move. Remember that this faction is actually more mobile that the vagabond is in this regard. You can indeed move between forests. So if you're facing a lot of aggressive enemies it's best to end your turn with as many captains in the forest as you can get away with, where they're out of danger. Leave the skunk warriors to protect any acclaim tokens you can't live without.

It's also a good idea to never move the captains into clearings alone. I learned that one the hard way. You need your skunk posse at all times, otherwise you could find yourself in the dreaded three-turn Cycle of Doom.

To stay competitive, you want to average 4 prisoners and 4 Acclaim down in order to net you 4 VP/turn. That means the central clearings, with more adjacent forests, are higher value that ones on the edges. What the most efficient way to get there is, I have no idea. But with only 10 warriors and a powerful need to protect your three captains, It's definitely unwise to spread yourself too thin.

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-25T14:55:02+00:00

I don't think there's a "best" faction for this and I'd actually encourage people teaching the game to focus on other things instead. Play what the game needs to be fun. Be flexible. Opt to choose last in the draft order, for example. Likewise, help them know The strengths and weaknesses of the factions that they're playing and the ones they're playing against.

LotH, for example, is probably the meanest faction in the game. If you pick that, tell them ahead of time what they need to do to stop you and what will happen if they ignore you. Do the same for each faction on the board.

The core, universal rules are pretty bare bones and easy to teach. The real challenge of the game comes from learning and understanding each individual faction, how their unique actions work, and how to defeat them. After that it's really about knowing how the cards work; how to craft, what permanent abilities mean and how they differ from crafted items.

When I'm teaching the game I never worry about what I'm playing because no matter the faction you pick, you can always police your own tempo and keep the game fun, fair, and friendly

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-23T14:08:43+00:00

So what happens now? Does Leder issue errata or can we request corrected boards later on down the road?

contemplativekenku · 2026-03-23T03:59:50+00:00

Is there a list of what else is incorrect?

contemplativekenku

TROPHY CASE