by MidGuard
So my group and I have recently gotten into both Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon, and though having quite a bit of fun we've run into the usual suspects as far as some of the mechanics are concerned.What's been bugging me the most, though, is how strange the characters seem to play. They're all pretty similar stat-wise, and most abilities seem focused on slaying monsters, but with how difficult this game is and all of the random, completely unavoidable damage, the Cleric emerges pretty quickly as vital to any success.
I even played a 2-player as the Dragonborn Fighter while my buddy was the Cleric, and after charging in and taking on the first few monsters and encounters, I spent almost the entire rest of the game cowering behind the Cleric as he used his healing strike to kill everything and stay at safe hit point levels while occasionally being able to heal me up for 1 with his special ability.
I've played the Ranger, who was fun but kind of awkward and not very tough, and the Rogue in WoA, and both just seemed like weaker versions of the fighter. There wasn't anything really special or different I could do on a regular basis to contribute to the team or kill monsters, particularly.
I feel like the way most people would think to play, with fighters leading the way supported by healers and ranged attackers using special abilities while wizards cast high damage or area spells but are vulnerable is kind of non-existent. Instead, everyone's just kind of in it for themselves until they get wounded in which case they'll run or fall back to a group member. The encounters of course don't help this as they make any sort of formation or front line almost pointless.
I haven't found a lot of variations that mess with characters, but I think some simple changes could go a long way towards making each hero play different and closer to their class, and also making them more viable and not having to run to the Cleric every turn because you took 8 damage from two monsters and a random encounter.
Something like the wizard having a mage-armor ability to negate damage, or a teleport, or the Rogue having a dodge or an instant trap-disarm. Anything to make the characters play closer to their roles and create more of a team experience.
I don't mind the difficulty and really it makes the game quite fun at times, but the characters just feel lame to me. Thoughts?