This is part of a group that we weren’t sure was going to be a great group because we generally all felt like we had more support based characters and without a strong attacking character we wondered how we’d hold up. It took us a little bit to get the characters figured out and really set-up to play them but now the group has become quite powerful.

The Quartermaster has generally become our tank character, though the Sawbones, can be a tank at times. The Quartermaster is the tank because of their ability to manipulate items that they have. So while they might end up having to burn a card or two, as long as they are discarding cards, they generally can keep a full hand. That’s very handy as it allows our group to get going longer and because of that, they don’t always need to be taking long rests and can keep the enemy distracted when other characters might be getting low on cards and need to be taking those rests.

The Quartermaster really shines when it comes to item use. Now, it doesn’t always have to be to get back cards, but by using items at the right time and refreshing the items, the Quartermaster can do a ton of damage. This is probably some of the reason that this character got off to the rough start because without the full compliment of items they can have trouble dealing out that much damage. They aren’t an extremely low damage character, but probably middle level damage character with not many attacks that focus on an area or do other negative effects. Building up that collection of items to make them higher damage or able to hit a larger area makes a big difference, especially as the monsters are a good amount tougher at the higher levels.

Generally, I feel like this character is fairly mobile around the battlefield, which you want for a character who can tank. This is especially the case as they aren’t generally the fastest character in terms of going in initiative. We did originally run into the problem with the group of characters, and with the previous group of characters, that we weren’t always the most mobile around the battlefield. I think with this group we’ve focused more in on that which has been quite useful in some scenarios where you need to make it to multiple points or make it in and then leave or even just maps that are spread out the extra movement from the Quartermaster and the other characters has been helpful.

Overall, this seems like an interesting character to play and eventually when coming back to this game or as we unlock more characters, I could see trying this character to see if you could tweak the build in another way that would still use items but might help the party with items more so than themselves and see if the Quartermaster can be more support character.

Complexity: Medium/High
Combat: Medium/High
Support: Low

Let me start out by saying when I was going for a retirement goal this is the one that made the most sense for the Soothsinger that I was playing previously. It also looked, from the symbol, like it could have been a more combat focused character. It was disappointing when I opened it up and found out that it was yet another support character as I’ve played the Tinkerer, Soothsinger, and now Sawbones who have all been more support focused characters.

But before we get into my build for the character and how they actually play, let’s talk about what they are built for. The Sawbones refers to the fact that they would have been a field medic prior to becoming an adventurer. They have a lot of healing cards, but if you think about it, a lot of medical practices could also be to cause a fair amount of damage. There’s a lot of focus on healing on the cards then with some damage on them, or cards that do large amounts of damage. This character also hands out a lot of tokens as well, so they are heavy on wounds but also immobilizing, stun, poison, or even muddle.

I think the standard build for this character would focus on healing. There are nice ways to boost that, and there are quite a number of cards that give you XP for handing out healing. They also have an interesting concept that allows you to keep your fellow adventurers alive and that is by handing out med packs. These are cards that go into your allies hands and don’t count against their total card count. So a character with fewer cards you could theoretically help keep alive. These cards also have some solid healing on them which is nice as well. The downside is that you have to be next to the other players when you are doing this. Being a Sawbones, though, means that you aren’t too soft a character and you can soak some damage. However, your healing works better on others.

Now, I wanted to play this as more of a combat build, however, when i started with that, I found out it didn’t work as well. There was some possibility for it, because you have some nice damage cards, but your best damage cards are the ones that end up getting put to the trash instead of the discard pile. But when I was able to do 14 damage on the first turn (out of 45) to a Drake, that was awesome. However, if you make it too combat focused, you aren’t going to be an extremely effective character as you limit yourself in what you can really do on a turn. I’ve actually gone fairly item heavy in hopes of being able to support more damage that way. Having a base 3 attack versus a base 2 attack thus far is the best thing that I’ve come up with for that.

The biggest thing that makes this character solid is the ability to move around the battlefield. With the deck that I’ve put together, I can most more than the base two on a good number of the cards. I have a several move four cards and a move five as well. This is a piece that I do like quite well, because the Soothsinger had a few cards that would allow it move around the battlefield, but only two or maybe three that I had in the deck. The Sawbones, thematically, makes sense to have that ability and it comes through on the cards. This, however, does come at the cost of speed from the cards, I have a couple of fast cards, but after playing the Soothsinger who was basically always first to go, the Sawbones will sometimes go after the enemies which is a bit of a weird feeling.

This character was a bit of a disappointment for me when I started playing it, because, like I said, I wanted someone who was more combat focused. That said, I’ve come to enjoy it at this point, though I do hope my next character (and I’ll probably make it be) will be more combat focused. It’s a solid balance of combat and healing, and with a few powers, one that burns a card but I can just kill a regular or elite monster or now another one that will allow me to kill a regular monster as long as they have two negative effects on them, that’s going to make me much more viable in combat. It’s interesting to see how you can use characters who seem to be more focused on healing for good amounts of damage and I hope as I continue to level up the Sawbones that I’ll be able to play them with more of a combat focus.

Complexity: Medium
Combat: Medium
Support: Medium/High

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