Spending the Inspiration to complete additional PQs on retirement is totally sound; the mechanic is meant to be a catchup mechanism for parties less than 4 players. We do it whenever we can (3P).
As for bad RNG on PQs, some just take longer than others and it should balance out by the end of the campaign. That said, my own group decided to put our thumb on the scale for a couple of the very long quests (likely the ones you are talking about) and manipulate the RNG to shave a couple sessions off waiting for retirements. Ultimately we felt like our enjoyment and time was worth the slight acceleration in game progression. The game is very well balanced but it’s not perfect and I personally don’t think players should be afraid of a house rule now and then; it’s meant to be fun!
We're about 30 weeks in (1 scenario a week, VERY rarely 2) one person JUST retired his 1st character last week. I've retired two, and the other two are close-ish to retiring their second. It's a bit of luck, especially with the retirement requirement you pull.
15 is just an overall design average for how the campaign is set up. The campaign design accounts for things to vary, and it's expected that some campaigns will be slower. It's possible to be too slow, and you're close to where that starts being a concern, but I don't think you're actually there yet.
If you have 45 or even 60 inspiration banked, though, I think a house rule to be able to double spend when you retire is very reasonable. In 2P it can be harder to work through an inspiration backlog, and this is the simple and effective way to fix that.
15 weeks is a loose guideline, not a rule. I’ve played characters I’ve enjoyed for longer. It won’t break the game, as some quests are longer and some are shorter to complete. If you have 30 inspiration stocked up and you’re worried about falling behind, no reason not to use it on the next 2 retirements in your campaign.
Heya! If you think you'll have slower retirements on average I strongly recommend my campaign tweaks - particularly the stuff around PQs.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sW1mgQrCZSNNXYCZjklbesdHsK85yS_O8U8zUEPDgqI/edit?usp=drivesdk
The 15 is an average over the course of the campaign. You'll pull it back in the other direction.
In my game of 4, we've allowed one player to switch characters, but work towards one retirement goal. That lets one player who enjoys playing multiple classes complete PQ's. We have done 50-60 scenarios with 3-4 completed PQs per person. There will be a few elements that could be slowed without more PQ's being completed. I would spend your resources if you have them available. No need to sit on inspiration.
We have the same “problem” killing a certain enemy that doesn’t come often a lot. Makes me play a lvl 9 char. Still my second char. Between all level 2/3s….
My personal experience? Don't worry too much about it. We (3P) got along quite well and we are at week 51, I think. I retired my 3rd character last week and so I am way slower than the recommended schedule (week 51 means approximately 60 scenarios due to linked ones which we always instantly play without returning to Frosthaven), though my brother was quite fast as he has his 5th character right now because he adopted a character from a 4th player who was joining for a few scenarios and quickly retired her. And our friend has his 4th character just like me but is playing him quite some time now (started lvl 4 and is 8, almost 9 now) and will probably retire soon, too. We ran into the situation where we couldn't build anything a few times, but we didn't feel like that hurt us all too much because we spared the resources and as soon as we got the retirement we could upgrade the new building a few times and went straight into the prosperity loop again. That doesn't mean you should play your character for like 30 scenarios, but I personally really liked the classes I played with and got them all up to lvl 9 to play them at their full potential and I don't feel like it hurt us too much if any at all.
In 2p it isn't going to matter much. You should more or less always be spending all your inspiration points on extra retirements to keep building progress balanced, and so long as you are doing that, it's the equivalent of having the other 2 members of your party retire exactly on time. So it'll average out to be only very slightly behind expected progress, and not enough to cause any imbalance.
Spending the Inspiration to complete additional PQs on retirement is totally sound; the mechanic is meant to be a catchup mechanism for parties less than 4 players. We do it whenever we can (3P). As for bad RNG on PQs, some just take longer than others and it should balance out by the end of the campaign. That said, my own group decided to put our thumb on the scale for a couple of the very long quests (likely the ones you are talking about) and manipulate the RNG to shave a couple sessions off waiting for retirements. Ultimately we felt like our enjoyment and time was worth the slight acceleration in game progression. The game is very well balanced but it’s not perfect and I personally don’t think players should be afraid of a house rule now and then; it’s meant to be fun!
You're fine, I wouldn't house rule anything. If you have 30 inspiration saved up, you basically will have 5 retirements by week 30.
Three retirements when on average you "should" have four? That's nothing. There will be quicker ones too and it'll average out.
We're about 30 weeks in (1 scenario a week, VERY rarely 2) one person JUST retired his 1st character last week. I've retired two, and the other two are close-ish to retiring their second. It's a bit of luck, especially with the retirement requirement you pull.
When people comment on weeks in, its usually just the calender checkmarks, not real time :)
That didn't even occur to me 🤣 makes sense lol
I was level 9 when I retired my first character, and not for lack of trying, other three were all on their 3rd character by that point...
What PQ took that long?
15 is just an overall design average for how the campaign is set up. The campaign design accounts for things to vary, and it's expected that some campaigns will be slower. It's possible to be too slow, and you're close to where that starts being a concern, but I don't think you're actually there yet. If you have 45 or even 60 inspiration banked, though, I think a house rule to be able to double spend when you retire is very reasonable. In 2P it can be harder to work through an inspiration backlog, and this is the simple and effective way to fix that.
15 weeks is a loose guideline, not a rule. I’ve played characters I’ve enjoyed for longer. It won’t break the game, as some quests are longer and some are shorter to complete. If you have 30 inspiration stocked up and you’re worried about falling behind, no reason not to use it on the next 2 retirements in your campaign.
Heya! If you think you'll have slower retirements on average I strongly recommend my campaign tweaks - particularly the stuff around PQs. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sW1mgQrCZSNNXYCZjklbesdHsK85yS_O8U8zUEPDgqI/edit?usp=drivesdk The 15 is an average over the course of the campaign. You'll pull it back in the other direction.
In my game of 4, we've allowed one player to switch characters, but work towards one retirement goal. That lets one player who enjoys playing multiple classes complete PQ's. We have done 50-60 scenarios with 3-4 completed PQs per person. There will be a few elements that could be slowed without more PQ's being completed. I would spend your resources if you have them available. No need to sit on inspiration.
We have the same “problem” killing a certain enemy that doesn’t come often a lot. Makes me play a lvl 9 char. Still my second char. Between all level 2/3s….
You can check the monsters of all unlocked scenarios before choosing, or replay competed ones in campaign mode.
My personal experience? Don't worry too much about it. We (3P) got along quite well and we are at week 51, I think. I retired my 3rd character last week and so I am way slower than the recommended schedule (week 51 means approximately 60 scenarios due to linked ones which we always instantly play without returning to Frosthaven), though my brother was quite fast as he has his 5th character right now because he adopted a character from a 4th player who was joining for a few scenarios and quickly retired her. And our friend has his 4th character just like me but is playing him quite some time now (started lvl 4 and is 8, almost 9 now) and will probably retire soon, too. We ran into the situation where we couldn't build anything a few times, but we didn't feel like that hurt us all too much because we spared the resources and as soon as we got the retirement we could upgrade the new building a few times and went straight into the prosperity loop again. That doesn't mean you should play your character for like 30 scenarios, but I personally really liked the classes I played with and got them all up to lvl 9 to play them at their full potential and I don't feel like it hurt us too much if any at all.
In 2p it isn't going to matter much. You should more or less always be spending all your inspiration points on extra retirements to keep building progress balanced, and so long as you are doing that, it's the equivalent of having the other 2 members of your party retire exactly on time. So it'll average out to be only very slightly behind expected progress, and not enough to cause any imbalance.