Thoughts on party limit

Though the last playtests we've done have been good, the current state of the game, where every battle starts with 6 characters on both sides, seems a bit stale to me, like you're just wading through bodies to win each battle. I also feel like initiative should be decided by something more tactical than just the amount of relics a player has.

Though I want the player with less relics to have some sort of "catch up" advantage, I think initiative should be determined by the following:

At the end of the party phase, the player with less characters goes first.

As I thought about this, initially I was put off by it, but really, it solves an important problem.

The game ends when all characters hit your erase/rfg/whatever pile (still not happy with the name), and in all the playtests I've had since I implemented this rule, this has been an issue. I think decks should be able to be built around the concept of running through your opponents character deck, but I don't think it should come into play every game.

The way I see it, is that if people play with less characters, to try for initiative at least a few times a game, always decking out of characters wont be an issue.

Also, for every character short of your maximum, I figured drawing an extra 2 cards would be a fitting added bonus. (This also makes Shadow 10 times as good as he was before.)