Brother Tyler's page

Like many of you, I lament the discontinuation of support for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game by Paizo and Lone Shark. PACG is among my top 3 favorite games (counting all APs and the Core Set as a single game) and I can see myself continuing to play it for many years to come. I had hoped to see many more adventure paths and decks (and goblin adventures). Alas, that was not to be. We have seen fans of the game continue to churn out creative products, and those are great. They’re not quite the same as the Real Thing, however. My pipe dream, of course, is that we will see official products and support renewed in the future. That’s beyond my control, however, and it looks very unlikely at this point (sad panda sounds).

So my mind has turned to ways in which PACG might receive a little support from Paizo/Lone Shark to help fans of the game, both current and (more importantly) future, enjoy the game. Money was mentioned as a key factor in the decision to suspend/terminate development of the game (link). Time, too, is a factor. So any potential future support for the game during this [probably permanent] period of non-support has to involve as little of each as possible. That severely limits the scope of what might be done, leaving new adventure paths, characters, etc. to the band of dedicated gamers that continues to create content for the game that they love. I decided that there were several options that were relatively easy (?) to accomplish and which would support both current and future fans of the game, all via Drive Thru Cards. While there may be some level of effort required to develop the cards, the other costs are transferred over to DTC and the consumer. This reduces the logistics demands upon Paizo/Lone Shark. There may even be mechanisms for granting the authority to develop the cards to fans working under the auspices of Paizo, Lone Shark, and the community, further reducing the time/effort requirement for Paizo and Lone Shark.

Errata Sets
While errata sets are available for both printings of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, no such sets exist for any of the succeeding adventure paths, the Core Set, or the various class/character/add-on decks. Having cards instead of substitutes (e.g., printed versions slipped into card sleeves, referring to a spreadsheet/FAQ, etc.) would be appealing for many of us.

Cards for Characters
While official character sheets are available for most of the characters and those that aren’t have been created by fans and are available at the Board Game Geek (e.g., Occult Adventures Character Decks 1 & 2, Hunter Class Deck, Ultimate Equipment Add-On Deck, etc.), those only support the characters. Many of the characters also have cohorts or associated cards that differ between sources (e.g., the versions of Padrig in the Wrath of the Righteous AP and the Summoner CD are different), and many of these aren’t displayed online (preventing fans from printing those for use in their games). This especially affects players of the game that are unable to purchase the class/character/add-on deck that supports a character in which they are interested. So while a player might be able to download the character sheet, they may be unable to use other cards that are necessary for using that character to their fullest (e.g., try playing CD Mavaro without having The Missing Eye). What I would like to see is the ability to purchase all of the necessary cards for a character. For example, CD Oloch would come with the character card, token, role card, and a Greatsword; whereas CD Emil would come with the character card, token, role card, Sawtooth Sabre +2, and a Redemption Card. I could see these being available in two or three options. The first would be per character, the second would be per deck, and the third would be for all of the characters in the Hell’s Vengeance Character Decks (with only 1 Redemption Card).

Note that I’m not including the exclusive cards that were available in the various Pathfinder Battles: Iconic Heroes Sets that were available from Paizo/WizKids/NECA, largely because I don’t know if whatever agreements Paizo/Lone Shark had with WizKids/NECA would allow for the cards to be available outside of those sets. If there was a way to do that, however, that would be nice, too.

Character Tokens
The Token cards were fine for the needs of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. However, later adventure paths had mechanisms whereby a character token might be placed into a location deck, preventing the character from leaving that location until they recovered their token card. For example, I was playing the Mummy’s Mask AP recently and had my Ahmotep Token card shuffled into the location after failing to defeat the Dry Quicksand barrier. My view is that part of the fun (?) in such instances is that you don’t know where your character’s Token card is in the location, creating suspense. However, since the Token cards are clearly different from the other cards, with images bordered in green and lacking the normal card back, it’s pretty easy to see where a character’s Token card is in the deck. I would love to see new Token cards for all of the characters, with one side featuring the image and background lore for the character and the other featuring the standard card back. The easiest (?) way to do this in my mind is to leave the AP/deck indicators off the cards, and for each of the iconic characters to have only a single card (i.e., only one Valeros card instead of cards for RotR, S&S, and the Fighter CD). This would allow for all characters from the classic APs and various decks to be included in a single set of somewhere around 112 cards, and for the Core characters (Core Set, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and We Be Heroes) to be collected into a separate set (of far fewer cards). Alternately, they could make the cards available by AP/deck using the existing artwork (i.e., with the AP/deck indicators) - this solution is easier for Paizo/Lone Shark, I suppose.

Seasons Sets
Only a few of the Seasons APs had cards released. It would be great for all of the remaining Seasons to similarly have cards released.

Personally, I would purchase each of these if they became available (except for the Cards for Characters, but only because I have all the APs and decks). I have recently turned a new group of players on to the game and their options are limited because of the limited availability of most products. I allow them to use anything that I have, but they are unable to go out on their own and find most of the products. I imagine that there are other players out there that might similarly benefit from such products becoming available.

I’d probably even be willing to do the work necessary to make this happen if Paizo/Lone Shark were willing but unable to support it due to lack of resources (assuming I had the necessary software and images, of course).

I just wanted to get this off my chest.

On the first question, I see the “Banish any that remain at the end of the scenario” instruction as only applying when the Emerald Codex is buried and the resulting spells are displayed. If the Emerald Codex is banished and the resulting spells are added to a character’s hand, they are then played as normal and are not automatically banished at the end of the scenario.

In most cases, using a spell is a simple banish/discard/recharge/whatever usage. In such cases, when you bury the Emerald Codex and display the resulting spells, the normal usage is replaced with banish; and if you are playing by the Core Set rules, you ignore the prospect of recovery. In cases where use of the spell requires that it be displayed somewhere, simply use some sort of marker to keep track of it and then banish the spell once it is no longer needed or at the end of the scenario.

To directly answer your question, no, if the cards (spells) are added [to your hand] by banishing the Emerald Codex, they are not banished at the end of the scenario.

On the second question, the choice of whether to banish or bury the Emerald Codex really comes down to your strategy with assigning and using the card and, more importantly, which character has the card. The overall decision to banish or bury the Emerald Codex depends upon whether or not the Divine spellcasters in your party have the spells that they need/want. If your Divine spellcasters have the spells that you need/want, burying the Emerald Codex to display the resulting spells and then banish them at the end of the scenario makes sense. You can then re-use the Emerald Codex in subsequent scenarios, basically getting three free spells per game, with those spells being usable throughout the game and not depending upon being in someone’s hand (only after the Emerald Codex finally appears in the owner’s hand, of course). Conversely, if you have any Divine spellcasters whose repertoire of spells is sub-par and want to try to round those spells out without relying upon encountering and acquiring boons, banishing the Emerald Codex to get spells that might be kept at the end of the scenario can be an effective strategy; and this works best when a Divine spellcaster uses the card, putting the resulting spells directly in their hand without relying on needing characters to be at the same location or having to wait until rebuilding decks at the end of the scenario.

To directly answer your question, you would use the banish option for the Emerald Codex if you don’t need more/better spells and are just looking to have some freebie Divine spells for the scenario.

My personal strategy with the Emerald Codex is to give it to a non-Divine spellcaster, using the bury option when using it. This gives that character three spells and expands the total number of Divine spells that the party has available at any one time. Those spells are banished after they are used (regardless of their normal usage) and any that aren’t used are banished at the end of the scenario. The character can then do this in subsequent scenarios.

Personally, the card would be clearer if it were worded as:

Banish this card to add 3 random Divine spells from the box to your hand. You may instead bury this card to display the spells; you may banish any of these cards for its effect as though you had played it as a spell; banish any that remain at the end of the scenario.

(Keeping the legacy language)

If I were going to convert this card to Core Set language, it would look something like:

Banish this card to draw 3 Divine spells from the vault. You may instead bury this card to display the spells; you may banish any of these cards for its effect as though you had played it, ignoring its During Recovery power; banish any such displayed cards at the end of the scenario.

Only if you use a power that explicitly says that you can do that. For example, Rise of the Runelords Harsk has the following power:

You may recharge a card to add 1d4 ( +1) ( +2) to a combat check at another location.

The key there is "...to a combat check at another location."

Core Harsk has a similar power:

On any combat check, you may recharge a card or reload a weapon to add
1d4 (□ 1d6).

The key there is "On any combat check..." (as opposed to just a "local" combat check).

Assuming you're willing to use the converted character rules that are posted at the Board Game Geek (see this discussion for details, this post has links to each of the files), the only ones you need are those for which there are other cards that specific characters need, such as Cohorts. That definitely includes the Wrath of the Righteous and Mummy's Mask APs, but I think Skull & Shackles might have a few, too (and/or the character add-on decks for those APs); the Magus, Summoner, and Witch class decks. You would also need both Occult Adventures character decks, the Pathfinder Adventures character deck, all five of the "Ultimate" add-on decks, and both Goblins decks (since these decks include characters of classes that aren't in the Core Set and Curse of the Crimson Throne AP). To be clear, all of the characters from official legacy products have been updated via the Core Conversion project and are available for free download, so the part this is missing is the Cohorts (for which I'm planning another Core Conversion project).

Unless a power specifies otherwise, cards come from your hand (see the Core Set Rulebook, top of page 8, right column).

When an effect says "you" it is limited to the character using the power (character/role power, card power, location power, etc.). Powers that may affect other characters will use the "any/another [local/distant] character" verbiage.

I think that worrying about crowdfunding sites is putting the cart before the horse. A key to every successful crowdfunding effort is that there is a solid plan in place. The people conducting the campaign know what they can produce at different funding thresholds and develop the campaign accordingly. At this point we don't even have a product. More importantly, we don't even know if Paizo/Lone Shark would approve of a crowdfunded campaign for a community-developed product for their game/IP. Even if they were amenable to that, I'm pretty sure that they would want to know what the end product would look like (content and appearance) beforehand. We really need to focus on the content.

In my opinion, our priorities should be:

1. Figuring out what we can develop. This narrows down the list of potential projects.

2. Figuring out what of the above people are most interested in helping to develop. This reduces the list of potential projects even further, getting it down to those that might actually be completed as a community effort.

3. Prioritizing/sequencing the above.

4. Figuring out our methodology for conducting each project.

5. Executing each project in turn (some might be conducted concurrently).

The default for each project is that it would be developed as a product that could be downloaded and printed in accordance with the CUP. Anything above and beyond that (e.g., Drive Thru Cards, publication via Paizo, etc.) is pie in the sky. Don't get me wrong - it would be great to see any of our community developed efforts actually published. I just think that we're setting ourselves up for disappointment if we make that the default expectation. Simply adding to the body of PACG content and helping other hobbyists to continue enjoying the game via community effort is a very realistic goal.

My assumption at this point is that the copyright won't change, preserving our current restrictions.

Some things I'm curious about have to do with what kind of help we might get from Paizo/Lone Shark. Something I would love to see is the files they had showing the templates for rules wordings to help us as we expand upon the game (both classic and core). Those, too, might be a bit much to expect, however. I think a reasonable minimum would be the occasional nudge to keep us from deviating from what is allowed and to push us beyond friction points. Regular input from Paizo/Lone Shark isn't something I really expect to see. PACG is being supported as a legacy system, not something that will be actively supported - they now have other things to focus on so we should really just be thankful for the occasional bit of input without expecting them to hold our hands.

Unless something changes, I think this is going to be up to us.

I would much rather see a discussion on any future of the ACG being held somewhere other than on the Paizo forums, so it immediately apparent that it isn't in any way an "Official Paizo" channel. The OPF Discord server has made it clear that any discussion there should be limited to PACS play, so that venue isn't an option. Maybe Board Game Geek?

In order to keep this discussion on elcoderdude's intended purpose (requesting an explanation from Paizo/Lone Shark), I've responded to this here (where we're discussing what the community might do to sustain the game).

After reading Keith Richmond's reply to the question about why the PACG will no longer be supported, I'm wondering if the future of PACG is virtual.

The primary explanation attributed to the decision to cancel PACG was money. Assuming I'm understanding this portion correctly, insufficient products were selling to recoup the cost to print the game. I know that many players have taken to Tabletop Simulator, especially since early 2020. Could future development of PACG, whether official or unofficial, shift over to TTS as a means of sustaining the game?

Alternately (or additionally), could the print version of the game become a sandbox game? A core set might be vastly expanded, providing much more variety and progression. The game would then be driven by more support for customization (building on the strong foundation established in the Core Set). Expansions might then be AP-based, or might be thematic (e.g., adding Tian, the Darklands, etc.) with smaller boxes. Using this model, a lot could be done to expand the game following the model of the PACS, with scenario/adventure/adventure path storybooks downloaded instead of being printed. This might support a lot more homegrown stuff, especially things like we see in the Tangents discussion (project?).

The latter idea sounds like it would run into the same financial problems that the current model has, so I'm just spitballing ideas...

Note that I've flagged this discussion as being in the wrong forum. This isn't an issue that is solely of interest to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society: it's of general interest to the entire Pathfinder Adventure Card Game community. In my opinion, it belongs in the General Discussion forum.

As for the two issues that TwilightKnight identified, I think that there is the main object of this discussion - requesting some sort of explanation for the cancellation of the game (and Keith gave us a bit of that). All of the anecdotes are simply methods of expressing how much certain individuals enjoy the game and the community, and these are simply representations of what many others have done and how they feel about the game. The other issue, that of saving the game, is being addressed in other discussions. I wouldn't say that the two are unrelated, however. Keith's response, for example, gives us some insight into concepts that might have been pursued if the decision hadn't been made (?) to cancel the game; and these insights might help the community in any efforts to continue developing content for the game (especially if Paizo/Lone Shark give us the freedom to pursue things).

Lastly, I really appreciate seeing Keith's perspective on things. The pathos of the explanation helps to remind all of us that things are a lot more complicated than we might want to believe. More importantly, the decision (?) wasn't made lightly or without any consideration for the community, but was instead made by people who respect and understand the community and who feel the loss just as, or perhaps more, keenly as any of us.

I've read the posts multiple times. The only official statement is the one you quoted in the first post from Tonya Woldridge stating that they (Paizo) were "winding down" the PACG program. There is no explanation there. None of the replies with explanations are from Paizo or Lone Shark personnel. The limited Paizo/Lone Shark replies play nicely with the community, but don't explain anything. Even the replies from Venture X personnel are ambiguous (and I'm not sure if Venture X members even have standing to provide an official explanation). There may be some communications via email or PM that I'm not privy to; and there may be communications at other sites like BGG, Discord, and Reddit that I also haven't seen - I'm only basing my speculation on what I've seen (and not seen) in the public forums here at Paizo and at Lone Shark sites. Knowing how vocal Lone Shark can be (re: their position on Kickstarter), I would have expected something from them here or on their website or via Mike Selinker's Twitter feed, which I've checked several times. Instead there is just radio silence.

So while there are people that know the ins and outs of the decision and what led to it, I'm not among them and nothing I can see in anything here or elsewhere gives me a solid indication. Even my speculation is just a gut feeling without any real evidence to back it up (beyond doing some non-Boolean geometry to put things together). It could very well be that the reason is as many have speculated - a purely financial decision on the part of Paizo. However, that doesn't resonate with me as the sole reason (if that is even part of the reason).

All I've seen is very limited and very guarded communications that indicate [to me] that none of the parties involved want to tell us the full reasoning behind the decision. They might have very good reasons for doing that. I'm giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the limited communications and lack of an explanation are Paizo and Lone Shark putting a professional front on a situation that may have been very ugly (and I respect that professionalism even while I hate the actual decision).

All that said, if Paizo/Lone Shark ever decide to give us an explanation, I'll be right there with everyone else that would like to hear it, giving it my full attention. If they don't, however, I can only assume that there is a good reason that they don't want to because, as has been said, the lack of an explanation is out of character for everyone involved. This is a company (two companies, actually) that treat their customers with a great deal of respect; not giving an explanation is telling in its own way. And if they don't want to tell us (for whatever reason), pestering them for an explanation may be counterproductive. That's not to undermine this effort, however. It's reasonable for us to respectfully request a more detailed explanation, after all.

As I said before, though, I'm personally not going to get bogged down in worrying about the explanation, whether it's good, bad, or ugly. I just wonder what we can do to keep the game alive.

I was extremely disappointed to see that there would be no future official products for PACG. It's a game that I enjoy very much. More importantly for me, it's one that my wife also enjoys and the two of us spent considerable time working through the various APs. Our extended PACG gaming group includes my wife's sister and her husband (he first introduced us to the game). The replay value of the game is very good, though, so we'll continue to get mileage out of all of the products that we have.

PACG has so much potential for expansion and continued development, drawing as it does on an RPG with such a richly developed world and numerous expansions. PACG could realistically have been developed for decades to come. I could even have seen a Starfinder Adventure Card Game.

I'm in the group that has bought *everything* for the game: every AP, corrected cards from Drive Thru Cards, every character deck, every Society scenario/adventure/adventure path, even sleeves for every card and The Broken Token organizers for each of the classic APs. And then there are all of the homegrown things that I, like many others, have developed: a lazy Susan board, standees, tracking sheets, etc. In addition, although I don't play the RPG, I've bought a ton of the books for that game in order to better understand the setting and to facilitate my own efforts at homegrown stuff like characters and adventures. I even duplicated all of the FAQ pages and the Core Conversion Guide as an offline web page so that we can check rules even if we don't have access to the Internet. Aside from the lazy Susan, boxes, and binders with the Society S/A/AP, I have everything in a tackle box that would support a small convention (including different colored dice for each player). So I consider myself to be one of the crazy/committed players of the game.

All that said, while an explanation from the horse's mouth would be great for giving us some understanding and closure, I'm not expecting one. While I don't have any inside contacts and no evidence whatsoever, I suspect that larger issues were at play, especially considering the very strong views of the individuals involved and the real world events that took place between the release of the Core Set and the announcement of PACG becoming a legacy game (keep in mind where Paizo and Lone Shark are located). I'd rather not dwell on that stuff - politics can be very polarizing and I don't want them interfering with my hobby. Indeed, enjoying the game with people whose views might differ from my own is one of the great positive aspects of the boardgaming hobby, demonstrating that we don't all have to think alike and that we can still get along and have a great time despite those differences. If that's what it was (and I don't have any basis for my suspicions), I'd rather just move on.

My focus is on possible futures for PACG. I doubt I'm alone in holding out hope that Paizo/Lone Shark might one day reverse this decision and continue developing official products for the game. That would really be my ideal outcome. If Paizo/Lone Shark won't develop anything further, however, might the community take up the torch in a semi-official capacity? I've seen this done with a few other games when developers have dropped them, with varying degrees of success. If Paizo is interested in continuing PACG and Lone Shark made the decision to stop, might Lone Shark hand the game off to some other group to continue official development in partnership with Paizo?

Personally, while I am extremely disappointed about the development, I don't have any hard feelings towards anyone. I assume that everyone involved had great plans for the future of PACG, but then the real world stepped in and plans changed. Ultimately, I think that the great community was the thing that made the decision hard for Paizo/Lone Shark - I'm certain that they felt/feel bad about the impact on the community, but that the decision was right for them (whoever "they" are). Things happen and we need to cope with them and move on. I'm more interested in the moving on: what can we do to see this great game survive and, hopefully, thrive?

Also note that there are other characters besides WotR Balazar that can get Thurl and Inhaz in their hands by cornering and defeating that villain. Summoner CD Balazar and Nyctessa (Hell's Vengeance 2) have similar powers.

There may be some other cards whose powers similarly allow a character to add a monster to their discards/hand/deck instead of banishing it, but I haven't done a deep dive on all of the cards.

1) While you are free to play a scenario again (and again and again...), once you have successfully completed a scenario and gained the reward, you may not gain the reward again for a subsequent successful completion of the scenario. What the Traitor's Lodge reward allows is for you to not gain the reward and to play the scenario again, gaining the reward upon a subsequent successful completion of the scenario. So if you successfully complete the scenario, you look at all of the cards under the scenario card. If you want any of them, you gain them and cannot replay the scenario for the reward again. If you don't want any of them, you may choose to replay the scenario again to potentially gain a useful boon after a subsequent successful completion of the scenario. It's all about getting the boon(s) you want/need (so some might not consider that a waste of time).

2) This can only happen if the character that defeats Thurl and Inhaz is the summoner Balazar. Normally when you defeat a villain, it escapes to another location or is banished (and when it is the only villain, you win). Thurl and Inhaz are the preliminary villain in the Vengeance at Sundered Crag scenario (B), but you don't win the scenario after cornering and defeating Thurl and Inhaz. When you defeat and corner Thurl and Inhaz,you summon and build the location Watchtower, shuffling the villain Tancred Desimire into that location. Balazar has the power "When you defeat a monster and would banish it, you may add it to your hand instead." So if Balazar defeats Thurl and Inhaz (when the villain is cornered), Balazar may add Thurl and Inhaz to his hand. Later, Balazar can give Thurl and Inhaz to another local character.

Yeah I am missing Harsk and Kyra from the core set I finally opened after a year. Kinda bummed

Luckily, you can download the character sheets here.

I’ve uploaded some files to help others in presenting their homebrew characters and cohorts. The zip file includes a character/cohort template (Microsoft Word file) and a portrait workbook (Photoshop psd).

The template is based on the character sheets in the Core Set and the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP.

I’ve used the Arial Narrow font for most of the text. If you are willing to pay the money, I recommend replacing the Arial Narrow font with the GoodOT-CondNews font (or something similar), keeping the font sizes the same. Leave the character/cohort race/name and role fonts as Impact; and leave the checkboxes in the Wingdings 2 font.

You can use the psd file to create portraits similar to those on the official sheets. I recommend that the background of the interior be either white or use a background/texture of your choice. The red layer is used to cut out all of the portrait frame and portrait that you don’t need – if you want the portrait frame to appear as it does on the official sheets (i.e., with the right side cut off). The instructions for re-sizing the image appear in the red instruction box on the sheet. The placement measurements can be wonky and really depend upon where you place the cursor when you insert the image – the easiest thing to do is to manually place the portrait so that it covers the silhouette image that appears on the template, move the portrait to the back, delete the silhouette image, then move the portrait to the front (you’ll know when you forget to do the last step because the lines from the hand size section will appear in front of the portrait). The finished portrait image is deliberately larger than you'll need, allowing the image to be shrunk down to size without (hopefully) looking too bad (not everyone has vector image editors, so I kept it rasterized).

The darker green color used for the character sheets is from the legacy PACG character cards. The lighter green color used for the cohort sheets matches (hopefully) the color used on the core cohort cards.

There is an extra blank page at the end. The finished sheet(s) should be saved as a .pdf, then the pages you don’t need can be deleted.

The zip file is available at the Board Game Geek: link

I've uploaded some files to help others in presenting their homebrew scenarios, adventures, and adventure paths. Each zip file includes a storybook template and a file with the RGB and hexadecimal codes for the various colors used on the cards. The templates and RGB files are Microsoft Word documents.

The legacy template is based on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society organized play booklets, but where each of those only includes only one adventure, the template allows for an entire adventure path a la the Core Set storybooks. The file can be modified to include just a single adventure or even just a single scenario.

You'll need to download the TiepoloITC font. This font is available for free download online. In addition, I've used the Gill Sans Nova and Times New Roman fonts, both of which are probably already on your computer (or you can download them for free). The Gill Sans Nova font is a substitute for the Dax fonts, which you have to pay for.

The core template is based on the storybooks in both the Core Set and the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP. This file, too, covers an entire adventure path, but can be modified to include just a single adventure or single scenario.

This file uses the Arial Nova Cond Light font, which is probably already on your computer (or you can download it for free). This is a substitute for the GoodOT font family, which you have to pay for (I used the GoodOT-CondNews font).

For both storybook versions, the RBG/hexadecimal color codes are based on swatches taken from the cards shown on the Paizo blog. There is some variation in those colors so I tried to find the average values for each.

Both zipped files are available at the Board Game Geek and you are free to modify them in any way that you want:

Legacy (uploaded to the Rise of the Runelords files)
Core (uploaded to the Core Set files)

In the project to convert the legacy characters to core rules, the result was to change that power to:

□ While you attempt a check to acquire (□ or would banish) a card whose level is no more than #-2, you may recharge a blessing to gain the skill Divine: Charisma +2 and you are proficient with Divine.

You can download the final version of her converted character sheet at the Board Game Geek (and you can see links to all of the final versions here). Note that the sheets developed in that project are unofficial, but there was developer input.

There are three different deck types that you're talking about. The first are the character versions that come in the AP, and these will have the "B" in the top right corner. The second are the character versions that come in the character add-on decks for each of the APs, and these will have the "C" in the top right corner. Note that the characters in an AP's base set and its character add-on deck aren't duplicated - there are 11 unique characters for an AP when the 7 in the base set and 4 in the character add-on deck are combined (and some APs also had promo characters marked with a "P" in the top right corner). The third type of deck that you're talking about is the class deck/character deck/ultimate add-on deck, and these will have the "B" in the top right corner. Each of the class/character/ultimate add-on decks included version of the iconic characters for the class(es) they covered, with the exceptions of the Goblins (Burn! and Fight!) and the Pathfinder Tales decks. Since the first three APs only used iconic characters, you'll see duplication of those characters across APs and class/character/ultimate add-on decks. In addition, you may find two or three other characters from the same class, each very different from the iconic characters in that class/character deck (the ultimate add-on decks only included one character).

The different versions of the characters are all the same character, re-imagined each time. They're variations on a theme. For example, there are three different versions of Ezren in the legacy sets: Rise of the Runelords AP, Wizard Class Deck, and Mummy's Mask AP. Each of these versions has the character card and the role card, associated with each other by the deck indicator in the top left corner (i.e., the Rise of the Runelords logo, the Wizard Class Deck logo, or the Mummy's Mask logo). The character card and corresponding role card may only be used with each other - you can't mix and match the character cards and role cards. The versions in the adventure paths typically have one of their roles well suited to the challenges of the AP in terms of powers and theme, with the other role being a bit more general in nature. The version and roles in the class decks, meanwhile, are generic explorations of other themes.

You may use any version of the character (character & role card) in any AP/OP season that you want, using both the whole way through the AP/OP season.

https://paizo.com/pacg/conversion

I've read through this blog post twice now and will undoubtedly read it several more times. That's not because I'm confused (debatable). Rather, it's because this post provides more insight than any other PACG blog post that I can think of in terms of the complex thought process used in crafting the rules for this game.

That and the invitation to playtest the latest version of the card, especially when coupled with the invitation to playtest Thargrap, gives me a glimmer of hope that we haven't seen the end of PACG products.

Note that I've quoted this suggestion in the Core Set Version Character Sheets for Legacy Characters? project.

The amendment I would make to the suggestion would be to change the wording to:

□ At the start or end of your turn, if another local character has a bane displayed next to their deck or is suffering a scourge, you may display the bane next to your deck or suffer the scourge instead.

On other character sheets and the rulebook, "scourge" is not capitalized. Also, while not of significant meaning in the context of this power, the legacy wording "another character at your location" converts to "another local character" in Core.

With Thargrap, we now have the possibility of slightly more well-rounded all half-orc party choosing from the following seven characters (assuming multiple versions of the same character aren't take (e.g., not including both S&S and CD Oloch):

Thargrap (Summoner - Arcane caster) (blog)
Oloch (Warpriest - Divine caster) (S&S or CD)
Imrijka (Inquisitor - Divine caster) (WotR or CD)
Drelm (Cleric - Divine caster) (MM)
Korundo (Hunter - Divine caster) (CD)
Koren (Paladin - Divine caster) (CD)
Wrathack (Ranger) (CD)

There are a lot of Divine casters in there (technically, I guess you could include Wrathack in that lot, but she doesn't have either the Divine skill/proficiency and she only has 1 spell, and that only as a feat), so Thargrap breaks the Divine cast bloc by adding an Arcane caster to the group. With Drelm as the resident barrier-breaker, the only thing this team of half-orcs is really missing is high Charisma (they're not repugnant - they're just misunderstood). And they're all decent at inflicting blunt force trauma on monsters.

I think I know how I want to playtest Thargrap now.

I am really excited for these to be downloadable. I appreciate all the work you put into it.

1. You're not living up (down?) to your name. ;)

The preliminary versions of the sheets are now available at the Board Game Geek. Each is attached to the product it supports (e.g., the characters from the Mummy’s Mask Adventure Path can be found at the Mummy’s Mask Base Set page). The characters released as promotional cards are included in the base sets (e.g., Tup is in the Rise of the Runelords Base Set file).

The links below will take you directly to the files rather than to the product pages.

ADVENTURE PATH BASE SETS
Rise of the Runelords
Skull & Shackles (includes Bikendi Otongu special role)
Wrath of the Righteous
Mummy’s Mask

CLASS DECKS
Alchemist
Barbarian
Bard
Cleric
Druid
Fighter
Gunslinger
Hunter
Inquisitor
Magus
Monk
Oracle
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue
Sorcerer
Summoner
Warpriest
Witch
Wizard

CHARACTER DECKS
Goblins Burn!
Goblins Fight!
Hell’s Vengeance 1
Hell’s Vengeance 2
Occult Adventures 1
Occult Adventures 2
Pathfinder Tales

ADD-ON DECKS
Ultimate Combat (Hayato – Samurai)
Ultimate Equipment (Reiko – Ninja)
Ultimate Intrigue (Aric/The Red Raven – Vigilante)
Ultimate Magic (Enora – Arcanist)
Ultimate Wilderness ( Zova – Shifter)

OTHERS
Nok-Nok (Pathfinder Kingmaker Promo)
Mnesoset (Season of Plundered Tombs special role – under Mummy’s Mask Base Set)

I’ll take feedback from these files and incorporate them into the final version.

The Pathfinder Adventures game plays like PACG Rise of the Runelords. There are some bugs - sometimes they help you and sometimes they hurt you; but things mostly work the way they should. The game works through the Rise of the Runelords AP, but you can also download a few additional mini-adventures (two for goblins and one for a party that includes Valeros).

You will mostly be limited to the characters found in the Rise of the Runelords AP, along with the gnome fighter Tontelizi from the Fighter CD (DLC) and some goblins (DLC). There are also some additional skins for characters (e.g., fancy versions of the basic characters and goblin versions of them) that you can download; and there are some special boons that aren't available in the PACG.

It's a nice filler when you want to get your PACG fix but can't rustle up anyone else to play with (or don't want to take the time to set up and break down the physical game). If you like PACG RotR, you'll probably enjoy Pathfinder Adventures, and vice versa.

You can find a lot of information at Obsidian's site, link here.

An index of the links to the sheets will be included in a subsequent post once they are all approved at the BGG.

I haven’t updated the online version of the spreadsheet because Google.docs hates me (it’s far more likely that I’m being dumb, but it’s easier to blame it on Google ;) ) and it will take too long to update the sheet manually. I found a few errors from the previous version of the spreadsheet – mostly missing feat boxes, missing hand size feats, and empty hand size entries on the converted versions. There may be a few updates that I missed in my effort to get the sheets finished quickly.

In an effort to speed things up (I’ve been embarrassingly slow in getting these done), I’m crowd-sourcing the final review. The initial versions are preliminary, but they’re good enough for use. The final versions will be based on any corrections that need to be made (despite my best efforts, I’m pretty sure that some errors have snuck past me), revisions to the format (see below), and any guidance from the developers.

These sheets were created in Microsoft Word (360) and saved in .pdf format. If you view them in Adobe (and perhaps in other pdf viewers) you’ll see small artifacts in the Deck List section where vertical borders would appear. These only show up on the computer monitor, but haven’t shown up on any print versions in my tests. While I tried to get the appearance as close as possible to that of the official sheets in the Core set, issues of text legibility/readability forced me to make things a bit bigger. While they remain close to the official sheets in terms of appearance, the small formatting changes and the disclaimers at the bottom [should] make it clear that these are unofficial.

If you see any errors on any of the sheets, please list them here so that I can correct them.

The following sheets have silhouette placeholders instead of the portraits because the character images aren’t allowed by the Community Use Policy (i.e., the images aren’t part of the package and/or haven’t been depicted in Paizo’s online blog posts):

- Ahmotep (Mummy’s Mask AP character)
- Arueshalae (Wrath of the Righteous AP character)
- Bikendi Otongu (Skull & Shackles AP role)
- Channa Ti (Mummy’s Mask AP character)
- Mnesoset (Season of Plundered Tombs role – no image found online)
- Nok-Nok (Kingmaker Promo card character)*
- Simoun (Mummy’s Mask AP character)

* Note that I’ve used the Kingmaker AP logo from the Community Use package because the logo on the card isn’t covered/allowed under the CUP.

The following sheets use only the plain text AP/deck names because the logos aren’t included in the Community Use package:

- Mnesoset (Season of Plundered Tombs role)
- Occult Adventures 1 class deck (Estra, Meligaster, Rivani)
- Occult Adventures 2 class deck (Erasmus, Mavaro, Yoon)
- Ultimate Combat add-on deck (Hayato)
- Ultimate Equipment add-on deck (Reiko)
- Ultimate Intrigue add-on deck (Aric/The Red Raven)
- Ultimate Magic add-on deck (Enora)
- Ultimate Wilderness add-on deck (Zova)

As far as I know, all of the other portraits and AP/deck logos are allowed by the CUP. If I’m mistaken about any, please let me know here so that I can fix the sheets.

There are sheets for all of the characters/roles on the sheet, including those are still marked for discussion (red). The issues up for discussion are highlighted in yellow on the relevant sheets, and each of these will require developer guidance:

BIKENDI OTONGU (Skull & Shackles AP role)
This role isn’t covered in the Conversion Guide. The issue up for discussion is updating the proficiencies, especially whether or not to add Arcane. I’ve included Arcane on the sheet based on the precedent of the other characters for which this proficiency was added. As a special role that comes up during the adventure path, however, the loss of the Light Armors proficiency doesn’t result in a hand size feat since this role doesn’t have any feats.

COGSNAP (Alchemist CD)
The last power on the Bloodbomber role uses the “freely” verbiage discussed here (proposed earlier in the discussion), and highlighted in yellow on the sheet. The other version of the wording is on the spreadsheet in case we need to revert to it.

FEIYA (Witch CD)
A role on the Beast-Bonder role is highlighted yellow although it currently shows the wording from the Core Conversion Guide. The outstanding issue is Slacker2010’s proposed wording.

SEONI (Wrath of the Righteous)
This is the lone holdout from the proposal to add the recovery pile to some characters. While the proposal was struck down, Chad Brown mentioned that he was considering a variant of the proposal for this character. Nothing further was said on the issue, so I haven’t included the proposed addition on the sheet (i.e., the sheet says what it should). I’ve left this marked for discussion in case there is any further word. The power remains highlighted in yellow on the sheet, however, just in case there is an official change (the final version won’t be highlighted).

There are a few formatting issues that are up for discussion. Ideally, I’d like to get a consensus within a week or two so that I can implement any changes in the final versions.

1. Color

I’ve used a green color that matches as closely as possible that used for the character cards in the Core set. There was some discussion in the initial reviews about using different colors since the Core set uses a green and the Curse of the Crimson Throne uses a maroon. However, I didn’t want to be chasing colors around in an effort to use a different color from whatever Paizo/Lone Shark decide to use in subsequent sets – I want to use a single color for all of these sheets, and it will be the same color that I use on the template and any homegrown characters I come up with. I personally prefer the green, but the consensus might be that a blue (matching the blue used by the legacy sheets) would be better.

One of my efforts to keep these from looking too official was to change the color of the swirl at the top from the brown that is used on both the Core and Curse of the Crimson Throne character sheets to a green that matches the character portrait frame. I might change both the swirl and the portrait from to match the color of the rest of the formatting.

The choices are the current green or the legacy blue, based on consensus (unless the developers provide guidance, which will override our opinions).

2. POWERS Font Size and Line Spacing

The current font size is 10 pt, with 3 pts between lines. This is as close as my eyeballs can get to the official sheets, allowing for legibility/readability and content area. There is at least one sheet that has so much text that I had to reduce that one to 9.5 pt font, retaining the 3 pts between lines. If the 3 pt line spacing isn’t enough (i.e., if it’s difficult to visually separate the different powers), I can change the font size to 9.5 pts and increase the line spacing (I’ll start with 4 pts, increasing up to 5 pts or 6 pts if necessary). I’ll determine this using the sheet that currently has the 9.5 pt font, figuring out which line spacing works in the current text box without coming overlapping with or too close to the bottom text boxes.

3. AP/Deck Plain Text

The plain text name was added after the initial review because the deck logos aren’t universally understood. Also, there are some decks whose logos can’t be used (e.g., none of the “Ultimate” add-on decks’ logos can be used, nor can the Occult Adventures class deck logos). I included them on all of the sheets, including those whose logos include text (e.g., the adventure paths, the Hell’s Vengeance CDs).

Do we need the plain text name for those decks whose logos include text? Or is that redundant?

If Paizo ever adds any of the characters/logos to the Community Use Package, I’ll update the sheets. Similarly, if future updates occur to the FAQs and/or the Core Conversion Guide, I’ll make those updates to the sheets, too.

Once the sheets are finalized, they’ll be added to the Community Use Registry. I will probably create a new topic for the final version just so that people don’t have to search through 8+ pages of discussion to find the actual links. I’ll also finalize the online version of the spreadsheet at that time.

As far as providing a template goes, the one I provide will be based on the final version. Unfortunately, the licenses for the special fonts don’t allow me to provide those, so the template version will change some fonts. I’ll include instructions on which areas use those special fonts in case anyone wants to purchase them in order to get their versions closer to the ones I’ve made. Another potential outcome of this is that the sheets might not look correct to other people if their pdf viewer can’t read the special fonts and converts them into something else. If I can embed the special fonts into the files (both in terms of what the font licenses allow and my feeble brain’s ability to figure out how to actually embed fonts), I’ll do that.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

It has taken me much longer to get these sheets done than I'd hoped, but I'm *almost* there. Instead of releasing them in a trickle (which is what I think I promised earlier), I decided to release them all at once, so I have to slog through the whole pile before anyone sees anything resembling progress.

My main concern was the portraits, but a response from Vic Wertz in the Community Use forum said that cropping is fine, so I think we're in the clear.

The sheets look as close to the official ones as I can get, though the formatting is a bit wider and I've incorporated the disclaimers required by the CUP (which should address concerns about trying to pass these off as official).

The only sheets I have to be careful with are those for which the character image or the deck logo are not in the CUP. For those characters, there will be a silhouette in place of the actual image. For the logos, there will be a plain text logo.

I've made some adjustments based on feedback, and seeing the card for Thargrap (who I've added to the Summoner deck) made me realize that I'd goofed on the cohort cell (somehow I missed the example of Varrian's card). So I've adjusted my template (which adds some steps in creating the sheets, but ensures standardization for the future.

There are still some issues that I think are unresolved. I'm making the sheets for those characters, but the unresolved issues will be highlighted. I'll also list them all here. If/when those issues are resolved, the sheets will be updated with the final versions.

Once I get all of the sheets finished (this is my priority effort right now, except when my wife tells me that I have other priorities ;) ), I'll upload them to the BGG and will provide an index here and in the Community Use index. For those with unresolved issues, the issues will be identified at the BGG.

I don't have any authority to answer on behalf of the PACS, so I'll defer that answer to the powers that be.

The Release information says that this product will be available for sale in August 2019, yet I haven't seen it available since before that time. Will this product ever be made available for purchase?

Technically, Hirgenzosk, a really big dragon turtle, would be a swimming island. ;)

Paizo's Community Use Policy

Short answer - the Core Set is separate from the Mummy's Mask AP (i.e., the Mummy's Mask AP is played without the Core Set - there's no need to convert it into the Core Set rules).

The Core set doesn't help you with the legacy adventure paths (Rise of the Runelords, Skull & Shackles, Wrath of the Righteous, and Mummy's Mask). If you want to play any of those legacy adventure paths, you'll need the appropriate base set (the big box with the B and 1 adventures) as well as each of the related adventure decks (2-6 for each AP). If you can find them, I also recommend getting the Character Add-On deck for the AP(s) that you get. You can also use each AP with one or more of the organized play "Season of" adventure paths.

I've listed all of the adventure paths just in case you consider them, but you can just skip down to the Mummy's Mask listing if that's all you're interested in.

RISE OF THE RUNELORDS Base Set
B - Perils of the Lost Coast (included in the base set)
1 - Burnt Offerings (included in the base set)
C - Rise of the Runelords Character Add-On Deck (optional)
2 - The Skinsaw Murders
3 - The Hook Mountain Massacre
4 - Fortress of the Stone Giants
5 - Sins of the Saviors
6 - Spires of Xin-Shalast

You'll also need this AP for the following organized play adventure paths:

Season of the Runelords
Season of the Goblins

SKULL & SHACKLES Base Set
B - Plunder and Peril (included in the base set)
1 - The Wormwood Mutiny (included in the base set)
C - Skull & Shackles Character Add-On Deck (optional)
2 - Raiders of the Fever Sea
3 - Tempest Rising
4 - Island of the Empty Eyes
5 - The Price of Infamy
6 - From Hell's Heart

You'll also need this AP for the following organized play adventure paths:

Season of the Shackles
Season of Tapestry's Tides

WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS Base Set
B - Into the Worldwound (included in the base set)
1 - The Worldwound Incursion (included in the base set)
C - Wrath of the Righteous Character Add-On Deck (optional)
2 - Sword of Valor
3 - Demon's Heresy
4 - The Midnight Isles
5 - Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth
6 - City of Locusts

You'll also need this AP for the following organized play adventure path:

Season of the Rigtheous

MUMMY'S MASK Base Set
B - Cross the Pharoah's Land (included in the base set)
1 - The Half-Dead City (included in the base set)
C - Mummy's Mask Character Add-On Deck (optional)
2 - Empty Graves
3 - Shifting Sands
4 - Secrets of the Sphinx
5 - The Slave Trenches of Hakotep
6 - Pyramid of the Sky Pharoah

You'll also need this AP for the following organized play adventure paths:

Season of Plundered Tombs
Season of Faction's Favor

CORE SET
(You'll need this set for all future adventure paths, starting below)

CURSE OF THE CRIMSON THRONE

You'll also need the Core Set for the following organized play adventure path:

Year of Rotting Ruins
(and presumably any future organized play APs)

The Core Set is only going to help you with the Curse of the Crimson Throne and future APs.

All that said, you can convert the Mummy's Mask rules using the Core Set Conversion Guide if you want, but it's not necessary. The only reasons I can see to do this are (1) if you decide to use characters from the Core Set or the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP in the Mummy's Mask AP, or (2) if the members of the playing group only know how to play using the Core Set rules. Converting can create some areas of confusion, though. My personal opinion of the conversion guide is that it's really for when you want to use legacy decks (e.g., the various class/character/add-on/ultimate decks) when playing through the Core Set, Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, etc. If you're only using legacy cards/characters, though, converting is probably more trouble than it's worth in most cases. YMMV

Yes, you can use all of the legacy character decks with the Core Set. The Conversion Guide generally covers issues where the legacy cards need to be translated. The backs of the cards are the same (though there are some variations in the colors from the printing process, noticeable in the various shades of red that appear).

You might check out our project to convert the legacy characters into Core Set wording here (the actual spreadsheet with the current versions of the changes can be seen here). That's a fan-driven project, not official, but the developer team has given us a lot of input. This project only affects the characters, not the boons.

I made a few updates to the spreadsheet (marking the Bard CD, Cleric CD, and two Fighter CD characters as "preliminary" with the green fill color).

>>>Pictures!!!<<<

More importantly, if you scroll down, you'll see preview versions of what the Bard CD sheets might look like. I did my best to come as close in appearance to the official sheets as possible, though I'm working in Microsoft Word so there are some small differences. It occurred to me after I finished the Bard CD sheets that it would be prudent to get approval from Paizo/Lone Shark on everything (especially the portraits) before moving forward. It will be far easier to fix the template and a few sheets than it will be to fix every sheet. Yes, that preview is deliberately too small to use. Once I get the green light from Paizo/Lone Shark, I'll churn these things out as quickly as possible. I originally put the sheet images at the bottom of the page, but Google.Docs moved them up so that they now appear at a random spot on the spreadsheet (one image showing all four sheets, so you'll know when you find it). Don't get me started on my experience with Google.Docs this morning - apparently I offended it so it's making life difficult for me today.

In the meantime, I'm going through the discussion to make sure that I implement all of the changes that we've been given guidance on. You can still see a few characters in red. I think that most of those have to do with the recovery pile issue, which Vic/Mike gave official guidance on and which I need to implement.

I very much apologize, I feel kind of like an arse for my comment now...

There's nothing to apologize for. If anything, I should be apologizing to you and everyone else for taking so long to get the sheets done.

You did bring up one very good idea which I hadn't considered before: Drive Thru Cards

Honestly, I don't know if we're allowed to do that, but if we are, I'll make it happen. I'm going to get the pdf character sheets done first because those are much more accessible and will be free, whereas cards from DTC might be an expensive proposition. If we can do it, though, I'll gladly make it happen for those that are willing/able to fork out the money for cards.

As for the sheets, they're not too difficult to do. The only real cost is time, especially because I don't want to rush out a sub-optimal product.

Is it too elaborate to convert "Remove Curse" to "remove a displayed card with the Curse trait, or remove a Scourge a character suffered due to a bane with the Curse trait"?

Cards don't have memories, so the only way to do this would be via a marker of some kind. Since that's an addition to the rules, I don't think it's likely.

The more likely scenario I can see is that all/some of the Core scourges are given the Curse trait via FAQ/errata. Either that or Remove Curse is added to the Core Conversion Guide to make it effective against some/all Core scourges.

As has been pointed out, though, we need to evaluate whether the above is even necessary. Pre-Core Remove Curse was necessary in Mummy's Mask because of the nature of that AP and the frequency of and interaction with Curse cards. Core has other methods for removing scourges. Could it be that this is just one of the (many) cases where a card is more or less effective in Core compared to pre-Core and that players need to construct their decks according to the needs of the AP? There are other cards/characters where this concept applies - for example, have fun playing Jirelle in any AP other than Skull & Shackles/Season of the Shackles. It might be that pre-Core Remove Curse is simply going to be a casualty of the changes in Core (I almost called it "the new edition" and then I remembered not to ;) ).

Rather than bringing all of the legacy stuff up to snuff with Core via the Conversion Guide (or FAQ/errata), I look at this as more of an incentive to create new versions of all of the CDs specifically for compatibility with the Core rules. Players with the existing CDs can still use those with the legacy APs, while future releases will be compatible with Core. That's probably better discussed elsewhere (and I think we *have* touched on the issue before) instead of hijacking this topic, however.

Which version of Adowyn/Leryn are you using? I've looked at both WotR and CD Adowyn and I'm not seeing a power that allows Adowyn to explore again after defeating a barrier. I may be missing a FAQ/errata or something, though. Or maybe there's some other power (on a card or for the scenario) that grants the additional exploration from defeating the barrier ... ?

Regardless, assuming you're using the Core Set Rulebook, you probably can't recharge a card to draw displayed Leryn back into your hand, per page 6:

If something grants you an additional exploration, after you finish what you are doing, you must immediately use that exploration or forfeit it.

Recharging a card would interrupt the "immediately" portion, forfeiting the additional exploration.

To everyone involved in making this a reality: Thank you very much.

An immense amount of time and effort goes into something like this and we all appreciate everything you contributed (and will continue to contribute) in this effort. Your dedication and commitment to the hobby and to the community are admirable.

I'm guessing that "Adventure decks" might be the 2-5 decks for the pre-Core adventure paths (AP). For example, The Skinsaw Murders is Adventure Deck 2 for the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Deck 2. If that is correct, then you don't need any of the adventure decks unless you get the corresponding AP; and if you do that, you'll want all of the adventure decks for that AP.

I'm working on the sheets now. The thing that put this on hold was the font (I wanted to use the right one). I sucked it up and bought the font, so now it's time to roll up the sleeves and get the sheets done.

Spreadsheet

I've updated it with all of the current information *except I haven't removed the "or recovery pile" bits yet* (I expect to, but I'm holding out just in case we get a last minute reprieve from the governor).

We’d also love to know if this kind of blog content is of interest. It’ll take time and effort to put lost boons into a usable form, and a lot of work to develop and test the lost characters from class decks, but it may be worth it if enough people would like to see them.

This kind of blog content is of a LOT of interest.

Perhaps "lost" boons (and locations, and mechanics) might be usable in mini-adventures - single deck adventures that might be played without feat rewards, but which give players/characters the opportunity to make slight adjustments from the normal AP progression without adversely affecting balance.

Thanks! (That's to Vic and the developers.) I've updated the spreadsheet, but I haven't uploaded it yet.

The only remaining issues are:

1. (adding "...or recovery pile..." with or without qualifications to some powers)
2. powers/feats that allow movement after closing a location
5. WotR Ekkie's power that invokes the Basic trait
6. MM Mavaro and the Arcane/Divine proficiencies that were added by the Conversion Guide
21. CD Kasmir and whether or not to add the Divine proficiency wording to the power feat that grants him the skill

These are all up to the Developers.

I'm just combing through the rulebook to see if there are any small nuggets we've missed. I should have the current version posted later today.

I used the foam blocks that came with the Core Set. They reduce the free space into which cards/dividers might slip, and they can be adjusted based on the space requirements of whatever AP might be added. Additional foam can be added (though it might not fit quite as snugly) to create similar spacers. A handy source of foam for most gamers can be found in foam miniature storage trays.

You may never explore outside of your explore step.

Key word: "never" (When the rulebook uses the word "never" or "always," nothing can override it.

So the power feat to explore would only be usable during Ezren's turn during the explore step.

Latest version

Here is the third (and final, for now) part of my actions/responses to Jenceslav's recommendations. As before, anything that I implemented was deleted, so all you see are those that I disagree with and/or which require further discussion.

All of the powers I implemented in parts 1 and 2 have been changed from "Basic Change" to "Final" unless they created some sort of unresolved discussion, in which case they have been marked as "Discussion" with a yellow background (so only the new stuff is green).

Alch Cogsnap power 5 - isn't "Ranged Alchemical" better-sounding than "Alchemical Ranged"?

Deferring to Vic's statement that in general, traits should be in alphabetical order (the exceptions, I imagine, being when power feats force a different sequence).

Alch Damiel - Mindchemist power 5 - the part "[] or discard" probably needs ANOTHER power after the previous line: "[] When you would discard an Alchemical item for its power, you may recharge it instead." Ugh, so many words

I've added my version (before seeing your recommendation). It definitely needs another set of eyes (or three) to make it better.

Alch Damiel - Mindchemist powers 6&7 - need developers' input; there is nothing wrong with the powers' wording, but: consider Dex combat check - discarding card for power 6 adds Intelligence skill (and TRAIT), so now you can play power 7 to add Dexterity skill as well. It works similarly the other way for Intelligence check > (power 7) Dex+Int check > (power 6) Dex+2×Int check. Powerful like crazy

I've marked Mindchemist power 7 for discussion.

Brb Amiri - her "close then move" conundrum cannot be easily reworded if we change it to "closing does not prevent exploration" variant - two independent triggers, two independent powers (for roles)

Requires developer approval since this is a functional change (which would be a decent sweeping change as a replacement for all character powers that allow movement after closing a location).

Brb Ostrog power 6 - should we leave "open location", as post-Core there are no closed location in play? (Let's not think about using the suggested post-Core wording for playing old scenarios with don't-banish-locations-or-you-may-not-win-at-all); "..., you may move" seems fine

Unless you're using Ostog in a pre-core AP, in which case there will be closed locations in play.

Brd Meliski - Brawler power 6 - should it have the same wording as Gambler power 6 for symmetry? "up to 2 blessings" - also, what if someone else plays a blessing? Should he be allowed to play two blessings anyway for 3 total? Maybe change to "1 blessing may be played freely"; discussion / developers' input needed

The first suggestion looks sound, but I've marked it for discussion (since this is legacy wording that apparently wasn't an issue). As for the second part, that's a question for the developers. It might be that anyone else playing blessings (that aren't played freely) limits it to 1 blessing, but Meliski playing them on his own check allows 2.

Brd Siwar - Courtier power 7 - Bound Imp and other allies with During Recovery power will be put into discards only if the check to not-banish fails and if that counts as "for its power"? Seems OK power-wise for such corner-case scenario, but may cause confusion.

Corner cases are probably issues for independent discussions/questions to the developers (unless the power itself is the source of the problem).

Clr Kyra power 5 - I don't like it to start with "For", the template (see e.g. Brd Lem) is "Add 2 ([] 4) to your Sword combat check and ..."

I recall the designers stating that part of the basic template for powers was to start with the circumstances in which the power is being used. In this case, the "For..." establishes that the power works when the character is making a Sword combat check. If Bard CD Lem has another template, that might be an exception (although there are likely plenty of similar exceptions). This is an issue I'll open for discussion and consensus (and hopefully developer input).

Ftr Tontelizi - Halberdier power 7 - "to the new result" almost sounds as if you reroll and then decide if you will add 1d4; Pathfinder Adventures app uses the same text, but you get the die(dice) before reroll. Suggest: " ...before the reroll, you may add 1d4 (2d4)."

Or we could just replace "new result" with "check" ?

GobBrn Mogmurch power 6 - "while you play or during recovery, gain ..."

We'll need to tweak this a bit because it's limited to Fire spells (marked for Discussion).

GobBrn Mogmurch - Tinderfoot power 8 - do Alchemical and Fire cards add together for this power? That is, 4 Fire cards and 2 Alchemical cards with 5 cards in hand - would it trigger? If so, then "[] AND Alchemical" would be maybe better.

The "or" is carried over from legacy. If it wasn't an issue then, the functionality hasn't changed, and no other rules effects change anything.

GobBrn Poog power 6 - add "reload" to the conditions, keeping in line with the intent. Nom Nom, tasty animal.

I absolutely agree with this one (it seems like a no-brainer), but it needs official approval. I've marked it for the Developers.

GobBrn Zibini - The Great power 7 - "At the end of your turn, you may put a random spell from your ([] or another local character's) discard into your recovery pile." - I don't fully get the meaning of "to your deck", is that there so you cannot recharge to their deck? I suggested a proposed S&S Seltyiel wording for clarity.

I can see possibly shifting the part about another local character around, but why would you change it from recharging it to putting it into your recovery pile? That makes no sense. I *think* the "to your deck" part is to make it clear that the card is going from either your or another local character's discards into your deck (vice someone misinterpreting the power feat to allowing you to recharge another local character's spell from their discards into their deck). If that is, indeed, the intent, and if that remains valid, then the current position of the "another local character" power feat probably makes sense.

GobFght Chuffy power 4 - what about "During your encounter with ..."? While tends to require continuous tense :)

I'll defer to the developers on why they chose the wording, which comes from the legacy version.

Gun Angban - Living Cannon power 9 - "Instead of the first exploration ..."? the way I read it, it replaces normal exploration with examine 2+encounter. In line with the wording for similar effects.

It's not an "instead of the first exploration," though. It is the first exploration. It's just carried out in an exceptional fashion - examing 2 (or 3) cards, encountering 1, and shuffling the others back into the location. All of the "instead of the first encounter" powers that I recall replace the first encounter with some other power, usually healing. Admittedly, I don't have all of them memorized, so there might be some other character power(s) that similarly modify the first encounter while preserving it as an encounter. If such exist, we should look at those as possible models for modifying this one.

Gun Lirianne - Mysterious Stranger power 6 - similar to Barbarian Amiri (when location is closed), but due to move to a RANDOM location at least does something new as a cost (open may be omitted). "may move to a random location; if you do, you may examine the top card of THAT location."

This one, I think, is a bit more complicated than the CD Amiri issue simply due to the random location aspect. However, this one is much less problematic in that if Lirianne moves to a random open location when her location is closed, she may examine the top card. So this one isn't actually useless. It's just slightly less impactful. I've unmarked it (actually, it's marked as "Final" now).

HV Zelhara - Torturer power 7 - "if they do, heal 1 ([] or 2) card(s) ([] from that character's discards)" - again some repositioning to prevent confusion about order of power progression/branching. May use the same wording in other identical powers - i.e. ([] or 2)([] or 1d4+2)

The revision you recommended put the third power feat into a sequence, requiring the second power feat to be taken first, whereas the original power wasn't arranged in that way. I've modified your suggestion a bit.

Hunter Ukuja - Animancer power 8 - I am confused - does he discard (or recharge) only a single card or should it be all cards? "any number" ... "a card". It would be unambiguous if it was "a (single) card from among those you revealed" or "all cards you revealed"

He reveals 1 or more Animal cards, then he discards/recharges 1 of those cards, returning the rest to his hand. This is exactly the same as the legacy wording. It brings up the larger issue of using "1" instead of "a" (since higher quantities always use the Arabic numeral).

Inq Salim - Reluctant Priest power 8 - strange that it checks for blessing AND spell when upgraded. Most powers check for <type_1> OR <type_2>. Maybe ask developers?

I don't see the issue - the power feat makes it more likely that he'll be able to draw a card. I've marked it for the developers, though.

Inq Varril - power 4 similar in effect to the Witch Kasmir, is it any help (or trouble)? That is, if it counts each exploration step ... Use "Before your first exploration, ..." instead? And similarly to Kasmir "After your last exploration on this turn,..."???

I've marked it for discussion.

Magus Talitha - Holy Avenger power 7 - "bless" carries another implication: it makes the check 'blessed' which some banes and maybe boons care about; therefore, "add a die to your ..." should be used

From the Core Set Rulebook: "Bless: Add a die that matches your skill die to a check." Even if we used alternate wording, if the effect is that the power adds a die that matches the skill die, the check counts as 'blessed' (I think).

Mnk Athnul power 4 - "ON your Melee combat check, you ..." see Core_Sajan/Fumbus; "for" is used to determine the skill used

Done. I also got rid of "your" and "skill" for Wisdom (I'm not sure that was appropriate in this case, so I'm pointing it out in case anyone disagrees).

Mnk Athnul - Monk of the Ki Fist power 7 - "examine the TOP card OF your location"

Next is there for a reason. In most instances, Athnul has explored and encountered a monster, and that monster card still counts as the top card of the location. So the power allows her to examine the card beneath it (the "next" card). Even she is encountering a summoned monster, the "next" card is simply the top card.

OA Estra - Spiritual Counselor power 8 - "shuffle a card into ..."

I don't see what this is referring to.

OA Meligaster - power 5 - maybe write "or TO defeat"

I don't know that the "to" is necessary - the sentence structure is simple enough that there's no confusion as it is currently written (see how the "to" has been added to the Consummate Liar role because the power feats add complexity to the point where the "to" is necessary).

OA Meligater - Egotist power 7 - "you may return it to the vault instead, then recharge a new ally." - several allies have During Recovery powers and you are changing e.g. recharge for its power into banish ("instead"), so the recovery should trigger, which we don't want, right?

This one needs to be discussed. I see where you're coming from, but it comes down to whether or not there is a functional and mechanical difference between "banish" and "return to the vault" (i.e., does "return to the vault" ignore the recovery pile?). There probably *is* a functional difference, but I'd like to know that for certain from Paizo/Lone Shark. Regardless, the character power itself might overrule the recovery pile process.

Orac Alahazra - Wandering Prophet power 7 - "you encounter", "they encounter" seems redundant

Perhaps the wording is there to prevent players from trying to "evade" powers from a barrier that some other player encounters?

Orac Grazzle - Bone Diviner power 5 - nested upgrades? Huh. I suggest slightly longer "you may recharge a random card from your discards)([] or recharge 2 random cards from your discards.)"

The legacy version had the power feats nested. I'm not opposed to the change, but I don't see the problem with nested upgrades (if they're not confusing, which I don't think this one is).

PT Celeste - power 7 - "([] or blessing)" - the indefinite article should not be there (I think), as it is after an adjective "new"

I'm neutral on this one. I've marked it for Discussion by the community.

PT Radovan - Pitbound Guardian power 6 - lacks the summoned monster part: "Combat damage ([] or any damage dealt by a summoned monster) you suffer" - we should probably keep "dealt" in here

Added. Also, I rearranged it a bit to preserve the separation of the power feats (so that we don't add any sequential power feat requirements).

UE Reiko - Ninjutus[sic] Master power 7 - (closing henchman being scenario-specified and not necessarily linked to story bane, I think this works) "When you defeat a closing henchman, you may examine all cards in your location before choosing whether to close the location ([] and add 4 to your check to close the location)." The examine part is a little wordy - examine location sounds like 1 card

I left "the location" out (since the only thing you can close is a location, making it redundant, just like we only say "reset" now). I can add "the location" if the community prefers that.

UI Aric - Infiltrator power 8 - "discard a card to guard your location" - in the case of defeat bane / acquire boon closing conditions, your suggested wording is not correct, as it could be construed as a success in defeating / acquiring the cards

If the Updated wording included "at your check" I could see the argument. However, the rulebook makes it clear that you either fail or succeed at your attempt to guard a location, whether it's by performing an action (e.g., banish a card), making a check, defeating/acquiring a card, or whatever. I've marked this one for discussion by the community.

On the next go around, I'll go through foxoftheasterisk's recommendations.

Some broad issues that need to be resolved:

Impact of Recovery on Powers

In addition, I've gone through and marked all of the powers that EmpTyger identified, along with some recommendations for potential fixes. These are the powers that are adversely affected by the addition of recovery (largely having to do with characters' ability to recharge/heal/draw cards from their discards outside of the normal sequence). We've discussed this issue to a degree prior to this, but it might be worthwhile to have the larger philosophical discussion now in order to determine a general way forward.

The summary of the problem is that these powers allowed characters to somehow get cards from their discard pile. With the creation of recovery and the recovery pile, the full pool of cards that would have been in the discard pile previously is now split, with some potentially being in the character's recovery pile. As a result, this degrades the potency of the power, especially since it is very likely that the specific types of cards that most characters would have access to in this way could be in the recovery pile.

I see three basic outcomes:

1. Leave alone (The reduction in the power's potency is negligible, or is desired in order to better balance the character).
2. Change the timing of the power (This is most likely applicable when the power takes place "at the end of your turn" - simply change it to "after recovery" in order to preserve the mechanics and balance).
3. Broaden the pool from just "discards" to "discards and recovery pile" (This works best when the power takes place other than "at the end of your turn").

Admittedly, this is just an initial assessment, and a more thorough analysis might provide better recommendations.

Arcane/Divine Proficiency

Also, do we have a consensus that the recommendations for Arcane/Divine proficiency [when the Arcane/Divine skill is granted temporarily by a power] can be removed? The rationale we see is that the rulebook already states that characters with the Arcane/Divine skill have the corresponding proficiency.

"Banish" vs. "Return to the vault"

The rulebook defines "banish" as returning a card to the vault. However, the definition goes further in identifying how a card that is banished goes into a recovery pile if it has a During Recovery power.

The basic issue comes down to two things:

1. Are "banish" and "return to the vault" the same thing? If a power says to return a card to the vault (instead of telling you to "banish" the card), would the card still go into a recovery pile if it has a During Recovery power?
2. With the basic hierarchy where a character/role card trumps other cards (including boons), would the direction to "banish" a card bypass the During Recovery power, resulting in the card being banished/returned to the vault regardless?

The two characters for which this issue has been identified are Drelm and Simoun, both from the Mummy's Mask AP. Both temporarily get a boon, then banish that boon at the end of the turn. The concern is that some boons of the respective types might have During Recovery powers (and forward compatibility means that even if there are currently no cards with During Recovery powers, it would be prudent to consider the possibility of such cards coming in later APs/decks). The desired end-state is that these powers continue to have the (temporary) boons returned to the vault without the possibility of recovery (assuming that is the developers' intent).

There are three basic outcomes based on the four combinations of answers (given in order of precedence):

A. If the answer to the second question is "Yes" (i.e., "banish" means that the card is returned to the vault without the chance of recovery), then we can keep the "banish" wording on those powers. This can be done even if the answer to the first question is "Yes" since the hierarchy trumps.
B. If the answer to the first question is "No" (i.e., "banish" =/= "return to the vault"), then it would be prudent to change the wording from "banish" to "return to the vault" on those powers. This can be done even if the answer to the second question is "No" since the hierarchy doesn't trump.
C. If the answer to the first question is "Yes" (i.e., "banish" = "return to the vault"), and the answer to the second question is "No" (i.e., character/role powers that say "banish" still allow cards with During Recovery powers to go through recovery), and if the answer to the first question is "Yes" then we need to come up with new wording.

Also note that I've hidden the "Original" columns to make it easier to look at all of the powers without having to scroll laterally. If you want to see them for some reason, feel free to unhide them.

I've updated the dividers for the Core Set, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and (hopefully) any future character decks and APs that might be released. I adjusted the dimensions to more closely match those of the dividers in the Core Set, and the colors have been adjusted to match (based on color swatches from card images shown in blog posts). I also revised the card heights, decreasing the heights of the labels at the top and providing two basic heights - the taller ones for main dividers (like Weapons and Monsters) and the shorter ones for sub-dividers (like Weapon 2 and Monster 5), the difference in height being the height of the labels (3/8" of an inch now vice the 1/2" on the old cards). I've also removed the standees since those are now provided in the APs (the character deck dividers will probably have standees if those aren't included with the decks).

Both files can be found at the Board Game Geek:

Core Set
Curse of the Crimson Throne AP

As before, if you see anything that you think can be fixed/improved, please let me know.

The only impediment with "functional changes beyond the scope of this project" is that they require Paizo/Lone Shark input/approval. There are multiple instances of such recommendations in the spreadsheet, though. We've actually identified a few of the character powers that are affected in the way you describe, and these are all marked for the Developers to address (pink background). Yes, they're beyond the scope of our authority to resolve, but we can help the developers by identifying them and making suggestions. I'll make sure that all of the ones you've identified are marked appropriately.

This project isn't necessarily the end-all-be-all of identifying issues with the legacy characters, but it does give us a more holistic view of the issues and where they affect multiple characters/roles.

This is quite ambitious though.

Yes, never accept a double dog dare from cartmanbeck. Luckily it's a community effort, so the burden is being shared. ;)

All very welcome news.

And I really like the new Society logo and how it works well with the game logo.

The option to evade must be taken before any roll to defeat/acquire. Once you make any checks to defeat/acquire, you suffer/enjoy the consequences of the check and may no longer evade.

In the location described above, you choose to either encounter the card (and thus draw a second card to pick which one you encounter), or you evade. So once you draw the second card, you're may no longer evade. (I'm not 100% certain on this one, but that's how I play it.)

WotR Kyra still had random in the power description. With the heal keyword definition, the word "random" is no longer required.

For Cleric CD Kyra, I mistakenly pulled the power for Heggal from your document. In any case, the word "random" can be removed from any heal power.

Ah, I see now. I'll go through and fix all of the random healings.

So the wording for the above would be:

new wording wrote:

Instead of your first exploration on a turn, you may discard an ally to heal a local character 1d4+1 (□+2) cards.

Also, Arueshalae (Redeemed) also has a similar heal power.

Copy. I'll go through and check all of the heal instances to see if there are any more like that and fix those, too.

This is exactly the kind of feedback I'm looking for. Thanks, folks!

On a side note, I'm going to finish the character sheets for the no-shows (see my earlier post), then I'll fix the above. Once I've done that, I'll upload the latest version to Google.docs. More feedback is always welcome.

Thanks to cartmanbeck, all of the first round of recommendations for all of the legacy characters and roles has been completed.

Link (So you don't have to scroll up for it.)

I fixed all of the damage dealt > suffered instances that I had previously skipped. I also changed all of the Deity blessings updates to green since we have the official thumbs up on that one.

Three things that are pending (not counting spotting any errors I may have made ;) ):

- the "freely" thing mentioned above
- ensuring that the recovery verbiage is correct (there's some confusion, mostly with me)
- fixing the RotR die/skill verbiage (since Vic has given us the official thumbs up on that one, too)

I've changed the color coding and types to:

- Basic Change (green)
- Discussion (yellow)
- Developers (red/pink)

"Basic Changes" are anything that fits within the basic templates and which we *think* is pretty safe. Unless there is discussion, those will be changed to "Final" after a bit.

"Discussion" changes are those areas where we think verbiage might be adjusted, or which we think needs a sanity check. There is usually text in the Discussion column at the far right to explain what's in our heads and what we're looking for.

"Developers" changes are those things that we think need to be discussed/approved by the developers (community input on whether or not these are even necessary wouldn't hurt, either). A lot of them are the power feats where the Divine/Arcane skill is granted, and for which we've added text about the proficiency. Some of them are power feats that allow characters to move after closing a location (everyone can do this now, so these are useless power feats). There are a few other cats and dogs in this group, and these should have comments.

There are bound to be some mistakes/omissions, so please let us know if you see anything that we've missed or if there are things that you think we can make better.

The online spreadsheet has been updated. The following APs/decks have been completed (initial recommendations):

Rise of the Runelords AP
Skull & Shackles AP
Wrath of the Righteous AP
Mummy's Mask AP
Alchemist CD
Barbarian CD
Bard CD
Cleric CD
Druid CD
Fighter CD
Goblins Burn! CD
Goblins Fight! CD

If I can still count, that makes 77 characters - a little over halfway there.

I also fixed the "Armor" and "Weapon" proficiency listings in the Updated columns (they were "Heavy Armors" and "Weapons" previously).

I've added the "Final" Type category for those updates that we deem to be finalized and not needing further discussion. None of the entries currently fall into this category, but when they do, they'll have green text on a white background (as stated previously, anything with a white background doesn't need to be discussed any further).

I'm considering a slight change to the methodology. Basically, anything that looks like a safe update into the new terminology will be marked "Template Change" (green background). Anything for which there are questions or thoughts about alternate phrasings will be marked "Hybrid" (yellow background). Anything that we think needs official guidance will be marked "Complex" (red background). I might change the category names from "Hybrid" to "Refine" and from "Complex" to "Developers" to better reflect these categories. This will allow everyone to focus their attention better.