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backtracking. Wow, lots of details lost here.

Well anyway, this is great. Get it.

This January makes 10 years since I got this card game. And I haven't even finished all the other AP Pathfinder Society stories.

These 5 scenarios were a bit more challenging than the prior ones, which was good. I highly recommend a good mix of characters and if you don't have a Divine character here, you may get stuck on 2-5E...

Well now I've gone back and checked my notes. Yep, another great set of missions for this great game.

I've wasted a lot of money over my life on games I've only played once or twice. "Wow, look at that great game, I need to get that, I'll play it lots!" Then once, then never again. Not so, the PACG.

My notes say that I played these 5 scenarios from 2022 May through 2022 August. I took 3 groups of 2 through. These scenarios were good, but not too challenging.

To be fair, I have multiple groups of 2 well balanced characters and a couple of the class decks too, so I have a great selection of loot. But still, a good time.

$5 for 5 missions x 3 groups = 20+ hours of RPG / puzzle fun for the price of a Starbucks latte'? Excellent, thanks.

I played it through with 4 characters.

The writing is disjointed and unclear. In the end, I had to write 5 pages of notes to tighten up the writing and make decisions about who does what and when. I really don't think anyone play tested this all the way through. The timing of the events makes everything happen at once, taking choices away from the players.

The economic parts of the game are silly and defy logic.

Railroad-y to the point of silliness as well, the storyline even comes right out and says, "no matter what choice the characters make, this is the outcome".

The NPC's are not compelling and there wasn't anyone to care about for the most part.

And the "Fly Free or DIE!" has like no flying. None. At all. I had 4 characters with a mix of starship combat skills that didn't get used. But they did die quite a bit in some of the unbalanced combat situations.

Over all, not a fun story.

Well, I am, as usual, a bit late to this party, but hey! I'm having fun. this was another great group of scenarios and I played all of them through with 3 different groups of 2 characters. The scenarios were fun and the story went well with them.

My only complaint is, now that I've got my characters well apportioned with equipment and skills and such, the scenarios are a bit easy. In 5 scenarios played with 3 groups I only had one group fail a scenario ("Stone Mages Spite" was a bit hard for Melindra and Drelm for some reason...or maybe they just got a bit unlucky?).

I removed all the Elite cards in advance, even though you don't have to do that until AP5, just to make it more of a challenge, but I also have 2 of the character decks mixed in too, with some slightly more powerful boons, which seems, along with my penchant for always trying to max out my characters rather than play thematically, to have made the characters more than equipped for the challenges in these 5 scenarios.

So, if you are looking for a challenge, don't be a grognard like me, or just know that these will be a bit easy.

On to AP5!

Another great addition to the game. How many different ways can you combine cards, powers and rules to make unique and fun scenarios? These were 4 of my favorite scenarios to date (and I'm about 800 hours into this game...).

I took 3 groups of 2 characters each through the 4 scenarios. I tend to hyper optimize my groups, so only 3A and 3B caused a failure and replay, which is just about the difficulty I want (maybe a tad harder would be good, but just don't optimize if you want more difficulty).

3C was a lot of setup but super thematic so I really enjoyed it.

Great job guys!

(review: better late than never :) )

I'm taking 3 groups of 2 characters each through this Season. The 6 included scenarios are varied and interesting. I'm super happy to have a great reason to play RotR again; in some ways it is my favorite of all the boxes, it just feels so... classic.

On to #2-2!

I finally finished this all the way through and I enjoyed it as much as the original. I took 3 groups of 2 characters each through this AP. I play super cautiously and I recommend a really, really good mix of characters. There were a few unbalanced scenarios which required one particular character to get the others through. Though I had grouped each team based on their skills, I still sometimes needed to use a specific character to help the rest get past an unbalanced scenario, so that is what I suggest; not only a good mix in a group but multiple groups to make sure you don't get "stuck".

I would like to have seen more Loot and more of those custom locations used.

I super like the permanent card boon given at the end, I wish all the APs, base and seasons did something similar.

I played a total of 149 times for $30. Each play takes me about 2 hours so, yeah, do the math: 300 hours of play for $30? This is effectively free, an easy recommendation! Save a tree, buy a season!

Another great addition to the story... 0-5D didn't make much sense to me from a story perspective, but the mechanics were fun and challenging. I ran 3 different groups through and all 4 scenarios were about the perfect challenge to me: 1.5 failures for each 3 plays, perfect. The first "anchored" scenario was here too. The Loot cards have been quite under used but no matter, having a great time...

I wanted to give these adventures a high score, but only because of 0-4C I cannot give this one a 5. It is far too hard and punishing. If you don't have a character with a high WIS, it is about impossible. Hopefully the next adventure will be more balanced. It took my 3 groups 24 tries to get past that one and they all had to have a WIS high character walk them through it. Hopefully the next adventure will be better balanced...

Remember all those cool cards in the game that just barely (or never) got used because of the luck of the draw, or the way the scenarios were designed in the base game?

Well their BAAAACCCCKKK!

This is a great way to extend the life of your Skull and Shackles game with some well designed scenarios based around SnS.

This level 3 adventure only had 4 scenarios, but they were fun. Some of the cards that didn't seem to get used much (different villains and henchmen) get used in a different way.

Great fun. Save a tree, buy the "Seasons"!

This particular level 2 set of scenarios has "only" 4 scenarios. It is OK, level 1 had 6... Again, for about $5 I got another 32 hours of playtime from my SnS box. That simply cannot be beat for gaming value.

I ran 4 groups of 1 - 2 characters through this one too and the scenarios were fun. A couple of the scenarios were a bit more challenging than the 0-1 set. I picked many characters with the Survival skill and this time it felt like it was really needed, a common setup with SnS in general, but that's OK, many characters have this skill and they don't all need it, especially if you use the many other cards that help you with it. 0-2B was a little dangerous for permadeath, the henchmen can bury your cards.

Yet another excellent way to extend your gaming in the SnS card game.

This has 6 scenarios, unlike most which have 5. Well later in the AP there are some with 4 and in the end the Adventure Path has a total of 28 so it all balances out kind of.

I am strictly a solo player and I always run at least 3 groups of 2 characters each through every AP, so I get the most out of my time and investment. I literally got 34 plays with various groups out of this approx. $5 investment. It just doesn't get better than that.

The 6 scenarios are fun and I've now run 4 groups of characters through them. Survival skill helps but, at least for this level 1 group isn't completely necessary.

I don't strictly keep to the Adventure Guild rules, I just play right from the box even when I have class decks in use. I take the class deck cards that are most useful to their characters and just mix them right into the box. For the most part the characters simply get a Skill upgrade on scenario 1, a Power upgrade on scenario 2 and a Card upgrade on scenario 4. There are a couple of scenarios that give some additional upgrades.

All 6 scenarios have a good mix of interesting setups and this is a great way to continue your investment in the PACG game. Scenario 1 and 4 were more challenging for some characters, scenario 6 can be dangerous (permadeath) if you don't read the rules well. Thankfully no one died... :)

Save a tree, buy a guild adventure and keep the fun going from your Skull and Shackles box.

I've got over 700 hours into the pacg: 3 of the original base sets played 3+ times each through. I wanted this new Core Set but was going to wait, well now I've got it and seriously, every single aspect of the game is better:

The boons are better balanced, no more of the "this seems not useful, but, I guess if I encounter it I can use it once" cards, all are better balanced and this leads to more useful cards.

The box is better, no more wasted space with a big plastic insert, and they added a great system for holding all the cards without needing to buy a new wooden insert to organize better.

The rules are better, they do more, with less instructions, include more options. The new game options for "wild cards" and changing the size and difficulty make the game more approachable and easily recommendable as well as giving many more reasons to play the game multiple times. Very well done.

They included standees and chits and dividers too, all a nice and professional touch.

The artwork is at least as good as before, which I like, but slightly better laid out. I would like the text to be slightly larger (I had to complain about SOMETHING :)) and there is a little bit of wasted space on many cards, but the blessings in particular are nicely drawn, have a "stained glass" feel and everything looks a little nicer.

The entire game system is just more polished... everywhere really. It will be hard to go back to my old sets, which I will not be getting rid of, thank you, but everything in this set is simply better.

Edit: this is not so correct: "and have toned down permadeath (thank you...)".

The rules give you one extra option for coming back from death (hero points) but now that I'm about a dozen plays into the game it is clear (at least in Dragons Demand) that:

1) you only get one Hero Point to use without giving up a power for it through all 9 scenarios

and

2) there are quite a few banes that can cause ongoing damage that can kill a character who is not exploring

and

3) the new rules have removed closed locations, which used to offer some degree of safety to badly wounded characters.

I'm going to leave a 5 star rating for now, but I have to say, this makes the game harder to recommend to new players who would be super frustrated to have to completely start over again and feel like there was little they could do. If you are a new player, either house rule this away, or play very carefully. I hate, hate, hate having to start a game over again in this way, I wish permadeath were anything else....

I have completed the entire AP with 2 groups of 3 characters each. Super fun!

It was the right mix of adventure, RPG, puzzle and replay-ablity. When done, you can play again with different characters (I recommend the Character Add On pack but its not necessary) or find the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild scenarios here for sale that allow you to use the box again with a different path.

As a strictly solo player, this game takes care of all my RPG needs. Why I have "RPG needs" is a question I have not been able to answer since my first D&D game in the 1970's, but at least now I have an answer to the question.... I play when I have time and the game feels sufficiently Role Playing and puzzle solving too.