Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Events at Conventions


Pathfinder Adventure Card Game General Discussion

Sovereign Court

I attended the informative and interesting seminar on the Pathfinder Card Game during Gen Con. The topic of an organized play system/package was discussed and concluded with a hesitant negative response due to some reasonable issues that I cannot directly quote until the recordings of the seminars are posted on the web. (In my personal opinion, I would not find an organized play card game terribly attractive despite my love for society)

The mention of convention play reminded me of something that I have been hoping to see from Paizo at Gen Con. This is a good opportunity for Paizo to tap a competitive style of con event that I have not seen them do.

I believe that the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game would be an excellent tournament game for lengthy conventions. I would eagerly grab three of my friends and work together to compete with strategy, teamwork, product knowledge, and a pinch of luck!

The character advancement and deck building is excellent for tense strategic planning stages. Even if decks and/or characters were to be standardized, the scenarios presented by the game are very well balanced and the mechanics are solid enough to present a challenge.

Given that I have yet to play a sufficient amount of this game to have a firm grasp on the underlying mechanics, I suspect performance could be judged either purely on number of turns taken to beat a scenario. If a more complex scoring would be used, items recovered, "health" at the end of the game, and other considerations could be measured to assess the winner(s).

Finally, I think that such an event would be a great way to introduce newly released material (or a complete collection boxed set once the entire Runelords line is released). Players that spent a year playing one set will be ecstatic to sit down blind to completely new content that will test their mastery of the game rather than memorization of the previous set.

Any thoughts?

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You really can't do it by health since as you add cards from play into your hand and discard pile, they can become potential 'health' by using healing spells and cards to move from your discard pile into your character deck.

The only way I can see scoring would be by how many cards are left in the Blessing deck since this is basically how the scenarios are timed. The only problem is there is still a lot of luck involved with when you the main villain. Also, you would have to have a judge at each table watching each game since you don't have a direct opponent watching your moves.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Our initial focus for organized play will be about playing the cooperative game that already exists, not converting it into a competitive game.

I'm not ruling out competitive play in the future... but it won't be the *near* future.

Shadow Lodge

I know the only game even remotely like this is Lord of the Rings. I think it'd be interesting to do something like... Blessing deck remaining?

Idea is that we figure the average remaining blessing cards in the deck, and score like golf. IE, let's say the average number left for a four-player game is ten cards. That'll be a zero score.

- You score an additional -5 for each time you beat the villain before winning the game.

- Because of their relative power, each Elite card you have in your character decks at the end of the game is +1 point.

Your team leaves 15 cards in the deck, and receive a score of -5. Your team beat the villain twice before winning the game, and has four Elite cards in your character decks for the team. Totaling everything up, your final score is -11.

Follow the regular rebuild rules between games and accept rewards Team with the lowest score at the end of the game wins.

Its rough, but maybe somewhere to start on that.

I'd actually love to see smaller adventure releases for the game too. Something like a scenario, adventures, the henchmen, villains, and appropriate loot/new monsters for each belonging to a PAC Superset. That'd be neat to get as a con exclusive, or something that you do as a slot.


Adam J Wells wrote:
I know the only game even remotely like this is Lord of the Rings

Keep in mind that their scoring system is in its second iteration and is still quite bad.

As an avid LOTR LCG player my advice is this- don't try to be something you aren't. You have a good thing going for you, stick to that. FFG has a stack of competitive LCG's (aka non-blind buy) card games if that's your poison.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Vic Wertz wrote:
Our initial focus for organized play will be about playing the cooperative game

Is there anything available yet for organized cooperative play of the adventure card game? I am starting a weekly group at my local shop and would be very interested if we could make it an official organized play event.


Organized play? Like Chronicle Sheets for completing adventures?

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Any official organized play is many months out at best.


Just to sow some seeds. If you do end up with some organised play system and if that happens to include some kind of special cards - would you please also make them available for sale at a later date for the antisocial completionists amongst us? (whoever they might be...)

Even if it were a year down the track or something (to preserve the incentiveness) I'd hate to miss out on something just because I dont play well with others. :p

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Noted. I am a big fan of making sure enthusiastic people have some sort of reasonable access to everything. (Especially people who subscribe.)

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Card Game / General Discussion / Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Events at Conventions All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion