Can someone explain the attack trait?


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


I don't understand the attack trait, especially how it pertains to spell cards. Can someone enlighten me?

Is there someplace where all of the traits are documented/explained?

Thanks


See this comment by Chad Brown about the Attack trait.

There is no list of all possible triats or what exactly the represent, though I think most of them are fairly intuitive. Veteran means that the card scales with the adventure path, Basic means it will be removed beginning at some point (so far Adventure 3) and Elite means it will be removed a little later than the Basics start getting removed (Adventure 5 so far).


And to be quite honest, there shouldn't be because the design team shouldn't be limiting themselves like that. They are and should be mostly consistent because that allows peoples' mental associations to work properly, but it shouldn't be a given.

Just like the Shock Longbow is different from the Longbow in terms of its template.

Sovereign Court

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The traits don't mean anything specific on their own, which is why the rulebook doesn't explain them. You might see a card with the Attack and Poison traits, but that doesn't mean anything by itself. However, you might find a monster later that says it is immune to the Poison trait. Or maybe a character that gets an extra d6 on attacks with the Poison trait. Those will reference your traits, but that's when it'll matter. If a trait matters, the cards will tell you, otherwise the traits have no meaning* (although Veteran has always and only been used with banes that are increased by the adventure number)

*Exception for Basic and Elite traits. Both get removed permanently once you hit a certain point in your adventure path (although, again, the adventure path card tells you that), and the Basic trait is required for building your deck prior to adventure 3.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Designer

All our traits mean *something* to the design team, though we modulate their meanings when it makes sense to us. For example, "Undead" typically means "immune to the Mental and Poison traits." In the RPG it means a lot more than that, but that's what it means to us.

Basically, we think Attack means "Something magical is coming at your opponent." But more specifically, we think it means "Something magical is coming at your opponent, and it's the kind of thing some opponents can resist or ignore entirely." Golems in particular are very good at resisting the Attack trait.

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