PACG - Building new characters and deck upgrade questions.


Pathfinder Adventure Card Society


Got some questions I hope yall can help me with. Also posting from my phone, sorry if there is a formatting issue.

Quote:
Build Your Own Character - If the scenario you’re playing has an adventure deck number of 3 or higher, you may use any cards that have the set indicator B, as well as any cards with an adventure deck number at least 2 lower than that of the adventure you're about to play. Your character (and role card, if you're playing a scenario with an adventure deck number of 4 or higher) may not have any feat boxes checked when you start play.
Quote:
If you advance a tier by completing an adventure, you automatically gain any remaining feats for your tier and you gain a die bump for use with this character (see “Die Bumps,” below.)

Does this mean if you suffer through an adventure, you can pick up all the feats you are missing?

My next question would be about upgrading your deck once you hit the upper tiers.

Can you replace cards in your deck with cards two levels lower than the adventure number you are playing? If not, it seems like it would shift people's focus to getting low level cards banished from their decks to replace them with Adventure Deck Number -2.

Grand Lodge

The automatic advancement is for those playing more casually and may not play the scenarios in order so if for some reason you went back and completed an adventure, you'd get any feats you were missing from that tier.

Normally, if you're playing week-in and week-out, you'll get all your feats by the time you've played through the fourth scenario of the adventure.

I guess I'm not understanding the upgrade question. If you are upgrading and want to hold on to lower level cards, you can do so. If you have banished cards from some reason and there are none of that type available as an upgrade, then you need to take higher level cards as you advance in adventure decks. But if you have cards (as potential upgrades) after a scenario, you can pick a card of that type with that adventure deck number or lower from your class deck. You aren't required to use the same rules for upgrades as when you rebuild your deck.

Sovereign Court

It sounds like you're asking if you can decide, in Adventure 4 for example, to just swap out a card after the scenario. If this what you're asking, you cannot do this. You have to be short on cards in your deck to just pull a card outside of rewards.

To give an example / explanation why you automatically get all the remaining feats.

Say you are Tier 1, playing a six-scenario Adventure 1. You complete the first 4 scenarios, you can now optionally advance to Tier 2. You choose to. You finish the next two scenarios, finishing Adventure 1. Finishing an adventure forces you into the next tier, not optional. However, you've only completed 2 scenarios at Tier 2 and just got pushed to Tier 3 - what about those Tier 2 feats you never got? You'd be behind every other T3, so we give them to you.


Ok so I guess I did not articulate my questions properly.

1 - If we have someone that wants to join in during adventure 4. How can you handle it? The first quoted section shows a rule that allows you to pick up feats you missed after you completed a full adventure. I was wondering if this could be applied in that fashion.

2 - We are at the point now that some of us have Blessings or the Gods or other low end cards that we have not gotten a chance to upgrade. With the rules allowing you to replace cards with cards (adventure deck -2), it seems advantages to allow those cards to be banished.

Grand Lodge

1) You only get the feats missing for that tier, not every tier beforehand. So if your friend is joining in at that point, look on page 7 of the Guide about Higher-Level Characters and the three options.

2) Banishing cards isn't as easy as you think. You can't just banish the ones you want. Part of some discussions and replaying and farming are to get cards you need later on. But yeah, if you get a chance, banishing is a way of replacing lower cards with higher ones in later adventures. (And you can't replace cards with cards. You can upgrade and you can rebuild.)

1/5 *

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

To be clear, are you talking about Pathfinder Society Card Guild organized play, or just a home game you have with a friend joining in?


Sorry I didn't mention it. It is for society play.


Theryon Stormrune wrote:
1) You only get the feats missing for that tier, not every tier beforehand. So if your friend is joining in at that point, look on page 7 of the Guide about Higher-Level Characters and the three options.

But if you complete an adventure, you already have all the rewards.

Sovereign Court

Slacker2010 wrote:
Theryon Stormrune wrote:
1) You only get the feats missing for that tier, not every tier beforehand. So if your friend is joining in at that point, look on page 7 of the Guide about Higher-Level Characters and the three options.
But if you complete an adventure, you already have all the rewards.

You have the scenario and adventure rewards. Feats aren't scenario or adventure rewards 99% of the time, unless you are playing the non-tier versions of Season of the Shackles which haven't been updated to remove the feat rewards. You unlock feats by completing any scenario, I believe it's the first, third, and fourth scenarios you complete in a tier. So once you complete your fourth scenario in one tier, you can choose to go up to the next tier. If completing two more scenarios completes an adventure, you must go into the next tier. However, you've only completed two scenarios at your current tier, so you are missing two (or one if the feat comes at the second scenario and not third, can't remember at the moment) Tier 2 feats but are now Tier 3.


Andrew wrote:
stuff

yea, I didn't really follow that


I didn't follow that either.

I can't see how the "gain the feats you've missed in your tier" would ever kick in, except when it shouldn't.

If you've completed four scenarios to go up a tier, you've gotten your feats. If you've completed an adventure to go up a tier -- all adventures in SotR have at least four scenarios -- you've gotten your feats.

The only time I've seen the rule kick in is when you've completed four scenarios in a five-scenario adventure, gone up a tier, completed the next scenario to complete the adventure, gone up another tier, and reaped a bonus power and card feat. Tanis in another thread said this will change in season 2.

Sovereign Court

elcoderdude wrote:
The only time I've seen the rule kick in is when you've completed four scenarios in a five-scenario adventure, gone up a tier, completed the next scenario to complete the adventure, gone up another tier, and reaped a bonus power and card feat. Tanis in another thread said this will change in season 2.

This example is precisely what the rule is for. If you didn't automatically gain the feats, you'd go up a tier and be short. That's not "when it shouldn't", that's 100% "when it should".

Outside of this situation, you will never automatically earn feats for going up a tier, because you'll already have all the feats for your tier. Or at least, I can't think of any other possible situation where you would go up a tier without having your feats.

The rule may very well no longer exist in Season 2 depending on what they decide to change about tier advancement.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

Wait, I thought that replacements for banished cards in OP always had to be Basic unless you spend an upgrade on them right away - even if you're in AD 6, if you have an empty slot you have to put a Basic card in there. I didn't think the AD-2 rule applied in OP.

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

First, it is the 1st, 2nd and 4th scenarios in a tier that you unlock feats.

The automatic advancement allows more casual players to catch up quicker if they are not able to play each week (or each session). Let's say they play 3 scenarios from 1-1, then are able to play the entire Adventure 1-2. They can advance to Tier 2 after playing 1-2A (and effectively catch up to the group). Then (for argument sake, say Adventure 1-2 has only 4 scenarios instead of 5!) after completing the remaining 3 scenarios of 1-2, they automatically advance to Tier 3 and in the process gain the card feat they were missing.

It's an option in the tier advancement designed to help the casual player stay more on track with the regular players. That was one of the complaints from Season 0.

Grand Lodge

ryric wrote:
Wait, I thought that replacements for banished cards in OP always had to be Basic unless you spend an upgrade on them right away - even if you're in AD 6, if you have an empty slot you have to put a Basic card in there. I didn't think the AD-2 rule applied in OP.

I was talking about the person coming into the game during Adventure 4. The way to build a higher level deck allows you to use the AD-2 guideline.

As far as banishing cards and replacing them, I had always assumed (and I might be wrong) that when you get to the point where you are banishing Basic (then Elite) cards from the box set, you could avoid using Basic and Elite cards from the class deck. But you always start at B and work your way up. That's why I was saying that banishing cards is not a good methodology for "upgrading". You don't get what you want for the most part. And it isn't easy to banish cards from your deck when you want to. If your group is feeling that they haven't gotten enough upgrades, then replaying is more in line with what you need to do.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

Theryon Stormrune wrote:
ryric wrote:
Wait, I thought that replacements for banished cards in OP always had to be Basic unless you spend an upgrade on them right away - even if you're in AD 6, if you have an empty slot you have to put a Basic card in there. I didn't think the AD-2 rule applied in OP.

I was talking about the person coming into the game during Adventure 4. The way to build a higher level deck allows you to use the AD-2 guideline.

As far as banishing cards and replacing them, I had always assumed (and I might be wrong) that when you get to the point where you are banishing Basic (then Elite) cards from the box set, you could avoid using Basic and Elite cards from the class deck. But you always start at B and work your way up. That's why I was saying that banishing cards is not a good methodology for "upgrading". You don't get what you want for the most part. And it isn't easy to banish cards from your deck when you want to. If your group is feeling that they haven't gotten enough upgrades, then replaying is more in line with what you need to do.

That was not my interpretation - I thought you never "removed" cards from the class decks. This also makes drawing random cards from the class decks really terrible at high AD#s.

My interpretation makes banishing something to avoid at all costs, unless you're banishing a boon acquired during the scenario.

2/5 *

The current system is designed to advance casual players quickly, but there's been a lot of confusion around the implementation.

The implementation should probably be simplified in some way. For example, you get a skill/power/card feat when completing scenarios in an adventure, not in your current tier.

Grand Lodge

Jason S wrote:

The current system is designed to advance casual players quickly, but there's been a lot of confusion around the implementation.

The implementation should probably be simplified in some way. For example, you get a skill/power/card feat when completing scenarios in an adventure, not in your current tier.

Can't do that when there are two or more seasons open to play (at the same time.) That's why a tier structure was put in place similar (in concept) to the RPG.

And yeah, there is some confusion and some growing pains as it is a new system implemented a couple months ago. Rewards are tied to scenarios and adventures. Tier advancement (and feat advancement) is tied to successfully completed scenarios.

Grand Lodge

ryric wrote:

That was not my interpretation - I thought you never "removed" cards from the class decks. This also makes drawing random cards from the class decks really terrible at high AD#s.

My interpretation makes banishing something to avoid at all costs, unless you're banishing a boon acquired during the scenario.

The problem has been that when it comes time for banishing cards past Adventure 3, we always made sure to acquire the "required" boon from one of the location decks. We've had more than one occasion where the player would not banish a higher level boon in order to close a location. How could we blame them if we had time. So the idea of using "banishing" as a way to upgrade a deck seemed silly and counter-productive. We've actually replayed a scenario to get more boons to upgrade from.

But it goes back to Slacker2010's idea of trying to banish cards in order to switch them out. It's inefficient.

2/5 *

Theryon Stormrune wrote:
Can't do that when there are two or more seasons open to play (at the same time.) That's why a tier structure was put in place similar (in concept) to the RPG.

This new tier system is completely different than the system used in season 0. Since Season 1 is so new, there would be no harm in changing it and grandfathering any fast trackers (who I would hardly call "casual" considering adventure 2 of OP isn't even officially available yet!).

Also, this system isn't like the RPG system at all. To advance a level in the RPG, you need to earn each and every XP, you can't just cheat and fast track yourself to level 11. You earn everything, which is why it's so rare to see level 11 characters.

Sovereign Court

You're equating scenario completion to XP, when you should be comparing scenario completion to scenario completion. You don't have to complete every possible scenario for your Level 1, or even every scenario from a single season for your Level 1, to level up. You only complete a certain amount, and move up. Just like PACG.

The only reason you don't automatically get anything in the RPG, is because you don't gradually work your way to 2 by unlocking bits and pieces of it. You go from 1, to 2. In PACG it isn't like that, you power up a little, then a little more, then a little more and you go to the next Tier.

If you've started a season, a change as big as character advancement shouldn't be changed till that season ends. Possible exception if you're only a scenario, maybe two, into it.

Grand Lodge

Jason S wrote:
Theryon Stormrune wrote:
Can't do that when there are two or more seasons open to play (at the same time.) That's why a tier structure was put in place similar (in concept) to the RPG.
This new tier system is completely different than the system used in season 0. Since Season 1 is so new, there would be no harm in changing it and grandfathering any fast trackers (who I would hardly call "casual" considering adventure 2 of OP isn't even officially available yet!).

Sorry, but because the reward system is different in Season 1, you can't simply apply what was done in Season 0 to Season 1. Rewards weren't given out in the same manner. That's why they're going to update Season 0 to Season 1 standards. That's why there's an appendix on how to change over from the old to the new.

Jason S wrote:
Also, this system isn't like the RPG system at all. To advance a level in the RPG, you need to earn each and every XP, you can't just cheat and fast track yourself to level 11. You earn everything, which is why it's so rare to see level 11 characters.

Never said it was like the RPG system. I said "similar in concept" in which completion of scenarios provided some measure of advancement. PFS RPG scenarios are broken down in a completely different fashion than PFS ACG. You don't have tiered scenarios. But completion provides experience and experience provides advancement.

Also, when I was talking casual players, I already have a player who has missed 3 of the 6 sessions we've played. I'd call him casual. He will probably be using the alternate advancement first. Just because this season is new doesn't mean that the previous season is done. People may still want to play it.

Grand Lodge

Andrew L Klein wrote:

You're equating scenario completion to XP, when you should be comparing scenario completion to scenario completion. You don't have to complete every possible scenario for your Level 1, or even every scenario from a single season for your Level 1, to level up. You only complete a certain amount, and move up. Just like PACG.

The only reason you don't automatically get anything in the RPG, is because you don't gradually work your way to 2 by unlocking bits and pieces of it. You go from 1, to 2. In PACG it isn't like that, you power up a little, then a little more, then a little more and you go to the next Tier.

If you've started a season, a change as big as character advancement shouldn't be changed till that season ends. Possible exception if you're only a scenario, maybe two, into it.

Exactly.

When I was saying similar, I wasn't comparing Oranges to Oranges but more like Lemons to Limes. They're similar but definitely not the same. You have to look at the bigger picture which included the feedback from the previous season. A lot of discussion was done about trying to alleviate the drop-out rate from people missing too many sessions. If you remove the feat rewards from specific scenarios and allow for even progression no matter which scenario is completed, then you get where tier advancement was born.


Quote:

Option 1: Build Your Own Character

If the scenario you’re playing has an adventure deck
number of 3 or higher, you may use any cards that
have the set indicator B, as well as any cards with an
adventure deck number at least 2 lower than that of
the adventure you’re about to play. Your character (and
role card, if you’re playing a scenario with an adventure
deck number of 4 or higher) may not have any feat boxes
checked when you start play.

Was it really intended for someone to play at higher tiers with no feats? Seems to be this would pigeon hole people into playing the Pregen Characters. Why not develop a system to allow it?

Grand Lodge

Yup, no feats.

That's why there are pregen characters with feats and such for higher levels. Making your own character using Option 1 rules has it's setbacks.


That is beyond silly. Joining in at tier 5 you would be forced to play a pregen. Why even have option one?

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

So people can have some customization while not getting to simply skip the first X tiers. The only viable alternative would be to mirror the RPG and get rid of Option 1 in its entirely, not to allow feats. If you can build a pretty good deck that quickly gets upgraded, and start with all relevant player upgrades, why create a Tier 1 character to start and play normal?

They give you an option so you can, not because you should.

Adventure Card Game Designer

Andrew L Klein wrote:
They give you an option so you can, not because you should.

I'm thinking of getting this tattooed on my forehead.


Theryon Stormrune wrote:


The automatic advancement allows more casual players to catch up quicker if they are not able to play each week (or each session). Let's say they play 3 scenarios from 1-1, then are able to play the entire Adventure 1-2. They can advance to Tier 2 after playing 1-2A (and effectively catch up to the group). Then (for argument sake, say Adventure 1-2 has only 4 scenarios instead of 5!) after completing the remaining 3 scenarios of 1-2, they automatically advance to Tier 3 and in the process gain the card feat they were missing.

It's an option in the tier advancement designed to help the casual player stay more on track with the regular players. That was one of the complaints from Season 0.

This is very clear. I get it now.


ryric wrote:
Wait, I thought that replacements for banished cards in OP always had to be Basic unless you spend an upgrade on them right away - even if you're in AD 6, if you have an empty slot you have to put a Basic card in there. I didn't think the AD-2 rule applied in OP.

This is not the case. The AD-2 rule does apply in OP.

If you need to replace a banished card in your playing deck, the PSACG Guide says:

PSACG Season 1 Guide wrote:
After upgrading your deck, when rebuilding the rest of your character deck, choose extra cards, if needed, from your Class Deck. Follow the hierarchy in the “New Characters” section, above.

The "Building Your Character" section says:

PSACG Season 1 Guide wrote:
If the scenario you’re playing has an adventure deck number of 3 or higher, you may use any cards that have the set indicator B, as well as any cards with an adventure deck number at least 2 lower than that of the adventure you’re about to play.

Tanis confirmed here that this means the AD-2 rule applies to OP.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I will accept Word of Tanis on this issue then. Glad to know I've been doing it wrong. I still don't think the Guide is very clear on this point - the sections you quote don't actually go together in my mind. The hierarchy in "new characters," to me, is the Basic B - any B - Basic 1 - etc. hierarchy, not the rules on joining a higher tier game with a new character.

Sovereign Court

The hierarchy is whatever the rules tell you for your tier. Before 3, it's what you read. After 3, the guide indicates it changes.

1/5 *

The problem (to me) is that the text in "Upgrading Your Deck" refers to the hierarchy in the "New Characters" section, and the AD-2 rule is not in that section. It's in Option 1 of "Higher-Level Characters".

My suggestion would be to either change "Upgrading Your Deck" with something like:

Quote:
Follow the hierarchy in the "Building Your Character" section above, including the exception for scenarios with an adventure deck number of 3 or higher from "Option 1: Build Your Own Character".

...or move the first sentence from "Option 1: Build Your Own Character" to the end of the hierarchy list under "New Characters":

Quote:

...and so on, up to the adventure deck number of your current tier.

If the scenario you're playing has an adventure deck number of 3 or higher, you may use...

Something to consider the next time they're editing the Guide.

Aside: should the exception start being based on Tier rather than the scenario's adventure deck? I'm not sure, as I only have one character built under the Tier system and I've only played one scenario with that character.

Adventure Card Game Designer

Yup, I appreciate this feedback, for sure, and for the excellent translation y'all do for each other. :)

Sovereign Court

It's usually pretty easy to translate Nerd into Other Nerd :)

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