Season of the Righteous - difficulty


Pathfinder Adventure Card Society


Pathfinder ACG was probably the most played game in our house in 2014 and 2015. We've played RotR so many times I've actually lost count, Skull and Shackles 3 or 4 times, and Season of the Shackles once.

Wrath was less fun for us. We hated the army banes, and generally found the "everything turned up to 11 all the time" aspect just sapped the enjoyment. You were too busy worrying about dying ALL THE TIME to really enjoy anything, and the mythic paths seemed to skew everything so that lots of ordinary monsters became automatic victories if you could use your mythic stat, and completely impossible if you couldn't.

Armies were a particular pain, along with an overall sense that a lot of scenarios just didn't work with 5 or 6 character groups (not that things were THAT easy with 4). We eventually finished Wrath with our 4 character group (although not the optional extra scenario), and our 6-character group ground to a halt at the end of adventure 5.

I'm not wanting to revisit those discussions here (I'm aware there are many threads on these topics), but want people's opinions - given how we felt about Wrath of the Righteous, are we likely to enjoy Season of the Righteous? or is it basically just more of the same?

Specific concerns - are there lots of Armies to face, how well scaled does the overall experience feel?


I've only played it in 3 or 4 player counts and we are in adventure 5, but I wouldn't say it has been too difficult. We've lost about 1 scenario per adventure.

I'm playing Radillo and, honestly, with my skill feats and mythic path and all, I feel like there are lots of checks where I just say "I don't need to roll that, because I can't fail."

There are occasionally horrible, horrible, things, but so far in just the right doses.

But, you should get the opinion of those that have completed it.

It might be of interest to you that Keith talks about armies and Season of the Righteous a bit here.

Pathfinder ACG Developer

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My opinion is biased, so huge lump of salt, but we really tried to be observant of a lot of the Wrath feedback.

There's no B scenarios, AD1 is mixed in from the start.

AD2 is admittedly still fairly army heavy, since we designed it before folks had played AD2 and there aren't a ton of other options at that level. I felt a lot more comfortable making new henchmen and villains later. That said, you get the Banner of Valor early on and no scenario is remotely on par with Siege of Drezen.

We sometimes changed up the servitor demon so that effects like Demonic Horde would be less harsh.
Some of the new cohorts assist with card manipulation by scouting or evading to give you options to avoid killer cards, or healing to avoid death.
Potentially lethal encounters, like Khorramzadeh, are well telegraphed so you can plan around them.
In AD6 (and P), the armies are used more tactically; so you might have to defeat a single one as a group, or rely on a villain to close that location instead.
In general, but especially later on, care was taken to not spike the difficulty suddenly for groups of 5 or 6 in terms of location choice or mechanic.

It's certainly not perfect, but I've heard largely good feedback from those who played it.

All that said, if you didn't like Wrath's standard banes and the effect of mythic paths, I would not expect it to fundamentally change things. It certainly might improve on things, and it's a much more story full way of playing it, with plenty of new twists. Make your own call for how on the fence you are, I'd say.

Silver Crusade 4/5 ***

I think that SotRi does have a lot of the same flavor as the box game (I mean, there are still Demonic Hordes, Arboreal Blights, Bilious Bottles, and in my experience, it is how many of those come up that determine whether a scenario is difficult or easy, not any specific scenario rules), but I do think on average it's easier than the box set. For one thing, you get more skill feats a lot earlier. I noticed playing through the box set of WotR that you don't get your second skill feat til the end of AD2, which adds a lot to those first two decks being a grind. With SotR, with the final army in the set, my WotR Kyra could recharge a card and not fail.

One of the players in my area commented---and I agree with him---that the season seems to ramp up the difficulty at intervals. So it starts out hard, but then you get mythic paths, and everything's easy. But then the difficulty ramps up again, and you spend a few scenarios scrambling to catch up. Once you're there, you're golden for a few scenarios, until the difficulty ramps up again.

But, yes, on Hawkmoon, Theryon, and my run through the season, we've only lost 2 scenarios, though it may be meaningful that one of the times we lost was the time we had two extra players at the table. (The other time we just ran into the villain too early and unprepared. It's fine. I didn't want my role card anyway.) And the table of 4 at the other table has a noticeably more difficult time sometimes.


Hi all!
Will put in my 2 cents worth ;)

Season of the shackles- never finished due to lack of organized play in my area
Season of the Righteous- completed on one character and tier 4 on three others ran out of time before runelord season started
Season of the Runelords- multiple tier 4 characters that I would like to finish out but work and illness have held this up last 4 weeks much less the delay in advnetures

Degree of difficulty- not sure I have really noticed a sifnificant difference between seasons. Some adventures have been more difficult than others.
1. Mythic path did make certain things easier.
2. The army mechanic was interesting, but we (as most would do I assume) planned ahead as to whom was taking which checks and then determined who would need blessings.
3. I personally found shackles to be the most difficult as it was my first exposure to the game and did not have a good understanding of the rules. Subsequently my familiarity of the rules and the characters have allowed me personally to be more prepared for scenarios.
4. Personally in orgainized play I have only seen 2 characters die, and they were when I was at conventions. It was due to POOR play by an individual at the table. Exploring at a site that had arboreal blight when the group was not prepared to each fight a tree. 2nd time was similar with demonic hordes. So when playing with my local orgainized play group I have yet to see a death (a number of close calls though ). which is what makes the game exciting and fun.
5. Ultimately I just have fun playing the game. With my local group. With most players at the conventions as I have played with a number of excellent players that I always seem to learn something new.
6. Its a game. Did you have fun playing? If so then......

This is coming from someone who has a number of characters in orgainized play (20 now)

Silver Crusade 3/5 *** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Springfield

So take it as a grain of salt, as I have only played up to tier 3. I Solo'd easily with Damiel and Brielle through the first 2 tiers, and organized we have only had trouble with 1-2B Merrily We Roll Along, where we had to redo 3 times to complete it with 4-5 people. When I played it again with 3, we got through pretty easily. As with all the scenarios, it can depend on if you fight those dang Abhorreal Blights. I would say having 6 skill points after beating Tier 2 really sure helps a lot, and as people have said you get those auto succeed rolls.

So far I am having a blast with Wraith, and have been slightly hesistant in playing Rise because of the brutal Goblin Roll Table.


I'm playing both WotR and SotR in parallel at the moment - WotR with my friends, and SotR by myself (take note that I play SotR without class decks, so just as WotR from the box). WotR misses the last scenario of AD2 while SotR finished AD2 today.

I was very scared of the reports in the forum before playing, but it turns out that both APs are pretty similiar in enjoyment to me. So far, SotRu AD1 was much more frustrating to me than everything based on WotR - we're enjoying it greatly.

I'm pretty sure this is due to partysize - we are playing with 3 characters each, which seems to be a sweet spot for this set. With a moderate party, there is some pressure to win, but enough leeway to cope with the more frustrating barriers.

Since I also looked through some of the mechanics of the later ADs before we started, we also took care that we would start with a balanced party in both games, which might also go a long way to make things easier (especially for the armies).

Apart from that, I agree with the others and think that SotR feels more epic - not only because of the early increase of skill feats, but also looking at the boons acquired. When we played WotR, there was a much bigger emphasis on just winning while I was able to acquire much more boons in SotR.


I played Season of the Righteous with a 4-character group (WotR Kyra, Zarlova, Flenta, CD Merisiel). We had a lot of fun. I think we lost one scenario.
Several scenarios that looked really tough on paper weren't overly difficult when we got to them (like 1-P).

We did have WotR Kyra, which helped against any Demon/Undead army. And she could usually take out multiple servitor demons without trouble.
Also, Merisiel being able to evade Demonic Horde spared us several times.

Grand Lodge

I like *otRi a lot. There were DEFINITELY points where the challenge went beyond the point of fun (which usually involved Demonic Hordes with scenario rules that made them even MORE unpleasant), but for the most part, it really is my favorite set/season.

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