CD Damiel and Charm Person


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

This is a cross-post from the Pathfinder ACG reddit (link).

Class Deck Damiel has the following power:

Damiel wrote:
When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical trait or a spell for its power, you may recharge it instead.

Charm Person is a spell with the following powers:

Charm Person wrote:

Bury this card to draw 1 random Human ally from the box and add it to your hand.

If you do not have the Arcane skill, banish this card.

It's pretty clear that the spell isn't really ever supposed to be recharged (there's even an FAQ to that effect), however CD Damiel is able to recharge it using his power due to him not having the Arcane skill.

This would also impact any other spell that normally does not allow for recharging it, such as Holy Candle, Holy Feast, Time Stop, and Miracle.

Perhaps CD Damiel's power needs a tweak? Best way I can think of to close this (if it is something that needs closing) would be "When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical trait or a spell that lists a check to recharge for its power, you may recharge it instead."


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Er, I have no idea why I listed Holy Candle, I think I was just like "write down all the super powerful cards" or something. Damiel's power above doesn't actually apply to it, and it's too late to edit that out of my post.


Oh ho ho! I like how much the Alchemists get to grab and reuse "banish" cards.

I think you'd get to recharge it. I also think Myrtle would get to (attempt to) recharge it.

(Holy Candle is banished instead of buried in Pathfinder Adventures, maybe that's what you're thinking of. Or you're remembering me asking if the physical game was going to "nerf" Holy Candle (from a bury to a banish) so that Myrtle could (attempt to) recharge it.)

I actually agree with your suggested wording, basing it on a recharge ability.

Even though that would nerf Damiel and Myrtle some. :/ I'll accept it if we can change Myrtle's strength (or dexterity) to a d6 and her constitution to a d6. So she can actually not just get pummeled in the face when she doesn't have an attack spell (or her staff). :D

Sovereign Court

It's rare enough and low power enough that I don't see any reason to change it. It definitely works, but there aren't any instances where it's so powerful it needs the nerfbat


Rebel Song wrote:
I actually agree with your suggested wording, basing it on a recharge ability.

There's probably wording that could clean up this issue, but I take issues with skizzerz's draft because it'd deny Damiel's use of certain spells it shouldn't, like my personal favorite: Shapeshift D:


Dave Riley wrote:
Rebel Song wrote:
I actually agree with your suggested wording, basing it on a recharge ability.
There's probably wording that could clean up this issue, but I take issues with skizzerz's draft because it'd deny Damiel's use of certain spells it shouldn't, like my personal favorite: Shapeshift D:

Noooo, not Shapeshift! I take it back!


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I don't see any obvious way to exploit this using either Damiel or Mother Myrtle, at best you can get the spell as the last card in your deck, and then just play it once per turn to draw a bunch of allies. For Mother Myrtle, there's a weird situation that I don't think exists that would allow you to loop the spell multiple times in the same turn, but it depends on having a monster that remains in the location deck after being defeated (and is actually counted as defeated), is somehow easy enough to defeat by Mother Myrtle without expending resources (or can be pawned off to another character at her location without expending resources), and is the only card in the location deck. At that point with enough skill feats in her Reanimator role you could search your deck for Charm Person, then play it for an ally, and then use that ally to explore again to loop everything. I don't think such a monster exists, however -- best I can come up with are the ones that shuffle back in if they aren't defeated by at least 4, but eventually you'll roll high enough to banish them for good, thus breaking the loop.

I mostly cross-posted it to bring it to everyone's attention, just in case it was something that needed to be addressed.


Don't forget Invoke. I'd be more concerned about it then Charm Person.

For Charm Person and Invoke, changing the banish to happen at the end of the scenario would be enough. Then Damiel would just have it buried. That wouldn't work for everything.


Replace "banish" by "return to the box" on cards that you don't want Damiel or others to gain too much benefit of ?

Although dear Hawk, since you definitively are the the king of the "banish" vs "return to the box" intelligencia since your first Player's Aid on the subject, you may have something to say about it... :-)

Silver Crusade

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It doesn't seem fair to make everyone return Charm Person to the box, just because Damiel can exploit it.


Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
It doesn't seem fair to make everyone return Charm Person to the box, just because Damiel can exploit it.

He's suggesting replacing the banish (when you don't have the skill) not the bury. I can't think of anything it would change other than Damiel (since the card isn't basic nor elite). Though I suspect it's too ugly a fix for them to actually implement.

Silver Crusade

Irgy wrote:
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
It doesn't seem fair to make everyone return Charm Person to the box, just because Damiel can exploit it.

He's suggesting replacing the banish (when you don't have the skill) not the bury. I can't think of anything it would change other than Damiel (since the card isn't basic nor elite). Though I suspect it's too ugly a fix for them to actually implement.

D'oh!


Irgy wrote:
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
It doesn't seem fair to make everyone return Charm Person to the box, just because Damiel can exploit it.

He's suggesting replacing the banish (when you don't have the skill) not the bury. I can't think of anything it would change other than Damiel (since the card isn't basic nor elite). Though I suspect it's too ugly a fix for them to actually implement.

A) Yes that's what I meant.

B) I don't know if there is anything like an "ugly" fix. Either it ain't broken and don't fix it; either it is and then the fix is a good thing for the fun of the gam. Ang good things never get ugly :-)


Myrtle ran into Consecration last night (and decided to not attempt to acquire it because everyone was at the location and would have tried to hit her if she did (2-4E)) and Eliandra and I brought this up. I only had one blessing in my discard (I failed to recharge it!) so it wouldn't have added much, but it was fun to think about. :)

Silver Crusade

Rebel Song wrote:
Myrtle ran into Consecration last night (and decided to not attempt to acquire it because everyone was at the location and would have tried to hit her if she did (2-4E)) and Eliandra and I brought this up. I only had one blessing in my discard (I failed to recharge it!) so it wouldn't have added much, but it was fun to think about. :)

We had also just acquired and used a holy candle (for which Rebel rolled a 6!), so we were feeling pretty good on blessings.


Yeah. I personally don't like seeing "return this card to the box" in a power. I just don't like the way it looks. (Maybe if the rules said "Return means to return it to the box and then the card could just say "Return this card" I'd like it more.)

But, the real question is whether there is enough of a problem with CD Damiel and these cards we mention. It obviously won't be much of an issue in Organized Play, since the Alchemist Class Deck doesn't have these cards. (I'm guessing, I don't actually have that Alchemist deck yet.) So, then the question becomes, how much of a concern is it when cards from one source create some crazy interactions with a card from another source? And should that just be left up to social contract? As more and more cards are created, the possibility for such crazy interactions increases. And I wouldn't want some idea sacrificed just because if the card from this product every interacted with the one from this product from 3 years ago it would be really powerful. Organized play keeps that from happening in the setting where you might be playing with people you don't really know. And you can decide as a group of friends in the setting where you play with people you do know.

If I played RotR again was CD Damiel, I would probably just willfully never keep those spells in my deck. If I acquired them during a scenario, I'd cheese the heck out of them, but I wouldn't set myself up to go "god mode" on the box.

Which is basically what you have in organized play. Damiel might acquire such a card and become game breaking for a scenario, but that is all it would be, just that scenario. That would actually be kind of fun to see.

But, we'll see what comes of it and if anything changes.


I agree with hawkmoon269 - having 2 things mean the same thing except in that one interacts with powers and the other doesn't seems extremely wrong.

No, Alchemist Class Deck doesn't have these cards and this is much less on an issue in OP. Of course, I get the feeling that the vast majority of people don't play OP, but I also get the feeling the vast majority of people that don't play OP don't peruse errata at paizo.com, read the forums or get the character sheets either, so who knows.

I think the OP problem can be solved at an OP level, just like we solve problems in MtG tournaments with broken cards at an OP level (even though they try to curb the number of broken interactions because people did pay for those cards).

That being said, I wouldn't mind hawkmoon's errata on the specific cards either. The dev team has errata'd things before because of brokenness - Restoration was the big one that comes to mind.


"Return to the box" or any other replacement for banish would cause problems for characters that say "when you play or would banish... You gain [arcane/divine]." Mogmurch for example.


zeroth_hour2 wrote:
I agree with hawkmoon269 - having 2 things mean the same thing except in that one interacts with powers and the other doesn't seems extremely wrong.

Let me rephrase.

A) If 2 things do the same thing, they have the same name/wording : totally agree
B) If there is a "nicer" way to say it than "return to the box" then let's use a nicer way : totally agree
C) This said, if we need 2 things to be DIFFERENT (i. e. I want the character power to allow the character to "recover" some of the cards when they head to the box, and not some others), then we need two NICE but DIFFERENT names/wordings to clearly differentiate cards that can be recovered (e. g. "banished cards") and cards that can't (e. g. "returned cards" or "destroyed cards" or "vanished cards" or "recycled cards"... I have no (p)reference but it needs to be something other than "banished").
Makes sense?


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I think Hawkmoon's solution is the nicest one; almost all of the problematic cards have you bury and then banish if you lack the skill, so changing the banish to the end of the scenario would nicely address that. Something like "At the end of the scenario, if this card is buried and you do not have the Arcane or Divine skill, banish it." This prevents powers that replace the banish from letting you use the card more than once a scenario, while still making the power seem useful and not arbitrarily limiting.

Cards like Holy Feast that are discarded have a plethora of ways to wind up back into your deck. Cards like Unearthly Aim that are banished right away suffer the problem, but Unearthly Aim itself isn't that broken to loop, and those cards can be changed to the above "bury then banish at end of scenario" to block powers that replace the banish from looping them. Of course, there are powers that let you get back buried cards too (including on CD Damiel), but those are significantly rarer.

Alternatively we can just say that Damiel gets to have nice things and leave it all as-is. I'd personally rather just have the particular problematic cards errated though. The more I think of it, I can't think of any satisfactory way to adjust the power itself without severely limiting its usefulness.

Grand Lodge

You're always going to have certain combinations of powers and cards that will break the flow. Paizo/LSG try to make sure things aren't too out of whack in the end. But if playing CD Damiel in OP, since he doesn't actually have access to those cards in his class deck, it is an infrequent issue. If using CD Damiel while playing the AP, then you should try not to keep the broken spell combinations in his deck. (Social contract)

Doesn't it need changing? Probably not. But like everything else, we'll have to see what Vic says in the end.


Frencois wrote:
zeroth_hour2 wrote:
I agree with hawkmoon269 - having 2 things mean the same thing except in that one interacts with powers and the other doesn't seems extremely wrong.

Let me rephrase.

A) If 2 things do the same thing, they have the same name/wording : totally agree
B) If there is a "nicer" way to say it than "return to the box" then let's use a nicer way : totally agree
C) This said, if we need 2 things to be DIFFERENT (i. e. I want the character power to allow the character to "recover" some of the cards when they head to the box, and not some others), then we need two NICE but DIFFERENT names/wordings to clearly differentiate cards that can be recovered (e. g. "banished cards") and cards that can't (e. g. "returned cards" or "destroyed cards" or "vanished cards" or "recycled cards"... I have no (p)reference but it needs to be something other than "banished").
Makes sense?

I think the point is that to learn the game people already need to learn the difference between "reveal", "display", "recharge", "discard", "bury", "banish", and "remove from the box". Adding yet another thing to that list is not a good idea. The fact that the only meaningful difference between two of them is how they interact with a card most people haven't even heard of, let alone have, makes it even harder to explain why it exists. Then everyone who plays the game ends up learning about this obscure case just to understand why a card says what it does.

Yes "return to the box" does technically exist already in the game, but it's not written on any cards. It's just a particular exception you need to learn for when you rebuild your decks, and it works the way most people would expect it should there anyway.

Anyway that's what I meant by an ugly fix. It's a great idea in the context of this discussion, but as something to actually change on the cards it's putting the cart before the horse, turning a problem for a few people in a rare circumstance into an (albeit smaller) problem for everyone.


I was looking for a thread on Damiel's power. His power says if you would banish a spell for its power, then recharge it instead.

There are certain spells that specifically say "Banish this card to do X" like Unearthly Aim. To me, this would be banishing a spell for its power.

The way standard spells are written, banish this card if you don't have Arcane/Divine is more of a consequence, not the power of the card.

So, I was wondering if Damiel's Spell Power is actually more stringent than initially thought.

I'm considering using him in Wrath soon, but would need clarification on that ability.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Banishing a card for its power means two things:
1. You played the card for its power
2. You are banishing it

How those come to pass is irrelevant as long as both are true. See also this post by Vic.

Scarab Sages

I don't think having a character be able to use Unearthly Aim more than once a scenario necessarily breaks Wrath. If anything, it might make it slightly more palatable. And who's to say...it's possible that Mummy's Mask and other, future sets won't contain that spell.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

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Damiel's recharge power ("When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical trait or a spell for its power, you may recharge it instead") is a simple three-part test:

• Is the card a spell or does it have the Alchemical trait?
• Are you playing it for its power?
• Is it getting banished?

If the answer to all three is yes, you can recharge it (unless some other power trumps this via the Golden Rule). This applies to Charm Person, Holy Feast, Time Stop, and Miracle just as it applies to any other card.


Huzzah!

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