[ACG][OutPost I]Hawkmoon269's Season of Plundered Tombs Table 3 (Inactive)

Game Master Hawkmoon269

I am electing to wait to see the scenario locations and power before picking a Trader, sorry.

Don't be sorry. I should have posted that already. I have now.

My bad. I got it confused and will add it to Dexterity. I will update my handler again when I get a chance.

I replaced Blessing of The Gods 3.

Continuing the same order seems good.
And no change to my trading decision after seeing the locations.

Oooh... Hm. So there's a few cards I want to try trading for, and I want to try out different traders over the course of gameplay (though I think Sunburst will remain the best one until AD2, because the other traders are moderately likely to end up providing deck B boons and basics anyway, and require twice the investment)...

...but for this scenario, I'm actually going to take the Osirion History Guide item from Sunburst Market. Between that and Spiritual Ally, I may be able to help people against Henchmen at my location, as well as my new Idorii ally that can help any combat check at my location.

Since there's also no villain to speak of, per se, this seems like a situation where having much of our team at one location is highly beneficial. We have more ways of supporting each other's checks (Skizza excluded with some of his weapons, perhaps) and we can hand off boons back and forth easily. The biggest weakness is vulnerability to cards that will damage everyone at a location.

I'm going to be starting at the Smoking Den, since it's beneficial to close and has boons that I'm good at acquiring (Allies, Blessings, Spells... even weapons with Honaire. Really, everything but items). I encourage people to start there with me since I may be able to offer significant help to people at my location, depending on my starting hand.

I'll be posting my decisions formally in the gameplay thread soon.

EDIT: Posted, and decided to add some flavor (again, arguably too much) to my ally change and Trading. I've also added Osirion History Guide to my deck handler card text (and my actual deck), and temporarily removed/moved/hidden Dowsing Rod as necessary.

Yewstance:
Seems like a good plan. Qualzar doesn’t have much to contribute to those at his location, though ironically both of his 2 newly acquired cards can help.
(And don’t apologize for the flavor- I love it!)

Do I HAVE to use the Traders even though they aren't really available until we're done?

The Warehouse seems like a great location for me and if I pull my Hackbut I can still assist with other combats. Otherwise I can start at the Smoke House too and push through it with the group. Either way I am well equipped for both the barrier and henchman.

As far as traders I am not too sure what to do. It's an interesting mechanic. The blowgun looks pretty cool but then I have to figure out what to trade. Lol.

You do not have to use traders. It is optional. If you don't want to use one, you might as well pick one that is NOT Sunburst Market that another player uses because you will increase the offer the other player gets.

Okay, someone who needs something nifty get something neat go.

Wei Ji:
Just a friendly reminder that in this adventure (as it's Organised Play) you do come across traders before we start the scenario. Just clarifying that, since you said: "even though they aren't really available until we're done", which isn't quite true.

Agent Eclipse:
Looking at your deck, it seems the best cards to trade away would be either a weapon (you only need 1 in hand at a time, for the most part), the Alchemist's Fire (how often do you want to banish that rather than just bury a firearm?) or the Powder Horn (which has its merits, but for the most part is just another pistol that may require you to discard a card to get). On a similar note, the Cartridges item just lets you replace the 'bury or shuffle' effect of a firearm with itself, right? So it's basically strictly worse than an actual weapon, and might be the first to go (though maybe it's not actually worse, if I recall correctly, since you can just display it can keep it displayed indefinitely which lets you redraw different/better cards to fill your hand, I guess).

You can also go without armor, if you're feeling lucky that there won't be any devastating unavoidable damage.

As for what to trade for with Sunburst Market, Blowgun does seem neat. Other options include Cure spell (hey, even if you're banishing it on use, it's still strictly better than Healing Potion! You can also hand it off to Estra for her to cure you if we're at the same location), Acid Flask (using your ranged skill on barriers is basically an auto-pass) or switching out one of your items or weapons for a fourth Blessing (of the Ancients?) for extra dice and explorations as desired.

Of course the druid wants to skip the bustle of the marketplace! :)

If you’re not feeling any of the basics, you could instead go to the Smiths of Wati, and see if you can get a non-basic or deck 1 weapon.

As an aside, I'm repeatedly tempted to include Qualzar's antics more in justifying Estra's encounter and decision flavour (such as 'losing' my Dowsing Rod), just because I find him such an amusing character.

I hate to again be the bearer of technicalities, but I think Skizza can't actually trade for Blessing of the Gods. It has to be a Basic Boon from Mummy's Mask, and I think the only Basic blessings are Blessing of the Ancients and Blessing of the Elements.

On the plus side, both of those blessings are likely better (especially since they can be recharged).

That is what I meant. I was updating two posts and put the wrong name, lol.

Now I need to double check Nyctessa to make sure I didn't call hers, Ancient.

Just a quick note; Wei Ji, I think the traders are an excellent opportunity. If you're unsure, perhaps just go to Sunburst Market and switch out your Frog for a Blessing of the Ancients? Your frog doesn't do anything but explore (with a very very rare additional upside), where a blessing can explore or add a die to anything, and can even recharge itself at times.

I don't have the time currently to post a full turn, incidentally, so I'll be posting in about 2-3 hours from now, most likely. I have, however, drawn my starting hand (and then discarded and redrew until I had a legal hand with Honaire).

Okay. Posted my turn. That was actually a productive turn, but my god was it a messy journey.

Where to begin?

In the end, the most important thing for me to share about my strategy is that I'd really like to be cycling through my deck pretty actively, heavily leaning on recharges and shuffles to re-use some of my most powerful supporting effects over and over. First thing's first; this Cure is kind of clogging up my hand, so I'm very happy to spend Cure on a relatively small heal as long as someone can provide me help on the recharge check. Sure, I have a 60% odds of succeeding anyway, but given my luck with 80% and 70% odds, lets just not go there.

Wei Ji:
Gronk still needs to draw his opening hand (be sure to adjust your deck handler so you've removed the boons you acquired last scenario, and that there's nothing in your Discarded/Recharged columns). If the GM allows it, you may want to use a Trader first as I suggested above in my last Discussion post.

If you draw 2 or more allies or blessings, know that I will happily Cure you before you end your turn if you discard them for your power or for explorations (though I'd like help on the recharge check from someone), so you'll potentially redraw them again. I can also help with your Combat or Charisma checks thanks to Idorii and Spiritual Ally, so keep those in mind too.

Aaand shoot. I made a mistake. GM?

Heading to bed for now, but we'll see if my turn stands or will need to be retaken or in some way undone, since I misread an ability and examined 3 cards of the wrong deck, which also led to another Trigger. Seems the turn was messier than I even thought.

Qualzar had Surgeon in his opening hand. I’d have used it to cure Estra’s Conch Shell before he left. And I’d have cast Elemental Treaty. But, don’t want to post anything until Hawkmoon straightens it all out.

I was tempted by the Surgeon... but honestly I decided not to. As much as I like the idea of Conch Shell for the perception checks this scenario will likely have me make, it's far more effective for Qualzar to spend one of his own Blessings for a dice or exploration and then Surgeon himself. Conch Shell is not nearly as good as a Blessing.

EDIT: Perhaps what I should've done is Cured myself the Conch, then if I recharged Cure - great, it's just my very own Surgeon - and if I failed to recharge, then use your Surgeon, and the Cure remains somewhere in my deck. But I'm perfectly happy to wait until I can cure somewhat more than one card.

Sorry. Very busy day today.

Don't worry about examining the wrong location. That kind of stuff happens, in both PbP and in face-to-face. We'll just let it go. We won't examine your location, since that would double your knowledge. But as far as mistakes go, it really isn't that big of a deal.

Sorry for being delayed in posting, been fighting dehydration and a dehydration induced migraine for the past day or so.

Thanks to the GM for clearing up my questions. Even though it wasn't a huge deal, I'm still sorry for the mistake - and honestly kind of embarrassed that I made it in the first place. That's what I get for posting at my normal bedtime.

First rule of Magic the Gathering, first rule of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and, in fact, first rule of almost every card game ever made: READ THE CARDS.

Anyway, Wei Ji, your health comes first! Post whenever you feel right to do so, and remember to help yourself to cards in my hand if needed.

Finally getting better, but if you need to delay me or push on a turn without me go.

Go team.

Edit: Going to work, hopeful post in nine hours.

Feel better Wei Ji!

I'm pretty sure you can play Elemental Treaty when someone takes one of those types of damage at the location, as it's a relevant time to play it (much like armor). The only exception is if you'd played a spell that check... which given it may be you with a combat spell, or a combat where you wanted to help out with Black Spot, means it might be important to set it up in advance.

Also, probably more relevantly, I suppose, is that even if you immediately find the henchmen and beat it, as it's already displayed you get the chance to recharge it. Just making sure you know you don't have to pre-emptively Treaty a location, to my understanding.

That is how I've played Elemental Treaty as well.

Side-note, I think Elemental Treaty should technically be listed as "Set Aside" on your deck handler, not Displayed... because it's not displayed next to your character, but to the location.

Hardly matters, unless you move, though.

I usually still use the Displayed area for cards like that, even if they're actually displayed next to the location deck. The Set Aside section was made for an as-yet-unreleased character. Can't tell you more than that. :-D

I thought that was for Sideboard. I thought Set Aside is for cards that are being 'decided' on a zone (like a combat spell that hasn't been recharged yet because you're mid-combat).

Done. Not Medium Rare. Well Done. Go Team.

Gronk:
Unfortunately, I think you also got Cursed of Vulnerability from the Acid damage?

Yewstance:
Since Gronk wouldn't be doing anything else on his turn anyway, isn't it be better to wait until in case he uses the Blessing, for the 25% chance you cure for max?

EmpTyger:
I would have preferred healing him before hand reset, since he'd discarded a blessing and an ally, two things I consider more important than others for him to redraw (though his new hand is perfectly good).

But you're right. It doesn't make too much difference, and the 5th card in his discard pile would be even better value. We'll just continue on then, but I will most likely Cure during my turn and then move away from the Oasis, so Gronk should look to use his blessing productively soon.

Wei Ji:
Not that it would've mattered in this case, but we're in Adventure Deck 1, not 2. So the barrier Gronk tackled was only 7 difficulty, and you should have only rolled the d6 for damage twice. Again, didn't actually change anything.

But given the difficulty of 7, and the fact that you'd need to reroll if you succeeded (Oasis's Location power), you should have waited and requested a blessing, or spent one yourself, in my opinion. Your odds weren't good, and the cost of failure (your full hand and the barrier shuffling back into the deck) very high.

It’s late and I accidentally rolled my Knowledge instead of my Intelligence. If I had mistyped the die size, I’d have crossed it out and rerolled. Should I do that here, or should I just subtract 2 from the result without rerolling?
(To parallel, if it were an irl game, I’d just be subtracting 2 without rerolling in this instance. Whereas I’d rerolling if I picked up the wrong size die. But it’s my first OP game with new people, and so I want to err on the side of ethical play.)

I think it's safe to say just subtract the -2. There's no way there'd be any kind of difference here.

Nice work. Kind of a shame that I didn't get a go at grabbing the Camel with Estra's decent Wisdom, but it's also good I didn't end up examining Final Nights (which.. if I didn't misplay I would have... oops).

Though, I find it mildly funny (and maybe a little tragic) that all three of us, in the first three turns of this scenario, made some sort of misplay/misroll. I examined the wrong deck, Wei Ji made the barrier harder than it needed to be, and you inadvertently added 2 to your check. Only my mistake was meaningful, though.

I also found it funny that you redrew your Codex following the Surgeon shuffle.

In the future, I'd like cards that display next to locations be mentioned in the Scenario Update like Lightning Storm was. If people move; digging through people's deck handlers to see what cards they've displayed where (and they'd have to mention a location by name, not just have it in the "Displayed" column to be helpful) sounds like a hassle to track. Failing that, just mention it in Notes.

"Smoking Den: Elemental Treaty Displayed", etc.

Agent Eclipse/Skizza:
If (and only if) you don't have a good use of your blessing of the gods during your turn, could you please have my character use her Cure spell on Gronk, then spend your blessing on the recharge roll? Using your blessing for an exploration is fine too, but if you're not comfortable with another exploration for some reason. I don't like the idea of being without a Cure for the rest of the scenario, and after the debacle in scenario 1, I'm even less willing to use Honaire as my 'cure'.

Gronk supposedly does have a Cure spell in his deck though, so it wouldn't be a disaster either way.

Qualzar has 2 blessings in hand- Estra can use one of them for the cure recharge check.

Gronk:

Unfortunately, I think you also got Cursed of Vulnerability from the Acid damage?
[...]

Or maybe not? Would the 2 Fire damage immediately following from the Geyser then cancel the curse right away?

That was how I read that? New player mistake?

I think you did it right. Clearly I need to think harder before I post late at night!

Alright, well that went quite well even with a close call on the gnoll.

Waiting on my random spell to not acquire, lol. Saw the random spells spoiler and pulled it from there...and actually got it! Then is the decision to close. All of the boons are still in there so the question is do we want to close it now or not. I can easily achieve the requirement.

My vote would be to close- it looks like we're already going to be acquiring a lot of boons from closing locations, and we'll be only allowed to "keep" 1.

(Also I don't think we're allowed to recharge the Blessing of the Gods when using it to copy the top card of the blessings pile, unfortunately. The last line doesn't get copied.)

Woops I totally forgot that got discussed. I'll put it into discard.

And failing a roll with 80% chance of success decided it for me. Lol. However I refilled with cards that will let me dig further again next turn.

Uh, I mean, I vote to keep it open. All of the boons are still in there, you know. :)

Oh no! Skizza has picked up my dice luck! Er, for one roll, at least. Though that was actually a 90% chance in your favor, not 80%. A 2-10 on your d10 (9/10 possibilities) would have passed.

This is a disaster. D:

Anyway, taking my turn. As much as I'd like to pick that Acid Jet off of Skizza's hands, Smoking Dens should be closed early, and I can help out Qualzar there.

But before I take my turn, is anyone offering a Blessing to my recharge check for cure? If not, then I'm going to pass on the chance to cure (though I'd like it at the bottom of my deck rather than clogging up my hand) Gronk, who's a pretty resilient character regardless. I could, as a third option, just hand my cure spell to him and let him deal with healing when he feels like it.

Also; I'd strongly encourage rapid explorations now (which recharging Cures can help with, of course, since we don't have to worry about running ourselves dry on allies/blessings). With no villain, an extra location to explore, and even an extra set of henchmen in the decks (that do not help close), we've got a lot of explorations before we can win this game now that we HAVE to go through the remaining 8 cards of the Warehouse.

Estra can use 1 of Qualzar’s blessing for the cure recharge before your turn. After last game, I am very in favor of making sure you have a cure available later!

Alright, I'll be taking my turn very shortly!

I've noted the Elemental Treaty at the Smoking Den in the most recent post. I put Qualzar's name in parenthesis after it to show who played it. I should have done that from the beginning but when I was trying to update the scenario at the point Paizo's site crashed on me and I lost track of what I had and hadn't done. That is the typical approach we take when a character displays a card at a location.

Should we know what the top three cards at the Caravanesi are?