[Adventure Card Game] Season #4: Season of Factions' Favor (Tier 1) (Inactive)

Game Master MorkXII

PACG question. Can we add one of the ultimate decks to our pool of cards for upgrades later in the adventure run? Assuming we haven't already added another ultimate deck?

Personally, I'd encourage you to start with both, since I think it would be more fun and it would give you a greater variety of boons to play with that you otherwise wouldn't use (how often would you 'upgrade' any of your cards to an Ultimate Combat basic?). We don't really have to worry about power-gaming here, especially since we have such a well rounded team (and a couple of players with Add-On decks) that already gives us a strong leg-up.

Yep, I think I'm planning to start with both. I just went through all the Basics from both decks to see what a rebuild would look like, and I think at least 80% of my starting deck is now Combat rather than Fighter. Mainly because I've played Runelords to death (both IRL and in the App), and most of the Fighter deck is from there, so this at least gives me a chance to play with some cool new cards (even if they're not necessarily more powerful).

Really, the main reason I was asking is because it makes my combat-helping ability almost entirely useless (since I only have the Mace now that can power it) for the first few scenarios. So it's a "needs of the many" thing... I'd much rather play with the Add-on from the start, but if anybody is REALLY relying on my ability to throw maces at people, they're going to be upset that I can't really do that anymore. So basically, if anybody has a strong objection to me losing that power for the first few scenarios then speak up. Otherwise... well, at least I can now fly a Banner to give you a +1 Combat at every location. ;-) And a majority of my deck recharges and/or displays, so hopefully I'll still be able to cycle through things quickly and get that Mace up as often as possible. Just make sure I get my Weapon upgrade every scenario, and we'll all be happy. ;-)

PACG question. Can we add one of the ultimate decks to our pool of cards for upgrades later in the adventure run? Assuming we haven't already added another ultimate deck?

I would assume so, because as was mentioned further up the thread obviously Paizo wants to make money, and that's easier if you allow existing characters to immediately add the Addon as it's released, instead of forcing people to restart their character when their deck of choice comes out.

But I've looked at rules and blogs and can't find that anywhere now. So I'm not sure where that is, unfortunately, or even if it really exists.

We can certainly do that, though I find it hard to believe you could productively use a full 4 Cure spells (though it would be hilarious to see me just dump 3 spells a turn into explorations, then have you heal them back up repeatedly).

I have a Grazzle in a game right now that would LOVE to have 4 Cure spells in his deck. :)

My understanding is that you can add an ultimate deck at any point so long as you aren't already using another ultimate deck.

My understanding is that you can add an ultimate deck at any point so long as you aren't already using another ultimate deck.

*looks at Grazzle card*

Wow, that's a healing machine. Not even characters at his location, just everyone else.

Oh, and I've just ordered the Ultimate Combat Add-On myself (which will arrive in something like a week or two, because Australia), so if we are allowed to add Add-Ons mid-run then I'll do that. Yes, I'll be a Wizard with the Combat Add-On, but it has SOME useful components, I'm sure.

Or, Ultimate Magic is due out anytime now, so you could just wait and use that instead. If you grab it when it releases, there's still a chance that you'll have it in your hands before we finish the first scenario, and it's much more likely to have useful stuff for Ezren than Ultimate Combat. ;-)

Or, Ultimate Magic is due out anytime now, so you could just wait and use that instead. If you grab it when it releases, there's still a chance that you'll have it in your hands before we finish the first scenario, and it's much more likely to have useful stuff for Ezren than Ultimate Combat. ;-)

Whilst desirable, it would be more likely that we'd have passed a couple of scenarios by then. I still can't see it on non-Paizo.com merchant sites (and due to excessive shipping costs, purchases from Paizo are extremely poor choices for me to make) and I wouldn't be able to acquire it locally, so it'd be a few weeks.

But I'm pretty sure I can't switch out Add-On decks down the line, even for later tiers of my character(?) so I'd better wait, you're right.

Speaking of add-ons and card upgrades, I should note that my primary desire for the end of the first scenario, by a long margin, is actually to pick up a Weapon 1. My desire is strong enough that I'd request the use of blessings (or other cards) to pick one up if we encounter it. The Hell's Vengeance deck has a Weapon 1 staff that allows me to use my Arcane skill + 1d6+1 just for revealing it, with additional optional bonuses for discarding a spell if I recall correctly (I don't have access to my cards right now).

That means that I'm no longer reliant on merely 3 attack spells/staves that all have to be discarded or recharged, as well as my puny dagger that will only provide 2d4 or 3d4 combat checks with no static bonuses. Being able to stride into each and every combat with 1d12+1d6+3 is a colossal change to my entire character, and would allow me to actually chain together explorations more safely.

Of course, Weapon 1 is likely going to be one of the more contentious deck upgrades on this team, so we'll have to discuss that (or roll some dice). I can, of course, also make use of new spells.

So, I think I will be going with the Samurai from Ultimate Combat. I've nearly got my deck set up. How is everyone else making out? Are we all set? If you need any help with anything, just let me know. Otherwise I'll probably get the first scenario up sometime tomorrow.

I've got my new/enhanced deck built and good to go.

Ready to hunt down^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z rescue a slave. :)

(starting deck list and powers, for the interested)

Skills and Powers:

Skills

STRENGTH d10
Melee +2
DEXTERITY d6
CONSTITUTION d8
Fortitude +2
INTELLIGENCE d6
WISDOM d6
Survival +1
CHARISMA d6
Diplomacy +1

Powers
Hand Size: 4 ☐5
Proficient With: Light Armors Heavy Armors Weapons
On your first combat check of your turn, add 1d6 (☐ 1d10).
On your (☐ or a character at your location's) non-combat check against a monster, you may recharge a card to add 1d6 (☐ 1d10).

Hand: Banner, Blessing of the Samurai, Blessing of the Samurai, Blessing of the Samurai, Boarding Pike, Camel, Emissary, Falcon, Flight Arrows, Gambeson, Jinfu, Kikko Armor, Naginata, Nine-Ring Sword, Portable Ram, Wakizashi
Displayed: 0
Deck: 0 Discard: 0 Buried: 0
Notes:

Banner:

Banner
Item B

Traits
Object
Basic

Powers
When any character encounters a monster, display this card. While displayed, add 1 to all combat checks. If any character fails to defeat a bane, burty this card; if proficient with heavy armors, recharge this card instead of burying it.

Blessing of the Samurai:

Blessing of the Samurai
Blessing B

Traits
Basic

Powers
Discard this card to add 1 die to any check.

Recharge this card to add 1 die to any check that invokes the Melee or Ranged trait.

Discard this card to explore your location.

Boarding Pike:

Boarding Pike
Weapon B

Traits
Polearm
Melee
Piercing
2-Handed
Basic

Powers
For your combat check, reveal this card to use your Strength or Melee skill + 1d8. If you are on a ship, add another 1d4. If you would fail this check, you may discard this card to reroll the dice; take the new result.

Camel:

Camel
Ally B

Traits
Animal
Mount
Basic

Powers
Bury this card to evade a monster you encounter.

At the end of your turn, discard this card to move.

Discard this card to explore your location. During this exploration, add 1d6 to your Survival checks.

Emissary:

Emissary
Ally B

Traits
Halflin
Aristocrat
Cavalier
Basic

Powers
At the end of any turn, recharge this card to allow another character to draw a card.

Discard this card to explore your location.

Falcon:

Falcon
Ally B

Traits
Animal
Basic

Powers
Discard this card to examine the top card of any location deck.

Discard this card to explore your location.

Flight Arrows:

Flight Arrows
Item B

Traits
Ammunition
Basic

Powers
Display this card; you may not do so during an encounter. After doing so, if you have more than 2 cards that have the Ammunition trait display, recharge 1 of them.

While displayed, when you play a weapon that has the Bow trait, if you would recharge, discard, or bury it, you may instead keep it and perform the required action with this card instead.

Gambeson:

Gambeson
Armor B

Traits
Light Armor
Basic

Powers
Display this card. While displayed, you may recharge this card to reduce Combat dmage dealt to you by 1.

While displayed, if proficient with light armors, you may bury this card to reduce all damage dealt to you to 0.

Jinfu:

Jinfu
Cohort B

Traits
Animal
Mount
Owner: Hayato

Powers
Put this card on top of your deck to reduce all damage dealt to a character at your location by 1.

At the start of any turn, put this card on top of your deck to move.

Recharge this card to explore your location. If you have a role card, you may shuffle this card into your deck instead.

Kikko Armor:

Kikko Armor
Armor B

Traits
Heavy Armor
Basic

Powers
Display this card. While displayed, you may recharge this card to reduce Combat dmage dealt to you by 2.

While displayed, if proficient with heavy armors, you may bury this card to reduce all damage dealt to you to 0.

Naginata:

Naginata
Weapon B

Traits
Polearm
Melle
Slashing
2-Handed
Basic

Powers
For your combat check, reveal this card to use your Strength or Melee skill + 2d8. If proficient with weapons, you may addionally discard this card to add another 2d4. After the roll, remove any d8; take the new result.

Nine-Ring Sword:

Nine-Ring Sword
Weapon B

Traits
Sword
Melee
Slashing
Finesse
Basic

Powers
For your combat check, reveal this card to use your Strength, Melee or Acrobatics skill + 1d6. If proficient with weapons, you may addionally discard this card to add another 1d8. If you have the Monk or Samurai trait, you may recharge this card instead of discarding it.

Ohh, your personal tool automatically adds the spoiler text of cards in your hand! I don't know why I didn't think of that myself (probably was worried it would take up more space than necessary on my posts).

Anyone can find my card texts via my Deck Handler already, but if anyone wants me to implement that same feature (auto-include card texts in status updates) in the normal Deck Handler, I can try to do so.

Certainly hugely helpful for me, thanks! I also may be ignorant of cards in the Pathfinder Tales box (until my own class deck of it arrives).

EDIT: Oh, I was also wondering why you have Flight Arrows when you don't have a bow... but I imagine you have no choice, huh? There isn't an option to use a normal character deck (as well as the add-on) with Hayato yet until that's given out as a reward.

EDIT 2: And yes, I'm completely good to go.

I can toggle it on or off per card.. normally I'll only display card text for cards other players might be able to use.

EDIT: Oh, I was also wondering why you have Flight Arrows when you don't have a bow... but I imagine you have no choice, huh? There isn't an option to use a normal character deck (as well as the add-on) with Hayato yet until that's given out as a reward.

Actually...

2nd, according to the guide, you don't need to earn any special reward, so with Hayato he'd be able to also pick absolutely any other Class deck (that he owns) to mix in, if wanted.

Thanks Maelwys!

Hm. Alright, then I don't know why Flight Arrows is there, except perhaps explicitly to hand off to someone else at the first opportunity (he is a resilient character that will pretty much never run out of cards, so 'piggybacking' spare boons off him isn't a terrible plan, but it seems odd).

What character deck, if any, are you using with Hayato?

EDIT: (After re-looking at Vika's and Mork's cards) Wow, there's some potent deck B cards in Ultimate Combat...

I'm planning to use the Paladin deck, but so far I'm happy with the cards from the Ultimate Combat deck.

The reason I thought I would take Flight Arrows is because of my hand size of 4. I can't afford to hold on to an item card that may or may not be useful down the line. If I draw Flight Arrows and can hand them off to someone, great. If not, I'll display and never use it, just to trim down my deck to only useful cards. Not 100% sure its the best idea, but I'm giving it a try. :)

(stolen from our ACG Online Venture Captain, Tyler):
When it’s time to take your first turn, you’ll want to type something like “Exploring Deeper Dungeons card #1” and click the spoiler tag next to that card to look at the card text. If you have to make a roll against the card (to defeat it if it’s a bane, or acquire if it’s a boon) you can type, for example, (dice=Combat 12) 1d10+5+2d6 (/dice) (use square brackets instead of round) and hit the “Preview” button. This will give you the result of the check without having to Submit then Edit your post. You’ll notice that I included the difficulty of the check (Combat 12) so that the other players and the BR can determine if your check was successful at a glance.

NOTE: Paizo’s site keeps die roll values the same, even across multiple posts, so that players can’t edit their post and reroll to cheat. This means that you should ALWAYS add new dice rolls to the bottom of your post, or in a new post, instead of adding them inline within your post.
Once you’ve got all of your explores listed, dice rolled, and banes defeated for that turn, you’ll want to paste in your character’s current status, then hit Submit.

ANOTHER NOTE: It is always a good idea before hitting Submit to copy the text of your post (Ctrl-A then Ctrl-C works great) in case the site decides to log you out before you hit Submit. This happens OFTEN, trust me.

A couple notes in addition to that:
Triggers - if you're new to Mummy's Mask, a whole bunch of cards now have the Trigger trait. All of these cards will have a power that fires "When you examine this card". That means, playing a card like Detect Magic or Augury and revealing that card might cause an effect (generally negative, but sometimes helpful - or both). Your normal "Explore" action will not trigger a Trigger.

Blessings Deck - The game state posts will include who's turn it currently is and what blessing is on top of the blessing discard pile. If you take a turn and I haven't updated the game state yet, you can expand the "Blessings Deck Cards/Turn Order" spoiler and check to see what blessing got discarded on your turn.

Random Cards - There's a section after the scenario rules that contains a whole bunch of random cards. If you're ever told to summon a random card, grab the first card from this section (that hasn't been used yet). I will almost always refresh this list when I post a game state update.

Also, watch out for that one Adventure rule:
If the result of your first check to defeat of your turn exceeds the difficulty by 7 or more, shuffle a monster from the box into your location deck.

It's a killer, and really easy to forget, for some reason.

Also, watch out for that one Adventure rule:

If the result of your first check to defeat of your turn exceeds the difficulty by 7 or more, shuffle a monster from the box into your location deck.

It's a killer, and really easy to forget, for some reason.

Yeah, I was just going to ask about that as well. ;-)

So to confirm a couple procedural things - If we overkill a bane at the start of our turn, and then want to explore a second time on the same turn, I presume we'll just roll a die to determine which card to encounter (since the deck will have been shuffled). And if we roll a 1 (the card we'd already encountered initially), then encounter the first monster from the random monsters table instead. And if we roll something else, flip that card from the location deck. And if we don't encounter a monster, should we just leave it for you to shuffle a random monster into the deck instead (since it wouldn't make sense for us to pick a monster if we're not going to encounter it, because then we know what monster it is).

Also, for the scenario power, "examining" a card is only when you peek without encountering it, right? So if you Detect Magic/Spyglass/whatever the top card and it's an ally it goes to the bottom. But if you just encounter the top card without peeking first, and it's an ally, then you can immediately try to acquire the ally and close the location? Just want to make sure that we don't actually have to completely clear every single location here to close them. ;-)

So to confirm a couple procedural things - If we overkill a bane at the start of our turn, and then want to explore a second time on the same turn, I presume we'll just roll a die to determine which card to encounter (since the deck will have been shuffled). And if we roll a 1 (the card we'd already encountered initially), then encounter the first monster from the random monsters table instead. And if we roll something else, flip that card from the location deck. And if we don't encounter a monster, should we just leave it for you to shuffle a random monster into the deck instead (since it wouldn't make sense for us to pick a monster if we're not going to encounter it, because then we know what monster it is).

I knew I forgot something. Right, anytime you need to shuffle the location deck, you can keep exploring, just roll a die to determine which card to encounter. So, say you find two boons, and then you overkill the third card to shuffle in a monster. If you wanted to roll again, I would probably do something like Random Card (11 is new monster): 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8. Since card 1,2 and 3 don't exist anymore, you need a 4-11 to determine what card to encounter next. Optionally, you could just do a Random Card (11 is new monster): 1d11 ⇒ 9 and reroll until you find a valid card number (sometimes this is easier).

Also, for the scenario power, "examining" a card is only when you peek without encountering it, right? So if you Detect Magic/Spyglass/whatever the top card and it's an ally it goes to the bottom. But if you just encounter the top card without peeking first, and it's an ally, then you can immediately try to acquire the ally and close the location? Just want to make sure that we don't actually have to completely clear every single location here to close them. ;-)

Exactly.

Perfect, thanks.

Next question... why does the status report show we're already on turn 2? ;-)

Doh! I have no idea how I managed that. I'll get it fixed, thanks. :)

EDIT: Actually, I'm just going to leave it, instead of posting that massive wall of text again. It's Ezren's turn, and the top blessing is still BotAncients.

Ezren - Where is a link to your deck handler? I seem to have missed it I'd like to pull in your scripts.

Ezren - Where is a link to your deck handler? I seem to have missed it I'd like to pull in your scripts.

It's directly beneath his name in any of his posts. ;-)

I'll take my turn once huntsfromshadow and magi210 have picked their starting locations. I'll also be in Hangouts for the next 5 hours or so.

My Deck Handler is linked right under my name for this alias. To do the same for your own, create an Alias in these forums, then go to that Alias' profile page and edit it. In the Class, Race or Gender sections include a viewable link to Your deck Handler (url=somethingsomething.com)Deck Handler(/url) with square brackets.

My scripts are pretty minor, all things considered. Just something that speeds up healing and can fix up card placement (helpful when you end up drawing from your Recharged pile, in particular). I've also added a separate status that I can copy that just has some formatting changes; you can ignore that.

Maelwys0 wrote:

Or, Ultimate Magic is due out anytime now, so you could just wait and use that instead. If you grab it when it releases, there's still a chance that you'll have it in your hands before we finish the first scenario, and it's much more likely to have useful stuff for Ezren than Ultimate Combat. ;-)

Whilst desirable, it would be more likely that we'd have passed a couple of scenarios by then.

Yeah, I completely failed at math on that one! I was thinking "it takes 20-30 turns to finish a scenario, and we're playing 1 turn a day, so that means 3-4 weeks per scenario; hence you could probably get the set around the time we finished the first one". Of course, that's 1 turn PER PERSON per day, meaning divide that all by 5 and your estimate seems much more accurate! Somehow I completely didn't realize this until I was just reading through the Runelords PbP for example, and noticed that they'd almost completed 2 scenarios in a week. Yeah... math is hard sometimes. ;-)

It varies widely with the table. Mork himself was quoted in the recent blog post on the topic as having completed 23 scenarios in 100 days of play-by-post, or about a scenario every 4 days.

In my other table's case, we just started scenario 3 and it's been about 5 weeks overall (I did say we were moving slowly). But then, we tend to take our turns in pretty quick succession, but we have had quite a few delays on individual turns reaching 4 or more days with nothing happening whilst we wait. That would be much less likely on this table with the 'botting' rule that Mork has.

That SotRu group is averaging about 4.5 days per scenario. They're on the last scenario now, and if they finish tomorrow (decent chance of that), they'll have completed the whole adventure path in 137 days.

I'll post this evening in a few hours. Leaning toward the smoking den, depending on how hard the storm hits me.

As somebody that has two high stats out of the three (Int, Wis, Cha) you and Ezren might want to think about the Precinct of the Left Eye, because that one will be a challenge to close, with two different skill rolls. Here's the list of what dice each of us would have there:
Vika - d8, d4
Ezren - d12, d8
Zarlova - d10, d10
Radovan - d8, d6
Hayato - d6, d6

If the storm hits me hard, I may do that and hit myself with a cure. Monsters can't do much damage to a nearly empty hand.

Radovan would also be a decent choice, because there's a decent chance that the ally in that location needs a Diplomacy check, and Radovan's d8+2 is significantly better than anyone else's.

True. But isn't that also true for every other location on the table? ;-) Since we need to get allies everywhere, the only real deciding factor is whether or not you can close the location once you've acquired the ally. And with d8 and d6 against a DC 6, he's going to struggle to close.
Plus, there's already a lot of other locations that force a Diplomacy check to close, where he's probably our best bet. So better to have him focus on those ones, that the rest of us would struggle on.

lol Good point. I was thinking that other locations had more than one ally, but most of them only have the one.

(EDIT: Mork, if we get the Sunburst Market trader, note that Hawkmoon has actually set up a dropbox document capturing all of the Mummy's Mask basic boons that's linked from my other table. Might be a useful resource.)

Nice work all! Way faster turns than my other table.

Going off what Mork previously posted in chat, and what has been acquired since, suggests we have the following card upgrades to choose from:

Let me know if it seems like I've missed anything. We'll be divying up the card upgrades soon, after we hear what the rewards are from this scenario. My preferences for a boon to take for card upgrades are, in order of most to least desired (of the options we have)...

1. Spell B (To switch out Channel Corruption with Life Drain, a combat spell that also heals me by 1)
2. Ally 1 (To switch out one of my allies with Hungry Ghost Monk, an ally that can add a 1d6 to my combat checks by being discarded, and heals me by 1 random card if I succeed. I would likely switch out Cult Acolyte, because "eating into your turn counter" seems too risky in a 5 person game to me)
3. Item B (To switch out Bracers of Protection with Spellguard Bracers, which can be discarded to 'heal' a spell in my discard pile or auto-recharge one. Not great.)

I could take the Weapon B/C for a Corrosive Dagger +1, which synergises with my character power... but it would be a waste for several reasons, including that I would be switching it out for my awesome Weapon 1 staff at the first opportunity. In truth, the Spell B is by far the largest benefit for me, but I acknowledge that Zarlova has a very strong need for it too for the awesome Holy Light.

I'd prefer to find a resolution or agreement on who gets the desired card upgrades (for example, I'm willing to give up just about any card choice if I can be guaranteed first-dibs on a Weapon 1 in the future), but we can also just roll for it if needed.

Have a think about what type of skill feat you want, which assuming you're playing brand-new characters you'll now be entitled to. I'll be taking Intelligence +1, unsurprisingly.

Nice job everybody, mission accomplished! And it was lots of fun this afternoon watching us go through all 5 players in the matter of a couple hours. Obviously that takes a lot of lucky timing from people being around at the right time, and won't happen often... but it made of an exciting end to the scenario. ;-)

My preferences in prizes would be:
1st/ Weapon B - To upgrade a pointy weapon into a smashy weapon. Greatclub or Earthbreaker are both fun, I'll decide which one shortly.
2nd/ Item B - Because Topaz of Strength is always useful, and I'll end up wanting it eventually... but I think I'll work on the weapons first.

Also, because this is our first scenario of the tier, we get a Skill Feat, right? I'll take Strength +1.

DEVELOPMENT:
Though you had some close calls with Midasi’s spies, you uncovered several allies and collected some valuable information. You’ve learned that a slaver named Heran Halfwhip is holding Siddique, and an Eagle Knight named Aviera Sacero has helped devise a plan to rescue him. As you suspected, there aren’t any Aspis nearby; the gnolls would have been as much a nuisance to the Aspis expedition as they were to you, and the Consortium is not kind to nuisances.

You make your way through the winding alleyways to your dingy lodging at the Fleet. As you toss and turn on what purports to pass for a mattress, you steel yourself for tomorrow’s journey into the belly of the beast.

SCENARIO REWARD:
Traders: Falsin Deek, Ghoul Market, Sunburst Market

Characters who have completed their first scenario at this tier gain a Skill feat.

ACQUIRED CARDS:
Weapon C Explorer's Staff
Weapon C Fighting Crook
Weapon C Twin Serpent Quarterstaff

Spell C Viper Strike

Armor B Armor of the Sands
Armor C Tussah Silk Coat

Item B Acid Flask
Item B Antitoxin
Item C Flash Freeze
Item B Healer's Kit

Ally 1 Idorii
Ally 1 Mad Dog Marrn
Ally B Embalmer
Ally B Marianix Karn
Ally B Pahmet Clansman
Ally B Shock Lizard
Ally B Tomb Raider

I'll update Wisodm to +1.

Item B (Pearl of Wisdom), then Spell B (Holy Light), then Ally 1 (Probably Social Climber), then Armor B for me.

Boon choice: 1d1000 ⇒ 599

Ezren, I'm fine with you taking a spell, just let me have first pick next time around. :)

So, it looks like the rolls aren't even necessary, and everybody will get their first choice. Since nobody else can take a spell (and Zarlova has opted out), Ezren gets a Spell. Which means that Zarlova can have an Item (because there are 4 of those, and 4 people left). Which means that I can have my Weapon (because there are 3 of those, and 3 people left). Which means that Hayato and Radovan can have whatever they want, because there is at least 2 of each remaining boon type remaining (even 2 Ally 1s). So everybody will get their first choice, woot. ;-)

I've updated my deck handler now as well.
Skill Feat: Strength +1
Deck Upgrade: Remove Nine-Ring Sword, Add Greatclub

So I'm all set to go once everybody else is.

I'm going to take an Ally 1 and replace Falcon with Retriever.
Skill Feat: Strength +1

For traders, I have completed the Promo scenario at the end of Season of Plundered Tombs, which lets any of my characters in Mummy's Mask, SoPluTo or SoFF go to Sunburst Market in addition to one other trader. So I'll be going to Sunburst Market and Falsin Deek.

I'll swap out the holy water for the pearl, then visit Sunburst and swap a re for another attack spell. Is there anything side's Viper Strike?

There's quite a few options for Basic Divine spells - there's a link to a PDf with all of the Basic cards in the header under Traders spoiler.

Ok, trade in a cure for an acid jet. Will update my deck when I get home.

Regarding the Traders, anybody have any advice? I've never really used them before... it seems like at this point the Sunburst is the best option, because I don't need spells, and items can be all over the place (and only a few of those will actually help me). Having only seen about 6 cards from my deck the entire first scenario though, I'm not really sure what isn't working yet... ;-)

Maybe I'll just do something simple like trade out an Ally for a Blessing of the Ancients? Still has the same extra explore potential, but much more useful to help other people, and has a decent chance of being recharged instead of discarded.

We'll get more useful traders later, but Sunburst Market might be your best bet for now. For the reason you mentioned, but also because the other 2 traders cost you two boons, which means you start with a deck size of 14 instead of 15 (which could be good or bad, depending on your character, but typically not great).

One suggestion might be going to Sunburst Market and swapping one of your weapons or items for a blessing.

If it makes any difference to your trader selections, here are the rules/locations for the next scenario.

During This Adventure: The scourge die is 1d4+1.
When creating the blessings deck, replace 1 blessing with the support card Liberty’s Edge Favor.
If the result of your first check to defeat of your turn exceeds the difficulty by 7 or more, shuffle a monster from the box into your location deck.

During This Scenario: At the end of your turn, if you did not attempt a combat check this turn, examine the top card of your location deck; if you attempted a combat check this turn, succeed at a Dexterity, Stealth, Charisma, or Diplomacy 6 check or you are dealt 1d4-1 Ranged Combat damage.

Dilapidated Plaza
At This Location: When you play a boon that has the Acid trait, you are dealt 1 Acid damage.
When Closing: Succeed at a Diplomacy check with a difficulty of 4 plus the scenario's adventure deck number.
When Permanently Closed: For the rest of the scenario, when a character at any location attempts a check, after the roll, he may bury a card to reroll 1 die and take the new result.
M:2 Ba:3 W:1 Sp:1 Ar:1 I:0 Al:1 Bl:0 ?:

Glass Pavilion
At This Location: At the start of your turn, examine the top card of your location.
When Closing: Succeed at a Divine or Wisdom check with a difficulty of 5 plus the scenario’s adventure deck number.
When Permanently Closed: No effect.
M:2 Ba:2 W:0 Sp:2 Ar:0 I:1 Al:0 Bl:2 ?:

Stonework Passages
At This Location: Damage dealt to you is reduced by 1.
When Closing: Succeed at a Wisdom or Survival check with a difficulty of 6 plus the scenario's adventure deck number.
When Permanently Closed: On closing, you may examine the top card of any location.
M:2 Ba:3 W:1 Sp:1 Ar:1 I:0 Al:0 Bl:1 ?:

Brickworks
At This Location: Add a die to checks that have the Fire trait.
When Closing: Succeed at a Strength check with a difficulty of 4 plus the scenario's adventure deck number.
When Permanently Closed: No effect.
M:2 Ba:2 W:3 Sp:0 Ar:0 I:0 Al:2 Bl:0 ?:

Warehouse
At This Location: At the end of your turn, you may recharge any number of items and weapons in your hand.
When Closing: Succeed at a Dexterity or Disable check with a difficulty of 4 plus the scenario's adventure deck number.
When Permanently Closed: On closing, summon and acquire a weapon, armor, or item from the box.
M:3 Ba:2 W:0 Sp:0 Ar:1 I:2 Al:1 Bl:0 ?:

Quarry
At This Location: Add 3 to your checks that have the Bludgeoning trait.
When Closing: Succeed at a Constitution or Fortitude check with a difficulty of 6 plus the scenario's adventure deck number.
When Permanently Closed: On closing, discard a weapon.
M:3 Ba:1 W:2 Sp:0 Ar:1 I:1 Al:1 Bl:0 ?:

Catacombs
At This Location: For your checks that have the Cold trait, add a die.
When Closing: Succeed at a Wisdom or Survival check with a difficulty of 4 plus the scenario's adventure deck number.
When Permanently Closed: On closing, draw a random ally that has the Animal trait from the box.
M:3 Ba:2 W:2 Sp:1 Ar:1 I:0 Al:0 Bl:0 ?:

The scenario power actually might make armors more useful, so I think I'll go to Ghoul Market instead of Falsin Deek. (You don't have to actually trade cards if you don't want to - you can go to a trader to see what cards are available, and then opt out).