Posting as Yewstance, as a complete tangent.
So on Discussion there was mention made of the very unusual item from the Witch Class Deck, Dreamcatcher, which shouldn't be confused with the item of the same name from the Occult Adventures Character Deck. It's probably the single most interesting card of the Class Deck, and I've theorycrafted around it already, so I thought I'd share my own analysis here.
For the record; I believe Dreamcatcher should not have been printed the way it was, or it should be nerfed, and it's home to a lot of pretty depraved combos which can ruin the game for a table. Read at your own risk.
TRAITS:
Accessory
MagicPOWERS:
Display this card next to the deck of a character at your location. While displayed, when you would discard a boon that has the Arcane or Magic trait for its power from your hand, you may reveal it instead of discarding it; that character is dealt 1 Mental damage that may not be reduced. At the end of your turn, you may succeed at an Arcane 12 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it.
To put it another way - designate someone at your location (which can include yourself) to take 1 unreducable damage instead of discarding Magic or Arcane cards from your hand, for a full turn. If played on someone (that can include yourself) with the Arcane skill, you can try to recharge it.
Combine these, and you could discard monsters from your hand to the "1 unreducable damage" over and over to feed a Haste spell to explore over and over again, potentially exploring into even more monsters to then use Haste even more times. In short, Dreamcatcher lets you expend normally 'useless' or weak cards from your hand in order to re-use a single spell.
Have the Witch Kasmir, with maxed Spell Card Feats and, ideally, the Flesh Poppet Cohort (not mandatory, but you shouldn't ever topdeck them anyway). I recommend the Hearthcaller Role, with means of supporting his own checks or controlling his own draws. Have, at minimum, the spells Channel the Gift, Fire Snake, Fly, some variant of Cure, a powerful Attack spell of your choice, as well as the allies Toad and Cat and both Blessings of the Spellbound.
Other recommended cards include Bound Lantern Archon, Imp, Stone Skin, Incendiary Cloud, Pyrotechnic Blast and an evasion spell of your choice. For your main attack spell (only 1 is needed), I recommend Volcanic Storm and/or Cloudburst.
Of course, also take Dreamcatcher.
The first part of the strategy is to get 3 specific cards into your hand. Dreamcatcher, Channel the Gift and any of Toad/Cat/Blessing of the Spellbound. Feel free to discard any number of cards (besides Cure) in order to get these drawn, because you should win the game once these are in your hand.
Second, place Dreamcatcher on a player besides yourself who doesn't mind losing their hand. From now on, you will be revealing all of your key cards rather than discarding them. Reveal Channel the Gift to draw your Cure spell (if you don't already have it) and re-reveal Cure over and over to heal you and everyone at your location to full. Reveal Channel the Gift over and over to draw every spell in your deck, and display Stone Skin immediately. If you have other "Display" spells for ongoing benefits (like Steal Soul or Incendiary Cloud), get them displayed as soon as possible.
Reveal Blessing of the Spellbound/Cat/Toad to explore, over and over again. For EVERY check, always reveal Blessing of the Spellbound for a bonus die. For EVERY noncombat check, just use Fire Snake. For EVERY combat check, just use your most powerful attack spell. If there's a legal barrier to use it on, use Pyrotechnic Blast. If there's a particularly hazardous power on a monster (like something that would discard/recharge your hand or end your turn), just evade it with your evasion spell if its not a henchman, and keep exploring.
You have infinite explorations and infinite uses of your Evade spell, so you can just keep trying over and over until the bane you're worried about is randomly shuffled underneath the villain or henchman. Once you've closed the location (or failed to close it, somehow), move onto a new location by revealing Fly and keep infinitely exploring.
With the right combination of spells, you should be virtually untouchable and have incredible odds for any check the game could possibly throw at you, and you should be able to infinitely move and explore. Even if you're unable to close a location (even with Fire Snake and Blessing of the Spellbound), that's actually fine - just move and keep exploring until you hit the villain, beat them, then chase them around with your infinite explorations and movements to close locations just by beating them over and over.
I consider this an EXTREMELY UNPLEASANT STYLE OF GAMEPLAY, of course, but it's one demonstrable, PFSACG-legal way of 'breaking' the game, thanks to Dreamcatcher.
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Note that I've previously demonstrated how to complete turn-1 solo victories before with combos legal in PFSACG play. Ones involving Dreamcatcher are not the worst I've seen by any stretch, and has a couple more requirements than others (the worst I've ever seen is Reepazo, who trivially infinitely draws cards and heals herself with minimal effort or power feat requirements).
With that said, if there's a sufficient interest for me to demonstrate a witch with Ultimate Magic exploiting Dreamcatcher for a turn-1 or near-turn-1 win, I could re-set up my Testing Grounds and run a solo scenario there to demonstrate a PbP proof-of-concept.
2 things I missed. 1. I didn't realize you could cast it on yourself. And 2. I didn't realize that you could keep dealing the dmg to someone else even after they run out of cards.
I still feel that it requires some setup but I agree once you get Channel the Gift it becomes a very realistic build.
But you run into an issue the RPG has sometimes. If you are soloing everything in a multiplayer game then no one else gets to have any fun.
To be technical, I think you can only use a power once per check. So you couldn't, say, use Dreamcatcher to reveal both Fire Snake and Blessing of the Spellbound for a closing check.
So, more like infinite-1 rather than infinite?
To be technical, I think you can only use a power once per check. So you couldn't, say, use Dreamcatcher to reveal both Fire Snake and Blessing of the Spellbound for a closing check.
So, more like infinite-1 rather than infinite?
Actually, you can use it multiple times per check. I can't find the precise official rules source right now, but there were certainly discussions on it in the forums about the following.
If a power says "when you", then it's not you activating a power, it's simply a replacement effect that does not count towards that limit. For example, Valeros has the power "When you would discard a weapon for its power, you may recharge it instead" - if you discard multiple weapons on a check (like a longsword and then a dagger), you can actually recharge both of them, as it's not counted as "Activating" a power.
This was mentioned on this boardgamegeek forum thread and this reddit thread at least, which I found first with a google.
EDIT: Besides some old Paizo forum talking about it (which I can't find right now), the rulebook quotes about it regard the definition of a "power", which is basically manipulating a card in some way (reveal, recharge, display, etc) to do something, or having it somehow affect or define your check. Other things, like just recharging an armor when you reset your hand, or modifying costs of other cards, aren't powers.
Interesting! Had no idea.
There are things I could upgrade but am not sure they would be improvements. So the only upgrades I'm sure I want are ally 2 or weapon 1. And the weapon 1 is a minuscule upgrade.
Bye-bye Black Spot! Taking Spell 2: Delve
Magic
Arcane
Divine
Elite
Powers
Discard this card to add 1d8 to any check to acquire a weapon, an armor, or an item.
Discard this card to search your deck for an item and draw it.
After playing this card, if you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish it; otherwise, you may succeed at an Arcane or Divine 8 check to recharge this card instead of discarding it.
Posted this in hangouts but just confirming that Valeros will not take an upgrade.
Doesn't look like we got an ally 2 or weapon 1 so no upgrade. Delve looks pretty sweet.
Since no one’s using them, I’ll take a Blessing 2 upgrade.
I’ll take Armor for Broken Horns.
Nope
9-00C2, Replay*2 - Reward Summary
->
Nabbing one of the ally 2s to upgrade Druid of the Flame to Cleric of Nethys.
Did we get an Armor 2? If so, Valeros is interested in taking it to upgrade Gambeson to Stanching Buckler. Otherwise, no upgrade for Valeros.
Armor 1 for Seoni.
Nope
Apprentice becomes Ally 2: Shy Ratani
Human Rogue
Powers
Recharge this card to add 1d8 to your Diplomacy or Stealth check or to your check to acquire.
Discard this card to explore your location. During this exploration, add 1d8 to your checks to acquire, and you may evade banes you encounter.
9-00C2, Replay*3 - Reward Summary
ACQUIRED CARDS:
Crocodile Skin Shield (Armor B)
Potion of Healing (Item B)
Scroll of Thoth (Item 1)
Galvanic Chakram +1 (Weapon 1)
If no one objects I would like the weapon 1.
Assuming no one objects, I will replace Item B: Amulet of Life with Item 1:
Clothing
Magic
Powers
Discard this card to add 1d8 to your check to close a location.
If you are at a closed location at the end of your turn, reveal this card to move.
Seoni will advance to Tier 2 from completing this scenario (and adventure!).
Nope
I will count this towards tiering up and increase Charisma by +1. No upgrades unless we got a spell 2 that no one else has a use for.
Can we choose those faction boons?
Congratulations all! You may keep replaying this scenario until the special is called to a close, but first there's a bunch of extra boons to be drawn, which largely have to be done before I set up the next scenario.
@Grazzle
You must pick one of the Gameday boons listed in this post, I'm afraid. Congratulations, however!
Card Draws: Blessing, Spell, Item
Skill Feat from Tier: Dexterity d10 [X]+1 [X] +2 [ ] +3 [ ] +4
Card Feat from Adventure: Item 6 [X]7 [X]8 [ ]9
I'll pick the 3rd boon. The reroll vs aquatic.
As mention in chat the card draws will be spell, armor, and item.
Card feat will be spell.
And since Seoni just tiered up I will take a spell B for Flameblade unless a higher spell is left over after everyone chooses. In which case I'll pick Sphere of Fire (Spell 1) or Aqueous Orb (Spell 2)
Spell, Ally, Armor please.
Spell, Ally, Item please for the extra loot.
Valeros will take a 4th Ally card for his card feat, and will add Dredge (UI-B) for the additional card. (By my tally, this means my starting deck is now 17 cards).
In addition, for his deck upgrade, unless anyone objects, Valeros will upgrade Gambeson to Stanching Buckler, using the Armor 2 card we received.
Is that everything I'm supposed to do?
So for Grazzle.
Boon Sea Legs. Not applying it right now.
Skill feat for tiering up: +1 Charisma.
Die bump.
Card feat: Spell Flameblade.
Upgrade: Depends on what spell Valeros pulls. If he pulls a spell 2 or 1 then I will upgrade Flameblade to Sphere of Fire (Spell 1) and Seoni can have the other spell. And if he pulls a spell 0 I won't upgrade Flameblade.
And I think I'll replace my Blessing of the Gods with a second Blessing of the Spellbound.
To clarify, Valeros still needs to pick 3 card types to draw as per the scenario reward that was just earned. There has been requests for Armor and Spell, at least.
We're still waiting on multiple players to finalize their 2 Deck Upgrade choices, but I know that many people are waiting to see the full list of acquired cards, which we need Valeros' input for.
I currently have...
Valeros: Armor 2 + ? (Ally B?)
Grazzle: Blessing 0 + ? (Nothing?)
Raheli: ? + ?
Seoni: Spell 1 + ?
You only fill 'empty slots' in your deck after all other rewards are completely resolved, in other words.
For those interested in re-playing the scenario, please put your vote in for having all locations available from the start, and pick your starting locations.
In Seoni's case, she's probably more interested in exploring into combat situations, and can re-use Blessing of the Spellbound for explorations with her power anyway, so it's less compelling, arguably.
Sorry for delay. I posted Spell, Ally, and Item a bit above.
So unless Seoni really wants to replay this with 2 players I think we are done.
But the 5 of us will be playing together in the next special in January. And now that I have a better idea of how they work, I want to use the opportunity to start a new character.
I don't have many decks so my choices are limited. But here are some of the options I'm considering.
Mazner (Druid CD + UW)
I really like Mazner's power of revealing an animal ally to add 1d4 to any check by anyone at his location. But he has some issues.
Despite having a caster stat of Divine d10 +3 to start with, He only has 3 spells and a max of 4. I can compensate partly with his 2 weapon slots since UW has weapons that key off of Survival. But that leads to another possible drawback. He has no favored card type. So he could be limping a bit early on with a bad opening hand.
Alahazra (Oracle CD + UM)
Skull & Shackles version.
She has 3 powers and they are all good.
Recharge a divine card to examine the top card of any location deck.
+2 to her attack spells and her divine starts at d12 +2.
And at the end of turn discard a divine card to retrieve a divine card from her discard pile.
She has 2 major drawbacks. Her favored card is blessing so she could easily have opening hands with no way to attack. And with the exception of a bit of knowledge Divine is her only skill.
That means most of her spells would need to be attacks.
Ukuja (Hunter CD + UW)
Honestly Ukuja's main power is the ability to use 2 cohorts.
He starts with 4 weapons and both decks have low level options that allow him to use his Survival skill for combat.
Other then no good powers he doesn't really have any weaknesses.
None of them have anywhere near the healing power of Grazzle but they will have at least 1 Cure.
A tiny correction:
This doesn't really matter, but note that after earning a Card Feat, you don't immediately fill that slot with a card. You pick your Card Feat, then you do your Deck Upgrades, and then, after all rewards are decided, you fill it with a basic ally (in this case, because you're not Tier 3+) if it wasn't already filled by one of your deck upgrades.
You only fill 'empty slots' in your deck after all other rewards are completely resolved, in other words.
So, just to clarify, does this mean that I can't add Dredge to fill the slot for my new Ally card feat? Dredge is an Ally B but it doesn't have the Basic trait. If I understand you correctly, during the Upgrades phase, all I can do is upgrade cards that are already in my deck (so I can upgrade Gambeson to Stanching Buckler because we received an Armor 2 loot card), but since I don't (yet) have the 17th card in my deck (my new Ally card) there's nothing to upgrade. After upgrades are complete, I can add a Basic Ally card in the new open slot. Correct?
So, just to clarify, does this mean that I can't add Dredge to fill the slot for my new Ally card feat? Dredge is an Ally B but it doesn't have the Basic trait. If I understand you correctly, during the Upgrades phase, all I can do is upgrade cards that are already in my deck (so I can upgrade Gambeson to Stanching Buckler because we received an Armor 2 loot card), but since I don't (yet) have the 17th card in my deck (my new Ally card) there's nothing to upgrade. After upgrades are complete, I can add a Basic Ally card in the new open slot. Correct?A tiny correction:
This doesn't really matter, but note that after earning a Card Feat, you don't immediately fill that slot with a card. You pick your Card Feat, then you do your Deck Upgrades, and then, after all rewards are decided, you fill it with a basic ally (in this case, because you're not Tier 3+) if it wasn't already filled by one of your deck upgrades.
You only fill 'empty slots' in your deck after all other rewards are completely resolved, in other words.
You absolutely can take an Ally B deck upgrade for Dredge, don't worry. Reading back, I see I added more confusion than clarity. I really just wanted to clarify that Dredge ends up in your deck as part of picking Deck Upgrades, and not inherently as a part of getting a Card Feat.
Basically, post-scenario is something like:
------
I bring it up because Deck Upgrades aren't actually a 'replacement' effect. You add them, in, then you correct your deck later. This can be really important some of the time, since you can't choose to 'replace' a card in your deck with a deck upgrade if you have an empty slot that the deck upgrade will end up filling instead (like by gaining a Card Feat). So Valeros could not replace Sharper right now, even if he wanted to, unless he took 2 ally deck upgrades.
I think it’s safe to assume these aren’t contested.
Upgrades!
Item 1 - Embalming Fluid replacing Item B - Noxious Bomb
Liquid Cold Poison Alchemical
Powers
On your combat check, reveal this card to add 2 and the Poison trait; if the bane has the Undead trait, ignore its immunities. After the check, succeed at a Craft or Disable 7 check or bury the top card of your deck. Banish this card to reduce Cold or Poison damage dealt to you to 0, then bury 1d4 random cards from your discard pile.
Filling the new Item space with Item B - Staff of Minor Healing
Staff Magic Divine Healing
Powers
Recharge this card and choose a character at your location to recharge 1 random card from his discard pile.
[...]
She has 2 major drawbacks. Her favored card is blessing so she could easily have opening hands with no way to attack. And with the exception of a bit of knowledge Divine is her only skill.
That means most of her spells would need to be attacks.[...]
Sharing an opinion, as someone who's played through S&S in a party with her. You don't need many attack spells with her if you don't want, because you can keep re-using one (especially if it's a spell like Sphere of Fire) with her 'swap Divine cards' power. If you're in a hand with no Attack spells early on, as long as you're not in Mummy's Mask, there's a lot to be gained by simply recharging the majority of your hand to examine location decks, then taking your free exploration to hit a barrier or boon that you've examined.
Triggers in MM make that a more risky proposition, but in all of the other base sets she has pretty much unparallelled examination abilities which easily cover any of her weaknesses (by simply never unexpectedly getting into encounters she can't win), can provide excellent spellcasting variety and is one of the most powerful combat casters in all of PACG. She also has one of the most powerful role options seen, and I would easily consider her one of the two most powerful S&S characters.
Unfortunately PBP adores MM and I wouldn't be surprised if the next special uses it too. But yes I was just concerned with her opening hand.
I'm actually playing her irl but we are only getting in about 1 scenario a month at best.
Too many characters I want to play. Not enough games.
9-00CD - Reward Summary
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Chronicle Sheets can be found HERE, thanks for playing!