Pathfinder Adventures—The Tiniest Table

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Hi there! I'm Ryan Rucinski, producer of Pathfinder Adventures, the digital version of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and we are happy to announce that Pathfinder Adventures is now available for Windows and macOS!

Additionally, there is a rather large update to the existing iOS and Android versions that includes all the updates we have been working on in conjunction with the Windows/macOS release.

Enjoy!

That's right, we've brought the digital version of Pathfinder Adventures to Windows and macOS... but what does that mean?

Windows & macOS: The interface has been modified for the desktop. This was no small feat. If we had released a straight port of the mobile version, we would have been flambéed. The team added hotkeys, scrollbars, and scroll wheel support. It's available now on Steam, and you'll soon be able to purchase it on GoG and the Mac App Store. (Of course, you can still buy the mobile version on Google Play and Apple's App Store.)

The pricing for the Windows/macOS versions differs from the mobile versions because we don't use in-game purchases. The base version of the desktop game includes the complete Rise of the Runelords content—all the cards and scenarios that were in the original mobile Rise of the Runelords bundle, plus all the uncommon and rare treasure cards. Two additional DLC packages are available: one with all the iconic alts and some legendary dice, and the other with the rare epic and legendary treasure cards and other legendary dice.

An Obsidian Edition is also available; it includes everything in the base version, plus the two DLC packages, and three promo cards (two of which are Edér and Pallegina from Pillars of Eternity—yeah!), as well as three legendary items and a bunch of runes, charms, and gold, and another DLC pack that will be available in the near future.

We plan on keeping content parity between all platforms in the future, meaning that new content will become available for Windows, macOS, and mobile users at the same time.

We also tackled some of the interfaces that people had issues with, including the Party Creation and Character Selection screens. While the implementation we had was functional, it wasn't making a very good impression on newer users, and was merely tolerated by current players. We've come up with a more streamlined process, reflected on all platforms.

Account Merging: All platforms can use a single PlayFab account, meaning that all of the content and your progression in the game can be shared between them.

It used to be kind rough if a user spent a lot of time on one platform: When they moved to another, they would have to start from scratch, or contact our support team. It was doubly rough if they had unlocked a lot of content on each platform. We say, no more! One account, all platforms!

The Stash: In our faithfulness to the original card game, we had the exact same valid deck check in the digital version. But that didn't work so great after we expanded the content with treasure cards (which can be ignored in Story Mode for those who want to mirror the tabletop experience). When you opened a treasure chest, you didn't actually get to use its treasure cards immediately—you just got the chance to find these cards in your adventures. Unless you were really familiar with the system, it was a hard concept to grasp. So we created the Stash, which can hold a selection of cards that you're not currently using in your decks. This means you can now keep some of the more specialized cards that you're not quite ready to use. And when you open a treasure chest, a copy of each treasure card is sent to the Stash for immediate use. This will hopefully make opening treasure chests more gratifying.

The Stash also helps alleviate the need for "mule" characters—characters that people created solely to store some of the cards that people wanted to keep, but didn't want to use just yet. Plus, it's just a bit more intuitive for the digital-verse.

The Stash is set at 10 slots right now and includes an Unclaimed tab. Unclaimed cards cannot be used by any characters until they are officially moved to the Stash. You can open up a hundred chests, and all the new cards will be waiting for you in the Unclaimed tab.

If you happen to go over your Stash limit, you will meet a happy vendor who will give you gold for your unwanted cards.

Charms and Runes: Ever have that roll you really, really needed to succeed at, lest your permadeath character bite it? Or maybe you're a turn or two away from kicking Ghlorofaex to the curb, but the blessings deck is on empty? We might just have the charm you are looking for.

Charms are one-time-use consumables that have an immediate effect on your current action. They vary from adding a bonus to a check to adding a card to the blessings deck. They have a gold cost associated with their power: adding an extra d4 to a roll might cost only 50 gold, while adding to the blessings deck would run you 500 gold.

Runes differ from Charms in that they have a time limit associated with them; they almost act like a pseudo scenario power. The Rune of Wealth doubles your gold acquisition while it's in effect, while the Rune of Shielding will reduce damage by 1 for four hours.

These will be available in the store and during play for in-game gold (though runes have to be set up prior to starting a scenario).

Tutorial: The tutorial was previously required when starting the game, and a good three-quarters of the people who were forced to play it were never seen playing our game again. No kidding.

The tutorial is now 100% more skippable. Yes, that's right, if you don't want to play the tutorial, or your are already familiar with the game, we have a skip button that is just right for you.

This new super-rad version of the tutorial is also cut up into five bite-sized scenarios that each teach specific elements of the game in a clear and concise way. You'll even get special rewards for completing all of them. (And we don't consider just being allowed to play the beginning scenario a reward.)

Other Stuff: Our dice really are random!

See that? We're now showing you your chance of success at each check. Sure, I still sometimes fail checks where I have a 97% chance of succeeding, but at least I no longer go confidently into situations where a 20% chance is glaring at me.

It's a minor feature but it really does make your decisions a little more clear: you can really see that one additional d4 that Lini can throw in is actually a huge improvement.

These are just some of the things we have been working on—expect to hear more announcements in the near future!

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, and happy adventuring!

Cheers!

Ryan Rucinski
Producer, Pathfinder Adventures
Obsidian Entertainment

Pathfinder Adventures—The Tiniest Table

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Hi! I'm André Nguyen, Art and UI Lead on Pathfinder Adventures. Our User Interface ("UI") has had quite a trip since we started. Let's take a trip down Memory Lane...

Simple Beginnings

As development on Obsidian's South Park: The Stick of Truth was winding down, and before Obsidian and Paizo greenlit Pathfinder Adventures, I was asked to mock up what a digital version of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game might look like and how it would play. I based it on how I played the physical card game, and how others (including Game Director Nathan Davis) played. I even checked photos and videos of other people playing. I created a playable Flash mockup for the owners here at Obsidian to show the game in action. Below you'll see some screen grabs of that mockup.

From the start of making a digital version, we wanted the locations and Sandpoint to feel like they had a place, so the map was a key part of the design. (Don't be alarmed by the giant hand—it was just simulating a hand using a touch screen because we had swipes and taps, and it would follow the mouse cursor in the demo.)

In the mockup, we had the locations show up as cards, just like the physical game. You could swipe left and right to go through them one by one. (This feature made it into early versions of the game before getting cut... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.) In the mockup, we had the player tapping a location card to enter that location.

Another thing we wanted from the start was to feel like you were gathering dice. You know that feeling in the physical game, when you gather the dice before you and think, "Is this good enough, or should I add a blessing, or get some help... ?" Well, we wanted you to have that feeling in the digital game. Every card you play that adds dice would add them on screen. When you're happy, you swipe over them to roll!

The Blue Period

Not only was the roll a success, but the mockup video was approved and we got the go-ahead to make the game. Or at least, we got the go-ahead for Nathan, myself, and one programmer—Kevin Smith—to make a prototype. Our prototype had a title screen and simple character selection, then jumped right into the game, with no real scenario selection—just straight into Brigandoom! It's clear I was working the design of the card back into the UI. We'll call this Pathfinder Adventures' "blue period." (Note that most of the screenshots we have were taken as bug reports, so they have 1 or more... er, "oddities" in them.)

Redder Pastures

You can see that we got rid of the location card carousel from the mockup and went with a fixed box on the left. Even in this early UI, most elements had found their home. A few months passed, and we had finished the prototype. We got the go-ahead to hire an artist because my painting skills are just TOO GOOD. Lindsey Laney joined the team, and we decided to go with a look a little like the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game logo: The reds, the tans, the filigree!

If you're unfamiliar, "filigree" is that fancy ornamental stuff around the UI edges. It breaks up the frame a lot and since the logo has that, it fits Pathfinder. The look of our game was inspired by the art Wayne Reynolds did for Pathfinder: his color, textures, and numerous buckles. Through a few more updates, we refined the UI a lot. It necessarily became more complex because the card game allows so many things.

Examining the Process

Now let's take a brief detour into process. I mock up most UI designs first, then discuss them with the designers. I try to go over all the criteria for that design and offer a few variants. In this case, I was designing what we call the "Examine Tray" and I wanted to make it clear which cards were on the top or bottom of the location deck.

I then give it to an artist (I say that as if we ever had more than 1 or 2 artists) who makes it pretty.

Getting Long in the Tooth

And finally, the game reached its current state. I think the game is slightly more complex than originally thought. Hey, is that a dragon?

It IS a dragon: Longtooth!

So that's it for the evolution of the tablet UI. For phones, we had to make some changes for usability and to receive approval from Apple and Google. Phones screens range in size from tiny to almost tablet-sized. We took a few things off the screen to declutter, and to make things more usable (buttons) and legible (text). For personal preference, we're also adding in a toggle letting you choose which UI to use. To demonstrate, here's Lem on a phone with a bunch of fancy dice!

So that's where we are. What's next? Fortress of the Stone Giants is out now for iOS and Android tablets and phones! If you want a taste of what Deck 4 has in store, check out Nathan's blog on the Obsidian forums! And in case you missed it, check out the Pathfinder Adventures mobile release trailer!

André Nguyen
Art and UI Lead—Pathfinder Adventures, Obsidian Entertainment
@gelatin

Death is Always in the Cards (Or Maybe it Isn't)

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Let's talk about death, baby. It's become a hot-button subject since the launch of Pathfinder Adventures, where a legion of fans were presented with the choice of using a "permadeath" option or letting the fear of death fall by the wayside. There are lots of good reasons why death works the way it does in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, so three of us are providing you with three very different perspectives on the subject. Mike will talk about death in the home version of the physical card game, Nathan will talk about death in the digital game, and Tanis will talk about death in organized play.

Mike's Take: "Permadeath, All the Time"

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is built on the principle that if you try to draw a card that isn't there, you've kicked the bucket, shuffled off your mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. You are an ex-character.

The rationale for this is simple: If the danger of death isn't there, the game breaks down. If you know you can't die, you don't fear the consequences of your actions. So you might embrace what us game designers call "degenerate behavior." For example, if you know you can't die, you might forgo that offer from Kyra to heal you, and get an extra exploration. That one exploration can matter a lot.

For example, you may know that I went in for knee surgery a little while back. So I resolved to play through all of the Obsidian game that was available, through Hook Mountain Massacre. And get this: My party failed to defeat Xanesha on the final card of the blessings deck two games in a row. If I wasn't worried about them dying, there's no way I'd get in that predicament. That's how the game is balanced.

The presumption built into the game is that you're playing a campaign, and losing a character is a massive deal. I lost two characters in the run-up to that Angel in the Tower double-failure. Sajan died during Attack on Sandpoint and Lini kicked it during Local Heroes. (Let me underscore that for emphasis: She died in Local Heroes.) So the new guys, Harsk and Kyra, didn't actually ever finish Burnt Offerings, and so they missed out on the adventure's feats. They turned out a little less buff because their predecessors offed it. Now, I could go back and do those early scenarios with Harsk and Kyra, but I'm running a story here. Also, this is a moot point, since Harsk and Kyra died too, in the last scenario of Hook Mountain Massacre. I knew we named it that for a reason. We won't be seeing those four again, any more than John Cleese will ever have a functional parrot.

Nathan's Take: "Digital Dice Are Unforgiving Enough"

Let me first state for the record: When my group plays the Adventure Card Game, death is real and not forgiven. Just ask our Ekkie player who died in WotR 1.4 and had to play her cousin Rekkie solo through the first 9 scenarios to catch up.

But when it came to Pathfinder Adventures, we decided to make death less than permanent by default. Is it because we are nice? Ummm... Nope! We did invent the Darkest Night Wildcard which costs you a card from the blessings deck each time you fail to acquire a boon (which should give you some indication of our generosity). Actually, it's quite the contrary, and doesn't have much to do with game difficulty at all.

It's all about how we save games! I wanted to preserve the sanctity of rolled dice and cards found in the location deck. As the guy who has reloaded the heck out of X-COM, Civilization, and Total War to get the rolls I wanted, I understand the temptation to cheese the system's random number generator. I even would go as far as to crash Elder Sign: Omens on purpose to reroll. Is that fun? There's a not very good argument that it is, but I knew that to preserve the importance of risk and choice in Pathfinder Adventures, we had to remove the concept of "Saved Games" that you load.

Instead, you play with a party or parties. Every time you confirm an action by rolling, drawing a card, or tapping the confirmation arrow, you've made a permanent decision that can't be reversed by any means.

Okay, fine. What does this have to do with death? Put simply, if you make a mistake at the game table, it's adjudicated by people who can determine how honest the mistake was. If you make a mistake in the digital game, like you swiped to roll when you weren't ready or you didn't realize it was Lem's turn and not Valeros' when you decide to take on the villain, there's no take-backs. And if you're just learning the game for the first time and you didn't quite understand the deck-to-life equation, you might put down the game for good.

Bottom line: If you are a new casual player, enjoy non-permadeath while learning the game! The rest of you don't really have an excuse to play anything but permadeath!

Tanis's Take: "I Like to Make You Suffer, But I Don't Like to Make You Quit"

In Adventure Card Guild games, the bulk of reported play that we're seeing is weekly or fortnightly games at local game stores and game days. I'm aiming to provide a fun experience that people will make part of their routine. And as Mike and Nathan have already said, it's hard to generate an exhilarating victory without the real possibility of death or loss.

In Season of the Shackles, I decided to run with the base game's rules on advancement and death. People enjoyed themselves, but missing a week at the store because your kid was sick or because you had a conflicting event would automatically put you behind the rest of your party. And if you died late in the season? You were never going to catch up to your friends again. Social contract voided, six months of fun washed away, and a bad taste left in your mouth. Not ideal.

I've been at a table where someone's playing Adventure 5 and a character dies, and it suuuuuucks. In the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, usually someone at a high-level table will have a way to access resurrection magic or some kind, whether via a cleric or druid at the table or via special access to some sort of life-restoring magic earned during play. In the Adventure Card Guild, you wouldn't want to depend on a cleric having a Raise Dead in her deck. So I added a metagame system that allows players to expend pretty valuable resources—die bumps—to resurrect a fallen comrade. Die bumps are earned when characters complete an adventure, and they can be used to modify a roll after it's been made. The party can collectively expend 3 die bumps to resurrect a character at the end of a scenario. There's still pain, and dying still sucks, but I'm glad we found a way to allow people to keep playing. Like Dory, we want you to just keep playing. (This is where Disney•Pixar pays me the big bucks for nudging you to go see Finding Dory.)

If you don't like those rules, you can always go by Selinker's Law: "It's organized play, son. When your character dies, you die too."

Mike Selinker and Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designers

Nathan Davis
Pathfinder Adventures Designer
Obsidian Entertainment

Simply the Quest

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

When I joined Obsidian Entertainment last year, because of my background as a tabletop game designer, I was asked if I wanted to work with the Pathfinder Adventures team. Even though it meant having to work with Mike Selinker—Hi, Mike!—it sounded like an awful lot of fun to go back to my card game roots for a bit and, frankly, I flat-out love the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. So I said yes—of course I'd love to see what cool things we could bring to the game on the electronic side that simply aren't possible in the physical space.

Our biggest goal was to expand replayability to make sure the electronic version of the game is an amazing value with tons and tons of fun gameplay. The first step was working out the difficulty system that Nathan has already talked about, which allows you to play the same scenario multiple times and still have it feel fresh and fun. The wildcard powers in particular mix things up so that even when you replay the same scenario you just completed, things still feel new.

But that's still essentially replaying the same scenarios that many of us have already played over and over. Couldn't we use the computer running the game to generate a new adventure whenever we want one, so that we'll always have fresh scenarios to play? Thus, the concept of Quest Mode was born: Mixing and matching existing scenario powers, locations, villains, and henchmen to create new experiences.

Quest Mode, engaged!

How Random Is Too Random?

Randomness is great, but sometimes things that are truly random are also truly terrible—my first CD player's random mode once repeated the same song four times in a row. That's entirely possible in a truly random system (even if there's only a 1:1,728 chance of it happening on a 12-song album), but it's still not what you want. Randomness is supposed to keep things fresh!

So we looked at places where randomness would result in less fun. A perfect example of this is the scenario Local Heroes. It's a fun scenario, but it completely breaks down in Quest Mode's "grab a scenario and add a villain and some henchmen" mechanic. First problem: there's no villain! And what if you're randomly given a bunch of locations that don't have many allies—or any allies? The whole thing can grind to a halt.

So we pulled things like this out of the pool of possible combinations. If a card wasn't going to play nice with Quest Mode, it had to step away from Quest Mode... for now. We ended up with 10 scenario powers, 10 villains, more than 20 sets of henchmen, and multiple maps, so there are more than 10,000 different adventures to be had—and that's before you start calculating different location configurations (and linkages for Legendary difficulty!) and possible wildcard combinations.

We do have the ability to build connections beyond pure randomness, so as we're able to spend more time developing Quest Mode, more "hand-crafted" adventures will be appearing. Certain combinations of scenarios, villains, and maps that are designed to work together will appear together more frequently (or even exclusively together).

Bring on the XP!

Another cool thing we can do in Quest Mode is bring the game a little closer to its tabletop RPG roots. We knew as soon as we started talking about this mode that we wanted to use an XP and leveling system where you'd get XP for each monster and obstacle you overcome in addition to the usual rewards for finishing a scenario. That level of granularity for tracking progression would get in the way with the tabletop game, but it's something we can do well in the electronic space. That meant we could have many levels for progression, and therefore more rewards.

Speaking of progression, we need to call out and give a big thanks to the Pathfinder Society—the PFS Adventure Card Guild progression system gave us a very clear path for developing our Quest Mode progression.

The Future of Quest Mode

So, that's a little look at the history of Quest Mode. But what does the future hold? One of the first new things coming to Quest Mode will be hand-crafted scenarios that deliver new scenarios, villains, and henchmen that players haven't seen before, and special combinations that raise the challenge level higher than we've seen before—with commensurate rewards, of course! And after that?

Well, the obvious direction is "bigger and better." Frankly, I'm not allowed to tell you too much more yet. But the thing to remember is that since Quest Mode is outside the boundaries of the Rise of the Runelords storyline that Paizo and Lone Shark delivered, Obsidian has a bit more freedom to roam and present new characters, stories, and rewards! I know that I'm genuinely excited about it, and I think everyone will really enjoy it.

David Williams
Pathfinder Adventures Designer
Obsidian Entertainment

Obsidian Tells a Tale

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

With Pathfinder Adventures' imminent release—Thursday, April 28!—it's time we talked about the core strength of both Pathfinder and Obsidian: storytelling.

When Obsidian Entertainment and Paizo started talking about Pathfinder Adventures, I was most excited about the prospect of bringing the story of Rise of the Runelords to life. A little background: I started at Obsidian in 2007 working on Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, and one of the first things I did was join a group of coworkers playing Rise of the Runelords. The story stuck with me. And when I started playing "Burnt Offerings" in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, it all came flooding back. I loved the way Mike Selinker, Chad Brown, and all of the designers at Lone Shark Games used the mechanics of the cards to tell a story. Local Heroes stood out to me right away, as did Foul Misgivings later. Since story has always been a priority at Obsidian, I knew that we could bring the theme and drama of the Adventure Path to the forefront of the digital version.

As mentioned in my first blog, one of the first things we did was put all of the location decks on a map. This helps gives the game instant context and setting without a word being written. As an example, throughout "Burnt Offerings," you were playing in bright and sunny Sandpoint, but when you start "The Skinsaw Murders," things look a little different...

Workin' on our night moves (yeah, you just got Bob Segered).

It's Sandpoint's nighttime look! And it's a good one. Since "The Skinsaw Murders" is a ghost story and a murder mystery, we decided to set the mood.

Where PACG uses text descriptions on the cards to convey the story, we use dialogue. Most of these conversations are driven by the iconic heroes that you choose to play with. Each of the iconics has a distinct voice, so a party of Ezren and Valeros experiences different dialogue than a party of Seoni and Amiri.

Before setting out to write dialogue for RotR's 11 iconic heroes, I worked with Erik Mona and James Jacobs at Paizo (with some helpful insight from Chris Avellone and Matt MacLean at Obsidian) to develop a Character Bible. I use it as a touchstone each time I write to make sure the characters are always true to themselves. Each character has a set of style and story notes to remind me how they speak and how they will develop.

I'll pull back the curtain and show you (most of) Lini's entry:

Style

Having an intimate relationship with animals, Lini sees the world from an animal's perspective. She has a hard time understanding people and their complicated schemes, but she is curious about them. She has tremendous instincts and will trust or mistrust NPCs with a high level of accuracy ([REDACTED] will always smell wrong and Ameiko will be a fast friend). She does not emote in half-measures. She's excitable and fiery, using short declarative sentences for just about every occasion. Dank dungeons make her uncomfortable, but she'll never abandon her pack or the mission in front of her.

She will have a habit of interrupting villainous taunts to attack with an "Aaah-Kii-Yeee!"

Story Notes

She will seem naive at first, not understanding man's cruelty. Her curiosity will continue to drive her though. She will grow to see mankind and those with powers as complex, yet simple as any other force of nature. In Chapters 5 and 6, Lini will have a very specific understanding of what she sees and experiences and will always know with certainty what she must to do to flow with or fight against anything she is faced with.

When each scenario starts and ends, you'll get dialogue that's reactive to the characters you have in your party. Likewise, when you fight the villain for the first time, you'll get some banter determined by who's fighting the villain.

Let's take Crow Bait as an example. Harsk is adventuring solo and having a productive discussion with Ameiko about the Sihedron rune when Maester Grump interrupts with terrible news.

They even ate the dogs!

Harsk will get down to the bottom of it! At various points throughout the game, we'll check to see what cards you have and add a little extra flavor. The game does a quick check of his deck and notes that he has the beloved Deathbane Light Crossbow +1. So he adds:

Nothing beats the old Deathbane!

Harsk comes upon the Farmhouse location. In most scenarios, it's just a country home. In Crow Bait, it's a gruesome scene with a creepy note addressed to Harsk.

The letter reads, "You, and you alone, have brought this fearful harvest. They are dead because of you, and more shall join them soon."

Soon enough, he finds Rogors Craesby, who discusses his ugly intentions:

Harsk is no creature's breakfast.

When all is said and done, Harsk considers what has happened and how it relates to the larger plot:

Harsk thinks in terms of tactics and the hunt.

Where there are opportunities for flavor or exposition, we take them. Certain henchmen will talk with you before they fight. Some ally cards in your deck provide good opportunities as well.

And the haunts in Foul Misgivings! Let me tell you about the haunts. Better yet, let me show you!

In case you didn't know, RotR gets dark! Credit for this amazing art goes to the incomparable Lindsey Laney.

There are eight unique haunts throughout the Foul Misgivings—so many that it's impossible to see all of them in one play through the scenario.

You can be sure that there are a great number of things that I've left out for the sake of spoilers and easter egg hunts. I will say that we track a specific action in Burnt Offerings that has implications in The Skinsaw Murders. And I can't wait to show you what we do with Here Comes the Flood!

Nathan Davis
Game Director, Obsidian Entertainment
@nathan_J_davis
(Previously Harsk in Rise of the Runelords and Ranzak in Skull & Shackles; currently Alain in Wrath of the Righteous)

More Iconic Promos!

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Obsidian Pathfinder Adventures Update

Before we jump into your regularly scheduled blog, we have the following message to relay from Obsidian:

We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the chance to explore Sandpoint and defeat the Runelords, and we're sorry to keep you waiting just a little bit longer: We're moving the launch day for Pathfinder Adventures to April 26.

The good news is why the game is being delayed: during beta testing over the last couple of weeks the community has given us a ton of feedback on everything from visual polish to card balance and general gameplay. We want to evaluate all of the ideas and address as many as possible before launch, and that process is going to take a little bit of time.

Ultimately, we hope you all agree that the result will be a better Pathfinder Adventures, just at a sliiiiightly later date.

Stuart Roch
Director of Publishing, Obsidian Entertainment

---

We're just laying down the final versions of the Mummy's Mask promo cards this week, which reminds me that we have more promos to talk about! Pathfinder Battles: Iconic Heroes Set #6 has just been released, complete with an extra miniature and an extra promo card. (See? Don't say we never gave you nothin'.)

Here's a look at the promo cards in Set #6. As a reminder, these cards have the Owner trait, meaning the character whose name is on the card can treat it as a Basic card.

Some Cards from Iconics that Already have ACG Character Cards...

Daji's card could have been named "Red Fox," but then I wouldn't stop shouting "I'm coming to join you, Elizabeth!"

People have been saying "Where's Lem?" since Iconic Heroes Set #1. There's this thing where we could only get one small mini into each set, and we wanted to make sure that Biter and... screw it, the important thing is that he's finally here.

And he brought his flute! The Instrument trait first appeared on Oloch's Orc War Drum, but has since migrated into Wrath of the Righteous and other decks. Basically, it means that you're gonna add 1d4 to other people's checks in some way—in other words, it'll make you a bit like a Bard. But if you're already a Bard, you get to add that d4 to everything anyone does that turn. Everything. Lem + Flute = popular.

Our favorite emo magus gets a shiny bent scimitar. Since he's just as concerned with spells as swords, Seltyiel can use it to pick up spells and then fling them back later.

Feiya has two cards in this set, including Daji the fox. Feiya's trick, both in the Skull & Shackles Character Add-On Deck and the upcoming Witch Deck revolves around recharging cards to reduce the difficulty of checks. Daji's great for many a spellcaster due to the Intelligence and Wisdom bumps, but when it's Feiya, suddenly she's reducing difficulty by 6 or 7 all the time. Pretty dodgy, if you ask me.

... And Cards from Iconics that Don't have Character Cards Yet

I swear there was some armor around here a minute ago.

We haven't released playable versions of Quinn the Investigator, Hayato the Samurai, or Reiko the Ninja yet. But their Iconic Heroes cards are useful even without their owners.

The investigator's main gimmick is peering into dark places. Just as Holmes has his magnifying glass, Quinn has his lamp. Anyone can use it to peek at cards and clear out barriers. When Quinn shows up, he'll be doing that a lot.

Reiko's black ninja armor is loaded with hidden weapons. Don't have a need for armor right now? Voop, it's a Hand Crossbow. Or a Dragon Pistol. Or in Reiko's case, maybe it's a Kusarigama. Just the kind of thing your shadowy figures would need in a pinch.

So that's Set 6. We get asked a lot, "Will there be more Iconic Heroes sets?" WizKids is still contemplating the answer to that, but we sure hope so.

And Speaking of Promos...

This year's Free RPG Day is June 18, and we've got another goblin character coming your way. We're not gonna say much about him for a little while, but here's Tup the Terrible!

Oh, one more thing: He has a sheep named Deliverance.

Enjoy the promos, Pathfinders!

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer

Obsidian Gets Difficult

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

A couple of weeks ago, we debuted Pathfinder Adventures on the Obsidian Plays Twitch Stream. Viewers got to see a new feature that many card game players have been begging for: adjustable difficulty. Now you can play in several modes: Normal, Heroic, and Legendary Difficulty, with or without permanent character death. To kick things off, I played Black Fang's Dungeon on Legendary Difficulty with 6 characters. Even though I've played Black Fang literally hundreds of times at this point, I still sweat bullets in this, my favorite play mode.

Let me walk you through another good scenario...

I recently jumped into Trouble in Sandpoint in "Burnt Offerings." After selecting the scenario and watching a short cutscene, we see the scenario preview which would normally show a power telling me that after encountering a Wrathful Sinspawn, I would have a 1 in 6 chance of discarding blessings from the blessings deck. As you see below, things have changed... a bit.

Who needs a blessings deck anyway?

Instead of a 1 in 6 chance of losing blessings, it's 1 in 2. Given that most of the henchmen, one of the location closing conditions, and the villain's summoning power will trigger this, my time is limited.

But wait, there's more! I've also been given two "Wildcard" powers. Wildcards are additional randomly chosen increases in difficulty. Night is approaching which means that each time I fail to get a boon, I lose another blessing, and coupled with the driving rain, those boons will be even harder to get. Time is definitely not on my side.

But wait, there's even more! I can move only to an adjacent location. Let's see what that means.

Amiri and Seelah leap into danger, while Ezren and Lem chill at the Apothecary. Yeah, that's about right.

This is our location selection screen to place characters before the scenario begins. There are now connections between all of the locations and now movement is limited to those travel lines. No longer will healers be able to parachute into any location they're needed. So I have to place each character carefully using a strategy that takes into account location deck composition, location power, closing check, connections to the locations around it, distance from other characters, and an ideal path

I see a couple challenges immediately:

1. Two Intelligence/Knowledge location closures are spread far apart, but for Lem to be effective, I want to group him with Ezren.
2. Shrine of Lamashtu is connected only to the Old Light, so it's isolated. I decide to post Seelah there because, let's face it, she was made to face the Shrine.

So we're set! Let's take a look at what this looks like in game.

Welcome to Sandpoint, where you'll find bunyips aplenty in Ven Vinder's general store.

From this view, which we call the scenario view, you can better see the spatial and thematic reasons that the travel lines are configured in this way. The Village House is acting as a hub and the Shrine to Lamashtu is the most remote location on the map. Not all locations map exactly to a place in Sandpoint, but if you look at the map of Sandpoint in the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, you’ll find that the Old Light, Junk Beach, and the Glassworks are all in the right places; the Apothecary is located at Pillbug Podiker’s, and the Village House is at the White Deer tavern and inn.

Speaking of the Village House, let's fast forward to the end of the Scenario. I have 2 blessings left before the scenario ends. Those blessings went fast! Ezren's moved over to Village House, Lem and Harsk have converged on the Waterfront, Amiri and Merisiel are tied up at their starting locations, and Seelah's just closed the Shrine. Ezren defeated the henchman last turn so he knows he's about to fight the villain. The Old Light is open.

If only I had a way to get someone over to Old Light...

Ezren knows that he's got a useful spell in his deck and he just drew Detect Magic. Ezren understands that the best way to hit a dangerous enemy is... carefully. And he embarks on some rather arcane planning. He casts Detect Magic to look at the villain he already knows to be there, and activates his Expanded Spellbook and comes across...

Swift like a Sajan!

...Stride! Perfect!

Stride is Obsidian's version of Levitate. We found that while Levitate was a good card (particularly for Legendary difficulty), it would have to prompt at the end of each character’s turn to activate properly, which can get old real fast. We pitched an alternate version with less versatility in some ways and more in others to Mike Selinker, Chad Brown, and Vic Wertz. Vic made an excellent point that we'd be diverging enough from the original Levitate card that it would make sense to call it something else. And since it's a new card, new art!

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. It's time for Seelah to move to The Old Light and do hero's work. Ezren pulls Erylium from the location deck and trusts in his friends to close their locations. Everyone does their part, leaving Seelah to try an Intelligence check.

Seelah's got this because she's literally the best character.

It's tough, but with the power of prayer and Irori's blessing...

Faith is just as good as brains to Seelah.

She nails it! Now all that's left is for Ezren to blast Erylium to bits with all of the remaining dice.

Lightning never gets old!

Boom!

Now that you have a sense for how Legendary Difficulty works, I'll give a super-brief history of this feature. One of the first big shifts we made from PACG was the use of maps and points to show the locations. Almost immediately, it was clear that we could do something more with maps, but we held off for a long time. We started developing the concept for having increased difficulties based on a number of factors. We knew that there was a strong desire to replay scenarios from Rise of the Runelords and many of you have run through Perils of the Lost Coast many, many times. I also spent some time checking out a lot of homebrew mods people had done to make the game their own. I put this version of restricted movement together before PaizoCon last year (along with some other stuff we will talk about soon) and requested a meeting with the original PACG development team at the convention.

I think I led with, "We love your game! Development is going really well! Here's my plan to screw it all up." Mercifully, the whole team was excited and on board! They gave us a lot of fantastic input across the board.

The plan simmered for a while as we were nailing down other parts of the project, like the tutorial and roles. At the end of last year, David Williams (Designer for Legend of the Five Rings, Doomtown, and so many more) joined the team here at Obsidian and locked down our difficulty design and added the concept of randomly chosen Wildcard powers which makes such a big difference in replayability and challenge level.

Dave will be joined by art lead and UI designer Andre Nguyen and artist Lindsay Laney in another Twitch stream this Friday at 4 PM Pacific time! Be sure to check it out!

Nathan Davis
Game Director, Obsidian Entertainment
@nathan_J_davis
(Previously Harsk in Rise of the Runelords and Ranzak in Skull & Shackles; currently Alain in Wrath of the Righteous)

Pathfinder Adventures—Maybe the Coolest Collection of Ones and Zeros Ever

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Last week on Reddit, I alluded to our Pathfinder Adventure Card Game design team helping Obsidian Entertainment with its upcoming Pathfinder Adventures game. If you haven't heard, it's a digital port of PACG, but with a whole lot of new bells and whistles.

So, let me give you an idea of what it's like to work on this awesome thing. First, the crew. Chad, Vic, and I have been trading emails and phone calls with project lead Nathan Davis, designer Dave Williams, user interface designer Andre Nguyen, and artist Lindsey Laney for something like a year and a half now. They are freakin' sorcerers. They see everything we've tried to create in paper form and manipulate it to be even better in the digital world.

Gone is all the setup and teardown time, the limitations on numbers of cards in the box, the trips to Ikea for new Kallaxes to fit the awkward thing in your game room. In are variable boons, dynamically changing banes, and Andre's amazing animations. Rise of the Runelords feels brand new again.

Here are some screenshots you'll like. Below is the map for the Adventure Path. The star with the checkmark just south of Sandpoint shows that I've completed the B scenarios, and the bright star to the north indicates that I can take on adventure 1 in Sandpoint itself.

Follow the teal arrows. It's totally safe.

In each scenario, you'll also see a local map with all of the locations you'll need to visit, like the Brigandoom! map below. And when you get to some of those places, you'll see new art by Lindsey. For example, this is what the City Gate looks like.

Last one in, close the portcullis!

Designing for the Digital World

Because the digital world sometimes has different needs than the tabletop, we've been revisiting a lot of things in the game. For example, here's Sajan's Drunken Master role.

Among the rejected power names: "Buy Selinker a Mai Tai."

You will note that Sajan has named powers with the familiar checkboxes. I've explained before that we don't do that in the physical card game because it would create legacy presumptions on the players' parts, and it would also take up more precious space on what are already our most text-laden cards. But Obsidian needs to be able to refer to those powers in shorthand during the game. So Tanis brainstormed a whole bunch of names for these powers, Vic and the RPG team played around with them, and then voila, all the Runelords powers—every little checkbox—got a name.

Sometimes, they come to us with a hard challenge that we need to resolve. For example, last week we spent a bunch of time trying to figure out—again—how daggers and daggerlikes work. For the minutiae-uninitiated, the card Dagger has this text: "When playing another weapon, you may discard this card to add 1d4 to your combat check." For us, that's simple. You play a Greatsword, discard the Dagger, bingo-bango, +1d4.

For Obsidian, it's not so simple. For them the question comes when your first weapon is also a Dagger. Because then you can:

• Reveal the first Dagger
• Discard the second Dagger
• And since discarding the second is "playing another weapon," you can then discard the first.

Which, y'know, is pretty much fine by me. You wanna toss two cards for +2d4, go to it. That all makes sense because you, the human with the cards, flips the card around and says "I'm playing this Dagger."

But in the Obsidian game, you click on cards to activate or deactivate them. So you click on the first Dagger to reveal it, then you click on the second Dagger to discard it, and then you click on the first Dagger to... wait a second. That first Dagger is already clicked on. So now when you click on it again, you'd be... deactivating the first Dagger? That's no good at all.

So we got out the scalpels. After a dozen false starts, our man Keith came up with this new wording: "When you play another weapon for your combat check, you may discard this card to add 1d4." Note the words "for your combat check" here. There's a step where you play the card that sets the skill for your combat check. That's only ever one card—in this case, the dagger you displayed at the start—so playing the second dagger no longer allows you to play the first again. From Rise of the Runelords through to the upcoming Gunslinger Class Deck, this change would affect almost three dozen cards, so errata-ing them for the physical card game would be both painful and pointless. So in the digital game, they'll work ever so slightly differently. And everything will be fine.

No, check that. Everything will be awesome.

Like This. This is Awesome.

Early in the process, Nathan came to me with a request for a tutorial scenario. I said something like "Dude, I have no idea what that is, so just write one."

See, in a digital game, you don't need to learn the game from a 32-page rulebook. Instead, you can learn how to play the game from the game itself. But for that to work, you need a play sequence that is tuned for the particular digital game. Since I'd empowered Nathan to make his own tutorial, I expected I'd see something like what we created for Brigandoom! or the like. I figured he'd just have Kyra and Merisiel beat up a bandit or three, and we'd be off to the races.

And then these showed up.

Ameiko: "Hold still, Orik, while I mold this shield around your face."

Yes indeed. That's Ameiko Kaijitsu and Orik Vancaskerkin—an ally and a henchman, respectively, in the Runelords set—who are your characters in the tutorial. Orik's got his own special shield and everything. And they're fun to have around. Here's some of Nathan's dialogue from the tutorial.

Orik: Bloody horse demon thing! I hate monster cults!
Ameiko: Huh. More equine than expected!

I'll bet you can guess what they're fighting. In the tutorial. The tutorial. Good luck with that.

Even Maester Grump has concerns!

Anyway, as I think you can see, this is gonna be glorious. But you don't have to take my word for it... Obsidian is running a Pathfinder Adventures Twitch stream this Friday, February 26, at 4 PM Pacific time; check it out for yourself at twitch.tv/obsidian!

And keep an eye out for the game next month. It'll keep your iPad or Android tablet humming for a long time to come.

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer