That One Time I Lied About My Best Character Ever (Spoiler: It's Really Mavaro)

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Hello again, everyone! Last time I got the chance to write a blog for Paizo, I said that Alahazra was my favorite character. However, I have a confession to make: I lied. At the time I wrote that blog, Alahazra was no longer my favorite character. You see, I was one of the lucky few to get in on early playtesting of Mummy's Mask, and the first time I ran through the scenarios, I played as Mavaro, the Occultist from the Mummy's Mask Character Add-On Deck. And Mavaro, my friends, is truly the Best. Character. Ever.

Just look at that extremely regal man!

Mavaro is the most versatile character ever made for the game—even more so than Rise of the Runelords Lini, and she was majorly versatile. At any given moment, Mavaro can potentially have any skill in the game, and that skill will be equal to his highest base skill, his Intelligence. This is thanks to the amazing power that allows him to display a boon from his hand and gain all of the skills listed in that boon's check to acquire section equal to his Intelligence, and that effect lasts until the end of the turn. So, right from the start of the game, Mavaro can have a d10 for every base skill as long as he has a Blessing of the Elements to display. He can also use (almost) any weapon in the game with his Intelligence as his base die: reveal it to use your Strength (for Melee weapons) or your Dexterity (for Ranged weapons) skill and then display that same weapon to gain that skill equal to his Intelligence.

Take a look at those skills. They can ALL be yours!

This extreme versatility also bleeds over into his deck composition. Mavaro's deck list starts off with no weapons, spells, or armors in it. However, he can treat all three of these card types as if they were items, and he gets nine of those to start. This means that you can tailor his deck to your liking at the end of any scenario. Do you know that the next scenario has a lot of golems in it, which are notoriously immune to spells? Drop all your attack spells and pick up a few extra weapons. Are there a lot of locations coming up that require Wisdom checks to close? Pick up a few items that can give you a good Wisdom skill.

Did you notice that he can still gain 1 card feat each for weapon, spell, and armor? This may come in handy...

The only "static" cards in Mavaro's beginning deck are allies and blessings, so it's important to choose them wisely. Every card that you put in Mavaro's deck should have the ability to grant him a skill that he either doesn't have at all, or is not very good at. Diversity is key, since you want him to have a card somewhere in his deck for every situation imaginable. This also means that Mavaro is a huge fan of examining cards in his location deck. Even though the Trigger trait might make this a bit of a gamble sometimes, it's important to know what is coming next so that you can make sure you will have the card in hand to grant you a needed skill.

All of these cards are excellent choices because of their myriad of skills to acquire.

I could go on for pages and pages about the best cards to pick for Mavaro as you move up through the adventure decks, but we should probably talk about Mavaro's role card a bit. His roles are Acquisitor and Channeler. The Acquisitor, as you might expect, is really good at acquiring new cards. Without any power feats, Mavaro can discard a card to add a die to his checks to acquire. Using a power feat, he can give that benefit to other characters at his location. And in the Acquisitor role, he can take a power feat to reduce the cost of that power from discarding a card to merely recharging a card. One of the best feats in this role, however, is the ability to set aside items from your hand before you reset your hand, effectively increasing your hand size significantly if you've got several items in hand—and you could potentially have as many as 8.The Channeler role focuses strongly on casting spells, gaining the Arcane and Divine skills. Additionally, like his RPG equivalent, Mavaro can channel magic from objects into spells. In the PACG, this takes the form of recharging a weapon, and armor, or an item to summon and play a random spell that has the Attack trait, which is pretty amazing. Each of Mavaro's roles also offers a power feat that lets you affect your Intelligence checks after the roll. The Acquisitor's version lets you bury a card to add or subtract 3, while the Channeler lets you discard an item to reroll the dice! These are both really excellent powers for Mavaro, though it's important to remember that not all of your checks are going to be based on Intelligence... His first power lets him gain skills equal to his Intelligence, but doesn't actually use his Intelligence, which is an important distinction.

I honestly have trouble choosing between these two roles... They're both amazing!

Finally, I'd like to talk a little bit about the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild organized play program and how Mavaro can be used there. Though Mavaro doesn't have his own Occultist Class Deck, Mavaro can be unlocked for PFSACG play by completing the final adventure of Season of the Runelords. You'll use the Inquisitor Class Deck with him, which is a great deck of cards overall but does have some pitfalls when it comes to Mavaro. First, like many Class Decks, the Basic blessings are Blessings of the Gods, and that card is one of relatively few in the game which has no check to acquire. This makes all four of his starting blessings useless for his best power. You will quickly want to replace them with blessings that have at least Divine as an acquire option, which you can then display to make use of several excellent Divine spells in the deck, including Weapon of Awe and Divine Favor. You can also grab a Grave Tender as an early B ally upgrade. This deck is also a bit sparse with items for an Occultist, though Archer's Bracers and Blood Periapt are solid choices from the start, and picking up the Manual of War is almost essential.

I've heard whispers of other decks unlocking for Mavaro in the future, so stay tuned...

That's it for today, my friends. I hope that you can forgive my falsehood in my first blog, as I wasn't allowed to talk about Mavaro at that point, and Alahazra is an amazing character in all of her versions. But when it comes to the best character ever, I am going to have to definitively say that it is Mavaro... at least until Lone Shark Games come up with an even more amazing character! Until next time!

Tyler Beck (Cartmanbeck)
Freelance Writer and Genetic Sorcerer