Hooked On Class Decks

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

By now you may have heard that we're restarting the class decks line in August. We took a break after the Summoner Class Deck to reassess the decks we wanted to make, making sure we could come up with fresh new concepts in the wake of our success with Goblins Fight! and Goblins Burn! We think we got there.

We've been playing around with some of the older classes lately. We debuted a new Rogue, Cleric, Druid, and Magus in the Mummy's Mask Base Set and Character Add-On Deck, giving new life to some older playstyles. We decided to keep that trend alive in the next wave of three decks.

Is It "May-gus" or "Maag-us"? Or Maybe "May-juss" or...


"I make everything look good."

First up is the Magus Class Deck, starring our emo elf Seltyiel. You know he was saying, "What does a pasty-skinned heartthrob have to do to get in a class deck? Put on a shirt?" Wait no more, Selty. You'll be showing up in August.

Magus was the biggest oversight in the first 20 class decks. At no time in all those decks did we make a decent Melee/Arcane deck. The closest we got was the Bard Class Deck, and that wasn't very close. But now not only do Seltyiel from Skull & Shackles and Ahmotep from Mummy's Mask have a deck they can call home in the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild, but it probably won't be long before you read the words "Each player unlocks the ability to play Crowe" in an organized play scenario near you.

Seltyiel will be accompanied by a couple of new Magus associates—though to quash some speculation on the forums, Ahmotep will not be making a second appearance here. We like her just fine in Mummy's Mask, and we've got some more wrinkles we'd like to try with the Magi.

And that's the only deck in this first wave that features exactly one iconic character.

As You Can See from My Example, Persistence Has Its Rewards

We're finally getting to do something I've wanted to do since we started working on the game. At the early stages of expansion, we limited ourselves to decks based around the iconic characters that Pathfinder fans have come to love.

Every now and then, though, we'd grab a character from our favorite pieces of Pathfinder fiction. First up was James Sutter's Salim from Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine, by way of the Inquisitor Class Deck. I am a head-over-heels Elaine Cunningham fan, so when we got the green light to do non-iconic characters in Mummy's Mask, her druid Channa Ti from Dark Tapestry was the first in the door. We also dropped Howard Andrew Jones's cleric Drelm from Stalking the Beast into that set as well.

But with the Wizard and Rogue Class Deck already out, it seemed I wasn't going to get to include my favorite Pathfinder novel characters unless we came up with something very clever. So, we did. For our September deck, we're unveiling a new theme concept: the Pathfinder Tales Deck. It stars the only two characters ever to merit the phrase "the new Fafhrd and Grey Mouser": Dave Gross's Count Varian Jeggare and Radovan Virholt.


I'm just here with the boss.

Dave and I go back almost a quarter century, back when he was the editor of Dragon Magazine and I was but a humble freelance writer. (I'm still a freelance writer, of course. Just less humble.) He's since distinguished himself as one of the most talented writers in the game industry. With these two characters, he's created something legendary. It's about time you get to play them.

And here's the best part: Dave's coming along for the ride. It's his third time dropping in with us: He did a brilliant fill-in for me as the story writer for Season of the Righteous's Adventure 1-3—Lexicon of Paradox, which featured Varian and Radovan as cohort cards. Dave also wrote the flavor text for his character Alase in the Summoner Class Deck. I'm excited that we're finally going to bring his great creations to PACG character form. Thanks, Dave!

Oh, there's a third character—one that's not Dave's—from the Pathfinder Tales novels in the deck along with Varian and Radovan. When we began to consider all the possibilities from the series, the debate was over when I said only two words to the team. More on that in a few months.

Enough with All This Hero Nonsense

Finally, here's a quick look at our third class deck in this wave. In Season of the Runelords, we spent a lot of time with the Hollow Mountain comics, in which Seltyiel, Oloch, Meligaster, and Damiel are a bad-guy team. The writing team on that series (Messrs. Mona, Schneider, and Sutter) clearly had a blast writing from the villainous perspective. As we designed alongside them, we thought we want that too.

So, I'm happy to announce that we're taking a break from all this "goody two-shoes" stuff and donning our best, um... "baddy no-shoes" stuff? for October's Hell's Vengeance Class Deck. Wait, scratch that: It's the first of two sets of those. (Eventually, anyway.) For now, we're focusing on three of the six iconic villains from the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path, lovingly illustrated by our deity-status artist Wayne Reynolds.


Left to right: the human Hellknight Linxia, the pitborn assassin Emil, the human torturer Zelhara, the human cleric Lazzero, the dwarf antipaladin Urgraz, and the dhampir necromancer Nyctessa.

Which three are we doing first? Well, I need to keep some secrets, don't I? After all, telling you would probably be the good thing to do, and with this deck, I have no business doing that. But if you have a favorite, go ahead and list your top choice in the comments. We'll be watching.

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Class Decks Iconics Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
1 to 50 of 63 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Lone Shark Games

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Vic probably wished I said something like "None of this should imply final product names or art or even punctuation." So let's all just agree that I said that.


Favorite : Zelhara

Thanks for the awesome preview Mike.

Dark Archive

A Magus and villainous class decks, outstanding! Finally, we get to play as Varian and Radovan, fantastic!


No idea when I'd get around to playing them, but I'm buying the Hell's Vengeance decks!

And although I'm just dipping my toes into Mummy's Mask, I'm hoping an upcoming preview shows what the next path will be.


Yes please. And I love Necromancy, even though I hate zombies... My second favorite would be the Cleric.


Great news everyone!

This is super cool, I'm excited for all of these. I'll definitely set up a subscription once I know where I'll live when they release.

This also motivates me to double my efforts with the evil homebrew campaign I am working on. It's high time we finish WotR so that I can playtest what I came up with so far.

Also, thanks for making Crowe available, and thanks for pointing out Salims second novel, I somehow missed that completely!

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

It's about time we get a magus deck.

Here's hoping Seltyiel gets much needed tweaking. It depresses me that my favorite PF class is one of the worst characters in PFACG.


Magus is good. The Tales and Hell's Vengeance decks don't do anything for me, but I might pick them up if the characters are interesting mechanically.


I'm super stoked about this. Varian and Radovan have been my 2 most wanted characters for a long time.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Am I hearing this correct. We can play as Villains?

I'd love to play an assassin or a Torturer. Oh, what powers could they get? Oh, what mystery is their to their play? Oh, I can't wait to make puny Henchmen scream!

Wait... does this mean we will get an OP Adventure Path where we fight Heroes instead of Villains.....?


A Villans class deck sounds interesting especially if they get interesting new powers you can use in any base game.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I vote Nyctessa as my favorite, no question. I would LOVE to see a good necomancer character, as I was a bit disappointed with the necromancer in the Wizard deck.


Thumbs up!

I really hope that we will see hells vengeance adventure path along the road!
It has been so fun to be mighty Goblin! Who says that we Are not mighty? I will be back when I find some friends with whom we will teach you manners! We Are mighty when we have huge adwantage in Numbers, you will see, you will see! But don't hit me now, I am so small and lonely and miserable.... noooooooo.....


Donny Schuijers wrote:
Wait... does this mean we will get an OP Adventure Path where we fight Heroes instead of Villains.....?

Wait... does this mean we will get an OP Adventure Path where we can play Goblins all the way.....? :-)


Frencois wrote:
Donny Schuijers wrote:
Wait... does this mean we will get an OP Adventure Path where we fight Heroes instead of Villains.....?
Wait... does this mean we will get an OP Adventure Path where we can play Goblins all the way.....? :-)

Well, we actually can...

Lone Shark Games

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Donny Schuijers wrote:
Am I hearing this correct. We can play as Villains?

We are careful about not referring to these blighters as "villains," because that means something different in PACG. But basically, yes.


I can't wait to play a Zelhara x Merisiel merry jaunt through the boneyard.


Any swashbuckler or slayer decks on the horizon?


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Nyctessa is definitely my favorite, her backstory just oozes flavor. Technical nit though, Urgraz is a duergar, not a dwarf.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I got a fever and the only cure is more class decks.


Garrett Guillotte wrote:
Any swashbuckler or slayer decks on the horizon?

Recently (can't remember when) Mike said in the comments of a blog post that while they'd like to do a swashbuckler deck, they wouldn't want to release a swashbuckler deck without putting several ships in there. As far as I remember, the problem is that it would mess with the progression of SnS and wouldn't make much sense for the other APs, so they were left unsure what to do.

I'm also in favor of Nyctessa for the first deck! Linxia also looks very cool. But I guess it would make the most sense to split them into weapon and spell based classes?
So Hellknight / Assassin / Torturer and Cleric / Antipaladin / Necromancer? I don't know about Assassin and Torturer, but at least I know that the last three can use spells in the RPG.

@Skizzers
While you are right, I don't think PACG makes a distinction between duergar and dwarves, or drow and elves for that matter.


Doppelschwert wrote:
Garrett Guillotte wrote:
Any swashbuckler or slayer decks on the horizon?
Recently (can't remember when) Mike said in the comments of a blog post that while they'd like to do a swashbuckler deck, they wouldn't want to release a swashbuckler deck without putting several ships in there. As far as I remember, the problem is that it would mess with the progression of SnS and wouldn't make much sense for the other APs, so they were left unsure what to do.

Bummer. I had no idea swashbucklers were so tied to ships.

Lone Shark Games

skizzerz wrote:
Technical nit though, Urgraz is a duergar, not a dwarf.

In our game, Urgraz gets the Dwarf trait so that (for example) the Flayed Man from Wrath 6 can hurt him.

Silver Crusade

I'm interested to see how they group the iconic villains for those two class decks. The divine casters and partial casters together? The castiest together? I hope for at least one divine caster each in the Pathfinder Tales and Iconic Villains decks, so I can get excited about them.


Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
I'm interested to see how they group the iconic villains for those two class decks. The divine casters and partial casters together? The castiest together? I hope for at least one divine caster each in the Pathfinder Tales and Iconic Villains decks, so I can get excited about them.

A Cleric of Lamashtu would probably still be a Divine Cleric, right? Hm...

Scarab Sages

I thought seeing the Magus Class Deck was exciting. The other pending class decks sound awesome!!

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
The castiest together?

I like the concept of "castiest." (Sorry, low-level bards—you're just not casty enough. Come back when you get castier.)


cartmanbeck wrote:
I vote Nyctessa as my favorite, no question. I would LOVE to see a good necomancer character, as I was a bit disappointed with the necromancer in the Wizard deck.

+1

But then again, Dodge Durango had the added burden of establishing the whole toolbox of -Mancerdom that led to the Summoners and Flesh Poppet-carrying Gravewalkers we have today. Now that the concept is well established, really looking forward to seeing all the -Mancer tech that's been spun off of the original Necromancer return to its origins with loads of added flavor and crunchy bits (e.g CD Balthazar / Mother Myrtle's "we don't even have to do the killing" trick) as well as a whatever new spins on Necromancy a half-vampire brings to the table.

Personally, I'd love for her or one of her role cards to let her convert a defeated Henchman or Villain into something like a Cohort to carry with her into the next Adventure Path, but I suspect that's beyond the ability to fit on a character or role card. Hmmm... maybe a Cohort card which describes the "Undead Thrall" Template and which has some variable powers based on the bane you attach to it?

Silver Crusade

I think my vote is for Zelhara. Inquisitors rock, and I would love to see a Blessing of Zon-Kuthon. If Nyctessa nets us a Blessing of Urgathoa, I will also be happy.

Lone Shark Games

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
I think my vote is for Zelhara. Inquisitors rock, and I would love to see a Blessing of Zon-Kuthon. If Nyctessa nets us a Blessing of Urgathoa, I will also be happy.

One thing I can say about the badguys set: It is really hard to narrow down which new evil blessings we're going to make.

Lone Shark Games

The humble Mr. Gross points out that I erroneously gave him credit for creating Alase. Wes Schneider created Alase in Lost Kingdoms, and gave her to Dave for her star turn in Dave's novel King of Chaos.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Mike Selinker wrote:
The humble Mr. Gross points out that I erroneously gave him credit for creating Alase. Wes Schneider created Alase in Lost Kingdoms, and gave her to Dave for her star turn in Dave's novel King of Chaos.

YOU ARE BAD AND SHOULD FEEL BAD!

:-P

Silver Crusade

Mike Selinker wrote:
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
I think my vote is for Zelhara. Inquisitors rock, and I would love to see a Blessing of Zon-Kuthon. If Nyctessa nets us a Blessing of Urgathoa, I will also be happy.
One thing I can say about the badguys set: It is really hard to narrow down which new evil blessings we're going to make.

I hope within my lifetime to see a blessing for each of the core 20.

Scarab Sages

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I like this - a lot. All of it. The only thing that could possibly have made this announcement even better would be a class deck focused solely on grabbing boons.


Is Radovan really that much shorter than Count Jeggare or is that just the difference in artwork?

Also, a Pathfinder Tales deck? Does this mean Keren, Zae, and Appleslayer will get cards? ^_^

Liberty's Edge

Regarding the third character from the Tales Deck. I really hope the two words you mentioned were either, "Death's Heretic" or "Salim Ghadafar".

EDIT: And now I see that he was in the Inquisitor Class Deck.

D'oh!

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Berselius wrote:
Is Radovan really that much shorter than Count Jeggare or is that just the difference in artwork?

The two images were not presented in relative scale. While I can't swear that they are scaled identically now, we did at least make the issue much less obvious.

Dark Archive Contributor

Vic Wertz wrote:
Berselius wrote:
Is Radovan really that much shorter than Count Jeggare or is that just the difference in artwork?
The two images were not presented in relative scale. While I can't swear that they are scaled identically now, we did at least make the issue much less obvious.

For those interested, Varian is as tall as Tom Hiddleston, while Radovan is the same height as Tom Cruise or Christian Kane.


Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Tom Hiddleston is 6'2", Christian Kane is 5'9", Tom Cruise is 5'7". Which last gave rise to "Tom Cruise ain't no Jack Reacher" (Reacher is 6'5"). Having said that, I have to admit I liked both "Reacher" movies.

Dark Archive Contributor

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Ed Reppert wrote:
Tom Hiddleston is 6'2", Christian Kane is 5'9", Tom Cruise is 5'7". Which last gave rise to "Tom Cruise ain't no Jack Reacher" (Reacher is 6'5"). Having said that, I have to admit I liked both "Reacher" movies.

I'd been led to believe Kane is also 5'7" and that Hiddleston was closer to 6'1", but even then I was fudging because I've always thought of Varian as around 6', but I tend to visualize him as Hiddleston.


yay Varian and Radovan and necromancers!


Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Necromancers?! How did that happen?

@Dave G.: eh, what's an inch or two anyway? (But Tom Cruise is still too short to be Reacher.) :-)


Ed Reppert wrote:
(Reacher is 6'5").

Which is presumably how he got his name.

On topic...

Salim has been my favourite character to play so far, and I never knew he was a character from an existing story. Pretty cool to learn. (Although yesterday Angban picked up his "Living Cannon" role card and is now mounting a strong challenge for the position.)


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Dave Gross wrote:
Ed Reppert wrote:
Tom Hiddleston is 6'2", Christian Kane is 5'9", Tom Cruise is 5'7". Which last gave rise to "Tom Cruise ain't no Jack Reacher" (Reacher is 6'5"). Having said that, I have to admit I liked both "Reacher" movies.
I'd been led to believe Kane is also 5'7" and that Hiddleston was closer to 6'1", but even then I was fudging because I've always thought of Varian as around 6', but I tend to visualize him as Hiddleston.

Speaking of Varian and Radovan -- Are any more stories about them planned or in the works? I am really curious to see the later ramifications of a certain development that Varian arranged for Radovan at the end of your last book.


It would be nice to see shield and one arm weapon specialist class deck. One hand weapon and shield has always been inferior to two hand weapon armor combination.

It would be nice to see a fighter deck that woult totally utilise shieds and one hand weapon. Maybe focusin manouweribility, shield bash, using shields agains long range weapons etc. Where shield Are good and usefull!

Then maybe two weapons combination specialist deck. Sword in both hands. Sai and Sword combination eastern style.

And ofcourse ninjas! :)


Hannibal_pjv wrote:
It would be nice to see shield and one arm weapon specialist class deck. One hand weapon and shield has always been inferior to two hand weapon armor combination.

TBH, it would be nice if Shields get some love, period. It's really obvious the effort Lone Shark put post-RotR into making Armors not suck, but in my playing circles Shield are always doomed to be an armor's ugly step-sister. The advantage of Armor being able to suck up ALL the damage from a failed Combat is just too great, and the Shields requiring one-handed weapons only doesn't help any. Supposedly, the Shields' "thing" is that they generally Reveal, instead of Recharge for their effect, but that's not much, considering you're likely to recharge them at hand reset to cycle your hand.

I'm not sure how Lone Shark could fix this issue, short of putting some sort of reveal-value bonuses to shields ("Reveal this card to add 1/2/etc. to your Melee Combat check"), but I'd sure love to see some effort in that direction.


Shields have gotten a little bit of love. Some that do "non-armor" kinds of things:

Buckler Gun
Burglar's Buckler
Clawhand Shield
Crocodile Skin Madu
Scizore

And that is just to name a few. But I also wholeheartedly support the idea of more armors doing "non-armor" things.

Lone Shark Games

2 people marked this as a favorite.

New shields: Hold that thought.

By the way, I feel like no one has yet given me the props I deserve for the title of this blog.


Mike Selinker wrote:


By the way, I feel like no one has yet given me the props I deserve for the title of this blog.

Yes, that seems to be a chronic problem.

Perhaps it's because the blog itself is so full of good news that none of us has had time to figure out if the blog title is an homage to "Hooked on a Feeling" (the impression I get whenever I see anything with "hooked on" in it) or if it is a Hooked on Phonics (derived from Hooked on Chronic, apparently) thing. Personally, I'm still reeling from the announcement of the class deck I've been waiting for most.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Every time I see the title for this blog post, I think, "Hooked on Class Decks worked for me!"

1 to 50 of 63 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Card Game / General Discussion / Paizo Blog: Hooked On Class Decks All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.