Making the Most of Character Unlocks

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Ever since the first Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Decks were released, you have been able to use Adventure Path characters of the same class as your deck in the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild. This has been a great way to add more variety to PFSACG character options (in case the 88 Class Deck characters aren't already enough for you!).

The latest version of the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild Guide extends this to work with decks that contain characters of more than one class. For example, since the Pathfinder Tales Character Deck contains a wizard, you can use Ezren with that deck. And certain PFSACG adventure rewards unlock the ability to use specific characters with specific decks.

So, I decided to make a list of all the additional characters that you can use with each deck, including those you can only unlock with Chronicle sheets or boons. Every Class and Character deck has at least one additional playable character!

  • Alchemist Class Deck: Damiel (Skull & Shackles), Damiel (Mummy's Mask), Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 4
  • Barbarian Class Deck: Amiri (Rise of the Runelords)
  • Bard Class Deck: Lem (Rise of the Runelords), Lem (Skull & Shackles), Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 2
  • Cleric Class Deck: Kyra (Rise of the Runelords), Kyra (Wrath of the Righteous), Drelm (Mummy's Mask)
  • Druid Class Deck: Lini (Rise of the Runelords), Lini (Skull & Shackles), Channa Ti (Mummy's Mask)
  • Fighter Class Deck: Valeros (Rise of the Runelords), Valeros (Skull & Shackles)
  • Goblins Burn! Character Deck: Tup (Rise of the Runelords Promo), Reepazo (Mummy's Mask Promo)
  • Goblins Fight! Character Deck: Ranzak (Skull & Shackles Promo), Ekkie (Wrath of the Righteous Promo)
  • Gunslinger Class Deck: Lirianne (Skull & Shackles)
  • Hell's Vengeance Character Deck 1: Kyra (Rise of the Runelords), Kyra (Wrath of the Righteous), Drelm (Mummy's Mask)
  • Hell's Vengeance Character Deck 2: Ezren (Rise of the Runelords), Ezren (Mummy's Mask), Imrijka (Wrath of the Righteous)
  • Hunter Class Deck: Adowyn (Wrath of the Righteous), Harsk (Rise of the Runelords)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Harsk (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Harsk (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Agna (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Arabundi (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Wrathack (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4
  • Inquisitor Class Deck: Imrijka (Wrath of the Righteous), Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of the Runelords Adventure 6, Zadim (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 1
  • Magus Class Deck: Seltyiel (Skull & Shackles), Ahmotep (Mummy's Mask), Crowe (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 1, Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 6
  • Monk Class Deck: Sajan (Rise of the Runelords)
  • Occult Adventures Character Deck 1: Estra (Mummy's Mask)
  • Occult Adventures Character Deck 2: Mavaro (Mummy's Mask), Yoon (Mummy's Mask)
  • Oracle Class Deck: Alahazra (Skull & Shackles), Alahazra (Mummy's Mask), Shardra (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of the Runelords Adventure 3, Estra (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 5
  • Paladin Class Deck: Seelah (Rise of the Runelords), Seelah (Wrath of the Righteous), Alain (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of the Righteous Adventure 6
  • Pathfinder Tales Character Deck: Ezren (Rise of the Runelords), Merisiel (Rise of the Runelords), Seoni (Rise of the Runelords), Merisiel (Skull & Shackles), Seoni (Wrath of the Righteous), Ezren (Mummy's Mask), Simoun (Mummy's Mask), Enora (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 3
  • Ranger Class Deck: Harsk (Rise of the Runelords), Harsk (Wrath of the Righteous)
  • Rogue Class Deck: Merisiel (Rise of the Runelords), Merisiel (Skull & Shackles), Simoun (Mummy's Mask), Jirelle (Skull & Shackles)—unlocked by Season of the Shackles Adventure 1, Arueshalae (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by convention boon, Zadim (Mummy's Mask—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 6
  • Sorcerer Class Deck: Seoni (Rise of the Runelords), Seoni (Wrath of the Righteous)
  • Summoner Class Deck: Balazar (Wrath of the Righteous)
  • Warpriest Class Deck: Oloch (Skull & Shackles)
  • Witch Class Deck: Feiya (Skull & Shackles)
  • Wizard Class Deck: Ezren (Rise of the Runelords), Ezren (Mummy's Mask), Enora (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of the Shackles Adventure 6

Whew! That's a lot of possibilities! Some of these options are total win for the characters, such as unlocking the Hunter deck for any Ranger. But there are a few that are more strange and interesting. Let's talk about a few of these, shall we?

The Pathfinder Tales deck has the most new options. The deck contains Varian (a wizard), Radovan (a rogue), and Celeste (a sorcerer). The Wizard, Rogue and Sorcerer Class decks are among the first that were released, so they didn't include any cards from some of the more recent base sets. The Tales deck has plenty of new cards, so let's see what fun things we can do giving those cards to a character who has otherwise been left a bit behind as far as card selection goes: Seoni from Wrath of the Righteous.

Seoni's Element Master role works best with spells that have the Acid, Cold, Electricity or Fire traits, of which the Tales deck includes many. When you choose this role, she gains a free power to reduce damage of a type matching one of these traits. She can also take a feat to add a flat +4 to her checks that have one of those traits, and another feat to let her auto-recharge items with those traits, so items like Necklace of Fireballs and Wand of Flame are excellent choices for her.

You can just imagine Seoni's delight when she finds this wand in some dark dungeon.

Has your Seoni been frustrated by the Trigger trait in either of the Mummy's Mask-based seasons? Grab the Tales ally Eando Kline, who gives you the ability to ignore non-villain Trigger powers. Or pick up the duo of Acadamae Student and Acadamae Scholar, who work together to make your Arcane checks oh-so-good. Or grab Jelani or Isiem, who can add the Cold or Fire trait to your combat check with a simple recharge. And there's a Blessing of the Elements in the Tales deck, an obvious choice for fiery Seoni.

Next, let's take a look at the new Occult Adventures decks. Both include characters from the Mummy's Mask Base Set, including my best character ever. Mavaro can be played using any of four other class decks, so he has had access to plenty of excellent boons throughout his long and storied career. However, some of the boons in Occult Adventures 2 are just too perfect for him to pass up.

For example, Mavaro has his own sword, The Missing Eye. It's a fine weapon, and is especially good at taking out demons. And it gives him a bonus on Fortitude or Perception checks when he really needs it. Even better, if he displays it, he gains four useful skills equal to his Intelligence: Strength, Melee, Wisdom and Divine. If you'd like to use him as a spellcaster, there are some excellent spells that use his Knowledge or Perception for effects or recharge checks, both of which he has a bonus to, such as Mind Thrust, Object Reading, and Kinetic Blast.

There are a lot of reasons why Mavaro is my favorite character, but I think the top one is his rockin' dad bod.

Have you found yourself taking a bunch of Mental damage that can't be reduced? You should really pick up the Crystal Mail, which will let you recharge those cards instead of discarding them. Or perhaps you could hang the Shrunken Head on your belt, letting you ignore a monster's powers that happen before you act. Also check out the Mindblade, who lets you use your Perception skill for your combat check.

I hope I've convinced you already of the potential value of some of these deck unlocks, but now let's really go off the deep end with the Hell's Vengeance character decks! I'm going to start with Deck 2, which contains Zelhara the Inquisitor, thereby allowing us to use Imrijka from Wrath of the Righteous. In her quest to root out evil and corruption, Imrijka has never been afraid to use tactics that might make some people squirm, so I can imagine she would embrace some less-than-legal items if she got hold of them, and that's exactly what the Hell's Vengeance 2 deck does for her.

First, there are a ton of great Ranged weapons that she can use her unique Ranged: Strength +1 skill with, such as the Galvanic Chakram +1, the Spirit Blade, or my favorite, the Stalker's Crossbow. Of course, that crossbow has the Corrupted trait, but there are ways that Imrijka can get around the penalties that trait imposes, like the Redeemer Blacksmith or the Channel Corruption spell.

Imrijka has never been too concerned with getting her hands dirty, and using a Corrupted weapon for the sake of good intentions is still good, right? Guys? Where are you going?

Excellent spells like Blade Lash and Steal Soul are here for the taking as well. The Sniper's Studded Leather, Shackles of Compliance, and Robe of Bones are all fantastic items that Imrijka can use to streak fear into her enemies, and those animated Undead allies... well, she normally wouldn't make use of those as a Pharasmin, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Last but not least, let's look at Hell's Vengeance 1. This deck includes Lazzero, a cleric of Asmodeus. He's evil and grouchy and people just generally don't like him much, but perhaps there's another cleric that can bring some divine light into this deck? I'm talking about Kyra, my friends. No, not Drelm. Kyra. Yes, you heard me right.

Kyra is a goody-two-shoes, and everyone knows it. She's a staunch supporter of Sarenrae, hates dead things, and tries to bring light and happiness to all. But not this Kyra. Maybe this version of Kyra lost the love of her life Merisiel in a fight with a vampire, and was turned by that vampire to serve his dark bidding? However it happened, this is not the undead-hating Sarenrae-loving Kyra we all know and love... this is something else, and there are plenty of ways for her to get out her newfound aggression using Hell's Vengeance 1. Interested in using a flaming hammer to strike down some weaklings? Check out Sinderbos, and maybe boost your combat with a fun spell like Instrument of Agony or Circle of Evil. Or perhaps just burn them to death with your Hellfire Halo..

Look into her eyes and tell me there's a shred of decency left in her. Oops, you probably shouldn't have looked directly into her eyes...

There are fun allies to capture, like the devil Suurlahetas or the Asmodean High Priest. There are a dizzying array of new Corrupted blessings to choose from as well, like the Blessing of the Prince of Lies, which lets you bury it and all other cards in your hand to straight up succeed at a check against a boon or non-villain bane.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that playing evil Kyra will be easy. Neither the Rise of the Runelords nor the Wrath of the Righteous versions of her have as many ways to deal with the penalties of Corrupted boons as the characters that come in the deck do, so she'll have to rely on things like Channel Corruption and the Redeemer Blacksmith. If you're looking for a challenge, though, bringing Kyra over to the dark side might just be up your alley.

That's it for this edition of "Tyler takes over the Paizo blog." I've recently become the Venture Captain for Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild online play, and we are currently running several games as part of the OutPost play-by-post gaming convention on the Paizo forums, so if you have any questions about this blog's content or about playing the card game online, feel free to contact me at cartmanbeck@orgplayonline.com!

Tyler "Cartmanbeck" Beck
Venture Captain, Adventure Card Guild Online Play

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**** Venture-Lieutenant, Online—VTT

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I've been absolutely digging the HV1/2 decks, and this just gives me more options to explore! Very cool post!

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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Very informative blog, Tyler!

Hmm

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It was really all a ruse just to get Evil Kyra up on the blog. She's one of my favorite images from any of Paizo's books. I especially like that she switched from a scimitar to a rapier, because stabbing in the heart is a much more METAL way to take someone out. :-D


Thanks for the blog, Tyler!
I am keeping track of the unlocks myself, but I totally missed the clause that lets you play characters with the character decks when there is at least one matching class. As a result, my count for HV and Tales was a lot smaller than the actual count, and I'm glad I'm up to date now.


Wow! I've had Seoni shelved way too long while waiting for Ultimate Magic to breathe new life into her Sorcerer deck. Now that I know I can use her with Pathfinder Tales, she's going to be hitting the table again next session!


Dulcee wrote:
Wow! I've had Seoni shelved way too long while waiting for Ultimate Magic to breathe new life into her Sorcerer deck. Now that I know I can use her with Pathfinder Tales, she's going to be hitting the table again next session!

Please note that because of the way the particular rule is worded, only a Seoni from a base set works (aka Rise of the Runelords and Wrath of the Righteous versions). Class Deck Seoni unfortunately does not work.

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True. Only base set characters get the auto unlocks into new character decks.


This is REALLY great Tyler ... but since I'm a crazy completionist and database maniac (you DO NOT want to be both), I miss something that may be a good thread in itself :
A) What is the recommended Ultimate deck to use with each of the 142 characters released (obvious for the 5 coming with the decks and certainly a good part of the others, e. g. Ultimate Magic for wizards, but may not be that obvious for all of them)?
B) What is the recommended Class Deck for each of the 5 characters coming with the Ultimate decks?


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Tyler -- thanks for this extremely helpful blog. (There's a world of new possibilities!)

But an evil Kyra?!!!! I may never forgive you.

I must say -- like Doppelschwert I missed the rule that any base set character can be played in OP using any class/character deck that has a character of the same class. Here it is in the current Guild guide:

PSACG Guide v.5 p.7 wrote:
You can replace your character with any character card of the same class (along with a matching role and token card) from any Pathfinder Adventure Card Game base set or Character Add-On Deck.

That's really cool -- but unnecessarily restrictive. If I can swap in a character of the same class from a base set, why can't I swap in a character of the same class from another class/charcter deck?

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Frencois wrote:

This is REALLY great Tyler ... but since I'm a crazy completionist and database maniac (you DO NOT want to be both), I miss something that may be a good thread in itself :

A) What is the recommended Ultimate deck to use with each of the 142 characters released (obvious for the 5 coming with the decks and certainly a good part of the others, e. g. Ultimate Magic for wizards, but may not be that obvious for all of them)?
B) What is the recommended Class Deck for each of the 5 characters coming with the Ultimate decks?

You know what's funny? I have that list mostly (if not entirely) already filled out. Sometime this weekend I'll post it as a reply here. :-D

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Okay so I'm going to post my list here. I can't really post my reasons behind the choices until all the decks are released, though. This list includes all the Class/Character Deck characters and the promo goblins:

Deck Character Ultimate Deck
Alchemist Cogsnap Equipment
Alchemist Damiel Equipment
Alchemist Mother Myrtle Magic
Barbarian Amiri Combat
Barbarian Brielle Combat
Barbarian Ostog Combat
Bard Bekah Intrigue
Bard Lem Intrigue
Bard Meliski Intrigue
Bard Siwar Intrigue
Cleric Heggal Combat
Cleric Kyra Combat
Cleric Tarlin Combat
Cleric Zarlova Magic
Druid Gronk Wilderness
Druid Lini Wilderness
Druid Maznar Wilderness
Fighter Flenta Magic
Fighter Tontelizi Combat
Fighter Valeros Combat
Fighter Vika Combat
Goblins Burn! Mogmurch Equipment
Goblins Burn! Poog Wilderness
Goblins Burn! Zabini Intrigue
Goblins Burn! Tup (Promo) Magic
Goblins Fight! Ak Intrigue
Goblins Fight! Chuffy Intrigue
Goblins Fight! Reta Combat
Goblins Fight! Ranzak (Promo) Any
Goblins Fight! Ekkie (Promo) Combat
Gunslinger Angban Combat
Gunslinger Lirianne Combat
Gunslinger Skizza Equipment
Inquisitor Imrijka Combat
Inquisitor Salim Equipment
Inquisitor Varril Magic
Monk Athnul Equipment
Monk Rooboo Equpment
Monk Sajan Combat
Oracle Alahazra Magic
Oracle Grazzle Magic
Oracle Ramexes Magic
Paladin Koren Combat
Paladin Raz Combat
Paladin Seelah Combat
Ranger Agna Wilderness
Ranger Arabundi Magic
Ranger Harsk Combat
Ranger Wrathack Combat
Rogue Lesath Intrigue
Rogue Merisiel Intrigue
Rogue Olenjack Equipment
Rogue Wu Shen Equipment
Rogue Arueshalae (Unlocked) Combat
Sorcerer Amaryllis Magic
Sorcerer Qualzar Magic
Sorcerer Seoni Magic
Sorcerer Valendron Magic
Summoner Alase Intrigue
Summoner Balazar Intrigue
Summoner Zetha Intrigue
Warpriest Amli Combat
Warpriest Oloch Combat
Warpriest Uliah Combat
Witch Feiya Magic
Witch Kasmir Magic
Witch Raheli Intrigue
Wizard Darago Magic
Wizard Ezren Magic
Wizard Melindra Intrigue
Wizard Radillo Magic

I may expand this with the unlocked and base set characters at a later date. :)

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Ooh I forgot Tales and HV and Occult! Let's see...

Tales Varian Intrigue
Tales Radovan Equipment
Tales Celeste Magic
Occult1 Rivani Intrigue
Occult1 Meligaster Intrigue
Occult1 Estra Magic
Occult2 Yoon Intrigue
Occult2 Erasmus Equipment
Occult2 Mavaro [Depends on how you want to play him]
HV1 Linxia Combat
HV1 Urgraz Combat
HV1 Lazzero Magic
HV2 Zelhara Equipment
HV2 Emil Equipment
HV2 Nyctessa Magic


@Frencois? Recommended?

I get a kick out of doing things that aren't expected, but Tyler's list is decent.


A) Thanks Tyler!

zeroth_hour2 wrote:

@Frencois? Recommended?

I get a kick out of doing things that aren't expected, but Tyler's list is decent.

B) Me too... but as I said above, I'd like database to be complete :-)

1/5 *

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Looks like you also forgot Magus.

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How could I forget Magus???

Magus Seltyiel Magic
Magus Zvarbel Combat
Magus Talitha Magic

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Ooh, and the class deck I plan to use with each of the Ultimate Decks? That's a more interesting set:

UltCombat Hayato Paladin
UltEquipment Reiko Monk
UltMagic Enora OccultAdventures1
UltIntrigue Aric OccultAdventures2
UltWilderness Zova Hunter

**** Venture-Lieutenant, Online—VTT

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@Tyler: Nice list! Will be interesting to see how our lists would match up once I've seen the other CD's. After having gone through the Ultimate Combat I feel pretty good about a few of my first instincts for good combos match up with what you would do for those characters

One note--Looks like you left off Reepazo (promo) for Goblin's Burn!

elcoderdude wrote:

That's really cool -- but unnecessarily restrictive. If I can swap in a character of the same class from a base set, why can't I swap in a character of the same class from another class/charcter deck?

I had similar thoughts. For example it's neat to be able to play Merisiel from Rotr/SnS with the Tales CD, but peculiar you wouldn't be able to play the Merisiel from Rogue CD with Tales CD. I guess if that was allowed then the reverse would be wanted as well: Being able to play Radovan with the Rogue CD. And if a CD character can be played with other classdecks, then why can't all of them? At what point would we say "no, you shouldn't be able to do that?"

So I guess in this case they gave a little flexibility which I don't think is a bad thing. A lot of the characters I am thinking of I'd enjoy playing the base set version of the character instead of the CD version. Merisiel, for example, I am highly fond of her SnS version and would be much more interested in playing the SnS version with Tales CD than being able to play Merisiel CD version with the Tales CD. Same is true with quite a few other versions of characters (though not all)

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Reepazo... hmm. Her powers are SO weird, I'm gonna have trouble picking an ultimate deck for her. I'm tempted to say Equipment, but Wilderness might actually work just as well if not better for her. I'll have to try her out before I can be definitive, I think.


Yep missing Reepazo
... and the Hunter CD heroes (which is good because Wilderness wasn't mentionned as much as the others up to now).
... and of course the heroes from the 4 base box + add-on characters (because I'm a completionist). Even if not for OP, we should be able to recommended Ultimate decks.

Anyway big thanks Tyler

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(I'm missing them because I used the character sheet download files to look them up, and none of those have been added yet. LOL)

Hunter Adowyn Wilderness
Hunter Korundo Wilderness
Hunter Ukjua Wilderness

Goblins Burn! Reepazo Equipment [or possibly Wilderness]


Good job.
Now if you consider that a single character gets the same recommended Ultimate deck, whatever the base box / CD you get it from, we are complete except for those only 6 base box characters that do not appear in CD, i. e :

Ahmotep
Arueshalae
Jirelle
Shardra Geltl
Simoun
Zadim

Only 6 left out of 142 :-)

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LOL Alright Mr. Completionist.

Magus Ahmotep Magic
Rogue Arueshalae Intrigue
Rogue Jirelle Intrigue
Oracle Shardra Magic
Rogue Simoun Equipment
Inquisitor Zadim Equipment


Cheers, you did it!!!!
Gratz!!!

You get one skill feat as reward.

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+1 Wisdom! I'd like to think I already maxed out Int, and Cha is at least a d8, so I'm ok there. :-P

Liberty's Edge 1/5

Hi Tyler. I was going through your list above and saw that Ultimate Magic is recommended for Qualzar. However in this blog post it is said that Ultimate Intrigue is recommended for Qualzar. Care to comment?

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I can't go into much detail, but I would say the contents of either of those two decks would be really great for Qualzar. The decks are so well designed that almost any of them will significantly increase the options for characters in older class decks.

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I imagine a lot of it also has to do with playstyle and how you intend to build your character. For example Tyler's pick for Kyra is Ultimate Combat, but perhaps you'll find that Ultimate Combat doesn't have enough support/combat spells for your taste. Or Perhaps you only care to get access to more Sarenrae trait blessings for Kyra...maybe the other Ultimate decks have access to these and that would allow you to have even more blessings getting recharged/shuffled into your deck with her role card power feats.

That's my speculation anyway. I think you could in general pick an Ultimate deck to do well for a character, but there may be 1-2 other Ultimate decks that could be "good picks" based on what you specifically are wanting to do.

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Redeux definitely has the right of it. I actually have secondary choices for many of these characters that I would be interested in trying out.


Tyler Beck wrote:
Rogue Arueshalae Intrigue

Okay I'm really late coming back to this party, but thanks for the list! It helps my friend and I plan in advance which characters to use for future parties since we each only have one of each Ultimate deck.

I'm a bit confused about one thing. In your first post you put Arueshalae - Combat. Then 3 days later you posted Arueshalae again but put Intrigue. Which one would you recommend more? (I guess I can determine for myself in a couple weeks once Intrigue arrives, but I was curious why you changed your mind.)


Just as a bit of semi-constructive criticism, am I one of the few who find deck unlocks (especially mid-path) to be the least useful adventure rewards?
I get giving them out after adventure 6, but any other time and it's like, "uh, thanks for the thing i can do nothing with right now..."

Alone here or not? ;)


I definitely think they are more useful the more often you play. I like the idea in general though.


I think a big advantage is that if you really wanted to make use of one of the unlocked characters, you only have to play through a couple of adventures, instead of a whole adventure path, in order to unlock it.

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Dulcee wrote:
Tyler Beck wrote:
Rogue Arueshalae Intrigue

Okay I'm really late coming back to this party, but thanks for the list! It helps my friend and I plan in advance which characters to use for future parties since we each only have one of each Ultimate deck.

I'm a bit confused about one thing. In your first post you put Arueshalae - Combat. Then 3 days later you posted Arueshalae again but put Intrigue. Which one would you recommend more? (I guess I can determine for myself in a couple weeks once Intrigue arrives, but I was curious why you changed your mind.)

I think the answer there is "either one works". She needs bows and she needs good blessings and she needs good allies. Combat is going to have more bow options, and intrigue will have more ally options. It's really all dependent on how you play. :)

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So, there has been an interesting development in the Evil Kyra space. I don't know if all of you are aware of it or not, but there has been a special scenario released for Season of Factions Favor called Yeleth of the First Blood, which is a scenario you can only play after you've completed the full Season of Factions Favor (which, at the moment, you can't do since the rest of adventure 6 has not been released yet). But once it IS playable, I'd like to turn your attention to the reward for "4-7: Yeleth of the First Blood - Deal".

Yeleth Deal Reward:

Each player chooses 1 of her Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild characters. That character may
add a boon that has the Corrupted trait from each Hell’s Vengeance Character Deck to her deck box
and gains the power “Once per turn, you may ignore the Corrupted trait on a card.”

Implications for playing Evil Kyra:

THIS IS HUGE! This gives Kyra using the Hell's Vengeance 1 deck a way to ignore Corrupted traits on blessings when she wants to, which was the biggest hurdle to playing her effectively! I can't WAIT until I can unlock this reward and play vampire Kyra for real!!!


Tyler Beck wrote:
So, there has been an interesting development in the Evil Kyra space. I don't know if all of you are aware of it or not, but there has been a special scenario released for Season of Factions Favor called Yeleth of the First Blood, which is a scenario you can only play after you've completed the full Season of Factions Favor (which, at the moment, you can't do since the rest of adventure 6 has not been released yet). But once it IS playable, I'd like to turn your attention to the reward for "4-7: Yeleth of the First Blood - Deal".

Further Implications:
This is potentially far bigger for any Wizard using the HV2 deck (something I'm doing with MM Ezren right now, almost solely because of the absurdly good Hungering Staff), since the HV2 deck has absolutely no means of Redeeming boons and relatively limited ways of otherwise ignoring the Corrupted trait outside of character powers from Zelhara and Emil.

I suppose "choose one of your Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild characters" means you'd have to have a character officially made as soon as you complete the scenario, or at least make it right afterwards? Is there a way to 'bank' that reward it so I can make a character down the line?

If you're playing a Hell's Vengeance character, can you duplicate one of your class deck boons? Lets say, for simplicity sake, you literally own 2 copies of one HV deck, for some reason. Can I play with 2 Hungering Staffs? Having the "once per turn you may ignore the Corrupted trait on a card" is a much more powerful boon for someone already using one of those two Class Decks, so it seems like a question that will come up.

Say hello to "give 2 dice with no downside to any check" Blessing of Mammon, incidentally. Though "Give Hungering Staff to any wizard or sorcerer" has gotta be up there in usefulness at least for AD1-AD4 or so.

**** Venture-Lieutenant, Online—VTT

Yewstance wrote:
If you're playing a Hell's Vengeance character, can you duplicate one of your class deck boons? Lets say, for simplicity sake, you literally own 2 copies of one HV deck, for some reason. Can I play with 2 Hungering Staffs? Having the "once per turn you may ignore the Corrupted trait on a card" is a much more powerful boon for someone already using one of those two Class Decks, so it seems like a question that will come up.

My assumption and sincere hope is that you'd simply lose out on that part of the upgrade rather than expecting someone to buy two of the same deck. I don't want to see PACG to get into the LCG mindset that you have to buy multiples of the same deck/pack/core set just to get a certain card to use with your deck.

I wouldn't complain if the reward was updated to a more practical approach that let a HV1 character to use two HV2 cards, or vice versa.

Regardless, I'm super excited for this reward. HV decks have been a blast to play with both OP and regular play. I also have had some plans for some non-HV characters to use the HV decks so this potentially will make that more fun.


redeux wrote:


I wouldn't complain if the reward was updated to a more practical approach that let a HV1 character to use two HV2 cards, or vice versa.

I'd be fully in favor of that, definitely!


Tyler Beck wrote:
Dulcee wrote:
Tyler Beck wrote:
Rogue Arueshalae Intrigue

Okay I'm really late coming back to this party, but thanks for the list! It helps my friend and I plan in advance which characters to use for future parties since we each only have one of each Ultimate deck.

I'm a bit confused about one thing. In your first post you put Arueshalae - Combat. Then 3 days later you posted Arueshalae again but put Intrigue. Which one would you recommend more? (I guess I can determine for myself in a couple weeks once Intrigue arrives, but I was curious why you changed your mind.)

I think the answer there is "either one works". She needs bows and she needs good blessings and she needs good allies. Combat is going to have more bow options, and intrigue will have more ally options. It's really all dependent on how you play. :)

Sadly, I was hoping that meant there would be some Desna cards in Ultimate Intrigue and disappointed to find none. This currently is the biggest hurdle in making full use of Arueshalae's cards. There are Desna blessings available while playing Wrath of the Righteous, but in a PFSACG setting, they're nonexistent (aside from the extremely slim chance of temporarily acquiring one in Season of the Righteous).


Dulcee wrote:
Sadly, I was hoping that meant there would be some Desna cards in Ultimate Intrigue and disappointed to find none. This currently is the biggest hurdle in making full use of Arueshalae's cards. There are Desna blessings available while playing Wrath of the Righteous, but in a PFSACG setting, they're nonexistent (aside from the extremely slim chance of temporarily acquiring one in Season of the Righteous).

To be fair, only 1 of Arueshalae's roles makes any reference to the Desna trait, and it only references it once, in a single power that can actually be used with any blessing. The "Desna"-trait matters is an extremely tiny facet of her character, and there's almost no non-blessing cards with the Desna trait in the game. I'm not sure why having Desna cards would really change her in any meaningful way, when there's only ever been about 4 non-blessing cards with the trait (and Desna blessings have no relevance to her at all). The heal power isn't 'weak' just because you can only use it with blessings; it's actually pretty good by Power Feat standards.

If the specific hope is that there would be more cards to work with Arueshalae's WotR loot cards, then that's another story, but I think a very, very narrow purpose of a Class Deck, or an Add-On deck, and effectively entirely irrelevant for OP/PFSACG.

Personally, I'm more sad that you can't use her or WotR Seoni with a Hell's Vengeance deck in Organised Play at all, so you can never really make use of their corrupted-cards-matter roles outside of Season of the Righteous. But very few people have the ability to use Arueshalae in OP, so it's not a particular issue.

EDIT: I'm also a little surprised that Tyler didn't mention using Ultimate Magic with Arueshalae, when it's got quite a bit of Diplomacy-matters (of which she has the highest talent for in all of PACG) and Knowledge-matters. I would love to play a Fallen Arueshalae that uses Codex of Conversations to recharge every ally she plays, whilst picking up every ally encountered by the table, to just explore over and over and over again without even spending cards. Better yet, explorations have no risk to her, because she can evade or even evade-and-move. I don't personally think the improvements to her combat checks provided by Ultimate Combat are actually playing to her strengths like Ultimate Magic or Intrigue do, especially since the best Ultimate Combat stuff is often melee-focused, like the means of breaking through barriers or acquiring extra boons with weapons and the like.

Ultimate-Magic Arueshalae is one of the many characters on my want-to-play list... shame I may never be allowed to do so in official PFSACG.

Silver Crusade 2/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Yewstance wrote:
Ultimate-Magic Arueshalae is one of the many characters on my want-to-play list... shame I may never be allowed to do so in official PFSACG.

Actually, Keith recently mentioned somewhere here on the forums that there will soon be a new way to unlock Arueshalae for org play... it will no longer be exclusively a convention boon that is long-past. :)

**** Venture-Lieutenant, Online—VTT

Tyler Beck wrote:
Yewstance wrote:
Ultimate-Magic Arueshalae is one of the many characters on my want-to-play list... shame I may never be allowed to do so in official PFSACG.
Actually, Keith recently mentioned somewhere here on the forums that there will soon be a new way to unlock Arueshalae for org play... it will no longer be exclusively a convention boon that is long-past. :)

Linkified

While we're on the topic, I believe when I looked through all the ultimate decks I didn't find a single card with a knowledge check to recharge or otherwise activate Shardra's examine power feat. She was an unlock from Season of Runelord's but I feel like she's taking a beating in OP if she has zero access to knowledge checks outside of cards she encounters. I was somewhat hoping the ultimate decks would have something for her that the Oracle deck missed.


Race Dorsey wrote:
While we're on the topic, I believe when I looked through all the ultimate decks I didn't find a single card with a knowledge check to recharge or otherwise activate Shardra's examine power feat. She was an unlock from Season of Runelord's but I feel like she's taking a beating in OP if she has zero access to knowledge checks outside of cards she encounters. I was somewhat hoping the ultimate decks would have something for her that the Oracle deck missed.

Good catch; you're entirely right. I've re-looked through a lot of the Ultimate decks to try to find where synergies existed (or lacked) for a variety of pre-existing characters, but I clearly didn't look very closely at that particular element. That's unfortunate.

I feel like the idea of building boons to support old characters will become less of a factor after the Add-On deck runs, however, particularly because quasi-PACG 2.0 is coming next year. Whilst pre-existing characters and boons are completely compatible in theory, playtest changes already indicate that rule changes will directly affect a number of older characters and remove (or occasionally add) relevance for various effects. My go-to example being CD Lini's "Menhir Savant" role, which would appear to be nonfunctional in future APs.

(As for being able to play Arueshalae in OP soon, I choose to believe that only when I see it, and not beforehand. There appears to be a few things that have slipped expected deadlines so I'm going to avoid piling additional expectations on top of those.)


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Race Dorsey wrote:
While we're on the topic, I believe when I looked through all the ultimate decks I didn't find a single card with a knowledge check to recharge or otherwise activate Shardra's examine power feat. She was an unlock from Season of Runelord's but I feel like she's taking a beating in OP if she has zero access to knowledge checks outside of cards she encounters. I was somewhat hoping the ultimate decks would have something for her that the Oracle deck missed.

Actually, I had another look. I hate to contradict you, but I've managed to find 1 card in an Ultimate deck with an effect that explicitly causes you to make a Knowledge check, and a second one that may allow you to make several.

"Slip", the Halfling Spy ally from Skulls and Shackles, returns in Ultimate Intrigue. You may use a Knowledge check to place the card he examined on top of the location deck. Unfortunately, a lot of the time you don't want to make, let alone pass that Knowledge check, so it does kind of suck for Sharda.

Ultimate Magic has Codex of Conversations, one of the more combo-enabling cards in the Ultimate decks (outside of Equipment), which I intend to build a Spiritual Counselor Estra (OA1) deck around. Codex of Conversations states than when you discard an ally for its power, as long as the Ally lists Diplomacy in its checks to acquire, you may make a check to acquire that ally to recharge it instead. There are a few allies that list Diplomacy but also have Knowledge as a check to acquire, such as Riftwarden and Cleric of Nethys in Ultimate Magic itself.

Both are still pretty borderline, though. Nothing like "pass a knowledge check to reveal this instead of recharging it" like you get in Wrath of the Righteous proper. Your statement that the Ultimate Decks do little to synergise with Shardra is completely correct, in my opinion, but there is at least a couple of ways they can allow you to make Knowledge checks.

**** Venture-Lieutenant, Online—VTT

Yewstance wrote:


Both are still pretty borderline, though. Nothing like "pass a knowledge check to reveal this instead of recharging it" like you get in Wrath of the Righteous proper. Your statement that the Ultimate Decks do little to synergise with Shardra is completely correct, in my opinion, but there is at least a couple of ways they can allow you to make Knowledge checks.

Awesome, thanks for that! I will have to take a closer look at some of these cards to see how feasible it is since my local group will be starting SoRight soon and initially (months ago) I was thinking she would be a solid candidate until I did an initial pass through of the ultimate decks. Thanks again!


Yewstance wrote:
To be fair, only 1 of Arueshalae's roles makes any reference to the Desna trait, and it only references it once, in a single power that can actually be used with any blessing.

I'm not sure what you mean by her Owner cards having a very narrow purpose. I used them quite a bit in WotR, and I would make use of them a lot in OP if I had more Desna cards to work with them. (Well maybe not the staff so much, but the bracers and bow would still be useful in any OP adventure if she had some Blessings of the Starsong.)

Sadly, I haven't been able to play her in "official" games yet, so I'm very much looking forward to her becoming openly available.


Dulcee wrote:
Yewstance wrote:
To be fair, only 1 of Arueshalae's roles makes any reference to the Desna trait, and it only references it once, in a single power that can actually be used with any blessing.

I'm not sure what you mean by her Owner cards having a very narrow purpose. I used them quite a bit in WotR, and I would make use of them a lot in OP if I had more Desna cards to work with them. (Well maybe not the staff so much, but the bracers and bow would still be useful in any OP adventure if she had some Blessings of the Starsong.)

Sadly, I haven't been able to play her in "official" games yet, so I'm very much looking forward to her becoming openly available.

My analysis was served on the assumption of playing her in Organised Play, so only her powers or the boons available in a Class Deck with her matter.

If you play as her in OP, you don't get her Owner cards, in case you're not aware. If your character card lists a specific card on it (like a Cohort or Loot Ally), then you get to include it, but otherwise you're limited solely to boons from your Class Deck. Arueshalae never mentions her Desna-owned cards on her character card, so they are completely unavailable in Organised Play, and in no way can impact her build.

So unless you want to occasionally discard a non-blessing for her heal, she has no almost no synergy with Desna cards, and the trait shouldn't impact her choice of Ultimate Add-On deck at all.


Yewstance wrote:
Dulcee wrote:
Yewstance wrote:
To be fair, only 1 of Arueshalae's roles makes any reference to the Desna trait, and it only references it once, in a single power that can actually be used with any blessing.

I'm not sure what you mean by her Owner cards having a very narrow purpose. I used them quite a bit in WotR, and I would make use of them a lot in OP if I had more Desna cards to work with them. (Well maybe not the staff so much, but the bracers and bow would still be useful in any OP adventure if she had some Blessings of the Starsong.)

Sadly, I haven't been able to play her in "official" games yet, so I'm very much looking forward to her becoming openly available.

If you play as her in OP, you don't get her Owner cards, in case you're not aware. If your character card lists a specific card on it (like a Cohort or Loot Ally), then you get to include it, but otherwise you're limited solely to boons from your Class Deck. Arueshalae never mentions her Desna-owned cards on her character card, so they are completely unavailable in Organised Play, and in no way can impact her build.

Actually you do. The boon that allows you to play her specifically says you also use her Owner cards when you reach the adventure level.


Dulcee wrote:
Yewstance wrote:
Dulcee wrote:
Yewstance wrote:
To be fair, only 1 of Arueshalae's roles makes any reference to the Desna trait, and it only references it once, in a single power that can actually be used with any blessing.

I'm not sure what you mean by her Owner cards having a very narrow purpose. I used them quite a bit in WotR, and I would make use of them a lot in OP if I had more Desna cards to work with them. (Well maybe not the staff so much, but the bracers and bow would still be useful in any OP adventure if she had some Blessings of the Starsong.)

Sadly, I haven't been able to play her in "official" games yet, so I'm very much looking forward to her becoming openly available.

If you play as her in OP, you don't get her Owner cards, in case you're not aware. If your character card lists a specific card on it (like a Cohort or Loot Ally), then you get to include it, but otherwise you're limited solely to boons from your Class Deck. Arueshalae never mentions her Desna-owned cards on her character card, so they are completely unavailable in Organised Play, and in no way can impact her build.
Actually you do. The boon that allows you to play her specifically says you also use her Owner cards when you reach the adventure level.

I had no idea it said that; and I don't know where a list detailing all the possible boons are.

My profuse apologies; I was debating from a position of ignorance and I didn't know it. In that case, I retract all of my statements and agree that it kind of sucks that there's no synergy there with any Ultimate deck.

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