Eric W's page

The other day I got same pair 6 times in a row (only switched sides on one of the pairs none of the others) at the same time as several other people seemingly to get the same pair anywhere from 3-7 times, and not just them seeing their two items paired, but several people seeing the same two exact items paired (or at least as similar as we could describe without Dairy Queening ourselves). It was really weird and prolly happens fairly rarely...

This, specifically, sounds like a system bug. If I had to guess, I'd say that the db wasn't being updated quickly enough, so the program that picks items to show you didn't realize that you had already voted on the pair. If I had a further guess, I'd say either the vote queue wasn't being processed or a slave db wasn't being updated.

Sorry to rez this thread, but can someone link to a panda animal companion's stats? I can't find it online.

http://www.archivesofnethys.com/DruidCompanions.aspx

Ah, got it. Thanks!

Sorry, I'm lost. How do you get more than 5d4+bonuses with burning hands, regardless of their caster level? Isn't CL10 (or 15 or 20 or whatever) burning hands still just 5d4?

This may have been answered.

Just a quick follow up.

If you cast Sanctuary on a summoned Monster (that is legal to cast it on) does it go back to the box, or does it stay on top of the location deck as the Sanctuary card says?

It goes back from whence it came -- to the box.

After defeating the Poison Trap, then doing the "when closing" and defeating the Bandit henchman, I was left with only one card, my weapon. My question is, is there a "break" after accomplishing the "when closing" part of the location and encountering the villain so I'm able to re-draw back to my full handsize or do I have to continue on to the the villain encounter with what little cards I have?

Yes, there is a break between completing the close and encountering the villain on your next turn.

Thanks Fromper, that's what I thought.

But again it brings up the question of why you wouldn't select a favoured card.

Valerous's favoured card type is weapon. Now on his character card he can have 5 weapons, so obviously you are going to select 5 weapons and so have the favoured card.

Perhaps I'm overthinking or something!!! lol.

All the best.

Great Uncle LROG

The 'favored card' refers to a card in the character's hand (the cards in play), not the character deck. In Valeros' case, Valeros has five weapons in his character deck, but when you deal them out for the first time, you might not get a weapon in those four cards. If you don't, discard those four cards and deal out the next four.

So then where does this leave Ambush?

Does Ambush make you stop and encounter a villain or henchman when you find it in the location deck?

Yes, Ambush makes you stop and encounter villains and henchmen (with the 'monster' type, so not Poison Trap.)

Haha. That's a good catch. It would have been better if the cards had said 'a random monster from the monster deck', which certainly is what is intended.

Sorry for the horrendous typo. The d8 vs d6 was the whole point of this thread!

And, yes, I can see that the Shortbow is easier to use. I just don't really get why some characters' suggested starting decks include Shortbows instead of Light Crossbows!

Flavor.

I know how to do it rule wise, I was more pointing out the spirit of the game, if you will.

Banished items are meant to be gone. Not reloaded for the next game. They are one-offs. In that sense, it seems out of character to use them 1) without risk of losing them, ultimately; and 2) without any guarantee of replacing them if you don't acquire that particular type of boon.

That's all I am pointing out.

That's not how I see it. To me, a banished card represents a resource that has been consumed during the scenario. It doesn't mean there aren't more of that resource available back in town. It makes thematic sense to me to have mundane equipment commonly available and, yes, easily "reloaded".

And I'm still wondering if there's a list of which cards and their quantities are supposed to be in the box. Now that I've made some character decks and shuffled the rest, so it would be more work to put them back in order to check against such a list...

There's an unofficial inventory on the Boardgamegeek website: http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/93853/card-inventory

Third: When using BotGs with Sajan, he gets to recharge them when discarded. This applies even if they are used to further explore a location, correct?

No, as per the power on his card, Sajan only recharges blessings from combat checks. Any other time he uses a blessing, it's discarded as usual.

Incidentally, is Sajan's attack (or anyone's unmodified Strength attack) considered a "Melee" attack? It doesn't say anywhere in the rules that it is, so I'm assuming it's not. In terms of flavor, it does feel like it should be.

Do you mean is does Strength have the 'Melee' trait in a combat check? No, nothing in the rule book or card says that it does. For that matter, nowhere ever says that the Melee skill has the 'Melee' trait, either.

If it ever really matters (for example if there's something like a flying monster or a swarm that's immune to melee attacks), I have no doubt it will be errata'd or faq'd.

does this rule read to you guys as "attempts at least one of them" to mean that the players turn character fails a check, the other player at the location can try the check also?

it has been said you cannot re-check, but to me that implies the same character checking again, because a different character while making the same check isn't re-checking, it's his own first time. maybe I am not understanding, someone help with that also?

also if it says banes, I would think they meant just banes, though that would be a weird typo.

No, no one else can try the check because as soon as the first player's check is made, it is immediately resolved and the card is either banished, acquired, or shuffled back into the location. There is no opportunity for anyone else to make the check.

Are you talking about the Sihedron Medallion? Thematically, I think it should be unique (at least here at the end of the Burnt Offerings) and there should just be one to split amongst the entire party.

In what kind of situation is active player unable to attempt at at least one of these checks?

As far as I know, there is no such situation. Maybe in later chapters it'll come up? For example, there could be a barrier (magical trap or something?) that specifically says that the check cannot be attempted untrained.

Then consider yourself lucky!

By the way, all villains (so far) and most henchmen (everything except the Poison Trap) have the 'monster' type and are monsters for the purposes of an ambush.

Personally, I feel the issue is with the word die. Once again, that word is causing confusion. Why couldn't the power just be "you can use dexterity for combat checks". To me, there is a difference between the dexterity skill and the dexterity die. But perhaps that's where I am wrong.

No, I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's unfortunate that the word 'die' is overloaded like that, but it's usually easy enough to figure out what is intended from the context (basically when a card talks about 'adding' a die, then it's the actual die without modifiers, when it talks about 'rolling' the die, then it's the skill with modifiers.)

What about Banes that instruct you to take damage "before the encounter?" Can those still be evaded without taking damage?

Yes.

I'm sorry for the stupid question, but how in the world do I shuffle these small decks of cards? I can barely (barely!) riffle the fifteen card character decks. Trying to riffle shuffle a ten card location deck is basically impossible for me without bending the heck out of the cards. Can one of you old MtG players tell me how it's supposed to be done? Thanks!

Fair enough.

Eric W wrote:

By my reckoning, the reason why a player cannot cast Detect Evil or use the Spyglass on another player's turn is because of the fundamental idea that only the player whose turn it is can initiate actions. This is basically the definition of having a 'turn' in a game like this (having the opportunity to act.)

Of course maybe I'm wrong and Mike and his team envision a more free-form and chaotic game where multiple players can do things simultaneously. It seems like you'd definitely need a GM for that =)

We feel free to play any card at any time, and it's much less chaotic than you think. It's downright cooperative, really. Example:

(cut)

Ah, cool! I hadn't thought of that way before. I stand corrected. Thanks!

I think people are letting a lot of outside baggage from other games get in the way here. As a cooperative game, we generally want to encourage interaction, and that includes a lot of playing cards on other people's turns.

rules wrote:

If a card in your hand does not specify when it can be played, you can generally play it at any time, with the exception that during each step of attempting a check, you may only perform specific actions, so your ability to play cards may be limited.

So when we say you can play a card on a check, ask yourself: is someone else's check a check? Well, yes it is, so play away! If we want you to play it only on your check, we'd say your check. And if we care about what location someone is at, we'll say that on the card. If we don't say "at your location," or "at another location," or similar, and the rules don't say otherwise, then location doesn't matter.

In short, you'll do well to take the spirit of cooperation as a guide.

I'm not sure who you're replying to here, Vic. The question isn't whether or not players can cooperate on a check -- I think by now we all understand they can and do. The question is whether or not someone can play exploring or exploring-like cards (like Detect Evil and Spyglass) on a different player's turn. That is what I mean by 'initiate an action'.

Thanks for any clarification or guidance you might be able to give!

Unless a specific card says otherwise (for example, as you say, the Sandpoint Cathedral), you can't recharge a card from the discard pile. "Recharging" is a "playing a card" action (p. 10) and you can only play cards from your hand.

Yes, a villain or henchman with "Type: Monster" on the card count as monsters and are valid targets for the Ambush.

Eric W wrote:

No, because immediately after the reset phase your turn is over (p. 9). From then until the start of your next turn (after you advance the blessings deck) you can only play cards that affect someone else's check.

Page 10 of the rule book says if a card in your hand does not specify when it can be played it can generally be aplayed at any time. With the exception of attempting each step of a check.

So, i see no reason why another player could not play detect evil, or spyglass on another players turn.

I see what you're saying. You make an interesting point and I wish the rule book was a little clearer here.

By my reckoning, the reason why a player cannot cast Detect Evil or use the Spyglass on another player's turn is because of the fundamental idea that only the player whose turn it is can initiate actions. This is basically the definition of having a 'turn' in a game like this (having the opportunity to act.)

Of course maybe I'm wrong and Mike and his team envision a more free-form and chaotic game where multiple players can do things simultaneously. It seems like you'd definitely need a GM for that =)

Hello,

Since it is legal to play the card (detect evil for example) before the move step in your turn. Is it also legal to play the card (or any card) after the reset phase of your turn?

Ulari

No, because immediately after the reset phase your turn is over (p. 9). From then until the start of your next turn (after you advance the blessings deck) you can only play cards that affect someone else's check.

So adding to this discussion, would it be okay to use a spell, say, Acid Holy Light then cast Guidance to use it? I would think that the spell Holy Light (and others with similar wording) make it a different check and a spell like Guidance acts as one of the boons that you can add to the check.

No, that would be using two spells to affect the same check. Holy Light lets you use your Divine die, but it's the same combat check as before.

Encounter him back to back on the same turn. The difference between this and "Combat 8 then Combat 8" is that the character fighting Bruthazmus has to make both combat checks (since they're separate encounters) whereas "Combat 8 then Combat 8" can by split up between two characters at the same location.

is there any point of having more than one character at a location then? other than burning the deck faster?

Also, a character can give a card (once per turn) to other characters at the same location during the scenario instead of waiting for the end of the game.

The Blessings of Lamashtu adds 2d10 to Sajan's unarmed combat check in which he used his power to use his dex die for strength.

I wonder what the designer's intent was? And what the official FAQ will say?

I can't speak for the Mike or his team, but from a design point of view rolling for every encounter makes the scenario more predictable and less swingy. For example, if you roll just once, there's 25% chance that scenario will break hard (+4 difficulty), whereas if you roll for every encounter, there's less than a 0.1% chance of that happening (with four pcs, six locations, and five goblin villain/henchmen; 0.25^5 = 0.00098 chance to get five fours.) This added predictability lets the game designers better tune the scenario to its appropriate difficulty (or, to use rpg jargon, set the CR of the scenario.)

I roll the d4 each time I encounter a goblin.

It happens after combat damage and is in addition to and separate from it (i.e. you couldn't play a card to reduce them both at the same time.)

Acid Arrow counts as a spell, so no, the same character could not also use Guidance on the check (although a different character could.)

When I asked about the table on the Town Square card, Vic from Paizo said that the rows were right, just in the wrong order:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q2wa?Town-Square-typo

It's on the Rise of the Runelords adventure path card.

Organized play? Like Chronicle Sheets for completing adventures?

Yes, I don't see any reason they couldn't do this. I think it's a great idea, both mechanically and thematically/narratively. It's an interesting way to scale the difficulty of the game as the PCs get stronger.

So, digging' the game but I want to ensure that we're not cheating by accident.

Regarding Blessing of the Gods.

"You may instead treat this card as if it were identical to the top card of the blessing discard pile"

For example, that card is Blessing of Pharasma which states.

"If the top card of the blessings discard pile matches this card, recharge this card instead of discarding it."

Now, since the Blessings of the Gods is treated as if it were identical to Blessing of Pharasma, then the conditions seem to have been fulfilled to recharge the Blessings of the Gods, rather than discarding it.

Is this correct?

If it is and another player plays the Blessing of the Gods to add a dice to another player's check, can they also recharge it instead of discarding it?

It is not.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q22q?Blessings-question

Eric W wrote:

Having said that, I believe you when you say that skills themselves don't have traits. That makes sense mechanically, although not thematically. After all, what is a character doing when he or she is making a Divine or Arcane check if not some sort of magic?

Knowledge: Arcana?

Heh. Except that Knowledge is an explicitly different skill than Arcana (as per Ezren's character card.)

A Divine check does not automatically have the Magic trait. Compare that to Kyra's power (Add 1d8 with the Magic trait to your check to defeat a bane with the Undead trait.)

Checks by themselves don't have Traits. Traits come from cards or powers of a character.

Sorry, I don't understand your argument. What does Kyra's power to add the Magic trait to any check to defeat undead have to do with whether or not the Divine and Arcane skills are inherently magical?

Having said that, I believe you when you say that skills themselves don't have traits. That makes sense mechanically, although not thematically. After all, what is a character doing when he or she is making a Divine or Arcane check if not some sort of magic?

This comes up when fighting some monsters (e.g. ghost and spectre) that allow a divine check to defeat them, but require that that check be magical. For example, if I'm playing Lini and encounter a spectre and I roll an 8 divine check (with no other cards involved), has the spectre been defeated? Can I banish it? Or does Lini simply take no damage and the spectre gets shuffled back into the location?

I've been assuming that divine and arcane checks are magical because that makes sense to me. That might be a house rule, though, because I can't find anything explicit in the rules that says that.

The deck list on the Town Square card is formatted slightly differently than the other locations -- specifically "barrier" is the first type of card listed, followed by "monster". On all of the other cards, it's "monster", then "barrier". It doesn't affect play (except I'm not positive what the original intent was), I figured you might want to put it on the corrections list for errata or a possible next printing....

Here's the BGG thread: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/13145675#13145675

I read on BGG site that summoned monsters like this can be evaded, and that they are sent back to the box rather than the location deck.

Ok, thanks!

Say I'm playing Merisel. One of her powers is that she can evade encounters. She runs into a Skeleton Horde, which summons an Ancient Skeleton. Can she evade the Ancient Skeleton? If so, what happens to it? Does the Skeleton get shuffled into the location or does it get banished back to the box? If it gets shuffled into the location and someone later defeats it, does that trigger a closing opportunity? If not how does one distinguish the summoned Skeleton from a Skeleton already in the location?

Four primary natural attacks (tentacles) seems like a lot. When I look at a couple of low CR tentacled animals in the bestiary (basic CR 1 octopus and squid), I see that no matter how many tentacles they have, it's all a single attack. Doing something like that makes the race more reasonable to me.

Anyhow, it sounds like a fun idea. Maybe give the tentacles reach (+1rp) or grab (+6rp)? Or make them prehensile (+2rp)? Strictly going by the book, reach has a 'large size' prerequisite, but whatever. It's homebrew!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I noticed on page 9 of the new guide, the link to the traits page (paizo.com/traits) is broken. It just takes you to the main page.