Fentum's page

I'd like to take this chance to note that I'm very reluctant about Power feats for hand size. After the intro adventure I feel like I have my deck built in a way that gives me what I need from turn 1 even with 4 cards in hand, but even though higher hand sizes means more options it also feels like it has more downsides than benefits.

1) If your deck is effectively your HP, having a low hand size is effectively DR. If Valeros takes 6 damage he's going to discard (thus drawing) 4 cards, meanwhile the wizard will be discarding 6 cards from the same hit. You also have less motivation to be versatile because having more card types and a large hands can eat through a deck fast.

Malwing writes the truth, though I think I would be happy moving from 4 to 5 cards as a hand.

The extra CARD feat , however, is very sweet as it increases your deck but not your hand. Extra hits points plus good flexibility. Feels like 'levelling up'.

I'm playing Harsk, and I ended up putting both my Skill feats into Wisdom. That might seem a bit counterintuitive, since Harsk is really a dex-based character. However, I found that I was making a lot of WIS checks to do things like close locations or acquire boons. Add to that the fact that WIS helps his Survival and Perception, and it's (I think) a solid choice.

Also, when I finish the third box, I plan to take the power feat that lets Harsk get Divine as a skill, so I can start playing with some Divine spells. Having a healer besides just Lem will be important when we get that far, I think.

I went Dex all the way with Harsk and Merisiel. They can whip pretty much anything in combat.

Merisiel took the weapon proficiency at the first opportunity. Those bows are mighty nice.

Harsk took the +1 to his ranged support. He often helps Merisiel as she solo's locations.

Brilliant idea in my opinion. Would love to try it out. Though completing a whole location with 1 hand per person could be rather difficult. Perhaps for pacing the blessing deck could remain, most likely with less cards. Then every time the group agrees on a hand refill a blessing is flipped along with a forced flip on closing.

Well idk keep us updated though.

That is a good shout.

I was thinking more that the characters could recharge, discard, draw, etc on their turn, but that as they moved deeper into the dungeon, their discard piles would get bigger and cures, etc would be required to keep going. The flipping of each dungeon card is, in a way, a timer of sorts.

Just like in an RPG.

I am very much enjoying the game so far. Ran Harsk and Merisiel through the complete set, now running Valeros and Seoni. Good times.

I am more a BGG man than Paizo, and I have never seen such a high volume of queries on a game. Many of which are answered in the rules. Also quite a few comments on thematic alignment vs an RPG. e.g.

how can Harsk shoot (provide ranged support) from the Woods to the Waterfront, but not from one part of the Waterfront to another?

why can't all characters at a location help out vs a monster, beyond buffing with cards?

I am toying with trying out a variant designed to help with these queries. I am no designer, but I have created a couple of simple crawls for my kids using Descent pieces in the past. I'd like to simply share a few ideas here for initial feedback...

Key Concept
Use the cards and basic mechanics of PACG to run 'PACG Dungeon Delves', where the party are more closely tied together and can support each other more directly. Villains, particular locations, particular items/weapons, etc can be the goal of the Delve. There are various mechanics to achieve the goal, usually defeating the villain, finding a particular item, etc.

The Party
Any four characters. Though there could be mechanisms to scale from 1-6

The Map
Choose appropriate location cards as areas of the dungeon. e.g. Deeper Dungeons, Desecrated Vault. Pick X areas for a Dungeon Delve scenario. Stack them in a Dungeon Deck in random order, but place villains, scenario specific locations etc in subsets of the Dungeon Deck.

e.g. the Villain is one of the last 3 cards of an eight card deck.
e.g. the Location that MUST be found is in one of two mini decks, representing a 'fork in the passages'

Play
The party MUST stay together. They enounter a Location each turn, drawing that Location card from the Dungeon Deck.

That location is then SET UP IN FULL. i.e. 4 monsters are played face up, 2 barriers, etc, etc. This is then the challenge at that location. The party must face the complete set of cards to move on from the location.

There would be a sequence to card activation, with characters assigning themselves to the cards that are active in each step of the sequence.

BARRIERS with TRAP, OBSTACLE or SKIRMISH traits
MONSTERS
VILLAINS
ALLIES
BARRIERS with CACHE trait
WEAPONS
ARMOUR
ITEMS
SPELLS
BLESSINGS

A single character takes on each card, but existing abilities for buffs and support can trigger as usual. Importantly, THIS location plus OTHER LOCATIONS all affect the CURRENT location. Thus Valeros and Harsk's abilities can both help.

In addition, a character can forego taking an action in order to give a +1 onto a check roll of another character. Possibly for any roll, or perhaps this is just for combat.

Banes & Boons
Banes are persistent until defeated. There is no running away by the villain, unless specifically part of the scenario e.g. the Villain might be shuffled lower into the Dungeon Deck.

Boons are a 'one time opportunity' to gain. The party would select the character to try, possibly buffed by others.

Pacing
The party would have to deal with all the Location cards using their current hands. There would be a 'rest and reset' phase upon closing a location. It might be that each character could SELECT rather than DRAW starting hands, or do so when resetting between Locations.

Quirks
There are many quirks in how specifc mechanics might translate, but I want to work through a few tries at this to see how it goes. e.g. various abilities that allow a character to 'look ahead' or 'move between locations' would need some sort of ruling.

Just interested to get feedback on this as a concept, plus any executional tips that anyone might have.

Give it to Seoni or Ezren. They need it most!

Lets assume I'm using the Ranger and a Light Crossbow.

He has base dex/ranged: 1d8+3 and the Light Crossbow has an additional 1d8. While in combat with a Bane card, lets say I discard a Blessing of the Gods for an additional die to my check;

I'm assuming that means I'll get another flat 1d8 (since I'm using dex) and not a full 1d8+3, right?

So final tally would become: ranged + crossbow + blessing die, ie: 1d8+3 + 1d8 + 1d8 = 3d8+3

I hope so. I have been playing it like that all the way through Burnt Offerings. Harsk is at 2d8+6 now with his Bow +1. He has Ranged +3, Dex+2

Which is nice.

Man, I just completed Approach with Merisiel and Harsk and I didn't read this errata.

I feel like I cheated now!

Seems a sensible idea to start a couple of guys out there and just bang through that deck.

Check out the Mage Wars forum on BGG for several interesting discussions about allowing cards to be made available to the general public to play a game on line. In that instance, it is the OCTGN system.

See also Memoir 44 on VASSAL.

In general, the physical player base has really benefitted from open access to card images for on line / remote play.

The very best video in terms of learning how the game works is the one by Tox of Crits Happen. Check it out.

Grey Elephant's three session set is also very decent.

All available via BGG

I really hope you don't do anything through BGG. They do not allow everyone to sign up for an account or to purchase items. they have no customer support to fix the problems that will not allow people to join or log into for a purchase.

That may be true, but I found the Pazio web store to be terrible. Every time I tried to start a subscription , it showed me having the base game in my cart. Only once I tried to actually PAY did it disappear. I persevered because this glitch had been mentioned on BGG.

some strange options going on with Paizo purchasing schemes. Perhaps they have been infiltrated by goblins?

My Base set and character add on arrived yesterday. From an online UK retailer, I have no local FLGS. The cost to ship the base game from the the US is prohibitive. However I have subscribed from adventure pack 2. I received Poog in the add on, but not Fire Sneeze. I would have subscribed to the character add on if it had been mentioned earlier that you didn't need to buy the base game. I will just have to fight my gamers OCD on this.

It is a real shame , I doubt if anyone on here will be surprised that missing a card causes such a weird sense of incompleteness or broken game. I even know perfectly functional humans that wont buy a game if they cant buy every component (at a reasonable cost). I think the whole trading/collectible card/expansion game industry has programmed customers from an early age and now promos we can't even obtain even if we are loyal customers.

I realise that I have no reasonable way of obtaining Fire Sneeze so I will try and put the feeling of disappointment aside. It has cast a shadow for now, so I can understand why others are pushing. Publishers must realise the impact, as that is why they use them to entice customers but it is a double edge sword they wield, when it is so difficult to obtain them. As a co-op game its not a real issue. To be honest I would much rather settle for updated cards or at last digital versions of the text areas to print and place over the original.

Yup. I bought the base game in the UK and have subscribed direct from the USA from set 2, but I will miss the promo cards as I didn't want to buy the base game again. I couldn't order just the character add on pack and an ongoing subscription. Pretty crazy parcelling of options there.

I have watched all the various videos, read the BGG threads, etc. The base game is on order from my FOLGS, having had to cancel the Book Depository order due to stock malarkey.

I would like to subscribe to ongoing adventure packs, and wondered how to do so effectively from the UK? I worry about ordering stuff from the USA. Will it be a smooth ride?

I have just added a lot more videos to the playlist. It's at this YouTube channel.

This is looking like a fabulous game. Tox's video series on on Crits Happen is a great introduction to the game. Only down side is that I am in the UK. Come on postie!