Hooloovoo's page

I also have not had my Starfinder Society subscription generate an order yet. If I need to provide additional info to get my subscription and society play rolling, please let me know. Thanks!

So when you say PDF available "tomorrow", is that 12:01 AM Pacific, or does someone need to come in and push the magic button to make it happen during the day tomorrow?

Just a follow up to #3 -- remember that the Abyssal Rift will be open during Alain's turn if you are following your strategy, so it's not really 'permanently' closed, just closed while it is not Alain's turn. Other characters can play the same game, at least for one turn, with a Riding Horse or Skitter, and what you described is a nice strategy to help large groups keep exploring away from the Rift while keeping it on its happy side.

Frencois, it sounds like you, your wife, and your group have moved well past the point where you are having fun with the game. A break such as you described is probably a good idea, and I would highly recommend you look back through several of the threads that we have both posted in to see players' recommendations about how to modify the contents of the game box to increase your group's enjoyment (and likelihood of success) when you return to the game.

A few folks have mentioned this before, but I want to reiterate the point: One of the aspects of the PACG system that I find most compelling is one that is not really advertised -- the customizability. By purchasing a base set and the accompanying character add-on deck and adventure decks, I view my game box as containing a complete universe, and I have control over what happens in that universe. Any time that I think I or my group would have more fun with a modification, then it is easy to make that happen. This possibility has been a huge selling point to me, and makes me much less worried about specific difficulty decisions from the designers.

'Before you act' is a specific time in the sequence of Encountering a Card. The reference sheet on the back of the manual shows a summary of the full sequence. Only checks that are part of effects that happen 'Before you act' can be modified by Seelah's skill -- the much rarer occurences you referred to. It can still be quite handy though, so be sure not to forget about it if you are playing Seelah!

While thinking about strategies for another post here in the forum, I realized something about the wording on the WotR ally Riding Horse. The relevant card text reads

Discard this card at the end of your turn to move yourself and another character at your location to another location.

My question -- The text implies that if you are at a location with another character, you have to take that character with you when you move. Is this the intended power? If so, this throws off my ideal use case for Riding Horse to mitigate temporary closings in a large party. Thanks in advance for the insights!

Frencois, I would add one more thought to your statements about temporary closing - while it is potentially more costly than in previous games, it is also often more of a sure thing than in previous games. In RotR and S&S, many locations temporarily closed on a check of some kind (roll required). In WotR (at least the base set), there are many more locations that temporarily close on some action other than a check (discard a Divine, draw a card and bury a card, take damage, etc.) While those are often more punishing, they are also all sure things for the character at that location, which makes spreading out for temporary closing purposes a more consistent strategy.

isaic, there are a couple of factors that affect the calculation once you get to the position you are describing. A small factor is the fact that cards/powers that move characters around during or at the end of a turn are a bit more prevalent here in WotR than they have been in the past (in WotR's base set, there are Crowe's power, Alain's cohort Donovan, the spell Skitter, the item Potion of Striding, and the ally Riding Horse). With these tools, you can have characters go to explore at a potential villain location during their turn and then move back to stand guard for temporary closing duties after their turn is over. While this does not need to be min-maxed for success, it can certainly add several explorations at key locations while leaving a punishing ignorable location alone.

A larger factor that affects the calculation is that not every location needs to be drawn down to a Henchman/Villain for success in the scenario. Once 2 locations are permanently closed, if the party is completely spread out then a Villain encounter can complete the scenario without any other Henchmen being encountered. If more Henchmen are encountered (and more locations permanently closed), extra explorations can be put specifically towards only locations that the Villain may be in if your team has information about that (from a previous Villain escape, for instance).

While it is true that it will take an average of 44 'perfect' explorations (each banishing a card) to reach the Henchman/Villain of all 8 location decks for a typical 6-character scenario, it is only 1/8 of the time that you will actually need to do that for all 8 decks -- when the Villain is the farthest down and/or in the last location deck you start working through in the scenario. It is much more often that the Villain will be encountered earlier on in the scenario, and so the average number of explorations needed to succeed in a scenario using these tactics will be significantly less than 44. With the 30 'first explores' given on turns, the 19 'extra explores that aren't blessings' that isaic calculated for a 6 player group, and the potential to pick up allies/blessings from the decks themselves, there should be a good amount of space to allow for the fact that not every exploration will banish a card and yet there will still be time to finish out the scenario except for unusually unlucky circumstances (very unfortunate villain placement for the exploration pattern or very low rate of banishing cards during explorations).

There is an assumption underlying the discussion during the last several posts that I'd like to challenge. Everyone's talking about it taking 5 (or 5.5) explores on average to close out a location, which leads to the average of 44 explores for all locations, but no one has discussed how many locations actually need to be closed out for success in a typical scenario.

In a group of 6, there are a lot of characters that can (should?) be spread out for temporarily closing locations when the villain pops up. If the villain comes up very early in a scenario with characters spread out (they can get 4 locations temporarily closed), then there are at most 4 locations that really need to be closed down after that villain encounter, and the explores can be more focused towards those locations. If a couple of locations have been closed out without encountering the villain and it is getting late in the scenario, I would hope that most groups arrange themselves at locations so that they can finish the scenario as soon as the villain is encountered.

I believe that these thoughts/strategies are essential for the first time here in WotR -- they were not necessary in either RotR or S&S (and were perhaps counterproductive in RotR where more explores = more potential power to be picked up). Utilizing these strategies (loosely, not a full min/max approach), more math is needed to work out an 'average' number of explores or success as well as a standard deviation. I have the schooling to do that math, but my brain isn't fully engaged right now, so I'll need to either come back later with results or leave that math to another esteemed forum-goer.

I, too, would love to know if the very vocal minority who complained about the difficulty of RotR / S&S think that Wrath is "just right." Most of them don't seem to have remained, however, either indicating that the lower difficulty left them bored (and they didn't continue with the product), or that they were never really inclined to stick with it to begin with - perhaps because they also are in the vocal minority that seems to want each base set to completely re-invent the wheel (e.g., "it just added ships; it's not different enough"). Not sure.

Count me on the list of those who found RotR too easy but that find WotR just about right so far. To be fair, I also found S&S to be just about right, but in a fairly different way...

In RotR, the world revolves around combat checks, but combat power is very easy to accumulate, just about regardless of your class/character. Once you realize that the world revolves around combat checks and your team starts accumulating combat power, they begin to crush. Of course, there are specific monsters and locations that don't use combat, but since you eventually don't really need many blessings/allies to succeed at combat, those resources can generally take care of the non-combat issues. (By the way, this translates to blessings/allies being used for more 'extra' explorations, none of which are every really punishing for a group that has reached this level. This means more looting and more snowballing of power.)

In S&S, there is quite a mix of skills demanded, and there is some need for variety in the party. Of course, there is still combat, but there are many other skills to consider when building a team and a deck for each character in the team. As you realize what mix is needed and where your team's weaknesses lie, you can accumulate resources that will fine-tune each deck to accentuate each character's strengths and shore up any overall team weaknesses. If you don't do this, things get punishing pretty quickly.

In WotR, we are back to a more combat-oriented world (at least through AD1 -- haven't messed with AD2 yet). BUT...especially at the beginning, the resources aren't there to crush on combat checks. Combat is genuinely punishing in a way that it rarely was in RotR, and it must be entered much more sparingly, Combat checks demand that resources be used on them, and in some cases evading them is a best choice (which was almost never true in RotR). There aren't really many extra explorations to be had (and there's a potential that an extra exploration, if not scouted out, is big trouble). There are also new and different types of resources (cohorts, new card combinations, etc.) that need to be used judiciously to raise a team's chances of success.

This is purely conjecture on my part, but I believe that if anything, the B scenarios of WotR are more punishing to groups that have played RotR than they are to groups that have played only S&S or no PACG at all. A group that has played RotR sees the prevalence of combat challenges, says 'Oh I know how this goes,' and then often has to wipe up a corpse or two before the scenario is over because the strategies of RotR don't fly in WotR, and the snowballing of power from RotR just hasn't happened yet in WotR.

I'm not sure if I'm just lucky, but I've been a part of 4 different parties (a 3-char solo, a 5-char solo, a 3-char multiplayer, and a 4-char multiplayer) that have each played through all of the B scenarios and are at various points in AD1 right now. Between the four parties, all but Alain have been used at least once, and the only repeats are a total of 3x Imrijka, 2x Enora, 2x Seelah, and 2x Shardra. There have been no scenario failures, and the only character death came in the 3-char multiplayer where a friend who completed RotR with us but never played S&S with us came in, grabbed Enora, and got her killed about 2/3 of the way through Scenario #1. After we broke down with him what happened and why WotR was different, he played her much more cautiously and watched his resource use, and hasn't died (or really been threatened with death) again yet.

I share my results so far neither to be boastful nor to proclaim great fortune or some secret knowledge about starting out in WotR that the masses have missed. I share them to say that my groups and I have thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of WotR, and have relished the challenge of trying to piece together how to accomplish scenario goals while keeping folks safe and alive. We'll enjoy AD1 and beyond as our powers grow and the threat to a character's survival diminish, but we'll remember our careful start to overcome our humble beginnings in this world as well.

'Armor isn't Awful' would definitely be a good add-in to this section, especially for returning players from RotR or S&S. Perhaps something like:

- Cards that reduce damage aren't just a safety net: In Wrath of the Righteous, there are quite a few banes that will do damage to you regardless of your ability to successfully defeat them. While armors and items that reduce damage were primarily used to lessen the sting of an unlucky roll to defeat a monster in Rise of the Runelords or Skull & Shackles, you may find more consistent use for these cards as your team plays through Wrath of the Righteous. Don't forget that you can pass excess armors and items that reduce damage to allies at your location at the start of your turn as well!

As for the comments about evasion and scouting, I agree that much of the available scouting in the early scenarios of WotR are either character or location dependent, but I still think it is worth highlighting that any scouting that is available should be valued highly. That tip may sway a player's decision in favor of a character that has scouting abilities but was dismissed because the scouting was not being valued, or may get the group to take along one of the basic scouting spells or items at the start to help smooth things out. I agree that there shouldn't be any direct mention in a base set instruction booklet of adding in class deck cards or other purchasable cards, but seeing that tip may trigger an idea among those who own those cards: 'Hey, we have some more scouting stuff over here -- let's put it in the box if we're having trouble.'

I believe that evasion is still much more powerful than many play groups give it credit for, especially here in WotR. While it's true that you can't quite create a pit big enough to hold a Carrion Golem, Create Pit still evades any nasties with a check to defeat of 12 or less (and remember that evading happens BEFORE any 'before you act' unpleasantness as well). If Enora is staring down a Combat 11-12 critter, an auto-evade to the bottom of the location deck rather than a d12+2d4+1 (average 12.5) attack spell may be quite preferable in the long run, even if the recharge check fails and Create Pit is buried. As for Sanctuary, it doesn't move things to the bottom of the location deck but it does set up any nasty that's not immune to Mental for a big hit from your team's big hitter, all without harming the character who originally encountered it -- and remember that Sanctuary can be cast on anyone at your location, so a Sanctuary in one player's hand can provide a wide net of relatively safe explorations. (Note: Carrion Golem is not immune to Mental, although the Fiendish Tree is.)

Any other ideas out there for a section such as this? Do you think a section like this belongs in a base set rulebook? Is it the sort of thing that instead belongs in supplementary online resources? Should this not be provided by Paizo at all and be left to players to figure out on their own (or with others here on the message boards) with each new set?

Are we crazy, is this awesome, let us know.

My answers are 'yes' and 'yes,' respectively.

Watching the early posts in this thread gives me a much better feeling for exactly what the Obsidian gang have to work through in their coding and UI design process for the video game adaptation of PACG. Having a constantly updated game state on display in the thread is a lot of work, but really gives a good feel for what's going on and, like the video game, will allow for more exact strategic decisions down the road (by keeping exact track of counts for each type of card in a location deck, etc.)

I will certainly be checking in on these adventures as they develop!

Hello all -- just noticed this morning that the Imrijka character sheet lists her favored card type as 'Blessing' while the Imrijka character card in the box lists her favored card type as 'Weapon or Blessing.' I'm assuming the card in the box is the intended text but I wanted to get the official word (and let folks know to get either the character sheet or FAQ synced up appropriately).

There have been quite a few threads and discussions here about the difficulty of the introductory scenarios in Wrath of the Righteous. In some cases, folks have expressed frustration in their team's inability to get through one of the early scenarios or in the feeling that their failures/character deaths were due primarily to luck rather than anything they had control over.

I believe that many players' experience with Wrath of the Righteous would be improved with some 'strategy ideas' or something similarly tutorial-esque built in to the instruction booklet itself to help groups either get started (if they are brand new to the PACG) or get oriented to some of the nuances in the adventure path or with specific characters (if they are PACG veterans). For instance, I would propose something like the following (expanded, cleaned up, and nicely written) for the Wrath instruction book:

Strategy Hints & Tips

- Scouting and Evasion are vital: There will be a lot of unpleasantness in your Worldwound adventures -- more than you may have seen if you played Rise of the Runelords or Skull & Shackles. In those worlds, your team may have been able to boisterously knock down every door and destroy everything in your path; that strategy may not work as well here in Wrath of the Righteous. Don't feel like you must fight every bane in each location -- scouting and evasion tools can help you prudently fight when you have the edge and avoid trouble that you (or your team) are not yet prepared for.

- Your deck is your life: Since there is a lot of unpleasantness around, you will want to be judicious in using your cards from your deck in Wrath of the Righteous, especially if that use will discard, bury, or banish the card. Choosing to discard a card at the end of your turn may help you cycle through your deck to get a desired card sooner, but it comes at a cost -- you will be at death's door sooner as well. Discarding a blessing or ally to explore again moves you one step closer to death as well. In a small party, there won't be much time pressure from the blessings deck, so it will be important to keep your deck well-stocked as you take your turns. In a large party, there will be more pressure to move quickly through your location on your turn, but think about your health carefully as you weigh out your choices.

- You may not have to permanently close every location to succeed: In many scenarios, defeating a henchman will give you the opportunity to permanently close a location, which usually moves your team one step closer to a successfully cornered villain (and a scenario victory!) Keep an eye out for scenarios where this is not the case such as The Elven Entanglement. When most of the henchmen do not give an opportunity to close a location, your path to victory may be quite different. Remember that in most scenarios you only need to defeat and corner the villain for success, and with a spread out team to temporarily close locations, you often only need to permanently close 2 locations before fanning out and seeking the villain for a scenario victory.

- Remember to use your character's powers whenever you can: When starting out, it is easy to get caught up in the heat of battle and forget about using your character's powers. Whether it's Imrijka's ability to potentially explore again after taking out a monster on her turn, Enora's recharging of a spell from her discard pile after she plays a spell, Seelah's use of Charisma instead of any listed skill on a check before she acts, or Kyra's ability to heal herself or a friend at her location when using a non-corrupted blessing on anyone's check to defeat, each ability is essential to your character's (and your team's) success and survival, so be sure you are using them whenever they are available!

- Don't be afraid to try out different characters at the start if things aren't working out: In the beginning scenarios, you and your character are feeling each other out. If you are playing a character and your character keeps dying, your team isn't winning scenarios, or it just doesn't feel fun, don't be afraid to switch out to a new character and start again. Success requires that you and your character are in sync throughout your adventures, but the sooner you decide that you are not happy with your character the easier it will be to get a new character tested out and up to speed for your team.

What do y'all think? I know that for many, part of the fun of the game is figuring out things like this, but for others, they may not be able to hit up the fun until they have found their way to the information in some of these tips, so making the tips available directly in the instruction book may help more groups enjoy the game.

I've been thinking a bit on these issues as well, and I believe that one thing that would nicely mitigate a lot of the perceived difficulty from the beginning scenarios would be some 'strategy ideas' or something similarly tutorial-esque built in to the instruction booklet itself to help groups either get started (if they are brand new to the PACG) or get oriented to some of the nuances in the adventure path or with specific characters (if they are PACG veterans). I don't want to derail the discussion in this thread, but I have written up a proposed section like this for Wrath of the Righteous, and I will start a separate thread with my idea to get thoughts from others on that idea.

One other thought on the difficulty curve matter -- remember that bane and barrier ratios do not necessarily tell the whole story of difficulty in a scenario. The specific scenario rules, mix of banes (and boons) in the box, villain and henchman requirements, and expected character deck/feat makeups all play a part in the difficulty for the scenario as well. A challenging location such as the Torture Chamber which can skew those ratios may be able to be completely avoided in a scenario with a good strategy (and the villain residing elsewhere, of course).

After a night of sleeping & processing, a thoughtful shower, and a nice hot cup of tea, I think that I am in a much better place with this card and this language construction. Putting it all out there in a post getting feedback about whether or not I am on the same page as others will be very helpful for me to make sure I've really got it.

Mike, I definitely appreciate your (and your team's) approach to the grammar in this game. To my eyes, the #1 thing y'all prioritize for grammar is the internal consistency of verbiage in the cards and card game. Moreover, your team's commitment to fixing any grammar inconsistencies (real, perceived, or otherwise) through real-time message board responses, FAQ entries, and eventual errata card purchase options stands head and shoulders above the design team of any other game I have played -- real-life or electronic.

Vic, I think that the reason I am parsing this card so differently from your intentions is that I am ignoring the already established grammar of "Succeed at an X check..." Within this game, that start of a sentence is not giving an option to try out the described check, it is issuing a command to attempt the described check. The rest of the sentence describes what to do with the results of that mandated check; "... or Y" and "... to Y" tell what happens if you fail or if you succeed, respectively. My brain defaults to taking the whole sentence of "Succeed at an X check or Y" as a decision point, but I understand how your interpretation fits the consistency of the verbiage already established in the game. Also, if you want the check to be a decision point, you have already established the use of "You may succeed at an X check" to signify that it is a choice to try the check or not.

Everyone else, thank you for bringing up the question and fleshing out the discussion. With everyone's comments, I need to change my vote on Slip. I would rather see him taken as written, where the check attempt is mandatory. He seems a bit obstinate, and he wouldn't be the first ally to be this way. The right character (one who has either Intelligence or Knowledge but not both) can trick him to get the most out of him but the wrong character (one who has both Intelligence and Knowledge) is too smart by half and ends up outsmarting himself or herself instead.

And if you're trying to map it to something like "You can attempt X and if you fail do Y, or you can just choose to do Y," you are way off the rails. "Or" certainly does not mean that in this game, and I'm not convinced it reasonably can be interpreted to mean that in the English language either.

This must have been why I was a problem child (or why I understand problem children). A statement like "eat your vegetables or no dessert" always parsed as a choice to me -- either I could eat the vegetables and then get dessert or I could skip out on vegetables but would also have to skip dessert. Similarly, I've read that a statement like "do your chores or no allowance" are a bad parenting idea because it sets up the situation as a decision point for the child -- do chores and get allowance, or skip chores and no allowance. This doesn't come as a surprise to me, but it seems to be a surprise for many parents.

At the end of the day, I don't see why the statement "Do X or Y happens" implies that I must have a go at doing X. Why can't shrugging off X -- not even trying -- and letting Y happen be a reasonable response to that construction?

P.S. I am not just trying to be obnoxious or play a devil's advocate here -- this is a genuine question, although this discussion is definitely giving me insight into how others reason through statements like this.

Hooloovoo, this wording has been used on other cards, in fact it's how it's worded on many many cards, including every single before/after check on banes that I ever remember seeing.

The question isn't whether the current wording implies it is optional -- it doesn't -- it's whether it should changed so it does.

Ah -- now that's interesting news for me. So, the construction "Succeed at an X check or Y" actually means "You must attempt an X check. If the check fails, do Y." rather than "You may attempt an X check. If you fail the check or do not attempt the check, do Y."

For me, that last interpretation is not intuitive. Having said that, the only situation with a meaningful difference between those two interpretations on banes is in a location where you are punished for failing checks.

As for boons, it seems that the case of Slip is up for debate but that other situations such as recharges use the construction "You may succeed at an X check to do Y." to mean "You may attempt an X check. If you attempt the check and it succeeds, do Y."

Based on all this, I do hope that Slip is changed -- for me, the card seems worse than almost any other Ally that explores if the check is mandatory, while it seems to be a scouting-explore of appropriate power if the check is optional.

StrykerWolf wrote:

Paul de Senquisse wrote:

Specific text says:

"On your turn, discard this card to examine the top card of your location deck. Succeed at an Intelligence or Knowledge 7 check or put that card on the bottom of the location deck. Then explore your location."

Let's try some formal logic here. The way the card is written, we are saying:

A OR B = TRUE

A = Succeed at Check
B = Put card on bottom

If A is TRUE, then B may be either TRUE or FALSE - it's your choice.
However, if A is FALSE, then B must be TRUE.

The exception would be if the OR was actually an XOR, but that doesn't seem to make sense in this case.

In plain English - logically speaking, it is always acceptable to put the examined card on the bottom, regardless of the status of the check.

What you described is not an OR relationship. What you described is

(NOT A) Implies B

So when A is true B is free to be what it wishes.
When A is false it enforces B to be true.

You've hit one of my wheelhouses here -- A OR B is logically equivalent to (NOT A) implies B -- they both have identical truth tables, so they are just different ways of wording the same logical construction.

As for the wording of the actual card, I haven't played it with others but my personal reading of "Succeed at an Intelligence or Knowledge 7 check or put that card on the bottom of the location deck." is that you must either "Succeed at an Intelligence or Knowledge 7 check" or "put that card on the bottom of the location deck" (or both).

It seems that the real issue at hand here is if you are required to ATTEMPT an Intelligence or Knowledge 7 check to follow the instructions of this card. Using the 'A or B' wording seems to imply that the check is optional, but I'm not sure if this wording has been used on other cards where the check is ruled mandatory (such as on a bane of some kind).

I wouldn't think that this card mandates an attempt at an Intelligence or Knowledge 7 check, since it presents it as an 'or' option -- if it was mandating, I would expect a wording such as "Attempt an Intelligence or Knowledge 7 check. If you succeed, ...; if you fail, ..."

A follow up on this, since my brain is in 'exact rules' mode at the moment. A little imp in my head asked me the following questions and I don't have a good answer for it:

"When you summon a card, you are supposed to put it back in the box after you are done with it unless the card doing the summoning explicitly states otherwise. So, when you 'summon and acquire' a boon to close a location, is the 'acquired' boon put in your hand or put back in the box?

As a follow-up, if Balazar has to 'summon and defeat' a monster, can he use his power to put the defeated summoned monster in his hand, or should it be put back in the box?"

The imp in my head cheerfully points out that the answer to the first question seems like it should be 'Of course it goes in your hand' while the answer to the second question seems like it should be 'Nope, it was summoned, so it goes back in the box.' Then the imp cackles gleefully while declaring that the answers to both questions should be exactly the same.

Can anyone help me parse out a resolution? Or at least explain why one of my seeming answers does not really make sense? Thanks for your help in rules imp squishing!

Is there a card list available for this adventure deck as there is for all of the other adventure decks, base sets, and character add-on decks? I'm running a quick check through all of my sets to make sure everything is as it should be but this decklist seems to be missing (or at least not linked). Thanks all, and happy adventuring!

Just to follow up on our play of The Elven Entanglement, our group of 4 characters played with Hawkmoon's suggestion for #2, and for #1 we decided that if an Animal came up and we defeated the Stump, we could attempt to close the location.

The only animal we saw was a monster in one location, but poor Shardra had nothing but her bare fists to stare down Ol' Stumpy, so that was a hand wipe. Fortunately, we were able to find and deal with Tangled Traps pretty quickly so we could narrow down where the Villain was, and since it ended up being the Dark Forest we were able to isolate the Villain to a guaranteed encounter in the last two cards. From there, we closed down two other locations and fanned out to temporarily close the last 3 where Shardra, having found combat spells and blessings, let loose her divine wrath to finish the scenario.

I actually like the idea that most locations cannot be permanently closed in this scenario, but the rest of my playgroup disagrees and thinks that leaves things too much to luck. I still look forward to hearing a more official word on these two questions though. Thanks again for the feedback and for keeping the questions open!

Elven Entanglement wrote:

If you would encounter a card that has the Animal trait, summon and encounter the henchman Carnivorous Stump instead.

These questions came out of this other thread.

1. Does defeating the Carnivorous Stump allow you to attempt to close the location? It is summoned, so that seems like it would be no, but it also has that "if...instead" combo.

2. What happens to the card with the animal trait you would have encountered? Is it banished? Shuffled back into the location deck? Does it depend on how things go with the Carnivorous Stump?

No, but really gang...our group wants to play the second scenario but we are genuinely stumped (er...I guess it IS contagious in this thread) on the answers to these two questions. Since the optional fightin the scenario can get you a cohort to help close locations, it seems like the answer to #1 should be 'yes', but as Hawkmoon points out that is definitely different from other such interactions in the past...then again the wording here is different too.

As for #2, we really have no idea...does it stay on top of the deck? Is it evaded? Obtained if it is a boon? Defeated or evaded if it is a bane? Banished in all cases? Or just put back in the box? Some guidance would be greatly appreciated before we just go for it and make something up later this afternoon.

Thanks all! And for the design crew -- we are REALLY excited about how this game mixes things up from the first two AP's, and we await with bated breath whatever comes at us next down this demon-infested road.

Well this all looks fabulous -- thanks for the preview and the wonderful descriptions! I do have one question -- why is Jalhazar's Wheel cursed and why don't I really want it? It looks like a neat loot card to me...

Anyway, thanks again, and good luck on the fly-dodging!

Hooloovoo wrote:

Tanis O'Connor wrote:

Theryon, my intention with the alternate box-purge rules was to get rid of cards at least two lower than the current adventure. So when you add AD 4, remove the appropriate B, C, and 1 cards, and leave 2 and 3 in there. The next version of the Guide will clarify this.

Math teacher spidey-sense tingling -- ah, there it is! It sounds like you want us to get rid of cards that are MORE THAN 2 lower than the current adventure -- AT LEAST 2 lower includes cards that are just 2 lower. Having said that, I think the 'at least' wording is better, so perhaps you should say you want us to get rid of any cards that are at least 3 lower than the current adventure.

I agree that this is how it would be strictly interpreted (e.g., take out B/C/1/2 after adding AD 4, which doesn't fit with Tanis' intention (e.g., take out B/C/1 after adding AD 4). Unfortunately, the new version of the Guide seems not to have changed the language to bring it in line with the intention:

PFSACG Guide to Organized Play v1.2 wrote:

To make things more interesting and to help you remove the right cards faster, when you add a new Adventure Deck to your game box after adventure 3, remove all cards with the Basic and Elite traits with adventure deck numbers at least two lower than the adventure deck you just added. (Treat the set indicators B, C, and P as zero for this purpose.)

I'm a bit surprised this hasn't been changed or otherwise addressed, since it's a matter of definitions rather than interpretations. If, as the guide currently reads, you remove all cards with the Basic and Elite traits with adventure deck number at least two lower than the adventure deck you just added, then when you add deck 4, the (whole) numbers at least two lower than 4 are 0, 1, and 2, so that's what the instruction is telling you to remove. If you only want people to remove 0 and 1 when adding deck 4, the instruction should be either to remove deck numbers more than 2 lower or to remove those at least 3 lower -- otherwise the words do not match the intention.

I don't mean to sound so absolutist or high-and-mighty on this wording, but it's something I make a big deal about in my teaching each semester, so I get excited about the concept -- please forgive! (and keep up the great work on the guide and the game!)

Theryon, my intention with the alternate box-purge rules was to get rid of cards at least two lower than the current adventure. So when you add AD 4, remove the appropriate B, C, and 1 cards, and leave 2 and 3 in there. The next version of the Guide will clarify this.

Math teacher spidey-sense tingling -- ah, there it is! It sounds like you want us to get rid of cards that are MORE THAN 2 lower than the current adventure -- AT LEAST 2 lower includes cards that are just 2 lower. Having said that, I think the 'at least' wording is better, so perhaps you should say you want us to get rid of any cards that are at least 3 lower than the current adventure.