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So my group has a team who finished Dragon's Demand and took those characters into Curse of the Crimson Throne. We decided to use Curse's rules to increase # by 3 (Level at the end of DD) and add 3 modifiers (wildcards, bane #, more/larger locations, etc) to continue being able to advance our characters (Deck 1 effectively Level 4 and so on.)

For a while, things seemed to be fine. Challenge is keeping up with the team, so things weren't too easy and we still felt like we could take on the world.... until deck 5 (actually deck 5, not virtual 5). With Deck 5's enforcement of 4 Wildcards on its own, we pretty much had to go another route than using wilds as the modifiers (could you imagine trying deck 5 with seven wildcards... yeesh). So we tried putting it all in bane # increase... making # at that point eleven. (Deck 5 + 3 (coming from DD) + 3 (addition modifier to balance the first 3)). This made nearly every veteran monster combat check in the 30s and we only had a chance at by throwing everything we could at it... and that was just for random encounters.

Long story short, I think PACG now has the opposite problem than it did in the beginning with veteran only adding # once. Now # is scaling up too quickly or rather, banes can currently scale up indefinitely, while characters do not (max of +4). Hard to feel heroic when monsters beat your score 4-5 times over (## at 8 is 16 and we were attempting it at 11).

And before you say it, yes I know the game wasn't really designed to go past 6 and when # was 6, it felt fine. However, when you make it an option; you need to make sure it is viable to the extremes.

So suggestions on how to balance this:

1) Cap the veteran power: rather than an unchecked #, limit how high that check can go.
Something along the lines of check can't be more than double the base number for example (I mean how can a Red Mantis Initiate have a 30+ combat check and STILL be an initiate, right?)

2) Make Hero Points do more than just re-roll as that just isn't enough at that high of a check. Maybe something akin to Wrath of the Righteous and Mystic Charges. Upgrading dice and/or adding # to the check. (More things with Hero Points should be another discussion because right now, they are kinda lame).

Anyone else experiencing this too? How far have you been able to push # before the game stops feeling like you have a chance?

Sorry, this came out kinda ranty. We've had to replay 5D in Curse for so many times now that we are kinda just about ready to quit due to the ## being nearly insurmountable.

I wasn't sure which thread this question belonged, not exactly a rule question but not home-brew either.

So we have a conversion guide to handle how Pre-Core cards play with Core rules...

But what about building the Vault?

I would think that just throwing ALL the cards from previous sets would cause a major imbalance to the card ratios since, with the exception of blessings, there are only single copies of cards in Core.

So how should we handle creating a Core Vault for a Pre-Core Adventure Path?

Do we just use a single copy of every card from the set? Omit cards that have Core equivalents?

How many Blessing of the Gods or other unique blessings should we add?

And a little off-topic, but do we add a Danger in case one is called for and what should that Danger be?

This is more hypothetical than anything. I'm currently in the midst of two groups playing various levels of DD and COTCT, but I have all the Pre-Cores minus MM and was thinking about future plays with those rather than random generation right away.

So I have a party that has finished Dragon's Demand and wanted to keep their characters for Curse of the Crimson Throne...

CotCT is pretty good with the instructions on how to start with returning characters, but my question is about character progression at this point. Am I to assume that the modified # due to playing another adventure path equates to adventure level?

For example, my group has finished Dragon's Demand so by the rules of returning characters, # gets a +3 moving forward. As we get hero points are we to consider Deck 1 of CotCT to be 'level' 4 and we can get up to four skill feats, power feats, and card feats? Or do we just collect hero points until the ACTUAL deck 4?

I thought occurred and wanted someone else's take on it.

If, by making a random scenario, you had a story bane as the danger, but it had the ability where you had to encounter the danger. How do you resolve it?

My instinct would be that you'd have to fight it twice. The danger gets summoned, the danger summons itself, you encounter the summoned danger's summon and then encounter the original danger. The danger would not keep infinitely spawning right?

Is that the correct way to interpret it?

Disclaimer: The suggestions I'm attempting to make is not intended to change the gameplay, but the presentation of information.

To preface why I had this thought, I've been a veteran player since the game's inception but just recently got the Core Set and I'm playing with a new group of complete novice players.

One of those players had the card Balmberry and the question was raised on why'd you ever WANT to banish it to use its effect. I had to read the entire card before I got it myself, the recovery step and anyone with a good Craft skill or a character power (another player was using Fumbus). But then it began to bug me... why did it take reading the entire card, to know what to do with it? Answer: Keyword Banish, or more specifically that Banish means more than one thing in-game.

On the player reference card, banish is the only keyword that has multiple meanings. Either put in recovery pile or box depending on if it has a recovery step. I feel this kinda causes some unnecessary confusion that can break the flow of the game.

The solution? My thought is to make a new keyword specifically for sending a card to recovery and then in the recovery text, handle the conditions to prevent a card from being banished.

Suggested words:

1) Exhaust. First one to come to mind. Easy to imagine (recover from exhaustion), however with the Scourge Exhausted, may cause confusion.

2) Spend. Again easy to imagine (recovering spent cards), however, it reads funny to me. (For your combat check: Spend to roll Arcane + X .....). Feels like something else is required.

3) Tap. This one is interesting, I hadn't thought of it until I was looking up synonyms for Exhaust. This has some added benefits that any experienced CCG player would instantly understand what to do and its natural implication to recovery. Heck, you can have the card display at 90 degrees and it's clear that it's a card to recovered later. It would probably change the Recovery Pile to a Recovery Phase instead, but that might be a good thing (my newbie players have mixed up discard and recovery piles before).

Regardless, I think that splitting Banish's options into two separate terms would greatly improve the clarity of what we need to do with those cards without having 'to know' what the appropriate option is while not changing functionally what the game does.

Thoughts?

I'm a little confused about some of the new rules.

It is my understanding that now the party can only play one of each boon card collectively per encounter.
An encounter is resolving a card, right?

What about banes with "then'? If you can only use one weapon for a check, you can't use a weapon for a second... can you?

I think I'm misunderstanding either the definition of encounter or the party collective rule but can't seem to find the answer in the rulebook.

Could someone clear this up for me plz?

Just wanted to give my overall impression now that we have finished Skulls & Shackles.

Difficulty: Higher than Rise of the Runelords overall, although it was inconsistent on the difficulty in certain scenarios. Not sure it was difficult for the right reasons though. Weaker weapons and higher difficulties is a bad combo.

Ship powers: Other than damage reduction, the powers of ships were largely forgotten. The scenario was either too hard where we needed the extra turns or so easy than those powers were not necessary.

On a ship and Anchored Ships: Card with this condition tended to be powerful cards, but if the scenario anchored the ship they were nearly useless. It made for hard decisions on whether to keep or toss those cards in favor for weaker, but more versatile ones. It made me wish that the game included a mechanic similar to keeping a side deck where we can hold a certain number of extra cards to modify are decks before playing the next scenario. Like up to the size of our fleet or something…. Just a thought.

Veteran Power and Henchman: Standard veteran power is insufficient for Henchman as you continue through the game, deck four was a glaring example of it as one scenario’s power was dependent on losing to a henchman; something very unlikely as they were no challenge and would not see that they ever would be at that point. I would suggest a flat increase on top of the Veteran Power for Henchman, something like: Adding the adventure deck + the number of characters participating in the scenario. That ought to scale the difficult appropriately without going so far as to screw solo players.

Weapons: Overall, they were kinda bland in combat potential; particularly Melee weapons (so many d4s). The weapons that stood out were for the secondary powers rather than strength. One of the reason S&S was harder than ROTL is that while the average damage of a particular weapon was higher; rolling max damage was a lot lower.

Rolling 12 on d12: 1 in 12, on 2D6: 1 in 36, on 3D4: 1 in 64

Just couldn't get excited with the weapons.

Spells: Found that there was little distinction between Arcane/Divine for attack spells at least till deck 5. Became problematic with multiple spell slingers in the group, as there wasn't enough attack magic to go around. Augury and Scrying spells were sorely missed.

Armor: Definitely comes more into to play than before with a higher frequency of ‘Before you Act’ Damage than before; although seems to be less over armor cards than before. Shields are still largely useless. There was also a lot of involuntary Recharging happening too, which is quite annoying due to no way to defend against it. Maybe have shields have a similar power like body armor’s banish/bury to make damage 0 but for involuntary recharges. I don’t mind monsters with that power, but I do not like that there isn’t a way to defend against it. With a good mix of both, choosing armor vs shields would be more prominent.

Items: see On a Ship above

Allies and Swashbuckling for Non-Combat: I don't think I've ever encountered a non-combat check where a Swashbuckling trait was important. Seems like a effect that wasn't thought all the way through.

Blessings: no real gripes, although we stayed away from the ones that cost a hand to be buried to use. Strong power, but cost seems to be too high.

Immortal Powers due to location deck size: Usually it’s a case where a monster is defeated if it is the only card in the location deck, this is more a problem for the computer version of this game. It becomes increasingly more likely that said monster will stay on top as the deck diminishes. Live players will (either on purpose or not) ensure the monster isn't the top card; but a computer will be completely impartial. The game is supposed to be about choices, but this power takes that choice away. Maybe insure the next card is set aside and shuffle the rest and put the set aside card on top to ensure at least some progress is made. Again, this is more likely a problem for the tablet version of the game than regular play.

Weird Abrupt Ends: A couple of scenarios imply that a game can end as soon as the blessing deck is empty (the race and the one with a dragon in the blessing deck), thereby losing the last turn; basically making those scenarios last 29.5 turns. Probably should make this an ‘end of turn’ check.

Summon Locations: Disappointed that this wasn't more of a thing (only once for a scenario). I kept expecting a barrier to suddenly appear and give the villain another place to run. Another wasted opportunity.

Implications of the ‘Make Good’ Scenario: With this, a precedent is now available… The Side-Quest: An optional scenario that is only available if certain conditions are meet. Whether it’s part of a scenario power, or a certain card that you can only encounter once (Acquiring/Defeating opens the Sidequest and card is removed from the game after it’s encountered so you only have one shot at it). The Reward should be better though(probably a skill, power, and/or card feet).

Overall, the game was certainly more interesting and challenging, the weapons feels a little nerfed though.

While this has not happened yet; what would happen if BrineBones moved into a location deck due to losing to the regular villain (blessings from the blessing deck.... it's not impossible)? Would we then have to defeat both villains to win? Would encountering BrineBones this way throw it back into the blessing deck?

The Promo card: Vomit Twin has an effect that hits everyone in that location with a Fort check or recharge a card; but the timing is unclear...

Is it:

1) Only at the time of the original cast

2) as above, but also if the spell moves due to the evade power at the new location

3) a persistent effect for anyone in that location; if so, when (start/end of turn?)

The 'At This Location' power triggers at the start AND end of the turn correct, if you're there. One of my group was wondering if it was only a once per turn with the (At the start OR end of ....).

Has anyone got deck 5 yet? I've noticed it in the webstore. But it is not showing in my subscription. My subscription says the next deck is going to be deck 6 and shows no record of deck 5 in the history.

Anyone else get the feeling that after the midpoint of the adventure deck four that the difficulty just plummeted?

I personally blame the deck B/C henchmen as even with the Veteran power, they are too weak (not even reaching difficulty 15, where other henchman from deck 4 were in the 20s. The gap at this point the game is huge.

The fourth scenario effect where you could lose plunder due to losing to an henchman was pretty much an impossibility; only Hisozath(?) the island turtle from Pinnacle Atoll could pose a threat.

It left us with a feeling of 'was that it?' and wondering if we did something wrong.

Just looking for some clarification before deck 5 is released.

1) If I used the Bottles display power for ship armor, could I later use it's bury power to heal?

2) If displayed, could another character use it's heal power for themselves?

It seems like it should be related to other 'equip ship' items but the wording is different.

This idea came to my after getting a ton of extra cards that we weren't going to keep; a way to sell/use the leftover cards to buy/craft cards from the box that you do want.

So here's the basic idea:

1) Rebuild your deck via the standard rules; including picking from box if you're short.

2) With ONLY the leftover cards you may trade in 3 cards to get a card you DO want; given the following:

3) First card for the trade needs the be the same adventure deck level as the target card.

4) Second card must be the same type of boon as the the target card.

5) Third card must share a trait with the target card.

6) Rebuild the decks with the new card and repeat until you do not or can not continue.

7) Leftovers at this point are returned to box via standard rules.

You should never get in a situation of 'shorting' yourself to allow a pick from the box (that's why specifically leftovers only). This system came to me since this a common mechanic of alchemy/crafting based video games.

How's it sound? Feedback appreciated.

Eyepatch's power:

Recharge this card to add 1d4 and the Swashbuckling trait to your check to acquire an ally or defeat a bane or a ship, or 1d8 if it has the Pirate trait.

What is it?

a) the ally/bane/ship in question; or

b) the check itself has a Pirate trait.

My guess is 'a', but pronouns are sneaky things.

There was a thread at one point on how to replay a scenario; issues on whether you scale the box down to the adventure deck being played or not, etc.

But this is more of why do we have to replay a specific scenario when we are just treasure hunting?

Would the game break terribly if we cherry-picked a number of location cards; and just ran a 30 round blessings just to look for loot?

1) We don't get the scenario bonus anyway, so that card doesn't do much other than adds power to deal with.

2) We are not trying to win the scenario; so henchman & villains are not needed. Villains would only cause locations to close early which is not desirable anyway. Plus the past villains would be little challenge if you were coming back to deck 2 from a deck 5 current position, for example.

I can understand disallowing locations cards as they may be part of the plot; but any location from a previous deck shouldn't be an issue.

I also understand that I could just house rule this (and probably will); I'm just curious if there was a specific reason why the 'lock' of only previous scenario replays during an adventure path is there. Is there something of significance I'm missing to approaching treasure hunting this way instead?

Interested in people's stories about key decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time, but then immediately came to bite you in the butt.

My case this morning, soloing as Valerous, had just swapped my Sage for Shalelu Andosana and then started the final scenario of deck 5 Into the RuneForge.

So only 1 accessible location whose closing check is an INT or Knowledge 12 check, Val's Int is d6 and 1 die blessings to attempt it. Plus having to fight the henchman each time I was to attempt the check.... doh.

Now I have to hunt through pass scenarios and hope to get some Int or location closing booster. 2d6 to get 12 is basically luck.

Anyway, what were major blunders on your part? Situations that cannot be blamed on dice, just things you just done screwed up.

I had recently watched Tim Norris' SAS interview/sneak peak with Mike and had a question about ships and more specifically plunder.

In the video, Mike demonstrated plunder by putting the card face up under the ship. What I'm curious about is if the plunder is accessible through the course of the scenario. Can we pick a plunder out during the scenario or is it purely an end of scenario reward?

This is more of a question for when you intentionally replay a scenario....

Do you replay a scenario from a previous deck, using all the cards to deck 6; even if it's a scenario from deck 1?

I know you do not get scenario/adventure/path rewards from already cleared areas; but do we reduce the decks back to the relevant deck level? Or do we keep all the cards; just to have some challenge while looking for loot?

Just asking so I can determine the best scenarios to hunt for loot.

It's probably a little late for this kind of idea, but anyway....

How about adding specific characters' scenario/adventure/path (probably not more that an adventure, but who knows) that develop that characters' backstory into the character decks?

For example the fighter deck includes Valeros, and in his ROTR flavor text; he had skipped out on a fiance....

You could make a specific scenario that requires one character to be Valeros and have the father and/or daughter as a villain coming take vengeance for the shame of him leaving the daughter at the alter... etc.

A little extra spice to understanding the characters' as being more than a collection of skills, powers, and card feats.

Currently, all the Adventure Paths have nothing to due with the character's individuality and the character decks seem like the right place to add something like that.

Like I said, a thought.

This comes from fighting Iron Golem; is Ranged Damage considered Ranged Combat Damage i.e. Combat Damage?

Just wanted to make sure we could soak Ranged Damage with any armor (this case, Boolsering Armor). Not the banish/bury for 0; just the reduction power.

If the Leng Spider is undefeated, who moves? The spider or the character of that encounter?

I can see it either way; my gut says the spider but card doesn't specify who moves, just that a move is made.

If you encounter a monster that doesn't require a Combat check (ex. Siren is a WIS check only); can you use a blessing with the appropriate skill bonus to your check? Or is this why the those blessings indicate the '2-dice to a stat-based noncombat check'?

I guess it boils down to is... does encountering a monster without a combat check still considered combat?

Only asking since I had an idea for a scenario, but it kinda hinges on this clarification.

Thanks in advance.

Had this idea for some time.... a way to make use of your entire card collection all at once with no specific plot going on per se. This is supposed to star the Pathfinder equivalent of Q from Star Trek: TNG; but I do not know if or who that would be... I'm just using 'Q' so you have a mental image of exactly WHAT you are facing; a really ANNOYING all powerful entity.

Without further ado, I introduce: Q's Quest

Scenario Cards:

Quick note: Location lists are merely suggestions based on the scenario theme. Any location card may be used; so if you don’t have a particular card or think something is more appropriate later; feel free to use whatever locations you want.
 

More to come; just tired of formatting this wall of text. Comments and Critiques welcome.

Just finished the first scenario of deck 5 and after the smoke cleared... we had removed an astounding (to us anyway) 25 cards from play in that scenario alone.

Anyone else with any noteworthy achievements since you played? They must be something that feels hard to replicate.

Question came up when starting deck 5, if a card is summoned (usually a monster) and it has a Basic/Elite trait, does it get removed from play instead?

We ruled that since it was during play that, yes, cards summoned and would be banished due to the Adventure Path power.... was that correct?

Vicious Trident +1: Shouldn't it be a two-handed weapon?

Swipe: First power, if used as your combat check, does the -3 difficulty still apply?

Not quite sure this is the right place to ask these, but they are about the card game more or less.

Your website subscription only allow to start at decks 4 and 6 only, where I already have 4 and want to start at deck 5.

I noticed that the 'Skulls and Shackle set' is going to be another box... does that mean it is not compatible with the first set? Is the entire set of new box cards different from the first box? If not, could we just get the new adventure deck 1 instead?

Also, is the next adventure path geared for starting characters only, or is there going to be some scalar rules for those bringing in characters that finished the first path? I'd figure if it's for starters then it'd be even easier with those that completed the first adventure path and kept those decks.

I'm only asking because I don't really want to be bogged down with a lot of different boxes (one seems sufficient to me).

Is the only difference between Augury and Scrying the Recharge Check? Seems to be kind of a letdown for Scrying if its true.

Just curious to hear some of your most tragic character deaths. Only fair that I start...

We had Kyra, Seiona, and Erzen playing Crow Bait. My sister playing the sorceress explores an area where we already KNEW the Scarecrow Golem was and got pummelled... and that wasn't the tragic death...

I was playing the wizard and just finished beating the another henchman at the Farmhouse and was preparing attempt to close. I had a couple of Ray spells, Arcane Armor and a full hand, plus I had just enough cards in my deck to handle an entire hand wipeout, so I thought I was safe. So Farmhouse brings a random monster to fight to close and what do I get..... a damn SIREN.

.... Ray spells useless (Wisdom Check)
.... Arcane Armor useless (Siren power)
..... rolled a 1. Full hand wipe
..... Siren power removed an ally that was within the top 3 of my deck
..... Unable to draw up and died.

If any one of those things hadn't happened, I'd have survived.... truly tragic random encounter from the box.

Anyway, can anyone top it? ;p

A character at the Academy, on first encounter, runs into a Pit Trap and succeeds in the check which gives an immediate extra encounter.... so is that two extra encounters (1 via Academy and 1 from Pit Trap)?

First off, I apologize if this was covered or this post ends up in the wrong place.

The power of the Town Square states something to the effect that you may discard a card to explore again, followed by that 'This card may not be recharged.' Isn't that redundant?

The way I understand it is that unless you use the a card for its intended use, that you'd forfeit any recharge check it would have had.

It can't have a 'permanent' effect on the discarded card in question because 'cards have no memories.' so either:

1) the may not recharge line is unneeded or,
2) they really meant bury a card or,
3) there's something significant I'm missing.

Can someone clear that up please, I've been unable to find an answer in the errata, nor searching the posts.

Thanks in advance