Joshua Birk 898's page

Joshua Birk 898 wrote:

It seems odd to pair him in the preview with a card he cant really use all that well.

but . . . it's a cannon. It goes boom. yay, boom!

Big booms are great! And I suppose that Damiel shines when using the second power. I think I just got thrown by "He can also throw alchemy bombs as kickers to his Ranged attacks," and was trying to find a way to make that true.

Your blog posts are wonderful, I just need to remind myself that they aren't canonical rules.

No conclusions, but two observations

1) Mythic Marshal shenanigans are very powerful. I have a five person party that includes three mythic marshal's. Yes, you don't get funky powers, but the ability to consistently include a d20 in your core checks is very nice.

2) The five charge mythic archmage power is amazing, especially in two and three person parties. I have mythic archmage in a three person party and I almost always use the scouting power multiple times in each scenario.

I would only play it if I planned to operate in a support role. Recharging (best case scenario) two cards to draw one is a terrible reason to include a card in your deck. Allowing a friend to recharge a card to draw a card is worth considering for some builds, however.

Apologies for misconstruing your views, I just had to do something to conjure you.

And I would agree that the card works better in a supporting role.

Keith Richmond wrote:

Thinking of it from the RPG side instead of card side for a second - let's say that it heals you for _1_ hp, and also makes you feel healthy and full like you ate a full day's worth of food. That definitely makes you feel better, but in card terms that 1 hp is so small it's rounded down in terms of the discard pile. That said, your hand likely improved, so that's feeling a bit healthier :)

So it's basically a sucky goodberry? The card seems mediocre at best to me, and I can't see why it merits a slot in AD2 given that. The best use for it I can think of is a case where you both need the top card of your deck and have a crap card in hand you want to get rid of. The card to me seems like a very situational pick, not applicable in the majority of situations. If I did pick it, I'd likely use it almost immediately just to get it out of my hand so I can hopefully draw something more useful.

Deck cycling is incredibly useful. If Orbis still haunted these forums he would be drooling about this card.

I've heard the suggestion of going through AP1 first, but I'm not attracted by that in the least. The rewards for scenarios in the base set will get boring and inconsequential especially if we've seen all there is to see by that point. Also the challenge will be a drop in the bucket by that point.

Don't just start put off the base scenarios, I would encourage you to not play them at all. I firmly believe that they aren't well designed and that your gaming experience will be better if you pretend that they don't exist entirely. That being said, you will still find them challenging if you insist on playing them after AP1.

Am I missing something? Can't you just use Kyra to on the acrobatics check? The army has both the demon and undead trait, so she can roll her divine check and steam roll the 23.

Alain - Combat
Crowe - Combat
Balazar - Arcane
Shardra - Knowledge
Andowyn - Divine
Kyra - Acrobatcis

I had a different take on the Lancer debate. I don’t know if he should be changed or not, but I am convinced that that Lancer power in question should never have been made.

One of the central tensions of the game, particularly for large and mid-sized groups, is the balance between generating additional explorations and not getting your character killed. The most conventional approach to dealing with this tension is to discard cards for explorations and then you healing power to mitigate the damage from the discards. The interaction between playing cards to explore and using healing powers to recover those cards is a cornerstone of PACG, though not every group or player relies on it.

However, as characters gain more and more abilities, one of the most common and most desired, upgrades is to find ways to explore without having to discard. Different characters gain the ability to explore without discarding through a variety of different mechanics, and those mechanics present a series of mini-games, as players look for ways to maximize how often they can get these cheap explores.

- Cards that you can recharge to explore. In RotR, we had haste, a spell that gave you a free explore. S&S allowed Damiel to use potions in a similar fashion. Characters like Lini, Feyia or Kyra could all get five or six cards of a specific type in their deck and that allowed them to recharge to explore. These cards create a deck cycling minigame, where the player is incentived to trim their deck and draw through it as quickly as possible so that they can hit these ‘recharge to explore’ cards again and again.

- Some abilities allow you to explore based on encountering a certain of card. Ezren, Ranzak and Imrijka are all examples of this type of power. Here the player is encouraged to consider the composition of each location, reward for scouting powers, and incentivized to find ways to succeed at certain kinds of key roles to earn more and more explorations.

- Some of these additional explorations come with downsides. Ranzak can explore a ton, but he fills he deck and discard pile with giant troves of junk, making his deck less and less efficient the more he loots. Kyra can ensure she always has a hand full of blessings, but the cost is that her deck cycling ability grinds to a halt and she sees very few of her cards aside from those blessings.

All of which brings us to Alain and the Lancer roll. This power generates additional explorations, but does it far more efficiently than any previous option. You don’t need any mini-game to maximize the additional explorations, nor is there any down side or tradeoffs to taking them. As soon as you get your hands on winged mounts, every card in your deck becomes a better version of haste if you want it to be. The Lancer provides more reliable, more efficient exploration than we have seen from any previous power, and requires no work or thought on the part of the player.

Lancer isn’t just powerful, it’s mechanically uninteresting. It doesn’t require you to make any choices, or to rethink your approach your deck or the locations, or encourage working with yor team mates in any particular way. It just allows you to throw down four explorations, every turn, with no cost. It breaks one of the central tensions that makes the intriguing, and offers nothing mechanically interesting in return. From my point of view, that’s a design flaw, and I hope that Mike and the rest of the team will work to avoid replicating in future characters

I'm not sure why this post has voting options other than 'Olenjack.'

I think it was Merisiel. There isn't enough Merisiel so she showed up as a Pally.

"If stealing some hat from one of Iomedae's knights qualifies Seelah to a paladin, I should get to be one too!"

I can testify to the effectiveness of philosorapt0r's Imrijka stratagem. He makes her deck sing.

Out of interest, was the actual original Pathfinder AP as punishing as the card version? That would seem... odd for a RPG campaign.

Can we stop conflating the AP with the base set scenarios? 'Wrath' isn't overly difficulty; almost all the complaints are coming, and rightly so, from people playing the 'b' scenarios. Things get much more fun and less crazy, difficult when you get to the actual adventure path.

From what I understand, some of the 'b' scenarios are based off of PFS that are notoriously difficulty.

Little late to this party, but as noted, three is the correct counting.

Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

I can confirm that Shardra's reroll ability absolutely rocks in AP2-3. At least you got that right ;)

I’ll stand up for Shardra. She is a slow starter, but I will talk about how I have managed to get her running successfully.

Card Upgrades: Yes, she is a character who relies on spells for combat and too fuel her best power, and only starts with 5 spell slots. Her first three card feats should go to spells to help mitigate this problem.

Read a book: Get her a Demon Hunter’s Handbook ASAP! Once you do that, go get her another one! I can’t emphasizes enough how important this card is for Shardra. Not only does it boost your combat skill against a wide range of opponents, it also allows you to utilize your best skill, which then works to trigger your scouting power. Using Shardra well requires you to find ways to regularly make knowledge checks, and the Handbook is the best way I have found to do that.

Spell Selection: I started with a sanctuary, a cure, and three attack spells, and by the end of AP2, I have a sanctuary, two cures and five attack spells. In a large group, Shadra shouldn’t be taking buffs, and probably should only take the cure spells that the other divine casters aren’t picking. She needs to be able to win combats, and this is her only way to do it.

Sometimes the only way to win is not to play: They don’t come until AP2, but I love me some Gossamer Shrouds. Shardra will never be your best combatant, and getting evasion out of your armor slot is wonderful.

The cards must flow: Shardra isn’t necessarily a deck cycling machine, and its very easy to end up with all of your spells at the bottom of your deck. Look for ways to keep shuffling your deck to make those spells potential draws.

Embrace your role: The changes above help make shardra competent on her own, but that isn’t her forte. If you want to play shardra well you need to be examining cards (i.e. making knowledge checks) and providing rerolls (or just the confidence of knowing you have rerolls available). Wrath has numerous cards that force the whole team to succeed in order to win. No one helps their team more with those situations than shardra. Knowing you have the reroll available changes everything about how you approach tough challenges, and lets you conserve cards.

Let’s say you face an important roll (a checks to defeat henchman, close location, or beat villain). You have an 80% chance of success, and failing that roll is going to cost you 6 explores. If Shadra isn’t there, I am finding some bonus to throw to help improve my odds; the benefits of success are too high and the cost of failure to severe. If Shadra’s there, and has a spell, I save that card for something else. Having the reroll gives me a 96% chance of success. Keep in mind that 80% of the time, Shardra doesn’t do anything active, she doesn’t need to trigger the power, but her presence saved me a card. These numbers get even more significant when everyone in your party needs to make a check to defeat a bane. The math of beating those banes in a 6 player game is horrific. Shadra completely reverse that.

Pick your Friends: Maximizing Shadra’s powers means keeping your party grouped together. Look to pair her with at least some other characters who benefit having a large stack of players. It takes some time for them to get all of their upgrades, but a core of Shardra, Alain and Enora offers amazing synergy.

Exploration Fallacy: The challenge of a six player game is not generating extra explorations. If every player generates one successful exploration a turn, you have plenty of time. The hurdle is making sure that you win vital checks Shardra excels making those checks

In RotR and S&S, I started with suggested decks. I felt that the added challenge and heightened sense of improvement made the 'B' scenarios more fun. In Wrath, the suggested decks are a death sentence. Don't use them, build your own decks.

isaic16 wrote:

Joshua Birk 898 wrote:

... A ton of allies give you additional benefits on exploration...

Second, especially in large games, you need your blessing to help you make checks. ...

That's the problem, though. Just because you now need the blessings to beat checks, that doesn't change the fact that you still need the blessings to have enough explorations to find and corner the villain in time. So either I have to use a blessing to help another character, and risk the group losing on time because we didn't explore enough, or I save the blessing to explore on my own and risk one of my allies falling behind on explores and we fail on time anyway.

I agree. There is a kind of multiple-pain in large groups :

- You have much less turns to play before the clock is over to start with
- Blessings must be used to avoid barriers that involve everyone or henchmen/closing because you will only get one chance and can't afford to dig down the full location (too many cards on the table vs 30 turns)
- Some characters just don't have many allies in their deck and no way to recharge them
- Losing vs a villain can cost you a lot of turns

I would like one day to have a stat on how many encounters a character does on average depending on the number of characters entering the scenario.

In a 6 player game, you will win the vast majority of games by completing two explorations (your free exploration + 1 additional exploration) per turn. Occasionally you get exceptionally unlucky and need more explorations than that, but the increased number of locations actually actually makes extreme deviation from the median less likely.

In a 6 player game, that means each player needs to spend about five cards generating additional explorations. When I play, the bulk of those come from allies, spells, abilities, and random boons I pick up from the exploring decks. I generally try to avoid using my blessings unless I have too (have a hand that requires me to play card to cycle the deck, have healing available and nothing to use it on, or I need to close a location out quickly because of its powers/board position)

The clock gets in your head, but it's not as pressing as you think. One extra explore a turn; you can do that! The key is making sure that those extra explores banish cards, and seizing the opportunity to kill henchmen, close locations and beat the villain when the come up. Missing those rolls costs you a ton of turns, and that is what puts you up against the clock.

In short, blessings aren't particularly good at generating explorations, especially in Wrath. At best, they give you an additional explore with no benefit, and many of the corrupted blessings actually restrict when you can use them. In contrast, allies are great at generating explorations. You can use them all the time, and many of them give you an added benefit during your exploration.

Obsidian must be having fits with this. More coherent timing rules for when you should play things should be a high priority.

You see, growing up on tabletop games, I remember well that the easiest time for a PC to die was generally in the early levels. This was sort of a given. Everyone just seemed to know it. There certainly was more chance to put up with early on, and just about everything was threatening to your character. In fact, it was a celebration-worthy feat getting through that first bottleneck, indeed.

I get what your saying, but it doesn't apply here. Youa re arguing that the strength of low-level PCs relative to the threats that they face make low-level D&D (just to pick an example) more dangerous than high level D&D.

I'm not arguing the relative power of low level PACG characters, I am talking about absolute difficulty of scenarios. AP1 isn't easier than the base scenarios because your characters have gained more cards and a skill feat or two. AP1 is easier in absolute terms.

To go back to your rpg example, if you had first level characters who were consistently fighting hire level enemies than what those same characters fought at third level, that would probably be bad campaign design (unless your GM had a very deliberate story reason). in 'Wrath' you first five games are against more challenging scenarios, in absolute not relative terms, than your second five scenarios (when you your characters are actually more powerful). That's bad design.

I want to side step the debate about whether wrath is ‘hard’, ‘fun’, or ‘too random’ (though, for what it’s worth I love it and love the increased difficult), and instead focus on the relative balance of the base set scenarios. The base set scenarios are, in my mind, far more challenging than those of AP1. They have a difficulty curve that looks like an EKG chart. Moreover, I think they are poorly designed, because rather than pulling people into the game and gradually introducing them to more difficult scenarios, they front load the most challenging aspects of the game.

This isn’t just an opinion; data supports the idea that base set scenarios are incredibly challenging, as we can see from looking at Boon/Bane ratios, scenario rules, and the banes themselves.

Bane ratios
Here are the ratios of banes for the 10 scenarios in the boxed set, as well as the number of non-henchmen barriers (a number I wanted to include because of the particular challenge posed by cards like Demonic Hoard and Arboreal Blight). This ratio is particularly important, because boons general don’t threaten your hand and consume relativity minor amounts of resources. Banes are what makes the game difficult. I assumed a 5 person party for the purposes of the data set, but the general trends hold true regardless of Party size

B1 17/70 3
B2 36/70 10
B3 32/70 7
B4 25/70 7
B5 41/70 14

AP1-1 26/70 4
AP1-2 31/70 9
AP1-3 24/70 6
AP1-4 23/70 3
AP1-5 28/70 6

First, the basic scenarios have a lot more banes, particularly when you get past the soft ball that is B1. Most of the basic scenarios have more banes than every single scenario in AP1. What’s more, with the exception of AP1-2, barriers make up a smaller percentage of the banes in AP1, and you never get inundated with them like you do in B5, a scenario which all but assures you will have to face the worst of the barriers multiple times.

Banes are rough, and the base scenarios makes you fight many more of them.

Scenario Rules
This problem is compounded by the scenario rules, specifically the scenario rules that effect closing locations and cornering the villain. B2, B4 and B5 all offer additional rules that make it more difficult to win the game. Makes you have to go through the entirety of most location decks to permanently close a location, B4 has a villain which some characters may not be able to defeat who spawns an additional location, and B5 requires you to corner the villain twice and has a villain who can evade.

In contrast, none of the scenarios in AP1 make it harder to close locations. In fact, both AP1 and AP 3 make scenarios easier. AP1 closes location when you encounter henchmen and AP3 adds additional henchmen into locations, making a close more likely.

Bane Quality
This one is more abstract, but the banes in the base set are more dangerous than those in AP1. The two most fearsome barriers in the game thus far both come from the base set. The most challenging monster, the carrion golem, is also from the base set. Most of the monsters that deal automatic damage (Mongrel Wizards, Mongrel Archers, the banes from Demon Rogue whose name I forget, etc), come in the base set. As a result, adding AP1 makes the game easier than just playing the base game. The threat of the worst of the banes becomes diluted, and you encounter the truly hideous cards less often

Net result – Or, ‘Why so many people hate The Elven Entanglement’
Nothing embodies how these factors come together better than B2, the elven entanglement. B2 has more banes in general and more non-henchmen barriers than anything in AP1. Those banes are quite dangerous, and you are very likely to face multiple copies of the hideous barriers. What’s worse is the scenario rules will turn additional boons into banes. And the lack of henchmen that allow you to close locations mean you will have to churn through a ton of extra cards and almost certainly rely heavily on temporary closing to win.

This is one of the most challenging scenarios in the whole of the PACG. IT SHOULD NOT BE THE SECOND ADVENTURE IN THE BASE SET. I love challenge and difficulty, but the game should build to this kind of test, not throw it to you out of the gates. This scenario is hard enough for experienced players, but it will turn novice players off of the game.

In general, the designers have done a wonderful job with PACG, but I think they missed the mark, and missed it badly, with the relatively difficulty of the base scenarios.

For what its worth, I think thank the tangle traps should allow characters to attempt to close locations if defeated. Its the second intro scenario, it shouldn't make permanently closing locations so difficult.

Donhan is an amazing character, his cohort Alain has mediocre powers, but what can you do.

I see a lot of people having trouble with 3/4 party groups. Has anyone played 2 player or 5/6 and noticed similar results with difficulty and such? I ask because I mainly play with just me and the fiance.

The difficulty seems to get much increase much more significantly with larger parties than it did in either S&S or RotR.

The scrying power is fairly terrible, as it moves all the boons out of the way - so if it's good you've lost it, and if it's basic you don't get to banish it, making it less likely that you'll get something good later.

I'm unsure where you get the idea that Seelah makes you lose boons, at least in the latter haalf of the campaign.

By the time you reach AP4, you get the ability to move the boon underneath the top card. In the off chance that the new top card is a villain, you lose access to the boon. In any other circumstances it helps you acquire the boon, since you have gained information on the roll to acquire the boon and cans end the character with the best chance to make the acquisition roll.

Also, if you close a location with a basic boon the boon is still banished, so it doesn't effect the long term prospects in the slightest.

I just wanted to chime in on the weapon front and add to Isaic's point. The weapons in S&S are incredibly powerful because they use smaller dice. PACG rewards reliability, consistently avoiding low rolls leads to better outcomes than occasionally getting high rolls. The math of this game is all about avoiding variances. I can see why the smaller dice would make the weapons "less exciting" for you but I wouldn't confuse that with less powerful.

I would also add the Alahazra synergies nicely with Damiel. Yes, scouting helps everyone, but she help Damiel in particular because she allows him to use Tot flask to get the precise potion he needs before an encounter. She makes cards like Potion of the Ocean, Potion of Fortitude and Potion of Glibness far more powerful.

I like the idea of the magus. here is to hoping we get a stronger version of Saltyiel in WotR

Petition to errata the English language to distinguish between the singular and plural and you.

Edit: I was was wrong, here is the relevant rule

"Traits also determine the type of check; for example, if you’re attempting a combat check and you played a weapon that added the Ranged trait, it counts as a Ranged combat check."

A coupe of things to remember

Arabundi only has 1d8+1 divine, and a maximum of three wisdom upgrades. As a result, even if you max his wisdom, he is only going to successfully recharge a cure about 62% of the time. You need additional cards to boost his recharge ability to make this infinite.

Second, this combination requires two cure spells in hand to work. Arabundi can only get one cure spell in organized play, and even in regular play he only has two to four spell slots in his deck.

So, yes, you can go infinite, but it requires you to focus a large number of upgrades on that task, and a hand with at least four specific cards (or outside help).

edit: Remember that healing isn't your only option for an infinite combo. I think infinite Auguries is more of a problem than infinite healing.

I think this is correct, although I scoff at the "even Jirelle"... I think Jirelle is THE most underrated character in S&S. She can do anything, she may not have that one thing that makes everybody look at her, but she can do everything well.

I second this; Jirelle is a rock star. She gets stuff done. She has become the official captain of one my parties (why she chose Ranzak has her first mate, I may never understand).

Its one of the few cards in the game that can kill you with a single bad roll. Yes, you can usually make it, but if it comes out at the wrong time and you get a bad roll it can single handily kill large hand-size characters. The rewards are great, but the risk should worry you.

The power of the card is that is sticks around for multiple encounters. If you use the extra dice, you a) can't use it on future encounters and b) lose the ability to recharge it. For the vast majority of casters, losing the ability to recharge the spell is a big disadvantage. It's the entire factor that balances this spell against something like scorching ray.

I think the card is quite clear. You only check to banish/recharge it if you do not use the power for the additional d6.

Unless that ship is sinking, then you have to discard all of your rats.

I think several of these conversations ("Are allies good?", "should you use scry/augury?") are obsessing over minutia, and miss the larger issue. Can you get through the location deck without having to discard cards? That's one of the fundamental issues of the game.

How do you solve that problem? Harsk and lini recharge animal allies. Ezren, Seoni and Lem cast haste. Character like Kyra put blessings back on top. Other characters discard cards and then use staff of minor healing/cure/etc. to reshuffle their deck. Various casters use scry/augury to manipulate the decks to avoid banes.

All of these strategies work. Which one is most effective depends on your party size, composition and card distribution, and blanket statements of principle ("allies suck", "augury is a waster card slot", etc.) invariably breakdown in specific circumstances.

Moving forward, it may be more productive for us to stress "this is how I do things, and it works amazingly rather," rather than, "I don't play this way, because it sucks." (note: I am guilt of this as anyone. Looking at you Seltyiel)

I honestly don't know how to have a conversation with an experienced play who doesn't see value in scyring/augury. The ability to scout and sort a location deck is ridiculously valuable in this game. If you can't figure out a way to make these cards work you have an incredibly narrow play-style.

Billing customers for product you don't send them is a completely unacceptable practice. If that is the case I will be cancelling subscriptions with Paizo and filling a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

edit: Also, if Paizo changed the contents of a completed order (one that they have already emailed the customer about) they should be sending out an email the alerts consumers that the contents of their order has changed.

Arbitrary ruling of the day, Jirelle is eligible for Rogue votes. I will remove if the community objects. The vote distribution is incredibly encouraging. Once again, great work by the designers.

Bard: Meliski (5), Lem [CD] (4), Lem [S&S] (2), Siwar (2), Bekah (1)
Cleric: Kyra [CD] (4), Zarlova (4), Heggel (3), Tarlin (2)
Fighter: Flenta (5), Tontelizi (3), Valeros [S&S] (3), Vika (3),
Ranger: Agna (5), Harsk [CD] (5), Arabundi (3), Warthack (2)
Rogue: Merisiel [S&S] (6), Olenjack (4) Wu-Shen (2), Jirelle (1)
Sorcerer: Seoni [CD] (5), Amaryllis (3), Seoni [RotR ] (3), Valendron (2)
Wizard: Radillo (5), Darago (4), Melindra (3). Ezren [CD] (2),

Duncan7291 wrote:

Dont be obtuse. Of course I know Mike doesn't physically ship the products, though it may help their manpower issues if he did. In this context you refers to Paizo. Btw, this doesn't lessen the value of my point. Get your (AKA PAIZO) house in order!

You constant *golf clap*ing and snarky comments are just making things worse. They're shipping as fast as they can, I'm sure they don't want it sitting in a warehouse unable to create revenue from it. Situations sometimes don't work out perfectly, it's how you handle said situation and react to how others handle said situation that projects your maturity.

We all, including myself since I'm soapboxing, sometimes forget to be civil and helpful. In the end this is just a game and there's many more important things going on in the world to be enraged about than this. I'm excited about it as well but lets just keep some perspective.

First of all, Ducan was never uncivil and his comments did nothing to "make things worse."

Second, its precisely the manner in which Paizo has handled a situation that didn't work that has many subscribers irked.

Third, they aren't shipping things as fast as they can, as far as we can see. From the outside, it looks like they made a decision to sell a product a gen con and then delay shipping orders to subscribers hopping they would be restocked in time to fulfill their obligation to subscribers.

Fourth, they don't have product sitting around failing to create revenue. I was billed for my subscription (including the Character Add On deck) over two weeks ago. They have already taken my money. In fact, its the surety that they can get money from subscribers that probably led them to depriortize our shipments in the first place.

Honestly, I am more upset about the deprioritization of subscriber stock, the lack of communication, and the absence of any real apology than the early billing. Though fumbling that financial stuff is unprofessional.

Basic armors will never be crazy-good ;)

I firmly believe we will see Oloch in OP, and that its more a question of when than if (when a paladin get comes out, Oloch may very well be an unlockable reward, much like Jirelle.)

While I don't think either path for Seoni is spectacular, I wanted to stand up for her Celestial Sorcerer power. Being able to succeed on a check where you failed by 1 is really good.

Let's look at some practical examples. Seoni is fighting a which requires a combat check 16 (common number for henchmen in AP 4). Her Arcane is 1d12+6 and she discards a card to add 1d6+3. She will fail this roll roughly 14% of the time. With the ability to add +1, her chance of failure drops roughly 8%. That's a meaningful reduction: her chance of failure dropped by about 40%. And it doesn't just apply to her attack powers, she gets it on ALL of her rolls.

Being able to get a static +1 to all rolls is a great use of a feat. Lini, Seelah and Lem [Virtuoso] can get this, and it is almost always the best use of their feat points. Seoni's power isn't that good, as those other three, mostly because she canonly invest a single point in it. Given the medicore quality of Seoni's feat options at the paragon level, the +1 from Celestial is far and away the best power she gets.