Kiya Toren's page

Restarting the scenario, this time with more examines!

During This Adventure: Treat the adventure deck number as 7.
The scourge die is 1d10.
When you are dealt Acid, Electricity, or Fire damage, if that damage is neither reduced to 0 nor reduced by at least 2, suffer the scourges Curse of Blindness and Curse of the Ravenous.

During This Scenario: When building the location decks, add an additional ally to each, and display a Conflagration henchman next to each. When creating the blessings deck, use only 15 blessings. When you would discard a card from the blessings deck, you may instead bury 2 cards from your hand, deck, and/or discard pile. When you first encounter Ulunat, summon and build the location Eternal Arena (proxy for Festering Ulunat).
If an ally would be banished from your location deck, you may discard the top card of your deck to instead put the ally on top of a location deck. For your Diplomacy check to acquire an ally, you may instead use your Acrobatics or Fortitude skill. When you acquire an ally, you may display it next to the scenario. At the end of your turn, if you did not encounter Ulunat this turn, examine the top 1d4+1 cards of a random open location deck; after you examine a boon, banish it.

Scenario Level (#): 7

Turn: 1, Merisiel/Merisal

Current Hour:

Hourglass

Location #1: Smoking Den
At This Location: At the start of your turn, you may reveal a card that has the Poison trait to examine the top card of your location.
When Closing: Summon and acquire a random ally that lists Diplomacy in its check to acquire.
When Permanently Closed: For the rest of the scenario, a character at any location may bury a card to add 1 die to her check that invokes the Human or Poison trait.
M: 1 Ba: 2 W: 2 Sp: 1 Ar: 0 I: 0 Al: 2 Bl: 1 ?: 1
Located/Displayed Here:

When Closing: You are dealt 1 Poison damage, then succeed at an Intelligence or Perception 6 check.
When Permanently Closed: No effect.
M: 2 Ba: 3 W: 2 Sp: 1 Ar: 0 I: 0 Al: 0 Bl: 1 ?: 1
Located/Displayed Here: Merisiel/Merisal,

You fiddle with the fourth and final kiosk for good measure, expecting you’ve foiled the Aspis and usij plot for good. Until you flip a final switch—and the entire pyramid begins first convulsing violently, then wholly moving skyward. As bits of stone rain on your head, the pit in the room’s center begins to shoot up toward the opened ceiling. In the pandemonium, you see Ridaiya Merai at the helm of a control panel.
Stand fast, Pathfinders!” the spirit of the Spinel Sage commands. “They have launched the sky pyramid, which will strike fear into every Osirian below!”
How could this be? Somehow, impossibly, the sky pyramid is flying! As Merai shoots through the ceiling and out of sight, you can hear her scream just two words.
“Thanks, Pathfinders!”

Reward
Trader: Tef-Naju
For the rest of the Adventure Path, Adventure Card Guild characters who trade 2 or more boons to a trader may ignore the adventure deck number requirement for all but 1 of those cards.
Adventure Reward
Each character gains a skill feat (But really only Merisiel & Uliah get skill feats; Tup gets a hero point that can't be converted to a feat, because he has already earned a bonus skill feat).
Each player unlocks the ability to play Estra (with the loot ally Honaire) from the Mummy’s Mask Base Set using the Oracle Class Deck.

Cards Acquired
Sebti the Crocodile (Ally 1)
Nefti the Bard (Ally B)
Ptemenib (Ally 2)
Skyplate Armor (Armor 5)
Parade Armor (Armor 5)
Blessing of Horus (Blessing B)
Blessing of the Ancients (Blessing B)
Blessing of Isis (Blessing 3)
Bottled Lightning (Item 5)
Embalming Fluid (Item 1)
Icy Prison (Spell 5)
Mistform (Spell 3)
Smite Abomination (Spell 4)
Augury (Spell B)
Striking Wing Scimitar (Weapon 4)

You each gain a hero point for completing the scenario, and Tup may use this hero point as a feat of his choice if he would like. Uliah & Merisiel become tier 6, and Tup has completed 1 scenario at tier 6.

3-5D boon roll: 1d20 ⇒ 13

We actually used a pencil directly on the cards all through RotR (which actually did erase pretty well, considering it had been left marked up for at least a year and a half after we finished the game). Then we realized we could sleeve the cards & use a sharpie, so we do that now. I use the character sheets when choosing my next character, because I can pull them up on my computer or my phone & not have to go find my decks. But I never use them for playing, unless it's one of Cartmanbeck's scenarios with fancy special characters, because that's what he gives me. I play with my hand on the table, so I end up covering the sheet & forgetting half my powers...the sheets use a decent amount of ink, and I can pull a sleeve off a character & put a new one on faster than I can go re-print the paper if I need to dismantle a character for something (just arrange the cards by type so you can see the names, take a photo, & you're good to go).

Try this link instead! (it goes directly to the store page instead of the PACS page, which seems to be having issues right now :)

Personally, I like the art better now that I've seen it on actual cards instead of just the computer screen. I wasn't sure how I felt about having different templates for various types of cards, but it actually looks pretty nice. My biggest complaint is that some of the color choices for the banners across the top are a little too similar, especially in low light (mainly barrier & scourge). But overall the color choices are much better than they used to be. Granted, I'm usually pretty good at distinguishing colors, so maybe I'm not the best judge of that?

I haven't gotten to play yet, but all of Core is sleeved & organized. We left Curse cards in their plastic wrap for now, because we want to play Dragon's Demand before we peek at the Curse cards :)

Also, in case you missed it (because I almost did), the purple card that says "Open Me First" has the Perils Wildcard tracker on the back...my guess is that if you actually open that pack first & follow the quick start guide, it will mention that, but I haven't read the guide yet...

Grazzle will swap for the Sun Falcon Pectoral & Spear of the Watchful Guardian. He will also visit a trader that someone else is interested in, and will grab a Remove Curse from the Sunburst Market.

Grazzle will start at the Towering Obelisk.

Hand: Blessing of the Gods 1, Druid of the Flame, Aqueous Orb, Find Traps, Shield Cloak, Holy Javelin, Restorative Touch

Displayed:
Deck: 11 Discard: 0 Buried: 0
Notes: If anyone wants healing, please let me know.
Sideboard cards:

Jon & I are still up for finishing :)

If I ever play through anything using the Wrath box again, I plan to play one of the Hell's Vengeance characters. They have great synergy with the Corrupted cards already available in the Wrath box, and I feel like they will shine more in that set than in any other set.

Ekkie can be found in the Paizo webstore here.

I lay out my deck cards on a table & take a photo with my phone, then go through my class deck (& ultimate deck if I'm using one) to find any cards I think might be updates for me & take photos of those by type (one photo with all the weapons, one with all the spells, etc.), so it's easy to pick what upgrades are important to me. And then I have a section in a OneNote for PACG, with a page for each of my online characters & I copy-paste the text of the cards I acquire, or cards others acquire that I think might be useful later. I don't clear out those pages, so I've got quite a few card texts in there by now.

Also, I don't think you can have the forum email you when people post on a thread. As far as I can tell, posting in a thread just allows easier access via your profile page (either the Campaigns or Posts tabs). I don't think PMs generate email notifications either. This is at least part of why I think box runners started using other group chats for coordinating & discussion alongside the forum games. It makes it way easier to know when your turn is up if you can get notified when the previous person has posted :P

I'm an avid ACG player who's never played a tabletop RPG, but I also love the story elements. I also picked up the RotR anniversary edition to get a more complete story, and just recently picked up the Pathfinder Legends audio book things. We just finished adventure 2 of RotR in Pathfinder Legends, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm not an audiobook person, so I was a little hesitant, especially because the sample they have for RotR combines bits from various story parts, so it doesn't make a lot of sense on its own (the sample for MM is better), but they're fabulous. They're telling the story of Ezren, Meresiel, Valeros, & Harsk as they adventure through the RotR story.

That said, one of the things I love about PACG is that the story isn't required. I love the story, but if I'm playing with people who don't care, the game is still fun.

From what I saw at PaizoCon, the playtest doesn't change the feeling of PACG. It encourages you to group up (more characters & cards can add bonuses to local checks), but doesn't really penalize you for not doing so. If anything it gives you more options for other people's turns, without really taking anything away from what you can do on your own turn.

I'd suggest using the description in the dice tag a little differently. Let's say I'm CD Lem, and it's my turn:
---------
Lem heads to the Farmhouse & explores. He finds a Tome of Knowledge. Hey Radovan, can Lem have that Blessing of the Elements in your hand?
Knowlege 5: 1d6 + 2 + 1d6 ⇒ (6) + 2 + (4) = 12
Lem picks up the tome & thanks Radovan for his help. Since he doesn't want to bury an ally, he decides to take a break.

---------
Some games do more character role playing than others, depending on the preference of the players. The important thing is to make sure people know what location you're at, what card you're encountering, what cards/powers you're using, what help you're asking for (if any), and what the outcome of the roll is.
Another good tag to know is {ooc} (out of character).
{ooc}It's especially useful for games where people are doing more role playing, because it can sometimes be tricky to know what cards you encountered & what cards/powers you used if you're trying to tell a story, so you can use this tag to explain what you're doing in more literal game terms.{/ooc}

Kiya Toren wrote:

If you're looking for an Excel version, send me a PM with your email address & I can send you a copy. I've made formula adjustments to make it work because I prefer using Excel. Plus I was planning to make a bunch of other modifications to the sheets & wanted my own version for that purpose, but I haven't had time to do much besides update the formulas to work in Excel.

Kiya, once you're comfortable with the changes you've made, if you would be willing to share your offline version for people, I think it would be very helpful to offer both. This will all be moot when we get the character part of the new database all up and runnning, but for this upcoming event at least, it could be very useful. :)

Sure! I'll send you a copy this afternoon. My husband & I have been using it for a while, so it's definitely working. There's a few things I was thinking might be nice to add, but nothing necessary. If I ever get around to updating it, I can always send you a new copy. :)

If you're looking for an Excel version, send me a PM with your email address & I can send you a copy. I've made formula adjustments to make it work because I prefer using Excel. Plus I was planning to make a bunch of other modifications to the sheets & wanted my own version for that purpose, but I haven't had time to do much besides update the formulas to work in Excel.

That does seem to have fixed it. I don't think I've ever actually scrolled through the long list of forums on the main messageboard page; I generally just click "Customer Service" or "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game" from the subforum links before the loading spinner goes away, so I'm not sure how they got minimized, but it's good to know I can fix it if it happens again!! Thanks! :D

:( I just tried it in Edge again, but this time I actually logged in, and I don't see posts again. *sigh* I guess it's me, not Chrome.

o.0 you see posts on the main forum page?? :( I haven't seen those for ages...I just have the 4 links to the subforums & a blank rectangle about as tall as a single line of text. I saw that someone had posted about it in the website feedback forum back when it first happened, but I just figured it was still broken for everyone...

edit: I decided to check the page in Edge on whim, and I see posts!! So I guess it's Chrome that's still messed up, not just me :)

I think that will depend a lot on how you decide to play Lini & what role you take. You could stick to support spells & pick up weapons proficiency & a weapon card feat. Or upgrade your attack spells & take the role that lets you add +4 to your recharge checks. I think the only "sure thing" that RotR Lini wants in her deck are Animal allies, because of her first 2 powers.

Honestly, I'd suggest you resist the urge to plan out what you want too early. It's good to know what things you want in your current tier, so you & your party know what to spend resources to acquire. It sounds like you really like the cooperative aspect of the game, and as you play, you'll get a better idea of what gaps the party has & how you can grow Lini to be the most useful to your party.

Ultimate Wilderness comes out in July, and that's sure to have a bunch of Animal boons that Lini will want. I'd highly suggest picking it up, since you can add 1 Ultimate deck to your character at any time. Unfortunately, you don't get to rebuild your deck when you add the Ultimate deck, but I've noticed that I'm excited even for a B upgrade when I've just added an Ultimate deck to a character, which is great for mid-tier characters, because eventually it does become harder to get the precise upgrade you want, and it's fun to get to take an upgrade every game again :)

I'd like the Spell 1, if possible. And I'm taking a Charisma feat.

And I know Jon posted in the chat, but I figure it doesn't hurt to repeat it here just in case it gets missed there: Seltyiel would like a Weapon 2 or Item 2.

Thank you for all the articles Shannon! I don't really think about the strategy while I'm playing, so I've really enjoyed how your articles made me take a step back & actually think about *why* I make the choices I make in game. I'd love to see what you have to say about specific characters, so I hope you do get around to writing about them someday! :)

I was going to say that I'm not interested in any upgrades, and then I remembered my Ultimate Magic deck arrived yesterday :) I'd like either a Spell B/C or Blessing B. I'm still debating which one, but leaning towards the spell.

Here's Grazzle's number: 217107-1008

1d20 ⇒ 1
1d20 ⇒ 13

Oh, fancy that, I got one! I don't play the RPG either, so I'll donate my boon to someone in our game who does & let them pick Pathfinder or Starfinder.

9 times out of 10, I use it for Remove Curse, because there are very few class decks with curse removal options & the curses can really pile up if you're not careful, especially in the second half of the AP. Of the ones we're playing with, I know Witch has the Staff of Curses, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head. There are quite a few other good options in the MM basics though.

I think I’d like a Spell C to pick up Holy Light. And I’m pretty sure I’ll take the power feat that adds 2 to my check that invokes the Attack trait, but that does make it more likely that I’ll overkill & run into the adventure text, so I may take the ability to shuffle my spells into my deck instead & then take the attack one next tier.... I’ll clarify that when we do traders (aka when I’m more awake)

Grazzle moves to the Glass Pavillion. And sits there, waiting to close it.

Hand: Fireblade, Blessing of the Gods 4, Amulet of Life, Remove Curse, Frigid Blast, Blessing of the Gods 3,

Displayed:
Deck: 3 Discard: 5 Buried: 1
Notes: If anyone wants healing, please let me know.
Sideboard cards:

Temp close: the gods bless Grazzle in his attempt.

Grazzle will also offer a blessing from the gods for the boss fight.

You're right that Raheli can't use a Blessing of Horus to move you. But I'm not sure Raheli (or anyone) can use a Blessing of Horus to move on someone else's turn either, because the power continues with an explore. That said, the power does say "...then you *may* explore" & specifies that it can't be played during an encounter, so maybe you can play it to move on someone else's turn, and just not do the explore (because you can't explore on someone else's turn)?

But if you can do that, then can you use a Blessing of the Ancients to examine on someone else's turn? I guess I never really thought about it, because I feel like discarding a blessing to examine knowing I wouldn't get anything else from it seems like a waste. And I tend to forget that BotG can copy more than just the 2 dice power, so I never thought about copying BoHorus's move & explore at all.

Grazzle caught a glimpse of dessert down the hallway at the Precinct of Left Eyes, so he rushed towards it. Unfortunately, that yummy lemon gelatin turned out to be a Yellow Jelly monster...in his rage, Grazzle casts Fireblade.
Combat 8: 1d8 + 3 + 2d4 ⇒ (7) + 3 + (4, 4) = 18
Fireblade is auto-recharged
The Yellow Jelly is now a burned mess on the floor, which makes Grazzle very sad. He decides to stop here & see if he can salvage any dessert...

Unfortunately, his massive blade of fire attracted some attention, plus it turns out that when you mix a Yellow Jelly with a whole lot of fire, you get acid...
Shuffle the random monster Shock Elemental into the Precinct.
Acid damage: 1d4 ⇒ 3
Luckily, Grazzle was wearing his Crocodile Skin Armor today, so that's getting buried.

Curse of Poisoning: 1d6 ⇒ 6 That'll be a BotG

Hand: Hide Armor, Blessing of the Gods 2, Inflict, Heavy Pick, Amulet of Life

Displayed: Curse of Poisoning,
Deck: 9 Discard: 1 Buried: 1
Notes: If anyone wants healing, please let me know.
Sideboard cards:

I will also post my hand & location tonight. And I'll try to remember to send my 3-P chronicle sheet tonight as well.

I'm good with the turn order as well.

Cool. I'll try to find those & send you that photo tonight.

With that in mind, I do have all of the Iconic Heroes promos, so if y'all are interested in "borrowing" the one for your class deck, let me know & I can send you a photo of the card text.

I just resent the photo for Myr & me.

Out of curiosity, if we want to include the promo cards for our class deck, do you need a photo of those? And are we allowed to "lend" them to the other players in our group (i.e. can Redgar "borrow" my copy of Silver Flute for his Lem)?

How do we link ourselves to the Player/Character tabs?

I'm going to play Grazzle...I've had a to-do item on my list for 2 weeks to go update the spreadsheet, but I haven't gotten around to it yet...

And I know Myr was thinking about Seltiyel, but I don't remember if he decided for sure or not...

Zeroth is right; Wikwocket is in CST.

I'm not too picky about turn order, since I can usually find time during the work day to log in for a bit.

One thing that a few of us have talked about in other conversations is the possibility of treating promo cards as the current adventure deck number SOLELY for the sake of deck upgrades at the end. In other words, if you've added the Mummy's Mask promo cards to your box when playing Season of Plundered Tombs, for example, and you're playing Adventure 3, acquiring one of those cards would give the option for a 3 upgrade at the end instead of a B. Having promos count as B is actually a disincentive to adding them to the box in organized play.

I would love to see this happen. I'm always conflicted about adding them to the box for organized play, and I hate that. Promos should be exciting to find, instead of feeling like they're cheating you of a potential upgrade.

I think skizzerz was looking for this thread (in the Homebrew forum). You may want to take a look through the Homebrew forum in general, as there's a ton of great ideas in there. And if you do end up creating your own character, that forum is a great place to get feedback on it!

That said, even if you aren't interested in purchasing the Gunslinger class deck (but you totally should if you want more awesome booty for your pirate), you can take a look at the character cards that are included in the deck by downloading the Class Deck Character Sheets. That download also contains deck lists for each class deck, so you can see the boons that come with each one.

We use card binders for ours, and keep the binders on a bookshelf. We have a few of these and these (which are thinner than the Ultra-Pro ones), and we use one for each deck. We generally only sleeve the cards that are currently in a character's deck, but I have stored a sleeved character's deck in the extra pages at the back of the book for more compact transport. The books also make looking for upgrades really easy, because I keep the cards grouped by type, sorted by AD# (each character gets a set of 4 pockets at the front of the book, and any promos for that deck go in the very back of the book). And since I write the deck name on the spine, it's easy to grab exactly the decks I want to bring with me.

You could also buy a bunch of 9 pocket pages that can be put in a 3-ring binder, so you could store several decks in one big binder. I'm not sure how many binders you'd need to store all of the decks, but that method would be fairly easy to expand as new decks come out, and in retrospect it's probably way more economical than getting a book for every deck...

The first full PACG adventure path I played was with Vika, Lem, Ezren, & Kyra through Rise of the Runelords. We added their corresponding class decks + the sorcerer deck (our wizard decided there weren't enough spells in the wizard deck alone, or something like that). We never really had a problem with finding cards we wanted in locations, but when I pulled the CD cards out of the box after we finished the AP, I realized that there were tons of boons we'd never even seen throughout the entire AP, several of which I know would have been better than some of the stuff we finished the AP with in our decks.

Also, the box insert that comes with the base set will not hold the full AP + 6 class decks. We ended up buying the Broken Token insert not because we didn't want to use the box insert, but because it was pretty clear we needed more space than it would give us. By the time we finished the AP, there were multiple boon types that had so many cards I couldn't hold all of them comfortably, let alone attempt to shuffle them without dropping them all over the table.

With that in mind, if you want to add cards from the class decks to the game box, I'd recommend you add them in a "smart" way. Do you need to add 15ish more copies of Blessing of the Gods to RotR? Probably not, but if you're in MM, maybe you'd like to add a few, but take some of the other Basic blessings out to keep it balanced (Blessing of the Ancients gets more powerful the more Basic blessings there are in the blessings deck, but the value of BotG goes down). Remember that the more varied types of blessings in the box, the harder it is to match them for recharges. I'd suggest not adding cards from a class deck that are already in the game box, because you will be sick enough of seeing that *insert non-basic non-elite B boon here* by AD6 that you do not need to add another one (I'm looking at you, Token of Remembrance...). Keep in mind that even if you only add the "good stuff" from your class deck, you still may never see it in the game.

I second Eliandra on liking to play characters with Divine, but I think my husband would correct me & say I like characters who can heal. My first non-Divine character was CD Damiel, and he was a blast (pun intended). But he also packed 2 Cures because he auto-recharged them when he banished them... My Feiya carried Cure/Major Cure though all of PluTo, passing it off to someone with Divine in exchange for a heal. I played 1 scenario with Chuffy, who is incapable of healing, and I didn't really enjoy the experience. Other than that, I think every character I've played has had Divine...

If I had to pick a favorite, it would either be CD Damiel or CD Kyra. Damiel was great on his own, but he also had a bunch of potions & Cures to help his fellow adventurers, but didn't always do so well with Demons (he liked poison & electricity...). Kyra kept the party alive & sliced through monsters with her swords like they were butter, but she struggled with a lot of the barriers in RotR.

Story-wise, I am ridiculously excited to play Radovan, because I love his books. He's not exactly my typical character, so we'll see how that goes, but I'm looking forward to it.

I'd love to see a Major Cure & Remove Curse in at least a couple of the decks, not just in Ultimate Magic, because there are plenty of hybrid casters who will want those cards, but might prefer to run with a different Ultimate box. I think a lot of the older arcane casters would love to have access to Elemental Bombardment.

As for new cards, I'd love to see a multi-character heal spell. Maybe something like 1d4 for each character at your location? Or a static 1-2 for all characters (regardless of location)? I'm sure they'd need to be AD 5 or 6 cards, but they'd definitely be something I'd want to carry with pretty much any divine character.

I'd also love to see a card that lets you un-bury cards. I know the digital version has the Shovel card (banish to recharge 1 of your buried cards). Maybe something in a higher AD# that banishes to recharge 2 buried cards? It's something that most characters won't take as a regular thing, but I could definitely see some of the Barbarians or Summoners wanting something like that. It could be useful to grab if you know you're heading into a scenario where you'll be burying a bunch of armor or the henchmen have a ridiculous BYA check to avoid burying cards...

There are several banes that have you roll 1d4 to change the powers on the card, and it would be really cool to see something like that on a boon. Maybe a "wild magic" combat spell that will 1) add a die to your combat check, 2) add an elemental type &/or ignore immunities, 3) recharge the spell automatically, or 4) recharge X cards from your discard pile. (or you could add a risk to it, and have one of the options increase the difficulty of the check or cause you to take a damage after you act or something). Or an item that will 1) recharge cards from your discard pile, 2) let you search your deck for a card of your favored type, 3) recharge X cards from your hand & draw the same number, or 4) explore your location. Even if they have completely different options, I just think it would be cool to see a few more boons with a bit of chance to them.

And I agree with Robb the Pathfinder above about seeing more owner cards with extra bonuses if you're the owner, but I'd also love to see more cards that have extra bonuses for specific classes. I'm not sure that the Ultimate decks are necessarily the place to put them (since that would mostly force certain classes into using certain decks, which may not be want you want), but I figured I'd mention it.

This deck is amazing! I had the opportunity to play Radovan as part of the Open at GenCon and have been anxiously awaiting my deck's arrival since. I can't decide if I'm going to play Radovan or Celeste first... My husband preemptively laid claim to any future incarnations of Varian after reading Prince of Wolves a year ago...

And the allies in this deck are amazing. I absolutely love the Pathfinder Tales books, and getting to see so many familiar characters (& a few I haven't had time to meet yet) as part of the deck is really neat. I especially enjoy the way the allies interact with each other, and how many of them have exploration powers that are more than just "discard this card to explore your location."

I actually didn't mind the photocopied locations. Sure, they were a little hard to read across the table, but I loved that they used S&S locations instead of making up something new. Obviously, having the actual location cards would have been nice, but I don't think it would be worth it for them to pull them out of however many S&S boxes for the night & have to get them put back into those boxes for people to play Season of the Shackles the next day, especially since I'm pretty sure they didn't bring as many of those as would have been needed for the special.

For the proxied henchmen/villains, the volunteer in charge of our table ended up ripping the "cards" out of the sheet so that once we encountered one we could pass the "card" around the table, which was extremely helpful, because there was enough going on that there was no way we were going to remember what the henchman we'd just seen in location X was when we found one in location Y. It actually would have been nice to have something on the table to see what the active bonuses were (from factions or story goals or whatever), along with the scenario text for reference, since we didn't have access to the overall adventure paperwork.

Technically, I think you can bring a character who has completed a season to the Special. A tier 6 character only needs to complete tier 6 after 6 scenarios, right? So if you've completed AD 6 of a season with fewer than 6 unique scenarios in AD 6, you could take your character to the Special. They'd become ineligible for tier advancement after a scenario or 2, but I think the guide says they can finish an adventure if they become ineligible in the middle of it, and the special is an adventure. It's worth noting that under the current guide, if your character completes all scenarios at the Special, you need to pay close attention to when your character moves from tier to tier or they may complete tier 6 prior to actually starting AD 6 of whatever season you're running them with...

Thanks Keith for helping put all this together. The story for the special (& the mechanics in general), were fantastic! We had a lot of fun, and I hope that all of our suggestions are taken in that context.

I definitely agree that having one volunteer per table for the special would be ideal. I also strongly encourage pre-building all location decks. I do understand that the boxes used for the special are also used for regular games throughout the day, but I'm sure the players at each table wouldn't mind shuffling boons & setting up a ton of location decks when they first sit down, so the volunteer can just add henchmen/villains as needed, which still leaves the players with the element of surprise. I know that it isn't always feasible to have so many volunteers, but I'm pretty sure that some of the tables with more experienced players would be willing to read & set up their own scenarios, allowing the volunteers to be more focused on tables with less experienced players.

Eliandra's suggestion of selling tier-based tickets is excellent. At the very least, I would sort the muster area into 3 groups: tier 1-3, tier 4-6, and "I'll go where you need me", to make table grouping faster. I do realize that getting the ACG side seated more quickly is unlikely to have an impact on start time, considering that there are ~8x more RPG tables to seat, but it does increase the likelihood of each ACG table being ready to flip the top card of the blessings deck as soon as the event starts, which will help a little.

And as Wikwocket mentioned, the inability to remove curses was frustrating. I had less of an issue with it during the open (in part because I expected that to be harder, but also because I could justify it within the story of the open), but when you end up with a curse that essentially cuts your hand size down to 2 or 3 for the rest of the scenario, it turns what should be a fun game into an exercise in frustration. I'm pretty sure our Alain got at least one curse every scenario within her first 2 turns (except the last scenario, but she also didn't get to finish her first turn on that one). I love the curse mechanic in general, but it didn't make a lot of sense within the story that there was no way to get rid of them. Maybe that would have been a good thing to have on the reinforcements?

I loved the idea of flipping back & forth between the first 2 scenarios to get different rewards each time. My table didn't have enough time to finish our second scenario, so we didn't actually experience that mechanic, but I think it's an excellent way to keep people who get super lucky & close locations on the first few turns busy without making them feel like they're doing busy work (yes, I'm thinking of last year's never-ending collapsing bridges...). I loved the reinforcements idea, I just wish they'd been a little more interactive. I think the timing issues meant that they all moved at once, instead of shifting randomly throughout the game period. Having them move more frequently than just at a scenario's end would have been fun.

The open was spectacular, aside from the ticket system suggesting 6 players & showing up to find it's only 4. I think that & the 8 am post-special thing that Wikwocket mentioned are my only complaints. Without a doubt, the open was the highlight of my GenCon.

Curse of the Crimson Throne is also one of the APs that has a Pathfinder Legends audio book thing, so there's a tie in with that too. I'm definitely planning to listen to that as we progress through the scenarios, but I love the idea of getting a book with the scenarios & story for more detail.

Is there a post of Vic's in this thread that keeps disappearing and reappearing?

I think so...I just refreshed the page & his post vanished & yours appeared...I believe his post said something about them not having the artwork they would have needed for these cards, & selling the cards on DriveThru wouldn't have recouped the cost of commissioning said art. Which is extremely disappointing, but understandable. Some part of me really wants the cards even if they have no art at all, but I also understand how that's extremely unlikely because it doesn't gel with the rest of the product & sets a bad example, etc.

...Maybe one day we'll get a mini-pack of Owner cards for a ton of characters at once...maybe even some non-iconics just to beef up the number?

Kiya Toren wrote:

I love the idea of modularizing the game! The idea of having a base set that contains the generic cards found in any AP is really intriguing to me, because it allows people to make 1 big purchase that they know can be expanded though smaller add-on deck purchases for years to come.

Multiple people have been talking about a generic base set, I'm trying to figure out what that would look like, which characters it would have and how the final product would look different from Rise of the Runelords?

When I used the term "base set" there, I didn't really mean it in the same way that RotR has a "base set". Maybe a better term would be "foundation box" (or hopefully someone else will have a better term, 'cause that's a mouthful). So the "foundation box" could contain every generic card from RotR AD B-6 (or maybe just B-3, or whatever, but more than just B/1), plus maybe a few other generic cards. Enough that you could play an adventure or two, but maybe without as much of the story aspect that you could get with a full AP, and probably without using all of the cards. You could continue to create homebrew scenarios with just that box, but again, everything's generic, so you have Bandits & Goblin Raiders for henchmen, but no Koruvus or Tsuto Kaijitsu.

Then RotR (or any other AP) would consist of things like the existing AD boxes, containing the remaining henchmen, villains, named allies, loot, and anything else that might be specific to that AP. I haven't actually read a full AP from the RPG, so I don't have any examples, but since all the generic Cures & Heavy Crossbows are in the "foundation box", there's more "freedom" to create niche cards for an AP. And maybe I'm wrong & there's nothing you'd want to put in there besides henchmen, villains, & loot, but I think that's tangential to the idea of modular sets. Anyways, playing the new AP wouldn't need you to play any of the scenarios in the "foundation box", so you're getting new content immediately when you start the new AP, the same way you do today when you buy a new base set, but at a lower cost.

As for characters, maybe the "foundation boxes" contain iconics or maybe beloved NPCs from the region that's represented by the "foundation box", while characters specific to each AP can be added to a Character Add-On Deck for that AP? The only AP I've read is the PDF for the first adventure of MM, but that one has at least 2 or 3 options for NPCs who could be playable characters.

I will add that I really, really like the Hawkmoon's idea of reusable regional base sets. I also think it could be interesting if for an AP that takes place in multiple regions to suggest that you use the Varisia box for AD B-1 and the Dragon Empires box for AD 2-5. They probably don't want to require someone to own multiple "foundation boxes" ("region boxes"??) to play a single AP, but maybe they could offer options for using either box? Or maybe those are rare enough that they don't mind making it a requirement?

I love the idea of modularizing the game! The idea of having a base set that contains the generic cards found in any AP is really intriguing to me, because it allows people to make 1 big purchase that they know can be expanded though smaller add-on deck purchases for years to come. As a kid, I loved games & toys like that, because I could get the big base toy for my birthday, and then the smaller add-ons as rewards for things like getting A's. Plus the add-ons were inexpensive enough that it was feasible to save up my allowance for them. I realize that there are probably way more adults than kids playing this game, but the idea of buying a small thing to add more entertainment to a game I already own is still appealing. It feels like I'm being thrifty, even though I'll probably still spend $180+ a year on expansions...

As far as making sure that the base set is still a game that doesn't require anything else to be played, I think it could be really interesting to make an "Introduction to Golarion" mini-adventure to include with it. I would guess that most AD 4-6 cards are less generic & more tuned to the specific flavor of the AP, so the Base Set (Golarion Adventure Box?) could contain generic cards for AD B-3 (Cure, Blessing of __, Prison, etc.), along with a handful of cards that may never be used again (villains & henchmen, though I could totally see a Bandit or something popping up in multiple APs). So this set would be a complete game, albeit a shorter one, but still more gameplay than just a B adventure. I also just think the idea of having one Golarion box serving as the base of your adventures is kind of poetic...

Then you can have add-on boxes for APs, whether that's 1 box or several per AP. This would also give you more flexibility in terms of the size of each individual AP. And while the first deck of an AP might be a bit bigger than the subsequent decks due to new mechanics (S&S's ships, MM's scourges, etc.), they don't need to be near as big as a current base set, because all of the cures & daggers & whatnot are already in the generic box. Each B add-on deck for an AP can also specify that certain cards from the generic base set should be removed for that AP (Blessing of the Gods for MM, for example). It also lends itself to having other types of add-on decks, like class decks or bane decks or even a mini-pack of new allies or something. Maintaining the Afghanistan principle gets a bit harder, but instead of breaking it or printing potential duplicate cards, maybe you could bend it a bit, so you can assume the generic base set + the add-on B adventure pack for a given AP? Also, I absolutely love the idea of "regional" decks, and I think it would be really awesome to incorporate that too...I know adding extra locations isn't feasible without an adventure to go with them, but maybe they could be their own "Welcome to Varisia" B adventure or something.

Also I was typing this, I realized that while I love this idea, 3 of my 4 base sets are currently mid-game, which is something that I couldn't do if I had only 1 generic base set, so I can understand why full modularity isn't exactly ideal for everyone. That said, since I know my playstyle, I'm probably likely to purchase a couple of those generic base sets...

What about needing to "summon and acquire an ally" to close, but the ally you draw requires you to bury/banish/etc an item when you don't have one in hand?

I honestly don't know how I feel about the impossible to defeat barrier situation when it comes to closing things, but I figure if y'all are discussing reactions to corner cases, I'd toss this one out there since it's a similar case, but it doesn't have quite as easy a way to "fix" it that undefeatable barriers do.

Huh? How do we get a free extra explore out of banishing a boon that we don't want?

Fiery Glare can be used to banish a boon (weapon, armor, or item, I think) that you're encountering, then immediately explore again. So you get to banish a piece of junk no one wants & explore again.

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

Longshot11 wrote:

Kiya Toren wrote:

The Blast Stone has that specification, but the Tome of Knowledge doesn't

Just in case this may confuse you as a new player - the Tome of Knowledge is one of those items you CAN'T use on other people's checks.

Actually, if I remember correctly, the "add to a Knowledge check" power on that does help anyone.

I'm looking at my records, not a card, but I've got:

Tome of Knowledge wrote:

Reveal this card to add 1d6 to your Knowledge check.

Recharge this card to succeed at your Knowledge check.

I don't have my cards with me either, but I used the Obsidian app to find an item that a) allowed you to use it on another character's checks, b) didn't specify you had to be at another character's location, and c) was included on the RotR base set deck list. It's entirely possible that the RotR Tome of Knowledge differs from the PA version, but the PA version says

Reveal this card to add 1d6 to any Knowledge check.

Recharge this card to succeed at your Knowledge check

Does player 2 have to be at the same location to use items? If using blessings?

If a card (item, blessing, or otherwise) intends you to use it only on a character at your location, it will say so. The Blast Stone has that specification, but the Tome of Knowledge doesn't, even though they're both Items. There's not really a blanket rule that says cards of type X can only be played on characters at the same location or can't be used to help other players. You just have to read each card & remember that cards don't do what they don't say. Unless they've been errata'd, in which case they'll be listed in the FAQ for the Adventure you're playing, as Longshot mentioned.