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One thing I would suggest is perhaps considering just having three scenarios in the B adventure. I thought this worked well for RotRL. They gave you enough experience to get used to the game, were challenging (as you only had B loot available) and very thematic. But they also didn’t outstay their welcome.

I can only talk for S&S at this point (as haven’t played WotR yet) but having 5 B scenarios actually felt a bit much for me. Because of the weaker boons, after three scenarios I found myself quite keen to get stuck into the AP1 scenarios so that I could shuffle in some new cards. Also felt that the B scenarios became a little samey after a while in S&S. If someone asked me to describe one, I would probably struggle - but I can remember each and every one of the RotR B scenarios (who could ever forget the dastardly Jubrayl Vhiski, the poison pills and the mighty Fang!)

Just a thought anyway – as focusing down on maybe just three might be better, providing the introduction new players need, offering a some characterful backstory, but getting veteran players into the meat of the adventure path a little quicker.

so maybe it's better to help people skip over the "intro", but maybe it's better to get people to complete the on-ramp instead.

I'd definitely suggest making the B scenarios as compelling to play as possible, which would mean keeping the nice card feat reward at the end. Otherwise, people skipping straight to the 1 scenarios would mean that they are essentially missing 50% of the 'content' of their base set (if there were 5 B scenarios).

You could even offer a special loot item for one of the scenarios. Something a bit more of a boost in power than your usual B items. That way new players feel like they have acquired something cool - and veteran players can't necessarily keep farming, as the loot item is a one off. If that makes sense.

then you have campaign games (real full ones I mean, that's why Zombicide belongs to the other group), where you really are into your character and the fun is more into the RPG than into the strategy puzzle or the " too bad you rolled 1 before getting the Holy Avenger so your are dead ".

Never a truer word spoken. And I think that is what the developers have missed as they have transitioned from RotRL to other sets. This is not Zombicide where we might expect to wipe/lose a scenario. This is essentially a RPG adventure. You hope and pray that it allows you to build and develop your characters, from novices to "mythic heroes".

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

So you rather have an easy game where everybody can take a Melee Swordsman and have a go at every monster and feel like they're a God

Well I think you need to consider a few things:

1. I imagine most players of PACG are not ‘hardcore’ gamers. Therefore they will come to the game with a certain set of expectations – that they will enjoy the game and have fun, and get chance to learn the game mechanics while they get to grips with the system. Not all will be veterans who have played through ROTRL or S&S. Some may be picking up this game as their introduction to PACG and perhaps the theme appealed to them.

2.It stands to reason that the ‘base’ level missions of ‘any’ game should facilitate a learning curve, so people can get to grips with the new character they have chosen, get used to the game mechanics, and understand how to work together to overcome goals. Whether “thematic” or not, having card wipes and even party wipes in the first few scenarios is not conducive to helping people to get ‘into’ the game. In many ways, it presents the entirely opposite situation of making people wanting to give up. You can make things challenging without making them feel 'impossible'. That's called balance.

3. Most gaming groups do not necessarily have the time to replay every scenario multiple times. If the difficulty is too hard – and from what people are saying – based more on luck than any type of skill, then groups will want to spend their time playing something else.

4. Not everyone reads forums. They might play the base adventure path (as one would always do) and think ‘oh hell, if this is just the start…’. They won’t naturally assume that AD1 is easier.

5. It is stated in the blog post that any character can play any scenario. Swapping and changing is all part of the system. From what I have read repeatedly on these forums, people are finding that party composition is vital to even surviving in WoTR. People have already stated that they’ve often had to drop a favourite character to choose one that better helps the party. Spellcasters are having a particularly rough time – with Adowyn suggested multiple times as a ‘must have’. Whether such things are true or not, again it puts a barrier up between casuals and new players, and getting into the game.

6.People need incentive to buy the further adventure packs. Paizo relies on players getting invested in the game to buy those future packs. If you are losing a lot of players just on the core set, then that is not a great business model.

The ‘hardcore’ brigade might turn on ROTR and its low difficulty threshold, but that game was hugely successful. It was accessible to everyone and fun. If that had been released with this type of difficulty setting, I wonder if we would even have future adventures.

When your characters were Demigods in RotR destroying everything in their path without a concern and we were finishing scenarios with almost half the blessings deck left (in a 5 player group no less) that's extremely boring.

Yeah, I'll agree, by the end of RotR heroes did get very OP but that was fun and rewarding in itself, feeling like you had built these characters up over time and felt attached to them.

I always sort of saw PACG as a 'role-playing' adventure with the cards becoming the GM. So in that context RotR was perfect because you always felt matched and able to take on the challenges ahead. But there was always the time factor and bad card draws which could still catch you out if you weren't planning ahead. Even with OP heroes, games still felt tense and exciting - and the search for new loot felt like much more of the focus. To that end, it was the perfect 'role-playing' adventure.

S&S felt like I was playing against a bad GM who was sniggering behind his game screen, with the sole motivation not to provide a great gaming experience for the group, but to frustrate and kill them off as soon as possible. If that was a real role-playing group, then imagine how long that campaign would last...

I dunno. Maybe I'll go back to S&S one of these days. I felt it had bigger issues than just the annoying barrier checks and difficulty - the ship mechanics were cumbersome and annoying. Just didn't float my boat. (Excuse the pun.) But I understand that people who prefer a harder challenge and don't mind replaying scenarios would probably love it more than I did.

I'm by no means a casual gamer (so don't put me in that category). I just feel the PACG started out being fun - but somewhere along the line, for me anyway, it just became frustrating instead.

I was a huge fan of ROTR and I did buy S&S and the first few scenario decks, but sadly S&S really didn’t do anything for me. I don’t think the shift in design and mechanics ended up working for me. I enjoyed ROTR because it felt like a good old-fashioned dungeon bash. There was great synergy between the different characters and I liked the setting and theme.

I thought the same would be true of S&S but I found its increased difficulty (with the emphasis on overcoming tasks rather than opponents, so characters lost their 'identities' by having to spread their upgrades thinly to cope with the breadth of checks) coupled with rather faffy mechanics (don’t really like how the ships were done – and all the other extra game elements (swashbuckling trait, umpteen million allies…) and characters that didn’t feel like they had any synergy at all) meant that I sadly stopped purchasing the scenario decks.

I think, in truth, my experience was somewhat marred by the delays and problems at release, not having the character add on deck when I started play, class decks coming late – and so on. That really put a dampener on the experience for me.

I’m not sure about WOTR. Part of me wonders if it will be more of a return to the good old ROTR gameplay that I enjoyed, but I suspect – in an effort to make every AP unique – lots of ‘new stuff’ will be added to it (the mythic thing for one) which will probably dilute the experience for me. I’ll keep checking the boards for updates for certain.

Just wanted to say that my Rise of the Runelords Anniversary hardback arrived today – a compilation of all the RPG modules. It really is a beautiful book and I highly recommend it to die-hard fans of the card game. I don’t play the RPG but through playing the card game I have become increasingly intrigued and fascinated by its cast of characters, mysterious locales and devious plotlines. The card game doesn’t do the best of jobs at filling in the backstory or making it clear exactly who all these odd npcs are and how they fit in with the story. That’s no bad thing, the card game lets you make your own stories and connections, but as a bit of an obsessive geek I wanted to go one step further and really immerse myself in this fascinating world.

The book, as I have mentioned, is beautiful – packed with great artwork (the maps and locations are particularly fascinating – now you can actually ‘see’ what locations like the Glassworks and the Catacombs of Wrath look like!) – and of course, loads of backstory and information on the denizens of Sandpoint and its environs. At last I know exactly who the Shopkeep’s daughter is (other than being, well, the shopkeep’s daughter), the significance of the ‘monster in the closet’ barrier, the purpose and relations of npcs such as Ven Vinders, Ameiko Kaijitsu and Shalelu Andosana. It feels like the card game was the trailer and now I am finally getting to see the ‘movie’ and fit all the pieces together.

So, while pricey, I highly recommend the book. It is a shame there won’t ever be a hardback compilation of the Skull & Shackles AP (Paizo should really think more about the crossover between the curious card gamers and their RPG products), but based on what I have read with this and the enjoyment I am getting out of it, I may very well start picking up the S&S individual modules so that I can immerse myself in the skulduggery of the shackles. Damn it Paizo. Take my money! :-P

Anyway, just wanted to share!

My victorious crew. Completed the final scenario last night, while a thunder storm raged outside. It was kind of fitting ;)

Character Name: Valeros
Role Card: Weapon master
Skill Feats: Strength +4, Constitution +1, Charisma +1
Power Feats: +2 hand size, +2 combat help, Melee in place of Ranged, Add 2 acquire a weapon, When you play a blessing add 1d12
Card Feats: Weapon +3, Item +1, Ally +2, Blessing +1
Weapons: Dancing Scimitar +2, Flaming Icy Axe +1, Flaming Ranseur +3, Great Club +3, Great Club +3, Runechill Hatchet +1, Chellan Sword of Greed, Karzoug’s Burning Glaive,
Spells: -
Armors: Demon Armor, Greater Bolstering Armor, Magic Full Plate
Items: Belt of Giant Strength, Sihedron Ring, Medusa Mask
Allies: Mountaineer, Dog, Jakardros Sovark
Blessings: Lamashtu, Lamashtu, Lamashtu, Gorum, Calistria

Character Name: Merisiel
Role Card: Acrobat
Skill Feats: Dexterity +4, Wisdom +1, Charisma +1
Power Feats: +1 hand size, Weapons, Evade and place enemy on top of deck, +1 solo attack, +2 to check to defeat a barrier or close a location, When you play a blessing add 1d12
Card Feats: Weapon +2, Armor +1, Item +2, Blessing +2
Weapons: Acidic Sling +3, Returning Frost Spear +2, Venomous Heavy Crossbow +2, Venomous Dagger +2
Spells: -
Armors: Snakeskin Tunic, Hide Armor of Fire Resistance
Items: Amulet of Life, Boots of Elvenkind, Magic Spyglass, Holy Candle, Belt of Incredible Dexterity, Revelation Quill, Emerald Codex, Wand of Enervation
Allies: Black Arrow Ranger, Poog
Blessings: Erastil, Erastil, Gorum, Gozreh, Pharasma, Shelyn

Character Name: Seelah
Role Card: Hospitaler
Skill Feats: Strength +4, Wisdom +2
Power Feats: +2 hand size, +3 discard for check, examine top card at start (or end) of turn, bury a divine card to heal 1D4+1
Card Feats: Weapon +1, Spell +2, Ally +2, Blessing +2
Weapons: Flaming Ranseur +3, Shortspear +3, Fanged Falchion, Mokmurian’s Club
Spells: Aid, Major Cure, Restoration
Armors: Elven Breastplate, Magic Full Plate, Reflecting Shield
Items: -
Allies: Father Zantus, Toad, Troubadour, Vale Temros
Blessings: Abadar, Erastil, Lamatsu, Nethys, Norgorber, Norgorber, Shelyn, Shelyn

Astute viewers will note that my four-hero party is missing a significant member. Sadly, Ezren died on the final scenario of Sins of the Saviours (Into the Runeforge). It was a noble sacrifice, defeating the Highlady Alexis on his last turn and closing the location. Unfortunately, having burned through cards in the combat (all heroes were struggling by the end of this scenario) and failing to recharge his spell, meant he was one card short when resetting. A sad end, but his death meant that the rest of my team were able to go on and defeat the bad guy. I considered resurrecting him but it just didn’t feel right. I wanted his loss to sort of mean something – so I headed into AP6 with my three surviving (and much wiser) characters.

The last scenario was a lot of fun. And lucky for me that Karzoug was the last card in the location deck so I only had to face him once! (About time I had some luck.) The honors fell to Merisiel who, with the aid of blessings and a spell, managed to pummel that final villain into the ground with a whopping (and personal record-breaking) damage score of 68! Take that sucker!