Longshot11's page

Ideally, you should also check backwards (if you gain a power feat on the role card, you should check the identical box on the character card - some banes in Wrath make you lose your role card for a while :) )

Тhat's *exactly* why you do NOT check backwards - if you lose your role, you lose all the feats you gained after acquiring the role.

I'm necroing the thread for posterity, in case someone comes up with an official answer to what seems currently to be a a bug with the scenario -which oddly hasn't been brought up anywhere earlier in the thread.

Current scenario says: "If Giles Halmis is undefeated,a random other character who has not encountered him this turn summons and encounters him.
If Giles Halmis is defeated, or if all other characters have encountered him this turn, banish him. Then continue your encounter with Vakarla the Wrecker."

The above obviously doesn't address the case where Giles is EVADED - which by current RAW would not summon more copies of him and could therefore block the active character from proceeding with his Vakarla encounter (ex. Character A encounters Vakarla, character B summons and evades Giles - but there's also a Character C who has not -and will not- encountered Giles. So Giles will never be encountered by all characters besides char. A, nor will he be defeated.)

The two possible intents are:
"If Giles Halmis is undefeated or evaded..."
OR
"If Giled Halmis is defeated, evaded, or if all other characters have encountered him..."

Hopefully, at some point, someone official can stumble upon this and give an answer.

Treat that header exactly as you would treat the “Powers” header on a bane card—that is, there is no timing implicit in it.

That was the general understanding of it, but then we found the quoted text from the rulebook: "This power is triggered as soon as you

Thanks again.

EDIT: To clarify, the major argument was that maybe the "Before you act" wording on the ships' powers was in error and not what was intended.

Thanks again for the input y'all.

I'll actually take this opportunity to hijack my own thread and get some opinions on the following:

The "When Encountering This Ship" power explanation is "This power is triggered as soon as you
encounter a ship; this occurs before you have the opportunity to evade it"

However, no ship up to AD3 (including the unique ships in this scenario) seem to have a power that would be relevant at "When you encounter timing" - most of them are actually explicitly timed "Before you act..."

We've been playing this as each ship encounter (rather intutively) has its own "Before acting" phase - and therefore anything in the "When you encounter this ship" box doesn't matter at all if a character evades the ship (unless, of course, theoretically that box doesn't refer to evasion).

So, for example Yunarrius' "Before acting, summon and encounter Pirate Shade that cannot be evaded" only ever activates if Yunnarius itself has not been evaded (as opposed to activating at the "When you encounter" timing - which would stick you with the Shade even if you evade the ship)

Is this how you are playing it , and if not - what are your arguments about it?

I play it as option 1: replace the summoned henchmen with ships, and defeating the ship indicates a successful close (or guard).

I also ignore the scenario power to replace henchmen with ships when Mark of Yunnarius instructs you to summon and encounter a Pirate Shade Haunt (aka I rule you encounter the Haunt as normal instead of replacing it with a 2nd ship)

Thanks for the answer. Actually, we just encountered Yunnarius and since we reasoned they probably wouldn't put a power on it that wouldn't see play except in homebrew scenarios (although such text on some cards does exist I believe) - we took that as confirmation that the intent must've been Option 2.

I'm curious as to your rationale though - why do you think you should replace location summons, but then just ignore it for the Yunnarius' Haunt??

Hey all,

"Who Rules Hell Harbor" states that when you would encounter a *non-villain* monster - you replace it and encounter a ship instead. Two of the locations however are closed by summon and defeat Henchmen Grindilow and Hammerhead Shark. So, by RAW - your only way to close these is to chase the Villain there and defeat him, in an already annoying and frustrating scenario. Hence, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent, but I can see two possible ways the intent might have been:

- You replace the summoned henchman with a ship, but defeating the ship allows you to close
- You do NOT replace Henchman monsters - the much more logical option, more consistent with similar conditions in other scenarios.

I don't expect anyone official still frequents this forum, but if anyone has played this one in OP and is aware of the official stance - please let me know.

(search doesn't seem to find any previous discussion of this scenario)

They do go on sale on Cyber Monday, shaving 1-1.5$ off the 5$ packs.

It is a bit annoying, purchase-wise, that you have to buy 6 separate adventures instead of having them grouped in as an "Adevnture Pack" deal, but I suppose they want a low buy-in, so as not to scare off players who are still unsure if they want to go all-in on a product.

I'm sorry, I might've been away from the forum for a while, but what is this Pathfinder/Starfinder Infinite brand? Is it some sort of semi-sanctioned official content? The alternative seem to be that players can now publish (and sell!?) PACG content based on Paizo's own adventure paths, which I seem to recall was definitely not the case before.

Also, is there a place where we could get a better preview on the design inside? The 3 pages on DriveThru don't even get to a sample scenario (which is what I'd be interested in seeing)

Тhe rules are exactly the same and they *should* be on the Adventure PATH card (which serves no other purpose, but to list the order of the 6 Adventures, so it's often forgotten/overlooked.

WotR ALSO has on additional rule on that card: on any location with the Abyssal trait - ignore the Outsider trait on cards.

Dude, you're amazing! :D I don't know that I'd ever get the chance to make a complete AP with those, but you went so far above and beyond the call of duty on this one - they'd better name a card after you if PACG ever rises from the ashes!

Technically, I'd say it occurs at the same time with taking damage (both consequences of the "failed" condition that need to be processed), so you choose the order, but you'll usually prefer to resolve it after resolving the damage.

Oh, right, so it's a way to cycle useless (at the time) cards in hope of getting better ones for the next turn ? That seems kinda usefull but on the other hand, it's pretty slow isn't it ?

Really, it depends on your party size. With 5+ players, you have 6-5 turns each and most of you probably won't even see their whole deck in a single game, so - yeah, pretty useless.

If there are only 2 players - each with 15 turns - this card might very well be a worthy mainstay in your deck.

Nope. It's going to be a "dead" card in your hand.(Unless a rule is patched in to let you do otherwise)

Also, how does it help to "add the Animal and Melee traits?"

If I remember correctly: looking at Lini's other powers should easily answer that question for you :)

I definitely disagree with your statement that it impacts “every set” given how few people have brought it up.

Personally, I'm just trying to put myself in Paizo's shoes - they didn't screw me over on purpose and I don't believe the issue came from them trying to cheap out on the product. Thing is, they know they done messed up -and for circumstances beyond their control, I'd assume - so at some point they were saddled with less than perfect product that they could either scrap (and have to pay for a new print) or just roll with it. (To me it's the e-game dev equivalent of hitting budget/deadline with visible bugs still in the game - where you just have to ship and accept that this time your product will be less-than-perfect and hope that the good of it outweighs the bad) In the end, Paizo have already gotten their share of damage through negative word-of-mouth, so asking them to replace a whole set for me (when it's even not sure that will fix it) instead of me just trying not to memorize which cards are which - that seems excessive and placing unnecessary burden on them.

Bottomline, much as I love first edition PACG and learn to tolerate 2E - it's just a game in the end of the day, and not worth the loosing my sleep over some inconvenience - hence why I'm personally not complaining about it, and I suppose there are other folks who feel the same.

Quinn is an amazing Batman

Well,I mean... "The Greatest Detective on Golarion" checks out.

My wife is a big Batman fan. Given that, do you think she'd be happy with Kess, or might switching to Varian do better on that front?

"Note, however, that you can’t avenge most location closing attempts, because they’re typically just die rolls, not banes. The exception, obviously, is when closing summons a bane that must be defeated!"

That's not my current understanding of the rules. While you could avenge a failed Closing Henchman - and gain the closing attemp instead of the active character - the "summon and defeat" requires the *attempting* character to defeat his bane - so even if it's avenged, the close still fails. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, however.

"what may be the worst power in the game: one that forces Valeros to move randomly" - there's a "may" in there. Still pretty useless pre-Core, but post-Core at least it grants an on-demand de-Scourging for Bleeding and Poisoned, so there's that.

For example, in WOTR hero Alain could refresh certain boons only.

Funny that you'd mention WotR as a counterpoint. I don't assume you have the add-on deck, with the huntress Adowyin inside? You'd be shocked...

Point is, deck-cycling is a perfectly valid mechanic, of which the designers are aware. There were exactly the same threads about Adowyn back then, but one person's "trivializing" is another person's "fun" so there you go. You can always home-rule your Zadim to be able to examine only unknown cards if you prefer (of course, as you observe, then your weapon recharge power will take a hit in usability, so it's almost as if the designers intended those two to synergize :)

I do feel like it should be discarded, yeah. It seems too oddly powerful that you literally can't suffer damage

I can't speak to intent, of course, but discard seems a bit too steep of a cost to me, if there's supposed to be a cost. My arguments:

- this is a LEVEL FIVE weapon!
- post-Core, weapons were mostly nerfed across the board; to compensate, many of them were given cheaper "boost" cost, like recharge or reload
- many of the boosts were constricted ONLY to Proficient characters (while dropping the penalty for non-Proficients)
- the evade in question DOES require Proficiency - so it's already unusable to a lot of characters (*including* the Iconic Monk Sajan himself, who should be the one wanting this weapon, which is... WTF?!??!)
- the evade is *furthermore* restricted to non-Villains only, which significantly devalues it
- mid-encounter evade *in general* has been (I feel) nerfed when seen in conjunction with both the steeper monster BYA effects and the new Avenge mechanic. Many a time, it seems preferable to just take it on the chin and have a battle-ready mate avenge and kill the monster, than letting it shuffle away randomly (this is subjective and obviously depends on available damage-negation, but it has been my experience)

Bottomline, the power-cost and the given restrictions don't seem all that good for a Level 5 weapon, IMHO.

In addition, I need to do a better job of searching topics in the future.

Again thank you, I do appreciate the response.

NP ^_^ Didn't mean it in a "get better at search fu" way, just didn't have much time and wanted to get you faster to your answer :)

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42kmq?DD-1C-Henchman-and-Story-Bane-overlap

АFAIK, you only gained these in Organized Play (they were called something else). You gained them only once per Adventure, I believe - at the end of an adventure by the last rules (or possibly after your 3rd scenario? Memory's murky here). They were defined in the general Society rules and NOT spelled out as a reward for a particular scenario.

- the party could spend 3 HP to revive a dead character at the end of scenario

- the party could add ANY number of HP to a character's result AFTER the roll

- they could NOT be use for straight-up rerolls

EDIT: I managed to find an old version of the Society Guide. Here you go:

"Die Bumps: A die bump is a single-use reward usually given to characters that complete an adventure (See Earning Scenario Rewards on page 10). Your character can use a die bump to add 1 to or subtract 1 from the result of a check. Multiple die bumps can be used on a check, and multiple characters can use die bumps on a check. If a character dies, at the end of that scenario, the party may collectively use 3 die bumps to resurrect that character back from the dead. Players may not be coerced into using die bumps for this purpose. The resurrected character is no longer dead and gains rewards as if he had not died. When you use a die bump, mark it off on your character’s Chronicle sheet."

Clarification please?

If a Scenario adds Banes to the Blessings deck, and I turn one over, do other start of turn abilities trigger before I encounter that card?

If that Bane's encounter/effect was "Start of Turn", you would still be able to pick the SoT order of effects, so potentially you could still resolve it first.

However, I would guess any Hourglass Bane-play would be worded like "When you discard this bane from the Hourglass..." - so the cause-effect places it very definitely in the "Advance the Hour" phase of the turn and before Start of Turn effects.

Title q: No, it isn't. It's part of the same exploration.

The lack of "immediately" nowadays could be ambiguous, but still - I'd say there can be *nothing* between defeating a Hench and attempting the close.

Encounter boost will not last for the closing attempt.

I do NOT know how it would act for a nested encounter though. RAW, it would seem the boost will start having effect, then stop (while the summon encounter takes place), then restart, This doesn't seem very intuitive to me so, in my game I would rule it also affects the nested encounter (which, while a separate encounter in itself, is ALSO a *part* of the original encounter, so there's that I guess)

Due to the assumed "immediately", you won't get to examine further cards if you close on the first examine.

Hench allows you to close the location IT came from (unless in the rulebook now it says "your location"?!?) - so if you move, your close attempt is wasted.

If this armor had Light Armor trait, you would be right that all characters would be proficient with it. However, I don't think there is any armor that says "If proficient, …", because that would be redundant.

Moon Maiden Armor. I feel I have brought it up before, but it is what it is for now.

EDIT: (In essence, what I think they might be trying to do with Core is to stop us thinking about "Proficient with Light" and "proficient with Heavy", but more like "characters who know which side of the torso a breastplate goes on" and "characters who can pull off an extra combat advantage from any sort of armor" - equivalent to Shield Bash feats or what have you. So, while *everyone* can use a shield or a light armor, only those Proficient with (what we think of "Heavy", but is in fact "Any") Armor can actually milk the particular piece of equipment for all of its tactical potential)

EDIT2: Basically, there's no issue unless you're mixing pre-Core chars with post-Core armor. Post-Core Shields don't ask for "proficient with Light" - so they should track as intended to not granting extra benefits to pre-Core chars. Only stiff like Moon Maiden is a bit of a paradox, where it would be worse for a post-Core non-proficient with Armor Mage, for example, than a pre-Core non-proficient with Armor Mage (who is now considered automatically proficient with Light Armor - and can therefore extract the benefit of a Moon Maiden armor)

Well, Nocticula does not seem so terribly bad...

I wasn't talking about her blessing, but about the ally Nocticula - which makes you banish *all* of your cards if you don't win the scenario after the encounter she was played in. (Though it occurs to me, if you play her off-turn - or even on your turn but you can set up a win before the end of the turn- you will be free to "shop" a full deck of AD#-2 cards of your choice. Why you would be in a position to want to do so, I cannot imagine.

there are very few cards that nobody ever wants.

Nocticula is the ultimate example for bad design in that regard. I get that someone at the dev room was feeling cute and wanted to go all out on theme with "ultimate power... for a price!" and "beware when dealing with demons". But when we find an actual friggin' *demon lord* as an "ally" - we won't something *cool* - that will make the card stand out -for all the good reasons- and make its use (even as a "remove from game" one-shot play) memorable. Instead, we get the worst waste of cardstock in PACG, with an effect that no player in their right mind would use if there's even 5% chance of failing. (A proper version of that card, imho, would have a pretty steep acquire cost - but then a superior (max once-per-game) use.) So I'd rather not see any more tongue-in-cheek "boon" design like that, as it feels like I've paid for an internal joke I'm not in on.

Otherwise, Jenceslav sums it up pretty well. My 6-p party never looks at the healing staff twice. My solo Ezren has it enshrined. I really love that aspect of PACG - how card perception can completely change, depending on party makeup.

General Query/Concern: Cauterize heals non-random cards; in all of the printings the word 'random' is conspicuously absent despite making it a much more desirable spell than many higher-level healing cards. Intended?

General Query/Concern: Skyplate Armor, Signal Whistle and other cards let you move mid-encounter, purely by virtue of missing the "you may not use this during an encounter" standard template on their movement powers. Whilst the rulebook does explain what happens if you move during an encounter, and it's clearly directly relevant to most encounters (thus making it a legal play); is this really intended? It's a "partial/conditional" sort-of-evade power, but it requires precise rules knowledge to use in the first place.

General Query/Concern: Since Before You Act/Before Acting has been repeatedly ruled to be a timing statement, which has nothing to do with the character who's taking a turn, cards like Signal Whistle or powers such as that appear on Nyctessa, Blood Lord, can be used during any encounter of any player at any time, to interesting effects. Intended?

Respectfully, these few don't seem unclear or broken, but rather don't seem to match your personal preferences/expectations? Unless there are examples why they *would* be broken (though I would assume the issue would then be with a specific location/scenario power, rather than the overall functionality of mid-encounter move/BYA application themselves)?

(Also, I could be missing something because I *never* understood what "If you move during an encounter, any effects that would happen after the encounter do not happen." is supposed to do/fix, so feel free to explain it to me in slow-people terms :) And how exactly is mid-encounter move being a "partial/conditional sort-of-evasion" ?!?

Cauterize no longer heals non-random cards, as "heal" in Core has been explicitly defined

Cauterize is a legacy card that doesn't use the new "heal" template, though (or is it also present in Core? Don't have the set with me). As, I believe, do several other old cards that are pretty content to let you select the cards to "shuffle/recharge from your discard pile into your deck".

Specifically:

"When you defeat a monster, you may move or put the bottom card of your deck on top of your deck, then end your turn."

Q: Can you use the above power off-turn?

My reading is "yes" (with "then end your turn" then being an impossible instruction that you promptly ignore)

Another player however argues that "end your turn" implies that you can only play it on your turn. (Even if that's the intent, I'd argue it's not supported by the current wording).

Thoughts and input appreciated :)

“If you fail to defeat a villain at a closed location while all other locations are closed, open a random other location and shuffle the villain into it.”

We've had a couple of questions about that:

(The above is not hypothetical as we're going to play SotR 5B in a couple of nights, where it has a pretty likely chance of actually occurring)

I think this falls under "common sense" -- story banes are given their own section of the vault separate from the regular monsters and barriers. I haven't seen anyone ever be confused in play that they need to include story banes in the random pulls from the vault when drawing a new monster or barrier, so I think this is a non-issue.

... and implicitly states that you won't be asked to draw random cards from the story banes section.

I would feel the same on your first point, but unfortunately this thread seems to contradict it:

... where Vic explicitly confirms that when instructed to build a "Devil pile" with all Devil monsters from the Vault - it DOES include story banes.

On your second point - Justifiable Deicide is (to my knowledge) the precedent that establishes that you may be asked to draw random Henchmen. In conjunction with the thread I quoted, it seem indeed Frencois is correct that by RAW nothing precludes you from drawing Story-bane Task barriers as well (For the record, I rather think Curse 5D's set up should be clarified, as an exception).

I would append Frencois' question with another from that thread (that definitely falls under the "Story banes and the Vault" subject), that Vic seems to confirm with an "Excellent point!" but leaves my group somewhat devided:

3) Are Story Banes really supposed to be subject to Vault-purge rules? RAW seems "yes", but this seems to clash with our "common sense" as Skizzers puts it above...

Finished this one last night. The instructions were badly written and we felt we weren't clear on a couple of key aspects.

For instance, scenario tells you to treat both stacks as separate locations, but then tell you when you close A location to banish both stacks, which:
A) Doesn't seem to make much sense if the other stack is its own separate location
B) It is not clear if the two banished stacks are treated as TWO separate close locations (seemingly contradicted by "When you close A location...), or as ONE closed locations (seemingly supported by banishing both stacks with one location close). This is quite important for the Qlyppoth Runestone's "move to a random location" effect, as treating banished stacks as two locations greatly reduced our chances to be teleported somewhere useful and not waste a turn (only one character could meet QR's Wisdom 9 check)

The 50/50 random move mechanic, that you cannot influence at all was not fun. Several times our "closing guy" just had to go to an empty stack and close, but instead was moved to the full stack. We get that it's just a variation of "Henchman is actually shuffled on the bottom", but it felt frustrating and I can imagine it would be even worse if we actually had to waste full turns being moved from the Villain's stack to the neignboring empty stack, just because of bad luck rolls. Speaking of which:

- Seelah defeated closing henchman at Befould Altar and proceeded to close, finding the villain in the opposite stack. We FELT like we're supposed to still banish both stacks, leave the villain in Stack A and treat the empty Stack B as an open location - but this is because we tried to apply the general rules for closing A location, while the stacks are treated as TWO locations (with no instructions beyond a successful no-Villain-found close) - so we're not sure if we proceeded by scenario RAW, developer's RAI or either at all.

- Finally, elcoderdude suggests above that you DON'T need to temp-close the villain's opposite stack (which seems correct, as you close the defeated villain's location BEFORE you check if he escapes), but there's also Keith's Grinder examples that specifically says we're supposed to temp-close the opposite stack. So which is it (and if it's Keith's option - why? We could be missing something, but if so - there could be further rules adjustment needed).

All in all, we actually found the setup interesting and didn't find it particularly difficult (but as a shout out - F you, Melazmera!) , the main frustration was that we actually spent too much time in meta-discussions how the scenario is *supposed* to work. So yeah, if someone ever gets around to updating that...

If we were to FAQ this finally, my preferred outcome would be a rules modification in the Guard step: change "the villain’s location cannot be guarded" to "the villain’s location can never be guarded".

Wait... If I'm following you correctly - while your suggestion would fix the "undefeated villain at Temp-closed Abyssal Rift" issue, it would introduce another issue altogether - that a villain can never be cornered and defeated at the Abyssal Rift, right?

At any rate, thanks for the answer, skizzers. We're already made it halfway through SotR and I can't wait to not have to deal with that set again.

Ridiculous as it is, this card still doesn't seem to have a FAQ, and just don't have the patience to trawl through dozens of threads again. If there was ever an official resolution, more fresh in some kind soul's mind, would you share what happens if:

- a Villain is undefeated there, and AR is on its Temp Closed side (as the last "open" location)
- you do defeat a Villain and AR is on its Open side: do I get to bury a blessing to flip AR? Do I *automatically* flip AR? Did I just fight the damned villain for nothing??

the Guide says "the rules in this guide take precedence over the standard rules,"

In addition to wkover having a certain point (I don't condone "dumbing down" to the lowest common denominator, but I don't think that's what his suggestion entails and there's something to be said above PACG accessibility and rules bloat - not that wkover's option is necessarily better in that regard), wouldn't the above hierarchy clash with the Vault culling (which ostensibly would be instructing you to "Remove Level X banes from the game")?

An aside - Power Level

0_O

...

Wow... I looked over Embiggen again, to see where Yewstance is pulling those +2 - +4 average values from... and I just realized I was always glancing over the numbers on the card and assuming the progression just goes d4->d6, d6->d8...

I stand corrected. This IS a pretty damn decent L0 spell after all. Still, I stand by my *overpowerness* (or lack thereof) assessment - as Yewstance points out, there are far more preferable boost spells (with a stabilizing "flat bonus" factor) - which (on my table) would always get picked over a "chance" at a better roll on all checks. This seems to be *particularly* true in Core, where the "one bless per check" is hitting our 6-size party pretty hard.

Acid Flask wrote:

On a local combat check or a local check to defeat a Lock or Trap barrier, banish to add 2d4 and the Acid trait.

OP is actually referring to the original version of Acid Flask. And established way back in RotR, by the case of "Crowbar VS Shopkeeper's Daughter" - there's nothing wrong -well, nothing impossible- with blunt-forcing your way through social situations. Yey for real-world parallels?

Edit: Ninja'd

BTW don't use Embiggen, that spell is WAY broken (too powerful).

This is a pretty bold statement. In MOST cases - a MORE powerful version of this spell would read "Add 1 to all your checks." And at least in mid-to-big party size, this would be a patently ridiculous waste of a spell slot.

The above would be untrue only when played on a character with a primary d12 skill - where the jump to a d20 could be somewhat considerable. It would be like a weaker version of a "All your checks with skill X are blessed for the turn" power - which IS worthy to consider, but again - in a mid-to-big party size won't come into play nearly often enough to be considered overpowered (bar any shenanigans that would let you use it every turn - but that would be a problem with the specific combo, not the card itself).

But Embiggen clearly states "Character's Dice". So anything that isn't written on the character card isn't affected.

Actually, "character's dice" is nowhere specified to mean what Frencois implies (dice printed on a Character card) - or as anything else for that matter. Personally, I'd assume it means "dice rolled by a character" - which is still just as vague and imprecise (Is it the character or the "player" rolling dice? If a bane requires you to roll a 1d4 to determine its random effect - is it still the *character* rolling...?) - and it leaves just the same issueas as in Frencois' 1) - so, intent should be obvious that it doesn't just affect any rolled die.

So, I'd usually go with my gut that it only replaces your SKILL dice, but I admit I'm unclear if it should also affect dice that would *thematically* make sense (like a die from a Barbarian's rage, etc..)

To my knowledge, every extant instance of (an assumed) "you" (as in: "If (you are) proficient...")on a *played* card always refers only to the character who played it. (As opposed to, say, a barrier like Abyssal Shortcut, that makes you display it next to a location - at which point the "you" on it refers to each player at that location. Note that they FAQed the "you" on AS out for clarity. That seems to confirm that if they wanted an effect opposite to what skizzers said - they'd rather use "If a(ny) local character if proficient..." etc.. There's no specific written rule to codify that, that I can think of, if that's what you're asking for, though.)

I've been playing Poog off and on in OP (online) for months, and I've never been entirely clear on what "after the check" actually means.

It means pretty literally what it says: you do it after Attempting the Check (that you played a blessing on) so any cards discarded to failed-check damage (in Take Damage (If Necessary)) should now be valid target for your heal; and you do it before Attempt the Next Check (if any) - so the target player will not have attempted to recharge a spell he played on the check (for instance) - and so such a spell, discarded on a failed recharge will be too late to be a target for your heal.

On behalf of all goblins out there, Toad-Licking should definitively be forbbiden to Longshanks.

Eh, problem tends to sort itself out. "Natural selection", I suppose you could call it.

I think it's only meant for a combat roll, but the Text dosen't ecplixitly say so.

The text is explicitly formulated to NOT say so, so I don't know why you would think otherwise (possibly because of the "no weapon or spell" qualifier? But they need that because the power ALSO works on combat checks). Kess knows all sorts - and they're helpful for other things besides hitting people on the head :)

Quote:

the Society rules for Blackjack (btw, where can I find this specifically? Is it in the OP guide??)

It's on the Curse sanctioning document

Thanks for the link. Now I understand the issue and you're indeed correct - the "prerequisites" indeed can be become "broken". However, there seems to be 0 balance issue, generally - the purpose of the whole Blackjack rule is to keep track of which "pre-role" feats you have unlocked, even when you decide to swap your role for Blackjack (so the "pre-role" feats remain noted on you Character card, even if you've taken them post-role). So, visually, you may indeed end up with "Add 1d4 []+1 [x]+2 to your combat checks" on your Character card - but that's OK because to get there - you have legitimately "payed" for you +1 power (on you role, before gaining Blackjack) and then for +2 (on your role, post-Blackjack).

The only real gameplay impact (that I can think of) that the OP setup for Blackjack has (compared to standard play) is with banes that make you bury your role card - in that case, OP players are clearly privileged, as they get to keep post-role feats they shouldn't really have access to anymore.

Remember that PACS scenarios don't need to be played in order, so it would be possible to gain medals on the KoK by playing 1-2D or 1-2E before playing 1-2B. And they can also be useful if you are simply replaying 1-2B after winning it a first time.

Thanks, we though there might be some OP detail we're missing that could make some sense...

... regardless of the order in which you play scenarios, the first time you display the KoK card in Adventure 1-2, it will be useless to your character

... though this still doesn't sit well with us. Still, we'll give this one a try on "hard mode" without a medal, and see how it goes. With some luck of the draw, it just might be doable...

Lol!! It is perhaps telling that I never even realized I may choose not to "recharge, discard or bury" , as I took "may" to only let you choose which of the 3 to apply (which is probably the intent).

But you are quite correct, RAW it works exactly as you say.

There isn't FAQ that I'm aware of, but now there quite possibly should be one - dropping that "may" there will do the trick just fine.
(though, possibly, this thread might be a better fit for the general "Rules and Gameplay" forum)

So... Does this mean that Ak can gain two power feats on Blackjack (or his character card) each time he gains a power feat? That's obviously not RAI, but I'm not seeing any way it's not RAW. (Unless only one of the two is considered "your role".)

Actually, yes, only one is considered your role.

The problem might be (unless you're just lobbying for a more strict wording, as opposed to being unclear on how it works), you might be conflating two separate notions, that, while very similar sounding, are actually quite distinct.

From the Rulebook:
"Each side of your role card presents a different role, allowing you to choose one of two different paths for your character’s continuing advancement. When you are rewarded with a role, select one of the two sides."

So, there's the "role card" - the actual, tangible piece of cardstock, that has two -in most cases- mutually exclusive "faces".

Then, there's the "role" itself - the abstract representation of your character's specialization. You usually select the role from the two options on the *role card* - but even in cases like Ak (and also Arik the Vigilante - who presents similar card-flipping issue even before Role) you always have only *one role at a time* - at least where your "role card" is concerned. (basically, what Skizzers said)

So Ak is always EITHER a Chieftain OR Survivor. Granted, the Society rules for Blackjack (btw, where can I find this specifically? Is it in the OP guide??) wording leaves a "loophole" (which wouldn't be different even if they used "role card" instead of "card"), the intent should be obvious. It seems to be more about "common sense" rather than "deep rules knowledge" (as you point out yourself - that this can't possibly be RAI)

Now, if we want to get pedantical (as we're want to do on this forum :) - the more strict wording for Ak might've been:

"When you gain or lose a feat on this role, also do so on the other side of this card." - this makes it clear that while you're gaining two feats on your role CARD, you're only gaining one feat on your (only) ROLE.
(also, I don't have the Ak card with me, but do note: if the current wording you quoted is present on BOTH sides of his role CARD - it basically starts an infinite role-feat-gaining loop!!)

With the above, when Society Blackjack tells you: "Each time they gain a power feat that appears only on their ROLE,..." - it would be (at least somewhat more) clear that it would be triggered only once by Ak.

Thinking about Ak's role cards also has made me realize there's another can of worms here, though...

Rulebook:

So, technically, you're not "rewarded" or "gaining" your old Character card feats a second time - you're just marking them on the role card for convenience of visual representation. So, no issue there, far as I can see.

Meanwhile, the Society rules for Blackjack say "Each time they gain a power feat that appears only on their role, they also gain a power feat on their Blackjack role. Each time they gain a power feat on their role that also appears on their character card, they also gain that feat on their character card."

So there seems to be something odd going here - it would appear that - where Curse makes you REPLACE your normal Role with Blackjack- the Society rules let you *keep* your role AND double-dip with power feats, gaining feats on BOTH the normal role and Blackjack; am I getting that right, 'because it seems somewhat odd (though, granted, much more satisfactory than the Curse implementation of Blackjack)?!?

Ok, so the *entire* point of the KoK is to help you against those nasty Undead/Demon armies - it adds 1d6 to your checks with a skill marked on the KoK.

In 1-2B, however - the first scenario in SotR that makes you fight Armies- KoK is displayed by the scenario power *without any further instruction*. The reward for the scenario allows you to check off a Medal on KoK - but that doesn't make them of any use whatsoever during the scenario itself (which, thematically wouldn't make sense to me). Now, displaying KoK at all probably was NOT done just so you know where to check off you medal at the end - as WotR scenario 2-4, Into the Citadel, does not use KoK either - but it just makes you draw it from the box to mark the reward medal (and this seems to be a moot point, since in OP each character marks off medals on their Character sheets anyway, as opposed to on the KoK itself).

That leaves us with the question, why would 1-2B make you display KoK if they don't want you to use it? In Wrath of the Righteous set, 2-1 awards you a medal *before* the first scenario you would actually use KoK; 6-1 on the other hand gives you a medal in its *Scenario power* - as it makes you display the Troop Champions of Mendev - and it obviously wants you get some use out of it. That last thing however was identified as a "bug" - as it would allow you to "grind" 6-1 to fill in all the CoM medals (start 6-1, gain a medal, wait out the blessings deck, "attempt" 6-1 again...). So I', left wandering if the current setup of 1-2B is a "bug" resulting from some last minute change in response to WotR 6-1 - where perhaps 1-2B would intially let you check off a medal on KoK *before* you have to fight all the armies during the scenario - but then was moved to Rewards without accounting that this leaves KoK pointless?

So, I guess my question is - were we supposed to be able to use KoK during the scenario (which would make sense thematically -the story bits alone make it clear that KoK will be fighting alongside you- and without it the Army banes are much more horrific, to the point of possibly insurmountable for 6 character party) - without "double-dipping" into the Rewards medal of course (essentially, your Reward is to *keep* the medal given in advance).
And, if not - what is the point at all to display the KoK at the start ?!?

Longshot11 wrote:

skizzerz wrote:

5-4C: Animate Dream is a story bane so Courtesan doesn’t apply to it. Otherwise yes you roll another d6 if you roll 1-2; the dreams can loop.

That's only if the rule "Summoned cards can't cause you to summon a copy of themselves" does *not* apply in Organized play (which could be a thing, I wouldn't know))

A summoned card isn’t causing that summon, it’s a storybook power that is having you roll and potentially summon.

For a moment I considered that could've been your reasoning, but I'll guess we'll have to agree to respectfully disagree. I'm pretty confident there was a precedent with an official ruling specifically contradicting your reading, but I can't seem to locate it right now.

FWIW, the most recent example I can think of that seems to support my stance is the ruling for AD5 Curse that playing your Harrow is considered playing a card to "heal", even if that's not a printed effect on the card, but rather a side-effect deriving from the Adventure power (which would contradict your stance on "causality", if I'm understanding you correctly?)

On the other hand, if nobody official has contradicted this thread yet, I could be wrong - but then I'd like to know how is this different than the "harrow heal" ruling...