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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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

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..)

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 :)

Every answer above is wrong...

Yeah, that was the rule I was remembering. However, :

On the other end, it's not like if it said:

A: "Bury this card to succed at your check to defeat a non villain..." which would make a reference to the Potion of Ocean valid.

The sentence adresses the "encounter", not the "check".

Frencois gets exactly what I mean. Basically, there are three possible "correct" wording of Entice - and NONE of them is the original text:

A) "When you would encounter a non-villain, non-henchman monster from a location deck, bury this card to defeat the monster."
- JohnF's example. The *would* makes it clear that the original encounter never takes place, though it still assigns "defeated" status. (Note that this is an unusual template for PACG, though there's a precedent in Shrieking Plant for assigning "un/defeated" status outside of encounter)

B) "Bury this card to succeed at your check to defeat a non-villain, non-henchman monster from a location deck."
- as pointed by Frencois. This would bring the card in line with similar powers (like PotO) and would make it clear that the intent is for the rule quoted by skizzerz to apply (and therefore all the encounter steps still happen). Note that if this is the intent, "when you encounter" in the original wording is completely extraneous and obviously counter-productive.

C) "When you (would) encounter a non-villain, non-henchman monster from a location deck, bury this card to banish the monster, it is defeated."
- the second option pointed out by Frencois. The same as A), except it's even more clear in that it banishes the bane altogether. Note, however, that the "banish instead of encounter" effect traditionally doesn't seem to go with assigning a un/defeated status (see Key of the Second Vault, Goblin Golem of Obsidian)

So, looking at all the options in concert, I'm really left with the feeling that what the designers were trying to do by saying "when you encounter... defeat" was to make you skip all the encounter steps until Resolve the Encounter. Typos and mis-wording in PACG is not uncommon, but adding a whole specific timing on accident seems a bit too much. *shrug* Anyway, our table's taking Matsu Kurisu's approach, but I'd be interested to hear any other input if someone has it.

Just a few weeks ago, I actually finished a party going through the Dragon's Demand into Curse using the Curse method

Thanks for this write-up, really appreciated! I don't see our group ever attempting this (and there's plenty of other PACG product to keep us busy anyway), but there were a few players wondering what such a "hardcore" experience would be like (though, with the time pressure of 6-player party, I'd assume it'd be even worse for us).

It seems it truly was...*puts on sunglasses*... a harrowing experience..

Treating # as 3 higher was really useful starting in the mid-game, ... For example, completing an adventure with a printed # of 4, plus 3 for having completed DD, minus 2 per the rebuilding rules gets a result of "level 5 or less".

That's awfully cheeky of you, though, unfortunately, illegal per current RAW. While treating your printed #4 as #7 would allow you to keep any theoretical L5 boons you come across - the rebuilding rules instruct you to get cards from the *Vault* - but regardless of printed or effective #, neither DD nor Curse method allows you to add any cards to the Vault higher than the *printed* #. Still, having fun is what matters the most and your feat is not diminished by fudging the rules a bit :D

...we used his spell Force Missiles, which changes combat check to arcane.

... am I confined to one type of attribute for each combat...

.. I know that if I am in combat and using a weapon, then another player using Harsk can't use his Crossbow to help me in combat...

Welcome to the community!

Just to make sure you're not making some common newbie mistakes:

1) Force Missiles let's you use Arcane FOR your Combat check, it doesn't CHANGE the Combat check to a non-Combat Arcane check. So you could still use powers like Valeros' to "add 1d4 to a combat check" but NOT powers that say "add X to your non-combat Arcane check"

2) You are usually *using* only one skill for any one check - however, most effects in the game are interested in a check's TRAITS, not the skill you're "using") - and the skill TRAITS you add on a combat check are usually 2 - your "specialized" skill (Ezren's Arcane) and the skill it derives from (his Intelligence). Do note, there's no "hard limit" on the number of skills that are added as traits to the check (and that can be crucial!) , so some powers may allow to expand that list. Say, a power that states "You may use your Knowledge skill for your Arcane check" - that means you would add as traits all of Intelligence, Knowledge and Arcane (even if technically speaking you're only "using" your Knowledge skill).
Also, be aware that some powers let you "ADD your Knowledge skill to your X check" - when you ADD a skill, you're NOT adding it as a trait to the check!

3) Your example for Val and Harsk playing 2 weapons would generally be correct. However - do note the word FREELY in a Crossbow's "assist power". When a power let's you play it freely - it does NOT count towards your limit.

Where's Arnie?

In the Pathfinder Tales character deck

Post-script: One of my party members hates me every time I "waste" a turn randomly moving to the Base,

My impression is, you should never count the Base when determining the number of locations, or a random one thereof.

This does remind me of those darned Sihedron rings back in RotR. I even remember peaking ahead at the adventure and scenario cards to see if we needed to hang on to them for some reason, didn't find anything, and then had the Oh, crap moment when we hit the deck 6 barrier that was basically a perpetual party wipe without them.

To be honest, even if you don't have Sihedron Medallion (or one of the two AD6 items Sihedron Ring, which is far more unlikely), you can A) beat the barrier to not take damage (much easier with RotR blessings and rules), 2) shuffle the barrier in a location that you can then plan on temp-closing , 3) banish the barrier if its in your last location.

RotR is actually much more likely to kill you with its last scenario if you haven't stocked on "examine and rearrange location" cards, but the difference with the OP issue is that you have *the entire Adventure Path* to learn the importance of these cards and to actively pursue them (the most powerful such card being given as a Loot in AD5 - by which time you *should* know better than to throw it away). But even without those you could still win with sufficient damage mitigation and luck (though I often wonder how many people got to that scenario ill-prepared, died and then decided to stick with perma-death... :)

There’s not a lot less fun than managing Wounded and Poisoned to just try to stay alive through a doomed scenario. Also, realized that Fumbus with a double blessing and ally maxes out at a 22, so he probably wouldn’t be able to get the sword if he found it, so there’s another piece of luck.

I know very well the detrimental effect of OCD about "playing by the rules" can have, but really it's not you who would be breaking rules here, it's the game that's broken, so if you can overcome your "anti-cheat" urges - just take the sword and actually have fun with the product you paid to have fun with.

PACG pretty much advertises itself about being able to be played with all sorts of characters and giving you the opportunity to build all sorts of decks; at no point the game teaches you (not only in Curse, but in the whole history of its 5 -or maybe a dozen, I'm not so familiar with all the Seasons- Adventure Paths!) that you need a *specific* card to be able to win a scenario, and to do so at the final stretch is absurd.

Look at it this way: if I was making a computer game, and the first -and ONLY the first!- time you beat the penultimate Boss he drops a weapon you need to beat the game, AND if someone fails to pick it up then you're reduced to grinding the game hoping for a *chance* to get said weapon from a random loot drop AND then most of the characters in the game don't even have the stats to realistically equip that weapon (or beat the CtA in PACG) - you better believe that A) no one would actually let me ship the game with this condition, and B) every player that has a readily available cheat to spawn this weapon in their inventory would just do so. I'm pretty much obsessed with PACG, but despite -or possibly because of- this, I don't see why it should get a free pass for breaking basic game design principles.

Off the top of my head I can't remember such a card. (I've a vague feeling I've seen it, though.

I don't believe you have. As you say - given current rules and card layout design - Lone Sharks simply have NO way to indicate something like that. To achieve OP's Option C, they would have to use the monster's power section, with something like:

This would be quite cumbersome and unneeded. Also, Lone Shark on the whole DOESN'S want to spare you any checks to defeat, so I can't imagine them doing it. Monsters requiring 2 checks to defeat are generally "bosses" and I imagine the reason they have an alternative second (or first) check is there more for mechanical, not thematical reasons: the second check should allow casters a chance to win the encounter, even if they don't have a second combat spell on hand.

Some locations lend themselves more to a market trip than others.

Keith, could please provide a little insight on the changes to Academy in particular?

IMHO, this location has been horrendously redesigned to a point where it loses any thematic cohesion and goes against its supposed "flavor". RotR Academy used to be the best (and one of maybe three) "shopping stop" for Casters, with 5 spells in its location, and would often be left open to explore even after henchman is defeated. The new "academy" is instead a "danger high" location with friggin SIX banes inside - i.e. a "close on sight" location - and to add insult to injury it sees the number of spells inside reduced to a measly 2 - about on par with a bunch of other locations that aren't inherently very "magical" or, well, "academical". Sure, if you had called it "CURSED Academy" or something, I would have no issue with it, but as is - this a more homicidal learning institution than friggin' Hogwards!!

One possible explanation I can see is that you actually wanted to "buff" the extra exploration mechanic, but even still - why didn't you just buff the number of Items (which makes sense, but is actually reduced to 0!!) or other boons, instead of making the "academy" as dangerous a Dungeon?!?

The other explanation is that this got swept in the whole "Make. Game. Harder!!" momentum, but to my table the almost seamless fusion between mechanics and *theme* has always been one of the biggest draws of PACG and when an arbitrary rebalance trumps the flavor of a card to such a ridiculous extent - that pill gets a bit too bitter.

When rebuilding, each character may banish 1 boon; any that do may search the vault for a boon with a maximum level of the most recently played scenario’s # minus 2 (minimum 0).

It was cut for a few reasons:

It would add complexity and time to the end of scenarios, as traders did in Mummy’s Mask.

Traders in MM were on a whole other level, complexity -wise. You had different cards (Traders) for different boons, different cost (adding cost-benefit analysis), specific level of boons you could trade in, specific level of boons you could trade for (oddly enough)...

There was concern around removing some of the loot chase, ... in terms of reduced difficulty

Oh, I think you would've been fine. What with the most heavy mechanical changes (single boon per type per check, banishable locations) being geared towards making the game MORE difficult and all.

We just didn’t have space in the storybook for more mechanics.

I know the Rulebooks get more packed with each iteration, but... really? It's literally one more sentence in the Rebuild section, not a whole new paragraph?!?

The above being said, the suggested Market is a little over-simplified for my taste. While it's probably the best decision for PACG (if ever included), I'll just share the homebre option we experimented with:
At end of scenario, if the party wants to "buy" a boon of particular level (say, L3 boon at the end of AD5 scenario) - it must "pay" for each such boon with a number of boons which total its level (in this example, say 1 L2 boon and 1 L1 boon). And, of course, Basics are L0 (so useless for trade).

I'd love to see more blogs like that.

I'm one of those disgruntled players who thinks the omission of Market in Core was really NOT the right decision for game (and have felt so about its lack ever since RotR) for pretty much all the reasons Keith has provided - so at least it's good to know devs have their ear to the ground, and at least somewhat comforting to know the arguments behind "controversial" decisions like that.

A few thinks I'd like to add:

one of the most exciting things for many players is the loot chase: seeing that dream boon that perfectly complements your character, waiting to luck into it, throwing the kitchen sink at acquiring it, and victoriously adding it to your deck.

While the above is true (though by no means sufficient argument for *me* to omit Market), there's also a flip side to this coin: all the banes and "boons" that can make you randomly banish a card you have strived and waited to obtain. Imagine you finally get that dreamy Greataxe, then happily explore, eager to try it on a monster... and stumbling upon a Cannibal haunt or something. Half our MM party carried a bunch of those crappy "allies" to the end, just to insure against a random banishing of boons.

you can give up boons until you think you’re likely to need them. Know that you’re heading into a few scenarios full of undead? Go buy a Deathbane weapon.

That's another feature that my tables felt would really emulate the RPG experience and why people have argued for the inclusion of at least some sort of "side deck" ever since RotR. I admit both Market and Stash might be overkill, but if Market absolutely *never* makes it into PACG as an option - I feel this might be an acceptable alternative.

TLDR: Please consider adding Market and/or some form of Stash at least as *options* in the Play it Your Way. Given all the concessions made for the "hardcore crowd" (difficulties, wildcards, big locations), my group of players feels really undeserved in having *our way of playing* legitimized.

or

Third Eye errated wrote:

Display. While Displayed On your Perception check, you may draw to add 1d10.

?

It's this.

I remember comment from a dev or Vic that "display: ..reveal" was *supposed* to be understood to just put the displayed card back in your hand. I remember it because it made zero sense to me as: A) it's much more clear to just say draw; and B) Because "reveal" has a specific definition in the Rulebook that contradicts what is supposed to happen.

My intuitive logic for "reveal a displayed card" would indeed be to just reveal it and then return it to the displayed area.

Having both played Athnul, and having an Athnul at a table that I am currently running makes me think that this card should be allowed to be played freely. Thoughts?

I get that you're asking not how things should be by current RAW, but if the card should be changed as a whole, right?

I say you're right, and let's examine:

- The Belt *only* asks the you have not played Attack spells. So, the limitation here is more on "thematic" grounds

- The Belt clearly assumes you're doing archetypal Monk battle - bare hands or possibly a (Acrobatics/Monk) Weapon

- Weapons usually have a way of adding a second die to your check; furthermore, as of late, they also usually have some secondary ability or perk (at higher tiers)

- Amulets, on the other hand - or at least the ones I've seen- only add a die and a trait

Bottomline, from a balance perspective, if the Belt should allow you to use the (much more) powerful Weapons in your combat, it should follow that it allow the less powerful (but still Monk-themed) Amulets.
(Though, I admit, the above doesn't reflect that for some Monks carrying a weapon would require a Card feat, and that they can usually carry a bunch of amulets <which, however, from my XP, is NOT a common Monk build>)

So, IMHO, house-rule the Belt away and enjoy it with your Amulets.

I seriously believe the solution to this is to stop calling steps of a turn "steps" though and call them something else like "phases."

Vehemently agree here. Calling two different things the same name was asking for trouble ever since RotR (it just didn't matter *that* much back then).

I think it applies to Unseen Sentinel also, but I don't see why you would be unable to use an armor to prevent it. The wording on the card suggests that you are still suffering damage so it should probably be preventable, right?

No. You're thinking about powers to tune of "When X deal damage to you, discard it from the top of your deck." - here, you would indeed be able to play armor, as the Monsters' power only *converts* the damage you *actually* suffer into deck discards.

However, note the Sentinel's wording: It *literally* says that you do not suffer damage - the "discard 1d4 from top" completely replaces the damage dealing process - and since those 1d4 cards do NOT depend on *actually* suffering any damage or not - there's no point (and is therefore illegal) to play a card to prevent the damage.

(Though, really, it's not 'breaking' anything, because Alahazra's Tempest role never added the Charisma trait to your Arcane combat check prior to that 2019 FAQ.)

I've never seen a person pre-FAQ playing Alahazra's Arcane as a NON-Charisma check.

We here all do love getting hung up on technicalities, but there's a point where enough is enough and you have to wing PACG on common sense rather than RAW. It should be obvious that Alahazra (et al) are intended to add the "primary" skill as trait to their check.

So perhaps a distinction can be drawn, and - while Vic's suggested FAQ may remain as is for stuff where either the gained skills are indeterminate (Mavaro),- characters like Alahazra may be reworded as "Gain the skill Arcane: Charisma +2". (I never understood and so never liked the inclusion of the expression "equal to" for such determinate skills; but it doesn't makes sense to me to fix some characters by breaking others )

I won't be able to make any new FAQ entries this week, but we'll change Orange War Paint to "when you would bury a card from your hand."

This is a terrible fix, as the card seems fairly obvious in its intent to help with "bury from top of your deck" powers (which are a very Barbarian-y thing) and it's a ridiculous nerf if its only purpose is to avoid Grenek's offending power. Please consider expanding it to "when you would bury a card from your hand or deck" at least.

I'm counting 4 scenarios and the answer to all is YES.

The first 3 say variations of "then you may explore" - that means you're free to choose "not explore" and there's no conflict with Rules. It has been a long-standing discussion on these forums if it's actually leagla to play cards that DON'T say "you may" (i.e. "Discard to do X, then explore" out of turn (when you're aware you're not really allowed to explore and the second part of the power would be "impossible instruction".

Any possible argument you may have for NOT playing Detect Magic out of turn can be reduced to "you're overthinking it". The card is pretty explicit and doesn't present any conflict with existing rules.

From my perspective; PACG rules instruct you to ignore impossible instructions, and you cannot choose to choose an option which is impossible. Healing a card is impossible.

The replacement effect, by definition, requires a heal effect to work. If it's illegal to choose a heal effect, then by extension you cannot replace it.

Generally, I agree with the majority reading of RAW. I too however would like to explore that a bit more, on "intuitiveness" grounds.

First, imho, "replacement effect", by definition or otherwise, is not something that exists in PACG - this is just something that we as players use a mutually understood shorthand. (It is also a term that can easily be applied to replacing your skill for a check, to add further confusion).

Therefore, there's an argument to be made that voluntary powers like the one in question are NOT in fact "replacing" anything, but instead offer you an alternative option B - *at the time* when an Option A presents itself, and there's no causality between one and the other's legality. From such argument it would follow that you don't care that Option A (you may heal an ally) is currently impossible, as you're NOT picking that option, but Option B instead (you may remove a scourge).

Here's how I imagine that would work logic-wise for a player:

1) There's a "When you would heal cards, you may remove a scourge instead" power

2) "When you would" means that the first half of the power CANNOT happen (is rendered illegal), if you chose to apply the second part

3) Therefore, the first part of the power doesn't NEED to happen (or to even be legal at this particular time)

4) Therefore the *intent* of the power is NOT "When you heal cards, you may choose not to heal them and remove a scourgeinstead", but rather "When you are offered to heal cards, you may choose to remove a scourge instead.

The above reading would also be reinforced by applying in-world logic (which we know is not relevant, but is still something a lot of players bring with them and would use to adjudicate corner cases), as this is what players imagine happens: "A healing force is applied on your character - they may choose for it to close their wounds, or to remove a pending curse" . Which is a lot more intuitive than the supposed "A Schroedinger's Minor Restoration is applied on your character; if they have any wounds, they may chose for it to remove a pending curse instead (without healing any wounds, however), but if they have no wounds - the force has no effect at all".

So, on the above grounds, even though arguable by RAW, I would try to apply "the spirit of the law" and allow scourge removal even if no allies in discards.

See the Glossary: "Effect: Anything that happens in the game. ... Coupled with the example, that seems pretty clear to me...

Please don't take this as a personal jab, but I really think "X is ANYTHING" is the opposite of "clear". When -as also evidenced by Yewstance and Skizzers' posts above- it's enough to trip up experienced veterans, what hope is there for casual players to get it right?

Yes, the second sentence of the Glossary definition tells us that powers "often" cause multiple effect - but when we lack proper definition of effect - how are we to know what's a singular effect and what are multiples??

I guess what I'm looking for is a definition of the sort:

"Effect: A single attempt at manipulation of a card, hand, pile, deck, location or character pawn. Powers often cause multiple effects, which are separated by a comma or semicolon and the word "then". For example, the power "Before acting, suffer 1 Acid damage, then 1 Cold damage, then 1 Electricity damage, then 1 Fire damage." is comprised of four effects" .

"Collectively, the party may play no more than one boon of each type to affect damage to the same character from the same effect, although powers that say they can be played freely do not count toward that limit."

So if a monster says "Before acting, suffer 1 Acid damage, then 1 Cold damage, then 1 Electricity damage, then 1 Fire damage," that would be four effects, so you could use the same card type (or even the same card) to prevent each.

To me, this doesn't seem "obvious" at all. Indeed, these two sentences -to me- seem to directly contradict each other.

The issue being - "effect" (as well as "source" formerly) isn't defined *anywhere*. Only from your example I can infer you mean "effect that deals damage" to equate with "instance of damage" (which is the best and clearest wording I can come up with), as opposed to a whole "power that deal damage". So, basically what Yewstance said.

Despite the Elemental Arachnid pointing to the intent being different before, I'm perfectly OK with this rule change - I just believe it should be spelled out very clearly, not leaving players with another conundrum, to ponder what an "effect" or "source" is.

the question of things being too busy and having too many powers to remember is less of a problem for those of us who do most of our PACG gaming online... it's easier to remember a power when it's right at the top of the most recent update post than if it's on a card way across the table.

I've only had a few of those games and stalked about a dozen more, but that's not my experience - people seem to constantly be forgetting scenario powers, location powers and even top blessing discard (and that's BEFORE they had to actually track the new blessings' ongoing effect). I'll defer to your superior experience though.

To add to Cartmanbeck's questions to OP:

3) How large is your party?

4) Which blessings do you find are better - the old ones (where you could custom-tailor your party with double-dice blessings for tasks the party is weak at) or the new ones (where you get a bunch of effect, but very few overlaps - so you're unlikely to have just the "right" one for any given task; not to mention most of them seem to add a single die AND they can't be easily stacked)? How much did that impact your enjoyment of the game?

I was told in thread that "a check being blessed" is not the same as "a check counts as if a blessing has been played on it", so you should be fine.

Exploring with the Spy should be no different than displaying a spell that adds 2d4 Fire to all encounters this turn - it's just a lingering effect that you apply (and you don't even get to chose if you're using it - so there can be no argument you're still playing the card) and as such does not count against your encounter card limits.

For Longshot’s question, the rulebook also says “If you are examining a location, when determining which cards you are examining, consider only facedown cards.” Since the card you explore was flipped face-up as part of exploring, you don’t examine it again despite it still being in the location.

I... didn't have a question about examining, actually :) I was trying to give an example why wouldn't put past designer intent a logic like "count all the REMAINING cards besides the one being encountered".

The idea that you must be left with "Dragon and ONE other card" just strikes me as... odd. I wouldn't bat an eye at the ever popular "if there are any OTHER card left" (i.e. Dragon must be on nottom), but when we get to numbers - some do feel more arbitrary than others.

There can be a long conversation of the "sacrality" of number 3 in the collective consciosness of Western civilizations, but fact is - while the text says "three cards (for this unfavorable thing)", it actually means "must have only TWO cards left (for this favorable thing)" - and I just *can't* shake the feeling it was supposed to aim for "must have only THREE cards LEFT (for the favorable thing)"...

We've said before that "the things you do must directly affect the situation" covers only things that definitely affect the situation, not things that potentially affect the situation.

I'm sorry, Vic, but that's neither an argument I remember being made on this forum (which, granted, is not saying anything), but more importantly - that's not what we're told in the *Rulebook* itself. As far as I can find, the ONLY criteria for relevance (directly affecting the situation) we're given is "the things you do cannot require anyone to do something else for your action to be meaningful". I'm positively baffled that none of the other veterans here seems concerned by the dicrepancy of what (I believe) RAW is telling us versus what *you* are telling us above.

To the contrary, I distinctly remember *official* support on this forum that adding a trait to a check IS legal, even if you're not even guaranteed to use that trait in any way. How is that different to the "potentially" affecting situations you say are illegal?!?

The lack of strong reaction to this "new" directive strongly implies that it is *me* that is missing something crucial where it comes to RAW - so I'll kindly ask any player/designer to point me to the Rulebook text I'm missing/misinterpreting.

As far as intent goes, I strongly disagree with Frencois that Vic's suggestion "makes sense". The idea that I would be allowed to play Cure mid-combat if I have 2 cards in Discards, but not if I have 3, or if I have 0 cards in my Deck, but not if I have 1 is deeply troubling. It's an exception on top of an exception and adds a mind-frolicking level of intuitive-lessness for apparently no (imho) good reason.

Accidentally, I've never brought these particular situations to the forum because - as Yewstance rightly notices- there doesn't seem a particularly strong designer drive to "fix" the 'affecting the situation' criteria and to cement them in a clear and transparent way, and the designers seem content to leave a level of 'nebulousness' to the whole affair (leaving tables to come up with on-the-spot rulings for far-out corner cases) rather than to paint themselves into a corner with any particularly strict and rigid ruling. If anything, each time these issues are brought up, it only seems to further muddy the actual workings of the 'relevance' rules.

Pretty much anytime BETWEEN steps.

Otherwise, only if it's "relevant" (it doesn't require you to perform any other action for the Healing spell to affect the situation) - which it will almost *never* be during an encounter.

Paradoxically enough, if a bane says "If you suffer damage, discard from the top of your deck instead" - that seemingly *would* allow you to play Healing (it can prevent you from dying and its shuffle will change the top cards you'll discard - neither of which will require additional action than playing the Healing spell/item/ally). PACG can get weird sometimes :)

For the reasons mentioned above, it always made sense to me for "ignore" to be a party-wide effect, or else to at least be able to "freely" play your boons to allow other characters to ignore stuff. our table has discussed implementing either of those as house-rule, but we haven't done so so far, as we don't want to "cheat".

I'll say, each of our players, while encountering Giant Fly, would play a "ignore AA" card to negate that power and wouldn't bat an eye.

For the Accursed Priest, we would allow

A)Active player plays "ignore AA" and that power never fires off (essentially making the ignore party-wide) <<we see that as similar to Merisiel evading a Horde barrier - Meri *could* let the Barrier fire off, and evade her personal summon, but it's a lot better to just evade the barrier itself altogether),
<<and there WILL be some argument here, as the contrary example would be given - shouldn't we by the same token allow the active player to ignore a Dragon's a mass BA damage power for the whole party, with a single card; which was explicitely states as illegal play by the dev, but which has always been - as Yewstance intuits- the play that matches flavor and, more importantly, player expectations, on our table. So, even though we keep playing by the rules, we strongly feel the rules are not "right" in this instance.>>

THEN

B)If active player doesn't ignore AA altogether, Priest's AA fires off: we would select a player to suffer it, then that play may play "ignore AA" to not do so (and this CAN again be the active player himself, in case the distinction matters!); if they do - the Priest's AA is considered satisfied and we wouldn't make another character bury a blessing.

I'm pretty sure the Iomedae trait thing is *primarily* intended for the Bastion, the rest of the options is just bonus.

Otherwise, good catch about that recharge not being "playing the Bastion". So you should definitely be able to reduce any Combat damage by 2xMythic charges.

As for "all damage", there's something funky about that wording up there... The way it's written, sounds like you can only recharge an Iomedae card if you previously reveal the Bastion... but that can't be right.

Skizzerz was correct—you reload it in the After Acting step. That "additionally" does not define timing

Whoa, hold the presses! This is actually a pretty heavy statement that... actually makes a lot of sense? I DO admit that's NOT my table's understanding of this wording and wouldn't have played it so, but now that we've been told otherwise - this can't just be left as a by-the-by comment.

First, all of Yewstance's questions are valid and important and merit answer.

Second, if we take Vic's comment about ""additionally" does not define timing" on face value (and I can't see why not, even if it deeply bothers me for clashing with my reading of the rules so far), consider that the following should be true:

- We have an Example Monster: "Combat 20 THEN Combat 25. AA, succeed at Knowledge 9 check or roll 1d4; on a roll of 1, you die."

- I reveal Warhammer for first check. I CAN'T reload it at this point to ignore AA - meaning I risk losing it to damage, but also meaning I get to use it for the second combat
- I reveal a Longsword +3 for the second CtD - I have already satisfied Warhammer's prerequisite for the "additionally" so I don't need to stick with it (I still can't reload it as "ignore AA" is still not "relevant" to the action at hand
- I defeat the monster, AA time! - I can now reload the WH to ignore the AA power in it's entirety but I chose not to!
- I make a Knowledge check and I fail. I can STILL reload WH to ignore AA, but I chose not to.
- I roll 1d4 and I get a 1 - I should die! So NOW I finally decide to reload WH and this stage I ignore the AA power and get on with my life
- Any effects from the AA up to this point still remain (say, Shardra making a Knowledge check at the Glassworks, with the candlestick; or anything caring about me rolling a die - the d4) - exactly as evading with a Whip after a failed combat doesn't DeLoarean the rest of the encounter back to its start

So, did I get all of this right? If not - why? It DOES *feel* somehow wrong to me, but I'm still pretty shocked by this new revelation and I can't find Rules ground to support it - or to oppose it, for that matter. Any Rulebook quotes this or that way are welcome.

Ranged weapons are a prime example. For example, if a player uses a weapon on their combat check, another player can't play a longbow for its secondary ability to add d4 since a weapon card has already been played on that check....

Actually, this ability will now say "freely" - i.e it won't count towards your 1 boon/type limit.

Otherwise, you're correct that pre-Core cards lack in versatility and are probably not the best bet for 2.0 rules.

Personally, on Paizo or DriveThru, I'd very much prefer if they don't "update", but instead provide the new design as an alternative. I quite like the old designs better, and I'd rather keep producing my homebrew cards in the same style.

Have to love the shipping path to Alaska, start in Washington, than Oregon, than California...

Hey, it is called "Pathfinder" after all :)

Nope. Still not buying "less cleanup" as the reason for banishing locations, but if that's the version y'all want to stick with...

I hope that's not a representative selection of the game's locations and I suspect we have a very different definitions of what a "nice location is". My group usually divides locations into "bane-heavy" and "bane-light" when coming up with start-of-game approach, and the ones up there are... Jeez, to locations with 5 banes and one with six - before Hench/Villains! - looks like we're straight back in "Runelords" days, when it all about "pump you combat stat to the MAX and get the biggest weapon spell"... I thought there was a conscious de-emphasizing of combat even as far back as S&S, but I here I get the feeling I should prep for another WotR.

For crying out loud, Academy doesn't even make sense! It used to be one of the friendliest locations around, and one of the only ones where the eternally boon-disadvantaged RotR casters could shop for spells. Now *more than half* the location is actually banes, and there are a meager 2 (TWO!) spells in it! I don't know what sorts of learning institutions y'all have been envisioning here, but it's no place where I would want to try for a degree."Failing your exam" here probably means "getting your head bit off by a Chimera"or something...

Is there any confirmation if "summon and acquire" is the same as "summon and encounter"?

There is diff, but it has nothing to do with keeping the card.

"Summon and acquire" means you summon a boon and MUST succeed the check to acquire. Then you keep the boon.

"Summon and defeat" means summon a bane and you MUST succeed at the check to defeat. You then "return the bane to the box"(which is strictly NOT banishing, for purposes of Basic/Elite culling in pre-Core), IIRC.

"Summon and encounter" means you just summon and encounter a card, but the game DOESN'T CARE how this encounter will resolve! For obvious reasons, this instruction is almost exclusively used for banes.

More importantly, I note that the existence of the Base completely solves a common complaint about the 'locations being banished' rules change (which, at least once you're down to the last location or 2, completely prevents players near-death from hiding out at a 'safe' closed location to avoid collateral damage from effects killing them).

I admit that that's probably how we're going to use the Base, but will point out two things:

- first, you always need to keep at least 1 unexplored Supporter (or else always have at least 1 character stay at Base)

- second, while not counting for Villain escape, this location still seems vulnerable to "random location" or "all locations" bane effects (whereas such effects previously specifically targeted "open location" - hence the relative "safety" of a closed location pre-Core)

Congrats, Keith! May Shelyn smile on all your new endeavours!

(Also, no offense to Chad, but lacking the context you two share - in my head-canon that Rabbit Prince there is you :D

Accessory and Object are, to my experience, mutually exclusive traits. Accessory is usually something you wear on your person, like rings, necklaces, belts, etc. Still this looks like the more intuitive trait here.

Lore-wise, I like the 'display' mechanic as I see it as a good translation to the fact that Ioun Stone should probable not be adding any encumbrance or mental effort (which is what I see the "character hand" being a representation of).

All of Yewstance's observations are valid, and I just don't see any chance you can keep the first power (and even ONLY the first power!) as-is, and still pretend this is a Level 1 item. This is all cool, of course, if you're fine with an OP card or two for your home game, but if you're actually trying to emulate the real PACG power levels - you need to scale back quite a lot.

A more acceptable L1 version of this power, imho, would be:

Display. While displayed:
* when you would discard a card, recharge to recharge that card instead
* when you would banish a card, discard to bury that card instead

Second and third power seem fine, I'd just adjust the wording to current parlance, as I understand it:
* Discard to heal 1d4 cards. (while the word "cards" is understood, I believe they still write it on the cards?)
* Bury to reload a card from your discards.

Finally, from a thematc standpoint, I don't particularly like the card's design. From what I can find, this Ion Stone is supposed to completely remove a character's need for food and water (which sounds like a pretty powerful thing, I'd say around Level 4 card at least?), not heal them.
In PACG, the lack or abundance of food and water (and the exhaustion thereof) is something I'd rather associate with movement, exploration, physical exertion.

Some powers I'd consider, off the top of my head:

- Dicard to explore (usually reserved only for Allies; if you bump it to at least L4, I'd make that "Recharge to explore")
- Recharge to move; you may not play this power during an encounter (it's a pretty cheap price to move mid-turn, but Core severely devalues such powers, so sounds about right to me)
- You may give this card to another local player, except during an encounter (easy to way to be able to bump someone with 1 Healt in the nick of time, or provide the right local person with an extra exploration, if combined with the explore power above)
- When you would bury, discard, recharge or shuffle into your deck a card for your character power, you may do so with this card instead (this effectively "extends" your character hand, while at the same time provides you with a "safe card"to use for your powers even if you have been hand-wiped, by a BYA power for example)

Of course, this only reflects MY opinion on what this Ioun Stone represents and how it translates into PACG, but as long as you're having fun - anything goes.

SECOND POWER

The card discards itself before the heal, so it can easily heal itself. Usually undesirable.

I believe in one of the blogs they said"as a blanket rule the new "heal" will exclude the card doing the healing?

I believe a table I've actively been a player in has lost a scenario... once. At least, we had to replay a scenario. Nor have I ever seen a player experience character death, and this is in a total of something like 90 scenarios. This is why I - like Redeux above me - don't feel like it's an accomplishment when I win a scenario.

@ Yewstance & Redeux: I've stated my *personal opinion* and I'm not trying to convince anyone it's the right decision for *them*, but I'm really struggling to understand what's the type of game *you* would be satisfied with. From my reading, it seems like you need to *actively be losing games*, in order to feel an ""achievement" when you actually win, is that it? That's a sincere question.

My table has about the same failure ratio as Yewstance but almost always it DOES feel like an achievement - winning by the skin of our teeth, either in terms of timer or remaining deck ("life"). Of course, none of us has Yewstance's crazy game-breaking skills, so could that account for the gigantic differences in perception?! We DO optimize our characters but no one is actively looking for infinity engines or obscure overpowered combos (funny story: way back in RotR, it boggled our mind when Orbis,iirc, reported the Restoration exploit, and we literally couldn't comprehend how someone could -or why would- think about the game and its cards in such way). It's been a 1+ year, but to my recollection, MM (the last printed campaign) had a bunch of scenarios that where anything but "easy", unless someone is running MtG-level engine shenanigans.