Sehyo's page

Thanks for sharing these. I will give some of these a try.

Location Placement and Movement
all Locations are placed in a somewhat logical pattern,as determined by the players or, in my Scenarios, by me.
All Players start at the same Location determined the same way.
Whenever a Character moves he can only move to an the next open Location in the pattern or any closed Location in between. (Teleport might ignore this point.)
This makes at the beginning/end of Turn and entering/exiting rules a bit more relevant.
Plus encountering the Villain early can be more problematic, if you are not in a position to temporarily close Locations. ..

Four paws. Thanks for trying out these different ideas. By the way your English is fantastic. I am very impressed. Thanks for your analysis of the ideas as well.

The location placement and movement is the only rule addition I have added. I didn't do it to make the game more difficult. I added this rule to give my group a less abstract experience. I wanted the location to have meaning and provide a sense of geographic dimension. It does add a slight increase to the difficulty, but more importantly, as you expressed above, encountering the villa nearly is actually a big problem. He/She will inevitably escape and it is very likely to a location we have not yet had a chance to close. I also start everyone at the same location. This provides a sense of beginning together and we are setting out to defeat this adventure together. By the way I do allow the teleport capability to avoid the monster check I use to make the Character have to test an see if a random monster appears while they travel to their new location.

Sehyo, if you don't defeat the random monster you encounter when moving, do you take damage as usual, or just can't move/explore?

Elvis. I play it so that if you do not defeat the travel encounter you take damage as usual and you can't move/explore.

True that some people are never happy. However, I think that for this game a large majority of the players are happy. Feedback to the development team is what we wish to provide so that the game will improve (there is no such thing as a perfect game) and more importantly the game will survive the initial novelty and be around for many years.

I answer h4ppy's questions further below, but first, Bottom line up front: in my opinion the greatest improvement the game needs is to create a need for more of a role playing atmosphere by increasing the interaction among the players to solve the adventure path's challenge. It is not a matter if simply making bigger more powerful henchmen, but to make it so we must work together and by providing a sense of being in a different world while we do it. I think one of the ways you accomplish this is by adding more dimension to the game play. In other posts I have discussed my ideas for requiring a challenge to travel between locations with the challenge increasing based on how far they have to travel. (Distance matters) Greater distance = greater risk. That is one example of how to add a dimension to the game play. Another example is to add a level of cooperative challenge which gives each player a personal objective which must be accomplished besides the group challenge. For example, must gain two allies, must kill one of the henchmen, you are seeking a certain talisman (which is a card placed in one of the location decks), etc., this individual challenge would have its own reward in addition to the scenario reward. A set of standard individual challenge cards could be added and each player draws one at the start of the scenario. so the added dynamic this provides is that player must diplomatically work with each other to accomplish the group objective and as many of their individual objectives as they can. Alright onto to the answers.

In particular:

1) How often would you expect to fail a scenario (time out the blessings deck)? Based on how we solve the scenario, I think this is a very random event. I like the timing effect and it adds tension as we get close to the end. I like this tension. This important effect is more important than whether we actually time out. I suggest this should happen only occasionally. Once per adventure deck. I think the way it is now is about right.

2) If you played the entire Adventure Path (packs 1-6) through ten times (just imagine!) with an average of 4 characters per playthrough (i.e. 40 characters in total), how many times would you expect to see a character die?
Again, the possibility of death is more important than the actuality. I also think the possibility of death should be less frequent than timing out. Let's say one death per adventure path.

3) What would you do if a character died (and was not legitimately resurrected by some game effect)?
(e) stick to the rules: kill them off then generate a brand new character (with no feats) to continue on the path with you

I do wish there were character generation rules. I like the fact they gave us pre-generated characters, but I am ready to try to develop my own.

4) If you'd like to share some stats about how often you've actually timed out the blessings deck or died that would be great to!

I have played through all of the current adventure decks twice. Generally with three characters each time, occasionally we have a fourth show up. We have had one death and timed out three times.

I a happy that you guys are solving this little issue. I would be happy paying to have the correct version of the cards.

I agree with both of you. The game needs a little injection in the arm to make it feel more like a role playing game. It could also do with a wiki.

The role playing boost should be fairly easy to do. Probably best to make these optional rules provided at a future release, but with these I would certainly try tackling the first four adventures again, so replay value of previous Rise of The Rune Lords products would go up. Plus would give us RRL veterans a new challenge as we face the next series of adventures Here are my recommendations.

1). Creat a scenario end card. One side with the victory text to read that inspires the adventurers with the impact of their success on the town, or whoever hired them and that leads you into the next scenario. It can also add some context into the reward they received for their success. E.g. The town is so grateful the town marshal opens up their world famous armory and allows each adventurer to pick a weapon from 10 random weapons drawn from the box. On the other side of the card provide the end text again for what happens if you fail and the impact on the scenario, E.g the town leaders are so dismayed by your failure they insist you must prove your worth by completing Scenario Z before you try again to defeat the scenario that you failed. Additionally, the town is concerned with your lack of prowess their support of you and your party is no longer what it was; each character must Banish one ally, and the party must choose now to either attempt it again ignoring the town leaders (must now banish an additional ally) or you can complete scenario Z and Try the failed scenario again.

2). Give the players options for how they try and resolve the adventure path. Recommend the first scenario. Always be a must do first scenario to set the conditions for the new path. Tying this into the end scenario card described above, could look something like this; if you defeat villain Captain X (first scenario. Of new adventure path), you can either choose scenarios BCD or CDE and here is your reward, weapon, skill feat, or card feat, etc.,. On the other side of the card provide the end text for a failed scenario and the impact on the scenario, Since you did not defeat Villain Captain X, each character must Banish one ally and you can either attempt it again (banish another ally) or complete scenario Z and must follow path ZBCD. No options if you fail. The party can either follow the instructions of the town leaders and do Z or try and get their options back, or do The original scenario again skipping Z but losing an ally. I think providing a method for the adventure party to have to make a decision between scenarios helps add some of the social interaction for my group.

3) Add a sense of geographical distance and dimension between locations: the locations are key component of building the sense of an RPG world. My group we always says that the first time someone moves to one of the locations they have to read the location card text both sides; the closed side has the fluf text, and the open side hasthe game text. We also use the travel rules which I have described in detail on other forum posts. Basically, for 5 or fewer locations we lay them out in a straight line and the party all start at the left most location and we have to travel to the other locations. Traveling requires a D6 roll and if you roll the distance or less on the D6 you must fight a random monster and either defeat it or evade it to complete your move. For 6 or more locations we set them up in a circle. Distance between location is determined by the number of locations In between where you are and where you want to go. So a jump,of one location to the very next is a distance of 1, two locations is a distance of 2, etc.,.

4). Create the mechanics to build your own character. I think the creators of this game made the right call to have pre-created characters and did an excellent job creating this game so anyone could jump right in and begin playing without a bunch of preset up work. However, I really miss being able to create my own character. I miss building him or her and then trying the character out against the adventure. I don't think this would be to difficult to create. Perhaps establish a point system where we have a certain amount to spend on skill dice, skill traits (melee, divine, etc.,.) and skill bonuses, and powers. For the special powers like Valeros power that let's him recharge a weapon instead of discarding it, we could have a list for each profession (fighter, Mage, cleric, etc.,) and each special power could have a point cost to add to our character. The deck list could be set based on the profession chosen for the character with the option to spend character creation points to upgrade the card list when you first create the character.

Sorry for the long post, but wracking my brain for how to take a great game and give it a little more of an RPG sense to it without over complicating things. We need to keep this game simple and elegant, but I fear without increased RPG/adventure feel the game may get old after awhile.

Strange. Are you logged in. Believe you have to be logged in as the poster to edit the post.

Thanks for putting these all in one place. You may want to edit the post on party travel to explain how evading works (you can evade the random monster and make it to your new location) and what happens with closed locations (still count for distance moved) per our previous postings.

@Jjiinx,

I know how you feel. I love this game as well.

The travel rule doesn't make the encounters harder, but adds a slight possibility that each player will have to face more encounters during a 30 blessing game. The encounter also comes before they explore, so they will be going into the explore at the new location having used one card in their hand. I would say it is much less of a challenge than if you changed all add a die checks to a 1 d4 add.

The travel rule is supposed to only slightly increase the difficulty. It is really more to expand the feel of the players experience that there is a world besides the locations on the table and there is the possibility of something bad happening I between the locations. I also wanted to make moving part of the tactics of the game. Since the party now all starts out at the same location, I see the players now talking to each other, planning who is going to stay, who is going to move and who the best player might be to try and make the long journey to the farthest locations.

@Jjiinx

Evading is as good as defeating. The only way you fail to move to the location is if the monster defeats you. The reason this added set of events work is it provides only a minor drain on your resources. It does not necessarily add increased difficulty immediately but over time it slowly whittles your group down making the encounters towards the end of the session more challenging.so since evading requires you to use card effects it is serving the same purpose.

Moving from the left most to the right most. When we have 5 or fewer locations we consider the locations as if they are laid out in a straight line on a map and we lay them out that way on the table. So the right most location is the farthest away for the left most or with five location you will score a monster on a 4 or less on the D6. When we have 6 or more locations we consider them to be in a circular pattern and so yes you could consider the left most and right most adjacent but we actually lay them out that way on the table when we play with 6 locations.

We still count closed locations for travel. The logic is that the physical distance has not changed. The location is not the danger it once was but the surrounding area is as dangerous as it ever was.

Hope you have fun with this like we do.

I posted some thoughts below about increasing the challenge of the game in another thread. We have continued to test these and they seem to add challenge and provide a greater sense of this being an rpg adventure. We have not found any play balance issues but have actually found so e new uses for cards that did not seem to have much use (eg levitate). I offer these thoughts here for your consideration.

I am a long time gamer (started with original d&d, but new to Pathfinder. My wife got the Pathfinder Adventure Card game for us on Christmas. My wife, 19 yo daughter and I have played it almost every night since Christmas. We have made it through the Skinsaw Murders and are about to start on the 3rd adventure pack. We have kept our games focused on getting through the story, and I try and add some context and make it as much a role playing game as I can given the constraints. I like the game and we have had a grand time, but have only come close to running out of time once (got to the last 3 cards of the blessing deck) and only one character came close to death and she simply flipped her blessing card over and bided her time while my wife and I finished the adventure. While I do think there is room for making the game more challenging, I would suggest there is a way do do this and add more to the role playing aspects and player interaction rather than simply making it harder. Here are my suggestions.

To add a sense of the party being together, have the party all start at the same location. I always lay the locations down in a straight line. That location can be selected by the party and is always the left most location in the line. I also like the idea of the locations reflecting some distance, but instead of making the characters have to move to only adjacent locations I wanted to make create a sense of distance and with increasing distance comes greater risk. So the following rule,is added.

To move to a new location roll a D6. If you roll the distance traveled or less on the D6 you encounter a random monster from the box. So if you move to the adjacent location your distance is a 1 and the monster only appears if you roll a 1 on the random move monster die. If you are moving over two locations then the monster appears on a 1 or 2' and so forth. I would keep the locations in a straight line until you play with 6 or more locations and then I would make then in a circle.

If the monster is not defeated then the character can't move nor can he explore that turn. If he defeats the monster the he continues his turn as usual.

Also the levitate spell allows you to move without making a check.

This increases the challenge by adding additional combat checks and the potential loss of a turn if not defeating the monster. This will cause you to use up some of your items and or possibly another chance to take damage. It also makes it a little tougher to have the occasional situation where you turn up two or even three henchmen on turn one.

We tried this on the "angel In The tower scenario and made the tower the 4th location in the sequence. This made it so we had to try and get someone there to avoid turning over the top card of the discard. The first character ran into a monster and did not defeat the monster, but the second character made it there. It added an interesting twist to the start of the game. In the end we barely defeated the Angel with only two cards remaining in the blessing deck and it was fun having to make an additional monster check for each move. It certainly added a new level of tactics to the game as we tried to figure out how to cover all the locations and reduce our risk of running into a random monster during traveling between locations.

Thanks h4ppy. Making a game more difficult is not what this game needs. You need to make it more interesting by offering another "dimension" to the tactics. I am not meaning dimension like planes of existence. I mean make it more challenging by adding something that makes it feel more like an adventure and less like a dice rolling card game. Add something like the movement rule and random monster generation I mention above this adds dimension by makizng the distance between locations add a sense of depth and a sense of risk and adventure to traveling between locations. In other words it's not just a blank space between cards on a gaming table, but a harsh world where something bad can happen.

I think you need something that makes the party have a tougher decision between splitting up and staying together. Perhaps limit assistance to blessing cards only unless you are at the same location. Seems odd that it can cast a strength spell on someone out in the woods when I am in the tavern. But blessings are from the gods and seem more likely to have far reaching effects.

I like this game a lot and look forward to the next adventure. I think it is good that the initial releases of the game were not over powering. It introduces the concept (which is great) and allows new game players an opportunity to get hooked on the game and learn their characters without having to die multiple times.

I am a long time gamer (started with original d&d, but new to Pathfinder. My wife got the Pathfinder Adventure Card game for us on Christmas. My wife, 19 yo daughter and I have played it almost every night since Christmas. We have made it through the Skinsaw Murders and are about to start on the 3rd adventure pack. We have kept our games focused on getting through the story, and I try and add some context and make it as much a role playing game as I can given the constraints. I like the game and we have had a grand time, but have only come close to running out of time once (got to the last 3 cards of the blessing deck) and only one character came close to death and she simply flipped her blessing card over and bided her time while my wife and I finished the adventure. While I do think there is room for making the game more challenging, I would suggest there is a way do do this and add more to the role playing aspects and player interaction rather than simply making it harder. Here are my suggestions.

To add a sense of the party being together, have the party all start at the same location. I always lay the locations down in a straight line. That location can be selected by the party and is always the left most location in the line. I also like the idea of the locations reflecting some distance, but instead of making the characters have to move to only adjacent locations I wanted to make create a sense of distance and with increasing distance comes greater risk. So the following rule,is added.

To move to a new location roll a D6. If you roll the distance traveled or less on the D6 you encounter a random monster from the box. So if you move to the adjacent location your distance is a 1 and the monster only appears if you roll a 1 on the random move monster die. If you are moving over two locations then the monster appears on a 1 or 2' and so forth. I would keep the locations in a straight line until you play with 6 or more locations and then I would make then in a circle.

If the monster is not defeated then the character can't move nor can he explore that turn. If he defeats the monster the he continues his turn as usual.

Also the levitate spell allows you to move without making a check.

This increases the challenge by adding additional combat checks and the potential loss of a turn if not defeating the monster. This will cause you to use up some of your items and or possibly another chance to take damage. It also makes it a little tougher to have the occasional situation where you turn up two or even three henchmen on turn one.

We tried this on the "angel In The tower scenario and made the tower the 4th location in the sequence. This made it so we had to try and get someone there to avoid turning over the top card of the discard. The first character ran into a monster and did not defeat the monster, but the second character made it there. It added an interesting twist to the start of the game. In the end we barely defeated the Angel with only two cards remaining in the blessing deck and it was fun having to make an additional monster check for each move. It certainly added a new level of tactics to the game as we tried to figure out how to cover all the locations and reduce our risk of running into a random monster during traveling between locations.