Ah, I see that now. It's only the banes that are limited to level 0 and 1. Thanks guys.
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Anybody find there's not enough Blessings in the Core Set? We are using Lem, Merisiel, Seoni and Valeros so there are 12 Blessings in our decks. Very first Scenario, I think with four Blessings in the Location decks. With a thirty card hourglass, this left only two Blessings total in the box. We found the Villain in the first location who escaped, necessitating four Blessings from the box to "cover" his escape. With that location closed we only have three Blessings available. I've counted the cards, I've checked the decklist and I've got everything I should. Now I also have to think what would happen if we say had Sajan instead of Valeros. There wouldn't have even been enough Blessings to make the hourglass.
I'm generally a believer that anything and everything you need to know to play a card game should be printed on the cards and so I agree with concerns that the game will get mired in keywords. Legendary Marvel is my second favourite card game but every new expansion adds some key words that the players have to know. At this point, that means keeping the stack of expansion rules sheets nearby to refer to them every time somebody needs to know what Lightshow or Cheering Crowds means. As for the extra story, I'm divided on it. While I'm big on my games being thematic, the big draw for me in PACG is that it gives me a satisfactory amount of RPG without having a pile of reference books on hand. You know how long running RPGs can get. "I'm firing my bow."
My point is, if the extra story comes in any form other than being printed on a card, it will be lost on me. I suspect it will be lost in general. I've been playing PACG from the beginning and not once has anyone ever asked what the backstory is. However I have frequently had this exchange: "We have to do x because of y."
Thanks Hawkmoon. I was also leaning towards defeat without cornering, since there is a lot going on here already with henchmen that make closing locations difficult (although profitable) and, as you say, a villain that makes a late entrance. I'll stick with that unless I learn otherwise.
To win Tomb Raiders Gone Rogue the scenario rules say we must defeat the villain Velriana Hypaxes. In Wrath, scenario rules of this kind would specify "corner and defeat". I assume this was specified since there was some confusion in past APs as to whether scenario rules that stated "defeat villain x to win the scenario" required us to corner the villain as per the game's standard rules. Tomb Raiders doesn't specify "corner and defeat". So I'm caught between assuming the scenario is cutting us a break by not requiring this one villain to be cornered in the normal manner, or the "defeat" instruction here implies "corner and defeat" since that's the normal method.
Nothing big here but just wanted to point out that The Third Law and The Second Law don't have the Trigger trait. In this case I don't think this affects anything other than drawing attention to their "when you examine" powers. But just in case, there it is.
Thanks Vic, I'll bear that all in mind. As for the purpose of the Sunburst Market, I'd say any of the above could be equally correct. But I haven't got that far yet so I couldn't say for certain. In any event, I can see the Traders being hugely useful to characters who just haven't been lucky enough to pick up the cards they really need/want. Myself playing as any spellcasting character would be a prime example. I can't tell you how many times I've been going into deck 5 and still carrying the very same spells I started out with. :P
Just got me Mummy's Mask and haven't actually started playing it yet but looking over the cards, I've come up with a few questions I feel I'll have to deal with sooner or later. First is the Scourges. Besides Curse of Poisoning, we have three copies of each Scourge. I'm going to guess that it's unlikely but still possible for these three copies to be doled out and then require a fourth copy. In the event that there are not enough copies of the Scourge card, do we ignore it (ignoring impossible instructions) or do we "proxy" extra copies of the Scourge as necessary (such as Mythic Role card in Wrath)? Second is the Sunburst Market which I'm not certain I'm understanding correctly. This Trader tells me to "choose a non-loot boon that has the Basic trait". Does this mean that I choose a specific boon, such as Camel or Holy Water Grenade? Or does it mean that I choose a type of boon, such as Item or Armor, and randomly pull a Basic card of that type from the box? Or something entirely different? o_O
This is pretty much the exact opposite of how I play PACG. It's not like I'm the greatest of gamers but I've generally taken the approach that I won't use a card in a way that removes if from my hand until it's absolutely necessary. The definition of absolutely necessary changes based on the situation and is largely dependant on how "permanent" the removal of that card is going to be. I'll use a recharge power without much thought but a power that requires banishing is always the last resort. I will recharge redundant armors but always keep one in hand unless a character desperately needs to get some card drawing going. This approach has generally served me well with all group sizes in all APs to date. Having said all that, I feel the strategy of this article is more for card games like Magic, Netrunner, etc. where speed is most always your ally, running out of cards isn't always death and you're usually starting with a "big" deck of cards to churn through. You could say I favor the tortoise over the hare in PACG. As for investing in Hand Size, my attitude towards this has changed greatly. When I first started playing PACG I would not put feats into HS unless forced to. (Such as graining a third power feat, pre-role card, and all non-hand size feats are taken) I'm not sure where, when or why this happened but I suddenly gained a new appreciation for characters with large hand sizes and now I'll go out of my way to increase hand size for any character. I think the decision to invest in hand size or not comes down to personal, past experience with PACG. If you've suffered a lot of character deaths with large hand size characters, then I can see having an adversity to making hand sizes even bigger then they already are. This has happened to me plenty of times but I'll still go out of my way to ramp up hand size to seven or eight. If I had to give a recommendation, I would say increasing hand size should be a priority for characters who do not have their primary combat cards as their preferred card type. Such as Ruinlords Seelah who is a melee weapons fighter but has armor as her preferred card type. Just to increase her chances of starting of with, or quickly drawing, a weapon, I will increase her hand size asap.
That's pretty much what I suspected. An expensive ability but it might save my but someday. Thanks Vic.
I suspect I know the answer to this but I still wanted to make sure. Cogsnap starts off with the power "When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical trait for its power you may banish another card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait instead". So this is pretty straight forward. Something like if I use an Alchemist's Fire, I can toss a Potion of Glibness in its place and keep the Alchemist's Fire. However, there is one case that's a little different. The Potion of Heroism, which is displayed for a time before being banished for its power. If I banish another card in its place, what happens to the Potion of Heroism? Continue displaying it until the end of my next turn? Does this mean I can keep it in play indefinitely? If not, is the potion just "lost" in a displayed card limbo?
Character Name: Seelah (WotR)
Character Name: Arueshalae
Character Name: Balazar
Character Name: Kyra (WotR)
Redeemed Card: Black Robe, Book of the Damned, Helm of the Serpent King, Horns of Naraga, Rod of the Viper, Soulshear, Unholy Aspergillum x3
At the risk of being the obvious guy who points out the obvious...
At the risk of being a total downer... does it concern anyone that this releasing may be the death of the physical card game? It's shaping up to look like this is the superior version of the game in every way and if it delivers, I can see Mask of the Mummy being the physical game's last AP. Part of me is disturbed by the idea but the other half would be happy to convert. As I write this I'm sitting in a room lined with games from the modern consoles running back to the Atari, so I definitely can't say I wouldn't get behind a video game version.
You are correct that BotG does not recharge itself by copying another blessing. Even without getting into the technicalities and rules, this would make BotG absurdly powerful and would pretty much render all other blessings pointless. As for when you can cast Cure... I have some pretty strong feelings on timing rules. I despise them. Almost as much as I despise communication rules. So I say go ahead and Cure away. Any time. All the time. Having said that, probably better to wait for somebody else to give you an actual answer that's grounded in the rules.
Guys, can't we all just get... Beyond Demondome?! That's right, I went there. And I agree with Hawkmoon. A solo game would only have one location for your one character. As noted many times before, Wrath's difficulty increases exponentially as you add more characters.
I'm inclined to say that Deskari can't escape into the Rifts location once defeated. Even if other villains were present to keep the location open, Deskari itself would still be banished. As the rulebook puts it: "If any villains remain in the deck , banish everything except the remaining villains and shuffle the deck; the location is not permanently closed, but if there are no other open locations for the villain to escape to, banish the villain." If a defeated villain could escape into the location it came from, that would mean all villains in all scenarios are undefeatable. I don't think the rule about cards taking precedent over the rulebook applies here since there is no contradiction between the card and rulebook. The location doesn't have to close. Deskari just has to be defeated. Having said all that, I think this issue will just be left up to personal interpretation unless we get a FAQ entry or some-such.
The location and scenario specify henchmen in regards to not closing the location. I'm inclined to say this means defeating Diskari closes the rift like any other location. But nothing says you have to close anything. Anyway, Skizzers is right that we have totally defied the intention of the scenario. Our first plan was to lose to the very first henchman and shuffle the deck. Plan two was to use an Augury we'd included from a class deck. And then somebody brought up Orengofta whom we'd completely ignored until now.
So, we killed Deskari in one turn. Since this seems kinda broken, I'm posting what we did here to see if we missed something. The quest reward for Closing the Worldwound lets us take any boons from the box. Balazar, having the largest hand size, takes Orengofta. First turn of Justifiable Deicide, Balazar plays Orengofta and puts Deskari on top of the location deck. Balazar explores, encounters Deskari and the group drops everything they have on him. One turn kill. The villain is dead, can't escape and we don't see any other victory conditions. Was this actually a legit win? o_O Even if we couldn't take Orengofta as a quest reward, I can definitely see future Wrath parties going out of their way to obtain and keep him just for this purpose.
Personally, Imrijka's outfit reminds me more of a certain, famous vampire-slaying vampire.
Character Name: Seelah
Character Name: Arueshalae
Character Name: Balazar
Character Name: Kyra
Private cards are totally fine with me. Ultimately, I really don't *have* to put the name on the card. After all, they're just for me/ my group and we know who the owner is. I'd just like to stick the names on there for the aesthetics.
You could always do a special edition of Flenta with a "Necromantic Faker" Role ; ). I would love to see this, especially if it gets a new character portrait. Flenta's current portrait always makes me laugh. Her expression is just right, as if simultaneously saying "I give up." and "I hate you scroll!" and "You will tell me your secrets.".
And let Mike have a Necromancer deck. I know they'd all be wizards or sorcerers or some-such but we'd all know they are really Necros.In Pathfinder RPG terms, "necromancer" specifically refers to a wizard that specializes in necromancy magic. (Other specialist wizards includes abjurer, conjurer, diviner, enchanter, evoker, illusionist, and transmuter.) If we wanted to have non-wizards who deal with undead magics, we would probably choose a different word than "necromancer." I'm sure the Paizo people could think of something that'll make everyone say "I want that! I want two of that!"
So, a while back I remember a post asking if non-iconic characters would get their own Owner cards. And then, being the horribly original person I am, I figured why not use DriveThru's card creator and just do it myself? However, this means putting the name's of Paizo's characters on the cards, even if I stick it down in the Powers box. Problem is, I don't really know if I'm allowed to do that? o_O I'm not so great at understanding the details of the community use policy when it comes to this, so I figured I'd throw it up here and see what people can tell me. If any official Paizo people happen to read this, feel free to let me know.
And let Mike have a Necromancer deck. I know they'd all be wizards or sorcerers or some-such but we'd all know they are really Necros.That is a really interesting idea which I'm not sure we've considered. What I think you're saying here is that the deck would have a set of boons that would be good for various characters to do a particular thing (in this case: raise an undead army). So the characters wouldn't have to be specifically one class, as long as they could all do that thing quite well. Intriguing thought. Actually, yes that is pretty much what I had in mind. ^_^ I really didn't think something like this was do-able, but if you can make it work, more power to you Mike. I know I'd like to see this happen.
I'd vote for Gunslinger. I'm a fan of unusual character classes in any rpg, so this one has had the most appeal to me so far. I've never played the actual Pathfinder rpg so my knowledge of character classes is limited to what I've seen in the card game. I'd also pick Gunslinger because I seem to remember one of the developers saying they expected it would be difficult to make this deck.... Not that I'm evil or anything... >.> Actually, add on Swashbuckler. I'm pretty sure they were included in the same post. Still no evil... <.< And let Mike have a Necromancer deck. I know they'd all be wizards or sorcerers or some-such but we'd all know they are really Necros.
Just as I was starting The Demon's Redoubt I noticed that it lists Swallowtail Bracers under rewards. Sadly, I have no such card in my adventure deck, so I'm assuming I'm missing a card. However, before I go point my finger at somebody in the game store, I thought I'd ask here to make sure this really is a card that should be in the deck. While I'm at it, is there a card list for WotR? I didn't see it listed with the others.
I don't really see Eustoryiax as a major obstacle. Old Whalebone in S+S was a far bigger pain than this back in S+S. You had no choice but to bounce that guy between two locations right from the start. As for a villain that can't be killed until you get his underlings, that's really nothing new. The final battle of RotR operated this way and that encounter had no Blessing deck, so it was do or die.
While I'm not really a fan of this idea, I suppose splitting the party will be the way to go. We played this with a four player group and blew right through it like nothing. However, that being said, in a six player game, you should also have a but load of blessings to burn on defeating those armies. We've always maintained that each time we gain card feats, at least one character must increase their blessings. In a six player game, at least two.
Character Name: Valeros (S+S)
Character Name: Merisiel (S+S)
Character Name: Damiel
Character Name: Heggal
I think Adowyn is pictured on the card since she is mostly meant to work with Animal type allies. This isn't readily apparent from her character card but her role card, Pack Leader at least, uses Animals a lot more. Weapon or not, Enchanted Fang will apply as long as an Animal ally is involved. I would just question wether or not Enchanted Fang will still be useful when that Role Card comes into play. Right from the gate, however, I'd say Enchanted Fang is really there to help out Balazar.
We had a definite epic fail. Playing as a group of four in WotR, the group consisted of Seoni, Balazar, Crowe and Enora. Seoni, Balazar and Enora all had a complete hand wipe on their first turn. And their second turn. With a hand size of six each, they were all dead. So, eight turns in, three out of four characters were eliminated. And so our very first game of WotR ended in a mass rage quit. I will say, the game definitely lives up to the Wrath part of the title.
I want the glowing-demonic-mummy cat on the right side of the box. It looks cute. And like it would eat souls. Which is cuter.
What actually struck me most about this is Enora's hand-on-hip pose. It has always seemed to me that the little people of fantasy (dwarves, gnomes, halflings, etc.) always appear in exactly one of two poses: standing still (and I really mean JUST standing) or flying full bore into battle (usually only an art work choice for male dwarves with giant axes). It's not often I ever see them in the same kinds of poses we put the big people. The art work is really a big part of what sucked me into this game. I've seen some great games be absolutely destroyed by poor art decisions and, in a card game like this where text is extremely limited, your art work has to speak volumes.
Good to know, I definitely would have questioned this if/ when I noticed the changes.
This may not be a big deal and for all I know it may have been done by design but: I noticed the Endurance spell from the Ranger Class Deck is worded differently from other spells of its kind. The other "Add 3 to a Skill" spells expire at the end of the turn. The Endurance spell ends "At the end of your turn." As written, I assume this would allow the spell to stay in effect for several turns, until the end of the turn of the character who cast the spell, while all other spells of this kind always end after one turn. Anywho, sorry if this came up already. I didn't find mention of it in the FAQ or forums.
I have finished RotR with Darago in the group (along with Zarlova, Flenta and Wu-Shen). I found Darago to be a "late bloomer" type of character. I felt he started off as a "jack of all trades but master of none". Once he gets rolling and accumulates some feats, he is pretty powerful. I didn't really find his weapons and armors to be a drawback. I know I'm in the minority on this but I prefer to have armors in hand for everybody. Weapons are fine since they can handle this smaller threats and save his spells for the bigger fights. I would say that you must have a focus for developing Darago and stick to it or else he will remain a jack of all trades but master of none. Whatever you do with Darago I'd say he ultimately functions like a hybrid between wizard and bard.
Thanks guys, these ideas sound like better options than the all-or-nothing decision we have been trying to make. The rules for character death are pretty harsh when you're this far into the game. I'll suggest to the group that we agree on a resurrect-with-a-penalty house rule.
So, Lem just died on us near the end-game of S+S and now the group is in a bit of a quandary. As of yet we haven't had a character death this late in the game, so we're divided on whether it's better to carry on with a no-feats Lem or if having one crippled character is going to make finishing the ap impossible. So generally I'm just wondering what other players have done after losing a character. Is it possible to press on? Or should we just accept that we've lost and go back to the very start?
I was very happy to have Holy Feast included in S+S. Throughout RotR I always thought one thing the game was missing was a full-party healing spell. That being said, Blessing of Achaekek is the new favourite Blessing in our group. Unless a villain/ henchman is fought indirectly (such as Enemy Ship), this blessing gives you an edge in the most critical encounters of any scenario. The weapon Zul also became a favourite when it became apparent how many Human monsters there are in S+S. With all the emphasis on Aquatic monsters, it's easy to miss the Humans. I'd say one of the biggest, game changing cards to appear in S+S are the various "skill gem" cards. I'll usually only pick these up for characters who have a d12 for one skill but it sticks with them throughout the game. The ability to swap any non-combat roll for your best skill is hard to pass up. These are especially great for a "min-maxed" character such as Onyx of Constitution for Ranzak. Swipe returns in S+S and might have made my list of best cards except for one small problem... throughout ALL of RotR and S+S I have NEVER once encountered this card. Never even had the chance to acquire it and therefore never played it. But I totally get why it's a favourite. I'm a fan of any card with multiple uses, I'm definitely glad to see the developers applying this kind of thinking to even more cards in S+S. I especially like the idea of spells that do more than the old "throw a fireball". Even if one player in my group lives and dies by throwing fireballs... :P
Personally, I bought S+S right away and loved it. However, as noted by some other posters here, many people I know have a hard time getting into it or refuse to touch it at all. It's not so much the pirate theme but they really have hang-ups with the idea of the game including guns. I think they're just being traditional fantasy snobs. I love seeing a mixing of genres in any game and I especially like the more imaginative firearms in this game (dagger gun, shield gun, etc.). My knowledge of the Pathfinder RPG is extremely limited but I think there's at least one campaign that dips into sci-fi and I'd like to see that come into the card game just as much as I liked the pirate theme here. Basically, I just hope this fantasy snob attitude isn't too far spread, doesn't hurt the game's sales, and the developers continue to delve into the new and unfamiliar.
Character Name: Bekah
Character Name: Lem (Bard CD)
Character Name: Meliski
Character Name: Siwar
Character Name: Damiel
Character Name: Feiya
Character Name: Lini
Character Name: Oloch
I've got two questions about the set-up of two scenarios: 1. In Rimeskull is there always seven Stone Head locations regardless of the number of characters? 2. In Scaling Mhar Massif it says to use the Death Zone deck list to make a Death Zone stack for each character. That's no problem but I'm not certain if the Death Zone card itself is also supposed to be a location, or is it only on the table for reference? Thanks in advance. ^_^
Character Name: Seoni
Character Name: Valeros
Character Name: Merisiel
Character Name: Lem
We've finished Runelords and although our but-kicking, end-game characters may carry over to a new adventure someday, we needed to kill something with them right now. So we came up with the simple grind of the Victory Lap endurance run to throw at them. Set up is pretty simple: 1. You'll need your end-game characters from the campaign. Use their character decks as is from the end of the adventure. Fill in any gaps in the deck as per the normal rules if you're missing cards. Don't forget to take advantage of those last two Card feats. 2. Mix together all the cards from all of the Adventure Decks, even Basic and Elite cards that were removed from the game. Shuffle them all up and place them down on the table so you have one stack for each type of Bane and Boon. This will make for some unwieldly large stacks of cards but you just beat Rise of the Runelords. There is no stack of cards created by man that you can't shuffle. 2. Take one of each Villain (except for Iesha Foxglove and The Thing From Beyond Time) and one of every Henchman. Shuffle all of these together and place that deck with the others. 3. Shuffle together ALL of the Location cards except for the Runeforge Hub. Don't want anything easy sneaking in there. I recommend putting these in some opaque card sleeves to keep everything honest. 4. Draw a Location and assemble its deck as you normally would. Add one random card from the Villain/ Henchman pile. Shuffle that up and you're ready to start. For the Victory Run, all characters are always at the same location. Players take turns and explore each location in turn to close it as they normally would. Each time a location is closed, immediately draw a new location and assemble a deck for it. The one big exception to note is the Sihedron Circle. Ignore the part about creating 7 Stone Head Locations. Just make one location deck as normal. It'll be a smaller deck but that's just the way she goes. No Blessing deck is used for the Victory Lap. This is just an endurance run, no timer required. When you pull the Apothecary feel free to hang around and heal up everyone. You may need it. Note that his means Blessings will never Recharge on their own and there are no Blessing discards for Blessings of the Gods to copy. You can pretty much ignore anything that refers to the blessing deck. Also, if you're ever instructed to Banish cards from your character deck, Burry them instead. It's not the purpose of the Victory Run to alter the contents of your deck or permanently loose your nifty new Loot cards. If any card refers to the Adventure Deck Number (such as Mercenary), use the deck number of the current location. Any B (base set) location counts as 0. And that's pretty much it. Grind away and clear every location. The Reward for clearing the Victory Lap? Bragging rights. You just defeated over fifty locations in one go. Pathfinder now cowers at your approach. |