Throknor's page

In many scenarios, unless you're buying a second set, you will not have enough of the appropriate henchmen to put in your extra location.

That's the easiest to get around. Keep a copy of the appropriate henchman out and put an unused henchman in. When you find the inappropriate one treat it as the card you set aside.

The bigger question is time - with seven characters you are down to only two having five turns, the other five only getting four. Adding a ninth location would make that even worse for how much would need done in a turn. Maybe bump the blessings to 35 to at least get it back to 5 turns each would work, but who knows.

When someone only needs a 2 to pass a check saying "Don't roll a one" out loud.

Do not taunt the dice.

Hello Throknor,

Thank you for letting us know about this! I'm sorry to hear that your promo card escaped your order, but I've set up a replacement in your sidecart which should be sent out with your next round of subscription items.

If there are any further questions or concerns that you may have in the meantime, just let me know and I'll be happy to help.

Thanks!
Katina

There's nothing in the sidecart or pending orders. This isn't it, is it:?

1 item. Originally expected to ship in 1 to 7 business days.

Standard Postal Delivery. Estimated Shipping & Handling: $3.39

I don't want to be charged three bucks for a free promo! Just put it in the next regular shipment or throw it in a 50c envelope!

Order #3642361

I did receive Ekkie but not the promo card. It is listed on the order. I dumped out both the card packs and went through the packing peanuts.

Let me know if you need more information.

Throknor wrote:

Quick question for subscribers - did you receive the non-Ekkie promo card? I have not even though it is listed in the order history. And yes, I dug through this months supply of foam peanuts.

My least favorite part of any Paizo order is having to touch the packing peanuts--one of my weird, irrational dislikes. Can't stand the texture of 'em.

We did get our promo card, though. It was tucked into the box like it usually is.

OK, that tells me it's an individual issue. Now to report it somewhere.

Quick question for subscribers - did you receive the non-Ekkie promo card? I have not even though it is listed in the order history. And yes, I dug through this months supply of foam peanuts.

Obvious follow-up question, where do I report order problems? There's nothing on the order page to report 'Problem with this order' or the like.

Attack spells usually have a trait (Mental, Poison, Fire, etc.). Evasion spells usually don't. It's always useful to have a spell that won't be countered by a trait conflict and evasion can be as good as others for that instance.

Throknor wrote:

Speculations...

We have a large warehouse with multiple "proper" docks—that's not the issue here. The main issue is optimizing throughput, so we split things into two groups—a "label run", which covers all of the shipments that many people have in common, and a "pick and pack" run, which involves all of the unusual orders that don't benefit from bulk processing. So in one part of the warehouse we have workers assembling the latter group package by package, while in another part of the warehouse we have machines cranking out thousands and thousands of labels while workers pack thousands and thousands of identical boxes or envelopes, place labels on them, and put them into shipping bins for those trucks. Labels come out far faster than boxes can be packed—it takes a day or two to generate the labels, but it takes many days to process them, meaning a package could actually take a few days to leave the building after the system has processed the shipment, so we provide a wide shipping window to cover that range. It's a worst-case estimate—most packages will actually leave the building well before that window closes.

Thanks for the insight. I have enough experience with shipping (software and physically) that I was reasonably certain about the 'pick & print' happening first, but I'll admit the 'proper dock' was speculation. But packing orders can be a huge pain when coordinating both new products coming in and custom orders going out.

Some of the funner Undercover Boss episodes are when the CEO ends up trying to keep up in the warehouse, whether picking, packing, or just loading a truck. It helps highlight just how many things have to go perfectly for things to come in and go out quickly and how having thousands of custom orders in a compressed time period can take time to get together.

On the flipside, for a small group the character(s) with good Craft abilities will have their turn more frequently. This may change later but through the intro five with three characters I rarely prevented the damage. It just seemed easier to let it go and fix it within two turns.

Actually, virtually every company will give you notice when the system prints a shipping label. But as they ship every day it is pretty much the same day it leaves their facility. The difference here is that Paizo does hundreds of picks and shipment labels in one day, but their shippers probably simply grab from the pile whatever they can fit on the truck for one day.

Hopefully as they grow their next building will include a proper dock and they can just call up FedEx or USPS and say 'Hey, next Tuesday bring a real truck'. But for now we can just hope their printer doesn't screw up immediately before GenCon again.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Subscribers *are* top priority.

You have to see it from our end... it just doesn't feel that way. Here are three things you can easily do to remedy that feeling.

1. Eat the shipping cost for subscribers this month and next.
2. Get your products to subscribers before the street date.
3. One free class deck of our choice.

I just want to chime in that I doubt all subscribers feel this, as I certainly don't. I've been annoyed that mine was held up but that was when I thought the only hold up was the Character Decks which I hadn't ordered. Now that I know that there were hold ups with my actual order I'm more forgiving.

I've been on the receiving end of the "Everything's fine!' lie before; it's never a good place to be. Personally I appreciate that you let us know what you have; some companies would just mark everything 'delayed' and call it a day.

I heard about the character packs a bit ago but I can't remember where. Some kind of major misprint or timing screwup at the printers. I'd thought they were just going to ship them later; seems like they should have then fast-tracked orders without them either way.

Maybe I should talk to our sales department; they clearly need better inventory management software.

Vic Wertz wrote:

At this point, I think Burglar may end up saying "If you fail the check to acquire this card."

As for your new issue, I think that we may want to delete this text entirely:

"If a card’s check section says “None,” look at the card’s powers, and immediately do whatever it says there."

Most of those effects, as well as the "when you encounter" effects, and even effects like Tangletooth's effect, really want to be ruled by the "do whatever it says as soon as it makes sense to do so" rule.

So, for the Burglar, what if someone chooses to not attempt to acquire it? That (I think) doesn't count as failing the check. So you would avoid the burglar taking an item or weapon from you.

It sounds odd, but I could see that.

Don't Attempt: You see him, he sees you, he looks shady, so you don't talk to him and therefore don't get close enough to get picked. And he leaves the area.

Failed Attempt: You talk to him, cheese him off so he doesn't join you, and he picks your pocket as you leave.

Evade: He didn't see you, so doesn't pick your pocket and doesn't leave.

"Defeat" and "Acquire" are equivalent states of an encounter. Defeat is to banes as acquire is to boons.

I'm basically saying that banes can be defeated, undefeated, and not defeated/not undefeated. And therefore I'd also think that boons can be acquired, unacquired, and not acquired/not unacquired.

So if we'd apply "not defeated" to an evaded bane, why wouldn't we apply "not acquired" to an evaded boon?

Like I said above, Mike's comment to ignore all text on the card except what relates to evading and being able to evade was in the middle of a long conversation about evading monsters. I don't think he was issuing a "ruling" when he said that. He was just trying to help someone understand how evading worked. And it was in a very limited and specific context.

Again, I'm totally fine if I'm wrong on this. I just think what I'm saying makes the most sense to me right now.

If a ruling does come down on the side of how I'm reading it, what should be changed is the rule book. The Encountering a Card section should have this changed:

Evade the Card (Optional). If you have a power or card that lets you evade the card you’re encountering, you may immediately shuffle it back into the deck; an evaded bane is neither defeated nor undefeated and an evaded boon is neither acquired nor unacquired. The encounter is over.

I'm not sure that is really the best language, but I think it gets the idea across.

Mike said they would talk about it today, so we shall see what is said when they've had time to decide. Until then, lets remember we share as common ground our love for PACG. Long live PACG!

The Evade check is first. It specifically states that if evaded the encounter is over. Both the Apply Before and Apply After steps are after the Evade check. If the encounter is already over they do not happen, exactly the same as the check won't happen nor the resolution. 'Is over' means stop following the to-do list in my book; it makes no sense to me to do the Apply After step only at that point.

If hung up on thematics, the way to evade a burglar is to see him coming before he sees you and hide. Why would he steal something if he didn't even know you were there?

That's what evade means. You sensed the encounter before it happened and avoided it. Whether it's a pit trap, a guard, a sword or an orc you simply don't encounter because you saw it first and went a different way.

And some cards themselves (or possibly locations) will prevent evades. Which means for whatever reason you didn't notice them first.

I appreciate the update; it was nice to see the new reset section and other updates moved into the rules.

Mike Selinker wrote:

• page 10: Evading now specifically says it resolves the encounter, and the effects after the encounter are now tightened up.
• pages 10-11: Attempting a Check was reorganized and future-proofed.

Now that non-bane cards with check to acquire 'None' are specifically covered in 'Attempt the Check', it seems even easier to believe that Blessing of the Gods can be evaded by Merisiel, which is supposed to be impossible.

My request for evade clarifications was probably too late: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qkn0&page=2?FAQ-request-Anything-were-miss ing#62

I still don't think that answer was thought through. Evade has always been first and now it's explicitly before reading what to do with "None". The only way I can see this changed is if the card is specifically errata'd to say 'This card can not be evaded', which I believe some cards do say.

5. Everything that happens inside a step is part of that step.

There are discrete steps in a turn: advance the blessings deck, give a card, move, explore, try to close a location, reset your hand, end your turn. When you encounter a card, you can evade it, apply any “before the encounter” effect, attempt its check, do any additional check, apply any “after the encounter” effect, and resolve the encounter. Each of these steps is an opportunity to play cards, and the rule about playing one card of each type applies to each such step. Also, damage can occur on a lot of those, and when it does, it’s still part of that step. So if you played an item to increase your roll on a check, you can’t use another item (or even the same one) to reduce damage. It’s still in the same step.

On my first read through I noticed the third refers to 'each of these steps' but the encounter steps are not explicitly identified as such. I would suggest the following for consistent flow (assuming it's correct):

5. Everything that happens inside a step is part of that step.

There are discrete steps in a turn: advance the blessings deck (required), give a card, move, explore, try to close a location, reset your hand (required), end your turn. When you encounter a card, you can There are also discrete steps during an encounter: evade it, apply any “before the encounter” effect, attempt its check, do any additional check, apply any “after the encounter” effect, and resolve the encounter. Each of these steps is an opportunity to play cards, and the rule about playing one card of each type applies to each such step. Also, damage can occur on a lot of those, and when it does, it’s still part of that step. So if you played an item to increase your roll on a check, you can’t use another item (or even the same one) to reduce damage. It’s still in the same step. Note that for each encounter triggered by card effects all of it steps must be resolved before another begins. An example includes Skeleton Horde where each player must resolve his encounter before another may begin hers, but the order of these encounters is determined by the player whose turn it is. Also note that if an encounter is evaded none of the rest of the encounter steps occur.

I also snuck in some encounter clarifications that I've had to make as they seem to fit there. If they fit better elsewhere so be it.

So, Mike. What does the page 12 text apply to?

I'm guessing the 'Add cards to a deck' portion would still apply. You don't need multiple copies of summoned encounters since you would take turns regardless, but for adding you would.

And this may just be more future-proofing.

As I understood it the characters can trade among themselves after a game. Something I did after my first solo run-through with three characters was go one by one and figure out the extra cards for each deck and then trade among those as necessary. So even if one character had exactly what they needed as long as another had extras she could still trade out the less useful card, be it item, spell, or whatever.

I got the impression that even though random acquisitions might not be super useful, there are generally enough through a game that things work out over time.

That being said, one possibility is to make a mini-store to trade with. Being able to replenish with anything seems over-powerful and inconsistent. But drawing from the boon* decks 2 + #Chars of random basic (or the level - 2 rule) cards to trade with after a scenario doesn't seem too breaking. It would represent both being able to resupply while also being limited to small shops' supplies. (*Note: I would not include Blessings or Loot. You get what you get for those.)

Just a thought. Would be too fiddly to some, unnecessary to others. But possibly a compromise between being stuck with useless random items and being able to over-prepare for every scenario.

So, we were playing the other night and my friend had an armor card in his hand. He felt that he didn't need it at that time, so after a victorious combat he wanted to recharge it to "reduce" the damage that he took, which was 0. We weren't sure if that was allowed.

Ultimately we decided against that, and he instead discarded it at the end of his turn.

While I can appreciate the argument about reducing 0 to 0, if you win a fight there is no damage-taking step. In other words you don't take 0 damage - you skip the damage calculation entirely. And by skipping it there is no opportunity for anyone to play a card relating to a player taking damage.