Zetha chooses to fail the Stringy Fiend Acrobatics check. Drawing 3 random monsters from the box: Tarry Fiend 5, Salamander 2, Worm Demon B
Zetha is summoned by Poog, to see his new spell-bottle. Zetha likes it and asks if she can cast the spell inside since it looks fun! But Poog shoes her away, saying something about shadows being bad for burny magic. She grumbles and heads back to her new house.
Move back to guardpost.
She finds some Expeditious Chain Mail as she is cleaning out the armory to be her new closet. She throws it away. Autofail roll.
Explore via Ice Chemist.
She also finds an Anarchy Hammer. She almost throws it away too, but thinks maybe she can use it to hang some pictures on the wall.
Str 16, banishing monster to use Stealth + Stalking Armor + Mythic:1d10 + 7 + 2 + 5 ⇒ (3) + 7 + 2 + 5 = 17
She puts it in her pack for now, until she can get Little Zee to draw a picture for her to hang up.
Zetha, Mythically Sneaky Blue Goblin wrote:
Hand: Cauterizing Blade, Fire Shield, Bound Shadow Demon, Blessing of Pharasma (2 dice if spell played), Locate Object, Stalking Pajamas, Monster 5
Mythic charges: 5/5. Paizo perk reroll: not used this scenario.
Skills and Powers:
Skills:
Strength d4
Dexterity d10 +4 +mythic
Stealth: Dexterity +3
Constitution d6
Intelligence d8 + mythic
Wisdom d4
Charisma d10 +1
Arcane: Charisma +2
Diplomacy: Charisma +1
Role: Shadow Caller
Favored Card: Item
Hand Size 6 ☑7
Proficient with: Light Armors
Powers:
After you play a spell that has the Attack trait, banish it.
At the start of your turn, you may draw 1 random monster (☑ or 2 random monsters) (☑ or 3 random monsters) from the box.
You may banish a monster from your hand to evade your encounter or to use your Stealth skill in place of the listed skill for a non-combat check (☑ or, if you're not in an encounter, to move) (☑ or to add 1d6 to your check to defeat a barrier). (☐ or to examine the top card of any location deck).
Add 1d4 (☐ 1d8) to your check to acquire or recharge an ally or a spell.
Cohort: Ahtez:
Display this card. While displayed, for your combat check, you may use your Stealth skill plus the scenario's adventure deck number and add the Cold and Melee traits. If you would fail this check, you may recharge a card to reroll 1 die; take the new result.
While displayed, when you are dealt damage, you may banish a monster to reduce damage dealt to you by 2 plus the monster's adventure deck number.
Favored Card: Blessing
Hand Size 5 ☑6
Proficient with: Weapons
Powers:
When you would discard a spell for a power on a boon that has the Staff trait, you may discard or bury a blessing (☐ or any boon) instead.
On any check, when you would discard a blessing, you may bury it instead.
You may recharge a buried blessing to (☐ succeed at your check to recharge a spell or to) reroll the dice (☐ or one die) on any of your checks; take the new result.
That turn order works for me. Honestly it's odd for me to pick a turn order, since Myr and Kiya and I have been using the same turn order for a few years. :)
No worries. I meant that I didn't get an email notification, but I have since realized the Paizo forums do not send them. :) I did get the in-page notification.
If anyone missed it, a guide for PACG Play bu Post was added in the main OutPost thread: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QiVX2gSvn_N0nd-PYRtFvw3s1xV6Zz23y50sd95 FkWA/edit
I still need to send in a photo of my decks, but I do have my deck entered in the deck handler sheet. I'll post an intro in the Gameplay thread when I get organized.
I have not yet chosen a character. I like playing healers and utility casters though so those are all contenders!
I am in the US central time zone. I generally have availability to check the game M-F 9am-5pm and 10pm to midnight. Evenings and weekends are variable.
Redgar, welcome to organized play! This is my first play-by-post but OP is tons of fun. My wife and I play regularly with Kiya and Myr. I love having a character grow and evolve as they proceed through a continuous narrative. OP has some nitpicky rules about progression but it also brings some cool character enhancement features.
zeroth_hour, I'm not familiar with all the characters you mentioned, but I'm running Alase in a campaign, and I love her utility. With a few power feats, she can scout a ton of cards each turn, and she's also a Blessing machine gun when she follows other characters around. Tonbarse scales well for combat too.
Hi all! Sorry I'm late to the thread; I didn't get a notification for some reason.
As noted above, I am in CST. I have more availability to check the game M-F 9am-5pm and 10pm to midnight. Evenings and weekends are variable. However if the game is ever waiting on me, Kiya and Myr can let me know by text. :)
I would like to play Raheli the Witch. Should I create a character listing for her on the site? Do I need to do anything to link her under the Characters tab above?
First, the requirements of course include owning a class deck. Do we need to dedicate the deck for play, or is it okay if we are using it in a real-life game at the same time? In other words, is it recommended to use the physical deck to maintain your deck, hand, etc, or can we just keep track of that in a text file or spreadsheet, or with proxy cards?
I ask because I am having fun playing Alase in SotR, but want to maybe try out Baltazar too. :)
Second, for the Season of the Goblins adventure, would only Goblin characters be recommended? I don't have either Goblin deck but I played the first mission of that season at Gencon and it was fun.
Thanks for posting this here; I didn't know PSACG was playable by post. The format used in the forums is pretty cool, and I'm definitely going to sign up!
Is there a lot of the card game (organized play or not) played in the play-by-post in general? I see a few campaigns, but couldn't find any recent PACG recruitment threads. Just curious; I'd love to try it out, even before the convention!
Thank you for the additional thoughts. I know this has come up before, and I appreciate your taking the time. I feel strongly about this since I'm teaching my daughter to play. :)
I understand that writing everything out allows more flexibility. I do enjoy the fact that there are many creative weapons and spells that affect checks in so many different ways. But I think this approach also impairs learning and playing speed. A new player has to read a paragraph to see how each card works. For Lightning Touch, it takes 29 words to explain recharging, the most basic and boring part of the spell. But you have to read it, because a card's exciting effects and boring administrivia are all mixed in free-text in there.
For experienced players, I agree with steve496, that it's hard to quickly parse card interactions when they all have a paragraph on them. Speaking of henchmen and closing: I can't count the times we've failed to notice the difference between "you may immediately attempt to close" and "you may immediately close," or "you may attempt to close, but this weird thing happens," or worse, failed to notice the *lack* of ability to close, since it's not templated and you just have to read everything that's there, and realize everything that's *not* there.
I would love to see the game explore some basic templates, even just for the more basic weapons and spells, even if they still have the full explanations written afterwards in italics. Just to provide a mental shortcut and scannability.
I don't think templates would designer flexibility, either. They can always break out of them when needed. Maybe Lightning Touch can get a "Recharge" box that says "Arcane 6", while Monstrous Physique says "Recharge: See below" and then busts out the crazy effects in the main box.
I think it would be great to think about design ideas like this, to increase the game's accessibility, ease the mental burden while playing, and to allow the really cool effects to stand out more, so players can focus on them.
Also on the subject of shortening text, I also prefer "Cost: Effect" formatting when possible, like what's used in most TCGs. I feel it makes things cleaner to read, especially for some of the common effects, although some of the more-invovled effects for spells, items, and whatnot might not be changed too much.
I agree with this 1000%!! So many of the cards are totally filled with text, much of which is boilerplate. This makes cards harder to understand, prevents having flavor text, and really slows down gameplay by preventing cards from being scannable. It also makes the game harder to enjoy for kids, English-as-a-second-language folk, and those with vision/reading/learning disabilities.
As WoodManZX's examples show, even B Basic cards are just filled with text! This is like if a vanilla Magic creature (like Grizzly Bears) had a paragraph of text explaining what it does. The numbers and icons in the card template should be enough to explain the most basic of cards.
Fortunately the content of most text should be standardizable, it's basically just effects, requirements, and recharge methods for spells. Even adding some basic keywords and templating (like Magic adds with every new base set) could help a ton with regards to legibility of cards.
Thank you for being open to feedback! Overall Paizo's presence at Gen Con is awesome and I really appreciate the dedication by so many people to make ACG events a success. That said, there's always room for improvement, so I hope this feedback is helpful.
Gen Con event listings: Awesome to see so many events, but the gencon.com event finder is a pain to use with hundreds of listings by Paizo that all start with 'P', since you have to keep clicking "view more" and all the names are similar. Maybe a blog could be published with links to all events so we can control-F the ones we want?
Paizo Booth: so much great stuff. Thanks for the free buttons! Was cool to see the Magus Deck release at the con. The checkout line was insane the first day but reasonable the rest of the time. Plus, free minis with coupon!
Sagamore Ballroom: awesome as always. Yay for Starfinder art everywhere! The tables seemed a little more cramped, but manageable. Some sound system glitches, especially during the special, but I know people were working on it.
Boons: As others have mentioned, the complete lack of ACG boons was disappointing. I heard this was due to a timing/logistics problem, which is understandable, with so much being prepared for the con. Maybe some standard boons could be created that don't need updating each year as a fallback? I don't know a lot about boons, since the ones I got last year were pretty random, but it was disappointing to bring a bunch of tokens over and have no PACG options.
ACG Open: This was our first year doing this and we had an absolute blast. The format and story were excellent and fit very well together. Overall it was run very well for a new event, with just a few rough edges. I will try to avoid spoilers here, for the story and game format:
Good:
- Storyline awesome, super great tie-in!
- Provided decks were amazing. You know the ones I mean.
- The 3 scenarios were great. Very thematic. The 7 -> 4 -> 2 thing was brilliant, very clever way to force us to try lots of things at once, then narrow our choices and increase the difficulty. The thing where we lost things every time we encountered a thing was also very clever, that would never work in a season but it worked so well with this format and the story that we all loved it.
- Seeing Mike Selinker and Keith Richmond peek in to check on things was a real treat. I would have totally fanboy'd out if I wasn't fighting you-know-who at the you-know-where!
Bad:
- I think some of info beforehand said 6 players per table, and bring your own decks. We came with a group of 5 and spent a long time deciding on decks, so this was unfortunate.
- Some GM's were better prepared than others. But the ones in the later rounds were very good and helped with rules a lot. My favorite was "When you die, does your turn immediately end?"
- If we are going to use a base set with scourges, access to curse removal is a necessity. The dice were not kind to us. It was not pretty. (This applied to the Special also)
- An 8am start to round 2, after a very late night at the Special, was a bad surprise. Especially since the texts about it came right in the middle of the special (a timed event where you can't be fiddling with your phone).
Please note that these bad points were relatively minor. Overall we enjoyed the Open most of all over the weekend, more than the Special even.
Regarding the Special, Assault on Absalom, I have a lot of thoughts, but I will post them separately since this got really long. Thank you again for being open to feedback!
Thanks for continuing to update this thread with more pregens! I know it takes work to assemble and maintain the lists, but our play group has really appreciated the ability to jump in at a given tier with an already set-up character.
I think that Skizzerz means that the "End of turn" phase does not take place. You win the game and the game immediately ends. You do not get to explore again, cast spells after the encounter, etc etc, and you do not have to reset your hand/draw to your hand size.
So if a card says "At the end of the turn, do X" then you should not have to do it. Unless it would be banished or removed from the game, per the rulebook quote above.
Any character with a spell slot and a basic cure spell *can* heal, although oviously not as well as a true healer. We have run alchemists and monks with this approach, since they have Cure in their decks, and it works well enough, especially if other characters play a little conservatively or have Staffs of Minor Healing, Surgeons, etc.
You do gain some risk in people being too bold discarding blessings and allies and then having to slow way down due to small decks, but you can gain more combat potency.
Thanks Vic for the extra info on unlocking. I won't jump to conclusions, at least until we hear more details. :)
Here's my perspective in more detail, in case it helps.
Halfway through playing Season of the Righteous, our fighter decided she was tired of the fighter deck's lack of upgrades for Vika, and that she'd like to run Alain. So we decided to complete the season, with her switching to a pre-built Sajan (whose deck is awesome btw).
I'm glad there was a way to play Alain, and a way to expand the paladin deck beyond its original characters. But her having to play a character other than the one she really wanted, through a bunch of high-difficulty adventures, was kind of onerous.
I guess I see the point about wanting to encourage people to play the seasons and report them. My point is more like, when World of Warcraft comes out with a new character class they don't require you to get an existing class to max level before you can try the new one. :)
These seem awesome, a great enhancement to the origina class decks, a fun addition to new decks, and new characters besides. Win-win-win!
However, I'm really frustrated to see a "unlock" mechanic required in order to use these in organized play with other class decks.
I can see how unlocking a character can seem like a reward or a treasure hunt. But, as currently implemented, unlocking a character is a major time investment. Right now, to play certain characters, you need to put in a ton of time playing another character or season you may not even like.
If one of the purposes of these addons is to fix the original class decks, why not just let people use them for that purpose? Why do I have to jump through a hoop to use them and make characters I love more viable?
I think Xexyz meant having not played ALL the characters in each deck, as opposed to not having ever played a bard. But I will defer to them.
That said, I have played Lem throughout Runelords, and I agree overall with this deck review. I might give it a C or C+ overall, but I think that weak/weird weapons, no Blessing of Pharasma, and super-boring allies are a real downer here.
Thanks Frencois! I agree, the gloves probably do let you recharge twice. But for the case of the 2 powers I am still uncertain. I'm not sure if looking at the top and bottom cards is one trigger for the second power, or two.
Unless I hear otherwise, I guess I'll just do it once. Recharging and drawing 2 (4 with the gloves) cards a turn is probably sufficient for most occasions!
Hi, I had a question about 2 powers on Alase, Sarkoris Guide:
- At the start of your turn, you may examine the top (and bottom) card of Tonbarse's location, then (you may) shuffle that deck...
- After you examine a card in a location deck, you may recharge a card; if you do, you may draw a card.
If Alase has both of these powers, does the second one trigger for both cards you examine each time (ie both the top and bottom card)? In other words, do you get to do the recharge/draw thing 4 times a turn?
Also as a followup, Alase has Climber's Gloves in her deck. This item says "After you shuffle a location deck, reveal this to examine the top card (limit once per check/step). With this item, can she actually do the recharge/draw 6 times a turn?
I had some questions about playing pre-gen ACG characters in the Season of the Righteous. I hope this is the right(eous) place to ask! (sorry)
Anyway, a friend and I are picking some tier 5 pre-gens to join other friends already in adventure 5. We were wondering:
1) Do pre-gen characters get Mythic Paths? Do they get to choose which ones? I saw some discussion of this in the pre-gen thread but not listings per char.
2) In adventure 2 of Righteous, characters end up getting a bunch of extra skill feats from the army scenarios. Can pre-gens get access to these? Right now our friends have 8 skill feats to our 4. It's not game breaking but I wanted to ask, since tier 5 characters can't go back and do adventure 2.
3) If we can't get the army skill feats, can we go back and do a few scenarios of adventure 4, to quickly pick up a skill feat and power feat, to sort of catch up? Or are tier 5 pre-gens considered as having already done tiers 1-4? What if we went and did tier 4 of Season of the Runelords or something?
