crasher's page

First I've heard of the free base set promotion and we've been signed up for the entire Season of Shackles.

You could just follow the raise dead spell directly.

If you character dies, you may have raise dead cast on you after the scenario ends (no one has to actually have the spell). This done is before players rebuild their decks.

Shuffle your deck, draw ten cards, banish the rest, then rebuild your deck.

I don't think the art is final because it says 3 "new" classes. Hunter, bloodrager and shaman.

These generic base sets seem to offer a much poorer experience for that initial outlay, making you (if anything) spend MORE to getthe replayability.

I disagree. The Starter Set would be exactly the same amount of replay ability as a current base set. I think a $30 starter set is a mistake. I think you can do a Starter Set for $60 (I know I said $40 at first, and that's where Vic's argument came from) that has just as much content as RoR or S&S have in their base sets.

Now when you start an AP you take the 'S' cards and add in your AP base 'B' cards. Play through the first setting scenario to get your character up to speed and get some local flavor, then you add in the '1' cards to play your first adventure of the AP.

The manufacturing costs would be saved in things like dice and vacuform inserts.

I'm very busy today but tomorrow I'm going to pull apart my RoR and S&S sets and build a Starter Set and see what it's like. If it's interesting I'll probably write an article about it.

The issue I see with this plan is that base cost. $60 to start with, and then ot get to what many are going to see as the 'real' game, another $40. That is a massive initial output compared to the $60 or so base set. When you think about it, you need to have 3 adventures just to break even on cost by having the base set (yes, you do have more cards total, but I'm not sure how much more you will actually have). I think it's just too high of a barrier to entry at that point.

$60 is pretty standard for card/board games of this size. Look at the game Legendary which has roughly the same number of cards at that price point.

Also, look at the base set itself. Right now it's essentially a $60 standalone game with 2 adventures. To get the same amount of content I'm suggesting in the $40 AP set, you have to spend $40 by buying two adventure decks.

Right now the 'real' game as you call it is $60 + $100 in adventure decks. (Not even mentioning the Character Addon decks)

Also, under my model there doesn't have to be just Adventure Decks associated with Adventure Paths. There could also be Adventure decks that simply expand off the base game itself. Rise of the Runelords, which is a pretty typical fantasy based AP could easily work with the base set I describe and 6 $20 Adventure Decks.

I have no concern with the price of the product. I think this game is exceptionally good value for the price.

**It occurs to me that you may have misread my post, when I said $60 Base Set, that is a one time purchase. The $40 Adventure Path sets would be what you buy to play a specific Adventure Path. You don't have to buy the base set over and over. Let's call it the "Starter Set" from here on out to avoid confusion.

Here's my take on this.

I'm using the highest "check to acquire" of boons as 'points' for the cost. Loot cards are worth 25 points.

Raise Dead (available from the start)
Cost: Players must banish a total of 50 points of non-basic (or if after AD 3, non-elite) boons other than blessings, from their decks.
Result: The character loses two feats of that player's choice but is alive.

Resurrection (available after you begin deck 3)
Cost: Players must banish a total of 100 points of non-basic, non-elite boons other than blessings, from their decks.
Result: The character loses one feat of that player's choice but is alive.

True Resurrection (available after you begin deck 3)
Cost: Players must banish a total of 250 points of non-basic, non-elite boons other than blessings from their decks.
Result: The character is alive.

A lot of people propose this, and of course, it's something we've considered, but the math just isn't there.

Thanks for the detailed reply. First, I do see what you're saying but picture this:

$60 Base Set
$40 Adventure Path Set
$20 Adventure Deck (x5)

Eliminate the character add on deck entirely.

Base Set Contents:

6 Characters (with role cards)
2 Adventures (1 level 0, 1 level 1)

All the boons and banes would have 1 of three set numbers 'S', 'B', '1'.

S is the generic stuff that you would be able to add to pretty much any adventure path, B is the stuff for Adventure 1, and 1 is the stuff for Adventure 2.

Adventure Path Contents:

4 NEW Characters
1 Adventure Path Card
2 Adventures (1 Level 0, 1 Level 1)

When setting up the adventure path, in the new rule book you just state which cards from the base game to add. Don't want them to use the S cards, just say so. Want them to take out the Goblins before they start the adventure path? Just say so. I think too much emphasis has been placed on just shuffling up everything and going.

You'll have seen nearly every card in the game your first time through, and you won't have had any real glimpse of the thing that makes this game special—character advancement through play. What you will have is a longer version of our convention demo scenario, and that's it.

I totally get that. I think you did the right thing with RoR. Showing off the system and the expandability sold the concept. That why I said I understood why you did RoR the way you did.

It's just that S&S and now WotR are essentially not expansions but new games. That's totally fine, but from experience I know that players prefer expansions to reimplementations because they feel like their initial purchase has more value. Once S&S came out, people who came in interested in the game always asked if they were compatible. Always. The answer was never very satisfying. S&S primarily sold to new customers who didn't buy RoR.

Here's the thing though, it's also not too late to pivot. You've built a good sized audience with a good product. You have passionate designers and fans. If you produce a good base set that expands the game we all love, you'll find customers in the people already on board and new customers who want a $60 self contained game as well. Those customers will make their own decisions about whether to buy an expansion but they also won't feel like for $60 they only got the first part of a game.

I really appreciate you engaging me in this topic. You definitely don't have to and I know how many different factors go into these decisions. I'm happy to continue to discuss it here or in private. Your game was extremely novel and I think it has the same potential as much more well known games. Just not on the path it's on. I don't see myself buying a 4th Adventure Path. Not because I don't think it will be good, but because I don't need a 4th complete game.

Rules Summary

I just posted an article on my blog about a new competitive play variant of PACG I adapted from an old CCG design of mine from 2003. That design was based on D&D's D20 system, which the Pathfinder RPG was based on so there was some crossover with PACG.

So as another way to use all theses PACG cards I thought why not just share it with everyone!

I'm really anxious to know what you think so please check it out.

The Explorer's Club

"New scenarios are available near the end of each month"

After reading so many horror stories I just checked mine. It was worth it just for the piece of mind. In future I plan I checking them as I purchase them.

I hope they add some kind of indicator to the cards themselves to make it a little easier. I suggested they just number them in the lower right hand corner, so for an Adventure Deck you'd have 1/110, 2/110 ... 110/110 for example.

I was missing 2 cards in my ROTR base set, 1 in my S&S base set, 2 in the Ranger Class Deck and now 1 in the From Hell's Heart Adventure Deck.

That is some incredibly bad luck. I had a damaged card in the first printing of RotR but that's it...

E is for Exception to the Rule ...

crasher, you might want to click the Contact Us link at the bottom of the DriveThruCards page. You can submit your information to them. DriveThruCards does not have anything to do with the programming of the card creator.

I actually meant to say that Paizo doesn't have anything to do with the programming. It is all DriveThruCards. (Yeah, I got distracted as I was typing before.)

Honestly, I think bringing it to the attention of the staff here will get it fixed a heck of a lot quicker.

It's funny to me that after all this time this still comes up.

As a store owner I know people don't buy in to the Rise of the Runelords (and now Skull and Shackles) because they want to start with the new one and don't want to catch up. Also, I see people who don't buy the next set because it isn't really compatible directly with the first. To a novice customer the base sets seem very redundant.

I understand why it was decided to release RoR the way they did because it really needed that 1st Adventure Deck to show off what the game would become but in the long run these new base sets are really redundant.

What I would have preferred is a Base Set that was essentially the equivalent of the beginner box from the RPG. Then each adventure path could have been a setting box that consisted of some new characters and a new "Level 0" adventure plus all the cards shared across the adventure path, and 6 Adventure decks that were exactly what we have now.

Basically everyone buys the $40 "Base Set" which is a full game with lots of basic cards and a small adventure, then if they want to do a specific adventure they buy the Setting Box and then the 6 adventure decks to go with the AP itself.

The Lord of the Rings Card Game (another coop game) uses a similar method to this. The way Descent Second Edition works is also similar.

At $40 a base set that is a complete game but has many expansions is a lot better proposition to board game customers than the way it is set up now.

Instead, we end up paying for a new rulebook, dice, an insert and reprints of tons of Blessings every 6 months. Plus we end up with some of the same character repeated across multiple games.

Under this system you could also move to an Adventure Book instead of trying to cram everything on cards. The scenario cards would still exist, but instead of having all the setup information they would just be for in game reference.

To be clear, I really like this game, and I'm glad it exists, but there are a lot of things about the way it is sold that could, in my opinion, be improved.

Either way, I look forward to what Mike & Co. come up with next.

You would need to do a little work to make it happen. For one, which basic/elite banes should be removed?

Just do what they do for OP and remove all the Basic and Elite cards that are 2 less (So B,C,P,1,2,3,4).

That'd be several fewer banes or boons, and the 110-card sets are already tough to jam enough cards into. :)

How about just putting card numbers on the lower right corner of each card.

That way if you were missing a card between 1 and 110 you would be able to figure it out.

I don't buy such things anymore but that bank is pretty sweet.

Should the Scenario "Land of the Blind" be listed under promos? Just for the sake of completeness.

I know a lot of people are/were generally dissapointed with the inability to continue their characters from RoR to SaS. I personally stopped playing RoR with my group when SaS was announced because of this. (I have played through it recently however.)

While I have some very grand ideas about how to continue playing your actual character in future APs, I'm going to wait until WotR to come out to actually start working on that.

In the meantime I present "The Legacy", a simple variant inspired by other repeatable campaign style RPG games that work like PACG.

The idea behind the Legacy is that your character in the new AP is descended from or somehow related to your last character. To represent this you simply do a few things differently when constructing your character deck in whichever AP you are playing next.

1) Choose a loot card your previous character has in their deck. The chosen card gains the Owner: NAME trait where NAME is the name of your new character. This represents the treaure, knowledge or connections your previous characters passes on to the next.

2) Your new character gains a card feat. If your new character does not have access to the card type of your inherited loot card, you must choose that card feat. This represents the experience gained from being related to a successful adventurer.

3) When building your starting deck, use basic cards from either AP (or a class deck). This allows some of the flavor of the previous AP to seep into the new one. This represents your character being from a different place than where the current AP takes place.

The idea here is that it doesn't matter which AP you start with and that since you are only including 1 powerful card and increasing your life total by 1, it shouldn't be totally game breaking but instead just give you a little variation on your play through.

I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this. If this exact thing has already come up just ignore my ramblings (I tried to look here and on BGG but I didn't find anything this simple.)

Thanks!

I was messing around with the custom card creator and I came up with a problem with the "Adventure Deck Number" field. While you can put in seemingly any single character including letters, numbers and punctuation, for some reason you can't put in the letter E.

You can put in the letter P so I don't think this is because Paizo is reserving the letter E for some other use but I suppose that could be the case.

I wonder if the promos can be tied to the Character Add-On Deck, as with S&S? Please? =D

They can. I'm sure hawkmoon can link the post.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Promo Card: Chuffy Lickwound

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Promo Card: Temptation of Big Die (Convention)

You can see the names if you try to start your subscription with Wrath.

I second the suggestion to wait until Wrath of the Righteous. Especially if you already know someone who has either of the other two.

Just to derail this thread even further, there is a fan made Star Wars Print and Play ACG ... http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/15982095

If iconics aren't in the class decks, the base set versions can't be used due to how the rules are currently written -- you are allowed to use base set versions of class deck characters if they have the same name, but if the iconics aren't in the class deck then that swap would be illegal. Rules can be easily changed, but do keep that in mind.

Nope. They have to have the same class.

You may substitute any character card of the appropriate

class (along with a matching role and token card) from a
base set or Character Add-On Deck.

Which for most OP players in my area is true. Only two of all my groups (besides myself) own a base set. Only one of those owns the RotR set. So counting on swapping in an iconic into a class deck is not very feasible for OP.

Plus consider that for those that own the S&S set (plus Character Add-on deck), there are only three iconics that match class decks: Lem, Valeros and Merisiel.

"Counting on" is the point where you lose me. Why should they "count on it". It's an option. If you don't have a base set you don't get to play with it. The end.

crasher wrote:

Especially since you can swap out the characters for iconics from the any base set.

Except when you can't ...

Which is only when you don't own or have access to an extra base set.

Especially since you can swap out the characters for iconics from the any base set.

I feel like now that they have the Drivethrucards set up they could add a card replacement service at like .25/card they'd still make money and people would be able to easily replace damaged or lost cards.

I just finished sleeving an AP in Dragon Shields. I love the quality of them and I know from experience they hold up longer than Ultra Pros.

The one annoyance is that despite the fact that all my sleeves came from the same display they are cut extremely inconsistently. Some sleeves are taller, some sleeves are wider.

Since this isn't a competitive game, I chose to just suck it up. Also since I sleeved the cards by Adventure Deck, no one bane or boon is all the same.

Still something to consider.

If money is no object, you could do what I wish I had done, and use KMC Hyper Mats. Not only do they lack the hologram annoyance, but they also hold up over the long term as well as Dragon Shields but have a much more consistent cut.

I've been playing (and sleeving) card games for over 20 years now so I know what I'm talking about. lol.

This whole adventure card guild thing is very frustrating to read about as a store owner. We still haven't heard anything about how to get involved and the local venture captain is unresponsive.

Yeah we're signed up there. As it is rapidly approaching I want to make sure there isn't something more to do.

Emailed our local venture captain over a month ago. No response. Are there plans to work direct with stores or is that not an option?