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(Thanks for the greetings, but I'm not really 'back'... just trying to find a way to squeeze the PACG app into my hectic days! Oh for those halcyon days when I could make standees and spend hours arguing the minutiae of the PACG rules and cobbling together my own re-interpretation of those self-same rules...)
Hi. It's been a while! Just thought I'd drop by to say that somebody at my local board game club pointed me in the direction of the app and I'm mighty impressed. Dropped the cash for the full bundle and can't wait for the full release and a bit of polish to knock of some of the bugs. And then I look forward to seeing the adventure paths I haven't played through yet appearing in the (not too distant) future! It looks gorgeous, the extra dialogue is well done and it plays intuitively enough. Well done to the whole team!
I have a party of six characters which I am taking solitaire through the AP. Nobody has ever died. The play order is usually: Seoni, Valeros, Harsk, Lem, Seelah, Sajan. Sometimes Valeros and Seelah are swapped, sometimes Harsk and Lem swap. Character Name: Seoni
--- Character Name: Valeros
--- Character Name: Harsk
--- Character Name: Lem
--- Character Name: Seelah
--- Character Name: Sajan
--- Basic cards removed from the game:
Barriers: 2x Goblin Raid, Monster in the Closet, Shopkeeper's Daughter, Trapped Passageway, Treasure Map, Zombie Nest
Play notes: I kind of regret taking Sajan and Seelah in this group - I think Lini and Merisial would have been both more fun and more 'useful' to the party. I had another party with them in but, for various reasons, that IRL group doesn't meet any more so I haven't had a chance to play them much. Seoni is my favourite in this group and plays out in my head as the 'leader' of the group. She leads from the front, burns most of her hand each turn (if she can muster enough re-explores) and can deal with most things that she finds. The Holy Candle has been invaluable so far and, without it, I think we would have timed out 2 or 3 more scenarios. Valeros is a big, blunt, weapon but has been of limited use so far - the others could usually take care of all but the biggest monsters in A1-3 and he has shown a strange attraction to non-combat monsters, especially the Satyr. He also has very boring turns (I would hate to play *just* him in a bigger group - I think it would make for a very boring evening) and almost all of his power/card feats so far have been focused on increased flexibility and getting more explores (i.e. bigger hand size, blessing, allies). He carries two Spyglasses to try to find banes he can bash. I've been swapping things around recently to try to get more bows into Valeros' arsenal so he can both (a) cycle his deck more and (b) be more flexible in helping other characters' combat checks. Lets see if this backfires now we're into the sharp end of the AP! Lem and Harsk are awesome in a group of this size. Lem is the main healer but careful positioning of him and Harsk means you can add lots of d4s when you need them. Sajan's main role seems to be as a blessings mule to help other characters (or very situational cards that he might stumble across). If he happens to have a lot of blessings left on his turn then there are some options, but I think other characters are a lot more fun to play. At the end of A3 he realised that his companions only love him for his blessings and he turned to drink. (Besides, we already have two archers and he only has one weapon slot) I'm a bit torn on Seelah... in many ways she seems similar but better than Valeros with the bonus of being able to heal herself. But that "Favored card type: Armor" is a real pain. Until the end of A3 the blessings were pretty much randomly assigned around the group. Now, however, they have been assigned with an eye on the special blessing powers that some characters have. I hope that helps!
Oh man... sorry for the false alarm. Somehow I read it as Stone Giants... lack of sleep does funny things to the eyes and brain. I'd better go back on hiatus and stop posting nonsense!
What's the official retail release date? Amazon UK seems to be selling it already: www.amazon.co.uk/Pathfinder-Adventure-Card-Game-Mountain/dp/1601255632/ I thought there was usually some kind of embargo until the official release (which I thought was the 26th Feb)??
Hi everyone - thanks for the replies so far. Really interesting stuff! It does seem that (d) is the most popular method for dealing with death so far. To me, it seems like a reasonable thing to do - it's still painful but you can draft in a new, slightly greener, recruit and let the fun continue (after the memorial service). It also seems that, for most people, failing 15-20% of the scenarios is about where the difficulty should be pitched (about 1 per adventure). But, more importantly, even the successful scenarios should feel like close run things. How on earth Paizo manage to do this with the ranges of skill levels, greed levels, party sizes and character mixes is beyond me but they seem to be pretty close to this already - at least in the (2) and (3) adventures. I look forward to seeing more replies!
@PixelHunter - death is very rare and usually avoidable. I think the idea is that if you're close to death you should slow down and take the lesser pain of running out of time (re-doing the scenario) instead of the greater loss of dying. Once you've played a few times you will get a feel for how fast you need to go and how greedy you can be with the boons if you want to survive and finish on time.
Well... some of them are barely bigger than a (very large) parrot. Maybe with the right crown/hat they might pass for one ;)
I'm not sure what you're asking... the adventure packs (which take the characters through the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path) contain adventures/scenarios plus extra boons and banes. Are you looking for something different than that? There are also a lot of fan-created scenarios available online (through BoardGameGeek and this Paizo forum) - some of which seem very well thought through.
Some people complain that RotR is too easy. Some people complain that it's too hard. Some people are always happy. Some people never are... So, I thought I'd open a thread to stimulate some conversation on this topic. Just how hard do you (think you) want a game like this to be? In particular: 1) How often would you expect to fail a scenario (time out the blessings deck)? 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? 3) What would you do if a character died (and was not legitimately resurrected by some game effect)?
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'd really like to understand the different viewpoints on this to round out my understanding of the game and the community. I don't have any real experience in RPGs (I played some infrequently about 20 years ago) and know that the community here is a mix of RPGers, computer game players, board gamers, families, all-of-the-abovers and none-of-the-abovers. My gut feeling is that different groups would have very different expectations of a game, but look forward to seeing your comments! As for my own thoughts, see below. I've put them in a spoiler block in case you'd like to answer first without prejudicing your responses with my own thoughts! Spoiler: Personally, I like a challenge and don't mind failing some times. I'd rather fail some scenarios than walk through them all without having to think too much. But I'm a middle aged, British, non-RPG, lapsed video gamer with a penchant for logic puzzles and general tricksiness. My answers are:
1) How often would you expect to fail a scenario? ... at least 1 in 5 (i.e. one scenario per adventure pack), but no more than 3 in 5. At least 3 out of 5 should feel like close calls. My actual 'results' are that I think I've failed (timed out) 1 or 2 scenarios out of about thirty, but Hook Mountain was pleasantly more challenging than the early packs and I hope the challenge continues to mount. 2) How many times (in ten play-throughs) would you expect to see a character die? ... maybe 3 or 4 times (roughly one in 3 play throughs). Before I started playing I read the rules and actually thought "OK, lets plan ahead for *when* (not if) somebody dies... what will we do?" I then started taking TWO parties through the AP so that I would have some 'spare' to put together the parties if somebody died. Nobody has died on my watch (yet!). 3) What would you do if a character died? Answer (d) - this seems reasonable to me, since you *could* go through the whole AP-to-date with the new character but I don't have that much time on my hands. Giving them all the feats and a starter deck seems like a reasonable compromise. Oh, and I would consider the first character 'dead' and have to pick a different one to continue.
@CaptainBulldozer - you haven't seen the artwork for all the character cards yet...
Awesome work guys - and loving the flavor text around some of the most recent FAQ entries :)
I'm against this restriction on powers that can be used in response to things happening at the end of a turn... Take Ezren for example. I don't have the cards to hand, but lets say Levitate is an Arcane spell that plays 'at the end of turn'. And Ezren's power lets him draw a card when he plays a spell. (I think that's more or less right). Levitate is a legitimate card to play at the end of a turn, it says so explicitly. Now, to me, any card/power that triggers off that event (e.g. Ezren drawing a new card) should be allowed. You shouldn't be able to just fire off any generic powers at the end of a turn, but (IMHO) you *should* be allowed to use any reactive powers, regardless of any 'end of turn' timing on that power, if they are reacting to something (anything) that happened at the end of a turn.
Well, the original had to at least start with monster damage. But it could be read to reduce any source of damage on the rest of the turn. But yeah the reworked version only accounts for damage from monsters, not barriers, locations or scenarios. Which makes more sense anyway :)
Great summary - all looks good to me, and I agree with @Hawkmoon269 as well
@CaptainBulldozer - I think you're wrong here... Sajan's power sets DEX as the base of his check. So you then add any DEX bonuses/feats when you are calculating your result. In RotR I'm fairly sure that you would NEVER roll your DEX die but add your STR bonuses/feats. The die sets the 'skill' for the check, then you add the bonuses related to that skill later. This is the crux of my original What is a Die thread (and what drew me into this PACG black hole in the first place)!
I see where you're coming from. I guess the point is that the syntax is similar but the wording is also different. Lini's power doesn't start with the magic "For your xyz check" wording which sets the skill. IMHO a FAQ entry to change the wording to "during" instead of "for", or to reword it along the lines of your latest post, wouldn't hurt.
@subzero - in this game, the '0' side of a d10 counts as ten (never zero).
Sorry, how is Sajan's different to Lini's? With both powers: 1) you set the die in the first step (e.g. Sajan says "I'm going to use DEX for my combat check", Lini says "I'm going to use DEX for my dex check") 2) you pick up the relevant (physical) die (e.g. Sajan's d10 for DEX or Lini's d10 from her power). 3) you play other cards that boost the check 4) you assemble dice, roll them then *add any bonuses related to the skill you are using* (e.g. +2 if you have two ticks next to DEX) 5) you get your result and resolve the check ...what did I miss? Lini's power doesn't stop you from using a weapon or some other "for your xyz check". Sajan's explicitly prevents you from using a weapon but the "for your combat check" bit already does this (the extra wording is a reminder). Perhaps your (3b) should be more like "During any check, instead of rolling..."
Yes and Yes as far as I can tell too!
It's not cheating, but it isn't really in the spirit of the game to farm for boons. Also, note that you cannot quit in the middle of an encounter. If you flip over a card you have to finish dealing with that card. The 'quit' mechanism means you basically just do nothing on the rest of your turns. Note that if you encountered something like 'Quicksand: Barrier. Attach this card to your character. At the start of each of your turns succeed in a CON/FORT 12 check or bury the top card of your deck. At the end of the scenario banish this card.' then you would still need to do this check every turn until the blessings deck runs out, even though you had stopped exploring and were trying to run the time down.
Lini's power swaps the physical die. Later on you add the bonuses from the skill in use. Ah, this conversation takes me back to where it all began...
With the blessing fall off make sure you read the role cards first... some of the roles have a power to force any blessing of X into 1d12, so bear that in mind.
My hope is that they're going to add a step to the turn order, saying to recharge any remaining displayed/pending cards before you reset your hand.
This is nasty... recharging duration cards *after* resetting your hand means that a spellcaster's deck could temporarily be several cards smaller than it's "meant to" be. My understanding was that duration spells originally (when the game was released) recharged instantly. Later on Paizo added "recharge at the end of your turn" so that people could leave them out as reminders of what was in effect. To keep everything in line, shouldn't 'end of turn' recharges of long-lasting cards be set to happen *before* resetting your hand?
Also, if anybody dies then they are dead. And, if you're not too scared, there is a marvelous house rule you can implement as well... after the failed scenario, each character banishes one random card from their 'pile' of cards per unclosed location.
OK, well be strong and commit fully to the choices you make. There's no point making the early game harder then 'turning off' the extra rules when the going gets tough later on!
What the game needs is a wiki...
I guess the questions here are (a) what is the designers' intent? i.e. did they want Lini to get +2 to recharge checks? (b) as written do the rules mean that WW Lini gets +2 her spell recharge checks? @Vic - the quote you posted means that you can play a spell by recharging it. It doesn't necessarily also mean that 'when you do the recharge check on a spell it counts as playing a spell'. That might be part of the "do one thing before starting another" meta rule but it's complicated by long-lasting spells (like Glibness) which can recharge some time after they were actually played. My personal *guess* is that the intent is for the +2 to include checks to recharge spells and perhaps the wording could be clearer as "Add 2 to your check when playing or recharging a spell". This opinion is largely based on the knowledge that (a) when you play a spell it satisfies the RAW for Lini's power and if you immediately recharge it then it would seem to me that you should get the bonus (in a similar way to how BoPharasma works) and (b) spells like Glibness originally recharged immediately (and you had to remember that the power stayed in effect), that their recharge is now a bit later shouldn't matter - they are still spell-related checks that only exist because a spell has been played. Of course, that's just my opinion and I might be wrong!
@SaulSimonTan - if you'd like a second opinion, I'd say that the answer is (a), it's Fire Damage and everything @Hawkmoon269 says above is correct.
@JJiinx - how far have you gotten into the game so far? The (B) scenarios are meant to be training ones (and are intentionally really easy), the (1) scenarios are also very simple. Once you get to Hook Mountain (3) there is definitely a challenge to be had and you might find yourself back-tracking on some of your added difficulty rules ;) Having said that, nobody here has died yet and we've only timed out once, but some of them have been very close calls on the timer and/or more exotic victory conditions.
Thanks for the input guys. I'll update the Turn Sequence docs after I've finished the S&S playtest and have some free time again!
There's one other that I think would fit your set, which we use in RotR: If you take damage and have no cards in hand at the start of the "take damage" step then you must bury one card from the top of your deck. So, if you take 6 damage and have 1 card in hand, you just discard one card. But if you have no cards in hand and take 1 damage you will have to bury the top card of your deck. This alone makes people think twice about a lot of their actions, especially exploring with an empty hand which normally has relatively few side-effects until late in the AP.
Hi @jjiinx - take a look at the turn sequence docs on BGG then post an update here to let me know if you have any more questions! Basically your summary looks correct for playing cards/powers outside of encounters and you just need to remember that you can only play cards/powers that affect the check/damage during an encounter. (e.g. no Cure during an encounter)
@Hawkmoon - this is new to me too. I'll add a note about it to the Turn Sequence docs next time I update them.
I don't think this is a problem. Damage needs to have a type (e.g. Combat, Poison, etc) and these particular sources cannot be reduced so you need to come up with fun strategies to deal with them...
I hope this has been cleared up now! I think the root of the problem is that you "Encounter" a card by exploring but then there is a "small encounter" within the "big encounter", and the "before the encounter" and "after the encounter" events happen either side of the "small encounter". If you evade a card then it has been "big encountered" but the "small encounter" never happened so none of the before/after effects happen. Anyway... on to my question which was raised by Olav after reading the Turn Sequence docs on BGG: --- The Shrine to Lamashtu says: "When you encounter a blessing, ..." Is this: (a) as soon as you flip over a blessing (i.e. when you 'big' encounter a blessing), or (b) only if you do not evade (i.e. the same as "before the encounter", meaning it happens when you start the 'small' encounter)? I assume it's (a) but would like to be sure!
@Hawkmoon269 - I read it the same way as you. If there's a 'cost' to play a card then you have to be able to pay that cost to use the card. @JScotShady - I have struggled to find a use for the Trident. Valeros' hand size is small enought without having to discard two cards to use the Trident, especially since he cannot recharge either the "discard another card" or the "take 1 Force damage" card back into his deck.
Sorry, @Zandari... that's completely wrong! @brainwave is correct - try re-reading the rules about checks and cast any RPG pre-conceptions out the window ;-)
When there are multiple types of check listed you just pick one of them, then read the card as if the others were not there. If it said it was a Charisma/Melee check would you have the same problem?
That's assuming a new rule book is printed and put into the box of RotR. The updates should still go into the FAQ.
@Sehyo - this is a really interesting idea. I'm busy with the S&S playtest for the rest of Jan (using the RAW) but I'll give your variant a whirl with RotR when I get a chance. P.S. if early testing is anything to go by, there aren't going to be many people wanting to increase the difficulty of S&S...!
Ones without basic/elite traits will hang around forever. And, yes, "Elite" is just one step above "Basic" - took some getting used to!
@Derek - I don't think there's a direct correlation between V&H in the bottom half of the decks and hoarding stuff for the showdown. Hoarding/preparation happens when you know where the villain is, which is not the same thing. The reasons I switched to this method were twofold: 1) Too many first turn -> Augury -> oh, there's the villain, we'll leave that deck until last moments. 2) Finding a henchman as the first/second card in a deck massively reduces time pressure (if you defeat it and cloes the location) and lets you close a location -> which means you have more knowledge of where the villain runs to when you finally find him and defeat him the first time. Note also that as soon as the villain runs he's no longer (necessarily) in the bottom half of any deck so the changed set-up does not affect the whole game, just the early encounters. However, having 'play tested' this for a while it may be better just to add more locations (even to a 6 character game, although I'm not sure my table is big enough) and/or roll a die each turn after you scout the villain. If the die roll is x the villain will run - this removes the ability to 'power up' before facing them and hopefully add some fun tension to proceedings. For your proposed help-only-from-the-same-location variant you'll need to have a think about some of the existing powers (e.g. Harsk's character powers to help combat checks at other locations) but it definitely make for an interesting variant - albeit one which runs against the grain of the designers' intentions!
Great answers by @Hawkmoon269. If you're still looking for timing clarifications, try the Turn Sequence Docs and let me know if they help to clarify things. Also, let me know if they are not clear enough in relation to what happens when you evade and I'll try to improve them.
I *really* think that the game would be simpler if you took that text off the henchman cards... At the moment you have to remember that, when summoning a henchman, you have to ignore part of the text written on the card. This is a bit twisty since normally cards over-rule the rulebook. If the text was not on the henchman cards then you'd just need to remember the 'normal' rules that when you defeat a henchman (from a location deck) you get a chance to close that location. Any henchmen that do not grant this (e.g. the night boa) can still say so explicitly on their cards. Basically, I'm not sure what having the text on the henchmen cards achieves at the moment...
I guess that's a FAQ waiting to happen? "Q. Is a deck still a deck when it has zero cards in it?" "A. Yes. Any game effect that targets a deck or 'random deck' of a certain type should also target empty decks of that type. (Then give an example)"
The wiki is an important first step. The QR codes come later (if at all). As I've said many times before, I think a wiki would help enormously to both (a) clear up and organise rules and errata and (b) provide a place for more detailed back-story and plot. Even if you want to lock it down and only give access to people that have bought the physical game that would be possible too - you'd need to put a unique code into each box then people could register for access and redeem the code.
One house rule I've used to increase difficulty is that dice added by blessings played on other characters are always d4s. You're going to have fun when you get to the role cards (which turn blessing dice into d12s in some situations)!
@bidmaron - I really don't think that's what happens... we explore as fast as we can, whether or not we've already seen the top 5 cards. (And I played the first Adventure without putting villains in the bottom half, so I have some experience of the 'normal' way too) The point here is that, with 5 other characters around, you're going to get a LOT of help whenever the villain shows up. Even Seoni fighting against the villain with her bare fists (happened to me in one of the (3) scenarios) still won. 1d4 STR + 2 'normal' blessings + 2 'situation' blessings + Harsk's ranged strike + plus Harsk discard a bow + Poog was something like "9d4 + 6" - we just made the required roll. That's an extreme case but with 6 characters it's normally easy enough to put together a roll with an expected average of 35-40 (especially when your base die is bigger than a d4!).
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