magnitt's page

Thank you, Junior Goblin, this sounds cool!

Is this a spell from box 5 or 6? What does it do?
(I play Simoun lightning thief that's why I'm interested)

Thank you guys for very useful replies! (as usual :))

Hello, fellow Pathfinder ACG players! I have a couple of question regarding the abilities below:

When you move, you may examine the top card of your location deck. If it is a monster, you may encounter it; add 1d6 and the Electricity trait to your checks to defeat.

Discard this card to move, then you may explore your location. You may not use this power during the encounter.

1) If Simouns has the above power and plays Blessing of Horus, can she use her power to examine the top card of her deck after she moves (possibly encountering a monster) and then continue with her blessing's power to explore her location?

Thanks in advance!

Hang on there - Ezren's power doesn't work quite the way you think it does. The power cares about whether the bane itself invokes one of the traits, not the check you're making.

And THAT was really a bomb!! Our whole world just fell apart! How to live on?!

Thanks a lot, guys, that was really enlightening!

Thanks for your quick response! The effect of the card was to add Acid trait but it didn't do anything else (like adding dice or modifying the check's result in any other way). Thus I am not sure that we can say that it *directly* affected the check. Is there a definition of what is considered to be *directly* affecting the check?

This came up in one of our previous games. Ezren has the following ability:

You may recharge a spell to add 1 die to your check against a bane that invokes the Acid or Electricity (□ or Cold, Fire, or Poison) trait

Let's say he is playing a Lightning Touch against a monster. He also has a card in his hand that he can recharge to add Acid trait to his check (I don't remember the name of the card). He doesn't want that card in his hand and wants to use this check to recharge it.

One person in our group said that Esren could recharge this card during his check, as if to allow himself to use the above power.
Another person said that he couldn't do it because he could use the above power without gaining Acid trait because the check already had Electricity trait.

What do you people think, can he in such a situation recharge the card that gives him the Acid trait? If yes, does he have to use the above power (recharge another spell for an additional die) or not?

Thank you in advance!

Keith said that in a friendlier but spongier way than I would have.

You are always allowed to know where your token is in the deck.
You can fan your cards in your location whenever you want, as long as you don't flip them over.
You are not allowed to shuffle the cards in a way that influences where your token is.

Thanks a lot, Mike, that's exactly the info I was looking for!

Yes, certainly proxies or non-transparent sleeves will help to keep the info hidden but they can seriously affect your decisions in the game.

Suppose you are lost in a location with lots of banes (like it was in our case). If you see that your token is on the top (or near the top if you are Alahazra or Estra), you don't really need your friends to help you out, but if you have no idea where your token is in the location, you would probably need to call your friends to help you, otherwise you can be stuck indefinitely.

Vic Wertz wrote:

You shouldn’t know where your token card is while you are shuffling.

In case you're wondering about the presence of that weird statement, since the token card doesn't have a standard back, you could technically comply with the instruction "shuffle it into the deck" and just continue shuffling until your token was on top again. So we added this "no peeking" rule. (As Mike would say, "this is why we can't have nice things.")

By the way, without a standard back you often can see where the token is within a location deck. You can always see it when it is on top of course, but it is also awfully difficult to keep the deck 100% straight when you take cards from the top of the deck. So after the first explore or examine you often can see where the token is inside the deck (yes, we are clumsy).

Or maybe we are in fact supposed to know where the token is and we don't have to try and keep the location deck 100% strait?

Hawkmoon269 wrote:

2. I tend to like Melee over Ranged (not sure why).

For me, personally, Melee just feels safer than ranged. If I'm ever stuck without a weapon, I'm still rolling one of my best dice, whereas with Ranged, I'm in trouble without a weapon. And since Ranged weapons don't seem any more powerful or versatile, it tends to be all risk for no reward.

I agree that melee is safer combat-wise but high dexterity is usually more useful than strength outside combat (more barriers have it).

Anyways, since we usually play with 4 players, we like to have specialists in each of these 4 areas (arcane, divine, melee and ranged). It feels such a waste to find a good card that no one can use.

The only exception is our latest Mummy game where we don't have a dedicated melee fighter. There is still Mavaro but he is not quite sure yet what he wants to do with himself.

The question is this:

If Simoun is making a Perception check to defeat a barrier that has the Trap trait, can she still use her power to add her Perception skill the the check?

I agree with everything that you say Hawkmoon, but original questions in the OP said:

she's already rolling 2d8+6 against all Traps and Obstacles in the game

And I cannot agree with this because not all Traps and Obstacles have Perception checks to defeat. That's why I assumed that original question was about whether you can double your perception bonus if your barrier has both Trap and Obstacle traits. And I was surprised that everyone seemed to agree with this :)

6) Yep. Ditto Drelm with Divine.

Are you REALLY sure about this? It's just one power, not two separate powers so I can't imagine why you can apply it twice..

even if the barrier has both Trap and Obstacle traits..

I just checked the rules carefully (pages 18 and 19) and I still don't understand traders quite clearly. From what I found in the rules, the sequence should be as below:

- win a scenario
- gain rewards
- select traders
- draw cards for the selected traders
- trade boons between characters
- trade with traders
- displayed boons might be banished
- rebuild your deck

This order seems strange to me because as it is written, you gain access to your discarded or buried cards (and your deck!) only when you rebuild your deck, which is supposed to be done after visiting traders. But surely it doesn't mean that characters can use only the cards in their hands (at the end of a scenario) when they trade with traders? Or does it?

The Mythic Trickster has a move based power:

Mythic Trickster wrote:

Add your number of mythic charges to your Dexterity or Intelligence check. Then you may expend 1 or more charges. If you do, after you assemble your dice, for each charge expended, replace 1 of your highest non-d20 dice with a d20, after the encounter, you may move, ignoring any movement restrictions.

Can I still move if the I activate that power while not in an encounter?

Like if a location calls for a Dexterity check to close, can I spend mythic charge to gain the D20 on that check, and after I make the closing check, move?

I may be wrong, but here's how I see this:

- If you attempt to close an empty location during the Close a Location step, which happens after your Explore step and just before End Your Turn step, you cannot move since you are not having an encounter. But even if you could, you wouldn't be able to explore anymore because your Explore step would be already finished by that time, and you cannot explore outside your Explore step.

3. No. The character playing the helm ignores the entire power, meaning he cannot choose to be the "another character" because according to him, that power doesn't exist. A character that did not play the helm would be subject to the servitor demon. If all other characters at that location played the helm, then it would pass without effect.

When I first read this I thought my head would burst! But in the end I think this makes sense :) Thank you, skizzerz!

Sorry guys for continuing this topic but here goes Incubus:

"Before you act, another character at your location summons and encounters this adventure servitor demon.

- If I encounter this guy I cannot play the Helm since it can only protect me, right?

Earlier I said there is a general agreement, but somehow I missed Ripe's post above who doesn't agree with others.

But I tend to agree with most other posters, in that the Helm affects only you and you can play it during someone else's encounter to shield yourself from some bad effects.

Still, I think it would be much cleaner if it were the other way around, that is if you could only play it during your own encounter and if it allowed you to completely ignore BYA for everyone, virtually removing the power from the card. Otherwise you repeatedly stumble into situation when it is not quite clear what the Helm does in a particular situation.

Take, for example, the Dominion Scientist:

Before you act, each character is dealt 2 Force damage; for each card discarded due to this damage, the difficulty of checks against Dominion Scientist is increased by 1

In this particular case the damage taken by other players may affect the difficulty of your check.

Think of the upcoming digital version of the game - I suspect it would be quite difficult to implement the Helm's power correctly in each such case.

Actually I would argue that saying "before you act" specifies you, magnitt

But in this case, do you think you can still play the Helm during someone else's encounter? If BYA just refers to the step, it seems OK, because BYA step still happens, even if you yourself are not going to act. But if "before you act" here specifies you, then I would say you cannot play the Helm, because you, specifically, are not going to act.

Correct. Since the card specifies "you", it can be used on any BYA that affects you, but it only prevents from affecting you. Something that affects multiple players still affects everyone else.

Actually, in the text elcoderdude provided above, the card does not specify "you". But in any case I can see that there is a general agreement that (1) it affects only you, and (2) it can be played during another player's encounter.

Thanks to everyone who took time to answer!

One last question - if a monster tells me to pass a BYA check or everyone at my location is dealt X damage, what happens if I play the Helm? Do I skip BYA altogether, or do I still have to try to pass the check and other characters are dealt the damage if I fail?

Sorry, I don't remember the exact wording, and wording is important here, but I don't own the game. Still, this question was brought up on several occasions, so maybe someone with the game can help me. Basically this helm lets you ignore a before you act (BYA) power on a monster. It was not perfectly clear to us when you can use it and who it can affect.

- e.g. if a BYA power deals damage to all characters at your location, does it protect only you or all characters?

- also, if a BYA power forces everyone at your location to pass a check or face some bad consequences, does the helm protect you alone, or does it protect all characters?

- also, can you play the helm only during your own encounter? Can you use it to protect yourself from a BYA power on a monster encountered by someone else? (I don't remember the wording, maybe it was quite clear, but I thought I'd ask, just in case)

What I would love to see is an official way to up the difficulty level, done in the maximally fun way. Suggestions like Slacker2010s above are good, but I find it hard to commit to any particular set of house rules when they're all just arbitrary

I agree. There is also a chance that official difficulty adjustment options will be eventually implemented into the digital version - I would love to see that.

We also had some difficulty with this one. We argued I think for about 10 minutes before we all agreed that it should mean "when you [move or are moved] here", meaning this effects happens only when you arrive at this location, not when you depart.

If I play Transmogrify when I encounters a monster, can I later play other attack spells during actual checks to defeat it?

2. Vellexia, you mean. She's a demon, so yes.

Actually, this has been discussed, and the ruling was that you don't roll for Shamira since Vellexia is evaded instead of being defeated:

Sad... This is such a great game, it has almost replaced all other games in our group, but obviously we are an exception. Now it seems like soon we'll have to look elsewhere...

(Yes, we played the first two base sets twice and now are in the middle of the third. And we also played through the Season of the Shackles but were not impressed - almost no real challenge for us there. Maybe we have to think of a good way to scale the difficulty level...)

Thank you, Vic, this is perfectly clear now!

I need to clarify one more thing about Corruptor Seoni, please. Let's say I checked this power feat:

"You may treat a card in your hand that has the Corrupted trait as if it has the same powers as the top card in the blessings discard pile. This counts as playing a blessing."

Now let's say that I want to play the unredeemed Black Robe as a blessing. The Black Robe says that you have to bury a random card from your discard pile when you play it. But do I have to do it if I play it as a blessing? Or I should ignore the original powers on the corrupted card when I play it as a blessing? In other words the powers from the copied blessing replace the original powers or they are in addition to them?

I also acquired Skinstitcher's Manual earlier today and now I don't know what to do with it. Help?

I think it is wrong to mix up the two following problems, which clearly exist, as is apparent from this thread:

1) WotR becomes just too difficult with 6 players compared with 3-4 players.

2) Alain's lancer power (Recharge a card to search your deck or discard pile for a card that has the Mount trait and add it to your hand) is just too good for a single power feat.

I think the right approach would be to try to resolve each of these problems independently rather than think that they just cancel each other and thus all is fine. After all, there could be 6p-parties without Alain and 3-4p parties with him!

Thank you!

We once took this "Offer" and then encountered a villain with two checks. For the first check we rolled a 3 on the d20. Then someone in our group said that this roll should apply to both checks. This sounded wrong to me, especially after we already rolled a 3. But what do you think, should there be a single d20 roll which applies to both checks, or should it be two independent rolls?

Skizzers, thank you for answering and for providing the link!

(1) I thought I'd also ask, just in case:

during your move step [play it] to allow any number of characters at your location to move

- this can be either the location you move from or the location you move to?

(2) We also had a question related to the second power. If an abyssal location is permanently closed, is it considered to have the trait "Abyssal"? We doubted this because the trait is not present on the reverse side of the card, but the title is still in black, so who knows...

Thanks! I believed so too but for some reason my friends thought I couldn't so I had to check.

The Spherewalker Staff has two powers which read as follows:

(1)...reveal this card and discard a card that has the Desna trait or a spell to [do something] ... (2) reveal this card and recharge a card that has the Desna trait or a spell to [do something else]

The Staff itself has the Desna trait. So can the discarded or recharged card be the Staff itself? Or should it mean "discard/recharge another card that has the Desna trait or a spell"? In other words, could you discard the Staff for the first power or recharge it for the second power?

When we played OP scenarios at home we used #1 with some fine-tuning. We threw in most of CD unique cards, except some that we thought would not play well with S&S (e.g. Augury/Scrying). Then we thinned the S&S boons by removing identical cards if there were more than 2 copies (with Cure being an exception). Finally, we added more CD boons as we advanced to new adventures and removed basic and elite cards as per OP rules.

Our group is putting off the "redeeming" scenario of the 3d adventure until this question is answered. We are silly that way, we like to know the exact letter of the rules before we house-rule them :)

skizzerz wrote:

You almost played it correctly, but went a bit too hard on yourselves. Summoned cards cannot cause other cards to be summoned, so when you summon Kiranda due to the During This Scenario power for moving you do not also summon the servitor demon.

Yeah, I agree with this. You get the Servitor Demon if you encounter Choroussina, but I don't think you have to encounter the demon if you're moving and encounter Kiranda.

Thank you, this makes sense! I remember hearing about the rule that a summoned monster cannot summon another monster, but here with the location triggering a monster to be summoned as a result of encountering a henchmen it somehow didn't click with us that this is the same thing.

I'm sorry, I'm playing with my friends and don't own the game so I cannot remember titles of some cards or their exact wording. But the situation was really interesting and I want to know whether you think we played it correctly.

Here's what happened. I play Seoni. In Scenario 2-4 ("Into the Citadel"?) I was in The Great Hall, which reads: "When you encounter a henchman, summon and encounter the Servitor Demon first".

Servitor demon in Adventure 2 is not really magic-friendly, you have to pass an arcane check to play spells.

In that location I encountered the henchman Chorussina that also forces you to encounter the Servitor Demon. Thus I needed to encounter 2 Servitor Demons, and then Chorussina, and of course I didn't make it, so she gets shuffled back into The Great Hall.

Now it looks like a good time for me to move away from The Great Hall... But maybe not: in this scenario when you move you have to encounter another Henchman (I don't remember her name), and you have to pass an Arcane 12 to play spells against her and if she is undefeated and you don't have any armor (like I didn't) you just bury your entire hand!

Maybe I could pull it off (the Arcane check and then the Combat check of 18 I think) with a couple of blessings, but then we thought that since I am in The Great Hall I have to encounter the Servitor Demon even before I encounter that other henchmen!

So I say to myself, OK, I just stay here and try my chances with Chorussina. Maybe I can do it with a couple of blessings. Guess what I found there next? Bilious Bottle! So now if I stay here and explore I face taking 1d4+1 damage at the start of my turn and then I have to fight 3 henchmen if I find Chorussina! I couldn't but admire the trap that had been set so ingeniously!

I can just stay in The Great Hall doing nothing. But if I don't explore we loose a blessing from the blessing deck - scenario rules!

Nevertheless this is what I was forced to do. Miraculously, we managed to win on our last blessing - I temporary closed The Great Hall by Perception with a blessing and armor bonus of +2, so that the villain could not escape there.

What do you think of this scenario? Do you think we interpreted the rules correctly? Does "when you move" occurs at the location you are moving from?

Calthaer wrote:

Longshot11 wrote:

For 5 scenarios, my group had to trudge through one of the most horrible gaming experiences ever, without an ounce of joy to be had in sight...

Just about sums up this set in my view. What a disappointment.

Couldn't disagree more. Overcoming the challenges of the base set provided some of the loudest and most heart felt high fives my group has experienced in any board game.

Same here! I just love how challenging the Wrath set is! We have played through RotR and S&S, twice each, and only lost 3 scenarios. In WotR the game becomes more tense so that victories are much more satisfying.

That being said, I suspect that with 6 players (we play with 4) it could be much more frustrating with Demon Hordes, Evil Trees and Armies. Maybe this specific set really shines with 3-4 players.

This is entirely a player style question. Some players (myself included) enjoy playing 4e d&d warlords, mmo healers, moba supports, and are perfectly happy to 'actively contribute to victory' through means other than exploration <...> There is nothing 'abnormal' about it, it's just a matter of taste

Yes, you are quite right. Being a long time with a group where everyone likes to explore things I just got used to the idea that it is "normal", but I agree that this is not always the case.

it's simply incorrect to say that the heavy-exploring character is necessarily *better*

You are right, they are not always better "as is", but note that they tend to become better as a result of exploring more often because they are more likely to acquire boons which are good for them. That's another reason why we like to let every character explore - magic users go to locations with spells and fighters go for weapons. This increases our chances to find (and acquire!) more good boons for everyone.

And I agree that scouting can be extremely useful. Sometimes (with Alahazra) even a bit too useful. With her exploring became much less a thrill, it almost felt like a different game, much less exciting. But this is also the question of what you prefer. This is what is so great about this game - you can always customize it to suit your (and your group's) preferences.

Yes, this is a cooperative game, but when we play we are sometimes a bit individualistic and I think this is fine.

I feel that it is not normal or fun when one of the characters is much better than others and so he does multiple explores each turn while others mostly explore once a turn and keep playing blessings and cures on that character. Even if such a strategy would be more beneficial to the group as a whole, it is not fun.

That's why sometimes a player in our group may keep a certain card to himself even if it would be more useful to another character, and we accept this. Or he may give it up but ask for something else in return, this kind of thing. And we'd rather help a character who is falling behind than help the most "powerful" character to become more powerful still.

Each player should feel that he is actively contributing to victory, not just support others. Yes, some characters are more support-oriented, I did Lem and Oloch myself, but it is not normal or nice to exclusively limit some player to supporting others. It is not good if one player says "Guys, I'm better than you, so I'll use my blessing to explore and you will play yours to support me".

So in our group we accept reasonable selfishness :) We still try to help each other, but we are careful about keeping balance between our characters even if this sometimes may mean that we become less powerful as a group.

That being said, I wouldn't say that we are not successful. We played RotR twice without ever loosing a scenario. We did S&S twice and only lost three scenarios in AP6. In WotR we are loosing more often (which I personally enjoy because I like more challenge) but mostly we win, and no character ever died.

And yes, we play with our hands closed. We do tell others about our blessings and stuff when it's important, but we like keeping our cards private. It is also more handy for us because keeping cards face-up would require wider playing area.

For the sake of argument, let's imagine that some power forces you to move at the start of your turn. You can choose the order of start-of-turn effects.

So if you start your turn in Molten Pool you can choose to apply this power to move away before Molten Pool triggers, right? Or you can choose to take damage first, if you feel a bit masochistic, and then move away.

Now imagine that you start your turn at another location, and some start-of-turn power moves you to Molten Pool. Why cannot you in similar fashion choose the Molten Pool damage to happen _before_ you actually move there, so that you can avoid it?

Oh, now I see - it's _after_ the check with Kyra! This makes sense! So we played it right with Oloch, but with Kyra it's different. Thanks a lot!!

magnitt wrote:

Hi, can somebody clarify Kyra for me please! If Kyra plays a blessing on another character’s check to defeat, and her discard pile is empty, can she recharge the blessing she just played? Thank you!

Yes, she can. (She doesn't actually recharge it, she shuffles it.)

During the check, she discards the blessing. After the check, she performs her healing. The blessing is in her discard pile to be healed.

Thank you, that's very interesting! I always wanted to do this, but my friends wouldn't let me, saying that the card is not in the discard pile yet. Also, back when I was playing Oloch (Shield of Gorum role) they were saying that the following ability does not work when the character's discard pile is empty:

When a character plays a blessing on your combat or Strength check, that character may recharge a random card from her discard pile ...

So you think they were mistaken? Can someone else confirm this, please?

WotR Kyra's power reads:

Kyra character card wrote:

When you use the above power or play a blessing that does not have the Corrupted trait on another character’s (□ or your) check to defeat, a character at your location may shuffle 1 random card from his discard pile into his deck after the check.

Kyra's healing occurs after the check. Which makes it all too easy to forget, in my opinion.

Hi, can somebody clarify Kyra for me please! If Kyra plays a blessing on another character’s check to defeat, and her discard pile is empty, can she recharge the blessing she just played? Thank you!

Thank you all for clarifying this for me!

Being able to pull out a Life Drain for an easy fight, a Create Spiked Pit for an annoying monster with auto-damage, and a Dismissal for outsiders is *really* good.

1. I have a question regarding "Create Spiked Pit". Can you really pull it out like this? Seoni's ability must be used "before your combat check", but if you want to evade a monster then there will be no combat check. Thus it seems to me that Seoni cannot use her ability to pull the "Create Spiked Pit" from her discard to evade. Do you agree?

2. Also, I think that if Corruptor Seoni uses a Corrupted card to copy the top card of the blessing deck, that card cannot be recharged, because the cards do not match. Is this correct?

Thank you in advance for your replies. I'm playing Seoni myself and soon I will have to choose a role, but I am still undecided.