ryric's page

An antipaladin smiting good gets to add double his level against good aligned clerics and paladins on the damage of the first hit. This ability was written before warpriests were a thing. Since warpriests are a cleric hybrid class, do you think RAI they should also be subject to extra smite damage if good aligned?

This came up in a session recently. We went with the extra damage as it seemed appropriate but I was wondering what others thought.

My March order got split in two for unknown reasons and while I got the Pathfinder AP issue, I never got the Starfinder items. I know things have been crazy but I've not gotten any follow-up emails and my March order is still Pending. Just thought I've give a nudge to make sure my items hadn't gotten lost in the confusion, especially with the talk of April stuff starting Monday.

Thanks!

In CotCT, we have the whole new set of Harrow blessings so I want to be sure I'm using them correctly. They go in the Vault, so they are generally treated just like any other blessing in that they can be in locations and can be in the hourglass. At the start of each adventure (not scenario), I'll need to go through the stack and fish out the nine Harrow blessings that correspond to the adventure's suit, and each player will pick one randomly to get as an extra for their starting hand for all the scenarios of that adventure. Players can also acquire and keep Harrow blessings from locations just like any other boon, and I'm assuming that any Harrows in decks are not available for the random "start of adventure" draw.

I think these statements are correct.

What happens if too many Harrows of the appropriate suit are already in players' decks, such that there aren't enough to draw one for each player? Right now my solution is "try not to do that."

My October subscriptions don't seem to have been spawned. This is the fourth month in a row there has been a problem of this nature. I'm trying to be patient but having to manually make these requests every month is getting tiresome.

In July there was some issue with my Gen Con pickup, and since then I've never had a subscription order spawn correctly.

It makes the world feel inconsistent. Setting aside the issue of GMs misusing the table, which will happen, as both 4e history and current discussions show, the fact that every skill DC refers to this table is a big problem for me.

One, the table isn't built on a clear mathematical base so I can't just generate it in my head when needed. I need to have the full table available at all times while running.

My second point needs some examples. What is the DC to do the following tasks - but I'm not going to give you the level of the person doing them because that shouldn't matter:

Climb a rough masonry wall
Recall who Karzoug is
Forage for food in a lush rainforest
Know who the royalty are from a neighboring nation
Recognize the holy symbol of an obscure cult

I bet if we gave a list like this to a bunch of GMs, we would get a different set of answers from each of them. Worse, if we gave this list to a bunch of GMs, got their answers, and then waited a month and gave it again, we would get different answers form the same GM. With no DCs I can't even arrange consistency in my own games without taking notes about every trivial thing the PCs attempt. Because we all know that 6 months and 7 levels later some PC is going to want to climb that same wall and he or she is sure as heck going to remember what the DC was if you set it to something else.

Here's another problem I have; compare the DCs for these two related tasks:

Tracking a tiny animal (level 0) through the woods.
Tracking a gargantuan lumbering beast(level 12) that smashes its way through the same woods.

Objectively, the first one should be a tougher task by far. But how many PF2e GMs would look at the first situation and call it an extreme level 0 DC, while the second one is a trivial level 12? But the problem is that that makes tracking the super big lumbering beast harder then tracking a mouse. In a vacuum each individual call makes sense, but when you compare them you realize the results are nonsensical.

I haven't gotten a notification that my September subscription order has been created, and it does not show up on my order history. Also, I've never gotten a notification that my August subscription was shipped, although the pdfs are available which usually happens at nearly the same time. That order is listed as "Complete," but with all the errors, I have no idea if it's on its way.

This is three months in a row now that there's been some sort of problem with my subscriptions.

Edit: My August shipment arrived today so that's not actually an issue.

I have not yet received an email notification that my August subscription order has been generated. The My Subscription page doesn't display anything for August.

So we know the playtest materials will be at Gen Con, but will there be any "official" or PFS-run playtest sessions there? Or just the short demos at the Paizo booth, along with any brave unaffiliated GM who thinks they can try and run a game having only had the book for a day or less?

If there are official playtest sessions, any chance of having a special VIG one? This is pure selfishness on my part, but it would be a lot easier competing with a hundred or so for a VIG playtest slot than with many thousands for a normal slot. It's fine if the answer is no, I'm just curious.

I see from the playtest FAQ there will be something there, but it's unclear whether it's a quick "first look" or a full fledged first playtest adventure.

They don't appear as options when attempting to report a session.

My wife is going to be starting up Mummy's Mask soon - we do character creation next week. I'm trying to narrow down some sort of character concept because I've been bouncing around with a lot of ideas. Here's some facts about the game:

It's my wife's first foray into running Pathfinder. She has extensive player experience (~7 years).
My wife is actually the least experienced player in the group, which ranges from 20-35 years RPG experience. We're not a group where we like to outshine each other or trample other PC's niches.

It will be 15 point buy, and probably using hero points.
All prd stuff is allowed, plus anything 1st party that we own and she approves. That's most of the player companions and all Paizo hardcovers.

Right now here's what I've gotten from the other 3 players:
A fighter
A non-spellcaster, non-rogue. Maybe monk?
Some sort of gish, leaning towards magus, bard, or inquisitor.

So that's what I'm trying to work with. I like experimenting with new mechanics, and I'd really like to avoid playing something similar to the last few things I've played, which in this case are a bloodrager, a witch, and an inquisitor.

I had a concept for a kineticist, but with how the other players are looking I don't think that will work well. I'd like to try an arcanist, and if the gish player goes with inquisitor I might go that route. If he goes magus or bard I'm thinking cleric. I had thought about warpriest but it looks like we'll have plenty of frontline guys. I also think an investigator might be fun, especially if no one else does a skills guy, but I'd be concerned about low level healing availability with no divine caster.

I'd like to stick to the suggested races and deities from the player's guide, so human, dwarf, halfling, and geniekin for races, and Abadar, Sarenrae, Irori, Nethys, or Pharasma for deities. Of these Abadar and Sarenrae attract me most for a cleric concept. Also pondering the Exalted prestige class in that case, or the Divine Paragon archetype.

My concern is that if the gish player goes magus I might need to cover both the skills and healer roles. Trapfinding is a MM campaign trait so I can take that if needed, but it's tough to build that onto a cleric.

Thoughts? Anything I've overlooked? If I play a full caster I plan to be gentle about it - I don't want to frustrate my wife, and the goal is for everyone to have fun, not to "win."

I played #3-P sometime before Gen Con and it still hasn't shown up as a choice when reporting.

My subscription order 4427189 never sent me a shipping notification, and we seem to be past the end of the estimated shipping window.

I've subscribed to the Starfinder RPG and AP lines, but my previous preorders are still listed as sidecart items. Is this normal? I want to be sure that I can pick them up at Gen Con.

So I looked at this scenario and was daunted by the sheer amount of forced damage. Looking through the armor cards, I noticed a couple deck 6 armors that reveal to prevent damage, and it didn't have to be Combat damage. So I used the armor trader and scored an armor that could reveal to prevent 3 damage. After getting it into my hand the forced end-of-turn damage really wasn't much of an issue any more.

Thought I'd post this as a tip for anyone who is going to be playing this scenario with a very small group where the forced damage will add up fast.

I just finished playing

Optional replacements are fun and fine. Mandatory replacements can make someone have an unplayable deck, built around powers they no longer have. These scenarios were not really fun because of trying to get 20s on checks on 2d6+3d4+1 or so, and that's with discarding a weapon and a blessing.

Just very frustrating and annoying.

When visiting traders at the beginning of a scenario in Season 3, can we use Loot cards we've substituted into our decks to "pay" for the card we get? I'm seeing that I have a lot better AD numbers on my loot than on my other cards.

So in the new Healer's Handbook, a druid can opt for a variant of Brew Potion instead of taking a domain or animal companion. Sounds like a bum deal until you read that they can make up to their Wisdom modifier in potions each day for free. These free ones don't expire like many other daily abilities, so they can be stockpiled. The ability even points out that they can be sold, so suddenly a 5th level druid with a reasonable +4 Wisdom can make 1500 gp a day just by pawning off her free potions.

Am I missing something here? Other than using GM fiat to simply tell a player the local potion market is flooded and they won't buy any more.

In a scenario where there is a siege deck, if a character token ends up shuffled into their location deck are they just done? Especially solo, since there is no way for them to encounter anything other than banes which are evaded, and evading banes doesn't shuffle the location deck they are in. Thus leading to a situation where they will never end up on top of their deck.

If there are other characters I suppose they could try to intentionally fail combat checks to burn through boons, but that seems much harsher than the intended level of penalty from being shuffled into the deck.

So I'm attempting the most recent Season solo, as I tend to do, and I already have an archenemy - the Baited Jewel Box barrier. It's the one that shuffle some extra treasure in your location if you examine it, and gives you 1-2 items and possibly some poison damage if you defeat it. That's not why I am growing to dread seeing it.

Unlike most caches, the BJB does not optionally banish if you fail it. And it's checks are all skills that many characters lack, so you're rolling a d4. Against a veteran bane, so we're looking at a 7 difficulty on that d4 in AD1, just getting worse as we go.. Technically possible with a blessing, but it's already cost me a scenario when I ran out of blessings and it was the last card left in a location. It was actually the last card left in the scenario(no villain).

This post is mostly just to vent, I've been having a lot of fun with the new season. I'm rolling Salim from the inquisitor deck solo, so now that I've got a power feat I've at least got a free d4 against the cursed box. I've already had two situations where I was on the brink of death but pulled through, there's a lot of ways to take a d4 damage in this set.

Not looking forward to AD6 BJB with Disable difficulty of 12 though.

My set arrived yesterday, and while I was flipping through the rulebook looking for the new rules I noticed the combat example uses a Poison spell on a villain that's immune to Poison. Unless I misread something.

:)

So here's a location that's in every 2-5 scenario:

No more than one card can be played per check

Con or Fort 12 to close.
..................................
Enora has a d4 Con.

Even with a BoGozreh, I need a perfect 4 4 4 roll on 3d4 to close. If I use the Sapphire of Intelligence I just need a 12 on d12. Or, I can chase the villain there, and fight it with no blessings because I need to play spells on my checks. Oh, and the wizard deck has no combat spells for AD# 3 or 4, so my deck still has stuff like Force Missile in it.

Here's how I managed the first scenario villain, 2 checks of 25, possibly with a reroll:

Chased her to the Festering Maze, which was empty but open.
Displayed a Sphere of Fire - played before the check so circumvents the restriction. But I only have one so I need to cycle my entire deck to try again.

Had found a random spell of arcane +2d12, so used that for first check. Basically a coin flip needing 20 on 3d12.

Use displayed spell + BoPharasma on second check - need 20 on 3d12+d6, with a reroll.

Apparently third time was the charm. I put my Skill feat in Con - now I have a 1/16 chance with BoGozreh or 1/6 with the statstone! Woot!

This is going to be a rough set of scenarios. I am much more concerned about this one location than I am any of the villains or henchmen.

I assume this is the same event as last year with the special scenario and prebuilt decks? I'm going to try and get in with a group of friends but it seems unlikely as there are only 12 players per time. I expect it to be sold out before my wishlist gets processed.

If I'm correct, does that also mean that the text about requiring Class Decks in the event description is an error?

Just want to make sure I'm signing up for the correct thing - last year's event looked fun so I'm sad I missed it.

I'm running my solo Enora through Season of the Runelords. I did 2-2B tonight, and this scenario is very tough solo. The gimmick is that you move boons around and roll a d6 every time you see one, trying to collect at least 4 of a type in one location so you can close it.

In a solo game, the only boon type of which there are even 4 in the entire scenario is Item.

I was able to win with just three blessings left, by emptying two locations while piling all the boons on the third. I closed the two empty locations normally, then underwent possibly my most frustrating attempt to roll a 4 on a d6 ever. I went through about 7 or 8 turns of flip a boon, fight a bandit, roll a d6, spend extra explores, fight more bandits, roll more d6s. Eventually I rolled a 4 and won.

Winning was gratifying but I'm not sure this scenario is supposed to be this tough solo. There are only 3 weapons, 2? armors, 2 spells, 3 allies, and 0 blessings to work with so you have to win on items.

Based on my reading of this scenario you can't actually acquire boons, since every explore comes from the robber deck. Unless you get lucky with a Cache barrier, I suppose. Also, why would you close locations? You may close them when empty but it doesn't say you must. There doesn't seem to be any benefit to closing them.

So it looks to me like this is a slog through all the monsters, barriers and henchmen for n+2 Throne rooms, with likely a random roll for an upgrade at the end, since no one can encounter boons. The other cards in the location decks don't actually seem to matter.

I get that the boons represent valuables being destroyed - I'm just already mentally writing off this one as "no upgrade worth taking," since I probably won't get any boons. Am I getting something wrong in my understanding of the scenario?

I just finished the main Season of the Righteous with my solo Merisiel, and I'm looking at attempting the bonus scenario. I had a couple of questions:

I presume we are still supposed to consider this scenario part of the AP Season of the Righteous? It's a little odd to require the AP to be finished but have the scenario still be part of it, but if it's not, then we lose our mythic paths and all the loot availability from SotR. (Since those benefits only apply when playing a SotR scenario)

Is there any reason to go to any location besides Gate of the Worldwound to open Eagle Rock, then straight to Eagle Rock to confront Pazuzu? The scenario says we just have to defeat Pazuzu not corner him.

I'm also trying to figure out a way to fight Pazuzu with a single hand size 6 character. I've got a d6+2 Con, and a d4+1 Wis, so that before you act check is looking pretty grim. I could maybe pass the check with a statstone, blessing, and using the Champions for Fort to get 2d12+7, but even that is not likely and that's spending two precious cards and a mythic charge. I could sub out the blessing for an Old Salt and get 1d12+14, which gives me a 1/3 chance of making it.

After the BYA check, ideally I'd have a weapon and 3 blessings to spend. Not sure if I'd be better off with Deskari's Tooth or Mournful Razor.

So we've got potentially several years worth of class decks ahead of us. Which ones are people most anticipating? I don't know if they're going to stick to any sort of order when releasing them once we finish the CRB classes - maybe roughly the order or RPG release?

Here's ones I'm eager to see:
Witch - I like how they did the hex mechanic on Feiya, and it would be neat to see alternate takes (for example, in the RPG there is a witch that casts off of Constitution).

Gunslinger - just to be able to play one in other sets without feeling like I have to strip all the guns out of S&S to import with it

I'm kind of curious for Summoner if cohorts are going to be a Wrath-only thing or if the class deck summoners will all have unique cohort eidolons.

The psychic magic classes are brand new in the RPG but I wonder if they will have a new "Psychic" spell trait and matching skill.

Demon's Heresy has been out for a few weeks now - usually the snapshot thread appears before AD4 comes out. Are we going to have one of those or are they done?

Went to go download a pdf today and saw:

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures (OGL) Life-Single File

(emphasis mine)

What happens if an effect forces a blessing discard in a scenario with no blessings deck(such as 0-6F Lost in the Storm, or RotR 6-5)? I presume the intention is that nothing happens, but I think current RAW means the scenario ends in a loss.

Runelords has fewer of these effects, but in Season of the Shackles we could have structural damage to a wrecked ship, or simply wanting to flip a blessing to "activate a ship power" if we wanted to "flee" the scenario.

My solo playthrough of the Season of the Shackles is almost done, and the last scenario looms ahead. I'm concerned - I'd like to not get all the way to the end and die. I've got two major concerns:

1. The timer. Having played Into the Eye in RotR solo, changing from a blessing timer to a bury timer really is harsh on the solo player. I go from having lots of time, and needing blessings and allies to make checks, to having much less time and still needing to make those checks. So I need a way to turbo through as many cards as I can in a turn without sacrificing my ability to make checks against them.

2. The boss. Combat 42. That's a tough number to reach by yourself.

I'm currently at the end of 0-5, playing Meliski(brawler). I have a hand size of 7, gonna bump it to 8 during 0-6. I can spend two blessings on combat checks, and recharge them. I have no blessings that add 2 dice to spell or melee checks - there are no Gorums or Pharasmas in the bard deck. There are Achekek and Lamashtu, but they are AD5-6 blessings so I'm very unlikely to be able to get them. I have no mid-turn draw power. so at best I'll be rocking a 7 card hand after my mandatory bury.

I think my plan, such as it is, is to get the fortune teller if I can to help with exploring. Use allies for extra explores, burn acquired cards for the mandatory bury every turn. I heal when beating up monsters so hopefully my deck won't wither too much as I try to power through the location deck.

For the combat check, I have Lightning Bolt - spells seem to beat melee for this due to having the d10 for blessings rather than a d8. If I can get the poison spell that is +2d12, I will, because the villain has no immunities. Assuming lightning bolt, Quickened Ray, and 3 blessings with Pirate's Favor, I think I can get a combat check of 4d10+5d6+4, average 43.5 - should(>50%) make it and I do have a 2 die reroll. Not great odds but it's the best I can come up with. Rather than try and repeat that for check 2, I'm thinking attempt the divine check. At best I'll have 2 cards left in my hand, but if I assume 2 pirates on the scenario card, I can get 4d10+4, average 26, with a blessing. But that only leaves me one card to spend on rerolling for both checks...it's possible to win but not looking favorable.

I'd appreciate any critique or suggestions. I know this strategy is very character specific, but I think trying to solo this last scenario might require this level of planning. If anyone else wants to bring up other characters and plans, I'll help with that.

I know many people are discussing the issues with the B scenarios and how the difficulty is a barrier to new players, and so forth.

However, since many of us posting on the boards are not new players, I was thinking we could create a strategy thread specifically for dealing with problem areas from the B set.

Near as I can tell, these are the major sticking points:(I might misremember names)
Arboreal Blight barrier
Demonic Hordes barrier(the one that summons demons to fight random characters)
Carrion Golem vs. spellcasters
Elven Entanglement scenario.

So I say look at this this way - assume you will be meeting these things. How do we build/play a starting character to endure and thrive against these challenges? What resources, especially basic cards, can be used to adapt to these things? Are there new strategies that were useless in RotR or S&S that are now worth pursuing?

For example, I've been thinking about the Carrion Golem/Enora matchup. Everyone presumes it's a handwipe, plus 3 cards off the top, so basically death or brink of death. I'm not familiar with evasion spells - I know in general my group has disdained them in previous sets. Would they work here? What about just piling a bunch of blessings on her and letting her punch at the thing? Getting a caster even up to 4d4 with their unarmed attack has a chance to win, but also importantly means the likelihood of a hand wipe goes way down, so at the very least avoids death. Would I like to save those blessings for better things? Usually yes, but Enora vs. Carrion Golem is likely a tougher fight than the villain will be anyway.

Anybody else think of ways we can change our strategy or expectations to make these challenges more doable? I sometimes wonder if actual fresh new players might not have a lot of these problems because they are untainted with expectations and strategies from previous sets that are no longer optimal.

This is a new thread started to continue a discussion that was a derail in the aligned spells thread. Basically someone brought up the idea of an individual renting out zombie oxen and I thought this was a colossally flawed business plan. In order to keep the other thread on topic I'm replying here.

ryric wrote:

Yeah, Ashiel, I think we just disagree about a lot of things here. No way would I let someone tell a mindless undead "plow that field" and have it come out anywhere near usable, at least not without constant supervision. That's way too complicated a task for a zombie. Also, profession can't be rolled untrained so there's no way for the zombie to "pay for itself."

No, it's not, and you're just plain wrong about this. The absence of an ability score has a +0 modifier to checks related to that score. Skeletons and Zombies are both perfectly capable of perceiving and reacting to their surroundings, while being capable of doing things that an untrained laborer is capable of doing. As someone who has grown up in a rural environment, let me assure you that plowing a field is not rocket science. It takes no special sort of training.

So no, it's not too complicated a task for a zombie or a golem or anything similar. You're just wrong about this one. I'm sorry. There is nothing that prevents a mindless creature from making Craft or Profession checks. In fact, the rules even account for this by telling you their effective modifier is +0.

Profession can't be rolled untrained. So a creature with no skill ranks can never make a Profession check.

Also, do you have a Pathfinder rules reference for your assertion that a - score is equivalent to a +0 modifier? I can only find references to Con acting that way under constructs. All references to Mindless simply say "no intelligence score" but I sure can't find a general rule that makes that equivalent to +0.

ryric wrote:

Undead oxen also likely stink, can catch carrion-related diseases and pass them on to your family and actual livestock, and possibly contaminate the crops. They can't be used as a food source in a pinch and don't make copies of themselves.

Again, you're making stuff up. There are countless adventures and such with zombies both new and old and unless there is something special about said zombie then they aren't contaminated. Likewise, you'd only stink if you were rotting, but undead do not decompose so there is no rot. Further, skeletons. Skeletons man. Skeletons, seriously, skeletons.

You're just being contrary with no basis for it, just to be contrary.

Where do you get the idea that undead do not decompose? The zombie description in the Bestiary says "flesh rotting off its bones." Corpses decompose. Corpses stink. Corpses can harbor diseases. (I can find you references on those statements if you insist). Nothing in the monster description of zombies, the bestiary entry for the Undead type, or in the spell description of animate dead mentions any of that changing so animated flesh is just as susceptible to these things as a normal dead body.

I concede that skeletons avoid most of these issues.

ryric wrote:

At 3 HD per zombie a 7th level adept caster can have 4 of these ox zombies under his control. I'll go ahead and grant that he can give them the standing order of "do what this farmer says." I'd also presume, however, that said farmer is probably not an experienced necromancer with spellcraft, appropriate knowledges, or what have you and thus will make some, er, mistakes, when ordering his zombie around, mistakes that could lead to the zombie attacking him or his family.

You really should know more about farming given how good you are at shoveling manure. Again, making up stuff and just trying to be obtuse. NOTHING YOU JUST SAID is actually a thing. You do not need ranks in Spellcraft, Knowledges, or anything else to make animate dead work for you. It's very clear, they follow orders. The rules on Intelligence are very clear that mindless creatures are still at least as capable at performing Int based tasks as someone with 10 Int.

Where are these rules on Int of which you speak? I really can't find them. Mindless means that a zombie or skeleton has as much brainpower as a cricket. It follows literal orders from its creator or someone with Command Undead or such. Giving an automaton accurate orders is more like computer programming than it is farming. Someone experienced/knowledgable with magic knows how to phrase commands to get what they want - that's probably not the farmer.

ryric wrote:

I mean, it's pretty easy to tell a zombie "drag this plow to the end of the field in a straight line" (although you're also neglecting the role of the farmer in providing downward force on the plow to push it into the ground) but as soon as the zombie completes that task it defaults to "kill the living," so that seems like a pretty big problem.

Again, lies.

How about some rules text:

Zombies are unthinking automatons, and can do little more than follow orders. When left unattended, zombies tend to mill about in search of living creatures to slaughter and devour.

(emphasis mine)

While I don't posses a similar quote for skeletons, they are still Evil creatures and thus default to causing pain and suffering.

ryric wrote:

Also I calculate the initial investment at 300gp (15 gp for ox, 75 gp material component for 3 HD, 7 level caster(adept), 3rd level spell) per zombie ox. So for the same price you get 20 regular oxen.

Why would the necromancer renting the undead pay another necromancer to animate them? I'm beginning to wonder if the reason you seem so off-field in terms of how the game works is because you are actively refusing to actually read, pick a few words out, and then mush in a bunch of filler based on whatever you wanted to think it said.

Setting aside your insult, the reason I included the spellcasting cost is that that is the true "sale" value of the undead. Yes the caster can make it cheaper but that's like saying a 15gp sword is actually only 5gp because that's the cost to make it. The market value of a 3 HD undead made by an adept is 300gp. I can see how my original post made that distinction unclear so I apologize for any confusion. From the farmer's point of view, the undead ox is twenty times as expensive as a living ox.

So I've been making solo attempts at Ghosts in the Deep and have had several character deaths. I tend to push ahead in the first scenario since there is almost no consequence for dying in that case. Should I go ahead and create each of these guys as new characters and do a report where they die? Is this useful information for you to have?

Made some attempts at Ghosts last night with a single character. First tried Olenjack but had to retreat and wait out the timer (down to 2 cards in deck) without even acquiring any boons. Next I gave Wu Shen a try but died, again no boons. If it would be helpful I can report these sessions but I don't intend to continue the characters(obviously the dead one I can't, and Olenjack didn't really fit my playstyle the way I thought he would - neither has any long term effect as I started completely over after).

Next I tried Meliski the bard. I like his abilities and he is in a lot less danger of dying, but I still can't actually win the scenario. I'm slowly improving my deck because I'm actually getting boons, but currently I'm 0 for 3 on attempts to win with him.

There are two major obstacles I haven't gotten past at the same time: Raker Shoals and the villain. I save Raker Shoals for last because it requires a hand wipe to close, plus an unavoidable damage every turn if you want to keep your ship from being wrecked. (And I can't really repair the ship with no Craft skill, so I have to try and keep it from wrecking or else the Shoals won't close) So instead my "plan" is to chase the villain there so I don't have to worry about my ship wrecking(extra timer loss isn't too big a deal in solo play).

The villain is tricky because he requires 2 checks to beat, plus a 3rd check to avoid his numbers going up. Well Meliski has no weapons and there are only 2 Basic attack spells in the Bard deck. I can try to punch him with a blessing at 2d8 and a possible reroll, but it's tough to get the 14+ I need there.

Anyone else tried the scenario solo? I'm hoping it can be beat with this character because I'm having fun, it's just really tough.

I have a good feeling about November and think we'll soon see an announcement of set 4. So here are some random musings on what it might be.

We know that they will adapt an existing AP, so that they don't have to start completely from scratch for plot and art elements. It looks like they favor paths that let them experiment with new cards and concepts - Skull&Shackles has ships, Wrath will have however mythic works. So with that in mind, here's what I see as likely prospects:

-Jade Regent. They could do a card version of the caravan, plus it's an excuse to include the iconic ninja and samurai.
-Shattered Star. The Star could be a Special card that grows more powerful as you collect pieces, maybe a card with its own set of "feats" that you pick as the AP progresses.
-Serpent's Skull. They could do something with the faction system.
-Kingmaker. I'm not sure how the kingdom building rules could be ported to the card game but I'm confident there's a way.

I've played through this scenario both with a solo Jirelle and a 2 person team of Lini and Feiya. The solo run took me three tries to beat before I came up with a strategy that worked very well in our two player game.

Scenario spoilers below so if you want to be surprised be aware.

Feel free to comment/criticize. I have not tested this strategy with a large group where the timer might be tighter, but it seems like less of an issue sue to this scenario's unique setup.

Since OP launches this week (yay!) I've been pondering some overall strategies that might apply to this style of play. I've also been trying out the OP deck building rules using my class decks from Gen Con and my Runelords set. These are just some thoughts I've been having regarding things like box setup and non-scenario specific strategies. These ideas are a little bit "ruthless" instead of fun and about maximizing your ability to improve your deck over time.

Banishing: This can be super harsh in OP. In a normal game you can banish a card and generally replace it with stuff your group has found during the scenario. In OP, you really want to have something newly acquired to banish. If you banish an actual card from your deck, you've basically stolen one of your own card upgrades, as the banished card is always replaced with a basic B card. Make sure you've found some junk to banish or are banishing a basic B card anyway. This also makes non-Basic, non-B cards that banish themselves kind of not worth it to use. You're throwing away an entire scenario upgrade for a one-shot effect so it had better be amazing.

Promo cards: We are allowed to put up to 12 promo cards in the box. In a normal game promos tend be pretty good to great - who doesn't love getting Poog? But in OP these cards all count as set 0, which means they are terrible for upgrades. Every promo card you put in the box reduces your chance of getting a card with a set number by diluting the stack. Is the chance of getting these cards during use in the scenario really worth the chance that you could have gotten better deck upgrades?

A similar argument could be made about including the character add-on deck with less than 5 players. You're just adding a bunch more set 0 cards in to dilute your treasure. In normal play there are some great cards worth getting in the promos and add-on, but this stuff is often deck building dead weight in OP.

Personally I doubt that I'll be adapting my box to suit these strategies, I care more about fun than efficiency. But I do wonder if I'll need to replay scenario just for some upgrades to be able to handle later adventures. One card per scenario seems super tough, compared to normal play where I've often purged my deck of Basics before finishing the intro adventure. I'm sure once we see the scenarios people will figure out which ones are the best to farm for certain upgrades.

In my Runelords experiments I've already hit several times where I'd rather have kept a great card form the main set rather than the "equivalent" class deck card.

Hi,

My authorization says I'm getting a Skull&Shackles character add-on deck. I picked mine up at Gen Con so I already have my sub copy of that item. It doesn't look like I'm being charged for it but I have no need of a second one. Thanks!

So I got my copy of set 5 last night, and now we finally have the ability to rasie dead characters. So I got to thinking - is this a card I really want to keep if I get it?

Pros:

- It's a great panic button. If you have a character die it lets them come back and not be dead at the end of the scenario. It prevents the hideous consequences of character death, i.e. starting basically over.
- Death being less risky means it's more feasible to take big risks to win a scenario.

Cons:

- It uses up a valuable spell slot.
- By this point most of us are very good at avoiding death.
- Does you no good if the character holding it is the one that dies.

So is it worth using up a card slot in a deck for a spell that may never see use? Basically a security blanket? Is there any way to play super hard and fast knowing that raise dead is there to save you?

I don't think it's going to be a keeper in my 2 player game I play with my girlfriend, but I could see keeping one in the group when you get to 4 or more players.