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New here. First post. I know this thread is old. Just starting Pathfinder of any kind (WOTR). Son & I ran into this card during our starter scenario. I'm stuck on the same thing as the OP and his Con-mates. It's as if RC assuming I know something that I just don't yet.

Welcome to the game! I'll walk through the logic of the card to hopefully help you better understand it. None of your choices A-D are correct.

First, let's quote the card:

Each character draws from the box a random ally that lists Diplomacy in its check to acquire and attempts to acquire it. If all characters succeed, this barrier is defeated. If any character fails, this barrier is undefeated; banish all the allies, and you may banish this barrier.

Now, let's step through the actions it's asking us to take:

1. "Each character draws from the box a random ally that lists Diplomacy in its check to acquire and attempts to acquire it." This is slightly unusual wording; the words "summon and acquire" would normally be used here, but this means the same thing for all practical purposes. Each character grabs such an ally from the box and begins a new encounter with it. Resolve all of these encounters before moving on with Rallying Cry. If a character succeeds at all checks/requirements to acquire the ally, they add it to their hand. Otherwise, that ally is banished (just like a normal boon encounter).

2. "If all characters succeed, this barrier is defeated." If every character succeeded at acquiring their ally, Rallying Cry is defeated and banished (because you banish defeated banes). You keep all of the allies, and the encounter is over.

3. "If any character fails, this barrier is undefeated; banish all the allies, and you may banish this barrier." If at least one character failed to acquire their ally, every ally drawn by Rallying Cry is banished (so people who succeeded need to get rid of theirs as well). AKA nobody keeps any allies if at least one person failed. Rallying Cry itself is undefeated. Normally, undefeated banes are shuffled back into the location. However, you have the option of banishing the undefeated Rallying Cry instead of shuffling it back in. This gives you a choice between potentially finding Rallying Cry again and getting another shot at winning some allies or getting rid of it to move on with your life.

So, you either win, keep the allies, and banish Rallying Cry. Or you lose, don't keep any allies, and have the option of getting rid of Rallying Cry or getting a potential future shot at a rematch.

I broke out the text the way I did because punctuation matters a lot in this game. The phrase "banish all the allies, and you may banish this barrier" is attached to the phrase "If any character fails, this barrier is undefeated" via a semicolon. That means they are both part of the same instruction and it only comes into effect if someone failed at acquiring their ally. Each complete sentence (ending with a period/full stop depending on which side of the pond you're on) is a single instruction.

Can't help with the organization component (I agree it is very subpar and needs an overhaul) but I can help with your specific cases.

- Player Companions are always 1st edition; that product line doesn't exist in 2nd edition.
- Adventure Paths #145 and up are 2nd edition.
- All of my 1e rulebooks are categorized under "Paizo Inc.: First Edition"
- All of the Pathfinder products I have categorized under "Paizo Inc.: Rulebooks", "Paizo Inc.: Second Edition Rulebooks", and "Paizo Inc.: Special Editions" are 2nd edition. I don't notice too much logic in terms of what got put into which category.

To be clear, for pre-Core sets (such as Rise of the Runelords), the instructions on when and how to remove cards from the box appear on the Adventure Path card, rather than in the rulebook. In Core, the instructions are in the storybook (again rather than in the rulebook).

I would echo Whipstitch and suggest to remove all Basic/Elite cards in advance when beginning their respective adventures rather than removing them one-at-a-time when you banish them. It makes you far more likely to come across higher-level boons when you cull all of the Basics out at once, as well as interesting banes instead of ones that you just automatically defeat by sneezing in their general direction.

Alright so essentially the rules from CORE are supposed to be retroactive to all previous sets?

Then the question becomes was that interaction as silly as I think it was using the rules on the cards as presented when they were printed.

EDIT:Just checked that link, mentions only for mixing older cards with CORE, not playing old sets, or even 90% of the Oganized Play adventures.

Bit of a late reply, but even pre-core, no it is not broken. You missed the crucial wording of the power: When you play a spell that has the Arcane trait during an encounter. No looping Locate Object, Detect Magic, and the like because you don't play those during encounters. Pre-core, you can certainly play one, get it back by playing a combat spell in an encounter, and then play it a second time. But no looping.

(Post-core, you cannot because they all go into Recovery)

skizzerz wrote:

1. No.

Rulebook p7 wrote:

If a character power applies when a specific thing happens, you may use it each time that happens; otherwise, you may use each power no more than once per check or step.

That power on Zetha's card is not a power that applies when a specific thing happens (such powers always begin with the word "When"), so you can only use it once per check or step.

Jenceslav essentially lays out why they feel the rule (One card per check or step) would allow using her power to both determine the skill used for the check and then to modify the check. You quote the same rule but give no rationale why Jenceslav's reasoning is unsound.

It didn’t need explanation — the question was “can I use the same power twice in a single check” and the rule is very explicit that the answer is “no.”

For an example of something that requires a more nuanced answer: There are two types of steps in the game: steps of a turn and steps of an encounter. Encounters can happen during a step of a turn (but aren’t required to), and checks can happen during a step of an encounter (but again aren’t required to). When inside of multiples of these, the only sensible reading is that the play restrictions apply only to the innermost “check or step” that you are dealing with. This “innermost” rule, despite never being explicitly mentioned in the rulebook, is why you are able to play a weapon power during the first check of a multi-check bane (e.g. Combat 12 THEN Combat 14), and then play the same weapon power again during the second check while exploring, even though both checks happen during the same step of the turn.

skizzerz wrote:

Treat that header exactly as you would treat the “Powers” header on a bane card—that is, there is no timing implicit in it.

That was the general understanding of it, but then we found the quoted text from the rulebook: "This power is triggered as soon as you

encounter a ship; this occurs before you have the opportunity to evade it" - which is pretty explicit about timing, so that brought up some degree of uncertainty to it.

Thanks again.

EDIT: To clarify, the major argument was that maybe the "Before you act" wording on the ships' powers was in error and not what was intended.

I forgot about that rule :)

In that case allow me to amend my stance thusly: absent explicit timing specified within the power, it occurs during the “apply when encountered effects” step of the encounter. This ship explicitly specified otherwise by mentioning Before Acting, so go with that explicit timing instead (in other words the general rule is that it’s a When Encountered power but specific individual powers may override that)

“When you encounter this ship” isn’t rules/timing text, it’s the Powers box relevant to encountering the ship rather than commanding it. Treat that header exactly as you would treat the “Powers” header on a bane card—that is, there is no timing implicit in it.

The power in question says Before you act, so it happens in that step of the encounter (which is after you apply any evasion effects).

I've noticed that the CS forum disappeared but Website Feedback stayed up. I hope this continues, as I too find the Website Feedback forum valuable for peer interaction with other forum members. This will be echoing a lot of what people said earlier, but I particularly like:

1. Seeing whether or not other people are experiencing the same technical issues I am. Unlike most matters that go to CS, there isn't much in the way of private details to accidentally share here.

2. Offering help to and receiving help from peers for workarounds or alternative solutions to issues. For example, directing someone to the Paizo Campaign Tools browser extension if they have some feature request covered in PCT so that they don't need to wait on the tech team to (maybe) do it officially. Or, assisting someone in clearing their cookies if that fixes some weird lingering issue with the site.

3. Using the "favorite" button on feature requests that I feel are important to me, to provide a low-noise signal of indicating I would like this feature without cluttering or crowding the tech team's inbox.

Random aside: It'd probably be good if the Announcements subforum was moved to the top of the Paizo category instead of the bottom, so that it's the first thing you see when scrolling through the forum list. Right now the position makes it easy to overlook.

When I ran this scenario in play-by-post, I ruled that you only lost plunder at the end of your turn. The alternative is needlessly punitive and makes the scenario extremely un-fun.

To me, this seems a lot more ambiguous than that? I am not sure that the rules were written to support that degree of parsing. (Especially parsing Core rules/rulebook regarding wording on a pre-Core OA2 card.) I mean, couldn't you reach the opposite conclusion from drawing inferences from p19?

Rulebook, p19 wrote:

Skill Feats: These provide a modifier for a particular skill; you add the modifier to any check you attempt using that skill.

Here, the rulebook's wording of "using that skill" has to encompass the skills both before and after the colon. Because obviously a character who makes a Divine: CHA check gets to add their CHA skill feat bonus.

I feel like the actual answer to Erasmus's power is "it's not clear". And to get an understanding of how the card should be played, absent clarity in the rules, perhaps it would be better to try to untangle from another angle, like intention or balance or fun?

Covered by the sidebar in p11 of the rulebook which directly defines a modifier for a skill to include skill feats of any skill it references.

I am 100% confident that "using a skill" only refers to the skill you're actually rolling for a check. "Melee: Strength" isn't a skill. Melee is a skill, and Strength is also a skill. If "Melee: Strength" was a skill then we'd add a "Melee: Strength" trait to the check instead of a "Melee" trait and a "Strength" trait. Basically, a lot of things in the game break down if you try to define "Melee: Strength" as separate to "Melee: Dexterity"

skizzerz wrote:

...snip...

I believe the first two projects are going to be continuing the Season 7 storyline for adventures 4-6 and making a “Core 2” to extend Core with additional cards to form a stronger base to build future community APs.

...snip...

Oh, finishing up Season 7 would be wonderful! My group was so sad when we learned it was just...ended. We haven't played since we 'finished' it. Would be great to have a proper ending to it.

Just as a fair warning, nothing we're doing is going to be officially sanctioned. So the characters you use in the Season 7 continuation won't be official PACS characters afterwards.

I would love to see updates/finished products posted both here and at the BGG for those of us that aren't on Discord.

We will definitely share the results as widely as possible. Discord lets us collaborate on the design at a much more rapid pace compared to a forum and lowers the barrier for participation (the Paizo forums are terrible for collaboration efforts for a number of reasons; lots of people struggle with formatting, can’t edit posts after an hour, can’t embed images, big posts might just get eaten if you take too long and forget to save the post to your clipboard, …)

I believe the first two projects are going to be continuing the Season 7 storyline for adventures 4-6 and making a “Core 2” to extend Core with additional cards to form a stronger base to build future community APs.

Physical cards will be available on DriveThru; we’ve gotten an ok from both Paizo and DriveThru to create sets of cards on there with the standard PACG card back so you can purchase the entire card bundle for e.g. “Core 2.”

In terms of community help, everyone is welcome even if all you feel qualified to give are suggestions and ideas :)

skizzerz wrote:

The first (reveal) power is used before you roll. The second (recharge) power is used after you roll and can adjust the total. Remember that you can only play one card of each type on a check, so if you use it or another ally beforehand, you can't use this afterwards.

Which means the wording is simply off. Powers that work in the way you mention usually begin with "After your roll..."

It would be nice to get an official ruling on this one since there are a few similar new wordings on cards. I'm thinking of the Warehouse/Canny Jackal problem.

Your check can’t have a result until you’ve finished rolling it so there’s nothing wrong that I can see here. Please give an argument for why you believe this power to work differently. If you can’t, then no wording adjustments or official rulings are needed because there’s always only one way that power can be interpreted (the one I gave 4 years ago).

What I'm trying to figure out is what performance spec you're trying to describe. Right now, you've created an engineering spec that tells the IT folks to rewrite the code for a specific part of the site so that it is toggled to 'on' for the entire site

Request: Make the "Gender / Class / Race" Profile Bar Forum-Global

The problem I think you're trying to solve is that the site locks in all avatar names after 10 posts. Because of that, there is no way to edit your name, or to add any personal description to your postings. The current work around is to create a new alias that includes the descriptive wording.

The UX I think you're asking for is a permanently editable text field that displays near the profile name/alias that is visible across the whole site for each name/alias.

Here’s the story I think KC is after:

“As a user who posts on the Paizo forums, I would like my preferred pronouns to be displayed prominently in my posts so that other users interacting with me use the correct pronouns.”

KC suggested what appears to be a straightforward way of accomplishing this given the forum’s glacial page of development. It’s not an optimal way, but it in theory may be easier for the tech team to do than roll out a dedicated feature for that purpose.

Then there was a second story in the request specific to recruitment threads:

“As a play-by-post GM, I would like the race/ancestry, class, and gender of characters applying in the Recruitment thread displayed as part of their posts so that I don’t need to click into their alias profile to view that information while evaluating the applications.”

This story seems like something else that would fall out of doing the requested tech change above rather than the main focus of this thread, however.

(Side note, I support the main ask of making preferred pronouns exposed in some way/shape/form. I would also echo that it be optional so that those not comfortable providing that information need not do so)

[dice=Boon]1d20

[dice=Blessing 1]1d1000

Power Feat: (☐or bottom)

Question: Is this "OR" the same as Quinns "OR" which allows him to actually examine at the beginning and end of his turn, or is the english "OR" meaning I have to choose which to examine?

I'll answer using your Aggressor role power, because it illustrates better: "At the (☐ start or) end of your turn, you may examine the top (☐or bottom) card of your location deck."

1. "At the start or end of your turn" means that it happens both at the start and at the end. Because at the start of turn you go to apply start of turn powers and see that the start of your turn is indeed the "start or end of your turn." Then later when you go to apply end of turn powers you again see that the end of your turn qualifies as the "start or end of your turn". -- So, that power feat (indicating an extra timing option) means the "or" includes both.

2. "top or bottom" on the other hand implies a choice. If you check the power feat, you can examine the top card or the bottom card, but not both, each time the power activates.

In both cases, the usual English meaning(s) of "or" applies, the difference lies in how the phrases are being interpreted. In case 1, you're checking the current step of the turn against a condition that lists multiple things. In case 2, that isn't happening and you're just told to make a choice.

There is no way to redeem cards included in HV2. This seems like an oversight (given the inclusion of an otherwise-useless redemption card) but was never officially addressed.

Version 2.2 of the shared tracker sheet has been released.

- New State sheet to track board state between BR updates, based on Zalarian's work.
- Mark party cards as used on the State sheet, and they will be crossed off on the Hands sheet. No more double-spending a blessing!
- Choose how the Loot sheet is sorted: by the scenario it was unlocked in, by card type and level, or by the card name
- Add new Credits sheet with Community Use disclaimer and names of people who have contributed the sheets this tracker was based on.

Thank you everyone who has suggested improvements for this! If you find something you think the sheet could use, please let me know (shoot me a PM on the paizo forums or message me on discord).

There's been discussion on Discord, and this was the general consensus (including input from Keith Richmond):

- In Wandering Way #6 (siege scenario), the remaining cards in the locations are added to the upgrade pool.

- This REPLACES the standard WW reward of each player adding a new type of card to the upgrade pool.

I'm not sure how official this is, as these changes would need to be made to the Dragon's Demand sanctioning document.

Also note there's still the separate issue that the Dragon's Demand playbook is missing the statement in WW#6 that the remaining cards are added to the upgrade pool in the standard (non-OP) campaign. This is actual DD errata.

(I'm reposting the decision here, as the general player base only has access to rules decisions in the Paizo forums - not on Discord. If my summary is incorrect, feel free to correct or comment.)

This is official for the Online region only at this time; VOs in other regions may decide to adopt this as well, but I hope we get an FAQ for the DD storybook and errata the sanctioning doc to make it official for everyone. That’s more of a Vic thing however.

Per Hawkmoon on Discord: “The Org Play Online ACS VOs have discussed this. For our region, we are ruling that you can keep the remaining boons to use as the upgrade pool. If we feel that people are abusing this scenario option, we will revisit that.”

After quite a bit of work, I'm pleased to release a modification of the Shared Hand Tracker spreadsheet for others to use. The Shared Tracker works in conjunction with Yewstance's Deck Handlers to bring data about the entire party on the same screen. Version 2.1 of the tracker supports the following features:

LINKS
Shared Tracker Index containing links to all versions of the sheet (right now there's only one).
Version 2.1 of the sheet (current version as of this post)

Features

• Track up to 6 characters, with buttons to hide the 5th and 6th characters to tidy up the view for smaller tables.
  
• View the hands, displayed cards, marked scourges, notes, and more of each character all on the same screen.
  
• Alternate character support, for if a player is bouncing between two characters (e.g. 4-P1 or 4-P2 rewards)
  
• Scenario tracker: check off which scenarios you've completed in the AP.
  
• Loot sheet automatically populated based on which scenarios are marked as completed -- No more typing out loot cards!
  
• Custom highlighting for cards in hand to better show available support at a glance. Blessings, healing, combat support, and non-combat support are highlighted by default, with 2 additional highlight colors for you to use for whatever purpose you wish.

Using the sheet
1. Head to the Shared Tracker Index and follow the link to the latest version of the sheet.
2. Select File -> Make a Copy to create a copy of the tracker that you can edit
3. Head to the Setup tab and add your player's deck handler URLs. If they are using a recent version of Yewstance's sheet (v4.5 or later), everything will work without any additional configuration. Otherwise, you can tweak the various ranges to match the deck handler's layout by expanding the advanced settings.
4. On the Setup tab, choose the AP you are playing to populate the scenario tracker and loot lists.
5. Share the link with your players, and put it in your campaign header for easy reference![/list]

Future improvements
I plan on adding automation for other things such as Supporters, Ships, and Traders. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please let me know!

Special Thanks
I did not originally come up with the design of this spreadsheet, although I'm having a difficult time figuring out who did originally make it. Either way, I'd like to thank them for their efforts! (if it's you, feel free to post to let us know and I can get a more proper thanks section in next time I post an update)

Bit worse than that, getting Divine proficiency and the Divine skill at the time you banish the card doesn't actually mean you have either when it comes time to recover it.

Then, if you have any cards in a recovery pile, do whatever they say to do during recovery. While you do this, you may play cards or use powers only if they affect things that happen during recovery. (It’s possible to play cards during recovery that go into the recovery pile themselves.) After you’ve dealt with them all, banish any that remain.

So, you'd banish it after having "dealt with it" (meaning you looked at its power and determined you do not have Divine proficiency). So you can't make a check to recover, and recharging a blessing at the time it gets banished for real doesn't help because you've already lost your chance to recover it. As such, the original wording as well as Brother Tyler's re-wording above do not function as intended.

A better wording is as follows (slightly modified from what I posted on the PACS discord earlier):

☐ While you attempt a check to acquire (☐ or during recovery for) a card whose level is at most #-2, you may recharge a blessing to gain proficiency in Divine and the skill Divine: Charisma +2.

There's two issues with the rewards in older seasons that had you draw random cards, so I'm starting this thread to shed some light on them and hopefully get a good resolution.

First issue: certain rewards are impossible to obtain if you play in scenarios above your tier. The Guide has the following rule:

If you are rewarded with a card from the vault, instead take a random card of the same type that is not already part of your deck from your Class Deck box. The card’s level cannot be higher than your character’s tier. For example, if your character is Tier 2, and a reward gives you an item from the vault, you’ll take a random item from your Class Deck box that has a level no higher than 2.

This impacts the following rewards that all have you draw a card from the vault (and therefore your CD box):

If you earn the above rewards while at a tier lower than the scenario/adventure, as-written the reward has no effect (you aren't allowed to draw random cards of that level). This issue is further compounded by the fact you earn rewards before having the opportunity to increase your tier. Given these rewards are impossible to earn by lower-tier characters, it's unclear how to actually handle them.

The second issue is that these types of rewards just plain aren't fun for anyone. 80%+ of the time they will be completely useless, especially in later adventures when the reward doesn't specify to draw something on-tier (which is most of them in Season 0/1).

In my opinion a good fix would be to eliminate the quoted rule from the Guide entirely, and treat these rewards as drawing additional cards for the upgrade pool. We'll then need fixes in the scenario PDFs or a general Guide rule to specify that these types of rewards also give a bonus deck upgrade (for those that don't state such, which again is most of them).

Removing this rule would also remove ambiguity for recent seasons as well. 7-3A's reward begins with "Each character chooses a type of boon then draws a random level 3 boon of that type from the vault" -- this would also trigger the rule in the Guide, but it was confirmed by Keith Richmond that the 7-3A reward was intended to add a card to the acquired card pool instead of a random draw from the CD box.

tl;dr if we keep the above quoted rule in the Guide, the above-mentioned rewards need to get fixed so they aren't impossible to earn by people of lower tiers, and 7-3A's reward needs to get fixed to match the actual intent of it. A better option is to kill the rule entirely and just say all of these draws go into the acquired card pool for additional deck upgrade options.

Tall Knife works by itself because of the following rule:

If a power allows you to automatically defeat or acquire a card, you may use it instead of attempting the check. Doing so counts as succeeding at all checks and requirements to defeat or acquire the card.

Because Tall Knife says "it is defeated" that short-circuits all of the checks and requirements to defeat. Per the above-quoted rule, you succeeded at the check to defeat Troll and that successful check had the Acid and/or Fire traits.

Kyra cannot play Heat Metal nor use her character power in conjunction with playing Tall Knife because Kyra is never making any checks when a card is automatically defeated.

Or they have to purchase a second Core set just to able to do this.

This is the only avenue for doing this. Proxies aren't allowed in PACS. If you're running in a game store, the game store can get a free copy of Core/Curse to run the actual games from if they ask Paizo (haven't confirmed this is still the case but I'd be shocked if that program was discontinued), so the organizer shouldn't need to purchase two copies of it.

Anyway, that's a bit off-topic for this thread, let's carry further discussion elsewhere if desired :)

skizzerz wrote:

It would be good to include the actual card lists for the Adventurer's Packs inside of the new guide, in addition to the rules for using them.

One possible reason for not listing the AP cards in the Guide is that, when additional sets are released, those new cards might be added to the Adventure Packs.*

In which case it might be better to list the packs in a separate document and post the url in the Guide?

Or you could include the AP card lists the Guide, and simply update the Guide after the new sets are released, I suppose. Probably the better option.

*New sets are eventually being released, right? Pretty please? :)

The blog page about the packs includes a lot of other text and images that detract from being able to see and compare all of the cards lists at a glance. Having the packs listed somewhere without the extraneous stuff would be beneficial. Plus since the new guide will presumably have the rules for using the packs, and there is no guarantee those rules match the playtest rules in the blog/comments, that’s another reason for reproducing the pack lists locally in the guide. It’d probably go into an appendix.

The sanctioning document for the Wandering Way scenario (3C) includes the following sentence: "Characters may earn the reward for this scenario any number of times."

This doesn't seem to explicitly override the portions of the Guide that restrict you from earning XP and Hero Points:
"If you won a scenario your character has not won before, your character also gets an experience point"
"If you won a scenario your character has not won before, your character gets a hero point"

I believe to make it clear that XP and HP are intended to be earned each time the scenario is completed, the sanctioning document should be adjusted to read something akin to "Characters may earn the reward, hero point, and experience point for this scenario any number of times."

The Guide being modified is the 6.1 printing of the guide. So, anything missing from that.

Probably already on your radar then, but everything in this thread that Vic has mentioned.

That's everything I can think of offhand. There's other issues in the Guide related to certain rewards being impossible to earn if you play in scenarios above your Tier, but that has not been officially clarified as far as I'm aware and therefore falls out of scope of your OP.

(I think my comment in my previous post related to the Wandering Way scenario in Dragon's Demand is best addressed on the DD Sanctioning Document and not Guide 6.2, so I'll open a new thread for that)

Off the top of my head

- Making the Guide sync up with the Dragon's Demand Sanctioning Document regarding repeated rewards for the scenario 3C Wandering Way. This was clarified on Discord by the Online VC, not on the forums, but link is here. The sanctioning doc for the scenario says "Characters may earn the reward for this scenario any number of times." but does not mention earning XP or Hero Points for these scenarios multiple times. The Guide mentions that XP or Hero Points are only earned for the first time a scenario is completed. (Not sure where the change should be made, but it should be made explicit that XP and Hero Points are earned alongside the scenario rewards each time)

- It would be good to include the actual card lists for the Adventurer's Packs inside of the new guide, in addition to the rules for using them.

Do you have a draft version of the guide available to peruse somewhere? It's hard to say there's stuff missing from it if we can't actually review the current wording.

Thanks. Yes, playing a home game.

Ezren did eventually beat 2B solo on the 10th (!) try, allowing for upgrades from the winnings pile.

Congrats! When you repeatedly run into a roadblock like that in a home game, that’s when I’d look into bending some rules in order to make actual progress. There’s no shame in doing so, the rulebook even says Play It Your Way :)

Sorry for the thread necro, but a quick 2B question:

If the party loses the scenario, do they still get to keep the cards in the winnings pile?

I'm assuming yes (?), but the reward specifically states that beating the scenario lets you keep the won cards. Perhaps implying that if you lose you don't get to keep them. (Because the auction house has burned down and your loot has been left behind?)

Side question: Are the cards in the winnings pile displayed? In a neutral zone? Somewhere else?

If you can't keep the won cards and keep losing, you'll never upgrade your deck and potentially be permanently stuck. Or you'll have to replay previous scenarios until you acquire boons that help you successfully complete 2B.

Thanks...

Note: I'm aware that the "After the Scenario" section of the rulebook specifies that all non-boons should be put back in the vault before rebuilding decks - thereby leaving the boons on the table. Strictly speaking, you could argue that both the winnings and hoard cards (all boons) would remain out of the vault, and characters who lost could rebuild from both piles. But I doubt that's the intention. :)

I'm just a bit unclear as to how the "after the scenario" rules interact with this particular scenario.

P.S. This question has come up specifically because I'm trying a single-character solo DD campaign with core Ezren (for fun), and he's now lost 2B eight consecutive times. The best he's gotten so far in terms of a winnings/hoard pile is 5-5 - which he's done twice. Getting a 6-4 balance is proving to be almost impossible, particularly if he can't upgrade his deck between scenarios...

Boons in those piles are not eligible to rebuild your deck with.

Rulebook p17: "Start by combining your discards with your hand, your deck, your bury pile, and any cards you displayed" -- nowhere does it say the other non-displayed boons left on the table are eligible to rebuild with.

If you are playing via home game rules, I would personally say that you're able to rebuild with the winnings pile even though you lost.

If you are playing via PACS rules, note the following rule that guarantees you'll be eligible for at least one deck upgrade (although it may not be a particularly useful one):

If the number of cards in the center of the play area is less than the total number of deck upgrades needed by the party, roll 1d6, consult the table below, and add a random card of that type. Continue rolling and adding until the number of cards is equal to the number of deck upgrades needed.

d6 Roll Card Type
1 Weapon
2 Spell
3 Armor
4 Item
5 Ally
6 Blessing

It counts itself.

When you play cards by performing any other actions, set them aside while you process their effects in the order you set them aside. Usually this means you process them immediately, performing the actions in the order listed on the card. For example, if a card says “Recharge this card to recharge a card from your discards,” recharge the card you’re playing before recharging the card from your discards.

So, you first discard the card, and then you count the number of cards in your discards. Because that's the order listed on the card.

I have a follow-up question for 1: What if the location power isn't a reroll ability?

For example, the MM closed location Smoking Den: "For the rest of the scenario, when a character at any location attempts a check that invokes the Human or Poison trait, she may bury a card to add 1 die." In that case, could a player use this power multiple times on a single check, as long as that player still has enough hand cards?

And another question, albeit a bit of a tangent:
I recently noticed the phrasing on the WotR troop support card Knight of Kenabres: "While displayed, any character may add 1d6 to a check to defeat a barrier that has the Army trait that uses one of the following..."
Rather than something like "...any character may add 1d6 to [his/her] check" or "...when any character attempts a check...[he/she] may add 1d6 to that check".
So (assuming any relevant medals are checked) could one character use Knights of Kenabres on another character's check? And if so, could then multiple characters all use Knights of Kenabres on the same check, to effectively give +Xd6, where X is the number of characters?
While armies do scale weirdly with more players, I can't imagine that this was intended. If only since it seems like there'd have to have been a much more straightforward ways of saying it, eg "While displayed, add a number of d6s equal to the number of characters to any check to defeat..."

Still no. Any particular power may only be used once per check or step.

If a character power applies when a specific thing happens, you may use it each time that happens; otherwise, you may use each power no more than once per check or step.

The part after the semicolon is the general rule: you may use each power no more than once per check or step. There is a specific carve-out for character powers that apply when specific things happen. As the location power you cite is not a character power, the general restriction applies and you may use it only once.

That above general rule applies to all powers, including on support cards such as Knights of Kenabres. While any character may use it to add 1d6 to anyone's check (even if it isn't their own); that power may only be used once per check total.

Only when you're playing Balazar or some other summoner. WotR Balazar has the power "When you defeat a monster and would banish it, you may add it to your hand instead."

It means one copy of a card named exactly “Greatsword.” Not “Greatsword +1” or “Giantbane Greatsword” or anything else. Just “Greatsword.”

Only on checks made in the before acting step. “Before acting” is a specific step of an encounter, and powers referencing it cannot be used outside of that encounter step.

You aren’t missing anything power-wise; the banish is there for flavor.

I want to call out some of the recent roleplay by Yewstance's Hakon, making for a very enjoyable read through the post (the RP in general in that campaign has been top-notch in my opinion as well). Having the ability to breathe more life into the story as it unfolds is one of the major benefits of PbP over live games in my opinion.

Quite a few pre-Core weapons use wording like "If not proficient with weapons, the difficulty of the check is increased by 4."

Right now, there is nothing in the transition guide or conversion FAQ to modify this wording to a more general "If not proficient, the difficulty of the check is increased by 4." (which covers the additional proficiencies that Core allows, such as proficient with Swords).

Pre-Core Spells and Items that (now) go into recovery were re-mapped to simply say "If proficient, ..." instead of calling out specific proficiencies. Should pre-Core Weapons get the same treatment?

That has its own complications because now you're introducing an examine and a shuffle into the mix, whereas neither of those were there before. Examine means that you'll hit any Triggers in the hourglass, and the current wording does not have any shuffles afterwards.

The wording "Summon and acquire the top blessing of the hourglass" would mean:
1. You look through the top cards of the hourglass one-by-one until you find a blessing (you are not examining and will not trigger any powers that happen when cards are examined).
2a. If you do not find any blessings in the hourglass, the instruction is impossible and the location does not close.
2b. If you find a blessing, summon and encounter it. If you successfully acquire it, draw it. If you fail to acquire it, banish it. Otherwise (e.g. you evaded it), put it into the vault (you are not banishing it and will not trigger any powers that happen when cards are banished).
3. Put all of the other cards you looked at back at the top of the hourglass in the order you found them.

How I think the current wording "Acquire the top blessing of the hourglass." is supposed to work is:
1. You look through the top cards of the hourglass one-by-one until you find a blessing (you are not examining and will not trigger any powers that happen when cards are examined).
2a. If you do not find any blessings in the hourglass, the instruction is impossible and the location does not close.
2b. If you find a blessing, attempt its check(s) to acquire. This is not an encounter; do not process any powers on the blessing you are attempting to acquire. If you succeed, draw it.
3. Put all of the cards you looked at back at the top of the hourglass in the order you found them, including the blessing if you did not successfully acquire it in 2b.

Yeah, RAW is clear: removing a scourge from a location doesn't do anything to the characters at that location also suffering the scourge.

In my opinion, removing a scourge from a location should also remove it from all characters at that location. The rulebook doesn't say that right now, but it's something I'd love to see an FAQ for.

As someone that has been champing at the bit this whole year wanting new PACG content, I've just kind of accepted that there is a real possibility that outside of society play PACG is quite possibly dead. Not only were there no announcements during the two biggest Paizo events (PaizoCon and GenCon), there weren't even hints or implications of something coming down the pipe. We haven't gotten a single add-on deck since Core and Curse shipped.

I'm currently trying to find out if there is a "good" way to play the society content without using the society rules (because we just want more content to play) but it sounds like the scenarios are balanced on the "one card upgrade per scenario" and upgrades coming from constrained card pools per character. Might give it a shot anyway.

I wouldn’t call them unbalanced for home games, and the Society scenarios are even designed to be played using home game rules too (although they probably receive less play testing in that form). Rewards will call out if anything is PACS-specific; just ignore those particular rewards. Otherwise you can play it exactly as you would the included storybooks including building your decks out of what you acquire during play.

There are a few PACS scenarios that really aren’t designed for home games though, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. If the product description lists it as an interactive special (e.g. 6-99 Tyrant of the Harrow) then unless you can muster multiple tables together (including RPG tables for the older pre-Core specials) then you’ll be on your own for figuring out when to trigger conditions and how to progress through the scenarios.

Yes, that rule lets you build your starting deck with any level 0 card, no restriction on Basic

The back of the wildcard The Onslaughts contains the Dragon's Demand Story Bane Roster. One of the columns in there is Eldritch -- you roll 1d6 and that is the corresponding bane you encounter.

If that bane is currently in a location somewhere and therefore not available, reroll until you get something you're able to summon. Also reroll if the level of the bane is higher than #.

Edit: ninja'd but leaving this up for posterity since it does contain some info that the above post does not.

If you are using the Core rulebook: each scenario grants a Hero Point and you can spend them on feats as normal. Feats explicitly earned via rewards (such as the end of Adventure 2) do not count towards your feat cap. Earn your role card as per the rules in the Core rulebook.

If you are using the Wrath rulebook: gain a Skill Feat after the 1st scenario of each level you complete (the "A" scenarios), a Power Feat after the 2nd scenario of each level that you complete (the "B" scenarios), and a Card Feat after the 4th scenario of each level that you complete (the "D" scenarios). Add the following as an Adventure reward for Adventure 3: "Choose a role card and gain a Power Feat."

City Gate would not happen unless the reroll from Longspear also fails. Rerolls are still part of making the check, and things that trigger when a check succeeds or fails happen after the check is fully made.

Frencois is wrong. Your Perception modifier is +6. Check out page 11 of the rulebook where this is explained, in the sidebar “Rules: Skills, Dice, and Modifiers.”

If your character says “Strength d10,” and the “+1” box next to that has been checked, your Strength skill is d10+1, and your Strength die is d10. (The “+1” is called a modifier.) If your character also says “Melee: Strength +3,” your Melee skill is d10+4, your Melee die is d10, and the Melee modifier is +4.

This is amazing news! I’d like to echo the call for AP maps as well. I realize that old ones are pretty low-res but you could for example commission high enough resolution maps for VTT for upcoming APs so that newer material sets a higher bar of VTT friendliness.

Cauterize isn't intended to be non-random, but it's also not been a big enough deal to rise above other considerations, given that there is an inherent cost to asking people to change their cards.

Got an answer for RAI on Cauterize at least. 1 down, 16 to go!

skizzerz - can you confirm that you are saying that both the Peakhope example and my Amiri-like Lem example are invalid? Or does the moving-away situation work differently here than does the moving-to?

Note: all responses in this post are assuming that Five-Pointed Sun works like a normal "end of turn" power because that is what makes the most sense.

The sequence in the OP is definitely not valid because nobody is at Five-Pointed Sun in order to activate that power in step 1. You can't arbitrarily choose to activate something that doesn't apply to your situation.

The Amiri dodge also does not work, because once the Five-Pointed Sun is unoccupied, the scenario power suddenly becomes "active" and requires resolution. This is what I was referring to in that quote above with "which may be different now based on what just happened". Moving away means that the scenario power must also now be resolved because its conditions are met.

Using my system, I'll step through it.

End of Turn Step begins. Varril is alone at some other location (not the Sun):
1. Look at currently valid end of turn powers, these are {"At the end of your turn, you may bury the top card of your deck to move.", "At the end of your turn, if the location Five-Pointed Sun is unoccupied, add a monster from the box to the top of that location deck.", "At the end of your turn, if you are the only character at your location, you may move."}
2. Choose one of those 3 to resolve, let's say we picked Varril's power and moved to the Five-Pointed Sun.
3. Look at currently valid end of turn powers, these are {"At the end of your turn, you may bury the top card of your deck to move.", "When you end your turn at this location, each character is dealt 1d4 Cold damage."}
4. Choose one of those 2 to resolve. Note how the scenario power of unoccupied Sun went away (Sun is no longer unoccupied) but the location power of the Sun appeared. Varill's power went away because we resolved that one already. Let's say we pick the Sun's power so everyone suffers 1d4 Cold damage.
5. Look at the currently valid end of turn powers, these are {"At the end of your turn, you may bury the top card of your deck to move."}
6. It's the only one left, so let's resolve it. It's an optional power so we choose not to do it.
7. There are no more end of turn powers that require resolution. We now do everything cards in our recovery pile say to do during recovery (if using Core rules) and then reset our hand.

In step 6 if we chose to move away from the Sun, the scenario power of an unoccupied Sun would then reappear and need to be resolved, reloading a new monster into the Sun. So, if you really wanted to make things hard on yourself, you can have both negative effects happen. There's just no way to have none of them happen.

Let's step through the logic using the linked example from Mike. You're currently at Torture Pit ("When you start or end your turn at this location, succeed at a Constitution or Fortitude 10 check or bury the top card of your deck.") and have Jalhazar's Wheel in hand ("At the end of your turn, if your ship is not wrecked, recharge this card to move.")

1. Look at the currently valid end of turn powers, these are {"When you start or end your turn at this location, succeed at a Constitution or Fortitude 10 check or bury the top card of your deck.", and playing Wheel for "At the end of your turn, if your ship is not wrecked, recharge this card to move."}
2. We play Wheel to use that power and move away from Torture Pit to some other location that does not have any end of turn power.
3. There are no other end of turn powers that need to be processed, so we proceed to recovery (if playing Core rules) and then reset our hand.

Only the commander, which also means if the ship is anchored and the character whose turn it is isn’t on the ship, it doesn’t apply to them either (because they aren’t commanding it).