Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set

Well, I'll have to see if the situation of too many players even comes up.

Having looked around a bit on the web, it seems that the main problem with playing with seven players would be that there are not enough cards to build seven players decks. Would buying a second classes add-on deck remedy that or are the cards from there too class-specific to help out?

The problem with building more decks than recommended is that cards that you *should* be encountering during play end up locked away in character decks. The effect will be subtle—you won't break the game (unless you build *several* more decks than you should)... but the fact is that the universe of cards that you're exploring will be diminished, and that will make the game more repetitive and less fun. Buying more add-on decks would help buffer you against breaking the game, but it won't solve the problem that you'll keep encountering the same cards that you've already decided not to keep. Resist the temptation.

spatulaguy wrote:

Playing with 7 would also create a problem with regard to locations. Each scenario has a certain number of locations based on the player count. I would think it might unbalance things too far towards the players if the ratio of locations to players was off.

While this is true, it would also be pretty easy to fix: There are always two more locations than there are players, so just add one more location, with one more henchman, and it would probably work out fine.

Except that we give you the maximum number of henchmen you need, and no more. Take Attack on Sandpoint: with 6 players, you need 6 Goblin Raiders, and there are 6 in the box. (Sure, you could use a proxy card, but I still just don't recommend it.)

The problem with building more decks than recommended is that cards that you *should* be encountering during play end up locked away in character decks. The effect will be subtle—you won't break the game (unless you build *several* more decks than you should... but the fact is that the universe of cards that you're exploring will be diminished, and that will make the game more repetitive and less fun.

Let me give you an example: in the Base Set, there are 20 armor cards. If you build Kyra, Harsk, Valeros, and Merisiel, you'll have 7 of those cards locked up in decks, so there will be 13 different armor cards to encounter as you play the three Base Set scenarios. But if you *also* built Seelah, there would then only be 10 other armors to encounter, meaning the game just got about 25% less interesting.

This is a problem that will get worse at higher levels, as each adventure deck adds a limited number of each card type. You might get three, four, or five new armors per set, and stretching those over seven people would be kind of sucky.

It's not going to break the game, but *is* going to make exploring locations and acquiring cards less fun, and the more you play, the worse the problem will get. (And playing 7 people with cards meant for 6 will be much worse in the long term than playing 5 people with cards meant for 4.)

Believe me, making sure that the card mix is right for the number of players was one of the biggest challenges Mike's team faced.

As hinted at above, I think this is a missed opportunity to sell a bunch of minis. If you had a set of all 11 iconic prepainted minis, I'd buy them in a heartbeat so we could use them for this game.

Thanks, Vic, that was very illuminating about the card numbers. Well, it's only in one group where I have even the possibility of all six players ( plus me ) showing up, so I think it will be a corner case, anyway.

John Graham 323 wrote:

any plans on releasing the RuleBook as a PDF (and if so when)???

You can download a PDF of the rules here...

http://paizo.com/download/pathfinder/PZO6000-Rulebook.zip

Thanks A.F. I was hoping to get my "hands" on it early. (See what I did there???)

As hinted at above, I think this is a missed opportunity to sell a bunch of minis. If you had a set of all 11 iconic prepainted minis, I'd buy them in a heartbeat so we could use them for this game.

I agree with this. A prepainted box of all 11 would be nice!

I know you can get the 4 from the beginner box in a pack, and some of the others as singles.

You can get 8 of them as unpainted white plastic Bones from Reaper.

You can get all 11 in metal from Reaper.

But a pre-painted set of all 11 would be really nice Paizo!

My group will be playing this with either 2, 3, or 4 players. it will be most unlikely that it will ever get played with 5 or 6 players. Does this mean on average we will only be using half of the possible 10 locations in each scenario?
This seems rather odd that we will never see about half the location cards for this Adventure Path. Is there any mechanism in place that will allow us to visit or include the "missing" locations?
My impression from the playthrough is that the later locations (used only for six player games, for example) are more difficult and therefore shouldn't be used unless the party consists of the appropriate number of players.

WizKids have released pre-painted plastic minis for nine of the Pathfinder Iconic characters:

• Ezren, Kyra, Merisiel and Valeros (the Beginner Box Heroes set)
  
• Seelah, in the "Heroes and Monsters" set
  
• Harsk & Seoni in the "Rise of the Runelords" set
  
• Lem & Amiri in the "Shattered Star" collection
  

All but Seoni, Amiri & Lem currently show as available on paizo.com

I looked at a couple of other sites, and Amiri and Seoni appear to be sold out everywhere; at least one site does still show Lem as available.

I've already got one of each of the above figures, but I was thinking of picking up a second set for use with the card game. Unfortunately, that isn't possible at present (although paizo.com have re-stocked some figures in the past, so there is still hope). I'm sure the remaining iconics will show up, over time, as part of other sets; I'd suggest grabbing them early, if you want them.

My group will be playing this with either 2, 3, or 4 players. it will be most unlikely that it will ever get played with 5 or 6 players. Does this mean on average we will only be using half of the possible 10 locations in each scenario?

This seems rather odd that we will never see about half the location cards for this Adventure Path. Is there any mechanism in place that will allow us to visit or include the "missing" locations?
My impression from the playthrough is that the later locations (used only for six player games, for example) are more difficult and therefore shouldn't be used unless the party consists of the appropriate number of players.

A lot of the locations are used in multiple scenarios, so maybe in a different scenario, you'll see some of the 5 and 6 player locations in the earlier slots.

WizKids have released pre-painted plastic minis for nine of the Pathfinder Iconic characters:

• Ezren, Kyra, Merisiel and Valeros (the Beginner Box Heroes set)
  
• Seelah, in the "Heroes and Monsters" set
  
• Harsk & Seoni in the "Rise of the Runelords" set
  
• Lem & Amiri in the "Shattered Star" collection
  

All but Seoni, Amiri & Lem currently show as available on paizo.com

I looked at a couple of other sites, and Amiri and Seoni appear to be sold out everywhere; at least one site does still show Lem as available.

I've already got one of each of the above figures, but I was thinking of picking up a second set for use with the card game. Unfortunately, that isn't possible at present (although paizo.com have re-stocked some figures in the past, so there is still hope). I'm sure the remaining iconics will show up, over time, as part of other sets; I'd suggest grabbing them early, if you want them.

Yes being that we already have sold out figures, releasing another set of Iconics really is the best idea. Do a five piece set with Seelah, Harsk, Lem, Seoni, and Amiri and I'll gladly give you my dollars.

Does this mean on average we will only be using half of the possible 10 locations in each scenario?

Oops, I meant 8 locations, not 10 (each scenario uses two more locations than there are players). So with three players we would use 5 of the possible 8 locations, not so bad as I first posted but I still wonder how many of these locations we will never encounter during the Adventure Path.

xris wrote:

My group will be playing this with either 2, 3, or 4 players. it will be most unlikely that it will ever get played with 5 or 6 players. Does this mean on average we will only be using half of the possible 10 locations in each scenario?

This seems rather odd that we will never see about half the location cards for this Adventure Path. Is there any mechanism in place that will allow us to visit or include the "missing" locations?
My impression from the playthrough is that the later locations (used only for six player games, for example) are more difficult and therefore shouldn't be used unless the party consists of the appropriate number of players.

A lot of the locations are used in multiple scenarios, so maybe in a different scenario, you'll see some of the 5 and 6 player locations in the earlier slots.

Mechalibur is correct. You won't miss any locations if you play through all of the scenarios with 4 players.

Talk of repacking minis of the iconics is getting a bit off-topic here, but those of you interested in that part of the conversation should read this post.

I watched the play example video and am getting really excited about this! There is one thing I fear a bit though: how differently will each scenario play? It was mentioned one of the scenario may have the heroes save town folks from a flood. I'd enjoy such variety compared to a constant "kill the villain" goal... so how would this flood scenario play out? Does it still use the "search for the villain, block his escape, kill it" structure or will there be variants?

I figure it would be fun if sometimes we had to look for a specific item, sometimes look for X NPCs to save, etc... There would still be enemies to fight, but they would be obstacles, not end goals.

I have subscribed to the base set, does that mean I will also be sent the character add-on?

Yes. The first two releases, the base set and the character add-on pack will be sent together in August. If you do not see this reflected on you My Subscriptions page, check to make sure you have BOTH a billing AND shipping address set up for your subscription(s). If you have those both set correctly and still don't see both products in your estimated shipments, please contact customer service (customer.service@paizo.com).

thanks
sara marie

Thanks for the quick response Sara Marie! The confusion I'm having now is it looks like I have them ordered, but it's under example subscription shipments. Underneath that it has next product as Pathfinder adventure card game: Rise of the rune lords base set in side cart. No character add-on.

It will not be in your sidecart. Only the first product of a subscription goes into the sidecart as we have to have a "starting" product. After the first product, you will see the estimates for future orders on you My Subscription page.

I watched the play example video and am getting really excited about this! There is one thing I fear a bit though: how differently will each scenario play? It was mentioned one of the scenario may have the heroes save town folks from a flood. I'd enjoy such variety compared to a constant "kill the villain" goal... so how would this flood scenario play out? Does it still use the "search for the villain, block his escape, kill it" structure or will there be variants?

I figure it would be fun if sometimes we had to look for a specific item, sometimes look for X NPCs to save, etc... There would still be enemies to fight, but they would be obstacles, not end goals.

The scenario Here Comes the Flood does have a villain, but you don't actually fight it; instead you need to save more townspeople than the villain can kill before the dam bursts.

There's typically one scenario in each Adventure Deck that plays a bit loose with the usual format.

In Local Heroes, for example, instead of villains and henchmen, you seed each location deck with an extra ally card (in addition to any ally cards that are normally in those location decks), and whenever you acquire an ally, you can attempt to close the location. To win the scenario, close all of the locations before the blessings deck runs out. (And if you ever fail to acquire an ally, you have to advance the blessings deck...)

There's typically one scenario in each Adventure Deck that plays a bit loose with the usual format.

(snip examples)

Wow, that's pretty much what I was hoping for. This is great news to me and another sell for you guys :)

I was wondering something. Can I replay adventures using different characters and level them? Or would that be taking away potential additional cards for other characters?

Sorry if this sounds a bit confusing but without reading the rules I really don't exactly know how the game works.

Basically what I am envisioning is that after an adventure you get cards that can be added to your deck, but by doing so will those cards be denied from other classes.

I was wondering something. Can I replay adventures using different characters and level them? Or would that be taking away potential additional cards for other characters?

Sorry if this sounds a bit confusing but without reading the rules I really don't exactly know how the game works.

Basically what I am envisioning is that after an adventure you get cards that can be added to your deck, but by doing so will those cards be denied from other classes.

You've got the general idea right, yes. At the end of the scenario, any cards that you acquired during the scenario can be added to the decks of the characters that played.

Because the scenarios use randomized cards of each type, I don't think replay will in any way hurt you. For example: in the first scenario you play, you might acquire a +1 longsword, and add it to Valeros' deck. Or, in that very first scenario, you might not find any useful weapons at all, and so Valeros keeps the deck he already has.

Going back and replaying scenarios won't change the randomness of acquiring cards, and each adventure will add new, more powerful cards, so you shouldn't ever "exhaust" the possible cards to acquire, especially since most of the time you'll be replacing that acquired card with one from your deck, since the decks have a maximum size that increases much more slowly than the acquisition of cards.

Thanks I didn't even know cards were randomized. I can't wait to see the rules. I already subscribed and will be picking up at gencon.

Thanks I didn't even know cards were randomized. I can't wait to see the rules. I already subscribed and will be picking up at gencon.

Sorry, I may have misled you with that.

The cards themselves are NOT randomized as far as what you get in the packs. However, at each location when you set up for a game, the location card shows that each type of card has a certain number at that location. For example, you might have 4 monsters, 2 barriers, 2 weapons, 1 spell, and 4 allies at a given location. When setting up that location deck, you shuffle the whole set of monsters that you have in the box, and deal 4 random monsters to that location.

As you go through later scenarios, stronger monsters and more powerful weapons and armor and such will be added to the available ones in the box, so that you might randomly get a very strong enemy to fight, or randomly get a +3 mace to try to acquire. That's what I meant by the randomization.

In the rulebook, it says that when you play an adventure, you add the cards from that adventure into the "box" cards, so they're available for play. Do these accumulate over time? For example, if you play the initial adventure, then Burnt Offerings, then Skinsaw, is your box going to have cards from all three adventures? Or do you remove the adventure-specific cards after you finish that adventure?

In the rulebook, it says that when you play an adventure, you add the cards from that adventure into the "box" cards, so they're available for play. Do these accumulate over time? For example, if you play the initial adventure, then Burnt Offerings, then Skinsaw, is your box going to have cards from all three adventures? Or do you remove the adventure-specific cards after you finish that adventure?

They accumulate, so when you eventually play adventure 6 in the adventure path, you'll have every card in the game being available for random insertion into the specific scenario you're playing at the time.

There have been questions of "what if I only buy the base set and adventure deck 4?" The answer the devs have given is "we haven't tried that, and wouldn't recommend it, but you could do it".

As far as I understood it, you sort some of the lower-level cards out of their respective stacks after you reach the higher level modules, so as to not constantly run into normal weapons and so on when you need better equipment to beat the scenarios.

Where are you all getting the rules are they posted somewhere here and I am missing them? I would love to read them so that come gencon I know how to play and can open my game and play an adventure.

Also my group is almost always 3 players, will that effect gameplay? As I read 4 players is the sweet spot.

Where are you all getting the rules are they posted somewhere here and I am missing them?

Check the maing page for the game: http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventureCardGame. You will find this link: http://paizo.com/download/pathfinder/PZO6000-Rulebook.zip

As far I understood it, three players is totally fine.

Is there an announced release date for this yet?

Is there an announced release date for this yet?

We're releasing it at GenCon next week! :D

For subscribers who aren't at Gen Con, when is it being shipped?

For subscribers who aren't at Gen Con, when is it being shipped?

They should start shipping next week and the following.

Hooray! Thanks for your response.

I was wondering something. Can I replay adventures using different characters and level them? Or would that be taking away potential additional cards for other characters?

Sorry if this sounds a bit confusing but without reading the rules I really don't exactly know how the game works.

Basically what I am envisioning is that after an adventure you get cards that can be added to your deck, but by doing so will those cards be denied from other classes.

Replaying an adventure with a different character is totally fine. The only caveat is that you should not build more than 4 characters at once unless you have the Character Add-On Deck, in which case you can build up to 6 characters at one time. (If you build more than the recommended number of character decks at one time, it will have a negative effect on gameplay.)

As far as I understood it, you sort some of the lower-level cards out of their respective stacks after you reach the higher level modules, so as to not constantly run into normal weapons and so on when you need better equipment to beat the scenarios.

Yep. After you begin the Hook Mountain Massacre (Adventure Deck 3), cards with the Basic trait will begin to leave the game, and after you begin Sins of the Saviors (Adventure Deck 5), cards with the Elite trait will begin to leave the game. (Don't worry—you never need to sit down and manually sort them out; we came up with a better solution than that.)

just wondering when the character sheets were going to be released. Went on the store page, ALREADY THERE!!! Awesome. :)

Yep. After you begin the Hook Mountain Massacre (Adventure Deck 3), cards with the Basic trait will begin to leave the game, and after you begin Sins of the Saviors (Adventure Deck 5), cards with the Elite trait will begin to leave the game. (Don't worry—you never need to sit down and manually sort them out; we came up with a better solution than that.)

intriguing??? any more details about that or will we have to wait for he game???

Basically, after you reach those points, whenever you banish a bane with the appropriate trait, you remove it from the game, and whenever you banish a boon with the appropriate trait, you can choose to remove it from the game.

Basically, after you reach those points, whenever you banish a bane with the appropriate trait, you remove it from the game, and whenever you banish a boon with the appropriate trait, you can choose to remove it from the game.

That's a great way of slowly getting rid of low-level boons while also slowly increasing the average difficulty of banes! Seriously, you guys have thought of everything! Can't wait to get my set next week!

That sounds like it's going to be a nightmare to track if you're running different "campaigns" with different groups.

Basically, after you reach those points, whenever you banish a bane with the appropriate trait, you remove it from the game, and whenever you banish a boon with the appropriate trait, you can choose to remove it from the game.

I like it. Very neat design.

Thanks for the character sheets!

On a side note:

I just noticed a long-winded "discussion" on BoardGameGeek with people lambasting or supporting the "done in MS-Paint" (lambasting) / spartan (supporting) graphic design.

Is there a design reason behind not doing full-bleed illustrations and more baroque circles, boxes, etc. that have become the standard in board and card games?

Is there a design reason behind not doing full-bleed illustrations and more baroque circles, boxes, etc. that have become the standard in board and card games?

My initial guess is that the card design chosen makes them easier to read in play, but I'll see if I can't snag one of the art staff to chime in on this. :)

tssfulk wrote:

Is there a design reason behind not doing full-bleed illustrations and more baroque circles, boxes, etc. that have become the standard in board and card games?

My initial guess is that the card design chosen makes them easier to read in play, but I'll see if I can't snag one of the art staff to chime in on this. :)

Liz is correct, we use boxes/circles etc. to make information easier to find and therefore the game easier to play. Also, most printers require a solid colored "frame" around the entire cards edge making full bleed art virtually impossible.

Liz Courts wrote:

tssfulk wrote:

Is there a design reason behind not doing full-bleed illustrations and more baroque circles, boxes, etc. that have become the standard in board and card games?

My initial guess is that the card design chosen makes them easier to read in play, but I'll see if I can't snag one of the art staff to chime in on this. :)

Liz is correct, we use boxes/circles etc. to make information easier to find and therefore the game easier to play. Also, most printers require a solid colored "frame" around the entire cards edge making full bleed art virtually impossible.

Thanks for the reply!

Can I quote on it BGG?

I wanted to offer my thanks (as others have) for the pdf versions of the character sheets. These are a great resource for the Pathfinder Adventure Card game.

Are there any plans to release a listing of the cards and their abilities? Or maybe a compiled card image pdf? I'd be interesting in building some starting decks for the various classes now and filling out a few character sheets in anticipation of the release.

Really excited for release.

The FLGS where we play most often will, apparently, be getting an introductory or demo version of the product. Can anyone tell me what this consists of? We're probably going to be running their demos, so I'd like to have some feel for how long a demo would run.