If you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


Another interesting comment on BGG that has me questioning one of my basic assumptions!

Let's look at two examples.

1) The Burglar Ally's wording, in the Powers box is:

Recharge this card to blah, blah.

If you do not acquire this card, discard 1 weapon or item

2) The Strength Spell's wording, in the Powers box is:

Discard this card to blah, blah.

If you do not have either the Arcane or Divine skill, banish this card.

Now, here come the questions!

Q1) Does the Burglar's second power trigger when you try to acquire the Burglar itself? (I've always thought that it does)

Q2) Does the Spell's second power trigger (a) when you USE the spell or (b) when you encounter it and/or acquire it?

I've always assumed that non-spellcasters could acquire the Spells, but had to banish them after using them once. However, as just pointed out on a BGG thread, the second power is just that - a second power, in a paragraph of its own. It's not written as one power e.g. "Discard this card to blah, blah. Then, if you do not have ... banish this card."

Since it's written in the same way as the Burglar, is the intention that actually non-magic users cannot acquire Spells at all? Even to pad out their deck or give to magic users at the end of the Scenario?

Would be great to clear this up!

Silver Crusade

The question of spells has come up a lot. The banish applies when you use the card, but you can still acquire it, and even use it once, no matter what skills you do or don't have. I think Mike and/or Vic have even been involved in one of the threads about this in the past, since it comes up so often.

I think the problem here is that the Burglar doesn't follow the standard pattern for boon cards. That text about what to do if you fail to acquire the card is in an inappropriate place. There is no standard place to put it, because there are no other cards with those types of fail conditions on acquiring a boon, at least that we've seen so far.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Designer

The Burglar is written the way it is because it has to be. It does not invalidate every other card that's written another way.

As for spells, every spell could say "[effect]. If you don't have [X], banish this card."

But then every spell with two effects would say

"[effect]. If you don't have [X], banish this card."
"[effect]. If you don't have [X], banish this card."
It's so much cleaner to put it at the end.

There's an FAQ entry which says this:

Quote:

The rules say I have to choose one power on a card when I play it. Why would I choose the power on a spell that says I have to discard it?

Any paragraph in the power section of a boon that doesn't involve playing the card for a particular effect is not itself a power—it's a mandatory action that you must take when you play the card.
Resolution: On page 10 of the rulebook, under "Playing Cards," add the following sentence to the end of the first paragraph:
"Any paragraph in the power section of a boon that doesn't involve playing the card for a particular effect is not itself a power—it's a mandatory action that you must take when you play the card."

Mike


Thanks, Mike.

So the difference is that the Burglar is worded as "If you do not acquire this card...", makes sense now!


This leads me to ask about card feats. Are there going to be spells that are neither arcane nor divine so that a character that took a spell as a card feat will not have to banish every spell they play?


Great question! Or - even if they are Arcane/Divine, are there going to be any spells which do not have to be banished if you lack the skill?

Silver Crusade

Well, Harsk has a power feat on the role card that lets him pick up the divine skill. Not sure what the deal with Sajan and Merisiel picking up a spell card feat will be.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

All spells in Rise of the Runelords have the Arcane and/or Divine traits, and must be banished if you don't have the matching skill.

Silver Crusade

So we'll have two characters that have the option of starting with a spell, then banishing it as soon as they cast it. Interesting.

Since they can go retrieve a basic card from the box between adventures (unless the group has extra spells lying around), I'm assuming most people will be picking Cure for this. That spell alone makes a great case for not banishing every basic boon once you're allowed to.

I'm trying to think what other spells could be useful for Merisiel or Sajan if they pick one up with a card feat, but don't have arcane or divine. Obviously, attack spells are out. In a large enough group, I might consider Levitate. Speed for a dex boost works for both of them, but it's not basic, so it'll be a couple of adventure decks before they can get it back between adventures.

Grand Lodge

Fromper wrote:


I'm trying to think what other spells could be useful for Merisiel or Sajan if they pick one up with a card feat, but don't have arcane or divine. Obviously, attack spells are out.

I'm not so sure.

It may be useful to have attack spells to deal with a specific trait... maybe Merisiel needs a Magic attack, or a specific energy type may be more useful for a given scenario.

It may actually be useful to be able to "cherry-pick" a new spell for each scenario.


Perhaps Seoni will acquire one too many awesome spells, and Meriesiel will carry it for her between adventures and hand it to her when it comes up... feels a bit cheesy...


It basically takes the place of spell scrolls, but without having to use up an item slot.


Thing is. you can only go to the box for a basic card,(spell in this case) in between scenario's if you don't have enough of that type of card in your deck after the scenario. which doesn't happen often.
perhaps it would happen more with a character that doesn't start with a spell and doesn't find any.

I wonder if you have to take a party members spare card (spell) before you could choose one from the box?

Happy Hunting


TheWayOutisThru wrote:

Thing is. you can only go to the box for a basic card,(spell in this case) in between scenario's if you don't have enough of that type of card in your deck after the scenario. which doesn't happen often.

perhaps it would happen more with a character that doesn't start with a spell and doesn't find any.

I wonder if you have to take a party members spare card (spell) before you could choose one from the box?

Happy Hunting

I believe you do. It represents not being at shops that sell those things, or they're closed, or just refuse to serve you after an incident with the shopkeeper's daughter...


Since you can only go back to the box if you're short of spells it makes giving a spell to someone like Harsk a massive undertaking. You'll have to use up one feat to give him a starting spell and another to give him Divine (to stop him being stuck with some spell you don't actually want because you banished the good one when you cast it).

My gut feeling is that you'd be better off spending those two feats on something else but will be interested to see how many people end up giving him a spell in later Adventures.


OberonViking wrote:
TheWayOutisThru wrote:

Thing is. you can only go to the box for a basic card,(spell in this case) in between scenario's if you don't have enough of that type of card in your deck after the scenario. which doesn't happen often.

perhaps it would happen more with a character that doesn't start with a spell and doesn't find any.

I wonder if you have to take a party members spare card (spell) before you could choose one from the box?

Happy Hunting

I believe you do. It represents not being at shops that sell those things, or they're closed, or just refuse to serve you after an incident with the shopkeeper's daughter...

Yeah, does state it in the rulebook on page 19, "Between Games", top of the second column

"If you can't construct a valid deck from the cards your GROUP has available because you don't have enough of certain card types, choose the extra cards you nee from the box, choosing only cards with the Basic trait"

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