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I know the PACG team goes through a lot of grief after the game is released when suddenly it goes from only playtesters and in-house people seeing the cards to suddenly a hundred/thousand/million/gazillion set of eyes looking at the cards and noticing every typo and every possibility how a card could be broken or need rewording.
Paizo gets lots of flak from naysayers because of this, little errors that 'should have been caught during playtesting' but weren't, and then people use that as ammo to bash on the game, its developers, and its community for liking it. Even some community members start to get all up in arms when slight errors appear here and there and start demanding card replacements.
And then there are the errors that people don't realize are errors because nobody thought to ask questions about the card or the wording on the card. And then the game goes on and then people start getting upset because something isn't working right or works too well, only to find out later that it has been clarified or altered to be totally different than what they expected.
What are the chances that Paizo would be willing to select a few people in their playtest group or the community and give them a list of all ability text from the cards?
No card type (blessing, weapon, etc), no card name, no traits, etc. None of the other stuff. JUST the abilities of each and every card as they appear on the card. (You can include traits, too, if you want to to help with those missing abilities, like Undead traited banes missing some immunities, etc).
That way, people can look over the abilities while not being influenced by 'playing the game' and then 'seeing something that's not there' because they're playing and they 'know' how to play and how a card works.
Things like discarding the Throwing Axe and Sling, the Temple referencing players, and also things about a "creature" from the FotSG and SoX-S adventure decks, and lets not forget the notorious villain from the get-go, the Blessing of the Gods... those things slide under the radar because the players 'know' how the card works while they play, thus they don't notice issues the card, itself, has.
I love the game, and I know people work hard on it to playtest it, error check it, and edit it, but would it be possible to get a few more eyes on it to look over it outside of playing?
It's called Blind testing. Usually turns up the group think oversights as you describe
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Things like discarding the Throwing Axe and Sling, the Temple referencing players, and also things about a "creature" from the FotSG and SoX-S adventure decks, and lets not forget the notorious villain from the get-go, the Blessing of the Gods... those things slide under the radar because the players 'know' how the card works while they play, thus they don't notice issues the card, itself, has.
What are the issues with these?
My group and I do not get pedantic about the game so I am not sure that is teh case in much of this or we are actually missing something.
Things like discarding the Throwing Axe and Sling, the Temple referencing players, and also things about a "creature" from the FotSG and SoX-S adventure decks, and lets not forget the notorious villain from the get-go, the Blessing of the Gods... those things slide under the radar because the players 'know' how the card works while they play, thus they don't notice issues the card, itself, has.What are the issues with these?
My group and I do not get pedantic about the game so I am not sure that is teh case in much of this or we are actually missing something.
Many of them are just minor typos, a few actually affect gameplay and require real errata. Most of them are 'common sense' things that most people won't even notice because they know how to play the card based on past experience and thus see text on the card that isn't actually there.
There are a lot of people who are new gamers that were introduced to the game through friends/family/webpages/stores, and as such don't have those past experiences to help guide them, so they have to read the cards as-is and then determine how to play from there.
A lot of the minor errors were fixed for the second printing.
As far as the ones you asked about specifically, Throwing Axe and Sling both say that you can reveal or discard, instead of reveal and discard (paraphrasing to make it easier to understand).
The Temple location refers to the number of Players instead of Characters, so people playing Solo, if going entirely with the rules and the text on the card, would count as only playing with 1 Player instead of however many characters they're using.
"Creature" is text used on a few cards from the sets I mentioned, where it meant Character instead. It caused issues with people assuming it caused problems with them playing Allies and the like.
And Blessing of the Gods caused a major confusion issue for quite a few players in that they were treating it as a complete copy of the top card of the Blessing Discard Pile because it says to do exactly that, instead of just copying the powers. So they were recharging it over and over.
If you haven't taken the time to do so, I recommend viewing the FAQ/Errata here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1gk
I doubly recommend viewing it if you have the first printing of the game or any of the adventure decks (it'll be printed in China; it'll say so on the box).
Mighta been good to test out role powers a bit more as well... Charlatan lem..really? Seems a lot of roles left much to be desired...Oh well...
There's other things as well.
For example my group ran into a collapsed ceiling last night (and did not beat the difficulty; missed by 2).
The text states that the first encounter any character takes must be the collapsed ceiling.
................What about a second encounter?
Or how about temporarily closing a location? Do you perform the closing action of where the character (he) is, or the villain (his) location? (Ambiguous use of pronouns). My group was playing one way, but someone we had extra had been playing with her group at work that played another way. Looking up the rules in the book and we were able to see both interpretations.
If it's the latter, there are some locations that would just RUIN a group's collective decks if the villian showed up there ("Divine 6 check or Banish a blessing." Some characters are not allowed to even roll dice for this, on account of not having a Diving skill!) It's actually this implication that made my group confident that it's the wrong interpretation and I feel sorry for my friend's work group.
Or that you can't use masterwork thieves tools on someone else's barrier (it doesn't say "your" on it anywhere). But it's an unstated implication that Paizo thought was obvious that you can't. This one was bad enough that it had to be FAQ'd, but it shows that the writers will always go "well its obvious, duh" and never check that the rule is explicitly stated anywhere.
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Draco, to hit a few of your points
I can't find the thread right now, but it has been confirmed that the Collapsed Ceiling is certainly a "cards do what they say" example. It says first encounter, and it means first encounter. After that, you can do as you wish.
As for closing a location temporarily -- you do the check for the location the temp closing player is at. I'd be interested to know what you found that made you see the interpretation of using the Villain's location. You are closing a location, so it only makes sense that you would have to close it using that location's requirement.
Everyone can roll any check. Everyone has Divine, everyone has melee, everyone has everything. If it is not listed on the card, your die for it is a D4, no bonuses (of course, you can still play cards to add dice and modifiers to it).
As for the Masterwork tools, yes that was something that should likely have been in the rulebook, that you can only defeat your own banes and acquire your own boons. It very well may have, but I don't have the book in front of me.
Draco, to hit a few of your points
I can't find the thread right now, but it has been confirmed that the Collapsed Ceiling is certainly a "cards do what they say" example. It says first encounter, and it means first encounter. After that, you can do as you wish.
That's what I said at the table. It actually wasn't that important, it just kept one character from leaving until a different character could show up and fix the problem.
As for closing a location temporarily -- you do the check for the location the temp closing player is at. I'd be interested to know what you found that made you see the interpretation of using the Villain's location. You are closing a location, so it only makes sense that you would have to close it using that location's requirement.
Not having the text of the rules in front of me, all I can say is, "due to the use of a pronoun, the sentence is syntactically ambiguous."
E.g. "When the villain shows up, each character attempts the close condition at his location." Which noun does "his" refer to here? This is easily fixed by changing it to "their location."
Everyone can roll any check. Everyone has Divine, everyone has melee, everyone has everything. If it is not listed on the card, your die for it is a D4, no bonuses (of course, you can still play cards to add dice and modifiers to it).
That is not true. Not everyone can roll Disable, for example. If it says "Intelligence, Knowledge" then you can roll either. If it says "Arcane, Divine" the rogue cannot make the check on account of not having either skill. This is explicitly stated.
Again, I don't have the full rules in front of me, but I did find this in the FAQ:
"Even if your character doesn’t have any of the skills listed for a check, you can still attempt the check[...], but your die is a d4."
Emphasis on the bolded section. A d4 can NEVER succeed a difficulty 6 check, leaving us in the same effective position as "Cannot Roll." Ouch.
As for the Masterwork tools, yes that was something that should likely have been in the rulebook, that you can only defeat your own banes and acquire your own boons. It very well may have, but I don't have the book in front of me.
It's one of those things that I can completely understand it working the way it works. There's just the easy to find basic rule of "if it says "you" or "your" then it's "just you." If it says "your location," then it's "any check at the location your character is at." Otherwise, it's "anyone's check anywhere." Then they print cards like Masterwork Tools that don't say "you," "your," or "your location". Yes, there is an explicit rule elsewhere, but it still leads to confusion. It should say "your barrier" or similar on it.
Here is the collapsed ceiling thread:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qg0f?Collapsed-Ceiling-Extra-Wording-or#21
Good to know, thanks for that link.
The "d4 for unlisted skills" in on page 11 of the rulebook.
Even if your character doesn’t have any of the skills listed for a check, you can still attempt the check (unless you’re trying to recharge a card; see Recharge on page 16), but your die is a d4.
A d4 skill can succeed at a 6 check, if you play enough blessings on it. But that probably isn't practical. For closing requirements, that is where you have to plan ahead. Send characters to locations they can succeed at closing. Or else just let the villain escape there, since if you defeat the villain you don't have to succeed at the closing requirement.
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It's one of those things that I can completely understand it working the way it works. There's just the easy to find basic rule of "if it says "you" or "your" then it's "just you." If it says "your location," then it's "any check at the location your character is at." Otherwise, it's "anyone's check anywhere." Then they print cards like Masterwork Tools that don't say "you," "your," or "your location". Yes, there is an explicit rule elsewhere, but it still leads to confusion. It should say "your barrier" or similar on it.
We had been playing mw lockpicks as if they can defeat anyone's barriers.
Is this in the FAQ? I don't remember seeing it.
A link to a thread?
Plus it seems too much that lockpicks can defeat ANY barrier...which is how they read on that front also.
No One Else Can Take Your Turn for You. Whenever you encounter a card or make a check, you—and only you—must resolve it. No other character can evade it, defeat it, acquire it, close it, decide what to do with it, or fail at doing any of those things. If Sajan encounters a monster, Merisiel can’t evade it for him. If Kyra encounters a Ghoul, Seoni can’t attempt the check to defeat it. If Amiri encounters a Battered Chest, Lini cannot use Thieves’ Tools against it. If Valeros encounters a Spyglass, Harsk can’t attempt the check to acquire it. If Ezren defeats a henchman at the Sandpoint Cathedral, Seelah can’t discard a blessing to close the location. If the game tells you to do something, you have to do it.
Vic discusses it here as well.
Essentially, the implied subject is you. So they let "you" (the person playing the card) defeat a barrier. But you can't defeat a card you didn't encounter. So you can only use it on barriers you encounter.
They can defeat any barrier up to a certain difficulty. Eventually, a lot of barriers will be above that. The veteran barriers scale with the adventure deck number, and eventually are too high for the tools to work on.
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No One Else Can Take Your Turn for You. Whenever you encounter a card or make a check, you—and only you—must resolve it. No other character can evade it, defeat it, acquire it, close it, decide what to do with it, or fail at doing any of those things. If Sajan encounters a monster, Merisiel can’t evade it for him. If Kyra encounters a Ghoul, Seoni can’t attempt the check to defeat it. If Amiri encounters a Battered Chest, Lini cannot use Thieves’ Tools against it. If Valeros encounters a Spyglass, Harsk can’t attempt the check to acquire it. If Ezren defeats a henchman at the Sandpoint Cathedral, Seelah can’t discard a blessing to close the location. If the game tells you to do something, you have to do it.Vic discusses it here as well.
Essentially, the implied subject is you. So they let "you" (the person playing the card) defeat a barrier. But you can't defeat a card you didn't encounter. So you can only use it on barriers you encounter.
They can defeat any barrier up to a certain difficulty. Eventually, a lot of barriers will be above that. The veteran barriers scale with the adventure deck number, and eventually are too high for the tools to work on.
Thx for that... better point this out to the group
The "d4 for unlisted skills" in on page 11 of the rulebook.
I love the fact that this has been pointed out three times now (in just this thread). <3
Chief Technical Officer
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In my decades in the industry, I have found all of these things to be true:
- Increasing the number of people who comment on something like this increases the amount of time and effort it takes to judge and incorporate comments from those people—and the amount of that increase looks more like an exponential curve than a line.
- While increasing the number of people who comment on it will reduce the number of errors, the number of errors found by each new person diminishes.
- No matter how many people comment on it, things will still get through.
If you're the mathematical type, you can model all three of these statements to get something very like an exponential curve approaching infinity. Following that curve to the end is impossible, so you have to stop someplace reasonable. It's my job to decide what's reasonable, and to be frank, one of the biggest factors in that is that we have to deliver products on a schedule so that we can release them at the time we promise them. I can't afford to add weeks to the process if all it will do is improve things by a fraction of a percent.