I'll give it a shot. First, I think you are confusing a couple of the products. PACG consists of two different, but related, "major" product lines:
Product 1: Adventure Paths
RotR is available, and S&S is releasing now. Each is a self contained game, for which you don't need class decks. Each comes with 11 characters (if you buy the character add-on decks).
RotR: Valeros (Fighter), Lem (Bard), Lini (Druid), Merisiel (Rogue), Sajan (Monk), Seelah (Paladin), Ezren (Wizard), Seoni (Sorcerer), Kyra (Cleric), Amiri (Barbarian), Harsk (Ranger)
S&S: Valeros (Fighter), Lem (Bard), Lini (Druid), Merisiel (Rogue), Alahazra (Oracle), Jirelle (Swashbuckler), Lirianne (Gunslinger), Feiya (Witch), Oloch (Warpriest), Damiel (Alchemist), Seltyiel (Magus)
You and your friends each choose a character and play through the adventure path. It is lots of fun. Only one of you has to buy the game, all the cards you need are in the 1 Base Set, 1 Character Add-on Deck, and 6 Adventure Decks (deck 1 comes in the Base Set for free).
The characters are inter-compatible, so you can use Sajan in S&S or even take S&S Valeros through RotR (the "repeat" characters have different skills and powers between the two versions).
Product 2: Class Decks
Class decks exist for two purposes. First, they can simply be used with RotR or S&S to give you more options for characters to play. Say you like Wizards, but you don't like Ezren. There are 3 wizards not named Ezren in the Wizard class deck.
Second, they allow you to play in organized play. In organized play, you may or may not know the people you are playing with. 1 person brings the Skull and Shackles stuff and everybody brings their own class deck. Your class deck has 4 characters to choose from. Plus it has all the cards that will ever comprise your "between games" character deck. Your character deck is only 15 cards to start with and gets up to around 20 cards or so. There are 97 potential cards for you deck in the class deck box, so there are lots of options for you to choose from as you build and grow your character.
Let's say you and I are both going to the local store to play. I'll be providing Skull and Shackles Base Set box, and I'll be bringing a class deck to play. You'll also be bringing a class deck. So you'll have your character and their deck and I'll have mine. We'll play a scenario, and during the scenario you'll probably acquire some cards. But I own those cards you acquired, because I was the one that provided the Base Set box we used. So when we're all done, you'll give me back those cards and instead unlock a card from your class deck to use to upgrade your character's deck. That way you go home with your cards and I go home with mine.
I hope that helps. It is a great game. I suggest trying it out. I'll be back in a bit with some videos.
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Ok. Videos. Mike Selinker (the game's designer) made this youtube playlist. And over here he gives his recommendations on which ones seem the most helpful.
There is the potential that the people making the videos get some rules wrong, but they should give you the feel for the game. The Starlit Citadel video is short and simple, so I'd start there. Then check out the Watch It Played Video. And for a video of a complete play through, Grey Elephant is great. Again, there might be a mistake here and there, but you'll get the feel for how the game works.
And I made up this guide to help with learning the rules.
Since you mention being an RPG player, I'll also mention that you can "accessorize" the game with minis or pawns if you want. And you can add in the story with the RPG adventure path. Or let these guys do it for you.
I'm not exactly sure how the PACG works, aside from I think it's supposed to be similar to the WoW CCG, which I never played. All I know is that each player gets a class deck, there's a communal adventure deck, and that you draw and play cards to proceed through the adventure, but that's about it. So I was wondering is people could answer a few questions for me.
How exactly does play progress?
You set up several locations (in fact, two more locations than you have players). The scenario tells you what locations to use; the location card tells you what cards go in the location deck. Each player picks a starting location, then somebody takes a turn to "explore" the location (look at cards in the location deck), encountering what he finds there. Banes (barriers, monsters, henchmen, villains) need to be overcome, boons (weapons, armor, spells, allies, blessings) need to be acquired. The object is threefold: acquire good stuff for your character, close out locations (to prevent the villain from escaping to them), defeat the villain. If you defeat the villain before time runs out (basically you have 30 total turns) you win. If not, or if you die, you lose.
Are you able to customize your class decks or are they set in stone?
You can customize them. In fact, as you play the game, you will customize - they'll end up different from how they started.
Can you use class decks from one adventure(say RotRL) with a different adventure(S&S) or are you stuck with whatever classes are put out for each adventure?
RotRL comes with 7 characters, each a different class, in the base set, and another four in the
character addon deck. S&S has the same numbers, but different classes. There are also now seven "class decks" for what the RPG would call core classes (bard, cleric, fighter, ranger, rogue, wizard) each of which contains four characters and enough cards to build decks for each of them (I think, there's 110 cards in each deck, of which 12 would be character cards, and each deck needs, iirc, 15 cards, so you'd even have some extras. You don't need these class decks, though, the 11 classes in the base set and addon deck are plenty.You can, I think, use classes from one base set in the other, but there may be some problems. There's a gunslinger in S&S, but none in RotRL, so if you used the gunslinger in the latter game, she would have no supporting cards (unless you took those from the S&S set too, but then you might upset the balance).
How does your character evolve through play, and how do you keep track of that between play sessions and between parts of an adventure?
He evolves by changing the cards in his deck, by gaining "feats" which can change his base skills (roll d12+1 instead of the original d12, for example) or the number of cards in his hand, or other powers.
I'm looking at this as an alternative to starting a second Pathfinder RPG group, due to limited time for planning a second full campaign. But I've put money into other things that I knew little to nothing about and had them become false starts way too often to risk spending $60+ blindly.
A friend of mine and I started with the RPG Beginner Box, but we found it's a lot easier to play the card game, and we haven't (yet) gone back to the RPG since.
If there's some kind of video that gives a rundown of the rules and goes through a session of the game, sort of like an episode of TableTop would, then that would probably go a long way towards answering a lot of my questions.
There are videos on YouTube. Look for... "Grey Elephant", I think he calls himself. He and his wife made videos of pretty much every scenario in RotRL.
My friend and I have run all 11 characters through the introductory adventure (which ends with Black Fang's Dungeon, if you're familiar with the RPG base set) and all or part of the first adventure (Burnt Offerings) in the RotRL path. We've got a ways to go, but we're having fun. BTW, Pathfinder (first the RPG and now the ACG) was my friend's first introduction to roleplaying games. I played D&D, Tekumel, Traveller and Harnmaster in the 70s and early 80s, but then didn't play for years until I discovered Pathfinder last spring (MMORPGs don't count).
Hawkmoon beat me to it, is shorter, and has good links. :-)
Now, into some of the details you ask about. Let's say you own the game and invite me over to play.
At the start of the game, each player will choose a character and build a character deck of 15 cards. You character will have a "deck list", telling you have many of each of the 6 type of "boon" cards you can have in your deck before and after each scenario. There are suggested deck lists, or you can build you own, choosing only cards that have the "Basic" trait in their upper left corner. You'll be RotR Valeros, for example, and you start with 5 weapons, 3 armors, 0 spells, 2 items, 2 allies, and 2 blessings. I'll be RotR Ezren and start with 1 weapon, 8 spells, 0 armors, 3 items, 3 allies and 0 blessings.
Besides the boons, there are also banes. These are the cards you have to defeat. There are two basic types: monsters and barriers.
You will play a scenario. The scenario card will tell you special rules for that scenario, and also how to setup the scenario. It will tell you what villain(s), henchmen, and locations to use. The locations will tell you how many of each of the 8 types of cards (the 6 boons and 2 banes) go into that location. You'll also take the appropriate villain(s) and henchmen and put 1 random one into each location. You'll shuffle up the locations for randomness, and then you and your fellow players will place your characters at locations.
You'll draw starting hands according to the rules. Valeros starts with a handsize of 4 with a favorite type of Weapon, so you draw 4 cards and one of them has to be a weapon or else you draw again. Ezren's handsize is 6 with a favorite of spell. So I'll draw 6 card, 1 of which must be a spell or I redraw. Then we play.
We take turns exploring the locations by encountering the cards. We try to acquire the boons and defeat the banes we encounter. To do that we'll use our skills (you can see Valero's here) as well as our powers and the cards we can play. Acquiring a weapon might take a Melee check for Valeros (1d10 +3) and he might have a card to add another d8 to that check. While if Ezren tried to acquire the same weapon, he'd use his Strength (1d6). A spell might let Ezren attempt to acquire it with his Arcane (1d12 +2) while Vaeros would have to try to acquire it with his Intelligence (1d6).
The cards we have might be playable to help each other, or they might just be able to help ourselves.
Hopefully, we'd win. And after the scenario ends, we'd have to rebuild our decks. Valeros can only keep 5 weapons, 0 spells, 3 armors etc. And Ezren can only keep 1 weapon, 8 spells, etc. We'll probably have more than that, so we will choose the ones we want to keep. And maybe we'll trade back and forth too if you have something I want and I have something you want.
When we win a scenario, we'll get a reward. It might just be a random card that we can use as an option for what we keep in our decks, or it might be a feat. A feat lets you check off one of those boxes on your card. If we got a skill feat, Valeros might check the +1 in his Strength. That would give him Strength of 1d10 +1 and Melee of 1d10 +4. Or maybe he puts it in his Dexterity to get 1d8 +1 for that skill. If we got a power feat, Valeros might upgrade his ability to assist my combat when we are at the same location from 1d4 to 1d4 +1. Or maybe he'd increase his hand size. And if we got a card feat maybe he'd increase the number of weapons he could keep from 5 to 6. Or increase his items from 2 to 3.
We'd keep playing, our decks would evolve over time and we'd keep getting feats. Eventually we'd pick one of the two roles associated with out characters. They open up even more options for power feats to develop our characters.
And hopefully in the end, we'd win the whole adventure path.
You can keep track of your character with the character sheets. And if you are only playing with the same people, the insert in the box has slots for you to store you "active" characters and their decks between scenarios.
And that is PACG in a nutshell.
Hawkmoon beat me to it, is shorter, and has good links. :-)
I was only shorter because that was only two-thirds or my post.
If you want to watch some actual plays to get a feel for the game, I highly recommend the GreyElephant Gaming/ Tim & Carmen Norris series on youtube beginning with this link for the first adventure. I think they get all the way through deck 4 eventually. The videos are high quality with good closeups of the cards sprinkled in and great commentary. On a couple of occasions they play something not quite correctly, as happens in many home games I am sure. That said, it is a great way to check out the game and see if it would be something you would enjoy.
When I'm asked that question, my concise answer is the following. The adventure card game is a simplified simulation of an RPG campaign. You will start as a low-level character with just a few powers and basic equipment. As you complete scenarios, you will improve your gear, your existing powers will get better, and you will gain new ones.
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Do you have a local store that has a copy of RotR base set that you can play? Watching videos can give you an idea about the game and the flow but actual play will let you know if it is something you want to invest in.
And like people have said in this thread, there are many ways to get into this game. You can buy the older Rise of the Runelords set and adventure decks. You can buy the newer Skull & Shackles set as it is coming out (second adventure deck is hitting stores now). OR if someone/someplace near you is running the organized play, you can show up with a class deck (like your character sheet) and play there.
I found that instead of thinking that your class/character deck is a deck of cards, it is more like a character sheet. That's the way you track things anyway ... with a character sheet and inventory.
But in any case, I'd suggest seeing if you can find some place local to try out the game then decide. If you are interested in OP, it does start this week so ask around if you're trying to find a session.