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We had our PFSACG kick-off tonight, starting with scenario 1: Ghosts of the Deep. And it was immediately apparent that the Season of the Shackles is going to be a fun but challenging experience.
We had two tables. Table 1 had four players and successfully completed the scenario, but barely. Table 2 had 5 players and failed to succeed before the timer ran out, and three characters were a card draw away from death.
How did everyone else fare with the first Scenario?
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I've had 3 tables play through it so far. Two tables of three and one table of 4. They all succeeded with no deaths though the cleric at one of the three person tables nearly decked himself before casting a cure. Close call there. ;)
I for one had a ton of fun and really look forward to this season. =)
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Of the three tables I saw play (including mine), there were some very-near-deaths and some very-near-losses, but no actual deaths and no actual losses. Good fun.
There was also this Facebook post from Gaby.
Mike Selinker is not only a non-helpful member of our party in OP, he is an actual detriment.
I'm still working on drumming up interest for the Card Guild, so it was just me and a friend playing the scenario on Sunday. I used my old buddy Lem (S&S Ver.) while he used Tontelizi (gnome fighter). We stuck together pretty much the whole time, boosting each others' rolls. We were in control of the situation the whole time and it was a relatively easy win for us. It helped that I didn't fail a single spell recharge the whole game, so we always had a Cure when we needed it. We had a lot of fun. It was a good change from us both dying horribly twice on the first and second scenario of the base set adventure path.
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My group played both Ghosts of the Deep and Lone Shark with a party of six. Both times we were down to maybe two or three cards left in the blessing dek, though everyone's character decks were allright. Heck, on Lone Shark we had two full location decks and a partial Lonely Island to close besides the boss when we took him out. Good thing my Conch Shell showed him on my second turn..
While both were enjoyable and very tense, I have to say that they don't seem at all friendly to new players. You have to choose the right characters, build correctly, and make good decisions or you're in trouble. Particurarly with Lone Shark.
Also don't think six people is a good table size for it,but that's what we had.
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Report from the Kansas City area:
We're still drumming up interest in our area as well and I wanted to keep it a little low key for the first scenario, so we had 3 people out for On the Horizon first (Me and 3 players: I was helping with rule understanding), and then we followed up with Ghosts of the Deep (Just 3 people this time, one person had to go to work.)
Since you wanted to know how Ghosts of the deep went - here you go:
Characters Used: Sorcerer Valendron, Rogue Wu Jen, Cleric Zarlova.
We ended up doing the split up tactics and closed 2 locations pretty quickly, Valendron ended up having 1 haunt, as did Wu Jen. As we're working through the last 3 decks, despite Zarlova's best efforts to keep everyone up, both the Cleric and the Sorcerer is hurting pretty badly. We start exploring Raker Shoals and the Sorcerer dies due to finding a harpoon trap and taking 1 point of damage too much and bites the dust.
The cleric ends up finding of the haunts and the rogue ends up finding the last one and we end up trapping the villian at the top of the rocky cliffs due to a well timed peek at the top of the deck. With 9 turns left on the clock, the Cleric and Rogue uses a few rounds to draw some extra cards from the deck and get a good amount of equipment ready. Wu Jen starts the combat off with the Villian and he passes the Fort check using an emerald of dex and a blessing and passes his combat. Zarlova takes the second combat and blasts the villian with Holy Light, banishing the Ghosts of the Deep.
Overall, everything went well and now that I have an idea of what the scenarios are going to look like (Had our VC print them up for me), I'm going to start trying to expand to other stores and get ready for our con in November.
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While both were enjoyable and very tense, I have to say that they don't seem at all friendly to new players. You have to choose the right characters, build correctly, and make good decisions or you're in trouble. Particurarly with Lone Shark.
Just based on scenario 1, I'm inclined to partially agree.
It is definitely a challenge right out of the gate. I wondered if perhaps things would start out in a way that eases new gamers into the growing difficulty of the game. But dealing with haunts that make all checks more difficult when you're using only Basic cards, some of which may not be very helpful to you at all but had to incorporate them to build your starting character... It's a bit rough.
On the other hand, because most Class Decks don't have the exact number of Basic cards to build every character, some will start with the definite advantage of having an Elite card or two at the start of the campaign. That's pretty significant, so it makes sense that you'd want to compensate with a little higher difficulty.
So, while the challenge was a little surprising, I don't think it's completely unwarranted. As a coordinator though, I do realize that when you're teaching players a new game (like we had for scenario 1), losing their first game can leave a bitter taste in their mouths. It's the same reason why I teach co-op games like Pandemic, Forbidden Desert or Flash Point using the "Easy Game" rules; the excitement of winning their first game hooks them and keeps them coming back for more, and then they feel ready to be challenged.
Note that Vic said that they do not intend for the guild to be for beginners.
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Right. But for many, it's going to be their first exposure to the game. Locally, we have lots of players that were never interested in the PACG until we launched the Adventure Card Guild.
Pathfinder Society has specific scenarios designed for newcomers to not only the Pathfinder RPG, but roleplaying games in general. I think for future seasons, having either the demo scenario (On the Horizon) and/or Scenario 1 function under the assumption of possible new players would go a long ways towards making the PFSACG even more enticing.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I can recap my Gen Con experience with this scenario.
First we had six players. We overrode the organizer's recommendations of not playing that large a group because we were all a group friends that wanted to play together. We understood things would be tougher. We also had four newbies in our group - friends I normally only see at Gen Con and who had not played the game much at all.
The person helping set up our table was nice but his explanations were a bit long winded and confusing. I know he meant well and I certainly don't want to pick on a volunteer but it ended up wasting about ten minutes of what turned out to be a tight time frame.
We had the necromancer wizard, the "allies" cleric, CD Merisiel, Flenta, one of the sorcerers(the one whose built in blast has Mental) and CD Lem. Can you tell I'm bad with names?
Things went smoothly at first, we closed two locations, then we had a run of hands that stalled - everybody had cards they couldn't really use so we went about two rounds where no one had much in the way of extra explores, which is tough in six player. The sorcerer player found the villain, but it was a two check combat and he had only one spell in hand - and the villain was immune to mental so the built in blast was useless. So he evaded the villain. At least now we knew where the villain was.
In retrospect we should have spread out, sent Flenta or Merisiel over to fight the guy, and gone for the temp close win. But with mostly newbies and me more used to 2-3 person games I didn't think of that until afterward. We were running short of RL time in the slot so we rushed through the last round just trying to at least finish if not win. My cleric ended up dying because of a Vine creeper hitting my deck directly, and since I was rushing I hadn't tracked my cards well.
End result is one death, and a loss to the blessing deck running out about 2 minutes before real life time was called. Only my girlfriend intends to continue her character so we turned in the chronicle sheet for her benefit, but I'm not sure she's remembered to actually register herself on the site. I don't know if she even has a PFS ID#. I registered my cleric so he could properly be logged as toast :). I didn't notice that I'd be entitled to an upgrade on my new character so I'll just go without since I didn't pick anything.
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Right. But for many, it's going to be their first exposure to the game. Locally, we have lots of players that were never interested in the PACG until we launched the Adventure Card Guild.
Pathfinder Society has specific scenarios designed for newcomers to not only the Pathfinder RPG, but roleplaying games in general. I think for future seasons, having either the demo scenario (On the Horizon) and/or Scenario 1 function under the assumption of possible new players would go a long ways towards making the PFSACG even more enticing.
I think using On the Horizon to teach people the game is a great idea. It gives a mini-Chronicle sheet as a reward that players can use to get a leg up for their first OP scenario.
Owner - Griffonest Games
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For On the Horizon, characters would get two deck upgrades? One for the stuff they acquired and another as adventure reward?
Also, is a character considered to have completed an adventure if they only do some of the scenarios from it? Must ALL be completed to earn that reward?
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I'm guessing that the rewards from completing the adventure means that you have to complete ALL the scenarios from it. With the base game, you're not supposed to get to go to the next scenario without completing the previous one first.
I'm going to piggy-back off of your question Scott and ask this one: Does the players have to complete the scenarios in order to receive the adventure rewards or can they do them in any order?
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We beat Ghosts by the skin of our teeth, with 4 players. We literally one on the last blessing. 2 fighters, a pregen rogue and a bard.
It really was more about the clearing through locations quick enough, rather than losing our cards to damage.
I think I'd want to play through the scenario 3 or 4 times for upgrades before continuing on though.
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Our experience of three: Merisiel, Amaryllis, and Kyra. We dispatched Ghosts of the Deep fairly easily, two whole blessings left to draw from and only Amaryllis died... During The Lone Shark Amaryllis 1002 hung with Kyra while Merisiel blew through the Lonely Isle like a BOSS. The Brine Dragon Hunt was easy as far as turns went because we were using several of those turns to run back to Kyra for some healing, character decks were bleeding like a sieve.
We also played Ghosts of the Deep with five people total (2 new guys of our home group using pregen decks I built for them). One of those new guys was...whining? 3/4 of the way through, "There's no way to finish this in time, it's too hard, how can you possibly beat this.." all the way to the last blessing card left to pull when we got the Boss, I explained how to temporarily close the last locations and come out with a win. I said, "That's how". I can't wait until next week when our five-man home group takes on The Lone Shark, I'll try to get a video recording of our resident Doomsday guy:)
Where can I find these scenarios? I have looked all over the website. Maybe I am just missing something.
You can get 0-0 here:
http://paizo.com/products/btpy99aw
The player was using a pregen Lem. That means it was the Lem from that Class Deck which has a spellcasting focus. S&S Lem is the only one with the Finesse ability.
What pluvia said; I'm betting they got confused between the two when making the pregen's deck list, as there really isn't any reason the Class Deck Lem would ever pick a rapier over a light crossbow, since both are basic cards from the B deck.
Also, keep in mind that the Class Deck Lem is not, and can not become, proficient in weapons, so using the rapier means increasing the difficulty by four...
Yup, looks like an error. I'll correct it in the next version of the guide.
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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We ran two sessions last night of Ghosts of the Deep. First slot we had 3 players (Valeros, Amaryllis, and Tarlin) Tarlin and Valeros both got pretty close to death, but we managed to survive, even if we didn't win.
The second slot we tried again, and added Harsk (store owner got to get a game in, was too busy first slot). Again, everyone but Amaryllis got close to death a couple of times, and we lost by a round maybe two. We probably would have won the second time if we hadn't had some really (REALLY) bad rolls. The player of Tarlin rolled a ton of ones (especially when it really counted...)
We still had fun. My wife played Amaryllis, and I had never been able to interest her in RotRACG, but she tried the ACGOP and had fun, and even went as far as suggesting we play some at home. So, even though we lost, it was still successful in my eyes. :D
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Last week we did Ghosts of the Deep with 6 players.
3 players used pregen decks.
We did not have a problem for the first couple of turns, we got lucky and closed 3 locations quickly.
During the 3rd turn, Valeros got the Goblin Weilding barrier, handily defeated Riptide Grindylow, then rolled a 3 on his 2d6 (using a blessing) on his check to defeat the ship. With 1 Ghost, he missed by four.
Since he did not have enough cards to erase the damage, the ship was damaged.
We then discovered a very BIG problem. None of the class deck characters, especially the pregens, have the Craft skill to repair.
Normally I don't think it would be so bad, but we had also ran into the Goblin Keelhauling barrier, defeated it, and the character doing so, hand a hand size of 5, so we were on track to have 2 plunder cards each.
We then discovered a very BIG problem. None of the class deck characters, especially the pregens, have the Craft skill to repair.
Actually, it goes deeper than that. All the class decks are "adventure path agnostic", meaning they don't have any access to the special mechanics related to a particular adventure path.
So none of them have firearms or abilities tied to ships, for example. We can assume they won't have anything related to the mythic rules for Wrath of the Righteous.
This means the Class Decks will be, at best, an annual product -- and it wouldn't surprise me if it was closer to a 15-to-18-month cycle. The good side of this is that it lets Paizo focus on developing and producing the adventure paths. The bad side is that Organized Play characters are doubly handicapped compared to Adventure Mode characters: they won't be able to optimize their deck based on their abilities, and they will be forced to largely ignore innovations specific to an adventure path.
Just fyi: Vika, one of the fighters has craft.
Seoni can also take the Craft skill (Charisma +1) on one of her role cards.
My first play with Tanis is already documented on the blog, but I replayed with my team today. It wasn't too hard even though the Villain was in the last deck because we blitzed through the first two monster-laden locations.
Ironically, even though I had great combat skills, I think I only encountered 2 monsters.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Last week we did Ghosts of the Deep with 6 players.
3 players used pregen decks.
We did not have a problem for the first couple of turns, we got lucky and closed 3 locations quickly.
During the 3rd turn, Valeros got the Goblin Weilding barrier, handily defeated Riptide Grindylow, then rolled a 3 on his 2d6 (using a blessing) on his check to defeat the ship. With 1 Ghost, he missed by four.
Since he did not have enough cards to erase the damage, the ship was damaged.
We then discovered a very BIG problem. None of the class deck characters, especially the pregens, have the Craft skill to repair.Normally I don't think it would be so bad, but we had also ran into the Goblin Keelhauling barrier, defeated it, and the character doing so, hand a hand size of 5, so we were on track to have 2 plunder cards each.
One thing you may have missed regarding structural damage: anyone can discard cards to negate it. It doesn't have to be the person making the check. So you can spread the damage around - in your case, four of you could have discarded one card each to negate the damage. In my groups that's often how we deal with it so as to not have one person risk death by discarding too much at once.
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One thing you may have missed regarding structural damage: anyone can discard cards to negate it. It doesn't have to be the person making the check. So you can spread the damage around - in your case, four of you could have discarded one card each to negate the damage. In my groups that's often how we deal with it so as to not have one person risk death by discarding too much at once.Last week we did Ghosts of the Deep with 6 players.
3 players used pregen decks.
We did not have a problem for the first couple of turns, we got lucky and closed 3 locations quickly.
During the 3rd turn, Valeros got the Goblin Weilding barrier, handily defeated Riptide Grindylow, then rolled a 3 on his 2d6 (using a blessing) on his check to defeat the ship. With 1 Ghost, he missed by four.
Since he did not have enough cards to erase the damage, the ship was damaged.
We then discovered a very BIG problem. None of the class deck characters, especially the pregens, have the Craft skill to repair.Normally I don't think it would be so bad, but we had also ran into the Goblin Keelhauling barrier, defeated it, and the character doing so, hand a hand size of 5, so we were on track to have 2 plunder cards each.
Also, you can only ever gain one upgrade card per game from the plunder mechanic, regardless of how many plunder cards you have.
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Our group played this last night, and we had 4 new players to make a table of six. We started out like gangbusters closing 4 locations in the first round due to lucky shuffles of the henchmen. After that, the wheels started coming off...in the end we had 2 locations that needed to be closed due to issues dealing with barriers and on the next to last blessing I ran into Arron Ivy without a single offensive item to be found... I got 2 blessing to jack my piddly d4 into 3d4 to try and beat a DC 11, and missed by 1. After shuffling him back into the location deck, we were unable to find him again with the last blessing...and lost.
Our group played this last night, and we had 4 new players to make a table of six. We started out like gangbusters closing 4 locations in the first round due to lucky shuffles of the henchmen. After that, the wheels started coming off...in the end we had 2 locations that needed to be closed due to issues dealing with barriers and on the next to last blessing I ran into Arron Ivy without a single offensive item to be found... I got 2 blessing to jack my piddly d4 into 3d4 to try and beat a DC 11, and missed by 1. After shuffling him back into the location deck, we were unable to find him again with the last blessing...and lost.
That was frustrating! I didn't think there was any way we were going to lose after such a successful first round. I still think that pushing through our decks by voluntary discards might have been what went wrong. That ability really hit home with me during our game. Not until it was too late of course.
Also, CURE is just about useless in the end game which hadn't occurred to me either until no one had any blessings, but we only have 4-5 blessing deck cards left which means none of them would have gotten another turn to draw up and find more blessings.
Oh well. Great game and fun times. Thanks again for running everything! We'll beat a scenario sooner or later.
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I've played it twice so far and will be playing it another time next week.
Group 1 was Flenta, Kyra, Ezren and Wrathack. We got through the scenario fairly well. Some decent dice rolls helped. And good placement of Henchmen. Had Arron escaped to Raker Shoals early on. But overall, it was a good balance of characters and we finished with 8 cards left in the Blessings deck.
Group 2 (last night) was a lot tougher. We had Seoni, Tontelizi and Kyra. Seoni (me) almost died a couple times. Had to be Cured both times. We had some very bad dice rolls, mostly on acquiring boons and also on barriers as well as con/dex checks (which pushed up difficulties). Luckily the Haunts attached themselves to Kyra and Tontelizi. And a couple of locations were closed early. We saved Raker Shoals for last. Arron was at the bottom of the deck (there were a couple of reshuffles for failed combats). Last card of the Blessings deck. Seoni took the first combat with ease. Kyra took the second with an exact roll. So last blessing of the deck; last card in the location deck; exact roll to defeat. It was a good win.
Need to reset my set for Tuesday ... LOL
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Last week we did Ghosts of the Deep with 6 players.
Since he did not have enough cards to erase the damage, the ship was damaged.
Tim, something that stood out to me when I read this ... you do know that anyone can discard cards to reduce structural damage to the ship. It does not have to be the person whose turn it is.
Just checking ...
With Raker Shoals, we did some strategic discards as we went through the entire location deck.
So I had the day off work today and since I'll be trying to run as many of the first six scenarios at my local game store tomorrow, I decided to try Ghosts of the Deep solo, single character style.... Yeah.
So first I tried with Olenjack and man is he bad on his own! Especially with only basic cards. His ability with poison combat wouldn't have been too much help in this scenario due to the undead, but it's impossible for him to even use it right out the box. I played and failed three times after getting to a point where death was imminent if I explored any more, and just conceded (let the Blessing Deck run out). Ended with an Item B, Blessing 1, and Ally B as my upgrades. The most frustrating moment while playing Olenjack was when I encountered a Large Chest barrier, beating it, rolling a 4 on the die to get 4 weapons(!), and then drawing nothing by Weapon B cards.... Yeah, with a d4 Strength, just a d8 Dexterity with no Ranged, no Finesse ability, and no Weapon Proficiency, the B weapons in the Rogue class deck are pretty much crap for Olenjack. Yeah, the Shock Longbow +1 would be awesome as a Weapon B if it didn't have the non-proficient penalty. Never getting a Weapon 1 card during the three plays was a major bummer and that Large Chest was just cruel. The Deathbane Light Crossbow +1 would be SO much help for him! Especially in the first scenario.
After that I gave Agna the ranger a shot. I felt like she would do much better, but she had a tendency to be plagued by bad dice rolls. She ended the first scenario with a concede and didn't receive a single card. Rolled to get a random upgrade card and pulled a Weapon B. Yay! She could now use her Offhand combat power! So then it was on to the second game I played with her. Again, she was having a lot of bad luck. She was getting to the point when she was going to have to concede again, but she went ahead and explored. Man Overboard! She failed the initial Dexterity check and then it was a death sentence. I didn't realize that she only had a d6 Constitution and she didn't have anything to help her. So yeah, my first OP character death. At least it was before she made any real progress. I'll just have to make sure when I play with her little sister (Agna 2), I'll need to be a little more careful and not go alone.
Very lat to the party here, but while we are waiting on S&S deck 3, my wife and I decided to start some organized play. She chose Merisiel, I chose Arabundi, only to discover I'd be forced to take 2 Melee weapons. Oh well.
Things seemed to start out great, got two locations closed quickly and found, but failed against the villain at a 4th. Decided to get eh Fog Bank closed, before heading back to Raker Shoals. We got it closed, headed back to Raker Shoals with our decks a little light, but plenty of turns in the blessing deck. Then things went south fast.
We started "Taking on Water" while Merisiel was commanding our ship. Arabundi was the only one with a legit shot to banish that, but with 2 Haunts it was a tall task. Next I failed to recharge my Cure spell. The ship was wrecked for a few turns, and Raker Shoals plus the barrier started eating up the once abundant blessing deck. Then we hit Lookout Duty. Now if we wanted to even find the villain, we'd have to either get rid of Lookout Duty, or start using cards to explore and risk our deaths. A life of piracy seems to be rather unsafe.
Thankfully, Arabundi managed to defeat Lookout Duty after it being face up for 1 turn. With 3 cards in the blessing deck, and the fact that Taking on Water could basically end the game on any turn, Merisiel explored twice on her turn and found the villain. Arabundi had picked up a Blessing of Achaekek, and we were able to squeak out the victory.
Merisiel made up for her bad luck with blessings by picking our random weapon rewards. Shock Longbow +1 for her, Returning Throwing Axe for Arabundi. She also got a deck 1 item upgrade (Helpful Haversack) and Arabundi took a deck 1 ally upgrade and took the Toad to decrease the risk of losing his Cure again.
If my estimations are correct, there is an outside chance I'll get S&S deck 3 tomorrow, so Merisiel and Arabundi might be sailing around for a while before their next adventure.
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I chose Arabundi, only to discover I'd be forced to take 2 Melee weapons. Oh well.
Just to offer a tip for down the line: you may find a bludgeoning weapon to come in handy come scenario 5, so if you've got a quarterstaff in your deck it may be prudent to hold onto that and pitch something else to make room for your shiny new Returning Axe +1. Holy Light also comes in handy in this regard.
(elcoderdude and I just finished Adventure 1 this past Thursday. He played Arabundi, and I played Meliski. And in reference to Arabundi needing to carry a couple of melee weapons, I was rather grateful for the loaner quarterstaff in Scenario 1 that turned into a loaner magic Boarding Pike for Scenarios 2 through 4).
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Last week we did Ghosts of the Deep with 6 players.
Since he did not have enough cards to erase the damage, the ship was damaged.
Tim, something that stood out to me when I read this ... you do know that anyone can discard cards to reduce structural damage to the ship. It does not have to be the person whose turn it is.
Just checking ...
With Raker Shoals, we did some strategic discards as we went through the entire location deck.
At the time I had the rule wrong. I thought only the player at the time could discard.
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... you do know that anyone can discard cards to reduce structural damage to the ship. It does not have to be the person whose turn it is.At the time I had the rule wrong. I thought only the player at the time could discard.
Yeah, just like Jirelle's power which can be used on any player's turn, any player may discard cards to decrease structural damage whether it is their turn or someone else's.
We tried this scenario three times with Agna, Radillo and Lem and failed every time. We added Tarlin to the mix, and we passed pretty easily. I think the suggested party size of 4 made the difference.