Nice one.... You win a spot in the can o worms weekly not this Mike contest.
Indeed the way I see it the full cure combo works... And indeed shouldn't.
We need Mike and Vic to get through the holidays and Wrath hangovers to nail this one too.
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A coupe of things to remember
Arabundi only has 1d8+1 divine, and a maximum of three wisdom upgrades. As a result, even if you max his wisdom, he is only going to successfully recharge a cure about 62% of the time. You need additional cards to boost his recharge ability to make this infinite.
Second, this combination requires two cure spells in hand to work. Arabundi can only get one cure spell in organized play, and even in regular play he only has two to four spell slots in his deck.
So, yes, you can go infinite, but it requires you to focus a large number of upgrades on that task, and a hand with at least four specific cards (or outside help).
edit: Remember that healing isn't your only option for an infinite combo. I think infinite Auguries is more of a problem than infinite healing.
"When you succeed as a check to recharge a spell, you may draw a card"
And "When you would recharge a spell, you may shuffle it into your deck (or put it on top of your deck) instead"
Play should work like this:
Display Cure
Shuffle the 1d4+1 cards into the appropriate deck.
Check to recharge.
If recharge was successful, draw a card, then put Cure on top of your deck.
If you can auto recharge cure, then it is a full heal for anyone else at your location. If you try it on your self, you end up with 1 cure shuffled in your deck, and one cure on top of your deck. (you still may get lucky and shuffle the other cure to the top of you deck).
It is close enough to an infinite loop that I think it should be fixed. I'm just not sure how to do so without changing her power to put the card on top.
Given where the power feats fall, you'd need to use every single one of them to actually pull this off, so it's not going to work for 95% of the AP
I am going to look into it more, but off the top of my head it didn't seem too bad given the factors mentioned above. To maximize it requires:
3 skill feasts in wisdom.
4 power feats from role card.
1 power feat before role card.
The limited spell cards would also be a factor. For Cure, you'd also be talking about needing everyone at your location.
I will look at it more later, but if anyone is really interested, build a Arabundi this way, build a location or two and see what you can do.
It doesn't look like an issue for organized play, especially this season.
As Joshua pointed out, there's only 1 Cure in the ranger class deck.
Secondly, for this to work well, you need 4 power feats on your role card. This season we don't get our role card until the end of adventure 4, so we're probably going to have at most 3 power feats on our role card.
I play Arabundi. I'm putting at least some of my skill feats in dexterity, because I fight with a d8 and I'm expected to be one of the more reliable fighters in the group. So it's harder to buff wisdom for the recharge rolls. Currently I don't expect to recharge Cure (I just Toad it).
...
I will look at it more later, but if anyone is really interested, build a Arabundi this way, build a location or two and see what you can do.
We made 3 or 4 tries yesterday in different types of scenarii. Indeed after all it's playable as is. The cost to play full healing strategy (need to move to locations where people are with less opportunities to temp close locations, less chance to draw blessings/allies to be able to reexplore, and so on...) pretty much balances the benefits on the average. In certain scnarii it's clear benefits, in others (when time is short for example) it's a disadvantage. Also depends obviously on the number of characters involved.
Bottom line, after all, IMHO, I stand corrected : no need to change it if ain't clearly broken.
With the recent swap in OP adventure rewards, it is now possible to exploit this flawlessly once you get the power feat in Adventure 5 (which would then be the 4th power feat on the role card) with the help from another player passing you either a cure or augury spell (I'd recommend augury for maximum cheese). You would need to take 2 skill feats bumping Wisdom, taking one of your base power feats to add 4 to checks to acquire spells with the divine trait, and then four role power feats to finish off the combo:
Add 2 (☑ 4) to your check to acquire (☑ or recharge) a spell that has the Divine trait. (the 4 is also on the base card so can be taken before getting the role card)
☑ When you succeed at a check to recharge a spell, you may draw a card.
☑ When you would recharge a spell, you may shuffle it into your deck (☑ or put it on top of your deck) instead.
With +2 to Wisdom, a +4 to recharge Divine spells, and divine skill of d8 + 1, you have a net +7 and will always roll at least a 1, hence you will always recharge a cure or augury spell barring things making the check more difficult. And with the aforementioned rewards changes to OP, this is doable the moment you get your power feat in Adventure 5 (no idea when that is, but it means you'll be able to at the very least do these shenanigans for all of Adventure 6).
The main downside to this exploit is that it only works at your own location, so outside of a means of moving out-of-band you're looking at wasting a lot of turns doing this. The fact that you can move along with the ship helps (so if you manage to get ahold of that augury from another player everyone can pile up at the same location and move as a group while you rig the top of the deck to be whatever-it-is you want it to be; you can be at a different location each turn thanks to everyone being able to move with the ship)
Looks doable. I'm playing Arabundi, and I wouldn't want to play this way. It doesn't look like much fun.
You could but there would be no reason to. Cure + Augury gives stacking the deck as well as infinite healing for everyone except yourself. That said, while doable I echo elcoderdude's statement about it being a horribly unfun way to play.
I agree that it's a horribly unfun way to play. Some people also have a tendency to do unfun things to win.
I, again, reference Soren Johnson's article on this type of thing: here.
You get a power feat when you get your role card in OP AD3. OP AD4 you get 2 power feats (one for the adventure itself and 1 in 0-4C). OP 0-5A you get another power feat, so the earliest you can do this in OP is AD4 (you need a base power feat and 3 role power feats).
With the AP adventure you'll have to wait until AD5.
Of course, while this trivializes much of the encounter pool it's not an automatic win button like double Resto, it's like Radillo's pre-errata double Augury, which is almost like a win button.
So two lessons here I guess:
1) Allowing you to tutor and put on top of deck + draw a card is a dangerous combo in this game (or any combination of tutor and pull it into your hand), especially in the hands of a divine caster.
2) Someone _will_ eventually point out these things.
If Arabundi gets errata'd, I'd imagine that he'd get the same treatment as Restoration; something like "When you would recharge a spell, you may display it instead. Shuffle it into your deck ([] or put it on top of your deck) at the end of your turn." Radillo's fix wouldn't work on him because the Ranger class deck doesn't have a lot of Attack spells in it.
There are a couple of other options...
1. Make the power to draw a card happen before you actually recharge the card...
"When you succeed at a check to recharge a spell, before you recharge it, you may draw a card."
2. Make the power to put it on top of your deck not apply to certain cards...
"When you would recharge a spell, you may shuffle it into your deck (or, if it doesn't have the Healing trait, put it on top of your deck) instead."
The former makes it so that it take a 3 card cycle to keep play the same cards, so not made impossible, just requiring more cards and taking longer. The latter makes stops the infinite heal (though still lets you shuffle healing cards) but doesn't stop cycling Augury or other spells.
I don't see how that closes up the loop here, it clarifies that you can't loop with only one spell, but you can still loop with two.
1. Play spell A (which we'll call Cure for the purpose of this example).
2. Roll the check to recharge Cure (automatic success if the feats mentioned above are taken), and succeed.
3. Draw a card (which card it is doesn't matter for this).
4. Place Cure on top of your deck.
5. Play spell B (which we'll call Augury).
6. Roll the check to recharge Augury (also automatic success with the above feats), and succeed.
7. Draw Cure.
8. Place Augury on top of your deck.
9. Play Cure.
10. Succeed at recharge check.
11. Draw Augury.
12. Place Cure on top of your deck.
13. Go to step 5.
Overall, I like the rule in that it clarifies sequencing, but it isn't enough to fully stop the shenanigans with Arabundi.
Is resolving a check clearly defined enough? Or is it just understood to mean "doing the thing you were checking to see if you could do"?
I do like this idea since it does not clearly explain the timing of things. But like skizzerz says, it doesn't stop Arabundi, which I hadn't realized when I made my suggestion. I´m going to look through some other cards to see if anything comes to mind.
Agree with skizzerz and hawkmoon here. It won't stop the Arabundi shenanigans; I had talked to Mike in person yesterday about this, and about how being about to persistently tutor recharged cards can be a problem.
I have a third solution in addition to the two I mentioned above (the "Restoration fix" and the "Radillo fix") - that is to limit Arabundi's draw to once a turn. "At the end of the explore phase, if you succeeded at a check to recharge a spell, draw a card." But that kind of wrecks the intention of it (of course, the intention had unfortunate implications)
I'm going to highlight some of the other characters who have "draw a card":
Vika (CD - both roles): Since the recharge is a card that has the Bludgeoning trait, and it only activates on other people's turns, it's not even remotely close to breakable.
Kyra (RotR - Healer role): She draws a card after her "replace the explore" heal. This is not broken because it can only be done once a turn.
Tarlin (CD - Noble Scion): Equivalent to Kyra's.
Jirelle (S&S - Duelist): Activates on acquires, which are limited by nature. No problem here.
Lirianne (S&S - Musketeer): (the one with "If you begin your turn with no weapons in hand") Once per turn, hard to break.
Lirianne (S&S - Musketeer): ("When you play a weapon that has the Firearm trait...") the timing on this one is limited as well.
RotR Sajan, Harsk and Ezren have various abilities that allow you to draw but they are all phase-limited so they're hard to break.
Seltyiel (S&S - Marauder): This may be breakable. You can draw 2 cards off of a recharge of a Pirate/Swashbuckling trait. I'll need a bit of time to think about how to break this one; all the ideas I can think of at this point don't give you a lot of room to maneuver.
Lem (Class Deck - Tent Preacher/Arcane Tinkerer): you can only break something like this with a Divine/Arcane spell that draws multiple cards like Restoration, which was fixed already, because the ability doesn't give you more cards, it just allows you to cycle them.
Wu Shen (Class Deck - Death Whisperer): tied to defeating a monster, so not broken.
Merisiel (Class Deck - Crack Shot): Phase-limited, so no.
Olenjack (Class Deck - Spider): The possibility is remote, but there's a miniscule chance, since it uses "when you succeed at a Diplomacy or Perception check". Something involving Conch Shell would probably be the easiest way.
Seoni (Class Deck - Tattooed Mystic): It relies on damaging yourself, so most likely it can't be broken, but maybe.
Darago (Class Deck - Necromancer): relies on banishing monsters, which requires you to defeat them. Probably not.
Radillo (Class Deck - Arcane Collector): Relies on acquires. No.
So out of all the characters who can draw cards off a trigger, S&S Seltyiel and CD Olenjack may be possible to loop. They're much harder than Arabundi though.
Phase-limiting the draw I think can fix it as well. But it kind of changes the intention of the ability.
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Well it wont stop the Arabundi shenanigans and so what ?
I think it's not really a problem that need a fix.
PACG is cooperative and not competitive, if someone want to optimize Arabundi and waste feats to only Cure or Augure during his play session it's his problem.
He "losts" one character for the adventure that can't do much else than that...
I browse all the comments here, and no one say they will play Arabundi like that.
So, ok there is a infinite loop, but play as you want respecting the rules :)