Have RotR Decks 4, 5, 6 2nd Printing ... I need 1st Printings


Pathfinder Adventure Card Game General Discussion


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Looking to see if anyone wants to help me out. I just got the final 3 decks from Rise of the Runelords, but they all came in as the 2nd printing. From the looks of it, the game store will only have 2nd going forward.

Unfortunately my base set, along with decks 1, 2, 3 are 1st printing.

Is there anyone out there looking to trade their 1st printings for 2nd's?

Preferably in the USA to cut down on shipping. I use the same user name on BGG.com if you'd like to contact me there.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Maps, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The only changes between first and second printings is some errors were corrected.

Unless you worry about the minor difference in color.

Sovereign Court

The size of the cards changed as well, and is noticeable to a lot of people.


Two questions: how can you tell something is printed in the second edition? And does skulls and shackles suffer from that as well?

Sovereign Court

For Rise of the Runelords, the first print was opened from the top, and was printed in China (mentioned on the back of the box). Second print was done in the US (mentioned on the back of the box) and opened on the side.

For Skulls & Shackles, all printing has been done by the same US printer that did the RotR second print, so all S&S cards match, and they match the second print of RotR.

They started with the Chinese printer, found that the quality wasn't as good as they wanted, and switched to the current printer.


Tyquaius wrote:
Two questions: how can you tell something is printed in the second edition? And does skulls and shackles suffer from that as well?

Andrew L Klein is talking about the deck boxes. US print deck boxes opens from the side, China ones open up top. As he also said, the back of the boxes have a small print of where it is printed (Printed in USA/Printed in China). I also noticed that the flaps on the deck boxes are longer for the USA prints.

The cards itself, though, have difference in colors that are noticeable even on the back of the cards. The China prints have darker ink and more...opaque?

The China cards are also slightly longer than the USA ones.

Not everyone is bothered by the difference but for those that are and have mixed prints, it is highly recommended to sleeve the cards so as not to notice them.

All S&S cards are printed in USA.


I've gotten a few responses on some shops that may have some 1st printings.

Another suggestion was to cover the top card, and then bottom draw when exploring.

I may end up doing that, rather than going through the pain of re-buying first printings (after verifying with the store), and then finding buyers/traders for my 2nd printings.

In the end, there is nothing "slight" about the differences. When placed next to each other, the difference is immediately noticeable, and would certainly be easy to spot during gameplay.

I understand that Paizo wanted to move printing operations, but I wish they would have used the original printers for the RotR reprints, and started anew with S&S.

direct link to a picture from BGG showing the difference:

Color Differences


If you want some background on this, check out this thread. I'm linking to a point in it where Vic Wertz comments about the change.

In a nutshell, the first printing was selling better than anticipated and was selling out. There had been issues with the printer they used for the first printing, (in fact, notice that first thread I linked started in September 2013, one month after the game was released, when there wasn't even a second printing, and people are complaining about the backs of the cards being different.) They could either reorder from the first printer and continue to have quality control issues (and have to wait for the cards to ship from China), or change printers to get better quality, faster delivery, but have slightly different cards. They chose the latter option.

I understand your feelings, I'm the kind of person that it would bother me too. If I'm in a store that has copies of RotR, I'll take note of what printing they are and can post that info in case it is helpful to anyone.


Weezknight wrote:

I've gotten a few responses on some shops that may have some 1st printings.

Another suggestion was to cover the top card, and then bottom draw when exploring.

I may end up doing that, rather than going through the pain of re-buying first printings (after verifying with the store), and then finding buyers/traders for my 2nd printings.

In the end, there is nothing "slight" about the differences. When placed next to each other, the difference is immediately noticeable, and would certainly be easy to spot during gameplay.

I understand that Paizo wanted to move printing operations, but I wish they would have used the original printers for the RotR reprints, and started anew with S&S.

direct link to a picture from BGG showing the difference:

Color Differences

You could just sleeve them all and probably not be able to tell. Especially if you're using the Pathfinder sleeves with the opaque backs with the pathfinder logo. I'd suggest getting one or two packs of totally clear sleeves for the 2 sided cards like locations, scenarios etc..

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