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It is based on tier, and would be upon reaching Tier 4. You can advance all the way through Adventure 6 never competing an Adventure so it can't be a reward from there. Tier 4, but only because that's the timeframe you got it in the old Season of the Shackles and main game, but because it says that new characters in Tier 4 get a role, and of course they wouldn't do that before anyone else gets one.
I haven't seen anything about this - was this confirmed in the VO forums?
Are T4 characters in Adventure 3 then able to pick a role (and Power Feat)?
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It's my deduction based on the logic in my post. I see no reason a T4 playing 3 wouldn't get a role. That same player could be playing Adventure 5.
Unless we're going to force every character to complete a level 3 adventure to get their role or miss out on feats (you only have 4 feats without a role), you have to do it by Tier. The rules say new players at Tier 4 get a role, and the Tier 3 pregen doesn't. Seems to me the only logical conclusion is take it when you move to T4
If you got a powerful role card playing Adventure 3, I don't see why anybody wouldn't overtier. Meanwhile, undertier T3 characters playing in Adventure 4 would be screwed.
It could be done the same way as Mythic Paths. "When you begin Adventure 4, choose a role card. For the rest of the AP, when you play a scenario in Adventure 4 or higher, the card you chose is your role card. After you choose, gain a power feat."
It could be done the same way as Mythic Paths. "When you begin Adventure 4, choose a role card. For the rest of the AP, when you play a scenario in Adventure 4 or higher, the card you chose is your role card. After you choose, gain a power feat."
As much as I loved being able to only take two power feats on my base card for some characters in Season 0, I think the best way to handle it with the tier system is gaining your role and a power feat when you advance to tier 4. With the rule you suggested, there can be some really funky game-working attempts to try to only having to take two power feats on your base character card. Just advance to Tier 3. Play one scenario to get your skill feat. Wait to play an Adventure 4 scenario to get your role and a power feat on it and then complete the scenario to get another power feat from your tier also applied to your role. Then you go back and finish the Adventure 3 scenarios to finally advance to Tier 4 and gain your die bump and whatever rewards are available for Adventure 3 completion. With the help of your Mythic Path, you probably won't be missing that Tier 3 power feat while you finish up Adventure 3, especially if it wasn't something you wanted for your character anyway.
The Tier System is meant to make it easier to get people to play in sessions that will let their characters advance. If we use rules that reward people for being more selective of the scenarios that they play, it is counter to the goal of the Tier System to begin with. So yeah, link roles to Tier advancement, please.
Any system will be exploited. Unfortunately, that's why we're just not allowed to have nice things.
I almost feel like it shouldn't be that you get a Role card when tier 4 (because that's _way_ exploitable), nor when you begin AD4 (cause you can do that real quick, then go back and play 3).
It might be viable to have you only have and be able to use a Role card during AD4+? That way if you really wanted to only check off 2 power you could contrive to time it so it goes on the Role card, but means you're missing a power for half of AD3 at least.
I suspect this is something we'll have to experiment with to get perfect.
Again, Tier 3s that play up (and especially Tier 3 pregens that start AD4) are screwed if you do that.
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Since we already have the mechanic from Umbral Dragon, why not just a rule that you select a role card at tier 4, but if you play an adventure 3 or lower scenario, bury your role card at the start of the scenario.
Any way you slice it, tier 3 characters playing up to 4 are going to have problems.
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Since we already have the mechanic from Umbral Dragon, why not just a rule that you select a role card at tier 4, but if you play an adventure 3 or lower scenario, bury your role card at the start of the scenario.
Any way you slice it, tier 3 characters playing up to 4 are going to have problems.
I like this option.
After reaching Tier 4, you may choose a role card. Once chosen, gain a power feat. For the rest of the Adventure Path when playing AD4+, your role is available. However, when playing scenarios from AD3 and below, bury your role card at the start of the scenario.
This should work for people gaming their tiers. So even if you game the system, you'll only be able to use the role card on AD 4-6 and not 3 and lower. While I understand that they could end up getting their role later on, I don't think a player should be getting their role card prior to Tier 4.
I feel like you're still highly encouraged to skip tiers to get your Role card ASAP for power manipulation (and an early power feat).
Tangenting for a moment. Is there a benefit to being able to gain 2 tiers in one AD? For example, at the moment you can advance to tier 3 by the end of AD1 by advancing a tier after 4 scenarios and then by finishing the AD. I find that method pretty awful, but presumably we could manufacture a scenario in which it was useful for catching someone up.
Perhaps if the end of adventure advanced you to tier of the AD#+1? so, if you're tier 2 already, does nothing, but if you're a tier 2 playing through AD3 with your friends, you could advance to tier 4 by the end of it?
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I don't think having to bury your role card for playing below AD4 is encouraging anything. I'd think it is discouraging people from playing the system.
Is there a benefit? I'd say the only benefit is if you are trying to catch up to people playing AD3 and ready to start AD4. We had the discussion at the start of SotR about why not advance a tier then advance when completing AD1 and I explained that strictly using tier advancement was designed for when people didn't make it every week and couldn't play catch-up all the time. If we were going to make it every week and play the game, we should use tier advancement based on completing adventures.
Back when we were talking the tier advancement rules prior to SotR, we knew there would be people gaming the system. And that organizers would need to dissuade people from doing that.
I don't think having to bury your role card for playing below AD4 is encouraging anything. I'd think it is discouraging people from playing the system.
The two examples I'm thinking of would be a character who wants all 4 starting power feats available to them, in which case they can start AD3 with 3 of those powers, get the 4th for 3B, and a character who only wants 2 of them can start AD3 with just 2 starting power feats checked and put the rest into their Role.
I'm not sure either result is an egregious gaming of the system, but I'd rather that folks were deciding between whether to tier up after 3D not before 3A, which I think would close the loop.
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Keith, I'm confused.
How do you not have 3 power feats assigned prior to gaining a role card?
Right now, as it stands, you gain the Role card and another power feat after completing AD3. Even if that is moved to gaining it after advancing to Tier 4, you'd still have 3 power feats assigned prior to Tier 4.
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I guess I find, for a lot of characters, that while the pre-role powers might not be "sexy" all the time, they are things you want to take to increase the basic functionality of your character - proficiencies, hand size, removing penalties from starting powers, and so forth. I think if you ignore too many of them with some engineered loop to maximize role card power picks, you're actually hurting yourself more than you realize.
If you bump your tier without playing scenarios (such as by playing 4 scenarios, bumping a tier, then playing the 5th scenario to finish an AD and bumping tier again), then you can end up not getting all the feats before you leave a tier. As I read things. So you'd start AD3 at tier 4 with 2 power feats from tiers 1-3, and a role card with an extra power feat. And you don't _really_ lose anything because you're just going to play every single AD with a tier 1 higher than it, so you'll still get all the feats (and an extra skill feat?)
"A character gains feats on his character card through the successful completion of scenarios. These scenarios can be from any season or adventure that is legal for the character to play. A character gains one skill feat after successfully completing one scenario, one power feat after successfully completing two scenarios, and one card feat after successfully completing four scenarios. Completing the same scenario multiple times does not count as progress towards these feats. You can gain only one feat of each type in each tier, unless instructed otherwise."
But maybe I missed a later line in the guide. I'm trying to find all the possible ways to game the system, rather than using it for its intended purpose. I realize we're also just saying "Don't do that." but may as well get things in their best shape for next season's guide I figure.
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Ahhh ... I was pretty sure we discussed this and Tanis stated that if you would advance after gaining your card feat to the next tier and then played scenario E+ and finish the Adventure, you'd gain all the missing feats with the Tier advancement ... according to the guide.
So you do 1-1A through 1-1D, advance to Tier 2.
Complete 1-1E, gain a skill feat, complete Adventure 1, gain the power and card feat and move to Tier 3.
That's part of the automatic tier advancement upon completion of an adventure.
So you're always going to gain at least 3 base power feats prior to the role.
EDIT: This was called "shooting yourself in the foot" method.
Hmm, that's worse in a way, though, because it means you can always play every AD with 3 extra feats. Anyhow, I'm more and more certain that the finish an adventure tier advancement needs to be limited in some sense.
Burying the Role card for AD3- sounds good to me, however it happens.
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Well, we went into the logistics of this more on the VO boards but yeah, it could be a problem and why we'd recommend not to play it that way.
I do like the idea of burying the Role card for AD3- ... I think that was a good idea. By the end of AD2, you're already cranked up 4 extra skill feats. (1 from 1-1E, 3 from Knight medals)