philosorapt0r brings up some really interesting design points that I am curious about the designers' mindset on too.
I suspect the reason Alain can spec into some self-healing is that he doesn't have Cure. Seelah is a similar character with virtually identical stats and deck composition, but can pack cures.
As we discovered in Skull&Shackles (with 3 of our 4 party members packing 2 heals each), heals are insanely powerful, as it lets their owner aggressively use blessings and explore-again allies, explore aggressively in general, and then just heal the cards back and cycle through one's deck. When you can heal yourself at almost any moment, on anyone's turn, there's little risk of death (whereas someone close to death needing to bum a cure off someone has wait to get to them, and bad things might happen in between).
Adowyn, who I use as a comparison because she is also awesome (and well designed with a lot of options available to her at any moment), can also start with 2 cures. I think she flies under the radar a bit more, because it's less obvious how good she is.
One thing that does bug me about Alain is that you only need 1 explore-again mount in your deck to get the most out of this ability. Part of the fun of this game is slowly building your deck over time and gradually getting your engine going, until you get super powerful. Whether it's Damiel going all items, Ezren with spells, etc. Accumulating 5 mount allies in your should be rewarding, but right now you only need 1 in your deck.
For example, in our S&S campaign Allhazra ended up with almost every single card in her deck Divine, and would typically take 6 or more actions per turn, using her ability to recharge a Divine card to remotely scout any location (and encounter the card if it was a boon - which fed back into itself for more scouting or exploring). She got even more powerful when she picked up Shapechange and her hand size went from 8 to 10. It was pretty cool to watch. I suspect people aren't complaining about Allhazra taking 6 actions a turn because they haven't seen this playstyle in action, and it also takes a bunch of work to get to that point. Alain's ability, on the other hand, comes in strong from the get-go (although people didn't seem to realize it until this thread, so I suspect people also don't realize how strong some of the other characters are too if you spec/build/play them right).
Another thing that is fun to do is to help out on other people's turns. It adds some more interplay to the game; e.g. Adowyn scouting 2 more cards in between someone else's actions if she's there with them. Similarly, Alain can recharge a card to get a mount, and then play it to move him and another player with him out of an undesirable location or to where needed. Or recharge 2 cards to move to someone and then move them. It would be a shame to lose this by sticking "At the beginning of your turn" in front of the ability.
I do think closing more than one location per turn is too powerful though.
It will be really interesting to see the game designers' intent on this one.
EDIT: I actually really like Hawkmoon's suggestion: something like, at the beginning of your turn recharge X cards to get X mounts. It has the nice card-collection property that you now want to put multiple mounts into your deck, instead of just re-playing 1 mount all the time, and also that any additional cards you acquire on your turn don't feed back into the ability.
Ok. So, can someone that is pulling off the Lancer trick layout the sequence for me clearly? Is it this (going to go with a Hand of 5 and having already used free explore):
1. Hand of 5 cards.
2. Recharge 1 card to get Riding Horse from discard pile. (Effectively healed 1 card). Hand of 5.
3. Discard Riding Horse to explore. Hand of 4.
4. Acquire boon from exploration. Hand of 5.
5. Repeat 2-4.
If so, then this depends on (a) encountering boons so you have something to acquire (b) acquiring said boon each time and (c) not needing to play cards during the exploration.
Do I understand this all? Is there another power or card I'm missing that really throttles it up even more?
For those pulling it off, what is your Alain's hand size? Are they not encountering banes or needing to spend cards during their encounter?
Just trying to fully wrap my head around it. Thanks.
My hand size is 6.
And my weapons are reveal to crush (Soulshear). I can get blessing help from my team, which eliminates the opportunity cost of playing a blessing for boon acquisition because it still nets the team an explore. Plus I have 4 d20's sitting in front of me.
My hand size is 6.
And my weapons are reveal to crush (Soulshear). I can get blessing help from my team, which eliminates the opportunity cost of playing a blessing for boon acquisition because it still nets the team an explore. Plus I have 4 d20's sitting in front of me.
Ok. Thanks for the reply. So, you team must like you doing this if they are throwing blessings at you. How many times are you pulling this off in a turn? In a scenario? If your team didn't throw the blessing at you, how well would it go?
Them giving you blessings is basically them sacrificing their exploration for your exploration. Is that really a problem?
For comparison: In RotR, I'd tell my team the same thing when I was Ezren. ("Hey, help me get this magic Sword. I get an exploration and I'll give you the sword after the scenario.) And in S&S I use my Damiel to make Calthaer's Olenjack go crazy with explorations from the poison trait.
I don't think its that they like me doing this, I can kind of force their hand. If they want that dex bow or that new Terraform, they are going to have to help. I can acquire weapons, armor and allies pretty easily. Dex weaps, items, and spells are a different story.
With that being said, I usually go to locations that have Alain friendly close conditions. Those locations usually also have Alain friendly boons.
I foresee the blessings being contingencies. Not every single boon acquisition is going to require a blessing, and you're not going to want every single boon you encounter anyway. That's how it works in my group.
I play Kyra in my group with 8 blessings. I believe others in my group are all also very blessing heavy. Most boons are junk. If we need to stop down to pick up a good one, then great! Useful boon \o/!
But except for this desirable, self-imposed slow down, Alain mows down all banes he encounters save for a few barriers. So at 6 cards, that's 6 explorations a turn (including the free one). We run a 4 person party so that's 60 cards to go through. Assuming Alain never fails, and all other players on the team take 1 exploration per turn, that's 6.75 orbits to go through all cards. 6.75*4 is 27 blessings exhausted by the time all cards in all location decks are gone.
It's virtually inconceivable to reach this point to me. You would have to hit a villain or henchman earlier than that at some point in some deck.
So in our 4 player game where Alain kills everything he encounters, and our group helps him when he can't, this single ability trivializes the blessings deck.
My hand size is 6.
And my weapons are reveal to crush (Soulshear). I can get blessing help from my team, which eliminates the opportunity cost of playing a blessing for boon acquisition because it still nets the team an explore. Plus I have 4 d20's sitting in front of me.Ok. Thanks for the reply. So, you team must like you doing this if they are throwing blessings at you. How many times are you pulling this off in a turn? In a scenario? If your team didn't throw the blessing at you, how well would it go?
Them giving you blessings is basically them sacrificing their exploration for your exploration. Is that really a problem?
For comparison: In RotR, I'd tell my team the same thing when I was Ezren. ("Hey, help me get this magic Sword. I get an exploration and I'll give you the sword after the scenario.) And in S&S I use my Damiel to make Calthaer's Olenjack go crazy with explorations from the poison trait.
Almost everyone on the PACG team is at PAX right now, so this will not be resolved instantly. It's on our radar.
If you feel strongly that it's too powerful, don't take it. Or change it to one of the many options listed above in the thread.
If you want to dodge the issue entirely, take Glory Hound. It's pretty awesome.
I would like to thank everyone for chiming in. I am going with the w w 379/Hawkmoon proposal of "At the start of your turn" any number of cards for cards with the Mount trait. This will net me up to 5 additional explores if I acquire 5 Mount allies. Look out Pegasus and Warhorse!
Keith - I hope you're spreading the joys of PACG at PAX! As for your comments, though, I think that's a weak out. Our Alain had a calling in the days of his youth when he witnessed a grand tournament. As he bore witness to the splinters of wooden lance on wooden shield, he knew in his mind what his destiny was to be when he came to age.
Alain isn't just a man now. He's a man's man. And his desire to bathe in the applause of his audience shouldn't be hampered by the lack of desire among his companions to watch him solo every adventure to completion.
A self-nerf is not the answer here.
edit: I really do understand you guys are busy. I just wanted to add points for consideration when you get around to it.
Almost everyone on the PACG team is at PAX right now, so this will not be resolved instantly. It's on our radar.
If you feel strongly that it's too powerful, don't take it. Or change it to one of the many options listed above in the thread.
If you want to dodge the issue entirely, take Glory Hound. It's pretty awesome.
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A man goes to the doctor and says "Doctor, it hurts when I do this", and raises his arm. "Well, don't do it then", says the doctor.
A man goes to the doctor and says "Doctor, it hurts when I do this", and raises his arm. "Well, don't do it then", says the doctor.
This basically happened to me! Though I do like the poking things with your finger variant of the joke better.
When I was younger I discovered I could twist my left shoulder just slightly to pop my shoulder most of the way out of its socket. Like enough to then stick a finger into the socket. Didn't hurt, was just kinda interesting, and it popped right back in if I twisted back.
Showed it to and asked a doctor what it meant, was told "Don't do that again. Ever." - surprisingly, I have largely avoided doing it since. I don't think it's enough to be useful (ex: getting out of ropes, etc), but so it goes.
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A man goes to the doctor and says "Doctor, it hurts when I do this", and raises his arm. "Well, don't do it then", says the doctor.
Agreed
Alainplus2, I think your post is a great example of what some of us are thinking. You acknowledge that your party probably doesn't like it, but you basically push them into choosing between letting (even helping) you do it, or lose out on those cards they want. Even if this combo is overpowered (I agree it is, but not the extent others do), in your party's case it sounds less like a power level issue and more a social contract issue.
I can guarantee if someone at our table used this more than once or twice after finding out it kept others from playing much, PACG would only be played when they don't come to game night.
That's what I'm afraid of. The way the game flows it's really at its best when everyone works together to succeed, but at the same time has the joy of building a really cool character (and we get pretty damn attached to our char). We're constantly trying to maximize our abilities within the rules and design of the game. Loving the difficulty - runelords got too easy, wrath is awesome.
This particular ability has my team discussing that super-Alain should go to locations with barriers and things that will more likely stop the recursion .. Which while sportingly gracious; I feel defeats the purpose of the game! We effectively have to self-gimp to preserve balance. But we're suckers for rules so ... Hopefully a fix comes out before our AP4 arrives ..
We played 4-1 last night with "At the start of your turn", and it was very enjoyable. Two Demonic Hordes with that servitor demon, yikes!
But I have to give a shout out to the man they call The Acquirer of Items! You da real MVP.
Nice one alainplus2 .. Sound like your team had fun... Now if the postal would hurry up with my AP4 ...
My hand size is 6.
And my weapons are reveal to crush (Soulshear). I can get blessing help from my team, which eliminates the opportunity cost of playing a blessing for boon acquisition because it still nets the team an explore. Plus I have 4 d20's sitting in front of me.Ok. Thanks for the reply. So, you team must like you doing this if they are throwing blessings at you. How many times are you pulling this off in a turn? In a scenario? If your team didn't throw the blessing at you, how well would it go?
Hey Hawk. I forgot to mention. CONGRATULATIONS ON THE KID! I can only imagine a little one that will grow up to rule the world one day with a father who is as patient, knowledgeable, and didactic as you.
Alainplus2 is my Alain. It isn't a question of whether or not we like what is going on. We play the game the way it is intended according to the rules. We love Mike Selinker's vision and don't want to craft our own.
Without consideration for Alain, I'm Kyra with my 8 blessings. It is my role to heal and bless. I like healing and blessing. This is independent of where the heals and buffs go, which is to anywhere they need to be.
So let's not factor subjectivity and predilection into the discussion of whether or not Alain's lancer mount recursion ability is overpowered. I'm not going to stop issuing blessings where the blessing need to be given. The lancer isn't going to stop riding.
We play this game because the world created by Mike and his team rocks, and we enjoy playing our roles. I think it's not only unreasonable but lazy if anyone on the dev team begins to attempt to ask the players to self-impose limitations. When I read a book, I don't cross out the sections I don't like and write in my own preferences. I have that power because I bought the book, but that's not what I'm seeking here.
Alain's Lancer ability is the literary equivalent of deus ex machina. Crazy things can happen, but Alain can currently run in and shut everything down, leaving everyone bewildered as they witness it happen. That's poor penmanship and unfun to be a part of.
I think it's not only unreasonable but lazy if anyone on the dev team begins to attempt to ask the players to self-impose limitations.
Problems take time to resolve. I think it's reasonable to suggest that users enact their own changes if something is making the game less fun for them while the development team is coming to an official resolution.
The alternatives are to continue to struggle with the problem, or stop playing until an official resolution is announced. It's your choice.
Elcoderdude - You're absolutely right. I acknowledged that they're busy, and they've stated they're at PAX. I respect that the devs have limited time and have commitments beyond my concerns.
Zenarius asked a long time ago in this thread whether this was intent. Without knowing if it is or isn't intent, to people like my group who love the game, it's important to repeatedly hammer the point to make sure that this issue is viewed as a problem, because even that much isn't clear.
They might be busy, but I think Zenarius, myself, and probably others out there simply want a statement that says, "This is broken, and we're looking at fixing it." If it is intent, it's easy for them to just say, "This is what we wanted." That doesn't take much time, and they should know what they had in mind when they made the ability.
I'm not a dev, and I can imagine it is very hard work. But educate me on what I am missing, because I am always eager to learn.
Is this what the devs wanted? Because if it is, I'm going to keep trying to convince the devs they should change their opinion.
I think it's not only unreasonable but lazy if anyone on the dev team begins to attempt to ask the players to self-impose limitations.Problems take time to resolve. I think it's reasonable to suggest that users enact their own changes if something is making the game less fun for them while the development team is coming to an official resolution.
The alternatives are to continue to struggle with the problem, or stop playing until an official resolution is announced. It's your choice.
That's what I'm afraid of. The way the game flows it's really at its best when everyone works together to succeed, but at the same time has the joy of building a really cool character (and we get pretty damn attached to our char). We're constantly trying to maximize our abilities within the rules and design of the game. Loving the difficulty - runelords got too easy, wrath is awesome.
This particular ability has my team discussing that super-Alain should go to locations with barriers and things that will more likely stop the recursion .. Which while sportingly gracious; I feel defeats the purpose of the game! We effectively have to self-gimp to preserve balance. But we're suckers for rules so ... Hopefully a fix comes out before our AP4 arrives ..
Otherwise known as the Ranzak Dilemma.
Otherwise known as the Ranzak Dilemma.
Dang.. Now u make me wanna get him .. He's available for purchase and can be used with any of the sets right? ... No wait .. I don't really want an answer to that ...
You can download Ranzak's character sheet for free. (It's part of the S&S sheets.)
You can also buy Ranzak on Paizo's site.
I've been demoing all day Friday and Saturday by the way, if you're at 201-203 (so much that I haven't even talked to the Lone Shark people - they're not in the main Paizo rooms). I'll take a small break Sunday.
Keith, too bad you couldn't be here. It's pretty wild.
Downloaded & checked it out. How would Ranzak ability for 'plunder' cards work with wrath? (Sry off topic)
You'd roll on the chart and get a card from the box using the rules from the S&S rulebook, since that's the only place Plunder is defined.
Also you wouldn't take the ability to switch out a plunder card at the end of a scenario, since you don't get plunder cards that way in WotR.
o7 aye aye cap'n.. Ok back to topic .. :)
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You'd roll on the chart and get a card from the box using the rules from the S&S rulebook, since that's the only place Plunder is defined.
Also you wouldn't take the ability to switch out a plunder card at the end of a scenario, since you don't get plunder cards that way in WotR.
I think the plunder chart also conveniently comes on a card in the Ranzak pack when you buy him.
I'm going to say this so that the straw man of design intent can leave the room: It doesn't matter what we intended, because we intend many things over the course of developing a character. What matters is what's happening in play. We're reading this thread closely and considering whether a modification of any kind is needed.
Mike,if you're using "straw man" in terms of the fallacy, I can speak only for myself to say that I'm not asking for intent only to be able strike down your answer. I asked for intent because I genuinely enjoy your game, and I want to know what your vision was when you guys wrote it because you guys have vision. I adore the world you guys created, and that's the only reason why I'm spending all this time typing away on the forums in only this particular thread. E-peen or whatever other garbage reasons you may perceive there to be aren't it.
**Alain's recursive recall ability has broken the game for those that want to play the game as they believe the creators of the game wanted the game to be played when they created the game.**
Thank you for your participation in the forums, and for your consideration in adjusting what is broken. In the process of your participation, I kindly request that your team not be so dismissive in tone. We're here because we are your fans. Since you've personally come out and said you're considering modifications, I'll stop asking for intent because I can read between the lines and tell that the Lancer's recursive ability was a mistake.
Thanks again Mike. Yall seriously do great work.
I'm going to say this so that the straw man of design intent can leave the room: It doesn't matter what we intended, because we intend many things over the course of developing a character. What matters is what's happening in play. We're reading this thread closely and considering whether a modification of any kind is needed.
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Since it is limited to mounts, i was thinking maybe only once per mount. Or maybe he can use the power any number of times, but only before his 1st encounter.
This still gives the ability to explore multiple times, but doesnt setup an infinite loop.
Hmm or maybe use it at the start and end of his turn. So twice per turn.
The Alain in our game has spent the first 3 decks exploring once a turn with the occasional 2nd explore. So its a nice change of pace for him.
I like the discussion progress - more inputs will help us figure it out. Fix suggestions thus far :
Once at start of turn
Recharge to search deck, discard to search discard pile
As many times at start of turn (becomes horse hearder ... :D )
Start/end of turn
Perhaps the main issue is the 'recharge' which gives rise to the recursion and auto healing. What if it was 'discard' instead? Too costly or still too powerful(?)
If your making a change, I would recommend changing "search... for a card that has the mount trait" to, "search... for a cohort card that has the Mount trait." You lose the crazy explore and tone down the healing, but it allows the Lancer to use Dohan in almost every combat and too never worry about losing him to card effects, which seems very in keeping of the flavor of Lancer. Its less powerful than the current version, but still an amazing power.
As many times at start of turn (becomes horse hearder ... :D )
This is the route we went. I'm aggressively seeking those War Horse and Pegasai.
So we are about to finish adventure 4, could have finished it last Tuesday but we decided to break early. Lancer is very strong.
In Scenario 1 we acquired a unicorn. So my Alain deck is Warhorse, Unicorn, Mastiff, Chuffy, Fortune Teller
In Scenario 2 I closed Marketplace, and Armory and would have closed a third location had I not encountered the Villain. This was the grossest abuse. I end the game with 37 hit points total between discard, deck and bury. In Scenario 3 I limited myself to just closing a single location per turn. My suggestion would be to make all of the extra exploration cards display till end of turn rather than discard. So you could only use as many mounts as you had in your deck.
The problem with that is, you are talking about changes to lots and lots of allies (assuming you only changed allies to display). Changing his search power to be only at the start of his turn (or a turn) and for as many cohorts/allies that he wants accomplishes the same thing, he can only get all his cohorts together once per turn.
I'd like to preserve the ability to use it on other people's turns, so you can do fun things like emergency recharge something to get a mount and move yourself and someone else out of a bad location. Or do 2 moves to pick up someone and move them to someone who can cure. This sort of inter-character interplay is fun, and in character for a guy with a horse.
Rules text (very hacky though) that prevents recursive explores from any boons you acquire, but still allows you to use it on other people's turns:
Add: "Until the end of your next turn, put any boons you acquire on top of your deck."
Chief Technical Officer
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Mike,if you're using "straw man" in terms of the fallacy, I can speak only for myself to say that I'm not asking for intent only to be able strike down your answer. I asked for intent because I genuinely enjoy your game, and I want to know what your vision was when you guys wrote it because you guys have vision.
We generally avoid talking about intent here for a number of reasons. If you look in the Pathfinder RPG rules forums, you will see many many MANY arguments about "RAW" (rules as written) vs. "RAI" (rules as intended), and a lot of them are horrific firefights that I personally wish didn't exist. Intent can be important, but sometimes intent needs to evolve or to be discarded.
When Mike and I are hashing out solutions to a problem, "intent" does come up now and then, but is usually a pretty minor factor. In the PACG, if the intent for a card is inconsistent with other cards in a way that can't easily be explained, intent goes out the window. If the intent is something we can't communicate clearly in the limited space we have, it goes. If it just plain breaks the game, it goes. And there are other reasons too.
We know full well that if we communicate intent before we have a finished ruling, there will be people who latch on to the intent and never let go, and then we'll have RAW vs. RAI threads here too.
(Also, sometimes, when we consider intent, nobody can even remember what the actual intent was, usually because the card evolved enough during the design process to be sufficiently separated from the intent.)
Thanks vic & Mike for paying attention to this. Apologies if it's getting a little old.
I guess what we're really trying to say is we rely on how you folks designed the game. Thus far it's been surprisingly very well thought out. And I mean *very*! The balance has been genius .. Ending so many scenarios with just one or two timers left .. Super teamwork required to support each party members with just the right card ... We didn't know how you did it .. But wrath has been awesomely balanced up to this point.
Because we can't see how adventures 4-6 have been laid out, so we thought also "hey maybe there was 'design intent' " .. As in the next adventure scenarios would have (evil) accounted for this seemingly over-powered ability. Some super restriction on movement & discard/recharge etc .. New creatures/barriers that kills reckless explore .. Heck we didn't know .. So just had to ask. :)
Thanks vic & Mike for paying attention to this. Apologies if it's getting a little old.
I guess what we're really trying to say is we rely on how you folks designed the game. Thus far it's been surprisingly very well thought out. And I mean *very*! The balance has been genius .. Ending so many scenarios with just one or two timers left .. Super teamwork required to support each party members with just the right card ... We didn't know how you did it .. But wrath has been awesomely balanced up to this point.
Because we can't see how adventures 4-6 have been laid out, so we thought also "hey maybe there was 'design intent' " .. As in the next adventure scenarios would have (evil) accounted for this seemingly over-powered ability. Some super restriction on movement & discard/recharge etc .. New creatures/barriers that kills reckless explore .. Heck we didn't know .. So just had to ask. :)
This is exactly how I feel. Thank you for this post.
Am I missing something regarding the lancer role?
So the powers that are worrying everyone I assume are:
Recharge a card (□ or put it on top of your deck) to search your deck or discard pile for a card that has the Mount trait and add it to your hand.
On your turn, discard a card that has the Mount trait (□ or put it on the top of your deck) to move to another location and examine the top card of that location deck. If it is a monster, you may encounter it
So lets say you have 6 cards (an assumption to be sure because thats two power feats just on hand size). One of which is likely your weapon, and the other probably donahan, and we are now assuming you dont care about armour at all.
You discard a mount (not donahan) to move to another location and you examine the card, then you are faced with 2 outcomes:
1. if its a monster you encounter it, and we assume use no cards from hand to defeat it, leaving you now with 5 cards in hand, one of which you recharge to grab the mount you just used and discard it once again to bounce to another location and examine the top card, bringing you down to 4 cards in hand.
If its a boon, you don't encounter it, so would have to use an explore somehow to encounter it, and then you assume that you dont use any cards to obtain that boon. But if you do obtain it, then you can use it to fuel the power again, grabbing a mount card.
I mean it sounds like a fairly powerful combo, but not sure it's insanely broken, there's a lot of assumptions that Alain can just crush anyone he sees without having to expend cards ever, and if he examines a boon, he still needs to have an explore somehow.
It is more that the Mount can also be discarded to explore. So...
Discard mount to explore.
Encounter and acquire boon.
Recharge boon card to get mount from discard.
Discard mount to explore.
Encounter and acquire boon.
Recharge boon to get mount from discard.
Repeat.
As long as you keep encountering and acquiring boons, you can use those boons to get back your mount and repeat it all over again. Since you are recharging a card to get a card from your discard pile, you are also effectively healing yourself every time you do it, putting you right back at the same hand size.
If you have to play a card to acquire the boon or if you encounter a bane you need to defeat, you might take some cards from your hand, but as long as you are only encountering boons and you are acquiring them, you aren't really using up any of your possible explorations.
But Alain is not naturally good at grabbing things other than strength weapons or human allies (most of which can already be used to explore anyways). So you have to assume he needs help with almost any other boon. Ranzak as discussed above has more of a natural flow to crush through boon filled locations, and as a former Ranzak player I did close locations in one turn once in a while, but definitely not all the time. I guess I would have to see it in practice.
I should also add, once you close the location, you use your mount based power to move to another location and keep going.
Yes, the amount of explores granted by one (1) power feat and one (1) ally is what is being discussed here.
It is more that the Mount can also be discarded to explore. So...
Discard mount to explore.
Encounter and acquire boon.
Recharge boon card to get mount from discard.
Discard mount to explore.
Encounter and acquire boon.
Recharge boon to get mount from discard.
Repeat.As long as you keep encountering and acquiring boons, you can use those boons to get back your mount and repeat it all over again. Since you are recharging a card to get a card from your discard pile, you are also effectively healing yourself every time you do it, putting you right back at the same hand size.
If you have to play a card to acquire the boon or if you encounter a bane you need to defeat, you might take some cards from your hand, but as long as you are only encountering boons and you are acquiring them, you aren't really using up any of your possible explorations.
Alhazra has a similar ability, although it's different in some interesting ways: recharge a divine card to examine the top of any location deck, and if it's a boon can choose to acquire it. Repeat. Our Alhazra consistently did 6 or more actions a turn with this, due to having a deck consisting almost entirely of divine cards (and it got pretty crazy when Shapechange gave her hand size 10). Acquired divine boons (generally just blessings) feed back into the engine, acquired allies get used as explores.
Alain's engine is different; his is a full explore action rather than a scout action, so if it's a monster, barrier, or henchman he gets to resolve it (and hopefully defeat it) rather than Alhazra just scouting it. He also can recharge unwanted acquired items/armor/weapons into explores, whereas they will just sit in Alhazra's hand.
I think what is a no-no is being able to close multiple locations in one turn. Alhazra could burn through a lot of cards in several locations in one turn, but didn't actually close multiple locations.
Vic, your way of explaining things leaves no wiggle room or doubt. I say this. Thank you for jumping in to speak to those of us who care.
Mike,if you're using "straw man" in terms of the fallacy, I can speak only for myself to say that I'm not asking for intent only to be able strike down your answer. I asked for intent because I genuinely enjoy your game, and I want to know what your vision was when you guys wrote it because you guys have vision.We generally avoid talking about intent here for a number of reasons. If you look in the Pathfinder RPG rules forums, you will see many many MANY arguments about "RAW" (rules as written) vs. "RAI" (rules as intended), and a lot of them are horrific firefights that I personally wish didn't exist. Intent can be important, but sometimes intent needs to evolve or to be discarded.
When Mike and I are hashing out solutions to a problem, "intent" does come up now and then, but is usually a pretty minor factor. In the PACG, if the intent for a card is inconsistent with other cards in a way that can't easily be explained, intent goes out the window. If the intent is something we can't communicate clearly in the limited space we have, it goes. If it just plain breaks the game, it goes. And there are other reasons too.
We know full well that if we communicate intent before we have a finished ruling, there will be people who latch on to the intent and never let go, and then we'll have RAW vs. RAI threads here too.
(Also, sometimes, when we consider intent, nobody can even remember what the actual intent was, usually because the card evolved enough during the design process to be sufficiently separated from the intent.)
I think what is a no-no is being able to close multiple locations in one turn. Alhazra could burn through a lot of cards in several locations in one turn, but didn't actually close multiple locations.
Waiting for someone to actually end the scenario in turn 1 with this... *bluescreen of death*.... :p
If I know I am going to take damage I will recharge everything I can to pull mounts and discard all the mounts.
I don't understand how this works. Once you have begun an encounter you aren't able to recharge cards to retrieve mounts.