Is advancing your tier mandatory?


Pathfinder Adventure Card Society

Grand Lodge 2/5 5/55/55/5

I read that after 4 scenarios you have the choice to advance. My question is are there times that it is mandatory, such as completing an adventure ? The question came up as a character in my group wants to attempt SotR and SotS - do adventure 1 in each then advance to tier 2, do both adventures #2 etc. My thought is that you must tier up after completing an adventure, otherwise the character could end up with 12 deck upgrades for instance....please advise!

Grand Lodge

Nope. It's completely optional. In theory, you can advance after 4 scenarios, then have the mandatory advancement after you complete the adventure (assuming it didn't have 4 to begin with). So you could be tier 3 after completing the first adventure. But mostly, that option is for folks trying to catch up with groups that got ahead of them, I believe.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

James is sending mixed signals to me (in that "Nope. It's completely optional." is wrong, but then he stated the correct information afterwards), so I'll restate it in plainer language. Advancing a tier is optional after completing 4 scenarios. Advancing a tier is mandatory after taking an adventure reward (e.g. completing every scenario in an adventure).

Guide to Organized Play wrote:
A character advances to the next tier in one of two ways: either after completing an adventure and gaining its adventure reward, or by choosing to do so after gaining the card feat for his tier. If you advance a tier by completing an adventure, you automatically gain any remaining feats for your tier, and you gain a die bump for use with this character.

Grand Lodge

Oh, yeah, totally misread the question. Apologies.

Grand Lodge

It is recommended that the optional advancement after completing 4 scenarios within a tier is used when working with casual players that aren't always at sessions. If they are going to be there session after session, the preferred method is to advance tiers with the completion of adventures.

(We're hoping this will get into the new guide coming out soon.)


Since season of Righteous is mostly composed of 5 or 6 scenarios adventures wouldnt adavncing a tier when you complete 4 scenarios and them advancing another one once you complete the adventure essentialy make you too high tier to play the next adventure by adventure 3 ? Youd get 2 tiers on adventures 1 and 2 and would reach 3 on tier 5. I was under the assumption you either advanced tier after 4 scenarios or after te adventure was complete, but once you completed an adventure those scenarios wouldnt count for advancing your tier anymore or if you had advanced a tier prior to completting the adventure you wouldnt advance it again.

Grand Lodge 2/5 5/55/55/5

So, if an adventure has 5 scenarios, you could do the first 4 and tier up then complete the adventure and tier up again ? Doesn't seem right that you could get to tier 3 after just 5 scenarios... Can someone clarify this as that seems to be how the rules state it.

Grand Lodge

Anaba Boeska wrote:
So, if an adventure has 5 scenarios, you could do the first 4 and tier up then complete the adventure and tier up again ? Doesn't seem right that you could get to tier 3 after just 5 scenarios... Can someone clarify this as that seems to be how the rules state it.

I stated this two posts above. It is possible but not recommended for regular players.

After Season 0 where rewards were tied to the completion of scenarios and adventure, casual players or players unable to make sessions every week were unable to level properly sometimes. They'd be missing feats.

So the discussion we put forth to make the ACG organized play a tier progression so that the completion of scenarios would advance a character rather than rely on the rewards from the scenarios. Within a tier, the first scenario gives you a skill feat, second scenario is a power feat, third is nothing, fourth is a card feat. And, optionally, after the card feat you can advance a tier. But it is mandatory that after completing an adventure, you advance a tier.

Grand Lodge

DakonBlackblade wrote:
Since season of Righteous is mostly composed of 5 or 6 scenarios adventures wouldnt adavncing a tier when you complete 4 scenarios and them advancing another one once you complete the adventure essentialy make you too high tier to play the next adventure by adventure 3 ? Youd get 2 tiers on adventures 1 and 2 and would reach 3 on tier 5. I was under the assumption you either advanced tier after 4 scenarios or after te adventure was complete, but once you completed an adventure those scenarios wouldnt count for advancing your tier anymore or if you had advanced a tier prior to completting the adventure you wouldnt advance it again.

Actually, most of Season of the Righteous is composed of adventures consisting of 5 scenarios.

And yes, if you game the system, you can place your character out of being able to complete adventures. Which is why I stated that it is not recommended for regular players. The optional rule to advance a tier is meant for those unable to attend every session and unable to get replays.

Grand Lodge 2/5 5/55/55/5

Thank you Theryan for all the insight and clarification. I'm transitioning from a regular RPG player to ACG. We just started doing PFS ACG this year and now that several of us are 6+ scenarios in a lot of questions are coming up and we want to get it right. The game is fantastic so far and does a great job with making class decks feel like the class they represent. We have a monk that completed 5 scenarios in SotR adventure 1 (but not ever one due to a repeat) as well as the the first four parts of SotS adventure 1. He figured he could tier up (twice actually) but was not sure if he would tier himself out of the rewards for completing the adventures. I will let him know that his best choice would be to finish the last two parts of SotS and the missing WofR scenario to get the rewards as if he tiers up voluntarily he will end up too high to gain the perks for completing the adventures...he has a rogue deck and wants to unlock Jirelle...thanks again!

Grand Lodge

If you would tier up to let's say Tier 4 while still playing Adv Deck 2 scenarios, you would no longer be able to finish any Adv Deck 2 scenarios and not be able to complete an Adventure 2. (Which means you don't get the adventure rewards, nor dice bumps.)

Same thing if you tier up to Tier 3 while playing Adv Deck 1 scenarios. (Which would mean you could easily not be able to unlock Jirelle.)


Theryon Stormrune wrote:
After Season 0 where rewards were tied to the completion of scenarios and adventure, casual players or players unable to make sessions every week were unable to level properly sometimes. They'd be missing feats.

I'm going to point out that new characters generated above Tier 1 will also be missing feats (they don't get any). It seems like a trap option. There's also no indication of the Tier they start as.

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