Getting rid of bad cards


Rules Questions and Gameplay Discussion


So, I tried to find a discussion on this but couldn't, which surprises me.

According to the rules, you can fill in blank spots in your deck with cards up to two adventure decks lower than the current scenario. Also according to the rules though, if anyone in your entire party has a card which has the appropriate type to go in your deck, you have to use that card, no matter how close to completely worthless it is. This comes up whenever you have to banish a card, gain a card feat, or to some extent just whenever you reach a new adventure deck and the value of "2 less than the current" ticks up.

However, the rules, as far as I understand, also allow the following:
* Re-playing already defeated scenarios.
* Locations (and other effects, but locations reliably exist) which let you banish cards.
* Preserving changes to your deck even if you lose the scenario.

The end result is I'm forced to choose between three things which I absolutely hate:
1. Play suboptimally - by hanging on to bad cards I don't want even though I know I could get rid of them.
2. Waste time - by setting up scenarios I've already won and don't plan to win this time just to banish a bad card.
3. Feel guilty - by just pretending to have done the above and getting rid of the card(s) I don't want.

I'll just to elaborate on the "play suboptimally" option, which might otherwise be the lesser of those three evils. It results in some very weird, and immersion-breaking choices and behaviour. Some examples; wizard/priest-types giving spells to warrior-types for the "power" to banish them after use, seeking out potions for their ability to banish an item (i.e. themselves) from your deck, deliberately declining every attempt to acquire cards of a particular type, scuttling your ship to banish plunder of a particular type (I got burned once by not realising I needed to do this one), seeing any effects that banish a card as an upside rather than a penalty.

To me, the whole situation just seems awkward. What approach does everyone else take (my impression is (1))? We did (3) most of the way through RotR but later switched to (1), mostly because we were finding the game too easy. If I was to change things to get rid of the awkwardness, I would do one of the following (from most to least preferred)
A) Make it so that you can just get rid of cards you don't want whenever you like (removing the guilt from (3), or equivalently removing the time wasting from (2)). Adjust the game difficulty (to harder) in other ways accordingly. Main down side is there's less excitement exploring since only the two most recent boxes contain any cards you might want.
B) Remove the rule that lets you take cards from the box entirely (thus removing the suboptimality of (1)). This might even involve having to start the next scenario with less than a full deck of cards. Or a softer version would be to just always limit it to basics. It's harsh, but I'd still prefer it to the current set of choices.
c) Close the loophole somehow. There's a lot of options, but I think they all come with costs to other aspects of the game.

Grand Lodge

#1: It's your game to play. You can choose to follow the rules or not. If your cards don't suit you, then you can choose your 3rd option and basically cheat; finding the game easy because you now have the optimal cards in your deck. You can do what you wish.

The strange thing that I found reading your post is no mention of upgrades. Have you been upgrading your cards as you go or just thinking you had to keep your cards until banished or until you had "holes" in your deck?


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Irgy wrote:
Re-playing already defeated scenarios.

The rules actually do not allow this. You can only replay a scenario in which you've failed. (The Organized Play rules allow this, however.)

I personally haven't found this to be an issue. I just take the "bad" card along for the ride for a scenario or two until I come across an upgrade for it, then I pitch the unwanted one. I think the longest I've had to tote around a card I felt truly worthless was maybe 4 scenarios, because I got it right before a lull in which there were very few boons in location decks of that card type, and I failed at acquiring them once or twice before I finally managed to grab it. Even then, the card was passed off to someone that could make better use of it (if applicable), or otherwise just discarded at the end of the turn so I can draw something better. It really didn't impact gameplay all that much and didn't turn out to be a huge deal.

So I guess I chose 4. Keep playing normally.


A lot of these discussions happen in the middle of a post about something else. You will usually find them in discussions about starting decks. The typical answer is that the random aspect of the draws is part of the dificulty. Also, you eventually get to start removing basics from the game, giving you a better opportunity to experience better cards.

As for replaying previously beaten scenarios, I think I remember an answer to that being that the rules don't say you can't replay a scenario, but it doesn't say you can either. I think one of the devs said you can't take any of the loot or feats/skills. I think the set up time would be a huge deterrent to playing scenarios multiple times.

I've definitely had a few characters go through the third or fourth adventure deck with a short sword. And I've only encountered the flaming mace three or four times out of all my time playing.


Theryon Stormrune wrote:
The strange thing that I found reading your post is no mention of upgrades. Have you been upgrading your cards as you go or just thinking you had to keep your cards until banished or until you had "holes" in your deck?

I didn't catch this while writing my reply. Good question.


I just want to make a clear statement that I'm not talking about organised play here. I don't play organised play and while I've kind of read about how it works I don't entirely understand it having never done it. These same issues may or may not exist for organised play I don't know.

skizzerz wrote:
Irgy wrote:
Re-playing already defeated scenarios.
The rules actually do not allow this. You can only replay a scenario in which you've failed. (The Organized Play rules allow this, however.)

I have wondered about this, but can you explain to me why there is a rule that you can't gain the reward from a scenario more than once if it is not possible to replay a completed scenario in the first place?

My understanding is that the rules are set up to deal with situations where you don't always have the same people turn up, so different people have completed different sets of scenarios and eventually you end up wanting to choose to play a scenario which at least some people haven't completed.

Theryon Stormrune wrote:
#1: It's your game to play. You can choose to follow the rules or not. If your cards don't suit you, then you can choose your 3rd option and basically cheat; finding the game easy because you now have the optimal cards in your deck. You can do what you wish.

I can of course do what I wish, it's just that none of the options available are what I wish. The problem is that I have a meta-desire to play "correctly" which overpowers any quibbles I might have with the design. I think this is a fairly common problem!

Theryon Stormrune wrote:
The strange thing that I found reading your post is no mention of upgrades. Have you been upgrading your cards as you go or just thinking you had to keep your cards until banished or until you had "holes" in your deck?

Sorry but what do you mean by upgrades? Are you just talking about acquiring cards when you explore, and replacing bad cards with the new ones? Are you talking about some organised play thing? Or is there some separate system for getting better cards which I've been entirely unaware of the whole time?


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Irgy wrote:
I have wondered about this, but can you explain to me why there is a rule that you can't gain the reward from a scenario more than once if it is not possible to replay a completed scenario in the first place?

Looking at the rulebook more, I'm going to about-face what I said above. While not explicitly mentioned, replaying scenarios you've previously completed seems to be perfectly fine. This is because when setting up, you are told to "Choose a Scenario" with no additional text restricting your choices. The text for after completing a scenario also does not restrict you from replaying it (although it does say if you failed you must replay it successfully before continuing to the next scenario in an adventure). It's possible (although there is no rules support for it) that if you choose to replay a scenario, that you treat it as a standalone scenario rather than as part of an AP or adventure (meaning you do not set out the Adventure Path or Adventure cards and therefore their particular rules don't apply). I personally don't think there needs to be more explicit wording in the rulebook in this regard, as people should have the leeway to play how they want.

Irgy wrote:
Sorry but what do you mean by upgrades? Are you just talking about acquiring cards when you explore, and replacing bad cards with the new ones? Are you talking about some organised play thing? Or is there some separate system for getting better cards which I've been entirely unaware of the whole time?

They are referring to at the end of a scenario when you are able to swap out cards from your deck with each other and with the pool of cards you've acquired during the scenario. So if I acquired a Longsword +1 during the scenario, I can at the end choose to keep that card instead of one of my other Weapons. See "Between Games" in the rulebook (p18 of WotR) for more information on this process if you weren't already familiar with it. The term "upgrade" may come from OP for this deck rebuilding process, since in OP you only can choose 1 card from the pool instead of being able to freely rebuild using the entire pool.

Grand Lodge

skizzerz wrote:
Irgy wrote:
Sorry but what do you mean by upgrades? Are you just talking about acquiring cards when you explore, and replacing bad cards with the new ones? Are you talking about some organised play thing? Or is there some separate system for getting better cards which I've been entirely unaware of the whole time?
They are referring to at the end of a scenario when you are able to swap out cards from your deck with each other and with the pool of cards you've acquired during the scenario. So if I acquired a Longsword +1 during the scenario, I can at the end choose to keep that card instead of one of my other Weapons. See "Between Games" in the rulebook (p18 of WotR) for more information on this process if you weren't already familiar with it. The term "upgrade" may come from OP for this deck rebuilding process, since in OP you only can choose 1 card from the pool instead of being able to freely rebuild using the entire pool.

Re-reading pg 18 of the rulebook - Between Games - doesn't say upgrade, true. That term is used more for organized play but it means the same thing. As skizzerz described, you can trade with other players but you can also freely trade out cards for the ones you've acquired during the game along with any loot gained under your ship (in S&S). It seemed after your original post that your card exchanges seemed to be limited after completing scenarios.


Ok, so yes, I am already aware of this, to the point where I just took it as given. You can replace bad cards with cards that anyone has acquired, but it only helps if you find something better. I didn't mean to suggest you were stuck with bad cards forever, but getting stuck with one for up to 4 scenarios (in Skizzerz example) still feels bad to me.

Actually I think I see what the confusion is. I called this thread "getting rid of bad cards", but in reality it's much more about "finding ways to sneakily gain access to cards two adventure decks lower, ones which you still really want but haven't ever shown up". For instance I might give a Lightning Touch to a fighter so that they can use it (with no arcane skill, hopefully they're wearing some good armour!), banish it, and I can replace it with a nice new Scorching Ray from the box. Lightning Touch isn't even a bad card I guess, it's just well behind the curve for adventure deck 3.

I should point out that you not just can trade with your fellow players but to some extent are forced to. Because you can only get good cards from the box if no-one in the party has a card for that slot. Which is how you often end up with bad cards in the first place, for instance you as Valeros get stuck with a spare shortbow that Harsk picked up, and Harsk can't even choose not to give it to you (he could use it himself of course but you just get another ranged weapon instead). Conversely if a player could choose to refuse to give you one of their cards it would be even easier to remove bad cards from the pool since you'd just give it to someone and ask them to refuse to give it back!


So basically you're saying that the cards you want to get rid of your deck are not bad, but that better ones exists in the box. If it is, I'm sorry, but you've picked the wrong game. Building a deck with cards you gather during the adventure is part of the intended gameplay, and nowhere in the game design it is ruled that you'll get access to the cards you want no matter what. Pathfinder ACG is a game about finding stuff, not building the perfect deck from a thousand cards. Games like Magic the Gathering fill that niche, and they're good for that.
But as other have stated before, it is your game, feel free to customize it if you enjoy it more that way. If I were you, I'll just swap the cards of my deck with cards from the box between adventures. Just consider it a house rule. The way you write it in your first post, it feels like you want to twist the rules to use them against themselves.


What Irgy is saying is this: Pretend he is Ezren and his group wins and earns a card feat. He chooses Spell. But, as a group the only extra weapon anyone has is a Mass Cure. A pretty awesome spell, but not very good for Ezren. Ezren would have been better off if no one had an extra spell and he could have used the rules about going to the box to choose one 2 adventure deck numbers lower than the current scenario. Heck, he would have been better off if he could have just picked any basic card.

And he is right. Ezren would have been better off. But for me, in practice, this doesn't really come up much. Either the player knows what feat they'll be choosing and so the group is careful not to create a situation that corners them into this (though that can be harder with random plunder in Skull and Shackles) or the situation isn't as bad as Ezren + Divine (for example, Amiri having a Longbow isn't really the end of the world). By the time the "any card 2 lower" kicks in, the removal of basic cards is also in effect. That means lots of groups are intentionally failing to acquire those basic cards.

Personally, I wouldn't bother trying to "game" the system by replaying. If you are finding yourself in this situation enough to make it enjoyable to you, just make a house rule to deal with it. Maybe it is that you can always access Basic cards. Or maybe it is that you can draw a random Arcane spell to replace the Divine spell you don't want. But there isn't a need to find a loophole in the rules for it. Just do what makes you enjoy the game.


Ezren earning a card feat when only divine spells are available is a specific setting, and not a bad one. So Ezren got a cure scroll? Sounds damn fun to me. Adventuring lead to unexpected and weird rewards. And a better spell is likely to popup in the following scenario.
Somebody don't like it? He prefers to stick to no-brainers? Good for him, I'm not judging. I'll just notice that it won't happen much (new card feat + lame choice of cards).
I'm not in the designer team, but my guess is that the rule making you choose a card in a box (if nothing else is available) is only there to prevent incomplete decks. Whe should consider ourself luck that it's not a random draw.


Irgy wrote:

...

1. Play suboptimally - by hanging on to bad cards I don't want even though I know I could get rid of them...

Well actually (but maybe because we come from a RPG background), we tend to see it as "roleplaying" rather than being "suboptimal".

If Ezren has found or gets a Mass Cure because that's what happened during the last game, so be it. He'll play it and banish it during the next game and then will get the opportunity to have something else. At least it makes the adventure consistent rather than having some deus ex machina that always makes you optimal.
But it's your game, you play it the way you want.

There are many ways to banish cards DURING game, which makes for good stories, so we never needed one between games :
- Give the "bad" armor to someone non proficient, she can banish it;
- Give the "bad" spell to someone non having the required arcane or divine skill, she can banish it;
- Give the "bad" potion to... pretty much anyone;
- Encounter a "bad" a card you don't want : you can just banish it;
- Some locations or monsters make you banish cards, or put cards in location decks... go for it;
- And obviously, close locations early or make a point to encounter the villain many times.
And so on...


Hey there

In RoRL, S&S and WotR we made the following house rules:

A. After the scenarios has ended and we are rebuilding our decks, if you have a boon you don't want, shuffle it back into the box; and
B. Basic cards are always available to rebuild your deck with.

This makes PACG more fun for us.

That is the wonderful thing about PACG, there are rules, but they can be bent or ignored and you still get a great game.

I have not found it to make the game too easy as we have multiple games were we scrape in with a couple of Blessings left and have that awesome experience of needing to make a roll and succeeding by the skin of our teeth.
Also in our current S&S play through we have already had two deaths (Jirelle and Damiel) on the B adventures and we failed the Ghost Ship scenario (2-5).

So , play the game but make sure it's fun for all your players.

Thanks.


I can vouch for Dunesparrow's rules, my group uses those exact same rules. Using those rules in our current WotR play through haven't mattered much as it is terrible rolls that stop us from winning.

My advice Irgy, since you are free to modify the rules as you see fit, do so. It will save aggravation and eye-rolling when you make very small adjustments like those.


My friends and I end up using a modified version of the organized play upgrade system. Each character chooses one upgrade from the cards gained during the scenario. They can choose to keep that card or swap it for another card of the same type and deck level from the box. We feel like this method mirrors the character upgrades work in most RPGs and give us a chance to use the cards that best suit the characters we are playing.


Thanks for the replies everyone, it's good to know how the community thinks on this. It's clear to me now that the real problem I have is rather convoluted, and one meta-level deeper than what I'm describing.

Hawkmoon gave a good description, except that Mass Cure is a bad example since it will banish itself after one mission and is a good spell in the meantime anyway. I had almost the opposite problem with Seltyiel, where I actually wanted to play a Cure in my deck and then just get it back from the box each game, but every time I accidentally found another spell I was stuck with that instead!

The real problem for me is:
That there is a loophole available to exploit. By its mere existence, I'm forced to either exploit it and feel cheesy and dirty, or ignore it and feel like a chump. I don't like doing either of those things, thus I'd rather there wasn't a loophole at all.

Sure I can play the rules however I like, but if I make change (A) I feel guilty and the experience is ultimately less satisfying, whereas if I made change (B) I'd be making things harder for myself than they're meant to be, which while the lesser of the two evils I don't really like either. The one and only thing that would make me truely happy would be to play the official rules and for the official rules to not have a loophole.

Maybe I'm just too fussy.

Anyway I think I'll content myself with "Don't replay old scenarios just to banish cards" because it's cheesy and boring, but still "Continue to try my best to manipulate my way into getting free picks from the box through other means"

Thanks everyone!

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