Lack of Deck Customization in Organized Play

[Byakko]

Recently our local game store started hosting a few Adventure Guild games. We all grabbed a class deck and started playing.

However, after a few games it dawned on us, due to being limited to only the cards in our class decks, there was almost no deck customization allowed! This is in stark contrast to the myriad of options in Pathfinder Society RPG, or to pretty much any popular card game out there.

For example, my Inquistor class deck is woefully limited in options. There is only 1 spell available at each tier! (beyond B, which is also quite limited in actually useful options) The same holds roughly true for every card type in the box.

So essentially we can only play the deck that was supplied, with the ability to make only the smallest of tweaks. This is a FAR cry from the customization and options I was expecting and is very surprising considering the options that could so easily given.

To be clear, I'm not arguing for a massive set of cards like MTG. But opening up even a couple dozen extra card options (per type) to personalize one's deck with would go a long way towards adding some tactics to deck building rather than just "oh well, I guess I'll put in these 5 cards because I really don't have any other decent choices...").

Btw, please correct me if I'm missed something in the rules to organized play, because right now I'm quite disappointed.

[Frencois]

If you like customization, buy a base set and play the full game (not OP) with friends.
And since it's YOUR game, you can always add class decks or mix base sets. Latest count I have more than 1300 different boons to chose from. Vs some 100 in a standard class deck.

Exercice: say there are 1300 boons, how many different 20 cards hands can you build if you take 20 different boons?
> 1300*1299*1298... = 10^62. If it takes you 1 hour to play one game, the sun will long gone being a supernova no more by the time you have to replay the same hand.

Then how many if you allow doubles for the 1200 non loot of them?
> Not even sure the Miky Way will still be here.

Not MTG yet, but still...

[Doppelschwert]

I think the class deck is a good deal for OP - you pay 20$ compared to 180$ for a complete base set. Nevertheless, I think byakko raises a valid point - I often don't feel like having an actual choice in my upgrades either (playing at home with OP rules).
But I also think that in OP, a great deal of customization already was made by choosing a class deck and an actual character in the first place. There are 20 class decks and about 67 classes in them alone, so that goes a long way to customization as well.

However, I feel like class decks are not that good of a deal for home games, since (at least in my experience), mixing them in with the other cards dilutes the cards very fast to a point where they don't feel thematic anymore.
My homebrew solution is to change the upgrade rule to have the option of keeping a card from the base set as upgrade, instead of choosing a card from the class deck.
This way, if you find something awesome / box-specific, you can keep it, but the class deck also makes sure that you always have access to the cards you need to be good at what you are doing.

[Frencois]

Actually we are doing the opposite.
The first time we play a base set, we want the real story and do not add any card (no class deck, no promo,...).

Then when we replay, we dilute a bit of class deck/promo in the set to change a bit a enjoy those cards you would never run into if not.

Fun part is, rather than putting the class deck cards of the class you play (would be too easy), we really add random cards of the required type and AD. For example, if we want to add 20% cards altogether and we have 10 weapons AD4 in the standard AP, we would add 2 selected at random within all the promos or class decks AD4 weapons that do not already appear in the AP. We just avoid cards that would make no sense thematicaly (no guns in Egypt) or technicaly (no cards dealing with mythic charges or ships for example in a AP that doesn't include some).

But it is YOUR game, anything that's fun for you goes.

[Hawkmoon269]

Hmmm... I haven't played Inquisitor yet, but that hadn't been my experience so far. I've usually tended to have multiple options for my upgrade. (Except for the few times where we've acquired 0 of the type of boons that I want. Like armor and spells for monks.)

Looking at the deck list and characters for Inquisitor, I do see that there is one spell of each deck number. Only Varrill can really get a lot of spells. Imrijka maxes out at 2 and Salim at 1.

But, I too which there were more options. Just seeing some of the cool new spells in Mummy's Mask makes me say "I wish I could have that some where in my Wizard Class Deck." I'd love to see some sort of upgrade packs. But it would be tricky to pull off, especially if you wanted to make a spell available to a Wizard earlier than it was available to an Inqusitor and such.

[Theryon Stormrune]

Yeah, the Inquisitor deck is pretty much fine as is. I have not found any issues in lack of customization since druid, monk, barbarian decks came out. The paladin is a little iffy and we're not discussing the first seven for the most part.

If you're simply looking at the class deck raw, yeah, I can see what you're saying but once you start playing Inquisitors, you'll see that it isn't so much the spell casting you need to focus on. You'll see a lot of different weapons in that deck.

[Calthaer]

Some of the earlier decks certainly do need something to boost them. The bard deck in particular just doesn't have the breadth of spells, weapons, armors, etc. to support all the characters, each of whom are very different. Even Lem's two roles - one focused on healing, the other on arcane combat - don't have enough spells to support both.

The cleric deck felt a lot better - but then again, that entire class is focused more narrowly on healing. The monk deck doesn't seem to bad, at least for Sajan. I haven't played a ton with the others yet. I did play Ranzak with Goblins Fight!, but wasn't too thrilled. I didn't expect the goblins decks to be much more than a lark anyways, though.

Maybe one day we will see 110-card "booster packs" that each add 10-20 cards to either 5 or 10 different class decks. Twenty additional cards would make a big difference to a lot of these decks.

[Tim Statler]

I proposed a 52 card expansion for the original 7 desks a while back.
Add one new character (3 cards), The standard disclaimer card, and you have 48 cards, split between the 6 types of boons. You could add 2 B's and 1 each of the other 6 decks of each boon type. Allows a bit more customization and can add newer cards to older decks.

[Byakko]

Thanks for the feedback.

We started playing this as an offshoot of the local Pathfinder Society games, and we're fairly dedicated to using organized play rules for its many benefits. Naturally, if this were a home group doing its own thing, this thread wouldn't even be needed.

I realize more specialized class decks, such as the Wizard or Cleric one, might have a few more options since they can fill the box mostly with cards of the relevant types while skimping on the others. Hybrids like Inquisitors really seem to suffer (and yes, I was trying out the more spell focused Verrill) as many roles have to be supported with the same number of cards.

I don't mind being initially restricted to the contents of a class box; it's probably even a good starting point. But as I've mentioned, it's very frustrating how few upgrade options there are. There's all these complex instructions in the organized play rules for upgrading your deck after a successful adventure, but at the end of each game I find there's no changes I can make to my deck, even if we were lucky enough to find amazing things in the adventure path. I mean, what's the point of finding loot, if it doesn't even matter?

Sure, I could just swap to a different character if I grow bored of this one, but isn't part of the point of a deck focused game to be able to build YOUR deck rather than just using the (largely) predefined decks provided? What challenge, strategy, or accomplishment is there to be had if you wind up playing pretty much the same deck as anyone else who happens to be playing that character.

[Iceman]

I hear ya - our group has long since hit the point where "anyone want a level 4 or 5 'this'?" isn't even asked. Not because we've already found tons of upgrades, but because we only had one upgrade choice at that level for that type of boon and have made it.
And the rogue player had no interest in his box's level 6 weapon, so he was done with that type of boon sooner than the rest.

On the flipside, we're playing SotS, which has some very nice loot that can be swapped in for other cards. We find that that ablates some of the feeling that you're playing the same deck anyone else would.

That said, Heggal has been a blast. Siwar (in SotRu) is coming along nicely, and Radillo (in SotRi) is a boss.