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...I would like to see more characters...
Hum on that I disagree.
We have ~150 characters already (that's ~300 different games in you consider role cards and much more if you consider all choices of feats).And each of them can be played on 4 full adventures, not including "seasons of" and homegrown variants.
That's more than I will play in my whole life.
And we have tons of boons.
IMHO, I much more would like new banes/challenges to build different and innovative scenarios....
Not necessarily a change, but something I would like to see added - more characters! Now that we have Ultimate decks coming out to supplement all the class/character decks, a character expansion set is completely viable. New archetypes for rangers, rogues, fighters, etc. etc. I've been hoping for a couple years now for my favorite divine hunter paladin to make an appearance (like the one in the NPC Codex that even has a miniature made already). Popular non-iconics such as Shalelu could be fun as well.
(I also considered having official OP rules for creating your own character, but creating a list of balanced power feats to choose from sounds like a bit too much work.)
If you want to play a certain character, just make a draft yourself, post it in the homebrew section, refine it there through discussion and then have fun playing it. I doubt they'll publish any new characters outside of the ultimate decks until all of them are published, so you might as well just start with characters yourself rather than waiting for several months for a chance that you might see the character you want to play.
Please no. It's annoying enough to have to replay scenarios multiple times because we keep running out of time. If we have to have a healer run around healing people, that will mean even less time. Replaying an entire campaign because the group wants to try different characters - that's fun. But replaying a scenario when everyone wants to move on and continue the story - not fun.Just wrote that in another thread. Thought it might fit in here too:
Healing is an issue in small groups and time (blessing deck) in large ones. One thing I "would" change would be trying to balance the game so that both are issues whatever the party size.
Sorry Dulcee I wasn't clear.
I totally agree it has to stay fun and should not at all improve the number or replayed scenarios or other unpleasant outcomes.
The difficulty should not increase.
It's a matter of balancing heal/time difficulties in a way independent of party size, not at all adding those difficulties.
Ah, I see. Yes balancing the two would make things fun. The time factor is easy - there should be a variable number of cards in the blessings deck depending on the size of the party. Then to mitigate the fact that more characters gives more blessings and other forms of help which diminish the need for healing, the best solution is to probably limit the "range" of these cards. You can only play cards to help a character at your location or an adjacent location, for example. Something that doesn't hurt small parties with few locations but does affect large parties with many locations.
It would be very easy to stay in same locations with bigger parties, if there is more time. So big party would steamroll scenarios with that variation... so the limitations should be something different... I am not sure that this is a thing that needs fixing. I enjoy the difference between 2 Person or 6 Person game. It is like different game all together, so more interesting to play again with different size croup.
It would be very easy to stay in same locations with bigger parties, if there is more time. So big party would steamroll scenarios with that variation... so the limitations should be something different... I am not sure that this is a thing that needs fixing. I enjoy the difference between 2 Person or 6 Person game. It is like different game all together, so more interesting to play again with different size croup.
I've played nothing but 6 player games, and we've never found staying at the same location to be very beneficial. If you find the villain, and nobody is covering the other locations, he could end up anywhere, and you waste time trying to locate him again. Also there are many cards that affect everyone at your location, so we try to avoid that. And of course, not everyone is going to be able to close the location very easily, so you could end up with the wrong character finding the henchmen, and suddenly your group is using extra blessings just to get the location closed, meaning even less explores available.
The only time we really group at a location is if there's nowhere else to go (we've already closed the others), or if it's a really nasty location with a mean "start of turn" effect, and we just want to close it as quickly as possible.
And if big parties aren't currently "steamrolling scenarios", and in fact have an issue with time many times, I don't see how giving everyone an extra turn is going to suddenly make the game too easy.
Itis not because you don`t normally have time in 6 player croup to stay in the same locations. Extra time would make it possible.
But it is a lot of matter of taste. I personally feel that Pathfinder is normally a Little bit too easy (even in six person) and some think that it is too hard even with four that is considered the easiest. So a matter of taste. But I think that giving more time but redusing the range of help may not keep the difficulty balance the same, if the idea is to give more time but at the same time make it harder to help with blessings by using distance.
But I like the idea of helping distance nice From the reality point of view as I like Connected locations idea. It is harder to help if you Are not in the same location. I works that way I Arkham horror Lcg. But that would change the game balance a lot and the Pathfinder should be changed radically. And it would be completely different game with different rules. So that there would be same time limit to all sized croups, but the difficult would be changed by some other factor according the party size, but that would be completely different game system.
Something I just thought of. "Henchman" should be Henchperson or some other, better gender neutralized term. Minions/Captains/Cronies/Goons/Lackeys/Mini-bosses/etc.
Something I just thought of. "Henchman" should be Henchperson or some other, better gender neutralized term. Minions/Captains/Cronies/Goons/Lackeys/Mini-bosses/etc.
I don't disagree, in principle, but none of those words has the same verve as henchman, IMHO. "Minion" would not have been bad, but it was ruined by the Despicable movies.
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"Henchman" should be Henchperson
I find this quite restrictive and under-representing. How about "Henchentity" - given how we have mindless undead, demons, outright deities, not to mention statues (!) whose whole "person" status is somewhat ambiguous?
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I don't see a need to change the established card names to any gender neutral alternatives. I think the game/setting/company/community have demonstrated ample inclusiveness and trying to adjust everything to gender neutral (and any other social agenda) will only complicate things and make an already complex text-based set of rules that much more difficult to understand. We've seen plenty of female (and other/non-gender) banes and as far as I can tell, nobody has found that confusing in game play.
I have bought all of the Character packs up to this point but most of them do nothing for me really, and there are so many now. At this point, it seems strange that no other content has been developed outside of the 'Character Pack' format.
This was my point when I said they should add more characters. I own all the character packs as well, and I will never play 70 to 80 percent of them because they don't interest me at all. Everyone has different tastes and different concepts they enjoy, so there will never be enough characters released so long as there are still more archetypes that haven't been covered.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be more banes. I would absolutely love that. But for me, I'd like to be able to play versions of the characters I play in the RPG.
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Something I just thought of. "Henchman" should be Henchperson or some other, better gender neutralized term. Minions/Captains/Cronies/Goons/Lackeys/Mini-bosses/etc.
Pleeeeaaaasssseee no! I understand that some of you across the pond may be totally swamped into the politically correctness these days.... but please do not rewrite history.
It's like Facebook removing "La Liberté Guidant le Peuple" because her breast is naked.Why not say that Joan of Arc wasn't a Knight but rather a Damoiselle if you go that way (maybe she should get down from her horse and remove the armor?).
Henchman means what it means historically, don't create an issue where there are none.
Pleeeaaassse....
Ah Frencois, I must take you to task for anglicizing Jeanne D'Arc's name. Ste. Jeanne D'Arc, actually. Anglo-Saxons spell damoiselle, damsel too, for some reason. Why Knight instead of Cavalier (chevalier) I cannot say.
Hench-man is no more troubling a word than, oh say, wo-man. The -man suffix simply means, in this context, and has historically meant, person, or human. Woman was wifman, female person. Somewhere along the way Anglophones dropped the root from the word for male person, werman. They did keep werewolf (loup-garou) and weregild.
Hehe thanks Vic and Red to have understood it was just bad frenchy humor. On a much more serious note about "what to change", see the last Blog about Ultimate Combat and ideas around displayable (sorry Jeanne, you get to keep it on) armor.
Some further thoughts after re-reading the blog post that Vic asked directed us to read before replying.
Not every story we want to tell is a sprawling Adventure Path that takes RPG characters from 1st-level pipsqueak to 20th-level potentate. There are a lot more tales in the Pathfinder catalogue. We'd like to be able to tell some of the smaller ones too.
Perhaps smaller campaigns [as an addition to the full APs] are possible. These might cover the equivalent of only 1, 2, or 3 adventure decks and might include fewer characters. Such smaller campaigns might even be tailor-made for specific characters, allowing you to tailor the boons in the deck thematically. They would still be fully playable by other characters, and the characters included in these smaller campaigns would be fully compatible across the PACG line. Also, even though the smaller campaigns would be designed around fewer characters, locations and such would still be designed as normal (i.e., for up to six characters).
If such campaigns start at higher than the B level, the rules would include examples on how to advance characters appropriately for starting (experienced players will already know this, but such sets would have to be written for complete tyros in mind).
Each such smaller campaign could easily have an expansion deck to allow thematic expansion up to six characters, but players could also add their class/character/add-on decks as normal.
Having such smaller campaigns cover fewer AD levels would decrease the cards required, reducing required box size. You might even be able to get more than two adventure levels into the same smaller box this way, since you don't need to create cards such as henchmen and locations to cover the entire range of seven levels (including B as a level). It might be possible to include an entire such campaign using the same number of cards as a normal AP's initial set (i.e., what we see in the B and 1 cards), without the need to plan for fitting five additional decks (though you might want to plan for one or more additional decks if you think there will be a need for expansion decks such as those I've suggested above).
These campaigns could be based around four characters. My thinking is that the main four "types" are the physical combat, arcane, divine, and skill characters. This translates to the classic fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue, but there are plenty of variations depending upon the story that you want to tell. This is a bit more limiting on the front end, but actually makes it a bit easier for the more casual gamer and initial entry for the uninitiated (i.e., less anguishing over which character to play and less to figure out). This might be a great way to present some of the more niche characters, or for translating some of the fiction (and the interesting characters) into games.
Here’s an example of what I suggested above. I’m calling them mini-campaigns now, though they probably need a sexy name like Pathfinder Quests or Pathfinder Journeys or somesuch.
A PACG mini-campaign for 1-4 characters
(This mini-campaign covers AD levels 3-4)
Note that I just made the mini-campaign name up, so don’t go looking for it (if you find something with the same name, it’s a complete coincidence or my subconscious memory at work).
With a Tian setting, this adventure allows us to expand on the work of the Ultimate Add-On decks and give alternate versions of the existing Tian characters.
Characters involved:
- Hayato – cavalier (Samurai alternate class, so our “fighter” type)
- Reiko – ninja (Rogue Alternate class, so our “skill” type)
- Sajan – monk (breaking my rule already, but I can’t see a Tian adventure that doesn’t include Sajan)
- New Character – (one of the arcane classes, and this new character could be an exotic race such as a tengu)
Each of these would be a fully-fledged character as would be found in any other AP or a class/character/add-on deck. Any other existing PACG characters could also be used in this mini-campaign, just as these characters can be used in any other PACG sets.
Starting at AD level 3, the rules would explain how to give your characters their initial skill, card, and power feats; and then the rules would explain how to build their starting decks. Building the decks has to be done *after* assigning the initial skill feats, after all.
While there would be some B, 1, and 2 cards (it’s difficult to imagine any PACG adventure without Basic blessings, after all), you would only need locations for the ten or so 3 and 4 scenarios. The boons would allow for each of the included characters to be realized thematically through 4, while having sufficient variety for any other characters to be used.
And while I’d initially balked at the generic “henchman” cards that have been suggested, more and more I’m realizing that this might actually be a very good idea. You would simply need five of these cards, and then one of each type of henchman (under normal usages). There is a potential to reduce the card count from sixty down to fifteen cards, which is a significant reduction. This would provide further economy of cards for more of other types of cards.
In addition to the base mini-campaign set, there might be an add-on deck that includes two additional characters, their boons, and additional banes for the adventures (in most cases, that might mean only two additional generic “henchman” cards). These characters would fill the gaps of the other characters (so in my example, there would be one Divine character, with the second character being tailored both thematically and based on the gaps of the other characters – another good exotic choice such as a kitsune or other Tian-flavored character could be used).
I previously provided my thoughts on the suggestion for modular sets here, and I think that the mini-campaigns I’m suggesting and the modular sets are fully compatible, allowing players to mix and match. Assuming that B & 1 would be consolidated in the theoretical modular sets, characters might start off in any modular B&1 set, move to a modular 2 set, move to my theoretical 3 and 4 mini-campaign suggested above, then move to a 5 modular set and a 6 modular set (or a 5 & 6 mini-campaign). I’m still in favor of modular sets, but I’m also in favor of mini-campaigns; and the two can be used in a complementary fashion (much like the RPG has independent scenarios and campaigns that aren’t part of larger 0-20 level adventure paths).
Also, while I’ve theorized a 3&4 set, that was specifically to explicitly show why the characters would be fully realized with role cards as normal. The concept of mini-campaigns would allow for boxed sets of any combination of sequential adventure levels (e.g., 2&3, 4&5, etc.). Keeping them at 2 or 3 adventure levels would probably be necessary in order to keep the card count down to about 500 cards with four characters; with the potential to increase to the normal six character max via the usual add-on deck. The ability to include multiple adventures (vice just the B & 1 of the traditional adventure path base set) is realized by limiting the characters available. Seven distinct characters require considerably more boons than four, so the cards that would normally go towards three viable characters can be used for the additional adventure(s). Since the theoretical mini-campaigns would be expanded to a full six adventures, though, it might be possible to have more than the normal 500 card count for three or even four adventure levels.
Even though these aren’t full B-6 adventures, I would expect the cost to be based on card count, so a 500-card mini-campaign would cost just as much as a B&1 full AP base set, but would come in a smaller box (just big enough for the mini-campaign and an add-on deck, if the latter are included).
The game developers probably wouldn’t need as much time to develop/playtest these because they’re spanning only two or three adventure deck levels (though this might be offset in cases where they’re creating from scratch instead of having a PFRPG base upon which to work).
Such mini-campaigns wouldn’t require as large a commitment as full APs, but, if used in conjunction with other mini-campaigns or the theorized modules, players could use them in full non-linear B-6 campaigns. More casual players, meanwhile, might complete a PACG mini-campaign box in far less time than a full AP.
We have one mini, aka Goblin and that did start 1 level and did continue to 2:nd level. Most likely way of doing it, because it is easiest, but Also a Little bit still because you don`t get powers or other perks.
So I like full campaigns more personally. But why not...
Other would be ro have modular level1, level2 level... level6 packs that you can mix and match if mini adventures would be released.
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Some further thoughts after re-reading the blog post that Vic
askeddirected us to read before replying.Not every story we want to tell is a sprawling Adventure Path that takes RPG characters from 1st-level pipsqueak to 20th-level potentate. There are a lot more tales in the Pathfinder catalogue. We'd like to be able to tell some of the smaller ones too.Perhaps smaller campaigns [as an addition to the full APs] are possible. These might cover the equivalent of only 1, 2, or 3 adventure decks and might include fewer characters.
One of the things that would help for organized play is to have adventures designed to get you up to the "tier" they have in some of the "interactive special" scenarios. Tier 3, or something like that.
With the playtesting that's underway, it may be too late for additional suggestions. But here are a few:
Maybe don't start all campaigns at level 0? I wouldn't mind an adventure where you start at the halfway point (level 3?) and continue from there.
Having played many regular and OP scenarios (at-home versions), the introductory flavor text can be too short in the former and too long in the latter. Honestly, though, I prefer short passages over long sermons. Recognizing different playing styles, my recommendation would be to have at least two versions of the intro flavor text for each scenario: a long version and a short version. E.g., the long version might be 3-4 paragraphs and the short version might 5-6 sentences. You could even add an in-between version if you're so inclined.
If you start with the long version, and pare down for the medium/short versions, I can't imagine it would be too much work.
One way that PACG might be improved is by cleaning up confusing terminology. Examples have been given above, but here's another: "end of turn".
The phrase "end of turn" has always confused players, both new and experienced. That's because "end of turn" isn't actually the last thing that you do. "End of turn" stuff happens, then you reset your hand. So resetting is what actually happens last.
Note: "End of turn" is clearly defined in the rulebook. But the term is so counterintuitive that it confuses players nonetheless.
I played an OP game just last night, in fact, and even the experienced players had to be convinced that "end of turn" happens before resetting.
So... I'd love to see "end of turn" eliminated in favor of using "before resetting your hand" and "after resetting your hand" (depending on which one you mean).
Or, if that doesn't work, use another phrase that's more intuitive.
Actually, since Resetting Your Hand is no longer its own step and is part of the End of the Turn process, "End of the Turn" is the last thing you do. It's just that the last part of "End of the Turn" is resetting your hand.
My knowledge of PACG isn't trivial, but I'm not at the "rules guru" level. My plea is that "end of turn" not be used to describe something that occurs before resetting your hand. What that means in terms of steps, procedures and clear rules language, I'm not entirely sure. :) I'll leave that in the hands of the friendly and amazing people at Paizo.
Yep! End of turn phase just includes Many separate steps. You just have to know what hapens at the end of turn and what order. Some phase step quick reference tablet is very usefull!
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I take wkover's point as being that even with the revised End of Turn language (which came out in S&S or Wrath, I don't recall), it's still true that "end of turn" effects occur before you reset your hand. I can understand people being confused that there is something you do (reset your hand) after you do the things you do "at the end of your turn".
That said, I never saw this confusion among anyone I've played with, nor had it myself.
I got confused by it quite recently. A WotR card said "end your turn", and I thought back to other cards in the past which had said "reset your hand and end your turn" and assumed the difference meant I shouldn't reset my hand. Only now realise I did it wrong after this conversation.
To be fair, it was the change that confused me not the current approach though.
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I got confused by it quite recently. A WotR card said "end your turn", and I thought back to other cards in the past which had said "reset your hand and end your turn" and assumed the difference meant I shouldn't reset my hand. Only now realise I did it wrong after this conversation.
To be fair, it was the change that confused me not the current approach though.
I have done this as well. Made WOTR more difficult than it should've been, though it sure was fun!
To wkover's point, I do frequently see confusion over the "end of turn" step. Questions I've heard asked at our tables frequently include some variation of
"Do these 'at end of your turn' effects occur before or after I reset my hand?"
I know I can just point them to the rules to tell them the proper order, but the naming is somewhat confusion. At least Before you Act and After you Act (BYA/AYA) are somewhat descriptive of when they occur. Whereas "at end of your turn" doesn't really specify and thus gets questioned.
As long as it's specified on the reference sheet on the back of the rulebook (and of course the rulebook itself), I don't have any issues with "End Turn" including hand reset (as the final step). But then, I'm also a MTG player who has long ago happily memorised "start of turn" in that being "Untap -> Upkeep -> Draw" and don't always remember that it's not an intuitive understanding of a 'turn'.
Perhaps if cards that forcibly ended your turn said "Move to your end step" rather than "End your turn", and 'end step' was clearly defined, in that language, in the rulebook? It still kind of seems an unnecessary change to me. As for renaming the 'end of turn' effects (to get around the incorrect assumption that end-of-turn effects happen at the absolute end of your turn, therefore after hand reset), that is an upsetting change for previous characters and adventure paths, as it's kind of ingrained in every aspect of the existing game. However, if that is a route, then perhaps "Cleanup phase" or "Cleanup step". So an End-of-Turn power would say "During your cleanup phase, X". It would also make the distinction between "End of the turn" and "End of your turn" slightly more visible, since it would instead be "During the next cleanup phase" or "During your cleanup phase".
To clarify; I'm not suggesting that end-of-turn effects should be renamed. At most, I'm suggesting some rulebook changes that exaggerate that fact a little more. But to carry on from the hypothetical "End-of-turn is a misleading phrase", I'm providing a potential solution, even if I don't really want such a solution.
Since this discussion appears to have fed the design team's efforts, you may want to check out the Core Principles #1: Designing the Next Incarnation of the Pathfinder ACG blog entry and discussion (since the discussion isn't currently showing up here in the PACG forums, some visibility helps). It looks like we're in for some exciting and interesting changes and a year's worth of blog entries preparing us for those changes.
Chief Technical Officer
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So... I'd love to see "end of turn" eliminated in favor of using "before resetting your hand" and "after resetting your hand" (depending on which one you mean).
While you usually reset your hand during the End Your Turn step, some things make you reset your hand during other steps. Effects that happen "when you reset your hand" apply to those resets too, and that's not always desirable.
Quick comment: I've been teaching PACG to a lot of new players recently, and without fail new players always assume (100% of the time) that "deck" always means location deck.
Here I'm thinking of cards like Amadi and Helpful Haversack that allow you to peek at your character deck. Routinely new players use these cards to examine their locations decks, which of course isn't the intent.
(The assumption does make sense, by the way, since the vast majority of the time cards do things to location decks, not other decks. And even experienced players make this mistake, so it isn't just a newbie thing.)
An easy fix would be to specify "your character deck" instead of "your deck" on these cards. Just a suggestion, but I do think it would be a huge help for these unusual cards.
Unless a card says otherwise, drawing means taking a card from the specified source and putting it in your hand. If no source is specified, draw it from your character deck.
(page 9)
Each of the other AP rulebooks has a similarly worded rule.
I know it's not exactly what you're suggesting, but perhaps the rule quoted above is what needs to be changed, taking the focus away from drawing and adding examining. Discarding, recharging, banishing, displaying, and burying are all from your hand, by default, so the only two types of card plays that need this specificity are drawing and examining.
I'd argue that it's definitely the card text that needs to be changed. It's not the rule that's the main problem (well, maybe - I dunno) - it's interpreting the text itself on the card. Most new players aren't reading the rulebook. They're leaving that up to someone else (i.e., me - the game's owner).
Anything that we can do to help new players is a good thing, imho. I would prefer not to have to read everyone else's cards all the time to ensure that they're playing correctly. Especially if I'm running a two-table OP session, since I can't be in both tables. ;) I'm good, but not that good.
P.S. It's not the case that the players are even unsure about the card text. They don't even think to ask, and automatically assume that deck = location deck.
+1 that even experienced players can assume "deck" means "location deck". I've created threads in the playtest about an examining or re-ordering power being OP only to find out (to my chagrin) that the power works on your character deck, not your location deck.
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For the new Base Set, our current plan is that character decks are the only thing that's ever called a "deck." Location decks are now simply "locations," and the blessing deck is now... something we'll talk about later.
The only disappointing term in that post is "later".
:-)Thanks Vic for all the great work done.
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For the new Base Set, our current plan is that character decks are the only thing that's ever called a "deck." Location decks are now simply "locations," and the blessing deck is now... something we'll talk about later.
..."the clock"? We've seen it called the hourglass in previews of the new material, but you guys did encourage us to point the cards we deal off that thing at the current player, which means they point outwards and the direction it points moves around in a circle. And it's four letters shorter than "hourglass".
Just sayin'.
... and the blessing deck is now... something we'll talk about later...."the clock"? ... it's four letters shorter than "hourglass".
... "the bell?" ... looks like I won a letter more :-)
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I usually call the blessing deck 'the timer deck'.
With the impending release of the Return of the Runelords adventure path for PFRPG (new version), as announced here, I wonder how the AP might be adapted to PACG. Of note:
This Adventure Path features longer adventures than most volumes, with the final installment being the longest adventure we've ever run in an Adventure Path volume! This increased length allows us to cover every level from 1st to 20th, without using Mythic Adventures to speed level progression along (as was the case in Wrath of the Righteous, the only other Adventure Path we've published that reached 20th level)...
Would it be feasible to have longer PACG APs? How might characters designed for such an AP look? Could it be done in a way that is backwards compatible with the existing characters?
Would it be feasible to have longer PACG APs? How might characters designed for such an AP look? Could it be done in a way that is backwards compatible with the existing characters?
I think this is one of the issues they're looking to address with the reboot. What we've heard is that, rather than releasing the adventures in a path in 110-card packs, at the least CotCT is being released all in one box, so they can be as big or as small as it takes to tell the story.
As to the question of raising characters up through that range of levels: I think a starting character with nothing checked is essentially a level 1 character (and I say this, never having played the RPG) so the real challenge is mimicking a level 20 character. It may be that the way to do that is with something like the mythic path cards which would award additional powers. You'd need an array of them somehow to match the variation of roles.
The real trick is getting the escalation on both sides right. Just increasing the difficulty to defeat isn't enough, I think.
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Hmmm.
Put me in the camp that doesn't want side-quests or one-off scenarios - for me the number one most attractive aspect of PACG, and the one thing PACG does better than any other similar game ATM, is character development over time. Embedding the character in a campaign is part of what makes that work for me.
I'm really excited about PACG 2.0. Many flaws in the earlier (beloved) product have been identified and addressed - it remains to be seen how well, but I'm eager to experience it.
And, speaking for myself, there will never be enough characters. (No, >100 is not enough :)
My impression is that enough has changed that you can decide on your own whether you consider the next box as PACG or PACG 2.0.
There are big errata articles online for each product, so there is an easy algorithm during play even without errata'd cards:
Is something strange / badly worded? If yes, look up the errata, if not, you're fine.
If this is not enough for you, you can still easily make a printout of the most common ones.
I don't think making errata sets is profitable given the actual willingness to buy them compared to how many people are bound on making them (when they could be working on new products in the same time instead). You can also never know when you are done with making errata, so making a finalized errata'd card set is a flawed concept to begin with.
I also don't understand your perceived lack of game as compared to characters. Counting the organized play APs, we are currently at 2/3/2/3 = 10 official APs in total (counting RotR/SnS/WotR/MM).
If you add the 1/1/1/0 = 3 complete homebrew APs from Ron Lundeen and the 0/1/1/0 = 2 from myself, you end up at 15. The current number of characters is not even 1.5 times the number of characters you would need to play through all of those 15 APs with 6 different characters each.
Finally, I'm not sure why you are stressing that you will wait for reviews before you buy. No one is asking you to blindly buy the next set if you don't know whether you will like it or not. In fact, as an informed customer, you should always gather enough information before deciding on a purchase, regardless of what you are buying.
The idea of side quests is cool, but it would be tough to implement them properly.
- I'm not interested in side quests instead of a campaign, as the campaign-long character development is what my group loves. And it's what most PACG players enjoy, I think.
- Having side quests available at any point in a campaign would be tough to design, since they'd need to scale with character level. Could work, though, since Paizo already does that in the PACG specials (tier 2 version, tier 5 version).
- Having side quests with rewards that are too good (extra feats, amazing items, etc.) would be distracting/annoying, as people would consider them mandatory instead of optional. At some level, the designers don't want players to get too many good cards/upgrades, as they still want the later scenarios to be challenging. Maybe add-on side quests that unlock ok/decent cohorts for each character?
- Players would not be happy if their characters died in a not-properly-tested side quest.