How does the Island Hopping reward bonus work?

[grunner]

Greetings All,
Pathfinder ACG:S&S is my first experience with the system. My wife and I decided to attempt the "Plunder and Peril" Adventure, with the first scenario being "Island Hopping". At the final open location, we managed to defeat the villain with just 1 blessing left in the blessing deck, and a great time was had for our first scenario. Reading the reward bonus of the "Island Hopping" scenario, we were both confused as to how it benefitted the party.

It reads "Reward: Each character gains a random item from the box."
I was playing Valeros and gained a "Potion Of Healing" from the box.

S&S Base Set Rulebook page 19 "Between Games" says "After each scenario, you must rebuild your character deck." If I have the ability to freely construct a legal deck, then what is the benefit of "gaining a random item from the box"?

thank you for you time in advance!

[Sara Marie]

Moved to ACG rules and gameplay forum.

[Zhayne]

Because you might have gotten something awesome you'd rather have than an item already in your deck, or something that would improve another player's deck you could give them.

You just got unlucky by drawing a crappy potion.

When you rebuild your deck after a scenario, you can only do so from the cards you started with (that weren't banished during play) and cards you acquired during play. You do not get to rifle through the box.

[elcoderdude]

I'm on my phone, or I'd cite rules, but you need to read the rules about *how* you rebuild your deck after a scenario - it is *very different* from building your starting deck. In fact, your only choices for new cards are the cards the party acquired during the scenario, or gained as rewards, with few exceptions.

EDIT: Ninja'd!

[Irgy]

To put it another way, you would not have been able to put that potion of healing into your (or anyone's) deck if you hadn't received it as a reward. Whether you want to is up to you.

In general, the rewards that are neither feats nor loot are rarely useful. But if you always got good rewards your character would progress too fast anyway.

[Frencois]

Irgy wrote:

....In general, the rewards that are neither feats nor loot are rarely useful...

You should play like we do: when a character starts, he gets RANDOM basic cards of the required type (and yes, you can be melee guy and get ranged weapons). If you do so, I tell you you will value the rewards.

[Zhayne]

Frencois wrote:

Irgy wrote:

....In general, the rewards that are neither feats nor loot are rarely useful...

You should play like we do: when a character starts, he gets RANDOM basic cards of the required type (and yes, you can be melee guy and get ranged weapons). If you do so, I tell you you will value the rewards.

Well, if you enjoy being just shy of useless, that would work.

[Frencois]

Zhayne wrote:

Frencois wrote:

Irgy wrote:

....In general, the rewards that are neither feats nor loot are rarely useful...

You should play like we do: when a character starts, he gets RANDOM basic cards of the required type (and yes, you can be melee guy and get ranged weapons). If you do so, I tell you you will value the rewards.

Well, if you enjoy being just shy of useless, that would work.

We just love it... especially as we usually win the scenarios anyway. Now I'm playing in a group of 4-6 players, I guess for smaller groups that may not apply/work.

[Zhayne]

We play 4 and usually beat scenarios on the last set of turns. We ... kinda suck at this game. :)

I figure we're gonna be stuck on 'Best Served Cold' in S&S for a month.