We just finished scenario 5-1B in Tapestry's Tides and we had a question about the scenario reward:
For the rest of the Adventure Path, when you would stash any number of plunder cards, any character may instead choose a Basic boon from the game box and shuffle it into his deck.
Our question: Do you select the Basic boon option before you roll for plunder or after?
Afterwards would obviously be better, since you could select the basic boon instead of a card you don't want. E.g., if you roll a weapon and no one needs weapons, you could select the basic boon (e.g., a Cure spell) instead. If you have to select before rolling, that changes things.
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Plunder cards commonly represent potential rewards carried on your
ship. When you stash a plunder card, roll 1d6 on the table below,
draw 1 card of the corresponding type from the box without looking
at the card, and unless otherwise instructed, put the plunder card
facedown under your ship.
"stash a plunder" refers to the whole process of rolling, drawing the card, and putting it facedown under your ship. Since the reward says "any character may instead choose a basic boon [...]", then you're giving up the ability to roll the plunder die and everything that would follow. If the reward said "after you roll for plunder, instead of putting the card under your ship you may [....]" then that would be a different story.
Remember, "Choices Matter"
For us it was partly a RAW vs. RAI issue, but thanks for the clarifications. Makes sense.
S&S will remain in the minds of the people I play with IRL as the set of wasted mechanics. The ship movement and damage mechanics were sufficient, but the actual functional differences of commanding ships were effectively wasted. By playing as a 6-character team, there was no effects worth burning a card from the blessings deck to use, and so the overwhelming majority of ships were identical to every other ship in our hands. Even the damage mechanics were largely nullified since we could easily discard cards if needed, and we had Jirelle in play and only took ships with passive damage resistance since we never used their activated powers.
Plunder was almost an entire non-event for almost every scenario of the 35 or so included in the S&S AP. Besides some particularly plunder-heavy scenarios (when fighting numerous ships and the like), we almost never drew useful cards from Plunder, either because they were of undesirable boon types, playstyles or, more frequently, of undesirable AD#s. This is a critical weakness of the "help players progress" mechanic that Plunder was supposed to be that was solved entirely with the Trader mechanic in Mummy's Mask.
Nevertheless, as a result, plunder-centric mechanics among S&S characters (such as "add or subtract 1 from your Plunder roll" or "stash an extra plunder card") were already weak uses of power feats. I would have strongly hoped that Season 5 would have improved the value of Plunder in various ways in ways that would support the use of these bad character powers, rather than weaken them further.
As-written, choosing to shuffle a basic blessing or a Cure or something into someone's deck will take the place of stashing one or more Plunder cards, and as a result will nullify these already-weak (or at least incredibly narrow) character powers. It has made acquiring Plunder better, which is admirable; but it's made powers caring about Plunder weaker.
I would have much preferred if it was written like this:
For the rest of the Adventure Path, when you would stash any number of plunder cards; instead of drawing each card of the corresponding type from the box, any character may instead choose a Basic boon of that type from the game box and shuffle it into his deck.
That means that character powers that cause you to acquire more than one Plunder card at a time, or modify the Plunder Table roll, will actually be potentially decent in this Season, rather than even weaker than they already were (which was impressively weak...).
For us it was partly a RAW vs. RAI issue...
Mike made it clear that RAI means nothing in PACG :-)
"The cards say what they say"|
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Plunder was almost an entire non-event for almost every scenario of the 35 or so included in the S&S AP. Besides some particularly plunder-heavy scenarios (when fighting numerous ships and the like), we almost never drew useful cards from Plunder, either because they were of undesirable boon types, playstyles or, more frequently, of undesirable AD#s. This is a critical weakness of the "help players progress" mechanic that Plunder was supposed to be that was solved entirely with the Trader mechanic in Mummy's Mask.
Nevertheless, as a result, plunder-centric mechanics among S&S characters (such as "add or subtract 1 from your Plunder roll" or "stash an extra plunder card") were already weak uses of power feats. I would have strongly hoped that Season 5 would have improved the value of Plunder in various ways in ways that would support the use of these bad character powers, rather than weaken them further.
I agree some mechanics needed work in SnS, but plunder was not one of them imo. I found plunder to be useful and fun in SnS. Arguably in OP it is even better because you don't get those exact cards, you get to use them for deck upgrades. So want that Gem of Physical prowess? No worry! any item2 will work. That is a huge boost to plunder usefulness just by playing Organized Play. I would much rather Meri take her chance to stash 2 plunder instead of shuffling 2 basic cards into her deck with your proposed language below.
For the rest of the Adventure Path, when you would stash any number of plunder cards; instead of drawing each card of the corresponding type from the box, any character may instead choose a Basic boon of that type from the game box and shuffle it into his deck.
I don't necessarily agree that a reward should be nerfed for 100+ characters so that 2 characters can use their power feats in an arguably sub-optimal way. Regardless, my biggest concern for allowing multiple cards being added into your deck from a single instance of plunder is abuse. I am glad that the current reward phrasing limits it to 1 card and makes you consider the trade-off of whether or not you want to stash plunder card(s) or get a basic boon into your deck.
Regardless, my biggest concern for allowing multiple cards being added into your deck from a single instance of plunder is abuse.
As an example, Goblin Keelhaulin' (an insane promo barrier) has a player (a) draw and bury a ton of cards (if check to defeat fails) and then (b) stash a ton of plunder cards (regardless of whether the check fails).
I don't use this promo in OP or regular play (it can insta-kill characters, for instance), but the Paizo play-by-forum campaigns do. Shuffling a handful of Basic cards into your deck as a result of Keelhaulin' is probably something that Paizo doesn't want to allow.
Though I've been wrong before, and often am.
For us it was partly a RAW vs. RAI issue...Mike made it clear that RAI means nothing in PACG :-)
"The cards say what they say"
Careful, that means you can't activate powers between explorations in PACG - at least not more than once. For example, if you're S&S Alahazra, you can't recharge 2 divine cards to examine two locations, because you're not "In-between steps", RAW. Nor could you examine a location, explore, then examine another location - you're all in one step, and the rules say you can only play a card or power once in a step.
The RAI is explicitly different to that, mind, where Vic has pointed out that taking a new exploration is creating a 'new' explore step, but that is not stated in the rulebook at all. Which means a lot of people are breaking the rules by using cards and powers as they were largely meant to be played.
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I don't necessarily agree that a reward should be nerfed for 100+ characters so that 2 characters can use their power feats in an arguably sub-optimal way. Regardless, my biggest concern for allowing multiple cards being added into your deck from a single instance of plunder is abuse. I am glad that the current reward phrasing limits it to 1 card and makes you consider the trade-off of whether or not you want to stash plunder card(s) or get a basic boon into your deck.
That's fair, and I think I'll actually take back a lot of what I said. Plunder potentially is a bit more valuable in PFSACG, and there are definitely some occasions where you are given a metric ton of Plunder cards in a short amount of time.
Furthermore, taking Plunder cards as normal becomes a bit stronger (and taking Basics from the box a bit weaker) as the game goes on, so the post-role powers that interact with gaining more Plunder cards aren't really changed much at all.
Yeah, I think I've pretty quickly done a 180 on this. I'm convinced and retract my previous statements, largely. I still think that multiple S&S core mechanics were incredibly underwhelming in my playthrough of the base set, but that's just more of a reason to emphasise them in this Season such as with this reward.
We have yet to use this reward. Not a single person in our group thinks getting a basic boon shuffled into a deck is better than potentially getting those elusive 1 (and hopefully soon 2 - where are you 5-2?) deck upgrades.
Also I agree that some of the S&S mechanics were kinda underplayed. We've gone through S&S, Season of the Shackles, and now Tapestry's Tides and have never had to repair a ship. I think that discarding cards to prevent structural damage shouldn't have been a thing. It would have made things a bit more interesting to have to force players to repair the ship. Of course the penalty should have been a little lessened then - perhaps a d6 roll at the start of each turn to determine if a plundered card was lost.
Also I agree that some of the S&S mechanics were kinda underplayed. We've gone through S&S, Season of the Shackles, and now Tapestry's Tides and have never had to repair a ship.
In Tapestry's Tides thus far (halfway through 5-2), we've repaired our ship ~5-6 times. We often prefer to wreck the ship instead of taking 3-5 structural damage - which happened to us more than once. Particularly if we're extremely low on cards. So we definitely appreciate the wrecking option.
That said, we've been pretty lucky about getting level 1 boons - and replaying scenarios (to catch up other players) has helped with boon acquistion. And invariably we lose B-level boons whenever our ship wrecks anyway.
As mentioned in another thread, I'm pretty that 1-2 characters died a few weeks ago (not at our table) due to taking too much damage as structural damage - rather than letting their ship wreck. I'm not sure the newer players fully understood that letting the ship wreck was an option, rather than discarding cards.
In part, wrecking ships and skipping plunder for basic cards depends on how much access the table has to healing. Some tables have been happy to shuffle in Cures (once or twice, at least) instead of taking plunder.
P.S. Good luck getting an Ally 2 upgrade. I think there are only three level 2 allies total?
In Tapestry's Tides thus far (halfway through 5-2), we've repaired our ship ~5-6 times. We often prefer to wreck the ship instead of taking 3-5 structural damage - which happened to us more than once.
It helps that we're using Jirelle and have seized the ship that reduces structural damage by an additional 2 (Dominator was it?). So at most, we've only had to discard 1 card so far, and Lirianne is usually carrying an extra pistol in her hand that she doesn't need which she happily discards so that she can recharge it the next time she encounters a monster.
I'm envious you are already playing 5-2. I'm still waiting for it to show up in the store to download. I was told it was supposed to come out yesterday, but it's still unavailable.
If memory serves, seized ships don't carry over to the next scenario. They're only valid for the scenario in which they have been seized.
And there are very few cards that allow you to seize ships anyway. Though Enemy Ship is one of them, I think.
But yeah, we haven't seized any ships yet. We've been pretty happy with the default ship, since it allows you to recharge allies for structural damage. Plus the repair check isn't too terrible (Craft 4).
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The Dominator specifically says it cannot be seized.
How are they handling ship choice in Tapestry's Tides? The Season of the Shackles Scenarios tell you which ship to use or which ones to pick from, so it never matters what ship you were using in a previous Scenario.
When we played Season of the Shackles, we almost never wrecked the ship. We had good amounts of healing available, so nobody was too worried about not getting healed up after we distributed Structural damage. It's hard to remember how that first Adventure went, though, since it's been three years. :)
How are they handling ship choice in Tapestry's Tides?
I don't own the scenarios (and haven't looked too carefully), so I may be getting some details wrong. But essentially the group is assigned a proxied ship. I forget the name, but it has "Feather" in the title. Presumably the ship changes partway through the campaign, but perhaps not.
When we played Season of the Shackles, we almost never wrecked the ship. We had good amounts of healing available, so nobody was too worried about not getting healed up after we distributed Structural damage.
Funnily enough, I'm playing Season of the Shackles and Season of Tapestry's Tides concurrently in two different groups. (Wrapping up Shackles in a few weeks, and just starting TT.) I'm not sure that our ship was ever wrecked in Shackles, but that may have been dumb luck - or maybe the fact that ships aren't a strong focus in Shackles. Plus our Shackles party is more healing-focused than our Tides party.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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If memory serves, seized ships don't carry over to the next scenario. They're only valid for the scenario in which they have been seized.
On the Season of Tapestry's Tides Adventure Path, though, we find:
RULES: SEIZED SHIPS
When you seize a ship, record it on your chronicle sheet.
At the start of a scenario you may cross off a ship you have seized to use that ship instead of the Feathered Devil.
Look at that! Thanks.
This is why more than one person should read the scenario/adventure sheets. :)
I'm not sure that our ship was ever wrecked in Shackles, but that may have been dumb luck - or maybe the fact that ships aren't a strong focus in Shackles.
Nothing more fun than replying to your own post.
For the record, we played 0-6B in SotS last night and had wrecked ships. So it can happen. :)
(Though keep in mind that each player has their own ship in 0-6B, and is solely responsible for their own structural damage. 0-2D has similar rules.)
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If memory serves, seized ships don't carry over to the next scenario. They're only valid for the scenario in which they have been seized.
Yeah as someone already mentioned, you can use seized ships at the start of any scenario.
The Dominator specifically says it cannot be seized.
Well, I wasn't sure what the ship name was. I guessed that one, but it clearly wasn't it since that ship doesn't reduce structural damage by 2. It was Mistmourn.
OK, a follow-up question about the reward:
For the rest of the Adventure Path, when you would stash any number of plunder cards, any character may instead choose a Basic boon from the game box and shuffle it into his deck.
This can be done in place of a scenario's starting plunder? Or only for plunder cards earned during a scenario?
OK, a follow-up question about the reward:
For the rest of the Adventure Path, when you would stash any number of plunder cards, any character may instead choose a Basic boon from the game box and shuffle it into his deck.
This can be done in place of a scenario's starting plunder? Or only for plunder cards earned during a scenario?
That's an excellent question.
My gut suggests "No", because the reward specifically says when you would stash [a plunder card] that you may use it. But then I checked the Skull and Shackles rulebook, and it uses literally that wording for the start-of-scenario plunder anyway.
You stash 1 plunder card when you set up a scenario (see page 7).
(Note that you stash your beginning-of-scenario plunder before choosing starting locations or drawing starting hands.)
However, this raises a weird question. If one player in the party has this reward, and other players don't, can you use it at all? This isn't even entirely a hypothetical - less than a week ago I was exactly in this position with the latest PbP table I've joined. So now I'm very interested.
If only because there isn't any rules support for doing things as a "Party" for a reward that's technically player-specific, I would think that the intent is that you cannot do it for the start-of-scenario Plunder. But RAW I think you probably can, because the wording of the power matches the wording of the rulebook's start-of-scenario plunder stashing almost to the letter.
Start of scenario: RAW no. The reward is applied to characters, and a character is not stashing plunder at the start of the scenario. That is a general party directive (you can’t even say it’s the first player because turn order isn’t determined until after the plunder is stashed)
If only one character has the reward, it only applies if that character is the one stashing the plunder. The Basic can go anywhere though.
The reward for 5-5A has a similar issue.
The reward (paraphrased) is: when stashing starting plunder, you (the party? - I forget exact wording) may stash one additional plunder card.
So... what if someone joins a campaign late and doesn't have this reward? Is the entire party out of luck for the rest of the campaign, and no one gets it? Does everyone need to have this reward for it to take effect, or only one person?
I'll have this issue next week, in fact. I've earned the reward, and I'm helping other players catch up - and they don't have the reward. So do I get to apply the reward or not?
Based on skizzerz' assessment before, it doesn't apply to the beginning-of-scenario plunder anyway; so it's a moot point. The player with the reward uses it when they stash a plunder card, and players without the reward don't.
In other words, for your provided example of helping other players catch up: If your character stashes a plunder card during the scenario (such as by defeating a Ship), feel free to stash a bonus one. If another player stashes a plunder card, they are not able to stash a bonus one.
...but with that said I do agree (functionally, at least) with skizzerz that the start-of-scenario plunder shouldn't be affected by these rewards, since a player isn't actually stashing the start-of-scenario plunder.
Sorry if I wasn't being clear. I'm talking about a brand new reward (for scenario 5-5A) that does apply to starting plunder. The reward is that players get to stash an extra starting plunder for the rest of the campaign. (I just earned this.)
Next week, I'll be playing with people who have not earned this reward. So when I play with them, do we get to stash an extra starting plunder or not?
It explicitly applies to starting plunder? Oh; I haven't seen that reward yet.
I have absolutely no clue. I'm curious about the exact wording of the reward, because it seems to contradict the statement above that suggests that rewards like these are applied to characters, and "a character is not stashing plunder at the start of the scenario".
I assume the reward is clearly worded such that the entire team, in total, is supposed to get +1 starting plunder, not that each player stashes a plunder at the start of the game in addition to the normal one?
I assume the reward is clearly worded such that the entire team, in total, is supposed to get +1 starting plunder, not that each player stashes a plunder at the start of the game in addition to the normal one?
I don't have the scenario in front of me, but yes - I believe the intent is that the team as a whole gets +1 starting plunder.
(I can't post the exact wording for a few days, which is when my group meets up again.)
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For the rest of the Adventure Path, at the start of the scenario, stash a second plunder card.
With that wording, as long as at least one player has it, you’d apply that effect.
If multiple people have it, it still only happens once because there can be only one “second” plunder card.
As for why I said general directive in my earlier reply, it’s because there is no other possibility. It can’t be the first character because turn order isn’t determined yet at that part of setup by RAW. If it’s not the first character, then who is it? Is it the character of the person actually doing that part of the setup? What if the person doing the setup isn’t actually playing (such as a box runner in PbP or an event organizer prepping the box before heading to the FLGS; in the latter case they may not even know who will be showing up to play at that time). So, given that rabbit hole I’d say “character of player doing this text” is out as well. The only option that leaves is that the “you” is general to the party and is only there to make the grammar flow well and the sentence be readable.
It’s... not a great reasoning, but it’s what I came up with at the time.