I'm just starting Mummy's Mask with a fairly balanced party of 4 right now. I'm playing CD Balazar and Nok-Nok. My roommate is playing WotR Seelah and Estra.
I know you can use WotR Padrig or CD Padrig with Balazar and I'm having a hard time choosing.
Display this card. While displayed, when you attempt a Strength check and do not play a weapon, you may put a card on top of your deck to add your Arcade skill plus the scenario's adventure deck number to that check. You may banish any number of monsters; for each monster banished, add 1d4 to the check, or 1d6 if you have a role card. If you are encountering a monster, add another 1d6 for each monster banished that shares a trait other than Basic or Elite with the monster you are encountering.
Display this card. While displayed, for your combat check, you may reveal a monster or spell to roll 2d10, or 2d12 if you have a role card. Add the card's adventure deck number and the Melee trait.
While displayed, you may recharge a card to use your Arcane skill instead of the normal skill on your Strength or Fortitude non-combat check.
CD Balazar also has an inherent ability that overlaps with WotR Padrig:
You may banish a monster from your hand to add 1d4 plus the monster's adventure deck number to a combat check by a character at your location.
So right from the start:
W-Padrig does 1d4 (str) + 1d12+2 (arcane), averaging 11 damageCD-Padrig does 2d10, averaging 11 damage
W-Padrig pros:
* Scales with arcane
* Gets a free +1d6 with matching traits
* Can banish multiple monsters for +1d4 each
* Always adds the Scenario AD# as opposed to relying on revealed Card AD#
CD-Padrig pros:
* Blessings add d10s instead of d4s
* Easy fortitude checks!
* Doesn't cost "put a card on top of your deck" to use
Any advice? Any power synergies or later game strategies I'm missing? I guess I can always change my mind and swap out later too.
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I'm sure either choice would be fine. Personally, I place a higher value on CD Padrig due to the flexibility with skill checks.
Firstly, I would not encourage power-gaming with Balazar; both versions of him are already very powerful characters in the right hands, and hardly need the support!
Also, you're debatably not supposed to change Cohorts on the fly; I recommend picking one version of Padrig and stick to him. At least, that's pretty clear when playing with PFSACG/OP rules, since you literally replace the named card in your box with the one from the base set when building the character, if you so choose. In a home game, you can do whatever you want, in truth.
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With that said, I generally consider WotR Padrig a stronger Cohort, though not objectively. But let's look at the comparisons from the perspective of CD Balazar.
COMBAT:
As soon as you get any skill feat, WotR Padrig starts pulling ahead in simple combat terms - admittedly at the cost of topdecking a card. Furthermore, CD Balazar is much more adept at drawing multiple monsters into his hand than WotR, since he can recharge spells for monsters - this allows you to feed large numbers of monster's to CD Padrig's ability for a bunch of 1d4s/1d6s with great ease.
Additionally, there are other ways of utilising WotR Padrig in combat that aren't possible with CD Padrig. Depending on what your base set and class decks are, these may change around, but at the very least there's this...
COMBAT, ADDENDUM:
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Whilst it does require a small cost with each combat (though note that Balazar should draw monsters from finishing combat anyway, which partially offsets the cost), I think it's pretty safe to say that WotR Padrig is much stronger in combat than its CD equivalent. So what about non-combat?
NON-COMBAT:
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There are other things to consider. WotR Balazar has a role card that allows him to use his Strength skill for various other checks, each of which enables him to use Padrig for an incredible boost and versatility. CD Balazar can usually pass combat checks by banishing a decent monster with his own power, so having his Padrig also do that is not necessarily a big requirement.
On the whole, though, WotR Padrig gives you better Strength checks (both combat and noncombat), opens you up to more non-weapon forms of combat whilst still boosting you and gives you higher combat rolls, and generally gets my strong vote.
CD Padrig is more card-conscious if you're getting into strings of combat checks, and allows you to pass Fortitude checks.
And yes, CD Padrig is a better carrier of blessings (assuming you're not post-role WotR Balazar where you can enhance the value of Blessings anyway) in combat (and in noncombat Strength), but I don't think Balazar will almost ever use blessings in combat; his average power is quite high, scales well and you'd probably rather burn monsters (which are easily gained by recharging Spells) to WotR Padrig's power rather than discard blessings if you want to get the most of your resources.
That was very helpful. I opted for WotR Padrig and it also helped me narrow down my choices for my CD Balazar role card. Thank you!