Please pardon my yammering, but my mind has been going "Squeeeeee!!!!" since I saw that strange things are afoot at the Circle K (i.e., new product pages). I'm a bit excited and finding it difficult to contain myself.
The new Core Set and Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path product pages are up, with preorder for both expected in May 2019. Exciting!
My speculation gears are rolling (all of the designers and playtesters can give wry knowing smiles and chuckle when my speculation is ridiculous ;) )...
So the Core Set will cost $60 and the (complete!) adventure path will cost $50. Assuming that's all we have to buy (see below), the game just got a bit cheaper (to buy, not in quality).
The Core Set will include 12 characters and allow 1-4 players while the adventure path will include 4 characters and increase max players up to 6. My assumption is that the 12 characters in the Core Set will be the iconic versions of the core classes in the PFRPG, so the 11 that are in Rise of the Runelords plus 1 (and I won't speculate on what/who that 1 will be). The interesting thing here is that the characters in the Core Set will (almost certainly) be generic (i.e., not optimized to an adventure path). So we'll either be limited to 4 characters in the adventure path box being optimized to an adventure path, or there might be another product, a character deck such as we had in the original four sets, with additional characters that are optimized for the adventure path. That being the case, an addition $20 for another deck still keeps the overall cost cheaper. I could even see multiple character decks for an adventure path (probably a pipe dream, but I'll hold on to it until it's dashed against the rocks). Also, this reduces design time for adventure paths if the designers only have to give us 4 new characters (or 8 if my pipe dream becomes a reality). It would be much easier to design and playtest 4 thematic characters than it was to design and playtest 11. Also, since the core abilities are covered by the 12 characters in the Core Set, the 4 thematic characters for an adventure path don't have to so varied from each other, making it even easier to develop them. They would likely still not overlap each other too much, but keeping 4 from overlapping is much easier than keeping 11 from overlapping. Or maybe the adventure path will include additional role cards for the Core Set characters (giving us a generic Core Set role card and an AP role card that includes at least one role optimized to the AP)...?
Buying a complete adventure path at one fell swoop is also a great change. We knew it was coming, but it's nice to see it confirmed. Those of us that get to play a lot (and regularly) won't have to wait month to month for the next adventure deck. This does change the subscriptions, though. Will the shipping on the adventure path boxes continue to be so prohibitively high that the subscription becomes pointless? Is a subscription to the PACG (not the character decks) pointless anyways if there's only one product for each AP?
And since it looks like most of the iconic characters missing from the game (Hakon the skald, Kess the brawler, and Quinn the investigator, plus [a new version of] Varian Jegarre (and I'm assuming that Wolverine Radovan will be a cohort)) will see the light of day in the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path, can we still expect to see all of the classes getting a class/character deck? The Ultimate Add-On decks gave us 5 iconic characters, and the Hell's Vengeance, Occult Adventures, and Pathfinder Adventures decks gave us more iconics, but it would still be nice to see each class get a dedicated deck with two additional (non-iconic) characters. If I recall correctly, some of the iconic villains and occult characters weren't included in those decks, so there's still room.
As to the 12th character, the product page mentions:
12 character pawns representing Pathfinder's iconic character classes from the classic human cleric Kyra to the new goblin alchemist Fumbus
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Well, I guess I should have read that line more closely. ;)
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This does change the subscriptions, though. Will the shipping on the adventure path boxes continue to be so prohibitively high that the subscription becomes pointless? Is a subscription to the PACG (not the character decks) pointless anyways if there's only one product for each AP?
I was actually planning on opening a dedicated thread to this, but I'll see if we can maybe get some official feedback here.
- First, my *assumption* is that delivery costs are not (largely) dependent on Paizo and therefore will not undergo any particular change
- Therefore, as noted, "big box" products remain prohibitively expensive for overseas customers like me to order from Paizo. I used to "cancel" my Sub for the Set box, and "renew" it starting with the character Add-on deck
- Since Add-on and Adventure Decks no longer exist - that basically means no Subscription products for people like me
- The most important consequence (besides the fact that Paizo will get less money from overseas orders, I guess?) is that -by current appearances- there'll be no (cost-sensible) product through which we overseas customers can obtain Promo Cards any longer. So, I hope in the intervening months Paizo/Lone Shark can come up with some sort of arrangement that doesn't leave their fans abroad out.
True. Somekind of promo subscription to those that lives in longer distance areas. Yep, same here. The big box posting was/is so owerwhelming that I Also drop those and ordered the small package only because the shipping of heavy items is not cheap...
I would be really nice to have some option to get those promos and Somehow directly support Paizo in the meanwhile.
can we still expect to see all of the classes getting a class/character deck?
I'm still hoping for a Swashbuckler, one of my favorite classes to play in the RPG. Until then it'd be nice if they relaxed the restrictions a bit. For example, you're allowed to use Jirelle with the Rogue class deck, but I'd really like to use her with the Pathfinder Tales character deck. I'm fighting the rules stickler in me to just do it anyway for my home game. From the transitive property, since rogues can use the Pathfinder Tales deck and Jirelle can use the Rogue Class deck, Jirelle should be able to use the Pathfinder Tales deck lol.
The same with Seoni. It bugs me that every version of Seoni can use the Pathfinder Tales deck except Sorcerer Class deck Seoni. But I'm hoping the new Core Set Seoni will rectify that by becoming my new favorite Seoni - a mix between Wrath and Sorcerer Class deck. I love Wrath's ability to reuse a spell repeatedly (by not recharging it); but the d6 strength, d4 dexterity and use of armor are a bit off from the character.
Anyhow, I'm super excited about the new Core and Adventure Path as well. These months can't go by quickly enough!
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- The most important consequence (besides the fact that Paizo will get less money from overseas orders, I guess?) is that -by current appearances- there'll be no (cost-sensible) product through which we overseas customers can obtain Promo Cards any longer. So, I hope in the intervening months Paizo/Lone Shark can come up with some sort of arrangement that doesn't leave their fans abroad out.
Personally I just wish all promo cards were available on the paizo store after X duration. Let a promo card be time-exclusive for a 3-12 months but at least put it up on the store page eventually. I say this as someone who has every promo card so I don't have a personal stake in this other than what I think is fair.
And ignoring the IH promos, I really don't get why the WOTR/MM promos aren't on the paizo store yet.
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I am also eagerly anticipating the set...and the promo cards. Played the playtest at PAX Unplugged this past year, and it was great. Love the new card powers and think that the game is super streamlined now. Would love to hear how Organized Play is going to work now in the New Regime.
I hope Vic will soon tell the fans from abroad how to best handle buying the game with the promos at a decent price.
I am sure he will...
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Would love to hear how Organized Play is going to work now in the New Regime.
This is a major priority for us to develop now that we've finished Core and Curse. I'm sure Keith Richmond especially would love to hear people's opinions on where were should focus our development efforts, so please bring the knowledge.
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I love the approach put out now. The one place I think there is a gap though is conventions.
In my group's regular card guild setting, we tend to play straight through a season. Most of the turn out is the same people each time. The adventure path approach works.
At a convention you are much more likely to have a group of strangers that are trying to figure out a way to play a scenario together. Their characters are possibly from different seasons. They probably don't want to play for tier advancement because they don't want to outpace their regular group.
So, what I'd like to see would be some convention scenarios. If they could be "variable tiered" like the interactive specials have been, that would be great (i.e. tier 2/5). In my vision, they aren't played for tier advancement, they give out some reward that isn't overly powerful (no feats). They mostly provide a way for a random group of people that didn't know they were going to be playing together before 5 minutes ago to sit down and play together without messing up their character's progression with their normal group.
My convention experience is limited (I've only gone to PAX Unplugged and Save Against Fear) but both times the only way I managed to play ACG games was:
1. I knew everyone I played with ahead of time, so our characters and scenarios were already coordinated ahead of time (ex: Dread Lord Rising with two people who I'd completed Season of the Righteous with earlier in the year).
2. We all played new characters.
2a. We play tested a new adventure path with new characters.
3. Interactive special
I've met lots of people at conventions that I'd only previously interacted with on the forums, but unless we chose one of those 3 ways of playing, we couldn't play a game together.
The rewards don't have to be overly powerful for this. Some that I've thought of would be:
1. One time use powers (ex: When a character closes a location and would banish all the cards, cross this off to set aside 1 boon to add to the upgrade cards at the end of the scenario.)
2. Promo cards from older sets (ex: Choose one of your card guild characters. You may treat the ally Poog of Zarongel from Rise of the Runelords as part of that character's class deck.)
3. Extra die bumps (ex: Gain 2 die bumps)
So, that is what I'd like to see.
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I love the interactive specials; they are fun...and if organized ahead of time, people know to bring characters. Agree with a lot of this re: conventions as places to experience Epic PACG. I do wish that I could some day play that "competitive" thing they had a few years back where you and a team had to do a scenario and everybody had to play a different character from the same class deck each scenario or something. That sounded really fun.
The scaling difficulty levels of the new Core set would be great in organized play. I just think to those OP scenarios where we have just been so outmatched, or our particular selection of heroes just isn't built for a scenario and we struggle again and again to complete the scenario. It's no fun to keep beating your head against the wall...I'd happily take a smaller reward just to finish the thing (at an easier difficulty level), move on to the next one, and get back to the fun.
It's not really "knowledge", more opinions I guess. But it's what I brought.
It bugs me that every version of Seoni can use the Pathfinder Tales deck except Sorcerer Class deck Seoni.
Holllllld on a moment. We're allowed to use WotR Seoni with the Pathfinder Tales deck? How do we get this reward?
No reward needed.
You can replace your character with any character card of the same class (along with a matching role and token card) from any Pathfinder Adventure Card Game base set or Character Add-On Deck.
Celeste (PF Tales) is a Sorcerer, so you can use any Sorcerer (e.g. Seoni) from the base sets. You can't, though, take one from another Class Deck (or equivalent).
The character registration system bears this out.
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No reward needed.
You can replace your character with any character card of the same class (along with a matching role and token card) from any Pathfinder Adventure Card Game base set or Character Add-On Deck.Celeste (PF Tales) is a Sorcerer, so you can use any Sorcerer (e.g. Seoni) from the base sets. You can't, though, take one from another Class Deck (or equivalent).
The character registration system bears this out.
This is outstanding. I think I may play WotR Seoni in OP as my next character.
This is a major priority for us to develop now that we've finished Core and Curse. I'm sure Keith Richmond especially would love to hear people's opinions on where were should focus our development efforts, so please bring the knowledge.
In the thread on the capstone Scenarios I'd suggested creating a short "Tier 7" Adventure that folks could play with their characters that had leveled out of any of the other Adventure Paths. It'd be interesting to gather characters from different APs to play together in something along the lines of the RPG's Eyes of the Ten, especially at conventions where you can have multiple sets on hand. You would likely want to include an optional bonus to compensate for things like Substitution card options that aren't available (since the players may not have all of the sets there) but you can figure something out. :)
In general, I like the way the Guild APs give people who own a set one or two additional stories they can play with the same cards. I don't know how much you will want to do "this you can do with just the Core Set 2.0" versus "this you need (whichever combination of sets)" going forward. I think it'll depend on whether you stick to "full campaign" APs or if we start more "module" length sets as well.
One thing our group ran into in Season of the Plundered Tombs Adventures 5 and 6 are scenarios that ran long, upwards of four hours for our four player group. Two of the reasons they ran long are the extra Scenario and Adventure rules (examine cards every turn, for example) and the extra Scourges adding both more time to the end of each person's turn and more time determining who best to spend resources on (curing, removing Curses, etc.) during our turns. As our venue gives us about three hours to play games had to be paused and split across multiple sessions, adding a disjointed grind to the end of the campaign that I don't think any of us enjoyed. I don't know if that was common to other folks playing that AP, but aiming for less than an hour per player would be nice.
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Would love to hear how Organized Play is going to work now in the New Regime.This is a major priority for us to develop now that we've finished Core and Curse. I'm sure Keith Richmond especially would love to hear people's opinions on where were should focus our development efforts, so please bring the knowledge.
Rather than make a long, busy post (which is my normal M.O.), I'll just bring up some points in brief that I would personally like to see in OP moving forward, and extrapolate on them later if needed. I make little to no value judgement on these elements for the wider playerbase.
2. 4-P1 and 4-P2 rewards (substitute Hell's Vengeance characters) leave numerous questions that are not covered by the Guide. For example, do they get their Redemption cards? If your original character has one, do they pass it on? What do they do if they banish a boon - you still earned that boon as a card upgrade (and it's not a "swap" situation so it shouldn't remove a boon from your player deck either) in the past, which means you should be able to re-add the boon freely in the next scenario if you substitute into them again, right? That's extremely exploitable with many Hell's Vengeance "banishable" boons, like Book of the Damned, Desecrate and Suurlahetas.
3. "Loot" cards in your Class Decks have no rules associated with them - most importantly, they are never forbidden as standard deck upgrades. There's not a single sentence suggesting that, for example, characters using the Occult Adventures 1 character deck can't take the Loot Ally Honaire like they could any other deck B Ally. (If that is the case, it implicitly nerfs Estra, since he's an important crutch to bring her power level up to par with the other characters, as an extremely high-value ally.)
4. Traders and Loot replacements; do they occur simultaneously, in an order of the player's choosing, or in a given order? Can you trade for a card that you then will trade for Loot, allowing (for example) Ezren to Sunburst Market for a blessing, then trade that for another blessing?
This is outstanding. I think I may play WotR Seoni in OP as my next character.No reward needed.
You can replace your character with any character card of the same class (along with a matching role and token card) from any Pathfinder Adventure Card Game base set or Character Add-On Deck.Celeste (PF Tales) is a Sorcerer, so you can use any Sorcerer (e.g. Seoni) from the base sets. You can't, though, take one from another Class Deck (or equivalent).
The character registration system bears this out.
Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do! I've played WotR Seoni with Pathfinder Tales and Ultimate Magic 4 or 5 times now, and I haven't gotten tired of it.
Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do! I've played WotR Seoni with Pathfinder Tales and Ultimate Magic 4 or 5 times now, and I haven't gotten tired of it.
I think I'm going to play her with Pathfinder Tales and Ultimate Intrigue. I was torn between Ultimate Intrigue and Ultimate Equipment, but I think UI has more boons I'm interested in.
As a newish player who wants to use this time of transition to really get into the game more, even if i have to play as several players as once to get some games going, I really want them to expand a bit on the subscription service and how old class decks will play into this. Especially if they want me long term.
Currently my thought process is just buy the new core and use my hunter and bard decks and go from there as I want to add more, but I want to know things like are they planning to redo some of the old class decks? New class decks? Adventure books that can use the current cards? Possibility of allowing these adventure books in the core and curse to be counted toward organized play?
Also I personally would like to see a 1-2 month gap between the release of the core and curse to make it easier to buy both money wise as well as string out the enjoyment. The only downside to this is core only contains up to 4 players.
Idk I just want more info about the future vision of this game. I enjoy it because it’s a nice logic puzzle and just want to play more.