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I would like to propose a change to the "Building the Vault" section of the rules.
Before Guide 6.0, there were several options for building the vault, but they all basically amounted to the same thing: you would remove all Basic/Elite banes (either as you encountered them or when setting up the box), and you may remove any Basic/Elite boons from the box.
The sanctioning document for Curse of the Crimson Throne effectively does the same thing. Adventure 3 says to "Start with all level 0, 1, 2, and 3 cards from the Core Set and the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path, then remove all Level 0 non-Veteran banes and you may remove any Level 0 non-Veteran, non-blessing boons.
However, Guide 6.x tells us that when playing pre-Core adventure paths, to use these new rules instead: "Start by adding all of the cards from the listed products to the vault, then remove all Basic and Elite non-blessing cards whose level is at least three lower than the # of the adventure."
There is no option anymore to keep Basic or Elite boons that may be worth keeping around. This affects several Loot rewards (like SoFF-Scorpion Whip, Filter Hood, Compass, Camel. SoTT-Monkey), as well as Sunburst Market in MM-based games and the reward power in SoTT that lets you take a Basic boon from the box instead of a Plunder card.
My suggestion is to update the wording as follows:
"To build the vault for a scenario in one of those adventures, start by adding all of the cards from the listed products to the vault, then remove all Basic and Elite banes, and any Basic and Elite non-blessing boons whose level is at least three lower than the # of the adventure."
This would bring it much closer to how it worked previously and how it works in new APs, and fixes certain rewards that players may find useful in those particular APs.
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There is no option anymore to keep Basic or Elite boons that may be worth keeping around. This affects several Loot rewards (like SoFF-Scorpion Whip, Filter Hood, Compass, Camel. SoTT-Monkey), as well as Sunburst Market in MM-based games and the reward power in SoTT that lets you take a Basic boon from the box instead of a Plunder card.
Speaking of, I'd love to hear designer input to clarify whether you can use Loot (in your AP) that's been removed from the vault or not. Besides the ones listed above, there's others still that turn up (such as Remove Curse and Elemental Treaty). It seems pretty clear that you cannot trade for a card not in the vault as-written, but there's little clear guidelines about pre-Core Loot.
It's made explicit in Card Guild Guides v6.0 and v6.1 that you can use earned Loot that is in the box but not the vault (because it says to take the Loot from the game box, not the vault), but it's written in such a way that it only covers the use of Post-Core loot (Sanctioned DD, Sanctioned CotCT and Season 6), since it only refers to loot rewarded under a specific template.
It would seem like the intent for all Loot cards should be the same, but it's rather vague as to whether you can use pre-Core loot cards if they've been removed from the vault, and I've heard numerous differing opinions on the matter.
Great suggestion Mork!
There are definitely some basic boons that need to be kept to allow reasonable play
Anyone remember why "non-blessing" was specified there? Were people running out of blessings in some scenarios at AD3+ once Basic blessings were removed? Or was it more that it avoided certain mechanics, like the Basic blessing check on werecreatures?
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Anyone remember why "non-blessing" was specified there? Were people running out of blessings in some scenarios at AD3+ once Basic blessings were removed?
Pretty much. In S&S you've got 35 + (5*AD#) Blessings if you remove the Basics; a Scenario with a lot of Blessings or a defeated (but not cornered) Villain could run the box completely out of Blessings.
You'd also lose the non-BotG Blessings in the later sets, which might be popular copying targets.
As you mentioned, there's also the cards that care about whether the top discard has the Basic trait.
Anyone remember why "non-blessing" was specified there? Were people running out of blessings in some scenarios at AD3+ once Basic blessings were removed? Or was it more that it avoided certain mechanics, like the Basic blessing check on werecreatures?
In earlier seasons, there are also more impactful expectations of basic blessings besides just banes and boons referring to them. The Curse of Daybane, for example (and a number of scenario powers in Season 4 when you're fighting Vampires), only functions if the hour is basic, so if players were able to remove all basic blessings from the game the scourge (and certain late-game scenario powers) would become nonfunctional.
"Basic or Nonbasic Hours", between Werecreatures and Curse of Daybane and Vampires, became shorthand for referencing time-of-day sensitive effects across several base sets. How much it would impact each specific set if basics are removed varies.
Basic blessings being part of the equation also helps with Salim's Death's Heretic power. It still functions off of Pharasma trait, but that is significantly less often than Basic.
■ If the hour has the Basic or Pharasma trait, add 1 die to your check to defeat.
While I don't necessarily disagree that a lot of things would've been easier for players if pre-Core seasons ran under pre-Core rules and post-Core seasons ran under post-Core rules (though I also understand the flaws in trying to maintain two simultaneous rulesets)...
Mummy's Mask seasons would be particularly destroyed by this change, as Sunburst Market is unusable after Deck 2.
This is, at least, not the case. See this post by Vic, who confirms that Sunburst Market now can be used to trade for any level 0 boon left in the Vault.
This removes the options of Remove Curse, Cure and Elemental Treaty... but it does enable a ton of boons which are incredibly powerful. In fact, I think post-Core, Sunburst Market kind of wipes the floor with most other Traders for pretty much the full AP now, because you can get cards like Augury, Meehr Zet, Find Traps, Twitch Tonic, Mumia Smuggler, Stained Glass Elemental, Blessing of Wadjet and Blessing of Abadar.
Which include effects like "draw all X from your discard pile" or "draw 1d4+1 X from your discard pile", or "add #+1 to any of your checks post-roll" and a bunch of "doubly-bless X check" (remember Find Traps works 'freely' due to the Transition Guide, too).
Powerful stuff.
