Returning player, help with Class decks, Adventure decks, Add-Ons

[Paul Grogan]

Hi all,

I got the new Core set when it came out, along with CotCT. I've played it a few times (and also done some videos of it on my YT channel (gamingrulesvideos).

Anyway, it's been a long time since I've played and have been wanting to find time to get back into it and I found out tonight that there is an official TTS mod.

So I loaded it up and started reading the how-to guide and have to admit, I got a bit lost.

Can someone help me understand what are Class decks, Adventure decks, Ultimate Add-Ons?

I found a PACS guide which had a section in it saying "To build a character, you’ll need a Class Deck. A Class Deck is an accessory for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game that contains 3 or 4 characters to choose from, plus the cards you’ll use to play one of those characters for an entire campaign."

I don't have any of these. Is this specifically for organised play and I can just go ahead and ignore it if I want to just play the game with friends.
But even then, I'd sort of like to understand what it is.
What if I did want to play properly. How do these Class decks work - what are they physically?

Thanks all!

[wkover]

If you're only playing with friends, you don't need any of the above - just the Core and Crimson Throne sets. Initially, at least. You might purchase them later if you want more character and boon variety.

Class and Ultimate decks are primarily for organized play (OP). Importantly, they contain old-style (pre-Core) cards. So if you want to use the latest cards with the latest rules, you probably don't want to use the Class/Ultimate decks.

More detail:

Class Decks come with 3-4 new characters and a bunch of boons. But the vast majority of boons are repeats from old sets: Runelords, Mummy's Mask, etc.

Each Ultimate Deck comes with a single character and a pile of unusual/helpful boons tied to a specific theme (combat, intrigue, etc.). The boons are not duplicates from old sets, but they're still pre-Core cards. They can be used in OP, or can be thrown into the box to supplement any PACG game.

I'm not sure what you mean by Adventure decks. Do you mean Adventure Packs? Those are subsets of the Core/Crimson Throne cards that are only useful in organized play.

Good luck...

[Brother Tyler]

I'm guessing that "Adventure decks" might be the 2-5 decks for the pre-Core adventure paths (AP). For example, The Skinsaw Murders is Adventure Deck 2 for the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Deck 2. If that is correct, then you don't need any of the adventure decks unless you get the corresponding AP; and if you do that, you'll want all of the adventure decks for that AP.

[Paul Grogan]

Thanks all.
It seems that the Class decks are actually from the older version of the game, which I thought was only semi-compatible.

Seems odd that if I wanted to play OP and only own the new set, I have to go and buy the old product.

[wkover]

Paul Grogan wrote:

Seems odd that if I wanted to play OP and only own the new set, I have to go and buy the old product.

That's what the Adventure Packs are for. They allow you to play OP without purchasing old cards.

You pick a character and any three Adventure Packs (these are new cards), and you're good to go. So purchasing "old" cards is no longer necessary.

All character sheets are freely available to download.

[Paul Grogan]

wkover wrote:

You pick a character and any three Adventure Packs (these are new cards), and you're good to go. So purchasing "old" cards is no longer necessary.

All character sheets are freely available to download.

Thanks. Sorry for being dumb but where are these Adventure packs?

[Jenceslav]

Adventure packs are packs constructed from the Core+Curse cards that mimic the character / class decks. You can find their description:
here
I did not follow the discussions, but there were some small errors in the original adventure packs composition. I think it should be all resolved now.

[Paul Grogan]

Jenceslav wrote:

Adventure packs are packs constructed from the Core+Curse cards that mimic the character / class decks. You can find their description:

here

ok, great. Starting to get it now.

So, just to clarify. Instead of building a character from ALL the cards, you choose 3 Adventure Packs at character creation. These give you a pool of cards forever, and you are only able to build your character from these cards.

So, when starting, you have 3 packs and a total of 48 level 0 cards. You use these to build your character?

I'm not 100% sure how levelling up works. I guess instead of picking up items and equipment during a game based on what you find, you need to select cards from your adventurers packs instead?

[wkover]

Paul Grogan wrote:

So, when starting, you have 3 packs and a total of 48 level 0 cards. You use these to build your character?

Remember, this is only for organized play.

For regular at-home campaigns, you follow the regular rules: your starting cards can be any level 0 cards (per your character's card distribution).

[Tomael92]

Hi Paul,

I see everyone already cleared everything up for you. Just in case you still cared about the distinction:

As wkover said, you don't need to do any of the Adventure Pack stuff to play home games with your friends. If you want to play Organized Play, it's mostly as you say, getting card upgrades from the cards of your particular adventure packs, and you can find out all about how that works by reading the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society Guide. Just search for it on this site and read it if you want to play that way.

Also, know that you can even play the adventures specifically designed for Organized Play (such as Season 6) with the normal rules for playing with a group of friends and ignore everything related to Adventure Packs and Organized Play.

[Paul Grogan]

Thanks. You said "get card upgrades from the cards of your particular adventure packs". I'm still not really sure what this means.
I have Core + CotCT only.

If I am understanding it, if you play in OP, you have to build a whole character from some pre-selected list of cards, and you can only ever have those cards in your deck - i.e. you can't keep things you find from an actual game.

As for the adventures designed for OP - do you know where I can get these?

[elcoderdude]

Understand that Organized Play takes place, most of the time, at game stores and conventions. The idea is you can create a character, play the first scenario of a six-adventure season at game store A, and then go to game store B and keep playing that same character in that season. And so on.
So: when you rebuild your deck after a scenario, you can't keep the cards that belong the the set you are playing with. (The game store would end up with a mighty depleted set, for one thing.)
For this reason, Organized play requires you assign a certain collection of cards** to your character from the get-go. When you change the cards in your character's deck, you will only use the cards from that pre-defined collection (and most often, you will just drop one card from your deck and add one card you weren't using yet. That might sound like a bummer - usually getting just one new card - but the upside is this a card you are *choosing* from a set of *cards pre-selected to be good with your character's class*.)
**Originally, the collection was simple: a class deck. But then Paizo created character decks. And then Ultimate decks. And then the Core Set came along. So, I advise you to look at the latest ACS guide as well as the recent blog about Adventure Decks to be sure what's legit.

[elcoderdude]

And, oh yeah, you can learn all about PACG Organized Play at the Pathfinder Adventure Society page:
https://paizo.com/pacs

This includes a link to the scenarios which are available for purchase, as well as a link to the current guide.

[Calthaer]

Organized play is awesome; organized play is fun. Since the main point of the game is Getting Stuff (at least, according to Calthaer's Maxim), you have special flavors of this here. Everyone's always evaluating boons based on whether or not they have boons of the same type and deck # in their set of cards (the three "packs" nowadays, the "class deck" in the olden days) that they can upgrade with at the end of the adventure. In regular play, you just keep the actual cards rather than upgrading from your set...but it's kind of fun to pick which cards to upgrade.

Not for everyone, though - ignore all that if you just want to play with friends. If you want to get into organized play you might want to play in an organized play event online with one of the Masters of the Cardiverse (Hawkmoon, Cartmanbeck, etc.) that's run in play-by-post or something first to get the hang of it...ask questions.