Making the Most of Character Unlocks

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Ever since the first Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Decks were released, you have been able to use Adventure Path characters of the same class as your deck in the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild. This has been a great way to add more variety to PFSACG character options (in case the 88 Class Deck characters aren't already enough for you!).

The latest version of the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild Guide extends this to work with decks that contain characters of more than one class. For example, since the Pathfinder Tales Character Deck contains a wizard, you can use Ezren with that deck. And certain PFSACG adventure rewards unlock the ability to use specific characters with specific decks.

So, I decided to make a list of all the additional characters that you can use with each deck, including those you can only unlock with Chronicle sheets or boons. Every Class and Character deck has at least one additional playable character!

• Alchemist Class Deck: Damiel (Skull & Shackles), Damiel (Mummy's Mask), Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 4
• Barbarian Class Deck: Amiri (Rise of the Runelords)
• Bard Class Deck: Lem (Rise of the Runelords), Lem (Skull & Shackles), Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 2
• Cleric Class Deck: Kyra (Rise of the Runelords), Kyra (Wrath of the Righteous), Drelm (Mummy's Mask)
• Druid Class Deck: Lini (Rise of the Runelords), Lini (Skull & Shackles), Channa Ti (Mummy's Mask)
• Fighter Class Deck: Valeros (Rise of the Runelords), Valeros (Skull & Shackles)
• Goblins Burn! Character Deck: Tup (Rise of the Runelords Promo), Reepazo (Mummy's Mask Promo)
• Goblins Fight! Character Deck: Ranzak (Skull & Shackles Promo), Ekkie (Wrath of the Righteous Promo)
• Gunslinger Class Deck: Lirianne (Skull & Shackles)
• Hell's Vengeance Character Deck 1: Kyra (Rise of the Runelords), Kyra (Wrath of the Righteous), Drelm (Mummy's Mask)
• Hell's Vengeance Character Deck 2: Ezren (Rise of the Runelords), Ezren (Mummy's Mask), Imrijka (Wrath of the Righteous)
• Hunter Class Deck: Adowyn (Wrath of the Righteous), Harsk (Rise of the Runelords)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Harsk (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Harsk (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Agna (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Arabundi (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4, Wrathack (Ranger Class Deck)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 4
• Inquisitor Class Deck: Imrijka (Wrath of the Righteous), Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of the Runelords Adventure 6, Zadim (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 1
• Magus Class Deck: Seltyiel (Skull & Shackles), Ahmotep (Mummy's Mask), Crowe (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 1, Mavaro (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 6
• Monk Class Deck: Sajan (Rise of the Runelords)
• Occult Adventures Character Deck 1: Estra (Mummy's Mask)
• Occult Adventures Character Deck 2: Mavaro (Mummy's Mask), Yoon (Mummy's Mask)
• Oracle Class Deck: Alahazra (Skull & Shackles), Alahazra (Mummy's Mask), Shardra (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of the Runelords Adventure 3, Estra (Mummy's Mask)—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 5
• Paladin Class Deck: Seelah (Rise of the Runelords), Seelah (Wrath of the Righteous), Alain (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of the Righteous Adventure 6
• Pathfinder Tales Character Deck: Ezren (Rise of the Runelords), Merisiel (Rise of the Runelords), Seoni (Rise of the Runelords), Merisiel (Skull & Shackles), Seoni (Wrath of the Righteous), Ezren (Mummy's Mask), Simoun (Mummy's Mask), Enora (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of Factions' Favor Adventure 3
• Ranger Class Deck: Harsk (Rise of the Runelords), Harsk (Wrath of the Righteous)
• Rogue Class Deck: Merisiel (Rise of the Runelords), Merisiel (Skull & Shackles), Simoun (Mummy's Mask), Jirelle (Skull & Shackles)—unlocked by Season of the Shackles Adventure 1, Arueshalae (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by convention boon, Zadim (Mummy's Mask—unlocked by Season of Plundered Tombs Adventure 6
• Sorcerer Class Deck: Seoni (Rise of the Runelords), Seoni (Wrath of the Righteous)
• Summoner Class Deck: Balazar (Wrath of the Righteous)
• Warpriest Class Deck: Oloch (Skull & Shackles)
• Witch Class Deck: Feiya (Skull & Shackles)
• Wizard Class Deck: Ezren (Rise of the Runelords), Ezren (Mummy's Mask), Enora (Wrath of the Righteous)—unlocked by Season of the Shackles Adventure 6

Whew! That's a lot of possibilities! Some of these options are total win for the characters, such as unlocking the Hunter deck for any Ranger. But there are a few that are more strange and interesting. Let's talk about a few of these, shall we?

The Pathfinder Tales deck has the most new options. The deck contains Varian (a wizard), Radovan (a rogue), and Celeste (a sorcerer). The Wizard, Rogue and Sorcerer Class decks are among the first that were released, so they didn't include any cards from some of the more recent base sets. The Tales deck has plenty of new cards, so let's see what fun things we can do giving those cards to a character who has otherwise been left a bit behind as far as card selection goes: Seoni from Wrath of the Righteous.

Seoni's Element Master role works best with spells that have the Acid, Cold, Electricity or Fire traits, of which the Tales deck includes many. When you choose this role, she gains a free power to reduce damage of a type matching one of these traits. She can also take a feat to add a flat +4 to her checks that have one of those traits, and another feat to let her auto-recharge items with those traits, so items like Necklace of Fireballs and Wand of Flame are excellent choices for her.

You can just imagine Seoni's delight when she finds this wand in some dark dungeon.

Has your Seoni been frustrated by the Trigger trait in either of the Mummy's Mask-based seasons? Grab the Tales ally Eando Kline, who gives you the ability to ignore non-villain Trigger powers. Or pick up the duo of Acadamae Student and Acadamae Scholar, who work together to make your Arcane checks oh-so-good. Or grab Jelani or Isiem, who can add the Cold or Fire trait to your combat check with a simple recharge. And there's a Blessing of the Elements in the Tales deck, an obvious choice for fiery Seoni.

Next, let's take a look at the new Occult Adventures decks. Both include characters from the Mummy's Mask Base Set, including my best character ever. Mavaro can be played using any of four other class decks, so he has had access to plenty of excellent boons throughout his long and storied career. However, some of the boons in Occult Adventures 2 are just too perfect for him to pass up.

For example, Mavaro has his own sword, The Missing Eye. It's a fine weapon, and is especially good at taking out demons. And it gives him a bonus on Fortitude or Perception checks when he really needs it. Even better, if he displays it, he gains four useful skills equal to his Intelligence: Strength, Melee, Wisdom and Divine. If you'd like to use him as a spellcaster, there are some excellent spells that use his Knowledge or Perception for effects or recharge checks, both of which he has a bonus to, such as Mind Thrust, Object Reading, and Kinetic Blast.

There are a lot of reasons why Mavaro is my favorite character, but I think the top one is his rockin' dad bod.

Have you found yourself taking a bunch of Mental damage that can't be reduced? You should really pick up the Crystal Mail, which will let you recharge those cards instead of discarding them. Or perhaps you could hang the Shrunken Head on your belt, letting you ignore a monster's powers that happen before you act. Also check out the Mindblade, who lets you use your Perception skill for your combat check.

I hope I've convinced you already of the potential value of some of these deck unlocks, but now let's really go off the deep end with the Hell's Vengeance character decks! I'm going to start with Deck 2, which contains Zelhara the Inquisitor, thereby allowing us to use Imrijka from Wrath of the Righteous. In her quest to root out evil and corruption, Imrijka has never been afraid to use tactics that might make some people squirm, so I can imagine she would embrace some less-than-legal items if she got hold of them, and that's exactly what the Hell's Vengeance 2 deck does for her.

First, there are a ton of great Ranged weapons that she can use her unique Ranged: Strength +1 skill with, such as the Galvanic Chakram +1, the Spirit Blade, or my favorite, the Stalker's Crossbow. Of course, that crossbow has the Corrupted trait, but there are ways that Imrijka can get around the penalties that trait imposes, like the Redeemer Blacksmith or the Channel Corruption spell.

Imrijka has never been too concerned with getting her hands dirty, and using a Corrupted weapon for the sake of good intentions is still good, right? Guys? Where are you going?

Excellent spells like Blade Lash and Steal Soul are here for the taking as well. The Sniper's Studded Leather, Shackles of Compliance, and Robe of Bones are all fantastic items that Imrijka can use to streak fear into her enemies, and those animated Undead allies... well, she normally wouldn't make use of those as a Pharasmin, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Last but not least, let's look at Hell's Vengeance 1. This deck includes Lazzero, a cleric of Asmodeus. He's evil and grouchy and people just generally don't like him much, but perhaps there's another cleric that can bring some divine light into this deck? I'm talking about Kyra, my friends. No, not Drelm. Kyra. Yes, you heard me right.

Kyra is a goody-two-shoes, and everyone knows it. She's a staunch supporter of Sarenrae, hates dead things, and tries to bring light and happiness to all. But not this Kyra. Maybe this version of Kyra lost the love of her life Merisiel in a fight with a vampire, and was turned by that vampire to serve his dark bidding? However it happened, this is not the undead-hating Sarenrae-loving Kyra we all know and love... this is something else, and there are plenty of ways for her to get out her newfound aggression using Hell's Vengeance 1. Interested in using a flaming hammer to strike down some weaklings? Check out Sinderbos, and maybe boost your combat with a fun spell like Instrument of Agony or Circle of Evil. Or perhaps just burn them to death with your Hellfire Halo..

Look into her eyes and tell me there's a shred of decency left in her. Oops, you probably shouldn't have looked directly into her eyes...

There are fun allies to capture, like the devil Suurlahetas or the Asmodean High Priest. There are a dizzying array of new Corrupted blessings to choose from as well, like the Blessing of the Prince of Lies, which lets you bury it and all other cards in your hand to straight up succeed at a check against a boon or non-villain bane.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that playing evil Kyra will be easy. Neither the Rise of the Runelords nor the Wrath of the Righteous versions of her have as many ways to deal with the penalties of Corrupted boons as the characters that come in the deck do, so she'll have to rely on things like Channel Corruption and the Redeemer Blacksmith. If you're looking for a challenge, though, bringing Kyra over to the dark side might just be up your alley.

That's it for this edition of "Tyler takes over the Paizo blog." I've recently become the Venture Captain for Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild online play, and we are currently running several games as part of the OutPost play-by-post gaming convention on the Paizo forums, so if you have any questions about this blog's content or about playing the card game online, feel free to contact me at cartmanbeck@orgplayonline.com!

Tyler "Cartmanbeck" Beck
Venture Captain, Adventure Card Guild Online Play

Hail Gom-Gom!

Thursday, March 1, 2018

The Occult Adventures decks were a fantastic opportunity to stretch our creative limbs and show you some of the wilder things we can do in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Characters like Yoon, Mavaro, and Erasmus epitomize the ever-shifting cycle of play that I personally prefer, so I hope they work out well for you.

Yoon: Hi there, you! Meet Gom-Gom! He talks!

Which is scarier? Telling Yoon that Gom-Gom isn't really talking, or finding out he is?

Yoon: I'm going to tell you about the Occult Adventures Character Deck 2, which is the bestest deck with the bestest characters ever! I'm Yoon, Pretty Princess of Fire, and Herald of Gom-Gom. That means I talk for Gom-Gom who is the smartest coolest stuffed owly bear ever, and my favoritest card in the whole world. He tells me all sorts of great stuff about what I should do and who I should burn, and he protects me at night, so you better watch out or he'll make me burn you up!

Just nod along and don't get set on fire. Not being set on fire is good.

Yoon: I've been all over finding lots of cool stuff which make even cooler cards, like my stick that I used to hit things for fun like a game. Or people that are mean, but aren't on fire yet. Or to put out the fire, afterwards. Oh, and did I mention fire, cause it's totally awesome and I can make lots of it, cause I'm awesome. Don't you think I'm awesome?

What do you get the Occultist that has everything? More everything.

Mavaro: Yoon's enthusiasm for the deck is well earned, even if her focus may be misplaced. The true power of this deck can be found by careful examination of the cards within, the story they each can tell, and the many synergies a master of the occult may derive from them. As you can see, as an occultist I can ensure that I collect powerful and dangerous objects and use them safely. As you no doubt already know, I can do anything with time and the right tools.

Some cards are not for the squeamish.

Mavaro: This deck includes some of the finest items I have examined. The Planchette allows communication with spirits and is of extraordinary use if you are perceptive, particularly if you have examined your surroundings before using it. Many might shirk from carrying a Shrunken Head, but I can assure you of its efficacy in overcoming any foe whose mind is able to be influenced. The Lexicon of the Planes is a powerful artifact that can be used to move a battle to a less inimical location to assure success.

Did you know that Mike Selinker designed both the Harrow Deck and the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game?

Erasmus: The wonderful Eliandra Giltessan has waxed poetic quite enough over my capabilities, so I will be brief. Some of you are as interested as I am in harrowing, so I wanted to show you the possibilities and capabilities of my fine Harrow Deck. When I channel the power of my sister Veldira, priestess of Pharasma, I am a master of divining fate and influencing it.

There are how many stars!? I'm going to need a bigger deck.

Erasmus: I also wanted to assure you that, as mentioned previously, this deck continues the fine practice of observing the powers and benefits of tracking the stars and the signs found in them. The rider assists in war rangings, the mother protects us, and the bridge guides us past obstacles that might hinder our progress.

...

This deck marks the last Class Deck on the schedule for a while, as the next five months feature the Ultimate Add-On Decks. Reminder: The Ultimate decks are part of the main Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Subscription, not the Class Deck subscription, so make sure you're signed up if you want them! And if you're excited by any of the new and strange things to be found in Occult Adventures, better buckle up, because the Ultimate decks are aptly named!

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

Eliandra's Best Character Ever: Erasmus

Friday, February 9, 2018

We continue our series of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game fans telling us who the best character ever is. One of our playtesters, Eliandra Giltessan, gives us a sneak peak at the iconic medium from Occult Adventures Character Deck 2 that has her over the moon.

People who know me may be saying, "What?! I thought you said Alahazra was the best character!" A year ago, that was true. Alahazra was the best character ever—in a world without Triggers. I recall when Skull & Shackles' version of Alahazra hung out at the Wishing Well and took all the boons from locations decks. Or Season of the Runelords, where the Oracle Class Deck's Alahazra examined nigh on entire location decks with a Scrying and a Headdress. Sigh. Good times.

But, my friends, we live in a world of Triggers. Gone are the days of "I only need one attack spell in my deck, right?" Now when Alahazra scouts, sometimes the cards bite back. She's still great, but there's room for the new best character ever: Erasmus.

At first look, Erasmus may not look like much. All d8s and d6s, with Arcane just d8+1 and Perception (of all things!) at d6+3. Well, let me tell you, Occult characters can do more with Perception than just defeat Camouflaged Pit Traps without rolling. They can fight and recharge and tell their Dwarf Mindblade friend to go kill things for them.

Let's move onto powers, cuz Erasmus has got some great ones! I'm developing an appreciation for characters who give you something to do with the junk cards you pick up, and Erasmus can bury his to change his results after the roll. No missed-by-1's with Erasmus, and when he overkills that Pit Trap with his massive Perception, he can coax away the consequences. His next power is the one I love oh-so-much: recharging boons at the start of your turn to add to all checks that turn. Not only does this make for great deck cycling, but it really takes the sting out of those early scenarios when you have no skill feats. That last power mentions something called "Spirit Relatives," and you may ask, "What does that mean?"

Ah, well, you see, Erasmus can channel the spirits of his dead relatives, and at the beginning of each scenario, he can pick one to give him some new skills and an extra d4 plus the adventure deck number. So when Grimslakes are threatening to eat your deck if you don't make a Fortitude check, you can pick Nissa. When you need to make an Acrobatics check, or when the villain makes you cry in a corner with no cards in your hand, you can ask for Baylock's help. After a power feat, you can even help other characters at your location.

"But Eliandra," you may say. "I'm stuck with one of these spirits for an entire scenario. That's not very versatile."

"Relax," I say to you. "We need to save something for roles." You see, Erasmus's roles allow you to put more than one marker on the card. Personally, I'm a fan of the Storyteller. Bury a card for a second token? Yes, please!

After all this gushing, you may still have your doubts as to whether this all works. Can Erasmus have one deck of cards and still be effective at all his roles? Yes. His powers more than make up for the small dice size, and the cards he doesn't otherwise need at the moment become the fuel to charge them. Erasmus is the first character where I put my skill feats in different skills every time, and I love it. He's the most versatile character I've seen, and he once closed two locations in his first turn armed only with a Force Missile and a Light Crossbow.

Vote Erasmus: Best Character EVER!

Elizabeth Corrigan aka Eliandra Giltessan
Adventure Card Game Playtester Extraordinaire

Occult Adventures Character Deck 1: Much Better than Bards

Thursday, January 11, 2018

You are feeling sleepy. Very sleepy. I'm going to count slowly backwards from 10 to 1. As I do, you'll find yourself relaxing and thinking of buying the Occult Adventures Character Deck 1.

You’re feeling spendy…

10. You will love it. It's much better than the Bard Class Deck. You're going to buy it again and again.

Do not think of Lem, my scurrilous fool of a half-brother! Instead, let us decorate your mind in your new most favorite thing: Me.

9. The deck contains the most important thing in the world. How could you do without the most important thing in the world? And it's oh-so-affordable. You could get one for yourself and one for each of your friends! And then another two for yourself and two more for each of your friends.

In mental combat, the size of one’s ego is all-important.

8. I am Meligaster. The singular most intelligent and charming individual you will ever meet. You can trust me in all things. Would anyone dishonest wear such a fashionable fez? As you can see, I am a master of wit and word, and a master of every creature I encounter. Including you.

So many helpful meat shields. I mean, allies.

7. I have many, many thralls friends. Every creature has a useful skill. I am accustomed to the finest of entertainers and the most unquestioning of bodyguards. On rare occasion, I even need someone in my retinue who can bend space and time. What are your uses?

Rivani believes she won our duel.

6. Even those who think themselves powerful are my friends, eventually. Rivani is able to pick up almost anything with her mind and wield it as deftly as you might wield a pen. If only she hadn't looked me directly in the eyes. Yes, exactly, these eyes. Look deep.

There are many sources of power other than gods. Me, for example.

5. Rivani and her ring, you might notice, are helpful for calling upon the power found within the heavens themselves. No, not the kinds with angels, but the signs found in the stars and constellations; the forces of fate and prophecy. A psychic who understands when and how to invoke their power, especially one who can call upon many different signs, can rewrite the world. As I have rewritten yours.

A mind without limits is a world without limits.

4. Sometimes it is necessary to get your hands dirty. Not mine, of course, but yours certainly. I'll stand right back here and puppet you about until the danger's past, mm? But don't worry. If you get hurt, I can put you back together again. Or at least a version of you.

Oh, look what wonderful gifts my friends brought me.

3. Oh, what wonderful gifts my friends give me, all on their own, without prompting. That means get me some gifts. Yes, right now. A second Occult Adventures Character Deck will do nicely, thanks. In the meantime, what have we here? Ah, a truly powerful tome for obtaining even more servants and some other trinkets. One truly nice thing about psychic treasure is that one's perception and ability to see the truth in reality gives you greater power. Never forget to be perceptive. Forget what I just said.

Honaire, I think this scoundrel needs a lesson in manners.

2. I am— OWWW!

Oh, knock off all that counting, whippersnapper. These fine folks aren't going to be gulled by your charlatan tricks. Honaire and I will knock that silly hat right off your head if your eyes so much as twitch this way. I was working marks since before you were born and Honaire here is immune to any of your tomfoolery. And you're not so immune to my cane! Sorry, dears. Meligaster is quite the rapscallion. Go on, now, and have yourselves a wonderful day.

Buy it again, and ag—! *CRACK*

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

P.S. Obligatory ancient joke reference.

Hunting Season is Upon Us, and There's No Bag Limit!

Thursday, December 14, 2017

I'm very excited that folks are finally getting a chance to get their hands on the Hunter Class Deck! Adowyn was one of the most popular and awesome characters in Wrath of the Righteous, and players have wanted to be able to play her in Organized Play for quite some time. Alas, there was no good class deck that offered a decent suite of Ranged, Divine, and Animal cards. Well, now there is, and Adowyn's going to love it. And hopefully you'll love the three characters in it!

Who's a good puppy finding all the monsters? You are, Leryn!

As expected, Adowyn and Leryn are downright fantastic at scouting. Once she finds some banes, Adowyn is great at drawing more Animals, which power her exploration engine. With her Ambusher role, Adowyn picks up some valuable skills for sneaking and laying traps, as well as the ability to have a devastatingly effective first exploration each turn.

He likes big animals, and he cannot lie.

For our second hunter, I really wanted to emphasize the more savage end of the spectrum. Korundo was inspired by the Primal Companion Hunter archetype, with his flexible power feat representing his ability to channel primal power into evolving situations. Like when your python suddenly needs a second head. That breathes fire.

1) Every Ally and Spell an Animal. 2) ??? 3) Profit!

Ukuja is the latest in a line of -mancers, bringing all the Animals to solve his problems. That said, his real power won't necessarily be obvious until you look at the cohort line on his card list. Ukuja can really leverage the powerful cohorts in the Hunter deck to overcome the difficulty in each scenario. As an Animancer, Ukuja's got a thrumming engine of cycling Animals constantly into hand to solve all his problems.

Wear protective gloves before handling any of these cards.

The Hunter deck is full of all manner of weapons. The Beaststrike Club is one of a small cycle of Survival-based weapons that every savage character should get their hands on. The deck also has a great selection of Ranged weapons. And if you don't think a Polar Bear is a massively destructive weapon, say that to its face. I dare you.

The deck is pretty much just tons of natural utility and savage boons (bones?) all mixed together.

There are also a ton of other cards that nature lovers will want to acquire. Animal Call is a great Basic card to keep around, ensuring you have your best Animal cards in hand. Everyone needs a Klar to wear for any fancy Shoanti shindig. And the Blessing of Wind and Waves is Gozreh's gift to all, letting you designate a location for closing any number of turns before it's needed.

Harsk is ready for Movember.

Unsurprisingly, this deck includes another cycle: Aspect spells. Each of these spells provides a solid benefit for a full round of play and has the Animal trait, much to Adowyn and Ukuja's appreciation. The Headband even leverages a technique unveiled in the Pathfinder Tales Character Deck to let you wolf out over and over, in case that recharge check is tough for you.

Happy hunting season!

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

A Novel Approach to Creating the Pathfinder Tales Character Deck

Thursday, September 14, 2017

The Pathfinder Tales Character Deck required the most research of any of the decks. The Pathfinder Tales line includes dozens of novels and short stories, and a veritable digital mountain of web fiction. At one point I had forty tabs and three ebooks open as I scoured through all of the Tales for our best cards. Surprisingly, in that immense field full of amazing options, the team picked three characters almost immediately.

Let's give a hand for our lovely crew. Maybe two hands—Celeste seems to be missing hers.

I've been a fan of Dave Gross's Radovan and Varian for years. We've managed to sneak his work into Season of the Righteous and the Summoner Class Deck, and he happily helped us out with this set, writing the flavor text for his characters.

"Some choose to wield the sword, others the grimoire. I note that we have two hands."

Count Varian can't memorize spells in the normal fashion. Thankfully, he's more than willing to throw money at solving that problem, and has years of fencing expertise as backup. He's also a renowned noble and ambassador of Cheliax, a graduate of the Acadamae, and a Pathfinder Society Venture-Captain. He's done fairly well, if he does say so himself.

"Listen up, you mooks. You die, makes me look bad. You know how much I like to look good."

Radovan's a wise-mouthed hellspawn, ready to literally jump into the fire to save his boss, Varian. Fortunately, the devil Norge keeps Radovan from burning. Less fortunately, the veritable host of devils whispering temptations to Radovan are just waiting for their opportunity to take control of his body, burst out into the world, or turn him into a gateway to Hell. Radovan really does have all the luck.

The deck also includes several signature boons from Radovan and Varian's adventures. I imagine basically all players of Varian will want Arnisant to accompany them. Just look at this face:

"Of course I am not comparing you to my hound. Arnisant is obedient to a fault."

The third character was selected almost as quickly, as we laid out a slew of major characters and images, and Mike quickly said something like: "And here's a bunch of other characters and THE LUNAR NAGA WE'RE GOING TO MAKE." Artist Eric Belisle really did an amazing job on Celeste and the team immediately agreed we had to bring her to life.

Lunar nagas make the best pirate astrologers!

That settled, what to do with all of the other amazing characters in Tales? SO. MANY. ALLIES. And one very talkative weapon.

Warning: Do not buy this deck if you are allergic to pictures of adorable puppies.

I really wanted to highlight the synergy of characters from the same Tales, so that you weren't just picking the best mechanics, but had a genuine reason to keep Hrym united with Rodrick or Torius Vin with his crew, or Zae and Keren Rhinn with Appleslayer. Also, Mike threatened to shank anyone who stood in the way of Appleslayer's inclusion in the deck.

No previously existing allies were included in the making of this deck.

Of course, some of these folks are amazing all on their own. The Tales deck includes some of the best allies we've ever made. We expect fans of Drelm from the Mummy's Mask Character Add-On Deck will like Elyana, who appears alongside Drelm in the novel Plague of Shadows.

But don't imagine that the 23 all-new allies are the only new boons in the Tales deck. There are plenty more, including legendary weapons and tomes of arcane and powerful lore.

Sometimes you just need to find a really scary book. And steal it.

A lot of these boons interact with specific allies; for example, the ally Eando Kline will let you recharge that Wayfinder from your discard pile.

The hope and goal was always that any Pathfinder Tales fan would have no regrets adding this class deck to each and every set. And maybe a few card players can get some great plays out of the cards, then seek out the stories that spawned them.

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

Seltyiel Shows Off His Magnificent New Magus Deck

Thursday, July 26, 2017

Look, this may seem a little forward, but I noticed you alone in this solo game and you look like you could use some help getting through that blessings deck. Lucky for you, I'm here for you. I know what you need.

And I brought you a present. Something literally no other elf can give you.

I brought you me.

Ripped.

Oh, I know you think you've seen a guy like me before, hanging out on the bow of a pirate ship with the evening sun on my glistening abs. Maybe you think you have some idea of how I play. That's the old me, baby. March those eyes over this fresh new look.

Hmmm? Oh, I'm not the only magus in this game? Well, I declare. Still, they don't look like the kind of magi that'd show you the things you deserve in life. Such a serious look. They're just a bit too goody-two-shoes for my taste. Maybe we should take a walk to another location?

Definitely not my types.

Feel that? That's arcana energy. Makes me stronger, faster, smarter than that idiot that calls himself a fighter over there. Uh, hey, my staff is telling me there do seem to be a lot of fighters in here. Let's pick up the pace.

Wanna see a magic trick? I take this little dagger here, and... voila! It grew up and is now my best friend. His name is Gallivance.

These weapons. Oh my.

But I'm not just about showing off my impressive possessions. These hands, they crackle with energy. You say you've seen wizards and sorcerers before? Well, you haven't seen anything like this.

Now, I'm going to tell you something I don't tell everyone: I don't like to dance around. When I want something, I get it. Even if I have to make the earth move first. But I can do so much more than that. Anywhere you want to go, I can take you. That guy who was bothering you before? I can drop him into the mouth of an active volcano, and you can come along for the ride just to enjoy the view. You like tropical sunsets, yes?

And look. They all feature me in the art.

Say, take a look at that view. We just can't be caught in this heavenly glow without the best clothes. You see that warpriest down there covered in ill-fitting, rusted-out shingles? It's like those half-orcs don't even have haberdashers.

That coat might be a bit warm, up there on the volcano. My jerkin? Well, yes. It's more than just buttery soft and fashionable leather. Not only does it match the gloves, but together, they keep me and Gallivance going all night. Like my glasses? They're very special. Maybe I'll show you what they do later.

I don't buy "off the rack."

So nice to be out of that dive. Ah, there's my manservant with my spare staff. Such lovely things, humans. They may be short-lived, but they do have their uses.

Her? She's from the House of Thrune. Important? Not really. Sometimes she holds Gallivance while I'm otherwise occupied. She can hold your coat, too, while we're at the volcano. It's a beautiful place, really. Like a forge made for the gods themselves. I feel like I can do anything when I'm there. Ready to go?

It's getting hot in here.

Hey wait, where are you going? Don't you want to see my volcano?

Ah well. There's always more blessings left in this deck. Let's see who's in this location...

Liz Spain and Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Designers

The New Wave of Character Decks

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Hey Paizonians, Lone Shark has just turned over the files for the sixth wave of class decks—which are sometimes called character decks now, because we're having fun experimenting with new class-agnostic formats, but we can't stop calling them class decks, and this is a really long sentence now. Anyway, the Magus Class Deck, the Pathfinder Tales Character Deck, and Hell's Vengeance Character Deck 1 are all in Vic and Sonja's hands. Suffice it to say, we went a bit nuts on the new cards in these sets. Maybe a lot nuts.

We've also started work on the wave after that. Hell's Vengeance Character Deck 2 concludes our trip to Evil Land. This November deck features the pitborn assassin Emil, the dhampir necromancer Nyctessa, and the human torturer Zelhara. There's a whole lot of bad news in store for the allies in this set. If you want more backstabbing, backbiting, and backbreaking than you can reasonably imagine, this is the deck for you.

Where my wolf at?

In December, we're going to get a deck together for someone we've wanted to feature for a long time. Adowyn, the hunter we introduced in Wrath of the Righteous, is going to get her own spotlight in the Hunter Class Deck, and of course her wolf Leryn is coming along for the chase. People have been asking us to make Adowyn available in the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild for a year or more, but we never thought we had the right deck. Now we will.

And then, this mic drop.

The brainy bunch.

The new year will kick off with Occult Adventures Character Deck 1. Between it and its sequel, we'll be releasing all six mental masters. You'll find new versions of three Mummy's Mask stalwarts—the occultist Mavaro, the spiritualist Estra, and the adorable kineticist Yoon—alongside three all-new characters: the psychic Rivani, the mesmerist Meligaster, and the medium Erasmus. Which three will be in which set? We don't know yet! We're actually engaged in a Lockhorns-level imbroglio over who gets to design what with whom here. We don't know what will happen!

If only we had a way to predict the future. Ah well.

When we get done with these, we'll have made one hundred thirty-six characters for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, with no end in sight. It's been quite the creative process. And we'll keep it up as long as you let us.

So those are some upcoming decks of characters for you to play with. We'll preview all of these when we get closer to the release dates. Thanks for playing!

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer

Hooked On Class Decks

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

By now you may have heard that we're restarting the class decks line in August. We took a break after the Summoner Class Deck to reassess the decks we wanted to make, making sure we could come up with fresh new concepts in the wake of our success with Goblins Fight! and Goblins Burn! We think we got there.

We've been playing around with some of the older classes lately. We debuted a new Rogue, Cleric, Druid, and Magus in the Mummy's Mask Base Set and Character Add-On Deck, giving new life to some older playstyles. We decided to keep that trend alive in the next wave of three decks.

Is It "May-gus" or "Maag-us"? Or Maybe "May-juss" or...

"I make everything look good."

First up is the Magus Class Deck, starring our emo elf Seltyiel. You know he was saying, "What does a pasty-skinned heartthrob have to do to get in a class deck? Put on a shirt?" Wait no more, Selty. You'll be showing up in August.

Magus was the biggest oversight in the first 20 class decks. At no time in all those decks did we make a decent Melee/Arcane deck. The closest we got was the Bard Class Deck, and that wasn't very close. But now not only do Seltyiel from Skull & Shackles and Ahmotep from Mummy's Mask have a deck they can call home in the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild, but it probably won't be long before you read the words "Each player unlocks the ability to play Crowe" in an organized play scenario near you.

Seltyiel will be accompanied by a couple of new Magus associates—though to quash some speculation on the forums, Ahmotep will not be making a second appearance here. We like her just fine in Mummy's Mask, and we've got some more wrinkles we'd like to try with the Magi.

And that's the only deck in this first wave that features exactly one iconic character.

As You Can See from My Example, Persistence Has Its Rewards

We're finally getting to do something I've wanted to do since we started working on the game. At the early stages of expansion, we limited ourselves to decks based around the iconic characters that Pathfinder fans have come to love.

Every now and then, though, we'd grab a character from our favorite pieces of Pathfinder fiction. First up was James Sutter's Salim from Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine, by way of the Inquisitor Class Deck. I am a head-over-heels Elaine Cunningham fan, so when we got the green light to do non-iconic characters in Mummy's Mask, her druid Channa Ti from Dark Tapestry was the first in the door. We also dropped Howard Andrew Jones's cleric Drelm from Stalking the Beast into that set as well.

But with the Wizard and Rogue Class Deck already out, it seemed I wasn't going to get to include my favorite Pathfinder novel characters unless we came up with something very clever. So, we did. For our September deck, we're unveiling a new theme concept: the Pathfinder Tales Deck. It stars the only two characters ever to merit the phrase "the new Fafhrd and Grey Mouser": Dave Gross's Count Varian Jeggare and Radovan Virholt.

I'm just here with the boss.

Dave and I go back almost a quarter century, back when he was the editor of Dragon Magazine and I was but a humble freelance writer. (I'm still a freelance writer, of course. Just less humble.) He's since distinguished himself as one of the most talented writers in the game industry. With these two characters, he's created something legendary. It's about time you get to play them.

And here's the best part: Dave's coming along for the ride. It's his third time dropping in with us: He did a brilliant fill-in for me as the story writer for Season of the Righteous's Adventure 1-3—Lexicon of Paradox, which featured Varian and Radovan as cohort cards. Dave also wrote the flavor text for his character Alase in the Summoner Class Deck. I'm excited that we're finally going to bring his great creations to PACG character form. Thanks, Dave!

Oh, there's a third character—one that's not Dave's—from the Pathfinder Tales novels in the deck along with Varian and Radovan. When we began to consider all the possibilities from the series, the debate was over when I said only two words to the team. More on that in a few months.

Enough with All This Hero Nonsense

Finally, here's a quick look at our third class deck in this wave. In Season of the Runelords, we spent a lot of time with the Hollow Mountain comics, in which Seltyiel, Oloch, Meligaster, and Damiel are a bad-guy team. The writing team on that series (Messrs. Mona, Schneider, and Sutter) clearly had a blast writing from the villainous perspective. As we designed alongside them, we thought we want that too.

So, I'm happy to announce that we're taking a break from all this "goody two-shoes" stuff and donning our best, um... "baddy no-shoes" stuff? for October's Hell's Vengeance Class Deck. Wait, scratch that: It's the first of two sets of those. (Eventually, anyway.) For now, we're focusing on three of the six iconic villains from the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path, lovingly illustrated by our deity-status artist Wayne Reynolds.

Left to right: the human Hellknight Linxia, the pitborn assassin Emil, the human torturer Zelhara, the human cleric Lazzero, the dwarf antipaladin Urgraz, and the dhampir necromancer Nyctessa.

Which three are we doing first? Well, I need to keep some secrets, don't I? After all, telling you would probably be the good thing to do, and with this deck, I have no business doing that. But if you have a favorite, go ahead and list your top choice in the comments. We'll be watching.

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer

How to Summon the Party—Summoner Class Deck Preview

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Need someone to find out if that door is trapped? Go tackle that sorcerer? Carry you quickly to town? Chill your wine? Whether you need a demon, elemental, phantom steed, or trusty eidolon, the summoner knows that every problem just requires the right selection of summon to solve. Some parties quibble over who heals, who melees, who deals with traps. The Summoner Class Deck shows that the Summoner is the party.

Everyone's favorite Hatmancer and Battlechicken.

First up, let's look at our returning champions, Balazar and Padrig. Balazar uses the classic "-mancer" toolkit, scooping up monsters he defeats to use later. This iteration of Balazar is very friendly to anyone at his location (including himself). He can freely cycle his spells for monsters or monsters for spells, letting him cast his best spells for effect and keep his hand moving along.

Wolf beats chicken. Every time.

Alase and Tonbarse hail from the Worldwound, having been introduced in the novel Pathfinder Tales: King of Chaos by Dave Gross. As a Sarkoris God Caller, Alase believes her eidolon is a god. She has little interest in other summons and monster cards, instead focusing her spells as prayers to enhance Tonbarse. Tonbarse roams from location to location, and wherever he is, Alase can assist from afar.

Shh. Zetha will let you know when you can be useful.

Our last Summoner is inspired by the Shadow Caller archetype from the Advanced Race Guide. Zetha is a fetchling, the daughter of a sorcerer trapped on the Shadow Plane. Her eidolon is her own shadow sent forth to do her bidding. Zetha summons a steady supply of shadows each turn, allowing her to stealth her way past many a barrier or check to acquire. Of the summoners, Zetha is the most self-reliant (and least helpful), and she likes it just fine that way.

This class deck is also full of boons that might be useful to a summoner, including many new spells. Because none of the summoners rely on Attack spells, we loaded the class deck with utility spells, including lots of movement, evasion, and ways to add to combat checks.

Summoners don't need to keep watch at night. Or walk. Or bring bug repellent.

We also created a new cycle of allies, bound to the will of the summoner by power rather than kindness. If you can't back up your request with magical oomph, they are more costly than your normal allies, but if you've got the juice, they're oh, so sweet. In a pinch, Balazar and Zetha can also treat them as monster cards for added versatility.

So much power. Such a small price.

Summoners are some of the most crazy, fun, and versatile casters in the RPG, and I hope you'll find them equally crazy, fun, and versatile in the Summoner Class Deck.

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

Warpriest Class Deck Preview

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

It's time for a look at the upcoming Warpriest Class Deck. As the song reminds us, warpriests are good for absolutely everything. While we all know the iconic paladin Seelah is objectively the best character ever, what you might not know is that my favorite character is actually not Seelah, but rather Oloch. In fact, I love warpriests across the board. Let's meet some now!

First up is Oloch. In Skull & Shackles, Oloch combined solid combat and seafaring skills with strong support powers. A devout Gorumite, our new take on Oloch here is more self-reliant, perhaps even a little bit selfish. My guide for this character was a line from his Meet the Iconics post: "Oloch is a quiet, brooding warrior with a disturbing love of violence."

"...relishing the red rush of battle..."

This Oloch shows a personal take on the minor blessing power, but if you need aid in a fight, he can contribute some divine aid—or just charge into the fray himself. During playtesting, our phrase for this Oloch was "Gorum helps those who beat the crap out of things."

Next up is the forgepriest Amli Faldar. We found Amli in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting book Belkzen, Hold of the Orc Hordes. Amli is a follower of Kols the Oath-Keeper, the dwarven demigod of duty.

The hammer is also named Oathkeeper.

As a member of the Oathkeepers, Amli adds dwarven toughness and Craft to Melee and Divine skills. She's good at using both weapons and armor, and she can help others who do so as well.

Finally we see Uliah Muharim, a charismatic member of the Wagons of Light, a group secretly working to combat the undead. We found Uliah in the Pathfinder Player Companion book Black Markets. Like many in the Wagons of Light, Uliah is a devotee of Sarenrae, the Everlight.

Shown here NOT in disguise...

Uliah is our most divine-focused warpriest character, and is also the best with allies, especially mounts. Our hope with Uliah is that you will enjoy having him charge around from location to location, and so will everyone else in your party.

For this class deck, we're trying a few new things. We've added some boons for each character's deity. For Gorum, we added a series of spiked armor cards, reflecting the favor of Our Lord in Iron. For Kols Son of Torag, we added a series of hammers, weapons that aid in crafting. For Sarenrae, we added a variety of healing and anti-undead powers, and also a theme built around mount allies.

Look at all the holy candles...

Another new concept in this class deck has to do with deities' favored weapons and a new concept for cards list powers. The idea came from various attempts to make the favored weapons available to the characters even though they aren't—and shouldn't be—Basic cards. On the cards list side of each character card, in the area where a cohort might be listed, we have a new instruction. For example, Amli's is You may treat 1 copy of the weapon Warhammer as if it says "Owner: Amli." This is somewhat like a character power, but it applies only during deckbuilding and rebuilding. Using this technique, we can give Oloch a Greatsword, Amli a Warhammer, and Uliah a Scimitar.

A trio of starting weapons—in the right hands.

We might adopt this concept to other uses in the future. For game designers, this is interesting new space, a way to smooth over some rough edges and also add some fun new knobs and levers, without adding more powers to an already crowded powers list. One thing that's key to this idea is that it's "fire and forget"—you use it when you need to see the cards list, but you don't need to look at it when you're playing a scenario. Please try this out and let us know what you think!

One final note. Those PACG players who like to dig into the background of these characters might recognize some names from the Pathfinder resources mentioned here. When we were looking for existing warpriests to inspire the class deck characters, we found several potential examples. When we discovered that both Ron Lundeen and Tyler Beck had (independently) worked on some, we knew we'd found our characters. Special thanks to both Ron and Tyler for inspiring the characters and for playtesting and feedback on these (and many, many other) parts of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—and thanks again to all of our amazing fans, playtesters, players, and contributors!

Chad Brown
Adventure Card Game Lead Developer

Lock and Load!: The Gunslinger Class Deck Preview

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Players who joined us last week at Gen Con had an early opportunity to play the Gunslinger, but for those who missed the mayhem, I'm here to deliver everything you need to know about the Gunslinger Class Deck.

One of the first steps I took when preparing to work on the Gunslinger deck was to get my research on. I pored through historical documents (internet wiki) as well as the Pathfinder RPG rules with a singular quest: identify all of the guns we could possibly have, then stuff them all in the class deck. You'll have a full array of lower-technology options such as the Matchlock Hackbut, Wheellock Pistol, and Hand Cannon, as well as examples of the higher end of gunsmithing that Alkenstar might have to offer, by way of the Revolver, Shotgun, and Rifle.

One shot, many kills.

Some of you might be wondering about that Alkenstar reference. Alkenstar is a city-state on the border of the Mana Wastes. Having to survive in that harsh magic-dead region, the alchemists and engineers of Alkenstar invented firearms. In fact, the kingdom still controls the supply of firearms to the rest of Golarion, with 90% of the firearms in the world remaining within its borders. All three of the characters in the Gunslinger Class Deck are from Alkenstar.

Look, ma: no Divine.

Some of you might think of our iconic gunslinger Lirianne as a buccaneer, due to her presence in Skull & Shackles. The Class Deck version of Lirianne focuses more on her history as a shield marshal from Alkenstar that has been flung far from home. Mechanically, she specializes in always having the right gun in hand and making the most of its powers, as well as self-sufficiency to make her a more appealing solo option.

There's a reason she has marshal stars on her holsters.

Each of the three gunslingers in the deck takes inspiration from one of the Gunslinger archetypes in the RPG. Far from home, Lirianne is now a mysterious stranger who roams from adventure to adventure righting wrongs. That inspired me to write a short bit of doggerel (preferably read in your best Sam Elliott impression), which didn't quite fit into the flavor text box for the Mysterious Stranger role card:

When the bad times come, your life's in danger
Then appears the mysterious stranger
Tip of her hat and six shots of her gun
On to her next stop, 'cause your problem's done.

Bring it.

Our next gunslinger was inspired by the Gun Tank archetype. Angban is a dwarf from Dongun Hold, the dwarven fortress in Alkenstar that invented firearms. He is a master of long guns and armor both, making steady progress against the toughest of foes.

Oh, it's already been brought'n.

The third gunslinger is a ratfolk Gulch Gunner whose story is intertwined with Angban's. Both participated gloriously in the Battle of the Warrens, but Skizza's glory has a very different flavor indeed. Skizza is known for his use of bombs and fire, and other alchemical toys. He is tremendously effective, but not the safest of companions.

Not safe for children. Or Veterans.

The class deck includes plenty of new cards, including a new cycle: Ammunition. Like gunslingers in the RPG, card game gunslingers now have the ability to sift through an array of possible options to maximize their shots-to-kill ratios.

Pathfinder really has the most amazing artists, and Gunslinger was the first set in which I personally composed the art order. It was a true high note of my time as a game designer to see the results, so I want to end with callouts to some of my favorite pieces. You can see Ekaterina Burmak's fantastic treatment of Angban above, which delivered on absolutely every detail of my concept and then some. Two other awesome pieces were ally cards done by Suzanne Helmigh:

Illustrations by Suzanne Helmigh

The Gunslinger Class Deck is available August 31. And if you don't already have a Class Deck subscription, there's still time to start your sub with Goblins Fight! and Goblins Burn! and get a pile of goblin promo cards alongside them!

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

Goblins Cut and Goblins Fight!

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Ever since we published Ranzak as the first promo character, goblin fever has surrounded the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. And now that we are almost ready to release two full goblin decks into the wild, we can take a moment to peel back the (literal) veil on Goblins Fight!

The cast of characters include two faces familiar to fans of the We Be Goblins Pathfinder Modules: Reta, the female goblin commando with her stolen wedding veil; and Chuffy, the male goblin knifer covered in exploding pustules. Rounding out the triumvirate of fighting goblins is Ak, who comes to us from the fifth issue of Dynamite's Pathfinder Goblins! comic. Ak is a male goblin runt with the most wretched expression ever worn by a goblin—this stems from his being average at fighting and incompetent with magic, compared to his compatriots. Fortunately, he is blessed by the goblin gods and can bring some well-timed assistance to the table.

And what would the Licktoad goblins be without their tribe's namesake? Each goblin has a pet frog ally that helps cause mayhem in the most civilized setting. Chuffy carries Fat Frog, who is springy and sprongy like our favorite sneaky goblin. Spotol accompanies Reta, strengthening her Constitution. (Reta likes Spotol so much that she even gave him his own white veil!) Ak's favorite toad, Redbutt, confers Strength on his owner. Everything is easier to face with your pet at your side.

Illustration by Marko Horvatin

Goblins Fight! expands the choice of blessings. Many of the new blessings feature cool stained-glass art, including Blessing of the Boss, Blessing of Lady Lastbreath, and Blessing of Bark Breaker. Of course, what would a goblin deck be without a blessing just for them? Blessing of the Gobs is all you would expect: helpful to goblins; painful and chaotic for others.

The deck includes a good smattering of weapons, spells, armors, and items to help the goblins on their path to world domination. Well, maybe not enough to take over the world, or even the county, but enough to put them at the top of the goblin heap. And in case they get hungry on the way, we offer up some pickles!

So come try out the new Goblins Fight! Deck, releasing at Gen Con 2016 and at game stores on August 4. Inject some serious mayhem into the Season of the Runelords with Chuffy, Reta, and Ak in Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild play or send them to the Shackles in Skull & Shackles, to the Worldwound in Wrath of the Righteous, or home to Sandpoint in Rise of the Runelords. And in October, you can try out their tomb-raiding skills in Mummy's Mask!

Check back next week when we preview the Goblins Burn! deck!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator

Hexes and Foes!

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

It's Class Deck preview time again! Before we dive into the mysteries of the Witch, I want to note that the monthly parade of Class Deck releases will go on hiatus for a little while starting in November. We had originally intended to put Class Decks on hiatus during the six months that we're releasing Mummy's Mask, but production delays earlier in the year caused the Summoner Class Deck to slide into October alongside the Mummy's Mask Base Set and Character Add-On Deck. We're therefore starting the hiatus a month later than we had intended.

Now, on with the hexing.

Witch Design Brainstorming

We knew even before we started designing this deck that we wanted to do a version of the witch that played up familiars, and we already had the cohort technology to do it. We looked at the critters available to witches, to see what we wanted to do in addition to Daji, and the following exchange occurred:

Mike: Let's see... they've got access to the standard wizard familiars, so bat, cat, rat, weasel, to—
Tanis: I JUST SEARCHED FOR "FAMILIAR" IN THE BESTIARIES AND FOUND A DINOSAUR THEY CAN HAVE A DINOSAUR FAMILIAR WE'RE DOING IT WE'RE DOING IT
Mike: Hold that thought.
Tanis: Don't make me go get Gary.
Mike: Okay, fine, we're doing it.

Behold the compsognathus:

That's also the face I made when I saw the art.

As you can see, we decided to give the cohort some strategic implications by moving the witch's casting skill onto the familiar. This cleanly models the notion that witches gain their power through a pact with a patron represented by a familiar. The deck has several cohorts, and the non-Feiya characters get to choose which familiar they'll use at the start of each scenario. (Feiya has already chosen Daji, of course, but those of you who are QQing about that should look into her Beast-Bonder role.)

New Characters

In addition to a cohort-ified version of Feiya, we've added Kasmir, an itinerant healer who overcomes prejudice with his magnificent hair and many belts. Kasmir likes to use power efficiently, and his hex is similar to a selfish version of the original Skull & Shackles Character Add-On Deck Feiya's.

Kasmir is all heals, all the time. Cure spell in my discard? I'll take that. Get wiped out off-turn? No worries, I can still draw a card to get my heal off. He's fun to play and easy to kill, like so many of my favorite characters in the ACG.

We've also got the Blue Person, as the forums have noticed. She is indeed a Samsaran, and her name is Raheli.

The other thing that made me all-caps at the design team early in this process was the White-Haired Witch archetype. This archetype lets you fling objects at your enemies with your friggin' hair. If I had that power I would spend all day chucking pens, dice, and small action figures at my office-mates Vic and Lissa, so it's probably a good thing that magic isn't real.

Raheli's pretty much a one-trick pony, but since that pony is named Make Sure We Collect All the Boons, I think she's a pony you'll enjoy. Well, that got weird quickly. Onward!

Creepy Dolls

Since we're fond of designing cycles these days, I threw a set of creepy dolls into the Witch Deck that have a few different abilities.

It's got a ruined eye that's always open...

Since we're Paizo, we already had several creepy doll illustrations laying around, and they basically designed themselves. They sit there for a turn, do their creepy thing, and then act like spells.

The Witch Class Deck comes out at the end of the month. You can preorder yours here!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Nobody Expects the... Oh, Wait—You *Are* Expecting the Inquisitor Deck Preview?

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

I'm back with a peek at the May Class Deck release, the Inquisitor Class Deck. The iconic inquisitor, Imrijka, is a bad-ass half-orc with a heart of gold who debuted in the Wrath of the Righteous Base Set. She's lethal with a bow and, as a melange of ranger and cleric, Imrijka takes pleasure in smiting the unfaithful from a distance.

She really can attack the darkness.

As you can see, Wrath Imrijka was about the monster vending, while Class Deck Imrijka is all about those ranged weapons. She fuels her engine by defeating monsters, sure, but she can also use her weapons for their powerful discard/bury effects without losing them to the discard pile. The last power on her character card is an adaptation of the RPG inquisitor's judgement class feature. It's initially usable only on combat at another location. Never has a bad first impression mattered so much.

I've chosen to preview her Fate's Shepherd role because it features an unusual way to cheat death. The final power allows Imrijka to drastically mitigate danger for characters whose decks are low on cards. With feat investment, she can even make the cost to herself minimal! Then, with the last feat on the first power, she can defeat an Undead monster to heal that cost right back into her deck.

The Inquisitor Class Deck deck also has a treat for Pathfinder Tales fans: Salim Ghadafar, the protagonist of James Sutter's Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine, makes his PACG debut in this deck.

A mysterious weapon for a mysterious man.

Salim focuses on Finesse weapons, which are a staple of this deck. He's a reluctant servant of Pharasma, but he will call upon her power when he really needs it. As you can see from his sweet sword, we enjoyed playing with mechanics for signature weapons, and this one has a potent scaling bonus. His roles, Death's Heretic and Reluctant Priest, explore facets of his connections to swordplay and the Lady of Graves.

The third and final character in the Inquisitor Class Deck is an inquisitor of Shelyn, the goddess of love and beauty. After tossing around ideas about game show hosts and hotness judges, I eventually came around to the idea of Sherlock Holmes for the lovelorn, and Varril was born.

Why, yes, Eddie Redmayne and Benedict Cumberbatch were reference art for this character. Can you tell?

He's got the limited heals. He's got the power of Shelyn backing him up when he attempts a check. He's even got that looking-for-love explore-again power. (In case you can't tell, I have a bit of a thing for our boy Varril.)

His Knight of the Rose role is all about making people feel good about themselves. He doesn't like to be lonely, and he's eager to spread Shelyn's message when it's her turn on the blessings deck. Note that this inquisitor has no Melee or Ranged skill; he's a lover, not a fighter. (I promised myself I wouldn't make that joke. Oh well.) His other role, Incorruptible, is about rewarding devotion to faith.

The new cards in this deck run the gamut. New weapons, new spells, new allies, and even a new blessing. Here's a sampling.

We tried to do a lot in this deck, as you can see from the font size. There's a fair bit of scaling on the new boons, which should be interesting in play. We certainly hope you enjoy the Inquisitor Class Deck, which you can still preorder this week!

Ooh, and the return of Recurring Art Thing:

Illustration by Mattias Fahlberg

Until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Class Decks by the Score

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Yesterday, we sent our printer Cartamundi four more Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Decks, bringing our total of class decks to 20. With such an auspicious number in the books, I thought it'd be nice to look back on our designs—even though you've only seen 13 of them to date. So this is both a review and a preview.

Oh, hey, the important thing: Ace designer Tanis O'Connor led the design of all of these. All of Lone Shark Games' designers helped, of course, but we've been very lucky to be working under Tanis's singular vision for the whole line. Yay, Tanis!

Okay, I mentioned in a recent blog that we design these in "waves." That certainly surprised a few people. I expect folks imagined that on the first of every month, we flip the page on our Dog Shaming Calendar, say "Oh, Bonzo, will you never learn?" and then design a class deck. That's not really how we work. Instead, we tackle a big project with lots of sub-projects all at once, so we can see the whole picture. And then we bang on it over several months until it's done. Then Vic says, "You have to turn it over to me now," and the wave gets edited, illustrated, proofed, printed, and sent to you. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Here's a wave-by-wave look at the decks.

Wave 1: The "Big Seven"

As we were wrapping up Skull & Shackles, we decided to get our feet wet with a set of seven initial decks. Wait, that's not true at all. We decided to do the eleven core iconics' decks all at once, but then our internal gaskets blew into pieces, and we scaled back. Seven was all our diminutive brains could handle in one wave.

Exactly which seven? Our choices mirrored the Rise of the Runelords Base Set's characters—Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard—and established a principle that you could use the deck to grow your character over an entire Adventure Path. At this point, we only had the first two sets' cards to draw from, and we hadn't actually seen folks play with Skull & Shackles in the wild. We decided on a core ethic, though: These decks would be usable with any Adventure Path. So no cards that worked in only one set.

Our primary resource for ideas the Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex. That supplement expanded our minds as to what a character of a class could be. A key exemplar of this idea is Flenta, the fighter who wants everyone to believe she's a wizard. We could never make that our fighter archetype. But in the Fighter Class Deck, we could use the principles of fighterdom to make a new kind of hybrid character that showed off how robust our system was.

We also wove subthemes into the deck. For example, we gave rogues Meliski and Wu Shen some new Poison cards, and the ability to do some fancy trickery with them. We wove our first Gambling items throughout the set, a lucky Rabbit's Foot here and a set of Marked Cards there. We seeded things we hoped to do more ornately later, such as Darago's window on what would become Balazar.

If there was any legit critique of those first seven decks, it's that we were trying to do too much. So for example, the Cleric Class Deck found Tarlin and Zarlova fighting for space to get 2-Handed weapons and Arcane/Divine spells. That seemed untenable. Something had to give.

Wave 2: The Expanded (and Condensed) Roster

After taking some time to see the first wave in play, we made some changes. Wave 2 encompassed Paladin, Monk, and Druid, three of the four classes that originally appeared in the Rise of the Runelords Character Add-On Deck. The most obvious change was dropping from four characters to three, each of whom could now have a full complement of tools to exploit.

Plus we introduced some characters who would look really out of place in the Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box: Rooboo the tengu monk, Raz the dog-riding paladin, and Gronk the elf druid who spent most of his time as a tree. You wanted variety, we gave you variety.

In addition to introducing cards from Wrath of the Righteous, we started relying more heavily on "cycles," sets of cards that introduced variants on a central theme running through the deck. The Monk Class Deck, for example, got a whole bunch of new Asian-themed weapons, all of which work with the Acrobatics skill that Monks are known for.

The key element of this set: surprises. We wanted you to open up the deck and think, "Wow, I didn't see that coming."

Wave 3: Crazytimes Begin

OK, Amiri's waiting this whole time saying, "I was in Runelords too! What's a frost-giant-sword-slinging girl gotta do to get in a class deck?" Best for last, I say. Her time finally came, as wave 3 began with Barbarian, followed by Oracle and Alchemist.

Hoo boy, we jumped quite a ways out of the box here. The Barbarian Class Deck has two great cycles, the war paint cycle (in which you decide what color to paint your face and gain superpowers from it) and the improvised cycle (in which you decide what random thing to smash your foes with). Plus, we debuted the first character for the game based on a Paizo employee's home character: Erik Mona's Ostog the Unslain. (Try to keep him that way.)

In addition to a blind woman in a Rio Carnival outfit, the Oracle deck had a lizardfolk AND a pitborn. Grazzle and Ramexes divined things the fun way: using bones and entrails. This deck also gave the first previews of cards from our upcoming Mummy's Mask set, including some wild Egyptian blessings.

And where the Oracle Class Deck opened the door, the Alchemist Class Deck melted it off its hinges. The deck featured bombs, elementals, and the weirdest armor you've ever seen from us. (Spoiler: The Mummy's Mask team likes weird armor.) But most interesting of all was a cycle of "allies" you probably didn't imagine we'd make: oozes, slimes, and jellies. If these are Mother Myrtle's friends, I don't want to see her enemies.

Wave 4: New Old Tricks

By wave 4, we wanted to use some of the cool tricks we designed for Skull & Shackles and Wrath of the Righteous. This wave—Inquisitor, Witch, and Gunslinger—use rules we'd restricted ourselves from using in previous sets.

For example, check out this card from the Inquisitor Class Deck, Detect Thoughts.

See that little "if you have a role card" dodge in there? That's a spell that grows with you. You might hold on to that Adventure Deck 2 spell well through Adventure Deck 4 if you know it's gonna pick up allies after you get that role card. Thanks, Wrath of the Righteous mythic path cards, for teaching us that little trick.

The Witch Class Deck makes particularly great use of Wrath's cohort rules, maybe the cleverest stuff we've done with that card type. And the Gunslinger Class Deck (created in Wave 4, but due to be released after the next two decks I'm gonna talk about) takes some guns from Skull & Shackles and adds card after card of brand-new explosiveness.

Wave 5: Goblins in the Machinery

By now you know that we're breaking from our traditional class-driven format to roll out some goblin buffoonery. Goblins Fight! and Goblins Burn! are straight-up ridiculous, but as with all the other decks, they're fully playable in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild. These decks are... not kind to the goblins in question. You will see lots of goblins blown up, impaled, and/or turned into ooze. But y'know, in a good way. The crude little buggers really wanted to invade Gen Con, so they muscled their way in front of the Gunslinger Class Deck from the previous wave to make that happen.

Wave 5 also includes two of our most intricate decks, Warpriest, and (hey, I'm announcing this right now) Summoner. If you've played Oloch or Balazar, you know that you have to read those characters closely before diving in—there's a lot of "there" in there. And if you like that, you'll like these. The allies in these sets are some of the most interesting ones we've made.

As for the Summoner Class Deck in particular, I have never seen us stress so much over the complex interaction of a character and corresponding Owner card before. Probably took us thirty tries to get it right. But that's a story for another day.

So that's the score on the score of class decks we've sent to the printer to date. By the time the Summoner Class Deck comes out, Class Decks will have added more than 130 different character/role combos to PACG play.

One more thing...

When we were designing the goblin decks, we kept thinking about some of the goblin-themed promo cards we created for previous Adventure Paths, and how they'd go really nicely with these two decks. So Paizo dug into their warehouse and emerged with enough copies of these promos to cover Class Deck subscribers. For the first time, Class Deck subscribers are going to get some of that sweet, sweet promo card love. Subscription copies of Goblins Fight! will ship with the item Goblin Lockpick and a Blessing of Zogmugot (both Skull & Shackles promos), and Goblins Burn! will ship with the spell Fire Sneeze (a Rise of the Runelords promo) and another Blessing of Zogmugot. These are not reprints—these are the very same printings as the copies that have sometimes sold on eBay for more than the price of the decks we'll be shipping them with (so the cut and color of Fire Sneeze in particular is slightly different from the cards we print today).

If you haven't already signed up for a Class Deck Subscription, there has never been a better time. And if you already have a subscription, thank you for that... and get ready for a whole lot of strangeness!

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer

Pawn Parade, PaizoCon Preview, and (P)Art (P)Spoilers!

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Greetings, Pathfinders!

How's everybody doing? Sitting down with your Barbarian, Oracle, and Alchemist Class Decks and getting blown up by goblins in Season of the Runelords? Well, keep sitting down, 'cause I've got lots of goodies to share. But before I do, go and vote in the PACG accessory contest!

Pathfinder Society Pawn Pwnage

I squeed briefly about this product last week, but I've got a little more space to expand on my happiness. Several months ago, Paizo Project Manager Jessica Price came to the Pathfinder Society team and said, "We've got a whole Pathfinder Pawns product just for PFS. What do you want to put in it?" After the cackling and rubbing of hands died down, John Compton, Mark Seifter, and Linda Zayas-Palmer started coming up with lists of characters. And lists, and lists, and lists. Then we rochambeau'd for who got to put in how many of their favorites. I won a lot, because I fight dirty. Mark's still a little afraid of me.

Illustrations by Jorge Fares and Kent Hamilton.

All three of the promo goblin characters are in the set! Even Tup the Terrible, who hasn't even been released yet (Free RPG Day, June 18th, at a game store near you)! All the non-iconic bards, clerics, fighter, rangers, rogues, sorcerers, wizards, monks, druids, paladins, barbarians, oracles, alchemists, inquisitors, witches, and gunslingers from their respective Class Decks are in this pawn collection. If I did my math right, that's 42 tokens for your Adventure Card Game characters! You can't beat the savings! (The iconics are in the NPC Codex Box and the Inner Sea Pawn Box.)

PaizoCon Event Preview

Those of you attending PaizoCon this year are in for a treat. In addition to a special event in which I put you through the woodchipper ACG Open 2016, forum stalwarts and Venture-Officers cartmanbeck and Theryon Stormrune have teamed up to bring you a very unusual opportunity: a convention-exclusive custom version of the We Be Goblins trilogy. Theryon and I will be running special tables of cartmanbeck's new design during the afternoon slots, so keep your eyes peeled when the lottery goes live. (There will be a pouring-out of one for cartmanbeck, who isn't able to join us at the show this year.) Players will receive a one-off PFSACG reward whose potency depends on how long they live.

New Recurring Thing: Art Preview!

Now that we're sending the current batch of Class Decks to the printer, I am swimming in oceans of absolutely tremendous art that I can't wait to share with y'all. Each week, I'll give you a glimpse at one of my favorite pieces from an upcoming ACG product. This week, it's the Blessing of the Eternal Rose, from next month's Inquisitor Class Deck.

Illustration by Felipe Escobar

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Alchemist Class Deck Preview

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

First, I would like to emit a gentle squeeing noise, then inform you that many Class Deck characters are soon to exist as Pathfinder Pawns! (If you're looking for pawns for the iconics, you'll find the Rise of the Runelords iconics in the NPC Codex Box and the ones from Skull & Shackles and Wrath of the Righteous in the Inner Sea Pawn Box, which also includes pawns for many of the characters in the upcoming Goblin decks!)

Since we've already had someone make the case for Damiel as the best character ever, we're skipping right to the Alchemist Class Deck preview this week. This deck is the brainchild of Lone Shark designers Liz Spain and Paul Peterson (and if you know them, you are now probably a little afraid and a lot excited). Let's get to it.

Damiel 2: Alchemical Boogaloo

Everyone's favorite potion-maker made his Pathfinder Adventure Card Game debut in the Skull & Shackles Base Set, wherein he flexed his Craft skill and threw as many Noxious Bombs as he could get his hands on. He was also fond of that set's Fire Lance, a tasty little firearm that featured the Alchemical trait. We've brought back the Fire Lance, and given it a big brother.

There was supposed to be an earth-shattering KABOOM!

As you can see, this Damiel's skipped the Craft checks for alchemical goodies and spell work and gone straight to automatic recharge, Valeros-style. He can also throw alchemy bombs as kickers to his Ranged attacks. Roles for this new Damiel are called Miscibility Master (because we respect the classics) and Mindchemist (because Liz is just a little insane).

The New Class: Cogsnap and Mother Myrtle

The other two characters in this deck are the definitely unstable Cogsnap and the grounded, nurturing Mother Myrtle. Cogsnap has some of my favorite character art in the whole game; you can tell just by looking at him what sort of character he is. He blows up monsters then harvests them for parts. My favorite role for this fellow is the Bloodbomber, whose flavor text reads, "To bloodbombers, all liquids can be turned into explosives, including what remains after the explosion." [Mike: My work here is done.] Maniacal cackling is basically a requirement if you want to play Cogsnap.

Heheheheheheheheheh... boom.

Mother Myrtle, by contrast, is a sweet old lady. A jaunty sprig of holly rides atop her hat. She carries bundles of grain and a bowl of something nourishing. I'm sure she only uses that scythe to harvest herbs. And her roles are Preservationist and... Reanimator?

I bet the witch in Hansel and Gretel looked friendly too.

Myrtle is a spellcaster who's very thrifty. She likes to keep things cycling, and she knows a little about a lot. I find her to be a very well-rounded character to play; I hope you like her.

Where's the Candy?

To close, I thought I'd share with you some of the cool new boons we've put in this deck, including some sneak previews of a whole bunch of Mummy's Mask cards that we just couldn't wait to put into print. This deck is all about the Alchemical trait and elemental damage types, so I've got a shield that's useful if you accidentally blow yourself up, some silver-tongue elixir, and possibly my favorite ally art yet.

You can't go wrong with a little flensing jelly. Put it on your toast, grease up a door hinge, or strip the skin off your most recent kill. It does everything!

The Alchemist Class Deck is in stores April 27, and available for preorder now.

Until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Magic and Mystery—Oracle Class Deck Preview

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

In the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the oracle is a divine spellcaster driven by devotion to an ideal rather than to a particular deity. The specific source of an oracle's abilities is a mystery, and each oracle is burdened with a curse of some kind, for power has a price. When we designed the first version of Alahazra the Oracle for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, we found ourselves drawn to the idea of prophecy and foresight. That idea carried through into the new character designs for the Oracle Class Deck.

In the Skull & Shackles Base Set, the blind Oracle Alahazra wielded the power of storms against her enemies, while using her divine abilities to open a brief window into the party's future. In her new incarnation, the Bride of the Sun calls down the daystar's light on anyone who gets in her way, and that dazzling illumination makes many things clear to even those who lack eyesight. (She also has a sweet hat.)

No, we don't know how she gets dressed like that without sight either.

That last role power works in combination with the second power, so Alahazra can provide a long term strategic view of what's to come by peeking at the bottom two cards of a deck. Cartmanbeck gave you a preview of her other role, Wandering Prophet, two weeks ago.

For the two new characters in the Oracle Class Deck, we decided to get freaky with our divination methods. Ramexes, as mentioned in that "Class Decks Update" blog, is a haruspex. That means he guts things and sees what's to come in their entrails. Since we're fully into fantasy stereotypes here at the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, we knew Ramexes had to be a pitborn.

He's not bad, he's just drawn that— ...well, actually, he's pretty bad.

Ramexes has a straightforward "kill 'em, cut 'em open, see what's coming" mechanic in his first character power. My favorite power of all time is his third character power, in which he cuts open his allies to gain prescience and bonus explorations. I cackle every time I play him, and he's one of my playtest characters for Season of the Runelords, so I play him a lot. The other folks in the office have gotten used to the frequent cackles that emanate from my cubicle. Or at least they've stopped asking about it.

The final character in our clairvoyant trio is Grazzle, a lizardfolk life oracle who practices ossomancy, or bone divination. He's slightly more fastidious/carnivorous than Ramexes, and prefers to use the whole kill rather than just the entrails.

Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog... wait, wool of bat?

As you can see, Grazzle's focus isn't on scrying, but rather on healing his party through a little self-sacrifice. He can automatically recharge his spells, so he fights like a sorcerer, and the Bone Diviner can still do a little divination where his friends are with a mechanic similar to S&S Alahazra. The Bone Diviner also has a power that works with the variety of new diviner items that we've put in the Oracle Class Deck—but you'll have to wait and see those another time!

I showed off this deck to a playtester of mine, and he shuffled through the deck and gave me a look full of shock and misery. "Where's Augury?" he asked plaintively.

That's right, kids, the Oracle Class Deck doesn't contain the Augury spell. Doesn't have it, doesn't need it. Between the new items and powers we've jammed in there, these oracles will be examining decks like it's their jobs; they'll want to save their spell slots for other things. We encourage you to pick it up and try it out, and see what you think.

Until next time, Pathfinders.

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Cartmanbeck's Best Character Ever—Alahazra

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Hello all! I've been reading the "Best Character Ever" blogs for a while. Watching. Waiting. Biding my time until I got the perfect chance to explain why every one of them has been completely and utterly wrong (except Tanis's: goblins are pretty cool, after all.) [I did not add that aside, but I applaud the author's good sense. -Tanis] But even goblins do not compare to the awesome might that is Alahazra.

If those white and red robes remind you of a certain classic video game character... trust me, she's not quite so forgiving.

Alahazra, the iconic oracle, made her first Adventure Card Game appearance in the Skull & Shackles Base Set. She may look weak at first, with her paltry d4s for Strength and Dexterity, but she sees things that others can't, and uses that information to beat down on enemies, acquire cards, and close locations like a boss. You see, S&S Alahazra has a d12 for her Charisma, and she also uses that for her Divine checks. This means that when it's time to cast an offensive spell, she's often going to deal a ton of damage, especially with her final power giving her an extra +2 on all spells that have the Attack trait. She also has a great chance of recharging her spells with that high Divine check... but even when she fails a recharge check, she gets to trade any discarded card with the Divine trait for any other one (so a blessing for a spell, perhaps?) at the end of her turn.

Alahazra's other main power is the ability to recharge a card with the Divine trait to examine the top card of any location. This means that Alahazra can scout for everyone as long as she has a few blessings or spells in her hand that she doesn't mind recharging. (And she starts with 2/3 of her deck being spells and blessings!) In my playthrough of Skull & Shackles, I found that a perfect turn for Alahazra entailed recharging enough cards to look at the top card of every location deck, leaving just a spell in her hand, and then exploring and hopefully killing a monster with that spell.

Now, I'm not going to try to act like Alahazra has no weaknesses. If she's dealt damage, since she starts with no armor, she'll usually be taking all of that damage from her large hand size. With her ability to fish Cure spells back out of her discard pile, though, this generally doesn't end up being a huge problem. Our S&S Damiel was at risk of dying way more often than my Alahazra was. (Though our Damiel player was a fan of living dangerously... this might be an Alchemist trait.)

If Alahazra isn't gazing into the stars, she might as well be destroying them.

For roles, I'm going to start with the Tempest. This role is all about damaging enemies with her spells. In fact, she likes spells that have the Attack trait so much, she can even cast Arcane spells as long as they have that trait! She also adds up to 4 to each of her combat checks when using the Attack trait, so she can dole out some serious punishment.

But while Alahazra's Tempest role is great, her Stargazer role is absolutely amazing! This role gives her several powers that build upon her examine ability, allowing her to recharge cards for other characters or—and this is the important one—encounter boons that she examines at any location! This means that, for the price of recharging a blessing or a Divine spell, Alahazra can examine a card at another location, and if it's a boon, she can attempt to acquire it. If she makes the check, awesome, new boon for her! But even if she fails the check, she has just removed a card from the top of another location deck without risking fighting a monster. By the end of Skull & Shackles, my Alahazra was spending her whole turn recharging blessings to rip boons off the top of every deck, leaving all the monsters for other combatants to face.

The Skull & Shackles version of Alahazra was amazing, the best character I've ever played... and now in the Oracle Class Deck, we're getting a NEW version of her! This Alahazra is tougher and more combat-oriented than the S&S version, so I imagine she'll appeal to a different group of players. Don't worry, though, she still has the ability to examine cards and scout ahead.

Just as beautiful, and even more deadly.

This new version of Alahazra still has paltry d4s for her Strength and Dexterity, but her Constitution is a respectable d8, as is her Intelligence. She still has a bonus to Knowledge, which will be very helpful if you play her through Season of the Righteous, and her awesome d12 Charisma with +2 Divine bonus is still there in all its glory. However, this time Alahazra can shirk other Attack spells to use her own holy fire on enemies, getting a respectable 1d12 + 2d4+2 right off the bat by discarding the top card of her deck. This means you can feel free to load her deck up with Cure spells to get all those discarded cards back without worrying about whether you have the resources to fight.

Oracle Deck Alahazra still has a power that involves examining cards, and in this case it lets her examine an extra card whenever she examines. This pairs incredibly nicely with the promo card that came with the Alahazra mini in Pathfinder Battles: Iconic Heroes Set 3, allowing her to examine yet another extra card. Make sure to pick up an Augury spell!

It may not be comfortable, but at least it's lighter than Shardra's!

The last power listed on Alahazra's card uses a new term you might not have seen before: "invokes". The term will be familiar to those playtesting the upcoming Mummy's Mask Base Set, but this is the first time a card bearing the word is seeing the light of day. A check invokes a trait if it has or is against a card that has that trait, so if either your check or the card you're encountering has the trait, you're good. A bane invokes a trait if it has that trait or if it deals only damage of the type that matches that trait.

As you can see, this "invokes" power applies to Alahazra's first power, letting her burn evil away with her holy fire and then move away afterward. Perhaps you examined the top three cards of your current location, saw a monster that you could easily destroy, but then found an important boon that Alahazra just doesn't have the correct skill to acquire? Just kill off that pesky monster and move away to another location to explore some more, leaving that sweet magic pistol for Lirianne to pick up on her turn instead.

Before I leave you, let's examine one of Class Deck Alahazra's roles. This happens to be my favorite of her two new roles: the Wandering Prophet.

When Alahazra shows up in your village, you should probably ask her about your future. It might just save your life.

Why do I like this role? Well, mostly because it brings back some of that seer-y goodness that I loved so much about her in Skull & Shackles. First off, you don't always have to discard a card to use your holy fire anymore—if it's a spell or a blessing, you get to recharge it instead (and let's face it, most of her deck is going to be made up of spells and blessings). She also gets to move other characters when she invokes the Fire trait, which is useful. But it's those new powers at the bottom that I'm most excited about. First, you get to evade barriers, which are in all honesty a challenge for both incarnations of Alahazra. You can even let other characters evade barriers eventually.

My favorite new power, though, is that examine power. You get to examine the top card of your location deck, at the end and eventually also the start of your turn, at no cost. Combine this with her earlier power (and her headdress!), and you're examining most of the deck in just a few turns. You can plan out every step of your turn before encountering a single card!

Now I know you can agree that Alahazra is the best character ever. She doesn't need brute strength, fancy weapons, or armor. She knows what's coming before it arrives, and can prepare herself accordingly. She can look into the future and see the answer to a question before it is asked... and when necessary, she can rain down some serious divine wrath on an enemy or two. As much as I love Lini, and as much as I'm looking forward to seeing Ramexes in action, the best character ever released (so far) for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is, without question, Alahazra.

Tyler Beck
Freelance Writer and Human Geneticist Extraordinaire

Barbarian Class Deck Preview

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

We are thrilled to finally release the Barbarian Class Deck! These arrived in the warehouse last week and will soon be winging their way to lucky Class Deck subscribers, so we're going to talk about what to expect when they land on your doorstep/FLGS-step.

In the card game design world, when we design a small group of cards that share mechanical concepts and story themes but have different sets of abilities, we call that a cycle. Magic: the Gathering is famous for them—perhaps you've heard of the Mox jewel cards? In this deck we decided to design a couple of cycles. First up, we've got the War Paints:

Paint the town while painting your face.

All the barbarians can use these items, but different players will prioritize different paints' powers. Cycles are like a card game buffet—eat what you want, but only a certain amount of food's gonna fit in your stomach.

We also designed a bunch of weapons for the discerning barbarian, based on our popular Improvised Dinosaur promo card from Wrath of the Righteous. Behold the Improvised cycle:

Sometimes you don't have your giant greatsword, but a barbarian's still gotta rage.

As you can see, these weapons have a higher initial cost that can be offset with a lucky roll. Both Mike and I are very fond of the destroys-everything-around-her-when-she-rages style of barbarian. For a companion take on hitting people with whatever's to hand, meet Brielle:

Service with a smile... and a butter churn handle to the face.

Brielle specializes in improvisational combat, and her Kneecapper role enables both the before-you-act cheap shot and the feeling of invincibility after a raging victory. Because she's a halfling, she can also sneak away from a foe she'd prefer not to encounter.

Back when we did the original concept brainstorming for the Barbarian Class Deck, Mike and I agreed that barbarians do a few things very well: they rage, they smash foes with whatever is nearby, and they hate it when things stand in their way. Our new version of Amiri really doesn't like it when things stand in her way.

Let us not to the marriage of true barbarians admit impediments.

This Amiri is looking for trouble, and nothing but trouble. If a location's closed, or if she's bored with it, she's out of there. Boons just give her incentive to keep going. And when she gets to smash something, she charges ahead.

Paizo fans know the legend of Ostog the Unslain, Erik Mona's intrepid PC. He doesn't wear armor and he's never died. There was zero chance Ostog wasn't going to show up in this deck.

No, his other role isn't "The Slain." That proved unpopular in playtesting.

Ostog has no time for anything that's not a big two-handed weapon, and he doesn't need armor because he's one tough cookie. Put him together with the Improvised Boulder, and even dragons cower in fear.

That's it for this week's Barbarian Class Deck preview. Next week, Mike delves into the topic of cycles a little more deeply. Until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

A Little Comic Relief

Tuesday, February 3, 2016

Hiya! We skipped the ACG blog last week, so we've got a lot of stuff to share! Here are three big pieces of big news:

The Runelords Rise Again

We have been working hard on the soon-to-launch Season of the Runelords (we're previewing it this weekend at Winter Fantasy in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and it's not too late to get in on that!) and we're trying something a little different this time.

The Season of the Runelords storyline begins after the conclusion of the Rise of the Runelords. In that Adventure Path, the heroes defeat a Big Bad Guy (is it possible to spoil a story we published in 2007?). We're picking up the story of the world after that defeat, with your fresh party of adventurers operating near the familiar town of Sandpoint.

We're big comics fans, and we love the fact that several of Dynamite's Pathfinder Comics storylines take place in and around Sandpoint. Season of the Runelords Adventure 1: Dark Waters Rising and Adventure 2: City of Secrets looks to some of those comics to provide their story backbone and scenario art. Adventurers will experience the depravity of the Mosswood goblin tribe and the intrigues of the city of Magnimar, as filtered through the collective imagination of the Pathfinder Adventure Card game team. I'm not sure whether that should frighten or excite you.

Adventure 1, which will debut at Winter Fantasy, is based on the first 12 issues of the comics, Dark Waters Rising and Of Tooth and Claw. It all starts on the road to Sandpoint, where mutated goblins attack the hapless party. When they arrive in town, there's talk of a flying beast that eats the local livestock. And the town council is in turmoil. How all these things weave together into an intricate 6-scenario plot is for you to discover.

Adventure 2 is based on City of Secrets and Origins. This arc brings us to Magnimar, where the clerics of Sarenrae and nobles of the city are being targeted by mysterious forces. When you find yourself embroiled in the gang turf wars of Underbridge, you'll wonder if the big city is big enough even for you.

In adventure 3, we'll head off to Hollow Mountain, about which we can share little at the moment—the Hollow Mountain comic book arc is ongoing. The first 2 issues are out, and the next two issues can be preordered. Get them if you want a preview of the excitement to come!

Did We Mention Goblins?

Speaking of gobbos, we announced that our Class Deck subscription has been hijacked by goblins! The first Goblin Class Deck (yeah, we know "goblin" isn't a class, but they don't seem to care) is entitled Goblins Fight!, features the rotters Reta Bigbad, Chuffy Lickwound, and Ak the Survivor, whom you might have met in the Pathfinder: Goblins! comics. They're nasty and fun, and also nasty.

So where's Mogmurch and Poog of Zarongel? They're in the next Class Deck after that, entitled Goblins Burn!, naturally. It's a lot more spell-focused than Goblins Fight! is. We'll have that up on the site for preorder next month.

And who's in Goblins Burn! with Mogmurch and Poog? Well, that's a secret we'll keep to ourselves for a few weeks yet. But trust us, it'll be worth the wait.

But If You Just Can't Wait, We've Got You Covered

Maybe you don't want to wait for us to give you more goblin characters. Maybe you want to make them yourselves. So here's some big news: DriveThruCards has expanded their online Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Card Creator so you can now make your own character, role, and token cards!

This means that all major card types can now be made with the community card creator. Check out the Card Creator to make your own cards and see what other members of the PACG community have cooked up.

That's a lot for one blog! So check out Season of the Runelords, the Card Creator, and (when it warms up a bit) the Goblin Class Decks. Have fun storming the Goblin Fortress!

Tanis O'Connor and Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Designers

Class Decks Update

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

I wanted to give you an update on the Class Decks distribution schedule, since it's gotten a little wonky. We hit some unfortunate delays in the product chain, such that our Druid Class Deck came out in December instead of October, and the Barbarian Class Deck is coming out in February instead of January. We're very sorry about the delays, but we think you'll be happy with the results. To keep your appetite whetted, I'll talk a little about characters from a range of upcoming Class Decks, as well as their associated Iconic Heroes promo cards.

Barbarian

As you might know from our excellent Meet the Iconics blog series, Amiri is a bad-ass chick with a big-ass sword from the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, complete with Paizo Tragic Backstory™. We did a version of her giant-forged sword for Iconic Heroes #2, and we gave her some comfy armor in the Barbarian Class Deck.

Smashing in style!

The characters in this deck were designed with the Pathfinder Unchained version of the barbarian's mechanics in mind, so expect to see a bit more variety and utility in their rage powers. As a clue, let me reveal that Amiri's new roles are called Immovable Object and Unstoppable Force.

Oracle

The next deck in the release schedule is for all you scouting fans out there: the Oracle Class Deck. To kick off the design process, the design team spent a delightful afternoon learning about the different and fascinating methods of divination used throughout human history. These include armomancy, or divining by examining one's shoulders, labiomancy, or divination by lip reading (which seemed a bit cheaty to us,) and kephalomancy, or divination by using a baked ass's head. We recommend setting your oven to 425° for that last one.

Technically we didn't use any of those divinatory methods in the final design, but you've gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. (Talk to Chad about oomancy sometime.) We did, however, come up with Ramexes, a pitborn oracle who specializes in haruspication, or the reading of entrails, and we gave Alahazra a fancy hat in Iconic Heroes #1.

Oracles dress for the weather—there's actually another hat under this hat.

Alchemist

To close out this week's column, we've got a sneak peek at the Alchemist Class Deck. Designers Liz Spain and Paul Peterson took point on this deck, which should terrify anyone who knows them. In addition to Damiel and his portable alchemy lab from Iconic Heroes #3, we're introducing the archetypal gnome alchemist. Meet Cogsnap:

Tell me he's not exactly what you expected.

Cogsnap is fond of cards that have the Automaton trait, and you'll see a few new ones in his deck.

That's it for this week—until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

PS: Be sure to check out the latest Iconic Heroes releases here!

December Adventure Card Guild Updates

Tuesday, December 14, 2015

Hello, Pathfinders. Today's blog is a grab bag of PFSACG updates from me and designer Keith Richmond about Season of the Righteous, Season of the Runelords, and more!

Season of the Righteous Story Update

It was a long ride over heaps and hordes of demons (and probably more than a few brave crusaders), but Season of the Righteous is finally coming to its glorious end. Let's recap the story so far with a whole lot of spoilers:

Adventure 1-1: Herald's Chosen

The Herald of Iomedae, also known as the Hand of the Inheritor, has divined that demons are up to no good. (When are they not?) The Herald chose the best and brightest crusaders available (plus maybe a Darago or two who snuck in). You cleared the fortress city of Kenabres of a gathering horde (herd? stampede?) of fiendish minotaurs, as well as a gaggle of demon-summoning, polymorphing witches. You then cut your way past the Fiendish Tree ruler of Storasta to save Fort Clearwater from demonic invasion—and from itself. By the end of the adventure, you were not only granted mythic power for your deeds, but you were hot on the trail of an obvious trap, and the Herald totally knew how to safely spring it.

Iomedae chose her Herald for his wisdom and good judgment.

Adventure 1-2: War for the Worldwound

Sound the horns, beat the drums, and let sing the tenors of war! With a Rallying Cry, and over the bodies of a few (or more than a few) demonic mongrels, you gathered a powerful army to your side. You led them fearlessly against armies of cultists, undead, and demons in order to reach Raliscrad. But the Herald's confidence proved to be hubris: he sprung the demons' trap and was somehow spirited away. Even as you did all you could to keep your army alive, the wardstone in Kenabres shattered. You laid waste to armies of evil, but the demonic hordes are seemingly endless. With the loss of Kenabres, the line of wardstones, and the Herald, have you already lost the war?

Adventure 1-3: Lexicon of Paradox

You got together with the hero-studded cast from Dave Gross's King of Chaos to try and track down the Lexicon of Paradox, an artifact rumored to hold the secret to closing the Worldwound. Dispatching a trio of hags and the sangudaemon Ommors, you made your way to Undarin, stronghold of the Worldwound's creator. Kasiya, a powerful vampire, thwarted your plans to stealthily retrieve the Lexicon, but at Greengrove Keep you thwarted him quite permanently. The succubus Yavalliska used the moment of chaos to seize the power of the Lexicon to become a god, but she was also vanquished, though at horrible cost...

If you have a problem, if no one else can help...

Adventure 1-4: The Mighty and the Righteous

Though your comrades thought you dead, you know that no righteous hero would be kept down by merely being hurled into the Abyss. After a rocky descent, you acclimated to the chaos and horror of the place. It wasn't a pretty picture, but you learned of a way back through the Worldwound. It took a mighty show of force, and you had to play some of the demons off against each other, but you returned to Mendev.

Adventure 1-5: Herald's Vengeance

It was finally time to get some payback for the kidnapped Herald of Iomedae. You cut a wide swath through the Worldwound and defeated horrors that have plagued the area for centuries, including the Herald's 12-armed kidnapper. You then rushed off to rescue both the Queen and the Lexicon of Paradox from a plague of shadow demons and from Khorramzadeh himself.

Didn't think we'd make you wait until adventure 6 to fight him, did you?

Adventure 1-6: The Last Crusade

At long last, your quest comes to an end. At the head of an army of crusaders, you smashed your way through to Undarin. Along the way, you completed a number of quests, including joining the Pathfinder Society to free Jormurdun. Areelu Vorlesh was busy performing a ritual to hurl all of Golarion into the Rasping Rifts, so you kicked her out of Undarin. True heroes are rarely content to rest on their laurels, so you went down and punched Deskari in the nose a few times to get his attention.

With Deskari defeated and the Worldwound closed, now it's time for a long break. Right?

Scenario 1-P: Dread Lord Rising

Surprise! It ain't over yet—we've snuck in a special bonus scenario that can only be played by characters that have gained the reward from the Season of the Righteous Adventure Path. This time it's all about you (and whether you get eaten).

As you defeated Deskari, he cashed in a favor with his father Pazuzu and set the more powerful demon prince of the air on your trail. After all, Pazuzu is hungry for power and you're positively dripping with the stuff.

He'd like fries with you.

As final proof of your mythic might, your reward is the everlasting favor of Iomedae: access to the mythic paths Sword and Shield of Iomedae. That should spice up any future replays of Season of the Righteous!

Season of the Runelords Launch

Keith, Mike, and Tanis have had a blast crafting Season of the Righteous for you. We just can't stop coming up with delicious ways to take the game we've made and spin it into new stories. There's been a lot of clamoring for a return to our original Base Set, Rise of the Runelords, and we aim to please. Season of the Runelords will debut at Winter Fantasy in fabulous Fort Wayne, Indiana from February 3-7, 2016.

That week, we'll release the first scenario in Adventure 1 of Season of the Runelords, as we've been calling it internally. Winter Fantasy attendees will get the chance to play through all of Adventure 1 and Adventure 2 well in advance of their release dates, so come freeze your toes off with us in February!

One More Thing

Tanis promised "and more" above, so here's a sneak peek at some boons from January's Barbarian Class Deck!

Things are about to get messy.

Keith Richmond and Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designers

Druid Class Deck Preview

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

In the wake of Paul's lovely but sadly ill-conceived Best Character Ever blog, I'm here to talk tree-huggers. Hippies. Lovers of the natural world. Two-thirds of them are even wearing clothes!

Gronk's too sexy for his shirt, so sexy it hurts.

We've mentioned all three of these characters in previous blogs, but now I've got a chance to go into a little more detail. Our design goal for this deck was to make three characters that play differently but can each use the full range of cards in the set effectively. So even characters that aren't, say, Pack Lords can make good use of Animal allies.

When the design team thinks of druids, we think of three main features: animal companions, wild shape abilities, and nature spells. So we designed each druid to showcase a different one of these features. As Paul mentioned last week, Class Deck Lini is all about the Animal trait. So we made her some new friends!

Expecto Pat-Giant Weasel?

Gronk, as you might infer from his art, is a master of shapeshifting. He's in tune with the flora and fauna of the forest, and can alter his form to serve the situation. In testing, he proved quite self-sufficient, and I think he'll be a popular choice.

Everyone loves the Swiss Army elf.

Maznar is the classic “nature's wrath” druid, wielding elemental magic to zap his enemies and succor his friends. I love his art—it immediately told me what sort of character he'd be. Maznar is a follower of the Green Faith, a natural spiritual tradition that abhors abominations and reveres wild things and places. Acolytes of this faith wander the world as a sort of magical park ranger, keeping things as they should be.

If you've got tentacles where you shouldn't, he's gonna send you packing.

Finally, here's a peek at some classic druid spells we were thrilled to bring to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game!

Those looks like some good berries, if you know what I mean.

The Druid Class Deck is now available for purchase!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Paul's Best Character Ever: Lini

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

I've stood by as my fellow designers on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game have spoken their pieces on which character they believe to be the best ever and I've held my tongue. Why? Because, though I've known all along why they were wrong, I needed to bide my time. I needed to wait until all the pieces were in place, all the correct products produced and available to the fans... all the evidence available, so I could show definitively and without fear of serious rebuttal that the best character ever is Lini.

Lini is the O.G. Best Character Ever. She was my go-to character during the original playtests of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and she quickly earned a reputation as "pushing the power envelope." It wasn't so much that any single power she had was too broken, but she became an engine that made the game easier for everyone. That engine is largely preserved in her Rise of the Runelords form.

The key component of her awesomeness isn't her powers (amazing though they are). It's the fact that she has 6 spell slots in her deck. There are very few characters with that many spell slots, and almost none of them are divine casters. This gives Lini the ability to fill her deck with Healing spells, which not only keep her and her companions alive, but more importantly recycle the cards in Lini's discard pile—including the healing spells themselves! She has a nearly infinite engine for playing her cards over and over again.

Her powers have great synergy with this engine. She doesn't have to use her spell slots for attacks because she can simply discard a card to get a base d10 on combat checks. She can also add 1d4 to any of her checks by revealing an ally that has the Animal trait. This essentially gives her that bonus to every check she makes, as long as she doesn't discard or otherwise lose her ally.

Her roles build on this rock-solid foundation. Shapeshifter increases her ability to deal with monsters, and Wild Warden makes her more likely to recharge all of those Cures she's going to cast.

I'm not really sure why you'd need more evidence than that to declare her the best character ever, but just for fun, let's take a look at her Skull and Shackles incarnation. This version pushes her toward using her Animal allies instead of revealing them by letting you put them on top of her deck, and increases her combat die from a d10 to a d12. The Feral Druid lets her reveal a Divine card to attack, and the Aquamancer lets her put Attack spells back on top of her deck instead of recharging them. It's a veritable forest of powers and directions to take the character!

The newest entry in Lini's powerhouse portfolio is from the upcoming Druid Class Deck. Once again, she gets to reveal Animal allies for an effect, but in this case she sends them out to attack! This power gives her a minimum of 1d10+1d6+3 on a combat check, and it's easy to increase with feats. The Pack Lord role can increase this attack by another 2d6, and gives her the power to acquire any animal allies her friends might miss. The real jewel in this new Lini's crown, however, is the Menhir Savant, which is unique among all of the characters we've ever made. This new role gives her huge advantages for hanging out at closed locations, including healing all other characters each turn!

As you can see, there are many different viable choices you can make when you decide to play Lini. She can focus on turning into huge animals, casting attack spells, or (my personal favorite) creating an unstoppable healing engine. Lini doesn't have any bad choices, and this makes her the Best. Character. Ever.

Until then, I remain,

Paul Peterson
Adventure Card Game Designer

We're Not Staying Mum(my) Any Longer

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

During PaizoCon 2015, we stood onstage with designer Liz Spain and revealed that the next Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Adventure Path would be Mummy's Mask. And we said that we'd be releasing it in February. As it turns out, we're right an even 50 percent of the time.

Since the announcement, we've received a lot of feedback from customers, retailers, and distributors that our release schedule is outpacing all but our most enthusiastic players. People are still playing Skull & Shackles, or even Rise of the Runelords, and they aren't ready for a new set yet. So we've decided to delay Mummy's Mask until we feel the market is ready. That may mean July, and it may mean October, but it definitely doesn't mean February. When we commit to a firm date, we'll let you know. But fear not—it will come.

But wait a minute, you say—what if you are one of our most enthusiastic players? No worries. There's going to be plenty to keep you busy. We'll continue to release Class Decks: In the first five months of 2016, you can expect to see the Oracle, Alchemist, Inquisitor, Witch, and Gunslinger decks. We're even increasing the number of newly designed boons in some of those decks. (Hint: Damiel gets a pet giant slug.)

Yikes!

So great! That's a whole lot of new characters and boons, but what are you going to do with them? Where are the new scenarios to play through? If you've played through Rise of the Runelords (maybe a couple times), completed Skull & Shackles, and sailed through Season of the Shackles, you're probably just waiting for us to release the end of Wrath of the Righteous and Season of the Righteous... and you need MORE!

Well, we have just the thing. We're pleased to announce the next Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild season:

Season of the Runelords

Imagine that you decided to release a game based on a system you created, and you wanted the most sweeping story to go with it. Some full-on epic thing. It's no accident that the Rise of the Runelords base set was one of the biggest sellers in Paizo's history—that story is really, really good. It's chock full of giants and dragons and ogres and all manner of malevolent things.

So we're going back to the well. A whole lot of you own Runelords, and we want that to be something you can play for a long, long time. We're making a brand-new, epic Season of the Runelords, spanning the entire length of the story. But we might mix things up a little bit. Okay, a whole lot. Because you can only burn down Sandpoint Cathedral so many times. (Ten, fifteen times, tops.)

And hey, remember this ol' horsey-monster? And this bad mamma-jamma?

The original Odd Couple.

Remember how we never actually used them as villains for a scenario? Well, we've got plans for them. Big, big plans.

This will also harmonize with Obsidian's release of the PACG digital game, which (surprise!) will start with Rise of the Runelords. So we've been looking back at Runelords to see where we can improve it a little bit for the digital version. Nips and tucks, mostly. But we think you'll like what you see. And it'll tie in nicely with what we do in the Adventure Card Guild.

Season of the Runelords will begin early next year. It'll be glorious! Come play!

Mike Selinker and Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designers

Note for Adventure Card Guild Fans: We've designed a fifth scenario in Season of the Righteous Adventure 5, so 5D will come out this week, 5E next week, and Adventure 6 will begin one week later than originally planned, during the first week of November.

"I Do Not Seek Answers, But Rather to Understand the Question"

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Before I get into specifics, I want to thank Hawkmoon again for last week's excellent Best Character Ever blog, even though he was almost completely wrong. If you've got a pitch for a blog, hit us up at pacg@paizo.com!

Now, let’s talk monks. The design team loves to talk about what makes a monk a monk. Is it a desire for self-perfection and superior discipline? Ridiculous aerial gymnastics? The ability to punch something really, really hard? Nobody was willing to admit that one of these qualities was clearly more important than the other two, so we just used all three. Let’s meet the band!

Birdwoman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Wing Nuance)

Fun fact: the design team immediately nicknamed this character “Rooboocoop” after I named her. These are the people I have get to work with.

First up is Rooboo, a tengu monk. As anyone who’s played Skull & Shackles through knows, tengu are Pathfinder’s bird people. You’ve seen the Tengu Rookery and the Jinx Eater, but never a tengu character.

My favorite thing about Rooboo is her avian power suite. She can fly away from situations she can’t handle, and, like a magpie, she’s good at grabbing shiny things. Movement is a bit of a thing with her, as you can see from her Flowing Monk role. Move twice on a turn? No problem. Dance away from trouble? Ain’t nothin’. She can even blow her allies out of harm’s way with some downdraft action.

You’ll also notice she has a very unusual combat power. We’ll get to that later.

When Your Fist/Elbow/Knee/Foot is a Hammer...

You may make the first strike. I shall make the last.

Athnul, named after a character I played in a campaign long ago, brings some old-school martial arts to the party. She’s a bare-handed terror who takes Runelords Sajan’s unarmed strike and gives it a twist. She’s not here to overcome barriers. Athnul is here to punch things until they die.

Her Keen Strike Monk role is based on an archetype from Inner Sea Races called the Hamatulatsu Master. This version of Athnul is about finding the most effective way to cause pain, and she’s willing to help her party members do the same. As a side note, I’m very fond of adding a little support to a primarily self-sufficient character. This is a co-op game, after all, and hybrid characters can show people the fun in playing a different kind of character than the type they usually select. This Athnul also gains some spell-like abilities, as represented by the Divine skill feat.

Kamas and Rochins and Temple Swords, Oh My

Who's the best character now?

We’ve also created a new version of our iconic monk Sajan for this deck, affectionately referred to in-house as Stabby Sajan. As you can see, he’s interested in weapons that have the Slashing trait, and he’s got a variant of his original blessing-recharge power that’s got a little more kick to it. This Sajan is rarely without the means to defend himself. Those who guard the temple don’t go unnoticed by the gods.

We wouldn’t give you a Sajan that wants weapons and then leave you with only a wellspring of resentment. Instead, we’ve created more than 10 new weapons in this deck, including a fancier temple sword or two.

Time to bust out your war fan katas!

These new temple swords use the Strength/Dexterity/Melee listing you might remember from the Iconic Heroes promo card, while the bulk of the new weapons in this class deck allow characters with the Acrobatics skill to show off a little. Any character with the Acrobatics skill can make use of these, so the Rogue Class Deck’s Wu Shen and the Sorcerer Class Deck’s Amaryllis just got a little love. (For a peek into the design crystal ball, consider what other sorts of characters might use such weapons.)

That’s it for this week. Next week, Paul Peterson returns with the goods on Wrath of the Righteous’s Adventure Deck 5!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Hawkmoon's Best Character Ever: Sajan

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Now that most of the design team has told us about their favorite characters, we thought we'd invite PACG messageboards MVP Hawkmoon to tell us who his favorite character is.

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is a game about rules. At its core, it's really about one rule, the most important rule, appropriately named "The Golden Rule." That rule starts out with this sentence: "If a card and this rulebook are ever in conflict, the card should be considered correct." A character really shows what makes him special when he gets to break those rules. What makes Damiel great? Recharging potions that should be banished. What makes Darago special? Putting cards in your hand that would normally go back in the box. Those powers let you break the rules and bring the most fun to the game.

Everyone who plays this game learns two rules pretty quickly: You can only play one card of each type per step or check, and if you don't have a way to determine which skill you are using, you have to use Strength or Melee. The Best Character Ever gets to break both those rules on a regular basis, and his name is Sajan.

Rise of the Runelords Sajan can go crazy with blessings, and he's got a deck full of them to do just that. Anyone who has ever played him for a few adventures has probably enjoyed rolling over 100 on a check. Nothing makes you want to buy more dice for the game more than Sajan does. In fact, if you want to answer the question of how many dice of each type you could possibly ever need at one time, the answer has to involve Sajan (and is probably somewhere north of sixty dice). If you play Sajan, you'll usually save some time if you start your turn by saying "I'm going to need ALL the dice."

Sajan doesn't need a card to determine the skill for his check. His powers do that for him, and they let him throw some traits on there, too. Sajan won't have a problem with those pesky monsters that need you to use the Magic trait to defeat them. He's got some magic in those flaming fists of his.

But before I go too much further, let's look at the basics. One of the first things I do when deciding on a character is see if I can find his weakness. The easiest way to do this is to find the d4 in his stats. For Sajan, you'll notice the distinct absence of a d4 on his character card. Don't bother searching the back of the card either. It isn't misplaced. It just isn't there. That's right: no d4. The worst he'll do is a d6. Your friends won't complain when Sajan encounters the card they really want. He's got a d6, so just throw him some blessings, and he can acquire it. It's not like Valeros running into that spell Ezren has wanted for the past two adventures. You're worried about a nasty barrier? No problem. Sajan's got a d6 and loads of blessings to take care of that. He's also a template breaker. You thought Ezren was a bit odd with no blessings? How about a guy that starts with only three of the six types of boons? And more than half of those are blessings!

Now, let's examine his roles, Drunken Master and Zen Archer. Both roles give you ways to soak up non-Combat damage, and they both let you draw a card at the start of your turn. I consider that to be a safer way to increase your hand size. Since the card isn't in your hand, you are less likely to lose it when someone else does something foolish and that leads to you taking damage. Also, it keeps other players from greedily asking for all your blessings. Now, yes, as a Drunken Master he must draw 1 card. And yes, that can have some negative consequences, namely, getting him killed. But if you aren't recharging lots of cards with Sajan anyway, then you aren't playing him right.

My personal favorite role is Drunken Master, for this reason: "After you play a boon with the Liquid trait, you may succeed at a Fortitude 6 check to recharge it instead of banishing it." Throw in some skill feats to improve his Constitution, and at 1d6+4, that 6 is almost a guarantee. Give him the Amulet of Fortitude or a similar card, and it is a guarantee. Sajan was Damiel before being Damiel was cool. As a Drunken Master, almost no check is impossible. Give him a Potion of Healing, and he can go all-in, playing his massive amounts of blessings on other characters' checks and then healing them all back in. Or better yet, give him allies he can use to heal himself. (Father Zantus and the promo Poog of Zarongel were constants in my deck throughout Rise of the Runelords.) When my wife and I played a four-character party through Rise of the Runelords, Sajan was probably the biggest reason we didn't need a character with the Divine skill to heal us. And Drunken Master gets bonus points for probably being the most thematic role in the game.

But Zen Archer is no slouch either. He's recharging those ranged weapons he would otherwise discard. Give him some bows, and he can help with combat at other locations for the cost of a recharge. And don't miss the fact that his "go crazy with blessings" power still works, even when he plays a weapon to determine the skill for his check.

Recharge, recharge, recharge. Sajan's character card and both his roles center on recharging things. That's what he does! He can do it so often that you should get to see your whole deck multiple times in a game. And what's more fun than that? No waiting around for that particular card to come back up! Instead, you'll see it next turn… and probably again two turns after that.

And that is what makes him the best. Recharge cards, cycle your deck, shrug off non-Combat damage, and roll an unseemly number of dice. What's better than that?

Hawkmoon
Resident Adventure Card Game Expert

Next week's blog will bring you a whole new version of Sajan as we preview the Monk Class Deck!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

You Must Be This Good to Ride This Dog

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Editorial Note: Due to delays at the port, the Paladin Class Deck and Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Deck 4 release dates have been pushed back one week to September 2. To keep the Season of the Righteous in sync with the Adventure Deck, there will be no scenario released to Adventure Card Game Venture Officers next week. Scenarios 1-4A and 1-4B will be released on September 2.

When people find out I've been to 31 consecutive Gen Cons in the Midwest, they're always gobsmacked. "Mike, you must be so lucky," they say in unison, "to get to go to such an awesome show year after year!" And I am. But every year, I am reminded that Gen Con has a dirty little secret: It's a germageddon. If you're not lucky, you can bring a nasty little bit of Gen Con back with you.

And what we learned this year is that Tanis isn't a paladin.

See, in the RPG, a paladin becomes immune to disease. That would make her the perfect Gen Con attendee! But Tanis isn't a paladin, so she's real sick, and you should send her your best wishes. And believe me, she'd want to be writing this Paladin Class Deck preview blog for you, but I'm doing it instead so she gets better. Because Healthy Tanis is Awesome Tanis.

So without further heartstring tugging, let's talk about paladins!

Seelah: "Friend, You Look a Little Worse for the Wear"

When we released the Wrath of the Righteous Base Set, we made Seelah the front-and-center character. That Seelah had her hair unbraided and her shield out, so demons beware. If you want a Seelah that can punch an Abyssal pitspawn into next Thursday, Wrath Seelah is your paladin.

But what if you want a Seelah who not only knows how to mix it up melee-style, but is also the best friend anyone's ever had, you want Paladin Deck Seelah. Let me show you why.

This version of Seelah has a hunt-and-kill power similar to the one on Rise of the Runelords Seelah, where she will shove aside boons to get to the crunchy monsters hiding from her smiting. She also borrows a version of Kyra's healing power, except instead of burning explorations to help her friends, Seelah burns her own cards to make her companions healthier. And unlike the clerics, she makes her friends healthier in a predictable manner. Seelah knows every time that she can trade one card of hers for two or three of yours. That's every turn she takes. With a single power feat, that's every turn anybody takes. But what about characters at other locations? Check a box on the Faith Healer role, and she can bring you to her and heal you, so you can get around to taking your turn right then and there.

Keeping Seelah alive thus becomes the party's primary goal. And lookie here, her Faith Healer role has the best way to do just that. As long as she has a blessing or another Divine card in hand, she can recharge any Healing card she plays. That Mass Cure? Seelah says, "Don't worry your pretty little head about it—it'll come back before you know it."

Speaking of awesome, here's a couple tricks from the Paladin deck that Seelah likes a ton.

Koren: "We Should Kill That Because It's Weird"

Now, a half-orc paladin may not be your average paladin, but Koren isn't exactly average. He's got some orc in him, so despite being raised in a loving home by two upstanding half-orcs, he explodes in righteous vengeance a couple times a day.

Koren starts out all about helping his friends. He uses armor like Sue Storm uses force fields: Give him a shield, and he'll throw it in front of his buddies to absorb their damage or power up their attacks. That's all well and good.

But hey, select that Gilded Fist role, and all of a sudden this likable half-orc is glaring at Undead and Aberrations and Outsiders with all the fury of Sarenrae scorned. Bonus dice, Magic trait, recharging blessings—Koren turns into a multi-tool of weird-monster crushing. He’s also the spell-heaviest paladin in the deck, so that crushing is bolstered by spell and sword alike.

While we're at it, let's give Koren some more tools for that multi-tool.

Raz: "Who's a Good Griffon? You're a Good Griffon!"

Raz is already your favorite gnome paladin ever. That armored riding dog is just the cutest. And a two-foot-long lance! Adorbs!

Nah, she's gonna kick your skull in, and so's her little dog, too. Raz (short for Razzmatazz, our playtest name for her) is the ultimate mounted paladin, optimizing the deck's many cards that have the Mount trait. When she starts out, she can recharge a Mount from the top of her deck to boost her lance, and she can bury one to intercept another person's monster fight. One checkbox in, she can do the latter just by discarding a Mount.

However, she is subject to the mercy of her card draws... unless she's a Dog Rider Knight. The Dog Rider Knight just says "I would like a Mount please" and—poof!—one appears. What a faithful dog! And significantly, that role has the best flavor text Tanis ever wrote. Admit it, you want to toss aside whatever you're playing and play Raz right now.

Here's a couple of Raz's best friends. She's not just good with dogs, natch. Sometimes, you just gotta fly.

Those are our paladins du jour. In the name of all that's holy, go play them!

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Designer

Faith and the Sword—New Class Decks Headed Your Way!

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Greetings, Pathfinders.

We've got an exciting new announcement for you this week, but first, I want to talk about the characters from the new August release, the Paladin Class Deck. Meet the band:

First up is Koren. When the design team started kicking around paladin character concepts, I immediately pitched the idea for a self-sacrificing martyrish fellow, one who's always saving other people at cost to himself. Because the design team has a... quirky... sense of humor, Koren quickly morphed into a self-hating half-orc who follows Sarenrae. He's all about saving people from themselves. His roles allow him to branch out into undead slaying or to stick with his team. (Fun Fact: that last one, the Unflagging Companion role, was originally called Creepy Stalker. Editorial is so mean.)

Next we have my personal favorite, Raz the gnome. She's definitely a cavalier-like take on the paladin. She's inspired by a perennial RPG character of mine: a halfling paladin dog rider. Conveniently, I talk about her a bit on this podcast. From Raz's token card:

“Raz is the only gnome paladin she's ever met. Therefore, she's clearly the best gnome paladin there ever was. At an early age, Raz decided she wanted to be different from her mischievous kin. She did so by kicking bad guy butt and protecting the good guys.”

That tells you most of what you need to know. She's got a role devoted to helping people get stuff, and she's got a role named Dog Rider Knight. I'm not going to tell you what to do or anything, but Dog. Rider. Knight.

Last but certainly not least, we've got a fresh new take on the iconic paladin Seelah. This Iomedae-following sword-wielding lover of good and righteousness shows off her "lay on hands" ability in the Paladin Class Deck. For the uninitiated, Lay On Hands is a classic paladin ability—the paladin calls forth divine aid to heal someone with a mere touch, faith healer-style. In fact, Faith Healer is one of her roles, good for those who like supportive paladin builds. Unlike Raz, Seelah has no interest in loot, so she tends to ignore it in her endless search for justice.

You may have noticed that this deck features only three characters rather than the four featured in each of the first seven class decks. That's a change that you'll see going forward in the rest of the Class Deck line. Based on extensive player feedback, we've increased the number of boons in the deck. Each character can now get a greater range of worthwhile options to choose from while progressing through an adventure path. We think you'll be pleased with the results while still appreciating the variety of innovative characters that we present in these products.

Oh, and that news I foreshadowed so subtly earlier? CLASS DECK SUBSCRIPTIONS, Y'ALL. They're starting with the August release of the Paladin Class Deck. Check the details:

With your ongoing Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Deck subscription, we'll automatically send you each new Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Deck, charging your credit card automatically as we ship each product. You only need to sign up once, so you'll never need to worry about renewal notices or missed products! Best of all, each subscription shipment will give you a discount of 20% off the MSRP of that release. Items from your Class Deck subscription will be combined with your other Paizo subscriptions (including your Adventure Card Game subscription) to save money on shipping.

When you start an ongoing subscription, any existing preorders for products covered by your subscription are automatically cancelled (or if you've preordered more than one of an item, they'll have their quantity reduced by one). If you've already preordered any of the upcoming decks, you do not need to do anything special when you subscribe.

Exciting, right? Next week, you'll learn what the real Best Character Ever is, because I'm taking my turn at the helm.

Until next time, Pathfinders.

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

We've Got Class, And We Know It

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

You've asked, so we've answered! Last August, we released seven Class Decks for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. These decks provide new characters and boons that can be added to any PACG Adventure Path, and they're your gateway to the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild Organized Play program. You've made it clear that you want more, and we're happy to oblige.

This August, we'll begin new monthly Class Deck releases, starting with the paladin in August, the monk in September, and the druid in October. After we complete the 11 core classes with the barbarian in November, we'll begin exploring classes outside the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. As with the previous Class Decks, each deck contains 109 cards, including boons that can take your character from the start to the end of any Adventure Path. Meet Maznar, a character from the upcoming Druid Class Deck:

Illustration by Mariusz Gandzel

Maznar is part of a small sect of dwarf druids revered by his people and by many inhabitants of wild places. He follows the Green Faith, a philosophy that commands respect for nature. Maznar draws on the power of his spells and his animal friends to protect himself and his party.

There's one big difference between the previous seven Class Decks and the new one. After hearing a lot of feedback, we decided to focus each new deck on three characters instead of four. This allows us to add more support for each character and her roles throughout her entire progression while continuing to bring you innovative character designs. Pre-order the Paladin Class Deck today!

Adventure Card Game Team at Portland's GameStorm This Weekend

The card game design team will be at GameStorm in Vancouver, WA this weekend, testing various goodies. Come find us in the Game Lab at the Vancouver Hilton!

Until next week, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Writing Flavor Text for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Flavor text is a critical storytelling tool in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, but we don't have room for a lot of it. In an RPG book, you can pontificate for pages on the cleverness of your plot, but in a card game, you've got a few lines at best to say what you need to say. Thankfully, we've got a lot of brilliant writers. I write some of the game's flavor text, with much more written by Brian Campbell, Wes Schneider, Jessica Price, and Rob McCreary, among others. I'll talk about mine, and maybe some of the other folks will chime in down the road. Here are some principles I use.

Principle 1: Set 'Em Up, Knock 'Em Down

When I have a limited amount of space, there's no trick more trustworthy than setting up a concept in your mind and then inverting it immediately thereafter. Here are three one-liners from role cards, from the Skull & Shackles Character Add-On Deck, Sorcerer Class Deck, and Wizard Class Deck.

Those are immensely satisfying to me, because the language bends to create alternate meanings. It can take a long time to make one of those work, but they're worth the effort.

Principle 2: Cross-Reference Like Mad

The big ol' dragon turtle Hirgenzosk is one of the most fearsome opponents in the card game. Henchmen don't generally get flavor text, though. But we want to make sure you know just how big Hirgy is. For that I circled back to him in Skull & Shackles Adventure Deck 3: Tempest Rising. Release the Kraken!

A couple things are happening here. First, now you know how big Hirgenzosk really is. Second, you know there's a wise fellow called the Master of the Gales, and you might want to meet him. He'll be waiting for you in Skull & Shackles Adventure Deck 6: From Hell's Heart.

Principle 3: Threaten the Reader

Some people think the highest goal of flavor text is making people laugh. I think the highest goal is to make people squirm. Here are a couple of different approaches to that, from the Skull & Shackles Base Set and Skull & Shackles Adventure Deck 2: Raiders of the Fever Sea.

Jirelle is a lot more subtle here than Seltyiel, but both are taking control away from you. The Thresher even attempts to intimidate you by suggesting you're losing something in the process of reading the card. It all works. After all, a little aggression never hurt anyone. Well, except for all the times it did.

Principle 4: Punch It, Chewie!

In the Class Decks, we introduced a bunch of characters who are not exactly the folks we want over for dinner. Necromancers, gamblers, and other reprobates are now available for play. The not-nicest of this crew are the aforementioned necromancer Darago from the Wizard Class Deck, and Wrathack, a half-orc angel-killer from the Ranger Class Deck.

That last line matters a ton. A punchline is crucial to exiting a card with the reader liking you. It's the reason you can have nice things.

Principle 5: When All Else Fails, Be a Goblin

I seem to have a natural aptitude for writing doggerel. My novel The Maze of Games* is filled with it, I write spell limericks and parody songs, and, every now and then, I get to be a goblin. Here's the retail promo card Goblin Weidling.

If you aspire to anything in life, make it getting paid to write things like that.

Mike Selinker
Pathfinder ACG Lead Designer

*Developed by Gaby, edited by Tanis. Because they're the best.

Late to Class

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Greetings, Pathfinders.

We hope you're excited for the launch of the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild—we certainly are!

Unfortunately, we've had some very bad news this week from our card printer. They had a problem with one of their presses, and many of the Class Decks they printed had to be destroyed. As a result, the retail release date for the Class Decks is moving from August 14 to September 3, and we won't be able to ship paizo.com preorders until shortly before that. And because you must have a Class Deck to participate in the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild, that means that retailers won't be able to launch the program until September 3.

The good news is that this won't stop us from launching the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild at Gen Con next week. Our friends at DriveThru Cards are rushing to print versions of the Class Decks that we can use in the Adventure Card Guild room, and we'll be providing printed character sheets for the characters you choose so you can register your character on Paizo.com and keep track of your rewards and deck upgrades as normal.

Our printer is also working to deliver some finished decks to Gen Con, though they may not arrive until later in the show. We promised a free Class Deck to any player who purchased 4 or more Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild events, and we will make those available for pickup in the PFSACG room as soon as they arrive. (And if the official decks arrive too late for someone to pick up, we will take that person's name and address and ship the chosen Class Deck as soon as copies arrive in our warehouse.).

We're very sorry about this situation, but we are committed to delivering the full amount of fun that everyone expected to have, albeit not on our desired schedule.

We still expect to have the Skull and Shackles Base Set and Character Add-On Decks to be available for purchase in the dealer hall, as well as all the available play mats and card sleeves from our partners at Ultra PRO.

Please use the thread below to ask any questions you need answered.

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

The Usual Suspects: Class Decks Preview

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Gather round, Pathfinders. I've got some secrets to share with you. It's the story of an unlikely group of adventurers whose journeys took them into the Eye of Abendego, out to the Worldwound, and beyond. How does the story end? Well, that's up to you to decide...

The Courtier

Graceful, talented, and beautiful, Siwar has ingratiated herself into the highest courts of the River Kingdoms. She is knowledgeable in topics ranging from art to politics and is highly schooled in etiquette. Though her talents might lead an observer to think that she is too delicate for the adventuring life, Siwar is happy to make eye contact with that observer, smile impishly, and direct him to do her bidding.

Siwar Illustration by Florian Stitz

The Scholar

In the city of Oenopion, Zarlova is a well-known professor at the Hive, an academy of wizards and clerics working in concert to unravel mysteries left by the god Nethys. A master of The Book of Magic, Zarlova routinely ventures from the halls of academe to spread knowledge among the unenlightened. Her mastery of offensive magic makes her a valued ally on any adventure.

Zarlova Illustration by Tim Kings-Lynne

The Legbreaker

Tontelizi's rough-and-tumble past began with a stint as an enforcer in his family's shady business. Because of his short stature, some mocked him with the nickname "Legbreaker." They soon found their ability to walk severely compromised. After retiring from daily enforcement detail, Tontelizi found himself missing the simple pleasures of maiming and intimidation. He now wields his polearm as a mercenary for fun and profit.

Tontelizi Illustration by Jorge Fares

The Gamekeeper

Dwarves laboring in the mines of Kalsgard have limited exposure to the animals of the forest, but Agna has trained in the wilderness, and she's introduced many beasts to the lands below the earth. Ready to fight with a weapon in either hand, Agna can make you think she's your biggest threat, right before a trained bear attacks you from behind.

Agna Illustration by Eva Widermann

The Death Whisperer

Wu Shen loves death as if it were an actual person. She speaks of death as "her lover," and listeners may mistakenly believe she is referring to a mortal. Each time she brings a monster to its grisly end, she savors a moment of hope that death will acknowledge her as its favorite. To add spice to her devotional gifts, Wu Shen often chooses unique or difficult ways to complete her kills.

Wu Shen Illustration by Alex Tooth

The Trickster

Qualzar's heritage includes mischievous fey who curdle milk, tie shoelaces together, and generally make nuisances of themselves. He claims to not understand why others find his humor malicious, but in truth, he doesn't care. He's willing to hurt others for the sake of a pun or a punch line, and he's got a book of plucked fairy wings to prove it. His mind-melting spell blasts and mesmeric powers are almost always turned on enemies, so it's probably safe to adventure with him.

Qualzar Illustration by Kostja Schleger

The Necromancer

The power of the dead courses through Darago's thin veins. It's a rare wizard who can traffic with the unliving and retain most of his soul, but so far, Darago has resisted the baser desires of most necromancers. Still, his chilling voice and devilish sense of humor will surprise even the most hardened mercenary. After all, he will happily battle at the side of any adventure while she lives... and perhaps for a short time thereafter.

Darago Illustration by Diana Martinez

I hope you've enjoyed this preview of some of the new characters and cards found in the Class Decks. Preorder one now and get ready for the Adventure Card Guild, launching in just two weeks!

Also, make sure you check out Erik Mona's Publisher Preview on the Paizo blog this Friday. (It's a weekly blog that mostly talks about Pathfinder Battles pre-painted plastic miniatures.) Pathfinder Adventure Card Game players, be they miniatures lovers or not, are going to want to read this week's installment.

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Think Different: A Look at Some Changes to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Apologies in advance, as this blog entry is going to get a bit arcane. No, I don't mean it's not rechargeable by a Divine spellcaster—I mean this article is meant for Pathfinder Adventure Card Game rules enthusiasts. I'm going to define the differences between the PACG rules a year ago and the ones we have now, possibly in excruciating detail. You've been warned.

When we set out to design the new Skull & Shackles sets and the Class Decks, we had heard many players pointing out ways our game could improve. We were faced with a fork in the road. Choosing Path One meant leaving everything alone and forging ahead with what we had created as is. That was the path of least resistance, requiring very little explanation, but keeping in place some things that were confusing about our game. Choosing Path Two required us to change those things and explain them in a blog like this one. I think you folks are good enough pathfinders that you know which one we picked.

So, yeah, some things are going to look a little different from now on. These are not the kinds of things we're going to issue errata for; everything works pretty much the same as it did in Rise of the Runelords. But the new cards will look just a bit different. Here are some of the highlights.

To start out, let's look at two versions of the weapon Longbow: the first one is from Rise of the Runelords, and the second is from the Ranger Class Deck.

There are some minor differences here. The first is the replacement of the phrase "roll your Dexterity or Ranged die" with "use your Dexterity or Ranged skill." In Skull & Shackles, "skill" always refers to your base die (say, a d8) plus any skill feats or bonuses you might have. If Harsk is using the Longbow with Ranged: Dexterity d8+2, and he has two +1 skill feats in Dexterity, his Ranged skill is d8+4. The concept of the "unmodified" die is also gone: when we say "die" now, we always mean just the die. So if Harsk is using the Longbow, and he has Strength: d6 and one +1 skill feat in Strength, adding the Strength die to his Ranged skill means he adds the d6 and ignores the feat, just as before. The wording is more specific, but the math hasn't changed at all.

A subtler change on the card is replacing the word "a" with "any" in the last power. This makes it a bit more clear that it applies to checks other than your own.

Okay, now for a couple of spells. Here's the Runelords version of Force Missile and the new one from the Wizard Class Deck.

There are two big changes here. Most visibly, the recharge box is gone. Players seemed to get confused by the recharge box, including figuring out when to apply that power, so we built the recharge power into the powers box. With luck, people won't be baffled by that any more.

Reading the text, you'll note that the power no longer tells you to apply the Force trait. That's because this rule is clearly stated in the rulebook:

Some cards may allow you to replace the required skill for a check with a different one. As part of this action, you may play only 1 card or use only 1 power that defines the skill you are going to use. When you play a card that does this, add that card's traits to the check.

So Force Missile still adds the Force trait to your combat check (along with the Magic, Arcane, Attack, and Basic traits)—it just doesn't spell it out in a way that suggests it's somehow different from those other traits.

Now let's compare two scary ladies: the Hook Mountain Hag from "The Hook Mountain Massacre" and the Sea Hag from the Skull & Shackles Base Set.

In Runelords, things that happened "before the encounter" really happened during the encounter, after you had a chance to evade the card. In Skull & Shackles, there’s a new step called "acting," which includes everything that happens after you choose not to evade a card up until the encounter is resolved. Things can happen before you act, while you act, and after you act. Here’s the rulebook text on the "before you act" step.

Apply Any Effects That Happen Before You Act. If any powers on the card you're encountering happen before you act, they take effect at this time. You may also use powers or cards that state they can be used before you act.

Another change here is replacing the phrase "spells with the Attack trait" with "spells that have the Attack trait." The meaning of "with" was not clear enough: did it mean you couldn't play a spell that itself had the Attack trait, or did it mean you couldn't play a spell in conjunction with any card that gave the Attack trait to the check? The new wording makes it clear that the intent is the former.

A side note on henchman cards: The rule about henchmen automatically allowing you to close a location after you defeat one is gone from the rulebook. If a henchman allows you to close the location when it's defeated, it says so in its power; if not, it doesn't. (I expect you won't like the ones that don't. They're called Curses, and we'll leave them for another day.)

Here are two boons: the ally Jakardros Sovark from "The Hook Mountain Massacre" and the item Ring of the Beasts from "The Wormwood Mutiny".

In Runelords, you'd occasionally see a card that helped a combat check "against" a monster. That term "against" was never defined, but it benefited from some definition, because it could also apply to checks of other sorts. Now, the new phrase "check against a card" applies to any check the card mandates. The rule is:

If a card refers to a check against another card, that refers to any check required by that card, whether it's a check to defeat, a check to acquire, a check to recharge, or any other check.

Here's the Collapsed Ceiling, a card I kinda wish we didn't put in Runelords, because it needed rules support that the game did not provide. That's been solved, so you'll see a lot of cards like Goose in the Rigging from "The Wormwood Mutiny".

It was frustrating not to be able to answer all the questions associated with Collapsed Ceiling. For example, it wasn't clear what happened when you had two faceup cards on the deck or when something suggested you shuffle one of them into the deck. The Skull & Shackles rules now tell you how to handle cards like this.

Faceup Cards: Sometimes a card is left faceup on the top of the location deck (for example, most barriers with the Task trait work this way). The card is still in the deck, but it can only be shuffled into the deck when the condition that caused it to be left faceup on the deck has been resolved. If such a card tells you that you must encounter it on your first exploration on a turn, then after that exploration, ignore it for the purpose of additional explorations that turn; however, it still counts as the top card of the deck for any other purpose. If multiple cards are left faceup on the same deck, you may place them in any order and encounter them in that order.

Finally, let's look at one of the most bizarre cards in Runelords: the Runeforged Weapons loot card from "Sins of the Saviors".

You see that word SPECIAL? You see it twice on the card? Protip: That's a sign that a game designer hasn't made up his mind what he's doing. This card quite honestly had no idea what it was. That's because we designed it before we had the rules tech to make it work. But now we do. If Skull & Shackles had existed before Runelords, Runeforged Weapons would certainly have been a support card. Support cards are a new type of card that's neither bane nor boon. We talked about them in our last Skull & Shackles preview; basically, their job is to sit on the table and affect the game. This is what Runeforged Weapons might look like if it was issued today.

We've also made a number of less obvious changes to the rulebook—reorganizing things and rewriting things—that make it clearer and easier to use than the Rise of the Runelords rulebook. We recommend that you use it as your main rules reference even if you're still playing Rise of the Runelords—just ignore all that stuff about ships.

Download the Skull & Shackles Rulebook PDF here! — (6.2 MB zip/PDF)

Mike Selinker
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Designer