Redemption Cards in PFSACG


Pathfinder Adventure Card Society


So I've listed some questions about PFSACG Hell's Vengeance characters in another thread, but primarily from the perspective of using them as 'substitute' characters from the 4-P1 and 4-P2 scenario rewards. Strictly speaking, I haven't gotten any official answer on those questions, but I have got cartmanbeck/Tyler's thoughts on them, which is as official as I need given that I only play PFSACG via play-by-post.

I've got a couple more questions just about generally using Redemption Cards in PFSACG that I'd like answers on, as they may affect decisions I make with at least one of the characters I'm playing.

Question 1: What can you actually redeem? - (This is actually a repeat of a question from the thread linked above)

So in normal Wrath of the Righteous, you can only redeem a card you actually have in your deck. However, in this blog post, Mike Selinker made a throwaway statement that seems to contradict that.

Not Half Bad Indeed: Hell's Vengeance Makes Its PACG Debut wrote:


[...]such as banishing that Asmodean Disciplines. (You can even banish that book to redeem itself.)

Assuming that wasn't a mistake; have you always been allowed to do that, because it's considered "in your deck" as you're banishing it?

Question 2: Is the card considered redeemed by everyone?

If I redeem a card, then hand it to another player, does it get the Corrupted trait back when used by them? On a related note, if I redeem a card and there's another player using the Hell's Vengeance decks, is it redeemed for them as well (whether they like it or not)? In normal Wrath of the Righteous play, the Redemption card is shared by all players, but what about PFSACG? Here's the only relevant rules I can find.

Pathfinder Society Card Guild Guide pg 9 wrote:

Redeeming Cards

If your character deck includes a redemption card, when you are allowed to redeem a card, choose one of your cards that’s listed on that card and check it off. In any scenario that character plays, cards checked off on that redemption card no longer have the Corrupted trait.
Redemption Card from Hell's Vengeance wrote:
Cards checked off below no longer have the Corrupted trait.
Class Deck Rules token from Hell's Vengeance wrote:

RULES: REDEEMING CARDS

When you are allowed to redeem a card, choose one of your cards that’s listed on a redemption card and check it off on that card. Cards checked off on redemption cards in any scenario you play no longer have the Corrupted trait.

The rules, as written, seem to suggest that yes; a card redeemed by anyone in the party is considered redeemed for all players as long as that player is participating in the scenario. Hence "Cards checked off on redemption cards" and the like. Seems kind of rude that Lazzero trying to redeem his cards will be weakening Linxia in the process. Nevertheless, some confirmation of that would be appreciated.

**** Venture-Lieutenant, Online—VTT

Just some quick thoughts-

Question 1

MM page 8 wrote:

When you reveal a card, it does not leave your hand. When you

display a card, it leaves your hand immediately. When you play cards
by performing any other actions, set them aside while you process
their effects. For example, a spell might tell you to discard it, then
allow you to succeed at a check to recharge it instead; set it aside
until you resolve the check that determines whether or not you
recharge it. Do what each card requires in the order you set them
aside. While set aside, a card does not count as being in your hand,
your discard pile, your deck, or anywhere else.

So The Asmodean Disciplines is set aside while using the power. Technically it isn't in your discard pile, your deck, or anywhere else. Regardless of where it is, I think given that it is on the redemption card is a pretty clear indicator that the intent here was for it to be able to be redeemed. As far as what cards you can redeem. You're limited to whats on your character deck's redemption card.

Question 2
This is a good question. It does appear that it, as written, it would apply for everyone. Personally I'm not sure how fond of that I am because Urgraz with Book of the Damned could very easily be manipulated if all he has to do is hand it to someone else after he redeemed it. Though, this would be consistent with how it was handled in WOTR where the entire group has a list of redeemed cards rather than individual characters having their own list.


I thought that rule effectively meant you put it aside for as long as it was needed, so that if there's an additional check to recharge it it can be done later. I was under the impression that cards are usually discarded/etc as soon as it is relevant to do so.

Previous rules threads have suggested, for example, that you discard/recharge a Potion of Healing before getting the heal off (if you have a power making that occur). Also, if you choose not to make a recharge check, spells are discarded immediately; this is even officially recognized by the design team, because that is the only reason (as far as I know) why the functional effect of Life Drain was changed via FAQ and reprints.

Race Dorsey wrote:
Regardless of where it is, I think given that it is on the redemption card is a pretty clear indicator that the intent here was for it to be able to be redeemed.

I don't feel that's a reasoning; that could just be for Season of the Righteous playthroughs or Wrath of the Righteous; all non-blessings with the Corrupted trait are listed on the Redemption card. After all, Hell's Vengeance 2 includes a Redemption card though there's not a single way to redeem them in the deck.


For me (easy to say, since I'm not an authority), the answer to question 1 is pretty straightforward.

Just like Traders work quite differently in organized play, so does Redeeming. In OP, when you play something like Asmodean Disciplines, you can redeem any card listed on the Redemption card. End of rule. Doesn't matter if it's in your deck, in the deck box, in your closet, or under your bed. :)

Having played Linxia for quite a while (now Tier 6 in Factions' Favor, only two scenarios to go), I think the rule works and is a lot of fun. I only ended up redeeming a total of 6-7 cards anyway, all of which were redeemed by the time Linxia wrapped up Tier 4. Some of the redeemed cards I never bothered to add to my deck, and some level 5-6 redemptions (e.g., Heart's Bane) may never see play because I may never have access to the right card upgrades.

I'm curious about the answer to question #2, since I've always played that Linxia's cards are redeemed for me/her and no one else.

Well, I'm also curious about the official answer to #1, assuming it agrees with my interpretation. :P


[Sorry, new post rather than edit. The forums seem to be slow and semi-broken.]

Thinking about it more deeply, keeping the Redemptions player-specific is the only thing that makes sense to me. Otherwise you could have a cheap situation where two evil characters in OP (possibly identical, like two Linxias) could play the same campaign, with one character redeeming half the cards and the other character redeeming the other half. It wouldn't be fair to "split" the Redemption card in this manner to benefit both/all characters. It would make sense to keep their Redemptions player-specific.

P.S. Linxia is one of my favorite organized play characters ever, despite the fact that my teammates never wanted me to take cards from their discard piles. I think I only did it once the entire campaign. She's slow to start, though, and only really starts to shine after the early tiers are behind her.


One more point on what I was saying about "Setting aside" cards, also note that the fact that cards immediately go to a zone unless there's a check to change that is also supported in the wording of the Cure spell and similar, which has never changed. "Reveal this card to shuffle 1d4+1 cards from your discard pile into your deck, then discard this card". Same with cards like Surgeon and even the very recently printed Forensic Physician and the like, so it appears to be made unarguably clear that cards are moved to their new zone before their power occurs if there's no additional check to make listed in their powers (or a character power of your own).

wkover wrote:
Just like Traders work quite differently in organized play, so does Redeeming. In OP, when you play something like Asmodean Disciplines, you can redeem any card listed on the Redemption card. End of rule. Doesn't matter if it's in your deck, in the deck box, in your closet, or under your bed. :)

I'm afraid and the answer to that is incorrect and explicitly called out in the rulebook and FAQs, and the wording is no different between normal play and OP. To quote the relevant passages from the rules I previously quoted:

Multiple Sources, including the official Card Guild Guide wrote:
[...]choose one of your cards that’s listed on that card and check it off.

This is the exact same wording as it used in the post-FAQ WotR rulebook, and it has been clarified in no uncertain terms that, and I quote:

Wrath of the Righteous Rulebook Page 10 wrote:
[...]your cards include your deck, the cards in your hand, and your buried, discarded, and displayed cards.
wkover wrote:
Thinking about it more deeply, keeping the Redemptions player-specific is the only thing that makes sense to me. Otherwise you could have a cheap situation where two evil characters in OP (possibly identical, like two Linxias) could play the same campaign, with one character redeeming half the cards and the other character redeeming the other half. It wouldn't be fair to "split" the Redemption card in this manner to benefit both/all characters. It would make sense to keep their Redemptions player-specific.

I can't say I agree; that's exactly how it works in Wrath of the Righteous, there's just not normally duplicates of Corrupted cards. But if you had, for example, mixed Class Decks in then that could come up downright frequently, since the table is always expected to share a Redemption card, just like Skulls and Shackles sharing their Fleet card.

For the record, I think it would be both less exploitable (Book of the Damned) and more enjoyable ("Damnit Urgraz stop redeeming cards that Linxia wants to be corrupted!") that Redemption cards are player-specific, but the rules certainly do not read that way. Furthermore, it does become a bit of a flavor fail if cards become corrupted and redeemed and corrupted again based on who's holding them. Has it been redeemed or not?

Also, it's not much of an exploit to redeem the party's cards faster. You still need to own the card in your deck to redeem it (as clarified above), and from Tier 4 you can redeem a new card every scenario thanks to just replacing the Item 2 The Asmodean Disciplines every scenario. You can also re-play scenarios for even more chances, and some characters (Linxia in HV1) and some spells have added benefits for NOT redeeming their cards.


In OP, I was interpreting the word "your" in "your cards" as any cards that are in your character/class box. I figured that some char/class boxes may only contain a subset of corrupted cards, and then you'd only be able to redeem the cards in your box. But, looking through the cards, I guess the HV box does contain every card on the Redemption list.

If "your cards" in OP means the same thing as standard play (deck/buried/displayed/etc.), then Redemption in OP is slow and painful and I'll probably avoid playing a character from HV in the future. Particularly since, in OP, you can't redeem cards as scenario/adventure rewards (like in WotR) and you'd need to keep Asmodean Disciplines in your deck forever to redeem the level 5 and 6 cards. Not only that, but you have to get lucky enough to actually draw Asmodean Disciplines in the higher tiers.

But if that's the rule, that's the rule. Sigh.

**** Venture-Lieutenant, Online—VTT

Yewstance wrote:

One more point on what I was saying about "Setting aside" cards, also note that the fact that cards immediately go to a zone unless there's a check to change that is also supported in the wording of the Cure spell and similar, which has never changed.

I disagree. The rule i cited was not implemented when many of those cards you are referencing were released. the rule did not exist in RotR, SnS, and in WOTR it was even clarified that the action price must be paid Immediately. That text has now been updated to the rules i quoted above. Prior cards haven't been updated based on the new rules. I'd argue that no where in the MM rule does it say you don't set it aside to "limbo zone" if there isn't a check required. It simply says set it aside and resolve the actions first. There are threads in the rules forum that discuss this. One example, Lini doesn't bury allies at the farmhouse.


wkover - Radovan wrote:
If "your cards" in OP means the same thing as standard play (deck/buried/displayed/etc.), then Redemption in OP is slow and painful and I'll probably avoid playing a character from HV in the future.

Keep in mind that Hell's Vengeance 2 does not feature a way to redeem boons... not that it matters, since the characters are designed to ignore Corrupted penalties (for the most part) anyway.

In Hell's Vengeance 1, there's a character that easily ignores corrupted penalties, and a second that works BETTER with corrupted cards, and so redemption is partially a downside. Asmodean Disciplines can be auto-added from Tier 4 onwards, but I hardly think Redemption would ever be mandatory in these sets, particularly because they also have a handful of cards that let you ignore the corrupted trait on the fly.

Also, if playing Season of the Righteous, you can get Redemptions out of, for example, specific location effects. But I remember Redemption being really slow in actual Wrath of the Righteous, particularly with the requirement that you have to hold onto the card to redeem it later, so having an Item 2 that I can keep adding seems many times more generous than non-OP play.

Also, in all seriousness, there's not that many corrupted cards, and not all of them are that good. There's heaps you can get away without redeeming; some of which are pretty bad with or without redemption and can be skipped, some which don't work with your strategy or character powers, and some which are powerful enough even when corrupted. Remember that the payoff is that they're usually stronger than a normal boon after being redeemed, so it makes sense to require some effort to set them up (even if you can just replay a scenario a few times to redeem all of the corrupted boons you want). But I digress.

Race Dorsey wrote:
Yewstance wrote:

One more point on what I was saying about "Setting aside" cards, also note that the fact that cards immediately go to a zone unless there's a check to change that is also supported in the wording of the Cure spell and similar, which has never changed.

I disagree. The rule i cited was not implemented when many of those cards you are referencing were released. the rule did not exist in RotR, SnS, and in WOTR it was even clarified that the action price must be paid Immediately. That text has now been updated to the rules i quoted above. Prior cards haven't been updated based on the new rules. I'd argue that no where in the MM rule does it say you don't set it aside to "limbo zone" if there isn't a check required. It simply says set it aside and resolve the actions first. There are threads in the rules forum that discuss this. One example, Lini doesn't bury allies at the farmhouse.

Shoot, really!? I had no idea that rule was changed in Mummy's Mask, since I've just used the MM rulebook for all of the physical (and nonphysical) games I've ever played, except for sections on Redemption and Ships. That prior cards still have outdated wording - whilst I knew could happen (Sphere of Fire in Ultimate Magic) - is extremely confusing.

Damnit, among other things this means I've been mis-playing Damiel in Mummy's Mask with Potions of Healing. In fact, this means I'm pretty sure I've seen at least four or five misplays by myself or other players in my PbP tables. Damnit all.

Well that at least explains the Asmodean Disciples, but now I need to re-assess some other cards.


Yewstance wrote:

Shoot, really!? I had no idea that rule was changed in Mummy's Mask, since I've just used the MM rulebook for all of the physical (and nonphysical) games I've ever played, except for sections on Redemption and Ships. That prior cards still have outdated wording - whilst I knew could happen (Sphere of Fire in Ultimate Magic) - is extremely confusing.

Damnit, among other things this means I've been mis-playing Damiel in Mummy's Mask with Potions of Healing. In fact, this means I'm pretty sure I've seen at least four or five misplays by myself or other players in my PbP tables. Damnit all.

I agree with Yewstance here. This was a major rules change that just appeared in the Mummy's Mask rules while we have old threads that talk about Damiel being able to shuffle the Potion of Healing in along with the other cards from the discard pile, or Surgeon being shuffled into the deck with the card it was healing.

While it isn't wrong, I'm pretty sure most people who have played the game for a while (me included) were used to the old rules and didn't understand there was a rules change in this regard, since it didn't even come up in a rules thread in the MM era. It's worse, since we've been teaching other people to do it wrong as well.

People create mental models of the rulesets and I'm not sure people reread new rulebooks just to update their mental model unless they were careful about it - they just update it with new rules. This means that an update mechanism like that can easily be missed.

I really lament the lack of 1) a rules diff and 2) an Oracle-style (see Magic the Gathering) set of updated card texts.


On the topic of temporarily setting aside cards (or not) when played, I have a follow-up question related to Linxia.

Linxia has the power:

When you play a boon that has the Corrupted or Shield trait for its power, you may shuffle a random card from your discard pile into your deck.

The situation: Linxia's discard pile is empty and she discards a Corrupted blessing (e.g., Blessing of Shax) for its power. Is the blessing immediately discarded when played, and is therefore shuffled into her deck per the healing ability? Or is the blessing temporarily set aside and not shuffled in?

I can't wait to find out that I've been playing this incorrectly as well. :P


So, firstly; I'd prepared a post whilst the forums were having a fit, and never got to post it due to the issues. My view has completely changed since, so I'm ignoring it... but for completeness sake, and so not to throw away my previous writings, I'm putting it in a spoiler.

A post I'd had planned for when the forums were up, which I NO LONGER THINK IS TRUE:
"zeroth_hour2", emphasis added wrote:
I agree with Yewstance here. This was a major rules change that just appeared in the Mummy's Mask rules while we have old threads that talk about Damiel being able to shuffle the Potion of Healing in along with the other cards from the discard pile, or Surgeon being shuffled into the deck with the card it was healing.

Thank you for putting my thoughts in a more cohesive fashion; that's exactly it. I'm often very strict with following the rules to the letter in my games - partially derived from having been a low level MTG Judge - and so I dig through the forums extensively as they are the primary source of rules resolutions, including developer interaction. I didn't even consider that heaps of forum comments that I've taken as gospel are literally outdated, because I didn't realize there were any significant mechanical changes after Skulls and Shackles, besides those revolving around Displayed cards. That's intensely frustrating; I might necro some of those threads if I come across them natively in the future to help future players digging through old forum threads for answers.

Also, that doesn't explain Forensic Physician. That was printed in Ultimate Equipment, and I don't know of that ally having been printed in any previous Class Deck or Base set, unless I simply missed it somewhere. It uses the "Reveal to shuffle X cards from your discard pile into your deck, then discard this card" template, but it was first printed long after the rules change that implies that cards are always set aside while processing their effects. Why would they still template cards in a way that strongly implies they work differently to normal powers, when in truth they act the exact same way?

Having just gotten Ultimate Wilderness, that also makes me question the wording on cards like Archaeopteryx, which reads:

Archaeopteryx wrote:
Recharge this card to examine the top card of your deck, then you may either draw a card or shuffle your deck.

In truth, though, I've switched back to my initial understanding of the topic with the assistance of re-reading the rulebook as well as talking with skizzerz over Discord. I disagree with Redeux's interpretation that all cards are 'set aside' until their full powers are completed. The fact that you recharge/discard/banish a card before using its power (unless it includes a check to change what zone they end up in) is still spelled out explicitly in the MM Rulebook, just two paragraphs after the one quoted earlier by Redeux.

MM Rulebook, Pages 8 and 9 wrote:

Always perform the first action required by a power before performing any other action. For example, if a card says “Recharge this card to recharge a card from your discard pile,” recharge the card you’re playing before recharging the card from your discard pile.

Cards often have instructions that you need to follow after you play the card; follow these instructions even if the card is no longer in your hand (even if the card is out of your sight, such as in the boxor in a deck).

It seems extremely clear that years of forum topics are still in line with the rules as quoted above (do things in sequence if there's no uncertainty or check to make). Which means I disagree with Redeux about the functionality of the aforementioned cards.

Linxia can shuffle her own discarded blessings back into her deck. Damiel can shuffle his own Potions of Healing back into his deck. Blah blah blah.

This also goes back to my original point, which is that it makes no sense that Asmodean Disciples can redeem itself. According to the rulebook paragraph I just quoted, it should FIRST banish itself, THEN redeem a card.

This also means that the rules have not actually been changed with Mummy's Mask; they just included a clarifying paragraph that originated in this Wrath of the Righteous FAQ, but still includes the standard rule that basically infers that "if there's no check to be made to change what zone it ends up in, you move the card before processing the effect".


Yewstance wrote:
Linxia can shuffle her own discarded blessings back into her deck.

Yeah, that's how I've been playing Linxia based on my understanding of the "immediate discard when played" rules. Hopefully the powers that be agree.

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