The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (ACG?) that deserves its own thread

I watched this this morning, which not only taught me the game but gave me an idea of what the digital version is like.

I’ll watch it now. Thank you very much!

Just for info regarding what you asked earlier: it seems the sync of your saves amongst your devices is done through that Asmodee account. Clicking “yes” seemed to have been the proper choice, as my progress seems synched. If you click on a single computer and don’t own the tablet versions, it might be not be very relevant, although I got chests rewards during the tutorial that required to be online.

There is an in-game currency that is tracked that way as well.

The game is really intriguing: it feels like a more thoughtful Elder Signs: Omen (my favourite dice rolling game), with a lot of persistant aspects on top. I hope they fix it to be working properly on my laptop.

I may have some more mitigated news regarding the need to be online.
I played online a bit, and tried to launch the game offline: one of my 3 characters was gone, and the other 2 had lost the cards they had secured online.
Going back online, they were back…
I hope it will be an issue fixed in a couple of days, but I somehow got a bad feeling about this…

Having played through the tutorials and started a campaign, I have a few questions:

  1. How do you get into an async game with other people? Starting a campaign seems to default to selecting a party controlled by a single player (odd for me to be asking this)?

  2. What’s the difference between “banished” and “buried”?

  3. How and when is the blessings deck used? I can look at the top card but can’t seem to do anything with it.

I can only answer the 2 first:

There is no async nor multiplayer in this game.

From the rules (you can check them under “Glossary”, in the options, the last hidden category is “Terms”, very useful – and very much hidden), from the rules, as I was typing, Banishing is horrible: the card is removed from this character’s deck forever. Burying it only removes it until the end of scenario.
I am glad you attracted my attention to this, as the tutorial was quite vague, and this seems pretty darn important!

THIS GAME IS SO GOOD!

Ha ha ha ha! Hoo hoo! Ohh ho ho! Oh man, I’m slapping my knee here. Async in a solitaire game? Ha ha ha!

:)

The blessing deck is a timer. It marks the number of turns left before you run out of time and fail the mission (although you get to keep any cards you found!).

As a secondary – but eventually important – function, it “charges” the shown blessing by letting you recharge it after use instead of discarding it after use. Once you get those vanilla blessings out of your decks, that part of the blessing deck will come into play more often.

-Tom

Yep, what Tom said while I was typing. The main function of the Blessings deck is as a timer.

But…the non-generic, very specific Blessings you’ll be adding to character decks can interact with Blessings that are turned over from the Blessings deck as a timer…and like Tom mentioned, that lets you recharge Blessings, and sometimes gives the blessings you play other effects, if they match the current blessing in the deck.

I thought this could be played as a co-op game with others

Not the digital version unfortunately.

Thanks. The on-line requirement confused me. Also, regardingmy other questions, I just found the rules/glossary buried in the options menu, and that cleared quite a bit up.

Another comment with the blessings deck is that even the basic Blessings of the Gods still has utility in that it mirrors the shown card of the blessings deck. Over time, it is useful to cull those for the character specific blessings. However, the basic Blessing of the Gods is a fundamental way of progressing through the game in the beginning, whether it be free exploration, or simply being able to roll more dice should you need them for a particular check. The emergent story that can be told from the Pathfinder ACG is fantastic to me.

Well, sure, just like you can play solitaire with others by letting them place the red cards while you place the black cards.

-Tom, kinda trolling but not really…

P.S. I do wonder how many people expected this feature. Most boardgame ports include multiplayer support, but seems to me co-op (aka solitaire) games don’t bother. Off the top of my head, Elder Sign: Omens and Ghost Stories don’t have multiplayer support. I don’t think Sentinels of the Multiverse does either. Am I missing any?

The digital version of Sentinels of the Multiverse got a quite extensive online multiplayer element (with extensive configuration, chat, avatars!) implemented… last year, I think?
Never tried it, as I just like to control my whole team and play at my own pace.

P.S. Pathfinder is so, sooo good!
To someone who had never played the board game like me, the extensive tutorial was very informative, but now I think it shied away from telling me that the game is all about losing cards and earning new ones, all the time. The game really clicked with me when I understood that idea.

Hell yes.

I first really heard about this when I appeared on a podcast you hosted, I was talking about Card Hunter and Rob Harvey and you were talking this up so much I bought it soon after, and my group and I played for an entire weekend blowing through the first three chapters. We never got back to it, just too many great board games to play, but I’m really glad to finally get a chance to play as much as I want. Man this is just so great!

I had a game last night, the 4th scenario (1st scenario for chapter 1) that I completed the last fight with 3 open locations I had to temporarily close during the battle with the Big Bad… on the very last turn of the blessing deck. Every single one of my characters had to succeed at every single check that turn, and I was on the edge of my seat at each dice roll. Probably the best gaming moment of 2017 for me.

How many characters is everyone rolling? And what characters are you using?

I went with 4, and it’s a very traditional Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue set up but I really like each of these guys. I worry having 4 is making the game tougher than it needs to be, but the next scenario I blew through so fast I feel I should have slowed down and tried to collect some extra cards. Aw well, the digital version lets me replay it if I want to!

On the mobile version, I was running with only two characters (the Wizard and Sorcerer) to make it challenging. I think they’d just started Adventure 2 and had yet to fail when the Asmodee.net bug in v1.2.6 erased their adventure. :-(

Considering that the blessings timer is always 30, having more characters can make things more challenging, not less. At least according to the video I watched.

More characters makes the game play differently. Sometimes it’s more challenging, but more often there’s a tradeoff. For instance, if you’re using more characters in your party, you’re much more likely to have characters with available blessings in their hands to assist on die rolls than you’d have with a smaller party.

Yeah, the guy in the vídeo suggested that as well. “Less turns per character, but more options” kind of summarizes it.

So, should I buy this? Is it really that good? :)

I love the game and the design especially. What’s fun to realize when you play co-op with others (this is with the physical boardgame version) is how everyone thinks they’re terrible at dice-rolling in this game, because the statistics of it get beyond them.

By that I mean, let’s say you set things so you have an 80% chance of succeeding with a roll. That’s pretty good, right? And let’s also say you keep doing that, using blessings and character abilities to always have an 80% chance of succeeding.

So. Every time you go to roll, it is absolutely true that your individual roll will be successful 80% of the time. But the hidden part of that probability is what folks don’t consider. The odds that you’ll make THREE consecutive rolls with that 80% are actually just a shade over 50/50. And the odds that you’ll make FOUR consecutive 80% rolls is down to 41%.

Which means…you have to plan and make contingencies. Sometimes you don’t want 80% probability and it’s silly to commit other characters to kicking in their blessings. Sometimes you want more than 80% probability, and it’s nice to not have burned character blessings/abilities earlier so that can be an option. I love the way the game forces you into constant decision-making trees like that.

And that’s just one aspect of it. Certain characters are far better suited to exploring certain locations than others (never send a weapon-user to the docks, for instance; sending a fighting class to the library is silliness, etc.). Do you burn companion cards – or even blessings – in your hand for extra exploration? When do you consider doing that?

And best of all, I love how the game opens you up with more options and gives you more branching decisions to make as you get deeper into it and your characters build their decks.