I was going to, but their shipping costs (paid per release, mind you) were absolutely insane and the discount was less than you would get by just buying on Amazon with Prime. For example, the current Adventure Pack is MSRP $20. Subscribing knocks that down to $16 (I paid $15.40 on Amazon), with $12.50 or so S&H for UPS delivery or $6.50ish for postal delivery (I paid $0 on Amazon). The comparison might work out a little better if you don’t have Prime, admittedly. The advantages are 1) you get it sent to you automatically, saving you perhaps a whole minute per order, and 2) you get one or two promo cards per release. The promo cards sound kind of hilarious but I’m not sure they’re worth what would be a minimum $6 surcharge for me, and they -are- available through other channels, theoretically.
Yikes…$6.50 shipping? I’ve been using CSI for games a bit lately (well, one order, but probably place another soon) and the adventure packs are $13.50 with $2.50 shipping USPS. I’d say the cards aren’t worth that differential to me, but at least some of the BGG posts say they’re going for like $20 on eBay (just the promo cards). A quick look over there shows some stuff at around $17 or $18, so the promos are technically worth the extra money, at least if you use eBay as a fair value judge. I have read that some retailers get the promos as well (random reports of CSI distributing them with Pathfinder ACG stuff).
If I end up getting into this pretty deeply, I’ll probably check with my local shop to see if they get the promos. I can see paying full retail on them to get them that way, plus it supports the local shop where my meetup is.
Most of the promos are going to retailers, but the Fire Sneeze is earned at Pathfinder Society (as in, the roleplaying) events and one of the others is in some magazine.
Just wanted to thank everyone that recommended this. I managed to pick up a copy of the base game, character add-on, and Skinsaw Murders along with two promo cards off BGG for $60 (including shipping). I’ve only played once by myself (in which I played Ezren and totally butchered the rules), and once with my wife, but I’m having a blast. My wife even seems pretty interested.
We played Seoni (me) and Kyra (her) last night and it was just a great time, even with all the time we spent talking over rules. I much prefer Seoni’s style of play over Ezren’s for a caster. As a “healer”, Kyra really resonated with my wife as well. She loved being able to get cards back into our decks, and she was able to kick down quite a few bad guys as well. Having so many blessings between us meant we could fan out and still help each other a lot. Our final confrontation with Jubaryl was a bit of a nail-biter too due to some low rolls, but in the end we won.
One thing I’ve decided for sure, if I ever play solo again, it will be with at least two characters. My solo playthrough with Ezren didn’t go very well, and that was with me misunderstanding about weapons, spells, and combat checks (I was using both).
One other note, I ended up sleeving with the Ultra Pro penny sleeves. Given that this was my first time dealing with sleeves, I wasn’t quite ready to sink 25-30 dollars at this stage, plus I was able to get the sleeves at Walmart, so convenience won the day. I’m sure they’re not great, but my only real complaints are there’s a good 3mm of excess sleeve at the top of the card, and shuffling is a little rough because the cards don’t tend to slide over each other as easily.
^^^Like^^^
Still need to grab skinsaw murders. Christmas will have to do.
Nothing says ‘Christmas’ like a good Skinsaw Murder
We started into the second scenario in the box this weekend (had to stop early because it was getting late). It’s only two scenarios in, but it’s interesting how different this one feels. That’s partly because of the locations and effects (lots of stuff, fewer monsters), and also because of how the randomness affected the runs. In Brigandoom we hit almost all monsters, and only one boon. In this one, it’s almost completely opposite. Only a turn or two in I (Seoni), had a Flaming Mace + 1 pop up, which isn’t useful at all to her. But my wife (Kyra) wanted it pretty badly, so we worked together to make sure I won the roll and then we joined up a turn later so I could trade it to her. Awesome how we could pause for a moment from the “quest” and get her geared up.
Of course it’s not helping her much against the Poison Traps (which she’s been banging her head against, so we’ll have to shift strategies there).
It’s also really cool how they managed (so far) to make the locations feel pretty unique. Between the location deck ratios and the special effects, the locations feel fairly distinct, although it’s a little weird to find monsters while shopping in the general store. :) We even thought it was neat that this scenario has a bonus to the rolls to acquire allies, which we rationalized as part of the story because these allies were probably in town to get hired, so they’d be more willing to go with you.
Also, does anyone know of a really good way to shorten card sleeves (other than scissors/xacto knife one at a time). I’d like to try trimming up the penny sleeves I got to see if removing that extra bit would make them feel better, but my Google Fu on the subject has failed. I was actually thinking of trying a paper cutter and doing maybe 5-10 at a time, but not sure if the blade would be sharp enough and if the sleeves wouldn’t twist badly under the pressure while being cut.
I would not suggest cutting sleeves. Even if you get clean cuts, you will start getting slightly off lengths. Is shuffling the issue? I assume you are corner shuffling rather than riffle shuffling with sleeves. All of the above is why I am not really a fan of penny sleeves as I think they only really serve as a dust jacket and actual game use starts to push their utility.
For Pathfinder I use ultra pro clear deck protectors. They are a snug fit and sturdy enough to corner or side shuffle. The heroes are in rather hefty top loaders when in use to be a bit more noticeable on the table and allow easy dry marker use.
Cards want to be loved. You can’t love your cards if they’re in sleeves.
-TomI’ve been doing side shuffles because they’re much easier with the sleeves and I’m used to corner shuffling (which definitely will not work with these). I’ll have to try riffle shuffling, but I bet the excess is going to cause issues with that.
I definitely agree that better sleeves would yield a much better experience, but I’m just not ready to drop that kind of money yet. It hasn’t been terrible with the penny sleeves it hasn’t been that bad either (and I feel better that the cards are at least somewhat protected)…mainly just issues with shuffling. I know the penny sleeves are a poor substitute, but it’s about as far as I was willing to go at this stage. If this becomes a big hit and we play it a ton, I could see possibly upgrading, but right now I need to see how much traction it will get.
You must respect the woman, er cards you love enough to use sleeves. :)
To me it comes down to the game mechanics and personal value of the product. If a game requires a lot of shuffling and reshuffling (especially small stacks of cards), then I strongly consider sleeving. Deck builders are high on the list. Also how much I enjoy the game and how often it is likely to be played will effect my sleeving choice. And sometimes I just like the look and feel of sleeved cards.
Of all my games, I currently ave sleeved:
Pathfinder (great game, with lots of shuffling)
LotR LCG (probably doesn’t need it)
Super Dungeon Explore (not sure why, I should cannibalize these for Sentinels of the Multiverse)
Marvel Legendary (most recent deck builder)
Death Angel: Space Hulk (to endure traveling mostly as it is the easiest game to ‘bring with’ at times)
World of Warcraft collectible miniature game (for rarity as I think it is a great DotA type on the tabletop, but it quickly died)
With oodles of other games including deck builders (and even years of magic play), most games don’t make the plastic cut.
I would never having imagined sleeving cards until I started reading about it. I can see doing it for card only games with a lot of shuffling, but the thought wouldn’t even cross my mind with something like Firefly (tons of cards, but not a lot of shuffling or movement).
Well, I never would have thought of it until I saw someone eat Fritos and then pick up bunch of cards in one of the buy decks, then put them back with glistening fingerprints on them.
And playing with kids…
The only game I have sleeved is the LotR:LCG and I only actually sleeve my deck for that since it gets a lot of shuffling and I play it a fair bit (and I had some spare sleeves from sleeving Warmachine cards, which need to be sleeved so you can mark damage).
If I played Mage Knight more I would probably sleeve that since the cards are pretty flimsy, but given that it hits the table pretty infrequently it’s not worth it.
I guess my opinion at this point is that other than high use/high shuffling games it’s just not worth it. Games are meant to be played and I am OK with not trying to preserve them in “mint” condition.
Also, I don’t have kids.
For a long time, I never even thought about sleeving cards – I first thought about it when I was playing my copy of FF’s re-release of Wiz-War with some friends. One of those deals where there were a couple of people I didn’t know, and there was food, and snacks etc out, and I really didn’t want greasy crap on the cards. (funny to think of sleeving Wiz-War cards, since the cards in the original edition were the cheapest crap imaginable) So I sleeved the WW cards, since I love the game, and I am ready to play it any time.
I don’t do it often, but I did sleeve the Pathfinder cards, since there is so much shuffling, and I had some sleeves sitting around.
Woo hoo. Pillbug down. It was actually a somewhat anticlimactic fight because he ended up being the next to last card in the last location. So we unloaded everything we had in our hands on him (within the rules), and down he went. The poison traps were actually much tougher to deal with since Kyra isn’t naturally skilled with them. We pulled a ton of boons out of the locations this run, so took us a while to sort out our decks afterwards, but was really cool to see my wife having a dialog with herself about what cards to keep. She might be a little more into deck-building than I thought.
Back to sleeves, I can confirm that an 8-year old paper cutter (guillotine style) can shorten the sleeves, but it’s so dull the cut isn’t smooth at all. And I definitely can’t riffle shuffle with the excess. So I’ll stick to side shuffling for now, and if the game gets a ton of love, maybe upgrade to better sleeves later on. If it just ends up being my wife and I, then I may just take them out and go sleeveless.
One other benefit to sleeving, I think I’m going to go through the deck with the card errata and put fixes in with post-it notes inside the sleeve. I read over the errata a few times, but I keep forgetting little things (like Detect Magic’s correct recharge cost).
So as we’re getting close to wrapping up this adventure and earning a feat, is there any general guidance on which feats are stronger than others? Bonuses to stats you roll a lot seem natural, and special abilities in some cases. I originally thought getting an extra card in your hand would be awesome, but that also means more potential damage you can take, and you’re also using up your deck a little quicker. I also thought taking feats that allow you to expand your deck size would be great as you then increase your “health” and you can have more key card types/cover more bases.
Agreed. I use the sleeves to easily proxy annoying chase duplicates (such as core set shenanigans for FFG LCGs where they set the ratios to entice buying multiple core sets just for a few cards-- aaaand now I remember why I sleeved that one) or rare convention promo cards. For this I just make a color copy and put it into the sleeve over some other common card I don’t need. Since the back is still a normal card and I use clear sleeves, the look of the card is indistinguishable from others.
I just sleeve everything with penny sleeves. As soon as I get a game, it gets sleeved. You can buy them on eBay at bulk rates for cheap and they work great for me.
Is it true that the game devolves into just randomly rolling dice/drawing cards once you get the basics down?
I’ve heard that complaint here and there, though it seems to be a minority compared to the praise which tends to be from more reputable sources.
Edit: And yes, I realize the basic mechanics are roll some dice and draw some cards. Tom Vassel seems to like it and if that was the case it wouldn’t seem like his cup of tea.