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If you don’t want to mark up your character cards, put them in a penny sleeve and use a fine point sharpie to mark on the sleeve.
I just posted some Lem strategies in the Path:ACG discussions, but since each character has their own play strategies – why not make tips for Character Play readily available 🙂
Meet Lem
Lem is a toughie – he’s a little good at everything and not good enough at one thing – but his ability to dual wield magic makes him too good of a character not to have around. I don’t play him personally, but he is part of our Pathfinder Six so I’ll share a few things I’ve seen in action
1) Get him a crossbow – a Dex based weapon is his best friend as his combat die is fairly low. His fault is he can only have one weapon, but his boon is he can choose his favored at the start of an adventure. Make it ‘Weapon’ and that crossbow will always be at the ready – just make sure it stays there. 🙂
2)Use his ‘exchange’ wisely -especially with ‘Cure’. Lem with a ‘Cure’ can become a solid healer because you don’t have to recharge it and send it to the back of your deck – you can just send it to the discard pile. WHAT??? Craziness!!! Nope. Any spell in hand can now ‘become’ Cure if you need it through the power of spell exhange. 🙂
3) Lem is a follower – not a leader Lem and Harsk make a good team up. Harsk can hold his own when exploring and then scouts the next card in the deck. Our Harsk usually announces what he sees (in a whisper as any ranger would do :)) and then if it is Lem-able, Lem bats clean-up. If not – Lem usually heads over to a ‘safe’ zone and loots. He can usually pass most loot/spell rolls so he makes for a handy backpack until QuestEnd and it gives him a little more card HP for the current adventure.
Exploration is the key to success in this game, yet I’ve played some games where we’ve run out of turns in the blessings deck before winning, simply because people were being overly cautious and not exploring additional times on their turns. While you obviously don’t want to discard yourself to death, you should have a compelling reason not to explore additional times on your turn (such as knowing what is next in the location deck and knowing you can’t pass the check, or REALLY needing the boost that ally or blessing will grant for a specific check), especially in games with more than a couple of players. The more players there are, the more locations there are to close, but you still only get the same 30 turns, so you really have to make the most of each turn. Don’t get careless and get yourself killed, but also don’t cost the whole party a win because you were too cautious.
P.S. There is an often misunderstood rule that says a single effect only nets you a single additional exploration regardless of if it triggers multiple effects that would grant additional exploration. This does NOT mean, however, that you can only explore one additional time each turn. You simply have to come from separate effects for each additional exploration.
Let’s face it, although very well designed and generally well explained, the fact that this game lets you do such a variety actions, well, things bogus in the rules are bound to happen.
Paizo compiled and answered an impressive list of those wandering questions and published them in the FAQ section on their website. Available here, (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1gk). You should definitely take a peek. I personally found answer to questions I didn’t even have, yet.
They also took all these answers and revised the rulebook based on them (available in pdf on top of the same page).
A lot of “custom card setups” have cropped upon the internet to serve this game, from deck stands and boxes to mats and miniatures.
A few solutions that I have found to cheaply add to the game:
First: Stands
A simple business card stand works wonders; usually you can get them in metal or wood too; its a lot cheaper than the $20 versions available online. http://www.staples.ca/en/Staples-Business-Card-Holder-Clear-Plastic/product_41525_2-CA_1_20001
Second: Locations
Use a handy lazy susan, stacking the locations facing outwards in the centre.
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0036OQU2E/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A30HM80T26CN0A
Third: Minatures
This can be a tough one, but I already owned a copy of Descent (2nd Edition) and it comes with a number of beautiful miniatures. There are some fairly obvious similarities between some of the characters in Pathfinder and some of the characters in Descent and its expansions. If you must buy the expansion to get the character that you want… well you’ve got ANOTHER phenomenal game to play!
http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=DJ01
Finally: Mats
Natai on BGG has released some exquisite mats for use with most of the characters. You can A) print them or B) have them professionally printed/laminated!
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/103749/playmat-lini-druid-two-sided-w-decklist-v1-1
Your game night has suddenly been massively upgraded.
As @Ragu, we do not like the rules about character dying while others succesfully completing the scenario. But, dying should be a real risk and so it should have some penalty, also to avoid strategic suicides (heroic suicides should be also fun!)
Our solution is similar, we do not rebuild characters and we give the scenario reward also for the dead character (the team has won anyway!). But when rebuilding decks and trading between characters, the dead ones are out of the trade: they should rebuild their decks with their own cards and rewards, and if not possible they must complete with box cards according to rules restrictions. Just take it as ‘they are recovering from their injuries’.
Seriously. Take them as literally as you can, and be a stickler with semantics.
This game gets some flack, and rightly so, for it’s consistently ambiguous rule book. Thankfully there is an amazing FAQ on Paizo’s website and great forum support (this game has one of the friendliest fan bases I’ve seen). In that FAQ, the best advice I found was in two short phrases:
“The cards do what they say” and “The cards don’t do what they don’t say.”
It sounds stupid at first, but it changed how I played the game. Almost immediately I was able to put the rule book aside and focus on the cards. You can play a card at ANY time, as long as it’s allowed by the card text. This means you also have to pay close attention to the cards’ use of indefinite articles and personal pronouns, “a check” vs “your check” and the like.
There are certainly still some vague points, misprints, and omissions in the rules, but following those two phrases solved almost every question that has come up since I started playing. And if you’re still stumped, check the Paizo FAQ or hit their friendly forums!
The game comes with “Token” cards for each character. The players place these token cards next to the various location decks to show that which character is at a particular location. I felt this was a little cumbersome, so I brought my Pathfinder Beginner Box miniatures out, and I use those rather than the Token cards to indicate where the characters are. The Beginner Box minis include four of the characters from the base game, and the others are available to buy, mainly on the secondary market. For some characters, I don’t have the correct mini, so I use a comparable proxy, it doesn’t add to the gameplay, but it definitely adds to the theme and makes the game look much cooler when you’re playing.
I’ve played this game over 20 times in 2 weeks now with 2 and 3 characters, and have got all 11 characters through the first adventure Perils of the Lost Coast.
I’ve tried starting directly on Burnt Offerings adventure with a few characters (adventure add-on nr 1, that comes with the game), but had a hard time with some really hard mobs/barriers.
For doing the 3 scenarios in Perils of the Lost Coast adventure you’ll get one random item, one random weapon, one random boon (weapon, spell, armor, item, ally, blessing) AND one ‘skill feat’. In addition you’ll also get to keep the boons you are aquiring, to build you a better deck.
Burnt Offerings wont be a walk in the park (maybe a few of the scenarios), but it will be much more handable.
Many players have suggested using tokens rather than the character card that comes with the box set. Taking this a bit further, if you own or are willing to pick up the Pathfinder NPC Codex Pawns it contains all of the characters for both the base game and the character add on deck. We’ve been using them since the game was released and makes it much easier for us. In addition, the NPC codex is full of awesome pawns, and you can use any of them to represent your character in game, particularly with all the new characters coming out when the Class Decks are released.
If you don’t want to mark up your cards as you level up your characters from game to game, Paizo provides free printable character sheets on their website that you can use instead.
They’re free, but you need to “purchase” them through the cart on their website to get them. They’re available at:
http://paizo.com/products/btpy914x
Below are more suggestions to making Pathfinder harder. Not all of these house rules are mine, but I wanted to put them all in one location.
SIMPLE VARIANTS:
– Henchmen and Villain are shuffled into the bottom 5 cards. This removes the lucky “Oh he’s on the top of the deck! Location closed”.
– If you take damage exceeding your hand size, bury one of the cards from your hand or discard the top card of your deck.
– Setup an additional location. This only works with 1-5 players, but is a good way to increase the difficulty.
– Characters can only move to adjacent locations. Reduced mobility makes you plan your movement so you don’t waste turns “getting across town”. Cards like Levitation allow you to break this rule.
Try to team up a way that give you magical capabilities. Some monsters can only be beaten with weapons with ‘magic’ trait and you don’t find many of them with the starter setup.
One physical hitter and one spellcaster might be one way of doing it (Sajan starts with Amulet of Mighty Fists which gives him melee with the ‘magic’ trait).
Even if the rules say that you can take a card that you don’t have any chance of beating and switching it with a similar one, it just doesn’t feel right for me.
I’ve played through the first scenario 4-5 times and the first adventure 2 times.
I always start with closing an ‘easy’ location or a location that have boons that are useful for your character. That way you will have more possibilities picking up boons that will help you in your further adventure.
In order to improve the storytelling aspect of the game and to make the game more immersive, you can change the way monsters are added to each of the location decks.
First; separate out the monster into 4 or 5 sub-categories of monsters. This can easily be done using the classifications on the left hand side of the card. I separate them into goblins, animals, humans, beast men, undead, however, you can use your own classifications or understandings of these categories.
Using your newly created monster sub-decks, populate each of the locations laid out for your scenario with a monster set that makes sense to both the scenario and location,
For example; in the scenario Brigadoons, shuffle the “human” monster sub-deck and place the 4 required monsters for the “Waterfront Harbour” location from the “human” monster deck. This way as you explore the port you will encounter some nasty brigands and not a freaking hill giant standing in the middle of the city. This is especially true of locations like shops where you should encounter some brigands, and not a*-hound hiding in the closet. This will also prevent you from fighting an undead infestation when you should be hunting brigands according to the scenario card.
Finally you can make things a little more interesting by taking any number of “possible encounters” for a specific location and shuffle them into the selection deck for that specific location. For example you may add Bunnyip, Rat Horde or Giant Gecko to the Waterfront Harbour location “human” monster sub-deck.
This game is pretty notoriously easy, particularly when playing with a full party. You just spread out and individually work on closing locations, right? This also minimizes the risk of traps and enemies that deal damage to all characters at a location.
To offset this, make the game a little more difficult, and force a bit more cooperation between party members, we use a house rule that all players start at the same location (determined by numbering each location and rolling a die), and that party members can’t be more than two locations away from the members farthest from them. This makes it more likely that you’ll still be working with someone to close a location, can make it more difficult to keep the boss from escaping, and increases some of the risks of being together, while still allowing Harsk to use his ability to help characters at other locations and Merisiel to use her ability that requires she be alone. It’s not a perfect fix, but it certainly helps.
We’ve all had checks where we throw a bunch of dice, but have to reroll that D8 3-4 times because the game includes just one. We went out and bought 4 of each die, each group in different colors (i.e all the D6 are red, D12 are yellow, etc.). Now when we have to roll multiples we can easily get it all done in one shot. Plus rolling a fistful is always more fun than rerolling.
I’ve played The Skinsaw Murders with 2 characters now and want to get my other characters up there so they can also do this adventure. I’ve left all the cards in the big box (not putting them back in the addon box which the rules say). I currently play Burnt Offerings and if I encounter a boon or a bane from Skinsaw (numbered 2) I simply draw a random card of the same type replacing it. The same thing can be done the other way around; i.e. if you play The Skinsaw Murders and encounter a Goblin Raid barrier, switch it out with the Zombie Horde barrier from Skinsaw instead. This way you don’t have to sort the cards in and out the addon boxes when playing different characters and different quests.
I’ve also tried not doing this but instead encountering a card from Skinsaw when playing Burnt Offerings. This may let you get a better deck faster, but I’ve seen that I more often encounter a bane than a boon when doing this. The theme of the current adventure will also more or less vansih doing this.
I’ve seen people complain on different forums about the theme of the game when encountering a sea creature while a on land location; just draw a new random card and it should be solved.
This might not work when we see the 4th and the 5th adventure addon.
This should without saying; I’ve played with some people recently that kept losing prior to me joining in. The only thing I brought was making sure everyone knew their roles.
1.) Play with cards on the table: it’s co-op, no reason to hide cards.
2.) Make sure everyone is aware of closing conditions and are prepared to temp close locations using equipment and character strengths. Healer doesn’t need to follow people but also doesn’t need to be left to close with a dex check.
3.) Keep an eye on that clock!!!! Assess how much time is left and how many turns out could take to win. Take a break and strategize accordingly.
There are a bunch of strange synergies in the game that can help you out. For example, there is an ally that lets you deck-peek at the locations, but the downside is there is a 1/12 chance of encountering a super-boss. Give this card to Merisel, who can choose to evade any encounter.
Father Zantus is a great card for Kyra. It’s tempting to bury him for a heal, but you are better off discarding him for the divine trait and using Kyra’s innate heal ability, or recharging him to gain the +d4 on a divine check when recharging a spell.