...Or Was It?

Four turns. In the scenario I played last night, Seoni won in four turns. First, let me emphasize that there is absolutely no skill involved in winning a Pathfinder Adventure Card Game scenario in a low number of turns. It's simply a matter of luck; indeed, I've played quite a few scenarios in which I was sweating it out in the upper twenties (you lose the game if the heroes don't win by the end of the thirtieth turn). But even so, four turns is pretty remarkable. In this case, I encountered the main villain on my second turn at the first location, then again on my first turn at the second location, and then a third and final time on my first turn at the third location. I'm actually disappointed because it means that Seoni missed out on items, allies, and other goodies that she might have acquired if the game had progressed for a more typical number of turns. After a couple of really short-'n-sweet scenarios, I haven't picked up any cool new cards for Seoni lately. We'll see if her rather unimpressive deck comes back to bite me during the final two scenarios of Burnt Offerings.

Fastest Pathfinder Scenario Ever!

Big surprise here...I'm playing through the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game base set material for a third time. After solo adventures with Valeros and Kyra, I'm now playing as the human sorceress Seoni. I won the second scenario in record time: five turns. By the luck of the draw, the main villain was either the first or second card I drew in each of the three locations. Will the rest of Seoni's scenarios be so easy? Somehow I rather doubt it. In the very next scenario, I finished with plenty of turns to spare but was down to the last card in my deck when I nuked the dragon. Playing as Seoni certainly feels a lot different from my experiences with Val and Kyra, both of whom are armored melee combatants. Seoni seems a great deal more frail, but she can really dish out the damage with arcane magic. Even that power is a double-edged sword, however, because the constant use of her power depletes her deck very quickly, as I learned in that last scenario. Having a healer on hand would have made things a lot easier, but when you're going solo, Seoni is a tough character to play.

Monster Test

Which D&D monster are you? Click here to take the personality test! Turns out I'm a lich...

Kyra

So...how smitten am I with the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game? Over the past week I played through the whole first adventure again -- this time with the cleric, Kyra. When I get the second adventure, The Skinsaw Murders, I'll need to decide whether to continue with two separate solo adventures or combine Valeros and Kyra into a mini-party.

ComicFest Today (and Tomorrow)!

If you're into comics, be sure to take part in Halloween ComicFest this weekend. And if that isn't enough, you can read the first issue of Dynamite's new Captain Midnight series here, for free!

Halloween ComicFest

I hope folks don't mind the occasional comics-related post. I just wanted to let you know that this weekend is Halloween ComicFest, a two-day event similar to Free Comic Book Day. Visit your local comic book shop this Saturday or Sunday for free comics and various Halloween-related events. My store, Dreamwell Comics in Carson City, is also offering big discounts on all items -- your neighborhood store may have similar deals!

D&D Next Product

An official D&D Next product is now available for the general public to purchase. Click here to check out an adventure titled Vault of the Dracolich, which can be yours for the low price of $4.99!

Transformer!

Wow, check out this awesome monster for the Pathfinder RPG. A gigantic colossus that transforms into a functional castle?! I really need to use this guy somehow...

Burnt Offerings, Part 2

For the expedition against Nualia and her allies, I had to choose between three locations: an ancient dungeon, a throne room, and some monster-infested warrens. For various reasons relating to the properties of these locations, I elected to begin with the dungeon.

My very first encounter there was Lyrie, one of Nualia's henchmen. I was pleased; finding a henchman so early in the game would allow me to close out this location immediately so that I could focus on the other two areas. With a difficulty rating of only 9, Lyrie would be easy prey. I rolled Val's 2D10+5 bastard sword attack and ended up with...7. That's right, I rolled 1s on both D10s! Lyrie escaped, and Val was forced to lick his wounds in ignominious defeat. This wretched performance forced me to waste at least a half-dozen more turns searching the dungeons until I encountered Lyrie again and defeated her.

Next I turned to the throne room, where Val's hideous Wisdom roll came back to bite me again and again and again...all because of one card! This card forces you to succeed at a Wisdom check or else the card gets shuffled back into the location deck, possibly to be encountered again. In this case, I hit that card three more times (thereby wasting three more turns) before I encountered the scenario's villain, Nualia, and chased her out of the throne room.

With only one location still open (the warrens), I knew that Nualia and her other henchman, Orik, were waiting for me there. I found Orik soon enough and dealt with him, setting up a second encounter with Nualia. This villain must be defeated twice, once at a rating of 12 and then at 14. I played Val's normal bastard sword attack to beat her at 12, and then, for the second attack, I opted to recharge the card (return it to the bottom of my deck) to get an extra D10 on the attack roll. That gave me a whopping 3D10+5, needing a total of 14 for the win. The first two dice were a measly 1 and 3, so with the +5 bonus, I was only up to 9 with a single D10 to go. I rolled a 5, which gave me just enough to beat her. Whew!

With Nualia defeated, Valeros had saved the town of Sandpoint and brought the five-scenario Burnt Offerings adventure to a close. Below, I've included an image of Val's complete character deck as of the end of this adventure. Bring on The Skinsaw Murders!

Burnt Offerings

Today I completed the final scenario for Burnt Offerings, the first adventure of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I elected to play through the campaign in solo mode using the human fighter Valeros as my character (I'm using the dwarf ranger Harsk in the multi-player game I'm doing with Amy, but we haven't made much progress on that one). 

Val is a great character for solo play because he's a total beast in combat. By the end of this adventure, his normal attack roll using his favorite weapon (a magical bastard sword) was up to 2D10+5. That's really good. Most monsters at this stage of the campaign have a difficulty rating of between 8 and 12, so Val can carve up foes with ease even if I'm rolling low numbers. Where Val struggles is with Intelligence- or Wisdom-based skill checks. Intelligence checks typically come into play if you're trying to acquire spells or arcane items, so I'm rarely disappointed when I botch such a roll -- what's a fighter going to do with wizard spells anyway? Wisdom, on the other hand, is essential for closing certain locations and overcoming certain barriers -- in other words, you need to succeed at Wisdom checks in order to move the story along. Often I've encountered crucial Wisdom checks requiring a roll 6 or 7; Val's Wisdom roll is a ridiculously terrible 1D4, meaning that I need to use up a blessing or an ally to give myself enough of a bonus even to have a shot at succeeding at the check. 

So that's where I stood heading into the final scenario of Burnt Offerings. After examining the adventure's master villain and her henchmen, I felt confident that Val would be able to win easily, even considering that two of them had the ability to inflict damage before the encounter. 

As it turned out, however, this scenario was anything but a cakewalk. Tomorrow I'll give you the full recap on Val's struggles to overcome some of the worst luck I've had with this game.

The Skinsaw Murders

Check out the Paizo website for a preview of The Skinsaw Murders, the next adventure for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.

UPDATE -- D&D: Arena of War

Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

D&D: Arena of War

Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War is a new (and free!) game for iOS devices. I'm downloading it at this very moment...

Druid and Paladin Updates

Yesterday's playtest packet -- the last of the public D&D Next playtest -- included only updates to two of the character classes: the druid and the paladin. The druid's Wild Shape ability was toned down, so the class is no longer ridiculously overpowered. The paladin received a second build option, the Oath of Vengeance. This bad-ass build is much like the 4e avenger class and looks to be a ton of fun to play. I may well have found my first D&D Next character!

The Last Packet Is Here

This is it! If you want to participate in the D&D Next playtest, click here to download the final playtest packet.

Last Call! (For Real This Time)

The final-final-final D&D Next playtest packet will be released tomorrow, October 15. I'll post the link as soon as the new files are available. I hope you'll join me in reviewing these files and providing feedback to the development team.

Kre-No?

Okay, that was a lame title for the post. However, I stand by the sentiment. After perusing the D&D Kre-O images, I'm concerned by the distinct lack of both dungeons and dragons. Sure, they have Kre-O mini-figs for Drizzt and other prominent D&D characters, but overall the sets look more like knock-offs of the Lego Lord of the Rings line. Most of the sets are towers and siege engines. That stuff is cool, but where are the iconic D&D monsters? Where are the fiendish traps? I want to build my own Temple of Elemental Evil, not Helm's Deep.

Kre-O D&D

At last, some further news (and pictures!) of the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons Kre-O building sets. Click here to see 'em!

Upcoming Art

Check it out here...some previews of upcoming Pathfinder comic book art!

Yet Another PACG Review

Yes, here's yet another glowing review of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Folks, I've said it before, but this is an absolutely fantastic game product and you should really give it a try.

How Flat Is Too Flat?

After all the problems we saw with the aggressive scaling of bonuses in 4e, I'm very much in favor of the flat math system they're using for D&D Next. But how flat is too flat? With the new proficiency system that I discussed the other day, characters receive a flat proficiency bonus to attack rolls using weapons with which they are proficient. This means that if a fighter and a wizard are both proficient with a given weapon, they will have the same attack bonus unless one character has a higher Strength (for melee) or Dexterity (for ranged) bonus. Obviously, the fighter is much more likely to have the higher bonus, but it seems to me that the fighter needs to be inherently better than the wizard at fighting; his superiority should not be solely a function of a higher ability score bonus. Maybe we need to resurrect THAC0 after all...