trashcondor

Personally I enjoy action-RPGs; specifically (currently) Grim Dawn. It's hard, it's fun, it's a theorist's wet dream.

*cough* I'd like to raise the thing about that one villain where the battle is void on a roll of 1-or-2. There are several of us (there's dozens of us! dozens!) that experience 6+ streaks on that villain. I don't recall encountering him and having less than 4 checks before the encounter was resolved.

I'm not an expert on PACG by a long shot; but with cards such as the Vicious Trident one should also consider that there may be existing (or future!) card interactions that can actually make the drawback a desirable feature. In Magic: The Gathering it is quite common to find a card that is weak in most context - but can be extremely potent when the right card interaction comes along. Something like: "When Hero is dealt damage recharge a random card from your discard pile." or "Whenever Hero is dealt force damage, add 1d8 to all checks until end of turn." So even if no positive interaction exists yet, that doesn't preclude favorable interactions existing in the future.

Loved the scenario. Beware! Black Magga is on the loose!

Nice! I've been looking forward to this ^_^ Sajan! What are you doing!? You're a monk! Don't get drunk! Aww heck

I did enjoy the solo-Sajan (monk) experience. Some of the thinks Sajan says dead-pan just crack me up: Nualia: Is this the best Sandpoint could do? Sajan: The best? Perhaps.

With bigger parties you need to very aggressively explore using abilities. It's quite challenging. Luck, and being thrifty with your location choices, go a long way there; as Papa Boris nicely demonstrates in his videos. Edit: Oh!! And temporarily closing locations is a big thing in big parties.

The game is quite hard for a beginner if you have a full group (since you have limited time). Try to do a scenario with a party of 1 character initially, that is considerably easier as the turn-pressure is reduced a lot. However, I also suggest you watch a sample play by Papa Boris in Brigandoom on Youtube which helped me a lot in understanding big-party dynamic in the game.

My suggestion on this: give XP for defeating banes/barriers and keep that even when not finishing the scenario - but if you finish the scenario increase the gained XP by a multiplier. The multiplier would depend on difficulty. For example x1.5 (normal), x1.75 (heroic), x2.0 (legenday). That way existing XP gain can be reduced on banes/barriers which is kept even on defeat or forfeit. But on victory the XP is increased by 50/75/100% Edit: that also means that banes/barriers can grant the *same* XP at normal and legendary levels - the only XP difference is granted on victory. That indirectly makes higher difficulty levels harder.

Okay! Updated the cards (in opening post); now Mikail only gets free exploration if he acquires a weapon or item normally (not automatically). Edit: wrong edit!

I'll mull it over and revise the exploration perhaps.

Not just "magic", all cards with the magic trait. That is every +1 weapon, every +1 armor, and a lot of items. Especially at higher levels you can expect pretty much all weapons and armors and most items to have the magic trait.

Yea, it isn't really that hard to keep track of. The idea is that any weapon/item that you acquire with that ability will be banished by the end of the turn. Either because it "times out" at the end of the turn, or because when the card would be buried, discarded or recharged you banish it instead (any ability activated by burying/discarding/recharging still happens). Yes, but it would only be 5 *due* to the ability, the other explorations any character would've gotten for free anyway. Here's Ezren, he basically has the same ability but keyed to spells as well as items, weapons, and armor with the "magic" trait. Of course he does not acquire them automatically, but then again his acquisitions aren't temporary either. (Of course Mikail can also chose to acquire a weapon normally, then he wouldn't have to banish it - after all you don't want to just throw away the +3 demonbane trident of the gods.)

hmmm, that is true - but how prevalent are those locations? Realistically there will be maybe 5 weapons/items at such locations meaning only 5 "free" blessings would be added. I don't consider that a problematic issue, it's similar to sending Ezren to the Academy. Some heroes are well-suited to certain locations. Is it really VERY broken or merely very good, albeit situational?

I think there's precedence for using a glowy purple or/and orange for super ultra rares

I feel that I've learned a lot from my first idea (Mikiko) - and have designed a new monk: Mikail. The basic idea is a martial artist of the Jackie Chan school of "fight with anything you can get your hand on" (i.e. an improvised weapon master). Edit: adjusted the main ability; Mikail only gets a free exploration when he acquires a weapon or item normally (not automatically) The role "Storm Spirit" comes from a design element out of Monk Unfettered. It's the kitchen sink approach to weaponized combat, inspired by "Archer" from Fate Stay Night:

I'm in with pancakes, but I'll have to add that I've run into a variety of "pancakes". My vote specifically goes to French-style crepes and boere pannekoek. The later is a version of pancakes made by South Africans (particularly common at church markets, hence also known as "kerk bazaar pannekoek"). They are simple but delicious:

Ah! Thanks a lot elcoderdude ^_^ - I'll keep that in mind

Well I'm learning. I'm planning a second character currently, while Mikiko stews in the cauldron of balance.

I don't know how good the "end game" power level is; I assume it's "pretty good" However, keep in mind that if you play her like that you get one exploration. And then you're done. You cannot play blessings while they are displayed, no discarded blessings on your dice, no blessings for your allies, no blessings to explore. And if you get hit by some form of unavoidable damage or forced discard/recharge/bury (Enchanter comes to mind) then suddenly your omnipotence falters. From my (limited) experience in Pathfinder Adventures with a team of 6, each character's turn needs to cover a lot of ground and each character needs to be meaningful for other characters too, a selfish Mikiko will not do that much to ensure a victorious scenario. Edit: the displayed blessings last until the end of your turn (when your hand resets) - but you can in principle display them straight away after that (so they'd apply during other characters' turns too).

I'm not new to board games, but my design work has up to now been mostly on Magic the Gathering, Pathfinder and DotA. I love the design space for PACG however, it's fresh and new for me. I've "finalized" my ideas for Mikiko and screenshotted the design-time images over at drivethrucards; so I can finally show a "complete" set of cards. Enjoy: Edit: I suspect the Sensei may be too strong.

I seek to learn That is why I like discussions such as this. I'll ponder everything some more and see what ideas I can come up with; thanks!

So you'd rather save your two blessings for the combat? That is fine - but in that case wouldn't Sajan's ability to recharge the two blessings be a better option (to get 3d10 no less)? Unless you are specifically facing a foe that requires multiple checks - but even then you could rely on your party to make the other checks in Sajan's case.

Since I tend to play with small parties; I tend to think of the power as a lot more situational. A solo-Mikiko that has to ration her blessings over up to 30 turns is quite different from a 6-man party where Mikiko gets 5 turns. Furthermore, as da_mayor points out there is a trade-off between powering up checks vs the ability to explore. Still, rather than thinking about alternatives to the mechanic - what would you suggest is a reasonable balance to make the suggested mechanic work? My current thought is to have one of the displayed blessings be buried at the end of turn. Here's another suggestion to address the power level: "When you fail a check discard all displayed blessings." Now consider your 2d8 check. Do you feel confident you can make that DC 10? Or even DC 7? How many blessings do you want to risk? If you put in more now, then you'll definitely have to discard them by the end of your turn. Do you cut your losses or go all in?

That is intentional, after all her primary skill is quite powerful so other aspects of her need to balance that out. She'll still start out each scenario with (at least) one basic spell, which is adequate.