da_mayor

TLDR: Burying your ally is not GOOD, but it can sometimes gain you good things. The Villain doesn't move about randomly... Only when you fight him and fail to corner-and-defeat him. You can play the game with a single character. Each character has Skills, Powers (which can be used over and over), and a deck of Boons with which to do their thing. They develop by adding flat pluses to their skills (Skill Feat), updating and potentially adding new powers (Power Feat), adding to the types of boons in their starting deck (Card Feat), or by swapping out the boons in their deck with better ones. Each starting character is "fixed", as are the options to advance (Merisiel can add up to four Skill Feats to her Dexterity, but Kyra can't add more than one). However, there are more options than feats rewarded, so several people may develop the same character different ways. You start with two free characters (Kyra and Merisiel) and can purchase the other 9 with in-game gold or real money. Each Scenario has a list of locations used. Each location has a fixed deck list. The first thing *I* consider is, "which character will be best to close this location?" Next, I think about who can best acquire the listed boons, and who can handle any "While at this location" conditions best. If you take your whole party to one location at a time, and you encounter the Villain, you can't temporarily close the other locations to corner it. But some characters work best around others (Bards!) so it's all part of the strategy. Yeah, that was the short version. Ok, so, one at a time. I may be telling you things you already know, but bear with me. ----- Burying your ally... The tutorial mentioned the may ways to "play" a card. Reveal, Display, Recharge, Discard, Bury, and Banish. Those are GENERALLY in order of preference, based on the idea that your Hand and your Deck together represent your current Health. You die when you have to draw a card from your deck and there are no cards left. The most common time for this to happen is when you're resetting your hand up to your hand size at the end of your turn. Having cards in your hand prevents you from having to draw so many cards from your deck. With that in mind: "Reveal" means to just show that the card is in your hand. It stays in your hand. This means you can use it again at the immediate next opportunity. "Display" means to move it out of your hand until the card instructions tell you to do something else with it. The "Goodness" of this really depends on this latter development. "Recharge" means to put it on the bottom of your draw deck. You don't get to play it again any time soon, but it stays in your "health" pool "Discard" means to put the card in your discard pile. This takes the card OUT of your "health" pool, but many healing abilities return cards from your Discard pile to your hand or deck. "Bury" means to put the card in that pile of dirt. Only extremely high level abilities can return cards from your Buried pile into play, BUT at the end of the Scenario, the card is availble for rebuilding your deck. "Banish" means to return the card to the game box. The only way to get it back is to encounter the card again (generally by chance) and acquire it normally. I believe the tutorial says NOT to be afraid to bury cards for their powers because boldness is rewarded. Personally, I avoid Bury and Banish powers a lot. To answer your question, Burying an ally isn't GOOD, but there are times when it's worth it. ----- Villains moving around... And some about locations... I'm going to make many generalizations about Scenarios. Just be aware that there are exceptions to most (if not all) of them. A typical scenario card has three main bits of information used to set up the game. There is a list of locations, which tell you which Location cards to set up based on how many characters are playing. Normally, it's two plus the number of characters, so there will be three if there's 1 character, one more for 2, etc. Each location has a "While at this location" condition (special rules that apply to a character who is at that location), a "To Close" condition (the test or action that must be passed/taken to close the location either temporarily or permanently), and "When permanently Closed" text (a triggered action or persistent condtion that exists upon closing the location permanently). It also has a list of (usually) nine cards of the eight types (Monstar, Barrior, Weapon, Armor, Item, Ally, and Blessing) that you mix together to build up that location deck. Then you usually add one more card... The second and third main bits of information on the cards are which Villain(s) and Henchmen will be used for the scenario. The Villain, usually only one, is static. The Henchmen may include unique "named" henchmen and/or generic ones in a list. Typically, you start a pile with a Villain. Then you add unique henchmen in order until the total number of card in your pile equals the number of Locations. If that doesn't happen, start adding generic henchmen until you have the right number. Then you shuffle and add one card from that pile to each location. Then shuffle the location decks. You play as normal. If you defeat a henchman that is drawn from a location deck, you get a chance to close the location "permanently" by filling that location's "To close" requirement. If you can't, or you try and fail, then you generally have to wait until the location is empty of location cards before you can attempt to close that location. (In fact, if the last card of the location deck is the Henchman, and you defeat it, you get two chances to close!) If you succeed, you trigger that location's "When permanently closed" text. The Villain is in one random location. It doesn't move about randomly... Only under certain circumstances. When you defeat a monster or Henchman, it's Banished back to the box. If you fail to defeat a monster or Henchman, it's shuffled back into its location. Villains are handled differently. When you encounter (and don't evade) a Villain, the first thing that the game offers you to do is it temporarily close each occupied open location (other than the one where the Villain was found) by fulfilling its "To close" requirement. This "temp close" only lasts until you are finished with the Villain. This can make you think twice if the requirement is something costly. If you defeat a Villain, the location where you drew the Villain immediately closes (triggering the When permanently closed" text). If there are no other locations that are not closed (either temporarily or permanently), you start a new pile and add blessings from the game box until you have a total number of cards equal to the open locations. (If there's only one, that's just the Villain alone, and the shuffle-animation looks a bit silly.) Shuffle that pile and add one card from it into each open location, then shuffle each of those location decks. (Once that's done, the temporarily closed locations are considered "Open" again. If you FAIL to defeat the Villain, something similar happens. The location where the Villain was drawn stays open. You gather a pile of the Villain and blessings from the Blessings Deck (thus potentially shortening the game) equal to the number of open locations, and shuffle and distribute the cards in the same way above. Note that it might end up in the same location if you don't defeat it. ----- Characters and character development... You can actually play just one character. In another topic, one of the devs challenges anyone to play Lem solo on the hardest setting through all the released scenarios. Each character is "pregenerated" with skills, powers, and a card list. Every character has the skills Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, defined by a die-type. They may have MORE skills based on those first six (Kyra has Wisdom at d12, and Divine listed "Wisdom + 2", so if she has to make a Divine check, she can roll a d12 and add 2). If you don't have a skill on your card, you don't base it on an existing skill at all. You just roll a d4. (If you keep this in mind, it'll explain why dice pools change to d4s when you add bonuses which don't apply to the big six Skills.) You develop these by adding a flat +1 to any roll based one of the big six every time you gain a "Skill Feat" as a Scenario, Adventure, or Adventure Path reward. The choices you have are limited (as you can see on the beige-and-blue bards listed on the Skills tab of your character sheet), but every character has 15 total possibilties, and the entire Adventure Path won't reward you that many, so different folks may take the same characters and develop them differently. Powers are wide and varied. They include the size of your character's hand and any proficiencies with Weapons or Armor, but then they can get very individualized. This must have been one of the bigger Dev nightmares, coding each and every power. Most characters start with two or three powers on top of their Hand Size and Proficiencies. Every character has four ways to improve their powers through "Power Feat" rewards. (There will come a point in the future where you will choose one of two Roles for your characters, which further specializes them... Each will add 8 more possible power feats. We're still two adventure-releases out from when that'll become useful.) Again, there tend to be more feats available than awarded. Your starting deck consists of 15 cards. Its composition comes from a fixed set of quantities and boon types that comes with the starting character (Kyra has three spells and one Item, Merisiel has zero spells and six items, etc). As you progress, you can earn "Card Feats" that will let you choose to increase the quantity of one boon type by one. This increases your starting "health" by one and is generally highly prized. Each character has 10 possible upgrades, but again, Card Feats are few and far between. The actual make-up of your starting deck can change every single scenario. The numbers and types don't change (unless you get a Card Feat), but the individual boons do. Before you start your first scenario, you can build your deck from any boons with the "B" deck number that have the "Basic" trait on the left side. Otherwise you get the "default" deck (which, in most cases, I find horrible). After a Scenario, you go through the boons you've acquired, plus the cards you started with (minus any you've banished) and rebuild your fifteen (or more) card deck. You can trade freely with the other characters, and everything you don't end up using is returned to the game box. I'm told you can freely pull from those same Basic boons each time you rebuild your deck up until you complete Black Fang's Dungeon and/or start on Attack on Sandpoint, but I've never checked. After that point, you only get to choose from Basics when you've ended a Scenario and, from among all the characters who played, there aren't enough boons of a single type to build your deck (if you banished more spells than you acquired, for example). Once you've been playing for a while, there are certain boons that you will rabidly try to acquire, like the Holy Light spell for clerics and bards, or the Deathbane Light Crossbow +1 for anyone whose Dexterity is better than their Strength... As I said above, you always have unlimited access to Kyra and Merisiel. The other nine (Lem the Bard, Valeros the Fighter, Harsk the Ranger, Seoni the Sorcerer, Ezren the Wizard, Amiri the Barbarian, Lini the Druid, Sajan the Monk, and Seelah the Paladin) can be purchased with in-game gold (which can, in turn, be purchased with real cash, or earned by playing relentlessly). If you get the "Character Add-on Deck" (listed in the store), you get the last four I listed bundled in. If you get the Season Pass, you immediately get all eleven characters, all the boons in the Character Add-on Deck access to all the Adventures (7 total, B thru 6) as they are released, and some promo cards (boons and banes, I believe), which seem to be exclusive to the Season Pass. You can have multiple iterations of each character, as near as I can tell. Basically, you can start a party fresh with un-advaced characters and basic decks, or build parties with advanced characters, though I haven't messed with that much. ----- Location-base strategy... As I mentioned, the first thing I consider when I start thinking about sending a character to a given location is, "which character is best able to meet the closing condition?" For example, the Wooden Bridge required a Dexterity or Stealth check to close, so Merisiel's my best option for that. Next, I consider the banes and boons in the location deck and see who might be best to defeat/acquire them. For example, the Academy has a lot of Spells. Lem has both Arcane AND Divine skills, and thus wouldn't be bad there... Sometimes, the "While at this location" condition might be something like, "At the start of your turn, succeed at a Constitution or Fortitude 90 check or die a horrible, painful death" (I don't have an actual example in front of me, so I rely on hyperbole.) I might send my character who has the best Constitution or Fortitude to that location, even if they were otherwise poorly suited to deal with those banes/boons at and/or close that location. There isn't much more to day about bunching your party up. If you're all at the same location, then each character can give one card to one other character at the beginning of every turn. But that only works between characters at the same location. Similarly (I haven't tested this in PA, but in the physical card game) when it comes time to temp-close a location, EACH character at an open location can opt to take a crack at the "To close" condition until someone succeeds. Some boons can apply to the character playing it OR anyone at their location (potions, especially, can be used that way). But some banes do damage to everyone at a given location. Some things cause everyone at a location to summon and encounter a bane. And if everyone spreads out, you can win the Scenario more quickly once you close two locations, because if one of you encounters the Villain, you have enough people to temp-close ALL the other locations, leaving it no escape if it's defeated, and only one place to which to escape if it isn't. Knowing where the Villain is helps tremendously. So, these are all things to consider when you build your strategy. I'm playing a game with Lem, Seoni, and Merisiel using the physical cards, and we've had REAL trouble keeping Seoni alive. So, our plan next time is for Lem to hang with Seoni and use his Bard Song power to recharge cards left and right to help her checks while also making sure she's an optional target for his Cure spells, while Merisiel goes off alone where she can use her Back Stab with impunity. Ok, if there's a max-post-size, I've probably tripled it. Now to see if everything I've said has been explained more concisely while I was typing up this novel...

As a workaround, selecting characters is a bit easier if you drag upwards slightly and see the icon move before dragging downwards. That's kept Android from thinking that I want the drag-down menu... As for dice, if I start to swipe the dice and pause, apparently the act of holding my finger on the dice rolls them (much to my chagrin). Passing on boons is useful if you have to banish a boon, and would prefer to replace it with something useful from the Basic list rather than something useless (Arcane spell for a Divine caster, for example) that someone picked up by accidentally rolling high on a check. I didn't realize that I could edit my deck after the very first time I created my party, and when I made my SECOND party, I forgot to edit my decks and ended up with a bunch of useless stuff. I LOVED being able to banish stuff to close locations with the intent to replace them with selected Basics, but I was thwarted on a few occasions... I, also, am loving the game, though my fiancée and I are learning the joys of pass-and-play. No shuffling!!!

Would you like answers to those questions, or is this primarily a tool to help the devs see the game from a less-informed eye? (Or both?)

I noticed this as well. I'm guessing that characters and games are stored locally on the device. On another topic, I surmised that the server resources necessary to store every game by every player would significantly raise operation costs.

It looks like saves parties on the local device. I noticed the same thing between my Nexus 10 and my HTC One M9. However, my "unlocks" definitely carry over. Can't blame them, since the amount of server resources it would take to store every customer's games would be somewhat significantly larger than storing them locally.

Also, I've found just putting my finger on the dice and holding it there rolls. (This is actually a problem, because I do this when I'm rethinking my strategy...)

Found it during a break at work. Cleverly hidden under the big button labeled "VAULT". Thanks!

I've mentioned this on two other different topics. Any time you get to take something out of your Discard pile, you have to drag it to your hand to "Draw" or to your deck to "Recharge". I suggested that buttons would be more intuitive.

A little more elaboration on the rules-side... Handing other characters cards is somewhat restricted. At the beginning of your turn, before your "move" phase, you have the option to give one card to one other character at your location. As 269Hawkmoon noted, this is represented by the hand-holding-a-card icon just to the left of the compass rose that lets you move. Once you've moved or explored, this is no longer an option and you need to wait for another turn.

Dragging up first, THEN down helped me get around this.

My problem was that when I drag down from the top of the screen, my tablet thinks I want a pull-down menu to see any alerts or use quick-find features. Like ZFlyGuy, I found that if I drag up first, THEN down, it worked better.

I purchased the bundle on my Google Nexus 10. All the characters are available on my HTC One M9. It appears, like the gold, to be unlocking things on Playfab.

There's a place where you can view all the cards in your Vault? I've only been able to see the Basics when I'm building a new deck... How do you see 'em all?

I'm playing on an old Google Nexus 10 and an HTC One M9 phone. I LOVE this game. It is taking all my willpower not to play it at work. I've played the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (PACG) a LOT, so much of it was intuitive for me. My only issue (Which I've mentioned else-post) was that for the most part, I became accustomed to the touch-and-get-buttons interface, but there are a few points where drag-and-drop are the only options (specifically when you can choose cards to pull from your Discard pile). This was counter-intuitive to me, as I wanted to touch the cards in the discard pile, have it zoom in, and get a "Draw" or "Recharge" button. It took me a while to realize (thanks to the helpful glowing-bits) that I needed to take an un-zoomed card and drag it to my hand or deck, as appropriate. I read the dialogues the first time, but I find myself more drawn to the play than the plot, so I skip the dialogues. I was going to watch them again once I'd unlocked my first character (Lem, though I've since caved and bought the bundle), but my fiancée and I play pass-and-play, and she's even less of a plot-person than *I* am, so we skip when we play together. Immediately after the last game I played, I bought the bundle. I look forward to playing with new characters tonight! Perhaps I'll have more input then.

My only confusion with this is, for the MOST part, drag-and-drop is optional. Mostly, I can touch a card and get buttons for all my options. This is how I became accustomed to playing. However, the interface when you pull stuff from your discard pile (one of the starting Bard abilities lets you do this) required you to drag cards to your hand (if "drawing") or deck (if "recharging"). Gave me a few minutes confusion before I worked it out. Making the options a bit more universal would be more intuitive.

I have played on both my Android phone and Android tablet. I unlocked Lem with Gold on my tablet, and he became available on my phone.

I'm playing on my HTC One M9. It helps being near-sighted, that's for sure, but I'm still having a great time with it, fat fingers and all.

I play the physical game a lot, so I knew this going in. But I gotta say, I took a party of Kyra, Merisiel, and Lem through the B and 1 Scenarios, and the FIRST power feat for ALL of them was Weapon Proficiency. (Then, of course, I played a new party and forgot that Merisiel no longer had Proficiency, and didn't establish the pattern that combat difficulties skyrocketed when I pulled out the Shock Longbow +1. I felt appropriately foolish.)

Had the same problem with Merisiel. Glad to hear it's a known bug and not just The Plan.

The main reasons *I* wanted to pass on boons is, if I'm playing Kyra and Merisiel, and I'm forced to banish a Divine spell, then I can look forward to pulling a basic out of the box. UNLESS I'm past Black Fang's Dungeon, and someone in the group has acquired (by virtue of a lucky Intelligence check) acquired an Arcane spell (or even a crappy Divine spell like Mending). Then I HAVE to put that in my deck. So, yeah, I don't want anyone to acquire stuff I'll have to include in my deck later in a scenario where there are a buncha locations where "banish a <card/boon/blessing/whatever>" is the close requirement. My strategy is to banish stuff I can replace easily with Basics. This is true of ALL kinds of cards, but the Spells thing was an obvious example.

Google Nexus 10 handles it fine, as does my HTC One M9 phone. Keep 'em plugged into a charger, BTW. SERIOUS power pull. And TOTALLY worth it. B-)

I can only speak from my experience playing the physical game, but the cards provided by the treasure chests aren't any C or Promo cards I've ever seen. I believe they are unique to the video game, and they're only from the Chests. Except for one, actually. The Troubador is in the Bard Class Deck (which isn't yet available for PA)...

Indeed. If you read the rules for the physical game, you're only supposed to rebuild your decks out of cards collected by your party members. Only if ALL those cards are inadequate to rebuild your various decks do you get to dig through the Basics. So SERIOUSLY, find that Deck button and adjust your decks EVERY time you start new characters, or you'll be DYING for excuses to banish cards. Kyra's spells are horrible. I'm much happier giving her nothing but Cures.

Other than the insane power consumption (which is, for the quality of the game, pretty understandable), my HTC One M9 runs it fine.

Lem gets a little shorted (heh) on the primary skills, but his secondary skills are awesome. Also, she's a he. B-) I've played Lem, now, and he's fairly awesome, but DEFINITELY manipulate his deck before his first Scenario. They always give you CRAP spells to start.