Duplicate cards in location decks?

[Thyraxus]

I have, on multiple occasions, encountered duplicate cards. And it's not just randomness, it happens in cases where it should be absolutely impossible to run into two instances of the same card.

 

Primary example: I have, on multiple occasions, encountered two Nightbelly Boas in the same location of the "Here Comes the Flood" scenario - something which should never happen, because there should only ever be exactly one of them per location according to the rules of the scenario. And yes, I definitely defeated them, so the second Boa wasn't just the first having been shuffled back in after a failed combat check (they wouldn't get shuffled in anyway, they end up face-up on top of the location if undefeated, so this would really be hard to be mistaken).

 

Something in the deck shuffling algorithm seems to be duplicating cards (in location decks, at least; character decks seem to be unaffected).

 

Unfortunately, because this is so random, there are no definite steps to reliably reproduce this phenomenon. All I can say is, try playing the "Here Comes the Flood" scenario (over and over), because that is the one where it is definitely noticeable when you encounter two Boas in the same location.

 

I believe it is not something specific to this single scenario, because I think I noticed a suspiciously high frequency of "card twins" in the location decks of other scenarios as well (more than pure randomness would suggest possible), but in those cases it's not as easily proven that they aren't just weird coincidences after all.

 

It just happened to me again, in two locations of the same run of "Here Comes the Flood".

 

Device type: Android

OS: Android 7 (stock)

Model: Nexus 6P

Game version: VER-669-20161018

PFID: 37F8FE96F765266B

 

Story mode, normal difficulty, 4 characters (Seelah, Sajan, Harsk and Ezren - but have seen it happen with other party compositions too).

Edited October 26, 2016 by Thyraxus

[Cowplow]

I think in here comes the flood, all of the henchman, allies and blessings(?), get shuffled together and then get distributed to the location decks, so that it's definitely possible and intended that you might find multiple night belly boas in the same location just as you might find extra allies. I'd have to look at the scenario again, but I think this is supposed to work this way in the table top version.

 

You get 1 henchman, ally and blessing per location, but they can end up in any of the decks.

[Hannibal_PJV]

Yep. It is possible to have 3 boas in Flood.

[Thyraxus]

If that's the case, then everyone I ever played the board game version with interpreted that part of the rules wrong, as in to mean that you add 1 random blessing, 1 random ally and one Boa to each location individually and specifically, not that you lump them all together, shuffle them up and add 3 random cards from that lump to each location.

 

That would be a really surprising break to the pattern of "exactly one henchman (or villain) per location" that applies to every other scenario in the game.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Thyraxus

[Ethics Gradient]

If that's the case, then everyone I ever played the board game version with interpreted that part of the rules wrong, as in to mean that you add 1 random blessing, 1 random ally and one Boa to each location individually and specifically, not that you lump them all together, shuffle them up and add 3 random cards from that lump to each location.

Hannibal_PJV is right.  The rules for that scenario are crazier-than-average.  Here's a pic of the scenario card from the paizo blog that explains to combine "Henchmen" selections together first before randomly dealing them out to each location deck.

Edit: Added a link to the paizo blog post the image came from.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Ethics Gradient

[Hannibal_PJV]

Here come Flood is one of my favorite scenarios

Edited October 26, 2016 by Hannibal_PJV