I’m planning to tell you a little bit more about our regular Pathfinder Adventure Card Game sessions, maybe with a recap after each adventure path, but today I’ll start from the beginning: a proper introduction to our party.
I already mentioned our height-challenged party in the last post: Balazar the gnome summoner (me), Adowyn the human hunter (Curtis), Shardra the dwarf shaman (Wink), Enora the halfling arcanist (DeeAnn), and Ekkie the goblin fighter (Cathe).
I described my character Balazar briefly already, but let’s take a closer look.
Balazar is a male gnome summoner. Part of the reason I picked him is that I think he’s the only character I’ve seen so far who doesn’t have a d4 in any attribute–no dump stats here! Although that does mean he has a lot more d6s. He’s strongest in Charisma (d10), which then gets boosted +2 for Arcane. He also has decent Intelligence (d8) with +2 Knowledge, although so far I haven’t seen that come up quite as much.
If you just look at Balazar’s card, you see that he can discard spells to draw random monsters from the box, and when you defeat monsters and would banish them you may also add them to your hand. Starting off, you can banish these monsters to draw cards–but eventually you can also use them to boost checks against barriers or to acquire boons.
His big ability, though, is tied to Padrig, his eidolon cohort. You always add your cohort to your hand after drawing your initial hand, so Padrig is always there from the start, and as far as I can tell, he’s nigh invincible because he gets displayed and then just sits there. Whenever I attempt a Strength check without using a weapon, I can put a card back on top of my deck to add my Arcane skill plus the current deck number to that check. I can also banish monsters from my hand to add dice to the check, and if I’m encountering a monster, I can add even more dice if the banished monster shares a trait with the encountered monster.
Basically it means that I love fighting monsters, because I use Strength plus Arcane, and I can throw monsters at them, and if I win, I get new monsters to replace the ones I threw away. It also means that I burn through my life more slowly because I’m putting cards back on top of my deck–although it also means I don’t draw new cards as quickly. The Strength boost also means I’m pretty good at acquiring Melee weapons, even though I can’t use them well.
Curtis is playing Adowyn, the female human hunter, who has a wolf cohort named Leryn. Or, as we like to call them, Addie and Lerry. She’s is all about the Dexterity (d12), with +1 Ranged and +2 Stealth. She’s also pretty good at Wisdom (d8), with a +1 Divine and +3 Survival. Her starting skill lets her search her deck or discard pile for a cohort, and then recharge a card. This one can be boosted to work for any animal card. She can also recharge a card to evade a summoned bane–this one can be boosted to let her help other characters also.
Leryn can be displayed to examine the top card of your location deck, and once Adowyn gets a role card, Leryn can examine the top 2 cards. While Leryn is displayed, he can be shuffled into the deck to boost combat checks. Or, while he’s displayed, you can recharge another card to put Leryn back into your hand. We found that using Adowyn to scout ahead is really helpful, particularly since she generally benefits from having Leryn displayed. For one, he can then be used for that combat boost when needed, but he can always be pulled back out of the deck (or discard) if he doesn’t get drawn in the next hand.
Wink is playing Shardra, the female dwarf shaman. As you’d expect from a dwarf, Shardra has strong Constitution (d10) and +2 Fortitude. She’s also strong in Wisdom (d10) with +3 Divine and +2 Wisdom. She can recharge spells to let people re-roll on a failed check, and she can also examine the top card of her location deck whenever she succeeds at a Knowledge check. Later, this can be boosted to 2 cards or for any location.
Shardra has a cohort, Kolo the divine spirit … lizard. At least, that’s what he looks at. He can be revealed to add 3 to Shardra’s already impressive Knowledge skill. He can also be recharged to boost a check to defeat a barrier or close a location. However, Shardra doesn’t have any special way to get Kolo back into her hand once he’s in the deck, and also doesn’t have any good way of preventing him from being discarded as damage. With Shardra’s re-roll ability, though, we’ve found that it’s important to make sure she has plenty of spells in hand. And to have her share locations with other people, so that her abilities can help others and not just herself.
DeeAnn is playing Enora, the female halfling arcanist. Enora has superb Intelligence (d12) with +1 Arcane, +1 Craft, and +3 Knowledge. She has decent Charisma also (d8) but all of her extra skills are tied to Intelligence. Her first skill is that when she’s trying to acquire spells, she can use Knowledge instead. Whenever she plays spells, she can recharge a random spell from her discard pile, so even the ones she fails to recharge automatically will eventually come back. Finally, she can use spells to prevent Cold and Fire damage–this can be boosted later to prevent Acid, Electricity, and Force damage, and also protect other characters at her location.
Because Enora is so good at acquiring and recharging spells, she’s been able to live on the edge a little. DeeAnn has definitely inhabited the role of someone “driven by curiosity” and will explore even if she has little life left and only a spell or two in her hand. And she’s not dead yet.
Finally, meet Ekkie the goblin. We had so much fun with Ranzak in Skull & Shackles that I couldn’t pass up a chance to include another goblin character this time around. Turns out if you didn’t get Ekkie as a freebie on Free RPG Day, you can still buy her from Paizo, so I figured it would make a fun birthday present for Cathe.
Ekkie is a female goblin cutpurse–and she’s a fighter! Her Strength is a d8 with +2 for Melee, and her Dexterity is a d10, making her pretty good with ranged weapons as well. She’s got Acrobatics and Stealth, and pretty good Charisma, too. (A charming goblin? Who knew?) Her Wisdom is a dismal d4, but that’s to be expected. She starts off with a bonus against Animals and Basic cards, and eventually will be able to boost that to any card from an earlier deck than the current scenario.
Like Ranzak, she’s also good at evading–but in this case, she can evade any encounter to shuffle it into a random open location. Finally, she has a life-burning ability: any time she discards a card, she may draw a card. It means Ekkie has a good way of prolonging her turn, because there’s a chance she’ll draw another Blessing or Ally that lets her go again … but it also puts her that much closer to death. Oh, and her role choices, when we get that far, are Poodlekiller and Guttersnipe. I think Cathe is already leaning toward Poodlekiller.
One note: while I was able to find miniatures for all of the other characters at my local game store (they’re metal Reaper Miniatures), Ekkie is a promo character and doesn’t seem to have a pre-made mini. So Tim was able to create a personalized version, starting with a goblin from We Be Goblins!, a set of miniatures designed for a Pathfinder RPG module.
So, that’s our team! We’re close to finishing the initial adventure path, so I’ll give you a recap after we finish.
