Choosing Roles in ‘PACG: Mummy’s Mask’

Now that we’ve completed Deck 3 in Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Mummy’s Mask, we get to choose role cards, gaining new powers and abilities for the rest of the adventure. With summer vacation travel and Curtis’ book launch for Kangaroo Too, our adventures are on hold for a little bit, so I figured I’d tell you about our newly upgraded party.

I’ll show our new roles in the same order as I introduced our Mummy’s Mask party when we first began.

Tup: Bale-Flame of Naughtiness

Okay, there’s really no way Cathe couldn’t have picked this role for Tup, simply based on the name.

The first thing you’ll notice about Tup’s role card is that his hand size increases dramatically. Most characters increase by one per power feat—Tup’s hand size now can jump from 7 to 9 to 11… He’ll have to be careful not to take a lot of damage, or he could be wiped out in a turn.

Tup’s ability to banish a card to throw a big fireball spell can now be boosted, adding 1d6+1 on top of the 1d8. Tup also gets better at assisting other characters without setting them on fire so much. He can now upgrade to do 1d4-4 Fire damage to other players, thus negating the damage.

He has a new power for checks that invoke Fire: he can recharge a card to add a d8, but then afterward takes 1d4 Fire damage himself—though he does have the opportunity to take a feat that reduces Fire damage to himself by 1. Finally, there’s a new power that lets Tup grab Fire cards from anyone’s discard pile by exchanging one from his hand. Pretty hot stuff.

Cathe liked the idea of using Tup even more to assist other players, so she took the role that lets her do that without damaging us at all. Now, maybe she doesn’t have to hold onto so many Elemental Treaty spells.

If you are not currently on fire, wait 5 minutes.

The other role was “Prince of Darkness.” This one doesn’t increase Tup’s fireball ability quite as much, and also doesn’t reduce Tup’s Fire damage when he assists other players. It’s a little more selfish: when he assists another player, he can shuffle his card into his deck rather than recharging. He also gains two skills, Stealth: Dexterity +3 and Knowledge: Intelligence +3.

Finally, he can gain an ability to evade encounters, and also boost that to explore again by recharging a card if he’s alone. Most of the other goblin characters have been able to evade, but Tup only gains that ability with the Prince of Darkness role.

Yoon: Firestarter

Wait, you say: isn’t Tup a firestarter already? Well, yeah. But we like fire, apparently, and Wink preferred this role.

Yoon’s maximum hand size now increases to 7.

Yoon has an ability to boost combat checks with blessings, adding her considerable Fortitude skill and Fire by shuffling a blessing back into her deck. Now she can also do the same with Fire cards, and if she discards additional cards they get even more powerful if they have the Fire trait.

She has two other new powers: first, she can recharge a card to add 1d10 to Charisma checks (and later, Disable checks). Also, she can bury an ally to evade encounters—later, she can also bury allies to reduce damage to 0. So, basically, she throws her allies into harm’s way.

Wink has been using Yoon’s blessings abilities a lot to boost combat, and so it makes sense to be able to do even more with those, though it does mean being more limited to Fire instead of other elements.

You can extinguish a fire, but you can’t extinguish the idea of a fire.

The role that Wink turned down was the Pan-Elementalist, which gives her more flexibility with different elements. For instance, now when she boosts combat checks with blessings, she can add Fire, Acid, Cold, or Electricity, and add the traits of extra cards discarded. She can also reduce elemental damage by even more, and gains bonuses for checks that invoke elements. Finally, at the start of her turn, she can swap cards from her hand with elemental cards (or blessings) from her discard pile.

Estra: Ectoplasmatist

Because “Yelp Reviewer” wasn’t an option.

Estra’s maximum hand size also goes up to 7 now.

Her peeking-ahead skill increases, from 2 cards to 3 cards, and she will be able to reveal spells and blessings to reduce damage instead of recharging them. When she acquires or defeats Undead cards, she gets a free exploration.

She also gets really buff—or maybe Honaire’s ectoplasm is getting stronger. She can recharge a card to roll a d10 + the adventure deck number in place of her Strength or Dexterity, making her among the toughest in our party physically. Plus, on a combat check, she can add another 1d8. Also, she can reveal allies to assist in other player’s combat checks at her location.

Our party hasn’t had a lot of physical strength. Yoon and Tup have good dexterity, but only Ahmotep had anything greater than a d6 for strength. (Mavaro could have a d10 for either… if he had the right card in his hand at the time.) So giving Estra the power to roll a d10 for either seems like a great bonus.

Ectoplasm is not to be feared. We will all be ectoplasm eventually.

Curtis’ other choice for Estra was Speaker to the Dead, which lets her peek at other location decks, and potentially reshuffle them. She’s able to reduce damage for other players, and may draw cards at the start of her turn. She can also use Undead allies to add 1d10 to various checks by others at her location.

Mavaro: Acquisitor

Mavaro really likes stuff, so DeeAnn chose the role that lets him get more stuff.

His hand size can go up to 8 now, and he can also gain proficiency with Heavy Armors, the only one in our party with that potential.

It’s even easier now for him to help himself and other players acquire cards—he can now recharge instead of discarding a card. When he acquires a weapon, armor, or item, he can discard a card to explore again. He also has a weird ability when resetting his hand: he can set aside any number of items, reset his hand, and then put all the items back into it. Basically, it means that his hand size doesn’t have to include items, which he can always just carry with him—probably stuffed into all those little pockets on his utility belt. Finally, he can manipulate his Intelligence checks by burying (or later, discarding) weapons, armors, or items.

Mavaro is great at getting stuff, and helping the rest of us get stuff. Hopefully, his new powers will let us improve our decks more easily, making us all stronger.

If you can imagine what you want, you can attain it. Even if its owner imagines you can’t.

Mavaro’s other role was a Channeler, which makes him more of a spellcaster. He can gain spells more easily in addition to weapons, armor, and items. Against banes, he can recharge certain Magic cards to summon random attack spells, and can gain both Arcane and Divine skills. Finally, he can discard items to re-roll Intelligence checks.

Ahmotep: Eldritch Scion

For Ahmotep, I chose the Eldritch Scion.

Her maximum hand size can now go up to 9.

Her ability to manipulate results has increased—now, instead of changing the results by 2, she can change it by the adventure deck number. She can also discard a card to remove or re-roll any 1 die—later, she can increase that to 2 dice.

She also gains some new spell-based abilities. When she uses spells for powers on a staff, she can now put the spell on top of her deck, which means she’ll get it back soon (and can use it again). She can also swap spells out with her discard pile, and can boost that to recharge spells to draw spells from her discard pile.

Since Ahmotep can help others with her dice manipulation abilities and is one of the few characters who can do so, I felt it might be good to increase those powers.

You can read a book of magic if you like. The eldritch scions are all the learning they need.

Ahmotep’s other choice was Staff Magus, which I’d thought about before—I have been collecting Staff cards, both weapons and items. The Staff Magus can boost combat by 1d12 instead of 1d8 using Staff cards, and can also do the same with spells. She can also swap Staff cards from her discard pile, or boost the power to recharge a Staff to get a Staff out of the discard pile. Later, she can also treat any Fire cards as Staff cards for this power. Finally, she can boost Diplomacy and Knowledge checks by recharging cards.

Our Previous Adventures

In case you missed them, you can read the rest of the posts in my series on the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Mummy’s Mask:

• Party On! (Forming our party)
• Deck 0: Base Set Adventure
• Deck 1: “The Half-Dead City”
• Deck 2: “Empty Graves”
• Deck 3: “Shifting Sands”

And tune in next time for Deck 4: “Secrets of the Sphinx”!

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