Um, Paizo didn't "buy the open game license" and didn't pay Wizards to be able to make Pathfinder. The entire point of the OGL is that it's an open licence that allows people to make their own games and content using the d20 system mechanics
I love the idea of this video and was looking forward to watching your opinion, I would encourage you to do a bit more research, you can’t play rise of the red skull without the base game. Having lived the move from 3.5 to 4th means that you have wonderful context for your research however it also restricts you. I am looking forward to your future videos and watching you evolve as a content creator
@@RetroMaticGamer Kohdok was correct actually. There’s an optional sub license under the OGL for compatibility purposes. WotC had one during 3e, and people did have to pay to get that compatibility sub license. (Paizo did not, because it’s not mandatory, was counterproductive to what they did with Pathfinder, and was being phased out anyway.) It was called the “d20 System Trademark License.”
"Paizo bought the Open Gaming License, they had to pay Wizards of the Coast for it." I thought they didn't, it was WotC long before that made the OGL to encourage third party support for their D&D game. It included a lot of the basics of how the game run, mainly so that third party supplements could quote relevant parts as reminders. The point was that anybody could publish D&D compatible material, within certain restrictions, without having to seek permission from or pay WotC a fee or royalties. It was mostly mutual respect that kept third parties from pretty much republishing all the OGL rules in one book to compete directly with WotC. It was WotC's abandoning of the system that promoted Paizo to basically do just that, with improvements and fixes along the way.
Exactly, the whole reason that so many companies made OGL products is that they didn't have to pay anything. Not sure how this was misrepresented. It is likely another reason that the push to 4.0 hit as many third party companies products were becoming more popular than WotC's own.
Surprised he didn't mention the biggest design flaw, which is that the total number of turns is fixed at 30 but the number of cards in play changed based on the number of players (20 plus 10 per player) - and this game can play from 1 to 6 players. So a solo player gets 30 turns to explore 30 cards to find the villain, but at a 6 player game, you get 30 turns total (so 5 turns per player) to explore *80* cards to find the same villain. That's impossible to balance around, even factoring in the part of 6 has more cards available to them in their decks.
Selinker is one of the kings of half-baked design, so it checks out that the balance would be ass for anything but one specific player count and a singular play style.
I just kind of blank at "4e not having room for character expression" i saw more out there concepts in 4e than any previous edition. Like oh man, so many. Also 3e had wayyyy more stuff to track, far, far, far, more. (bonus type stacking weeeee.)
8:53 actually you can get cards from the discard pile in multiple ways. It mostly can be described as healing yourself. The iconic cleric Kyra, for example, has a power that allows her to heal herself or a teammate once per turn. There is another action, called bury, that puts cards into the buried pile - and buried cards mostly stay there till the end of the scenario. Although there are several cards that allow you to move cards from the buried pile too.
I got started in 3rd ed D&D, then I actually went back and played a few games of 1st and Advanced/2nd before 3.5 came out then played pretty much nothing but 3.5 until Pathfinder came out and then switched over to that one because I too did not like 4th. I've not played 5th nor have I played Pathfinder 2nd but that's mostly because I don't have a playgroup for either and Adulting gets in the way of things. I've had an idea for a card based campaign board game thing knocking around in my head. I really should work on it. Or any of the other ideas I have. But I lack self discipline and prefer PLAYING games over MAKING them. It's just so much WORK making a game... . Thanks for the video Kohdok.
I did have the same complaits about older versions of PACG, but I will say that the Core Set (aka 2.0) and Curse of the Crimson Throne vastly improved on a lot of these problematic mechanics. I'd recommend giving that set a shot if you haven't already.
Shoutout to Apocrypha, which is very much a spiritual successor to this game made by the same guy, it's just as convoluted, but I can't help but love it as my own solo game that nobody else cares about. I think the scenario based design that gives you 18 missions in just the base box was my draw to the game compared to Arkham or Lotr lcg that both have a short 3-mission campaign and barely functioning player decks unless you start shovelling a lot of money.
So my playgroup played through Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords start to finish and aside from some klunky mechanics we actually quite enjoyed it. We then picked up Wrath of the Righteous and were immediately kicked in the teeth with a difficulty spike! We tried (and failed) four or five times to get through the prologue! They introduced this nasty encounter card where when one player hit it all players had to take the challenge and if *ANYONE* failed it got shuffled back into the deck! We eventually gave up and wished we hadn't bought the full cycle of it before starting. I think you give a fair and balanced overview of the system and its downsides all-in-all, and I can certainly see why you dislike keeping the box out, but I'm kinda surprised that you didn't bring up the difficulty with that one.
I've played over half of RotR and SaS, and looked through the cards for WotR, and yeah, my impression of it is that Runelords is the best one. In Skull and Shackles, they seemed to have forgotten a very important point in designing the Ally cards: The RotR allies you could recruit with a variety of skill checks (for example, impress a guard with your Athletics) instead a Diplomacy/Survival check. In Skull and Shackles, however, the *vast* majority of allies only allowed Diplomacy or Survival, without giving an option for other skills. So when I played with characters that all sucked at Charisma, locations with lots of allies were pretty much useless. As for Wrath of the Righteous, I think they went too far on the grueling aspect of the Fifth Crusade. The characters start the campaign very much the underdog, that's true, but looking at the cards, I'm having trouble seeing how they can possibly prevail. It's possible the campaign gets easier once the Mythic die gets introduced, but good luck getting there
I would like to point out that 4E wasnt modeled after videogames, it was supposed to be the model FOR a video game they were working on as a digital platform but for outside reasons never came to be.
I have one board game that has you keeping components in its box/tin to put into play later in the game (Fallout Shelter) but FS has a WAY smaller box and all of the player components are pre-separated with a pretty good plastic insert (that supports sleeved cards). You can even keep the cubes and single Happiness tokens in the insert and put out the 5 Happiness in a pile on the table. It's a legit good FFG insert in all honesty
D&D 4e was "Videogame like" ... i will never understand that. I mean it's not like D&D 3 and Pathfinder are not like detailed combat simulators and you find forums full of "character builds" like in an MMO :-P and ESPECIALLY the Modules in 3.5 where just "encounter here... and encounter there" something that 4e get's bashed on. Ok the "you have to track so many things during combat" would kinda drive me off but to say "4e was Videogame and MMO" and hailing Pathfinder / 3.5 for NOT being a "ok i NEED this specific build to be good" ... is kinda looking through a retro goggle
This video seemed more like an advertisement for Arkham Horror LCG (yawn….) than an article about PACG. All the criticisms yet he praised AH, the game that doesn’t have any kind of storage solution, no dividers, not even a bag for the chaos tokens and only includes three adventures one of which is literally impossible to complete solo. PACG deserves way more credit.
Huh ? The revised core set fixed literally all of your issues. The old arkham core set, which is what I assume you're talking about) is nearly a decade old, of course it wasn't designed with modern storage sensibilities
As an owner and player of PACG:WotR, the one shown here with maybe 70 or 80 sessions played, nearly all solo and multihanded. Agree it's not an elegant game. Other complaints: 1) there's no fail forward mechanic, when you fail a mission, when you lose a mission, you have to rebuild all the decks and play it again and again until you corner the villain. 2) a few of the enemies (hordes & barriers) scale in difficulty at higher player counts so you'd be hard pressed to actually win some sessions at 4, 5, or 6 players. 3) the intro chapters (B) are more difficult than the level 1 chapters. So difficult that Paizo recommended in the FAQ that players to remove certain cards and play the level one chapters just to leveling up enough to survive the intro. 4) there's practically no narrative connecting chapters 5) even at higher levels, it's a very swingy game I must have enjoyed it enough to play as much as I have but probably wouldn't recommend it at this point. Better dungeon crawlers, better dice chuckers, better LCG/deckbuilders. Also, while it's a Pathfinder game by Paizo, it really doesn't offer anything similar to an RPG experience.
I usually love your videos, but I'm disappointed at the 4e bashing. Puffin's videos vary greatly in quality, but it always feels like he never understood 4e. Anyway, I enjoyed the rest of the video. The way you described the bad guy running away and having to be cornered makes me think of Carmen Sandiego, lol.
There is never understood and there is "probably didn't read the book". Like the whole segment about Detect magic not being a thing in puffin's vid just proves that that vid sould be taken with a truck load of salt, as detect magic IS in the game, just as a arcana skill check. and that's just one of the many things from his that can be debunked by simply opening the first player handbook.
I laughed so hard when you said you 3.5 book was "beat up." I forget my standards are different from others since my copy is literally held together by a few layers of tape and hopes. Same goes for my monster manual.
The Sinister Motives Marvel Champions expansion is ALMOST standalone. To play the villain decks, it’s recommended you add either the ‘standard’ or ‘expert’ modules from the initial release.
got really curious about those Worldwide game day demo adventures,especially the old 3.5 ones and as i searched online there's apparently no trace of any pdf ever made of them so yeah, im ready to sign a petition to ask you kind sir to share the knowledge :)
4e is my favorite version of Dungeons and Dragons, and I have an intense dislike of Pathfinder's mechanics. I am pleased to find that Paizo continues to be bad at the mechanics side of things; if nothing they're consistent. I will give them kudos for trying to be inclusive, including having a trans iconic character well before trans representation started taking off, but they're absolute clown shoes at understanding the game they took it upon themselves to "carry the torch" of.
I dont like the plastic inserts. I much prefer the way the core set is set up. I really like the game though so I'm going back and buying the old stuff..but hate the massive boxes. I can fit core set crimsom throne and wrath of the righteous in the much smaller core box set. So I want to make a box about that size to house the three other adventure paths. All the game in relatively compact boxes
I think your entire history of pathfinder is misinformed. Paizo didn't stay with D&D through the edition change not because they didn't like the looks of it, but rather because 1. they were salty about their contract ending, and 2. they thought they could make more money competing with D&D than making content for it. Well to be fair the writers possibly didn't want to learn a new game either, although it isn't as though 4e is incredibly complicated. The GSL, or Game System License, WotC put in place for 4e didn't help matters either because it was extremely restrictive to work with, and famously obtuse. Make no mistake for a company like Paizo working within it wouldn't have been any sort of hurdle, they just didn't want to. And as others have mentioned as well they didn't "buy" any rights from WotC, the OGL opened the way for a game like Pathfinder from the start to compete with WotC using its own game. D&D 4e was also far from a dud. It outsold pathfinder for its entire life, by a pretty significant margin (can't say the exact sales figures because paizo doesn't publish theirs), it also outsold 3.5 if you'll believe it (but don't take my word for it), and while there was a lot of 4e hate online, most people playing 4e weren't complaining about it online, they were just playing and having a great time! In my college days when 4e came out I was in no less than 4 groups at any given time at our FLGS, my college, the local library, and a friends house. We had a lock in at the library for D&D, and there were nearly 30 people there (in a small Wisconsin town)! Great times. The video game argument, while disingenuous, is generally a moot point. D&D and video games have been stealing ideas from one-another since the dawn of computer gaming.
My LGS also brought in a typical crowd in the double-digits, usually 20 or more, and they switched over to Pathfinder after dealing with 4th ed for a bit. That's where I got my "One Dark Night in Weeping Briar" module, before the switch happened. 4e's problems were enough that the player bleedoff was enough to get a much smaller company to make a successful game that now has spinoffs and official merchandise. And of course 4th ed sold more books. They did to the Player's Handbook what Hollywood did to the Hobbit and made you buy *three* lol. Either way, we have 5th ed now, which cleanly outsold them both, and while it cribs some notes from 4th ed (Specific example: Short Rest abilities) it incorporated back in so much of what people liked from 3.5 (Specific Example: character classes of varying complexity with wider range of expression) that a lot of people switched back over. 5th edition has so much more room for character expression and makes much better use of the free space of person-to-person play in ways 4th just couldn't.
@@Kohdok You keep using the phrase "player expression," what exactly do you mean by that? I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that anecdotal evidence isn't evidence. Your LGS might have gone over to pathfinder, but it would seem from the sales data it would put them in the minority still. Many companies that are smaller than WotC have extremely popular games with spinoffs and merchandise: free league's year zero engine games, runequest, shadowrun, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay just to name a few that come immediately to mind.
@@nicklarocco4178 Aight, I'll define my terms: "Player Expression" is how much control a player has to really build and make the character they have in mind, and how they behave when game mechanics aren't as much involved. The thing about 4th Edition is when you pick a class, you basically pick a primary stat and the rest of your character class is built for you. Which sounds simple, but now every character's playstyle is as complex as the wizard's, so a lot of mechanics without a lot of choice. 5th edition, however, brings back that sliding scale of complexity as well as the subclasses introduced early that promotes a wide variety of play styles. Do you want a Druid who can cast more spells or who turns into more powerful creatures? Is your Paladin one who Smites the Wicked or who Protects the Innocent? The Fighter in particular gets to play with their complexity, with the rough and reliable Champion, the more nuanced and tricky Battle Master, and even dip into spellcasting complexity with Eldritch Knight. But the biggie is "Backgrounds". The classes in 3.5 had pretty defined roles, and 4e hardened those roles(while wiping out expression as stated before). 5th edition, however, did the opposite, tearing the classes in half roughly between what they do in combat and what they do out of combat. You could go with the book suggestion and make a Paladin/Noble, or you can do what I did and make a Paladin/Criminal. Yes, a Lawful Good Paragon of Heroism with the Criminal Contacts feature, and it created a lot of interesting scenarios where my character's past affected their demeanor and reputation, being more frowned upon in high society, but getting along great with more common people, where I feel a Paladin can do the most good. You could make a well-read Fighter/Scholar, or a jaded Druid/Soldier; character roles were blurred and malleable and you could make a true band of misfits. 5e introduced systems that openly embrace that level of creativity and I think it is a huge source of its success. As for Pathfinder, it's pretty much the only big non-D&D TTRPG you'll find in abundance at non-gaming bookstores aside from, as stated in the video, maybe World of Darkness.
@@Kohdok I have to disagree with your assessment. In my experience any edition of D&D is going to reinforce the core class/stat dynamic you say 4e has as a problem. In any edition of D&D a wizard wants high int, and a fighter wants high str. In fact in 0D&D, the primary way to define your class was via your highest stat, because you got an experience bonus for having one. If you rolled a high str you played a fighter, if you rolled a high wis you played a cleric, etc. etc. Even 5e reinforces this stat/class dynamic with spell save DCs being the primary enforcer, but to a lesser extent your primary attack statistic. Again a high str character is going to gravitate towards fighter or barbarian, and not towards wizard or warlock. This is a fundamental part of what makes D&D different from a game like FATE, or GURPs or, Shadowrun,. Ultimately it is a limitation of the class based game design D&D follows, but not necessarily a bad one. As far as backgrounds go, I agree that I like the idea behind them, but I find them sadly lacking in both variety and impact. Most backgrounds, in my experience, are chosen mostly for the skills they give, and not any other benefits. The extremely limited amount of them also makes character building rigid, and reinforces classic cliches as much as they encourage new ideas. And after a couple levels their influence falls off quickly to make way for archetypes that help define a character much more than a background does. Every edition of D&D, again, has a similar problem where your decision of race is mostly keenly felt at level 1, but becomes increasingly unimportant as you level because it gives no additional benefits. I think ideas like this are honestly best handled without rules, and simply being a conversation you have with your players and gamemaster. "I am adventuring because my father was killed by a six-fingered man, and now I seek revenge" is a perfect background that's evocative and colors your characters actions, but needs no in-game mechanics to reinforce. Ultimately though it all comes down to what you have the most fun playing. Personally 4e is my favorite edition of D&D, and I would rather play it than any other edition, or derivative (except maybe b/x if we're talking about a traditional dungeon crawl). But I do not begrudge someone for preferring pathfinder, or 5e, or AD&D, or 3.0. Things like flavor and by extension your idea of "player expression" can easily be changed on the fly by saying "I do this, but it works exactly like that." As an example I once played a character in 4e who shared his body with the soul of an ancient devil-god and tapped into that devil's power to wield magic, and I said "but it works like an invoker," and that's all I needed to go bananas with a totally crazy character idea. In the same game we had a child barbarian who chose halfling as his race and simply said "I am a child, and my stats work like a halfling's."
@@nicklarocco4178 can't agree with that first point, I'm afraid. Certainly a lot of Spellcasting classes link their Spell saves to their Spellcasting stat, but the stat definition is far from being as rigid. For instance, you could very easily run a high Strength Rogue who is like a thuggish bully, as Sneak Attack damage is not linked to Dexterity(Grapple + Sneak Attack is very much a Good Night Irene combo), or a Dexterity-driven Fighter who uses finesse or bow weaponry to perform their Combat Mastery tricks(There is even a dedicated Ranged Fighter subclass now). Druids can vary wildly, as while Circle of Land pours more focus onto Wisdom for spellcasting, Circle of Moon sort of eschews it in favor of greater bulk which draws benefits from other stats and skills. And whether you pick Wizard or Sorcerer can affect how you play wildly, despite both being similar arcane casting classes. A lot of the role and stat adhesion in 5e is more a case of tradition and habit, rather than the limitations of the system.
All your criticisms boiled down to the the game clashing against your OCD about keeping the cards ordered and the critical sin of "reaching back for the box every now and again... ":S. jeez. PACG is a fine game, as evidenced by the healthy support it has received over the years. Does it have the most imaginative narrative scenarios in a card game? nope. But it's a good deck-manipulation co-op game which successfully emulates the character development of D&D/PF. Ps. The blessings do get interaction as you move on. Although this varies a lot depending on what classes you play with.
It's kind of Schroedinger's Collection, though. You have to keep them organized for when the campaign decks call for specifics cards or subcategories, but also keep it randomized for the random draws and location building. That is sort of irreconcilable.
@@Kohdok Asuming its a legit issue (which it isn't, you have to be the first person that I know that even brought this up) Doesn't it sound odd to you that your biggest criticism of the game's design is that it has a box insert you don't like? :S
@@Kohdok and you are correct there. So why is ordering cards such a hassle that it somehows qualifies as a design flaw for you? Is going "back to the box" every now and then to interact with that insert that you LOVE such a fundamental flaw in a game's design? :S Look, I respect your opinions on some card games, but this would be a lot more credible with some stronger arguments.
@@zovni The insert is fine for STORAGE when you are NOT PLAYING, but the process of using the cards requires them to be both organized for ease of use AND shuffled for random pulls AT THE SAME TIME. Having to randomly reach into the box to futz with the cards which need to somehow both be an a state of Organized and Random, as there are cards that both look for specific cards and that pull random cards, shunting this huge box around constantly and leaving my collection a mess that I still have to reorganize for next time, is a huge pain in the ass.
This review was AWFUL!!! The game has its flaws but I think the main flaw was no story (later fixed), long set up, and a hideous bad rulebook. The rulebook was soo bad that most people do not even realize that you DO NOT have to close every location to trap the villian, because if a player draws the villian and other players are at other locations, they can lock those locations while the other player fights the villian so the villian can not flee to that location. The strategy is do you want to close things fast and not possibly get more equipment OR do you want to try and get the most stuff but might run out of time doing soo. I might also add, read the Blessing cards because alot of blessing cards state "If the timer card matches this blessing card you get a extra dice, or some other boon", so they DO matter. They where further improved inthe newest version as well. Keeping the box on the table?? WTF are you even talking about here, you create your locations BEFORE you start the game, and if you have to banish something we just make a banish stack and everyone places their banished cards in that stack and we put them away at the end of the scenario. I just believe you worry way too much about how your cards are organized then actually trying to have fun, heck me and my friends roleplay what is going on when we flip a card over...hmmm why is that sword card flipped over at the bar, ooh I know the sword was sitting behind the bar and when I asked who's sword that was to the bartender he said he did not know but he would sell it to me for a price. Jut like any RPG (yes this is not a RPG, but it does have some elements to it), you can make it better or worse depending on how you play it, the game iss open for interpitation and has a 100000000000% quicker set up and planning time then your normal RPG.
I don't know how low your reading skills must be to not see and understand that you can temporarily close locations when encountering the villain. It literally says on page 17: When a player encounters the villain, each player at any other location may immediately attempt to fulfill the "When Closing" requirement for his location. If any player at a location succeeds, his location is temporarily closed and the villain cannot escape there this turn. And on page 18 it says in bold font: IF THE VILLAIN HAS NOWHERE TO ESCAPE TO, YOU WIN! I don't think one needs big brain to comprehend that...
Um, Paizo didn't "buy the open game license" and didn't pay Wizards to be able to make Pathfinder. The entire point of the OGL is that it's an open licence that allows people to make their own games and content using the d20 system mechanics
Ah, guess I mistook it for the d20 license. THAT system folks had to pay for.
No, Kohdok, it's the same thing. D20 is the system, OGL is the legal term allowing it to be used by anyone that wanted to.
I love the idea of this video and was looking forward to watching your opinion, I would encourage you to do a bit more research, you can’t play rise of the red skull without the base game. Having lived the move from 3.5 to 4th means that you have wonderful context for your research however it also restricts you. I am looking forward to your future videos and watching you evolve as a content creator
@@RetroMaticGamer Kohdok was correct actually. There’s an optional sub license under the OGL for compatibility purposes. WotC had one during 3e, and people did have to pay to get that compatibility sub license. (Paizo did not, because it’s not mandatory, was counterproductive to what they did with Pathfinder, and was being phased out anyway.) It was called the “d20 System Trademark License.”
"Paizo bought the Open Gaming License, they had to pay Wizards of the Coast for it." I thought they didn't, it was WotC long before that made the OGL to encourage third party support for their D&D game. It included a lot of the basics of how the game run, mainly so that third party supplements could quote relevant parts as reminders. The point was that anybody could publish D&D compatible material, within certain restrictions, without having to seek permission from or pay WotC a fee or royalties. It was mostly mutual respect that kept third parties from pretty much republishing all the OGL rules in one book to compete directly with WotC. It was WotC's abandoning of the system that promoted Paizo to basically do just that, with improvements and fixes along the way.
Exactly, the whole reason that so many companies made OGL products is that they didn't have to pay anything. Not sure how this was misrepresented. It is likely another reason that the push to 4.0 hit as many third party companies products were becoming more popular than WotC's own.
Surprised he didn't mention the biggest design flaw, which is that the total number of turns is fixed at 30 but the number of cards in play changed based on the number of players (20 plus 10 per player) - and this game can play from 1 to 6 players.
So a solo player gets 30 turns to explore 30 cards to find the villain, but at a 6 player game, you get 30 turns total (so 5 turns per player) to explore *80* cards to find the same villain.
That's impossible to balance around, even factoring in the part of 6 has more cards available to them in their decks.
Selinker is one of the kings of half-baked design, so it checks out that the balance would be ass for anything but one specific player count and a singular play style.
I just kind of blank at "4e not having room for character expression" i saw more out there concepts in 4e than any previous edition.
Like oh man, so many.
Also 3e had wayyyy more stuff to track, far, far, far, more. (bonus type stacking weeeee.)
4e haters lying about 4e. Must be a day that ends in a y.
I jumped straight into the comments to say "4e is good actually" but I see other people have already got that covered.
4e outsold Pathfinder while they were both in print, which is funny when people try and claim otherwise
Just bought gloomhaven jaws of the lion thanks to your last video! Great stuff!
8:53 actually you can get cards from the discard pile in multiple ways. It mostly can be described as healing yourself. The iconic cleric Kyra, for example, has a power that allows her to heal herself or a teammate once per turn. There is another action, called bury, that puts cards into the buried pile - and buried cards mostly stay there till the end of the scenario. Although there are several cards that allow you to move cards from the buried pile too.
I got started in 3rd ed D&D, then I actually went back and played a few games of 1st and Advanced/2nd before 3.5 came out then played pretty much nothing but 3.5 until Pathfinder came out and then switched over to that one because I too did not like 4th. I've not played 5th nor have I played Pathfinder 2nd but that's mostly because I don't have a playgroup for either and Adulting gets in the way of things.
I've had an idea for a card based campaign board game thing knocking around in my head. I really should work on it. Or any of the other ideas I have. But I lack self discipline and prefer PLAYING games over MAKING them. It's just so much WORK making a game... .
Thanks for the video Kohdok.
I did have the same complaits about older versions of PACG, but I will say that the Core Set (aka 2.0) and Curse of the Crimson Throne vastly improved on a lot of these problematic mechanics.
I'd recommend giving that set a shot if you haven't already.
Shoutout to Apocrypha, which is very much a spiritual successor to this game made by the same guy, it's just as convoluted, but I can't help but love it as my own solo game that nobody else cares about. I think the scenario based design that gives you 18 missions in just the base box was my draw to the game compared to Arkham or Lotr lcg that both have a short 3-mission campaign and barely functioning player decks unless you start shovelling a lot of money.
I recently purchased Apocrypha (box 1 & 2). It's been enjoyable thus far and less convoluted than pacg.
So my playgroup played through Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords start to finish and aside from some klunky mechanics we actually quite enjoyed it. We then picked up Wrath of the Righteous and were immediately kicked in the teeth with a difficulty spike! We tried (and failed) four or five times to get through the prologue! They introduced this nasty encounter card where when one player hit it all players had to take the challenge and if *ANYONE* failed it got shuffled back into the deck! We eventually gave up and wished we hadn't bought the full cycle of it before starting.
I think you give a fair and balanced overview of the system and its downsides all-in-all, and I can certainly see why you dislike keeping the box out, but I'm kinda surprised that you didn't bring up the difficulty with that one.
I've played over half of RotR and SaS, and looked through the cards for WotR, and yeah, my impression of it is that Runelords is the best one.
In Skull and Shackles, they seemed to have forgotten a very important point in designing the Ally cards: The RotR allies you could recruit with a variety of skill checks (for example, impress a guard with your Athletics) instead a Diplomacy/Survival check. In Skull and Shackles, however, the *vast* majority of allies only allowed Diplomacy or Survival, without giving an option for other skills. So when I played with characters that all sucked at Charisma, locations with lots of allies were pretty much useless.
As for Wrath of the Righteous, I think they went too far on the grueling aspect of the Fifth Crusade. The characters start the campaign very much the underdog, that's true, but looking at the cards, I'm having trouble seeing how they can possibly prevail. It's possible the campaign gets easier once the Mythic die gets introduced, but good luck getting there
I would like to point out that 4E wasnt modeled after videogames, it was supposed to be the model FOR a video game they were working on as a digital platform but for outside reasons never came to be.
If by "video game" you mean "virtual tabletop" then sure.
I have one board game that has you keeping components in its box/tin to put into play later in the game (Fallout Shelter) but FS has a WAY smaller box and all of the player components are pre-separated with a pretty good plastic insert (that supports sleeved cards). You can even keep the cubes and single Happiness tokens in the insert and put out the 5 Happiness in a pile on the table. It's a legit good FFG insert in all honesty
D&D 4e was "Videogame like" ... i will never understand that. I mean it's not like D&D 3 and Pathfinder are not like detailed combat simulators and you find forums full of "character builds" like in an MMO :-P and ESPECIALLY the Modules in 3.5 where just "encounter here... and encounter there" something that 4e get's bashed on.
Ok the "you have to track so many things during combat" would kinda drive me off but to say "4e was Videogame and MMO" and hailing Pathfinder / 3.5 for NOT being a "ok i NEED this specific build to be good" ... is kinda looking through a retro goggle
This video seemed more like an advertisement for Arkham Horror LCG (yawn….) than an article about PACG. All the criticisms yet he praised AH, the game that doesn’t have any kind of storage solution, no dividers, not even a bag for the chaos tokens and only includes three adventures one of which is literally impossible to complete solo. PACG deserves way more credit.
Huh ? The revised core set fixed literally all of your issues.
The old arkham core set, which is what I assume you're talking about) is nearly a decade old, of course it wasn't designed with modern storage sensibilities
I give you that Arkham deserves no praise, but neither does PF.
@@RvLeshrac PACG is the best coop game I've ever seen so far, it deserves a lot of praise.
Well now I need to look deeper into this to see if I can improve my own card based rpg.
As an owner and player of PACG:WotR, the one shown here with maybe 70 or 80 sessions played, nearly all solo and multihanded. Agree it's not an elegant game. Other complaints:
1) there's no fail forward mechanic, when you fail a mission, when you lose a mission, you have to rebuild all the decks and play it again and again until you corner the villain.
2) a few of the enemies (hordes & barriers) scale in difficulty at higher player counts so you'd be hard pressed to actually win some sessions at 4, 5, or 6 players.
3) the intro chapters (B) are more difficult than the level 1 chapters. So difficult that Paizo recommended in the FAQ that players to remove certain cards and play the level one chapters just to leveling up enough to survive the intro.
4) there's practically no narrative connecting chapters
5) even at higher levels, it's a very swingy game
I must have enjoyed it enough to play as much as I have but probably wouldn't recommend it at this point. Better dungeon crawlers, better dice chuckers, better LCG/deckbuilders. Also, while it's a Pathfinder game by Paizo, it really doesn't offer anything similar to an RPG experience.
I usually love your videos, but I'm disappointed at the 4e bashing. Puffin's videos vary greatly in quality, but it always feels like he never understood 4e.
Anyway, I enjoyed the rest of the video. The way you described the bad guy running away and having to be cornered makes me think of Carmen Sandiego, lol.
There is never understood and there is "probably didn't read the book". Like the whole segment about Detect magic not being a thing in puffin's vid just proves that that vid sould be taken with a truck load of salt, as detect magic IS in the game, just as a arcana skill check. and that's just one of the many things from his that can be debunked by simply opening the first player handbook.
Plenty of people don't even attempt to try understanding 4e to be fair, it's not exclusive to content makers
I would love to have access to the exclusive 4E material.
I laughed so hard when you said you 3.5 book was "beat up." I forget my standards are different from others since my copy is literally held together by a few layers of tape and hopes. Same goes for my monster manual.
I'd be curious to see what you think about Arkham horror lcg's design.
The Sinister Motives Marvel Champions expansion is ALMOST standalone. To play the villain decks, it’s recommended you add either the ‘standard’ or ‘expert’ modules from the initial release.
There is a villian module that adds a more difficult standard and expert module you could use instead.
@@freakincampers Oh yeah, you’re right I forgot about those. But then you’d have to get THOSE modules, so it’s still not standalone.
got really curious about those Worldwide game day demo adventures,especially the old 3.5 ones and as i searched online there's apparently no trace of any pdf ever made of them so yeah, im ready to sign a petition to ask you kind sir to share the knowledge :)
I remember playing this a few years ago and just spending ages waiting for my turn to come around. Definitely not a masterpiece.
Have you played pathfinder skull and shackles card game? It fixes alot of what you mentioned.
4e is my favorite version of Dungeons and Dragons, and I have an intense dislike of Pathfinder's mechanics. I am pleased to find that Paizo continues to be bad at the mechanics side of things; if nothing they're consistent.
I will give them kudos for trying to be inclusive, including having a trans iconic character well before trans representation started taking off, but they're absolute clown shoes at understanding the game they took it upon themselves to "carry the torch" of.
Truly based opinion.
You should give pathfinder 2e a look....
It was made by the people who made 4e.
Really loved the first edition, the latest one isn't so great.
4e was awesome.
I dont like the plastic inserts. I much prefer the way the core set is set up. I really like the game though so I'm going back and buying the old stuff..but hate the massive boxes. I can fit core set crimsom throne and wrath of the righteous in the much smaller core box set. So I want to make a box about that size to house the three other adventure paths. All the game in relatively compact boxes
If we care about sales, 4th edition is the best still.....
Based on these
I think your entire history of pathfinder is misinformed. Paizo didn't stay with D&D through the edition change not because they didn't like the looks of it, but rather because 1. they were salty about their contract ending, and 2. they thought they could make more money competing with D&D than making content for it. Well to be fair the writers possibly didn't want to learn a new game either, although it isn't as though 4e is incredibly complicated. The GSL, or Game System License, WotC put in place for 4e didn't help matters either because it was extremely restrictive to work with, and famously obtuse. Make no mistake for a company like Paizo working within it wouldn't have been any sort of hurdle, they just didn't want to. And as others have mentioned as well they didn't "buy" any rights from WotC, the OGL opened the way for a game like Pathfinder from the start to compete with WotC using its own game.
D&D 4e was also far from a dud. It outsold pathfinder for its entire life, by a pretty significant margin (can't say the exact sales figures because paizo doesn't publish theirs), it also outsold 3.5 if you'll believe it (but don't take my word for it), and while there was a lot of 4e hate online, most people playing 4e weren't complaining about it online, they were just playing and having a great time! In my college days when 4e came out I was in no less than 4 groups at any given time at our FLGS, my college, the local library, and a friends house. We had a lock in at the library for D&D, and there were nearly 30 people there (in a small Wisconsin town)! Great times. The video game argument, while disingenuous, is generally a moot point. D&D and video games have been stealing ideas from one-another since the dawn of computer gaming.
My LGS also brought in a typical crowd in the double-digits, usually 20 or more, and they switched over to Pathfinder after dealing with 4th ed for a bit. That's where I got my "One Dark Night in Weeping Briar" module, before the switch happened. 4e's problems were enough that the player bleedoff was enough to get a much smaller company to make a successful game that now has spinoffs and official merchandise.
And of course 4th ed sold more books. They did to the Player's Handbook what Hollywood did to the Hobbit and made you buy *three* lol.
Either way, we have 5th ed now, which cleanly outsold them both, and while it cribs some notes from 4th ed (Specific example: Short Rest abilities) it incorporated back in so much of what people liked from 3.5 (Specific Example: character classes of varying complexity with wider range of expression) that a lot of people switched back over. 5th edition has so much more room for character expression and makes much better use of the free space of person-to-person play in ways 4th just couldn't.
@@Kohdok You keep using the phrase "player expression," what exactly do you mean by that?
I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that anecdotal evidence isn't evidence. Your LGS might have gone over to pathfinder, but it would seem from the sales data it would put them in the minority still. Many companies that are smaller than WotC have extremely popular games with spinoffs and merchandise: free league's year zero engine games, runequest, shadowrun, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay just to name a few that come immediately to mind.
@@nicklarocco4178 Aight, I'll define my terms: "Player Expression" is how much control a player has to really build and make the character they have in mind, and how they behave when game mechanics aren't as much involved. The thing about 4th Edition is when you pick a class, you basically pick a primary stat and the rest of your character class is built for you. Which sounds simple, but now every character's playstyle is as complex as the wizard's, so a lot of mechanics without a lot of choice.
5th edition, however, brings back that sliding scale of complexity as well as the subclasses introduced early that promotes a wide variety of play styles. Do you want a Druid who can cast more spells or who turns into more powerful creatures? Is your Paladin one who Smites the Wicked or who Protects the Innocent? The Fighter in particular gets to play with their complexity, with the rough and reliable Champion, the more nuanced and tricky Battle Master, and even dip into spellcasting complexity with Eldritch Knight.
But the biggie is "Backgrounds". The classes in 3.5 had pretty defined roles, and 4e hardened those roles(while wiping out expression as stated before). 5th edition, however, did the opposite, tearing the classes in half roughly between what they do in combat and what they do out of combat. You could go with the book suggestion and make a Paladin/Noble, or you can do what I did and make a Paladin/Criminal. Yes, a Lawful Good Paragon of Heroism with the Criminal Contacts feature, and it created a lot of interesting scenarios where my character's past affected their demeanor and reputation, being more frowned upon in high society, but getting along great with more common people, where I feel a Paladin can do the most good.
You could make a well-read Fighter/Scholar, or a jaded Druid/Soldier; character roles were blurred and malleable and you could make a true band of misfits.
5e introduced systems that openly embrace that level of creativity and I think it is a huge source of its success.
As for Pathfinder, it's pretty much the only big non-D&D TTRPG you'll find in abundance at non-gaming bookstores aside from, as stated in the video, maybe World of Darkness.
@@Kohdok I have to disagree with your assessment. In my experience any edition of D&D is going to reinforce the core class/stat dynamic you say 4e has as a problem. In any edition of D&D a wizard wants high int, and a fighter wants high str. In fact in 0D&D, the primary way to define your class was via your highest stat, because you got an experience bonus for having one. If you rolled a high str you played a fighter, if you rolled a high wis you played a cleric, etc. etc. Even 5e reinforces this stat/class dynamic with spell save DCs being the primary enforcer, but to a lesser extent your primary attack statistic. Again a high str character is going to gravitate towards fighter or barbarian, and not towards wizard or warlock. This is a fundamental part of what makes D&D different from a game like FATE, or GURPs or, Shadowrun,. Ultimately it is a limitation of the class based game design D&D follows, but not necessarily a bad one.
As far as backgrounds go, I agree that I like the idea behind them, but I find them sadly lacking in both variety and impact. Most backgrounds, in my experience, are chosen mostly for the skills they give, and not any other benefits. The extremely limited amount of them also makes character building rigid, and reinforces classic cliches as much as they encourage new ideas. And after a couple levels their influence falls off quickly to make way for archetypes that help define a character much more than a background does. Every edition of D&D, again, has a similar problem where your decision of race is mostly keenly felt at level 1, but becomes increasingly unimportant as you level because it gives no additional benefits.
I think ideas like this are honestly best handled without rules, and simply being a conversation you have with your players and gamemaster. "I am adventuring because my father was killed by a six-fingered man, and now I seek revenge" is a perfect background that's evocative and colors your characters actions, but needs no in-game mechanics to reinforce.
Ultimately though it all comes down to what you have the most fun playing. Personally 4e is my favorite edition of D&D, and I would rather play it than any other edition, or derivative (except maybe b/x if we're talking about a traditional dungeon crawl). But I do not begrudge someone for preferring pathfinder, or 5e, or AD&D, or 3.0. Things like flavor and by extension your idea of "player expression" can easily be changed on the fly by saying "I do this, but it works exactly like that." As an example I once played a character in 4e who shared his body with the soul of an ancient devil-god and tapped into that devil's power to wield magic, and I said "but it works like an invoker," and that's all I needed to go bananas with a totally crazy character idea. In the same game we had a child barbarian who chose halfling as his race and simply said "I am a child, and my stats work like a halfling's."
@@nicklarocco4178 can't agree with that first point, I'm afraid. Certainly a lot of Spellcasting classes link their Spell saves to their Spellcasting stat, but the stat definition is far from being as rigid. For instance, you could very easily run a high Strength Rogue who is like a thuggish bully, as Sneak Attack damage is not linked to Dexterity(Grapple + Sneak Attack is very much a Good Night Irene combo), or a Dexterity-driven Fighter who uses finesse or bow weaponry to perform their Combat Mastery tricks(There is even a dedicated Ranged Fighter subclass now). Druids can vary wildly, as while Circle of Land pours more focus onto Wisdom for spellcasting, Circle of Moon sort of eschews it in favor of greater bulk which draws benefits from other stats and skills. And whether you pick Wizard or Sorcerer can affect how you play wildly, despite both being similar arcane casting classes.
A lot of the role and stat adhesion in 5e is more a case of tradition and habit, rather than the limitations of the system.
Delightful Design and Disastrous Design.
In playstore just trial
All your criticisms boiled down to the the game clashing against your OCD about keeping the cards ordered and the critical sin of "reaching back for the box every now and again... ":S. jeez. PACG is a fine game, as evidenced by the healthy support it has received over the years. Does it have the most imaginative narrative scenarios in a card game? nope. But it's a good deck-manipulation co-op game which successfully emulates the character development of D&D/PF.
Ps. The blessings do get interaction as you move on. Although this varies a lot depending on what classes you play with.
It's kind of Schroedinger's Collection, though. You have to keep them organized for when the campaign decks call for specifics cards or subcategories, but also keep it randomized for the random draws and location building. That is sort of irreconcilable.
@@Kohdok Asuming its a legit issue (which it isn't, you have to be the first person that I know that even brought this up) Doesn't it sound odd to you that your biggest criticism of the game's design is that it has a box insert you don't like? :S
@@zovni ...What video are you watching? I said I LOVE the box insert!
@@Kohdok and you are correct there. So why is ordering cards such a hassle that it somehows qualifies as a design flaw for you? Is going "back to the box" every now and then to interact with that insert that you LOVE such a fundamental flaw in a game's design? :S Look, I respect your opinions on some card games, but this would be a lot more credible with some stronger arguments.
@@zovni The insert is fine for STORAGE when you are NOT PLAYING, but the process of using the cards requires them to be both organized for ease of use AND shuffled for random pulls AT THE SAME TIME. Having to randomly reach into the box to futz with the cards which need to somehow both be an a state of Organized and Random, as there are cards that both look for specific cards and that pull random cards, shunting this huge box around constantly and leaving my collection a mess that I still have to reorganize for next time, is a huge pain in the ass.
This review was AWFUL!!!
The game has its flaws but I think the main flaw was no story (later fixed), long set up, and a hideous bad rulebook.
The rulebook was soo bad that most people do not even realize that you DO NOT have to close every location to trap the villian, because if a player draws the villian and other players are at other locations, they can lock those locations while the other player fights the villian so the villian can not flee to that location.
The strategy is do you want to close things fast and not possibly get more equipment OR do you want to try and get the most stuff but might run out of time doing soo.
I might also add, read the Blessing cards because alot of blessing cards state "If the timer card matches this blessing card you get a extra dice, or some other boon", so they DO matter. They where further improved inthe newest version as well.
Keeping the box on the table?? WTF are you even talking about here, you create your locations BEFORE you start the game, and if you have to banish something we just make a banish stack and everyone places their banished cards in that stack and we put them away at the end of the scenario.
I just believe you worry way too much about how your cards are organized then actually trying to have fun, heck me and my friends roleplay what is going on when we flip a card over...hmmm why is that sword card flipped over at the bar, ooh I know the sword was sitting behind the bar and when I asked who's sword that was to the bartender he said he did not know but he would sell it to me for a price.
Jut like any RPG (yes this is not a RPG, but it does have some elements to it), you can make it better or worse depending on how you play it, the game iss open for interpitation and has a 100000000000% quicker set up and planning time then your normal RPG.
I don't know how low your reading skills must be to not see and understand that you can temporarily close locations when encountering the villain.
It literally says on page 17:
When a player encounters the villain, each player at any other location may immediately attempt to fulfill the "When Closing" requirement for his location. If any player at a location succeeds, his location is temporarily closed and the villain cannot escape there this turn.
And on page 18 it says in bold font:
IF THE VILLAIN HAS NOWHERE TO ESCAPE TO, YOU WIN!
I don't think one needs big brain to comprehend that...