I hope there is a rule that when an investigator is knocked out of the scenario due to mental/physical damage another investigator can spend an action to equip the fallen investigator's small card to their ally slot. Rescuing their friend and preventing the permanent trauma.

I hope there is a rule that when an investigator is knocked out of the scenario due to mental/physical damage another investigator can spend an action to equip the fallen investigator's small card to their ally slot. Rescuing their friend and preventing the permanent trauma.

Dont think so but you can always make an house rule.

personally i find the 1 experience for level 0 card kind of dumb.

As someone else pointed out in another thread.. what happens when im in the middle of a campaign and a new expansion comes out with some cool cards i want to try. What, i'm suppose to play an entire mission first without my new cards to get more experience before i can swap in my new cards that i just bought and want to use right away? thats kind of bogus.

Now yes i know i can just swap them in and be damned with the requirement but if thats the case.. why have the 1 cost requirement for 0 cards at all? i just don't understand the reason.

I mean the idea is 0 cost cards could of been in the deck from the beginning anyway right?

Exactly. I feel, when a rule goes beyond the game, in this case, impacting my purchasing decision, I feel it's not a good rule to begin with. If I buy a new pack of cards, why do I have to spend precious resources to try out those new cards? Feels like a punishment for not waiting for all the cards to be released before starting a campaign or not starting over a new campaign.

If those 0-level cards can be included in your deck for free at the start of the campaign, then I will continue that trend mid-campaign. It feels very arbitrary otherwise.

The idea is that your deck helps decide *who* you are. Your past experiences and abilities etc. As you experience more you become more experienced and your perceptions and abilities are improved or worsened slightly. Wholesale swapping makes no sense in this context.

You can do what you like of course, but I'm pretty sure the designers (who actually know the rules) have taken the progression aspects of the mythos packs into account.

personally i find the 1 experience for level 0 card kind of dumb.

As someone else pointed out in another thread.. what happens when im in the middle of a campaign and a new expansion comes out with some cool cards i want to try. What, i'm suppose to play an entire mission first without my new cards to get more experience before i can swap in my new cards that i just bought and want to use right away? thats kind of bogus.

Now yes i know i can just swap them in and be damned with the requirement but if thats the case.. why have the 1 cost requirement for 0 cards at all? i just don't understand the reason.

I mean the idea is 0 cost cards could of been in the deck from the beginning anyway right?

I think this makes more sense if you think about it from the RPG side of the design rather than the card game side of the design.

Many RPGs make a distinction between "starter abilities" that you can take on character creation, and "first-level abilities" that you can take immediately after, but not necessarily at creation. A good example of this is skill limits in the Star Wars RPG - no skill can start higher than 2 at creation, but you can take it up immediately after.

Given the campaign evolution, many cards may also represent items, learnings, etc, that become available through the course of the campaign. They may qualify as Level 0 in terms of cost/difficulty/who can use them, but that doesn't mean they're automatically "starter" items. It will probably be an absolute nightmare to track which set cards come in and when they become available, so I doubt this is really viable, but the concept isn't really that out there.

Sorry for being late to the party, but I missed this article completelly.

I'm glad and angry at the same time about how deckbuilding is being handled. I'm happy that they stuck to their assisted deckbuilding policy and ask for experience if you want to add a new level 0 to your deck. This will please all those that hate the heavy deckbuilding of LotR and will also atract new players to the LCG universe, as they will learn how to build decks step by step. Really well thought from the business point of view.

However, I love building decks more than playing with them, so this game doesn't appeal to me much because of that.

Having said that, does anyone know how does the purchasing new cards process work? Do you need to take a card out of your deck or you just add it? If you have to take a card out, do you have to spend experience again if you want to buy it back for a specific scenario?

Having said that, does anyone know how does the purchasing new cards process work? Do you need to take a card out of your deck or you just add it? If you have to take a card out, do you have to spend experience again if you want to buy it back for a specific scenario?

The blunt answer is yes and yes. You need to pay to put it in and remove a card and then pay to put it back in. Putting in a 0 costs 1 xp so planning is important and not just throwing away random cards. Also in the first Mythos there is a cool card (check out the preview) that costs 1 and allows you to swap 2 free 0 lvl's after every scenario.

Having said that, does anyone know how does the purchasing new cards process work? Do you need to take a card out of your deck or you just add it? If you have to take a card out, do you have to spend experience again if you want to buy it back for a specific scenario?

IIRC, deck size is dictated to be a specific number (such as 30 for Roland Banks) not a minimum. So yes, you'd have to pull cards, and rebuy them later if you wanted to swap back. Unless there's some specific rule for sideboards we haven't seen yet.

Having said that, does anyone know how does the purchasing new cards process work? Do you need to take a card out of your deck or you just add it? If you have to take a card out, do you have to spend experience again if you want to buy it back for a specific scenario?

The blunt answer is yes and yes. You need to pay to put it in and remove a card and then pay to put it back in. Putting in a 0 costs 1 xp so planning is important and not just throwing away random cards. Also in the first Mythos there is a cool card (check out the preview) that costs 1 and allows you to swap 2 free 0 lvl's after every scenario.

I hate that card and the ones that allow you to swap cards with other investigators, those are not deckbuilding inspiring at all. On the contrary, they seem to be design to patch deckbuilding/mechanic flaws the game imposed itself just so it can give a more RPG feel (and probably can balance stuff beter, but I doubt that with all the deckbuilding restrictions, they had to add even gameplay ones to achieve that)..

Overall, all I can say is meh. This game lost me completelly. I hope those who like this new system will enjoy it.

Personally I like what I've seen of the new deckbuilding. I can understand that players who like to constantly adjust their decks as they go, but for me that goes against the RPG vibe. This style better matches a D&D style: you pick your starting equipment and as you go along you can swap in new things, but at a cost - you can't simply decide to drop everything you had and pick up a new set of gear for free. To me this means the deck building is paid up front as I start and then the challenge will be when to spend new XP for changes/upgrades.

The only downside I see is when (not if) there are cards released that I wish I'd had in my deck from the start of the campaign. I'm willing to live with this though as I've come to accept it for the LOTR Sage campaign when there are new heroes released that I would have used from the start if they were available then. On the plus side, this just gives another reason to re do the campaign.

I don't mind but in FFG defense I think their theory is that by time they release a new set people be able to 'buy' the new cards as by time it's released they have beaten whatever came out earlier and thus have XP to spend.

For me personally I like what I'm seeing I like how each Investigator has a personal weakness although some are rather sadistic (remove the whole discard pile you better pray you draw THAT early!!) but I like that each deck is 33 cards perhaps other Investigators will give you access to a 40 card deck. In fact I was under impression from the way the article writer was talking each core set Investigator had varying range of decks. Wendy is 33 Daisy be like 40 but has to have like 5 tomes in deck etc etc.

I don't mind the slowly building the deck idea but the 26 (13 unique cards) players cards per mythos pack killed my enthusiasm. This is still going to be a good game but I am no longer sure if this is the game for me. I like the Arkham horror setting because of the investigators and not really the monsters so having such a high number of encounter cards doesn't really excite me.

I don't mind the slowly building the deck idea but the 26 (13 unique cards) players cards per mythos pack killed my enthusiasm. This is still going to be a good game but I am no longer sure if this is the game for me. I like the Arkham horror setting because of the investigators and not really the monsters so having such a high number of encounter cards doesn't really excite me.

The player choices will grow slowly, but that's nothing new for LOTR LCG players where each adventure pack only typically only provide nine new player cards (3 copies of each).

Yeah, what did people expect? A lot of co-op newbs I guess! Having a ton of player cards is no fun if you don't have new scenarios to play against. It works, you'll see.

For the people who want to have the option to completely rebuild their deck inbetween scenarios (and if there won't be enough ways around it, such as with cards like Adaptable), why not just play them as stand alone scenarios (and ignore the campaign stuff). You get to play through the stories and make any changes you want - this is basically what you want and there are rules there just for you. Seems a more sensible option than just giving up on the game all together.

The main aspects of the campaign seem to be to do with deck building anyway, and rightly so - since the deck is your character, I don't see how they could have the RPG feel without those limitations. I love deck building, but am equally excited by the way its done in this game. We don't know how much XP we'll be getting after each game, but I'll give the designers some credit and say there will probably be enough to make some meaningful changes to your deck (part of what makes a good RPG is character progression).

I hate that card and the ones that allow you to swap cards with other investigators, those are not deckbuilding inspiring at all. On the contrary, they seem to be design to patch deckbuilding/mechanic flaws the game imposed itself just so it can give a more RPG feel (and probably can balance stuff beter, but I doubt that with all the deckbuilding restrictions, they had to add even gameplay ones to achieve that)..

Overall, all I can say is meh. This game lost me completelly. I hope those who like this new system will enjoy it.

Sorry you feel that way. I think it adds a challenge to deck building. You can't just make this deck for one scenario, but with the goal of having tools to help later on and being able to develop these tools, but still have the option to swap out later on. Rather than just throwing in cards with experience it forces you to ask which parts of the deck are important. Have we seen a swap cards mechanic yet? Adaptability allows you to save experience to have more options and if having more options is important. I don't think it is about flaws in deckbuilding, but having classes that feel good to play as because they fit your style and one style is more ability to customize per encounter.

I don't mind the slowly building the deck idea but the 26 (13 unique cards) players cards per mythos pack killed my enthusiasm. This is still going to be a good game but I am no longer sure if this is the game for me. I like the Arkham horror setting because of the investigators and not really the monsters so having such a high number of encounter cards doesn't really excite me.

Think of it relative to the deck size though. You only get 30 cards you can choose and each one will be very important. Sure Mythos packs have less player cards, but deluxe expansions and the core have more to start out with. When you get a new Mythos pack, your deck will have 2-5 options to add to your arsenal with 2 copies of each which means along the lines of 4-10 cards that you could add to a deck which is between 1/10th to 1/3rd the deck. That is a lot of variety. And I am only including class and neutral cards, but add in your second class and that is a lot of options.

It's certainly a different model than the typical LCG/CCG.

I think this started with the Pathfinder ACG. Your deck basically defines your character, and that's going to evolve over time. I actually like that your choices matter from game to game, because it means you have to take a long view rather than just hyper-customizing for specific scenarios. This is actually how I tend to play LOTR as well - I build a deck for a cycle, and stick with that deck throughout with only minor modifications.

It's perfectly expected that the different model wouldn't be for everybody. If it's not for you it's not for you, and you can move on. I'm not saying that to be dismissive, but it really is the truth - not every game will appeal to everyone, and honestly if this game were more like LOTR, and didn't have the campaign persistence, I'd be far less interested than I am. Different strokes

But as mentioned above, nothing stops you from playing scenarios one-off, or even just ignoring the experience structure entirely and rebuilding after each step of the campaign. I'm not sure how well the game will handle it - some of the difficulty may come from a lack of adaptability - but you're certainly free to play whatever parts you do or don't want to.

It's certainly a different model than the typical LCG/CCG.

I think this started with the Pathfinder ACG. Your deck basically defines your character, and that's going to evolve over time. I actually like that your choices matter from game to game, because it means you have to take a long view rather than just hyper-customizing for specific scenarios. This is actually how I tend to play LOTR as well - I build a deck for a cycle, and stick with that deck throughout with only minor modifications.

It's perfectly expected that the different model wouldn't be for everybody. If it's not for you it's not for you, and you can move on. I'm not saying that to be dismissive, but it really is the truth - not every game will appeal to everyone, and honestly if this game were more like LOTR, and didn't have the campaign persistence, I'd be far less interested than I am. Different strokes

But as mentioned above, nothing stops you from playing scenarios one-off, or even just ignoring the experience structure entirely and rebuilding after each step of the campaign. I'm not sure how well the game will handle it - some of the difficulty may come from a lack of adaptability - but you're certainly free to play whatever parts you do or don't want to.

This, exactly.

It's certainly a different model than the typical LCG/CCG.

I think this started with the Pathfinder ACG. Your deck basically defines your character, and that's going to evolve over time. I actually like that your choices matter from game to game, because it means you have to take a long view rather than just hyper-customizing for specific scenarios. This is actually how I tend to play LOTR as well - I build a deck for a cycle, and stick with that deck throughout with only minor modifications.

It's perfectly expected that the different model wouldn't be for everybody. If it's not for you it's not for you, and you can move on. I'm not saying that to be dismissive, but it really is the truth - not every game will appeal to everyone, and honestly if this game were more like LOTR, and didn't have the campaign persistence, I'd be far less interested than I am. Different strokes

But as mentioned above, nothing stops you from playing scenarios one-off, or even just ignoring the experience structure entirely and rebuilding after each step of the campaign. I'm not sure how well the game will handle it - some of the difficulty may come from a lack of adaptability - but you're certainly free to play whatever parts you do or don't want to.

I tried like ten minutes of Pathfinder Card Game and frankly it was rather annoying.. I hope this game's mechanics are nicer... I like deckbuilding (albeit sucking at it but) so I like the idea of cards leveling up.

There are some rules that confuse me I hope the rules pdf comes out soon.. I don't get it you can use cards 0 through 5 but you can't put em in your deck.. Um so I guess the deckbuilding rules are saying you can have those cards but you need xp in your deck? A starting investigator can only use level zero cards then..? Rather confusing...

I don't get it you can use cards 0 through 5 but you can't put em in your deck.. Um so I guess the deckbuilding rules are saying you can have those cards but you need xp in your deck? A starting investigator can only use level zero cards then..?

That's been my understanding, yes. Roland Banks CAN use Guardian cards up to level 5, but only when he has the XP to be able to include them. A non-Guardian Core Set Character could NEVER use the lvl 3-5 Guardian cards (and as far as I can tell, it's likely only one other will be able to use Guardian cards at all).

I tried like ten minutes of Pathfinder Card Game and frankly it was rather annoying.. I hope this game's mechanics are nicer... I like deckbuilding (albeit sucking at it but) so I like the idea of cards leveling up.

There are some rules that confuse me I hope the rules pdf comes out soon.. I don't get it you can use cards 0 through 5 but you can't put em in your deck.. Um so I guess the deckbuilding rules are saying you can have those cards but you need xp in your deck? A starting investigator can only use level zero cards then..? Rather confusing...

We played through both Rise of the Runelords and Skulls and Shackles. The persistent RPG/Card concept was creative, but the game itself was pretty awful. I've been waiting for someone to take the same concept and execute on it better - Shadowrun Crossfire was a miss too, but things are looking good for this one.

I don't think you're confused about the rules at all The first time you start a character it has to be all Level 0 cards. The limits for the deck are forever, and basically limit what you can buy as part of leveling up. At least for now - it's certainly feasible that other investigators in the future could start with higher-level cards.

I tried pathfinder, but didn't like it, there really didn't seem much to it.

That's been my understanding, yes. Roland Banks CAN use Guardian cards up to level 5, but only when he has the XP to be able to include them. A non-Guardian Core Set Character could NEVER use the lvl 3-5 Guardian cards (and as far as I can tell, it's likely only one other will be able to use Guardian cards at all).

Thanks. So let me raise another deckbuilding question or two really.

1: Which char do you think have Mystic subclass? I'm hoping it's Daisy be rather themathic for a scholar of dark secrets to learn magic. (personally I want it to be her cuz I wanna play solo a lot and she is one of my fave chars so her having spells to barbecue a Ghoul or five be sweet)

2: Do you think types be a possible requirement? For example I know none of the core would have such a thing but. Lura Wiltens: Deckbuilding Requirement: At least two cards with Bag in it's name. (to give flair of being a fashionista whose packing HARD)

Also thanks Buhalin.

2: Do you think types be a possible requirement? For example I know none of the core would have such a thing but. Lura Wiltens: Deckbuilding Requirement: At least two cards with Bag in it's name. (to give flair of being a fashionista whose packing HARD)

Incentive is probably more likely than requirement, like the investigator who draws cards for each tome (I forget exactly how it's worded). She doesn't have to play tomes, but she encourages it.

Actually, in a limited card pool, she actually might have to. But you know what I mean.

2: Do you think types be a possible requirement? For example I know none of the core would have such a thing but. Lura Wiltens: Deckbuilding Requirement: At least two cards with Bag in it's name. (to give flair of being a fashionista whose packing HARD)

Certainly a possibility. We've already seen deck requirements for specific cards, no reason why it couldn't be a class of card.