Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Core Set

5.00/5 (based on 2 ratings)

Our Price: $59.99

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Your Adventure Begins Here!

Belhaim's tower has just collapsed, its wizard is missing, and local kobolds are whispering the name of a long dead draconic nemesis. And that's just your first day in town...

This complete cooperative strategy game pits 1 to 4 players against monsters, perils, and traps as you become the heroes of Belhaim. As the town's new champions, an unending world of adventure awaits. Choose your character's class; build a deck of equipment, magic, and allies; and explore lethal locations as you journey through an exciting fantasy tale. As your adventures continue, your characters add remarkable gear and breathtaking magic to their decks as they gain incredible powers, all of which they'll need to challenge more and more powerful threats.

This set includes the storybook and cards for The Dragon's Demand Adventure Path as well as a modular core for infinite scenarios that allows you to control the difficulty and speed of play. Supplement your experience with the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path, Character Decks, the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society, and Pathfinder Adventure Card Game accessories (sold separately).

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Core Set includes:

  • 440 cards featuring a wide array of powerful weapons, magical spells, protective armors, versatile items, helpful allies, and divine blessings to help you face a host of vicious monsters, dangerous barriers, vile scourges, and perilous wildcards
  • 12 character pawns representing Pathfinder's iconic character classes from the classic human cleric Kyra to the new goblin alchemist Fumbus
  • A complete set of 5 polyhedral dice
  • 63 colorful tokens for tracking scourges and secondary objectives
  • 1 4-page quick-start guide
  • 1 32-page rulebook
  • 1 24-page storybook featuring The Dragon's Demand Adventure Path

978-1-64078-147-4

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5.00/5 (based on 2 ratings)

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Every single thing is better

5/5

I've got over 700 hours into the pacg: 3 of the original base sets played 3+ times each through. I wanted this new Core Set but was going to wait, well now I've got it and seriously, every single aspect of the game is better:

The boons are better balanced, no more of the "this seems not useful, but, I guess if I encounter it I can use it once" cards, all are better balanced and this leads to more useful cards.

The box is better, no more wasted space with a big plastic insert, and they added a great system for holding all the cards without needing to buy a new wooden insert to organize better.

The rules are better, they do more, with less instructions, include more options. The new game options for "wild cards" and changing the size and difficulty make the game more approachable and easily recommendable as well as giving many more reasons to play the game multiple times. Very well done.

They included standees and chits and dividers too, all a nice and professional touch.

The artwork is at least as good as before, which I like, but slightly better laid out. I would like the text to be slightly larger (I had to complain about SOMETHING :)) and there is a little bit of wasted space on many cards, but the blessings in particular are nicely drawn, have a "stained glass" feel and everything looks a little nicer.

The entire game system is just more polished... everywhere really. It will be hard to go back to my old sets, which I will not be getting rid of, thank you, but everything in this set is simply better.

Edit: this is not so correct: "and have toned down permadeath (thank you...)".

The rules give you one extra option for coming back from death (hero points) but now that I'm about a dozen plays into the game it is clear (at least in Dragons Demand) that:

1) you only get one Hero Point to use without giving up a power for it through all 9 scenarios

and

2) there are quite a few banes that can cause ongoing damage that can kill a character who is not exploring

and

3) the new rules have removed closed locations, which used to offer some degree of safety to badly wounded characters.

I'm going to leave a 5 star rating for now, but I have to say, this makes the game harder to recommend to new players who would be super frustrated to have to completely start over again and feel like there was little they could do. If you are a new player, either house rule this away, or play very carefully. I hate, hate, hate having to start a game over again in this way, I wish permadeath were anything else....


5/5


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Scarab Sages Webstore Coordinator

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Announced for May! Image and description are provisional and subject to change prior to release.


Oooo...Earlier than I'd thought!

Hmm. Am I missing it somewhere? I can't see if it's included with one of the subscriptions (I presume so, but just to be doubly sure).

Dark Archive

So "Dragon's Demand" is the new Core Card Set.
Nice to see that Mike Selinker gets his due & that "Fumbus the iconic Goblin Alchemist" from the Pathfinder Playtest is included.

Lone Shark Games

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Marco Massoudi wrote:
Nice to see that Mike Selinker gets his due

The new box tops not only say "A game by Mike Selinker" but the names of all the designers of that set as well. In this case, I'm joined by Chad Brown, Keith Richmond, Liz Spain, and Aviva Schecterson.

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.

How does this interact with older products? For example if I found a random prior adventure path deck, say Runelords part 3. Would I be able to use that with the Core set or would I still need to track down the original ROTR boxed set as well?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

Great to see it! I am also curious about it be added to the current subscription, or if it will need to be purchased separately.

Chief Operations Officer

Elorebaen wrote:
Great to see it! I am also curious about it be added to the current subscription, or if it will need to be purchased separately.

Hey Elorebaen, it should be the next item in the ACG sub for everyone currently subscribed and everyone that subscribes between now and it's release in May.

Lone Shark Games

Davor Firetusk wrote:
How does this interact with older products? For example if I found a random prior adventure path deck, say Runelords part 3. Would I be able to use that with the Core set or would I still need to track down the original ROTR boxed set as well?

That's an interesting question. The new rules and characters and such all work with Rise of the Runelords, but we always assumed that anyone who wanted to do that would have the Runelords base set. In theory it should work just fine to just play Hook Mountain Massacre (Runelords 3) with the new set, but if you, say, played Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth (Wrath of the Righteous 5), you'd probably be advised to get the base set for its mythic paths and charge tokens.

Dark Archive

Thanks


Will there be a character deck expansion so you can play Dragon's Demand with 6 players?

Chief Operations Officer

VitaminP3 wrote:
Will there be a character deck expansion so you can play Dragon's Demand with 6 players?

Hey VitaminP3, Unfortunately we do not have any plans currently to publish a character expansion deck for the Dragon's Demand adventure in the ACG Core Set.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Jeff Alvarez wrote:
Elorebaen wrote:
Great to see it! I am also curious about it be added to the current subscription, or if it will need to be purchased separately.
Hey Elorebaen, it should be the next item in the ACG sub for everyone currently subscribed and everyone that subscribes between now and it's release in May.

Thanks Jeff!


Mike Selinker wrote:
Davor Firetusk wrote:
How does this interact with older products? For example if I found a random prior adventure path deck, say Runelords part 3. Would I be able to use that with the Core set or would I still need to track down the original ROTR boxed set as well?
That's an interesting question. The new rules and characters and such all work with Rise of the Runelords, but we always assumed that anyone who wanted to do that would have the Runelords base set. In theory it should work just fine to just play Hook Mountain Massacre (Runelords 3) with the new set, but if you, say, played Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth (Wrath of the Righteous 5), you'd probably be advised to get the base set for its mythic paths and charge tokens.

You might need some of the B or 1 level locations from Rise of the Runelords too.


I see that it says you can control the difficutly and speed of play. I would like to know more about this concept. I know my gaming group didn't like the difficulty of Wrath. In fact we gave up on it. We loved Rise though. If available, would someone kindly let me know where more details on how we can control the difficulty is executed?


Agradeleous wrote:
I see that it says you can control the difficutly and speed of play. I would like to know more about this concept. I know my gaming group didn't like the difficulty of Wrath. In fact we gave up on it. We loved Rise though. If available, would someone kindly let me know where more details on how we can control the difficulty is executed?

There was a blog post about this topic a few months ago:

Core Principles: Varying the Challenge in the Pathfinder ACG


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Elinnea wrote:
Agradeleous wrote:
I see that it says you can control the difficutly and speed of play. I would like to know more about this concept. I know my gaming group didn't like the difficulty of Wrath. In fact we gave up on it. We loved Rise though. If available, would someone kindly let me know where more details on how we can control the difficulty is executed?

There was a blog post about this topic a few months ago:

[url=https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sgds?Core-Principles-Varying-the-Challenge-in-the]Core Principles: Varying the Challenge in the Pathfinder

I just learned about the new PACG coming this past Sunday. Thank you for the link.


I did a playtest of the new rules at Paizocon last year and really enjoyed it. I'm definitely looking forward to the finished, polished version.
During the playtest and during the banquet, it was announced that the new edition would release at PaizoCon this year. The date posted with the preorder link has an earlier date. Will we receive it before Paizocon if we preorder?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

How many scenarios will be in this core set ?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
VitaminP3 wrote:
Will there be a character deck expansion so you can play Dragon's Demand with 6 players?

It does say this in the CotCT expansion box though:

"This set includes the storybook and cards for the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path. It requires the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Core Set and expands the maximum number of players to 6 for that set. "


Curious to seee how different it plays to the now soon to be dated rules, hopefully someone will stream or have a vid of some gameplay at Paizocon.

Cheers

Tom


Are there any promo cards being sent with Core Set or Crimson Throne orders?

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

The product description text still talks about The Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild. That's been renamed to The Pathfinder Adventure Card Society.

(This should probably be fixed on the Curse of the Crimson Throne product page, too - it has the same error)


Is this the relaunch of the card game? Thought this was supposed to launch later this summer at GenCon.


This is the relaunch. It's releasing this month at various times depending where you got it from. Mine should be here by Sunday.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Somehow I missed a bunch of questions here. Sorry, folks!

Almarane wrote:
How many scenarios will be in this core set ?

There are 9 scripted scenarios, plus a new mechanism that lets you generate 6 different types of customized and/or randomized scenarios.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

mach1.9pants wrote:
VitaminP3 wrote:
Will there be a character deck expansion so you can play Dragon's Demand with 6 players?

It does say this in the CotCT expansion box though:

"This set includes the storybook and cards for the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path. It requires the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Core Set and expands the maximum number of players to 6 for that set. "

If you have only the Core Set, you can play The Dragon’s Demand with 1–4 characters. To play with 5 or 6 characters, you will need to either add characters and appropriate boons from an Adventure Path box (Curse of the Crimson Throne would be an ideal choice), or add 1 Class or Character Deck for each additional character.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Agradeleous wrote:
Are there any promo cards being sent with Core Set or Crimson Throne orders?

There are six new promo cards for Core and Curse. Subscribers will get all six along with their subscription shipment of Curse of the Crimson Throne.

They will also be available in these ways:
• Four of the six—the blessing The Real Rabbit Prince, the weapon The Tall Knife, the item The Unveiling, and the ally Asyra—are in a special Curse of the Crimson Throne promo pack we're sending out to retailers as part of a special launch kit in May. (If you're hoping to procure these from your favorite retailer, make sure they're ordering the launch kit from their distributor!)
• The armor Corpse Plate will be available at larger Pathfinder Society events in the next year, starting at PaizoCon on May 24.
• The spell Embiggen will appear in an upcoming issue of Game Trade magazine.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

JohnF wrote:


The product description text still talks about The Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild. That's been renamed to The Pathfinder Adventure Card Society.

(This should probably be fixed on the Curse of the Crimson Throne product page, too - it has the same error)

Will update. Thanks!

Verdant Wheel Owner - Griffonest Games

Last year at Gen Con, there was an amazing event that matched a card game adventure with a huge RPG event. As events unfolded in the RPG, it directly affected our PACG games. I did not see anything listed in the events for this year. Was there a plan for another event like that at Gen Con 2019?

Sovereign Court Organized Play Manager

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Scott Rogganbuck wrote:
Last year at Gen Con, there was an amazing event that matched a card game adventure with a huge RPG event. As events unfolded in the RPG, it directly affected our PACG games. I did not see anything listed in the events for this year. Was there a plan for another event like that at Gen Con 2019?

There is not a cross-system interactive special on the schedule this year. With our transition to Pathfinder (2nd edition), we chose to focus the interactive on bringing the RPG story to a good pivot point.

If you are looking for a ACG focused awesome event, check out the Ruins of Bonekeep. It is the one time we run the Adventure Card Game as a tournament. Teams are still playing cooperative games, but each team goes head to head against the others.

Verdant Wheel Owner - Griffonest Games

Tonya Woldridge wrote:

If you are looking for a ACG focused awesome event, check out the Ruins of Bonekeep. It is the one time we run the Adventure Card Game as a tournament. Teams are still playing cooperative games, but each team goes head to head against the others.

I signed my wife, daughter, and me up for the All for Immortality Part 1 PACS Open. I could not find this other event of which you speak (or are we talking about the same thing?).

Thanks for the info! If there is another event, I am definitely interested.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Vic Wertz wrote:
Agradeleous wrote:
Are there any promo cards being sent with Core Set or Crimson Throne orders?

There are six new promo cards for Core and Curse. Subscribers will get all six along with their subscription shipment of Curse of the Crimson Throne.

They will also be available in these ways:
• Four of the six—the blessing The Real Rabbit Prince, the weapon The Tall Knife, the item The Unveiling, and the ally Asyra—are in a special Curse of the Crimson Throne promo pack we're sending out to retailers as part of a special launch kit in May. (If you're hoping to procure these from your favorite retailer, make sure they're ordering the launch kit from their distributor!)
• The armor Corpse Plate will be available at larger Pathfinder Society events in the next year, starting at PaizoCon on May 24.
• The spell Embiggen will appear in an upcoming issue of Game Trade magazine.

The promo pack I received with my shipment yesterday included all six of these, in fact.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Is it planned to release the rulebook and storybook as PDF files for download? And if so, when?

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Keep an eye on the Paizo blog for the rulebook PDF release.


I would like to add a few thoughts regarding the card game. These are some observations and concerns regarding the game.

1. The box. The box for Curse of the Crimson Throne should have the same configuration as the Core Rule box. As it stands, the box is *too* small. It isn't possible to sleeve the cards and store all of the Curse of the Crimson Throne cards in the box it originally comes in. And, if Paizo is going to release more card game adventure paths (which I hope they do), this is going to be a problem. Storage was a major problem with the original card game boxes (but the Broken Token inserts fixed that problem for us), and it continues to be a problem with the relaunch.

2. The artwork. The artwork is beautiful and is a major improvement over the old game. The artwork of the old game was good, but it didn't look like it was made for the card game. With the new card game, it really "fits", in my opinion.

3. Proxies. These were a great idea and will add some versatility to the card game. Rather than needing a bunch of a certain card, now you only need one. This was a good idea.

4. Locations. I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions on the locations in the 1st edition of the card game. The 2nd one lacks these descriptions and that makes me sad.

5. Dividers. The Core set comes with dividers (for story banes, barriers, spells, allies, etc. Curse of the Crimson Throne should have dividers for the chapters (e.g. Curse of the Crimson Throne Chapter 2, Curse of the Crimson Throne Chapter 3, etc.). To the best of my knowledge, you aren't supposed to add in all of the cards when you first play a campaign, but rather, should add the cards incrementally as you go through each chapter. Therefore, there really should be an easy way to store the cards of the current campaign you're playing in the Core Rulebox with dividers so that when it's time to add the cards from the next chapter into your game, they are more easily retrieved.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoy the card game. It's one of my favorite games and I hope that Paizo continues to release adventure campaigns for the card game. The PACG is what originally got me interested in the PFRPG tabletop game as well. So, I hope it sells well and becomes more popular. Storage with the card game has always been an issue and I hope this gets addressed in the future, with sleeved cards in mind.


Got the box today and was hoping to read through the rules in bed tonight, but, there is no PDF set of the rules posted. Very Sad.

Developer

Starflare wrote:
I would like to add a few thoughts regarding the card game. These are some observations and concerns regarding the game.

I'm maybe not the best person to respond on this, since I don't sleeve cards, but I have a few responses and a thought of my own:

1) Why would you store sleeved cards in the CotCT box? If you're using the cards, you'd sleeve them and put them in the Core box (which has plenty of room). Once you're done playing CoCT, you'd unsleeve the cards and put them away in the CoCT box.

2) I also like the new art!

3) I dislike proxies, and didn't mind having multiple copies of some cards. The additional cognitive load of drawing a card, thinking "oh, this isn't what it says it is," looking for the card it's supposed to be, then reading that card isn't worth having to deal with 4-6 extra copies of a card, IMO. I wish there were some way to order sets of Story Banes on their own, because I'd do that to avoid using proxies.

4) I hadn't yet realized those were gone! Yes, I agree with you here.

5) There is already an "upcoming cards" or "later chapters" divider in the Core set (I don't recall the exact name). I put my later-chapter CoCT cards there. They'd fit, even sleeved.

And my own observation:

*) I dislike the dividers structure, common though it is in games with multiple cards of multiple types. I was spoiled by having individual "wells" for cards in the earlier sets. I will probably just stick my RotRL cards somewhere and use its box for Core/CotCT, if only for the ease of grabbing cards mid-game.


The tokens were a great idea. They've allowed fewer Scourge cards to be printed (one of each instead of one for each character, allowing cards to be used for other purposes) and they can also be used for other purposes (e.g., marking cards displayed at locations or other characters by a character). I can see homegrown proxies being created with character faces on them for quick recognition.

Starflare wrote:
1. The box. The box for Curse of the Crimson Throne should have the same configuration as the Core Rule box. As it stands, the box is *too* small.

I almost agree here. I think that the AP box could be about half the size of the Core Set, the key being that it is just as deep, allowing the cards to be stored in similar inserts.

Ron Lundeen wrote:
Why would you store sleeved cards in the CotCT box? If you're using the cards, you'd sleeve them and put them in the Core box (which has plenty of room). Once you're done playing CoCT, you'd unsleeve the cards and put them away in the CoCT box.

Different strokes for different folks. I'm one of those that sleeves cards permanently. Yes, every card in every AP and character deck (I have them all, including the most recent) is sleeved and remains sleeved. Yes, I spend a lot on sleeves.

Regardless of whether the cards are sleeved or not, the Curse of the Crimson Throne box does not allow the cards to be organized unless you add things like bags, rubber bands, or your own inserts; and the box isn't tall enough to store the cards upright as they are in the Core Set. If players were to simply place the cards in the box, they would be a jumbled mess.

Much of this comes down to individuals' preferences for card storage. For some, simply placing the cards back in the CotCT box when not in use is fine. Others, meanwhile, would prefer more organized storage solutions.

Ron Lundeen wrote:
I dislike the dividers structure, common though it is in games with multiple cards of multiple types. I was spoiled by having individual "wells" for cards in the earlier sets. I will probably just stick my RotRL cards somewhere and use its box for Core/CotCT, if only for the ease of grabbing cards mid-game.

You might be able to emulate the pattern of the legacy inserts in the Core Set. Simply slice the foam into pieces and then organize them so that they roughly approximate the arrangement of the wells. This wouldn't be exact since there were four "columns" in the legacy inserts, plus the large space for the additional decks and dice. I could easily see the characters in the far right insert, boons in the center insert, and other cards in the left insert (with space for tokens, standees, and dice in the far right insert with the characters and roles). That would still leave plenty of room for AP cards as well as some character deck cards.


HELP?!

We are playing "Welcome to Belhaim" and have gotten to 1c "The Wizard's Estate". We can't figure out what "Eldritch Story Banes" are? How do we figure out the 'Danger'?

Is it the trapped furniture and the screaming lock? Do we just choose 1-3 for furniture and 4-6 is the lock? (That's probably what we'll do until we get an answer.

:) Thanks for the game we are really enjoying it!


JennR wrote:

HELP?!

We are playing "Welcome to Belhaim" and have gotten to 1c "The Wizard's Estate". We can't figure out what "Eldritch Story Banes" are? How do we figure out the 'Danger'?

This is befuddling quite a few new players. Here's a relevant thread/post:

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42ki1?Core-questions#30

Putting the Story Bane Roster on the back of a Wildcard was perhaps not ideal.

Web Product Manager

The Rulebook and Card List download links have been added to the product description above.

Horizon Hunters

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

G'day,

I recently received this along with the expansion Curse of the Crimson Throne.

I am looking at storage options and, with regard to the core box, is its free space designed to hold all upcoming expansions such as above, or is it designed for future core set expansions?

Cheers.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

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There's tons of room in the Core Set box—more than enough to hold Core, Curse, and a bunch of Class Decks, even if you sleeve your cards.


Hi Vic or anyone else, I have a question about this reply/quote:

Vic wrote:
If you have only the Core Set, you can play The Dragon’s Demand with 1–4 characters. To play with 5 or 6 characters, you will need to either add characters and appropriate boons from an Adventure Path box (Curse of the Crimson Throne would be an ideal choice), or add 1 Class or Character Deck for each additional character.

Can you point me at these Class or Character decks that would let us play the Dragon's Demand with 5 or 6 players, without needing to open the Curse of the Crimson Throne yet? Or is that not possible?


cdietschrun wrote:


Can you point me at these Class or Character decks that would let us play the Dragon's Demand with 5 or 6 players, without needing to open the Curse of the Crimson Throne yet? Or is that not possible?

There is a bunch of Class Decks here and Add On decks here

You'll need to use the Transition guide in the rulebook when using them.


Thanks!


"Pathfinder Adventure Card Society Scantioning Document" appears to be a typo.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Yewstance wrote:
"Pathfinder Adventure Card Society Scantioning Document" appears to be a typo.

Fixed. Thanks!


I see a Core Set on Amazon with slightly different box art (green dragon but with monk and barbarian). Is that a different edition/version?
https://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Adventure-Card-Game-Core/dp/1640781471

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

CookingOrc wrote:

I see a Core Set on Amazon with slightly different box art (green dragon but with monk and barbarian). Is that a different edition/version?

https://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Adventure-Card-Game-Core/dp/1640781471

That was probably early (not finalized) box art that Paizo had to send to Amazon in order to get the product listed, but before the final art was determined. This happens a LOT with print media and Amazon, from what I've gathered.

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