I’ve not kept my admittedly somewhat disturbing love for Pathfinder Adventures well hidden since its release earlier this year. Despite its bugs and garish, in-your-face pleas to spend money, I simply haven’t found a better game on mobile all year. Despite being a card game that feels awfully themeless on the tabletop, Obsidian managed to create what might be the best RPG experience currently available on an iPad when they ported Pathfinder over. The only thing holding it back was the slow leak of new content.
Over the past few months, that slow drip has turned into a steady stream and yesterday we finally reached the end of the road. The sixth and final adventure deck in the Rise of the Runelords campaign has been released.
Adventure Deck #6 wraps up the first adventure path in Pathfinder Adventures, so you can now carry a party of adventurers all the way from their humble beginnings when Pillbug Podiker was actually a challenge all the way to near godhood as you consistently roll in the 20’s and 30’s on combat checks.
Of course, Obsidian didn’t just release the new deck in the latest update. In fact, the patch notes are lengthy as hell including some new (completely optional) ways to wrangle cash from your pockets. Yay!
What’s New!
Deck 6: Spires of Xin-Shalast is now available!
- 5 New scenarios, including the epic conclusion to the Rise of the Runelords adventure
- 4 new locations
- 4 new maps
- Over 40 new monsters, henchman and villains
- More weapons, spells, items, loot and more!
Character Equipment Sets!
- Each character has an alternate version that can be purchased in the store
- Equipment sets can be equipped on any character that is not actively in a scenario. When selecting your party (or managing it between scenarios) just tap the shirt icon next to the character to equip the alt.
- Each alt has alternate art. Stat-wise, they’re mostly the same as the original with some tweaks to skills, card feats and some have power changes. Below is a breakdown of the changes, as compared to their base version.
Shadow Merisiel
- Strength D6 (down from d8)
- Wisdom D8 (up from D6)
- Acrobatics +1 (down from +2)
- Stealth +3 (up from +2)
- Starting Allies 1 (down from 2)
- Starting blessings 3 (up from 4)
- Sneak Attack renamed to Shrouded Sneak Attack now adds +1 to the discard for all versions.
Survivalist Amiri
- Constitution D10 (up from D8)
- Charisma D4 (down from D6)
- Starting Weapons 4 (down from 5)
- Starting Allies 3 (up from 2)
- Barbarian Rage renamed to Relentless Barbarian Rage, can now be used for survival checks in addition to Strength, Melee or Constitution.
Scholar Ezren
- Dexterity D4 (down from D6)
- Wisdom D10 (up from D8)
- Arcane +1 (down from +2)
- Knowledge +3 (up from +2)
- Starting Weapons 0 (down from 1)
- Starting Items 4 (up from 3)
- Expanded spellbook and Focused spellbook renamed to Augmented and Enriched, now works on items with the magic trait in addition to spells.
Forest Harsk
- Constitution D10 (down from D12)
- Wisdom D8 (up from D6)
- Fortitude +1 (down from +2)
- Survival +3 (up from +2)
- Starting weapon 4 (down from 5)
- Starting Ally 2 (up from 1)
- Starting hand size 6 (up from 5)
Sunwrought Kyra
- Strength D8 (up from D6)
- Wisdom D10 (down from D12)
- Melee +3 (up from +2)
- Fortitude +2 (down from +3)
- Starting weapon 3 (up from 2)
- Starting armor 1 (down from 2)
- Enemy Lore: Undead now adds an additional +1 to checks vs undead.
Lieutenant Lem
- Dexterity D10 (up from D8)
- Wisdom D4 (down from D6)
- Knowledge +4 (up from +3)
- Diplomacy +2 (down from +3)
- Gains Light Armor proficiency
- Gains possible Heavy Armor proficiency upgrade
Feral Lini
- Dexterity D8 (up from D6)
- Charisma D6 (down from D8)
- Knowledge +2 (down from +3)
- Survival +3 (up from +2)
- Starting items 1 (down from 2)
- Starting allies 4 (up from 3)
- Beast form renamed to Savage Beast Form, now adds a d12 (up from d10)
Painted Sajan
- Wisdom D6 (down from D8)
- Charisma D8 (up from D6)
- Acrobatics +3 (up from +2)
- Fortitude +1 (down from +2)
- Craft +2 added
- Starting weapons 1 (up from 0)
- Starting allies 2 (down from 3)
Formal Seelah
- Constitution D6 (down from D8)
- Intelligence D6 (up from D4)
- Melee +1 (down from +2)
- Divine move to Charisma
- Diplomacy +1 added
- Starting armor 2 (down from 3)
- Starting items 1 (up from 0)
Frostfire Seoni
- Dexterity D10 (up from D8)
- Charisma D10 (down from D12)
- Diplomacy +1 (down from +2)
- Arcane +3 (up from +2)
- Starting Spells 4 (up from 3)
- Starting Blessings 4 (down from 5)
- Arcane blast renamed to Stormfire Blast, now adds 2d4 (instead of 1d6) and the cold trait in addition to the other base traits.
- Acid blast altered to also replace the cold trait.
Armored Valeros
- Dexterity D6 (down from D8)
- Constitution D10 (up from D8
- Melee +1 (down from +2)
- Fortitude +1 added
- Starting armor 4 (up from 3)
- Starting allies 1 (down from 2)
Dice now available for purchase!
- Basic, Marbled and Luminous dice are available for gold.
- Epic and Legendary dice are real money purchases only.
Weekly Challenges Now Available!
- Get an extra bonus for completing a predetermined number of daily challenges each week!
New Boosters!
- 18 brand new boosters added to treasure chests!
New Dice!
- 3 new Legendary dice now available!
- Find them in chests or for purchase in the store.
Top Community Issues
These are issues you have all helped to bring to our attention. We can’t thank you enough for your feedback on the game! These issues have been the most discussed here on the forum and these, along with many more, will be fixed when 1.1.6 goes live!
- Ezren: Fixed a possible progression break that could occur if multiple characters had an end of turn spell to recharge and Ezren used Expanded Spellbook.
- Quest Mode Rewards: Fixed a progression break that could occur when rewarded power feats
- Rewards: Fixed a progression break that would occur if a character gained a power feat and had no more feats to choose from.
- Shimmering Veils of Pride: A number of issues including some possible progression breaks involving Villains at the Shimmering Veils of Pride have been resolved.
Other Fixes
Here’s the list of other fixes we’ve addressed in this patch, broken down by type!
Progression Breaks
- Birdcruncher Crown: Resolved a possible progression break that could occur if using during a villain encounter
- Cape of Escape: Fixed a possible progression break if an off turn character used the Cape to evade a villain’s summon.
- Temple: Fixed a progression break that could occur if you evade to it, then encounter a monster with a BYA power on the next turn.
- Skill Panel: Fixed a UI lockup that could sometimes occur when double tapping on the Skill Panel dropdown.
Cards
- Falling Bell: No longer incorrectly retains the difficulty reduction if encountered multiple times in the same turn
- Simulacrum of Vraxeris: No longer incorrectly recharges hand when succeeding the BYA check at the Shimmering Veils of Pride, and also no longer recharges displayed cards when failing the BYA check.
- Summon Monster: Can now be recharged on characters with Arcane/Divine.
- Swipe: Resolved an issue where Swipe would function incorrectly when used vs items
- Token of Remembrance: Can now properly be cancelled when played. This should help some users work around a progression break when you can’t interact with cards in the examine tray.
- Velociraptor: Now can correctly be discarded prior to your first exploration of the turn.
Character
- Seelah: Inheritor’s Favorite now functions as intended.
Locations
- Shimmering Veils of Pride: Now forces a recharge when characters with auto success recharge powers fire.
- Lem’s Quick Wit will now correctly make the power fire.
- Merisiel’s Inspired Dexterity, Kyra’s Dawnflower’s Favor, and Lini’s Wild Empathy no longer incorrectly triggers the power.
Quest Mode
- Rewards: Fixed an issue that would sometimes allow banes to be granted as rewards
Scenarios
- Thassilonian Sins: Players are no longer forced to move after cornering and defeating the final villain
UI
- Emerald Codex: Cards played from the Codex using contextual buttons will no longer sit in the middle of the screen briefly afterwards.
- Emerald Codex: Now has a slight glow when cards can be played
- Hand: Loading into a game with an empty hand will no longer have them sort on top of each other when cards are drawn at the end of turn.
Vault/Gallery
- Card Counts: There is now the correct number of Azavens and Scribblers in the Gallery.
Cards Modified from the Physical Game
We sometimes change cards from the ones found in the Physical version of the game – generally due to technical reasons, although sometimes per request from Paizo or Loneshark. Here’s the list of cards modified in this patch!
- Cannibal Haunt: Text added to state that when the haunt is encountered, it is defeated.
As for those alternate characters, they’re cool and all, but if you want to just buy all of them with cash they’ll run you a cool $60. Yep, that’s a six followed by a zero. I’m all for paying premium prices for decent games, but that seems a bit excessive to me for what amounts to completely optional tweaks that don’t tweak all that much. Luckily, you can also buy them with in-game gold, which I’ve been hoarding forever now. They’ll cost a lot of gold, but what else are you going to do with it?
Pathfinder Adventures is available for iOS Universal and Android and is free to download with adventure decks available via IAP. What does the close of the Rise of the Runelords mean for future content? Will we be seeing the Skull & Shackles campaign? I’ll give Obsidian a jingle and see what we can find out.
I really do love this game. But, it has some issues. I feel like I’m fighting through the bugs as much as the in-game encounters. The funniest thing is the IAP to change the color of your dice for $20-$40! If you know anyone who purchased that please tell them I have a nice bridge for sale in Brooklyn.