Last week, I finished the first adventure in the Rise of the Runelords base set for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (not to be confused with the first adventure in the Rise of the Runelords adventure path for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.)  At this point, our heroes have busted a brutal bandit leader, put down a poisoner, and blasted a black dragon back where he came.  My deck lists and some tidbits after the jump:

For Kyra’s decklist, I really struggled with whether to keep the Bastard Sword or the Mace that she started with (mental math, 1d8+2 plus an optional 1d4 or 1d10 plus an optional 1d10.)  Normally, I would go with the 1d8+2 every time, but I went with the Bastard Sword this time only because I can get weapon proficiency after the third scenario, which will make that 1d10+4 (where the Mace stays at 1d8+2); this, I felt, was a pretty good tradeoff.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much in the way of choices for Harsk’s weapons.  The Heavy Crossbow was strictly better than the other ranged weapons I came across, and I got two of them in the second scenario.  I was pretty happy when I came across the Emerald of Dexterity though – Ezren picked that up for him, and it’s come in handy a couple of times to pick up some nice boons.

Ezren’s spells were the last piece of the puzzle to really get right.  I had lots of different options for combat spells, but I chose the decklist above to help support what he’s lacking – blessings.  Charm Person gives him a free follower, which has a good chance of turning that spell slot into an explore.  Similarly, Detect Magic has a chance of allowing him to explore twice if the card is magic or is a spell.  Along with his three followers, this puts him just below Harsk and Kyra for exploration (6 and 7 explore cards respectively.)

In terms of the adventure itself, I found that, even though I’ve played through it quite a few times, I like this particular adventure.  Sure, it’s easy, but it also introduces concepts well.  Each scenario has some rules that aren’t too punishing, but are varied, and it’s good to read them.  It also shows some of the versatility of the basic formulae the game uses – one villain and a bunch of henchmen (but in one case, the henchmen are barriers instead of monsters;) locations can be temporarily or permanently closed (and sometimes this can be done automatically.)

With that done though, I’ve gotten some gear to kickstart my characters into the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, starting with Burnt Offerings.  There will be goblins, oh yes, there will be goblins.