Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Designer: Chad Brown, Keith Richmond, Aviva Schecterson, Mike Selinker, Liz Spain

Artist: Jay Epperson

Published: 2019
Players: 1-4
Playing Time: 90 Mins
BGG Rating: 7.7
BGG Ranking: 2299

Publisher: Paizo Publishing

Mechanisms: Campaign Game, Cooperative Game, Deck Building, Dice Rolling, Hand Management, Variable Player Powers

Sleeves: TCG 63,5x88mm

Game Description:

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.

Quick play overview:

Players will move around locations, trying to close them by defeating the villain, henchman or emptying the location deck… and then moving to the next location until they cornered the bad guy (or did something else that the scenario requires).

Players have a deck of cards that include weapons, armours, spells, allies etc. that also counts as their lifeforce. When heroes fail a fight or fall in a trap, they will get damage by discarding cards from hand and drawing new cards at the end of the turn. Hopefully the draw deck will last till the scenario is won.

The main point of this game is that each player starts with a basic character that has a special ability or two, and with time this character will get stronger and better equipped to fight the villains who dare stand in their way. After each scenario players can improve their decks with new cards that they collected from visiting locations and defeating enemies.

Bad cards (or collecting new boons) are beaten by rolling dice using different characteristics from your heroes. Sometimes there will be a strength contest, while other times a dexterity or acrobatics check will be needed… there will be charisma, knowledge, constitution checks and more. A single character cannot have all the abilities buffed, so they better have some cards that will help with the test. Like a talkative ally for a charisma check… Each card that you use, will increase the number of dice you will throw to pass the test, but the card goes to your discard pile… and your health slowly decreases. 

Final thoughts:

I just love the tempo on the levelling up of your character. Each scenario will improve your deck a bit, add some bonuses to your rolls etc. By the end of a small campaign, your character will be a power house.

The game comes with hundreds of cards and you will encounter some 10-30 new cards per scenario which is a good amount for the improvement of player decks and not making you overpowered too fast.

FINAL SCORE:

Gameplay & How often I want to play it: 10/10

I love that there are many different characters that can use ranged, melee weapons or spells… After each scenario, players will have to make some hard decisions which cards to keep.

I want to level up my current character to the fullest and start a new campaign to try a different type of character asap.

Art & Graphic Design:

The new core set from 2019 nicely modernised the looks and the art. There is a lot of text on the cards and once you get used to the style, the design of the cards is very clear.

Rules & Complexity:

Rules are a bit of a pain... even after a few games, we are still looking at the rulebook to find some edge cases. Maybe the keywords should be in bold, so players will know that “encounter a danger” is not a generic term but a specific mechanism 😊

Once the rules are understood, the game flows nicely and only the bosses with their special tricks cause the play to stop.

Theme & Mechanism fit:

This is the best RPG in a board game variant. The scenarios have nice back story and the mechanisms of levelling up and getting stronger while facing bigger and nastier enemies is done perfectly. Deck of cards used as HP is also a perfect way to make you think about how many cards you should use on each fight.

Fun & Replayability:

I’m really enjoying the campaign. I’m looking forward to help more defenceless villagers with their fights against demons and wild animals.

As there are many different characters to start with and each play differently and collects different type of cards to improve their deck, this game has some longevity. If you don’t want to fight the same boss again in a new campaign, you can easily make your own story and play through it.