Loot system, treasure cards, rarity...

[Deuteronomy]

Hey guys... maybe I'm noob, but I have a hard time figuring out the rarity-type of the cards and am not sure if I got it to the end.

Can someone make the effort and explain the loot system in its entirety, the treasure card system and the two stashes, too?

I think this would be a great help for beginners (like me).

[taclane]

Sure! First off, there are two main groups of cards:

Campaign Cards - These are the cards from the tabletop edition of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game - Rise of the Runelords released around 2013.

Treasure Cards - These are extra cards that Obsidian either pulled from later Pathfinder Adventures sets, or created in-house. Some cards are better than campaign cards; some aren't. The greater intent was to inject some variety into the game to help replayability, and give the player something to spend their game currency on. Treasure cards can be turned off in the settings menu if you want to play a fairly true-to-tabletop experience.

Treasure Cards are then divided into the rarities: Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Card rarity doesn't necessarily mean much other than determining the odds that a card is found in a Treasure Chest. Once a treasure card has been added into your collection (via DLC pack or Treasure Chest), they all have about the same odds of being discovered in a location deck. There is a picture over here[i.imgur.com] to help identify card rarity by the way it looks.

Rarer cards may likely be better than common cards, but keep in mind that the base game was already winnable and complete before Treasure Cards were introduced in the digital app. Don't discount the Campaign cards just because they're "common". There are plenty of powerful Campaign cards later in the game.

Opening Treasure Chests with in-game gold, or purchasing DLC packs, adds copies of treasure cards to your overall collection. The more of a card you have, the better the odds the game randomly picks a copy when it is building location decks for the scenario.

In the tabletop game, as well as the earlier history of the digital app, there was no Stash. You were encouraged to make do with what cards you find rather than hold onto cards or try to farm out that perfect deck. Digital players somewhat got around this by creating "mule" characters, loading them up with stuff they wanted to save, then booting them from the party. Seeing as there was a demand for a "buffer space", Obsidian introduced the Stash system to solve a couple common complaints.

Stash - Cards your party aren't using, but want to save for some reason. It is a side-deck that is currently limited to 10 cards (no word if it will ever be increased in size). Makes it really easy to trade cards between parties or hold onto stuff like Loot cards for sentimental reasons.

Unclaimed - Created to address the "Hey I opened treasure chests, but where'd those cards go?" issue. Previously, when you opened up a Treasure Chest, those cards just got dumped into the virtual Game Box, and it was up to the RNG to determine when they would show up in play. Now an additional "courtesy copy" is dropped in the Unclaimed tab so you can immediately put it to use. When you get cards in chests, the player now has some choice if they want to find the card "naturally" or equip it on-the-spot. While the Unclaimed tab is unlimited in size, only the game can add cards there. Once a player moves an Unclaimed card to the Stash or a character, it can't be put back.

One last important note is that cards are not permanently destroyed or removed from your account. Any card that your party does not currently possess simply returns to the digital Game Box after the game. If you come across a really cool card, but you know your party seriously has no use for it, it is safe to sell it back for a few gold after the scenario. If you're forced to banish a card for some reason, it similarly just returns to the box. Maybe you'll come across it later, maybe you'll find something better. That's just how the game was designed to be.

Good luck!

[Deuteronomy]

Wow, thank you very much! That really helps.

[Ghini]

That does help, thanks.

[Dark Nero *=_VF_=*]

Thanks for such a detailed info.

Did I understand correctly - there is no way to find many copies of the most powerful spells, such as "Sign of Wrath"? Because if the "game box" contains only 2, I cannot in any way get more?

What if I put two of such cards on a character and remove him from party - will it help to get more?

[Sigma]

Originally posted by Dark Nero *=_VF_=*:

Thanks for such a detailed info.

Did I understand correctly - there is no way to find many copies of the most powerful spells, such as "Sign of Wrath"? Because if the "game box" contains only 2, I cannot in any way get more?

What if I put two of such cards on a character and remove him from party - will it help to get more?

Yes... for the most part. Here's how the game shuffles cards into locations.
First it takes your party into account. Then it looks at what cards are in your deck(s). If the amount you have is = or greater to than the amount it says in the collection that that said card will NOT be considered into the random shuffling into locations. So if you have 2 holy candles in your party's deck and 1 holy candle in your collection then you will NEVER find any holy candles while exploring normally.
You can circumvent this by using the stash, which btw was never in the physical version so you'll have to thank the devs for this QOL change. You move the holy candles, or the card in question you want to obtain more of into your stash. The game does not take account into your stash for shuffling calculations so that means you can find said card again during any scenario.

Of course how you play is up to you, it technically makes the game very easy if you just fill your whole deck with slayer weapons, 10x hurricanes on ezren, all your allies velociraptors/father zantus and so on...

[Dark Nero *=_VF_=*]

Originally posted by Sigma:

First it takes your party into account. Then it looks at what cards are in your deck(s). If the amount you have is = or greater to than the amount it says in the collection that that said card will NOT be considered into the random shuffling into locations. So if you have 2 holy candles in your party's deck and 1 holy candle in your collection then you will NEVER find any holy candles while exploring normally.
You can circumvent this by using the stash, which btw was never in the physical version so you'll have to thank the devs for this QOL change. You move the holy candles, or the card in question you want to obtain more of into your stash. The game does not take account into your stash for shuffling calculations so that means you can find said card again during any scenario.

Sorry, could you specify what do you mean by "your collection"? I know there are 1) current party decks 2) non-selected hero decks 3) stash tab 4) unclaimed tab. But what is the collection?

Originally posted by Sigma:

Of course how you play is up to you, it technically makes the game very easy if you just fill your whole deck with slayer weapons, 10x hurricanes on ezren, all your allies velociraptors/father zantus and so on...

I played physical boardgame a lot with friends, so I've spend enough time playing the "hard" mode with permadeath and we did no looting via re-running and failing scenarios. We played all 6 adventures only with what we naturally encountered.
I am a huge munchkin by nature, and in all computer games I like to maximize every possible stat and find every possible best equipment. And that's what I wanna do in this PC adaptation of the boardgame - build as overpowered deck as possible :)

[Sigma]

The collection is a menu screen that stores all the cards you have collected and have unlocked so far. You can view it easily in the main menu or when you press the menu button during the game. It literally says "collection" and that's what I'm referring to.

[Dark Nero *=_VF_=*]

Originally posted by Sigma:

The collection is a menu screen that stores all the cards you have collected and have unlocked so far. You can view it easily in the main menu or when you press the menu button during the game. It literally says "collection" and that's what I'm referring to.

Oh, I thought that "Collection" menu is just kind of encyclopedia showing what cards are in the game and has nothing to do with your decks whatsoever...

So, if I have two "Disintegrate" spells on my Seoni who is NOT even in my party, I will still never encounter "Disintegrate" despite my current party has zero copies of that card?

[Sigma]

Make sure you know what a party is. You can have multiple saves, each one is considered a party. If you have 2 parties, party and part 2, if party 1 has 2 disintegrates, but party 2 doesn't have any, you can play party 2 and still find those spells. That is because the games takes into account the CURRENT party you are playing with and takes collection minus whatever is in your decks and tries to shuffle cards into locations based on what's available. The stash is NOT your deck so yes you can just move the disintegrates into your stash but of course unless you have to have spare spells to fill your character decks, you will need to complete your deck before you can move on. Obviously the quick fix would be to go into a scenario and just find x amount of spells beforehand and sideboard them into your stash. Same goes for every other card type you want to hoard up on.

[Dark Nero *=_VF_=*]

But in-game a party is a group of heroes inside a save slot. The save slot itself is not a party.
Because there is Ezren in my save slot, but he is not in the party. I can click "Manage party" and add Ezren to the party OR exclude Ezren from the party.

For example, my save file now contains 11 heroes but only 4 of them are in the party.

So, I understand that the game checks all copies of the card within the save file, no matter if the hero holding those card is in the party or not.

By the way, what are the rules regarding "loot" cards? Is there any way to have several copies of those (like Medusa Mask or Wand of Enervation)?

[Sigma]

The save slot consists of heroes that make up that party. You can remove them and add heroes in at will but nevertheless whatever it is you have in that save slot is still considered a party. If ezren is in your save slot and not being used at all, i guess you can say he's in the ROSTER, basically a character sheet waiting to be used. When you add him in any save slot now that character is considered to be in a party.

If you head into the main menu and press "start", you'll see all your save slots. At the top, it indeed says "party". You may have characters you have created but are not in a save slot so they are in the roster. Remember, you can create 2 valeros and have them in different parties. You can't have the same or 2 different valeros in the SAME party, that just doesn't sound right. So this is why i call your list of characters a ROSTER and not a party.

Going back to what you are getting confused, no the game checks the CURRENT party that is being used to play any scenario and takes the collection minus current copies in party and shuffles whatever it can at random. Each save file is independent of each other and has nothing to do with each other. Only the characters in that party matter.

Loot cards are unique and just can't be gotten from anywhere other than one time rewards from campaigns for said party. There are no other rules, you can have an infinite amount of them up to your roleplaying imagination. This does mean you can play the campaign like 50 times with 50 different characters one at a time to get... well 50 wand of enervations or emerald codex, etc... Go nuts.

[Dark Nero *=_VF_=*]

Okay, now I found the source of my confusion. I thought that all heroes I create when managing my party are actually part of this save slot and cannot be used in other save slots. So when I wanted to completely swap my party, I removed all characters from it and added another ones.

I thought if I create new save slot I will have to create new heroes and level them up from scratch. Thank you for pointing that out and clarifying, now I can finally divide all my heroes into 3 different parties (save slots) which is more convenient.

I have some more related questions to plan ahead.
1) Are heroes in the rooster (that are in no party) and their decks taken into accounts when building locations?
2) The loot cards are one time for party. Lets say that Ezren and Seoni in the current party alredy completed all scenarios and got all the loot. What if I remove them from current party to the rooster, create a new party and add Ezren and Seoni from the rooster in that new party? Will they be able to get all the loot rewards again (even despite they already got them in another party)?
3) If the answer to the previous question is "Yes" - then does it matter if they have loot in their current decks? If Seoni has Wand of Enervation in her deck - will he still get another one, or I need to remove it from the deck to the stash?
4) Can the number of the card in the Collection screen be somehow changed? Is there a way to increase that number?

[Sigma]

Originally posted by Dark Nero *=_VF_=*:

Okay, now I found the source of my confusion. I thought that all heroes I create when managing my party are actually part of this save slot and cannot be used in other save slots. So when I wanted to completely swap my party, I removed all characters from it and added another ones.

I thought if I create new save slot I will have to create new heroes and level them up from scratch. Thank you for pointing that out and clarifying, now I can finally divide all my heroes into 3 different parties (save slots) which is more convenient.

I have some more related questions to plan ahead.
1) Are heroes in the rooster (that are in no party) and their decks taken into accounts when building locations?
2) The loot cards are one time for party. Lets say that Ezren and Seoni in the current party alredy completed all scenarios and got all the loot. What if I remove them from current party to the rooster, create a new party and add Ezren and Seoni from the rooster in that new party? Will they be able to get all the loot rewards again (even despite they already got them in another party)?
3) If the answer to the previous question is "Yes" - then does it matter if they have loot in their current decks? If Seoni has Wand of Enervation in her deck - will he still get another one, or I need to remove it from the deck to the stash?
4) Can the number of the card in the Collection screen be somehow changed? Is there a way to increase that number?

1. You mean the card distribution per location? No, same reason you keep asking and the same answer. If the hero isn't in the party, the game won't take into account said character's deck and what cards can be randomly shuffled when you create a scenario.
To put it simply, let's say you found 2 disintegrates and moved them over to Ezren in a party consisting of Lini, Ezren, and Lem. You removed Ezen from your party and now it's just Lini and Lem. You enter a scenario with just these 2. Now the game doesn't see any disintegrates in your party because Ezren's not in the party so disintegrates can be shuffled into locations if any location can spawn spells, After this scenario you failed to find any and decided to move Ezren back in to make 3 heroes in this party again. You create a scenario. Now the game sees 2 disintegrates and won't shuffle any because: collection minus # in current party deck is not greater than 0. You will not find any disintegrates as long as that equation is true while exploring.

2. The way how progression works is... well... weird. I can't explain everything because some of it is bugged and/or there's strange behavior. How does the physical version deal with this? It doesn't? Ok well anyway. If you take new/other characters into an already existing party that has a further progression, the game "thinks" the game is at whatever the furthest progression is available, thus you won't get any one-time loot cards at all. So no, you cannot cheese your way to get loot cards easily by using a character that has beaten the game and just create a new character to complete adventure 4 for whatever loot cards it gives. You will need to painstakingly create a BRAND new party and/or use characters that haven't reached said loot card adventure yet for the game to give out those loot cards.

3. I really dont know the answer. The game "shouldn't" give any loot cards out because you are using a character with higher progression to complete the adventure/scenario. You could test it out yourself to see if that isn't the case as I never took that into account when I tried something like that. I always just thought you can't cheese your way to free powerful loot like this just by creating a new character every time and progression skipping. I always play a new party with only found cards and never anything "out of place" so I can't fully answer that question properly.

4. If you have an older version... sadly yes. I have 4 copies of poles and steel ibis lemallar. Old versions let you sell cards in your collection and thus deleting them from your collection. Obviously if you had too many copies it would increase the chance of finding it even easier so deleting them would be very beneficial. The next game update prevented this but also did not properly remove some extra copies of cards so really it was a double-edged sword. The stupid dlc only further messed my game up, pretty much doubling all my treasures that I have found so far.