Review: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Wrath of the Righteous Base Set

• September 15, 2015
• James Skemp
• gaming, review

The following is a review of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Wrath of the Righteous Base Set, received as part of the Amazon Vine program.

Too soon to tell

When I saw the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game available from Amazon Vine I jumped on the chance to give it a try. Unfortunately the complexities of the game currently result in this partial review. This review will be updated in the coming days and weeks as we further play the game.

The reason the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game jumped out at me is because the idea of a tabletop RPG has appealed to me for a very long time, but I don't have the group of friends that (I thought) would be interested in it. It seems you need someone who's interested in DMing or GMing, and I just don't know anyone like that anymore. The premise behind the card game version of Pathfinder is that you don't need a gamemaster (GM), as each player is, to some extent, that role. See also the Sentinels card game.

The box itself contains another room for the base set and the eventual expansions. I think I would have liked it to be a bit more like Dominion, where you could see where the cards went without consulting the rules, and so that the various expansions could be slipped in without keeping their original packaging. However, it works for what it is, and I think it's fine in the sense of each player keeping a consistent character over the course of the game. I have no fear about the components getting mixed up when the box is closed (although one corner or another tended to stick a bit every time I tried to close it), and it tends to sit on it's side when not in use. It's a big box though, so lugging it back and forth resulted in me giving up and just leaving it at work.

The rules are pretty dense, and while I had read them before hand we ended up reading them as a group before starting as well. You can also expect the initial setup to take at least 30 minutes, so plan accordingly.

The cards themselves seem to be of a good stock, and feature some really fantastic artwork. In a way it almost made me recall decades ago when I played Magic: The Gathering.

And ... that's sadly all I can really say at this point, since we realized we were playing wrong and restarted our adventure. But from what I've seen thus far, the quality of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Wrath of the Righteous Base Set gives it a current 4 star rating. Updates will be woven into the review, and noted at the bottom of this review.

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