Designed by Mike Selinker & others.

Pathfinder is an persistent RPG with an unusual twist – the player’s ‘character’ is a deck of cards.

The player’s deck starts with a small deck of cards. They respect the sum of his or her ability, as well as his life total – if a player would draw a card but can’t he dies. The sum of the deck are things he or she can do – weapons, spells, skills and armor and the like. As the player adventures, he or she will find new cards, which can replace existing cards in his deck.

Each adventure is made up of five or six locations, each represented by a stack of cards. During each player’s turn, they can flip cards in a location. If they find a skill or armor, they can roll to add it to their deck. If they find a monster, they can fight it. The goal is (usually) to find one specific boss monster in each fight. As you fight minibosses in other stacks, you close those locations, cornering the boss.

Interesting Mechanic: Multiple Ways to Use a Card. Each player deck of cards is small (about 16? cards) but each kind of card typically plays in different ways. Most weapons, after attack, get put back in the player’s hand and can be used on subsequent fights. Artifacts can typically be used and then buried (i.e. removed from the game, but you get it back next scenario) whereas potions are typically Banished (Removed from the game for good). Spells are recharged (shuffled back into the player deck – important as that’s your hit point count), which has the nice effect of letting spells be more powerful than weapons, but far less reliably available.

This may seem complex, but in practicality, you pick it up quickly, and it allows all cards to share similar mechanics on usage while ensuring that each of them feels very different mechanically.

There are now four Pathfinder: Adventure Card Game scenarios available, with the first being Rise of the Runelords, which is a very straightforward fantasy scenario. If you’re looking for a D&D-like adventure but want the experience to be more mechanical, this game merits a look. It’s got a pretty good iPad app too.

(Photo Source: Board Game Geek)