Pathfinder Adventure card game review: Wrath of the Righteous
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A fissure in the world of Golarion called the Worldwound has long been a challenge for the mortal world with attacks from Abyssal creatures. Efforts to stop the attacks did, at best, contain the problem, but hidden powers have a plan for a large-scale invasion.
Can a set of hearty adventurers stop the invasion of demonic forces? Grab your trusty sword and spellbook; adventure awaits.
Wrath of the Righteous is the third Pathfinder adventure card game published by Paizo Publishing. The two previous games, Rise of the Runelords and Skull and Shackles are part of the adventure series. The game consists of 500 new cards containing new characters, weapons, monsters, henchmen, blessings, villains and new features not found in previous games.
From one to four players (five to six with a separate character add-on deck) choose a fantasy character such as a paladin, cavalier, summoner, ranger, arcanist, hunter, sorcerer, inquisitor, cleric, bloodrager and shaman. Then a player builds a deck of cards containing weapons, items, allies, armor, spells and more. Then it’s off to go adventuring.
Depending on the number of players, locations are set up containing challenges to overcome such as monsters, barriers, henchmen, armor, items and weapons. A villain is located in one of the locations and often the objective is to defeat the villain to win. Each fantasy character has a set of skills that are matched against different skill challenges. Dice are rolled and compared with skills to determine if a monster is defeated, a new item is acquired, a barrier is conquered and other challenges overcome.
A new feature in this version of the Pathfinder adventure card game is the ability for characters to pursue a mythic path that alters the game’s story and gives the character special powers in the form of charges. The charges can be spent to increase skills and overcome challenges. Another couple of new features are the addition of cohorts to an adventurers retinue of cards and a random demon that helps henchmen, monsters and villains depending on the adventure scenario.
Wrath of the Righteous starts easier than the other Pathfinder Adventure card games but quickly gets tough. It is designed with the same six-part adventure in mind. The game comes with the first part of the adventure and additional packs can be purchased as they are released. The game feels like a high-level quest with a path for heroic characters doing amazing deeds and pursuing mythic adventures.
For fans of the Pathfinder card game, Wrath of the Righteous delivers more of the same gaming goodness but with enough additional features to keep things extremely interesting. For fans of the roleplaying game, it is fun to play through the same adventure in a different capacity as a card game.
The Wrath of the Righteous card game contains fantasy artwork that may be of concern to some people, especially younger children. Monsters depicted are similar to other fantasy monsters from fantasy literature and movies such as "The Hobbit" or "Lord of the Rings."
Email: rmorgenegg@deseretnews.com
