Ruling — Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set

← Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Setbg-133038-en-1e

To play, follow these steps:

**Setup**

1. Choose your character by selecting one character card and its matching token card, placing both on the table in front of you.[1]

2. Build your character deck using the suggested deck or by choosing cards that conform to the quantity and type listed on your character card.[1]

3. (Optional) Before beginning a scenario, players may freely trade cards from their character decks, provided the deck still conforms to the character card's requirements.[1]

4. Determine if you are playing a standalone scenario, an adventure, or an Adventure Path.[1]

5. If playing an adventure or Adventure Path, place the appropriate adventure card faceup on the table and add the corresponding adventure deck cards to the box, sorted by type.[2][1]

6. Choose a scenario and place the scenario card faceup on the table.[2]

7. Decide who goes first, with players taking turns proceeding clockwise.[3]

**A Turn**

1. Advance the blessings deck.[4]

2. (Optional) Give a card to another character at the same location.[4]

3. (Optional) Move to another location.[4]

4. (Optional) Explore the top card of the location deck.[4]

5. (Optional) Try to close a location if it does not have any cards.[4]

6. Reset your hand by applying end-of-turn effects, discarding any number of cards, and then discarding down to or drawing up to your hand size.[4]

7. End your turn.[4]

**Encountering a Card**

When you encounter a card, you must follow these steps in order:

1. Flip over the top card of the location deck, put it on top of the deck, and read it.[5]

2. (Optional) Evade the card: If you have a power or card that allows it, you may immediately shuffle the card back into the deck.[5][4]

3. Apply any effects that happen before the encounter, if needed.[5][4]

4. Attempt the check: If it is a boon, you may try to acquire it for your deck; if it is a bane, you must try to defeat it.[5] To attempt a check, determine the die type and difficulty, play cards or use powers that affect the check, assemble your dice, and attempt the roll.[4]

5. Attempt the next check, if needed: Repeat this step for any required subsequent checks (such as recharging a boon or a bane requiring multiple checks).[5]

6. Apply any effects that happen after the encounter, if needed.[4]

7. Resolve the encounter.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook · p.4 · Setting Up

[2] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook · p.4 · Setting Up

[3] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook · p.7 · RULES: ROLLING DICE · Your Character · Character Cards

[4] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook · p.24 · Turn Overview · Encountering a Card · Attempting a Check · Playing a Card · Encountering a Villain · A Few Rules That Are Easy to Forget

[5] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook · p.10 · Encountering a Card

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 71 ms · ask 5679 ms · total 5751 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5751 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 9, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Anyone can play a card whenever the card allows it. Playing a card means activating that card's power by revealing, displaying, discarding, recharging, burying, or banishing that card. Doing something with a card that does not activate that card's power does not count as playing that card. For examp", "headingPath": "Playing Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.047183, "snippet": "If you are instructed to play, reveal, display, discard, recharge, bury, banish, or otherwise manipulate a card, that card must come from your hand unless otherwise specified. You may not activate a power that doesn't apply to your current situation. For example, you may not play a card to reduce da", "headingPath": "Playing Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.046635, "snippet": "When you encounter a card, you-and only you-can go through the following steps. No one else can perform these steps for you, though other players might be able to play cards to help you deal with the encounter's challenges. During each of these steps, you and the other players may perform only the s", "headingPath": "Encountering a Card", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "Preparation is the key to a successful adventure. The road to victory is littered with the bodies of the unready. Choose Your Character . Each player chooses one character card; this represents the character you'll be playing in the game. Locate the token card that matches your character card, and p", "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.043927, "snippet": "When you are dealt damage, you and other players may play cards and use powers that reduce or otherwise affect the specific type of damage you're being dealt. If you're being dealt Fire damage, for example, you may play cards that reduce Fire damage, or cards that reduce all damage, but you may not ", "headingPath": "Taking Damage · Examining and Searching", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.042196, "snippet": "It lists the adventures that make up the Adventure Path, starting with Burnt Offerings , as well as the reward you'll get for completing the Adventure Path. Whenever you start a new adventure in the Adventure Path, add all of the cards from that adventure deck to the box, sorting all of the cards by", "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.041317, "snippet": "If you discard so many cards that you can't draw up to your full hand size, draw all of the remaining cards, then shuffle your discard pile into your deck and draw the rest of your hand. Shuffle any discarded cards back into your character deck. Decide Who Goes First . Starting with whichever player", "headingPath": "RULES: ROLLING DICE · Your Character · Character Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.040612, "snippet": "Take your turn by going through the following steps in order. The only required steps are Advance the Blessings Deck, Reset Your Hand, and End Your Turn; the other steps are optional. Advance the Blessings Deck : Flip the top card from the blessings deck faceup onto the top of the blessings discard ", "headingPath": "Your Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "RULES: ROLLING DICE · Your Character · Character Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 24, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Turn Overview · Encountering a Card · Attempting a Check · Playing a Card · Encountering a Villain · A Few Rules That Are Easy to Forget", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Encountering a Card", "sharpsignalDocId": 671}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 671 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 671 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.89650 of 1913 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 10:46

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Playing Cards	p.9	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Playing Cards	p.9	0.047183 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Encountering a Card	p.10	0.046635 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Setting Up	p.4	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Taking Damage · Examining and Searching	p.12	0.043927 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Setting Up	p.4	0.042196 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	RULES: ROLLING DICE · Your Character · Character Cards	p.7	0.041317 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Your Turn	p.8	0.040612 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 61 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Playing Cards	p.9	#2	0.047183 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Taking Damage · Examining and Searching	p.12	#5	0.043927 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Encountering a Card	p.10	#3	0.046635 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Setting Up	p.4	#6	0.042196 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	RULES: ROLLING DICE · Your Character · Character Cards	p.7	#7	0.041317 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Turn Overview · Encountering a Card · Attempting a Check · Playing a Card · Encountering a Villain · A Few Rules That Are Easy to Forget	p.24	#19	0.024706 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Setting Up	p.4	#4	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Playing Cards	p.9	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Setting Up	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Setting Up	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	RULES: ROLLING DICE · Your Character · Character Cards	p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Turn Overview · Encountering a Card · Attempting a Check · Playing a Card · Encountering a Villain · A Few Rules That Are Easy to Forget	p.24	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 671)	Encountering a Card	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 71 ms · first delta 2885 ms · total 5751 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 71 ms · ask 5679 ms · gateway work 5751 ms · total 5751 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3491
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 576
tok/sec: 204.0 tok/sec — 576 output tokens in 2.824 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 29s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 604), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.