I’ve been trying to get through Pathfinder Adventures for quite some time. I have tried to look up various tips and tricks for playing the game, but the information tends to be scattered – or, quite simply, missing. On top of that, there has been nothing that I could find that focuses on the “Rise of the Goblins” campaign. This guide is what I have done to get through the goblin-only campaign, and provides some general notes for the rest of the game as well.

“Pathfinder Adventures” is the electronic adaptation of the tabletop game of the same name and, if you’re playing the Steam version, it’s also an adaptation of the mobile game. You won’t have to deal with the same microtransactions, and all the relevant characters will be immediately available. There is quite a bit of content that can be purchased with gold, the in-game currency that you can get by completing various scenarios, but I will attempt to present this guide without having to resort to that approach. Even so, if you want to make the game a bit easier at times, consider purchasing some of the runes that add +1 to defeat banes.

“Rise of the Goblins” does not come with the base game. Rather, it is a downloadable campaign that is purchased on top of the base game. The characters you make for the goblin campaigns cannot be used in the main “Rise of the Runelords” campaign, and vice versa. While the cards you unlock in chests (purchased with gold and can be found in the “Unclaimed” tab) can be used in either one, both campaigns have different stashes, and you will have to make brand new characters in “Rise of the Goblins” instead of importing your “Runelord” characters and simply choosing the goblin skin.

https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/539591/Pathfinder_Adventures__Rise_of_the_Goblins/?curator_clanid=29104805

So “Rise of the Goblins” essentially is a miniature, compacted form of the main game, which makes it the perfect environment to learn how the game is played in the first place!

First, a word of warning. Anyone who tells you that Pathfinder Adventures is “easy” is lying to you. This game is not easy. It is extremely frustrating, confusing and luck-based. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve managed to get my odds of success to 95% or better, yet still consistently fail – especially when trying to defeat a henchman or villain! Part of the strategy of the game is to build up your characters’ decks to be prepared for whatever the game might throw at you, but there are times when the dice simply do not like you, and no amount of preparation can prevent repeated failures. But that’s a part of the game, unfortunately – especially one that is so dependent on randomization like this one.

So be prepared to lose. A lot. It’s how the game is played. If you manage to get through a scenario quickly and beat it the first time, consider that to be an anomaly. Things usually don’t go that smoothly.

The way the game usually works is that the players will have to go through different adventures, and each one is (usually) divided into five scenarios. With “Rise of the Goblins,” we only have one adventure, consisting of five scenarios. The way most scenarios work is that you’ll have a number of locations equal to the number of characters in your party, plus two. You have 30 turns to track down the central villain of the scenario and defeat them. They could be hiding in any of the locations in the scenario, but if you don’t “close” the other locations, the villain will escape to an open one, rather than be defeated. Closing a location typically involves first finding and defeating a henchman hiding in the deck, and then doing something to meet the closing condition of those locations. The conditions can vary, but defeating the villain at each location will automatically close that location. So typically the main plan is to close two locations, then spread your party out among the remaining locations to try and find the villain. That way, when the villain is found, all the other locations can be temporarily closed so the villain cannot escape.

That’s the plan, anyway. As you’ll find out while playing the game, things don’t typically go according to plan.

You can have a party ranging from one to six characters. Note that the number of locations will change depending on how many characters you have in your party, but the turn timer will always be the same – 30. Sometimes having a large party will mean that you will run out of time before you can even find the villain. And if you try to go in with one character, there’s a good chance that character will “die” before you can defeat the villain, or simply not have the skills to close enough locations. Personally, I have found that a party of four characters works best; a fighter-type, a divine user, an arcane user and a support character. Here is what I used.

Ranzak

This character comes with the “Rise of the Goblins” scenario, and he is an extremely handy one. He has a huge hand of seven cards and a special ability that gives him a 50% chance to explore a location again after he acquires a “boon” card. This ability can even be increased into a two-in-three chance after the second scenario – take advantage of that!

So, what’s his drawback? With a hand of seven cards, you’ll find that his personal deck is perpetually low. It’s like the goblin is always on the edge of dying. If that weren’t scary enough, he also is really bad at combat. Fortunately he has an ability, “yellow-bellied,” that allows him to hide and let another random character that is at the same location take care of the threat, instead.

The drawback to that, of course, is that there needs to be another character at that same location. Ranzak should always be doubled up with a character that can defeat monsters and other banes easily. So he works well with Valeros (the fighter) or Seoni (the sorceress). This means that you won’t be able to spread out your characters as much as you might like, but with his ability to churn through location decks pretty quickly it could work out well.

Valeros

Others might argue that there are other fighters that work better – like the barbarian Amiri, or the paladin Seelah, but since there is a different campaign that requires Valeros to be in the party, you may as well get used to using him. His biggest strength is, of course, combat. When it comes to defeating enemies he does a fantastic job at it… as long as he has a weapon in his hand. With a small hand size of only four cards sometimes it can be difficult to draw one. Fortunately, you can increase his hand size to five after the second scenario. Valeros also is rather skilled with obtaining weapons and armor, but struggles with a lot of other checks (especially against barriers, or anything that requires Intelligence or Wisdom-based checks). Fortunately, because he can recharge his weapons and armors, you generally don’t have to worry about him getting killed. He’ll be one of the best characters to use to defeat the henchmen and villains… once you manage to find them.

Seoni

The sorcerer is an arcane user that has a huge bonus to any Charisma checks. On top of that, she can use any card – ANY card – to turn into a fiery blast to burn her enemies. This makes her a great character to defeat monsters, henchmen and the villain as well. Her drawback is that she has a limit to the number of spells and blessings in her deck, and doesn’t really have a way to get cards out of her discard pile and back into her deck. As a result, it can be easy to have her accidentally whittle her deck down too far and get killed herself – not as quickly as Ranzak, but she doesn’t have the option to run and hide, either. I typically had her paired with a healer whenever possible, just in case she needed a cure spell. Still, there are very few down sides with using Seoni, and I recommend her in any party, even in the main campaign.

Lini

Lini the Druid has a reputation for being over-powered to the point of breaking the game. At least that’s her reputation… in practice, I found her to be quite lacking. If she has an animal in her hand, she can easily use it to add a die to any check that involves dice, so that’s good. It makes it much easier for her to acquire boons, close locations, defeat barriers and anything else.

So, what’s her drawback? Combat. And in Pathfinder Adventures, there is a LOT of combat involved. Even if she has the ability to discard a card in order to go into “beast mode” and give her another die, this usually won’t be enough to defeat henchmen or villains. In a way, she is similar to Ranzak – good at what she does, but where she stinks, she really stinks. Fortunately, as a divine caster she can close locations that require divine checks with ease. She also can have “cure” spells in her hand that can give her the ability to keep her teammates alive… given that they are at the same location as her.

This scenario is not like the typical scenario. There is only one location, where all your party members can be found, and that location can only be closed by getting rid of all the cards in the location deck, and then succeeding a Charisma or Diplomacy check. With a four-person party that deck is 25 cards. With 30 turns that shouldn’t be a problem… provided that your characters manage to beat every single check. As usual, this is easier said than done.

Some of the “henchmen” in this challenge aren’t combat checks, but tasks. For example, one barrier you may have to defeat involves eating a bag of slugs. That requires two Fortitude checks (likely one for eating the slugs, and another to keep them down… goblins are weird). Most challenges in the game are not quite as comical, but it will give you an idea of what to expect in the game. If you fail to defeat the “bane,” it gets shuffled back into the location deck for you to encounter again. In a sense, you just wasted your turn.


You can get extra turns per character by discarding blessings and certain allies. But keep in mind that doing this will mean you can’t use those cards for future checks, too. Part of the challenge of the game is deciding when to throw away blessings to get extra turns, and when to hold on to them to make future checks easier. Quite often you’ll have to make a judgment call on this, but if half (or more) of the location cards are still around by the time you hit turn 15, you may want to start discarding those blessings and allies for extra explorations for each character. (As mentioned above, Ranzak makes this easier, since he has a good chance of getting a free exploration every time he acquires a boon.)

So, win or lose, you’ll eventually get to the end of the first scenario. You’ve gone through the entire deck, you closed the location, and you have a good amount of cards to upgrade your character deck! Now what do you do?

Well, you play “Dare or Dare” again. And again. And again…. The first scenario serves as a good opportunity to change up your deck and obtain better cards for each of your characters. You also can use it as a “testing ground” if you wanted to give any of the other adventurers a try, too. Just be sure to use the “party management” button on the screen to change which character you are using.

Also, make sure that you keep completing it on the “Normal” difficulty. Once you complete a scenario the first time, the game will want you to play again at the higher difficulties. If you want all the achievements you’ll have to do this eventually… but just starting out, you’ll want to make your decks better first.

When you finish “Dare or Dare” the first time, you’ll be given some gold and one card for each character in your party. This only happens the first time you complete the scenario – if you do it again, you won’t get any rewards, even if you change your party completely. You would have to start a brand new game in order to get that… but it really isn’t worth it.

In any case, every time you finish a scenario, you’re taken to a card management screen, where you’ll have to adjust the decks of each of your characters. Each character has a deck of 15 cards, but there is a limit as to what cards can be in each deck. You’ll want to build and improve each character’s deck so that they will become more powerful and – of course – be able to burn through and close locations quicker. I’ll go through each of the four characters I chose here.


Ranzak
Deck: Four weapons, one spell, one armor, four items, one ally and four blessings.

You will want to focus primarily on Ranzak’s items and blessings first and foremost – especially items that will take advantage of his ability to remove barriers (such as masterwork tools). For his weapons, obtain weapons that use Dexterity as their primary stat, since that will give him much better odds of fighting if he should get stuck in combat.

Even though he gets one spell in his deck, he is not proficient in arcane or divine casting. As a result, any spells he casts will end up banished – meaning thrown away! I’ve found that it’s best to use this as a “pocket card,” as it were. Put a card into his deck that either arcane or divine casters can use (such as Detect Magic or Fiery Weapon). Then, if Ranzak draws it, go to the location where one of your spellcasters is at and give that card to that character.

Valeros

Deck: Five weapons, no spells, three armor, two items, two allies, three blessings.

Dump the normal weapons and janky armor as soon as possible and replace them with magic weapons and armors as soon as you can. One important thing to keep in mind with goblin Valeros is that he gets an additional 1d4 to attacks when using blunt weapons (maces, quarterstaffs), so those should take priority. Also take a look at the amount of damage each weapon does. A final thing to consider would be ranged weapons – in this party, Valeros is the only character with the ranged skill, so he can contribute to another character’s combat with a ranged weapon, if he has one in hand.

As for his items and allies, try to put an emphasis on those that allow him to examine the deck or give him extra explorations. The spyglass is a great item in his deck, so it should go to him first. Avoid using items that would require a divine or arcane check to recharge – since he has neither, it will simply go into his discard pile after he uses it.

Seoni

Deck: No weapons, three spells, no armor, three items, four allies, five blessings.

Seoni can automatically recharge any arcane spell and, after the second adventure is completed, you can have her automatically recharge any item that requires an arcane check, too. So focus on arcane spells and items first and foremost!

It can be tempting to focus on giving her damaging spells. However, keep in mind that she can turn any card into a pretty powerful arcane spell, so it could be better to use her limited three cards for spells that allow her to dig through the location deck, instead. Spells like detect evil and scry are perfect for this – especially if she can recharge them instantly and put them back into her deck to draw again and again and again. As for items, the staff of minor healing seems made for her. Since she recharges the staff instantly, along with one random card from her discard pile, it gives her more longevity in the long run.

Lini

Deck: No weapons, six(!) spells, no armor, two items, three allies, four blessings.

Lini really shines when all of her allies are animals. And if it is an animal that she can discard to give herself a combat bonus, all the better. She can recharge animals that she discards, so they should come back around again. Just try to make sure she has an animal in her hand at all times. Her six divine spells gives her a significant boost, but getting the right ones could be a challenge. Two of them should be cure spells (three is even better). The rest of her spells should be damaging spells or – even better – spells that allow her to go through the location deck, such as detect magic or augury. She can’t really use weapons, but with her beast form, she shouldn’t need them, anyway. As for items, look over your spells and see if any of the items you have don’t copy the spells (for example, why use an amulet of life when you can simply cast a cure spell instead?).



As you play through “Dare or Dare,” you’ll have opportunities to get new cards to improve your decks. Shuffle around cards between characters, sell off anything that isn’t practical or useful, and keep working on improving your decks. By the time you can complete the first scenario consistently with a significant number of turns left (say, five or more) then you should be in good shape to try the second scenario.

The Second Scenario: The Devil of Sandpoint

The goblins decide to leave the Licktoad camp and make trouble for the local farmers. There will be six locations to explore, but at least in this one you know exactly where the villain can be found. Stomp (a horse, of course) will always be located in the Horse Pen. So feel free to double up your characters and close other locations instead!

One important thing to consider is which characters can close locations. If a location requires a wisdom check, for example, Valeros may not be the best character to choose to close that place. Here is a list of the locations for the second adventure, plus their closing conditions.

The Warrens (succeed a Dexterity or Acrobatics check of 6); the Village House (banish a card); the Throne Room (succeed a Charisma or Diplomacy check of 6); the Guard Tower (succeed a Strength check of 5); the Farmhouse (defeat a random monster); and, of course, the horse pen (succeed a Dexterity or Acrobatics check of 7, but since you'll be fighting the villain here, that would close the location automatically).

One thing to keep in mind about the guard tower is that every turn you'll have to encounter and fight a bandit henchman, even before you draw a card. As a result, it would be good to use a character that can defeat monsters well at this location - like Valeros (if he has a weapon) or Seoni.

What I did was send Seoni and Lini to the Throne Room (Seoni has a high Charisma, so closing would be easy for her) and Valeros and Ranzak to the Farmhouse. Once one of the locations was closed I would send Seoni and Lini to the Village House, and Ranzak or Valeros to the Warrens. Once three locations were closed (in my game, Ranzak closed the Warrens on the first draw) I sent Valeros to hang out at the guard tower, Ranzak to the Horse Pen, and the ladies to wherever was needed most (if they closed the Village House and/or the Warrens, then they would join Ranzak at the horse pen). While Valeros seems like a natural opponent to defeat Stomp, his high Strength allows him to temporarily close the location when Stomp is encountered. I managed to finish the adventure on the last turn, with Ranzak at the location. I threw everything I could at Stomp and succeeded both combat checks against the horse!

After you select the reward of getting your characters additional skills (which I discussed above) sort out which cards you received, and what will make everyone's decks better. When everything looks good, feel free to run through the same adventure again - or the first one a couple more times. Remember that your goal is to make your decks stronger by encountering - and obtaining - better cards.

Here the goblins attack the town of Sandpoint. The main villain is Sheriff Hemlock, but take careful consideration of the mayor, too. When encountered, she will look through the location deck and throw any monster in the deck at you. The only way to defeat the mayor is to defeat all the monsters in that deck first.

The locations are the Sandpoint Cathedral (banish a blessing); Desecrated Vault (succeed a Wisdom or Divine 6 check); The Rusty Dragon (succeed a Charisma or Diplomacy 6 check); The Old Light (succeed an Intelligence or Knowledge 6 check); Town Square (banish a card); and the City Gate (Defeat a Bandit Henchman).

What I did was send Valeros and Ranzak to the City Gate, and then Lini and Seoni to the Rusty Dragon. Once both locations were closed, I sent Seoni and Lini to the Desecrated Vault. Valeros was sent to the Old Light because of the number of monsters there, and I sent Ranzak to the Town Square (since he tends to accumulate so many cards, he would be the one most likely to have a card to banish). When the Desecrated Vault was closed, Lini went to the Old Light (since she was the best suited to close it) while Seoni went to the Sandpoint Cathedral. I managed to close the Old Light pretty quickly, so Valeros joined Ranzak at the Town Square, while Lini went to the Cathedral. I managed to catch Hemlock at the cathedral and defeat him quickly.

In this adventure, you need to capture and defeat Ameikou Kaijitsu, a bard. She will require two checks to be defeated, but the first one is based on Intelligence or Knowledge! If that weren’t enough, the first time you do manage to defeat her she will escape to another location (or the same one, if you happen to have all the other locations closed) and you’ll have to track her down and defeat her again.

When you track her down, you'll have two checks against her. One will be based on intelligence or survival (which would be perfect for Lini) and the second will be a combat check (which is better for Valeros or Seoni). So be prepared to use blessings for one or both of the checks, depending on who encounters her. After you defeat her the first time, you'll see which location she escapes to. Get Ranzak over there and have him start burning through the location deck so you can find her again. If Ranzak draws Ameiko, he can use his "yellow bellied" ability to allow whichever other character there to fight her, instead. If you play your cards right, you should be able to catch her with around five turns left.

The locations are the Glassworks (succeed a Wisdom or Perception 6 check); the Prison (succeed a Charisma or Diplomacy 6 check); the Shrine to Lamashtu (Succeed a Divine 6 check or banish a blessing); Catacombs of Wrath (defeat a Wrathful Sinspawn); the Waterfront (defeat a Bandit Henchman); and the Deeper Dungeons (succeed a Constitution or Fortitude 8 check).

As you can expect, Valeros and Ranzak went to the Catacombs first, then to the Waterfront. The Glassworks is a great place for Lini to start, so I took her and Seoni there first. After that location was closed, they went to the prison, where Seoni's high Charisma skill came in handy. I managed to close everything but one location, and I encountered Ameikou with Lini. The Wisdom check was a breeze, and since Lini had an "Inflict" spell in hand, help from an animal and a few blessings allowed her to defeat the bard quickly.

The Licktoad Camp is under attack! Your team of four goblins will have to defeat a party of adventurers before they can destroy your home… or at least take all your shinies. Homes are easy to come by, after all.

There are no villains in this scenario. Instead, each location has a "Longshanks Adventurer" henchman hiding in it. In addition to rolling a die at the start to give it random abilities (such as increasing its difficulty by four if you encounter it by itself), they gain more strength each time another Longshanks Adventurer is defeated in the scenario. So the more you defeat them, the more powerful they get.

The locations are the Guard Tower (requires a Strength check of 5 or better); the Throne Room (Charisma or Diplomacy 6); the Temple (closes automatically); Treacherous Cave (Constitution or Fortitude 6); the Waterfront (defeat a bandit henchman); and the Nettlemaze (defeat a random monster).

I decided to take care of the combat-heavy locations first, so I sent Valeros and Ranzak to the Nettlemaze, and Seoni and Lini to the Waterfront. To my surprise, I encountered the Longshanks Adventurers in my first draw. I easily defeated them with Valeros and moved Ranzak to the Guard Tower. Lini encountered the Longshanks Adventurers on her draw on the Waterfront, so that location closed quickly, too. In fact, I had pretty good luck throughout the scenario, except for the throne room. I failed my check to close that location, so I had to go through the entire location deck before I could close it for good. However, it was the last location open, and with everyone at that spot (especially Ranzak, who could clear through things easily when there are no monsters in the deck), I was able to close the location with Seoni and threw in a few blessings, just to be on the safe side.

Once you finish this adventure, you should get the achievement for completing the campaign on Normal mode. Congratulations! Now you have to do it two more times – once on Heroic difficulty and once on Legendary.

Fortunately, you are able to continue using your team of four goblins to get through all these adventures on the higher challenges. But they will throw more tricks at you as a result.

Once you have finished the scenarios on Normal Difficulty, you can replay them again on Heroic difficulty. You'll encounter more challenges, and also have to deal with "wildcards." These are basically additional challenges on top of the scenario that makes them more difficult. Every Heroic scenario will include one wildcard.

Some wildcards include "Retaliation" (where a monster can possibly deal 1 fire damage to you after you defeat it), "Blood in the Sand "(every time you discard more than one card from taking damage, one of them is buried instead) or "Painful Memories" (whenever you obtain a spell, item or blessing, bury a card). Some wildcards are easier to deal with than others.

When you finish a scenario on Heroic difficulty, you can then attempt it on Legendary difficulty. Each one of these scenarios will have two wildcards that you have to deal with. In addition, your characters can only move to adjacent locations each turn, rather than being able to jump all over the map. However, unlike the other difficulties, you will be able to get the gold reward every time you complete it. So if you manage to complete "Dare or Dare" you manage to get 250 gold every time - even if a couple of your characters get killed in the process.

So here is where you can benefit from that. "Dare or Dare" isn't too difficult of a scenario - especially with the team that we have. So you can play that scenario over and over, and collect 250 gold each time. Then you can use that gold and purchase some of the treasure chests (from the opening menu screen) that can have rare cards that you can add to your characters. Remember that gold and items in the "unclaimed" tab exist outside the different parties you've created. So you could use the goblin adventure to power up your characters in the "Rise of the Runelords" campaign!

In order to get the "Put the Longshanks to the Blade" achievement, you need to complete every scenario on Legendary difficulty. By replaying the scenarios and improving your decks - and possibly purchasing runes and other items from the digital store with the game you earn - you should be able to get this achievement after a while. The strategies I've outlined above will help you in this task. So keep it up, and good luck!


If you found this guide helpful, please feel free to like it. Steam points also are welcome, too. And if you have any other suggestions for people trying to get through this game, please leave something in the comments below. Thank you for reading!