Ruling — Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set

← Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Setbg-151007-en-1e

1. Decide whether you are playing a standalone scenario, an adventure, or the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path.[1]

2. If playing the Adventure Path, put the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path card faceup on the table.[1]

3. If playing an adventure, put the appropriate adventure card faceup on the table.[1]

4. Choose a scenario and put the scenario card faceup on the table.[1]

5. Set out the locations by using all location cards listed up to the number of players you have and putting them faceup in the middle of the table.[2][1]

6. Build the location decks by shuffling each card type and dealing the correct number of cards of each type to form the basis of each location deck, then setting them facedown in a stack next to their location card.[2]

7. Add villains and henchmen by making a stack of cards starting with the villain(s) and then adding henchmen from the list until the stack has as many cards as you have locations, then shuffle this stack and put one card on top of each location deck, and shuffle each location deck.[3]

8. Create the blessings deck by drawing 30 random blessing cards from the box, shuffling them together, and placing them facedown on the table.[3]

9. Place your party's ship next to the scenario card, or next to a specific location card if the ship is anchored to that location.[3]

10. After placing the ship, stash 1 plunder card facedown under the ship.[4][3]

11. Each player chooses one character card.[5]

12. Locate the token card that matches your character card and place both on the table in front of you.[5]

13. Build your character deck using the cards list on your character card, choosing only cards with the 'Basic' trait (unless playing the adventure Tempest Rising).[5][6]

14. Players may freely trade cards from their character decks before starting a scenario, provided the decks still conform to the character card's requirements.[5]

15. Arrange yourselves around the table in any order.[4]

16. Each player chooses a location and puts their character's token card near it.[4]

17. Draw starting hands by drawing the number of cards specified by the character card's hand size, ensuring the hand contains at least one card of the specified favored card type.[7][4]

18. Decide who goes first, starting with whichever player the group chooses and proceeding clockwise.[7]

[1] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook · p.6

[2] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook · p.6

[3] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook · p.7 · Setting Up

[4] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook · p.7 · Setting Up

[5] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook · p.4 · Setting Up

[6] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook · p.19 · Between Games

[7] RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook · p.7 · Setting Up

Question closed. Friendships intact.

🔧 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 180 ms · ask 3969 ms · total 4155 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 4155 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.047493, "snippet": "Preparation is essential to a successful voyage. If your crew and your ship aren't supplied with the things you need, you'll just have to find them along the way… or take them by force. Choose Your Character . Each player chooses one character card; this represents the character you'll be playing in", "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.046394, "snippet": "6 BASE SET RULEBOOK Decide Whether You’re Playing a Standalone Scenario, an Adventure, or the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. A scenario is intended for a single play session, an adventure consists of a number of linked scenarios, and an Adventure Path is a series of linked adventures. We recommend", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.045635, "snippet": "For example, if you have 3 players, you’ll use all of the location cards listed for 1, 2, and 3 players, but you won’t use any of the location cards listed for 4, 5, or 6 players. Put the location cards you’re using faceup in the middle of the table. Build the Location Decks. Each location card has ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.044949, "snippet": "After you place your ship, stash 1 plunder card (see Plunder Cards on page 18), placing it facedown under the ship. RULES: SKILLS, DICE, AND MODIFIERS If your character card says 'Strength d10,' and the '+1' box next to that has been checked, your Strength skill is d10+1, and your Strength die is d1", "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.042925, "snippet": "After each scenario, you must rebuild your character deck. Start by combining your discard pile with your hand, your character deck, any cards you buried under your character card, and any cards you displayed; you may then freely trade cards with other players. Your deck must end up meeting the Card", "headingPath": "Between Games", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Multiple characters can choose the all characters start at the ship's location. same starting location. If your ship is anchored to a specific location, Draw Starting Hands . Each character card includes a hand size for that character. Draw that number of cards from your character deck. The characte", "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Add Villains and Henchmen . Each scenario card lists one or more villains and one or more henchmen. Make a stack of cards starting with the villain(s) and then add henchmen, working from the top of the list down, until your stack has as many cards as you have locations. Use multiple copies of the he", "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029907, "snippet": "In the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, your party of adventurers races against time on a quest to defeat a dangerous villain. Each player has a deck of cards representing a character. In most scenarios, your characters explore a variety of locations as you try to hunt down the villain. You'll need t", "headingPath": "Object of the Game · Card Sets", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 19, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Between Games", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setting Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 1274}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1274 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1274 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 0.91762 of 1930 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Oct 24, 2026 21:23 UTC

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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.4	0.047493 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)		p.6	0.046394 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)		p.6	0.045635 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	0.044949 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Between Games	p.19	0.042925 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	0.032258 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	0.030303 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Object of the Game · Card Sets	p.2	0.029907 (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 80 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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.4	#1	0.047493 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)		p.6	#3	0.045635 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	#6	0.032258 (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 + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	#4	0.044949 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Between Games	p.19	#5	0.042925 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Summoning and Adding Cards	p.15	#9	0.029851 (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 + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)		p.6	#2	0.046394 (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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	#7	0.030303 (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 + 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: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.4	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Between Games	p.19	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set — Rulebook (corpus doc 1274)	Setting Up	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 180 ms · first delta 1368 ms · total 4155 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 180 ms · ask 3969 ms · gateway work 4155 ms · total 4155 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3689
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 549
tok/sec: 201.3 tok/sec — 549 output tokens in 2.727 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 53s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child): schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 5h, checked 5s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1204), 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.