Enlight_Bystand's page

Wow, Sutter is barely older than me!

Thanks again for these Lisa, and for James' and Cosmo's input.

James, I've just read through the entire thread, and back on page 11 I asked if there would be an updated player's guide for this release, to which you answered:

James Jacobs wrote:

Nope... but there'll be a bit of stuff like player traits and getting started advice in the hardcover itself. Alternatively, you can use the campaign traits from the back of the Advanced Player's Guide.

I assume this was changed, and there will be a Player's Guide PDF for this? I can only cheer at this decision! I very much enjoyed the campaign traits from the Skull & Shackles Player's Guide, and certainly hope they'll be a recurring thing.

According to James (somewhere, can't remember wher) they couldn't squeeze the traits into the book, so are releasing them as a web guide.

As for traits, every AP since Second Darkness has had them, so after July the only AP without them will be Curse of the Crimson Throne, which had something on the same lines. Suffice to say, Traits are almost certainly going to continue!

MeanDM wrote:

This is likely not a James Jacobs question so I apologize in advance. I read most of my fiction on my kindle. Any chance of Pathfinder Tales becoming available through amazon in that format? Thanks for your time. Your dedication is appreciated.

I believe management's looking in to that possibility, but in the meantime and as far as I understand things, the way Amazon's kindle program works makes it pretty onerous for those who fall in between "independent self-published book" and "big publisher," like Paizo. I'm not sure exactly what those onerous bits are... but they're enough to make Paizo not comfortable yet publishing Kindle editions of fiction. I don't really have more insight into that can of worms though...

We'll see how things turn out though.

There are ways of getting them onto Kindle from the ePub version though.

James, did everything go well in making last week's Gencon deadlines?

If so are you planning to take a (well deserved) vacation anytime soon?

Chewbacca wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Mechalibur wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Hello James.

I suppose you will try to recover from Gencon.
I saw that adventurers are expected to be lvl 17 at the end. They were supposed to be lvl 16 before. That means more encounters then ?

Basically we are about to finish AP5 and I'd like to play an updated version.

What has changed then since they reached one lvl higher ?

Thanks James.

There's a combination of more encounters, more story awards, and more accuracy in the revision. In fact, the way the original worked out, there's probably enough XP for a party of PCs to reach 17th level by the end of that too, despite what may be said elsewhere.

In fact I remember when we played through it in 3.5, we just made 17th for the ending.

Hi Guys

I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have cancel my Subscription. It's just the eighty pounds I'm estimating I'll save from ordering the minis elsewhere is looking too vital to me at the moment.

Depending on the makeup of the third set, I'll try to come back to you for it, even if only in brick form.

Thanks

Any chance of another one of these coming up soon?

The last two have been the last Thursday of the month. I wouldn't be surprised if we get 2005 this Thursday...

Actually, I believe it's more related to the summer convention schedule than to messageboards.

From what people have said, today is the big Gencon print deadline , so I expect there is much stress at Paizo at the moment...

Kevin Mack wrote:

Interesting does this mean book 5 has been significantly changed? (Since in the origonal book the scribbler was encounterd before you came to runeforged)

Nope. He is still under Sandpoint. I left Erik a message. :)

Lisa

Weren Wu Jen wrote:

Maybe from here: Raiju

Raijū (雷獣,"thunder animal" or "thunder beast") is a legendary creature from Japanese mythology. Its body is composed of either lightning or fire and may be in the shape of a cat, tanuki, monkey, or weasel.

Oh, that makes more sense, especially since both the lightning and fire variants are presented in the stats block. But come on, what's the chance of gamers referring directly to that instead of the other more well-known fictional inspirations ?

I suspect it's mostly a case of adapting from the same source

Hmm, I've been thinking about your previous answer James, and I was wondering, what was Aroden's relation to destined prophesy?

If he's not the god of prophesy (as you rightfully pointed out) then why did all prophesy collapse with his demise? According to the ISWG, even the other deities weren't immune (hmm, with the probable exception of Pharasma).

Or is this one of those 'nobody knows' situations?

Yep, I'm an Aroden fan. :)

I believe the phrophocalypse occured because of the failure of the massive prophecy that Aroden would return. If that was so unreliable, what chance anything else is true.

It's a question of a god's prophecy, not the god of prophecy...

The thing I find most fascinating about this thread?

Messageboards wrote:

[WizKids / NECA] Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters [2,335 posts]

(started) Aug 1, 2011, 03:27 PM by Vic Wertz — Thehigher cause, Steve Geddes, Vic Wertz and 81 others

2,335 posts? By 82 people?

That means the *average* poster made over 28 posts in this thread. And would be willing to bet that the median is wayyyyyy higher than the average :)

I believe that the names bit only pulls the people who have posted in the last couple of hundred posts of the thread

Interesting. Are you going to include them for free, if someone already has the 6 AP pdfs?

Also their is an error in the email leading here. It goes to http://products/btpy8srb

Sort of, given that they're already in those six PDFs...

Note that the Interactive Maps for each individual volume of the Adventure Path are already included with the PDF edition of the corresponding book, so if you already have the full set of Jade Regent PDFs, you do not need this collection.

Hideously Deformed wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

Hopefully there will be Derro but no Drow please.

Yeah, isn't there another company doing something with drow right now?

;)

Honestly, I have no idea.

The more inclusive way to make a clever allusion is to include a link to what you are talking about: those in the know will get it, others will be informed.

Who is doing stuff with drow?

the people you'd guess first...

Today's blog was locked in an epic battle! Many cave raptors died to bring this important message!

Doesn't that just mean you initiate the secret plan...

ZOMBIE CAVE RAPTORS!!!!

Y'all suck. I'll get money this evening. But by then, it'll be maxed out. I repeat....y'all suck :(

Why must fate be so cruel with her timing...

The kick starter doesn't stop excepting pledges, or charge until the end of the 30 day window, so you shouldn't worry too much...

donato wrote:

Construct race, please!

Yeah, if there's a construct race, I would love to see it.

There isn't, other than the options in the rae builder. All the races that are detailed have been published in bestiaries with the exception of the Dragon Empire Gazeteer races.

Thanks. I've got an email out to customer service about various things including this. I tested adding a case to my cart but I didn't get an option to add the dragon. Maybe I didn't get far enough. Looking at the description, I wonder if I'm going to have to unsubscribe from the battles and then resubscribe and select H&M as my first choice.

That would probably work, and get you the 75% off. Alternatively, just add the black dragon using the add to cart button above...

Just a quick question about this booster. I'm thinking of adding the H&M Case to my side cart. Are there still any Dragon boosters left? If I order the Case, does that automatically get the Dragon Booster added? Thanks!

Paizo's store front is more or less connected to their warehouse inventory computer, meaning that if you can click to buy above (not back order or similar) then there be Dragons.

You will not automatically get a dragon on ordering a case, however I believe that it prompts you that you are eligible when you add a case.

Quote:

The original question begs an important corollary: If other places can sell our stuff cheaper than we can, why don't we just lower our price so that we're the cheapest?

We pretty much have to sell our own products at MSRP. The occasional sale now and then is fine, as are the perks we provide to subscribers, but if we commonly sold our own products for less than the price that we ask other retailers to charge, retailers would—quite rightly—revolt

Hope that helps.

-Skeld

I'm horrible at math so I just don't get the whole idea and maybe I'm just an A-hole, but if I offered products like Paizo, and I could keep all the money myself, I'd tell the retailers to EFF off, lower prices and keep the money for me. Could be it's the area I am in, but I don't see squat from Pathfinder on the shelves of my local retailers anyway.

Oh well, they wouldn't do it if they weren't making money. So as long as they keep making money and I keep getting stuff, I will just smh and look for the best deals. meh

And then a lot of those retailers would go out of buisness or at least stop stocking Paizo stuff, which would definately loose some of the sales - they wouldn't all transfer across to online sales, and some people would choose not to buy Paizo products in reaction to that tactic. It would also stop a lot of sales to new players who might pick up their first pathfinder book at a retail store, like what they find and either keep purchasing at the game store or come here and pick up the items. Trying to force everything into one channel will generally reduce overall sales, reduce the amount that Paizo is earning and cause a lot of bad blood as well. It's not that you're an A-Hole, it's that the business plan you're considering doesn't actually maximise profit.

As for why people don't find the cheapest available price for something; there can be a variety of reasons - loyalty to a brand (there are regularly threads on here asking which way to make sure Paizo get the biggest cut through a persons purchases), there may be a lack of trust of cheaper places - some might not feel willing to trust a random eBay seller for example, some might buy only from retailers as they don't trust internet sales or don't like stuff going through the mail, with new products people might want to buy direct from the manufacturer so that they get it quicker, some might buy from a store so as to avoid waiting for the product.

Richard Leonhart wrote:

...if it's an archetype only for goblins...

Interestingly, I don't see anything in this archetype that says you have to be a goblin to take it, which I consider to be a good thing. I see no reason why an ifrit, for example, should be precluded from taking the fire bomber archetype.

Possibly, or possibly it's in a paragraph in the book's introduction that says that all archetypes are race only, so they don't have to say 'this archetype is only selectable by x' in every archetype

A question: What are their levels? If ranging from 4 to 7, I can't see how APL is 7?

I think it could become quite difficult, of course depending on how you play it.

Isn't spell resistance calculated as the total CR of the monster? In that case it got CR 25, which seems high at level 7. Combined with resistances it is going make the caster pretty useless unless they've got buffs or non-targeted control spells.

While it only got a slow fly speed, flying can be a challenge around lvl 7, where there aren't necessarily options for making melee characters flying. If you chose to have it flying outside melee range, those characters might have a hard time contributing as well, if they haven't got a magical ranged backup weapon (And I know a lot of people that don't bring those).

Whether or not there is water present will also affect the difficulty of the encounter.

I think you should be cautious about this BBEG. If you normally play monsters to the full of their abilities, I'd suggest you scale it down to avoid a TPK.

But then again, party composition makes a world of difference. A buffed-up lvl 7 paladin might tear it apart in a round or two...

I read it as the campaign will be running from 4-7, so at the end they will all be seventh level.

For the OP - if you look after the party's character sheets (which is always wise), run a mock combat between them and the monster. That's probably the best way to think through whether they are going to be able to beat this thing.

Probably the best way to tell if the trait is balanced is to look at the full set in the mind of a player and say 'Is this the obvious choice out of these traits?' If it is with just one or two classes, that's probably ok, but if you feel like you'd get half the party taking it, then it's probably overpowered.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Check your "my subscriptions" page. You can manually set how many cases and how many premiums you'll receive. If you choose 1 case and 1 premium you'll get a standard case, a huge case and a rune giant at 75% off.

Ahah, all making sense now! When I saw this before, I wasn't sure if I had to do anyting to activate it? If it already says Send me [1] case and [1] premium* each release, then I just leave it as is, and warehouse slips take care of the rest!

Yep, you're all good!

Papa-DRB wrote:

As lanyard is a real word, and keycord is not according to dictionary.reference.com, I'll stick with the real word.

Also, many, many folks, who were involved in camping, or scouts, learned how to make lanyards as kids.

-- david
Papa.DRB

it's still a stupid word :p

keycord... it's cord for a key. easy
lanyard... it's a yard of lan? LAN yard? are yards different for Local Area Networks (probably true!), not 0,9144 meters? Is it an enclosed area where you can host LAN-parties? Wait what? It's a cord to attach your keys to? O_o

And if you attach something else to it other than keys? I've never seen a lanyard just used for holding keys. Normally I see them for security passes.

Erik's got one hand in his pocket and the other one is slapping Advertising Director Rob Stewart.

Really enjoying this series, can't wait for the next installment. Even if I feel bad now that by picking up Dragon at my FLGS instead of subscribing, this was all my fault.

From what Lisa said above, your FLGS was probably on the non returnable model, so it was probably alright as you were avoiding the really low price for subscription

She's Huge though. They've done a Huge female before (Storm Giant from Giants of Legend set), but never large sized.

Hi guys

Previously on release day the bit for the PDF had a message saying 'PDF available 8am GMT/etc' or equivalent but today it was only saying 'PDF available GMT/etc. is this a bit of code gone wonky?

@Joseph

Thanks for that. I honestly wish they'd say US/Western rather than US/Eastern then. Not that its a huge issue, just kind of annoying. Was hoping to have it downloaded before the brunt of my work hours started.

It used to say 3 am us/eastern (or in my case 8am/GMT) but hasn't been for a bit.

I am glad for the sharpened focus of this book.

A request: can you please spend extra pages on indexes? I imagine there will be an index that lists all Fighters, then all Druids, etc.

Actually, I expect that there won't be an Index for this, rather that will be what is in the contents - the NPCs should hopefully be Barbarian 1-20, Bard 1-20 etc.

Cheapy wrote:

Mabven the OP healer wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

Fast Learner seems to be EITHER +1 HP and +1 skill point per level OR the alternate favored class bonus.

I can't imagine it being "+1 HP, +1 Skill, Favored class bonus. Pick 2."

I agree that this is most likely the intended rule, but they really could word it better. Such as:

"When you gain a level in a favored class, you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other. If you choose an alternate class reward, you do not get any benefit from this feat for that level."

Yea, all those "or"s make it weird.

Quote:

When you gain a level in a favored class, you gain [both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit] or [you can choose an alternate class reward.]

I think your final parsing is the correct one, and that still makes it a great feat for a human. Favorite class: wizard, Int = 18 means 7 skill points per level plus an additional hit point. Unlike some of the other posters I still see some value to Toughness but it would depend on the campaign.

8 per level - 2 class, 4 int, 1 favoured class and 1 human...

I have a suspicion that both Ultimate Equipment and the NPC Codex are slightly less designer/developer intensive than potential alternatives - UE having a significant amount of recycled content, and no big rules additions to create and perfect, and the crunch of NPCs being easier to create and balance than the crunch of monsters.

1) Is my impression correct?

2) If so, was these factors leading to less pressure on the rules team part of the reason you went for these books as opposed to something more complicated?

For those wondering about a smaller case without a guaruntee of getting the entire set; isn't that what in effect a Brick is?

I don't know what a Lanyard is but as long as it has got to do with goblins i'm all in favor.

Lanyard - except in this case that wolf would be a goblin

As for the storm giant I have read a few negatives at including it in the set - here and on another mini site. I have no issue with the inclusion of the giant, or even a cloud giant. It was 8 years ago, yes 8, when the first storm giant mini came out. Besides paizo have shown they intend to provide what people want, and eric seems to have a good grasp of the minis scene. I'm confident the line will get better and better over time - if wizkidz can keep up with the high standrads of paizo.

From my understanding most of the complaints are that 'there was already a Storm Giant in DDM'. To be frank, that's a silly complaint. Sure it's nice that Paizo & Wizkids are considering the contents of a defunct, rival product line but that is what DDM was.

If it turned out that there wasn't a Storm Giant in this set, and the only reason for that was that it was available in DDM, then I would be very annoyed that something that was needed for the AP had been left out purely because it's theoretically possible to get it for an inflated price on the secondary market...

Have there been any more previews placed online?

Check the Paizo blog for This last Thursday and the Tuesday of the week before. There's also a two page spread of the Duregar somewhere on the web...

Do we 75% off of 2 if we get the case bundle or just 1?

One per standard case. There's no link between the Huge case and the premium.

Common Large? Interesting. I also like the almost familial relationship between the Lamia, good old X and the Harridan.

Also good to get the next huge announced.

Just got In the next week... Email.

Yay! I've missed those emails!

Steve Geddes wrote:

Apparently there's some shift here anyhow. As I understand things, two of the huges in RotRL will be twice as common as the other two. If I recall correctly, the relative rarities of those four will be revealed once all the huge figures have been announced.

That’s interesting, I had not heard that.

Is everything Large sized and bigger going to be rare in this set? Like it was in H&M? If that is the case, than even though all the huges would be considered rare, there would be some admittance there is a different rare frequency.

On the Question of Large rarity, there have been large minis announced as both Uncommon and Rare, but not common.

Edit - ninja'ed by Erik

How I'd guess the rarities work is more on the case level. Let's say that there are 24 Larges in the set. 8 might be uncommon, 16 rare. There are 32 in the case, so you would get one each of the Rares and two each of the uncommons. All numbers are of course guesses.

Enlight_Bystand wrote:

Just a quick question - For Heroes & Monsters you set a Case list price of less than what 64 standard and 12 large boosters would cost individually. This meant that those of us who had Pathfinder Advantage would then take another 15% off the price. For this, you've listed it as the price of buying 32 boosters, then put it at a discounted price for the case, which means that Pathfinder Advantage can't then be applied.

I was just wondering why it was chosen to do the pricing this way round?

Warning: this answer will likely be far more complex than you expected.

In our industry, manufacturers can sell to distributors using either of two pricing methods: list price or net price.

In a list price sale, the publisher sets the list price on an item, and then sells it to the distributor at a certain discount from that list price—usually, about 60% off. The distributor then sells it to the retailer at a different discount from that list price—usually, about 40% off. So the publisher gets about 40% of list, the distributor gets about 20% of list, and the retailer gets about 40% of list (and if the retailer wants to sell it for less, they just make less).

In a net price sale, the publisher doesn't set a list price at all. They set a distribution price, and the distributor marks it up however much they want, and the retailer marks it up however much *they* want.

As a publisher, Paizo only ever uses list price sales, but WizKids uses list price for some item types and net price for others. They used net pricing on Heroes & Monsters, and they're using list pricing for Rise of the Runelords.

Our Pathfinder Advantage discount gives Pathfinder AP subscribers 15% off list price of most of the items in our store, but if there *is* no list price, it instead takes 15% off of "our price," which we normally determine based on a theoretical list price calculated by marking up net priced items *as if* our distributor were selling it to us at the usual 40-ish% off.

In the...

Thanks Vic

Just a quick question - For Heroes & Monsters you set a Case list price of less than what 64 standard and 12 large boosters would cost individually. This meant that those of us who had Pathfinder Advantage would then take another 15% off the price. For this, you've listed it as the price of buying 32 boosters, then put it at a discounted price for the case, which means that Pathfinder Advantage can't then be applied.

I was just wondering why it was chosen to do the pricing this way round?

Dragnmoon wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

60-figure sets packaged in multi-figure boosters like this

I would prefer this, but in the Future I would like a larger number of huge minis.

Huge Minis is what is making this set so expensive, and having only 4 of them in this set just does not meet my expectation on the pricing.

6 would be a better number since there are 6 in Huge Case.

That's not going to happen, either—at least, not without reducing quality. WizKids actually sculpted six Huges that could have gone into this set, but for cost reasons, they have to run higher numbers on half of them to make the costs work out, so we had to drop to four. Think about that for a second: the cost benefit that comes from adjusting rarity in that way actually outweighs the cost of sculpting two Huge figures and then not using them. (Though we do hope that the two unused sculpts will turn up in future releases...)

Vic, does this mean that there is a fixed ratio of the huge minis in the case (2 of the figures will be doubled up, the same figures each time)? If so, any chance you could let us know which ones will be doubled up?

No rune giant?

This line is only going from small to huge, so no Rune Giant I'm afraid

Sadly I figured as much. Although ** spoiler omitted ** would make one awesome miniature. I'm thinking the final huge may well be ** spoiler omitted **

perhaps I will ammend my list then so I can track how my predictions went
** spoiler omitted **

Love speculating on these things, adds to my excitement.

We don't have any Huge giants yet, and there are quite a few from what I remember. I'd be suprised if the remaining Huge isn't a Giant

The pricing confuses me a bit. With a 15% Adventure Path subscription discount, $661.62 should come to $562.29, but the price listed is $519.98 -- not that I'm complaining, but where does the extra $42+ in savings come from?

Also, I think I may have incorrectly ordered. Looks like at one point I pre-ordered a standard booster case for RotRL and more recently subscribed to the PF Battles Minis line which placed a Case Bundle in pre-order.

To clarify, I want one bundle (one standard case, one huge case, 75% off one rune giant}, not two standards plus a huge case and the single premium. Does my Sidecart need to be adjusted?

The 661 is the price of everything put together. The 519 is the price paizo have chosen to sell it at as a discount for buying in bulk.

As for your ordering, it's probably worth posting in customer services as they're more likely to notice it there.

RuyanVe wrote:

Could somebody tell me what the 6 huge minis are?

Thanks!

Ruyan.

Huge size minis in RotRL

TREACHERY DEMON (glabrezu)
LAMIA HARRIDAN

Mentioned but not confirmed
WHITE DRAGON

Mentioned by Mr. Mona in the blog there will only be 4 unique Huge miniatures.

PathfinderMinis.com

And I would personally be surprised if there is not one of the huge giants (cloud or storm) in the set

Although it doesn't have rules on crafting mechanics, any idea on the possibility it will have the requirements for crafting items using the rules from the CRB like with magic items listed in the CRB and other books?

I ask this in hopes of looking for the requirements for making an airship or an alchemical dragon.

Am I correct in expecting that magic items listed (cloaks, swords, etc.) will have information such as caster level and prereq spells for creation?

It would be insane not to use the standardised magic item template (the one used for the core Rulebook) for magic items.

Whether they use that or something similar for non magical items like airships is less likely but not out of the question. By RAW, these things should be being built using the crafting rules. (I would NOT recommend following RAW on this!)

Hobbun wrote:

To Swiftbrook, why did it take an extra two weeks for PC to send out the minis?

The case came about a week after everyone else started to receive theirs from Paizo. The promo dragon came about a week after that separately.

Steve Geddes wrote:

It'll be $529 I think (not $559) since subscribers get 75% off their premium.

That depends. I'm assuming that the $39.99 price for the Giant is the 75% discounted price. If you subscribed to Heroes & Monsters did you pay the $14.99 price shown on the web page or $3.75 for the black dragon? Remember, Paizo doesn't sell the black dragon without a case purchase. Others sites like Popular Collections are selling the dragon from $20 and up.

-Swiftbrook

It was $3.75 Although Paizo didn't sell it without buying a case, they didn't tie it to the subscription directly.

Now I can't see why anyone would have bought it directly and not subscribed, but it was an option that would have had you picking up a $15 dragon.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Swiftbrook wrote:

AS for pricing here's some additional information. Popular Collections has released their pricing for these sets:

PopularCollections.com wrote:

Pathfinder Battles "Rise of the Runelords" Standard + Huge Case Combo (With Huge Rune Giant Promo) - Ships August $429.99

plus shipping.

Compared to Paizo's price of $559.97 (about 23% off)

For Heroes & Monsters, PC sells a case and promo for $199.99 plus shipping (about $20). Compared to Paizo of $279.98 plus shipping. I saved about $80 and waited an additional two weeks to get my H&M from PC. It was a torturous two weeks, but looking back, it was worth the wait (both the minis and the savings).

A quick check shows most of the online shops sell H&B cases for about $190 without the promo. The promo runs $20 and up.

Food for thought.

It'll be $529 I think (not $559) since subscribers get 75% off their premium.

I agree, it would be $529. But that is still a huge savings.

To Swiftbrook, why did it take an extra two weeks for PC to send out the minis?

Paizo will have got their stuff direct for wizkids, PC will have ordered from a distributor

I am hoping one of the other goblins is a Goblin Warchanter.

When Erik originally talked about the set at the end of the H&M previews he mentioned a goblin warchanter and goblin dog. It's possible that this has changed since then, but that's what I expect to be announced