Vic Wertz's page

The new cards from We Be Heroes?, including these the role cards, are now available as a print-on-demand set from DriveThru Cards here.

The new cards from We Be Heroes? are now available as a print-on-demand set from DriveThru Cards here.

Ron tells me "It has 3 chapters, each with 1 level of play. So you'll end at 8th level."

As these are UltraPro's products, not Paizo's, we have no insight into their distribution. We'll see if we can find anything out, though.

All products we list as Non-Mint should be complete, with only minor cosmetic flaws.

Are you using Chrome? Does it work if you put Chrome into incognito mode? If so, try this:

Paste "chrome://settings/content/all" into your address bar. You should see a bunch of websites you've visited. Type "paizo" into the search box at the upper right of that page (not the search box on your browser toolbar). Click on paizo.com, then click the "Clear data" and "Reset permissions" buttons. (If there were any other sites that came up when you searched for paizo—there probably won't be—click those two buttons for each of them too.)

You'll have a better chance getting rules questions answered in the Rules Questions forum.

Best I can tell, if Amazon doesn't have a new product in hand on the day that they expect to release it, they just make up a new release date for it that has no bearing on reality. (They won't hold it for that made-up date though—they'll release it whenever they get it.)

US Poker Size.

We like having all-new maps in Adventure Path products, but we do regularly use Flip-Mats in our Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society scenarios.

This seems to indicate the end of the scenery sets as case incentives.

You've been following WizKids long enough to know that they like to try a lot of different things, and changing away from a thing doesn't always mean they won't go back to it.

Last estimate for weight of the box was 3.5 pounds, can anyone confirm or update us on that?

I'm so excited for this product!

It ended up at 5.5 pounds!

We are currently working on Kingmaker; you can read about it here.

That's up to Roll20. If that's something you want, I suggest you let them know directly!

Yep.

Good questions. I'll have to get back to you.

Our February products shipped to distributors later than usual because of a delay in customs, so it's possible that some retailers didn't get it prior to the release date. And when one of our products doesn't arrive by the time Amazon in particular expects it to, they usually respond by making up a new release date that has no apparent connection with reality, which they correct once the actual books arrive.

We are contemplating this change to the Owner rule for PACS:

In the places in the Guide that tell you to choose a card using the Hierarchy, we would instead say something like “choose from your unused cards that have the lowest level; if an unused card lists your character as the Owner and has a level no higher than your tier, you may choose that card instead.” (This would allow the owner to take the card as an upgrade as soon as they hit the appropriate tier, even if they haven’t earned all the lower-level cards first.)

Go ahead and begin using this rule. (Don't apply any changes retroactively, though—just introduce this rule the next time you would use the Hierarchy.)

Added to FAQ.

Added Board Game to Ultimate Equipment.

AMANDA!

(I'm not very good at this sort of thing.)

We've worked on this several times over the years. Core's rule that removes closed locations from play solved this issue... at least, it did during the short period while that rule also applied to older locations. But since we changed that in the Conversion Guide, it broke again.

It's kind of hard to get all of that discussion back into my brain, but I *think* that the solution we'd come up with just prior to Core may do the trick. That's the addition of this sentence to Check to See Whether the Villain Escapes: “If you fail to defeat a villain at a closed location while all other locations are closed, open a random other location and shuffle the villain into it.” (I believe this is now needed only when using certain older locations under the Conversion Guide, so this sentence would be added only to that guide.)

We didn't finish vetting that solution before it fell to the Core/Curse solution, though. The question is, are there any locations that break if they're reopened, or if they're permanently closed twice during the same scenario? And if there are, are they used in any scenarios that also have permanently closed locations?

(By the way, letting the villain escape back to the location it came from isn't viable because there's at least one situation where that can result in an unwinnable scenario.)

Now that Wizkids have announced their product, nothing keeps Paizo from doing their minis blogs.

It's true that WizKids' announcement means our window to talk about the set is now open... but unfortunately, the two people who would be best prepared to write that blog aren't available to do so. We're discussing possible solutions.

(This thread no longer makes much sense because the initial post appeared to have a genuine question, but the poster's followups revealed that they are in fact a spammer, at which point all of their posts were removed, along with posts quoting the spam links.)

Adventurer's packs are now legal.

(And actually, it doesn't seem fine for a home society group. Now everyone has to buy a C&C set. Or split up a few sets among themselves....?)

(And, what about the box runner? They're already supplying the box to run the game. SO, they have to buy a second set of Core and Throne in order to build their own packs?)

First, nobody "has to" buy anything. If this set of options isn't for you, just pretend it doesn't exist; you're no worse off than you were before, but a lot of other people are quite happy.

Second, as mentioned in the blog, you can build all 10 adventurer’s packs simultaneously from a single set of Core and a single set of Curse, so as long as no two characters want to use the same pack, that set can supply packs for several characters, even among multiple players if you so choose. You could fully equip three characters with 159-card decks out of a single set of boxes—and if you're willing to play with 2 packs per character instead of 3 (which, by the way, actually gives you a couple more boons than a standard Class Deck by itself), you could fully equip 5 characters with no additional expenditure.

As for the card identification issues, there's nothing here that doesn't already happen when 2 players bring the same deck to a session, or when players are subbing in Core/Curse cards that have the same name as cards in their Class Deck.

Does it work if you put Chrome into incognito mode? If so, try this:

Paste "chrome://settings/content/all" into your address bar. You should see a bunch of websites you've visited. Type "paizo" into the search box at the upper right of that page (not the search box on your browser toolbar). Click on paizo.com, then click the "Clear data" and "Reset permissions" buttons. (If there were any other sites that came up when you searched for paizo—there probably won't be—click those two buttons for each of them too.)

No to both of the above. See the sample images—it's basically an image of the item on one side, the item description, and the information from its entry or table.

This product description does not have a price.

We're looking into it. (It's a bit of a stumper.)

Katina Davis wrote:

Zaister wrote:

I noticed on my downloads page that this volume—along with some other parts of this adventure path—was apparently updated on January 3, 2020. What has changed?

Hey Zaister, it looks like we updated the file on the 3rd because there were some issues with the Interactive Maps that needed to be resolved. I sent out a notification email to those with the PDF, but you have to opt in to notifications about digital asset updates on your My Account page to receive those. If you're opted in and still haven't been receiving them, let us know so we can investigate. Thanks!

Hi Katina, thanks for the information. I have checked my account page, and I have opted into all emails, so I should have gotten the update mail, but I haven't. I think there have been others recently, such as for the recent Gods & Magic update, and I didn't get an email for that one either. And yes, I have checked my spam folder. :) So, there seems to be something wrong with my account settings, I guess.

It's not just you. Looking into it!

This title puts me in the mind of a disastrous appetizer order at Outback Steakhouse.

You cannot take duplicate packs.

This has been added to the rules.

The way the Courtesan (and I guess other cards) is written I should "summon" a Task barrier drawing randomly in "both" non-story banes but also story banes.

1) I guess it's not the intention, but RAW....

Adding rules to "fix" situations where you (and everyone else who has ever played the game) already know full well what to do does not make the game better—it just makes the rules more complicated and the game harder to learn. Knock it off.

Paizo won't have anyone there, and we're not aware of any Pathfinder Society presence planned at this time.

Fixed. Thanks!

Odds of us reprinting most of the pawn sets tied to specific 1E products are frankly not great.

It's up to WizKids to reveal when products are coming; all I can really say is that things are moving along!

Unfortunately they aren't like tribbles so Katina doesn't have a secret stash of them in her office.

So you're saying she does have a secret stash of tribbles in her office?

All I can say is that we have only announced this year's releases through August. :-)

I can only tell you about the Pocket Editions that have been announced thus far: the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition in February, the Curse of the Crimson Throne in May, and the Starfinder RPG Core Rulebook in July.

Regardless of the noted undisclosed variables inherent in the data .... 68 of the top 100 slots being accredited to Paizo, is something I find encouraging.

I'm sure I'm not the only one!

Note that only 64 of those are actually Paizo products. The other 4 are Kobold Press products, which they have listed as Paizo because we handle their hobby distribution.

Hi. Since Fantasy Flight recently opened up a DMsguild equivalent for their system Genesys, I've been looking to commercially convert some monsters to their system. Does Paizo maintain a clear Product Identity(PI) list of what monsters in the Bestiaries are PI?

The PI disclaimer is clear that proper names are protected, but it can be difficult to tell sometimes which monsters are proper names. Obviously monsters such as Sandpoint Devil fall under this category, but some names sound like any other possible ancient mythological creature or OGL DND creature.

There is no master list. As for proper nouns (that's the term in our PI statement, not "proper name"), Merriam-Webster defines that as "a noun that designates a particular being or thing, does not take a limiting modifier, and is usually capitalized in English." That capitalization bit is a good indicator that things like the Sandpoint Devil and Red Mantis assassins involve PI.

After the Knights have adventured with you once, they're able to help you out later... regardless of the order in which you take those scenarios. (The design docs offer no indication that you were ever supposed to initially check off a medal.)

Re: Cohorts, the "Changes Coming in Guide 6.2" thread includes this:

Replace the following:

Removing Cards from Play
When you come across a boon that requires you to remove it from the game to activate its power, exchange it with a random boon of the same type from the vault.

With the following:

Removing Cards from the Game
When you would remove a card from the game, instead banish it.

I realize that this may at first appear to cause an infinite loop with the rulebook's statement "if you would banish a cohort, remove it from the game instead," but since the Guide says "the rules in this guide take precedence over the standard rules," it's actually an orderly chain of instructions. Herald of Iomedae tells you "banish it," and that causes the rulebook's "remove it instead" to kick in, and that causes the new Guide's "banish it" to happen, and since that's the first time things are actually in conflict, the Guide takes precedence, and you banish it.

Right: Just because the card that is assigned as the danger happens to also be assigned as a closing henchman, that does not make the danger a closing henchman.

Their license allows them to adapt Starfinder adventures; whether and when they do is up to them. If you want them, let them know!

Just so you know, each Adventure Path is designed to use a specific set of cards for the box/vault; we have never suggested substitutions there. Of course, you're welcome to try whatever—just realize you're in uncharted waters, so we can't vouch for the quality of your play experience. Good luck!

Vic, do you have a suggestion for where interested fans could seek out more complete information?

Assuming you mean complete information on RPG sales, there is no really good source for that.

The "best" source is probably ICv2's quarterly market report and rankings, the most recent of which is here, but a ICv2 pro subscription is now required to read it. (This thread on EN World provides a summary of their rankings from the last 16 years, though.)

However, there are many issues with that info that makes it less useful than you'd probably like.

First, it's compiled from "interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers," which may include some hard data, but I believe is mostly anecdotal.

Second, there are issues inherent to each of those three sources:
• Many retailers in our industry don't have POS or inventory systems that allow them to provide hard data, so you're going to get a lot of "gut" responses; further, some of them may have personal interests that cause them to downplay or exaggerate the value of some publishers. And even if they did get good data, I have no clue if their sources represent a statistically significant sample.
• Distributors most likely have good data on the portion of the market they handle, but many sales don't pass through these distributors—certainly, none of Paizo's direct sales do, and I suspect that most of Wizards' Amazon sales don't. And again, no clue if their sources represent a statistically significant sample.
• Many publishers (including Paizo) don't share our sales figures.

Third, there are no actual dollar or unit sales figures involved here, just a relative ranking. So even if they are correct about who's #1 and who's #5, there's no indication of how close or how far those companies are. (They do offer annual estimates of the entire market size; for the reasons above, my personal confidence in those numbers is very low.)

Vic Wertz wrote:

Amazon is a retailer, who buys from a distributor; in the case of Paizo's products, that's mostly from Diamond Book Distributors (though for reasons I have never well understood, they also buy Paizo products from another distributor who buys it from DBD).

Lol.

I’m struggling to think of any good reason for that. (International jurisdictions, maybe?)

I do know a little more than I mentioned in my last post: They generally place initial orders for new products with one distributor and reorders for existing products with another. (I'm guessing it's a volume thing, but I really don't know.)