Now available!
Whoot!
Yeah! Thanks Liz, as one of the authors I also invite anyone with questions or comments to send them our way. We need and want your feedback so that future books in the Into the Breach series are even better than the first.
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Note!
If you post a review either on Paizo, RPGNow, or the d20pfsrd.com store before January 31 2014, you will receive a coupon for the purchase price of this product at the d20pfsrd.com store.
All you have to do is be honest in your review and let us know where you posted the review (along with an email address to hook you up with the coupon)!
Bump in case you missed this fine offer because of the outage
Note!
If you post a review either on Paizo, RPGNow, or the d20pfsrd.com store before January 31 2014, you will receive a coupon for the purchase price of this product at the d20pfsrd.com store.
All you have to do is be honest in your review and let us know where you posted the review (along with an email address to hook you up with the coupon)!
So essentially you get refunded for a review?
Anyway, $7 for this content seems way too expensive.
Have you read it? At $6.99 you are paying roughly $0.27 a page for mostly reusable crunch...
No I have not read it. Although interested in the content the price is way higher than a comparable class-based PDF regardless of the page count.
You kind of stepped into an internal debate about pricing. We intend to release some of the content on d20srd as a free sample somewhat soon. We also will ultimately consider bundling the products together as they age.
Pricing the products is tricky. Many products that are more inexpensive are a bit older and few are comparable in page count. Take class acts for an example, it's $0.99 which seems cheaper but the content itself is 2 pages making a 49.5 cent price point. Kobold press' Summoner Circle is more recent but contains only feats is 19 pages and runs 21 cents a page which is admittedly a bit lower then our price point from a more established brand so you may have a point.
That said if a buyer wanted a comprehensive package of those 3 products and say Eidolons unbound they merely need to buy ours first, then write a review and get all of that for under $7... One could easily do the same with the Magus.
We're making this offer because we know that buying a 3PP and a new one to boot represents a risk. It's basically free for your opinion because we want folk to try us and we're confident that if they do they will come back for more. We're also clear that we want honest reviews (which means we will likely take a hit on the look of our first book.)
Gaming budgets are tight in this economy I'll take the price point objection under consideration after the 31st, hopefully we'll have some reviews telling us if it was worth the money...
TL:DR Yes the store credit offer is essentially a refund if your write a review.
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AS GM_Solspiral (Frank) said, the pricing was really just a quick decision based on looking at similar products with similar page counts. We felt we can always reduce it a bit if there is significant push-back on it but by the same token we want to make sure we're in the same ballpark with other products of similar size and scope. For a comparison, the latest d20pfsrd.com Publishing product, Mind over Matter: Psion and Soulknife is just $4.99 due to lower page count. We'll likely jiggle these prices around a bit to find the right level and do appreciate feedback on it.
Edit: Oh and yes, we plan to release pieces on d20pfsrd.com soon, and then to place it all on d20pfsrd.com after a bit longer, just as we try to do with most 3pp products.
I don't buy stuff on the d20pfsrd store but I planned to look at this and the magus book because I notice that I've bought things with no review that need reviewing.
Unfortunately it's not really good news. I gave it a read-through yesterday and today and again a short time ago and I have to say, while most of the ideas are things I really want to play, as written a lot of these options don't actually work. I'm talking about big things like how the Tribal Shaman loses an Eidolon but maintains Merge Forms and the Elementalist which as written can cast Elemental Swarm at 1st level.
As it stands this product needs a swift and thorough beating with an editing stick.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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As one of the editors I can say that we may come back to this at some point and do a revision to address those issues. This is the first product, and there were some growing pains while developing it. There still are some bugs in the process to work out, but we promise to have better products as we go. I of course can't promise when there will be revisions, as we have many other things on our plate we want finish first.
As one of the editors I can say that we may come back to this at some point and do a revision to address those issues. This is the first product, and there were some growing pains while developing it. There still are some bugs in the process to work out, but we promise to have better products as we go. I of course can't promise when there will be revisions, as we have many other things on our plate we want finish first.
I hope so because RAI (barring one ability) this is an excellent product, however I can't use it without heavily errataing it as it is now.
If I may add my 2cp based on what I look at as a customer;
I also think if the product was priced based on pages of crunch it would be much more attractive. By my count there are actually 18 pages worth of material.
I'm currently analyzing the Magus one for review and I am noticing a simlar page count problem. it is in single column format which is generating a lot of empty space which is inflating the page count. I noticed the first few archetypes take up two whole pages when word count-wise they should take up less.
the layout overall is different between each other, which isn't so much a criticism but I worry that this makes them not seem like a part of the same product line.
Also If I can help, I can write a step by step review/analysis of each option listing problems I found.
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@Malwing
Re: Layout- Yes, the layout change between the two was not ideal but will be standardized most likely on 2-column format going forward. I'm new to layout so still learning some of the tricks/snags.
Re: Revisions- We're happy to do so and will always send updated copies to previous purchasers whenever edits/updates become available. We have several "editors" on the Into the Breach series. I enclose "editors" in quotes because what I really mean is we have a few guys who are extremely talented and experienced in terms of grammar, spelling, sentence structure etc. and then we have 1-2 people doing mechanical review (Frank Gori being the lead in that area.) Our hope is that having this many people looking at things before the products are released will help minimize these sorts of things so hopefully the actual mechanical issues needing attention are minimal (and decrease with each release.)
We did another product so far (Mind over Matter: Psion and Soulknife) that was done outside of the Into the Breach editing process. I'd love to hear from reviewers on the overall mechanical qualities of that one as well (on its own thread here...)
@CalebTGordan (and @GM_Solspiral)
Re: Revisions- I'm committed to putting out quality before quantity, therefore I don't plan to release additional Into the Breach products until we've done a thorough review of what we've done thus far to see if errata needs to be released.
@Malwing- I see what you mean on the Elementalist the intent is for those spell-like abilities to be acquired at the appropriate intervals in place of the summon monster sla. It is missing a line about the advancement. What doesn't help is that the text is interrupted by a full page of artwork in the midst of that description. We'll fix that.
As for the Tribal Shaman my intention was that Merge forms and Makers call were to be cut. Shield Ally and greater shield ally should read as when the Shaman is channeling spirits he gains the same AC bonuses. The capstone that Allows the Tribal Shaman to be possessed by multiple spirits at once is also missing. To be honest I'm not quite sure where that went awry in editing nor do I believe The Magus to suffer from the same issues.
I will get on the edits and write a page of errata within a couple days. I did notice one other typo which I will also see addressed for clarity.
Aside from those 2 I do not see any of the other archetypes being particularly broken with the possible exception of the Shadowcaster and since it gives up it' powerful SLAs I think that one is debatable. The elementalist is only broken because of a typo.
The layout issues were unfortunate but we addressed many of them with Magus and the double column was a discussion for the next book Oracles.
That comment on inflated page count for the price... we'll address the layout issue. Every RPG book uses artwork, has intro pages, and "inflates page count" in the exact same manner. I find that comment slightly unfair but perhaps once we fix the edits we'll drop the price by a couple bucks. I get budgets are tight but I spend more then $7 on one Dunkin Doughnuts run and get a hell of a lot less utility for it.
@ Malwing
Thank you for your honest and critical review, as one of the authors and editors involved with Into the Breach: The Summoner, I think it is important than we do hear honest feedback, as it makes us better. The entire staff is committed to putting out the best product we are able, and fixing our mistakes when they happen, and they do happen. Thank you again for your thoughts and comments.
Sincerely,
Jeffery B. Harris
@d20pfsrd.com; The layout is not much of a criticism I personally care about but I wanted to bring it because it came to mind as something that is probably relevant. Because 'Into the Breach' seems like a series layout changes seem like it would cut the product off from being a part of a collection or printed book.
@GM Solspiral; Also the Elementalist is worded in a way that will either grant all domains at 1st level until 5th level where it states that you gain the additional domains at that level and every 4 levels after the first ending with the fourth at 14th level. (which is also off, if you get a domain every 4 levels past the first you should get domains at 1st, 5th, 9th and 13th level. If it ends on 14 and you count down by 4 each time you get a domain at 2nd, 6th, 10th and 14th. The full page image happens between the metamagic ability and the Energy attack Ability. Elemental aspects is noted as (Su) while some of the abilities listed under it are Spell-like Abilities so the supernatural ability notation is not needed as the only thing that could be technically noted as (Su) is the metamagic ability unless the domain spells are supernatural abilities making them more relevant against spell resistance.
While the Archetypes need clarifications and munchkin editing Tribal Shaman probably should be cut until it's fixed. It has a number of problems with the most obvious being the three eidolon abilities when it does not have an eidolon, but the fact that it is an Alternate class with the rules language of an archetype means that technically it has spells per day but does not have spells or a spell list if it is an Alternate Class and has a lot of extra and unnecessary language if it is an archetype. It also suffers from situations like Channel Spirits being maintained "for 1 minute per Hit Dice of the chosen spirit..." despite Spirits not being denoted as having hit dice or being creatures.
Most of the Archetypes are functional with few clarification or errata. Example being the Dissociatist, which has an eidolon that is not an outsider but does not have a replacement creature type. It says later that "The eidolon appears to be a double of the dissociatist in all ways" which makes me presume that it is whatever it's host's creature type/subtype is but runs into a 'can't beats can' paradox when the host is a tiefling or some other kind of native outsider. The easiest fix is to slap on a native subtype to the eidolon instead of preventing it from being an outsider because how it behaves is much like an outsider flavor-wise (it's spirit and body are somewhat the same thing), meaning that the problem is fixable with less text than it took to cause the problem.
I was wary about using the term 'inflates the page count' because it had the possibility of implying that you guys were disingenuous about your page count(which isn't fair) and nickel and dimeing page count is not a real concern of mine but I do know that it's relevant with other customers and reviewers so it was an issue I wanted to bring up, especially since comparatively other products I've bought has less of an issue with and in some cases make it a selling point that their PDFs are dense in material whether it's to emphasize the amount of content per page, make printing page count less of an issue or just making note of the crunch per page average. For example, on my nexus (I'm not at my home computer so I'm using it to look at PDFs) I have Rite Publishing's 101 Combat Feats. It is 32 pages has one page for the cover, one page for credits, two ads, one page of legal information and no significantly large artwork making it about 27 pages of crunch for about $6.
@GM Beernorg; No problem I just have high hopes for this line and want it to do well.
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Yes, I've directed everyone to focus on addressing any concerns with this one before we move forward with any further books. At the same time as adding errata we're re-laying it out to match the other books in the series thus far. All previous purchasers will receive notification as soon as the updates are available (which hopefully should be very soon.)
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This has received errata and new layout to match the other products in the series. Anyone who previously purchased this should receive the update notification as soon as Liz gets it updated behind the scenes. Purchasers at the d20pfsrd.com store and RPGNow should have already, or will soon be receiving the same update notification.
This has received errata and new layout to match the other products in the series. Anyone who previously purchased this should receive the update notification as soon as Liz gets it updated behind the scenes. Purchasers at the d20pfsrd.com store and RPGNow should have already, or will soon be receiving the same update notification.
I'll update my review when I get it and read it.
Thank you again for the review.
Hi. I just purchased this product, and I really like a lot of themes within, but I do have a few questions.
Specifically, regarding the swarm base form, this section I thought was rather sparse on information, considering what it describes:
"For every 3 Hit Dice it gains, increase the eidolon swarms size by one step (Medium becomes Large, Large becomes Huge etc.). The size increase evolutions add another 2 squares to the number of squares the swarm can occupy. In this case the eidolon swarm can have feats deliver touch spells, the swarm can speak, utilize skills and behaves in all way not specified here as a normal eidolon."
Does this mean that aside from dealing damage as a swarm and increasing its size as it gains HD, an eidolon with the swarm base type doesn't gain any other traits of the swarm subtype? Can it move into any creature's square regardless of its size? Can it move through difficult terrain? Can it move through cracks and holes large enough for its component creatures to fit into? What size are its component creatures? Fine? Diminutive? Tiny? Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere. I've looked through the product but couldn't seem to find an answer. I'd really like to play a summoner with a swarm instead of a regular eidolon soon!
Hi Ethereal Gears,
Glad you like the book. Sorry it wasn't quite spelled out. It was our first book. The base creature should be considered tiny you can adjust base size of the eidolon component creatures at the cost of 4 evolution points. The number of squares occupied by the swarm increase with every +3 HD it gains.
It gains the swarm subtype and gains swarm traits. This works out to being a little more powerful then the standard eidolon early on but less so in mid to late levels unless you take the swarmmancer archetype in which case it has a balanced level of power with the standard summoner. It's a bit more niche and less versatile but its tricks are cool ones.
Feel free to message me if you have any other questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Frank Gori
Cheers! That clears up some stuff. Yeah, I totally agree that the swarm subtype is a bit nastier at low levels, but it definitely can't compare damage-wise to a normal eidolon when you start to scale up. Anyway, I might PM you if I come up with any more minutiae to ask about. Thanks for the response.
Hi darken! I wrote the shadowcaster...and even though I was inspired by Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat...I can totally see Billy Idol now that I look at the picture thinking about your comment. I should have put a white wedding ability in!
Hi darken! I wrote the shadowcaster...and even though I was inspired by Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat...I can totally see Billy Idol now that I look at the picture thinking about your comment. I should have put a white wedding ability in!
And I of course meant daken.
Would the swarm summoner archetype stack with synthesist by any chance?
I shall pass that question along to the gent who wrote that piece, but if I am not mistaken, in this case, it would be a "Does the rule of no dual replacement apply anywhere?" issue first. AKA if both archetypes replace the same feature, the answer is RAW no. I checked, and shield ally + greater shield ally are replaced by both archetypes, thus my RAW answer is no they cannot. But like I said, I sent your question to the author for a definitive answer, though I suspect his reply will be the same as mine. But cheers and thanks for the question and for checking out Into the Breach: The Summoner.
Jeffery B. Harris
Flying Pincushion Games
Jeff is correct, one cannot apply 2 archetypes that replace or alter the same abilities. As the author of the Swarm Summoner I can confirm that.