Compleat Encounters

[LordNull]

Just wondering,are there going to be anymore new releases for complete encounters? Thanks

[Mike McArtor]

LordNull wrote:

Just wondering,are there going to be anymore new releases for complete encounters? Thanks

No. The line did not meet expectations.*

* Which is corporate-speak for "It was unprofitable."

[Lisa Stevens]

Mike McArtor wrote:

LordNull wrote:

Just wondering,are there going to be anymore new releases for complete encounters? Thanks

No. The line did not meet expectations.*

* Which is corporate-speak for "It was unprofitable."

Actually, it was profitable, just not as profitable as doing other products. The big problem with the Compleat Encounters is that they include miniatures which it turns out, Paizo isn't all that good at doing (thus, Crocodile Games doing the Pathfinder minis and not us). Since we don't have our own casting machines, it isn't as economical to do minis as I originally thought. Oh well, it was a neat idea. :)

-Lisa

[Tarren Dei]

It's a really neat idea. Maybe someday the circumstances might be different.

[Kata. the .....]

Lisa Stevens wrote:

Mike McArtor wrote:

LordNull wrote:

Just wondering,are there going to be anymore new releases for complete encounters? Thanks

No. The line did not meet expectations.*

* Which is corporate-speak for "It was unprofitable."

Actually, it was profitable, just not as profitable as doing other products. The big problem with the Compleat Encounters is that they include miniatures which it turns out, Paizo isn't all that good at doing (thus, Crocodile Games doing the Pathfinder minis and not us). Since we don't have our own casting machines, it isn't as economical to do minis as I originally thought. Oh well, it was a neat idea. :)

-Lisa

Well, I guess that answers my question. I have never been a big miniatures guy. I typically just draw on graph (quadrille or hex) and when it gets too complicated, grab another sheet and start again. I just helped remove some of your backlog of Compleat Adventures sans miniatures. So, I had thought about purchasing one of the packs with miniatures to see if they what they added.

[Haldir]

I love to see a Complete Encounters II using Pathfinder. I know the CE were generic but with Pathfinder becoming a great world to read/game in/etc, having minis for certain Pathfinder creatures would be a great idea.

& in turn selling the minis as singles as well (like the current crop) + of course getting to know more info on the world would be great as well.

RM

[Vic Wertz]

Lisa Stevens wrote:

The big problem with the Compleat Encounters is that they include miniatures which it turns out, Paizo isn't all that good at doing (thus, Crocodile Games doing the Pathfinder minis and not us). Since we don't have our own casting machines, it isn't as economical to do minis as I originally thought. Oh well, it was a neat idea. :)

I just want to clarify that the part of the minis that Paizo wasn't good at was getting stuff made in a timely fashion at an appropriate cost, and at getting enough people to buy them to make the effort worthwhile.

The actual quality of the minis we produced was quite high—I personally think that almost all of the minis in this line and in the Ptolus line are among the best metal minis I've ever seen.

[Chris Mortika]

Frankly, I liked the flip-maps, thought the miniatures were all right, but very case specific, and didn't like the scenarios at all.

The reason I didn't like the scenarios was their very narrow limitation: they had to present an entire side-adventure using only the three figures provided: a bad guy, a somebody-else, and a something. All of the adventures read as stark and underpopulated.

I used the flip-maps (which are more versatile than I gave them credit for, because you can mix-and-match them to create, for example, zones of influence in a jail or clearing), wrote appropriate adventures, and used some of the hundreds of figures I have sitting about. One of the miniatures, I've used in another adventure. The others wait to be painted.

And I didn't buy too many of the encounters, 'cause the price was a little high for a four-panel two-sided flip map.

[Bocklin]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Lisa Stevens wrote:

Mike McArtor wrote:

...

...

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You guys need a communications department! ;-)

...

No, stop. I don't want to give you any bad ideas: it would just force you to raise the price of products to pay for their salary. ;-))

Bocklin

[Mike McArtor]

Bocklin wrote:

You guys need a communications department! ;-)

Well to be fair, I only sit in on one high-end meeting a week, so my information is limited. My impressions are not always factual, and I'm glad that Lisa pays attention to the boards and can clarify certain business-end discussions for me (and for you!). :)

[Grimcleaver]

I think the biggest reason for no more Compleat Encounters has a ton more to do with so few people working so hard to make us our Pathfinder each month.

That said, like mentioned before, with such a kick-butt company doing such beautiful Pathfinder minis (which I am poised to gobble up pending the next non-Christmas check) and with a solid setting to back them up. I think they would do a LOT better nowadays.

Not only that, but it would give a lot of us guys on the sidelines a chance to contribute something to our new favorite D&D setting. As I recall, CE was largely fueled by non-staffers. It might be a cool way of farming new talent.

Side Treks were one of the best parts of Dungeon, since they provided a neat way to break free from relatively linear adventures while staying within the body of published work. CE seems like the Pathfinder equivalent of that.

Imagine, for example, the utility of tying in CE's set around Fort Rannick while the characters own it. That one hunter troll, the joust, the varisian camp, all set up as little sidequests packaged with their own little minis. I love that!

Not only that, but CE has been a great venue for exploring distant and seldom seen parts of Golarion. No reason for that to change. It's a great venue for tossing darts at the worldmap and populating it 3 index-cards worth at a time.

Just some thoughts, but the idea does get my juices flowing a bit.

[Zuxius]

i just want to say that I picked these up on the cheap without the minis and was absolutely floored by their quality. I never believed that there was this much work put into them. Had I known I would have bought them all back when they had miniatures in them. The picture cards and the scripting of the encounter as well as the free maps.

This was truly an idea that didn't get its due. There should have been much more lavish display as to what these adventures included. I am just happy I got the maps.

If you came out with something similar in the future I would subscribe in a heartbeat.

[Steve Geddes]

Maybe it would be worth revisiting and tying them in to the various PF battles Encounter packs?

[Arazyr]

I bought all the CE packs some time ago (adventure only) and recently converted them to Pathfinder, and suddenly found myself with uses for several of them. 8^)

They've been quite handy for one- or two-session adventures.

P.S. A Hero Lab file with my conversions is available on d20pfsrd.com's Hero Lab Community Repository page.

[Harrowed777]

I know I am necroing an OLD topic, but with P2 out, now might be a great time to revisit this fun and original line.

I thought of some options I would love to see...

1) Use Pawns instead of Minis. This would reduce the costs to make them, and potentially the cost to buy them. And make them just as awesome in my eyes.

2) Modernize them with Flip Tiles instead of Flip maps. Flip mats were awesome, but I kinda want all my mapping options to be the same format and would be quite content with no maps except Flip tiles going forward.

3) Make them exclisive-ish. Set up a subscriptions for them, 6 a year or something to start, and they do not release to the public until after the next subscription one ships (this encourages and rewards subscribers)

4) Make them encounters that tie into key battles from Society, fleshing out tactics and providing detailed maps, for both society and regular groups to experience.

OR

5) Make them side quests for Adventure Paths. When I was setting up RotRAE, I had documentation for every possible side quest in sand point, as well as some trigger chains for completing certain ones. This was about 200 pages of hand written notes and stats JUST IN CASE my players decided to check them out. Would have loved some little packs I could pick up that already had those side quests plotted out.

Just some thoughts from a fan of this kind of product.

[Dwapook]

Yeah, would like to see these come back too, I think they were ahead of their time and would find more success now..