The 7th level version of Valeros (downloadable here) shows the following attack sequences:
Melee +1 flaming longsword +12/+7 (1d8+8/19–20 plus 1d6 fire)
and
+1 frost shortsword +10/+5/+0 (1d6+5 plus 1d6 cold)
but it appears that he shouldn't have three attacks with his shortsword.
Am I missing something?
Most of the core pre-gens have some problem or other and Mark and Hyrum have said that updating and fixing them is on the to-do list.
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The 7th level version of Valeros (downloadable here) shows the following attack sequences:
Melee +1 flaming longsword +12/+7 (1d8+8/19–20 plus 1d6 fire)
and
+1 frost shortsword +10/+5/+0 (1d6+5 plus 1d6 cold)but it appears that he shouldn't have three attacks with his shortsword.
Am I missing something?
Maybe it's a matter of Valeros' personal preference!?
I'm expressing dismay and surprise, politely, about this for whatever that's worth.
Dismay and surprise that we recognize the pregens are less than optimal and don't encourage people to play with them at local gamedays and conventions? Or dismay and surprise that we've added them to the todo list to improve?
Dismay and surprise that...
1) These are incorrectly built in the first place and,
2) That they were allowed to remain available for download for official PFS games for this long without being corrected
These would take less than one day for someone to fix. I don't understand the delay.
Also, if people are not encouraged to play them, that fact is lost on new players. I directed people to download these pregens, assuming they were correctly built, for a small local game. Only after one of the players started asking questions about Valeros did I start digging. Then I find out that most of them are incorrect in more ways than one, yet they remain available and linked to for "official" play.
If they are wrong take them down or add a text blurb on the main PFS page saying "yes we know these are wrong but we haven't had time to fix them."
Or something.. its embarrassing really. I promote Pathfinder to friends and then they point out that the "official" pregens that are meant for sanctioned PFS play, aren't correct. It makes Paizo look bad.
These friends get an immediate bad taste in their mouth. I can't blame them either. They're stuck thinking... "If the official PC's, built by Paizo, don't follow the rules, how good are their other products?"
Sorry, but that's the situation I ran into.
Stop answering "Ask James Jacobs Anything" questions.
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These would take less than one day for someone to fix. I don't understand the delay.And what other priority would you suggest be delayed to allow this unscheduled "less than one day" to be squeezed into an already busy schedule?
Not working there we can't know exactly what goes into doing this kind of work.
But I think most of us are under the opinion, or assumption, even if it is wrong, that updating the pre-gens would be an insignificant delay on other projects.
I personally find it hard to believe that making them would take an amount of time that would put huge delays on other projects, but like I said, I don't work there.
But I think most of us are under the opinion, or assumption, even if it is wrong, that updating the pre-gens would be an insignificant delay on other projects.
I personally find it hard to believe that making them would take an amount of time that would put huge delays on other projects, but like I said, I don't work there.
Thank you.
If I didn't already know it would be a pointless exercise I'd fix them all tonight in the few hours between dinner and bed.
I don't get it, but that may be obvious lol
Creative Director
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Stop answering "Ask James Jacobs Anything" questions.
1) James Jacobs wouldn't be the guy who fixes the pre-gen anyway, so if he stopped answering questions on that thread, that wouldn't speed up the process at all. He'd just spend that time working more on the Inner Sea World Guide maps OR he'd answer other questions on the messageboards like this one here.
2) The "Ask James Jacobs Anything" thread is part of my job description. ALL of us at Paizo are expected to maintain a daily presence on these boards as part of the company's overall customer service goals and public relations goals. I get PAID to answer these questions on the board. Even if I were to set aside time to go in and personally fix the pre-gen characters, I'd still have to spend time on the boards maintaining my online presence anyway.
3) Although this is a great job and a fun job, and being paid to work on RPGs is a dream come true... it's STILL a job. Working on Adventure Paths for 8 hours a day, 5 to 7 days a week, for weeks and months and years at a time DOES eventually get old. ANYTHING done to excess gets old. And therefore, it's nice to have variety in the job. When I get tired or worn out working on other projects, being able to zip onto these boards and answer questions in that thread not only helps to build our public persona online and does some customer service stuff at the same time, but it ALSO gives me a sort of break from the other work I have to do in the day.
There's more to Paizo than supporting Pathfinder Society. There's more to Pathfinder Society than supporting folks with pre-generated characters. We have to prioritize our tasks and jobs and duties so that what HAS to be done gets done before what SHOULD be done. Now, rest assured, by posting to these boards and letting us know that you're unhappy with the pregenerated characters, you've managed to up the priority of the "fix the pre-gen characters" project from where it was before you posted. That shift in priority is not visible to you, of course, but it happened.
Also? It would have happened (and DID happen) just as efficiently (actually, MORE efficiently) if you'd asked for it in a nicer, more patient, more friendly manner. Because if you had been more friendly, you wouldn't have raised hackles here at Paizo and I wouldn't have spent the last several minutes making this post.
MORAL OF THE STORY: If you see us doing something you think we should fix or do better or whatever, please ask nicely. The only extra perk you earn for being a jerk about asking us to fix something is that we start to associate your avatar picture with headaches, upset stomachs, and bad mojo—which is unfair to anyone else who happens to use your avatar picture, of course! :P
1. Stop production on any additonal products, until current products are correct.
2. Stop Superstar 2011 until current products are correct.
(buy hey, I am just a big fan of making sure things are correct before moving forward)
I'll refrain from posting what I had originally written and instead second those suggestions, even if I recognize they won't happen.
Ditto to what James said.
Valeros is getting updated and a new PDF will be posted when it's ready.
And yes, pregens are a lower priority than just about everything else. Sorry, that's just a fact.
Hyrum.
I'm not sure if you guys on the Paizo end are looking for any ideas, but what about employing community editors for short term projects like these? I'm sure many of us here in the forums would be willing to work for a nominal amount of store credit, and that would free up someone who has something more important to do...
Maybe I'm biased towards this approach having contributed to both wiki-style projects and edited for published material, but I feel like that approach has a lot of merit for low-priority material like this. Especially considering that there is already a system in place for submitting community material to Paizo (Superstar!), there shouldn't even be any technical hurdles...
I'm guessing this idea has come up before, but we on the outside don't get to see the reasoning.
(Looks like Chris above beat me to the punch on the idea, but the sentiment stands!)
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Creative Director
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How about the following:
1. Stop production on any additonal products, until current products are correct.
2. Stop Superstar 2011 until current products are correct.
(buy hey, I am just a big fan of making sure things are correct before moving forward)Alternative Solution: Ask any any number of qualified, eductated volunteers currently discussing issues like this for assistance. I am sure one person would be willing to fix issues, discuss changes to ensure they are correct and repost them back to Piazio for publication.
Chris
Taking proposed steps 1 OR 2 above would direly impact our already shaky schedule. We'd essentially be exchanging a correction of a minor problem for the generation of a significant problem. AKA: The repercussions for taking a few extra days to get a stat block fixed PALE in comparison to the repercussions of taking a few extra days to get a book to the printer (we did this with Bestiary 2, and more or less missed a HUGE chunk of holiday shopping as a result... had we delayed printing a few more days, we would have missed ALL of the holiday shopping, which would have lost the company a lot of money).
We'll fix the error. We're working on fixing it right now, in fact. But there are realities of the way things work that prevent us from fixing it in the blink of an eye.
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Creative Director
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I'm not sure if you guys on the Paizo end are looking for any ideas, but what about employing community editors for short term projects like these? I'm sure many of us here in the forums would be willing to work for a nominal amount of store credit, and that would free up someone who has something more important to do...
Maybe I'm biased towards this approach having contributed to both wiki-style projects and edited for published material, but I feel like that approach has a lot of merit for low-priority material like this. Especially considering that there is already a system in place for submitting community material to Paizo (Superstar!), there shouldn't even be any technical hurdles...
I'm guessing this idea has come up before, but we on the outside don't get to see the reasoning.
(Looks like Chris above beat me to the punch on the idea, but the sentiment stands!)
Just in the last few months, we've done just this. We've hired about a half dozen (could be more, in fact, I lost count) new employees, a few of which were SPECIFICALLY HIRED to help with the editorial process, continuity, and development. We've also reorganized staff to address areas that were causing problems. We've made a HELL of a lot of changes in the past several months to make things run more efficiently, is what I'm saying.
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I'm not sure if you guys on the Paizo end are looking for any ideas, but what about employing community editors for short term projects like these? I'm sure many of us here in the forums would be willing to work for a nominal amount of store credit, and that would free up someone who has something more important to do...
Already been asked, already been shot down.
Basically it comes to this, even if they did have someone "freelance" it they still would be putting in the same amount of work into it to verify it, format it, and etc...
Already been asked, already been shot down.
Basically it comes to this, even if they did have someone "freelance" it they still would be putting in the same amount of work into it to verify it, format it, and etc...
*shrug* it's their prerogative to lose customers based on sloppy editing I guess. My solution would be to simply get two contributors to do this, one to write up the stat blocks, one to edit them. Two competent people should be able to write up several stat block with very few errors, and it all costs peanuts in the end (store credit isn't really pay, it's just money that you get back later...)
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Creative Director
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Actually James. I though Jreyst was very polite in his question and response. Mark asked a dumb ass question
My reaction was not to Jreyst's initial complaint/question, but to his snarky "Stop answering 'Ask James Jacobs anything' questions" post, which is why I quoted that post and not an earlier one as a lead-in to my response.
My request that folks not be jerks covers everyone, from us here at Paizo to customers who post here. And just for the record, the phrase "dumb-ass" counts as being a jerk in my book.
So let's all just take a deep breath, step back from the thread, and take solace in the fact that even as I'm typing this response, the errors are being worked on being fixed. Thanks for bringing the error to our attention (I know that this is the first I've heard of errors in the pre-gens... or hell, that we even HAVE pre-gens up for PFS play—the Pathfinder Society stuff is generally not something I have time to micromanage)—I can't fix things we don't know need fixing.
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Creative Director
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Messageboards are hardly the place to "discipline" employees, first of all. And second of all, I don't think Mark's response was "dumb ass" at all. That you've taken it more personally than I expected is good to know, but I'm sure Mark wasn't trying to deliberately aggravate you—we DO try to give good customer support, but in light of what, at times, feels like a constant barrage of snarky, petulant posts on the boards, it can be tough for us to keep perspective that those snarky, petulant posts are actually in the minority. And again, using the phrase "dumb ass" kinda took a big step toward undoing any sympathy I might have otherwise had for the situation. Words are powerful things. Use them wisely! :-)
It's a good tactic to develop a thick skin when posting on messageboards, or when replying to posts. That's sound advice for anyone.
In any case... the issue is being taken care of, and I don't really want this thread to fester. I'm locking the thread, and if you don't see fixes to the pre-gens soon, please let me know. I'm at james.jacobs@paizo.com.