Paizo Subscriptions Update

From the linked FAQ

How do I cancel a subscription?

Just contact our customer service department at customer.service@paizo.com or call us at (425) 250-0800. Please note: if we have already started to process your next shipment, we may not be able to stop it.

Does this mean that the Customer Service phone is operational again?

Also, I see no mention of the grandfathered Paizo Advantage. Is this no longer in effect?

@Dancing Wind

Just got my order authorization for July and my Legacy Paizo Advantage is listed so it looks to still be working as of today.

The phone number in the FAQ has never been removed, I would not count on it being active. Use email to cancel any subscriptions by emailing customer.service@paizo.com

Wish they would get around to that FAQ update, this is now a frequently asked question lol

Very sad the pawns are being discontinued, though I thought it would happen

I'm going to miss the AP pawn sets. I've found them very convenient.

this is now a frequently asked question lol

Yeah, I was just racing Cori Marie to the 'first post' about a link in an announcement of new processes actually being a link to tired old information that hasn't been accurate in years. ;-)

But thanks for the info about the grandfathered Advantage.

While the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game remains in print, we don’t have any additional products planned for the line so we’re removing that subscription option. You can still get both the Pathfinder Adventure Game Core Set and Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path expansion through paizo.com and your favorite local game store.

Well, this certainly clears up any confusion about whether or not there will be future PACG products. Previously the only Paizo comment was that there will be no more PACG society content, but no comment was ever made by Paizo about non-society content. Sure, we had our guesses but officially we were left in limbo for over a year.

Regardless, thanks for bringing one of my favorite games of all time.

We are working on a solution for the phones. We hear you. Stay tuned for more information.

I'm curious if there's going to be anything to replace the pawn line. As cool as the Pathfinder Battles minis are, they're much more cost prohibitive for a lot of people.

Well, at least my pocket won't be gninja'd quite as hard going forward!

I'm also intrigued by the Catch 22/Moebius Strip nature of the subscription to Society Scenarios

Any four subscriptions, including the Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society PDF line, will now count as a subscription for purposes of qualifying for the Paizo Advantage

Save More with Paizo Advantage

Paizo Advantage is your opportunity to save 15% on most products* available on paizo.com, including other Paizo subscriptions! Your Paizo Advantage includes a free subscription to your choice of either Starfinder Society scenarios or Pathfinder Society scenarios, and if you subscribe to 6 or more product lines you’ll receive both for free!. You’re also able to use your discount when shopping at conventions like PaizoCon and the Paizo booth at Gen Con.

So, if I subscribe to three products, and then add a subscription to Pathfinder Society Scenarios, I now have 4 subscriptions and qualify for Pathfinder Advantage.

In addition to 'saving 15% on most products' I also get a free subscription to Pathfinder Society scenarios.

So, do I now only have to pay for the first 3 subscriptions? And my Scenarios subscription is always free? "Too good to be true" comes to mind.

You get free PDFs for subscribing to print lines. Why wouldn't you get a free PDF sub for meeting the 4 sub minimum? You're still paying for the first scenario sub even if you get the other for free. Get to six subs and you stop having to pay for the two scenario subs.

I'm going to miss the AP pawn sets. I've found them very convenient.

As someone who has poured a ton of time, money, space, and energy into gathering a collection of Pathfinder Pawns and keeping them well organized, I am INCREDIBLY frustrated with this move.

I'm sure it has to do with overall sales and costs of materials, but I want Paizo to know this is a huge slap in the face to someone who has leaned into this line heavily to maintain consistency and immersion in games without a need to invest in much more expensive and space consuming miniatures.

The cynical side of me wonders if this is just a means to push more sales of the awful blind box and lackluster Battles miniatures line.

I will reconsider before EVER investing in another Pathfinder accessory line, as it's now clear that Paizo will drop product lines that customers rely on with less than zero notice (this was hinted at long ago, but Paizo refused to announce it until now).

Thanks for nothing, Paizo.

You get free PDFs for subscribing to print lines. Why wouldn't you get a free PDF sub for meeting the 4 sub minimum? You're still paying for the first scenario sub even if you get the other for free. Get to six subs and you stop having to pay for the two scenario subs.

Any four subscriptions, including the Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society PDF line, will now count as a subscription for purposes of qualifying for the Paizo Advantage.

So

I now qualify for Pathfinder Advantage

Do I have to pay for the scenarios?

I'm going to miss the AP pawn sets. I've found them very convenient.

I agree.

They, and the core pawns, have been great to have. So much nicer for traveling as a GM as well.

I will reconsider before EVER investing in another Pathfinder accessory line, as it's now clear that Paizo will drop product lines that customers rely on with less than zero notice (this was hinted at long ago, but Paizo refused to announce it until now).

....isn't this notice? What would notice look like, other than this?

Blog Post wrote:

Any four subscriptions, including the Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society PDF line, will now count as a subscription for purposes of qualifying for the Paizo Advantage.

Yeah, so you pay for the society subs and two more. And now you qualify for one society sub for free.

It's like getting a +4 morale bonus and then getting a +1 morale bonus. Nice, but you already paid for it.

The writing has been on the wall for the pathfinder pawns for months. This would be that notice....

Mind you I understand the anger, felt the same way when I restarted my sub for the card game after the reboot to only get the core and initial expansion. Still sad about that, but not every product will continue to infinity.

I think it would be smarter for them to make it a purely PDF product for people to print it out and they provide the art. Not hard to put them on card stock or foam core and make our own pawns and they wouldn't be out the cost of producing physical products.

Especially when they have the art already made for the books and the battle/npc cards ready to go. Resize and resell.

Dennis Muldoon wrote:

I'm going to miss the AP pawn sets. I've found them very convenient.

I agree.

They, and the core pawns, have been great to have. So much nicer for traveling as a GM as well.

Wish that this decision wasn't made but not much I can do about it besides also put in my words of missing them. I loved the pawns and knowing that they're discontinued is saddening. Hope that perhaps someday they see them as being viable again but for now I suppose I'll have to look into purchasing the old 1e pawns to fill in gaps and/or start looking into possibly 3d printing out custom minis now.

Do I have to pay for the scenarios?

Why wouldn't you? This isn't a logic puzzle, it's business.

DthAlchemist wrote:

I will reconsider before EVER investing in another Pathfinder accessory line, as it's now clear that Paizo will drop product lines that customers rely on with less than zero notice (this was hinted at long ago, but Paizo refused to announce it until now).

....isn't this notice? What would notice look like, other than this?

If you check comments for the pawn subscription, they made this decision a while back, but kept it hush hush. I've gotten Quest and Outlaws books with the intention of using the eventual pawn sets.

When no news of release came, I checked the comments only to find a "ssh don't say I told you" comment indicating they were likely being killed.

This news should have preceded those APs' releases. I wouldn't have spent that money on them, as I now have zero intention of running them without proper pawns. It breaks immersion.

It breaks immersion.

We all have to decide what our suspension of disbelief is.

Me, I use colored beads if I have to.

You’ll have to realize that “I refuse to run the adventure I bought without supplementary pawns being released later” is kinda a niche stance, sorry.

This news should have preceded those APs' releases. I wouldn't have spent that money on them, as I now have zero intention of running them without proper pawns. It breaks immersion.

No matter when they announced this, there would always have been some previous AP that you could point to and say 'they should have announced this before XX AP!' There's no winning that game.

As for your inability to find a way to run an AP without an official pawn set...I don't know what to tell you there. Tons of people play/run APs using other pawns/minis just fine.

The discontinue of Pawns for the Starfinder line is just... baffling.

We still don't have a reliable, deliverable, or up to date physical mini structure for Starfinder, and the APs don't include art for all the characters inside it.

Even the 3d printing market and the 3rd party replacements have nothing similar for many of our creatures.

Even if I wanted to purchase minis for Starfinder I couldn't because the Wizkids line is basically dead and Archon's line is releasing so slow and won't even catch us up to Alien Archive 1 when its done - and that's disregarding the fact that their shipping to the US is so steep.

I hope that the PDFs of all the books are updated to include art of all the creatures in the adventure/book as a byproduct of this. There's a number of AP creatures that nobody has any idea what they look like if not for the Pawn collection art. Hell, I'd even accept the battle cards as a replacement if they came out along with the APs, now that that's a new accessory that could include the same content. But as it is I don't see any plans listed in the subscription for the Battle Cards to add on APs. I can't see any reason y'all wouldn't be able to build and ship them much like the flip-tile expansions.

tl;dr: Starfinder needs the pawn line or some replacement to give us usable stand-ins due to the product not being nearly as fleshed out.

The discontinue of Pawns for the Starfinder line is just... baffling.

Print costs aren't being met by sales.

DthAlchemist wrote:

This news should have preceded those APs' releases. I wouldn't have spent that money on them, as I now have zero intention of running them without proper pawns. It breaks immersion.

No matter when they announced this, there would always have been some previous AP that you could point to and say 'they should have announced this before XX AP!' There's no winning that game.

As for your inability to find a way to run an AP without an official pawn set...I don't know what to tell you there. Tons of people play/run APs using other pawns/minis just fine.

First, nice of you to rephrase the needlessly aggressive comment.

Second, I get that this is not something everyone shares.

Paizo have consistently put out supporting pawns for every AP through Ruby Phoenix a month or two after completion. The fact that Strength, Quest, and Outlaws all released before they admitted none of them would get pawns means they spun their wheels for about 3-4 months of releases before announcing this.

In my opinion, the FAIR way to handle this would've been at the beginning of Strength. "We understand some players rely on supporting product lines to get the most out of our APs. Please note that the Pathfinder Pawns line will be ending, and no such supporting pawns will be released for this AP."

Would that be so hard? Or even for the following AP. Or even the one AFTER that?

This is corporate foot dragging at its worst.

I realize I'm an outlier, but they had to realize some players would be hurt by this inaction.

Apologies. We've posted a revision to the blog to correct an error and clarify your options.

Problems solved!

We've wanted to post this blog for some time and were delayed due to technical issues. We apologize for the delay, but wanted to announce all the changes at once. I hear your feedback and will consider different choices in the future.

NOOO! Why the cancellation of Pawns? It's your BEST line!!!

I'm curious if there's going to be anything to replace the pawn line. As cool as the Pathfinder Battles minis are, they're much more cost prohibitive for a lot of people.

Yeah. Miniatures have major STORAGE and "find what I need" issues. Pawns were perfect!

Any news on Foundry integration being continued? Would love to see it become a subscription.

I think it would be smarter for them to make it a purely PDF product for people to print it out and they provide the art. Not hard to put them on card stock or foam core and make our own pawns and they wouldn't be out the cost of producing physical products.

No. Printing is pretty much useless. Who has access to a printer? Or wants to spend all that time? And there's TONS of competition (and GREAT ones at that) in the space for ready-to-print standees.

No. Printing is pretty much useless. Who has access to a printer? Or wants to spend all that time?

I do.

We have no replacements to the pawns line at this time.

Yoshua wrote:

I think it would be smarter for them to make it a purely PDF product for people to print it out and they provide the art. Not hard to put them on card stock or foam core and make our own pawns and they wouldn't be out the cost of producing physical products.

No. Printing is pretty much useless. Who has access to a printer? Or wants to spend all that time? And there's TONS of competition (and GREAT ones at that) in the space for ready-to-print standees.

I do, in fact, I printed the set of Starfinder pawns for an AP. By printing on thicker paper and laminating it, I got some useable pawns that worked well (though I used a spacer to augment them sitting in the pawn stand.

Unfortunately, the pawn set pdfs have a rather low resolution so suggesting them to online GMs for the purpose of VTT token creation is not very easy.

Any news on Foundry integration being continued? Would love to see it become a subscription.

We have no announcements regarding Foundry products at this time.

I never subscribed to the Pawns line, but I bought all of the 1E box sets I could get and a number of the AP sets, and always thought they were terrific. I’m probably not the only person with a big enough 1E collection not to feel the need for the 2E Bestiary sets, but I’d still have wanted to buy the AP pawn sets.

I assume the PDFs of all previously published pawn sets will remain available?

Also, note for @Aaron Shanks: check the date at the top of the original post - today is July 8, not June.

I never subscribed to the Pawns line, but I bought all of the 1E box sets I could get and a number of the AP sets, and always thought they were terrific. I’m probably not the only person with a big enough 1E collection not to feel the need for the 2E Bestiary sets, but I’d still have wanted to buy the AP pawn sets.

I assume the PDFs of all previously published pawn sets will remain available?

Also, note for @Aaron Shanks: check the date at the top of the original post - today is July 8, not June.

Thanks. We are correcting the date.

Apologies. We've posted a revision to the blog to correct an error and clarify your options.

Many thanks Aaron.

I appreciated the Pawns line as an alternative to minis, which I never was into due to cost and space.

But I can see how the cancellation of the line came to be, with increased shipping and printing cost, cardboard not being as readily available anymore, and probably lower demand.

I can say for myself that I haven't bought a pawns set in over 2 years due to a shift to online gaming.

Though, admittedly, I'd still appreciate at least digital character/monster art packs, for printing or use in VTTs as needed, of character and monster artwork.

Though, admittedly, I'd still appreciate at least digital character/monster art packs, for printing or use in VTTs as needed, of character and monster artwork.

I'd be delighted to have 2D artwork I could print to use as flat pawns in face-to-face games. Finding and scaling suitable artwork isn't simple.

I'd like to have something that was able to be printed to the standard 1-inch=5-ft scale, on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, in black and white as well as color.

I'd like to have something that was able to be printed to the standard 1-inch=5-ft scale, on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, in black and white as well as color.

There's TONS of this available through various artists on Patreon and dtRPG. Already scaled, with cutlines and everything. Some of them even produce cutfiles for luxurious people with "Cricut" type devices. Some of them even do polls for what to do next or accept commissions. Many of them even use PDF layers to let you customize them.

There are almost no other players in the readymade pawn space where you can just buy and use. Paizo was the dominant force there. D&D had a small entry (but not nearly as nice), a couple very pricey acrylic ones.

Kobold Games has done a few. PEG has done a few with their Savage Worlds kickstarters. Monte Cook did one. There are a couple premium, expensive plastic ones out there (largely Kickstarter-funded). But even they aren't as nice to use and store as PF Pawns.

[Sorry for verbosity. I really am a big fan of the line and have tried them all out! Pawns were the main thing I was still buying from Paizo anymore other than a few ultra-cheap PF2 supplements when they go really cheap that I can use for lore, but otherwise I'm just backfilling missed PF1 content on Ebay since the POD project is going so slowly.]

Well, this certainly clears up any confusion about whether or not there will be future PACG products. Previously the only Paizo comment was that there will be no more PACG society content, but no comment was ever made by Paizo about non-society content. Sure, we had our guesses but officially we were left in limbo for over a year.

Regardless, thanks for bringing one of my favorite games of all time.

Templates for designing your own cards and/or scenarios are available to publishers on Pathfinder Infinite, as is the ability to make print-on-demand versions of those cards, so we hope the community will continue to support the game as player demand allows.

There's TONS of this available through various artists on Patreon and dtRPG.

Ohh, thanks for that. I'll take a look

What that made me realize was the matchy-matchy nature of the pawns, the battle cards, and the adventure art. I really liked having the goblins all look similar no matter what piece of art my players were looking at, for example.

Correction: Redshift Rally will release on July 27.

Well, this certainly clears up any confusion about whether or not there will be future PACG products. ... Sure, we had our guesses but officially we were left in limbo for over a year.

Regardless, thanks for bringing one of my favorite games of all time.

Agreed. PACG was one of the most fun experience outside of RPGs ever, more than most board games most of the time. A few of the scenarios weren't so hot (like B, and any of the Army ones in Wrath), but it was still fun. Alas, it's over. Lone Shark's Apocrypha didn't cut the same way. (Well, neither did PACG 2e for that matter, but it was still good; just not as good as PACG 1e.)

But it was clear Paizo got in over their heads: they stopped even providing character sheets or card lists. And the way it was sold seems to have burned them and their retailers. It was boom and bust too much. A flood of things, then not much. And then a sudden return.

We are working on a solution for the phones. We hear you. Stay tuned for more information.

It's less that we're looking for a solution for phones, and more that your FAQ page points us to two deprecated ways to contact customer service.

Well. Shoot. As a huge fan of both the pawn line and the adventure card game, I hid a burning hope in my heart that maybe, somehow they might make a resurgence. Huge sigh for the final nail in that coffin. I still have all the card games and almost every singe pawn set in existence. But I was still willing to strive to find more room on my already stained bookshelves for more. Just know that should you ever decide to bring back either of these lines, I will be one of the first to buy.

Due to the cost of international shipping, I would had of loved to see the ability to subscribe to just the PDFs.