Paizo Subscriptions Update

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

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

In my case, no. I'm a former Paizo Superscriber who dropped most physical subscriptions due in large part to international shipping costs.

It would be convenient to me personally to have a subscription system which automatically charged me for the PDFs of the lines I have an interest in on the public release day though. It'd be easier than going through and manually buying PDFs on or near release day.

Whether that's a service worth the effort to Paizo in terms of monetary gain versus setup cost, or would be worth the risk that physical subscriptions would drop due to people going digital only if given the option to do so, I have no idea.

I do suspect the latter risk has reduced for international customers given current shipping costs though.

Jonathan Morgantini wrote:

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.

This. So much this. I completely get being busy, and how COVID through everything sideways, but that understanding starts to wane after literal years. It's great if another solution is being devised, super glad to hear that. In the meantime just remove the phone number. My feelings on this come from being a customer that got caught up in this, and from that page was very confused as to why it didn't work, and it unnecessarily delayed getting a resolution to the problem I had.

EDIT: Oh wait, hang on, credit where credit is due: Did it get removed? I don't think I see it anymore!

EDIT: Oh wait, hang on, credit where credit is due: Did it get removed? I don't think I see it anymore!

It's still there. Scroll down to "How Do I Cancel A Subscription?"

As someone who mostly run things in online anyway, I was already kinda disappointed how roll20 never adds pawn pictures to the module :'D So I don't really care that much about pawn box being cancelled, it was really expensive bonus option for me

Honestly, the reason that I only order physical product from Paizo is that it is not available elsewhere with free shipping. The 15% discount is not enough to justify the subscriptions, even though I'd love the PDF & Physical copies.

Currently, the best "Deal" for me is to wait for Paizo to release on Fantasy Grounds and get both the PDF & VTT assets in the same purchase. FLGS for my physical books.

Here's the advantage play: a bundled once a month loot drop with a player's subscriptions with free shipping and PDF's.

This would get me to subscribe to multiple product lines, but getting 4 boxes at $10-$15 shipping apiece seems like I'm giving up an additional rule book purchase, or at least a Flip Mat... Charge shipping for people who choose to not bundle into a monthly drop so they can get it "on release day".

The math isn't helped by the fact that there's a local online fulfilment warehouse that offers enough of a discount where the gallon of gas burnt to get there is still a savings.

I'm also disappointed with the choice to get rid of the Pawn lines, but it is what it is. I hope that there are digital assets that either allow for printing or just display at the table.

Living the dream would be app' functionality I've seen on TCG sites, where you can list a bunch of assets (card proxies), and the app builds you a sheet, and prints it out. If I could do that with pawns that would make me the happiest GM ever to be able to just put a bunch of monster assets on there that are pre-formatted to work over existing pawn pieces... And if it had import ready VTT art functionality *swoon*

That would be an app' worth a subscription, but I digress.

A dedicated thread to possible online subs offers from Paizo sounds like a great idea right now. Not sure where it should go though.

Wzrd wrote:

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

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

With all due respect, Aaron, but I don’t think you guys appreciate this point enough: When I subscribed back in 2020, shipping cost for one volume of an Adventure Path was $5.65. It is now $17.75. Sometimes even more. Do you think I am willing to pay almost double just for shipping? I’m not even really looking for a PDF-only subscription, but for you to fix your shipping problem. When I order from Chaosium, I can get their slipcase set for $8 in shipping costs. Because they have a regional warehouse in Poland. I really think that Pathfinder could be so much bigger outside of the US if Paizo just fixed these issues.

I love print. But I just cancelled my subscriptions because I can’t afford them. Now that I’m not automatically getting the products anymore, I will probably buy less and be much more selective.

Sounds like the answer to Aaron's question is 'no'.

Wzrd wrote:

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

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

The answer for me, and a lot of people both in the US and abroad, is “No.” I was a Rulebook and Lost Omens subscriber, but I only ever read the PDFs on my iPad or other devices, synced through the cloud. Having all my Paizo books on hand wherever I am is awesome. I realized I have a bookshelf full of paper books I’ve never even cracked the spine on. I want the content, not the physical item. The benefit of getting them a few days before they hit the street ultimately was not worth the significant extra cost. So now I buy the PDFs when they come out.

A PDF-only sub would give Paizo a larger guaranteed revenue stream for new products and I think the demand might surprise you.

I understand the concern that this would cannibalize print sales. Clearly, there are many people who cherish their physical copies and I think most would continue to subscribe. I don’t feel that a digital subscription would threaten local game stores more than Paizo selling physical books directly to their customers. It would be nice if both options were available.

The one thing that is kinda baffling is how there has been no replacement product for over 1 year.

I'd love to buy high quality token packs for FoundryVTT, which could also be used to print out tokens similar to other RPGs like L5R https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/QOgAAOSwuQpgULVO/s-l1600.jpg

Just sell the digital print sheet with the correct sizes and give me the digital tokens on FoundryVTT.

PS: The Pawns PDFs were never an option for me because they were priced too high (like all other digital products except book PDFs and Foundry modules) and you couldn't use them as intended because it required special paper to make them stand upright. I mean I wouldn't even have used them if I had access to them for free! Tokens that lie flat on the battle map would solve at least that issue, plus you'd get the added benefit of tracking damage by placing tokens/dice onto them.

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

No, a PDF only subscription would not change my print buying habits since I no longer buy Pathfinder or Starfinder physical books, it's just PDFs these days.

I would like subscriptions for the convenience. Currently, every month or so, I check for all the latest PDF releases for both Pathfinder and Starfinder and purchase them. It would be nice if this was automated through a subscription mechanism. If I received a loyalty discount for being PDF subscribed, even better, but it's not the reason I am asking for this.

Aaron Shanks wrote:

Wzrd wrote:

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

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

With all due respect, Aaron, but I don’t think you guys appreciate this point enough: When I subscribed back in 2020, shipping cost for one volume of an Adventure Path was $5.65. It is now $17.75. Sometimes even more. Do you think I am willing to pay almost double just for shipping? I’m not even really looking for a PDF-only subscription, but for you to fix your shipping problem. When I order from Chaosium, I can get their slipcase set for $8 in shipping costs. Because they have a regional warehouse in Poland. I really think that Pathfinder could be so much bigger outside of the US if Paizo just fixed these issues.

I love print. But I just cancelled my subscriptions because I can’t afford them. Now that I’m not automatically getting the products anymore, I will probably buy less and be much more selective.

Poland, and Europe for that matter are a much bigger market for Chaosium than it is for Paizo. Pathfinder is 80% US+CAN and 20% RoW, and a solid chunk of that RoW is Americans scattered across the world, US army bases etc.

Cardboard Tokens you can punch out would be a fine substitute for the pawns. People are used to them because of vtts, you'd be able to get a lot more of them on sheet and we'd still get paizo art on the tabletop. Plus so many board games use them that printing should be efficient too.

Heck you could release them along with digital tokens to get two products out of the art resource.

I am incredibly incensed that the pawns are being discontinued. For a GM who travels a lot to GM, and/or the GM who runs games at conventions, I found the pawns to be an easy-to-carry and more economical alternative to miniatures. I also liked the fact that, using the PDFs, I could make additional pawns of creatures when the physical product didn’t have enough of a certain creature.

So, now that these won’t be an option going forward, I’ll just go back to using my old set of Alea Tools to represent the monsters. Sure, it’s more immersion breaking, but at least I can afford it.

How did they produce 6 bestiaries worth of pawns for PF1, 3 for PF2, and all of the various APs and other special ones, and only now decide “yeah, there’s no market for this.”

I mean, I’m sure the business numbers support this decision, but I’m still irked. I wonder if it would be worth it to produce new ones that are .pdf only, and then people could just download and print them? I mean, I do that already for extra pawns, so that might be a more cost-effective solution.

At any rate, I’m just venting my disappointment.

Wzrd wrote:

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

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

I had to stop buying print products via subscription in part due to the cost of shipping where i just couldn't justify print products when i didn't use them. I largely did subscriptions out of convenience of getting new paizo pdf products every month.

If there was a PDF subscription then I would subscribe to multiple lines again. Also, while we're talking about subscription ideas, I'd really love to see a FoundryVTT subscription for all the new PF2 content that is coming out.

Glad to see a subscription for the Lost Omens Special Editions! I'll probably start that up after the first couple releases.
Not too surprised on the pawns. My local store seems to have had the same pawns sitting on the shelf for over a year now. I personally prefer the plastic minis on the table even if they're not completely accurate representations, so not too sad to see the pawns being stopped.

I too am disappointed at the discontinuation of the AP Pawns.

However…there’s a solution if you have the PDF of the AP. there are programs that will extract all images from a PDF. You then take the images of the monsters you want and copy/paste them into a Word document. Print on card stock paper.

The only issue is to make them stand up. If you have access to a 3d printer or a friend who does, then it’s simple. Print a base.

If you don’t have access to a 3d printer, then do the old trick of printing two copies, cut one from the top down to the half-way mark, cut the other from the bottom up to the half-way mark and put them together.

I admit that the 3d printer option is better.

How can we double check which subscriptions we have?

How can we double check which subscriptions we have?

Account info, click on Manage Subscriptions.

Count me as an avid pawn supporter but I understand that minis are where the market is.

Bummed that the pawns are going away, I always relied on them for our games. :-( I don't really have the time to mess around trying to make my own, unfortunately, so I guess I'll just be using the ones I already have as stand-ins.

I like both pawns and minis but the minis have gotten more expensive with less quality

How did they produce 6 bestiaries worth of pawns for PF1, 3 for PF2, and all of the various APs and other special ones, and only now decide “yeah, there’s no market for this.”

Because the market changed.

Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:

How can we double check which subscriptions we have?

Account info, click on Manage Subscriptions.

Thank you!

I’m not upset about the AP pawns being canceled - it’s a bummer, but Paizo is clearly reacting to their sales and costs.

I am a little upset that it took three Adventure Paths releasing in their entirety before we were officially told they were canceled.

It's unfortunate that all pawn lines are being discontinued, as I'm not sure how motivated I'm going to be to use creatures from a new bestiary with no pawn sets for it. I understand that paper costing more + lack of buyers may have affected the decision -- but still regret it.

NPC pawns from AP sets are useful, but not a huge issue.

I do think there's a market for VTT supported imagesets (or something of that nature) -- and I hope Paizo will consider something like that in the future.

Poland, and Europe for that matter are a much bigger market for Chaosium than it is for Paizo. Pathfinder is 80% US+CAN and 20% RoW, and a solid chunk of that RoW is Americans scattered across the world, US army bases etc.

As a Canadian, I'd like to point out that shipping a single AP book 2 hours north of Paizo costs $12.20, takes 7-11 days and isn't trackable. Yet to ship that same book to someone in Florida costs $4.29, takes 4-8 days, and is trackable.

The core book is $38.22 to ship to Canada, or $6.55 to get it shipped within the US.

If you live outside of the US ordering things from Paizo directly has a huge shipping cost associated with it, even if it's only a 2 1/2 hour drive away from the warehouse.

I get that pawn production in China was (and is) difficult. But why don't you produce them locally in the US and increase prices somewhat? It worked pretty well for the localized pawns here in Europe.

Wzrd wrote:

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

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

I might start subscribing when it comes to Pawns.

I would pick up pawns at the FLGS if I was going to run a campaign that would use the set, but after I got more minis than I knew what to do with I stopped.

If I could print out specific NPC's on demand for example I would have no problem printing and placing the pawn.

If you guys are cancelling the Pawn line I think this might be a golden opportunity to test the waters for PDF specific subscriptions. The art work is already there in the adventure path 95% of the time, just need to have it sized for a printable pawn.

Shouldn't hurt retail print sales because you already offer PDF's of the pawns anyways and people who would go that route already were. This just keeps the option open for people who like to have the creatures and npc's specific to an AP represented with official art.

As a Canadian, I'd like to point out that shipping a single AP book 2 hours north of Paizo costs $12.20, takes 7-11 days and isn't trackable. Yet to ship that same book to someone in Florida costs $4.29, takes 4-8 days, and is trackable.

For the record, whenever I order anything from Paizo, even though I get a tracking number, it is never trackable. The webpage always tells me that info isn’t available, and than at some point a couple of weeks later, it magically appears at my house. Now, I usually just use the basic shipping so maybe that isn’t supposed to be trackable (but if that’s the case, I don’t know what good providing me a tracking number does.)

I live in the continental U.S.

Warped Savant wrote:

As a Canadian, I'd like to point out that shipping a single AP book 2 hours north of Paizo costs $12.20, takes 7-11 days and isn't trackable. Yet to ship that same book to someone in Florida costs $4.29, takes 4-8 days, and is trackable.

For the record, whenever I order anything from Paizo, even though I get a tracking number, it is never trackable. The webpage always tells me that info isn’t available, and that some point a couple of weeks later, it magically appears at my house. Now, I usually just use the basic shipping so maybe that isn’t supposed to be trackable (but if that’s the case, I don’t know what good providing me a tracking does.)

I live in the continental U.S.

Yes to this!

Warped Savant wrote:

As a Canadian, I'd like to point out that shipping a single AP book 2 hours north of Paizo costs $12.20, takes 7-11 days and isn't trackable. Yet to ship that same book to someone in Florida costs $4.29, takes 4-8 days, and is trackable.

For the record, whenever I order anything from Paizo, even though I get a tracking number, it is never trackable. The webpage always tells me that info isn’t available, and than at some point a couple of weeks later, it magically appears at my house. Now, I usually just use the basic shipping so maybe that isn’t supposed to be trackable (but if that’s the case, I don’t know what good providing me a tracking number does.)

I live in the continental U.S.

Exactly the same here! And it often takes a suspiciously long to be be delivered, sometimes after the street date.

If there was a PDF subscription, would it change your print buying habits?

No, because I'm already only buying PDFs since 95% of my playing and 100% of my GMing are done online. Right now I'm primarily just buying what I need/want for Organized Play participation but if PDF-only subscriptions ever become a thing you'd certainly get more of my money :)

I already have Redshift Rally in my current, now pending order. If I now start a Starfinder Adventures subscription, the site tells me, the subscription starts with Redshift Rally. Do I need to wait to order the subscription until the next adventure is ready to order?

I already have Redshift Rally in my current, now pending order. If I now start a Starfinder Adventures subscription, the site tells me, the subscription starts with Redshift Rally. Do I need to wait to order the subscription until the next adventure is ready to order?

Please email Customer Service.

Add me to the chorus that is going to miss Pawns a lot. Since many APs have specific NPCs and AP-specific monsters, I relied on them to be able to provide a good visual representation on the tabletop. It's also nice that the pawns contrast with the players' minis, making it more obvious which side is which. I would frequently buy AP sets for APs I didn't intend to run just have the monsters and NPCs for other things. As in-person gaming started to ramp up again, I was hoping the line would start up again, even though the writing was on the wall.

I honestly don't have the pocketbook or the patience to invest in the blind-box model of Pathfinder minis and buying them as singles is even more prohibitively expensive. I get that the cost vs benefit calculation on Pawns went sideways for Paizo and there's nothing to be done at this point, but there's basically no good alternative at the moment to fulfill the same purpose that Pawns fulfilled.

Part of my job description, and those on my team, is to be the Voice of the Customer and represent the customer within Paizo to ensure the best experience for gamers. Thank you all for your input.

Poland, and Europe for that matter are a much bigger market for Chaosium than it is for Paizo. Pathfinder is 80% US+CAN and 20% RoW, and a solid chunk of that RoW is Americans scattered across the world, US army bases etc.

What is the source of this information about Chaosium? And in addition: I’m not surprised Paizo is only 20% RoW, because frankly, the availability of products sucks!

Just so I am clear, regarding Pawns (which seems to be the majority of the posts in this thread), when/if PF (2nd ed) Bestiary 4 or SF Alien Archive 5 come out, there will not be Pawn sets, correct? But as long as people still buy them, the previous Bestiary/Alien Archive sets will still be produced?

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Poland, and Europe for that matter are a much bigger market for Chaosium than it is for Paizo. Pathfinder is 80% US+CAN and 20% RoW, and a solid chunk of that RoW is Americans scattered across the world, US army bases etc.

What is the source of this information about Chaosium? And in addition: I’m not surprised Paizo is only 20% RoW, because frankly, the availability of products sucks!

You can’t make revenue if it can’t be bought or can only be bought at insane costs. In addition, in the german speaking world for example, they work with Ulysses Spiele as a distributor for the german version of the product. Why can’t they also ship subscriptions?

Just ask the people at Black Monk, the Polish Chaosium distributor. Poland is such a big market for CoC that at this point some Black Monk people have been hired by Chaosium directly.

Availability follows demand. Baseball accessories aren't hard to get in Europe because companies suck, they're hard to get because baseball isn't popular in Europe. You also have to be mindful that after people buy Paizo products in their own localised language versions (DER/FRA/SPA/ITA etc.) you're left with a slice of a slice of the market - Europeans that want English-language Paizo products for one reason or another.

As for Ulysses (or any other EU distributor) shipping Paizo subs, I believe that the prospect of shipping a triple digit of subs to 40+ European countries and having to do customer service that can handle a guy in Croatia who has the problem with his sub being stuck at a post office in Rijeka is not a winning business proposition for either Ulysses or Paizo.

Oh and a large chunk of European Paizo customers are Brits and you have to figure Brexit and taxes/duties on stuff that comes to UK from EU or vice versa.

Finally, Paizo's subs always and ever tick off a group of people you've forgotten about: LGS owners. Paizo can try to placate them in the US thanks to org play program that funnels players into LGS and incentives for stores, but when it comes to LGSes outside the US, it's much harder, not the least because RPG org play isn't quite as big a thing outside US.

Just so I am clear, regarding Pawns (which seems to be the majority of the posts in this thread), when/if PF (2nd ed) Bestiary 4 or SF Alien Archive 5 come out, there will not be Pawn sets, correct? But as long as people still buy them, the previous Bestiary/Alien Archive sets will still be produced?

Not sure about SF's future AA books, but we've already had our next psuedo-Bestiary release after B3: Book of the Dead, and it didn't receive a pawn set for it. We aren't gonna get another basic Bestiary book after B3 for now, and the next release similar to BotD will probably lack a pawn set for it as well.

I too am disappointed at the discontinuation of the AP Pawns.

However…there’s a solution if you have the PDF of the AP. there are programs that will extract all images from a PDF. ....

You are aware that the Pawn sets included art for creatures/NPCs which was never actually featured in the books?

By the way, it's Ulisses Spiele (no Y), and no, they do not have capacities to take over shipping Paizo's European subs. They are busy enough with their own shipments.

I think ACG fans have known what was up for some time now, but it is very nice to get some actual acknowledgement from Paizo that things are no longer continuing. I hope that one day the stars will align to bring back (some version of) my favorite board game of all time.

Until then, I have ongoing pbp games, semi-regular games via tabletop simulator, and I have no plans to get rid of all my physical copies, and I look forward to playing them with my kids one day.

I am incredibly incensed that the pawns are being discontinued. For a GM who travels a lot to GM, and/or the GM who runs games at conventions, I found the pawns to be an easy-to-carry and more economical alternative to miniatures. I also liked the fact that, using the PDFs, I could make additional pawns of creatures when the physical product didn’t have enough of a certain creature.

So, now that these won’t be an option going forward, I’ll just go back to using my old set of Alea Tools to represent the monsters. Sure, it’s more immersion breaking, but at least I can afford it.

How did they produce 6 bestiaries worth of pawns for PF1, 3 for PF2, and all of the various APs and other special ones, and only now decide “yeah, there’s no market for this.”

I mean, I’m sure the business numbers support this decision, but I’m still irked. I wonder if it would be worth it to produce new ones that are .pdf only, and then people could just download and print them? I mean, I do that already for extra pawns, so that might be a more cost-effective solution.

At any rate, I’m just venting my disappointment.

The easy answer here, and the most obvious one, is that there's a global paper shortage. It's impacting many industries, not just TTRPGs. Pawns take a LOT of paper, and are then a heavy product to ship, therefore driving up shipping costs. There's also the rather pronounced shift to VTT's as we've been in a pandemic with fewer options for in person play for over two years now.