I tried contacting Customer Service twice about this topic during the last two months (first mail was in March) but I did not get any other answer than the automated one, so I thought I would try my luck here and see if any other Paizo customer from Belgium (or maybe other EU countries) have the same problem and/or ideas to solve it.
A few months ago, Paizo started using the IOSS system and including VAT in the price of the orders (mine are mostly subscription orders). If I understand correctly, this process is supposed to allow the customers to pay the VAT along with the order instead of having to pay it later when the goods enter the EU (from this web page).
It's actually much more interesting than that for the customers, since most customs add special/administrative taxes when you pay the VAT later. So, it's not just a quality of life improvement allowing you to pay only once, it's also about having to pay less... much less in most cases, since the difference can be quite significant (e.g., my last subscription order, for Book of the Dead + Punks in a Powderkeg has books for $59.98, plus $35.66 shipping and $5.74 for the VAT paid to Paizo... and the customs demand that I pay €34.44 more in additional taxes!).
Even since Paizo started using the IOSS system, each time I get a package, BPost (Belgium Post) demands that I pay additional taxes, as if the IOSS system was not used at all. I contacted BPost but they said they couldn't do anything about it since "the IOSS webshop" - that is, Paizo - "did not provide all the information required".
Do other Belgian customers have the same problem? Any idea what needs to change to solve this problem? I would really appreciate any help on this topic!
Mark Seifter's Battlezoo Monster Part System allows characters to craft and improve weapons, armour, and skill boosting items by using "monster parts" that they collect from monster corpses, get given by peaceful monsters, or obtain by "un-crafting" items. I was thinking that it might be a very good match for this adventure path, since there are very few opportunities (actually, none in the first book) to visit a shop, sell things and buy runes and other magical items.
The Monster Part System is actually quite flexible as presented in the Battlezoo Bestiary, since it comes in three variants, replacing completely the standard PF2 loot system, replacing it partially, or replacing only the currency in the loot.
Many encounters (at least in the first book) can be resolved either through violence (thereby producing monster corpses that can be salvaged) or through more peaceful means (which, I think, is a really great idea), generally by recruiting creatures into the following. Peacefully recruited creatures might actually grant a few body parts (feathers, quills, hair, or more symbolic "body parts" like tears) to allow the PCs to collect an adequate amount of "monster parts" no matter how they choose to resolve the encounters.
In order to imbue the monster part items with magical properties, characters need to have monster parts with the corresponding trait (e.g., parts from fire-based/fire-using enemies for fire properties, and so on), so it might be necessary to replace some enemies with other enemies that would have rarer traits, or modify some part of the loot.
Anyway, it's just ideas for now... but I was curious to know if other GMs had thought about using the Monster Part system in their Quest for the Frozen Flame and maybe started working on the changes needed to do so?
A friend living in France and I (living in Belgium) were talking about the increase in shipping fees for Europe and comparing our most recent orders.
• Both orders are for exactly the same books (Secrets of Magic + Strength of Thousands 2).
• The shipping method is the same (Mail Innovations International).
• The package information is the same (2 items; package weight 4 lbs).
But one order has $24.19 of shipping & handling and the other one, $39.17!
One package is sent to France and the other to Belgium... but I would guess that it does not explain such a difference in shipping fees? I know that you have had problems recently with the code supposed to compute shipping fees, so I thought this might be an error you should be told about.
For reference, the order numbers are 36608834 and 36629261.
Thanks for looking into it and letting me know ! :)
Here are a few changes and additions that I plan to use with the Abomination Vault adventure path. The main goals of those are:
- to let the players learn more about the history of the dungeon and its inhabitants (the authors included interesting background stories for many locales and NPCs, but the players do not always have an easy way to get to learn those tidbits);
- to add more interaction with the NPCs from Otari;
- to add more internal consistency to the dungeon/story mostly through foreshadowing.
If you have other ideas or simply comments to improve on those suggestions, please share!
Obviously, SPOILERS ABOUND!
Spoiler:
(1) Candidates for mayor position. First, Steel_Wind’s excellent suggestion from the How will you be starting the AP thread: have the AP start during a festival in Otari, where the nominees for the forthcoming mayor election are announced ; have Carman Rajani included in the list ; have NPCs comment about his last four campaigns and how there is no way he becomes Otari’s mayor (maybe add a few racist comment about his Nidalese origins).
(2) Annotated cartography mission. Once people in Otari learn that there’s more to Belcorra’s dungeon than just the surface ruins, Vandy Banderdash is very interested in collecting maps and notes about the structure of the dungeons and how each level was used. She’s ready to reward the PCs for any maps and information they can bring to her and might ask them for a complete survey of all the connections between the levels themselves (e.g., 4 connections between Level 1 and Level 2, 5 connections between Level 2 and Level 3, …, 8 connections between Level 5 and Level 6…) and the connections between the levels and the rest of the worlds (twisting tunnels, opening into the Darklands…).
(3) Information from Absalom. Once Mayor Menhemes learn of the lower levels, he reports the information to Absalom and asks his contacts over there to check if there are other tidbits of information that were not made public back when the Roseguard was sent to stop Belcorra. It turns out that there is… Those who went the Roseguard to Gauntlight knew that there were lower levels and other people allied with Belcorra but thought that it would be enough to cut off the head of the snake. They promised that the Roseguard would be paid for Belcorra’s head but did not mention anything about her allies, hoping to not spend too much money on a threat that seemed quite minor and far away from Absalom. The mayor’s contacts might discover a list of names and comments about some of Belcorra’s allies, information obtained from merchants in Absalom who sold and brought supplies for Belcorra’s dungeon. The list could include names of people who made special orders to those merchants, or contacts that the merchants introduced to Belcorra, like:
- Volluk Azrinae
- “the majordomo”
- Jarella Kaldrian
- Aller Rosk
- Nhakazarin
- Chandria Invisar
- Siora Fallowglade
- the squabbling poltergeist siblings (or, rather, their living past version)
- Chafkham
The list might include short descriptions and comments about each of those key NPC, as well as special equipment they ordered from Absalom (hinting at their role in Belcorra’s organization). It might also include a list of raw materials used mainly in summoning and binding rituals for devils and velstracs.
(4) Otari’s last days. Once Morlibind learns that Otari (the hero, not the town) did not die during the initial fight with Belcorra, he might ask the heroes to draft a report about how the thief spent his last days, retracing precisely his journey through the first levels of the dungeon, the opponents and challenges he overcame, and how he finally met his demise. PCs would have to gather information from the ghostly echoes of Otari and what they encounter in the dungeon (like the minotaur skeleton in a guardroom), since Otari the ghost’s memories about his last days are quite fuzzy. The more precise the report is, the more Morlibind is ready to reward the players (he might also give them a bonus if the story is told in an epic way, more akin to the fictions he likes to read).
(5) Siora’s quirk. Chief Assassin Siora Fallowglade was known for always cutting the left ear of her victims – a quirk that might be mentioned in the list from Idea #3. Out of habit, she did the same thing to the two guards she murdered when she attempted to flee… Perceptive PCs might notice that the two shadows they encounter in Smuggler’s Refuge are missing their left ears (it might be harder to notice on a shadowy form, but it creates a hint that those shadows might not be just a random encounter).
(6) In Search of the Perfect Soldier. In the Restricted Collection room of the Library (C33 on Level 3), the PCs might find nearly empty bookshelves specially prepared to receive reports and experimentation notes related to the quest for the perfect soldier. The bookshelves are divided into sections for fleshwarping, reanimation of the dead, selective breeding and golem creation and some of them have a few old reports written mostly in undercommon. Some of those reports might be presented as “copies” of notes collected by Jafaki and might hint to the various creations and experiments the PCs can find on Levels 5 and 6 of the dungeon. The undead librarians used to keep in contact with the seugathi researchers and continue to create copies of their research notes for safe storage in this library… that is, until Belcorra’s return created the spectral wall of ectoplasm blocking off the lower levels.
I'm still looking for ideas to "bind" the various encounters on Levels 5 and 6, and maybe foreshadow the presence of the denizen of Leng (in addition to its effects on the mayor's daughter).
For the last 2-4 days, the elements under "What's happening at Paizo", "New Releases" and "Upcoming Releases" have not loaded on the front page. The grey place-holder dice keep turning and turning.
Everything loads fine when I use Chrome or Edge, but not with Firefox (currently using Firefox 83.0 (64-bit).
In order #7961065, I bought the PDF version of the PF2 Beginner's Box, but the Pathfinder Advantage discount was not applied. As per Aaron's message in the Beginner's Box thread, I post about this problem here so you can look into it.
My May subscription order could not be processed at the normal time because my credit card was blocked back then (my card number was stolen, and the bank blocked it after noticing suspicious activities).
Since then, I got a new credit card and updated the payment details a few days ago, but my order is still pending. Could you please re-process it at your earliest convenience so I might get access to the PDFs?
Just making sure I understand the rules correctly for this deed, by comparing Dead Shot and a normal full attack.
With Dead Shot,
(negatives)
— all the attacks must target the same creature ;
— precision and extra damage are not multiplied,
- you cannot apply feats like Rapid Shot (or maybe you can), but
(positive)
- critical threats are confirmed with the highest BAB.
15 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Bestiary 1 page 301 says:
Grab (Ex) ... Unless otherwise noted, grab works only against opponents at least one size category smaller than the creature. ...
Bestiary 2 page 298 says:
Grab (Ex) ... Unless otherwise noted, grab works only against opponents no larger than the same size category as the creature. ...
If I read it correctly,according to Bestiary 1, a Medium-sized creature cannot take advantage of its grab ability against a Medium-sized target but, according to Bestiary 2, it can.
Do I read it correctly?
And, if I do, was this change intended? (I checked the errata for the Bestiary 1 but it didn't contain any modification for the grab universal rule).
The Wave power of the Water elemental school says that the wave of water is created at the wizard's location and that it moves 30 feet per round away from him in a direction of his choosing.
When does it stop or how many rounds does it continue to exist though?
I searched the forums and the FAQ, but couldn't find any answer.
The "standard" rule says that whenever you have to round a number, you should round down (if I remember correctly).
I'm trying to apply the fiendish/celestial template to a low CR creature (let's say, a CR 1/3 dire rat with a Charisma of 4).
SR equal to new CR + 5. The new CR is 1/3 (unchanged), so I guess that the SR is 5 (rounding down 5 + 1/3).
smite 1/day (adds Cha bonus to attack rolls and damage bonus equal to HD). I take "Cha bonus" to mean "the Cha modifier, if positive, otherwise, 0". Thus, in the case of the rat, the attack modifier is +0. Now, smite is supposed to add "+1/3" as damage bonus. Is it supposed to be rounded down to +0 too (thus making the whole smite effect useless)?
Basically, I'm not sure whether rounding down in each case is what is expected here. (I know that does not make much of a difference, but I'm interested in knowing the official ruling.)
I recently got a "soon to ship" mail for a package with
- Pathfinder #26
- Seekers of Secrets, and
- Princes of Darkness,
but, since I also have a Pathfinder RPG subscription, I expected to also see the Bestiary in the October package.
Unless you split the October books into two packages to reduce shipping fees? But then, shouldn't I get the Bestiary first, since Seekers of Secrets is delayed?
Thanks for helping me understand! :)
(Still no plan to get a European remailer?)
[Sorry if this gets posted twice - the forum did not update the first time I hit the "Submit Post" button.]
I recently got a "soon to ship" mail for a package containing
- Pathfinder #26
- Seekers of Secrets
- Princes of Darkness
But I also have a Pathfinder RPG subscription, so I was surprised to see no mention of the Bestiary.
Unless you chose to split the October books into 2 packages to reduce shipping fees? But then shouldn't I get the Bestiary first, since Seekers of Secrets is delayed?
Thanks for helping me to understand. :)
Still no project of working with a European remailer ? *whistles innocently*
From what I can see, this would be the right moment to have my Pathfinder Chronicles subscription cancelled so I can skip the Map Folio. If this is correct, could you please cancel it?
I just got the mail saying that the pdf versions of Pathfinder #23 and Dungeon Denizens Revisited were ready for download on my "my downloads" page. All the files are indeed there, but I can't seem to personalize the one-file version of PF23.
When I click on "personalize this file", the page does not change (the "personalize this file" option remains clickable while "Download this file" is not clickable). I could download the one-file-per-chapter version and Dungeon Denizens Revisited without any problem.
I currently have a Pathfinder Chronicles subscription, but I am not interested in the Legacy of Fire Map Folio. What is the simplest way to proceed with the subscription but skip it? Do I have to ask you to cancel the subscription before the Map Folio ships then start a new subscription, or is there a simpler method?
I'm not sure whether this is the right spot to ask this ... but I have a question about the planned shipping dates for the Pathfinder Chronicles, Companion and AP for May, that is:
- The Great Beyond
- Dungeon Denizens
- (Companion) Taldor
- PF #22
I assume that the "monthly" option means that you will ship the four books at the end of the month/as soon as the last of them is available.
But what does "hold for shipment with the Adventure Path" means for this month? Is Pathfinder #22 going to ship early and on its own, or is going to ship later with some of the other books?
I also have a question about the packaging for international shipping. Up to now, I have only received packages (thick white enveloppes) with two books. How many AP/Chronicles/Companion-sized books can you put before you need to use a larger packaging option, and how much more does this larger packaging option cost?
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but ... I have a question about the planned shipping dates for the Pathfinder Chronicles and Pathfinder Companion books for May, that is
- (Chronicles) the Great Beyond
- (Chronicles) Dungeon Denizens Revisited, and
- (Companion) Taldor
in relation to Pathfinder #22's shipping date.
I assume that the "monthly shipment" option means that you will send the four books at the end of the month/when the last of them is available.
But what will "hold my subscriptions to ship with the AP" mean this month? Will Pathfinder #22 come out very early in the month and ship on its own, or will it ship later along with some of the other books?
Also, how many books can you place in an international package before you need to switch to the larger package option and bigger shipping fee? (Up to now, I have never got any package with more than 2 books - and I'm trying to save on the shipping fees!)
Does "Dragons Revisited" come before or after "Dark Markets" in the Chronicles Subscription? When I started my subscription, my goal was to get both, but I might have been confused because of the publishing delays.
As far as I remember (and unless I'm mistaken), I was given the choice to start this subscription with either the "Second Darkness Map Folio" (which I had no interest in) or "Dark Markets". I chose "Dark Markets" thinking that "Dragons Revisited" would be the next product to ship after "Dark Markets".
But I read today that some fans had already received their copy of "Dragons Revisited", while my Subscriptions page shows that the next product scheduled to ship is "Dark Markets", so I'm not sure what to think anymore.
So ... am I to get "Dragons Revisited" as part of my subscription? If not, where did I make a mistake, and is there any way to fix this problem (by adding "Dragons Revisited" to my subscription)?
I just got a mail indicating that you are about to send me a package with
- Pathfinder #19 - Legacy of Fire 1
- PF Companion - Legacy of Fire Player's guide
Yet, since I also have the PF Chronicles Subscription and I picked the "Hold my items to ship with my Pathfinder AP" option, I expected to also get
- PF Chronicles - Dark Markets, a Guide to Katapesh
at the same time (as described in the mail about the "free" pdf of the Guide).
Is the Dark Markets book delayed and sent separately (which would be kind of bad, since that would be yet more shipping charges and I'm in Europe)? Or maybe the orders simply need to be merged (since I took the AP/Companion subscriptions in a first order, then the PF Chronicles subscription in a separate order)?
I finally decided to get some subscriptions going for Pathfinder. I am actually interested in getting the Adventure Path, the Companion, and the Chronicles subscriptions; but I am unclear on how best to proceed to benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, so here are a few questions for you.
1 - Do you have an option for a Chronicles subscription without the map folios? If not, is it possible to suspend this subscription before each map folio then reinstate it afterwards? I remember seeing a thread about it, but I couldn't find it again.
2 - Is it possible to start a subscription with an older product or do I have to start with one of the two options given in the "shopping cart"? For example, I would be interested to start my Chronicles subscription with the "Guide to Absalom" (since it's not yet available where I live), but the only options I see are "SD Map Folio" (which I am not really interested in) or "Dark Markets - Guide to Katapesh".
3 - If I make my Adventure Path subscription start with Pathfinder 18 and I include other products in the same order (e.g., some "old" Pathfinder Companions), will I benefit the Pathfinder Advantage on those?
I finally decided to get some subscriptions going for Pathfinder. I am actually interested in getting the Adventure Path, the Companion, and the Chronicles subscriptions; but I am unclear on how best to proceed to benefit from the Pathfinder Advantage, so here are a few questions for you.
1 - Is there an option for a Chronicles subscription without the map folios? If not, is it possible to suspend this subscription before each map folio then reinstate it afterwards? I remember seeing a thread about it, but I couldn't find it again.
2 - Is it possible to start a subscription with an older product or do I have to start with one of the two options given in the "shopping cart"? For example, I would be interested to start my Chronicles subscription with the "Guide to Absalom" (since it's not yet available where I live), but the only options I see are "SD Map Folio" (which I am not really interested in) or "Dark Markets - Guide to Katapesh".
3 - If I make my Adventure Path subscription start with Pathfinder 18 and I include other products in the same order (e.g., some "old" Pathfinder Companions), will I benefit the Pathfinder Advantage on those?
Checking before posting in the Errata/Typos thread ...
One of my players pointed out that he couldn't find any explicit ruling on how ability scores increase exactly. The only mention is in Table 4-1 on page 13, but it doesn't say explicity whether one ability score increases by +1, or two different ability scores increase by +1, or something else.
Is this information missing, or did we just not find it?
In a forum game I DM, the following situation happened. A wizard used Hand of the apprentice (Universal school's 1st level power) with a weapon and sent it to attack an enemy with a dogslicer (or short sword if you prefer). This attack uses the wizard's Int modifier as a bonus both to hit and to damage. Now the weapon and the hand are next to the monster and the monster's turn comes up. And I want the monster to try and sunder the "flying" weapon. Now, how am I supposed to do that in Pathfinder?
From the Beta version of the rules, here's what I got:
- Monster rolls d20 + BAB + Str bonus + special size modifier
- The target DC is 15 + wizard's BAB + wizard's Int bonus + weapon's size?
- If the monster beats this DC, roll damage and determine what happens to the weapon.
1 - Am I reading it correctly?
2 - The definition of the BMC in the book only mentions Strength bonuses. I guess it should be replaced with the Dex bonus when using (for example) Weapon Finesse, and with the Int bonus in this case (since the 'Hand of the Apprentice' uses the wizard's Int modifier for its attacks)?
3 - What about magical plusses? Let's say that the monster is using a +1 weapon for its sunder attempt ... shouldn't it get a +1 to its roll?
4 - Adding the weapon's size to the DC means that the bigger the weapon, the harder it is to hit it (or the smaller the weapon, the easier it is to hit it). This sounds like reversed logic, no? I actually have the same problem for grappling: it's certainly easier to restrain a smaller creature in your hand/tentacles/whatever you have and prevent it from moving, but only once you've actually caught it; catching it is actually harder when the creature is small in my opinion.
Any help/comment appreciated. :) (and sorry if those questions have already been discussed and/or answered elsewhere)
There is quite an important difference between "Standard Postal Delivery" and "USPS" fees for orders to Europe. For small orders (1 book, or 2 thin books), the "Standard Postal Delivery" option is available, but it becomes unavailable as soon as (I guess) the total weight goes over a set amount. That means that it's sometimes cheaper to make 2 or 3 separate orders instead of ordering all the items at once.
A problem I have had when fiddling with this is that it takes a lot of trials and errors to determine the best way to combine the orders. It can already be hard when you only want books, but if you add in card packs, flip-maps, and other similar elements, it can get really complex.
Obviously, adding an option to automatically determine how best to divide a big order into smaller packages to minimize the shipping fees would be good ... but that would require quite a lot of work I guess. A good compromise might be to at least indicate the estimated weight of each item (as well as the weight limit for "Standard Postal Delivery"). Is there currently any way to get more information on item weights and this weight limit?
The main goal of this work is to allow DMs who do not understand English (and DMs who do read English but have players who do not) to playtest those rules and learn that interesting alternatives to 4E do exist. Obviously, if Paizo wants me to take this download down, they just have to send me a mail and I will comply. That should be the last fan-made translation, since Black Book Edition said they would produce an official French translation of the Beta rules in Aug 2008.
If you want to test the new Pathfinder Alpha rules but have a hard time reading English, or if you want to test those rules with players who wouldn't understand the English version of the rules, you can find a fan-made translation of the rules in this discussion. This is only a first version of the translation, and you are welcome to report typoes and errors either on that forum, or directly by mail (see the address on the document).
My goal in translating the rules is to allow more people to playtest them; I do not intend to get any money out of it. I checked with Black Book Editions (who are in charge of the French translations of the Pathfinder adventures and sourcebooks) and they do not mind that this document is publicly available. If Paizo feels that this is not a good move though, they just have to send me a mail and I will make sure that this document is no longer available - with no hard feelings from my side. As written above, my goal is help the playtesters and not to hinder Paizo in any way.
The idea of this thread comes from three sources:
- the idea that Paizo might avoid choosing between 3.x and 4E and produce dual-statted products in the future,
- my desire to still be able to make use of most of my 3.x books if/when I decide to switch to 4E, and,
- a question given as an example in the recent thread "Is this board really how Paizo wants to be represented?", where someone indicated that they might eventually wonder how Pathfinder adventures could be updated to 4E.
It seems clear to me that updating a module from 3.x to 4E will not simply amount to re-statting the NPCs and monsters, mainly for two reasons (there might be more):
1. First, some elements of the game world disappeared/were replaced with others (spell schools, spell memorization, racial fluff, planes, ...) and a conversion might mean that deeper changes in the adventure are required.
For example, forewarning/preparation seems less important in 4E than in 3.x: in 3.x, if you were warned that you would most likely face a red dragon the next day, you would modify your whole spell selection with that in mind. Since spell selection is mostly gone (there seems to remain some of it, with the level 1 wizard being able to choose 1 daily power/spell out of 2), preparation/forewarning seems to be less of a factor.
Another example is the eladrin's encounter teleport-like power ... if one of the PCs can teleport at 1st level, I can see that this might change completely some low level adventure (allowing the eladrin to teleport through a wall and thus enter the guarded complex, or teleport to an otherwise-hardly-accessible guard post [imagine guard posts flanking the entrance hall, with murder holes in the walls for example], ...)
2. Second, 4E's power level is very different from 3.x's (level 1 PCs are much more powerful, and so are level 1 monsters; and adventurers are supposed to deal with more encounters each day than in 3.x).
For example, attacks by a horde of low-level critters on a group of "commoners" might be much more deadly in 4E than in 3.x. Consider for example a goblin raid on a peaceful town ... if lowly goblins are as powerful as 1st level 4E characters, this encounter will be much more deadly for the commoners than in 3.x.
Another example: should dungeons be re-worked to take into consideration the fact that, in 4E, adventurers can keep going on longer than in 3E? Does that make new dungeon options available and/or close options that used to be available?
All this makes me think that 3.x to 4E conversions will not be trivial (no surprise here - that's what WotC announced). To some extent, I guess that this also means that dual-statted products are most likely not a valid option for the future, because it would amount to actually construct the product/adventure twice and not simply to re-stat monsters.
Have you already thought about those conversions? I know it's half-guess-work till we know for sure all the 4E rules, but I believe that we can already start thinking about it. Comments and opinons welcome!
Even though I have never taken a subscription to either Dragon or Dungeon, I have faithfully bought each issue from my local gaming shop for the last 10-or-so years. Thanks to Paizo for all that you have brought me! I'm not sure that an electronic version will be ever able to replace the feeling of touching the magazine and taking it along to continue reading it in various places ... but that's a whole different debate.
My question here is about whether or not some of the art published in the magazine can be re-used for personal projects (without any goal to make money off it), and what conditions are required to do so.
I am currently working on writing a campaign set in Impiltur, and I would like to re-use a couple of drawings by Cyril Van Der Haegen published along with George Krashos's excellent article "The Forgotten Kingdom" in Dungeon 346. The final goal would be to include those two pictures in free downloadable documents available on a fan website (once the project is completed).
Can I just scan the pictures off my paper copy and use them if I mention where they come from? Or is this a big no-no? Or should I write a formal application to request your authorization to do so?
