Davelozzi's page

Also, not sure that it is anything to read into, but since folks love speculating, there are still plenty of references to Secrets of Magic as many of the items reference spells drawn from it.

I've got mine, looks great.

For those wondering, I did a quick flip through vs. the old version on dual monitors, and as expected, the updates are fairly minor tweaks of terminology and the like.

For example, some items have spells changed if the old spell was OGL, Ghast Stiletto is now Ghoul Stiletto and the save bonus is now good against curses in general rather than just paralysis. In the Alchemy Unleashed chapter, the Additive trait has been removed. In Trappings of Power, the references to ability scores have been swapped out for attribute bonuses. Though a few items have shifted in page placement because of a renaming, as far as I can tell there were no new items added or old items removed entirely. In short, it's pretty much the same level of changes as you would expect if you've been paying attention.

Paizo folks - for your errata files, heads up that the the Wyrm's Wingspan (the new name for the Wyrm on the Wing tattoo) still references the old name in the subheadings for the higher level variants.

Davelozzi wrote:

Hopefully, Shining Kingdoms is your big chance to get this name canonized.

Won't be my chance, since that's not a book I'm working on.

I’ve received my copy of Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms and Xoanthurund did indeed get canonized, so you must have respect around the Paizo offices after all.

Just wanted to jump in here with the good and the bad.

THE GOOD
The physical battle cards in this set are excellent. I really appreciate that the stat blocks have a white background and even the image side has a light and plain enough background for the monster image to stand out when I show it to my players. Many of the past battle card sets had major issues here, for example the Starfinder Alien Archive cards which were way too dark to be easily read at the table (or for GM notes with dry erase markers), or the Abomination Vaults cards which had way too much background noise behind the images for the players to actually see what I was trying to show them effectively. So, it was great to see that these new cards have neither problem! I really hope that future battle cards continue with this design that favors usability.

Also, the JPGs are now working for me now, so thanks for the fix there.

THE BAD
I have to agree with neojejune and Orc Nouveau about the PDFs though. The page order in these files makes this product extremely challenging to use. @Maya, I understand that you say that they are formatted as intended, but I encourage you to pass the feedback back up the chain here in the hopes that decision can be re-evaluated. If you are going to sell a PDF product, it should be formatted to be user friendly, and this definitely is not. It really doesn't seem like it should be too much to ask for someone to put the pages in the proper order alternating between the front and back of each card.

Hopefully, Shining Kingdoms is your big chance to get this name canonized.

For anyone still looking for more pics of these, there are some up on the WizKids site...

https://shop.wizkids.com/products/pathfinder-book-tabs-gm-core

For anyone still looking for more pics of these, there are some up on the WizKids site...

https://shop.wizkids.com/products/pathfinder-book-tabs-player-core

I mentioned this in the thread about pawn art but for anyone not following that thread, this seems like news on its own account...

NPC Core Battle Cards are confirmed in the new Paizo 2025 Catalog that just arrived in my latest subscription shipment, for a September 2025 release.

ISBN PZO10011-MC
978-1-64078-707-0
$54.99

NPC Core Battle Cards are confirmed in the new Paizo 2025 Catalog that just arrived in my latest subscription shipment.

Mythraine wrote:

Can anyone at Paizo confirm that the spine is going to be white with the same green font as the core books?

I’ve always loved how beyond the core in premaster the spines were all cool and themed to the book. But it looks like I may be in the minority.

I too love the unique covers beyond the Core books.

I was surprised when War of Immortals was colored the same as the Cores but Howl of the Wild was not.

Makes organization a little tricky.

Yep, it's almost like they don't realize what an anal lot we RPGers can be.

I just received my PDF of the new Monster Core Battle Cards, and while the cards look good and I am excited to have the updated stats, I was disappointed to see that rather than have the pages alternate the front and the back of each card in order like the PDF of the Besiary Batttle Cards do, it’s just a whole bunch of front sides, followed by a whole chunk of back sides, then rinse and repeat for the next chunk of the alphabet. It’s not very user friendly. Any chance of updating the file so they’re in order?

I know this is an old thread, and I am not sure what pawn sets you were talking about, but if you are talking about any of the Bestiaries, Monster Core, the battle cards have the art. Same with the NPC Battle Cards from the (pre-remaster) GameMastery Guide, and I am guessing/hoping that there will be a set forthcoming for NPC Core Battle Cards eventually.

Though on the other hand, the Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms book already promises "a gorgeous fold-out poster map to serve as a centerpiece to any Shining Kingdoms campaign", so it will be interesting to see if there is a difference. I bet the one that comes with the book is more of a traditional style map like the ones in LO:WG and LO:TXWG and the regional map in the map archive is one of those more stylized style maps like a character might find in game (and like many of the 1e map folios included).

From reading the description, the seventh map is of the Shining Kingdoms region itself, all six nations together.

Oh yeah, you're right, I missed that. A big regional map makes tons of sense and I am all for it, cool.

Ok, this looks super cool. I hope we get more map sets like these, and please let there be labels for major (non-spoilery) sites so that they can be useful.

Description says 7 poster maps but then lists only 6. Please let # 7 be Cassomir with a new map. As mentioned in another thread, this city is an excellent home base but the 1e map looks like a way smaller town.

Oh no, sorry to hear this, and sympathies to his family! :(

I read Plague of Shadows and Walker from the Crypt just a few months back and would recommend them. I'll pick up Stalking the Beast now.

The book also includes a bestiary of monsters inhabiting the region and a gorgeous fold-out poster map to serve as a centerpiece to any Shining Kingdoms campaign

Oooh, just noticed this bit about the poster map...great news, it was a real bummer to not get one in either Mwangi Expanse or Impossible Lands.

Awesome, as a huge fan of Taldor and Galt in particular, I am psyched for this. Any chance we will see a new map for Cassomir? I'm setting my campaign there and love the city as a setting but I feel like the map from 1e's Cities of Golarion looks like a small town of a couple thousand at best.

I see that the downloads for this product were updated again this week. Does anyone know what changed? I've just downloaded the PDF but haven't had a chance to review.

I tried to download the updated JPGs too, but they don't seem to be personalizing, not sure if it is just a me thing?

I just got my download on this, and FYI, the map is showing the secret doors (I'm assuming the separate file should be a player friendly version for printing out).

Thank you, Paizo, for fixing this PDF!
!

Can a mod delete my post up above. Forgot to use spoiler tag and it’s too late for me to delete.

I wouldn’t sweat it too hard, it’s a thread specifically for GMs with “BEWARE THE SPOILERS” right in the subject line. If any players are reading this, it’s on them, not you.

On page 11, in te description for area A2, the text states that a trap “triggers the first time a PC steps on one of the marked squares”, but on the map, it does not appear that any squares are marked as far as I can tell. Is there any clarification available?

Keep the cardboard sprues and slide them into document protectors with the pawns in their spaces. You can slide the panel out of the plastic to pull out the pawns you need and the rest stay nice and secure. The Monster Core box will likely need a 2 inch binder to handle all of them.

I don’t even think there is any need for a binder, I just pop them right back into the cardboard sleeve and keep them right in the box that they came in. Works great!

Request for individual pages option on the PDF thirded!
Screen looks great overall though.

Populations numbers are super useful to me in understanding a settlement/nation. I understand they are not always realistic to everyone, but it's great to have a good place to start. Lost Omens World Guide at least had them for the capitals of each country.

That said, if anyone is looking for population figures for the settlements of Tian Xia, they are available Dragon Empires Gazetteer (and the populations for capitals only in the Dragon Empires Primer), both for PF1 (even if those sources are otherwise not up to the standards of the new book).

320 pages is BEEFY! Excited to see all this.

Yeah, that’s a huge upgrade from the 128 pages we have now in Gods & Magic. Definitely makes this book way more intriguing.

So I notice that the product description promises a poster map, but the PDF I received yesterday does not appear to have one. Did it just get missed on the digital version by mistake, or is there not a poster map after all? It’s be a total bummer if so.

I love this box so I'm looking forward to digging into this updated version and seeing all these changes.

One weird thing that I noticed on a quick skim through the PDF files though is that the ORC/remastered pawns have a triple border (blue/red/green) now that overlaps the illustrations and looks fairly awkward compared to the single (red) border on the OGL pawns. Can't tell if this is tech issue or a purposeful change but it definitely looks better with the single border.

Nice work, Raven Black, sounds like a very solid lead, thanks!

Anyone here read Plague of Shadows and have anything to add (or know if it’s worth a read)?

One of my players is considering a fetchling character in my upcoming campaign, which I plan to set somewhere in the southeastern Five King Mountains Andoran/Galt/Taldor border regions. I was trying to figure out how fetchlings might fit in there and notice that Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide has a few paragraphs on the Rikmirit fetchlings in that exact area that apparently were drawn there from the Shadow Plane by an ancient “Surgeon’s Spire”…but there’s not much beyond that at all. It seems like the kind of detail that is bound to be based on something, but I can not find any others reference to these Rikmirit fetchlings in any other sources or on the wiki.

Does this ring a bell with any who might where I can dig in any deeper on this lore?

Ok, just got my download and this looks like a pretty good set! What do we think is what here, obviously the first temple is for the Prismatic Ray and the last one is for Asmodeus. I figure the second one (seaside shrine) is Gozreh, but what's the third one (fiery skull shaped)? I feel like I should easily have this but it's not coming to me.

Thanks James, I really appreciate the hearing your perspective on the change, and won’t derail the thread any further. And ironically, as a big fan of Galt, I now kind of wish you had done that one as a 128 pager.

The return of pawns is welcome indeed!

It is. We'll have more to say about the stand-alone adventure line later, once we have a better place to talk about it that's not just a store page, but starting with "Prey For Death" all standalone adventures for Pathfinder will be hardcovers and a minimum of 128 pages long. We're hoping to standardize this to 2 hardcover adventures a year.

I look forward to hearing more about that when the time is right, as I have to admit that I’m less than excited to hear that the standalone line will be going to longer format adventures. More isn’t always better, I was actually just thinking (before I read this), that I wish you guys went back to publishing 32 page adventures. What I’m looking for in standalone is something reasonably short that I can slip into my own campaign, whereas a 128 page adventure feels more like a campaign of its own, which is what I thought the AP line already covered; especially with the recent move to 3 book APs, it seems like the two adventure lines are moving closer together instead of each filling their own different niche.

That said, I trust you guys to put out great product, and regardless of my personal preferences for the line in general, Prey for Death does sound like a very cool adventure!

I would let them get the invite but try to get them to focus on investigation for the sake of knowing what they are going up against.

I concur, it certainly seems to me that a creature that has this level of power and influence over a whole nation for decades should definitely have been given a proper name.

The remastered Pathfinder Beginner Box reprint will arrive late Q1 2024.

...
Upon release, I expect the remastered PDF will be made available for those that wish to download it. The "legacy" PDF will be removed from our store.

I'm looking forward to having this great box updated for the remaster. One thing since you mention the remastered PDF, I just wanted to pass along some encouragement to whoever is in charge of such things that if there is anything that can be done to make the PDF files more stable than the current PDF, it would be great.

I'm not sure if it is just me, but I find that when I open the current PF Beginner Box Game Masters Guide (which happens a lot as I am running Menace Under Otari for two groups), the file struggles and crashes way more often than the PDFs of my much larger books do.

And before anyone asks, yes, I have tried refreshing/re-personalizing/re-downloading the file multiple times, and yes, I am using the fully current and legal version of Adobe Acrobat Pro.

I'd like to buy as many adventures and paths as possible, but I'm always worried that I'll buy a bunch of softcover installments without realizing that a hardcover collection was in the works and I should have waited. Is there a particular place (either here or on YouTube or something) where a list of all hardcover adventure paths, both released and in-production, can be found? For example, I'm eyeing Agents of Edgewatch and Strength of Thousands since they seem ripe for a hardcover.

Of the two that you are concerned with, neither have been announced, but if one of the two APs were to eventually get compiled down the line, it would be far more likely to be Strength of Thousands, which seems to be far more popular (and therefore more likely to get sold out and still be in demand).

Agents of Edgewatch does not seem to be nearly as popular, plus the past few years of current events have made an AP based on playing cops a lot more of an iffy proposition, so I for one would be very surprised if Paizo decided to revisit it.

But yeah, as others have suggested, odds of a compilation in general are slim enough that I wouldn’t let it hold me back from buying the originals if I was looking to run the AP.

There's also the Emerald Spire, although the individual adventures are not as interconnected as a regular AP nor do they go higher than character level 13 (IIRC).

Was Emerald Spire a hardcover? I did not realize that, if so.

How about balancing?

Product description states "Fully integrated errata from the first 4 years of Pathfinder Second Edition, including new balance adjustments to ensure that every creature presents a thrilling level-appropriate challenge!"

That said, based on Aaron's response above, I would assume those are fairly minor/scattered tweaks (which is fine with me).

The bonus skills from Intelligence never go beyond Trained.

Ok, I admit I didn't have time to read the whole four pages of this thread, but I'm not sure that I get this complaint.

When you get a skill increase, "You can use these increases to become trained in new skills or increase your proficiency rank in skills you’re trained in (from trained to expert at any level, expert to master at 7th level or higher, and master to legendary at 15th level or higher)". I don't see anything that excludes the bonus skills from your Intelligence, it seems pretty clear that any skill you have a rank in can be increase if you meet the level prereq.

What am I missing?

Success! For some reason it worked on my iPhone

Don't mind me, just a quick post because this thread is damn cool and want it to show up in my profile so I can check back in on it in the future.

I *had* problems. It was recommended to delete cookies from my browser. Did that for this site, problems went away.

Hmm, thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately it did not work for me (nor did trying a new browser).

Are any other subscribers having problems with the downloads for these RoE Spell Cards besides me? With both these and the Planes of Fire & Metal flip-mat, the files are downloading as empty. Yeah, I already emailed customer service, but I was just curious if it was a more widespread issue or was me-specific.

If the player remembered the details (and was playing the same character), I certainly would not force them to roll a new Recall Knowledge for their character.

This would be doubly true if the player actually took extensive notes (like the one Ravingdork described), especially if the archivist behavior was part of the way they roleplayed the character.

As far as I am concerned, the whole idea is RK is an action that is used as needed.

Well I doubt Paizo would have the room to put sheets like this in the page counts of the APs, this does seem like a very helpful cheat sheet. I could see this being a good project someone could put together and sell on Pathfinder Infinite as a support product.

There is an errata out now for these maps. See this post on the product page.

Thanks, SatiricalBard, I just noticed this now. Awesome that the put out errata, that is very helpful.

Now the question is, why not update the map on the PDF files? Seems like an easy fix, but what do I know?

I’m enjoying these recaps, nice work striking the right balance in terms of sharing fun/interesting anecdotes and enough plot go on without overwhelming us with too much detail.