Furdinand's page

Cancel my Pathfinder Battles subscription, effective immediately. Thanks.

Furdinand wrote:

According to UPS, this order never shipped.

Hi!

I am so sorry your order has yet to arrive! I took a look at the order and it looks like it shipped from our warehouse on 1/26 and with the delays in shipping it could take up to 20 business days to be delivered.

I still haven't received the shipment.

The website won't even let me check-out, so I guess it is a moot question.

That said:
1. The shipping would be more than the shipping cost of a case.
2. What is the second item?

According to UPS, this order never shipped.

I'd also like to know what is going on with the shipping price.

Valamuur wrote:

I know that part of this is related to the Achievement Point system not being fully up and running, but I feel like Starfinder Society has spoiled me on getting pretty easy access to playable races fairly easily. So having things like Tengu locked away feels very restrictive, in comparison. I was looking forward to reviving my Tengu Hellknight from 1E PFS, and it seems that I'll be waiting at least as long as one of my friends has been for the Lizardfolk.

On the other hand, all of Starfinder Society's decisions are ones I'm happy with. Someday, I hope to get a starship boon to add a ram to our ship.

I admit I personally would have *far* preferred for the Tengu to be the available race and the kobold to be the one behind ACP. YMMV.

I would have preferred they just let people play any of the ancestries found in a book they paid $50 for, but I'm just a starry eyed dreamer.

Look at all these beautiful minis I can't use in PFS!

Official word on the release date of the next set would be extremely helpful in today's financially uncertain world.

How useful would an official release date be when the ability to actually meet that date is dependent on forces outside of Wizkids/Paizo's control?

It looks like it's based off art in the NPC codex.. Mollarn the Corpsemaker.. In the art, it's rectangular ribbons.. (The other mini in the pack looks like it's based off Kelethiros from the same book)

In the art, they appear to be strips of flayed skin.

Wizkids have updated their release schedule.

There have been no Pathfinder or Starfinder prepainted products announced for 2020 this year, but 13 D&D products and 10 Wizkids products.

I wanted to wait until after the holidays before worrying because they haven't announced the next set, but now I'm beginning to worry.

I was hoping they'd do some of the named NPCs they already have in metal, but I understand if the new edition muddled things.

I just hope any return isn't just the iconics. I've already got all the prior Bones versions, with Battles I'm up to 3 versions of the core/APG characters.

How is this still not sorted out? Why try to sell us books that we can't actually use in Organized Play?

Yeah, yeah, you can use them in your home game; you know what else you can use in your home game? Literally anything. Hobgoblins, centaurs, dragons, space marines, Power Rangers, or Hulks.

If they are going to publish rule books, they should be applicable in venues that are expected to follow the rules i.e. Organized Play.

Quick update: The packaging for the Goblin Village is about the size of two bricks. 4x the size of a normal incentive, so I see why they increased shipping.

My total S&H for both was $20.71 after the discount. I'm in Washington State though, and it's via USPS.

No licensed Pathfinder minis, yet. In the past there've been a couple groups in each core set, mostly iconics.

Fortunately, what some would call "bloat" in 1st Edition others would call a plethora of options and enough adventures to last years or decades. There's no need to rush to a new edition that only offering some mechanical tweaks and no new races or classes.

Love the new kobold color schemes.

Depends on what (if anything) you think is wrong with PF1.

Speaking for myself, I think PF1 is drowning under the weight of all the supplements, player companions and subsystems introduced over a 10 year run so I'm looking forward to running PF2.

I think it is but time will tell.

I recognize there is no accounting for taste but I don't really get the broad complaint that 1E published too much material. "Oh no! This game has so many options, I can make characters I've never seen in any other RPG! How will I cope if a party isn't a dwarf fighter, elf ranger, halfling rogue, and human wizard?"

If there are specific options that a person don't like, that's fair, don't use them. But I refuse to accept then idea that every product after the Core Rulebook incrementally broke Pathfinder. Is every product after Core 2E making 3E neccessary?

I can buy an argument that releases after 1E Core (by both Paizo and other RPG publisher) have illustrated weaknesses with 1E Core. But those weaknesses would exist even if 1E Core was the only 1E book ever created.

A fair comparison between the editions would probably show that the 2E Core/Bestiary books are marginally better than their 1E counterparts.

The comparison that exists in reality is that 1E has 10 years of material available, has many, many more character options, enough published adventures to keep a game group going for decades, and most of the print material can be found for half off the cover price.

Wake me up when 2E lets me make a Dhamphir Occultist.

PREPAINTED STARFINDER BATTLES MINIS FROM WIZKIDS IN 2020!!!

I may have to give Starfinder another try!

AcP sounds like it will address my main beef with 1E PFS: Not working from the same character creation rules as other players at the table.

J-Bone wrote:

I need to know why this decision was made

you've been informed multiple times. It was take a gamble on ND, or a 100% chance of no minis at all.

Are CMON minis being drawn from the ether? ND was not the only possible option, it was the one that was chosen. "It was this or nothing" is giving a free pass to someone(s) who made a poor decision at the expense of actually learning from the mistake.

"I never did pick up the Starfinder books, wasn't going to get into it unless I had some models to go with it."

I doubt you were the only one with this mindset, and Paizo was aware of that.

They needed minis for Starfinder's launch. WizKids turned them down. Reaper turned them down. Ninja Division didn't.

It's such a shame that there are literally only three miniature companies in the hobby world.

Those are some good looking minis!

I was not sure about the chimera, but Marco made a good observation that it is a new chromatic head. Now I kind of want one more to get a blue dragon head version.

Every mini set is someone's entry into miniatures, so I get the need to rotate in commonly used creatures. But every mini set is in addition to every set I've bought before, so I really need to see new things to stay interested.

I think the chimera is a good compromise. It's a returning creature with a twist. I still need to see creatures and class/race/gender combinations I haven't seen before and I need them to make up a hefty chunk of any set.

Dragon Turtle, nice!

Yeah.

So we're changing the look of the designs as well as changing the rules? I don't quite know what to say.

They aren't changed enough to justify "cover" versions of figures I already have.

Between the Iconic set and this, I'm getting the same feeling from the 2E minis that I got from the 2E RPG: They're trying to sell me the same thing twice.

The renders look neat, and the female orc is new but overall it still feels like a retread of a retread. If the first full set isn't at least half stuff that's never been in PPM, I'll probably take a break. There's no way to sculpt a goblin mook that will make me forget that I have almost 20 years of PPM goblin mooks, including "We Be Goblins".

And I don't have a high standard for new. A Goblin Paladin or a Kitsune bard would count!

The crypt looks amazing!

Dungeon dressing wasn't something I'd have asked for or thought I needed but since they've been introduced I've gotten a lot of use out of them.

I saw some unpainted versions of old case incentives in my FLGS on Black Friday, so I assume it's out there.

I hadn't thought about Lastwall being the last 1st edition set. Hopefully the 2E Bestiary will be different enough from 1E that the next PFB set won't just be Heroes and Monsters with new sculpts.

For all its faults, 4E changed the MM so much that the DDM sets that followed were just as varied as the 3E sets.

Are this may be a stretch, but I wouldn't mind if Starfinder got a set in lieu of a regular PFB set or if some SF figures were sprinkled into PFB.

Love the Cyclops and Bloody skeleton!

I got my Worldscape minis yesterday. They are somewhat more detailed than plastic but they also look a lot more fragile. I really want to go all out painting them, but they'll probably go straight to a display case afterwards and not a table.

All's well that ends well, but in the future I probably won't back or pre-order anything from Ninja Division. I'll only get stuff I can put my hands on before paying for it.

Good to see a True Dragon that isn't Chromatic/Metallic! I know every minis set is the first one for some players, but after 17(?) years of RPGPPM I am all set in the Beastiary I Dragon department. I'd have really liked to see the Bestiary II-VI dragons get more love.

The D&D Icons "Falling Star" sailing ship 33 squares/inches long!) will release on may 15 2019 for a whopping $249.99!

enworld.org

If I get this, I'll have to convince my group to run Skulls and Shackles.

We sold Starfinder Masterclass (unpainted) minis at the Paizo booth as well. As Vic said, all minis that were on sale at either booth were supposed to have been 100% fulfilled to all Kickstarter backers. No pre-paints were to be sold, no Kickstarter exclusives were to be sold, and no minis that had not already been 100% fulfilled were supposed to have been sold.

I'm very sorry that this happened and will investigate.

I saw on a YT video that they were also selling the Worldscape HumbleBundle figures at GenCon. I hope this means we can expect them this month.

Ninja Division is pulling back from Kickstarter

Ninja Division Co-Owner and Creative Director John Cadice practically says that they overextended and that the online toxicity is to blame for their departure.

I find that very nonsensical and my personal opinion is that most of their Kickstarter projects in the past have been scams, because they havn't been fulfilled.

I think that we won't see any Starfinder minis beyond the ones already advertised and hope that backers receive their unpainted resin miniatures.

One the one hand, it takes some nerve for the Creative Director to say the problem is "online toxicity", as if it spontaneously occurred and targeted them and not the result to missed deadlines and poor communication. It's galling to see language used by marginalized groups co-opted by some dudes that are just not good at what they do and don't get why people aren't happy with them.

On the other hand, Ninja Division definitely should get out of the Kickstarter biz.

So the Playtest's default, straight of the box, assumption is that European is normal and Asian is exotic? A new edition is an opportunity to change anything and Paizo is choosing to keep its Orientalism.

2E: New mechanics, same colonialism.

Is two months a normal gap for Icons releases?

Wouldn't Mordheim fire that bill? I loved playing it back in the day.

It's my understanding that the "exotic" designation in PF2 is exclusively a question of weapon power.

From the What's your Weapon? blog

Quote:

In Pathfinder Second Edition, we have a different way of talking about whether a weapon is likely to be found in a particular region, and so a weapon's type instead describes a weapon's mix of power and flexibility. Simple weapons usually have a smaller damage die than similar martial weapons (d6 rather than d8, for instance), and exotic weapons usually use the same damage die as a martial weapon but include additional abilities that make the weapon more complex.

So I figure the "monastic weapons" are simply the sorts of weapons that one would learn to master in a monastery. Possibly because they are inexpensive to produce and maintain, that one can carry them without attracting attention or being threatening, or because their study is relevant to deeper truths, or something else.

Until the actual weapon rules are released, I'm not going to just assume that Paizo understands what the problem is and has fixed it.

If East Asian weapons are still "exotic", it is still Orientalism. Giving a kama, a weapon that is functionally identical to a sickle, special powers doesn't ameliorate anything. In fact it solidifies it.

Saying they are weapons that just coincidentally happen to be the ones taught at monasteries is thin lampshading. Like saps and throwing axes attract more attention and are more expensive to produce?

First edition asks players to accept that a noble that never worked a day in their life can use a sickle as a weapon better than a farmer can use a kama. To accept that a wizard can throw a dagger (that may not have been designed for that purpose) more accurately than they could throw a shuriken, a weapon designed to be thrown. To accept that every fighter can handle a trident, a short sword, and a dagger but will be at sea with a sai without taking a feat. Finally, it expects players to accept that these are all quirks of designing a balanced game and not a function of the designers unconscious biases.

Even talking about whether a weapon is "likely to be found in a particular region" leaves me really apprehensive. The game designers chose to make different parts of Golarian analogs for real world regions and chose to put the East Asia analog in a place that isn't even on the map. They also chose to make the European analogs the center of most of the APs, modules, and scenarios. So making weapons regional isn't inclusive of players of color. Any Caucasian Pathfinder player can create characters that look like them, use the weapons their ancestors used, fight the creatures from their folklore, in settings that evoke their roots/history and never have to justify the existence of that character. For players of color to do the same (in most APs), they have to explain why they are so far from home. They have to justify their existence. This has to change.

As far as I'm concerned, they can just get rid of "monk weapons" if the list is like as the old one. Calling the kama, a farming implement used in Asia, "exotic" while calling the sickle, a farming implement used in Europe, "simple" is textbook Orientalism and needs to go.

Just dump the Monk from core and replace it with a Brawler. It'd be a lot easier to explain to new players that a Brawler is a Wizard to the Fighter's Sorcerer than it is to explain to them how a concept as plainly racist as "monk weapons are really just Asian weapons" actually makes sense in the game world. Paizo needs to take time and work on the whole concept of the Monk character, not just fiddle with the math.

Best of luck, Crystal! War for the Crown is the best AP so far.

I do feel like this is part of the worrying trend of forward thinking creatives, who tried to expand what Pathfinder and TTRPGs can be, leaving Paizo in the last few years.

It looks like they've also adjusted how they are doing waves and are sending out stuff as they're ready. So some people have received parts of wave 1 and parts of wave 2 together. Others have reported not getting anything, not even a shipping notification.

As a bystander, the whole process has me covering my eyes and peeking between my fingers. I can't imagine what backers are going through.

If there isn't going to be any further support for PF1, what does it matter?

There's not going to be any new seasons. It won't have official tables at PaizoCon, Gencon, etc. FLGS play is already split between PF1 and SF1, there isn't going to be a big enough pool of GMs and players to support three games. When push comes to shove, people are going to gravitate to the new (PF2 and SF1) scenarios because they're, well, new.

This means that, in a couple years, PFS Seasons 1-10 will only be played in houses, open game tables, and online. Groups can make whatever replay rules they want when they are in those situations.

Arguing in general terms over what will be legal in PFS 1-10 is like arguing about what is legal in Living City.

I got a case of MM3 and I have to say that I really like the alternate for some of of the commons and uncommon. I assume it is less costly for the manufacturer to make a slight variation in an existing model or paint job than to make a whole new model, but as a collector it felt like I was getting a lot fewer duplicates.
I didn't like that there were so many variants of rares. I was lucky that I got the versions I wanted, but it could have gone the other way. The seeding is as good as Battles, I got a "full" set but I didn't get a complete set. Not the end of the world, but the completist part of my brain doesn't like it. Hopefully this is unique to this set since it doesn't look like earlier sets did the same thing.
The invisible figures are cool, but I can see how their utility has probably diminished as more sets have come out. Battles dungeon dressings seem much more popular. I can usually get an invisible figure for an uncommon and get a rare for dressing.
The minis themselves are pretty great. The giants can be out of scale for Pathfinder, but some figures almost demand to have an encounter designed around them. The goblin flinger and three headed frost giant for example. However, I don't like how obesity is used as a shorthand for hill giants being grotesques (an earlier case incentive was especially bad).

2E: Everyone gets three actions a turn. Well the monk gets 4 attacks, but it still counts as three actions. But they have to take a penalty to attack if using the second action to attack. Which is the third attack. But don't worry! Their fists are "agile", so the monk's penalty is different than the penalty for other classes that take 4 attacks in three actions.

It's almost _too_ simple.

*Looks at two pages of questions/arguments about how 2E conditions work*

Ah yes, this will be much simpler.

If they can't handle updating a lot of existing material, it tells me two things:

1) Paizo didn't learn lessons from the first time the classes were introduced.
2) 2E, as a system, isn't as streamlined/simplified as they think. It will just seem that way because so much will be erased.

Paizo can update material as quickly or slowly as they like, my preference is still my preference.

I want them to just make a book that is just updated versions of the non-core classes and related feats/spells/etc. Nothing for core, no new classes. Just a book that lets me play the classes I already like and lets me play them ASAP.

I don't want to wait eight years for a hardcover that squeezes in a few pages for the Inquisitor.

I would imagine that any anniversary edition AP in the near future would be one that isn't overly reliant on non-core material. So, for example, Jade Regent is probably out given the heavy reliance on Asia-inspired material (e.g. kami, multiple types of oni, imperial dragons, a bunch of archetypes and stuff). This would likely mean one of the earlier ones, given that the APs often "show off" the new and shiny stuff (or, the stuff needed for an AP is seeded in material published just before it).

One thing I hope 2E will work on is not treating material inspired by Asia, the most populous and largest continent, as exotic and niche. Asian immigrants brought their myths and history to the US, just like European immigrants did. For a Seattle area company to exclude so much of it is a failure of creativity.