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So, after looking at all the minis and hitting my Mwangi Expanse book to remind myself who a few of them are, here's my thoughts... Generally really nice sculpts and paint jobs, some of them are stunning (Black Heron, Taralu Dwarf, High Sun Mage Oyamba, Senghor Priest, Thabsing Blood-Eye, Goloma, Anwigasi), a few are really thin so they bend too easily (Andai humanoid form, Shisk), amazing for a Mwangi Expanse campaign, a few are a bit niche for a non-Mwangi Expanse campaign, but that's fine, that's true of every themed set. But looking back at the book, there is some of the most beautiful character artwork yet and I'm a little sad that more of the NPCs didn't make it into the set. I know, sets are generally more critter-heavy, but the people in this book are just fantastic. I also buy the Wizkids D&D sets and they've started doing something interesting over there. For each set, they seem to be doing the big collection of randomized minis, which tend to be critter heavy, with "rares" being mostly unique monsters and bosses. "People" tend to generic folks you might meet a lot of, like guards, soldiers, etc., and some named characters who could double as generic en masse. But then they also sell a separate visible box (yes, it's a money-grab, I know) with named NPCs, so you can a) get more unique people, and b) make sure you get all the big names in one place if you're playing the adventure. Paizo is kind of experimenting with this with the upcoming Runelords set. I know it would end up costing more, but I would totally buy a Mwangi Expanse NPC box set that had more of the fantastic and diverse characters from the book art, or that had Old Mage Jatembe and the Ten Magic Warriors. Same with other sets; I'd be happy with a case of monsters and generic folks and a separate box with all the key NPCs. (This might also help with the phenomena of getting 4 copies of King Whoever because someone at Wizkids decided he should be "common.") Anyway, just a thought.
The boxes for this set say 46 figures. Is this a misprint, or is there an unnumbered terrain piece in this one? Trying to figure out whether I’ve missed one. Just unpacked mine. 42 different figures. No terrain/scatter pieces. Then there are the 3 big extra ones, but that would still only be 45. Must me a miss print.
I'm fully unversed on the subject of unions, 95% genuine question, 5% snark: is it normal in these circumstances to specifically use the phrase "voluntarily recognize?" I'm seeing the word "voluntary" stressed a lot, and it comes of as... not suspicious, just kind of peculiar. Is there an involuntary way to recognize a union? Did you ever get this answered? Companies can fight it, force it to go to a big, formal vote, contest the vote, even file labor complaints against those trying to form the union. Look at everything happening with Amazon folks trying to form unions; the company fights it all the way, often even using undemocratic practices like threatening people's jobs or tampering with the actual ballots. I'm a teacher, and I've seen it go both ways when the bargaining unit tried to expand who it covered. Counselors wanted into the unit and the district fought it for years even though several other nearby teacher units already included counselors. It finally went to the state Labor Relations Board and the LRB said, "yes" they could join. Another time, school psychologists waned in and the ditrict just said, "fine," and it happened quickly. Voluntary recognition by the employer is a sign of good faith and willingness to work with employees and the union.
Great news. Congratulations to UPW and well-done Paizo. I've been through excellent negotiations, where management listened to employees' needs and responded with fair counter-offers, and I've been through negotiations that went nowhere because management stonewalled and delayed and came back with ludicrous offers. Let's hope Paizo keeps the momentum going and works toward solutions during negotiations.
Maintain my subscriptions... the ones I've maintained for 14 years without break since 2007 (see "charter superscriber" above). I've been a proud union member for over 25 years, and have even served as a negotiator and chapter president a few time. There is absolutely no way I can support a company that doesn't embrace an employee union and see it as a positive way for employees to have a voice. I've placed almost 500 orders over the last 20 years and been playing in Pathfinder Society since Season 0 (PFS ID# 1969). I would genuinely LOVE to have my faith restored in Paizo, and voluntarily recognizing the employee union would be the first step.
Late to the party but I'm thrilled to see the talented Paizo staff standing up for themselves and organizing for the right to have a voice in their working conditions. I support them and their effort to unionize 1000%. As a "charter superscriber" who's been around since the magazine days, I've done my bit to support Paizo and it's products, because they were high quality and because I liked what the company stood for. That excitement has waned a bit in the last few years and how the owners/management react to this will be make-or-break for me. If they fight this fair and sensible request from their staff, I am absolutely ready to suspend every one of of my subscriptions and boycott Paizo until they come around and see reason. I would much rather have my faith in a good company restored. Do the right thing, Paizo. Si se puede!
Any idea when individual minis will go on sale? Just received by case and I'm missing 1 and a variant. First time I haven't gotten a complete set with a case in ... forever... I think I've always complete sets. It's not a big deal; they're commons/uncommons, but I DO want pick them up as soon as possible.
I couldn't believe what you said so I checked it myself, and you are 100% correct. How annoying is that? I mean, really, it won't matter much in actual play, but what a sloppy job with the artwork. How did someone not catch this if they were supposed to line up? Not like it would have been hard to fix, just move the edge building up a square and the stairway over a square. What a bummer.
I never read the description, just the title, so I assumed that a "Giant Starship" mean a really big starship. :) Turns out it's a starship for giants. All the beds and chairs at huge, like 10x10 and 10x15! Not what I was expecting but a nice addition to the diversity of space and space travel. He-he, now we need a small starship where mediums will feel cramped! Maybe a full warren in space.
I don't love that they are all standing on stuff. I prefer my minis on neutral bases. I've actually been torn about WizKids transition to "clear" bases for large figures in their D&D line. I actually love the the idea of clear bases so you can see the map underneath, but I have SO MANY with black bases at this point that it's a little odd to see just a few clear ones.
I finished the game under the old semi-real-time mode, enjoyed it a lot. I'll probably stat up a new character and try it again under the turn-based system. But as a huge fan of the paper-and-pencil Kingmaker, this was a lot of fun, similar enough to feel comfortable with enough changes to still feel novel.
Thanks!
Along with these I would LOVE to see a BIGGER Flip-map of a Drow city on one side (showing the insides of the buildings) and a druegar city on the other, also showing the inside of some of the buildings! Wall areas would be a PLUS! Until Paizo produces one, check out this map set by Christopher West, who has done a lot of work w Paizo, especially back in the Dragon Magazine days - Maps of Mastery
The "Armored Elf Soldier" is the only mini which looks the exact same in both the preview pack and the picture above.. Interesting. Do we know if it's alternative paint jobs or if there was a change in the coloring/design from the original preview of the preview pack to the actual minis? I guess I'm asking if the actual minis will be different between the two sets. (I'd be fine with that; it would allow me to get a little variety.)
I've been a subscriber since the beginning and, at this point, I have 145 Adventure Path books and 50+ stand alone adventures. Besides the adventures themselves, there are a ton of rules and character options contained in those 200 volumes... more than anyone can reasonably keep track of. Proposal, now that we're kicking off Pathfinder 2.0, I'd like to suggest that Paizo consider publishing an Anthology at the end of each year (or each summer, at the end of their cycle) that reprints all the new spells, feats, ancestries, backgrounds, classes and sub-classes, monsters and threats, etc. that were published in the adventure paths and stand alone modules Don't waste any space on context or fluff for them (other than maybe a teaser paragraph for the AP/adventure), just reprint the stats and rules. I suspect it would be a fairly quick/easy/cheap product to put together given that all the content would already be created and would just need to get formatted into a new book. I don't think it would hurt existing AP/adventure sales because I doubt there are many people who only buy APs/adventures for the monsters and spells. But I do think a decent number of folks who don't currently buy the APs or adventures might pick up an Anthology to get the extra crunch for their home campaigns. And then I know that, even as (ESPECIALLY as) a current AP/adventure subscriber, I'd pay the extra money to get all the crunch from the year collected in one place so that if I want to use a cool feat or background I saw in an AP once, I won't have to go flipping through dozens of books to find it. At 1/year, each Anthology would corral goodies 12 AP volumes and 1-2 modules each year. That's a lot easier to reference and transport if I'm playing in Pathfinder Society or something. Anyway, just a suggestion. I'd be curious what other GMs and players think. Would you buy an Anthology each year? And are you a current AP/adventure subscriber?
The DwarvenForge stuff is amazing. I've backed a lot of their Kickstarter projects and been very happy with everything I've received. It can be expensive, especially if you want EVERYTHING, but this campaign seems to be of a good entry-level size. There are lots of affordable bits and pieces that can be used without going bonkers into all the walls and caverns, and then there are 4 nice, complete sub-sets if want more but are not interested in the whole thing. A bit of a luxury, obviously, but lots of fun.
Like this idea. Would like to see a Sewers Expansion at some point with: things build in sewers, like nests and barricades and gang-plank lairs; dungeon, caverns and underground river transitions; water than isn't green, like brown sludge or alchemical rainbows; something with rusted metal pipes, valves and grates
Please do a "Darklands buildings" expansion with hollowed out stalagmites buildings with balconies and stone bridges, that can be used as Drow, Duergar, Urdefhan or Munavri fortresses. I agree. Darklands buildings shouldn't just be little, square surface buildings built underground. They should be unique and made to take advantage of the natural terrain forms. More like nodes and tumors growing out of floors, walls and ceilings than brick and stone cubes.
• Give PCs the opportunity to meet the other parties (Drelev, Varn, the Iron Medusas) before they set off into the Stolen Lands (like a big banquet in Brevoy or something) so they know the other personalities and like/dislike them (or at least have feelings about them) before they meet again in later chapters. Might also be nice to include little "Where are they now?" sidebars about each party in earlier chapters, before they show up in an adventure sense. For example, right after Ch 1, players could hear that Drelev has built a small fort, Varn has established a town but has been having trouble with X, and the Iron Medusas have ...
(I grow bored with the only discussion being this edition vs. that edition, so let's talk content!) Things I'd like to see done/redone in an updated version of Kingmaker:
Urban:
Dungeons:
Wilderness:
Town/Village:
I ran a Pathfinder elective for a year at the middle school where I teach. Most of the kids had no experience with paper-and-pencil RPGs and very little with RPG-style video games. We started with some math activities involving dice and probability... roll a d6 10x, now find the average, graph it; roll a d10 10x, find the average, graph it; roll a d20 10x, find the average, graph it; what can you say about the results you get from each die? Also practive with die formulas... 2d6+1, 3d4+3, etc. Then we got to combat, but SUPER simple. I gave them pre-gen monsters like orcs and goblins with just AC, HP, hit and damage. They battled and this gave them practice rolling dice, determining hits and misses, and tracking HP. Then we generated characters using the Beginners Box. For the first one, it was totally step-by-step, whole class... roll 4d6, drop the lowest, that's STR; roll 4d6, drop the lowest, that's DEX... As a teacher, I checked those character sheets for completeness and correctness. Then they got to make their own, and I scored those too. Once they had characters, they were ready to play real modules. We used A LOT of Pathfinder Society modes because they were nice an short. The Quests might even be better. I preped them a lot like PFS, too. I asked for a group of volunteers (like 5 kids), invited them to come in on a Saturday, bought them pizza, and ran them through a module. After we played, I gave them a copy and we read through the module together and debriefed. The next week in class, those kids GMed for groups of 4 or 5 other kids. I circulated and helped as needed. I also had to debrief with GMs to see how their "leadership" experience went. We played several mods - enough for them to level up - and then we got ready to write our own mods. Everyone got copies of 2 mods and we deconstructed them - there's an intro, there's a thug fight in the beginning, then some investigation, maybe a trap, another fight, and then the boss. So we created a template and the kids created their own. The did brainstorming and peer editing and everything just like it was a narrative writing assignment or a report. I can't remember everything, but we created an intro page template with a summary for the GM and hooks for players, an area map page templates, encounter page templates with space for box text and monster/trap stats. Once "complete," they pitched their mods to their groups and picked one to run/play, and afterwards they did a little re-writing. A few of them were actually quite good by the end. The other thing we did was to watch quite a few fantasy movies in class - Hobbit, LOTR, Willow, Dark Crystal - and did some analysis. We talked about themes, archetypes and patterns, story arcs, etc. We also talked about how magic was portrayed, good vs. evil, etc. If you don't have Starfinder Beginner Box yet, you are probably going to want to simplify the rules a bit, and probably choose a set of 3-4 easier classes to confine them to, at least at first. I'd indefinably go with Starfinder Society Mods, both for length, structural simplicity, and in case any of them eve make it to a Con, they'll be Society-ready. I'd also show a few Sci Fi movies or TV shows - Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, etc. - and have the same discussions about Science Fantasy vs. Hard Sci Fi (like the Expanse), humancentric vs. lots of aliens, magic and psychic powers, etc. It was a really good experience for me, and, looking back, ends up being some of the highest level application teaching I've ever done because kids were really breaking concepts down and creating something new (Do you know Depth of Knowledge? This was absolutely DOK 4). Good luck!
Could you - without resorting to "magic!" - have a planet with a cold North Pole and warm South Pole? Oh, and have it be livable by standard humans and animals. If the axis of rotation were always pointed at the sun (instead of being fixed), you'd get a perpetual summer South and a perpetual winter North. You'd still have regular summer/winter length days and nights, assuming the axis is still tilted and the planet is still rotating. You might have to worry about long-term over heating and over-cooling, but the main effect I see here is it always being summer in the South and winter in the North. So, if seasons are normally caused by a fixed axis of rotation pointing in different directions relative to the sun at different phases of the planet's revolution around the sun... are there any other ways to cause seasons? What about plain old distance from the sun? If the planet had an oval eliptical orbit and was closer to the sun for a while and farther from the sun for a while... could that mimic seasons? Focusing on the Northern Hemisphere, would that result in a "cold winter" when the planet was farther away and a "warm winter" when it was closer? The angle of the light would still always be "winter" but I wonder if the amount of additional heat would be enough to make "warm winter" almost like summer. (The Southern Hemisphere, on the other hand, would probably go from "warm summer" to "incredibly hot super-summer" and might be pretty desolate.) The sun would appear larger in the sky during "warm winter"/summer than it would during "cold winter." I was going to say that eclipses would be interesting because sometime the moon would be big enough to block the sun and sometimes not... but if the orbit of the moon is perpendicular to the axis of rotation, there would never be a time when it passes between the sun and planet, would there? The other effect would to have 2 winters and 2 summers per full revolution, so the faux seasons would be really quick. (Maybe too quick for much change to happen in between?) But what if 1 revolution took the equivalent of 24 months? They might measure 1 "year" as Mid-Winter/aphelion to Mid-Winter/aphelion, even though they would be at opposite sides of the sun. One winter you'd see one set of constellations and the next you might see them slightly differently (although a 2AU change in location probably isn't enough to change constellations. But other planets might look a lot more wobbly!). So, would any of that work? Would that give the Northern Hemisphere a winter/summer experience and an always-cold North Pole, and the Southern Hemisphere a summer/super-summer experience and an always-hot South Pole? Would the planet still be livable (at least in the North)? Any other bizarre repercussion or side effects? Thanks!
Not my favorites, either. The water elemental has boobs (already mentioned) and teny, tiny people inside. The earth elemental has a good pose, but it's light gray when all the other earth elementals we've gotten from Paizo/Wizkids have been dark gray to brown. Also, his crystals aren't shinny, like all the other Paizo earth elementals. :(
That's hard. "Hispanic" is such the product of a specific chain of Earth events... Spanish colonization of a "new world," an existing indigenous population, inter-marriage (and rape), a new criollo/mestizo ethnicity... you're probably not going to find those exact same events in a fantasy world. Looking at Golarion, both Taldor and Cheliax have Spanish vibes, and Arcadia certainly has pseudo-Native American folks, so if you wanted Latinos, you could place a Taldane or Chelaxian trading post or colony in Arcadia, and then roll the clock forward enough (or say it was established long ago enough) that you have a couple of generations of mixed kids, kind of the way there are half-elves who are the child of a human and an elf, and there are half-elves who are the child of two half-elves, you would needs new, blended culture that isn't just half this and half that. If you wanted to be more creative and less tied to Earth history, you could create a fusion culture somewhere else... maybe it's the Acadians who colonize a corner of Avistan or set up a trading post there, or maybe the two cultures meet somewhere entirely separate from either culture's homeland. If you're trying to avoid just re-skinning Earth history, that's probably the safest. Create a new continent in the Southern Hemisphere, maybe southeast of Acadia and west of Garund. Have the Acadians exploring it from one side and the Chelaxians exploring it from the other side. Sometimes they fight and sometimes they get along, teaming up against the monstrous [blank] who currently live there. After a while, a whole new syncratic culture combining aspects of both begins to form. Maybe they even get cut off from home for a century or two. They have to deal with each other, and - later - their relationship to the mother cultures - do they accept them, do they look down on them, do they see them as corruptions? The poor relationship between peninsular Spanish and colonial-born (though still "pure blood") Spanish was a major factor in independence movements in several Latin American countries, long before anyone started talking about rights for mestizos and indigenous people. So far, Paizo has wanted to avoid the whole indigenous-people-conquored-by-Avistanis storyline, which is great, but without it, you're not going to get an easy analogue for what we think of as Hispanic people and culture.
Not sure how folks feel about Kickstarter campaigns, but Christopher West is one of the top fantasy cartographer in the business. He did tons of amazing maps back in the days of Dungeon and Dragon magazines and now does a lot of freelance work. You can see examples of his stuff on his website - Maps of Mastery. He's got a new Kickstarter up for a series of up to 8 battlemaps that together form an enormous castle. It's already 100% funded and Christopher usually has everything done before he starts a campaign, so there is zero chance of backers not getting what they pledge for. Take a second and check it out. Kickstarter link - Halls of Legend - Castle Poster Map Set Here's Christopher's description of the project:
BTW - He's got some really good sci fi maps available on his website (many available digitally or in print) for those needing material for Starfinder.
As for paladins of any alignment... LG paladins are pretty iconic, goi g all the way back to 1E. I don’t love the idea of paladins s of every alignment, but i couple see “champions,” with the paladin being the champion of LG. And, per my post about goblins and the CRB being setting-neutral, champions would allow home games and 3rd party publishers to tell lots of stories however they want, and then Paizo can make whatever choices and restrictions it wants about Golarion, like only including LG campions (paladins) and CE champions (antipaladins). But the core rules should enable, not limit, the stories people can tell, and different worlds with different sets of assumptions should give us different playgrounds to play in.
This whole deate about if goblins should be a core race or not demonstrates why the CRB should be world-neutral. There is absolutely not mechanical reason why go like a couldn’t be a fun small-race alternative to gnomes and halflings. So go ahead and include them in the CRB if that makes people happy. But in Golarion, the flavor and history and lore makes goblins crazy evil, and therefore inappropriate for cannon and/or society games. Home games...that’s up to the GM and players. Keeping the CRB setting-neutral solves the whole issue.
I love skills, and I enjoy getting fiddley with assigning one point here and one point there, so I am leery of any system where the spread between someone who has invested in a particular skill and built a character around a certain concept can get beat by someone else who is just high level, or where - just by adding "trained," a high level character can jump from miserable at a skill to great at it. BUT, as a player in a high-level campaign right now, I can see the value in all characters rising in skills. Right now, some of us keep adding points to Survival or Stealth or Perception... and some don't. While I think that those who do should be better at those skills, as a matter of gameplay as a party, it would be nice if the others could at least stay in the same ballpark. My cleric hasn't put anything into Stealth, so the party is either faced with a) never trying to sneak in anywhere because old Mr. Creaky-Pants, b) leaving me behind, or c) using magic to muffle me. All of those are fine and good RP choices/problems to solve, but running into the same problems over and over again also gets old and also limits gameplay styles., i.e., we NEVER try to infiltrate anything. I can live with, maybe even embrace, a new system where everyone gradually gets better at everything, just because they are higher level (my high-level cleric may not have ranks in Knowledge (dungeoneering), but after a while I've seen a lot of oozes and might be able to pull of a Knowledge check based on experience and level alone), but it has to give "experts" and those who invest in a certain skill a way to shine above the crowd, and ideally, skill levels should have more of an impact on the outcome and success/failure than the randomness of the die roll. The new system needs to allow everyone to be able to hold their own as DCs increase (think Swim, Climb, Stealth, Survival, Acrobatics or anything where the challenges get harder and harder at higher levels) without making expertise and mastery irrelevant.
What about a Novice proficiency level between Untrained and Trained? At a -1? That might help with the issue of someone going from not knowing anything to being good at it (or really good at it if Training occurs at a higher level)in a single level. You could even say no more that one proficiency level increase per level gain, except maybe at character creation. [If I remember correctly, Call of Cthulhu has a rule where you have to use a skill at least once during play before you try to increase it.]
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