Well....this turned out to be my most disappointing set ever. Maybe I've been really lucky in the past, but I'm guessing I've had maybe 20 broken figures in the entire line of Cases from Heroes and Monsters to present (I'm not counting singles here, just ones from Cases). 11 of the broken were in this set, including all 4 Skavelings and 3 of the 4 Leng Spiders. Had 2 Rares among the breaks as well (D'ziriak and Tengu Jinx Eater).
The distribution seemed off as well. I had 6 Uncommons where I only got 1 figure - Attic Whisperer, Lurker in Light, Blood Mist, Drow Priestess, Scarecrow, and Drow Warrior (Rapier). That was better than Gnome Warrior and Drow Warrior (crossbow) where I didn't get any.
One of the guys in my group is really handy at fixing the broken ones so it's not the end of the world, but it's still a bit disappointing.(I know both issues are WizKids issues, not Paizo).
My only concern will be if "Among the many monsters in the Pathfinder Bestiary that got a makeover between editions" continues into the next set that follows. While understanding that many common figures are in this lead-off set so that new players of this new edition can get some of the more common creatures, I'd easily use PF1 minis for creatures in PF2 scenarios without any qualms.
Is there a cohesive overview of the Lost Lands setting available anywhere? I have some of the pdfs via bundles but I'm not sure where to go beyond the Slumbering Tsar book itself.
The World of the Lost Lands Kickstarter successfully funded in April, and last update indicates a Dec/Jan timeline for when it will be ready, which you'd be able to order it.
If you click the Frog God Games underneath "Created By" on the main Kickstarter page, you can click the "26 created" projects link to see the other parts of the world that are in the works (Grand Duchy of Reme) or have been released (Sword of Air, Borderland Provinces, etc.)
Definitely finding the number of redraws (goblins, orcs, kobolds, etc) of previously released miniatures concerning. Hoping this is just happening for the first PF2 Battles release and not a harbinger of things to come. There will be a deluge of 3PP releasing "new" PF2 modules which are just updated versions of a PF1 module, so I likewise don't want to see this become a thing for miniatures where the sets have figures that have been in other sets but look different due to new art.
I don't see it as a false dichotomy at all. The people that would have to write the blog posts do have other jobs to do as well
It's not "people" writing the mini blogs, it's Mark. Has he been writing these other blogs being posted? He usually has his name at the bottom of his posts, and I haven't seen that in any of the recent blogs posts. He's likely busy with other things, but I don't think the reason you provided has anything to do with this issue.
Cori Marie wrote:
I absolutely get that minis are super important for you. I do. But for many of us we'd rather see new information about the new edition. In Pathfinder every player does need access to the Core Rulebook,because there is no separate Player's Handbook like in DND. Whether that's a copy of their own, or using someone else's, you can't build a character without one. And again, minis are not required. Other options include Pawns, Tokens, paper minis, or just using a dry erase board. I'd also like to reiterate that minis and pawns are largely edition agnostic. Any mini or pawn you already own is still usable. Nobody is going to slap your hand and say "That's a first edition mini!"
We get that there is high interest in PF2 and the new rulebook as people decide whether to invest the money in getting the new book. However, we are concerned with buying a product that costs around TEN times the price of that book. I'd wager most of us don't wish to spend that amount of money blindly (via our subscription) without knowing what's going to be in the set. Is that being unreasonable?
We all understand there is an enormous effort around the PF2 launch. We just want to make sure the PF Battles communication doesn't get lost in all of the chaos.
Most of what I get for PF1 is through Kickstarters.
Really? So if a company doesn't do much/anything with Kickstarter, does that mean you pay them less attention?
Just making sure: I'm just trying to understand the market and customer behavior, not accusing.
For the most part, I've moved towards larger compilations for PF1 and not picking off smaller works like in years' past. I'm more likely to consider a bundle of shorter related pieces than one by itself.
Part of it is looking towards PF2, and part of it is a shift in what we play for d&d (more 5e and more old school). Aside from the larger KS stuff, most of my PF1 purchases tend to be things that are useful in an almost system neutral fashion.
(Also a lot more Call of Cthulhu as compared to PF/d&d, though that's not really relevant to what you were asking)
The ones I had contained the putty, and they were OK when used. We liked the Combat Tiers better for larger minis, though the base Elevation Indicator was preferred when just a M creature needed it.
As a little bit of context, our sales at OBS outperformed sales at Paizo by about 7 to 1 last month. A couple of years ago, sales on both sites were basically neck and neck. I'm not sure what happened, but something happened!
When I buy one of your bundles over there, it knows which ones that I already have and deducts them from the bundle price. Makes it much easier to avoid buying something that you've bought previously by mistake.
The rope trick has the disadvantage that it's usually the players that are inside, so why bother placing a mini on the table? How often are players inside it attacked from the outside?
We've found the rope trick mini to be very useful in dungeons to indicate where we entered the current level from the one above, esp. on levels where there are multiple entry points.
Hi, I had missed the kickstarter, but I am interested in the setting conceptually. Does anyone know if it the book has already been published and if it will be made available at DriveThruRPG or elsewhere?
As a Kickstarter backer, I just received my print copy of the campaign setting last week. The Player's Guide is expected to finish editing by end of July. I'd expect the campaign setting to be available for general sale this month (again, just a backer so a grain of salt there).
The fact that they only need layout is actually sort of troubling. That puts them in the exact same phase as the blight in terms of development and means they will be using the same personnel resources.
There are design and editing going on the Blight, so it's not the exact same phase at all:
"I hope to have the Player's Handbook (which makes up a significant portion of the first part of the big book as well) over to editing and conversion by then or around that time frame, and the player's gazetteer more or less ready to go as well. Then I'll be turning to the GM Guide and adventures."
Popping in to give my opinion about the Kickstarter survey (classes vs. monsters).
Count me in the camp that says changing the packages after the fact constitutes a breach in the original agreement, and is therefore bad form.
That said, I fully support the project moving forward, and expect to be dazzled by the final product. Best!
I would only find it an issue if something in the base pledge changed or something with a paid add-on. This was just for a free stretch goal, which is just an optional bonus the project creator has elected to give to the backers.
If page count/cost is an issue, I would just make the monsters a free PDF download for backers and include the classes with the book. Best case scenario would be for enough money come in through the BackerKit to make this all moot.
My preference is stretch goals that add more content to the product. Special add-ons like having contributors add or name or pick things in the product are good choices for limited higher pledges.
Looks like the Kickstarter has exactly hit the funding level with another 11 days left in the campaign. So plenty of time to hit some stretch goals and add to the book!
Here are the write-ups for the previously released adventures. Maybe the PDFs for these could be the FGG "deal of the day" to let people try one of them at the discount to get a better feel for these adventures?
Previous Northlands adventures:
1 - Vengeance of the Long Serpent
Pull on your hauberk, ready your shield, and take up your axe, the tide is moving out and it is time to set sail on a voyage of adventure. In Vengeance of the Long Serpent the heroes sail north into a land of murder, savagery, and madness to face a reawakened dark god and his deadly cult. Estimated page count: 24 Released in separate editions for both Swords and Wizardry and Pathfinder.
2 - Beyond the Wailing Mountains
The story begun in Vengeance of the Long Serpent continues. The heroes have defeated the Children of Althunak, but the fell god's evil fane survives. Strange beasts, dark magics, and unholy cold await in the lands Beyond the Wailing Mountains.
3 - The Death Curse of Sven Oakenfist
In the Northlands the laws of hospitality are absolute, to violate them is to seek dishonor or even death. What then must our heroes do when their host asks them to fulfill his dying wish, to face down the wight of the legendary viking Sven Oakenfist and convince him to lift a curse laid with his own last breath?
4 - Blood on the Snow
The country of Estenfird is in flames. Wild men and beasts have descended in hordes from the mountains bringing fire and destruction into the forested lands below. The hirths of the North have been called forth to defense, but with the heavy snows of winter delaying travel will their arrival be in time to save this frontier realm? Even the heroic Protector of Estenfird, Hengrid Donarsdottir, is hard pressed and has called upon all heroes to come to their aid. It is time to don arms and armor and brave the winter’s wrath to come to the defense of Estenfird in its hour of need.
I figured that most here would know that Karl Urban played Éomer in Lord of the Rings (the movie named PF which has nothing to do with the RPG, not so much).
If you only put stuff on the board when they're going to fight said stuff, they OOC know when to start thinking tactically - but if every time they engage with a NPC in conversation there are minis on the board... they have to start thinking "do we really want to fight here, or should we just talk?"
Agree 100%. If you only selectively use maps/miniatures, then players will act on those cues - minis on maps means they are supposed to fight.
I think they can succeed by going the "good" fantasy movie route. The main characters would fill the recognizable party roles, and use one of the established settings to drive home the D&D ties.
Personally, I'd prefer things to start on a small scope to represent the low-level party, and avoid the cliched "saving the world" plot that always seems to be the case.
I loved the choose your own adventure books they put out for dungeons and dragons, can't tell you how many times I tried to kill off the hero in those by making obviously stupid choices. ah, good times
I loved those also! My favorite had an elf protagonist and a bugbear with a good one liner when he did you in if you chose wrong. Can't remember the name, but it might have been the second or third in the series?
Here's one place Hasbro is winning. To the vast majority of the population, if they see a bunch of people gaming, they assume "Dungeons and Dragons". Outside of our bubble, no one knows what the hell "Paizo" or "Pathfinder" are.
That is NOT true. People know that Pathfinder is an SUV.
I do remember there is a mirror site out there somewhere that you can still use those codes and get the downloads. I used it as recently as last year after I got a grab bag and went looking for the site with my new goodies. I remember it had something to do with archive pages or something like that. RPG archives, maybe? Please post for all if you find it...
You can download the old product support stuff via the Wayback Machine
I'm not saying people doing want figures for animals, it's the quantity that is the issue. Are people buying 16 of the birds like I got, or just one or two of each? I want the figures, but I have far more of them than I will ever use. That's not useful to me, esp. when I'd easily use a falcon to represent a raven or vice versa.
I'd easily give up any of those birds for dungeon dressing figures. I'd even give up trolls (already have them from multiple Battles sources) or giving up an extra rare slot as I really only want one chieftain giant or ogre figure. So getting 4-5 mimcs and only 1 chest seems really skewed to me.
Probably a big book version and a stripped-down little book version (like Gygax's Greyhawk folio) for people that don't want to spend as much, if we manage to do with KS what I was talking about in a post upstream a little ways. Maps will be big, full-color posters larger than those that came with SoA and Barakus (once again, probably Greyhawk size) but with 250-mile hexes (it's a super big world).
Would love it if Bill has a vinyl map as a (pricey) KS add-on
The trouble with doing that for a published campaign is that you have to detail everything and then let the players choose which they'll encounter, which means you're going to have to detail far more content than the group will use. This means the adventure is going to have to be much larger and far more costly than a more linear one.
In a home brewed game, that doesn't come up, since you can just lay out the adventure hooks and only detail the ones the PCs bite on. In a published ready to run adventure, you can't do that.
I'm not sure I agree. Sandbox adventures have existed since the days of Judges Guild, and they didn't have exorbitant page counts. More locations are detailed, but they also tend to leave more things open or blank for the DM to tailor. They also save page count about the plot, since that is generally for the DM to supply (if needed/wanted).
