emky's page

Removed a string of quotes that was off topic and baiting.

I'm sorry to post here, since there's no way to PM -- but you removed a whole bunch of on-topic posts, including mine (regarding the FAQ item about charging). It's pretty off-putting.

Leon Aquilla wrote:

KyleS wrote:

We've come a long way since Rise of the Runelords...

Well yes, there have been almost 200 AP's released.

What I meant was more the fact that RotR dealt with a lot of adult themes and was pretty open about it lol.

And one could hope that introducing this tagging system could open them to once again exploring the full range of our emotions and experiences.

I would appreciate it if you do not imply that the work people done is not ... well work. ... If you feel that presenting new rules, new character options, new adventures, new NPCs, and the whole host of options on Pathfinder Infinite or Pathfinder Compatible Products could be considered micro-monetization... then I'm not sure this is the thread for you anyway.

I did not imply it wasn't. But I did greatly question whether it's something that should be sold. I remember RPGs before the great "everything must be monetized!" and, frankly, it was better. These $1 things here and $5 things there should be $0 blog posts with a tip jar.

And, as for you telling me to go away: it's of great concern. Since Pathfinder Infinite came along and started locking things up, there are people putting their things only there, even if they needn't or shouldn't be (because they're not using Golarion lore/characters/etc). The topic of this blog post is only going to make it worse.

Just like Paizo set the example of "subscription model" stuff during the era of PF1 (which left many products in stupidly weird states with innumerable sub-editions, or only a couple chapters released and not finished, or with no meshing between chapters), Paizo's setting examples here to make things locked up and tied to closed, and encouraging use of Paizo lore/art/etc to keep it that way.

"In fact, as of the publication of this FAQ, you are expressly prohibited from releasing any content in your Pathfinder Infinite or Starfinder Infinite product as Licensed Material under the ORC."

Um, that's pretty seriously BAD. I knew Pathfinder Infinite was a bad thing and would lead to worse down the road -- and this 100% confirms it. Glad I've done no browsing there at all. Embrace a gosh-darned open system -- the very thing that allowed Paizo to exist in the first place. Trying to become like those Seaside Mages that live just down the road, are you?

Otherwise, I hope people properly abandon Infinite and release things ORC themselves. Or better yet, people return to just posting things free on the Internet for the joy of it without attempting to micro-monetize/turn their hobby into a side-gig.

D&D 2e's alternate schools systems was one of the neatest things done. It was also dabbled in D&D 3rd edition. I'm surprised Paizo never did for Pathfinder. Tossing out the "Traditional 8" didn't need to be done to explore alternate schools/categorizations of magic.

It's nice to see you exploring it finally though.

(Replying to myself since it'd be multiple others otherwise.)

Yes, I'm aware of the de-OGLification and stuff. The 8 schools aren't really copyrightable anyway, but that's besides the point.

My main point is: I'm really surprised Paizo didn't explore this during Pathfinder 1e [the game I still play and prefer]. I really wish they had, and have no idea why they didn't.

D&D 2e's alternate schools systems was one of the neatest things done. It was also dabbled in D&D 3rd edition. I'm surprised Paizo never did for Pathfinder. Tossing out the "Traditional 8" didn't need to be done to explore alternate schools/categorizations of magic.

It's nice to see you exploring it finally though.

This means I'll finally get into Starfinder, because I had no interest in keeping two similar but not quite rules systems in my head at once.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that they are similar. Starfinder is essentially Pathfinder 1e with shake-up. Which is only related to Pathfinder 2e in name.

This is disappointing. I'd hoped Starfinder would remain its thing and not get "2e"-ified. I really don't like the core design of Pathfinder 2e at all. I guess I'll finish getting what is coming for SF1 and... that leaves me nothing at all Paizo releases anymore except maybe a map one in a while.

It's a shame. :(

I just wish that non-US customers had a better way to get watermarked PDFs along with physical purchases.

Free PDF with physical purchase is basically industry standard except Paizo and WOTC. It's odd that Paizo holds out on that.

Any word on picking up the pace of the 1e POD lineup?

Is it me, or are the Kingdom rules just... useless? Even basically playing with it on a scratch pad makes it obvious how off they are. And then I see threads about the feats all being broken, and others agreeing with how math gets out of whack.

I'm playing this AP, the Kingmaker 2e revision, but with PF1e for all the characters/combat/normal Pathfinder play. I decided to go with the Kingmaker 2e rules since it was one less thing for me to convert and I thought, "well, they'll have improved it, right?" -- having heard about some or problems the 1e version had and liking the expanded events list.

But my players are already boring of it. The kingdom is still level 1 after 2 sessions. They're maybe half-way to 2nd level, and most of that is only because I moved Grigori to a 1st level encounter (and considerably dropped his DCs -- not that even a 4th level kingdom has a reasonable chance of winning the DC 22 trial [minimum it can be dropped to by the rules, itself a huge endeavor] when you're going to have about a +8 to the check if you're lucky and have one of the relevant skills for that trial. (Extraordinary unlikely to have boosted one of those to Expert by 4th level).

The town can't grow beyond the first 4-squares until kingdom level 3. Which is forever away.

Adventuring doesn't really give kingdom XP enough to make up for it. But even if it did, it's just making it so in the future they'd have to sit back and wait for the kingdom to catch up.

Kingdom XP sources are basically non-existent (1000 XP to level up; 10 XP per turn claiming a hex -- they'll sooner have claimed every hex on the map than having leveled up much) and 30 XP per event (50% chance a turn). They're basically out of things they can spend RP on for any benefit at this point, so let's assume that all goes into XP too so about 10+15+16 (that's +1 hex, 50% event -- sometimes it goes longer, but then there are a couple hexploration ones that give it, and 4d6 RP, plus 4 from sold commodities every turn, minus a couple from incidental expense)... so about 41 XP a turn.

That's TWENTY FIVE turns to level up. There are a couple trickles of XP from "firsts", but they're effectively inconsequential, especially in the grand scale of things. EDIT: We get about 5 turns in per session, in between actually playing Pathfinder, RPing the events ever so little, and how much overhead there is for this.

The math of DCs going up while your ability to do things don't really go up much. Other threads fix this by throwing away kingdom checks and having PCs and NPCs count as having the skill. You *need* most of the skills too, since untrained checks are total wastes. Even at 1st level.

What should I do? Doing the "Kingdom Building" was part of why we wanted to play Kingmaker. But it's extraordinarily badly done, from the XP/leveling, the skill limitations, to the DCs, and the town development too. And it's a bore since it's not involving the characters (let alone the players except the one who's managing the constant erase-rewrite).

Do I read, learn, and convert to the 1e rules (and convert the 2e AP stuff to appropriate... so much conversion already! Any fixes to the 1e rules somewhere?) Is there enough of a fix to stick with these somewhere? Anyone else annoyed that no only were they not playtested, but they weren't even "napkin math" tested?

Personally, I feel that this is all happening because of Hasbro and their directives to WotC. So they're really the ones at fault.

Nothing from that area is making Paizo make a new edition of the game. They've just CHOSEN to do that. They could -- should -- have taken the slow path of "de-OGLing". And de-OGLing doesn't require major rules changes and rebalances to things. This is 100% Paizo's poorly-timed choice.

They can't just call it "Pathfinder Second Edition". This is an edition change from everything discussed in the live stream. It might retain backwards compatibility, but it is an edition change. It's not just errata and formatting changes.

This is entirely akin to what WotC is doing with their "backwards compatible certainly is not sixth edition" D&D thing. They just think that announcing an edition change is too damning to come out and say so.

Let's hope this doesn't hit Starfinder.

"slightly different mix of monsters, spells, and magic items, the rules remain largely unchanged"

That's some weasel wording there. Why a different mix? There shouldn't be. Either it's changed, or it's not. "largely" is also an out for "ok, so there are changes [beyond errata]!"

Also, generally not a fan of a Player and GM split on books. Paizo's always done right with the CRB being one and all, then separate bestiary only. Now if you pull out the bestiary, you have all the extra baggage that isn't monsters, for instance. The "GM" book is a system-hacking baseline, and how-to-manage-people guide, really its own thing. Et cetera.

Removing alignment is also a mistake.

Ourevel wrote:

If only it were coming to a better platform and/or distribution channel. Why Steam? Ugh. With Paizo's strong support of Open Gaming, it's sad to hear the games are only available through the DRM factory...

Sorry mate, that's a battle for a higher level party. Small game publishers are in no position to die on that hill.

Owlcat's games have been distributed (with great success) on friendly platforms like GOG, outside of the Steam anti-consumer system.

But looking at BKOM's website, it looks like they specialize in licensed, mostly mobile device, cashgrabs, so maybe it won't be a loss.

I can't say I'm a fan of Paizo being so open toward paid GMing. :(

I hope this doesn't mean "demo of Starfinder 2e, Starfinder is ending soon" like Pathfinder Unchained was.

Really happy to see Quinn! I hope to get some of his personality finally. He's long been my favorite iconic design. (Though, like for most of them I prefer the PF1e rendering... but his is only nominally changed.)

EDIT: I guess I missed Runescars?!

I hope so!

But I'm pretty sure they were cancelled because paperstock and shipping prices skyrocketed, and pawns use a lot of paper and are heavy to ship relative their price.

That, and Paizo seems to overstock things relative to their sales levels.

With the doubling-down on the Wizkids miniatures, and the introduction of the VTT tokens... I sadly doubt it.

I will happily crowdfund a Pathfinder 1e Core Rulebook rewrite that's the same rules, but rewritten without any legacy Wotsi-sourced verbiage.

I know it won't happen, but this makes me wish it meant that PF1 items would get errata added to its page that never had things addressed properly, or were hidden deep in forum posts. (e.g., Ultimate Wilderness.)

Sorry if this was asked before...

Does this Bestiary allow a 1E GM to run Kingmaker 2E AP at the relative same power level as a 2E GM would use?...

I just posted my review (after some play at low levels), check it out. It's just a bestiary (which includes traps). And not a well-done/balanced one. Expect constant need for GM interpretation and adjustment, even of the statblocks. The non-statblock stuff needs you to do it entirely on your own and is NOT in this book.

Yeah, at this point I see print and PDF as separate products. You wouldn't expect to get a code for a free product with any product in any other store. Only the fact that it's the same content in a different format makes anyone think of it differently.

Except TONS of publishers do give free PDF with physical products, including those purchased in FLGS and not directly. Have you really never encountered Bits and Mortar?

As for other products: Innumerable Blurays come with free redemption codes for streaming. Buying CDs often come come with digital downloads. I've done novel preorders that included epubs as well.

It's not at all uncommon or unusual. Tons of media comes free digital with a physical purchase, and [at least among publishers active in the US], Paizo is in the minority, alongside, WotC, for not doing it.

But personally I think the digital store here rather has a convenience problem than a pricing problem: Downloading multiple PDFs could be much more convenient.

It took me literally most of a week to download everything, and I'm *still* in the process of unzipping/renaming it all like a month later.

Odd. Paizo was already (from my perspective) at the top-end of PDF pricing for books, especially when buying a hard copy doesn't include the PDF gratis like basically everywhere else. This was the single biggest thing that kept me from adopting PF1 until the last couple years of its life.

I understand raising prices. But Paizo really needs to stop being the outlier on "buying the book doesn't get you the PDF". Even if just through your own store and not universally like through Bits and Mortar.

The price drops for the digital maps/pawns is necessary, considering they're not very useful. The pawns are too low-res to print (not that I would -- that's not a very maintainable activity, especially in comparison to the preprinted ones that I already dearly miss getting new ones of!), and don't include the images separated for useful online use. Ditto the maps, which also only come as a PDF rather than zip of image files.

Not that recent... as your own quote outlines. Beyond that, mountains don't (typically) move much, forests move over the course of decades and centuries (even accounting for increased growth). ...

Even forests would move in the time period. Let's not forget this is a fantasy setting, and that this particular region has strong ties and influence to the First World. Also, my snippet was from a part that also discussed how plants in the area can change easily. So, yes, even forests would move at that rapid pace.

Zaister wrote:

Isn't it a bit weird that the Player's Guide contains the complete map of the Stolen Lands? Aren't the PCs are supposed to meticulously explore and map them during the adventure?

Maps reflecting the geography of the region probably already exist before the party sets off. We know where the rivers and mountains are, for example. The maps in the Player's Guide lack any labels or points of interest, and the party's job in this AP is less "figure out where the mountains are" and more "figure out what's in those mountains."

They'd have to be super recent. Part of the schtick about the River Kingdoms is that the rivers are constantly shifting, even within just one or two generations. That's why there are so many wetlands and why hills are so valued, and why the area is so fertile. From Guide to the River Kingdoms (in the section about geography, swamps and waterways in particular): "This constant change means that maps drawn a decade ago may contain significant errors regarding wilderness areas and those from a century before may be all but unrecognizable except for the names of the settlements." [p4] These play into the major meta-plot of the AP (the whole fae part).

Anyway, they were pretty clear from start that 1e and 5e bestiaries were just that, bestiaries of the new statblocks (or for statblocks that didn't exist in 5e, thats why we now have zomok in 5e too). Kingdom rules don't really need conversation, you can use original ap treasure for most parts and honestly as I said elsewhere, SKill DCs with some glitches do actually match up between editions. (40 is level 20 dc in 2e, 1e dcs usually go int he range of 10-40. DC for climbing really hard to climb wall in both editions is actually the same :'D )

Nah, I'm not buying it. I spot checked some DCs between the two and the values were pretty different, and I've seen plenty of discussion that PF2 DCs tend to go much higher.

As for "just use 1e treasure", did you miss the part where the new version has hundreds of new pages of content, including an entirely new chapter, which spreads out some of the existing content to higher levels, too? There's no 1e to look at for these.

As for "it was just going to be a bestiary":

Play along in the new and updated encounters with this helpful conversion guide featuring back-converted stats for the entire Kingmaker campaign, plus other rules conversions, tips and tricks to run the campaign smoothly.

There's technically "tips and tricks", but there's the bare minimum. "other rules conversions" is just the traps/hazards (which are just statblocks too). I can also point out that the 5e conversion book is 45 pages longer than the PF1. They could have gone for page parity and fully supported their own game!

It gets even worse. I've been randomly comparing PF1 original to PF2+Bestiary and there are whole monster changes, like the one big memorable monster, the Zomok. The 2e version replaces it with a Sard -- which doesn't exist at all in the PF1 Bestiary. If there's one thing missing, there's probably more.

Edit: I guess it's in the PF1 Bestiary 2. So anything that's in any of the bestiaries appear to be omitted. Carbuncle was in the original Stolen Lands bestiary chapter, but was reprinted in B3, so omitted from the Kingmaker 2e PF1 Bestiary. Still weird they changed one of the key monsters that was kind of "highlighted in the art" and very memorable ("it's a plant dragon!") with something else

As someone who got it hoping finally to have a paper copy to use to play PF1 (since the PF1 6-chapters have been out of print for forever; and because I liked the idea of all the added side quests and 7th chapter)... It does not meet that goal. The PF1 conversion guide is basically just monster/trap/NPC stat blocks. There are only 4 pages (minus 1.25 pages for images/renamed monsters chart -- so 2.75 pages of text) in the PF1 book that isn't statblocks.

• -There's NOTHING on converting skill checks and DCs.
  
• -Treasure is a paragraph that says, basically, "do it yourself".
  
• -Even the statblocks have a disclaimer that says "YMMV, we are only giving a brief try".
  

Sadly, I have to give this an F at being a useful PF1 product. I'd have to spend way more time doing a conversion than I'd like to. Which is made all the worse because the majority of it had already existed as PF1 content!

Sure, I have access now to the PDFs of the PF1 chapters... but I run from paper. If I were happy with the unpleasant experience of reading and running an AP from PDFs, I wouldn't have bothered with this in the first place. The whole point of buying was for having books.

I guess I'll try to find a place to print the PDFs and start on a massive conversion project? Or maybe convince my players to do another AP instead of the one we all want to do. I guess at least I was able to get pawns and maps?

Why weren't these just in the book to begin with? Seriously -- was it not ready when the book went to the printers? Were 22 pages out of the budget to go into the book? If it was written as "part of the book", but cut for some weird meta-puzzle, that's pretty feels-bad for everyone (aka, most people) who don't get all in on "puzzles" like that. It looks like this is the conclusion of a seriess of mini-adventures that are in the book? I know if I'd purchased an adventure and the ending were not included.

Maybe I just don't "get" it. The board game Gloomhaven did a similar thing where a major part of the content was excluded from the game box behind a meta-puzzle and then provided as a downloadable thing (and, for board game pieces, print-and-play doesn't work so it was even worse than this, that's just another adventure you can work in.)

I'm also glad "web enhancements" have largely gone away.

Its also part of the pivot/strategy, I think, of avoiding "GM-only" books and trying to ensure all books are marketable/interesting to players and GMs.

Meh. That just makes it harder browse/find/remember-where things. PF/SF being completely OGL with online reference helps that a little bit, but not entirely.

Since when does the success or failure of a franchise depend on how many Bestiaries they make?

It's often a side of troubles when companies go canceling long-running lines of products, which this post and thread has lots of. (I wish they'd said for Pawns instead "paused until paper and shipping issues make it affordable again", or if they truly thing it's a worthless product.)

There are no more Bestiary or Alien Archive books planned. There will be new creatures. There are no plans for new pawns. Paizo is keeping the basics in stock for as long there’s enough demand.

EEK! I didn't know Paizo was doing that poorly. I thought Starfinder was being moderately successful.

Saddened to see the sunset of the pawns line, as that was one of my favorites, I like having the mini's available for the exact bestiary entry. I had even recently suggested that Demiplane add the pawn box numbers next to their monster entries. I do a mix of digital and physical. Digital maps physical pawns for players and monsters.

It sounds like you work like I do. When I don't have a printed map that works, and it's too complex to draw out on a grid, I have a TV that goes flat on the table that becomes my battlemap (and use pawns on it).

While this -is- true, I would like to see Paizo take a more active role in supporting VTT's if that's the direction they're going to go at the expense of traditional living room play. Supporting the folks developing the Pathfinder 2e module in Foundry is a good start. I would like to see the same extended to Starfinder.

The best way for Paizo to go for supporting VTT use is to sell the high-quality images themselves. Such as for the Pawns lines, you'd be buying a zip of PNGs. Then you can use them with any VTT of your choice (including offline ones like MapTool). Paizo wins because it's less work and they get a bigger cut (without "marketplaces" taking more out), and we win by not having vendor lock-in.

(I will never buy anything that is VTT-specific or otherwise DRMed or vendor locked-in. And Roll20 technically allows a vendor to check "allow download" or something like that, but it's such a pain and one-at-a-time that it may just as well not exist.)

Well, this certainly clears up any confusion about whether or not there will be future PACG products. ... Sure, we had our guesses but officially we were left in limbo for over a year.

Regardless, thanks for bringing one of my favorite games of all time.

Agreed. PACG was one of the most fun experience outside of RPGs ever, more than most board games most of the time. A few of the scenarios weren't so hot (like B, and any of the Army ones in Wrath), but it was still fun. Alas, it's over. Lone Shark's Apocrypha didn't cut the same way. (Well, neither did PACG 2e for that matter, but it was still good; just not as good as PACG 1e.)

But it was clear Paizo got in over their heads: they stopped even providing character sheets or card lists. And the way it was sold seems to have burned them and their retailers. It was boom and bust too much. A flood of things, then not much. And then a sudden return.

I'd like to have something that was able to be printed to the standard 1-inch=5-ft scale, on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, in black and white as well as color.

There's TONS of this available through various artists on Patreon and dtRPG. Already scaled, with cutlines and everything. Some of them even produce cutfiles for luxurious people with "Cricut" type devices. Some of them even do polls for what to do next or accept commissions. Many of them even use PDF layers to let you customize them.

There are almost no other players in the readymade pawn space where you can just buy and use. Paizo was the dominant force there. D&D had a small entry (but not nearly as nice), a couple very pricey acrylic ones.

Kobold Games has done a few. PEG has done a few with their Savage Worlds kickstarters. Monte Cook did one. There are a couple premium, expensive plastic ones out there (largely Kickstarter-funded). But even they aren't as nice to use and store as PF Pawns.

[Sorry for verbosity. I really am a big fan of the line and have tried them all out! Pawns were the main thing I was still buying from Paizo anymore other than a few ultra-cheap PF2 supplements when they go really cheap that I can use for lore, but otherwise I'm just backfilling missed PF1 content on Ebay since the POD project is going so slowly.]

I think it would be smarter for them to make it a purely PDF product for people to print it out and they provide the art. Not hard to put them on card stock or foam core and make our own pawns and they wouldn't be out the cost of producing physical products.

No. Printing is pretty much useless. Who has access to a printer? Or wants to spend all that time? And there's TONS of competition (and GREAT ones at that) in the space for ready-to-print standees.

I'm curious if there's going to be anything to replace the pawn line. As cool as the Pathfinder Battles minis are, they're much more cost prohibitive for a lot of people.

Yeah. Miniatures have major STORAGE and "find what I need" issues. Pawns were perfect!

NOOO! Why the cancellation of Pawns? It's your BEST line!!!

It looks like the player's guides aren't catalog items to add to our downloads list anymore. That's a little bit of a back-slide in usability. (I appreciate the option to download without, but it's nice to have things together in the downloads page too.) Any thoughts?

Congrats Jim. Good luck! Hopefully you can help to get the company back on track.

How well does this AP upgrade to PF1? Is it harder than most because of being more dungeoncrawly?

Probably going to have to get this one even though I use PF1 and don't really like PF2. Hopefully Alkenstar's material will stand up and isn't PF2-ified too much. (PF2-ified meaning: all "too weird" with everyone being odd species and odd classes, stuff like "shoot while midair to jump again", and whatnot. Anime-absurdism.)

Definitely like the "suggested" table. Other posts indicate this is new? I don't remember seeing it before, but I haven't looked at the AP player guides in quite a while. Good stuff.

Appeared today:
Pathfinder Adventure Path #62: Curse of the Lady's Light (Shattered Star 2 of 6)(PF1)

I see the list of available POD titles has changed.

It's disappointing that apparently we need to just look regularly.

Hopefully link works for others:

https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/browse/pub/5549/Paizo?src=fid100114& filters=0_0_0_0_100163_0&page=1&sort=4a

moderation

Could you please explain why my post was removed from this thread? Sorry to post in the thread, but the Paizo forums don't appear to have DMs. I had no personal attacks. I had no advocation for slavery. I kept my post related to Golarion.