Announced for July! Product image and description are not final.
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A map of only southern Nirmathas won't be enough for me to buy this.
Bad enough that this AP was advocated as the Nirmathas/Molthune AP (it doesn't feature Molthune at all judging from the solicitations), now it doesn't even feature a map of the entire nation but only the southern part. :-(
I don't recall this AP being advocated as the Nirmathas/Molthune AP at all. From the get-go we were told it's a hobgoblin invasion story. Unless you can point me to some post by Paizo people on the contrary, which I would greatly appreciate.
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I don't recall this AP being advocated as the Nirmathas/Molthune AP at all. From the get-go we were told it's a hobgoblin invasion story. Unless you can point me to some post by Paizo people on the contrary, which I would greatly appreciate.A map of only southern Nirmathas won't be enough for me to buy this.
Bad enough that this AP was advocated as the Nirmathas/Molthune AP (it doesn't feature Molthune at all judging from the solicitations), now it doesn't even feature a map of the entire nation but only the southern part. :-(
It is heavily implied on the AP overview page.
Chapter 1 & 5 mention it especially.We even get a Campaign Setting Two-in-one.
If i remember correctly, it was advocated that both nations are involved somehow in the "know direction" report from the con where this was first previewed.
Of course things may have changed, but personally i was under the impression, that we would get an AP taking place at least partly in warzone between two nations.
I realize now, that half of this AP (books 1-3) takes place in Nirmathas, and the other half somewhere else (not Molthune) and am ok with that, but i am not ok with getting a map of only half Nirmathas in a map folio.
Even if only the southern part of the nation plays a role in the Adventure Path, i want all of it to be depicted on the poster map.
I realize there are two "Fangwood Forests" - one in Nirmathas and one in Molthune, and that may be the reason that i (and others) were under the impression of this being a war between the two nations too, as the southern Fangwood seems to be on both nations soil.
I also realize that for the AP map folio, a map of the campaign area - borderlines or not - makes sense, but for me it does not.
The "Giantslayer Poster Map Folio" featured a map of the "Mindspin Mountains", which made sense, as all of the AP (but part one) took place there and i grudgingly accepted not getting a "Hold of Belkzen" map then.
I'd rather have a proper map of complete Nirmathas.
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You could just skip it, you know... *winks*
Ruyan.
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The last six poster map folios (starting with Mummy´s Mask Map Folio), havn´t been as good as the ones before (with the exception of the Skull & Shackles Map Folio) imo.
The most criticized thing are the "pictorial" maps, complete with sketches of some of the denizens and dangers of that haunted land as they spoil too much for the players.
I like them (as a GM) to look at, but i wish for more "in-world" style maps with only widely known or obvious icons on it (like the Ustalav map from the Carrion Crown Map Folio).
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The last six poster map folios (starting with Mummy´s Mask Map Folio), havn´t been as good as the ones before (with the exception of the Skull & Shackles Map Folio) imo.
The most criticized thing are the "pictorial" maps, complete with sketches of some of the denizens and dangers of that haunted land as they spoil too much for the players.
I like them (as a GM) to look at, but i wish for more "in-world" style maps with only widely known or obvious icons on it (like the Ustalav map from the Carrion Crown Map Folio).
I completely agree with this. I love the in-world style maps, but I'd also love to be able to use them as a player handout. That's difficult to do when they contain spoilers on them for secret locations visited in the AP or monsters that would be encountered at any given location, should knowledge of said monsters not be common knowledge. And based on the product description, it seems that paizo learned their lesson that the in-world maps with pictures of dangerous denizens and hidden locations aren't popular, and instead of doing the thing that makes sense and just not have those pictures/locations on the map, they went with a different map style instead that cannot be used as an in-world player handout :(
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To whomever selects the maps that go into this Map Folio and okays the final artwork: PLEASE look at the reviews and discussions about the last few Map Folios. There has been a lot of good feedback... none of which seems to be influencing Paizo's decisions about the maps that going into the next Map Folio. The last couple have been pretty bad. I REALLY want to like the Ironfang Invasion Map Folio and have it be useful to GMs and players. Thanks.
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The image of this product looks like the "monster icons" have been removed from the artistic map.
That would be an ok first step and i'm sure more is not possible on such a short notice.
Also the other two maps sound useful.
For future map folios however, i think these "artistic maps" have to be replaced by "in-world" geographical ones like the superb one of Ustalav in the Carrion Crown map folio.
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I hope they don't do away with the "old world" style maps. I don't care about the monster icons.
-Skeld
They are beautiful to look at, but useless as game-aids, the last 10 or so reviews all agree on this.
Maybe a middleground could be reached about this -
maps more or less like they are now with only monster icons that are widely known among the population and more things like scales, roads and borders.
A good example for such a map is the center-spread of Varisia in the "Player Companion: Varisia - Birthplace of Legends"
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I hope they don't do away with the "old world" style maps. I don't care about the monster icons.
-Skeld
They are beautiful to look at, but useless as game-aids, the last 10 or so reviews all agree on this.
Maybe a middleground could be reached about this -
maps more or less like they are now with only monster icons that are widely known among the population and more things like scales, roads and borders.
A good example for such a map is the center-spread of Varisia in the "Player Companion: Varisia - Birthplace of Legends"
The Varisia map is hands down my favorite and I'd like to see a similar map in each map pack.
I'd put more faith in the last few folio reviews if they were reviewed by more people. One or two reviews isn't very relevant. Also, some of those reviews are yours and we already know where you stand on the "old world" style maps. :p
-Skeld
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I hope they don't do away with the "old world" style maps. I don't care about the monster icons.
-Skeld
They are beautiful to look at, but useless as game-aids, the last 10 or so reviews all agree on this.
Maybe a middleground could be reached about this -
maps more or less like they are now with only monster icons that are widely known among the population and more things like scales, roads and borders.
A good example for such a map is the center-spread of Varisia in the "Player Companion: Varisia - Birthplace of Legends"The Varisia map is hands down my favorite and I'd like to see a similar map in each map pack.
I'd put more faith in the last few folio reviews if they were reviewed by more people. One or two reviews isn't very relevant. Also, some of those reviews are yours and we already know where you stand on the "old world" style maps. :p
-Skeld
I really liked the "old-world" style maps in the Shattered Star map folio and Reign of Winter map folio, because they were much less spoilery on monsters and mostly showed locations which are widely known or that can be seen from far away.
If a map shows a supposedly hidden location like the Hellgate in Hell´s Vengeance or the exact type of monster roaming a settlement (like in Strange Aeons), it is useless as a play-aid.
Also, of the six negative reviews for the last three map-folios, only one is from me, four are from totally different people.
I don´t want the old-world style maps to vanish totally (even if i like the the real-world styles from the Carrion Crown map folio much better), but they need to be more balanced between player and DM usefulness.
This is probably not the fault of the artist (who is really capable), but the editorial work needs better in-game balance. ;-)
Agreed, spoilers in maps needs to be addressed.
Really, if there is "innocuous" geographic feature near-by,
or two that "book-end" the adventuring site, that works just
as good to be able to pin-point the adventuring site, yet
doesn't spoiler it for players, OR detract from the map's value
for players using the map for the general area NOT the specific AP.
Developer
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A good portion of the discussion in this product thread has been about this line of products in general instead of this specific product. As someone who has put together a number of these Poster Map Folios, I'm always interested in seeing what works and what doesn't. If anyone wants to continue the discussion about the Poster Map Folios in general, make a new thread (maybe even link it here) and I'll gladly join the conversation. I just don't want to clutter up this specific thread with that discussion.
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Well the "cutesy" maps in the Shattered Stars, Reign of Winter and Iron Gods map folios have seen lots of practical use in my campaigns. I love that style of map.
You better hop over to the thread I made to criticise the idea ;-)
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Coming back to the product, this map folio differs a lot from the previous ones, because it has one map which is used for book #4 (Kraggodan) and one map for book #6 (Vault of the Onyx Citadel), but no special location map for books #1-3 (besides the overview map for all of southern Nirmathas).
This is probably because the starting town of Phaendar doesn´t play an extended role in the AP and assuming the other locations in books #1 and #2 are minor ones where only few time is spent.
But why no map of Longshadow from book #3?
As not all playing-rounds will reach book #6 this is a strange decision imo.
Though maybe the map of the Vault of the Onyx Citadel will be so cool as to make it worth for it to be in the folio. ;-)
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Now that i have AP's #115 & #116, i see that the map of southern Nirmathas (the same as shown in the product art above) has very few pictograms of creatures on it - 4 little fey in the Chernasardo woods region and 3 lizardmen in the swampy regions surrounding it seem to be the only ones.
If it will also have the names of the settlements and rivers (like on the inside front cover of AP#116), the map will actually be useful as a player handout. :-)
The last six poster map folios (starting with Mummy´s Mask Map Folio), havn´t been as good as the ones before (with the exception of the Skull & Shackles Map Folio) imo.
The most criticized thing are the "pictorial" maps, complete with sketches of some of the denizens and dangers of that haunted land as they spoil too much for the players.
I like them (as a GM) to look at, but i wish for more "in-world" style maps with only widely known or obvious icons on it (like the Ustalav map from the Carrion Crown Map Folio).
I also agree with this. While I do like the "pictorial" art maps I have been left wanting more detail. I believe we get fewer maps than we used to.
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Updated with final description and product image!
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Some thoughts:
While the map of "Phaendar", the starting town of this AP (from AP #115 page 22) would have been nice to have, i can absolutely see why it hasn´t been included here.
The same is not true for the map of "Longshadow" (from AP #117 page sixtysomething), where the PCs spend half of the book.
The map of "Kraggodan" (from AP #118 page 66) is very interesting, but very large scale and rough, i would wish for a more thorough examination in a future "Dwarven Sky Citadels Campaign Setting".
I can´t yet say anything about the final map of the "Vault of the Onyx Citadel", but considering most gaming groups won´t reach book six, this is probably the least needed one.
Looking forward to review this next month, because the last 4 map packs had no sample images, which is kinda sad.
It sounds like they're reprinting the map from the interior of the AP covers. I'm running book three now and this is definitely one that I need. I've been showing the PCs the map from the earlier books, although I don't suppose there's any harm in showing them the book three version with the expanded Ironfang red zones.
I'm glad to know that the map of Longshadow will not be included as I had been planning on making my own anyway. Now I know that if I want to use it, I will have to make it.
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It sounds like they're reprinting the map from the interior of the AP covers. I'm running book three now and this is definitely one that I need. I've been showing the PCs the map from the earlier books, although I don't suppose there's any harm in showing them the book three version with the expanded Ironfang red zones.
I'm glad to know that the map of Longshadow will not be included as I had been planning on making my own anyway. Now I know that if I want to use it, I will have to make it.
Yeah, the interior cover map will be the most useful one IF (hopefully) they print all the settlement names beside the icons but not ones for sites as the valley of Aloi. ;-)
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Reviewed! An improvement over past entries, but there is still work to be done.
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Reviewed! An improvement over past entries, but there is still work to be done.
Thanks for the very well explained review, Feros. :-)
There only seems to be a typo in the Vault of the Onyx Citadel section. ;-)Personally i feel that a map of Longshadow would have been needed, but i havn't seen the Vault yet.
Reviewed! An improvement over past entries, but there is still work to be done.Thanks for the very well explained review, Feros. :-)
There only seems to be a typo in the Vault of the Onyx Citadel section. ;-)Personally i feel that a map of Longshadow would have been needed, but i havn't seen the Vault yet.
Thanks for the head's up about the typo. It has been edited!
And as for Longshadow, I think they were going for maps that could be used outside the Ironfang Invasion AP. Another town map or a Dwarven Sky Citadel; they made their choice and I agree with it. In the end, towns are easy and not very fantastic in nature. These maps cover a fantasy Dwarven city and a land inside a geode!
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Really good review, Feros.
Really good review, Feros.
Thanks! :D
How do I find out what the sizes of these posters are so I can order poster frames? Just FYI I don't own them, it's a gift to the GM, so I can't make measurements.
They seem to be 21-3/4" x 33"
They seem to be 21-3/4" x 33"
Thanks!
Well the "cutesy" maps in the Shattered Stars, Reign of Winter and Iron Gods map folios have seen lots of practical use in my campaigns. I love that style of map.
I agree completely. I don't understand the complaints being forwarded by some posters here and honestly have to ask if those of you complaining even use these maps during play. We DO use them and the players absolutely love them.
THIS campaign over all others needs the cutesy map with icons and monsters to help players understand the environment of the campaign. There are plenty of sources with exact measurement and no icons. Just use one of those if you need to figure out distances.
The territory fold out map is for actual players to discuss the overall campaign and their next movements, especially when using the optional militia rules.
You guys don't speak for me or the gamers at my table. Paizo is doing a great job with these maps. Please keep it up.