Pathfinder Lost Omens: World Guide

Asgetrion wrote:

Totally messed up the formatting, but didn't notice it at first because I continued watching Knights of Everflame right after hitting "Reply". I'm re-posting my reply to Marco; sorry about "spamming", guys, but just couldn't delete the earlier post anymore.

I feel for you, Marco! I pre-ordered this book at my FLGS, and I got the last copy they received. However, my FLGS has never received their order of Deluxe/Special Edition core rulebooks; they have sold out two batches of the "regular" core rulebook, which I couldn't afford at this point (I've already spent something like 1000 euros on Paizo stuff in a couple of months, including quite a hefty sum on minis). Ergo, I have the Lost Omens World Guide and Deluxe/Special Edition Bestiary, but not the core rulebook!

This has not killed my interest in 2nd Edition, I'm just as excited about it as in July, if not even more! But it's a bit annoying to wait for a relatively expensive book (88 euros at my FLGS) that it floating somewhere in Limbo and nobody can apparently say when it will eventually appear. It's not Paizo's fault, though; it's likely the distributor has messed up.

(BTW, my FLGS is still waiting for the Druma : Profit and Prophecy book as well; which means I haven't got it yet either. It's likely in that same Limbo with the core rulebook...)

Thanks, Asgetrion.

I hope you'll get your CRB & Druma CS asap.
The thing is, we have a few players who know Golarion pretty well, but most don't.
The old "Inner Sea Guide" had lots of information a 1st level character wouldn't have access to as it was mostly a GM book (that's what the "Inner Sea something Players Companion" was good for).

The Lost Omens World Guide seems to be much lighter on spoiler information and more geared towards players than GMs.
It also seems to allow a player to select a homeland flavor for his character in form of feats.
To not have access to something so basic for the start of a new edition seems bad for the...

The Lost Omens WG is not geared more for players than GMs. Each region has 12 pages. Two of those pages are player options. Ten are GM background.

But the case can be made that even the GM background material is useful player information. I don't recall seeing too many GM only secrets in that book.

I wonder if Paizo would consider doing Lost Omens Bestiary or a similar book, featuring not only monsters like Inner Sea Bestiary and Occult Bestiary did, but also a variety of "ability packs" (of variant abilities) and templates to modify existing NPCs and monsters? For example, I could take a surgeon or a thug stat block out of GMG, and make them mechanically feel like a Whispering Way surgeon or a Sczarni thug with a few modifications. Likewise with monsters; you could have a Whispering Way wight or a Hellknight animated armor just as easily.

Lost Omens Character Guide will have theme templates to help give abilities to creatures in such a fashion. LOCG only covers templates for the organizations, but we will feature theme templates again where it makes sense, such as Gods and Magic.

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Lost Omens Character Guide will have theme templates to help give abilities to creatures in such a fashion. LOCG only covers templates for the organizations, but we will feature theme templates again where it makes sense, such as Gods and Magic.

Thanks, Luis! That sounds great, can't wait to see those theme templates! And once Gods and Magic is out, we'll be able to create, for example, Urgathoan wights and ghouls or Asmodean elementals, right? Really cool! :)

How about future Bestiaries, any sort of theme templates or variant abilities (or "ability packages", whatever you want to call them) going to be published in them?

The Lost Omens WG is not geared more for players than GMs. Each region has 12 pages. Two of those pages are player options. Ten are GM background.

But the case can be made that even the GM background material is useful player information. I don't recall seeing too many GM only secrets in that book.

Right. "Player Options" [mechanics] is not identical to "geared for players".

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Hey Jeff! Do you have any idea why my FLGS here in Finland has received a shipment of the Special Edition Bestiary, but no copies (none!) of the Special Edition Core Rulebook? And it's the same with Druma : Profit and Prophecy, even though they've pre-ordered both books months before their street dates. I'm just wondering if it's a lost cause to wait for my FLGS to get these books, i.e. should I make an exception and just order them from Amazon this time? I always prefer my FLGS to online stores, but I'd rather have these books than not at all...

Corie Marie wrote:

The Lost Omens WG is not geared more for players than GMs. Each region has 12 pages. Two of those pages are player options. Ten are GM background.

David knott 242 wrote:

But the case can be made that even the GM background material is useful player information. I don't recall seeing too many GM only secrets in that book.

Right. "Player Options" [mechanics] is not identical to "geared for players".

Big picture setting info which most people would reasonably know in-setting (or could easily discover without special access) is "geared for players", while "secret plots and agendas" are setting info that players shouldn't know but could appear in GM-focused setting product.

I honestly don't see it "Geared" toward either. If your GM doesn't have a basic knowledge of the setting, they're also not doing a great job...

I really enjoyed this book. Lots of rich history and culture, and ways to integrate that into a character. It really makes me want to explore the Mwangi Expanse or the River Kingdoms, or even Old Cheliax. I just have one problem with it: It was basically all about humans.

That's fine when it's the idea of a book. Humans deserve just as much of a spotlight as any other ancestry. But when this was supposed to be about the rich diversity of Golarion, 99% of it was about the diversity of one specific inhabitant species. Alkenstar, a single city-state in a desolate wasteland, got as much attention as the entire nation of Kyonin, and several times more than the three Mualijae nations put together - and that's just the Elves.

Again, I still loved the book, and I'm keeping it around for inspiration. I just think a better title for it would've been "Humans of Golarion."

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Hey Jeff! Do you have any idea why my FLGS here in Finland has received a shipment of the Special Edition Bestiary, but no copies (none!) of the Special Edition Core Rulebook? And it's the same with Druma : Profit and Prophecy, even though they've pre-ordered both books months before their street dates. I'm just wondering if it's a lost cause to wait for my FLGS to get these books, i.e. should I make an exception and just order them from Amazon this time? I always prefer my FLGS to online stores, but I'd rather have these books than not at all...

Any chance you can tell me who your store buys from? I'm guessing Asmodee Nordics? I'd hate to speculate when I might actually be able to do a little emailing to find out the actual reason(s).

I can tell you that we still have both the SE versions in stock (and have since release) so there's nothing from our side blocking their ability to order them.

I really enjoyed this book. Lots of rich history and culture, and ways to integrate that into a character. It really makes me want to explore the Mwangi Expanse or the River Kingdoms, or even Old Cheliax. I just have one problem with it: It was basically all about humans.

That's fine when it's the idea of a book. Humans deserve just as much of a spotlight as any other ancestry. But when this was supposed to be about the rich diversity of Golarion, 99% of it was about the diversity of one specific inhabitant species. Alkenstar, a single city-state in a desolate wasteland, got as much attention as the entire nation of Kyonin, and several times more than the three Mualijae nations put together - and that's just the Elves.

Again, I still loved the book, and I'm keeping it around for inspiration. I just think a better title for it would've been "Humans of Golarion."

IMO, this is more a flaw of the setting in general than of the book itself.

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Only a very small tangential addition to this...

I just got a shipping notice from Amazon Canada. Mine is shipped, arriving Tuesday.

So there's clearly still some product working its way through distribution and folks with preorders various places might potentially still get a first printing copy.

Mine was pre-ordered sometime in June.

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Hey Jeff! Do you have any idea why my FLGS here in Finland has received a shipment of the Special Edition Bestiary, but no copies (none!) of the Special Edition Core Rulebook? And it's the same with Druma : Profit and Prophecy, even though they've pre-ordered both books months before their street dates. I'm just wondering if it's a lost cause to wait for my FLGS to get these books, i.e. should I make an exception and just order them from Amazon this time? I always prefer my FLGS to online stores, but I'd rather have these books than not at all...

Any chance you can tell me who your store buys from? I'm guessing Asmodee Nordics? I'd hate to speculate when I might actually be able to do a little emailing to find out the actual reason(s).

I can tell you that we still have both the SE versions in stock (and have since release) so there's nothing from our side blocking their ability to order them.

Thanks for the reply, Jeff! I think it is Asmodee Nordic, but I'm not sure; I can ask the friendly (and absolutely fantastic) staff at Fantasiapelit, though, to confirm that. If I have to speculate, it may be that all these problems in product availability may be due to Asmodee being conservative in how many copies they've ordered of each book, and furthermore prioritizing the biggest brick-and-mortar stores in Europe. I can't think of any other reason why the orders are still pending. It is also sad that both the "standard" edition core rulebook and bestiary have sold out twice at Fantasiapelit, and they have not received more copies in weeks! :/

But that is all just speculation on my part, if you can truly find out what is going on it'd be fantastic! I'm willing to buy the book, and I know many others who would as well; as we know, Finland is definitely "Pathfinder Country". The city library I work at (as a librarian) has also recently ordered some copies of each Pathfinder second edition book, and it'd great if we can get those, too, to our customers, as soon as possible. :)

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Hey Jeff! Do you have any idea why my FLGS here in Finland has received a shipment of the Special Edition Bestiary, but no copies (none!) of the Special Edition Core Rulebook? And it's the same with Druma : Profit and Prophecy, even though they've pre-ordered both books months before their street dates. I'm just wondering if it's a lost cause to wait for my FLGS to get these books, i.e. should I make an exception and just order them from Amazon this time? I always prefer my FLGS to online stores, but I'd rather have these books than not at all...

Any chance you can tell me who your store buys from? I'm guessing Asmodee Nordics? I'd hate to speculate when I might actually be able to do a little emailing to find out the actual reason(s).

I can tell you that we still have both the SE versions in stock (and have since release) so there's nothing from our side blocking their ability to order them.

Thanks for the reply, Jeff! I think it is Asmodee Nordic, but I'm not sure; I can ask the friendly (and absolutely fantastic) staff at Fantasiapelit, though, to confirm that. If I have to speculate, it may be that all these problems in product availability may be due to Asmodee being conservative in how many copies they've ordered of each book, and furthermore prioritizing the biggest brick-and-mortar stores in Europe. I can't think of any other reason why the orders are still pending. It is also sad that both the "standard" edition core rulebook and bestiary have sold out twice at Fantasiapelit, and they have not received more copies in weeks! :/

But that is all just speculation on my part, if you can truly find out what is going on it'd be fantastic! I'm willing to buy the book, and I know many others who would as well; as we know, Finland is...

Well I know that Asmodee Nordics has placed several orders with us for the 2E products and they know the SE versions are still available so this shouldn't be an issue. I'll reach out to my contact at ANA Nordics and see if they can get this fixed.

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Hey Jeff! Do you have any idea why my FLGS here in Finland has received a shipment of the Special Edition Bestiary, but no copies (none!) of the Special Edition Core Rulebook? And it's the same with Druma : Profit and Prophecy, even though they've pre-ordered both books months before their street dates. I'm just wondering if it's a lost cause to wait for my FLGS to get these books, i.e. should I make an exception and just order them from Amazon this time? I always prefer my FLGS to online stores, but I'd rather have these books than not at all...

Any chance you can tell me who your store buys from? I'm guessing Asmodee Nordics? I'd hate to speculate when I might actually be able to do a little emailing to find out the actual reason(s).

I can tell you that we still have both the SE versions in stock (and have since release) so there's nothing from our side blocking their ability to order them.

Thanks for the reply, Jeff! I think it is Asmodee Nordic, but I'm not sure; I can ask the friendly (and absolutely fantastic) staff at Fantasiapelit, though, to confirm that. If I have to speculate, it may be that all these problems in product availability may be due to Asmodee being conservative in how many copies they've ordered of each book, and furthermore prioritizing the biggest brick-and-mortar stores in Europe. I can't think of any other reason why the orders are still pending. It is also sad that both the "standard" edition core rulebook and bestiary have sold out twice at Fantasiapelit, and they have not received more copies in weeks! :/

But that is all just speculation on my part, if you can truly find out what is going on it'd be fantastic! I'm willing to buy the book, and I know many others who would as well; as we know, Finland is definitely "Pathfinder Country". The city library I work at (as a librarian) has also recently ordered some copies of each Pathfinder second edition book, and it'd great if we can get those, too, to our customers, as soon as possible. :)

Well I know that Asmodee Nordics has placed several orders with us for the 2E products and they know the SE versions are still available so this shouldn't be an issue. I'll reach out to my contact at ANA Nordics and see if they can get this fixed.

A million thanks, Jeff! :)

I visited Fantasiapelit (my FLGS) yesterday, and they had got a few copies of the second edition [i]core rulebook[/], but not the SE books. I had a longer discussion with the staff, and they said this is a typical scenario. For example, they order 60 copies of a book from Asmodee, and usually get approx. 10% of the amount they ordered, in this case 6 books all in all. And it's not just books or Paizo products, it's pretty much the same with stuff from every major publisher. They suspected that it's about Asmodee Europe handling wholesale and distribution; either they order too few copies of each product and/or too infrequently. It's been a huge change since Asmodee started doing that, and it has affected product availability in a profound way.

I hope this explanation clarifies things a bit, or rather, that it makes at least some sense in English, because I'm not sure if I translated everything correctly from Finnish. :)

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Hey Jeff! Do you have any idea why my FLGS here in Finland has received a shipment of the Special Edition Bestiary, but no copies (none!) of the Special Edition Core Rulebook? And it's the same with Druma : Profit and Prophecy, even though they've pre-ordered both books months before their street dates. I'm just wondering if it's a lost cause to wait for my FLGS to get these books, i.e. should I make an exception and just order them from Amazon this time? I always prefer my FLGS to online stores, but I'd rather have these books than not at all...

Any chance you can tell me who your store buys from? I'm guessing Asmodee Nordics? I'd hate to speculate when I might actually be able to do a little emailing to find out the actual reason(s).

I can tell you that we still have both the SE versions in stock (and have since release) so there's nothing from our side blocking their ability to order them.

Thanks for the reply, Jeff! I think it is Asmodee Nordic, but I'm not sure; I can ask the friendly (and absolutely fantastic) staff at Fantasiapelit, though, to confirm that. If I have to speculate, it may be that all these problems in product availability may be due to Asmodee being conservative in how many copies they've ordered of each book, and furthermore prioritizing the biggest brick-and-mortar stores in Europe. I can't think of any other reason why the orders are still pending. It is also sad that both the "standard" edition core rulebook and bestiary have sold out twice at Fantasiapelit, and they have not received more copies in weeks! :/

But that is all just speculation on my part, if you can truly find out what is going on it'd be fantastic! I'm willing to buy the book, and I

...

That's strange because the person I spoke with from the company said they are buying from a US company and not from ANA UK...honestly what I don't get is why they aren't buying from ANA Nordics since they're more local and are doing a great job stocking our products. They also said they haven't received any orders from their stores for the SE Core book so you may need to push harder or pre-pay for the book in your FLGS to get them to order it for you.

In any event, we still have them so there's no need to panic. I'm sure we can figure out a way for you to get one, even if I have to bring it to you the next time I'm in Copenhagen.

I visited Fantasiapelit (my FLGS) yesterday, and they had got a few copies of the second edition [i]core rulebook[/], but not the SE books. I had a longer discussion with the staff, and they said this is a typical scenario. For example, they order 60 copies of a book from Asmodee, and usually get approx. 10% of the amount they ordered, in this case 6 books all in all. And it's not just books or Paizo products, it's pretty much the same with stuff from every major publisher. They suspected that it's about Asmodee Europe handling wholesale and distribution; either they order too few copies of each product and/or too infrequently. It's been a huge change since Asmodee started doing that, and it has affected product availability in a profound way.

We have a similar issue in Australia (more broadly than just Paizo products) where there's one big national distributor and they fill the big stores in Sydney and Melbourne, then ration what they have left amongst the rest of the country.

I don't quite understand why they don't just order more - my suspicion is that the big retail stores place timid orders then when they hear good news closer to the street date ask for some extras from the distributor. Whatever the reason, it's frustrating in a small backwater city.

Asgetrion wrote:

I visited Fantasiapelit (my FLGS) yesterday, and they had got a few copies of the second edition [i]core rulebook[/], but not the SE books. I had a longer discussion with the staff, and they said this is a typical scenario. For example, they order 60 copies of a book from Asmodee, and usually get approx. 10% of the amount they ordered, in this case 6 books all in all. And it's not just books or Paizo products, it's pretty much the same with stuff from every major publisher. They suspected that it's about Asmodee Europe handling wholesale and distribution; either they order too few copies of each product and/or too infrequently. It's been a huge change since Asmodee started doing that, and it has affected product availability in a profound way.

We have a similar issue in Australia (more broadly than just Paizo products) where there's one big national distributor and they fill the big stores in Sydney and Melbourne, then ration what they have left amongst the rest of the country.

I don't quite understand why they don't just order more - my suspicion is that the big retail stores place timid orders then when they hear good news closer to the street date ask for some extras from the distributor. Whatever the reason, it's frustrating in a small backwater city.

Hey Steve. I wish I had better news for you but we're still cultivating new distributors for your region. The good news is a second one is on board. The bad news is they're still so new that I don't know what their reach will be, how much product they'll be bringing in, or how often they'll be ordering. At least it's a step forward.

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

Asgetrion wrote:

Jeff Alvarez wrote:

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Hey Jeff! Do you have any idea why my FLGS here in Finland has received a shipment of the Special Edition Bestiary, but no copies (none!) of the Special Edition Core Rulebook? And it's the same with Druma : Profit and Prophecy, even though they've pre-ordered both books months before their street dates. I'm just wondering if it's a lost cause to wait for my FLGS to get these books, i.e. should I make an exception and just order them from Amazon this time? I always prefer my FLGS to online stores, but I'd rather have these books than not at all...

Any chance you can tell me who your store buys from? I'm guessing Asmodee Nordics? I'd hate to speculate when I might actually be able to do a little emailing to find out the actual reason(s).

I can tell you that we still have both the SE versions in stock (and have since release) so there's nothing from our side blocking their ability to order them.

Thanks for the reply, Jeff! I think it is Asmodee Nordic, but I'm not sure; I can ask the friendly (and absolutely fantastic) staff at Fantasiapelit, though, to confirm that. If I have to speculate, it may be that all these problems in product availability may be due to Asmodee being conservative in how many copies they've ordered of each book, and furthermore prioritizing the biggest brick-and-mortar stores in Europe. I can't think of any other reason why the orders are still pending. It is also sad that both the "standard" edition core rulebook and bestiary have sold out twice at Fantasiapelit, and they have not received more copies in weeks! :/

But that is all just speculation on my part, if you can truly find out what is going on it'd be fantastic! I'm

...

Well, that is weird, because they explicitly said the problem is (most likely) with Asmodee Europe wholesale and distribution? Fantasiapelit has several stores in Finland, and like in Australia, they first need to stock their shelves in Helsinki and "ration what they have left amongst the rest of the country" (just as Steve said). A few years ago I always got the stuff I preordered on time, these days it's much more uncertain; often Fantasiapelit can't even fulfill all of the preorders immediately, sometimes not at all. Hmmm, I probably need to ask them again if they're sure they order from ANA and not directly from a US Company, like you said.

Heh, you've already been really helpful, Jeff; no need to personally carry the book to Europe! I can always order a copy from Amazon, although I'd prefer to support my FLGS, if only possible. :)

All, the reprint of this title should be arriving in our warehouses late October and should be back into retail and Amazon around mid-to-late November.

Can this be put into the store page so when you look at it you have an expectation that the backorder is not endless?

I haven't read all 500+ posts in this thread to see if this has been addressed yet, but I have to ask: Why are these books so expensive?

136 pages for $37 (or $35 in the case of the next one, Lost Omen Character Guide) is nearly twice the price per page of what Paizo used to charge for hardcovers in 1st edition. Compare to 256 page books like Ultimate Combat or Advanced Race Guide, which are only $45 hardcover today, and I swear I remember them being only $40 when they were new.

And adventure paths used to be 100 pages for $20. I can understand that they need to raise prices once in a while, thus the 2e AP is now $25 per book, but it's still almost as many pages as this thing that sells for $37.

Whatever happened to monthly softcovers that were only $13-20? I don't have unlimited money to spend, so I pick and choose which books to buy based on content. I'm still on the fence about 2e, having only bought the Core Rulebook so far. But if every monthly book is going to be this stupidly expensive for so little content, then the books I pick and choose to buy aren't going to be from Paizo ever again.

It is not going to be monthly. And comparing the pages for the price it’s actually cheaper when you compare the lines it came from (Campaign Setting and Player Companion).

Looking it so far we have/had

Lost Omens World Guide in August
Lost Omens Character Guide in October
Gods and Magic in January
Absalom, City of Lost Omens in May

I haven't read all 500+ posts in this thread to see if this has been addressed yet, but I have to ask: Why are these books so expensive?

136 pages for $37 (or $35 in the case of the next one, Lost Omen Character Guide) is nearly twice the price per page of what Paizo used to charge for hardcovers in 1st edition. Compare to 256 page books like Ultimate Combat or Advanced Race Guide, which are only $45 hardcover today, and I swear I remember them being only $40 when they were new.

It has been discussed, at length, and I would advise you to go read those threads rather that start it all over again here. Long story short - these hardcovers are not monthly, and valuing the books at a price per page is a terrible way to go about it.

… valuing the books at a price per page is a terrible way to go about it.

In the card game bridge, there is an apocryphal story about a player who, staying with some big name expert (possibly Edgar Kaplan, not sure) was examining his host's library and found a book entitled Bidding After You Have Preempted. (A preempt is a bid made with a long suit and a weak hand, intended to take away bidding space from the opponents so that they will hopefully get to the wrong contract.) Curious, he opened the book, to find it contained three hundred pages, all blank. :-)

Fromper wrote:

I haven't read all 500+ posts in this thread to see if this has been addressed yet, but I have to ask: Why are these books so expensive?

136 pages for $37 (or $35 in the case of the next one, Lost Omen Character Guide) is nearly twice the price per page of what Paizo used to charge for hardcovers in 1st edition. Compare to 256 page books like Ultimate Combat or Advanced Race Guide, which are only $45 hardcover today, and I swear I remember them being only $40 when they were new.

It has been discussed, at length, and I would advise you to go read those threads rather that start it all over again here. Long story short - these hardcovers are not monthly, and valuing the books at a price per page is a terrible way to go about it.

Here is one of those threads, and here is another.

If you want to link directly to responses from Paizo on the issue, try here, here, here, and here.

Fumarole wrote:

… valuing the books at a price per page is a terrible way to go about it.

In the card game bridge, there is an apocryphal story about a player who, staying with some big name expert (possibly Edgar Kaplan, not sure) was examining his host's library and found a book entitled Bidding After You Have Preempted. (A preempt is a bid made with a long suit and a weak hand, intended to take away bidding space from the opponents so that they will hopefully get to the wrong contract.) Curious, he opened the book, to find it contained three hundred pages, all blank. :-)

That sounds like a Kaplan story.

Jeff, I don't know if it sped up the process or not, but a few days after your last post I noticed that the SE Corebook is on its way to Finland, and I finally got it at my FLGS the day before yesterday! So my humble thanks again! :D

And you were right; it's actually Alliance that handles wholesale and distribution of all the Paizo stuff for Fantasiapelit (they do get FFG stuff from Asmodee, though). Sorry for the confusion, I probably misunderstood what they tried to tell me at Fantasiapelit.

There's still no information about when they'll get Druma : Profit and Prophecy, though. :/

Asgetrion wrote:

I visited Fantasiapelit (my FLGS) yesterday, and they had got a few copies of the second edition [i]core rulebook[/], but not the SE books. I had a longer discussion with the staff, and they said this is a typical scenario. For example, they order 60 copies of a book from Asmodee, and usually get approx. 10% of the amount they ordered, in this case 6 books all in all. And it's not just books or Paizo products, it's pretty much the same with stuff from every major publisher. They suspected that it's about Asmodee Europe handling wholesale and distribution; either they order too few copies of each product and/or too infrequently. It's been a huge change since Asmodee started doing that, and it has affected product availability in a profound way.

We have a similar issue in Australia (more broadly than just Paizo products) where there's one big national distributor and they fill the big stores in Sydney and Melbourne, then ration what they have left amongst the rest of the country.

I don't quite understand why they don't just order more - my suspicion is that the big retail stores place timid orders then when they hear good news closer to the street date ask for some extras from the distributor. Whatever the reason, it's frustrating in a small backwater city.

Ha! Don't tell anyone in Adelaide you said that!!!

Lost Omens Character Guide will have theme templates to help give abilities to creatures in such a fashion. LOCG only covers templates for the organizations, but we will feature theme templates again where it makes sense, such as Gods and Magic.

Are these options then for characters that can also be applied universally? It feels counter-intuitive to find options to alter monsters/creatures in a Character Guide. I'm not complaining, just wanting to gauge what books tk be on the lookout for and in which format.

They are for Creature building, not for PCs.

And it's more that they're tied to the Organizations in the book, and they only take up a small part.

NPCS are characters too. It's in their very name!

Touché, Directorsaur.

They are for Creature building, not for PCs.

And it's more that they're tied to the Organizations in the book, and they only take up a small part.

I'd rather they take up a big part! ;) Like I said, I'm not worried which book they are in, just want to know where to find stuff in hardcover/PDF.

NPCS are characters too. It's in their very name!

Thanks James, good point. I do love NPCs so...

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Apologies if this has been asked before (this thread is 10 pages long)...

How system-neutral is this book? As in, what rough percentage of the book is 2e mechanical content and what percentage is non-mechanical setting content?

I like the Inner Sea setting but don't use it with Pathfinder2e, so I'm trying to gauge how much value I would get from this.

There are 2 pages at the end of every regional chapter with backgrounds and an archetype for that area. Nearly 140 pages long with 10 regional chapters, so about 6/7 or 86% setting material and 1/7 or 14% mechanics.

There are 2 pages at the end of every regional chapter with backgrounds and an archetype for that area. Nearly 140 pages long with 10 regional chapters, so about 6/7 or 86% setting material and 1/7 or 14% mechanics.

Thanks.

That doesn't sound that bad.

LAKE ENCATHAN？（On the poster map）
LAKE ENCARTHAN？(In my memory)
Which one is correct?

The latter.

Just wanted to re-iterate here, as I've mentioned in my review that unless you need a bridge from PF1 to PF2, this is not a good "World Guide" to purchase. Some areas of the Inner Sea get incredibly short shrift.

Razmiran for example, a perfect place to set an adventure where almost everybody in authority needs killing gets cut from 2000 words in Inner Sea World Guide to just over 500 in Lost Omens World Guide. And 250 of those are basically bringing you up to speed. Absolutely zero words are spent on the geography or places of interest. If you wanted to actually set an adventure in it, it's near worthless.

This is repeated with several different locations.

So if you are looking to get into Pathfinder 2e, I would strongly urge you to buy the Inner Sea World Guide PDF as well, or else you'll be making a lot of stuff up on the fly.

So if you are looking to get into Pathfinder 2e, I would strongly urge you to buy the Inner Sea World Guide PDF as well, or else you'll be making a lot of stuff up on the fly.

Plus the individual maps of each nation are incredibly useful even if a very small number of geographical changes have occurred from then to the current timeline.

It's definitely more of a guide to how things have changed than a thorough setting primer - but it was enough to convert me, a new fan who came in with 2e, into a total lore hound. I appreciated having a starting point without the more edgy tone or problematic presentation of the older sources.

Starting with Vidrian, and then going back to the pretty heinous 1e writing on Sargava and the wider Mwangi, was definitely preferable to just wallowing in the racist colonial perspective, for instance.

Is there a full version of the picture of Trietta Ricia on page 76 anywhere, and if so, where can I find it?

If you want a *deep* delve into lore of Golarion, I’d argue reading the Mwangi Expanse, Absalom or Impossible Lands books, the former in my opinion being the best of the lot, though Absalom got my conspiracy fiction Brain cooking on over drive.

The PDF of this product is currently free with the code "OpenGaming" through the 25th!

I ordered a copy of this from Amazon hoping it would include the errata from the FAQ; now looking over the PDF which was included in the Humble Bundle, I see the errata hasn't been added there, so I assume there hasn't been a physical 2nd printing of the WG.

Can anyone from Paizo let me know here when plans for errata'd PDFs and a second physical printing for this book is releasing?