Pathfinder Age of Ashes Pawn Collection

I recognize on the cover art:

How come they won't be released until March 2020? Shouldn't they be released along with the AP for those who want to use them right off the get go?

How come they won't be released until March 2020? Shouldn't they be released along with the AP for those who want to use them right off the get go?

Nope. The usually get released 2 months after the final AP installment because the artwork For the entire AP isn't complete.

How come they won't be released until March 2020? Shouldn't they be released along with the AP for those who want to use them right off the get go?

They will probably have pawns for all chapters, some of which might still be indevelopment.

I mean, they could release a Pawn set without any art, but I'm not sure how well that would sell.

Paizo please start releasing these at the beginning!

It's been said on the boards before, but the process at which Paizo has to write the adventures and then order the art prevents them from having all of the art available at the start of the adventure.

Most GMs wait until they have all six books before they start running the adventure anyway.

The Bestiary Pawn Box has been announced for November 2019.

I love the new art. Luckily they do put the art for most characters and monsters in the APs and I've gotten pretty good at cutting it in photoshop and making my own pawns. Still would rather have beforehand.
I know they don't have art at the beginning and most of the GMs I know other than me don't purchase the AP pawn boxes for this reason and just use substitutes.

I buy the pawns for all the APs, even though i use minis for the creatures.
For the NPCs or very unique beings, i often use the pawns.

I have bought the Bestiary Box & Bestiary 2 Box, but as i have thousends of minis, i don't use them often.

I understand there are a multitude of ways they could do the Adventure Path Pawn Collections, but each is fraught with its own difficulties.
1. Release after the completed Path is out. Problem: It is unavailable for use during the run of the AP being printed.
2. Release before the completed Path is out. Problem: Art assets for the and/or story elements of the completed AP may not be finished and ironed out just yet. Also, if art assets are completed, then there might be concern about story elements of the AP being forecast before release.
3. Release as the AP is run (issue by issue). Problem: Shipping and/or printing costs will likely prevent this approach being profitable or even monetarily feasible.

I understand there are a multitude of ways they could do the Adventure Path Pawn Collections, but each is fraught with its own difficulties.

1. Release after the completed Path is out. Problem: It is unavailable for use during the run of the AP being printed.
2. Release before the completed Path is out. Problem: Art assets for the and/or story elements of the completed AP may not be finished and ironed out just yet. Also, if art assets are completed, then there might be concern about story elements of the AP being forecast before release.
3. Release as the AP is run (issue by issue). Problem: Shipping and/or printing costs will likely prevent this approach being profitable or even monetarily feasible.

Keep in mind that we've been doing these for many, many years. We've tried multiple ways to get these done, including all three of those listed above, and the best (and really ONLY) way to do a pawn collection for an Adventure Path is after we've developed all six parts. Not only is that the point where we know for sure who and what is actually IN the adventure (no sense ordering pawns for characters who get cut from an adventure for space or quality or whatever reasons; also not possible to order pawns for characters who don't exist UNTIL the development pass and had to be added to address an issue), but it's also the point where we know what charcacters we didn't end up ordering art for AND what the exact monster mix is in each adventure.

Since it takes 3 to 4 months to print/ship one of these things, and since the earliest we can start is more than six months after the first volume comes out... there ya go.

(For example, I only just finished developing part 6 of Age of Ashes late last week, so in theory this week's the VERY EARLIEST I can responsibly build up the list of pawns for an Age of Ashes Pawn Set—and in fact, I have some other more important duties to deal with before that... but even if I were to be able to order the list today, it'd be a few weeks for art to come in and then a week or two for edit and layout—IN A BEST CASE SCENARIO—and THEN we start the 3 to 4 month printing/shipping window... which puts the product at the earliest possible date of coming out in December—the month the last volume of Age of Ashes comes out.)

I get it that folks would love to have the pawns out on day one... but the realities are such that it's just not possible...

I SUPPOSE we could switch to a version where we do individual pawn sets for each volume, but that'd cost you, the customer, a lot more in the end. It's more expensive to produce, create, and ship six pawn sets than one, and that means six pawn sets would cost a lot more, combined, than one would...

The Bestiary Pawn Box has been announced for November 2019.

I can't seem to find the entry for the Bestiary Pawn Box. Hoping that it doesn't mean I'll miss the chance to pre-order it.

Another option would be to release the physical copy at the end of the run, same as is done now, but release the digital copy in batches. Just update the one digital file for each release of the AP. Would be a huge benefit to those who have subscriptions for the pawns and those who only want the digital version. I understand that doing this also means re-configuring the file every time to make the pawns fit in the most efficient manner for printing though.

I don't foresee Paizo going against their "you get the PDF when the product ships" policy. The one suggested would likely to be too far open to abuse.

Personally i would prefer another approach:

Publishing the pawns in 2 waves, one for books 1-3 & one for 4-6.

Each for a price of either $20 or staying at the same price point of $25, but then making sure that really every creature needed for the three volumes it covers is in there in the needed number.

I can much more easily wait three months than six to begin playing an adventure path.

As it is, i mostly start playing or gamemastering an AP when the pawn set isn't out yet and as we play the same campaign roughly every two weeks, we are in book three or beginning book four when the pawns arrive.

Now if the pawns for books 1-3 would arrive roughly a month after book 3 is published, we'd still be playing book one or starting book two when they do.

I think such a "middle-approach" would be the best option for both customers and developers, because former would get the pawns earlier and later would need to do only half the work at a time.
But that's just my opinion.

I don’t foresee Subscribers appreciating the price more than doubling just to get some of the pawns sooner.

I'd buy a prepackaged product that contained the adventure and pawns James. I think this would be something that maybe you should see if is possible and if others would want it.

I thought about Marcos idea as well doing the two part release but I don't think that would be something Id be interested in.

I'd buy a prepackaged product that contained the adventure and pawns James. I think this would be something that maybe you should see if is possible and if others would want it.

I thought about Marcos idea as well doing the two part release but I don't think that would be something Id be interested in.

Such a thing already existed with minis instead of pawns. I don't think they were very popular.

Further, they don't want to do box sets like that because they rely heavily on the monthly adventure model, and doing something like that de-incentivizes people from buying the monthly releases. Its also why the big collected editions are very rare.

They need the art for the pawns.

For the art they need to have something the art is for.

It's not usually by skin of their teeth but the AP schedule just doesn't allow for that kind of slack.

Yet for many who run the AP's when they come out, or even during the interim, these pawns can be next to useless.

They're not useless since they don't even exist at that point in time.

Thanks for the update!
I see there is now a pdf version of Pawn collections.

Thanks for the update!

I see there is now a pdf version of Pawn collections.

Well, I have PDFs of all previous Pawn Collections, but this is the first time the PDF is getting separate cover artwork. Interesting.

I wonder who the woman in the center of the print cover artwork is supposed to be. The artwork does not appear in any of the six adventures. Unusual. Does anyone know who she is?

Marco Massoudi wrote:

Thanks for the update!

I see there is now a pdf version of Pawn collections.

Well, I have PDFs of all previous Pawn Collections, but this is the first time the PDF is getting separate cover artwork. Interesting.

I wonder who the woman in the center of the print cover artwork is supposed to be. The artwork does not appear in any of the six adventures. Unusual. Does anyone know who she is?

This was a hiccup in our system which should be resolved now. Sorry for the confusion!

Zaister wrote:

Marco Massoudi wrote:

Thanks for the update!

I see there is now a pdf version of Pawn collections.

Well, I have PDFs of all previous Pawn Collections, but this is the first time the PDF is getting separate cover artwork. Interesting.

I wonder who the woman in the center of the print cover artwork is supposed to be. The artwork does not appear in any of the six adventures. Unusual. Does anyone know who she is?

This was a hiccup in our system which should be resolved now. Sorry for the confusion!

You know, it looked an awful lot like a cover for a Player's Guide...

...did we just glimpse the cover for the Extinction Curse PG?

You know, it looked an awful lot like a cover for a Player's Guide...

...did we just glimpse the cover for the Extinction Curse PG?

Probably not, there were two characters from Age of Ashes on that picture, and also the Age of Ashes Player's Guide did not look anything like the ones of first edition player's guides.

I'm pretty sure that the second image was the original mock up cover.

Still, the question remains, who was that woman? Will we ever know?

ograx wrote:

I'd buy a prepackaged product that contained the adventure and pawns James. I think this would be something that maybe you should see if is possible and if others would want it.

I thought about Marcos idea as well doing the two part release but I don't think that would be something Id be interested in.

Such a thing already existed with minis instead of pawns. I don't think they were very popular.

Yeaaaah, but that was well over a decade ago.. Pathfinder, as a game system, still didn't exist yet.. I also doubt miniatures were as popular as they are now.. Really wish Paizo would give stuff like that a chance again..

Also those minis with adventure were unpainted metal minis.

If nowadays there would be an adventure published with a dozen plastic minis of the encountered monsters, i would buy it instantly.

I like the idea of including 1 or 2 sheets of pawns with each book, but I understand how the additional physical product would jump costs higher.

How about this: Put them at the end of the PDF. This way, subscribers who are running the AP as it's released will have the images they need to print out pawns on cardstock right away, if they so choose. For everyone else, they can wait until 2 months after the AP is finished.

Just my pair of coppers.

Having additional arts and assets would also raise the costs of the subscriptions/PDFs, which would probably not looked kindly upon especially for something that not everyone use.

Weirdly lacking the best NPC in the Adventure Path: Warbal?
I suppose this is only NPCs that the adventure is absolutely sure will be involved in combat, but still :(

I keep getting an error when trying to add this to my cart, anyone else having issues?

I do not see the ability to preorder it either,

How do people use the pdf? I've bought a different pawn collection and the pdf artwork is not good enough for vtt.

is

is ** spoiler omitted ** really not in here? considering he's a major character for the whole AP im confused as to why he didn't get a pawn.

That is because

I don't know if this will be heard by anyone from Paizo, but I purchased this pawn collection thinking that it will contain all the pawns I need to run the game. I'm finding that some of the scenarios have multiple pawns of the same type, i.e. Flame Drakes, and there isn't enough copies to use for the game. This is disappointing. If you are going to make a pawn set specifically for an adventure path, why aren't you including all copies? For the flame drakes scenario, it requires 2. Even if it requires 1 copy from your bestiary pawn collection, Paizo could have included 1 in this collection to complete total needed.

Is this the same for all adventure path pawns? If it is, I would re-consider buying them in the future. Yes I understand you can get the pdf version, but the whole point of the collection is to have them ready made for you.

I don't know if this will be heard by anyone from Paizo, but I purchased this pawn collection thinking that it will contain all the pawns I need to run the game. I'm finding that some of the scenarios have multiple pawns of the same type, i.e. Flame Drakes, and there isn't enough copies to use for the game. This is disappointing. If you are going to make a pawn set specifically for an adventure path, why aren't you including all copies? For the flame drakes scenario, it requires 2. Even if it requires 1 copy from your bestiary pawn collection, Paizo could have included 1 in this collection to complete total needed.

Is this the same for all adventure path pawns? If it is, I would re-consider buying them in the future. Yes I understand you can get the pdf version, but the whole point of the collection is to have them ready made for you.

This is a concern I have as well.

Just on first prep for Hellknight Hill, I purchased the module, pawn collection and started prep. First encounter of chapter 2 requires three goblin dogs. Ok, no goblin dogs in pawn pack so I buy the bestiary box to get the goblin dogs. How many in the bestiary pack.. 1.

I don't really have a desire to buy three bestiary packs at 40 bucks a pop so I can satisfy my OCD to run a module properly. However, because I have OCD, I'm exactly the type to do so.. until I think it's planned that way to soak my funds or due to negligence in planning on release of product.

It's just far more likely that it's a QA issue than a soak the customer issue, and this sort of QA issue with other vendors is what I choose Paizo to avoid in the first place. It's rather disappointing.

Pawn sets have never had all the pawns necessary to run an AP, as that would make them much more expensive. Bestiary boxes also aren't meant for that, as not everybody who buys a bestiary box is going to run AoA so they might get annoyed if precious space is used on multiple of the same pawn they may never use. It's frustrating but the best solution I've found is to buy the PDF version and then you can make your own additional pawns by printing the extras you need on sticker paper and putting that on a pawn you don't need of the same size.

Would be great for the pdfs of these pawn collections to have higher quality art in, or at least the ones that are for APs from before foundry modules.

Images are too tiny and crunchy to pull out for token use, but they do cover a bunch of art missing from the AP pdfs.

Generally would be cool to have the art to make the tokens ourselves for these older APs since the likelihood of getting premium foundry modules seems very close to zero.