Pathfinder Abomination Vaults Battle Cards

Just confirming this is not on backorder. I’ve had a pending purchase for this item for just over a week.
Thank you!

Just confirming this is not on backorder. I’ve had a pending purchase for this item for just over a week.

Thank you!

Paizo orders usually have a sentence indicating a time range in which your order will be shipped. Usually that's in the 10-15 days range.

What does your order say?

LaShana wrote:

Just confirming this is not on backorder. I’ve had a pending purchase for this item for just over a week.

Thank you!

Paizo orders usually have a sentence indicating a time range in which your order will be shipped. Usually that's in the 10-15 days range.

What does your order say?

We have plenty of inventory. The warehouse has been quite busy.

I've been trying to order this through my local game shop, but their distributor isn't even carrying it yet.

Will these become available at the retail store level?

I just received these and I have to say I'm disappointed. The quality of the materials and printing is the excellent. The box is great as well but there are two flaws that really affected ct the practical use of these cards.

1. The font is both spidery and small. Its as if the font size was selected based on how small it had to be for the longest monster entry but most of the cards have significant amounts of blank space that could have been used to increase the font size and make the cards more readable. The font is beautiful but a more readable font would have been preferable.

2. The graphic design of the cards is baffling. All of the monsters are printed on top of larger, semitransparent copies of the same image which only serves to blur and muddle the images of the monsters themselves.

Furthermore, the background of the cards is a dull shade of green which causes the mostly darkly colored monsters to further blend in with the background. This really undercuts the purpose of these cards. If I were to hold these up at a table most of the players wouldn't be able to make out the creature. I'd have to pass the card around so folks can look closely and squint to try an make out the shape & details. Many hours were clearly poured into making the portrait side of these cards very elaborate, but all that effort sadly just makes the cards less useful for thier practical purpose and less aesthetically pleasing to look at for fun. The experience is like going to an art gallery full of dark paintings and the lights have been turned way down.

The idea of these cards is genius and the people behind them are clearly skilled, but the execution has critical flaws that could have been avoided with some good quality control or customer testing.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the stat side - the font is just fine for me. But I have to agree with Schnibbles on the disappointment with the artwork side. The muddy background and the busy border totally detracts from the lovely artwork.

I have to agree, the dark green background detracts from the image, making some of them even a little difficult to separate from the background. I'd prefer a cleaner background, like the Bestiary 1/2/3 battle card background is good (though even those could be lighter)

The background on these doesn't seem all that dark to me. <shrug>

I purchased this box to help run the Abomination Vaults game. Based on the idea that it has all of the monsters in the adventure path, I figured that I didn't need to bring the extra books for the three bestiaries.

Not so. The first set of encounters in Abomination Vaults include interactions with giant fly larvae. No giant fly larvae cards in the box.

Additionally, the adventure path refers to the first critters that are in the adventure path as mitflit gremlins in one place, buried within the text. The rest of the monster headings are called mitflits. The card is for a "gremlin" not mitflit. Not a huge deal, but kind of a disappointment.

What my complaint is about is related to trying to keep the adventure moving forward as the DM. It doesn't help for the DM to be searching for materials when the players are sitting.

When I purchase a premium product, it is disappointing that it is not complete.

First world problem, I know.

However, I do like the cards except for this.

I purchased this box to help run the Abomination Vaults game. Based on the idea that it has all of the monsters in the adventure path, I figured that I didn't need to bring the extra books for the three bestiaries.

Not so. The first set of encounters in Abomination Vaults include interactions with giant fly larvae. No giant fly larvae cards in the box.

Additionally, the adventure path refers to the first critters that are in the adventure path as mitflit gremlins in one place, buried within the text. The rest of the monster headings are called mitflits. The card is for a "gremlin" not mitflit. Not a huge deal, but kind of a disappointment.

What my complaint is about is related to trying to keep the adventure moving forward as the DM. It doesn't help for the DM to be searching for materials when the players are sitting.

When I purchase a premium product, it is disappointing that it is not complete.

First world problem, I know.

However, I do like the cards except for this.

A fly larva is a maggot. The card is titled "mudlicker maggot".

Suggestion: look stuff up in Archives of Nethys as part of your prep, it'll help you catch stuff like this. Also, bring your smartphone to the session.

One thing I did as prep for AV: I went through the box and sorted the critters by level instead of alphabetically.