First of all, thank you Paizo.
Our gaming group is having a blast with the new rules set and I am loving running a heavily modified Second Darkness campaign in the FR my group is familiar with. Since the wider campaign has some dangling plot hooks for various characters that focus on a local dispute between demons and devils I purchased the first Book of the Damned and once again love what I am seeing there for inspiration in our campaign.
My question is this. While I own the hardcover Bestiary I have not yet purchased the pdf of it or the Book of the Damned. As I was looking through both it occurred to me that there might be a way to insert the Book of the Damned monsters into the pdf version of the Bestiary so all my monsters would be in one place.
I know this can be done in pdfs I have created at work but I don't know if this is possible in the Paizo products. It probably has implications for internal links (assuming there are some in the Bestiary pdf) but if it worked it would really reduce the number of paper products I have to bring to the game each week. I could also see adding in the Bonus Bestiary monsters if possible as well.
Anyone know if this can be done?
Pierce
the PDFs are password protected. Your best bet is to just print off the monsters in question and form a book of the monsters you wish to have.
Alas. I had assumed this would be the case but felt I had to ask anyway. I certainly don't mind paying for the pdf but I know too many people in the world feel that it's their right to get free copies of everything.
Given this I guess I probably won't purchase the pdf right away as it doesnt give me any immediate benefit but if Paizo can determine a way to do this and still protect their IP count me in as a supporter and purchaser of dead tree and pdf materials in the future.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Anyone know if this can be done?
Can be done easily, but you will need tools.
Print to PDF (windows PrimoPDF or similar; Mac OS Preview or Skim)
Then use Adobe Acrobat (windows) or Mac OS builtin Preview to combine.
Once that is done you need to optimize them again, which can be done with Adobe Professional (Windows) or PDFShrink (MacOS) and keep in mind your name will still be all over the files so it isn't like you are removing the watermarks plus there will be tons of references to your info that is also inserted into the file.
Thanks for the information James.
Well it sounds possible to do what I had originally asked but as I have been thinking about this a bit it seems to me that there might be a market for a useful e-product here from Paizo. Is there a profitable business model that doesn't tread on plans for their other products in a regularly updated Bestiary .pdf product?
Some background first. I love the Pathfinder rules and Bestiary, buy APs/Chronicles to mine for excellent story/adventure information and use a number of Game Mastery products in my group's campaign. I love Paizo's fluff and find myself adapting it for use in my FR campaign. While I don't need the Golarion specific stuff to run my campaign I would love to have access to the monsters from their various product lines which I can repurpose for my own use in my campaign. I would gladly buy the Bestiary pdf and subscribe (lets say $5/month for arguments sake) to a new product that added the monsters from other Paizo products to the base Bestiary pdf on a monthly/quarterly basis. So for example the base Bestiary file would be updated with the new devils from the first Book of the Damned and whichever AP was released that month. An email is sent out letting you know that a modified pdf is waiting for you to download just like on an errata.
Pros
- The work has been created and can be sold to a customer that wouldn't have purchased it previously for whatever reason.
- The subscription model brings a regular cash stream in the door. A concept Paizo already implements in an excellent manner.
- The IT and delivery system is already in place to hopefully automate the updating procedure and the watermarking system stays in place.
Cons
- Probably undercuts the sales of some hardcover Bestiary sales.
- Reduces opportunities to use those monsters in another Bestiary down the line although I gather that the Golarion specific monsters aren't slated for collection in a Bestiary anytime soon.
- Someone has to update the pdf on a periodic basis.
Maybe I am a pretty small segment of the market and it isn't financially worth catering to for any number of reasons but I would gladly give Paizo more money each month if this could happen.
Pierce