|
| 18 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ. 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey friendly Paizo folks! In case nobody in house keeps track of this stuff (or in case they do, we can compare notes), I thought I'd go ahead and throw up the various equipment-related errata we (the fans) have found that have yet to be made official (for one reason or another, sometimes because the books they're from haven't had a 2nd printing yet). I figure now's as good as time as any, I just hope it's not too late before it hits the printers and we see copy-paste errors:
Pg. 146 - Gauntlet, third sentence says that gauntlets come with all medium and heavy armors except breastplate, but the description of hide armor, a medium armor, also says nothing of containing gauntlets. The piecemeal armor rules in Ultimate Combat also make no mention of gauntlets with hide armor.
Pg. 148 - The net's description doesn't say anything about requiring two hands to be thrown properly, but a series of net-related feats found in Ultimate Combat say just that.
Pg. 149 - Sai, second sentence, says you get a +2 bonus on CMB checks made to sunder an enemy weapon, but in every iteration of the sai from previous editions, the sai grants a +4 bonus to disarm. The disarm special property already grants a +2 bonus to disarm, so it's unknown if this was meant to be an additional +2 to disarm, to bring it up to the normal +4 (because of this, it's possible this may not be an error).
Pg. 494 (WARNING! OBLIGATORY CRB STAFF ERROR MENTION!) - Staves...it's been said before, but just going to say it one more time. The core rulebook calculates staff prices differently from every other book, notably the APG. Other books calculate the price of a staff, and then obtain the cost by dividing that in half. The CRB, on the other hand, calculates this price, but makes this the COST, and then obtains the PRICE by multiplying that figure by 2. This results in the CRB staves being EXTREMELY more expensive compared to the APG staves.
Pg. 515 - Stone Golem Manual, mentions antimagic field being needed to create it, but this spell isn't contained in the book and breaks the norm for how other golem manuals are constructed.
Pg. 529 - Scabbard of Keen Edges, This item doesn't take up a slot, but the APG has two magic items that are scabbards that take up the Belt slot, so either this is in error or the APG's two items are.
Pg. 176 - Brass knuckles, the APG version has not had the updates the Adventurer's Armory has received about removing the stuff about unarmed attacks.
Pg. 176 - Cestus, see brass knuckles above.
Pg. 177 - Chain spear, should get the double special property. Also, one might consider giving it the performance special property since it's described as being a gladiatorial weapon.
Pg. 179 - Agile Breastplate, second sentence, "jump checks" should be changed to "Acrobatics checks made to jump".
Pg. 179 - Agile Half-Plate, should have a sentence saying it includes a set of gauntlets. The Piecemeal armor rules in Ultimate Combat confirm this.
Pg. 180 - Agile Half-Plate, inexplicably weighs more than normal half-plate.
Pg. 183 - Weapon Cord, third sentence, "0 hp" should be changed to "1 hp".
Pg. 187 - Furs, third sentence, "+2 bonus" should be "+2 circumstance bonus".
Pg. 187 - Hot Weather Outfit, third sentence, "+2 bonus" should be "+2 circumstance bonus".
Pg. 284 - Giant-hide armor, second sentence of the description, "can grow to match the size of" should be changed to "can take the form of".
Pg. 288 - Ranged weapon special abilities table, Corrosive burst should be a +2 bonus.
Pg. 296 - Staves, see the core rulebook note above about staves (in case the CRB has the correct prices and it's EVERY OTHER BOOK that doesn't). Additionally, it seems the prices are a little off, anyway, based on how you calculate staff prices.
Pg. 302 - Medium Wondrous Items table, the grappler's mask is only 5,000 gp, and every other wondrous magic item at that price is a minor wondrous item, both in this book and in the core rulebook.
Pg. 307 - Lord's Banner, the construction requirements mention a leadership version of the item, yet no description for such an item exists.
Pg. 309 - Scabbard of Stanching, takes up the belt slot, but the scabbard of keen edges from the core rulebook doesn't take up any slot at all.
Pg. 309 - Scabbard of Vigor, takes up the belt slot, but the scabbard of keen edges from the core rulebook doesn't take up any slot at all.
Pg. 315 - Talisman of reluctant wishes, first sentence, mentions a stone of controlling earth elementals, but no such item exists.
Pg. 317 - Shield of the Sun, should take up the shield slot.
Pg. 45 - Thrown weapon group maybe should include the sibat, since it has a 10 ft. range increment.
Pg. 128 - Lamellar Armor, steel lamellar armor should say something about including a set of gauntlets with it. The Piecemeal armor rules later in the book confirm this.
Pg. 128 - O-Yoroi armor, should say something about including a set of gauntlets with it. The Piecemeal armor rules later in the book confirm this.
Pg. 129 - Eastern armor table, kikko armor is superior to Do-maru armor yet is less expensive than it. While we're on the subject, 30 gp for a +5 AC granting armor is extremely cheap.
Pg. 129 - Eastern armor table, four-mirror armor grants a +6 AC bonus, yet is only 45 gp.
Pg. 129 - Tatami-Do armor, should say something about including a set of gauntlets with it. The Piecemeal armor rules later in the book confirm this.
Pg. 130 - Dan Bong, grants a +2 bonus to CMB to grapple, but because it's a two-handed weapon and thus wouldn't have any hands free, you take a -4 penalty to such checks.
Pg. 132 - Eastern weapons-exotic table, Bo Staff, damage values should be changed to 1d4/1d4 and 1d6/1d6 for Small and Medium bo staves, respectively.
Pg. 132 - Eastern weapons-exotic table, katana, double walking stick, should have its damage type changed to "B, P, or S". Also this weapon has some issues, namely it doesn't mention if the individual blades within are light weapons, if you need wakizashi proficiency to use them, the blade damage, or the blade crit range.
Pg. 132 - Eastern weapons-exotic table, kyoketsu shoge, says it has a range increment of 20 ft., but the attached rope is only 10 ft. Also damage type should be "B, P, or S".
Pg. 137 - Double Hackbut, doesn't mention what it uses for ammo.
Pg. 138 - Early Firearms table, musket, double-barreled, has a range increment of 10 ft. while the single-barreled version of it has a range increment quadruple this amount.
Pg. 139 - Dragon pistol, table statistics back on page 138 and the description on this page have conflicting range increment information.
Pg. 143 - Magical firearm sights, should probably mention that a firearm can only have one sight on it at a time.
Pg. 144 - Scorpion whip, listed as a light weapon, whereas the normal whip is a one-handed weapon, and the scorpion whip that was present in both the Adventurer's Armory and the Legacy of Fire Player's Guide has it listed as a one-handed weapon. Also, the weapon itself should have the trip, disarm, and reach properties like a whip does, but doesn't, though the description says to treat a scorpion whip like a whip if you have proficiency with a whip, which would include these properties, right?
Pg. 145 - Gladiator Weapons table, exotic light melee weapons, the aklys has 1d6 (S) and 1d8 (M) for its damage, but it should probably be 1d4 (S) and 1d6 (M) because: 1) The Adventurer's Armory has it at these values, 2) the aklys is a light weapon, and no light weapon from any book has damage values this high, and 3) the weapon is described as a type of "throwing club" and the actual club weapon is a one-handed weapon (meaning it's bigger) and still only deals 1d4 (S) and 1d6 (M).
Pg. 161 - Siege engines table, the standard bombard and the heavy bombard are the same price.
Pg. 163 - Firewyrm, should mention something about targets catching on fire.
Pg. 163 - Springal, missing its targeting DC.
Pg. 163 - Bombard, the stones for a heavy bombard cost the same as the stones for a standard bombard.
Pg. 164 - Smoke shot, doesn't specify which siege engine uses it, though the word "shot" in its name implies it's used by cannons and fiend's mouth cannons.
Wow, that must have been a lot of work. Let's hope those errata find their way into the book.
Re: Dan Bong...it's not a two-handed weapon; it's a light weapon.
Aside from that, your point is pretty much accurate; the core rulebook says that "unless you have 2 hands free" you take a -4 on grapple checks, and even though it's a light weapon, it takes up a hand, hence giving you the -4. So...with a +2 and a -4, using a Dan Bong is...worse than just grappling with your bare hands, and thus entirely useless.
It should probably state that the +2 bonus replaces the -4 penalty, rather than applying both.
|
|
Re: Dan Bong...it's not a two-handed weapon; it's a light weapon.
Aside from that, your point is pretty much accurate; the core rulebook says that "unless you have 2 hands free" you take a -4 on grapple checks, and even though it's a light weapon, it takes up a hand, hence giving you the -4. So...with a +2 and a -4, using a Dan Bong is...worse than just grappling with your bare hands, and thus entirely useless.
It should probably state that the +2 bonus replaces the -4 penalty, rather than applying both.
Gah! Not sure where I got the two-handed thing from. I must have seen needing 2 hands in my notes and my brain jumped to two-handed weapon.
This is good work, and very unselfish of your time. Thanks (speaking only as a fan and fellow customer).
................
Sleight change of topic.
I wouldn't be entirely sure that the seeming ommission to the metamagic rods from Ultimate Magic wasn't deliberate. The issue being that the rods (whatever rulebook they appear in) represent the ability to "buy" a feat, or at least some portion of it; and that you'd see the taken as a player option a whole lot more if the rods weren't ever introduced in the game.
I have to say, my own actual GMing experiences bears this out. I have seen players specifically not take the feats with the expressed intent of buying a rod later on with cashed in treasure. I have also given m-m feats to mid to high level NPCs and seen a marked improvement in their effectiveness as an opponent, and wondered why players were not taking the feats, or were limiting themselves to the lesser rods they saved their gold pieces for.
Speaking for myself, I'd just as soon they fall off the back of the truck, and going forward whenever I start a new AP or campaign, I house rule them out. But I'm not so passionate I will get into a long protracted forum argument over it. YMMV. :)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
@#$%&*! If the book hadn't gone to print a month ago, I'd totally print this out for an editor and have them check them all. Regardless, Ultimate Equipment includes tons of errata, tinkers, and clarifications. But you can bet that the first time we do an errata for it, we'll check this thread first! Thanks a ton Strife!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You know what would be awesome, as a future web site project? A crowd-sourced errata/typo rating system. Basically my suggestion is that there'd be a hierarchy of forum areas for each product line, then each book.
People would make a thread referencing a single suspected error. The community would then a} comment upon and b} upvote/downvote the alleged error. Threads that get sufficiently upvoted (say... a net score of +25) would be flagged for future Paizo perusal. Threads that don't get sufficiently upvoted don't.
Functionally this would allow Paizo staff to quickly drop into a hierarchy and review community-sourced errors that have already been reasonably vetted for quality-control. Time for the sixth printing of the Core? Before sending that off, an editor hits the appropriate area, finds (say) sixteen threads that have been flagged, reads the first post, and acts. (Acting could involve correcting a typo without further thought, rejecting the error report because of internal knowledge, or reading further discussion regarding the nature of the error.)
Yes, it's more code. But maybe this is something that should be considered for future enhancements, to improve the overall quality of the products Paizo puts out. Just something for the web devs to think about for "some day".
|
|
@ Jim Groves
How very kind of you to think this was unselfish of me when the reality is that I get a kind of disturbing high from fact checking rules ;)
@ F. Wesley Schneider
You're very welcome and I was happy to do it. Just wish I had had the idea a month ago. When that time does come around, though, for UE's 2nd printing, by all means dig this thread up but by then you can bet there will also be a dedicated forum thread for UE errata by us nit-picky regulars (I'm looking at chopswil and astral wanderer).
@ Helaman
Right after UM's recent errata, I posted a post in the errata thread for that book that was similar to this one; a list of all overlooked errors behind a spoiler tag. SKR was a gentleman and a scholar and took the time to break down each bullet point and reply to the whole bloody thing. I think it's clear that they do use the fans for fact check help (to ignore error threads would just be stupid), I just think that when an error thread starts to hit its 10th page, trudging through every post for boo-boos is a task only OCD shut-ins like myself can get excited about. I plan to make similar posts like the one I did for UM in the other unofficial errata threads for the other books, and hopefully having it all in one place will be helpful for them. I think it'd be cool if they contacted me before another printing is about to be made, like chopswil suggested, so I could share notes but I could see reasons for them not doing this.
Perhaps the most direct way of getting such things to the editors would be a private message they could print out. I just like putting them in forum threads also to give others the chance to update their stuff.
You know what would be awesome, as a future web site project? A crowd-sourced errata/typo rating system. Basically my suggestion is that there'd be a hierarchy of forum areas for each product line, then each book.
People would make a thread referencing a single suspected error. The community would then a} comment upon and b} upvote/downvote the alleged error. Threads that get sufficiently upvoted (say... a net score of +25) would be flagged for future Paizo perusal. Threads that don't get sufficiently upvoted don't.
Functionally this would allow Paizo staff to quickly drop into a hierarchy and review community-sourced errors that have already been reasonably vetted for quality-control. Time for the sixth printing of the Core? Before sending that off, an editor hits the appropriate area, finds (say) sixteen threads that have been flagged, reads the first post, and acts. (Acting could involve correcting a typo without further thought, rejecting the error report because of internal knowledge, or reading further discussion regarding the nature of the error.)
Yes, it's more code. But maybe this is something that should be considered for future enhancements, to improve the overall quality of the products Paizo puts out. Just something for the web devs to think about for "some day".
I think that you're overestimating the constituency for errata. I spent hours making this epic post and as of right now? "1 person marked this as a FAQ candidate." That's not a complaint -- I did it for fun! Even if nothing ever comes of it, I enjoyed rounding up those trap spell cats and making them perform tricks for me. I'm just saying, +25 is pretty optimistic. ;)
|
|
I think that you're overestimating the constituency for errata. I spent hours making this epic post and as of right now? "1 person marked this as a FAQ candidate." That's not a complaint -- I did it for fun! Even if nothing ever comes of it, I enjoyed rounding up those trap spell cats and making them perform tricks for me. I'm just saying, +25 is pretty optimistic. ;)You know what would be awesome, as a future web site project? A crowd-sourced errata/typo rating system. Basically my suggestion is that there'd be a hierarchy of forum areas for each product line, then each book.
People would make a thread referencing a single suspected error. The community would then a} comment upon and b} upvote/downvote the alleged error. Threads that get sufficiently upvoted (say... a net score of +25) would be flagged for future Paizo perusal. Threads that don't get sufficiently upvoted don't.
Functionally this would allow Paizo staff to quickly drop into a hierarchy and review community-sourced errors that have already been reasonably vetted for quality-control. Time for the sixth printing of the Core? Before sending that off, an editor hits the appropriate area, finds (say) sixteen threads that have been flagged, reads the first post, and acts. (Acting could involve correcting a typo without further thought, rejecting the error report because of internal knowledge, or reading further discussion regarding the nature of the error.)
Yes, it's more code. But maybe this is something that should be considered for future enhancements, to improve the overall quality of the products Paizo puts out. Just something for the web devs to think about for "some day".
Fun Fact: I was that one person
Fun Fact: I was that one person
And thank you!! But it kind of proves my point, that there aren't many people who are interested in errata. I fear that an Urban Dictionary kind of mechanism would just be the handful of us saying "Yeah, that was a good one!"
To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in community-errata reports now because there's not much sign that it's going to be incorporated in future printings. I see occasional typos in books and don't bother to report them because I get the feeling it's not going to be acted on.
I get it there's no revenue stream from errata. I even accept that. But in an ideal world someone would be working with FAQs and errata threads and live-updating the PRD and Paizo's master copies of books so that Paizo employees are always accessing the latest, most correct copy. And if a reprint happens, by definition it'd be the latest copy going to print. Again, ideal-world scenario.
So anyway, that's why I typically don't post in errata threads. I'd be surprised if I'm unique.
|
|
@ Anguish
You're definitely not unique in that regard. But whether or not it ends up in the official product is really just an after thought for me. My priority is making sure my players are playing with as perfect a product as possible and that the rules in front of them make sense and I can feel satisfied that the game I'm commanding is immaculate. Can people play without complete errata? Of course, and technically speaking 100% of people do, but that doesn't mean I don't want to strive for an error free game. To me it is a testament to how important this particular game, Pathfinder, is to me. I'd be surprised if I'm unique.
|
|
Heh, I'll take that as a compliment. I suppose there is truth to your words. The killing point for me and my relationship with wizards of the coast was a little before 4e, when they released that Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords nonsense (I'll tolerate a lot of things power creep related, but not introducing new classes that make previous staple classes obsolete [coughthefightercough]).
If you go to wizard's website and find their official D&D updates page, the Tome of Battle has an errata document. Upon downloading it, you'll see about 3 or 4 items on the front page that are actually for that book. The remainder of that page as well as the entirety of the page after it is errata for their Complete Mage product. They seemed to have copy-pasted another book's errata document for formatting convenience, started editing it, and then just gave up or forgot or something and slapped it on their website. Because Tome of Battle is 3.5 and was printed right at the twilight of that edition's life cycle (hell, the rules introduced in that book were a prototype for 4e rules), they saw no reason to really care about it any further. What's funny to me is that it's still there.
That was around the time I discovered Paizo, and it was a revelation.
I see occasional typos in books and don't bother to report them because I get the feeling it's not going to be acted on.
Your feeling is mistaken.
Just because the official errata for our books doesn't include corrections of non-game-affecting typos doesn't mean we disregard corrections that don't affect the game rules. For example, if we find a word is mistakenly bold, we fix that in the next printing... but we don't list it in the official errata for the book.
In other words, when we compile a list of changes for a new printing, that list includes EVERYTHING that needs to be changed in the book. But before we publish the errata document, we take out things like "remove the extra space after the name 'Ezren' on page 135" and "change 'Merisial' to 'Merisiel' on page 227."
But in an ideal world someone would be working with FAQs and errata threads and live-updating the PRD and Paizo's master copies of books so that Paizo employees are always accessing the latest, most correct copy. And if a reprint happens, by definition it'd be the latest copy going to print. Again, ideal-world scenario.
The PRD is intended to be a reflection of what we've put into print. Since FAQs and unofficial errata threads aren't what is seen in print (at least not until the developers have sorted through it all for the next printing), this is unlikely to ever happen. Not to mention it would be someone on the tech team that would be updating it, not a developer, simply because of how that section of the site is set up and maintained.
On the production side of things, constantly updating our printer files and documents would require constant upkeep and increases the amount of potential errors (someone accidentally overwriting something, InDesign files with copy extending bounding boxes, never being sure if something is "finished" and OK to export). We version out each printing so we can quickly reference changes.
This is probably more than you want to know, but it's currently not ideal for our workflow.
Heh, I'll take that as a compliment. I suppose there is truth to your words. The killing point for me and my relationship with wizards of the coast was a little before 4e, when they released that Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords nonsense (I'll tolerate a lot of things power creep related, but not introducing new classes that make previous staple classes obsolete [coughthefightercough]).
If you go to wizard's website and find their official D&D updates page, the Tome of Battle has an errata document. Upon downloading it, you'll see about 3 or 4 items on the front page that are actually for that book. The remainder of that page as well as the entirety of the page after it is errata for their Complete Mage product. They seemed to have copy-pasted another book's errata document for formatting convenience, started editing it, and then just gave up or forgot or something and slapped it on their website. Because Tome of Battle is 3.5 and was printed right at the twilight of that edition's life cycle (hell, the rules introduced in that book were a prototype for 4e rules), they saw no reason to really care about it any further. What's funny to me is that it's still there.
That was around the time I discovered Paizo, and it was a revelation.
off-topic: They did not make fighters obsolete. Fighters and Barbarians still did more damage. ToB characters just had different things.
A lot of people were just using fighters for dipping anyway. If a class is a dip class...I do think they should have fixed ToB's errata though. They had to know about it, and the fact that it never got fixed says a lot about them as a company. Most likely some "suit" that does not care about gaming made that decision though.
I see occasional typos in books and don't bother to report them because I get the feeling it's not going to be acted on.Your feeling is mistaken.
Just because the official errata for our books doesn't include corrections of non-game-affecting typos doesn't mean we disregard corrections that don't affect the game rules. For example, if we find a word is mistakenly bold, we fix that in the next printing... but we don't list it in the official errata for the book.
In other words, when we compile a list of changes for a new printing, that list includes EVERYTHING that needs to be changed in the book. But before we publish the errata document, we take out things like "remove the extra space after the name 'Ezren' on page 135" and "change 'Merisial' to 'Merisiel' on page 227."
Perhaps this is the wrong thread, but are there plans to ever include all non-typo the changes from previous editions in the errata documents? There seems to be a number of "duh" changes that aren't included in the errata, but are very useful to know nonetheless.
Things like summon monster I now not including riding dogs, the light spell specifying it works from where touched, and all divine prepared casters being able to leave slots open, rather than just clerics. Those sorts of things do change the game within their spheres of influence, but aren't noted in the errata documents. I can only assume there are many more instances of this where the changes really do change the game, but aren't mentioned. It's just really hard to find those, as you have to know the previous text word for word, and then completely re-read the core rulebook.
{Things like summon monster I now not including riding dogs,}
That's in the errata.
{the light spell specifying it works from where touched,}
I guess Jason didn't consider that enough of a rules update to merit inclusion in the public errata.
{and all divine prepared casters being able to leave slots open, rather than just clerics.}
Ditto.
{Things like summon monster I now not including riding dogs,}
That's in the errata.
{the light spell specifying it works from where touched,}
I guess Jason didn't consider that enough of a rules update to merit inclusion in the public errata.
{and all divine prepared casters being able to leave slots open, rather than just clerics.}
Ditto.
Riding Dog: it was in the errata for SNA, but not for SM. Would it be safe to assume, for later errata, that changes to creatures on one list that are in both should be applied to the other list? Of course, without the *.
And that's a pity. The reason for the request is so that the PRD and 3rd party sites like d20pfsrd have an easier job of getting the correct information shown.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Riding Dog: it was in the errata for SNA, but not for SM. Would it be safe to assume, for later errata, that changes to creatures on one list that are in both should be applied to the other list? Of course, without the *.
Ah, I see. It's been errata'd in the printed book for both spells. I'll tell Jason that the errata doesn't list it for SM.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The PF community is an untapped resource that works tirelessly and for free. We also happen to be the customer base...
Wouldn't it make sense that we are able to dedicate our volunteer hours to pushing edits through and assisting in interaction appraisal?
Just seems smart business to put such a model forward...
BTW we changed all those scabbard items to slotless, because if they have to compete with the stat-boosting items, they'll lose.
{Wouldn't it make sense that we are able to dedicate our volunteer hours to pushing edits through and assisting in interaction appraisal?}
As great as it seems, crowdsourcing proofreading and editing comes with a host of problems and isn't actually very efficient.
|
|
As great as it seems, crowdsourcing proofreading and editing comes with a host of problems and isn't actually very efficient.
I think I agree. I've never felt we should be doing anybody's actual job. My attitude is to find an error, post an error. It's for the fans, but mostly, for me. If a developer agrees, more power to me.
As great as it seems, crowdsourcing proofreading and editing comes with a host of problems and isn't actually very efficient.
Sean, I may or may not have caught your attention as a generally "SKR is great" cheerleader, but this is one where I've got to take your words contrary to the way you intend them.
You're right. It isn't very efficient. But it could well be very effective.
Paizo's efforts are good. The sheer number of words that get written and edited every month is very high, and the percentage errors are very low. I grant that. I am NOT an unhappy customer. That said, there is a mostly untapped pool of potential correction that could drive the percentage errors even lower.
If OLED lighting doesn't brighten up a room "enough", incandescent may be the answer, even if it's less efficient.
I'll reiterate... I know there's no revenue stream here. I know Paizo's a for-profit company. I'm comfortable with the way things are. This is not criticism, it's just discourse on a topic. Think of it like helping optimize someone's character sheet; no tangible benefit personally, but interesting as a challenge.
Finally, thanks for going up-periscope and hanging out with us unwashed masses. Maybe I've picked the wrong threads recently, but it's been quiet without you. I know people are sometimes more argumentative and abusive than they should be and it might put a dent in the desire-to-be-public drive, but hey. You and all the rest of the Paizo staff are by and large very appreciated.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Something can be EFFECTIVE and still be horribly INEFFICIENT. So much so that any benefit from its effectiveness is more than offset by its inefficiency.
Take a look at the errata thread for Bestiary 2. Count how many times a person posts that they've found and error, and then someone else comes along and points out Obscure Rule X, which means the printed monster is correct and the OP is wrong.
It's a lot of times.
Every time someone posted an "errata" for that book, I checked it. Yes, people caught some errors.
But people also incorrectly reported correct things as errors, which other posters corrected (as in, "dude, that's not an error").
And they also falsely reported correct things as errors, which other posters DIDN'T correct (in other words, I saw how the OP got it wrong and nobody else did).
And they reported "errors" which are actually a person reverse-engineering the monster's skill ranks and putting them in the wrong skills (as in, "This monster is overspent by 3 skill ranks" because the monster has ranks in a class skill and the poster didn't put any reverse-engineered ranks in that skill, and thus couldn't account for the +3 class skill bonus).
But whether they were right or wrong, I still had to go thoroughly examine the monster to see if it was right or wrong. Which is what I do as part of my development pass.
In other words, a "public copyedit" like this means I spent a week (or more, almost certainly more) re-doing work I've already done, just to make sure the "errors" are actually errors.
Redoing work I've already done is not efficient. Filtering out false "errors" is not efficient. Teaching people obscure bits of the rules in the last week of a book's production is not efficient. Explaining to people that a public copyedit is not a playtest and not the place to give suggestions about how a rule should work is not efficient.
So... I appreciate the sentiment of "let's crowdsource the editing, we'll catch more typos and make the books better," and while crowdsourcing may be effective at catching a few typos that weren't caught in the four passes by professional editors, I've been doing this for a long time and I can assure you that it is not an efficient way to get a book finished in any reasonable timeline.
|
This sounds Ike a simple "signal to noise ratio" (SNR) problem. You are getting good signal (correct errata found by skilled readers, like the OP), but it is lost in the "noise" of bad errata found by enthusiastic amateurs.
Why not boost the gain? Crowd source, but only to proven "high reliability" proof readers. Pick some people who can find the errata, unpaid, and flag it for your staff to review. I'm sure you can find all sort of volunteers, who are accurate enough to be useful.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
What part of my daily work responsibilities should I let slide so I can find time to find and train a group of (unpaid) volunteers so they may scour (300-page) books (in a period of one week) for typos (which four professional editors missed) and report them to me in a usable fashion (with a reasonable and trustworthy level of accuracy that I don't have to check all their work)?
C'mon, guys. I've given a lot of thought to this. So has everyone else at Paizo. I overthink everything I do in the hopes of trying to find a more efficient way to do it. I spent hundreds of hours writing a 340 MB Excel stat block spreadsheet so our freelancers and staffers could save thousands of hours creating correctly-formatted stat blocks. I wrote a 12,000-word document of advice for freelancers so their turnovers are more accurate, properly styled, and avoid common design pitfalls, so that I and the other developers and editors don't have to spend time fixing those things.
Creating a book from start to finish involves (at minimum) an in-house designer to champion it/create its outline/coordinate freelancers, a publisher to agree that the book is sellable/should be on the production schedule, three or more freelancers to actually write it (and I can't remember the last book I worked on that had fewer than five authors, ARG had 12), three developers to clean up and tune up the freelancer turnovers, four editors to read and edit the book, a graphic designer to order the art/do the layout, five or more artists to do the art (ARG had more than 20), and four company officers to give it a final read-through to catch things at the last minute (which often runs into the late hours of the night on deadline day).
Do you really think adding MORE people to this process is ever going to be simple? (Keep in mind this would also involve at least two more staffers: a production specialist to create the master PDF, and a digital products specialist to create the download-friendly PDF and make it available on the paizo.com accounts of the offsite readers.)
I've been in this industry full-time for 13 years. I've seen the "let the fans help editing!" idea come up time and again. And the evidence and experience still falls firmly on the side of "it won't work." If it worked, there would be game publishers doing it successfully by now.
I'm sorry that's the case, and I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm, but the minimal increase in typo-catching is not worth the added stress on our schedule, workflow, and employee mental health.
And I'm saying that as a person who gets furious and embarrassed whenever we find a typo, especially if I can tell it's something I should have caught. I'm saying the stress of that is far less than the stress of trying to make unpaid non-employee offsite copyedit passes a workable solution.
Thanks for the insight, Sean.
Y'know, I've always wondered whether you guys plug the monsters into Herolab (or some other software) as part of the double-check process. Is there any automated step when creating an NPC or monster block to make sure that, at least at first blush, the numbers match?
|
|
Sorry Sean, I didn't realize this was such a sore point with you. What I meant, though, was why train ANYONE? If you had a forum/mailing list/whatever that was only posted to by a subset of fans who could be relied upon enough that what they were posting were more likely than not to be good errors, then all you'd have to do is look at it occasionally. And even if you flat out IGNORED it, at least it would give people a place to feel like they were helping...
I'd imagine quite a few "fans" are themselves professional copy-editors (or equivalent occupations), who would be more than happy to donate their time.
They have in house software. It might be that excel document he is talking about.
I think the software does the math as long as the correct numbers are plugged in, similar to spreadsheets that help people figure out taxes.
Sorry Sean, I didn't realize this was such a sore point with you. What I meant, though, was why train ANYONE? If you had a forum/mailing list/whatever that was only posted to by a subset of fans who could be relied upon enough that what they were posting were more likely than not to be good errors, then all you'd have to do is look at it occasionally. And even if you flat out IGNORED it, at least it would give people a place to feel like they were helping...
I'd imagine quite a few "fans" are themselves professional copy-editors (or equivalent occupations), who would be more than happy to donate their time.
I think the idea has already come up and been shut down from what I read in his post. Even with the free help their work would also have to be checked, and having people feel like they are helping is not really any good.
What happens when helper A catches something, but it gets ignored? He will then be upset that his time was wasted. In short going through the trouble of selecting people to ignore is just not productive, and outsourcing is not the answer, probably for more reasons than he is even listing.
He is not saying more errors will not be caught with more eyes. He is saying the number of errors caught won't make up for the other negatives that will come along with it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Y'know, I've always wondered whether you guys plug the monsters into Herolab (or some other software) as part of the double-check process. Is there any automated step when creating an NPC or monster block to make sure that, at least at first blush, the numbers match?
All freelancers and designers are required to use my spreadsheet to create their stat blocks. Failure to do so counts as "you have not provided a complete turnover."
I'm pretty sure the spreadsheet predates HeroLab, or at least the implementation of PF rules in HeroLab (first spreadsheet version is dated 1/1/09). However, I've about reached the limit of Excel functionality, and rather than adding new features to the spreadsheet I'm going to start providing extensive feedback to the HeroLab guys so they can get their software to the level where we can use it instead of the spreadsheet.
What I meant, though, was why train ANYONE? If you had a forum/mailing list/whatever that was only posted to by a subset of fans who could be relied upon enough that what they were posting were more likely than not to be good errors, then all you'd have to do is look at it occasionally.
"Fans who could be relied upon" requires either training them or evaluating their level of skill at these matters.
And even if you flat out IGNORED it, at least it would give people a place to feel like they were helping...
Heh, my participation in this thread was to dispel the misconception that we ignore corrections to typos. And I made my posts so people would understand that we aren't ignoring you. :) So setting up a forum or mailing list to gather this sort of info, then ignoring it, sorta defeats the purpose... :)
|
However, I've about reached the limit of Excel functionality, and rather than adding new features to the spreadsheet I'm going to start providing extensive feedback to the HeroLab guys so they can get their software to the level where we can use it instead of the spreadsheet.
This makes me very happy.
Sean, a couple things. First, again, thanks for the discourse. Second, just to be clear I'm not talking about new books. I'm talking about errata for reprints. I know some of your points still apply, but time-pressure isn't one of them. There could be a year or more before a Bestiary is reprinted.
Also, I didn't mean to imply that you should be devoting any of your time to managing this. In the ideal world, Paizo would have some surplus of (qualified) staffing to enable a project like this. Just as I'm sure Gary and the web guys don't have the time to implement a proper system, you dev guys don't have the time to accept its input. I get that. This is hypothetical if-only talk. Again, I get it... it's not going to happen at least in part because it's not revenue-generating. But I wanted to be clear that I'm not suggesting an existing staffer with 100% utilization add more to their plates.
Finally, I get it... you take pride in your work. It shows. You're mortified if a typo gets through. That reflects well upon you. Just so long as typos that would have been caught by crowd-sourced errata aren't allowed through into second printings, we're cool. If we could have - would have - caught (many of) them, then that's equally shameful... a waste. All I'm trying to say is that this is (in my opinion) a worthwhile - if utterly unachievable currently - goal, as opposed to a Bad Idea.
|
|
Finally, I get it... you take pride in your work. It shows. You're mortified if a typo gets through. That reflects well upon you. Just so long as typos that would have been caught by crowd-sourced errata aren't allowed through into second printings, we're cool. If we could have - would have - caught (many of) them, then that's equally shameful... a waste. All I'm trying to say is that this is (in my opinion) a worthwhile - if utterly unachievable currently - goal, as opposed to a Bad Idea.
That's not exactly fair, though. Crowd-sourced proof reading will CATCH all the mistakes, but it will ALSO catch many, many things that aren't mistakes. It's hardly "shameful" to not dedicate significant resources to sorting through hundreds of errata submissions...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Anguish, I'm not sure where you got the impression that customer-found typos aren't included in the errata for later printings. They most certainly are included. My very first post in this thread (a reply to you) is correcting the (mistaken) idea that reporting typos in printed books is pointless.
What I've been talking about here for the past couple of days is regarding the suggestion of crowdsourcing the copyedit stage of the book--which is part of the process of getting a book finished and ready to publish and print for the first time.
I haven't been talking about errata for a printed book. That sort of errata is practically easy by comparison. Making errata changes doesn't have the same time pressure that making last-minute changes to the first-print of a book has. When people spot typos in printed books, we DO investigate and DO note if it needs to be changed. I'd say most of the corrections in later printings happen because a customer found a problem and told us about it.
What I said on the matter was this:
Perhaps I'm too deep in editor terminology to realize that what I was saying isn't perfectly clear, so let me restate it again in the hopes of true clarity:
• Crowdsourcing the editing and proofing of a book before it goes to print is impractical and inefficient.
• Crowdsourcing typo-finding (and other error-finding) in printed books is very valuable and useful to us and we appreciate you pointing out any problems you find so we may fix them.
|
This makes me very happy.However, I've about reached the limit of Excel functionality, and rather than adding new features to the spreadsheet I'm going to start providing extensive feedback to the HeroLab guys so they can get their software to the level where we can use it instead of the spreadsheet.
+1
+1+1
+1
+1
SKR gets a cookie!
Just a couple that I noticed from Ultimate Combat...
I've brought them up in earlier UC errata threads, but might as well mention them here.
The Double-barreled Musket indicates a range of 10ft, which has to be an error as the double-barreled pistol has a range of 20ft (the exact same as it's single barreled counterpart).
Therefore, it makes sense that the double-barreled musket should have a 40ft range. EDIT: Sorry Strife, I missed this in your original post
Also weapon related... the Tetsubo.
It should be a Martial weapon, not exotic. Nothing about it's mechanics at all indicate it should cost a EWP feat to use.
In the same book, we have the No-Daichi which is 18-20 threat range (proven superior to x4) and also does 1d10 damage with the addition of the Deadly quality. This is a martial weapon.
In comparison, the Tetsubo does 1d10 x4 damage and has no special qualities. Nevermind that it is essentially a glorified club, no matter how you spin it (that's a different discussion though).
My suggestion would be to either make it a martial weapon, or increase it's base damage dice to 1d12 (similar to the 3.5 Greathammer) and keep it exotic.
While that is true, being successful as a business is a prerequisite for having typos to find. So, they put off releasing pdfs until after the books have shipped, in order to maximize subscribers & minimize pirates (except of the Skull & Shackles kind).
If you want to find typos, it would be best to release the pdf before sending the book to the printers. Because the people who buy the pdf will go over it and find most of the errors for free.
This is a noble sentiment, but not actually true, and would not have a significant impact on the book's quality, and would adversely affect the stress on the staff and production schedule. See the discussion earlier in this thread, starting here.