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Agh. I cannot do these three slot days anymore. I'll hit up Scourge of Farheaven tonight, but man am I glad to not have a full schedule the rest of the weekend.
This morning was The Bloodcove Blockade, with a wonderful party that protected my 4th level oracle in the high tier. He will think of them fondly for the profit they brought to the Exchange.
The break between slots was non-existent. I was able to run upstairs and get swapped out, but the "grab a table, any table" running into "wait, we're closing the wall here" was less than ideal. Thankfully, my crew ran through the NPCs in Torrent's Last Will like a tidal wave, so we finished up an hour ahead of the slot end. Now it is time to get ready for Scourge of Farheaven.
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Been a good afternoon after the GCP seminar. It was good to see the faces of the yahoos that I’ve been listening to for about 6 months.
From 1pm to 6pm or so I joined the 10000 Lakes team in running some org play during the Paizo break. Ran a table of Faction’s Favor ACG for a few peeps. I haven’t played a lot of this season (yet), but we had to play 4-1C 3 times before we could beat it. It has a certain mechanic that railed us good.
That was my 1 to 6 slot, I had about 1/2 an hour before my 7pm PACG Open Tournament Qualifying Round play. We ran to Taco Hell (across the street) and were quickly back with food that a billy goat wouldn’t eat, but I did.
The PACG Open tourney was hard (no spoilers)...but I lucked into a really good group including Tyler Beck, who ran a bomb ACG table for me last year. Our other two players, Chuck and Luke, were skilled enough to overcome my bad plays. We ‘won’ with one round to play, but don’t know if our point total will be enough for us to get to the final rounds.
Now hanging at the bar, relaxing and trying to clear out the ACG cobwebs from intense concentration that tier 6 ACG play involves...including both maths and words.
Saw my old friend (and former Bay Area VL) Joshua Archer who brought his two sons to their first PaizoCon. Good on him. Pass on the love of gaming.
Anyone who’s had access to playing a cleric in the play test, how is the cantrips?
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I had the pleasure of my very first PFS game ever yesterday afternoon at GM Hmm's table (4-19 Night March of Kalkimedes).
It was so much fun! Thanks for breaking me in to Society play, and for putting up with my noob questions!
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So, for my daily recap.
The morning was surprise (he swag bag) and endings... mostly of Absalom and a certain God of Humanity that was merely in hiding.... something that was totally non-canonical, but should have been. Or not... depends on if you liked Absalom.
10,000 Lakes Gaming afternoon was a grand success... and we only burned Cayden’s Hall down twice, I think. If the fire never goes completely out, it is still one fire?
Evening was interesting, was scheduled to run SFS 1-12, but there were not enough signups. Found out they overbooked 9-14, and needed someone to run a table, and since I had my stuff (sans minis) with me for HMM, I ran it. So much a Fun!
Spent a couple of hours when I should have been sleeping chatting with Adam Daigle, Michael Sayers, Louis, and Dehning...among others. Most about stuff. And the fact that we all had worked too much food service.
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I got to do my first 2e playtest yesterday in a game run by Mark (and actually the first 2e delve at the Con, also run by Mark). Good news is it still felt very much like Pathfinder. The switch from different modes didn’t feel like a new rule to me, but exactly how I’d have done it before.
I do wonder whether the change in initiative will be more difficult for PBP, since we won’t be able to simply have an initiative macro set up. I think the tiers of successes, which I like a lot, could also complicate things a bit in PBP.
Using knowledge checks to identify a monster now is an action. That and several other aspects made it feel like it took a little more time to get combat set up (if you need to pull your weapon, close to melee and raise your shield, your not going to attack that round), which was interesting. I found myself having to make a lot of difficult choices playing Kyra in terms of do I use an action to maintain bless or let the spell go to do a full channel to heal and harm.
I really liked the weapon traits. I wanted to plan my attack strategy to make the best use of my scimitar, which gave me +1 on the second (and third if I got to that) for I targeted as I swept it around. That was true even when my first attack with using my heap spell against an undead and not using the scimitar at all.
Dying rules confused me. We ran on harder mode, as we requested, so experienced a lot of the dying rules. I think they work but they’re a bit confusing (you can have positive hit points but still have the dying condition and be unconcscious). I need to read them to get a better grasp.
Hoping to do a couple more delves over the rest of the weekend.
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Contributor
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I signed up for four back-to-back games yesterday, and I actually survived! After the PACG playtest and Skitter Shot (oh my god, I can’t wait to run this on Free RPG Day!), I played in a Torg game with Ron Lundeen that was super fun! That was my second time playing Torg, and it’s a really neat system! My last game of the day was Broken Lattice with Michael Sayre, in the City of Seven Seraphs setting. I did some work for the setting, but this was my first chance to play in it, and Michael ran an absolutely epic game!
After all that, I went to the bar to meet up with fellow Freelance Forge writers! It was so wonderful to chat with everyone, and I can’t recommend this group enough if you’re looking to break into freelancing. Also, come to our panel today at 3!
One last thing before my morning slot GMing the Starfinder Quests. I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the love people have for the morlamaws. Shaudius brought me a morlamaw Hellknight T-shirt, Crystal Malarsky and Arc Riley, both did morlamaw cosplay in walrus pajamas, and I’ve seen really cool minis that several people have made. I’m so glad that people enjoy them!
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10,000 Lakes Gaming afternoon was a grand success... and we only burned Cayden’s Hall down twice, I think. If the fire never goes completely out, it is still one fire?
The event didn’t result in the convention being burnt to the ground as many predicted, and I had fun too. Thanks to you and the Minn Crew for making it happen.
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I got to do my first 2e playtest yesterday in a game run by Mark (and actually the first 2e delve at the Con, also run by Mark). Good news is it still felt very much like Pathfinder. The switch from different modes didn’t feel like a new rule to me, but exactly how I’d have done it before.
+1 to the this 2e review here. Thanks Motte. I hope we get more. Awesome.
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After my ACG Open tourney slot end at 9:30 or so, I told others and fully intended to go to bed....which is how I end up at the bar until 12:30 or so. I left early but there was a ton of yahoos still enjoying themselves.
I met a new friend, Gavin from Australia. He’s from the west side of the country in a small city in the middle of the freakin’ desert, probably surrounded by giant spiders and the notorious vampire-Roos. He’s been PbPing for longer than I have and that’s how he usually interacts with any gaming community. We had a long chat about why we like PbP and almost got Greg Vaughn to admit that it might not suck. Also, he bought me a beer, which was pretty keen.
I had more time to hang out with Josh Archer, Dragnmoon, and thistledown chatting about all sorts of crap.
THEN, the Glass Cannon Podcast yahoos showed up and it got even busier. Yeah, I saw Troy, Joe, Grant, Skid, & even Matthew for a bit. They held court, were infinity approachable and nice.
I ran into my old friend Vickie Moore. She and I used to game in Living Greyhawk and early PFS. I haven’t seen or played with her in about seven years or so. She was one of my favorite community members back in the day. She loves the GCP and says that it has brought her back into the community and this is her first PaizoCon. We chatted for about an hour.
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A little pink-haired gnome — the one that runs the pop-up tea stand outside the Lorespire Complex — shouts, “There’s a new mini-faction for Starfinder that’s all about welcoming people and guess what! The new VC is a gnome who’s so much like me that we’re practically sisters! Yay!”
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota
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So this convention has passed by in a blur so far, but Painlord said to me yesterday, “What do you think of the number, ZERO. You really must love that number!”
Ah, Painlord. That was because I had posted zero times on PaizoCon Bloggery yesterday.
So here are great things that happened so far:
- I had my five star confirmation game with TOZ, Silbeg, Keith Apperson, Bret, Cartmanbeck and Linda Zayas-Palmer. The party was full of gnomes, wayangs, leshies and even a halfling Hellknight. They entertained me so much in Down the Verdant Path. Oh, and Linda tells me that I passed, and can be considered a five star GM now! Woot!
★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★
- I’ve met many wonderful friends here and have given and gotten so many hugs!
- Got to try the Playtest in the Delve. Our table was great, with Mark Siefert as our GM, and three other VCs at the table. I got to play Seelah the Paladin, and I’ve got to say that there were some great surprises. All the characters had so many feats, and Seelah’s Street Urchin past gave her a really surprising and refreshing ability on her chronicle sheet. We played with pregens of the wizard, paladin, cleric and alchemist. The alchemist managed to cause some bad conditions on the bad guy, and helped Seelah set up for a massive crit because I made my attack by more than ten. Then when I slashed into the Zombie, my attack did extra damage, which somehow felt cooler than just overcoming DR. The whole game felt completely different and fresh.
Things to note: they are experimenting with different sorts of character sheets and formats for the pregens. The pregens that we saw are only one type that they are testing, and they let us try out interesting things with shields and reactions. Still — we picked things up pretty easily, and we could get a glimpse of the modularity inherent in the 2E style. I’ve been excited about some aspects of the Playtest, but for the first time I am really excited about the game as a whole as I saw how our characters interacted and worked together. Gang, this is a game that’s going to be totally worth trying out. Get ye to the Delve!
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota
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Hmm’s summation of PaizoCon of her Friday PaizoCon games
MORNING
Friday was a little nuts for me. I GMed two slots in a row. My morning slot was Fallen Family, Broken Name, which had Cheryl and Paul Rubenis in it and some other great players, including one brand new to Organized Play. We had great fun, and I loved seeing their reaction to their quests. Cheryl — who is Silbeg’s sister — made a point of telling everyone that I was a newly minted 5 star GM, and my party cheered for me.
UNIFORM for PAIZO MORNING SLOT — PURPLE GM SHIRT
AFTERNOON
In the afternoon I GM with the 10,000 Lakes crew, and My Night March in Kalkamedes table was fantastic. Many were fairly new to Society Player, and it was Haladir’s first time ever playing PFS. I loved seeing them solve puzzles and explore the map I had drawn while on the train coming here.
The afternoon slot was great overall, and we had tons of enthusiasm from everyone over our unoffical convention offerings. My one complaint was that there was no break between the morning and afternoon slots, and I would have fallen over had Bret not brought me a sandwich. Still, both tables were fabulous.
UNIFORM for 10,000 LAKES AFTERNOON SLOT — TEAL & WHITE 10,000 Lakes Gaming Shirt with Sheila Heidmarch Tiara.
Fortunately our games ended early enough that we were able to get a real sit-down meal at the Mango Thai with Worg, Nomadical, Rosc, Bret and myself before the evening slot.
EVENING
I had a panic attack. I finally get to my convention envelope and my tickets are missing. I search everywhere in the room, but I swear up and down to my roommates that I hadn’t even opened my envelope except to take out the badge. I manage to sweet talk my way into the room anyway, flashing my online signup page and mentioning that I premustered at GM ‘Poblano’ aka Gary Pepper’s table.
After that weird start, the game of Live Exploration Extreme with Gary Pepper was a dream. The whole party was great, and I got to play alongside Rosc’s Bleachling gnome for wonder gnome action all night long. We had such a blast. Great party, great adventure and a phenomenal GM.
COSPLAY for Evening Slot: Star Dress and Gnome Hat.
Got to try the Playtest in the Delve. Our table was great, with Mark Siefert as our GM, and three other VCs at the table. I got to play Seelah the Paladin, and I’ve got to say that there were some great surprises. All the characters had so many feats, and Seelah’s Street Urchin past gave her a really surprising and refreshing ability on her chronicle sheet. We played with pregens of the wizard, paladin, cleric and alchemist. The alchemist managed to cause some bad conditions on the bad guy, and helped Seelah set up for a massive crit because I made my attack by more than ten. Then when I slashed into the Zombie, my attack did extra damage, which somehow felt cooler than just overcoming DR. The whole game felt completely different and fresh.
Glad you're enjoying it! <3
So re the street urchin... Does that mean the backgrounds actually do have an ability attached, beyond merely ability score picks and a few skills? :)
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I only had one game today, but it was James Jacobs' Unspeakable Futures game "Jupiter's Hammer." Unsurprisingly, James is a fantastic GM, and I had a really great time despite the fact that I could not seem to roll above a 12 the whole time... and about half of my rolls landed on 7 or less (with a single exception of a natural 20 on a roll that ended up not mattering at all).
To protest my dice's failure to cooperate, I ended up buying two new sets from Q-Workshop. That'll show 'em!
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We had a lovely Play-by-Post Panel, and had lots of fun talking to the newcomers who were there. However, many of the folks who were there left before we could get your names. Remember that we had offers from GM Poblano, GM Lorenzo, Magabeus and GM Kate to help you get into Play-by-Post!
Please contact us if you were at that panel — we want to hear from you!
Hmm
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota
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@Hmm congrats on the 5th star!
Thanks! I am very excited about it!
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As for the PaizoCon Preview Banquet, Bret and I have had a lovely time so far sitting in line. Vic Wertz sat down to chat with us! Also with us was Eadie Navhelan aka Yours is Mined, a charming Australian whom I’ve had the pleasure of GM of GMing for in Play-by-Post, and newly-minted Venture Lieutenant Gary Pepper.
Vic is a great person to talk to — very mellow and able to converse on a wide variety of subjects. Track him down if you can!
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Also got chances to talk with Sara Marie today, Katina Davis, Erik Keith and Tonya Woldridge while looking over the pretty new faction pins in the Paizo Store. Picked up a Concordance pin and one for the SFS wayfinders.
Also... Tyler Beck will be excited to know that I spent time showing Sara Marie ACG Play-by-Post games. She was blown away by the coolness of it, and learning about another fun thing that’s happening on our forums!
Hmm
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Just got done with Thursty’s “Into the Perplexity.”
My brain is completely burnt. My soul screams in terror. I am now hiding in my room so I don’t have to face the world for a bit.
I think the only thing I’m allowed to say about the content is “well, we got a chronicle at the end.”
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Oh yeah. Just ate a lot of food and Lisa is warming up the crowd to start the Banquet presentation.
I’m at the table with Tim Nightingale (Wayfinder and amazing guy) and I’m excited about what is about to happen.
Lisa opens by thanking Tim for helping start PaizoCon and he got a big round of applause.
I’ll do the best to capture everything that is going on. As usual, I promise nothing in terms of accuracy, because it’s hard to listen and type and think all at the same time. Forgive me.
Feel free to ask questions and hopefully others can fill in with answers.
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As a heads up Banquet is streaming live on Twitch
+1. Will make this easier. Heck, people at home can help if they want. :)
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Erik Mona introduces the entire Paizo Staff and they get applause. He promises to have a quick presentation.
Erik intros guests of honor. Taylor Fischer & the Glass Cannon Podcast yahoos (though Erik called them miscreants, not sure which term is more correct).
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As a heads up Banquet is streaming live on Twitch
Btw, Pirate Rob, you have a doppleganger here. Dude is you, but totally probably much less awesome.
Rob McCreary to do the Starfinder presentation.
Starfinder Armory hardcover to be released in July. 160 pages. Full of new equipment...weapons, for instance. Rob talks about a lot of new options. Powered Armor. Lots and lots of powered armor. Static Step suit. Tech items, like drones...physician drone for use in combat?
New player options too, one for every class. Shunt your foes outside of space and time completely.
Alien Archive 2 in October, 160 pages. Lots of alien creatures. Laser wolves w/ laser breath, natch. More playable races. Intelligent slug playable race. Sqox? Part squirrel, part fox...the SQOX.
Next Starfinder AP: Against the Aeon Throne (Aug- Sept-Oct). 64 page softcovers.
Next after that: Signal of Screams (Nov-Dec-Jan). 64 page softcovers.
And then: Dawn of Flame (Feb-July) 6 parts. 64 page. Up 13th level.
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James Jacobs to talk about the Pathfinder Playtest and what’s happening with Pathfinder. He talk about the delves that have been not that deadly yet.
Will continue to support first edition of Pathfinder.
Goblin Graveknight has revealed, named Ripnugget?
Planar Adventures: 280 pages hardcover, last of first edition. Spells, magic items, archetypes. July. Where the gods live. Where did Zon Kuthon come from? This provides hints. More playable races. Will have CR 30 creature. Leviathan?
More pocket editions of 1e Pathfinder stuff still coming.
2 more APs for First Edition: Return of the Runelords. Aug-January 96 page softcovers. Time travel, up to 20th level. Lots of time to play AT 20th level. Less support articles to make room for main content. 3rd in the Trilogy after Rise and Shat Star and then into time travel...3rd one written by Richard Pett. May or may not involve a pig with a luckstone.
Last 1e AP will launch in February: The Tyrant’s Grasp. Feb - July. May or may not involve dead god, I dunno.
Also a Sandpoint, Light of the Last Coast, 96 page softcover. Sandpoint Devil on cover.
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Tonya up next to talk about Organized Play Foundation, a new nonprofit foundation to support organized play. She talk about the mission and how membership needs to grow. She thanks all the volunteers, because they are amazing.
No Volunteer of the Year tonight. They will be presented via the new Organized Play Foundation at a future time.
Starfinder Society: still will do 2 scenarios a month. Year of the Scoured Stars needed more time to tell the story will have an auxiliary storypath. New icon is unleashed. New minor factions will be introduced for Tier 2 or Tier 3 options. Manifold Host is a new faction that some GMs saw this weekend.
Pathfinder Society: 11th season. Have done a lot of storylines. Wanted to wrap up all the old storylines and villains. Next year will be Year of the Ten. Announced new interactive at GenCon.
Will launch new PFS Society in 2019? Lots of survey and interactive ways to get input from our community. Tonya wants and encourages feedback.
ACG. Season of Tapestry’s Tides: will use Skull & Shackles base set. 6 adventures that will wrap at Gen Con next year.
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Mike Selinker to speak about the future of the PACGame (my favorite). He speaks about his history of the ACG and what might be next. Announced a 2nd edition of the ACG and how and why it might be necessary.
Shows the free RPG game card Nok-Nok (Goblin Godthief).
Announces how he is making a generic base set that is the core set, then be able to combine those with various other sets.
Announced Curse of the Crimson Throne to be the next ACG set?
”OUR GAME WILL BE COMPLETELY COMPATABLE WITH ALL PREVIOUS SETS.” - Mike Selinker at PaizoCon today and now.
Next thing will be out at PaizoCon next year, both the new base set and the CotCT set.
Will offer story book with the ACG Org Play to tell better stories. Will have a new AP within the Org Play. Will put character deck line on hiatus for a while.
Thanks for all the ACG info!
Other interesting details: The Core set will be playable by itself.
CotCT will be released all at one go, rather than month by month?
Storybooks will be the new way of delivering scenarios, rather than on just cards, more in line with the way OP scenarios are done.
Pawns will be included with sets going forward, starting with all existing 2e iconics in the Core set, and if any non-iconic characters appear in future paths, they'll be in there.
And playtesting seems to be going well, since they feel that they're on the right track.
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Jason Buhlman on Pathfinder Playtest - will debut in August. He’s going to show a lot of images that I won’t be able to translate. Maybe the twitch will enough detail, I dunno.
Jason offers to read the entire core rule book in lieu of a presentation. Glad Twitch is getting all this.
Jason recognizes the barrier to entry to any game and how 2e was trying to avoid that while allowing GMs to tell the stories that they want to (*and make sure high level play isn’t broken).
There is a lot of stuff on the blog. Jason offers some new material: creating Lini the iconic Druid. Lots of art by Wayne Reynolds.
1) Pick your ABCs, ancestry (race and whatnot) - background - class. Gnome was shown and the options and ancestries for gnomes. Lots of options. The artwork has a nice 2nd Ed feel to it. Options include: gnome magic (light, etc), or more Lore, or etc.
Background: how you grew up and how spent previous years. Wanderer? And others. (Can’t see the details.)
Then Class: Druid has proficiencies and options set by the class. Here is where you do your abilities. Ancentry helps with your ability scores, mostly will be point buy system. Background will also influence ability scores.
Druids now have orders, like Leaf. Or Storm (elemental powers). Animal order, which give animal companion.
Jason show the high level Druid feats. Invoke Disaster, 1/day earthquake. One that allows you to become a plant creature permanently.
Jason showed new rules for Animal Companion: Perks when you fight with your AC, no not wrestling with your AC, but you and your AC fighting together vs a bad guy. You get bonii as Lini when you and your AC fight together. The AC will grow in power over time and can have different choices.
Spells: Druids cast off the PRIMAL spell list (Arcane and Divine still exist, along with another unknown type of magic list). Dinosaur form pretty much wrecked a thing...with air walk...a flying charging triceratops.
Skills, equipment, and other class choices...like magic items. Holy Avenger and a bunch of new magic items. Sky Hammer, when you crit, you’re the center of a fireball.
+2 weapons now not only give you +2 to hit, but also +2 DICE, not just +2 damage.
Armors are discussed.
Herolab will be supporting Pathfinder Playtest.
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Lots more was revealed that I didn’t quite get. There will be a many part (free PDF) Playtest that will come out in August.
A 125 pdf Playtest of nothing but monsters and stat blocks will be released to help with the Playtest AP.
Lots of surveys and feedback options. Jason explains the process, and other ways to offer opinions. Will have some Twitch stream options as well, including live play of them playing Playtest material via Twitch.
Ends tirade with showing a monster: Grim Reaper.
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Kudos to Dan Tharp for streaming the banquet presentation on Twitch. It was great to see it first hand even though I could not be there this year. This is sure to become an annual event, so if you cannot attend, at least you can enjoy some of the content from home. Great job Dan and great job Paizo!
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\I love hearing about the card game stuff! Some of it doesn't seem particularly compatible with the current class decks and such. Would there be enough mix-and-match for the PFSACG in particular to get by? Keyword replacement? Supplemental decks? Or is this a 'start anew' kind of situation?
I will say again what I have said many times: This version will be entirely compatible with all previous boxes of the Pathfinder ACG. There will be a few conversions you'll have to make, but you're playing the same game. Just better.
Mike