Pathfinder / Ultimate Magic update

[quixoticparadigm]

Originally Posted by ase1972

Seems to me that the Project Manager at Lone Wolf for Pathfinder should have been contacting Paizo to get daily/weekly updates for this supplement as they were finalized and sent to the printers.

While the additional time is not that long, just seems like we should be able to get the updates the day the book becomes available if not the day before.

Seems to me that someone needs to learn patience and understand that regardless of whether they received any information about UM prior, there is a completely new magic system that HL wasn't coded to handle. And this goes beyond the ridiculous amount of other content they have, which takes an enormous amount of time to codify.

While we have to wait a little longer, we should be grateful that Lone Wolf is such an awesome company and is able to deliver exceptional, must-have tools for our hobbies.

[rob]

Originally Posted by ase1972

Seems to me that the Project Manager at Lone Wolf for Pathfinder should have been contacting Paizo to get daily/weekly updates for this supplement as they were finalized and sent to the printers.

You are making an important assumption here, which happens to be invalid.

We DO regularly check with Paizo on the availability of the supplements. However, Paizo takes a lot of pride in what they create and prefers not to provide anyone access before the material is finalized. This means we don't get anything until it is "finished" and ready to go to the printer. That is generally only a handful of weeks prior to the release of the book. For smaller books, a few weeks is sufficient lead time for us to get the content fully implemented. For massive tomes like Ultimate Magic (and the APG before that), a few weeks is simply not enough time to implement everything in the book.

We received a copy of UM about a week prior to our announcement about the delay. As soon as we received the book, we began work and made an assessment of how long it would take to fully implement the contents. Based on that assessment, we notified everyone here on our forums. The only way we could get stuff done sooner would be to receive preliminary drafts from Paizo during development, which is currently not an option.

Hopefully, this explanation helps in understanding why the delay occurred. For the exact same reasons, it is highly likely that a similar delay will occur when Ultimate Combat is released later this year. We won't know until we receive the finished book and can begin work on it.

[Dragnmoon]

Originally Posted by rob

Hopefully, this explanation helps in understanding why the delay occurred. For the exact same reasons, it is highly likely that a similar delay will occur when Ultimate Combat is released later this year. We won't know until we receive the finished book and can begin work on it.

UC has been finalized and sent to the printers, so hopefully you will be getting it soon.

[rob]

Originally Posted by Dragnmoon

UC has been finalized and sent to the printers, so hopefully you will be getting it soon.

Really?!?! Then I'll get ahold of Erik to obtain a copy we can work from once we get the UM data files finished. Thanks for the tip!

[Dragnmoon]

Originally Posted by rob

Really?!?! Then I'll get ahold of Erik to obtain a copy we can work from once we get the UM data files finished. Thanks for the tip!

You should Follow them on Facebook...

[JimGroves]

Originally Posted by rob

Really?!?! Then I'll get ahold of Erik to obtain a copy we can work from once we get the UM data files finished. Thanks for the tip!

Really. Dragnmoon is right, because of the Facebook announcement, but I also know because I'm a Designer on Ultimate Combat (Jim Groves). I wrote a lot of feats, spells, and supplemental support on articles written by other freelancers for Vehicles, Seige Warfare, Low Tech Weapons, Environmental Combat, etc....

Middle of last week Sean K Reynolds contacted us new designers to confirm the spelling and format of our names (i.e. did I want "James" or did I want "Jim", etc...), because in 24 hours it was going off to the printers.

So Dragnmoon is right for all the reasons stated, but I can back that up as well.

And I'm not trying to brag, I guess I'm just saying that as a Paizo Freelancer, I use HeroLab for my home games.

They should have a Printer Approval copy to pass around at the PaizoCon Preview Banquet as well.

EDIT: Can't give spoilers though! It's not my place, I'm just admitting that I wrote for the book.

[rob]

I just returned late Thursday from being out of town for the past week and a half, so I'm still getting caught up on everything. I hadn't checked the Paizo Facebook page or anywhere else for updates yet. I've got an email into Erik for an advance copy. Thanks for the info!

[mikespol]

Thanks for the update. And the pricing. $9.99 is a very fair price.

Just a quick question. While I know you guys are running flat chat getting the major books included in HL, are there any plans to have the specific monsters for the Adventure Paths included in any updates? I'm currently running the Carrion Crown AP and have found I need to use the adjust tab alot to get the monsters into HL as they are in the books. I've seen a few people posting some of the AP books on other sites, but it would be great to get them in an official package.

And yes, I'd certainly be happy to pay for, say, a whole AP's monsters as well as the background rules and traits.

Cheers

[chiefweasel]

Hey Mike. Something you need to remember about the adventure paths is that Piazo didnt use the Pathfinder system to create the NPCs and Monsters with. So even if you try to put them into HL they just dont quite work, a lot of special abilitied and feats are not part of the Pathfinder system.

I have created all the NPCs and encounters for the Kingmaker Adventure Path and posted that to the website. If others would like to do the same for the adventure paths they are running that would be great. We can post the files and make them available to everyone. But I dont think that LW will put the monsters into the system since the monsters are not used outside of the adventure paths.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by chiefweasel

Hey Mike. Something you need to remember about the adventure paths is that Piazo didnt use the Pathfinder system to create the NPCs and Monsters with. So even if you try to put them into HL they just dont quite work, a lot of special abilitied and feats are not part of the Pathfinder system.

What?

You tend to write very quickly so maybe that is just a bad sentence. If not are you really trying to say that Paizo does not use PFRPG system to create the creatures for its Pathfinder based creatures? What do they use 4e?

I think what you mean is that their are mistakes in Paizo's stat blocks compared to what HL generates. This will happen as Paizo uses a home-grown excel spreadsheet that well has bugs in it and your using a different software package so their will always be some differences.

That does not mean that they are not using Pathfinder rules.