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Pathfinder / Ultimate Magic update

C

Colen

Ex-Staff
Hi everyone,

We've recently firmed up our plans for near-term Pathfinder updates, including Ultimate Magic, and we'd like to share those with everyone so you know what to expect in the run-up to PaizoCon.

Ultimate Magic includes a significant amount of new content, including new archetypes, feats, and a major new mechanic, Words of Power. Unfortunately, given the volume of new material and how we received the final version of the book just over a week ago, we are not going to be able to release an Ultimate Magic update on the book's release date. :(

Instead, we are planning an update that includes the Ultimate Magic package sometime between the book's release date and PaizoCon (likely late May / early June). However, we aren't confident that all of the new mechanics, like Words of Power, will be ready for release at that point. We'll do our best, but Words of Power may slip to a follow-up release, a few weeks after PaizoCon.

Another new book, the Rival Guide, also releases later this month. Since Ultimate Magic is going to be such a must-have book for many players, we're concentrating our efforts on UM for now. Once we have the Ultimate Magic content finalized, we'll switch our focus back to the Rival Guide for a near-future update.

Also, a reminder - we'll be at PaizoCon showing off the upcoming Mac version of Hero Lab, so if you're planning to be at the show, drop by our booth to say hi! :)

I hope this helps answer any questions you had about our upcoming release schedule. See you at PaizoCon!
 
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That's awesome. I don't mind getting the book(s) released in chunks. You guys are working hard and it's something I don't want to do so keep it up. I'll wait patiently.
 
Transparency and early communication demonstrate good product marketing and excellent customer service. Kudos for keeping us in the loop.
 
Any idea on the cost so i can budget it ill be buying it just want to see how much money to put aside
 
Virtue said:
Any idea on the cost so i can budget it ill be buying it just want to see how much money to put aside
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As one of the core PFRPG sourcebooks, Ultimate Magic will be $9.99. That's the price point we'll generally be using for those books in future - those books take a lot of work for us to implement, especially when you add new mechanics like Words of Power, etc.
 
Very fair price. And I also don't mind if it has to be released in parts, since it does seem like a great deal of mechanics (and new conditions...)
 
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.
 
I am sure that the Paizo folks are running right up against the deadline for their info to be sent to the printers and they as well as Lone Wolf have better things to do then ping each other asking "Is it done yet? Is this the final version?" We have the playtest info loaded as is and will be receiving the full game over a short period of time.

They are two separate companies here and the street date for a book is not required to be the street date for the software portion related to that book. Feel free to enter the data with the community if you need it done in real time... myself I will be happy to wait a modest amount of time for an official version that lets me do other things with my valuable time.

Just my opinion and I am sure others will have different ones.
 
ase1972 said:
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.
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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.
 
ase1972 said:
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.
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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.
 
rob said:
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.
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UC has been finalized and sent to the printers, so hopefully you will be getting it soon.
 
Dragnmoon said:
UC has been finalized and sent to the printers, so hopefully you will be getting it soon.
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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!
 
rob said:
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!
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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.
 
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!
 
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
 
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.
 
chiefweasel said:
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.
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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? :p

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.
 
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