Party of One: Kalgor Bloodhammer and the Ghouls Through the Breach

In order to play Open Design's new adventure, Matthew J. Hanson's Kalgor Bloodhammer and the Ghouls through the Breach, one only needs a pen, some paper, and a standard assortment of dice (actually just 1d6, 1d8, 1d12, and 1d20). That is because it is part of their new series, Party of One, a (Pathfinder-compatible) collection of choose-your-own-adventure style solo adventures. Anyone who has read this blog long enough knows that I have major affection for choose-your-own-adventure solo missions, so when I became aware that this had been released, it was an easy buy. Add to that that it was only $3, and it was even easier. I ended up printing it out so I could flip through it more naturally than scrolling up and down in the pdf; it is a shame that the pdf was not linked, so when it said "go to 73" you couldn't click that and be taken to 73. It is also a shame that, despite there being a "character sheet" attached at the end with abilities, it does not have check boxes for the additional items, secrets, and abilities you pick up along the adventure, as that would have greatly have streamlined the process. It also makes a major mistake in indicating that only a d6, d8, and d20 are required: d12 rolls are quite common, and as we all know 1d12≠2d6.

Minor complaints aside, however, KBGB (that name is far too long to type out each time) is a surprisingly nuanced, engrossing adventure. The premise is simple: you are a dwarf who has just joined an elite guard for your city, and the night of your celebration it turns out that you will be pressed into service much sooner than you expected. There is a ghoul attack in the street, and it very quickly turns out that it is not an isolated incident. Through tracking clues, you learn more and more about the attacks and their implications for your entire city. And, of course, you can pick up items, information, and allies along the way.

I say that this is (Pathfinder-compatible) because it doesn't really seem, to me, to distinguish itself as really at all distinctly "Pathfinder." It presents rules as they become relevant, and always gives you a small stat block for you, your allies, and your enemies each time you must be pressed into battle. It has the overall flavor of any generic, vaguely OGL-compatible adventure out there, and at least to any part I discovered that was about where the comparison stopped. I suppose that's why it is labeled as Pathfinder "compatible," since anything OGL can be easily adapted for that system. Nevertheless, I don't want to be bogged down by semantics before I can say that I did, in fact, really enjoy the adventure.

By the time I am writing this, I have run through it four times; each time managing to get a little bit further into the mystery and intrigue that is KGBG. The first couple of times I managed to succumb, rather early, to terrible dice rolls, rather than end up making any sort of terrible decisions on my own. However, as I pressed further, a shocking betrayal resulted in my death once, and then my imprisonment again. KGBG ends up being "hard." Frequently you have to go up against multiple enemies, and you are limited to only one attack per round. Battles rapidly turn into attrition and prayer (o spirit of the dice, hear my call: turn up below 12 on the enemy's turn). Your armor class is high, which makes ordinary attacks endured by the ghouls a bit easier to weather, but there are enough other enemies that you are constantly on your toes. The adventure seems to reward audacious and brash behavior (befitting of a dwarf) over caution and stealth; ghouls are, after all, pouring into the city, and the sooner you can do something about it, the better. Each decision you make seems to have major ramifications, and I feel like I have probably only skimmed the surface of this ten page adventure, so up to this point I'd still label the replay value as "high." Plus, depending on the choices you make, it might be all over for you in under ten minutes, so you can knock it out while you're waiting for something else. All in all, I'd give this one a solid B+, and I look forward to further entries into the Party of One series (and maybe a bound book containing all of them at some point in the future? eh Mr. Baur?).

New magical item: The Gambler's Dice

This is a unique and powerful non-artifact magic item, system-agnostic but written with 4e in mind. I was inspired to finish it considering the recent "Got Loot?" blogging festival, though this is something that has been incubating in my mind since at least last April. It is my attempt to bring a sort of Fortune Cards-like aesthetic into the game, without being overly intrusive, but also having consequences. It utilizes FUDGE dice, which are special six-sided dice which have two blank faces, two faces bearing a "-" and two faces bearing a "+". It was very influenced by the Deck of Many Things, among other things, and I'd hope that its implementation and manifestation could be relatively flexible to manage in-game. Players can come across individual dice, as with cards from the DoMT, or else the entire set, whichever would seem more appropriate within the story. The item, which is a set of four ivory dice inset with golden suns and silver moons, will appear to be just an ordinary, if valuable, set of dice for a game called Canicerre (can-i-sair). It will be common in the area of the world where the dice are found, but relatively rare elsewhere. I use a combination of locales from 4th edition (Bael Turath features in the story), but also a newly invented locale (the Alvastratian Empire), which I figure for story's sake existed in the same larger geographical area as Bael Turath, but perhaps pre-dating both it and Arkhosia. There is no reason why any or all of it could not be relocated to somewhere more familiar to Pathfinder fans, such as Varisia or Katapesh. I'm less familiar with Golarion and I write chiefly for 4e (being the fantasy RPG with which I am most familiar), so it becomes my "implicit" setting. Similarly I use Tieflings and Eladrin in the story text, but the storyteller himself is suspicious of those attributions. They could readily be renamed to something more appropriate.

The dice themselves should be presented, at first, as simple treasure. They are made of a valuable material (ivory), appear to be very well made and of high quality, and two sides are inset with gold, and two sides are inset with silver. It would be assumed that a reasonable player would see the value in these, at least as loot to sell for gold or silver back in town. Likewise, the location they are found in should be relatively unremarkable; maybe they spill out of an old boot that is carelessly knocked over while one of the PCs is looking for something else. Maybe they are simply set atop a table within a cave that had been at some point previously been occupied but currently seems abandoned. However, the true value of the dice only becomes apparent once the PCs attempt to sell them. When presented to a shopkeeper, especially if asked what they are for, the following monologue might occur. Alternately, if one of the characters is particularly well versed in local history, they may know the following already:

"It's an old Alvastratian game, it's called Canicerre; it's simple. Let me show you. There are four dice, they each have these symbols on them, right? The sun represents a positive turn of fortune, the moon a negative; yeah the Alvastratians were sun worshippers, what do you want? You put all four dice in a cup, and you shake it around. You try to get one die to pop out; a lot of pros get up to some pretty fancy shaking to make it happen and land where they want it to. The rest of the dice stay in the cup, and you quick turn it over and smack it down on the table so they're under the cup, still covered. Everybody bets on whether the overall outcome will be positive or negative, and then the cup is lifted. Positive and negative sides cancel each other out, blank sides don't have an influence one way or the other. If the outcome is neutral, everyone gets their money back. If it's moons, all the people who betted suns lose their money. If it's suns, all the people who betted moons lose their money, get it? It's split up evenly from all the losers to all the winners, so if you're betting on an unpopular outcome, you stand to win more money than if you go with everyone else on it. If everyone bets one way and the result is the other, the person rolling the dice gets it all; it's the only way they can win since they can't ordinarily take bets, and it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, oh man, it can be a lot of money. There was a saying back in the old days in Alvastratia, 'rich as a roller.'

"But these dice, these are special. You probably don't know what you have here. See, there's a legend about these dice. They say that there was a guy, a gambler, who lived in the port of Arkash. Arkash was in Bael Turath, so tradition says that he was a Tiefling. Makes sense to me, since everybody knows that Canicerre is a Tiefling game anyway... At least they're the ones who are always playing it anywhere they go. Anyway, there was a gambler, nobody knows his name any more. I guess it's not important. And this guy, he gambled on everything. It was just sort of his nature. He said that if he had something, it was his to lose. If someone else had something, it was his to win. And he was always fair. If he lost, he lost graciously and moved on, never held any grudges, never carried any superstitions or excess baggage along with it. Winning and losing, that was the only thing that mattered. He wasn't even known, so the stories go, for being particularly daring with his bets, I guess he just liked to leave everything up to fate or something. I don't know.

"But one day, as the story goes, he met a traveller. Now, a lot of people say it was an eladrin, but I don't know if that's so much that it was really an eladrin or if they just want some sort of trickster figure and eladrin fit but anyway, doesn't matter. This traveller is in town for a few days, watches the Gambler gambling on everything, finally approaches him. He pulls out these ancient, ancient looking Canicerre dice, inset with gold and silver, obviously well-worn but still in great shape, and says "I'll play you for these; they have a value far beyond anything you will ever possibly know." The Gambler, he's impressed by the dice, they're good looking, but he doesn't buy the yarn about any 'immeasurable value.' But a game's a game, so they go in to it. They drop in to a gambling house, the traveler hands a dealer there the dice. See it used to be polite if you were in a new town to at least make the gesture like you're contributing to the local economy, you know, give the dealer a chance to win, yadda yadda. Anyway, the dealer drops them in the cup, and the eladrin (or whoever) gestures to the Gambler, and says 'your call.'

"The dealer swirls the cup, pops a die out, it's the sun facing. Nevertheless, the Gambler says 'favor only shines at night.' See, there are a lot of traditions with the game; some people just say positive or negative, some people say suns and moons, this guy gussied up his calls with a little poetry, guess he did it so often he had to keep it interesting. Whatever. The eladrin (whatever) says 'suns' to give the opposite bid. You know, it's polite if you're playing one-on-one to pick opposing bids, otherwise there's a lot of stalemates going on. Also it's usually smart to pick the facing symbol anyway because the odds are a little in favor of what's already showing. The dealer nods, lifts the cup. There are two moons and a sun. Stalemate. Since they're not playing for money, the dealer sweeps up the dice and drops them in the cup. One pops out, it's a sun again. Yet again, the Gambler says 'dark as night, never bright.' The eladrin nods, and replies 'the sun will forever shine.' The dealer nods, lifts the cup. Again, it's two moons and a sun. Once again, the dealer scoops up the dice, pours them into the cup, and swirls it around. He pops a die, it shows a blank face. The eladrin says 'ah, intriguing! Why don't we raise the wager? If I win, I make one request, which you must abide by for the rest of your days. If you win, I remain here in your service, until I am discharged by your command.' The Gambler says, 'no sir, we began this game over these dice, and these dice are what I'm playing for. If you want to make other wagers, we'll resolve this one first and then we'll talk.' The eladrin nods and raises his hand to gesture that the Gambler make his bet. The Gambler says 'three moons hang alone in the sky, never to meet, never to die.'

"See this is another thing I forgot to tell you about the game. Sometimes people will make a wager based on what the exact configuration of the dice will be, and then they can win more of the pot than usual, but they weren't playing this game. I guess he was just making that bet for poetic purposes, it wouldn't have had any effect on the game one way or the other, just that he had wagered on 'moons' instead of 'suns.' The eladrin says 'three times three is a risky wager indeed!' Do you see where some people might think that this character might have been an eladrin, by the way? Who talks like that but them? Well, I suppose halflings do, but nobody wants to listen to a story about a mysterious halfling. Anyway, he says 'a three times three is a risky wager indeed!' I said that already, but there's a reason for that. You know, if you bet the same thing three times in a row, there's an old superstition that you'll always lose on your third time, but this Gambler, he wasn't swayed by any superstition, so he just says 'that's my wager, and I'm standing by it.' So the dealer lifts the cup, and sure enough, plain as anything, three moons are facing upwards. The eladrin stands up, pushes his chair back from the table, and says 'the dice are yours by your right, and they are parted from me duly. Good day, and good luck.' And he walks out. Nobody ever sees him again. Nobody sees him leave, like as soon as he walks through the door, he's gone. Course it was in Arkash and nobody sees anything in Arkash, at least not without the jingle of gold in their ears, so that's not really all that remarkable. A lot of people, they like to play up the mystery there in that part, like ooooh he was a ghost or something, but I've seen plenty of ghosts, and this doesn't sound like a ghost.

"Anyway that's just the beginning of the story. I could probably talk your ear off all day about this legend, s' popular with the kids and all (course some people add in lots of moral lessons like 'don't gamble' or more dubious ones like 'don't gamble with eladrin' or some such) but anyway, long story short is Gambler finds out that he got a lot more than what he bargained for. He'd only use these dice, you know, for special occasions. They were nice, you don't just sit out in the dusty street and roll ivory dice inlaid with gold and silver, but whatever, you know what I mean. But he came to realize that, not only did winning or losing with the dice seem to bring him bigger wins or losses, but the effect seemed to last for days. And now like I said, he was no superstitious man, but when weird things happen often enough, you start to think like something weird is going on. When he won with the dice, it was like he couldn't lose. He'd have streaks for days where everything he played, he played well. When he lost, he lost everything. Got to a point where the streaks scared 'im so much he all went up and almost quit gambling altogether. Didn't like the ramifications. Occasionally he'd try to offer the dice up as a prize, just like the eladrin did, to try to get rid of them. But he'd always win. No matter what he bet, the dice were always in his favor any time he tried to get rid of them. Started to think they were a curse, never used them. Gambling lost its flavor for him, these dice weighing down on him, never knowing whether they were actually cursed or magical or anything like that, or whether he was just getting old, and eventually he just up and disappeared, they found the dice on his table, four moons staring up at the ceiling, like he was there one minute and gone the next. Nobody ever saw him again, nobody claimed the dice as their rightful property, eventually the shopkeeper in town said he'd put 'em up for sale, use the money to pay for a gravestone (they just assumed if he wasn't coming back, he was probably dead), and that's where the story leaves off. Nobody knows what happened to the dice after they sold, but they say there's a plain gravestone standing in Arkash today, no name on it, just standing there like it's proof that someone was there. Where'd you say those turned up, again?"

The Gambler's Dice can be represented, in the real world, with a set of 4 FUDGE dice. The plus side represents the sun, the minus side represents the moon. The mechanics otherwise are exactly the same, each sun cancels each moon, and any left over beyond that denotes a winner. The large majority of games will result in a draw, and it is customary among most gamblers to either raise or withdraw their bets during these instances. Canicerre can be played in-game at any time, for gambling purposes or for a quick-and-dirty method of divination (will the immediate future be favorable or unfavorable? by what degree?). It is only with the Gambler's Dice that things get "dicey." Beyond their use as a gambling tool, they can also be used to influence fate. At any time, as a standard action, as a daily power, in or out of combat, the player in possession of the Gambler's Dice may roll the dice as long as there is a reasonable surface upon which to do so. The character does not need to be able to see the results of the dice, and the effect generated begins instantaneously. It is up to the GM to determine the effect of the outcome, but it should be in line with the overall "score" achieved by the roll. In other words, a roll that evens out to zero will probably not have any effect at all, +1 might make an attack that otherwise might have just missed hit, +2 might save the player from a status effect or an environmental mishap, +3 might drastically alter the strength of an opponent or the treasure encountered, and +4 will likely be some extremely unlikely, massive, and potentially game-changing event, like a god suddenly taking direct interest in the character and personally guiding their hand. Conversely, -1 might make the character's next action fail, or prevent them from achieving a critical hit on a natural 20, or something of the like, and so on. A -4 result will be catastrophic for the character. They may be pulled into a demiplane of suffering, they may be struck down where they stand by a freak accident, but the outcome should not only be dire for the character, but for the entire party. This result should also result in the dice being "lost" and unrecoverable by the party.

The Gambler's Dice are not an "evil" item, but they are chaotic in their function. It is unclear whether the dice were invented to be magical, or with any sort of magical purpose in mind, or whether they "developed" on their own. They do not function like an artifact; they do not possess any degree of "intelligence" and do not attempt to influence or direct their possessor's behavior. But nor are they a "good" item, for they do not always act in their holder's favor, letting instead the dice fall where they may, and then influence the world around them accordingly. Primarily any effect is negated every time the dice are re-rolled, but the dice roll has no effect one way or the other if attempted more than once in 24 hours. Otherwise, the effect will subside in 1d4 days, waning in influence over time. As a static magic item, they grant the possessor +1 Streetwise (or, for Pathfinder, Knowledge [local]) and -1 Diplomacy as long as they are somewhere in the vicinity of the person. For the purpose of this mechanic their "owner" is defined as the person who last touched them with their bare hands, although if that person should travel any appreciable distance away from the dice (such as leave town), "ownership" passes to any character who is nearest or currently in possession.

Beyond this, the significance, importance, and back story for the dice are entirely up to the Game Master, and entirely dependent upon their own campaign to let the mystery of the dice develop further (or not). Perhaps one of the PCs will decide to roll the dice when they are first found absentmindedly. If this occurs make note of the results, and have their influence (if any) be felt, but be unclear about whether it is the dice that are influencing how things have suddenly turned, or something else about where they are or what they are doing, then reveal it when they learn what the dice are.

Pathfinder Beginner Box

This article has been edited from its original form.
I've been interested in Pathfinder, based mostly on the hype about it across the blogosphere, and when I learned that they were releasing an Essentials-style Beginner Box for the game, I planned on getting it. There was a stack of them on the counter at my FLGS, so I figured that there was no time like the present and picked it up. The first thing that I noticed about it was that it was heavy. The cardstock of the box seemed very solid, and it seemed to be quite full of contents. This was a good sign; 35 dollars is about the limit on what I'll pay on impulse, and it turned out to be worth the money.

The first thing I opened in the box was the baggie of dice. I was pleased to see a full set of 7: d4, d6, d8, d10, percentile, d12, and d20. The Essentials box only came with 6; percentile rolls are generally not part of D&D4, so it's not surprising that they did not include one of these dice. The next thing I noticed about the Pathfinder dice is that they just felt like ordinary Chessex dice, whereas the Essentials dice felt less substantial, like knockoffs. To test this, I weighed them.

	PF	D&D4	Chessex
d20	6g	6g	6g
d12	6g	6g	6g
d10	6g	4g	6g
d8	4g	4g	4g
d6	6g	4g	6g
d4	2g	2g	2g

For the most part, they were pretty similar. But, as you can see, the Essentials dice were actually made out of lower quality material; they feel less substantial in the hand, less dense. Just as a "test" I also weighed a Chessex set that I bought at DragonCon; they were identical in weight to the Pathfinder dice. I think, without any other evidence, that the Pathfinder dice are just Chessex dice rather than cheaper knockoffs.  The only other baggie in the box was a set of standee bases, for the cardboard standees. I set that aside.

On top of the stack is a sheet which suggests to new players which book to read and which book to avoid, whether they want to be GM or player. One of the remarkable things about this set immediately is that directly on the inside of the front cover of the "Hero's Handbook" is a step-by-step checklist, with page numbers, on how to build a new character. I don't think Wizards of the Coast has ever discovered how useful this is; even in the Gamma World books, which are relatively well laid out, you have to dig through half the book to find the character building process. Having an easily located and organized guide for building characters is very useful, especially for a beginner's guide such as this, to make generating characters more quickly and easily just in case their lower-level beginner characters don't survive the process. Like in older versions of D&D, character death is a lot more common in Pathfinder than it is in 4e.

Identical to D&D Essentials, the "Hero's Handbook" starts off with a choose-your-own-adventure style setup in order to help new players get an idea about how the game works. Unlike Essentials, however, the Pathfinder starter adventure does not help you select your class, only get a feel for how the play works. It is, therefore, entirely optional. It is well written, easy to follow, and exciting as a solo adventure. It does help bring the game alive; immediately after it is an "example of play" using stock characters going through an ordinary series of actions, which also gives something for new players with which to compare their experience with the game.

The bulk of the book is dedicated to explaining what a role-playing game is, what races and classes there are, and then how to level the characters up to level 5, very similarly to how the pregenerated characters for the D&D4 quickstart rules had instructions for leveling them up to level 3. It has very thorough descriptions of skills and feats, as well as decent lists of spells and prayers to customize wizards and clerics a little bit from the get-go. Finally there are equipment lists for the sorts of things that might be available to first level characters, but what impresses me the most is that each item has a small icon next to it of what the item would look like.

The book ends with a "crunch" section; how to actually play the game, the mechanics and format of play, combat, etc. Miniature relationships, as relevant in combat, are presented very similarly to how they are in the D&D4 books, and players of 4e should have very little trouble understanding that part of the rules. I have a suspicion that the crunch section was written with a D&D4 audience in mind, based on the remarkable similarities in appearance. I would place myself within that audience as well, since I never played D&D3, and I can say that to me, it is very easy to follow.

Overall, there is a lot more art in this Pathfinder starter set than appeared in the Essentials box, and the binding is stronger; the books have glossy covers, instead of just paper. It was also 15 dollars more than the Essentials box. The Pathfinder box has gate-folded folios with prefilled character sheets, with helpful descriptions of what each field on the character sheet means in the (sizeable) margins; then there are blank character sheets with which to actually build characters (although it is completely feasible to just use the prebuilt characters right out of the folios). The folios do have a lot of description about what sort of things that type of character tends to do, what skills they excel at, and what sort of people might want to play that sort of character, which is helpful. It's a different technique from what was employed by the Essentials box, but I don't think it's necessarily better or worse.

However, Essentials really was the "bare essentials" to start a game; you are required, nearly immediately, to buy the Rules Compendium and Heroes of the Fallen Lands (another 40 dollar investment at the bookstore) as well, whereas the Beginner Box for Pathfinder guides characters through level 5 and, though the characters' progress is "tracked" exactly as in Essentials, there are flavor options that were lacking in the Red Box. The adventure in the Red Box was a good enough introduction to the world of Dungeons and Dragons, but seemed more as a "teaser" than any attempt at an immersive experience.

The Game Master's Guide contains a moderately well detailed starter adventure, quite detailed tips on how to start, prepare for, run, and continue an adventure, how to build maps, run encounters, develop your own "game world," how to use terrain, traps, hazards, and exploit NPCs effectively. There are many magic items and monsters to peruse, again with helpful icons and images to help visualize what the items look like. All in all, it was a very nice, concise way to get GMing explained, without having to buy a separate Dungeon Master's box.

Next in the box is a large, thick, glossy folded cardstock double-sided map. The creases are very well-set, and I am finding them nearly impossible to smooth out, which is a liability for the very light-weight standees that will be set upon it. Here at least I think there is a point for Wizards of the Coast's thinner paper foldout maps. They flatten effortlessly, though they deteriorate much more quickly. Besides trying to carefully reverse the creases and work them out, or place a large pane of glass over the top to keep it flat, I can't really see much utility in the map, and since the cardstock is very thick it seems like the printing around those creases will get overstressed very easily and very quickly begin to look bad. I can't see myself ever using this map though so I am just going to leave it there. I like the idea of printed maps more than I actually like the actual utility of them. Usually I prefer to draw a diagram out on my Chessex mat and try to fill in the details verbally.

The rest of the box has die-cut cardboard standees for male and female characters of each race and each class, so no matter what sort of character you generate using the Hero's Handbook, you have an individual standee to represent them. Which would only be a problem, I suppose, if you have two people who are dead-set on being a male human fighter, or something like that. I really do genuinely like how they have individual standees for each player character possible, and it also helps that they are all very distinctively dressed, and the art is phenomenal. The rest are monster standees, similarly styled.

Overall, I would like to laud the extremely high quality of everything in this set. It would have been nice, at very least, if they could have also included a cheap dice bag to keep the dice in, but for 35 dollars you do actually get a lot of really good looking material. The game, which has a reputation for being a bit complex, is presented in a remarkably simple format, and it seems like beginning to play the game from this box set would be quite effortless. I'd say that everything, from the art, the books, the writing, what is actually contained, the box itself, is of a higher quality than the Essentials Red Box, although the price is 15 dollars higher. I do have a preference for standees over tokens, because to me they look less out of place mixed with actual pewter or plastic miniatures than the flat tokens do.

I can't see how a product like this would be at all useful to people who already had the Pathfinder core rulebook, but then again that is not the target audience. No matter what, this is intended to be a "gateway drug" for the significantly more expensive core book, and there would be, I expect, quite a bit of adjustment from the Beginner rules to the "full" rules. One thing Essentials has going for it is that, between Heroes of the Fallen Lands, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, the Dungeon Master's Kit, the Rules Compendium, and other "Essentials" line products, you can play an entire 1-30 campaign without ever leaving the protective Essentials Umbrella. The Pathfinder Beginner Box provides very simplified rules to begin the game, but provides no transition guide for moving on to the "big kid" book.

I do not think the scope of it would justify any further comparisons to Essentials, although the presentation is very similar. Instead, I would say that the Pathfinder Beginner Box provides an extremely thorough set of "quick start rules" for both the player and the game master, as well as tools to set up and run a game with only like a half hour or hour of prior reading and preparation (generating characters, reading rules, etc). It is more detailed than the Essentials Red Box, and probably makes running a game without any other material much easier.

In my original version of this, from nearly 2 months ago, I was reviewing a damaged copy of the box. Many complaints I had were not about the content of the product, but the appearance of the product. Later I contact Paizo, who suggested to first contact my FLGS owner and see if he would be able to replace the damaged merchandise, and then if I was unsuccessful there, to contact them again. This is noteworthy because I received an email from their customer service representative less than two hours after I had sent my original email; fortunately the game store owner had opened a copy of the box for himself as a "demo copy" and he swapped out the undamaged books from his copy for the damaged versions from mine, saying that he didn't care so much what the books looked like since they were just going to get damaged anyway by customers manhandling them. Nevertheless I appreciated Paizo's very quick and courteous response, and that (combined with the quality of the product) encouraged me to buy the Pathfinder core book a week ago (it is now January 2). It hasn't arrived yet, but I have been enjoying reading the online SRD (another very useful feature of the Paizo product constellation).