Big Pathfinder/Starfinder Reference Document News!

Thursday, September 13, 2018

As a fan and a community advocate, you grow attachments to things you wouldn't have ever imagined you would. One of the projects I've gotten the opportunity to make my mark on at Paizo is neatly nestled into that fan/community/design challenge niche: the Pathfinder Reference Document. As it became obvious in this last year of architecting and laying out the plans for the future of paizo.com, and as the time increased between that "last updated" date and our resources began to shift course, a problem arose that we needed to solve: how do we provide our community a free, up-to-date online version of the rules for our games? Well, I finally get to share the answer with you all!

Paizo is pleased to announce that Blake Davis and the Archives of Nethys will be maintaining the Pathfinder and Starfinder Reference Documents!

As an official licensed partner, the Archives of Nethys includes setting-specific rules content as well as Open Game Content, so you'll be able to find the Golarion- and Pact Worlds–specific rules you're looking for quickly and easily.

Eventually, these reference documents will become more integrated into the paizo.com website, but for the near future, we will be redirecting PRD and SFRD requests to the Archives of Nethys website:

Pathfinder Reference Document: pfrd.info
Starfinder Reference Document: sfrd.info

During this transition, you will not be able to search the PRD or the SFRD using the paizo.com search tool—you'll need to use the Archives of Nethys search tool instead for Pathfinder content; the search engine for the Starfinder site is still in development and is expected to go live in the next 1-2 weeks.

(The AON will not be hosting a Pathfinder Playtest reference document, as those rules are transitory, but we are planning to launch the reference document for Pathfinder Second Edition with them next year.)

Both reference documents on the Archives of Nethys will remain a completely free resource, but you can help support their future growth on Patreon.

I'm so excited to see our new partnership with Archives of Nethys and our online offerings to the Pathfinder and Starfinder communities evolve! Be sure to check out the AON, update your bookmarks, and keep up with the Paizo blog for future announcements.

Chris Lambertz
Web Product Manager

9/14/2018 Update: After reviewing community feedback, the legacy PRD website has now been made available at legacy.aonprd.com. It does not contain the search functionality, however.

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Tags: Licensed Products Paizo Pathfinder Reference Document Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Starfinder
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Paizo Employee Customer Service Representative

28 people marked this as a favorite.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! ^_^

Dark Archive

12 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Happy to hear this! Blake does an awesome job and hopefully he can continue to do so.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service & Community Manager

13 people marked this as a favorite.

Huzzah! Congratulations Blake!

Scarab Sages

10 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

As a long-time user of AON, this is pretty exciting!

A concern that has come to mind, but I didn't see mentioned here or on the AON front-page announcement:

To date my understanding is that AON has primarily consisted of character options and encounters, with little in the way of core game mechanics. Will core game mechanics be added to the AON?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Great!! And even more good news, because I expect that Blake will be able to work on the site full-time now! This means quicker updates!

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Yea! Great news!Congrats to AON!


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

I endorse this.

Silver Crusade Contributor

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Awesome! This is a fantastic plan and a great opportunity. ^_^


13 people marked this as a favorite.
Peevenator wrote:

As a long-time user of AON, this is pretty exciting!

A concern that has come to mind, but I didn't see mentioned here or on the AON front-page announcement:

To date my understanding is that AON has primarily consisted of character options and encounters, with little in the way of core game mechanics. Will core game mechanics be added to the AON?

That's already become a part of the site, namely in the "Rules" section: https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=All&Category=None

I talk a bit about this in my announcement in the "Pathfinder Backlog" section:

"Rules: For a long time I chose not to post this longer content as Paizo’s own PRD had it covered; generally, I focused on mechanics which were reproduced across multiple volumes, like Feats and Spells. Since the discussion of this partnership, however, we’ve made large strides towards bringing that same content onto the Archives. Still, this is the one area in which we’re behind the original PRD, but that gap is closing every day. We’ve already finished ingesting the rules from the Advanced Player’s Guide, and the Gamemastery Guide is next on the list."


well done

Customer Service Representative

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Removed a post. Please do not try to circumvent the language filters, even if it is to express excitement.

The Exchange

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

This is great. One less thing for your web team to have to focus on maintaining! Hopefully this means more ability to focus on other things.

Customer Service Representative

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congratulations, Blake!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

This is so awesome, good going Blake!

Liberty's Edge

Woot! I've been a Patreon sponsor for more than a year now because Blake's resource is so thorough and accessible; this is great news!


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Big big news! Thats the only site with everything! I Love Nethys! I hope they implement links for the monsters abilities and spells to their descriptions.

Scarab Sages

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Really, you announce this on the day that it goes live? No warning? The search function on AON still says it's in Beta. With Paizo redesigning their website making it almost impossible to find content, the new edition playtest, shipping off their own reference document to a 3rd party without any warning, and the debacle that was mustering for GenCon, I'm just about done with Paizo. Used to be a really good company with fun games. Hope they can find good leadership again someday.


7 people marked this as a favorite.

Boo....This blows (at least for the moment).

I was in the middle of using the PRD and WHAM...redirected to AON and the site grinds to a halt.

I preferred the organization of the PRD. Hopefully AON sees fit to put in Product references for those of us who want to limit things to certain books.

Silver Crusade

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Diego Valdez wrote:
Removed a post. Please do not try to circumvent the language filters, even if it is to express excitement.

Oh, my apologies (but I wasn’t trying to circumvent the filter, I typed the actual word and the filter took it :3)

Scarab Sages

This is fantastic news! AoN has always been my go to source of online pathfinder info. Very pleased to see this partnership.

Silver Crusade

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Veragond wrote:
The search function on AON still says it's in Beta.
It’s said that for awhile but it works just fine.
Veragond wrote:
the new edition playtest, shipping off their own reference document to a 3rd party without any warning,

They announced they were using Amazon when the Playtest was announced. So the exact opposite of “no warning.”

Dark Archive

7 people marked this as a favorite.
Tay-Dor wrote:

Boo....This blows (at least for the moment).

I was in the middle of using the PRD and WHAM...redirected to AON and the site grinds to a halt.

I preferred the organization of the PRD. Hopefully AON sees fit to put in Product references for those of us who want to limit things to certain books.

AoN has the source for things on every page, there is also a 'Source' option in the left hand menu that you can click on and select a specific source to see everything from it... it's actually miles ahead of anywhere else in that regard.


12 people marked this as a favorite.
Veragond wrote:
Really, you announce this on the day that it goes live? No warning? The search function on AON still says it's in Beta. With Paizo redesigning their website making it almost impossible to find content, the new edition playtest, shipping off their own reference document to a 3rd party without any warning, and the debacle that was mustering for GenCon, I'm just about done with Paizo. Used to be a really good company with fun games. Hope they can find good leadership again someday.

In fairness, the search engine on PF has been "in Beta" since its inception. I honestly could remove that text without it changing anything.

Ultimately, we have a new search engine in the works that is faster, more comprehensive, and will sort results based on quantity of the search terms found, like a real search engine. My devs say they're a few days out from it being ready for SF, then it's just a matter of converting it over to PF use.

Search isn't great now, but that's top of the list to change.

Silver Crusade

7 people marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, AoN is my go-to for pretty much everything.


10 people marked this as a favorite.

Is there any way to download a dump of the Pathfinder PRD as it was?

Scarab Sages

11 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm in two minds about this. Both PRD and Archives have both served two nices in my gaming. PRD for rules and Archives for options. I am happy Archives will catch up on rules... but it would have been better to let the PRD be up untill the project had been completed.

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Starfinder Superscriber

Most excellent. Archives of Nethys has been an invaluable resource for years.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Richard Lowe wrote:
Tay-Dor wrote:

Boo....This blows (at least for the moment).

I was in the middle of using the PRD and WHAM...redirected to AON and the site grinds to a halt.

I preferred the organization of the PRD. Hopefully AON sees fit to put in Product references for those of us who want to limit things to certain books.

AoN has the source for things on every page, there is also a 'Source' option in the left hand menu that you can click on and select a specific source to see everything from it... it's actually miles ahead of anywhere else in that regard.

Jumping in on this to point out a another feature many don't notice: namely, you can switch the background/foreground color scheme any time by hitting the toggle in the top-right.

As Richard says, the Sources area is the best way to break up all the mechanics by Source.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

But we really do need an SRD for the playtest that keeps up with the errata.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Richard Lowe wrote:


AoN has the source for things on every page, there is also a 'Source' option in the left hand menu that you can click on and select a specific source to see everything from it... it's actually miles ahead of anywhere else in that regard.

I'd like to see the sources in the tables as well.

Thanks for the tip about the Source menu option. That's helpful.

Although the Paizo PRD was better organized.


PRD for PF 2.0 playtest with HYPERLINKS, anyone?


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Since I usually hit up AoN as my go-to anyhow, this is awesome news!

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Archives of Nethys wrote:

I talk a bit about this in my announcement in the "Pathfinder Backlog" section:

"Rules: For a long time I chose not to post this longer content as Paizo’s own PRD had it covered; generally, I focused on mechanics which were reproduced across multiple volumes, like Feats and Spells. Since the discussion of this partnership, however, we’ve made large strides towards bringing that same content onto the Archives. Still, this is the one area in which we’re behind the original PRD, but that gap is closing every day. We’ve already finished ingesting the rules from the Advanced Player’s Guide, and the Gamemastery Guide is next on the list."

I'll admit that I didn't get that far. The way the section was formatted made it look like a magic item entry, so I subconsciously decided it wasn't important information and skipped past it.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
shervo wrote:

PRD for PF 2.0 playtest with HYPERLINKS, anyone?

If you check out the Starfinder side, you can see a lot of areas where we've started hyperlinking other mechanics. They aren't always clearly visible as I don't change font color/boldness on links (for example: see the Absalom Station settlement - both the planet and Settlement Qualities have populated links)

Hyperlinking has been a big desire of mine, but until recently the "catch up" has taken priority. With Starfinder over the hump, there should be many updates about more inter-linking in the near future.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I can think of no-one more deserving!


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'm really excited for this! Having access to the artwork is going to be a big deal! Monsters especially tend to be nebulous without a picture to go with it.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

THat's great news.

I have only one little thing to criticize on AoN: I'd like the site to be a little more responsive, most of the time, content is out of sight on the right side of my browser window, while there's lots of white space on the left.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I am so pleased by this! (Especially chuffed for those who prefer the option of white text on a black background.)


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Let me get this straight:

The main Paizo website is up and down for two weeks, ish, without explanation, despite frantic social media inquiries about the security of personal information and credit information, the availability of subscription information, and of non- playtest shipment information.
Then, this morning, the PRD is up and running.
Then the PRD redirects to an outside website, without warning, without a landing page, without any transition whatsoever?

My first thought was a browser hijack, then a DNS fault, then this very blog post shows in Firefox but not in IE, then despite multiple refreshes the time stamp doesn't update?

I'm still not convinced this isn't some elaborate fraud, because it is just not conceivable to me that a publishing company with a strong online presence for more than a decade could so short-sightedly mismanage such a drastic change in product identity. This is worse than when Netflix tried separating their disc rental service from their streaming service and rebrand the former as "Qwikster."

The publication of the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition changed not only my life but the landscape of gaming for my entire extended network of friends going back 25 years. If this is the kind of decision-making I can look forward to from Paizo on the cusp of a second edition, I have some serious reevaluation to work through.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Rysky wrote:
Diego Valdez wrote:
Removed a post. Please do not try to circumvent the language filters, even if it is to express excitement.
Oh, my apologies (but I wasn’t trying to circumvent the filter, I typed the actual word and the filter took it :3)

LOL. I saw Diego's post and said to myself as a joke,"What did Rysky say this time?"

Sure enough... ;)

Contributor

11 people marked this as a favorite.

This makes a lot of sense. Congrats! :)

Shadow Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Congratulations Blake!

I'm so happy that the Archives of Nethys are now the official Archives of Pathfinder & Starfinder!


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Oh, and while I'm here:

Congratulations, Blake! AON has always been a favorite of mine, and this will just make it better! YAY!

Paizo Employee Managing Developer

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Rock on, Blake!


5 people marked this as a favorite.

What. The. Actual. Butt.

Do you want people to play 5e?
'cuz this is how you get people to play 5e!

For YEARS now I've had a single rule in my game:
If it's on the PRD it's legal.
If it's in the SRD it's not legal unless it's in the PRD.
Send me a link to the PRD rules for whatever you want to do and I'll allow it.

We all used the same site.
We all saw the same rules.
We all could send these links to one another and know instantly it was official.

Now all that's gone.

Thanks Paizo.
Been fun playing with you.

See you in 5e.

Grand Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I still prefer the PRD, but I think this is a good move to make.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
Archives of Nethys wrote:
shervo wrote:

PRD for PF 2.0 playtest with HYPERLINKS, anyone?

If you check out the Starfinder side, you can see a lot of areas where we've started hyperlinking other mechanics. They aren't always clearly visible as I don't change font color/boldness on links (for example: see the Absalom Station settlement - both the planet and Settlement Qualities have populated links)

Hyperlinking has been a big desire of mine, but until recently the "catch up" has taken priority. With Starfinder over the hump, there should be many updates about more inter-linking in the near future.

I like what you are doing there for SF, no complaints there, and I look

forward to the PF side changes. I am a fan of the site.

Folks in the playtest get frustrated trying to relate the text changes
back to a pdf doc that was obsolete a week or two after it came out.

Even something that just presented the text version of the 2.0 docs with
errata links into it would help. It's hard to get people interested
when you present them with a pdf and the "decoder doc to see how the
rules really are now."

It goes back to Jason's "barrier to entry" podcast just the other day by
saying "we want your opinion, but expect you to decipher this to get to
where you can give it."

Designer

16 people marked this as a favorite.

Awesome, so glad this is finally officially a thing. Now my favorite online rules source is also our official rules source!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

WWWWHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! HHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

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