After playing pathfinder weekly for the last five months or so i'm seriously disappointed. I really enjoy the class/cross class skill system (you have 3 ranks in all class skills, and after that its 1 point regardless of class or cross class) They took Search and rolled it with spot/listen for perception nerfing one of the only nice utility skills for wizards though. Also lets talk about grappling, as far as the rules go I can grapple THROUGH A WALL or i can TRIP A GHOST. This was something that wasn't even broke in 3.5 and they took it and made it completely retarded. Did this even get playtested by competent players?

Have been using the Pathfinder core rule book for some time now and I think it is an excellent piece of work. Classes across the board have been given more variety, Streamlined skills, Improved core races, the list of improvments go on and on.

Is the product perfect? No but any complaints I have are very minor cracks covering a solid core so I would readily recomend this product to anyone.

High review results for this book (average 4.7 out of 5) and so much praise. Indeed, the book does bridge certain problems like condensing the skills to give characters more choice to spread skills around. The rage powers for the barbarian class was another nice and welcome addition. Good ideas by the creators.

However, then there is the problem with certain base classes which get too much too quickly. One example of this was the rogue. Rogue talents every two levels on top of the rogues broad class skill list and skill points per level. Each is as strong as a feat on top of everything else the class gives; evasion,uncanny dodge, improved uncanny dodge, etc.

The fighter who now gets the knights ability to move normally in medium/heavy armor. Sorcerer bloodlines giving them more oomph. Especially the one about being destined for greatness. Seen a player play one with that bloodline. Very bad choices made in game. Power crazy and got screwed horribly partway through the campaign. The list goes on.

While it is the impression of more power to the players, this makes classes which are relatively unchanged weaker. Hardly a uniformity of power across classes.

Npc classes were also surprising. Commoners were d6, experts and aristocrats d8, warriors d10. Seeing that commoners are literally thse who engage in the least combat, the upgraded hit die felt odd. Warriors are pretty much thugs and militia with training but not the specialized training of the fighter. Sure, they don't get the bonus feats but the fact that their hit die was equal with the fighter made little sense.

Some new feats were equally mind boggling. Cleave which now allowed you to attack an adjacent foe as long as you hit the previous one. Almost strong enough to replace whirlwind attack which actually had a feat tree attached to it.

Acrobatic steps and nimble moves which let you move through 20 feet of difficult terrain as if it were normal. This felt like it was just grabbing the mantle of the swashbuckler and drunken master since its one of the signature abilities of their class.

Arcane strike which lets a spellcaster makes his weapon magical as a swift action. No limit on the number of times they can do it per day. Trying to get around the problem of obtaining a magical weapon regardless of whether its through buying or adventuring. Too convenient.

The most laughable one was master craftsmen which lets you craft magic items in the sense of +1 to +(whatever) magical items. Really? So the blacksmith who has no exposure to or knowledge of the arcane pulls mystical energy from OUT OF NOWHERE and imbues the normal axe with magical power. Huge gap in logic there.

The list goes on. Too many imbalancing feats. All in all, some nice ideas but think i'll stick with 3.5 primarily for classes, rules and feats.

And we arrive at core. I personally have more experience with beta through heavy play testing. I’m giving this book a 2 specifically because it brings plenty of good ideas over from beta, e.g. what was done to skills, the tailoring choice of barbarian rage powers, the art, the presentation, the mixing of the players and dm into one book. However, balance has been abandoned. The monk and paladin class get far too much, compare them to the bard and the old stable, balanced fighter. Paladin has taken abilities from the healer class, an entire other class, while retaining its old abilities in the mix. The monk is frankly ridiculous, with ki, with bonus feats, with all the old monk gamut, but an increased progression on ac (yes I noticed). The penalties of flurry are also lessened, monk level and wisdom bonus added to combat manoeuvres so that they can be as proficient as what is the fighter’s specialty.

Few other things, the hit die change is just stupid. Upping the ranger’s hit die to the fighter level is a mistake. The ranger already gets more skills and a better selection. Why should he equal the highly drilled fighter when he already has points on him? Where is the balance? Wizards on a d6 is a laugh, an attempt to escape their old weakness. Rogues on a d8 is too much. The fighter in beta differs to the fighter in core. I far prefer the small steady bonuses in beta over the stolen 3.5 knight abilities in core.

I borrow a little from pathfinder in my 3.5 games, but what was done to the combat manoeuvres was just dreadful. A line to cross and beat isn’t as exciting as an opposed roll, although it does speed up play. CMD also gets dreadfully high far too quickly and easily. Defensive combat training (as in core, not in beta) is completely wroughty. Sure, the wizard adds his level to counter-disarms, why not? Seems plausible yes? Free and limitless cantrips, the wizard is not a warlock. Cantrips from a prohibited school (p. 79) also makes me think the wizard creators forgot what prohibited means.

Really close to a 1 with all the wrought and unbalance.

Love the hardcover, It makes it a lot more durable and a book you are going to use this often needs to be durable. I mean come on its the core book used for almost if not every aspect of play!

I have been playing D@D since second edition in the early 90's, when I went to walden books and bought the Monter manual they had there. I read that book many times and evently got the other books and started playing with my friends. I haven't felt that way since like forever until Pathfinder came along and renewed my interest in 3rd edition and D@D in general. This book is well done with many (needed) changes to classes, spells, rules, and that horrid 3.0/3.5 skill system. I love what Paizo has done with 3.5 and after 2 years I haven't been disapointed with there products yet. Thank you Paizo.

So I played D&D for years and then converted to the Warhammer RPG years ago. At one point, based on the awesome artwork, I picked up the "Rise of the Runelords" adventure path and converted it for my Warhammer group. It rocked Last year, I picked up a copy of the Pathfinder core rulebook jsut based on the fact that the ROTRL adventure path was so awesome. I basically just had the book for a year and only looked through it to marvel at the artwork. I have moved away from my rpg group so it has been a game free three years for me (ouch)
At a recent con, my eldest son (a teen) looked at the Pathfinder stuff and said "That looks fun,Dad". (Game on!). I told him I had the book and some adventures. We bought some condition cards and went home and cranked up a campaign. As I looked at the Pathfinder rulebook, it was familiar enough from my D&D days to come back to me quickly, but different enough for me to say "Hey...this is better!"
My younger son (tween) joined in and we had a blast! Reminded me of my opening days of D&D back with the orange books in, like 1980, and how much fun it was (Yes, I am old).
I love the fact that many titles have the .pdf dowload. When I have to buy three copies of most books, that is a huge value to me.
Thanks Paizo! Three new avid players onboard!
JG

This is fantasy RPG at it best.
Rules, Content, Art & Layout all five stars.
The rules are solid, achieving that balance between the best of the classic game and a modern style of play. The content is excellent. This is one of the few rule books I throughly enjoyed reading cover to cover. The art, graphics and layout are superb. This tomb conveys exactly the look and feel of the game my group loves to play.
I started out with the PDF, and loved the design and layout so much I purchased the printed version as well. Just the fact that Paizo offers a PDF is wonderful. The hyperlinked indexing makes navigating effortless. I view the PDF on my desktop machine when prepping, and on an iPad when at the game. The hardback version is there when I want to browse the beautiful artwork, or enjoy the feel of a real book in my hands.

ok this book is the bible for the game, you can't play without it unless you have the PDF of it. also this book during game play is best accompanied with MOUNTAIN DOOM bottled soda, so drink up, roll those dice and just have fun fun fun. Also on nights all by yourself, you can sleep with the CORE book. And you can cast all your cares onto this book. You can go on a street corner and preach from it. And yes I have infact, they gave me a nice padded cell. But when I got out, I just simply went back to preaching to the non-gamers on street corners saying "people can't leave by dice alone, you need this CORE book as well...now roll for reflex saves" 8 P

I have played dungeons and dragon for the last 10-13 years, and after many years of gaming we all found different fun levels in dungeons and dragons 3.5. The fighter was brilliant the first 4 levels while the wizard was just starting at level 5.

Most classes hated first level, because we could be killed by a commoner with a club with a semi lucky strike. The wizard was basicly a crossbow the first few levels. Cross references was needed for every single action, feat and ability. Levels where inconsistent, some classes had long periods of time where there was no advancement.

We all hoped that 4th edition would deal with this, and they did. The problem however was that we lost our ability to customize our heroes. A 4th level fighter would almost always be a 4th level fighter, you did not have the ability to go crazy and trying to make an intelegence fighter with focus on avoiding to die while using trip and so on.

This left my group with little lust for gaming, until this book came into my collection. My lust for gaming, basic classes, and adventure has been revisited trough the material in this book, so thank you paizo for taking the system I loved, and making it much better. The writing and rules explanations are great, the only short coming is that you named you standard dwaven ranger Harsk which is Danish for strong unpleasant smell, and your gnome bard is named lem which is Danish slang for penis. But then again, it gave us a laugh.