Best way to handle rulebook errata?


Product Discussion

Dark Archive

Hello all! What methods do you guys use to handle the errata of the various rulebooks?

I have been torn the past few days on whether or not to switch to PDF and take advantage of the loooooow $9.99 prices of the hardbacks' PDFs, and thereby ALWAYS have the most current "printings" at my disposal.

That having been said, I don't know if I am ready to give up the aesthetic/tactile feel of hefting an actual tome in my hand and being able to flip through the pages of a physical copy. Plus, I don't have hundreds of dollars to invest in a tablet to make the PDFs truly portable (nor do I wish to have to hunt for an electrical outlet to plug my "books" into if I should take my big 'ol laptop to a session).

So, how to best handle errata? One idea I had was to take and fold a printout of the most recent errata for a given book and make a small pencil mark next to each page number of the relevant pages in my hardback, so that when I get to that page in my reading, I know to pull the folded print-out I've tucked into the front cover for referencing.

I guess I was just wondering if anyone else used such a method or if there were any other ideas? I read somewhere on the Savage Worlds forums about a guy who used some sort of SUPER-fine-tipped marker or pen and actually wrote-in the corrections where they would go. Two problems with this, however: I have no idea what pen or marker would be the best for the type of semi-gloss paper Paizo uses, and... some of the errata from the printouts would require penning an entire paragraph or more!

Advice? Suggestions? Practicalities? Thanks in advance!


I memorize the errata important to my campaign, which isn't actually a lot of it, make my own call when something rarely used comes up and is unclear or obviously erroneous, and ignore all the rest of it.

Dark Archive

Sounds plausible, thenobledrake! I do have a tendency towards over-thinking these things.... In looking over the errata just now to bring the Core Book from the 3rd to the 5th printing, it all looks like such minor tweaks anyway!


I have written the changes in by hand; my book is 1st printing. Was very labourious, but gets the job done!

Dark Archive

Denim, what type of pen and what size point did you use? Did it threaten to smear?


I use a good pencil and mark wherever there is an errata entry (that's more complex than changing a single number or deleting a word) with an 'E'.


sigilwraith wrote:
Denim, what type of pen and what size point did you use? Did it threaten to smear?

Nope, didn't smear at all!

I used a Sharpie Ultra Fine Point pen or a Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine. The Pilot ink takes longer to dry before you can turn pages; the Sharpie is better.


Just write them in with pencil or a fine-tipped pen, unless, for example, it's their use of the word "addicting" in Bestiary 3 in which case you scratch it out with your fingernails and write "idiots!" next to it with a thick marker.

It really comes down to whether you feel your books are intrinsic works of art, or whether it is the information contained within that is important - in the latter case, it is better that you have instantly available accurate information than you try to retain some fresh-off-the-printer aesthetic.

Sczarni

I know a few people who print the PDF of the changes and place the printouts on the correct pages


our group pretty much switched to using tablets, with another using a laptop: problem is that no everybody download the new versions of the handbooks, so you can easily find more than one version of a phrase depending on what one is looking at...

Shadow Lodge

Do you have a regular group or is this organized play? Seems like for a regular group it should be pretty easy to keep track of the few bits of errata that affects your game. For organized play you just sort of have to keep it handy I guess.

I tend to run my games without referring to the rules except for occasionally looking up spells and obscure class powers. I just skim the errata for things that impact general play and remember that.

Dark Archive

Subscribing to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game has been a good decision, for a couple of reasons:

A: I love being one of the first people to get the new rulebooks.
B: You get the PDF for free, you get to download it as soon as your hard copy ships from the warehouse so you get a sneak peek, and every time there is a new printing you receive an email letting you know the new edition is ready for download so you can replace the out-of-date one.

Now, my hardcover Core Rulebook is 2nd edition, so I print out the errata, staple the pages together, fold it in half, and stick it in the back of the book. Then, over the next few weeks I take my time going through and penciling in the changes. Since they are actually few and far between it hasn't made my book look like crap (although years of constant use and abuse have done that already).

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