How can I use OGL content for a Pathfinder Society character?


Pathfinder Society


I've never played a pathfinder society game; when I play at home our rules are generally that any content you can find on the SRD is legal if it came from Paizo books. However, it sounded to me like I actually needed to be able to produce copies of the pages of the book that the material had come from for society, and that is not something I have available to me. Is the SRD at all acceptable or do I really need copies of the particular pages?

1/5

you need to own the source you use for everything for your character. Also you need to check the additional resources to makes sure the item you wish to use is allowed in the campaign.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 *** Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant

Yeah, what Jessex said. You are expected to own and be able to show either the book or a watermarked pdf or print out of said watermarked pdf when using anything outside the Core Rule Book.

The PRD is not allowed, and neither is d20pfsrd.


Doesn't that essentially make the game pay to win? I enjoy pathfinder with all the source materials, but many of the later books are not even sort of balanced with what is in core.

5/5 *****

beshears wrote:
Doesn't that essentially make the game pay to win? I enjoy pathfinder with all the source materials, but many of the later books are not even sort of balanced with what is in core.

Core contains some of the most powerful elements in the game so no not really.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

If you want to be absolutely sure of a level playing field, look out for Core Campaign games.

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

I will cop to the "pay to win" aspect of the campaign. It's not that the classes in the ACG are more powerful than those in the Core rulebook -- although many of them are -- but rather that an increased menu of options leads to better optimization: finding the precisely right feat or spell or magic item for the job.

To an extent, that's what happens when you have an Organized Play campaign as a marketing tool. PFS exists to give you an excuse to buy a lot of new toys.

Are you familiar with the CORE Mode of Society play? In that mode, all the players at the table build characters with a limited palette of options: the only legal sources are the Core rulebook, the Guide to the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign, and the small Traits document (which is reprinted in the otherwise non-core Advanced Players Guide).

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

Chris Mortika wrote:
the small Traits document

Character Traits Web Enhancement

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Core is probably where you'd like to play, but you still need the Core Rulebook.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Core is probably where you'd like to play, but you still need the Core Rulebook.

From your first post it sounds like you're happy using material in an electronic format, so it's worth noting that the CRB is only $9.99 in PDF form (as are most of the other hardcovers, in fact).

Grand Lodge

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I've been playing PFS little over a year now. I bought the CRB in hardback because I knew I would need it the most. Then after that I bought all my other books in PDF and simply printed out the relevant pages for each character I had, doing it this way gives you the watermark. This has worked really well for me. I don't have to lug around lots of books and the price of a PDF is awesome compared to the hardbacks.

2/5

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I concur with apbrake. And there's the whole if you are actually paying for content the company can continue to exist and thus provide more content for the game you're enjoying. Compared to the price of a movie nowadays, PFS is a fairly inexpensive entertainment outlet.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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beshears wrote:
Is the SRD at all acceptable or do I really need copies of the particular pages?

Greetings! Welcome to the Pathfinder Society.

This is a multipart question, really.

The SRD is a 3rd party site, and includes 3rd party material. It also doesn't have access to Paizo's intellectual property rights, so they modify the names and wording of a lot of their content. In short, you can't use the SRD at a PFS table.

The PRD, on the other hand, *is* legal, but only in a limited application. If you own a PDF of something found on the PRD, you may simply take a screenshot of your downloads page to show ownership, and then reference the PRD on your electronic device during play.

Be careful relying on that for extended game days, should your battery run low. That's why printouts of your actual PDF pages are preferred (and required for books not found on the PRD).

The reasoning for these rules is twofold. PFS is a giant marketing campaign for Paizo. It's not so much "pay to win". Even a Core Wizard is incredibly effective. It's more "pay to support this awesome company that's providing you with regular content and a long-lived Organized Play Campaign".

The other reason is so GMs can reference the text of an ability being used, because, let's face it, there's a lot of content and nobody can remember it all.

Hope that helps! I'd say if you don't want to spend a bunch of money on books in one shot, just build a character using the CRB (and whatever books you have) and try a few games.

We'd love to have you =)

5/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Captain, Germany—Hamburg

And btw, "pay to win" would imply that players win or lose the game individually. It's still roleplaying. Everybody wins (as long as everybody is having fun, which should be what everybody at the table aims for). ;)

As has already been mentioned, the CRB has lots of good options, all the other books just give players more options to sculpt their characters as uniquely as they like.

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