figurehead's page

All you need is a montage.

That's exactly what I need. Cool 80's pump up music over shots of me staring at an iPad as pages fly off a calendar. Done and done.

Don't.

This is probably the easiest advice to follow.

Really there's only one way to master pathfinder.

100 push ups
100 sit ups
100 squats
10km run

Every
SINGLE
DAY

And yeah, aside from that, just read over what's interesting to you and learn that, no one's an expert, not even me, and I can build an epic hero who can defeat every monster with one punch.

This sounds doable if I can subtract the 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, and the 100 squats. I can definitely pull that off!

Oh, and the run, I'm gonna have to drop the run.

Thanks for all the replies! They've all been super helpful. I'll put the idea of reading the Core book cover to cover out of my head.

I'd start with the classes first. There are several things in the classes that have been changed. Look at the Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins, Monks, etc. A lot of them have features not available from 3.X, so reviewing what these changes are will make you current. (It also supports full-level classes, though in some cases, dipping or multiclassing can be beneficial overall.)

Then, scope over some of the newer classes, such as Inquisitors, Alchemists, Summoners, Maguses, etc.

Next would be the new elements of combat. Combat Maneuvers are going to be the biggest change, given how the implementation of CMB and CMD drastically change how Combat Maneuvers operate in comparison of 3.X.

Following that, looking at some of the equipment in the game, both general and magical. Crafting rules are also very different from what 3.X does (i.e. there's no longer an EXP cost to create items, as one example), so familiarizing yourself with that will help speed that process along.

I'd also make sure you look over the FAQ page on this site, especially for the Core Rulebook, so as to keep yourself up-to-date on the intent behind mechanics. One of the most common misconceptions I see on these boards is "Using 2 Weapons = TWF," when there is a FAQ that says you're only doing TWF if you're spending the action to get extra attacks.

Otherwise, you can probably carry the rest over from 3.X

That's definitely helpful, thanks! I didn't even know about the FAQ, that's great.

SORD PF is your friend.

Oh nice, thanks. I think I'll pick that up.

I spent like 10 months cramming www.d20pfsrd.com into my head. It is pure mechanics, with none of the fluff from the books.

Honestly, its been really helpful. I'm DMing my own game with some players, new and old, who are really enjoying it. The nice thing about d20 is that if you need to hunt something down on the fly you can, without flipping through 8 different books and hundreds of pages.

D20 is a big jumble of all the books, but they are sorted by common elements. Having ONE place to look for feats, uses for skills, GM rules, and etc is nice instead of plowing through chapter after chapter about feats across a ton of books.

Thanks! That site seems super helpful. I bought the PFRPG RD app on my iPad which seems similar, but I like the way D20 is laid out. I'd really like to GM mostly from my iPad as much as possible. Planning to build a PDF library all in one place.

I also found a pair of apps called Game Master (for planning campaigns) and Fight Club 3 (for building characters/NPCs) which seem really cool and work together. Sorry to go off on a tangent.

Expert? After playing Pathfinder in the GM chair for 3 years, I'm still just winging things with the occasional reference. A lot of things are still the same as 3.5, and most of the changes are found in spells and combat maneuvers. Aside from that, you should be fine.

Haha, yeah, that's why expert was in quotes.

First of all, I apologize because I made slightly similar thread a while back about the sheer amount of Pathfinder rules to read. I just wanted to make a new topic since this is a bit different and it's always good to get new perspectives.

So 15 years ago or so I played a lot of 3E D&D, though I never DM'ed. Then, around 5 years ago we had a slight resurgence with Pathfinder, so I've played a bit of that too. Now I'd like to get back into it, and it seems like I'm the one willing to GM. So I'd like to take it seriously and use Pathfinder to its fullest extent.

Since it's been so long I thought I would start from scratch and read the Core Rulebook (I read the Inner Sea World Guide recently just for fun). The problem is, I've got just enough residual 3E and Pathfinder knowledge that it makes trying to read through the Core Rulebook frustrating. I struggle with reading through the stuff I already know, but I don't want to skip anything and risk missing things I don't.

How would you recommend dealing with that? I'd like to get the basics down solid so I can start exploring things like the Advanced Players Guide, Ultimate Combat/Magic, some of the more advanced stuff we never touched back in the day. Anyway, I should be asleep so I'm rambling. Thanks for the help!

Don't be afraid to "cheat" either. No reason to memorize the monsters or something, just have note cards.

This might help. Or might not, either way up for you to decide.

That will definitely help, thank you! Also, 500 pages a night is insane, I'd love to be able to do that.

Thanks to everyone else too. I appreciate the advice. I know that you're right, skimming and reading only what I need makes more sense. I guess I'm just not sure how to approach a book other than to read it cover to cover. That's a skill I'll develop over time I assume.

So I played some Pathfinder a few years ago, and now I've gotten it in my head to maybe GM for 2-3 friends at some point.

Now, I know you don't need to have read everything cover to cover in order to play, but if I'm going to really dig into it and make it a real hobby I will want to have read and internalized a lot.

Right now I'm about 150 pages into the Inner Sea Guide and I'm really enjoying it, but ultimately I'd like to have read the Inner Sea Guide (320 pgs), Core Rulebook (576 pgs), Game Masters Guide (320 pgs), Ultimate Combat (256 pgs), Ultimate Magic (256 pgs), Ultimate Campaign (256 pgs), Ultimate Equipment (400 pgs), Inner Sea Gods (300 pgs), Advanced Players Guide (320 pgs), and the Advanced Race Guide (256 pgs), Advanced Class Guide (256 pgs), and that's just off the top of my head. Give or take some cover pages and indexes, that approximately 3,516 dual column pages to read. That's a lot of pages.

It's taken me about a week to read the first 150 pages of the Inner Sea Guide due to time restraints and being a fairly slow reader. So at that rate it would take me rougly 6 months to read all of that assuming I was reading all the time.

Just curious what you guys do, or what tips you have for internalizing this staggering amount of information. Help me transform from a casual observer to a Pathfinder expert!

Thanks!

That's perfect! I wasn't sure where to go after the Inner Sea Guide, so thanks for the suggestions!

I bought the Inner Sea Guide PDF a while back but I'm just now reading through it and I love it. I know there are tons of PDFs out there, which would you suggest to really flesh out the world as much as possible? Thanks!

Hey guys, I guess we're going to start up RotRL, and the DM said we can basically play anything we want. After looking around I really liked the idea of a Half-Orc Bear Shaman. I was hoping for any advice anyone had about a character like this. Not only have I never played a shaman, I've never played a Druid of any kind. Any tips or advice?

Hi guys, new GM here. I've been running RotRL as my first campaign. So far I've only run the first two parts of Burnt offerings, and I'm supposed to run Glass and Wrath tomorrow.

My question is about drawing maps on the grid mat. The two major areas in this chapter are the Glassworks and the Catacombs of Wrath. Do I need to draw both if these out on the grid mat? I'll admit that I kinda hate drawing things on the mat, but I do like having the pawns and grid so we know where everyone is.

Any advice on this?

Also, any other tips on this particular chapter? This one definitely seems to be where things really kick off. Thanks!

Thank you for the reply! I didn't realize there was a more appropriate forum for the question, sorry about that. Thank you for the advice, and I'll head to the other board and see what I can find.

My friends and I used to play Pathfinder semi-regularly, but fell out of the habit. We recently picked up the Beginners Box to ease our way back into it. I ended up running the the BB adventure (first time GMing!) and we had a great time.

Now we're jumping straight from the kiddie pool into the deep end with the Rise of the Runelords Anniversery Edition. I'll probably just cover the first two parts of Burnt Offerings in our session tomorrow night.

Part 1 seems fairly straight forward with the raid and everything, but I'm worried about Part 2. It seems to be mainly a collection of story encounters as the PCs hang out around town. With this loose structure I'm not sure how to cover everything without just going down the list one by one. I'd like it to feel sorta natural.

Also, I'll probably only have two players. We were thinking they could havers their "main" characters, and then two others that they would run in combat. That way I don't have to figure out how to adjust the entire thing to balance it for two people.

Any advice on this or absolutely anything else that would help a new GM start Rise of the Runelords would be incredibly appreciated. Sorry for the wall of text!

I posted this over in Website Discussion as well to see if anyone had any ideas.

Once I got Goodreader I've been able to download a couple PDFs on my iPhone no problem, but last night I bought the Inner Sea World Guide (Order # 3140984) and I'm having no luck.

I clicked on the link, wait 10 seconds for it to personalize, click again, and nothing happens. I clicked on the "having trouble downloading this file" link and it goes to a white screen with the name of the PDF, the "Open in Goodreader" link at the top, and says "Zero Bytes". At that point nothing happens, the Zero Bytes never changes, and the "Open in Goodreader" link does nothing.

I know that things like iPhones and Goodreader aren't your department, and it might not be in your end, I just thought I'd ask since I'd love to dig into the Inner Sea, thanks!

Once I got Goodreader I've been able to download a couple PDFs on my iPhone no problem, but last night I bought the Inner Sea World Guide and I'm having no luck.

I clicked on the link, wait 10 seconds for it to personalize, click again, and nothing happens. I clicked on the "having trouble downloading this file" link and it goes to a white screen with the name of the PDF, the "Open in Goodreader" link at the top, and says "Zero Bytes". At that point nothing happens, the Zero Bytes never changes, and the "Open in Goodreader" link does nothing.

Maybe I should take this to customer service, but before I did I wanted to see if anyone had experienced this or had any ideas. Thanks!

Thanks for the advice everyone. I ended up ordering a Nexus 7. I agree the 7" screen isn't ideal for PDFs, but it'll be better than my 4S and that $199 price tag is a lot more doable.

Hi everyone. I was thinking if gettig one of these. I was wondering if anyone used either of these and if you could buy Paizo PDFs directly from the device. I tried to buy one from my iPhone yesterday and it couldn't download it. Thanks!

Wow, ton of great suggestions. Thanks so much. I've never considered the "brute style" rogue, I'll definitely take that, as well as everything else under consideration. Also, I don't know that I'll do it, but I love the duel wield picks idea, x4 critical would be nasty.

Hey everyone, I was hoping I could ask for some help. If this has been covered before, I'm sorry, I did a search but didn't find exactly what I was looking for. So here we go...

I'm pretty new to PFRPG, and am looking to make a great combat focused rogue. I figure I'll want to maximize sneak attack and criticals, do a lot of feinting, and minimize attacks of opportunity. Any advice on these topics or anything else would definitely be appreciated.

P.S. We're starting at 3rd level, so obviously I won't have everything I want off the bat, but just suggestions for down the road would be great. Thanks!