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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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Hi, sorry if this has come up before, I'm new. I know Paizo already has a full plate running so many subscriptions, but I was wondering if any official mention of doing some Pathfinder novels in the future has been made. Paizo's so strong in the story department, and there's so much rich material in Golarion. It'd be nice to have some intelligent, mature, well written fantasy novels for a change. I know I'd buy it.

Hey everybody, I’m new to the site, but it seems really impressive, the messageboards alone are a great resource. We’re about to run our first PFRPG game, and I’ve been nominated to GM, which I’ve never done before. In addition, a couple guys in our group are in the Army were recently stationed overseas, so until we trick one of our non-nerd friends into it (free beer?), we’re down to three, occasionally a forth. So, if any of this has been covered before, sorry, but I had a few general newbie GM question

1. Incomplete Parties… I know the rules work off an assumption of 4 to 5, and I know to drop their APL by 1. What other advice would you give regarding smaller parties? Which leads me to…

2. DMNPCs. I know they can be a challenge, but it will be a very casual, learn-the-system game, and I know the players (a human monk and elven rogue) would be all for it. A couple fleshed out NPCs to fill out the party, let us test drive more classes, and for more story of course. I If I go this way, I really want to try to use these characters to show off the value of some races and classes they always dismissed in 3.5 (like gnomes and halflings, bards and druids), instead of just handing them their token healer, tank, ect. Any ideas?

3. Would you suggest Rise of the Runelords for a first time GM, and our first game in Golarian? I have access to it, and it seems really Lovecrafty and awesome. I just worry we’d get bogged down with conversions.

Wow, sorry that was so long, I’m not normally this chatty. I really appreciate the help.