Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Strategy Guide (OGL)

I'm thinking of it as a "how to use the CRB" book. Aimed at people moving from the BB to the full game or just people playing the full game who are intimidated/confused/frustrated by the CRB's density. It's definitely not a standalone product (so not a friendly version of core) but rather one to use alongside the PF core.

I haven't actually seen it yet, of course. Nonetheless, that's my impression from what vic and others have said.

That's exactly what it is.

On the topic of "why not just revise the Core Rulebook," the answer is that that task is *far* from simple. There are many, many issues that come into play with that concept, but one of the biggest is that the Core Rulebook is very densely packed, and presenting data in a way that's approachable in the easiest way requires a *lot* of rewriting. Such a re-presentation also requires a lot of space—it would become an impractically large book, and would almost certainly need to be divided into more than one book. And at this point, we'd be so far away from a simple re-presentation of the Core Rulebook that we'd be doing something that many would consider a new edition of the game. And we're just not ready for a new edition yet. (And this is not the place to have that discussion—if you want to talk about that, please find one of the existing threads on that topic.)

The Core Rulebook is good as a reference; it's not good at teaching the game. As someone mentioned above, the Core Rulebook had a different job to do of winning over the slew of players who still wanted to play a version of 3rd Edition. It needed to function first as a REFERENCE of (not a guide to) the rules. Now, Paizo has the awesome "problem" of helping new players graduate from the Beginner Box.

Oh, and +1 to what Vic just said.

Samy wrote:

Indeed, what graywulfe said. The complexity of the CRB isn't something you can "design away". Whether you accept it or not, it *is* a feature, not a bug. It's 500 pages of rules. Five hundred fricking pages of rules. You can't redesign that into twenty pages without making it a different game entirely. The problem is that it *is* 500 pages. That's not a design flaw, that's the intent. It's a complex, rules-heavy game system. And you can't make that problem go away with any amount of design, but you can lower the barrier of entry by having a product that hand-holds you as you get familiar with it.

I'd argue here that the Beginner Box shows it is possible to reduce the complexity.

I never said it was not possible. I said it was undesirable.

Huh, I've never found the Core Rulebook to be problematic.

Huh, I've never found the Core Rulebook to be problematic.

Was Pathfinder your first RPG?

Squeakmaan wrote:

Huh, I've never found the Core Rulebook to be problematic.

Was Pathfinder your first RPG?

And how many other people did you have to help you figure it out if it was? Don't get me wrong I also never found it that problematic, but I had a friend who has found certain things unclear since the reference other things he is unfamiliar with. And while myself and others are able to clarify it, he points out that the need to reference other rules or someone who understand them better makes the core rulesbook less than user friendly if you aren't already super savvy. I also need to teach 6-12 new students how the game works every year and having something like this will make it easier.

I'm hopeful that this will help me and my daughter to create better characters. I'm an old school AD&D player and we've been playing off and on for about a year now. We're still learning as we don't have a ton of time to digest all the rules, options and so on. We use hero lab, but it's nice to have it more streamlined and laid out instead of having to depend on that.

Product description updated.

It's a big, heavy book filled with a bazillion words, tables, and lists that appear daunting to newcomers.

Really important rules, like how you level up your character, are split into multiple places, and much of it is easy to miss.

It tells you how to make a character, but it doesn't help you figure out which of the many choices you can make are the ones you want to make.

Options for *your* character class, like feats and spells, have to be extracted from dense chapters that also cover options that your character can't actually use.[/list]

What´s wrong with GM Guide? it says almost the same you mention there?

The GM Guide doesn't offer player-focused character-building guidance, or player-focused explanations of how combat and other rules systems work.

The GM Guide doesn't offer player-focused character-building guidance, or player-focused explanations of how combat and other rules systems work.

So, with that answer; what´s wrong with Corerule Book then?

If the strategy guide offers me an extract or abstract from GMG and CRB...

Edit: I mean, I have the CRB, GMG, APG, ACG, UC, UM, UC, MA and there´s d20pfrpg wiki, and a bunch of builds throug this same forum...

Maybe I´ll pass with this one... Txs in regards

CRB is thorough and is written to spell out every contingency, every possibility, every little detail, every nitpick. In order to cover everything, there's a MASSIVE amount of information in the CRB that the average player won't need in their lifetime.

Strategy Guide helps you filter out the stuff that you won't need as much, and helps you focus on the most important bits of the CRB.

If you already have all of those books you listed, and are most likely highly proficient in them, Strategy Guide probably won't be of much use to you, since you probably already know what you're looking for when you open each book.

Strategy Guide is for the players who don't want to read through the ENTIRE SPELLS SECTION in the CRB, they just play a Druid, and they want to be given a short list of the ten most important Druid spells they should look up in the CRB. They don't want to read EVERY SINGLE FEAT in the CRB, they just want to be given a short list of ten most useful Druid feats they should look up in the CRB.

I don't need it, but I know for a fact there are at least two players at my table who would find it absolutely invaluable, because there's no way in hell I'm ever going to get them to read the CRB.

im a gm too and i prefeer that my players experiment theyre characters, options and make themselves their own paths.

do not missunderstanding me, im only asking why should i need to buy it.

I feel the theme from this one like a walkthough for a video game, something like "play the game this way, not your way"

Maybe ill buy the pdf for checkit out and take the decision.

thank you for your advice

By necessity, if you want to make things simpler for a certain subset of players, you need to offer them a reduced subset of the game. Sure, there's going to be an element of "play the game this way", but the players can break away from that mold at any time if they wish. The Strategy Guide does not limit you to the options it suggests. You can choose to read the entire CRB and pick any feats and any spells anytime you want. The Strategy Guide will try to help a less encyclopedic player by -- yes -- suggesting that he/she play the game with these feats and these spells. But it's still your way, because *you choose which suggestions to follow*.

It's not any worse than when other players at the table offer suggestions. It just collects a lot of other-player-advice into a book, so even those without any friends can get suggestions and help.

By necessity [...] you need to offer them a reduced subset of the game [...] It's not any worse than when other players at the table offer suggestions. It just collects a lot of other-player-advice into a book, so even those without any friends can get suggestions and help.

yep i understan all of that you mention here... maybe paizians try to give us that feelling of player-to-player suggestion that you mention there.

Thanks a lot.

I am buying this because i HOPE to find all the rules about something in one place.

keep dreaming!!

Maybe if they create an Appfinder or something and keeping updating it... but that´s how the sales world would never work...

maybe an Ultimate Rule Guide with all the rules presented in the:
CoreRule Book
GameMastery Guide
Mythic Adventure
Advanced Player´s Guide
Advanced Race Guide
Advanced Class Guide
Ultimate Combat
Ultimate Campaign
Ultimate Magic
Ultimate Equipment
Bestiary 1
Bestiary 2
Bestiary 3
Bestiary 4
Monster Codex
And then, the next year Occult Adventurers and Estrategy Guide...

Of course with 300+ new feats and 500+ new spells for dipping :3 1 archetype new for every class in the game or something alike.

I consider very more suitable two compendiums:
-Spell Compendium
-Feat Compendium

I was talking about basic rules, the ones we all know about.
I think that sometimes new players (or old players with bad habits) need a place to start, rules on how a full round works, when you can do a 5ft step, how charging works and so on.

So the bad news is that, due to a problem with the print run that was only discovered after it reached our warehouse, this book has been delayed again. The good news is that you can now check out a spread from the book, so if you've previous commented that you don't understand the point of this book, you can now see for yourself.

Details here.

Wrong logo?

Our printer bound the books before the ink was dry, and many of the pages were basically sealed signatures, making the books difficult to open and read.

You could pretty easily grab a letter opener and separate the stuck pages with relatively minor damage to the page corners, but that is far below the standards that we hold for our products, or that the printer holds for their own work.

When notified of the problem they immediately offered to re-do the entire print run at their expense.

The Advanced Class Guide logo swap was our fault, and didn't substantially (or even "at all") change the value of the book's content, so we decided to bite the bullet and release it as is.

"Sealed signature"? Is that a printing/publishing term?

"Sealed signature"? Is that a printing/publishing term?

A signature is 16 pages; a sealed signature just means that the signature was gummed up.

Our printer bound the books before the ink was dry, and many of the pages were basically sealed signatures, making the books difficult to open and read.

You could pretty easily grab a letter opener and separate the stuck pages with relatively minor damage to the page corners, but that is far below the standards that we hold for our products, or that the printer holds for their own work.

When notified of the problem they immediately offered to re-do the entire print run at their expense.

The Advanced Class Guide logo swap was our fault, and didn't substantially (or even "at all") change the value of the book's content, so we decided to bite the bullet and release it as is.

Don't forget Wes's little spelling mistake...>poke poke<

Bellona wrote:

"Sealed signature"? Is that a printing/publishing term?

A signature is 16 pages; a sealed signature just means that the signature was gummed up.

I'm pretty sure Erik was thinking about something we did when we published Dungeon 95, where a "mature content" signature (that's a 16-page section) related to the Book of Vile Darkness was deliberately "sealed" so that you would have to cut it open to access the content. (Believe me, that was annoying enough when it was done *intentionally*...)

But hey, you guys can check out a spread now. Does that help those of you who were hazy about our goals for this product better understand it?

I really like the idea of a Strategy Guide.

By the preview (the link Vic posted on Wednesday) it looks a lot like a series of articles written by Skip Williams on D&D official site about 10 years ago. That articles helped me a lot to understand the mechanics and how to make a character.

The point is if this Strategy Guide is more than just a simple guide to understand the basic rules I think it will be a great book. But if it's just what was presented on the preview I think would be better to write some articles on Paizo Blog than to make a book.

OBS: English is not my native language so I'm sorry if I was too harsh on the text above.

My understanding is, if you were reading Sage Advice on the D&D website 10 years ago, you are not the target audience for this book.

Frankly, if you're hanging out in these forums and reading the Paizo blog, you are probably not the target audience for this book. They've been very clear that this is a guide to help beginners get started with the game.

The previewed "Cleric" spread cements my suspicion that this is not a book I will ever, ever consult ... but it's definitely one I want on my shelf to hand to any new player. It seems to be designed to be the next best thing to the way many of us (I, at least) learned to play the game: by having a veteran player sitting down next to us with the rulebook and a blank character sheet and walking us through it.

There's 2 beginners on my grouping game and their great difficult is not building the character but some playing situations.

Some concepts like:

- how the group should "work" on combat (the positioning of each character on the battlefield and their "responsabilities").
- how to avoid AoOs.
- how to think ahead the combat.
- how to prepare to enter in a dungeon.
- tips for using spells in creative way.
- tips for using alchemical creations and reagents.
- when to run or fight.

What I'm saying is I don't see a point on that Strategy Guide if it's just for the very beginners because they are just very beginners for a short period of time. I think the great problem of d20 system is not the character creation but some situations I listed above and, in my opinion, even players with some experience still have would find very nice to have a guide covering that topics.

There's 2 beginners on my grouping game and their great difficult is not building the character but some playing situations.

Some concepts like:

- how the group should "work" on combat (the positioning of each character on the battlefield and their "responsabilities").
- how to avoid AoOs.
- how to think ahead the combat.
- how to prepare to enter in a dungeon.
- tips for using spells in creative way.
- tips for using alchemical creations and reagents.
- when to run or fight.

- A clear and user-friendly introduction to the basics of combat

- Advice for getting the most out of game sessions, collaborating with other players, and succeeding on the battlefield.

There's 2 beginners on my grouping game and their great difficult is not building the character but some playing situations.

Some concepts like:

- how the group should "work" on combat (the positioning of each character on the battlefield and their "responsabilities").
- how to avoid AoOs.
- how to think ahead the combat.
- how to prepare to enter in a dungeon.
- tips for using spells in creative way.
- tips for using alchemical creations and reagents.
- when to run or fight.

What I'm saying is I don't see a point on that Strategy Guide if it's just for the very beginners because they are just very beginners for a short period of time. I think the great problem of d20 system is not the character creation but some situations I listed above and, in my opinion, even players with some experience still have would find very nice to have a guide covering that topics.

"grouping game" -> gaming group

Blzn wrote:

There's 2 beginners on my grouping game and their great difficult is not building the character but some playing situations.

Some concepts like:

- how the group should "work" on combat (the positioning of each character on the battlefield and their "responsabilities").
- how to avoid AoOs.
- how to think ahead the combat.
- how to prepare to enter in a dungeon.
- tips for using spells in creative way.
- tips for using alchemical creations and reagents.
- when to run or fight.

product description wrote:

- A clear and user-friendly introduction to the basics of combat

- Advice for getting the most out of game sessions, collaborating with other players, and succeeding on the battlefield.

I know it's on the description but that's not on the "preview". Would be very nice if they post some pages of the other chapters.

I know it's on the description but that's not on the "preview". Would be very nice if they post some pages of the other chapters.

Oh, I see. And I agree with you. I think Vic said they would have more previews the closer we get to February.

Material like that (the items mentioned in the preview) were in the turnover, so I imagine material like that is in the final product to. Space is limited and a whole book could be written on tactics, so it focuses on information the new player needs to work effectively, not an exhaustive treatment. I was a minor contributor on the book, but that was one of the areas :)

… a whole book could be written on tactics…

More than one, no doubt. :-)

Boo at another delay! Boo! Hiss! Although, to be entirely honest, it's probably for the better because my funds are taking a much harder hit this holiday season than normal.

Stupid people getting married at this time of year and making me shell out loads of money for tux rentals, travel, and gifts...

There is some tactics advice for playing your chosen class, as well as for different battlefield situations.

My understanding is, if you were reading Sage Advice on the D&D website 10 years ago, you are not the target audience for this book.

Frankly, if you're hanging out in these forums and reading the Paizo blog, you are probably not the target audience for this book. They've been very clear that this is a guide to help beginners get started with the game.

The previewed "Cleric" spread cements my suspicion that this is not a book I will ever, ever consult ... but it's definitely one I want on my shelf to hand to any new player. It seems to be designed to be the next best thing to the way many of us (I, at least) learned to play the game: by having a veteran player sitting down next to us with the rulebook and a blank character sheet and walking us through it.

I agree for the most part on this; that said, I'm also looking forward to the book both as a teaching aide and to see how other people (in this case, the designers) design characters and what they have to say about it. An offline forum, if you will, that has ideas I may not have considered strongly. Plus, I liked Sage Advice. :)

I'm looking forward to it. I had to learn the CRB without anyone to help me and I'm sure I overlooked some "obvious" things that this will point out to me. Great for my son and his friends too (he's 11). So I'm thinking it will be good for me. I agree though that if you're already familiar with the game it will be a bit redundant. I'm looking at it like a link between BB and CRB.

The preview looks great! Can't wait to get it in my hands!

Until Sara posted the February releases I never noticed this was not pat of the Subscription. Glad I caught that.

Until Sara posted the February releases I never noticed this was not pat of the Subscription. Glad I caught that.

Same here... It would have been nice if they'd said that when they announced at Paizocon. Ah well, no biggie. I'll just pre-order.

Joana wrote:

My understanding is, if you were reading Sage Advice on the D&D website 10 years ago, you are not the target audience for this book.

Frankly, if you're hanging out in these forums and reading the Paizo blog, you are probably not the target audience for this book. They've been very clear that this is a guide to help beginners get started with the game.

The previewed "Cleric" spread cements my suspicion that this is not a book I will ever, ever consult ... but it's definitely one I want on my shelf to hand to any new player. It seems to be designed to be the next best thing to the way many of us (I, at least) learned to play the game: by having a veteran player sitting down next to us with the rulebook and a blank character sheet and walking us through it.

I agree for the most part on this; that said, I'm also looking forward to the book both as a teaching aide and to see how other people (in this case, the designers) design characters and what they have to say about it. An offline forum, if you will, that has ideas I may not have considered strongly. Plus, I liked Sage Advice. :)

While I like the concept of this book, it feels like a hard sell to me. "Don't know how to play the game that has this 50 dollar core? Might as well also pick up this 30 dollar hardback to understand the 50 dollar hardback!"

I'm sure that's just me being cynical, and maybe if the SRD is pushed more to consider this something to use with the SRD, it'd work better, but it just seems at a really weird place for something I'd pick up. Like it almost seems more like a book an experienced player would pick up to let their inexperienced friends read. I'll reserve actual judgement for when it comes out, but it just seems like an odd book to make.

Do I need this book? *looks at two yards of Paizo product on his shelves already*

Umm, no I don't. I think I have the system down. However, not all of my players will (or do). This isn't a book I'm likely to reference myself, but it's a book I expect I will hand to players somewhat frequently.

While I like the concept of this book, it feels like a hard sell to me. "Don't know how to play the game that has this 50 dollar core? Might as well also pick up this 30 dollar hardback to understand the 50 dollar hardback!"

I'm sure that's just me being cynical, and maybe if the SRD is pushed more to consider this something to use with the SRD, it'd work better, but it just seems at a really weird place for something I'd pick up. Like it almost seems more like a book an experienced player would pick up to let their inexperienced friends read. I'll reserve actual judgement for when it comes out, but it just seems like an odd book to make.

Well, if buyers are anything like me (a semi-experienced GM with a queue of beginner players), it'll sell like hotcakes.

Yeah, this is a book I wish I had back when I was getting my kingmaker campaign started a couple of years ago. I would definitely have handed it off to players to help them figure out what to do.

Awwww, why couldn't the preview be of a class with REAL class: the Bard! I am so disappointed. Why anyone would want to make a cleric is beyond me (and that is only half in jest...I really have never wanted to make a cleric--ever). Bard? ALWAYS.

Is this the final date that the book will be released?

With this one I'm going to wait until they say it's shipping from their warehouse.

It's still possible for there to be a very localised earthquake opening up a wormhole underneath the books and transporting them into a vault in the depths of Old Seattle where they can only be recovered after the adventuring party of Lisa Stevens, Vic Wertz, Erik Mona, and (for some reason beyond human understanding) Vin Diesel and Taylor Swift has gone on a long quest in the abandoned depths, fighting off sewer crocodiles, lost bridge trolls, even more lost bridge clubs gone feral, and (of course) the secret Chinese invasion force that's been tunneling its way below the Pacific Ocean since the Korean War.

I was a big naysayer about this book when it was announced. After all I've been playing this game (and its predecessor) for fifteen years and almost everyone in my group is the same way; when we get a new player we teach him or her better than a guidebook ever could. But last Saturday I had a large influx of new players at the local shop's monthly Pathfinder Society meet, and I didn't have time to help them all make characters - and wound up running with what turned out to be a druid who had not only made some suboptimal build decisions (I can handle that much) but hadn't even prepared spells.

It was kind of eye-opening. That sort of event is wonderful; I love seeing new blood in the game. But the session wound up being below my usual standards; most of the other veterans didn't show up this month for one reason or another so I had to do everything myself and didn't have all the time I needed to prep the adventure and still help everyone with their characters - so we wound up with unprepared characters and a half-prepared GM. Having something I can just hand a new guy and let him loose with (other than the CRB, because that clearly didn't work) would be a godsend if that ever happens again - and I sincerely hope it will, less the preparation issues. If this book is that, then I'll gladly pick up a copy just to have on hand at PFS, though I'll likely never use it myself.