Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Strategy Guide (OGL)

Announced! Cover image is a mockup, and will change prior to publication.

160 pages? Seems pretty small.

WANT!

The main reason for this product is that I believe the Core Rulebook presents a number of barriers to entry into the game for many people, among them...

• 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.

This book is intended to solve those problems, and I believe that it will bring many more players to the table.

160 pages? Seems pretty small.

I really, really wanted it to be 100 pages, but we just couldn't accomplish everything we needed in that space.

Can't wait. Preordered three. :)

Good move keeping it as an "opt in" item (I remember the flak you got for putting the beginner box in the rpg subscription).

Seems kind of pointless for me, but at the same time, I can see a lot of people who would love this book.

Pathfinder isn't just riding on old 3.5 players; they're doing an excellent job of introducing new players to the system (and the tabletop hobby!), so this book makes a lot of sense.

Considering the amount of new players I get every month due to GM'ing at our local RPG club, this one will be damn useful. Especially, please make sure that there's an idiot-proof guide to creating and leveling the character, thankyouverymuch!

Especially, please make sure that there's an idiot-proof guide to creating and leveling the character, thankyouverymuch!

That's my number one goal for this book.

cool

This book will be very handy...as I like to introduce new people to the game. Also who know it might be able to teach us veterans a trick or two.

So this is a book aimed mostly for beginners, right?

I mean, as someone with some level of expertise in the rules, one of the things I enjoy most about character creation is figuring the build out by myself.

"I wanna be an archer who's also very crafty and sneaky... now let's go over the feat list and see how I get this done..."

Though thinking about it I wished it was kinda of a soft cover and thus hopefuly cheaper....I would love to be able to say 'Welcome to my game here is a book to help you." But at $30 a pop that might be a little too expensive for me to swing.

So this is a book aimed mostly for beginners, right?

I mean, as someone with some level of expertise in the rules, one of the things I enjoy most about character creation is figuring the build out by myself.

"I wanna be an archer who's also very crafty and sneaky... now let's go over the feat list and see how I get this done..."

And now imagine a first time player who sees the feat list and faints. That's who that book is for [and for people who have such players ;)]

3.5E D&D is one of the more newbie-unfriendly games due to what's ironically one if its' greatest strengths: the number of options.

Vic, is this book going to focus just on core options or will APG/UM/UC classes get some love too?

Lord Snow wrote:

So this is a book aimed mostly for beginners, right?

I mean, as someone with some level of expertise in the rules, one of the things I enjoy most about character creation is figuring the build out by myself.

"I wanna be an archer who's also very crafty and sneaky... now let's go over the feat list and see how I get this done..."

And now imagine a first time player who sees the feat list and faints. That's who that book is for [and for people who have such players ;)]

3.5E D&D is one of the more newbie-unfriendly games due to what's ironically one if its' greatest strengths: the number of options.

Vic, is this book going to focus just on core options or will APG/UM/UC classes get some love too?

I think that is answeared in the last bullet.

The main reason for this product is that I believe the Core Rulebook presents a number of barriers to entry into the game for many people, among them...

(list)

This book is intended to solve those problems, and I believe that it will bring many more players to the table.

Wasn't that the Beginner Box though? Back at the time of that product, I remember a discussion (and it may have been from James, or I may be misremembering) that one of the perceived problems of D&D 4th Ed was the number of 'entry products.' There were too many books on the shelves whose intention seemed to be to 'bring players to the table.' It confused people and led in itself to a barrier to play. I remember Paizo staff being very conscious of that and wanting something that was clearly labelled 'Start Here.' To me, the title of this product doesn't say 'start here', and if it doesn't, how will it aid in recruiting gamers? And, if it does, then aren't we back at the headscratching of new gamers / parents looking at the Core Rulebook / Beginner Box / Strategy Guide and thinking 'what the heck?'

If the driver for this is a perceived failing in the design / complexity of the core product, then maybe that's an argument for revisiting that book rather than increasing the range of product offering overall?

Will this product be useful in transitioning Beginner Box players to the full game? I.e, is this intended as a kind of intermediate/bridging product?

BB is a different ruleset that removes complexity from the game.
this product is not labelled for beginners,
and deals with managing the complexity of the full ruleset.
i don't know if the product name is the best to convey it's function,
but GMs who do know the rules but want to help players will probably manage to get it into their hands anyways.

what would be a better name: metagame guide? metagame tutorial?

Not one for me (I GM) but a perfect book for players. I will be recommend this to my group when it comes out.

Lord Snow wrote:

So this is a book aimed mostly for beginners, right?

I mean, as someone with some level of expertise in the rules, one of the things I enjoy most about character creation is figuring the build out by myself.

"I wanna be an archer who's also very crafty and sneaky... now let's go over the feat list and see how I get this done..."

And now imagine a first time player who sees the feat list and faints. That's who that book is for [and for people who have such players ;)]

3.5E D&D is one of the more newbie-unfriendly games due to what's ironically one if its' greatest strengths: the number of options.

Vic, is this book going to focus just on core options or will APG/UM/UC classes get some love too?

Never said there was anything wrong with that, just wanted to make sure that indeed this book is aimed for those who lack experience in character creation.

Thing is I don't think I will have a use for this book anyway - I firmly believe in gradually showing new aspects of a game to a new player. So if I'ms starting a group of newbies I'll just make their first characters for them, and won't even bother to try and teach them the rules before the game starts - whenever a rule becomes relevant, I'll explain it and show the players the relevant sections of their character sheets.

When the time comes to create a second character I'd sit down with them and help them with it - for example, by asking them what they want their characters to do and when they tell me, narrow the feat selection options down to the few most relevant ones. I will also encourage the players to just look over the list, with no pressure, and if they find character creation fun they will figure things out sooner or later anyway. If they don't, I'm always willing to help.

Gorbacz wrote:

Lord Snow wrote:

So this is a book aimed mostly for beginners, right?

I mean, as someone with some level of expertise in the rules, one of the things I enjoy most about character creation is figuring the build out by myself.

"I wanna be an archer who's also very crafty and sneaky... now let's go over the feat list and see how I get this done..."

And now imagine a first time player who sees the feat list and faints. That's who that book is for [and for people who have such players ;)]

3.5E D&D is one of the more newbie-unfriendly games due to what's ironically one if its' greatest strengths: the number of options.

Vic, is this book going to focus just on core options or will APG/UM/UC classes get some love too?

Never said there was anything wrong with that, just wanted to make sure that indeed this book is aimed for those who lack experience in character creation.

I suspect it will be a little broader in that those of us who are bad at it will also find it useful. Its reasonably common that I pick feats/archetypes/stat arrays/other options (largely based on their names and a brief read through) and then read on the forums how lousy those options are together (or that I've left out something necessary). I really like the roles they've introduced in recent player companions and would anticipate this will be equally helpful.

(There is a similarly titled 4E book which has sections along the lines of "how can I have a high ac?", "how can I have lots of hit points?", "how can I be an awesome healer?" and so forth. Although this book will no doubt be quite different, I'm hoping it will empower clueless players in a similar way so you don't end up with a character who sounds cool but can't hit anything).

nice idea for beginners... step by step from the Beginner's Box to the Core Ruleboook. Still pretty useless for experieced players and gm's

Though thinking about it I wished it was kinda of a soft cover and thus hopefuly cheaper....I would love to be able to say 'Welcome to my game here is a book to help you." But at $30 a pop that might be a little too expensive for me to swing.

Making a book softcover wouldn't make it any cheaper. The real expense is the number of pages, not whether it is a hardcover or not. It is just that books with more pages tend to be made into hardcovers, so folks think hardcovers are more expensive, when it is really the size of the book that matters.

-Lisa

Thing is I don't think I will have a use for this book anyway - I firmly believe in gradually showing new aspects of a game to a new player. So if I'ms starting a group of newbies I'll just make their first characters for them, and won't even bother to try and teach them the rules before the game starts - whenever a rule becomes relevant, I'll explain it and show the players the relevant sections of their character sheets.

When the time comes to create a second character I'd sit down with them and help them with it - for example, by asking them what they want their characters to do and when they tell me, narrow the feat selection options down to the few most relevant ones. I will also encourage the players to just look over the list, with no pressure, and if they find character creation fun they will figure things out sooner or later anyway. If they don't, I'm always willing to help.

Which is awesome if a new player has somebody like you to help them out. In my opinion, that is the best way to teach a new player the game. Unfortunately, we can't box great GMs and sell them to new players, so this book will be the next best thing. Think of it as that guy at your table that the rest of the players always ask questions when they are leveling their characters like "Which feat should I take?" "What new spell should I add?"

Many players don't have a great experienced GM to help them or a know-it-all fellow player. This book is meant to fill that gap.

-Lisa

Making a book softcover wouldn't make it any cheaper. The real expense is the number of pages, not whether it is a hardcover or not. It is just that books with more pages tend to be made into hardcovers, so folks think hardcovers are more expensive, when it is really the size of the book that matters.

-Lisa

I love learning stuff like that (not that I'll ever need to know it). Thanks, Lisa!

Not interested in this one but I can see other people wanting to use it especially new comers or those who can't decide what to pick for there characters.

An interesting idea, one I hope will be of use for everyone that buys it.

I don't know I'm kind of two minds on this.

On the one hand I'm really worried this will help to just promote an overabundance of over optimization with a lot of players just picking the more optimized routes I assume we will see in here to the exclusion of all others.

On the other hand, I hope that should that occur we will hopefully see a revaluation of some of the incredibly suboptimal paths and maybe provoke some upgrades and cleanup to those choices.

My other hope is that this helps paizo figure out a better layout for the core rulebook proper so that we might get a more fluid edition of that coming down the pipe. I'm getting really sick of some of the insane amounts of searching I've had to do to find innocuous things in there and maybe this will help find that right balance on how to present the metric ton of data the CRB brings to the table.

Is this the major OGL hardcover for the first 1/3 of the year?

I seriously doubt this will be all about pushing uber-'optimized' builds.
If it's giving info on basic level-up information, it's not going to go to that extreme.
More like point on the basic interactions, synergies, things you want to avoid.
Enough that people can get builds that are 'respectable', and maybe be closer to being able to minmax, but not actually pushing that far.
If people are afraid of that, it's probably too late: there's tons of guides on the internet, linked from these forums,
which go much more into that level of detail... I just don't expect this product to go that far.
More like it will be explaing the advantages and disadvantages of Reach Weapons and approachs to dealing with the tradeoff.

A shame that it has nothing for DMs...

Since I get it for free as a PDF, I can't complain.

As a hardcover, will this be added to the PRD?

Since I get it for free as a PDF, I can't complain.

Provided you preorder a copy.

John Kretzer wrote:

Though thinking about it I wished it was kinda of a soft cover and thus hopefuly cheaper....I would love to be able to say 'Welcome to my game here is a book to help you." But at $30 a pop that might be a little too expensive for me to swing.

Making a book softcover wouldn't make it any cheaper. The real expense is the number of pages, not whether it is a hardcover or not. It is just that books with more pages tend to be made into hardcovers, so folks think hardcovers are more expensive, when it is really the size of the book that matters.

-Lisa

That in interesting. I now know I have been paying for prestige of buying hardcover books now when I have seen softcover books. I am mainly referring to novels. :)

This book looks like it will be interesting. I have popped one into my "shopping Cart". I am looking forward to this book. I always find I learn something when I read a "how to" book like this. One thing i do hope they put in the book, is a basic equipment by class/ level. This could make it very easy to A) equip a character if you are starting above 1st level, and B) equip a NPC.

Anyways, It looks like it will be a good book,

Will this stand alone without the CRB? Is the progression path (for a player, at least) meant to be Beginner's Box > Strategy Guide > Core now?

Thanks for setting this apart from the subscription.

It will stand alone with the CRB. The idea is just to give a advice for certain builds, and to avoid making a new player look for the information in the core book since he might be flipping back and forth, and not know where to find certain information.

Excellent idea! I have been waiting for this since the Beginner Box! And I hope you have utilized the same thinking behind the GRAPHIC DESIGN of the BB to make this "friendly" to player delving into the full core rules for the first time. I so appreciated what you did with the BB, especially as we try to introduce the game to younger players (who will support the hobby going forward!).

Lord Snow wrote:

Thing is I don't think I will have a use for this book anyway - I firmly believe in gradually showing new aspects of a game to a new player. So if I'ms starting a group of newbies I'll just make their first characters for them, and won't even bother to try and teach them the rules before the game starts - whenever a rule becomes relevant, I'll explain it and show the players the relevant sections of their character sheets.

When the time comes to create a second character I'd sit down with them and help them with it - for example, by asking them what they want their characters to do and when they tell me, narrow the feat selection options down to the few most relevant ones. I will also encourage the players to just look over the list, with no pressure, and if they find character creation fun they will figure things out sooner or later anyway. If they don't, I'm always willing to help.

Unfortunately, we can't box great GMs and sell them to new players, so

-Lisa

Well, I am aware of at least some people here in this forum who will gladly jump in a box and allow Paizo to sell them, if you guys really needed to for some reason.

I'm just saying, don't rule out possibilities, you know?

As always, thanks for the attentive and awesome response.

John Kretzer wrote:

Though thinking about it I wished it was kinda of a soft cover and thus hopefuly cheaper....I would love to be able to say 'Welcome to my game here is a book to help you." But at $30 a pop that might be a little too expensive for me to swing.

Making a book softcover wouldn't make it any cheaper. The real expense is the number of pages, not whether it is a hardcover or not. It is just that books with more pages tend to be made into hardcovers, so folks think hardcovers are more expensive, when it is really the size of the book that matters.

-Lisa

You heard it here folks size really does matter!

Not impressed with this book, but I'm not the target audience.

Thankfully at $30 and 160 pages it won't hurt too much when it shows up with my subscription.
Can't see this getting much use, unless I'm still playing Pathfinder in ten years when my son might be old enough to read and digest the books.

This sounds like a great resource. Looking forward to it.

Not impressed with this book, but I'm not the target audience.

Thankfully at $30 and 160 pages it won't hurt too much when it shows up with my subscription.
Can't see this getting much use, unless I'm still playing Pathfinder in ten years when my son might be old enough to read and digest the books.

Well you are in luck as it is not part of the subsciption...so you don't have to get it.

John Kretzer wrote:

Though thinking about it I wished it was kinda of a soft cover and thus hopefuly cheaper....I would love to be able to say 'Welcome to my game here is a book to help you." But at $30 a pop that might be a little too expensive for me to swing.

Making a book softcover wouldn't make it any cheaper. The real expense is the number of pages, not whether it is a hardcover or not. It is just that books with more pages tend to be made into hardcovers, so folks think hardcovers are more expensive, when it is really the size of the book that matters.

-Lisa

Ah...I thought hardcover were a little more expensive to make due the materials used in the cover and differrent bindings...but I will bow to your superior knowledge in this.

My point though was if it was between $10 to $20 range I could buy a copy for new players instead of getting one and loaning it out. However you could maker it cheaper I would have liked to see.

That in interesting. I now know I have been paying for prestige of buying hardcover books now when I have seen softcover books. I am mainly referring to novels. :)

Novels are a whole different ballgame. A hardcover novel isn't just a paperback novel with a hardcover on it. There is a difference in paper stock and size of the book. I am literally talking about gaming books that are 8.5 x 11.

-Lisa

Excellent idea! I have been waiting for this since the Beginner Box! And I hope you have utilized the same thinking behind the GRAPHIC DESIGN of the BB to make this "friendly" to player delving into the full core rules for the first time. I so appreciated what you did with the BB, especially as we try to introduce the game to younger players (who will support the hobby going forward!).

Yep, we learned a lot from the Beginner Box layout and this book will take many cues from that product in its graphic design.

-Lisa

Ah...I thought hardcover were a little more expensive to make due the materials used in the cover and differrent bindings...but I will bow to your superior knowledge in this.

To be perfectly fair, it does cost a little bit more to make a hardcover, but only a few cents per book. Not enough to really materially affect the price, which is of course what most people want to change when they request a softcover over a hardcover. At best, you might see a lower price of a buck. And what is the difference between $29.99 vs. $28.99?

The only way to get this book cheaper is to make it a smaller number of pages, and that would defeat the purpose of the book by not allowing us to provide the content that is needed. We made it as small as we could to keep the price as low as we can.

-Lisa

Interesting!

Jester David wrote:

Not impressed with this book, but I'm not the target audience.

Thankfully at $30 and 160 pages it won't hurt too much when it shows up with my subscription.
Can't see this getting much use, unless I'm still playing Pathfinder in ten years when my son might be old enough to read and digest the books.

Well you are in luck as it is not part of the subsciption...so you don't have to get it.

Oh good. Not opposed to the book, but didn't want to be locked into buying it as an RPG subscriber. I can see myself snagging the PDF or browsing through a store copy.

Very interesting.