Sorry, I'm still pretty new to Piazo and Pathfinder. My group has been running 3.x for the last 9+ years mostly in various homebrewed worlds but we tend to just simplify things by defaulting to generic Greyhawk dieties since that's the default that WoC used in all their books that weren't campaign specific. We've done a little Forgotten Realms and even less Ebberon but tend to just keep going back to Greyhawk just because it's easier (and FR has like 500 gods or something...it's crazy).
Now that I plan to get the group on board with PFRPG (which will take about two seconds once they see the new core classes and races let alone everything else Piazo has done), all of the new material is going to be set with Golarian as the default setting. Thankfully, no one in the group even likes the Greyhawk gods so there won't be any lost love there. I know that I'm going to get stuck DMing from the start in order to learn the new system and I'm too lazy to homebrew another world. I'd like to just adopt Golarian.
I just noticed that the campaign setting came out under 3.5 rules almost a year ago. I'm sure it's still very usable, especially concerning the fluff, but I was curious about a few things.
- What percentage of the book is fluff and how much is crunch?
- Is the crunch still usable under PFRPG? Are variant races listed as "same as a human except for these changes" and if so, do they still work with the changes? What about the PrCs?
- Piazo isn't planning on rereleasing the campaign setting with the updated PFRPG rules are they?
- I know there are smaller books detailing the different areas. How much detail for each area are in the campaign setting?
- Is there anything else I should know about the campaign setting that is good, bad or something that I at least need to consider before picking it up?
Thanks in advance.
What percentage of the book is fluff and how much is crunch?
I might say the book is 90% fluff. Most countries are presented with a single feat, and there are maybe a little more than a dozen pages of prestige classes, feats, weapons, and representing of the lesser known cleric domains. Overall though, I would describe it as mostly fluff.
Is the crunch still usable under PFRPG? Are variant races listed as "same as a human except for these changes" and if so, do they still work with the changes? What about the PrCs?
The crunch should almost entirely be usable within PFRPG (aside from minor conversion changes like Perception). Nothing comes to mind that is hard to use in PFRPG.
I don't recall any variant races. There are multiple human races listed, but they are all just use the human's statistics. I'm still not entirely confident of knowing how PrCs work in PFRPG, but I recall nothing from the book that requires much, if any, modification.
Paizo isn't planning on rereleasing the campaign setting with the updated PFRPG rules are they?
I believe the answer is that they are likely to rerelease the Campaign Setting with the updated PFRPG rules someday after they run out of their stock and need to reprint them. Again, I recall them saying that there isn't going to be a massive set of changes in the book. Just corrected spelling errors and the minor changes for converting.
I know there are smaller books detailing the different areas. How much detail for each area are in the campaign setting?
The Campaign Setting focuses on one section of the world and presents the countries within that area with two pages each (a few get four pages instead). A number of places that fall outside this region get briefly covered over a few pages in much less detail.
Is there anything else I should know about the campaign setting that is good, bad or something that I at least need to consider before picking it up?
Nothing pops into my head immediately.
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Heya, Frogboy. You might check out the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play. Not so much because it will be helpful for your non-PFS campaign, but because the final page is a list of 3.5 material that is legal for play in the PFRPG system. If you look at the quantity of feats, gear, spells, magic items, PrCs from the various sourcebooks, I think you'll see that tons of it converts over to the new rules with no conversion at all. A few things list minor tweaks to convert, like lowering skill rank requirements by 3 for feats and PrCs, as an example of how little is really needed.
Also, if you're more interested in the world than the crunch, the Gazetteer might be a good way to go, though it is player-safe and thus doesn't include all the info a GM might want to surprise the players with later.
Best of luck, and enjoy Golarion! It's the best setting around.
Yeah, actually the fluff (despite the word being used in a negative fashion a lot) is mainly what I'm interested in. I have more books than I know what to do with that have feats, spells, PrCs and such.
I know the PrCs will work with PFRPG with a minimum amount of tweaks, I just wasn't sure if they were still viable or not. You can play a Ninja base class from Complete Adventurer or an Enlightened Fist from Complete Arcane still but I doubt that anyone would considering that the base classes are much better now. It's certainly not a deal breaker if the crunch isn't "good enough" to really be used as long as it doesn't take up too much of the book (which it apparently doesn't).
I guess a big question would be, is it enough to form a new campaign on by itself or is it kind of expected that you'll need the other books as well? With only a couple pages dedicated to each area, do you think there's enough there to really get something going? Is there enough packed in those couple pages each? I'm not really looking to buy a ton of books for a campaign setting at the moment but I doubt that there will be enough info in the core PFRPG though.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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I guess a big question would be, is it enough to form a new campaign on by itself or is it kind of expected that you'll need the other books as well? With only a couple pages dedicated to each area, do you think there's enough there to really get something going? Is there enough packed in those couple pages each? I'm not really looking to buy a ton of books for a campaign setting at the moment but I doubt that there will be enough info in the core PFRPG though.
I think there is. I know that when I read it, some areas grabbed me more than others, but everything's full of plot hooks. When you read it, I'm pretty sure a whole campaign will grow in your head several times. But you are right, two pages can only have so much info. Unless you are inspired by a region or city that has hosted an Adventure Path or has an additional sourcebook, you'll have to add a lot of the local details, but the big flavor elements and major players/locations are all spelled out in the book.
I can't speak highly enough of this book in particular and the setting in general so the only thing I can say is, "don't delay! Get it now!"
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The campaign setting is excellent if you're looking to get the big picture. I've played an AP and am in the process of running one - and I've found that the Adventure Paths are pretty much self-contained in that the articles have enough meat to support the region.
I bought the campaign setting just because I was interested in it and I've becoming a sucker for hardcovers - and it's a very nice book.
I'd highly recommend them even if you don't plan on running them - for example each path has in-depth articles on the deities of Golarion. The AP subscription is a great deal and I'd highly recommend it -- I feel like a kid waiting for each addition to arrive in my mailbox.
Frogboy - Are you the same Frogboy who is responsible for all of those great Stardock games by any chance?
Frogboy - Are you the same Frogboy who is responsible for all of those great Stardock games by any chance?
No, I'm not. Funny though, you're the second person on these forums that asked me that. :)
Thanks everyone. Most of these questions stemmed from the fact that the only non-hombrew campaign setting I ever DMed out of was the 3.0 Forgotten Realms campaign settings. There's way too much uless crunch in there (two versions outdated now) and not really enough fluff to really get anything going. I pretty much just had them on the Sword Coast since I at least know a little about that area from some books that I read. I just wanted to make sure that PF campain setting would be enough to start out with. I don't really need to know every detail about everything. I can make it my own.
We've got three DMs in our group and one who's learning the trade. I'm probably the one who likes it the least (maybe) so it's likely that one of the other guys will eventually run whatever they want. I wouldn't mind having and introducing everyone to Golarian since there will undoubtedly be vague references to it all throughout our nice new core rule books and I'll almost definitely have to DM the switch over. Since no one in the group has ever splurged on any of the large campaign settings like FR or Ebberon, I highly doubt that we'll be getting all of the other books.
It sounds like the PF campaign setting should suit my needs well and the group will have a copy to pass around to whoever is DMing if they want to run out of Golarian. If nothing else, it sounds like an interesting read.