Personally, even if its tied to Golarion, it’s worth the $ to pick up. You can cut and paste to suit your needs in your own homebrew. The high level of quality that Paizo continuously puts into their products makes them must haves, IMO.
I know that's probably pretty vague but honestly, I'd go through the various boards looking for something that catches your eye and works for your gaming table and pick it up. Cut and paste, change the name of the town, city, whatever, you're good to go. Quality is what you want and Paizo supplies it.
Thats the line that is going to support crunch and non Golarion stuff
The Revisited line gives more background and info on various monster, dragons, treasures, etc., and while each item has a "X in Golarion" section, the rest of the write-up is less world-specific. They give a lot of interesting variants of more "vanilla" items/monsters, or ones your players think they already know everything about so you can spring a surprise on them!
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The Companion race supplements are decent and about 50% crunch.
The Adventurers Armory doesn't have much crunch-wise that isn't in the APG so probably not worth it if you are getting the APG.
The GMG is just that, if you are a GM it has a lot of great stuff. Almost nothing there for players.
Beyond that you have to go to third party publishers.
I find myself with some money to spend, and intend to buy some Pathfinder supplements. My main problem is that a lot of the products are tied in to Golarion, and I'm mainly interested in rules that can be used out of Golarion, since most of my campaigns take place in homebrew settings. Also, I'm not sure what exactly OGL means. These are my main criteria for what I'd like to buy;
1. As mentioned above, usable out of the Golarion campaign setting.
2. Heavy on "crunch".
3. Not requiring the purchase of any other products to use effectively (the Core Rulebook is a given).
4. PFRPG, not 3.5
5. Not something that's going to need replaced, or is going to be re-printed, anytime soon.
My homebrew settings aren't different from Golarion in regards to rules, races, and the like.
I don't care about art, just usability.
The reason you're not getting any concrete answers beyond the 'Advanced Players Guide' is because most of Paizo's supplements are fluff with some crunch mixed in. I agree with Ogre that the Companion race supplement probably come the closest to what you're asking for, but none of the supplements are heavy on crunch like say the 'Complete' series from 3.5.
Everything by Super Genius. :) We have almost no fluff, it's all Pathfinder compatible, and most of it is written by Owen Stephens, author of a ton of Paizo books. Check out some of our reviews for what other people are saying.
Hyrum.
Super Genius Games
"We err on the side of awesome."
The Pathfinder Chronicles NPC guide has a percentage of crunch in the form of NPC statblocks (it's almost all crunch when you get to the stock, nonnamed NPCs). All of the characters are nominally tied to some nation in Golarion, but I don't play there and the connections are superficial enough to be used fairly easily outside.
One of the stock NPCs references a race outside the core (though it seems to list its racial abilities) and a few of the NPCs have feats that are in the campaign setting, but reprint the relevant parts under the NPC writeups.
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Paizo has a different tact of their books than Wizards had. There is a certain amount of "crunch" in everything they put out, but with the exception of the Core Pathfinder Adventure Game books, they focus mainly on the fluff. Depending on how adverse you are to adapting things, I'm not sure you'll gain a whole lot out of the other series.
That being said, these are some of those I think have some good contents which are not only adaptable, but are fantastic ideas:
- Pathfinder Chronicles: Faction Guide - This book has some absolutely fantastic ideas for running organizations and providing groups a benefit for participating within said organizations. Even if you don't use the material regarding the Golarion specific groups, the system put in place by this book and the concepts it provides are something I think would add some major flair for any campaign. It just might take a little work adapting things.
- Pathfinder Chronicles: Seekers of Secrets - A lot of Pathfinder Society fluff in this one, but a HUGE section on ioun stones and some other new magic items.
- Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic "X" Revisited Series - I'm a huge fan of these books and the Monsters Revisited line was the one that made me a subscriber. If you're tired of some of the same-old-same old, the material provided in these books is really fun. It's not "crunch" in the aspect of direct rules updates, but man the material is cross-world compatible and just well-done.
- Pathfinder Player Companions - Frankly, these are the #1 source for non Core book "crunch". I'm going to put a caveat on these though. The vast majority of the material is world specific and outlines how races, regions, and the like operate, but if you're looking for the place that Paizo puts their new fancy feats, items, traits, spells, etc., these are your resources.
- Adventure Paths: You might think, "Whoa there! I said crunch". Thing is, another resource for Paizo crunch is their APs. Only about half the book is actually dedicated to the AP, the rest of the book outlines things such as Hellknights, mass combat, empire building, filling downtime in creating adventures, and at least 4-5 new monsters per book. A little spendy if you throw out the adventures, but good contents nonetheless.
I think the biggest problem you'll find is how well integrated the "fluff" and "cruch" concepts are in the Paizo lines. It can be frustrating though if you don't want to buy any Golarion specific stuff.
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OMG... forgot about this:
Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic "X" Revisited Series - I'm a huge fan of these books and the Monsters Revisited line was the one that made me a subscriber. If you're tired of some of the same-old-same old, the material provided in these books is really fun. It's not "crunch" in the aspect of direct rules updates, but man the material is cross-world compatible and just well-done.
The original 'classic monsters revisited' is awesome. Dragon's does a great job with the dragons also. I don't have the rest of the revisiteds.