RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
Hi All,
With all books available for Pazio, I find i'm spoilt for choice.
I was wondering if anyone out there could recommend any Campaign Setting or Player Companion books.
I'm not looking for crunchy books, just fluff type information.
I only own the Rule Book, Bestiary, a couple of modules, Pathfinder Chronicles: Gazetteer and Pathfinder Chronicles: Into the Darklands.
Thanks
Lee
The Advanced Player's Guide seems like the obvious next step (to me, at least). It does have a lot of the "crunch" that you said you didn't need, but it does also have lots of "fluff". It introduces Archetypes to the classes (which are basically re-fluffings with moderate mechanical support - basically helping you to solidify whatever character fluff you've already conceptualized). It also has several brand-new classes that are dripping with flavor. There are expanded descriptions of the races, including likely motivations for taking up any given class, alternate racial traits and backgrounds, etc.
The next thing to come to mind is the Inner Sea World Guide. I only just got it and haven't looked it over much, but there's loads of worldbuilding stuff in it, right down to a list of additional deities. I can't tell you much more of what's in it, though, as I haven't finished perusing it.
|
|
Classic Monsters Revisited for sure. Awesome fluff. The entire monsters revisited line is great.
After that, my favorite fluff books are the Faiths of Golarion line. Faiths of Purity and Faiths of Balance are awesome books with nothing but fluff.
If you like city detail, Korvosa, and Darkmoon vale both are about 99% fluff with very little rules content. If you play or run society scenarios you might want to pick up Guide to Absalom as a lot of society scenarios are based in that city.
|
oops. didn't realize you didn't have the Inner Sea World Guide. Get that next.Yeah I have contemplated getting the world guide, but with all ready having the Gazeteer I wasn't sure how much value it would be. I am interested in the Darkmoon Vale though.
Lee
The Gaz is more of a player primer for the world setting. The Inner Sea book is a much more indepth book. If you are looking for setting details nothing really beats it. The Darkmoon Vale or any of the "nation books" weather the players ones like Taldor or the campaign books like Guide to the River Kingdom are all pretty good. I would just pick up the ones that most interest you if you are looking for non crunch.
It kind of depends on what you're looking for (as in flavor material focussed on monsters, adventure sites, cities, countries, etcetera):
The Kaer Maga book City of Strangers is excellent if you're looking for a slightly quirky but rich with potential urban setting, imo. Guide to Korvosa would be my second choice for a city book - assuming you wanted something a little more vanilla (though still very well written). Cities of Golarion is also excellent, in my view if you'd rather have several disparate locations covered in lesser detail.
Inner Sea World Guide is going to have some crossover with the Gazetteer - nonetheless, it's a terrific 'base resource' for Golarion and I understand has some relatively minor clarifications over what's in the Gazetteer.
Personally, I'd steer away from the early Player's Companion gazetteers (guide to Taldor, Andoran, Cheliax and so forth). While they were great when they came out, I think Paizo got better at them (plus the campaign guide sourcebooks are bigger).
The various "Revisited" products are definitely worth checking out if you want to focus and expand on the history, lore and culture of specific monsters. (Although I'd have to call Dragons Revisited an unfortunate exception - it doesnt mesh that well with the Golarion 'feel' in my view).
I'd also put in a vote for Lost Cities of Golarion (in particular) and Dungeons of Golarion. These are definitely niche products though - I could easily imagine them getting no use to some people, so I'd read through the product descriptions and threads/reviews with care.
The Gazetteer is out-of-date as a resource -- the Primer and World Guide together take its place.
The faiths line of player's companion (faiths of purity, balance and soon corruption), those books are mostly fluff and to my opinion are great.
oops. didn't realize you didn't have the Inner Sea World Guide. Get that next.
Gets my vote too.
Inner Sea World Guide is pretty good. I read it over the last few weeks and found several things that seemed like cool adventure settings that I hadn't seen previously. It is well worth the price and has a good map, some prestige classes, and monsters.
I think Inner Sea World Guide is one of the better Paizo offerings, our group will get a bit of use out of it. It seems more polished and complete than some other products.
I'll put it this way; if I lost my copy, I'd probably buy another.