New guy in town

[Adie_The_Ace]

Hi All,

Just wanted to say hi as im new here, never played a tabletop rpg until i brought the PFBB on sunday, me, my wife, my brother and brother girlfriend decided to have a bash a black fang using the premade characters to get a feal for how the combat and stuff worked, I took on role of GM and it was good fun, we played for about 3 hours, didnt complete black fang as we were constantly looking stuff up.

We now plan to meet up again on friday I will continue as GM and the other 3 are going to create there own characters using the hero guide that came with the BB, we will then do the whole of black fang with the new characters, i have also downloaded the extra demo's so will try one of those another night too.

Quick question, if we game for 4 hours every other week, how long would it be roughly before we reach level 5 and need to transition onto creating characters from the core rulebook? just wondering how long i have to save up for the books lol

[Wolf Munroe]

Welcome to the boards, and Pathfinder!

I don't have an answer for how long it takes to reach/pass level 5 in the Beginner's Box though.

If you click on PRD on the column to the left, you can browse the regular rules though, so upgrading need not be a matter of pressure even when you reach level 5. PRD is Pathfinder Reference Document and contains most of the rules material from the hardback books.

[Kolokotroni]

Adie_The_Ace wrote:

Hi All,

Just wanted to say hi as im new here, never played a tabletop rpg until i brought the PFBB on sunday, me, my wife, my brother and brother girlfriend decided to have a bash a black fang using the premade characters to get a feal for how the combat and stuff worked, I took on role of GM and it was good fun, we played for about 3 hours, didnt complete black fang as we were constantly looking stuff up.

We now plan to meet up again on friday I will continue as GM and the other 3 are going to create there own characters using the hero guide that came with the BB, we will then do the whole of black fang with the new characters, i have also downloaded the extra demo's so will try one of those another night too.

Quick question, if we game for 4 hours every other week, how long would it be roughly before we reach level 5 and need to transition onto creating characters from the core rulebook? just wondering how long i have to save up for the books lol

Hi and welcome to pathfinder. I am glad you are having fun with the begginer box.

As for how long it will take, it depends entirely on you and your group. As you proceed you will be creating your own adventures as dm (or using published ones) and your group will develop their own style and their own pace. You gain experience for overcoming challenges in game, but that is certainly not all you can do. Many groups will spend a great portion of their time developing their characters with roleplay. I have had whole sessions (several hours) where the party did not leave the tavern they were staying in that day.

So it is very hard to predict how long in real time it will take to get to a given level.

[Sean K Reynolds]

Welcome!

The encounter system assumes you'll have about 20 CR-appropriate encounters (where encounter CR = the average level of the PCs) before you level up. If you have 4 encounters per game night (which is a busy night), that means about 5 games for each level-up. Multiply that by 4 levels (level-up to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th) means about 20 games before you hit level 5.

Of course, you don't have to jump to the Core Rules right when you hit level 5; you can adventure a while at 5th before needing to level-up to 6th. Or you could start some new characters and play them for a while--the person playing the wizard may want to try a fighter PC, the rogue may want to try playing a cleric, and so on.

Anyway, so you probably have about 20 games; at every other week that's 40 weeks, plenty of time to save up for the Core Rulebook. :)

[Paul Zagieboylo]

SKR nailed it (of course). For another perspective, the Pathfinder Society uses a different model of experience in which 3 "modules" is a level. A module is a short adventure designed to be run in a standard 4-hour convention slot. PFS modules have 5-7 encounters in them which average out to roughly the appropriate CR, so this works out to around 20 encounters, just as SKR said.

Black Fang is somewhat longer than a standard module. Also, home games tend to move slower than convention games, so you'll be doing well to get through 3-4 encounters in 4 hours (considering breaks for pizza and such). All of which means that Black Fang is expected to take you probably two sessions, maybe three, and it gets your characters about halfway through level 1 (or a little more if they only have 3 characters and they're super thorough about finding every encounter everywhere). So guessing maybe a level every couple of months (real time) is probably not completely out of the ballpark. You should have plenty of time to save up.

Note that you can get the core books in PDF format for much cheaper. Speaking from experience, this isn't nearly as convenient to use during play, but it's a nice option for the gamer on a budget. My group has one copy of the Core Rulebook in dead tree format that we pass around during the game, and then a bunch of other books in PDF which we only really reference when we need to level up and pick new feats and spells.

[Adie_The_Ace]

Thanks very much for the info, I know each group is different in how long it will take but that at least gives me some idea, was a bit worried the BB would last long but seems it will.

I just need to get organized now and work out roughly what we will be doing in what order, being new to tabletop roleplay and new to being GM it could be a steep learning curve, but hopefully a fun one.

[Extraordi-Nerd]

Welcome to the community! I was in your shoes just a couple months ago and I can tell you from my experience that these forums will be your best friend in learning the game. If you are confused about a rule, or need some tips for running your game, or want some advice on anything pathfinder related there is a wealth of knowledge in past posts and a very useful search engine. And if you cant find what you are looking for start a new thread and ask away, we have some very knowledgeable forum junkies and very few trolls around here. Add to that the incredible creative minds lurking around. Have a plot idea you want some help developing? Post it and watch as the community adds their ideas to yours.
Not to mention the game developers, writers, and all the other Paizo staff who actively monitor and participate in discussions.

The GM learning curve is certainly a steep one, but these forums make for an excellent stair case. There are many threads around here for new GM advice, just do a couple searches (the Advice and Beginner Box boards will be your best bet) and start reading some posts, you wont regret it.