CRB, Bestiary 1, Gamemastery Guide, Advanced Player's Guide
Everything after that is gravy. Mmmm gravy.....
For what? Character-building? GMing?
To be honest I do quite well with the core book and the online databases, but I think the bestiary could be a good buy, maybe one of the expansions, but I´m not so certain about those. The Advanced player´s guide also has a lot of useful stuff. I guess the question is in what direction do you want to spread out - more campaign information for DMs or more options for the players.
Do you mean for Pathfinder Society, as in books to own in order to legally build a character?
Do you mean for Pathfinder Society, as in books to own in order to legally build a character?
This thread attracted me due to this very concern. I'd love to hear a solid list, even if Just Another Pathfinder needs purchases for a different purpose. Similar price ranges just for simplicity's sake.
I've been filling myself up with the online documents, and I want to know the best way to make the various ideas I have bubbling around into a reality as a reasonable price.
A question: I am somewhat interested in tieflings-would I need the Advanced race guide, or could I get by with just the Blood of Fiends in PFS?
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Do you mean for Pathfinder Society, as in books to own in order to legally build a character?If it's this, then I'd recommend that you figure out what options you want to play with using the d20pfsrd, and then once you have that figured out, buy the PDFs for the books you'll need to accomplish this.
If you want to play the odds, and get the crunchiest books, then CRB, APG, UC, UM, ARG in that order.
That is "as a player in PFS."
If you are playing PFS, and wanting to play a Druid, my answer is completely different, you'll need the Bestiaries!
Well that's no good; it changes based on classes. Um, well I did actually build something on d20 but the problem is that one of my feats comes from Faiths of Balance, and it's the only feat in the book, and it's $8 to own so while it's good for homebrew no doubt it's bad for economic reasons. I ended up having a trait like that from Inner Sea Primer, again $8 for one trait, and honestly I didn't want anything else out of the book, ever.
That's kind of why I'm asking for the most "bang for the buck" simply because I'm trying to avoid paying $X for only one trait at a time picking it out of random books. I'll forego a few classes for now if I have to in order to be able to play the majority.
If I had to take 4 only (to fit in the 40 USD budget) I´d probably go with CRB, Bestiary, APG and ARG, unless you want to focus on some of the more exotic combat or magic options - for those you would want UC or UM respectively. The gamemastery guide is ok for GMs, but you can find a lot of the useful advice there advice in other GMing books for other RPG. The sample NPCs in the back are nice, but not that great of a sell.
OP:
With around $40, for PFS, I'd say Core, Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Equipment...which puts you at about $30 and gives you a TON of classes, feats, spells, traits, gear, archetypes, etc.
After that, I'd say probably Ultimate Magic if you favor casters, or the Pathfinder Society Primer for some good versatile items and some character options that are more strictly designed for PFS.
I thought if you had a print out of the relevant rules section from the PRD and brought that you didn't actually need to have the entire rulebook for options.
Is this not accurate anymore? Didn't it use to be?
*Note, I have never actually played PFS.
No no no no no no
The OP is on the right track and is doing things the right way in terms of only building their PFS character with material they actually own and can then, consequently, demonstrate that they own it
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CRB, UE, and 2 of these (APG, UC, UM) depending on class types you like.
I would second this from James Risner.
Only, I would add the following change:Absolutely get these:
CRB, UE and APG
THEN
Pick either Ultimate Magic or Ultimate Combat, depending upon your initial character leanings (Lots of spells, or lots of martial options?)
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If you want to really be lean on your budget, stop at the Core Rulebook (that's really the only one you need). Otherwise, in order of importance:
- UE (opening up a ton of equipment for any character is pretty important throughout your game, even cheap "gear" that can save your life at lower levels)
- APG (the new base classes are nice, but really aren't especially important - you're opening up extra class features, some archetypes, spells, and most importantly out of this book, feats similar to what you'll find in the CRB)
- UM is magic, magic, magic. The magus is an acquired taste. You're really here for the magic related feats and the spells, and extended magic-based class options (notably for witch and summoner, off the top of my head).
- UC's real deal is the gunslinger class, ninja is good but rogue is arguably just as good. It has a bunch of feats, especially the monk-centric style feats and some surprisingly nice spells.
UC and UM are interchangeable depending on your needs. I suggest holding off on buying them until you decide you want to expand on whatever you've already chosen.