My suggestion? DON'T BRING A FIRST TIME GROUP TO RISE OF THE RUNELORDS. That AP will MURDER your players.
1. CRB for rules then use this website until you guys have a better grasp of what you want to buy. d20pfsrd.com
2. A little more difficultly. Maybe allow one person to play two characters. Otherwise try playing the three characters on fast XP track.
3. Barbarian. Have them grab Power attack and Raging Vitality feats at level one and just calculate power attack onto her character sheet. Grab the beast totem Rage Powers. It's fun to make tons of numbers for a lot of players.
4. Advice is that if you run it you'd need to tone it down. Some encounters will KILL your players if they are new.
5. If you run RoTRL don't let your players craft, it takes too many in game days and you will be on a story timer. Otherwise here you go.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items#TOC-Magic-Item-Creation
Some further advice- The "classic" Rogue, Fighter, Wizard, Cleric party will get you killed in RoTRL.
These are the classes that your players will find to be able to tackle level appropriate challenges.
Martials
-Paladins
-Barbarians
-Rangers (suggest they get favored enemy Giant as their second favored enemy, but make it the first to be +4)
Half Casters
-Alchemist
-Magus
-Bard
-Inquisitor (can be complicated)
Full Casters
-Any
-Oracle is generally more fun than a Cleric for a new player.
-Witch is fun too.
-Druid because you get a pet and wildshape is fun
I don't suggest
-Cavalier because horses don't fit in most dungeons
-Rogues because traps aren't usually a problem and they cannot do well unless in the hands of an expert player
-Fighter because the player wont have fun failing every skill check
-Summoner because difficult for newbies
-Monk for same reason as rogue
I would be happy to answer any more questions or explain anything I said.
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Rise of the runelords is such a good AP that I recommend not running it until you are a stronger DM and your Group gets more experiance under its belt.
Hands down it is one of the more difficult encounter Heavy AP. New players who don't know much about Pathfinder or D&D in general will be hurting in this AP. You might want to save the Best Adventure path written for a better group and one that will have dedicated players beyond the scope of: If my GF feels like playing I will join in if not your down 2 character. The players need to be invested in this AP. The AP deserves better then a fresh group of nubs for the grinder.
Generally magic item crafting wont come up unless it's a game where your players can spend weeks-months not doing anything.
Pretty much only matters in "Skulls and Shackles" and "Kingmaker"
The d20PFsrd is a very easy to navigate site and there are several good smart phone and tablet apps that can assist your players too.
The search function on them you will find to be invaluable within the first hour of your game when you look at your first monster stat black and realize you don't know what X feat does. It takes 5 seconds to find the answer to that on my Kindle app or 1-2 minutes to find it in a book.
Maybe try Jade Regent? Skulls and Shackles is fun even if you don't do item crafting.
I've played in and here's my thoughts on
Kingmaker-Fun, very cool. You and the Party build a nation from the ground up! The GM has to read a lot though because a lot of stuff happens outside the Kingdom that is happening simultaneously, but is not explained until later books. For example Nation X gets taken over chronologically around book 2, but the AP doesn't say anything about that until book 4.
Carrion Crown- Fun, but difficult. Good for an experienced group.
Skulls and Shackles- DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE. Hardest part is the Island in book 2.
Only tip I have for it: Con is not a dump stat (and never should be)
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Skulls and shackles is a good AP. You can cut out a lot of the grind parts of chasing ships down and minor battles for goods. Other then that the players should have a fun time. Crafting can be done if they want but should monitored to not get out of control. A craft centered character can double a parties wealth and unbalance things if too much crafting is done.
Hi Tizno
Welcome to the gamemaster's chair. Let me start out by saying that Rise of the Runelords is an amazing adventure path, but just as the others have mentioned, it can be very hard in terms of encounters. My personal estimate is that while the first couple of books can be hard, nearly every encounter in book 5 and 6 is a potential TPK (Total Party Kill= everybody dies).
Now to address your questions:
#1 Technically all the rules you need is available at the pathfinder SRD. In terms of books I believe you can get by with just the CRB, the APG, and the Bestiary I.
#2 It gets harder, for one. Having 3 players in Rise of the Runelords will be a challenge, and if your players are new, I'd say they need the Luck'o'the'Irish if they're to stand a chance.
#3 I'd say the simplest class to play is fighter. The thing about fighters is they have alot of options when it comes to the many feats they get. Choosing from the many feats available can be daunting, but I find that it is a very straightforward class, that has enough versatility through it's feats, that the player can make the class into whatever she wants.
#4 This would take awhile to cover. I am running ROTR myself at the moment, and I could give you alot of opinion and advice that I believe would be helpful, but I won't start writing it out unless you want me to.
#5 The others have magic item crafting down, so no need for me to address this.
Suggestions for APs or Modules eh?
I'd say it depends on what your players want to play. I know there are alot of good modules (self contained one-book adventures), but I haven't played any myself, despite knowing a friend who has most of them.
As far as Adventure Paths go, I'd probably advice you to play either Kingmaker or Carrion Crown.
Kingmaker I have yet to play, but it sounds awesome, and it sounds like it takes you across the whole spectrum, from low lvl questing adventurers, to high level lords and ladies of legend. Also I've come to understand that it requires a bit of player initiative, which is a good thing to learn as a gamer, I find.
Carrion Crown is quintessential horror. I have played up to book 4, and I was on the fence about the way the story was presented. Carrion crown requires nearly no initiative and feels very much on rails up till where I played, at least. That being said that means the story has a direction, even if that direction is a bit rigorously enforced. It might be a good adventure for your players as they travel across the horror-filled nation of Ustalav, chasing an evil cult, solving problems along the way.
Since you seem to be new to GM'ing, let me provide you with these. Maybe they'll help :)
-Nearyn
If you need to stall for time until your group are ready for a new module then consider running We Be Goblins as a one-off game. You can download the entire thing from the Paizo website for free and it's a bit of fun.
Someone adapted all the encounters in KM for 6 players, so maybe someone out there translated the encounters for curse of the crimson throne.
The one potential thing you can do with respect to crafting is to simply ask your players not to. While it certainly can be a part of the game, it doesn't need to be. This will also free up feat slots for the group which can be spent on more direct methods of combat effectiveness.
As for other AP's, I agree that Kingmaker could be good for a new group. It could also get tedious. A lot of the Hexploration can get really old for some groups, but is also something that can be easily adjusted by the GM as the campaign progresses. The nice thing about Kingmaker for a new group is that it offers a decent amount of everything. There's plenty of opportunity to role play (especially if the GM takes the time and puts in the effort to make it so), but there's also plenty of combat. Additionally, in many respects the path is nice for new groups as there are a lot of "10 minute workdays" set up where the group might only have one or two encounters in a given day. This lets them be a little more care free in their spell use and other resource expenditures.
The one word of caution I would give though is that the random encounters laid out in the book can be particularly nasty. The Stolen Lands are designed to be a rather inhospitable place and the group can very easily find itself in an encounter that is clearly above their pay grade. With a new group, I would consider possibly rerolling should one of these encounters pop up, or else set it up such that the party is still far away when they notice the wandering beast and sprinkle plenty of hints that the critter is especially tough. This can be done through Knowledge checks or maybe even perception.
Finally, all the modules/APs assume that you have 4 players. They are designed with that in mind. There are a lot of things you can do to counter this (and a few good ideas have already been mentioned). However, you can also reduce the number of baddies (in encounters with multiple critters) or simply reduce hit points of critters if there is only 1. You'll want to be mindful though of creatures that have particular resistances/immunities. Running a party of arcane casters/half casters at things with high spell resistance for instance will likely make for a very bad day for the party.
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Wow, such dire warnings! lol
We are currently playing through RotRLs and are halfway through the second book. Our game is CRB only w/ 4-5 players, and we haven't experienced a player death yet (though that may be coming). In terms of experience level, half the group are first time players w/ little to no experience. Myself, I've only been playing Pathfinder since January, though I've got a fair bit of experience as an old-time AD&Der (that is, 1st edition).
As to your questions:
1) Running this game as Core Rulebook only works fine. Seriously, this AP was written for that, at a time when most of the other core books hadn't even been published yet.
2) 3PCs only will be tight. If your brother and his gf aren't regulars, you might want to think about recruiting another player or adding a DM-run NPC.
3) I think this AP works fine for most of the classes. Our Rogue was having a bit of trouble, but after a rebuild, is kicking some butt now. I would suggest that the group invest in some social and investigative skills, though. A lot of the happenings in the first couple books take place outside of combat.
4) Yes, there's a Adventure Paths/Rise of the Runelords subforum on this site. Find it. Breath in all the wonderful GM-only tips and additions and advice. It's an awesome resource.
5) Sorry, can't really help ya there. I'm still a relative Pathfinder newb - haven't gotten into crafting yet.
Bonus free advice: The optimization guides sticky in the Advice subforum is a godsend for your players. I'm not saying they need to be 100% optimization clones, but it's nice to get a heads-up as to what works in this game and what doesn't.
If you need to stall for time until your group are ready for a new module then consider running We Be Goblins as a one-off game. You can download the entire thing from the Paizo website for free and it's a bit of fun.
Seconded. I ran We Be Goblins! with our group, and it was a hoot! It also ties into the storylines with Sandpoint well enough.
Actually the AP was written during 3.5 and all its nonsense, not core pathfinder.
There are some encounters later on which can result in player death fairly easily. We've lost two PCs so far (actually they have both been mine...).
Don't go without an offensive spellcaster and heavy-duty combat monster. A ranger or druid might be helpful in places, but no class is really indispensable beyond the usual need for fighter-healer-artillery.
We started with a paladin, a cleric (with one fighter level), a sorcerer and archaeologist (bard). The archaeologist got severely killed facing off against something big and bad (bad decision to duck beyond the big nasty, only to find that the doorway led to an even bigger nasty), and I now have a barbarian/druid/nature warden.
Yeah rotating the NPC amongst the other players is not a bad idea at all. Not only will they care more about her, but it also avoids any issues as to a "GMPC" and the problems that can cause.
I would also typically advise that the NPC be your healer unless one of the players really wants to play a cleric or other healer. The main reason being that traditionally players tend to find the healer role to be less exciting (though obviously everyone's mileage may vary).
I also think that while it tends to be important to fulfill certain roles within the party, I also think its important that the players play characters that they actually think they will like. This is doubly so with new players.
As for other general advice with any AP that you choose to run, make sure you read the entire AP ahead of time. This makes it a lot easier to sow plot hooks for the future as well as to troubleshoot potential problems ahead of time. Knowing where you are headed makes the road a lot smoother. It will also let you know exactly why certain NPCs are considered important and others maybe are not. As well as being able to be prepared for when something unexpected happens.
As an example, you may know from reading the entire AP that NPC Bob seems minor in Book 1, but actually plays a big role in Book 2. Now in Book 1 perhaps Bob is put into peril and there's a chance that he doesn't make it should the PCs ignore the situation, have bad rolls, or simply mistake Bob for a bad guy. This doesn't mean that you need to give Bob a get out of death free card, but it does mean that you need to be prepared to substitute another NPC (lets call him Fred) for Bob. Odds are, you'll also want to introduce Fred in Book 1 and then be prepared to change names as needed in Book 2.
While that may be, it's really easy to slip up with a GMNPC.
Even if you aren't trying to, if they ever outshine a party member the party member may be mad at you.
Having the "npc" rotate control among the players would likely be best.
Assuming everyone is of decent skill level these are some good rankings according to role. I also assume APG is included in Core.
Beefy front liner
-Barbarian
-Paladin
-Ranger (Only slightly behind paladin)
-Druid
-Fighter
Damage (Paladin or Ranger specced for archery are higher than Druid)
-Barb
-A Druid specced for beast shape damage
-Paladin
-Ranger (Only slightly behind Paladin)
-Bard
-Rogue
Control (All these classes can do it pretty well)
-Wizard
-Sorceror
-Cleric
-Bard
Buffing (All these classes can do it pretty well, but Bard dips least into resources to offer buffs)
-Bard
-Cleric
-Wizard
-Sorceror
Out of combat utility
-Wizard (after getting enough spells)
-Bard
-Ranger
-Rogue
If we were including other classes from ultimate combat/magic then most of those are good, though a Gunslinger will be OP to a newcomer GM. Cavalier is AMAZING too, but only in areas where he is mounted, but most campaigns don't allow that.
If I were to make "strong 4 person parties" using only core classes
Barb, Cleric, Bard, and a ranger or Paladin
Druid, Ranger, Cleric, Bard
Barb, Wizard/Sorc, Cleric, Druid
I notice that Cleric seems to pop up often. This is because as levels go on the necessity of the Clerics "fixing spells" becomes more apparent. By fixing spells I mean Remove curse, lesser restoration, Restoration, ect.