Help on what books to buy

[Egrek]

Hi all.
So I'm an experienced player and GM and finally stopped travelling so wanted to finally get (rather than borrow) books from Pathfinder. Earning money helps hobbies!

So I just wanted some advice on what books I should get and what order?

Just started a new PFS group too.

My thoughts are:
Core
Advanced players
Ultimate combat
Ultimate magic
Advanced Race

No idea what's in the Advanced Campaign and leaving the Advanced Class Guide for now.

Is there anything I am missing? Anything people think I shouldn't get? Any particular order? (Was thinking of just going for the top 5 all at once)

I was also thinking of the Rise of the Runelords anniversary edition too, liked the second adventure and if its PFS legal that could be fun to play!

Help!

[Egrek]

(For the Beastiery's I was just going to use online or printouts)

[S. Selcouth]

I am confused. For the different Bestiary books, you intend to use either illegally downloaded copies or printouts of those same copies? I mean, if you're that strapped, use the content legally available for you on sites like the pathfinder wiki. Arguably, at least the first Bestiary is a must have, part of the core three.

[chaoseffect]

Sounds like he's saying he'll go to a site like d20fsrd and see what he needs an/or just print out the stat blocks as needed from a site like that.

Anyway, I'd just get books focused around player options as those are the ones that are going to see the most play if your players aren't fans of just using the miraculous technology of the internet. The order you have down looks fine to me; after Core you can pretty much do whatever.

[Angry Wiggles]

Beyond core, I find that the books I use most are setting books like Inner Sea World Guide and Inner Sea Magic, race books like Blood of Angels or Blood of Fiends, or splatbooks like Adventurer's Armory, Magical Marketplace, and Animal Archive. Actually, thinking about it, those are likely the seven most used books beyond the core selection.

[Brother Fen]

The order of books you have listed now is pretty solid. I went from the Core Rule Book to the Advanced Players Guide to the Bestiary, but as you stated, the bestiary monster stats are available in the PFSRD.

If you want to expand into more complex combat and magic, then the Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic books are good choices, but not essential out of the gate. The CRB and APG will give you plenty of options for a long time.

The rest depends on where you're gaming and what kind of campaign you're running. I really like the trait options, downtime rules and the rest available in Ultimate Campaign.

In short, they all offer great options. Just keep going in order of preference.

[claudekennilol]

Mahk Gnorl wrote:

I am confused. For the different Bestiary books, you intend to use either illegally downloaded copies or printouts of those same copies? I mean, if you're that strapped, use the content legally available for you on sites like the pathfinder wiki. Arguably, at least the first Bestiary is a must have, part of the core three.

Why the [redacted] would he illegally download it and print it out when the information is freely available right here on this very website and he can print it out from right here?

[Christopher "Crispy" Woldridge]

My two cents and in the order I suggest people get them.

Fun for all!
Core
APG
Inner Sea World Guide
Inner Sea Gods / Ultimate Equipment

For the GM
Bestiary I (the others as needed)
Ultimate Campaign (I love this book!)
NPC Codex
Game Mastery Guide (for new GMs get this before Ultimate Campaign)

Players
PFS - Pathfinder Society Primer/Field Guide
PFS - Inner Sea Primer

There are a ton of books in the Campaign Setting and Players Companion line that are great. As they each have a narrow focus, what you get is based on subject interest and how many options you want at your fingertips. The geographical ones are great for the GM to have for the areas you want to focus on.

[Hmm]

Angry Wiggles wrote:

Beyond core, I find that the books I use most are setting books like Inner Sea World Guide and Inner Sea Magic, race books like Blood of Angels or Blood of Fiends, or splatbooks like Adventurer's Armory, Magical Marketplace, and Animal Archive. Actually, thinking about it, those are likely the seven most used books beyond the core selection.

The books that Angry Wiggles suggested are very heavily used. To them I would add: Ultimate Equipment. Knowing what your players are buying will help, and there are some amazing magic items in that book that come up a lot in PFS play.

Hmm

[Egrek]

So what is in the Ultimate Campaign? Seems a popular one!

Ultimate Equipment also seems very popular.

Thanks for the feedback and advice (took me ages to track down this post!)

[Dafydd]

Ultimate campaign has nearly all the traits you could ever want, and then some. For non PFS, there are some rules for downtime, kingdom building, epicness. As downtime is hand waved in PFS, these parts are mostly unused (someone will come along and contradict me, I know).

Ultimate Equipment is great for its vast variety of items. Many of which are not available else where.

Honestly, Core and APG will keep you busy for a year trying new characters. For GMing, you will want B1 asap. As a player it is not needed (unless summoning or polymorphing/wildshaping).

Once you have those 2/3, it depends on what you like to play. Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Advanced Class Guide and Advanced Race Guide are all great options but not needed out of the gate.

[Mythic Evil Lincoln]

Ultimate Equipment is a terrific book to hardcopy.

It's like the perfect coffee table book for Pathfinder, something to flip through after the game's over and your girlfriend is watching TV.

Highly recommend.

[Fourshadow]

My favorite of the hardbounds is the Adv Players Guide by far. Followed by Inner Sea World Guide and Bestiary 2 (my favorite of all the bestiary books!). I don't even own the Core book, but have a PDF. Also, Ultimate Equipment Guide is fun and quite the treasure trove.
I own a number of the Player's Companions and some of the Campaign Settings books as well.