Hey, so first time gm and I'm running Rise of the Runelords. I was wondering if you all had any suggestions for me? Also, do I really need both the beastiary and the box for Rise of the Runelords?
You don't need the bestiary book, because the bestiary is available on the PRD. I assume you mean the beginner's box, which is also not necessary. However, you will probably want pawns for monsters and your PCs, which you can either make yourself or purchase, and you will probably want some dry erase battle mats or disposable 1" grid graphing paper for drawing out encounters.
As for general pointers, there are many threads here that will have helpful information in them. I'm at work right now, but the community created stuff thread and the GM threads are great starting points, as well as the "Things you changed, and things you should have" thread.
Also, you should really read through the AP at least once before you even consider putting together a party, but if you don't, it's okay. Also, think about the type of game you want to run (do you want it to be more tactical, combat-based or do you want to tell a story?) because that will dictate the types of players you want to play with. If your players want combat, combat, combat and you want to tell a story, you may find yourself getting frustrated at times. Remember there is no right way to play the game, but there is a wrong way -- and that's when you're not having fun.
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I was a first time GM when I started Rise of the Runelords too :) And now my group is only a few sessions away from the end of the campaign!
Definitely make use of the threads here on the forums; there is plenty of useful stuff, especially for the early chapters. Also do try to at least skim the chapter summaries of all six chapters to have an idea of where things are going.
For general advice, I'd say you don't need the bestiaries - even though I have them I just go to one of the online resources and print out the monsters I need for a session - allows me to make notes and whatnot.
I followed the book quite closely early on, but my group soon became more powerful than the encounters as written, so don't be afraid to deviate from the book - this will become easier as you get more comfortable GMing. I changed a huge section in the middle of the campaign to better line up with the actions of the PCs! As el cuervo said above, there's no right way to run a game. As long as everyone is having fun, you're doing well :)
If you have more specific questions, feel free to ask! :)
Thank you, I see I didn't type out what I meant, which was that I wanted to know if I need the bestiary box and the rise of the runelords box, for figures. But it looks like I will need something, whether from the box or printed. Thanks!
Ah, in that case -- definitely. You will definitely need some pawns of some sort, and the bestiary box is a great place to start, especially since it comes with bases. Also don't forget you'll need pawns for your players -- you can have them bring their own or you can make them for them. I will also point you to two other resources that will help.
There is a PDF-only printable miniatures set for RotRl HERE, which has nearly all of the pawns you will need for each chapter. In addition, there is the bestiary PDF which might overlap with some of the chapter packs, but between them you'll have every pawn for the adventure. I would skip the townsfolk PDF entirely, since the important NPCs are also in the Chapter 1 PDF. Each chapter is purchased separately and they're about $5 each.
For these, you will spend a lot of time cutting and taping but it will save you some money, assuming you buy the set for each chapter. You would ideally print them on heavy cardstock and then cut and tape them together. It's not as complicated as it sounds, though you might find your fingers cramping up after putting together 20 of them. Then again, you only need put together as many as your next session requires so it need not be done all at once. That being said, I spent several hours crafting these things across my first few weeks of GMing and decided it would be better to just buy the first two bestiary boxes and use stand-in pawns for any monsters I didn't have.
On the other hand, you could also buy the RotRl Pawn set, which doesn't have everything you need but it covers most of the major encounters throughout the adventure. For this pawn set, you will need separate bases (which come with the bestiary box).
Between bestiary boxes 1 and 2 and the official RotRl Pawn set (not the paper mini PDFs, but the actual heavy cardboard pawn set), you should have enough pawns to cover most of the encounters, save the few monsters in the book that come from Bestiary 3. Then again, that's nearly 3x the cost of buying the paper minis. If you're on a budget, buying the paper mini PDFs is the way to go.
I too spent lots of time and effort on making my own pawns. It worked great for chapter 3 where I used them - the ogres and stone giants are great, but after that I didn't really have a use for them again. In the end I decided to buy the bestiary 2 box (bestiary 1 was out of stock) and the RotRL set and made do. The Inner Sea and NPC Codex boxes are great for NPC and PC pawns.
It's a bit pricey, but the pre-painted miniatures are marvelous. It's such a shame to use flat pics when you could be using real figures. I got the whole load, then liked them so much I also ordered the Legends of Golarion case. Not quite the same quality, but good nonetheless. Spring some jack and get the figures, you won't regret it.