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So I played some Pathfinder a few years ago, and now I've gotten it in my head to maybe GM for 2-3 friends at some point.
Now, I know you don't need to have read everything cover to cover in order to play, but if I'm going to really dig into it and make it a real hobby I will want to have read and internalized a lot.
Right now I'm about 150 pages into the Inner Sea Guide and I'm really enjoying it, but ultimately I'd like to have read the Inner Sea Guide (320 pgs), Core Rulebook (576 pgs), Game Masters Guide (320 pgs), Ultimate Combat (256 pgs), Ultimate Magic (256 pgs), Ultimate Campaign (256 pgs), Ultimate Equipment (400 pgs), Inner Sea Gods (300 pgs), Advanced Players Guide (320 pgs), and the Advanced Race Guide (256 pgs), Advanced Class Guide (256 pgs), and that's just off the top of my head. Give or take some cover pages and indexes, that approximately 3,516 dual column pages to read. That's a lot of pages.
It's taken me about a week to read the first 150 pages of the Inner Sea Guide due to time restraints and being a fairly slow reader. So at that rate it would take me rougly 6 months to read all of that assuming I was reading all the time.
Just curious what you guys do, or what tips you have for internalizing this staggering amount of information. Help me transform from a casual observer to a Pathfinder expert!
Thanks!
No one's ever expected to read everything cover to cover and memorize everything. The fluff bits are the easiest to remember and the mechanical bits have sites like Archives of Nethys to catalog them into easy to read lists.
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Hm... I'm used to reading about 500 pages a night just as a general habit, so I never considered these to be that long of a read.
However I would suggest sticking to the things that matter to your current game and letting everything else go.
Instead of leading all the rules, just learn what matters to your PCs (if you don't have a shaman don't worry about knowing how the shaman works). Don't worry about the entire world, just the area that your campaign is in and touches.
Do this across 5 or 6 campaigns and you'll have a large amount of the world memorized without meaning to.
The way to read it all is to skim through the books as they've come out over the years.
Unfortunately that's not really an option at this point so narrowing your focus and skimming rather than reading in depth will probably help a lot.
For a DM, I tend to think the most important stuff to be familiar with are the class abilities, feats,& skills. Spells are good to know as well, but there are too many.
If you can be passingly familiar with those, you can DM just fine.
Don't be afraid to "cheat" either. No reason to memorize the monsters or something, just have note cards.
This might help. Or might not, either way up for you to decide.
Don't be afraid to "cheat" either. No reason to memorize the monsters or something, just have note cards.
This might help. Or might not, either way up for you to decide.
That will definitely help, thank you! Also, 500 pages a night is insane, I'd love to be able to do that.
Thanks to everyone else too. I appreciate the advice. I know that you're right, skimming and reading only what I need makes more sense. I guess I'm just not sure how to approach a book other than to read it cover to cover. That's a skill I'll develop over time I assume.
I simply only get RPG-Line and some third-party, not much reading.
You are not expected to know everything, and it is entirely possible that you'll overlook or make something up. Some players are going to implement themselves into Golarion's lore, and you can mostly just get information from them about whatever they're using.
Occasionally someone will bring up a point that you had wrong (from a previous edition of the game) or didn't fully understand. Hell one of my PCs today brought up that a 5-foot step is actually a free action. No one believed him until he cited the rule.
To be honest, the vast majority of PCs are going to be happy with what you have and present. If they are not, then they can run their own game for the group.
I've had a GM use Aroden as a living god that is not only active but alive. I sent him the info later that Aroden is, as far as anyone knows, quite dead. Next game, Aroden came back, but it turned out it was actually an illusion.
Never be afraid to hand wave things or make things up. You should feel free to use your players as portable libraries since it gives them a chance to show off their knowledge of the game. People typically enjoy being in the spotlight.
When digging into a campaign setting, what you need a good handle on is the metaphysics and the baseline societal assumptions. Thus, which deities, what outsider groups, major spell categories, major historical upheavals, which major races, which technology, which major organizations. I.e. The stuff you get from the Inner sea guide. The rest of the stuff is repetition and in-depth of that. So, want to play in Andoran, read up on it. If you want to make your own Golarion campaign and not use published adventures, you will need more familiarity with it, and that is where you bury yourself in it. To run a published module, you need really very little.
I only have an idea really.
Most of the things i just have apps or pdfs in my tablet for quick checks if i need to be sure of something. That masterworks tools app is great , it allows me to save a fav setting for each PC with the rules/items... each might need in case i for some reason forgot.
I read the books on a whim for fun when I have the time, but when it comes to DMing one of your main chores is quick reference, which is where the SRD and Nethys archive come into play.
Most of the content won't be applicable very often so it is best to focus on the constant features of the game (CRB). For example, having a quick-reference sheet of common abilities/actions a la the stuff printed in DM Screens across many systems is always handy to have.
Next. Do you know your Players' characters well enough to anticipate and quick-clip their class features and breakdowns into that same Quick Reference Document (QRD) that could be built. If not, this same study could be applied to the NPCs/environment whether you are running an AP or your own Magical Realm.
Case in point last Sunday the game stopped because the DM had to hunt down Stunning Fist in 3.5 and could not find it in the Monk section of the classes in PHB. Hunting ahead of schedule, we now know to remember/jot that rule down so the DC is always handy.
The realistic goal is not knowing the individual feats and spells off the top of your head but where they are spread across your archive to hunt down and dust off. It is much more achievable than cramming. Even if one had an eidetic memory, refreshers are nice as one assumption or mistaken remembrance can spell grief. Over time as you gain practice you'll know where you have a firm grasp on the rules, and where you need to refresh or research in the future.
Please by all means keep losing yourself in the Fluff. It is good and I love well-written settings, though Golarion is a hit/miss for me in many categories. Being immersed in the lore makes for a wise DM, but rulings do deserve a second glance just in case.
TL;DR Just reading it isn't the same as comprehension through execution; focus on CRB first, then adjust for the classes/races/feats/equipment that your Players and NPCs will be utilizing.
I just look up rules if/when they become relevant and try to memorize them as they come up. Between feats and magic items, it's just easier that way. I'm also a player rather than a GM so I can afford to look things up during play. By now I know the functionality of most classes (bard and magus are a grey area since I don't play them often) save for their archetypes which I usually have to look up for the exact wording.
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My learning's been along the same lines as what everyone else is suggesting - most of it's been focusing on what I need as I go, especially starting out. If no one in your group's using poisons, wait to study the poison rules until a monster arises that uses it. If no one in your campaign's using a net, don't worry about the rules for them.
When it comes to the setting books like Inner Sea World Guide and Inner Sea Gods, try reading just the first page or two of a particular entry to get the idea of the theme of that region/god/whatever. It gives you something to go off of without feeling like you have to internalize every detail of every town in every region, what a certain god's priests eat for breakfast, etc. (I will admit, I love reading the Golarion setting materials, and I've spent a fair amount of time just sitting down and reading through the books like you've been.)
While it's best to be familiar with rules you'll be using beforehand, if you have to look them up at the table, your players aren't going to mind, especially if they understand you're new. My GM's played D&D since the beginning, PF for a year and a half, and we still look something up probably once a session at least. No big.
If you have someone more familiar with the rules than you, enlist their help when situations you don't have the knowledge to cover yet arise. (And sometimes, there may be scenarios where the rules are unclear, incomplete, etc. Don't be afraid to just wing it. When in doubt, give a -2 to a roll for bad things, a +2 to a roll for good things, and assign a DC for a check based on how hard you think the thing should be to do, with 10 being easy, 20 being moderately difficult, 30+ being very difficult.)
Technology (smartphones, computers, etc.) can be a godsend when questions arise, as you can simply type into a search box rather than digging through piles of books. D20PFSRD is the one I find easier to use for general rules questions, but Archives of Nethys has more complete information, especially setting-specific material.
Lastly, don't worry. Everything will come with time. :)
One thing I'd suggest, if your party is going into battle often, is to brush up on the combat manoeuvres. Again, you don't need to memorise it all, but having them bookmarked will come in handy when your barbarian asks about overrunning goblins to get to someone she wants to chop into pieces more.
About the other thing that might cause issues is magic, but again there you can't memorise everything. I'd say the online listings greatly help for finding how the spells and so on work.
One thing that'll help is to encourage your players to read up on their characters and what they'd have. One session I was in, our bard cast his Flare spell trying to debuff an enemy. To his surprise, the GM didn't even bother to roll a save and declared the spell a failure ... because the enemy was already blinded from earlier. If they know what they can do, it'll help smooth things out too. (Especially if they can tell you where to find that rule they're using to such good advantage!)
I do it in chunks. Whenever you feel like it, open a book to a place that sounds interesting and read that. If you do this often enough you'll eventually cover everything. The only thing I would recommend going from cover to cover on is the Core Rulebook.
If you're Gming then you can skip basically everything that isn't core and is all character building if you trust your players to get it right. (That's APG, UM, UC, ACG, UE, ARG). If you're using an adventure path, then you can also skip the Inner Sea books.
When I say skip, I mean it isn't vital to improve your game.
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Oh, one last thing;
Learn the formulas.
For example most creature (and character) DC's are 10+1/2 hit dice (or level) + stat mod.
Concentration checks are typically 15 + twice spell level or 10 + damage taken + spell level, or a flat 10~15+ spell level.
Good save throws are 1/2 hit dice +2, and weak save throws are 1/3 hit dice.
Good BAB is == hit dice, medium is 3/4 hit dice, and slow is 1/2 hit dice.
Knowing how the basic mechanics of the game works means that when you have to wing it you have an idea of what "right" should have looked like.
Knowing how CMB and CMD are put together will be big as will most of the core combat section in general.