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"Hey Liz, why don't we have a 'Welcome to Paizo' thread?" Great question, and that's why I'm here! With the Huge number of new people that have recently arrived on our website, we're long overdue for a more succinct introduction—who are we, where did that funny name come from, what's Pathfinder—that sort of thing.
Paizo is a Redmond, Washington-based publisher of roleplaying games, accessories, and card games, with a little over 50 employees—all of whom you can see and contact right here. As you can see, there's not a whole lot of us, but for the hobby gaming industry that's quite a bit! Founded out of the Wizards of the Coast periodicals department for Dragon and Dungeon Magazine in 2002, you can view a retrospective history of Paizo's early years with a series of blogs from CEO "Auntie" Lisa Stevens on our blog.
What's With the Funny Name? And What is in Your Logo?
It rhymes with pie-dough, and it's based off a Greek word meaning "to play". The creature in our logo is a golem, and we're pretty darn fond of them.
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is based off of the 3.5 rules of the world's oldest roleplaying game, and we started publishing the rules in 2009 (although Pathfinder as a brand started in 2007 with Rise of the Runelords #1, "Burnt Offerings"). From the classic party team of fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard to newer classes like kineticists and swashbucklers, there is an enormous variety of game options at your fingertips, allowing for thousands of different adventures for your gaming pleasure.
But beyond just the rules, Pathfinder is also a campaign setting—a setting where a beloved god died under unknown circumstances, and threw entire regions into turmoil as a result of his death. Cracks in the world spewed forth an endless tide of demons, never-ending hurricanes set seas roiling with torrential fury and drowned the countryside, an entire nation allying with the forces of Hell—this is a world that desperately needs heroes.
It needs you.
If you're the Game Master for your group, the Inner Sea World Guide is your stop for all things about the primary region of our setting of Golarion. If you're a player, you'll want to check out the Inner Sea Primer (the spoiler-free introduction)!
If you need to reference a rule, do not miss our entirely free Pathfinder Reference Document, which contains many of the rules to run a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but does not contain setting information. If you're looking for a setting overview, the fan-run PathfinderWiki and Archives of Nethys are great sites to add to your favorites! (And if you're coming from 3.5, check out the free conversion guide!)
I Just Picked Up the Beginner Box! Where Do I Go From Here?
Fantastic! New players are always amazing, and we designed the Beginner Box to not only be an introduction to Pathfinder, but an introduction to roleplaying games in general! We have a section of our site dedicated to some sweet free stuff (including the barbarian class) for the Beginner Box—check it out!
With a long-running forum community here on Paizo.com, we also have several communities on different sites. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Twitch!
If you're looking for a game, be sure to check out our Pathfinder Society Organized Play Program, a worldwide way of playing both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Adventure Card Game—no matter where you might live! (And yes, that includes online play!)
We do have a few guidelines for behavior here on the forums, and the most important thing to remember is that we're here to have fun. Sometimes our fun doesn't match somebody else's, and that's okay. One person's version of "fun" isn't better or worse than someone else's, and please keep in mind there's a person on the other side of the screen!
Our community team is available to answer questions and address concerns at community@paizo.com for anything you might be curious about!
Edit: Forgot to open up the cookie jar. Here you go.
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Welcome, friends! Don't hesitate to attend one of your regular Pathfinder Society Organized Play events. Even if it takes a few days to download your books =P We love new players and have a lot of resources to get you started, regardless of knowledge and experience. A lot of us use Warhorn to organize, too.
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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For those joining the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild and/or Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild keep in mind that we have hundreds of volunteer organizers in dozens of countries. These dedicated gamers can help point you toward the nearest organized play events in your area—or help you start your own event.
Remember that even if you don't have a local coordinator, you can still participate in the organized play experience from the comfort of your own home. Just swing by the Pathfinder Society messageboards or take a look at the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide if you have any questions.
Welcome!
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Great post, I will talk to my Venture Officer, perhaps we can make an "offline" version of this in case people ask about pathfinder and we don't have the time to tell them everything, for example right in the middle of combat or an interesting role playing encounter.
But including this in our wall of text "You liked PFS? Here are the information we got about pathfinder" e mail should be done too
Welcome new Paizo People!
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As one of the new guys i'd like to thank Paizo for this great opportunity to start playing Pathfinder with my friends and anyone i might encounter on that journey. Pathfinder was always somewhat on the fringe of my bucket list, but i was always sort of discouraged by the sheer ammount of source material for it. The Humble Bundle deal sorted that very neatly for me without ripping my wallet, while donating to a good cause!
Sincere thanks for that!
To the community: Thanks for the warm welcome, that is not the norm and it is highly appreciated!
I'm a GM with 20 odd years of of experience in various systems, and i presume that i will end up being the GM in this system as well. But i'm fine with that, i guess i'm the better GM than Player to begin with.. or call it destiny. Heh.
At any rate: Thank you all very much for the opportunity and the welcome!
Welcome to Paizo, a thriving community chock-full of cool people like me.
Hey!
I'm not cool... wait, is that right?..
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Hello all. I have dabbled in these sorts of games for a long time. Couldn't resist the opportunity to try out Pathfinder - I have heard good things. I managed to get the "starter pack" downloaded, so I have something to look at while I wait for all the rest!
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Welcome to those of you new to Pathfinder!!
Thank you to you who participated in the Humble Bundle offer!!
As others have mentioned, I would like to both encourage and invite you to attend your local Pathfinder Society Role Playing and Adventure Card Guild game days. New players are always welcome and we are more than willing to help get you started. No Pathfinder Society in your area, contact myself or one of my colleagues and we will guide you on how to get PFS going in your area.
Happy Gaming!!
Seriously, welcome one and all, it's pretty cool here.
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It was the first ever Humble Bundle with p'n'p RPG material, so gauging interest ahead was tricky. And honestly, Book Bundles insofar were moderately popular, for example the excellent Sci-Fi Classics Bundle (with books by Zelazny, Aasimove, GRRM and K.A. Murphy) after 10 days has just 10k downloads. So prolly all guesstimates got blown away here ;-)
I can't download the PDF:
Hi, I bought the humble bumble so i tried to download the pdf, I wait the ten seconds clic one more time to the link but the didn't download.
Thank you.
Hi! Welcome to Paizo
Due to the massive response to the humble bundle the servers are having a hard time. But the tech staff is working overnight to install new hardware to try sort the issue.
If you want the news faster check here
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Aside from that - welcome to the wonderful world of Pathfinder. Get ready to be amazed by how quickly players can go from "I don't understand the rules at all!" to "Hey, look at this combination I found that totally breaks your game and OW STOP HITTING ME WITH THE CORE RULEBOOK!".
And get used to seeing the image of the goblins fighting the computer. It's an image you tend to see quite often around here. ;)
I was wondering, if I want to run a Pathfinder game, and I buy an adventure path, what other product or products are necessary in order to run the campaign? I assume I need to buy the Pathfinder rulebook? Anything else is necessary to run any particular adventure path? Or does each path contain all the rules outside the main rule book needed to run that path?
You'll definitely want the Core Rulebook and possibly the Advanced Player Guide - those'll have 98% at least of what you need outside of the Adventure Path books themselves. If there's something from another source, that'll usually be indicated with a superscript to denote the source, which can help in tracking it down. If it's a book you don't have and can't get, Internet sources such as Archives of Nethys can help you in tracking down those last few bits of information, too.
I was wondering, if I want to run a Pathfinder game, and I buy an adventure path, what other product or products are necessary in order to run the campaign? I assume I need to buy the Pathfinder rulebook? Anything else is necessary to run any particular adventure path? Or does each path contain all the rules outside the main rule book needed to run that path?
Pretty much. Any rules that are referenced outside the core rulebook can be found on the Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD). Any Bestiary entries and everything can thus be accessed through the web, as well as any classes and rules not covered by the basics.
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Welcome to Pathfinder, I hope you enjoy your time here with this community.
Here are links to Sub-forums that you'll likely find useful.
for those starting with the Beginner Box
Beginner Box
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Also, it really depends on the AP. Rule of thumb: The older the AP, the less stuff from newer books you'll need. For example, I ran Carrion Crown and didn't need anything aside from the Core Rulebook and the Advanced Player's Guide (and Bestiary I and I think II) to run it. All rules needed to run an AP are available in the PRD as Feros already said.
Most APs also have supplementary books you can use to enhance the experience (Rule of Fear is a book detailing the life in Ustalav, for example), but these are absolutely not necessary.
If the AP references something that isn't from the "core" books available online for free in the PRD, it reproduces that content in full so you can use it. This means you technically don't need any books beyond the AP itself in order to run the AP, since all rules content is freely available online (the free players guide is also very helpful for your players to peruse before character creation). That said, if you don't have any of those core books right now, grab yourself the humble bundle and get most of them at a very reasonable price.
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For people being directed here due to the Humble Bundle issues
If you need the contents of your core rule books and such NOW, for whatever reason (A game waiting in your living room, setting up your first character, ANYTHING AT ALL) hit up the PRD.
It has all the info you need to learn to play the game, run a game, create a character or anything else. All it lacks is the pretty pictures.
If you need any additional help with the system feel free to PM me and I am sure any of the other regulars and we will do our best to help.
Thank you for supporting Paizo and I hope you enjoy your stay :)
For those newcomers who wish to try Play-By-Post (PbP) here is a link a PbP guide that will help a lot.
DHs-Guide-to-Play-By-Post-gaming
You can look look for PbP games to join here, or if you feel up to it run one.
Also know that you can have the message board Focus on threads you've looked at, or posted in (also referred to as dotting),
and Defocus when you want to look for new threads or look through various sub-forums
The switch is next to search at the top of the page.
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For those interested in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, definitely check Facebook for Pathfinder groups. There is likely a group set up in your area on Facebook, and that is a great place to start!
There is also a main group dedicated to Pathfinder Society play right here!
Welcome all you new folks to Paizo, the boards, and the gaming world.
Got a question, go ahead and ask, everyone round these parts is happy to help. The Paizo staff is awesome, and Liz is pretty much the nicest ninja ever, and she has cookies!
But on behalf of all of the staff over at The Flying Pincushion Games, it is great to have new folk, and we hope you stick around, as this is a pretty special place, and there are allot of nice, cool, knowledgeable people here.
So without further ado "gooble gobble gooble gobble, one of us, one of us!"
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To help welcome some of our new Humble Bundle friends to Paizo and Pathfinder, I've opened up a Play-By-Post game of Hell's Rebels over at THIS LINK RIGHT HERE.
I'm hoping this will be an opportunity to let people who are new to TTRPG or pathfinder get settled in, and in particular for people who don't yet have a gaming group to get a feel for an AP and then one day step into the GM-ing role for others.
Apart from that though, a hearty welcome to all those who are new to the forum :)
To help welcome some of our new Humble Bundle friends to Paizo and Pathfinder, I've opened up a Play-By-Post game of Hell's Rebels over at THIS LINK RIGHT HERE.
I'm hoping this will be an opportunity to let people who are new to TTRPG or pathfinder get settled in, and in particular for people who don't yet have a gaming group to get a feel for an AP and then one day step into the GM-ing role for others.
Apart from that though, a hearty welcome to all those who are new to the forum :)
Good on you!
For any new people, "Hello and welcome to the Paizo forums". I've been on them about 5 years and there are some really fine people here who are happy to offer advice and encouragement to players old and new. Enjoy your time here (and save some cookies for the new folks that join after you!".
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I'd like to echo the Welcome to all the new folks!
Paizo is a GREAT company made of of GREAT folks who honestly care about the game and the fans that play it.
As for these forums, they are made up of an inordinately large percentage of very cool people. Best advice I can offer newcomers? Be cool to others when you post and they'll be cool to you!
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I'm a brand new player just getting involved in tabletop gaming and I just wanted to say how pleasant it is that there's a post welcoming new players and it's FILLED with comments that are equally warm invitations and welcome. I think this is a community I'll enjoy being a part of very much. Thank you :)
To all the new faces and voices: welcome to they asylum! Liz has cookies :)
And please, feel welcome to leave your brains with me, they shall be well fed... taken care of.
Welcome to the Paizo community! If you're just starting up with Pathfinder, be sure to ask questions as you think of them, and we'll be happy to help out.
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Hey guys, I had a quick thought on a game conceit and wanted to run it by people who know the game to see if it would work. I play with a very non-serious group, so we tend to bend rules and focus more on the (always self written) scenarios instead of worrying about balance or established lore. In light of that, I was wondering if it would be possible to run a game with only magic based characters (such as Magus, Alchemist, Sorcerer, etc.) in a pseudo Hogwarts situation. Do the rules support that? In terms of guide books, I have all the stuff from the Humble Bundle (surprise surprise). Also, any idea why I loop back to the home page when I click on the download link? I know that the downloads are slow, I was just wondering if it is a good or bad sign to go to the homepage in this scenario. Sorry to let the download stuff leak into here, and I hope people have tips to run my magical little adventure.
I was wondering if it would be possible to run a game with only magic based characters (such as Magus, Alchemist, Sorcerer, etc.) in a pseudo Hogwarts situation. Do the rules support that?
Sure.
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I did that, with Carrion Crown.
HELLO NEW FRIENDS!!! :))))))
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Hello all! Waiting for the overload of the site to go down a bit, but willing to learn and be a Dm for the first time!
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Yes. Once you buy a downloadable product here, you can download it as many times as you like, onto whatever devices you feel like.
I typically download to my iPad, my desktop, and my laptop. Just bought a new desktop, too, so starting to get my downloads on that.
As for where to post this sort of question... Pick a subforum, and create a new thread. Considering the nature of this particular question, here or Website Feedback are good bets, but take a few minutes to read through the FAQ (linked at the top right of every page on the site).
And finally, a huge welcome to all new people!
They come for the games...
They stay for the community... and the games.