Hi, I'm new to Pathfinder, but have been playing and GMing other RPGs for a while. I was just wondering how necessary it is for GMs to get the Bestiary books, since it has all the monsters, stats, and flavor text in the Rules Archive.
Aside from supporting the company, you will not need to worry about internet access. Or electronics failing if you have a hard copy or print out.
Books are easier on the eyes. :-)
So I have recently purchased the corebook (still reading through it), and I do most of my playing online. What books would you recommend for a new player/potential GM to buy first?
Bestiary 1, Ultimate Equipment, Advanced Player's Guide, and maybe the Inner Sea World Guide if you're interested in Golarion lore.
It's the art work. The text have very poor descriptions of monsters when you don't have artwork of the monster to preview. I run into that all the time as I own all the bestiaries but use the PRD on my laptop when running a game as 5 bestiaries are really heavy. Quite often I run into monster I have trouble visualizing.