Newbie questions about products


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion


Forgive the questions but hopefully some more experienced folks can answer. Playing fall of plaguestone with my kids and just the CRB so far and looking for advice on further products.

Do I need the game master guide for just running premade adventures like Fall of plaguestone or adventure paths?

I have the pdf version of the bestiary which came in handy when the FOP book referred to the monsters in it. Will future books like dead gods hand or adventure paths refer to future bestiaries or will they include monster stats for everything not in bestiary 1? I see theres already a second one on the way and there were something like 6 for pf1.

I'd like to pickup the pawns because I have no minis or pawns from previous editions of anything... I see bestiary 1 pawns are out near end of January. Is there a pawns box specific to FOP or other adventure paths that are available?

I'm getting the sense I should have just waited for pawns to come out. Maybe the Age of Ashes pawns will be available by the time we finish FOP.

Thanks all.


The only book you "need" is the CRB, all else is optional. GMG and APG in particular are not going to be required to run any premade adventure (but you could benefit from advice contained in the GMG, and your players could benefit from options presented in the APG).
Future adventures will almost certainly refer monster statblocks to bestiaries and other published books in order to save pages, but they can be found for free online for free so it's less of a problem.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

For your knowledge of the future. Paizo have declared they are going to be considering CRB, GMG, APG and Bestiary 1 and 2 as their "core" for PF2. This means that content featured in those tomes is unlikely to be reprinted in adventures but merely referenced.

E.G if an adventure uses a monster from Bestiary 1 or 2 the adventure will just tell you what page in those books to look at. If it uses any other monster it will likely reprint the stats.

On the plus side as Ediwir notes, all rules content is going up for free, so unless you like the smell of books (oh god do I) you aren't required to purchase, except for if you lack internet access.


Ayrkire wrote:
Do I need the game master guide for just running premade adventures like Fall of plaguestone or adventure paths?

No, as Ediwir says, the only thing you need to run a Pathfinder game is the Core Rulebook, which has a chapter for gamemasters on how to run a game.

AND
Paizo makes all the rules available online at Archives of Nethys if you really can't afford to buy even the Core Rulebook. You never have to buy anything to play Pathfinder.

Quote:
Will future books like dead gods hand or adventure paths refer to future bestiaries or will they include monster stats for everything not in bestiary 1?

Archives of Nethys

Again, if you don't have the book in hand, you can look it up online.

Everything Paizo publishes is likely to have new items, monsters, backgrounds, feats, etc. But you don't have to buy all the books to run the adventures.

Quote:
Is there a pawns box specific to FOP or other adventure paths that are available?
Paizo usually publishes a box of pawns for each Adventure Path after the series has ended.

You can run any published adventure with nothing more than a few ad hoc markers (bottle caps, coins, Monopoly tokens, generic tokens from other games, etc. Even squares of paper cut to size and labeled with the monster's name will work.

Or you can buy a complete complement of accessories and aids from Paizo. (Maps, tokens, supplementary handbooks, bestiaries, character guides, setting, bestiary cards, equipment cards, spell cards, etc).

It's up to you as the GM (and your budget) how deeply you want to immerse yourself in Paizo products.


Very helpful info, thanks all.

Have they mentioned anything about releasing the pocket book adventure paths for pf2 as well? Seems like a great way to grab all 6 books.

I'm definitely going to grab the pawns I can when they are available as the kids really like the visuals.

Good to know I can access future monster info online. I'm interested to see how well received the battle cards are as I could see that being useful as well.

The spell cards sound handy for the kids too, but that's a hefty investment for all the spell cards.


Ayrkire wrote:
Have they mentioned anything about releasing the pocket book adventure paths for pf2 as well? Seems like a great way to grab all 6 books.

Clarification:

Fall of Plaguestone is a PF2 Standalone Adventure, complete in a single publication
Standalone Adventures

Adventure Paths are 6-part publications that are published over a 6-month period. Sometimes Paizo publishes a later, consolidated edition that contains all six parts in a single book. But not always, and not very quickly.
Adventure Paths

Generally, it is only Adventure Paths that get a specific pawn box after the final chapter has been published. Standalone Adventures draw on the more generic products.

Other published adventures include Quests and Scenarios
Quests And Scenarios

So far, they have not released any pocket editions of any PF2 material. The available PF1 pocket editions are all rulebooks, bestiaries, and other reference material.

And, of the 24 First Edition Adventure Paths, none have pocket editions produced by Paizo. There have been a couple anniversary editions that were single books and some licensed 3rd party material produced through Kickstarter projects, but I don't think there are any pocket editions of the adventures themselves. [More knowledgeable people will be along shortly to correct me.]

Sovereign Court

Ayrkire wrote:
Do I need the game master guide for just running premade adventures like Fall of plaguestone or adventure paths?

Very few people have access to the Gamemastery Guide right now, so obviously it's not required :P

That said, I got a copy for review purposes and I'm quite impressed. Obviously it contains a lot of general GMing advice and clarifies some CRB stuff. But it also explains the way most minigames in adventures are designed, and that can be helpful if you're not quite sure what the author of an adventure had in mind - or if you want to make your own!

Ayrkire wrote:
I have the pdf version of the bestiary which came in handy when the FOP book referred to the monsters in it. Will future books like dead gods hand or adventure paths refer to future bestiaries or will they include monster stats for everything not in bestiary 1? I see theres already a second one on the way and there were something like 6 for pf1.

Adventures are written with a wordcount limit, and fully statted monsters count against that. So taking standard monsters from the bestiaries is a way to save words and be able to put more other content in the adventure. So you should expect this "HorribleThing, Bestiary X p. Y" format to continue.

When I'm preparing an adventure like that, I take my Bestiary PDF and just print out (or print to file) those specific monsters, so that I don't have to page through so many stuff while running it.

Wayfinders

CrystalSeas wrote:


And, of the 24 First Edition Adventure Paths, none have pocket editions produced by Paizo.

[Nerd voice] Well, actually...

(Granted, neither of those is out yet, but still.)

That aside, like others said, Paizo will eventually consider the combination of CRB, GMG, Bestiary and APG (not sure about Bestiary 2, but also maybe?) the "core books that they'll assume to be available at every table", but even then you can get all of the rules content from those freely online from the SRD like Archives of Nethys.


CrystalSeas wrote:

Adventure Paths are 6-part publications that are published over a 6-month period. Sometimes Paizo publishes a later, consolidated edition that contains all six parts in a single book. But not always, and not very quickly.

Adventure Paths

To elaborate: so far, there are two adventure paths that have been combined into a single volume each: Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne. These were released as 5th/10th anniversary celebrations of the Adventure Path product line (and also 10th/15th anniversary of Paizo as a whole), and update the original adventures that were written for D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder rules. Paizo has stated that they intend to keep consolidated editions to a minimum, because they don't want to create a situation where people expect a collected edition and thus forgo the monthly APs - because the APs is what drives sales at Paizo.

There is also a collected Kingmaker edition in the works, which will update the campaign to Pathfinder 2nd edition and (I think) fix some issues with the original campaign.


So easy to build a functioning snare

;-)

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