Pathfinder 2E: Rules Lawyer's GUIDE to all books and resources!

if you're someone who's already convinced to try Pathfinder 2nd edition then this is the video for you I'm going to go over all of the books and resources that you can possibly get including those which are essential and which you should get first I will point out however that at the time of this recording there is a shortage of the key books that you need for the system due to the huge surge of Interest since the DND ogl Scandal there's been a surge of Interest as a result of Wizards of the Coast the company behind d d showing its hand and making clear over the last few months that they want to heavily monetize the game more the core rule book is not expected to be available until around mid-april but if you see this video soon after posting you will want to get the Humble Bundle now where for 25 dollars you can get dozens of books in PDF form it has the core rulebook and the beginner box which is the best way to learn the game and the acclaimed Abomination vaulty Venture path both in PDF form and for Foundry virtual tabletop this is the first course in my pathfinder law school where where I help new players learn Pathfinder second edition I am Ronald the rules lawyer I am a lawyer who also has taught middle school students in an after-school program for over seven years my passions are tabletop role-playing games and teaching and they both come together in this channel there are many videos on my channel already but if you're interested in Pathfinder law school and want to be notified every time a video posts subscribe and ring the bell so what do you want to get I'm going to cover these areas and I will talk first about what you need to do to learn the system first you need to know that all of the rules are online for free because Pathfinder is published under an open gaming license all of the crunch all of the player options and monsters published in every book to date is available online the site that's used by most players is Archives of nephis first thing you should know is that you do not have to buy a book to play Pathfinder second edition however it's highly recommended you do so to support the company and also the books are very pretty when you go to this link you go to this page and and at very top there is this link for people new to Pathfinder second edition so this is one way to get into the system however the best way to get into the system is through the beginner box it has a solo adventure and it has a group Adventure that a group of people who have not read a word can literally open up and run within 15-30 minutes and it systematically teaches you the rules of the game as you go from room to room it has a meaty dungeon it has reference cards that explain the basic rules and pre-generated characters each of them with their own lore easy to reference sheets color-coded Dice and clear descriptions on the special actions your character can do on their turn it gives the GM Monsters and magic items and traps to put in their Adventures along with physical product including these handy cardboard pawns and bases and scores of them so that you can run a whole variety of adventures also one tip if you have the PDF for the beginner box that in itself will give you twenty dollars off of The Foundry implementation version of the beginner box Adventure you can also play the beginner box today by joining the rules layer Discord where players who want to play or run the beginner box can find each other if you are like me and like to manually fill out a character sheet while learning a system then you have several options a lot of people find the official character sheets too busy and it can be a little intimidating however it does make all the calculations explicit and can be used through level 20. there is also a printer friendly version someone has made a Pathfinder easy to read character sheet and shared it on Reddit which looks similar to Sheets from another system personally my favorite character sheets are this one by pixel patch one word and Justin's character sheet which looks like this also dyslexic character sheets has free and premium versions of character sheets for different classes and an online wizard that takes you through the process next is to find a community this includes finding a play group and also even if you have a playgroup you can find a friendly Community to get all of your questions answered well first off the Pathfinder 2E subreddit is a very welcoming place you can also join the Pathfinder 2E Discord I'll leave a link in the description there people are looking for strangers to fill out their games you can also go to the rules lawyers Discord where in addition to looking for game forms people are looking for others to play or run the beginner box there is also Pathfinder society which is an organized play program similar to dnd's adventurers League there's a link in the description to the Pathfinder Society website the published Adventures are one shots that all feed into bigger story arcs for how to organized play program works you'll want to scroll down and go to guide to organized play the website is not the best but the people who organize these games are very helpful and friendly and I'm going to leave two links in the description to help you find a local game store that has PFS and or a venture Captain one of the organizers also at my Discord we have an organized online play System where your character can can be used from Adventure to Adventure and gain levels and magic items now for digital tools as I said all of the rules and player options and Monsters and magic items are online for free on archives of nephis you can Google 2E and then whatever you're looking for let's just type in 2E Goblin Warrior and it will come up as the first result you can even apply templates to the monsters and everything is hyperlinked which is very useful in Pathfinder since a lot of things refer to other things dummy plane which designed a DND Beyond also supports Pathfinder with Pathfinder Nexus it is still an alpha but you can set up a free account and peruse the rules and many of the player options it is a paid service however if you own the PDF for a book you get a significant discount on the same content within Pathfinder Nexus and it promises to have the same prettiness and user friendliness of DnD Beyond more popular at the moment as digital tools for making characters are path Builder and and wanderer's guide path Builder is the most popular app on Android devices and also has this website version it has all of the options from all of the rule sets you can also choose to limit yourself to only the core rulebook and it lets you export your character sheets onto a PDF many people who use web browsers also like wanderer's guide this is also a free tool and it lets you decide which source books you're going to use and it also lets you export PDFs as you can see here the most popular virtual tabletop among Pathfinder 2E players is Foundry it entails a one-time fifty dollar fee and has no subscription and it has all of the content released for Pathfinder 2E on it for free they have a partnership with paizo and release premium modules for their adventures and Adventure paths and you get a discount on them if you own the PDF here is the town of Atari from the Abomination vaults the modules have all the text artwork and clickable descriptions and instructions for every room also useful is pf2easy.com I like it especially for its utility sheets that let you list all of the creatures you can summon with any particular spell here is what level one summon animal gives you pf2.tools is a repository to find online tools for your game next we move on to the core books and I say core books and quotes because you don't necessarily need each one but when paizo publishes future books and Adventures they assume you have those books and simply tell you to find something in that book and give you its page number of course everything you really need is online on Archives of nephis but they are a good place to start when thinking about what books to get first again I highly recommend getting these books because that supports the company and their very pretty the first book is obviously the core rule book this has all the rules you need for running the game including magic items it's essentially the dungeon Masters Guide and player's handbook for 5e put into one it has 12 character classes and the six core ancestries the next book I would recommend if you want to get it something else is the advanced players guide this came out one year later and when you look at it it does feel like they ran out of pages in The Core rule book and moved some things into this book because there wasn't enough room it's about half the size as a core rulebook but it expands all the options you have for the ancestries and classes in the core rule book it has four new classes the investigator the Oracle the witch and the swashbuckler and it also introduces class neutral archetypes which are Pathfinders version of multi-classing but these archetypes are not tied to a class there are archetypes that have an animal companion like Beastmaster or to be a commander on the battlefield like Marshall there are archetypes for Archers or for celebrities or for bastions or for dual weapon fighting my sense is that the system really shines once you see these class neutral archetypes you'll also find more magic items Feats and spells some would say the next essential book for game Masters would be the best Gary however I think they actually should check out the game mastery guide the game mastery guide gives you a lot of mechanical support for GMS personally I think this is more handy to have as a physical book than the best to Gary which you can look up those monsters online first there's a lot of soft advice but it's very concrete and tailored toward people who are running this system in particular how to deal with initiative in ambushes for instance or what to do when encounters combine with each other there are also systems for building your own creatures hazards magic items intelligent items cursed items relics artifacts afflictions there are examples of all of these things there's also rule support for settlements and for other planes of existence there are subsystems for more downtime activities in the game rule support for running chases and heists being leaders of organizations and having exploration and there's a wide variety of variant rules to tailor your campaign and dozens of stat blocks for NPCs the party May encounter the other core books are the three bestiaries the artwork is fantastic and nearly every monster has memorable signature abilities then we move on to other rule books these are rule books that have a lot of crunch but also some lore and the lore you're not going to find on online resources the first is secrets of magic which has many more spells for the game it has two new classes the bangus which combines weapon fighting and magic and the Summoner which has an extra planar creature that travels and Adventures with them it has more magic items it has optional rules for how magic operates in your campaign and it has a lot of excellent lore about how magic is understood in the campaign written in character by characters in the world next is guns and gears which allows you to have more technology in your campaign via Clockwork and steampunk along with explosives it introduces the inventor and Gunslinger classes there's a lot of pages of technological equipment here combined with lore about how these Technologies are found in the campaign setting and 16 more archetypes that fit into this theme that you can add to your campaign next is the Book of the Dead everything dead there's a lore about necromancy in the world some more options on fighting Undead on getting the undead to serve you and also being Undead there are seven classic types of DnD Undead that player characters can be in the game there is more lore and there's a hundred pages of more creatures that fit this theme there is also a hefty third level Adventure that is inspired by a classic horror movie Next is the dark archive which is the occult in gallerian the campaign setting there are two new classes the psychic and the thamaturge who uses the mysteries of objects to power their abilities there are eight stolen Case Files on different occult themes Inc including deviant abilities curses with more items more player options interspersed throughout and eight Many Adventures that each explore one of these themes coming out this month is the treasure vault which has a huge number of new items by my account almost doubling the number of items in the game including about 30 pages of alchemical items and at this summer the next book will be Rage of elements which is going to introduce the kineticist class which manipulates elements it promises more player options spells and magic items lore and Hefty bestiary with more monsters next we move on to Adventures before paizo had a role-playing game they were known as the company that made great adventures and their reputation for quality in this department continues to this day you're not going to find these online at all except for the free ones which I'll point out first I'm going to highlight a couple that stand out because they tie directly with the beginner box Adventure first is troubles and otari which takes your level 2 characters who finished the beginner box adventure and gives them more Adventures set in that same town and this is written in a way to help new game Masters and new tables and allows your beginner box characters to go up to level four also set in Atari is the Abomination vaults which is the Mega Dungeon adventure path that goes from Level 1 to 10. this says 5e on it however that's not expect until next year the Pathfinder 2 version is already out it is a big dungeon but also set right near a town and there's a lot of NPCs to interact with in the town and in the dungeon It is Well regarded here at Pathfinder Wiki you can find more information on these Adventure modules I'm about to go quickly through I should mention there are three Adventures that you can download for free that were made for free RPG day the level 1 Adventure little trouble in big Absalom where you get to be Cobalts threshold of knowledge the level one Adventure where you are students at a magic Academy and A Fistful of flowers the level 3 Adventure in which you are lushies plants creatures they all come with pre-generated characters and just look at these characters you can be they are awesome little trouble in big Absalon has Cobalts these are the students in the Magic School and in Fistful of flowers these are the leshes that you can be in the adventure Pathfinder publishes Adventure paths many of them go from Level 1 to level 20. these first three Adventure paths that Piezo published I call them the early period when the system was new and the published Adventures were pretty difficult when run as written however these can easily be adjusted as is the nature of the pf2 system age of Ashes takes the party throughout golerian the campaign World via magical elf Gates one of the antagonists is a slave trading organization the extinction curse has the party being members of a traveling circus and that does not figure very much into the actual story which is more of a conventional DND Story the Agents of edge watch is an urban campaign in which the party are law enforcement agents dealing with crime finding out that there is a bigger conspiracy Fist of the Ruby Phoenix unlike the others is level 11 to 20 and is centered around a fighting tournament strength of thousands is a level 1 to 20 campaign where you are students in a magical Academy who can eventually become professors quest for the Frozen flame is a level 1 to 10 Adventure in which you are part of a try 5 that's venturing through the icy wastes in Outlaws of alconstar you have people who have reasons to be opposed to the City sheriff and a financial magnate It's A Clockwork themed Western setting bloodlords is set in the Undead Nation of Geb run by Undead and your party members can become part of the bloodlords who mostly are Undead and run the nation gatewalkers involves the party having a gap in their memory as each of them walked through uh interplanar Gates and had no memory of what was on the other side it involves going to far away and outlandish locations kingmaker is a adaptation of a computer game which was an adaptation of a first edition adventure path it's the one where you found and maintain a kingdom it involves exploration and involves a huge amount of content I'm going to include links including to tarandor's guide to the adventure paths which is an excellent living resource for helping you decide which AP to do paiser also published Many Adventures which are shorter which are about three levels of content each from lowest level to highest level there is the fall of plague Stone also part of the early period and perhaps the most notorious early adventure for its difficulty in which you help a small town and try to solve a murder crown of the Cobalt King is an update of a popular first edition module goes from level one to six and is primarily a dungeon Delph malevolence is a horror cthulhu-inspired adventure for third level characters that involves a haunted mansion the slithering is part of the early period of second edition where your non-human party members try to get to the bottom of the curse which is turning humans into oozes I do not know much about these last two Shadows at sundown is an 11th level adventure and night of the great death is a 16th level Adventure that involves infiltrating a masquerade ball next is the Lost Omens line lost Omens is the camp campaign setting it refers to the age of lost Omens after the god of humanity in the setting died which was against a prophecy the future is not foretold and is to be shaped by adventurers the planet is called golerian and the majority of Adventures are in the Inner Sea region which is the region around this sea here also represented by this amazing map lost Omens is not only lore there's a lot of crunch interspersed however the lore portions are not going to be found online I'll briefly talk about each book in the list the world guide is a essential starting place if you want to know about the parts of the Inner Sea region and it also includes one archetype that is found in that region a lot of the options for characters in this lost Omens line are tagged uncommon or rare because they usually are tied with organizations or regions of the world the remaining books I group into three categories going from more crunch to less crunch for first there are two books that have a lot of character options the first is the Lost woman's character guide it introduces galerian specific options for all of the core ancestries from the core rulebook it introduces three new ancestries and it has a lore and many more archetypes and other character options for five gallerian organizations next is the ancestry guide it introduces more options for 14 uncommon ancestries that were introduced in other books and introduces 14 more ancestries the next category has a relatively even mix of character options and lore gods and Magic details the major and minor gods of the campaign setting it gives crunch for how these different gods can impact characters and impact the world through Divine intercessions it also has more options such as Feats spells and cleric domains for all of these Gods next is the Grand Bazaar which details over 20 shops in the big city of Absalom but you can drop these into any Homebrew adventure of your own every shop has a one to two page spread about what you see in the shop and about its owner followed by two or more pages of items next is the Pathfinder Society guide Pathfinder Society in addition to being a real world organized play program is an in-world adventuring Society where people of all alignments and backgrounds seek knowledge and record their findings in the Pathfinder Chronicles there is a lore about the organization various parts of the organization the internal politics and more character options and Feats and gear next is the Knights of last wall which refers to the Crusaders of the current world the previous Crusaders were people who were fighting the Demons of the world wound but now that an ancient Arch glitch has risen again and dead creatures have overrun the countryside the Knights of last fall are the first line of defense against them this has a lot of options for people who want nightly characters and there's a lot of lore about this organization and the region and profiles of prominent non-player characters in this organization this last group of books are heavy on the lore and less on the crunch first is the city of Absalom this is an absolute Beast of a book it is huge it is 400 pages with details about every district there are 120 pages of biographies of NPCs and hundreds of keyed locations with a lot of detail and this is the map of that City next is the moengi expanse which is the huge jungle area in the southern part of the Inner Sea region this book is about 300 Pages detailing the peoples which are very diverse the religions geography and it introduces some uncommon and rare ancestries ethnicities and monsters characteristic of the region next is The Impossible lands which focuses on this part of golerian NEX and Geb are two Nations led by Arc Mages and their thousands year long Feud has led to the Mana waste in between where Clockwork technology and weirdness take place it also includes the nation of gelma a the island nation that includes many monks monasteries genies and other fantastic things next is monsters of myth which has lore and stats for about 20 monsters that have Legends around them in galerion this is a toolbox for GMS who went to home brew Adventures around these monsters next is lost Omens travel guide which I hear is a very entertaining book that is written in character and gives you a sense of what it's like to live in galerian that talks about food culture fashion Arts Sports holidays and the like then there is also lost Omens Legends which gives details about 40 of the most important non-player characters in the world of galerion that through these people give glimpses into the world through their very interesting stories and as with all the books in this last category you'll find a smattering of crunch for player characters lastly is other stuff which I will not go much into I will Point people to the video by basic liches a channel that is recently starting to cover Pathfinder 2E for their excellent coverage of a lot of physical products that are really useful for in-person games I do want to point out that these bestiary battle cards are excellent it has all of the stats for every monster in the bestiary and artwork on the other side so that you can put this at the top of your GM screen with the stats facing you your mileage may vary but I know my younger players really enjoy more Randomness in combat there are the critical hit deck and the critical fumble deck whenever you roll a natural 20 or a natural one these cards will have different effects depending on the nature of what you were attacking with so here's one example which also if you are throwing a bomb or casting a spell has a magical like effect here's an example of a critical fumble card in this case a fumble while casting a spell can lead to summoning an animal that attacks you on the Pathfinder website under accessories you can find more card decks Maps ponds Miniatures and other accessories lastly there is a burgeoning third-party publishing community that publishes their works on Pathfinder infinite so that was my guide on where to go and what to buy first as you embark on this journey of playing Pathfinder second edition if there were other things that I missed please comment with those suggestions I will make sure to include them in a pinned comment meanwhile if you like the video of course like it but also you may want to get notified about my future Law School courses for Pathfinder that I will be putting out listed on the screen so subscribe and ring the bell for notifications so that's it I have been Ronald the rules lawyer don't forget to join my Discord where you can play the beginner box or play Pathfinder 2 now and talk to other people who will help you learn the system or make your first character also support my patreon to get early access to many of my videos and full access to my content so that's it I hope you enjoy the video and I will see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: The Rules Lawyer

Views: 27,751

Keywords: rules lawyer, rpg, dnd, d&d

Id: OnPj9VgOPVM

Length: 25min 56sec (1556 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023