The Advanced Player's Guide

[ugly child]

Well, some of the subscribers have their PDF copies. This does increase the tension. I'll be buying it from my local games store. Anybody lucky enough to have perused it yet?

[Tetsubo]

Sadly, due to my wife being unemployed at the moment, I must wait for a copy...
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Tetsubo
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[Matt]

[Redcelt]

Preview of content from subscribers who got their PDF early can be found at this thread... amazing new stuff..

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/paizo/compiledAGPSpoilerThread
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We be goblins, you be food!

[ugly child]

Unfortunately some folks are posting a bit too much. I spotted the full anti-paladin class on there.

[Redcelt]

I am just happy that the barbarian and monk seem to be getting some nice options to make them viable choices again. Plus some of the feats, etc are very cool... combat patrol for example, where as a full round action you can threaten a zone of squares around your character, and move to make AoO anywhere within the zone. I could see this being huge with a skirmishing type character (scout, anyone?). Just soo much in the way of cool new ideas seem to be coming out of the APG...I can hardly wait...

Edit - Just got my copy of the PDF! So if anyone has questions about something specific, I can paraphrase the answer, just cant cut and paste text, per Jason's request.
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We be goblins, you be food!

[dmccoy1693]

I got my PDF last night. I haven't read the book entirely, I've skimmed it. Short answer. This is what I have been waiting for since I first played D&D. Now not every monk is the same monk and every paladin is not the same paladin. Now you can say that this barbarian tribe does things this way and another does things a different way. While the Pathfinder core book did start going in this direction, the APG takes it a mile further.

The new playtest classes got some nice additions. Alchemists got a few alchemist only extracts. Unfortunately, I"m not familiar enough with the other playtest classes to really tell the differences. Sorry.

Favored Classes comes back in a new way. Instead of taking an extra skill point or hp, you can choose certain advantages that only your race gets. i.e. a dwarf favored class witch can choose to reduce the untrained weapon penalty by 1 every level until it hits 0 (at which point they are considered to be fully proficient).

Traits are FINALLY in a core book. Nuf said.

New PrCs. The Alchemist one fully fleshes out the Dr. Jeckel/Mr Hyde idea by making the alchemist turn into mutant form without requiring mutagen. And it is a more violent version of yourself.

Equipment is cool but nothing to write home about.

I haven't delved to deeply into the feats and spells section yet.

[ugly child]

I've just one question, to address any fears I may have. Is there anything in the new moving part to balls up the machine. Is anything obviously not balanced or a sign of power creep?

I am very excited by the APG but this was chief amongst my concerns.

[Tetsubo]

[R.C, Jr]

To disuade jealousy, I will neither confirm nor deny gaining access to a media copy of the APG and consider any "Woo!"s accredited to me to be taken out of context.
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"Scorching Ray" avatar courtesy Cat

[Redcelt]

Not so much power creep, as LOTs of options to really customize your character to fit a specific concept much easier than before. IMHO, the barbarian, monk, and bard got much better power-wise, mainly by fleshing out their variants, which gives better tools to players who did not want to play a "traditional" (vanilla) version of these classes. Since I considered the barbarian and monk to be slightly sub-par overall compared to the other classes, in my eyes this is a good thing.


No obviously broken parts so far, maybe a few that are better than others (like human sorcerer favored class bonus), but nothing blantantly broken. You can also see where Paizo thought ahead a bit, and said "but this does not stack with power X" to stop obvious cheese.

Still skimming everything ( there is just that much crunch to absorb), but for the most part, its looks like anything new you get, you pay for with a tradeoff. Since most of the existing class and racial abilities were pretty nice, so for there does not appear to be too many "free lunches" so to speak
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We be goblins, you be food!

[dmccoy1693]

I really can't answer the power creep question. There is nothing obvious. Mind you, when Redcelt says "(there is just that much crunch to absorb)", he wasn't kidding. This is a book the size of the GMG of PURE CRUNCH. No NPC section, no environment section, no combat section (save the new combat maneuvers), no advice. This is pure crunch that every player is going to want. No matter what class you are, there is something in there for you. Even if it is just for the new fighter feats or the new wizard spells.

But once you dive in a little, you realize that this book is really what you have been waiting for as a player. Ever wanted to play an elemental focused wizard, now you have elemental schools (better ones than WotC did that's for sure). Ever wanted to play an investigative cop, now you have alternate bard class features that let you do just that.

As far as balance goes, I suspect it will take MONTHS to fully figure out how much is or is not balanced. I imagine little is unbalanced. They've been publicly working on this book since about 10 minutes after the core book came out (as opposed to WotC's pump a hardcover out with new crunch every month).

But really, this book is definitely worth the money.

[Redcelt]

Yeah, this is definitely a must have book... if a new player told me he only had enough money for the core rulebook or this one, I would tell him to buy this one and use the online SRD, its just that good and that packed full of stuff.

I was reading yesterday, last night and today, and so far I am not finished with the class and feats sections yet, so spells and magic items remain. I skimmed the equipment section and optional rules section in the back.

One pleasant surprise is the very well developed hero point section in the back of the book, right next to (the finally canonized) traits. They did a lot of work on these rules, including spells, feats, and magic items that utilize, harvest, and store hero points. Probably take me another week just to get to that section, since its the back of the book!
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We be goblins, you be food!

[Evil Genius Prime]

[Redcelt]

Originally our group decided to wait a month and take it all in before switching anyone over, but it was an overwhelming vote to switch now after reading the APG.

So far the two bards in my game switched to new archetypes, one taking the detective and one going sea singer. The barbarian moved to the new elemental kin, the archer ranger is a skirmisher now (I think the defensive bow stance sold him on it), the gnome fire elemental sorcerer added the pyromaniac gnome racial set, and the summoning focused wizard wants to switch to a scout rogue. Hopefully other gaming groups get similarly excited by the APG.
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We be goblins, you be food!

[Tetsubo]

[dmccoy1693]

[Majuba]

[Viletta Vadim]

[Jay]

[dmccoy1693]

[Jay]

Oh, I'm totally *not* calling APG rules bloat. Just making the argument against rules bloat in general. Haven't read it, in fact am VERY much looking forward to reading it.

[Viletta Vadim]

Except most of those arguments against the so-called "rules bloat" which you list are precisely, "I don't like things I haven't been using for the last decade." Like confusion? That's the pinnacle of a temporary condition that gets sorted out in short order, something that merely stems from the material not being something you've used for the last decade.

[Jay]

[Jay]

I'm gonna add a quick post-post:

I LOVE variety. I make my own classes and spells and templates and rulesets all the time. I dream up ways of converting current fantasy and scifi and all that to d20. So does Matt. So does Ry.

Therefore, I actually kinda love rules bloat. But even I have my limits. But I'm far from hitting them yet in PF. I do consider 3.5 bloated, but I don't see it as an absolutely bad thing. I see its pros and cons, and quite frankly am of the opinion that the pros outweigh the cons from a net perspective.

But I do see the cons.

[Viletta Vadim]

[Jay]

[Viletta Vadim]

[Redcelt]

[Jay]