Oh My! This stuff is expensive...

[ivioin]

I have recently found this program and I have to say the pathfinder books on here are very expensive. Especially since you can only use it with this program and it is not a physical copy. I've linked my account to Paizo, but that does me no good since I purchased all of my books through gaming stores. Does anybody else have any other methods for cheaper materials?

[Trenloe]

Welcome to the forums.

If you already have the material in printed form then you don't *need* the Pathfinder products from the FG store. You can enter the data you need to play manually, and/or use some of the OGL modules - see here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?16074-List-of-Modules

A common misconception is that you need every piece of information in Fantasy Grounds to play - you don't, not at all. Lots and lots of people have been playing Pathfinder in Fantasy Grounds for years before the official Paizo support, and they managed fine. The Pathfinder (PFRPG) ruleset (the structure to play Pathfinder) comes with your standard Fantasy Grounds license, you can play quite happily without buying any of the Pathfinder products - you'll have to enter some data, maps, images, etc. to play, but that will save you money. Depending what you're playing you may want to pick up some products to save you time - for example, if you're running an adventure path then you'll save a lot of time by using an official FG conversion (if they're available).

[Trenloe]

And, FYI - the prices are set by Paizo, with a portion going to Smiteworks and another portion going to the person who spent many, many hours converting the original product to Fantasy Grounds.

If you don't already own the PDF then you do get a copy of the PDF with the FG product - so you can use it outside of Fantasy Grounds,

Paizo are actually the first mainstream publisher to provide a discount based off already owned digital products. It's just a little unfortunate that they don't have a way to provide the PDF if you buy the printed product from your FLGS.

[Nylanfs]

This thread may be of interest.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?16074-List-of-Modules

[Trenloe]

This thread may be of interest.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?16074-List-of-Modules
You mean the exact same thread I linked in post #2? ;)

[Faelwen]

I have recently found this program and I have to say the pathfinder books on here are very expensive. Especially since you can only use it with this program and it is not a physical copy. I've linked my account to Paizo, but that does me no good since I purchased all of my books through gaming stores. Does anybody else have any other methods for cheaper materials?
I feel your pain. I can't get a discount for products for which I own leather-bound editions with collectible book cases. And since my pdfs weren't acquired from Paizo (they are in French), I can't get a discount from these either.

Anyhow, you don't need to spend a dime on the Pathfinder stuff if you don't want to. As Trenloe has mentionned, the ruleset is already included with the licence, and most of the OGL material (i.e. rules, items, bestiaries, feats, spells, races, classes, etc.) is available in Fantasy Grounds in the form of free modules that you can load individually in your campaigns. This will already save you hours and hours of work. Normally, I'd add a link to the module page, but it looks like it was already posted multiple times here ^^

What you won't find for free is the non-OGL material (such as stories, images, maps, etc.) but as Trenloe has mentionned, nothing prevents you from adding it manually. There are a few tools that can help you do this (for example this tool (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?34199-CreatureGen-Extension-Import-Stat-blocks-on-the-fly-with-populated-spells) can import NPCs by copy/pasting their statblocks, this one (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?19813-Map-Align-Utility-to-scale-and-align-map-to-grid) can help you adjust maps/grids, etc.).

With a bit of luck, you might even find a GM who has already played your scenario, done the work of importing it into Fantasy Grounds, and is willing to privatly share his module with you to save you the trouble of going through the same pains. It is my understanding that this practice is tolerated as long as there isn't an official Fantasy Grounds release for the product and you can prove that you legally own a copy (more info here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?20244-Private-sharing-of-PFS-scenario-data-available-modules)).

[damned]

Also keep an eye on Humble Bundle. They have several times run bundles containing a swag of Paizo PDFs which will entitle you to a PDF discount off the FG module price.

[Ken L]

You don't really need to buy any modules.

I don't own a single PF module as I looked them over. Most of it is just prep, things like the beastiary and CoreRPG you get mainly for the themes and extras. I personally generate all the creatures that I need on the fly with a generator, I don't even bother even opening the free OGL modules. Then again I own all the PDFs, books AND the beastiary boxes (the little prop up standees), so I really didn't see a need to get many of the core books for FG.

I also have a reservoir of beastiary tokens which I made since I got the PDFs for each of the books as well (Legit off paizo, pirates should shake their head in shame, paizo gave us a bunch of free stuff already!). If you don't have a large cache of tokens or don't have the time to make them, buying the bestiary modules makes sense as they come with pre-made token artwork.

[Trenloe]

With a bit of luck, you might even find a GM who has already played your scenario, done the work of importing it into Fantasy Grounds, and is willing to privatly share his module with you to save you the trouble of going through the same pains. It is my understanding that this practice is tolerated as long as there isn't an official Fantasy Grounds release for the product and you can prove that you legally own a copy (more info here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?20244-Private-sharing-of-PFS-scenario-data-available-modules)).
This agreement is no longer valid. Please don’t share any copyright protected material you don’t have permission to share. OGL (or similar licensed material) only.

[Trenloe]

There is also the external creature parser that lets you create your own bestiary modules by copying the text from PDFs and other digital sources: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?20522-Pathfinder-Creature-Parser-V2-Beta-Version

[ivioin]

Thanks all for the responses. I guess i will have to figure out how to do yhings.

[Erin Righ]

And welcome to the Forums, and FG. You really will love it