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  1. #1

    How to get all the PF2 rules without breaking the bank?

    I am new to Pathfinder 2E and only plan on running published adventures, so I'll at least need the Pathfinder 2E Core Rules.

    For players to get access to all the additional ancestries, heritages, spells, feats, classes, etc., that are available on Archives of Nethys, would I as a GM need to buy the Advanced Players Guide, all the Lost Omens guides, Secrets of Magic, Dark Archives, etc.? Or do the Drag N Drop supplements contain actions for all the feats and spells scattered across all the books?

    If I would need to buy additional Paizo rules content, does anyone have a recommendation on which ones are essential vs. nice to have etc.?
    Last edited by Solomon Grundy; June 5th, 2023 at 15:38.

  2. #2
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    Welcome to the FG forums!

    Ultimately, if you want *everything* that Paizo has released on Fantasy Grounds, then you'll need to get most of the stuff on Fantasy Grounds and maybe manually enter data as required. So, I'd recommend having a quick view at what classes and ancestries your players might want to use, and what you're going to allow. Then consider picking up the products that cover those - classes and ancestries are the main one that are a little more involved to enter into Fantasy Grounds.

    As far as the Remastered project goes, we're waiting on seeing the digital files from Paizo before we make a final decision on exactly how we're going to approach the technical implementation - whatever we do the ruleset code will be included as part of the FGU license - just as the PFRPG2 (Pathfinder Second Edition) ruleset is now. One thing we will be doing is ensuring that you will be able to use existing PF2 products with the remastered rules.

    I know that doesn't fully answer your questions, but hopefully it'll give you some more ideas. For running PF2 on FG I'd look at getting the Core Rules and the APG (assuming you're going to allow classes and ancestries from there), if a player is going to use a class or ancestry from another product, then consider getting that also. If you're going to run more homebrew adventures, then consider picking up at least Bestiary 1 - if you're going to run purely published adventures, then there isn't a need for the bestiaries as the NPC records will be included in the adventure DLC.
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  3. #3
    To be clear, you and your players can input anything you find in AoN manually for no cost, and the published adventure you purchase should include all items, monsters, etc that you need to run it. While the ruleset is included for free, I think most people would recommend the Core Rules at the very least. If one of your players wants to play a class from a book you don't own, there's nothing stopping them from just creating a character from scratch without automation, same as they would at the table. And they can input all the automation they like by hand as well. After a quick learning curve it's really pretty simple to do, especially if you're just putting in the abilities or spells you know, and not trying to do all the options you might ever get.
    Last edited by Neovirtus; June 5th, 2023 at 17:12.

  4. #4
    Thanks for the info!

    Sounds like if there's a book that I'm not interested in, but it has a couple of good feats, I can just manually code up effects and/or actions for those feats. I've made custom actions in FG classic for a PF1 game and it was pretty straight forward.

    Looks like there are some youtube tutorials on how to enter classes, too. It seems like the books that contain new classes typically contain a bunch of additional stuff related to the theme of that class, so I'd probably just go ahead and buy the corresponding book(s).
    Last edited by Solomon Grundy; June 7th, 2023 at 02:11.

  5. #5
    I really think FG needs to rethink this approach. Just some background - new to FG and have been running a bunch of Pathfinder adventures and campaigns (current Gatewalkers) on Foundry. Foundry currently has built in all the rules content for 2e including creatures, hazards, feats, spells. There are no limits to character creation and a GM is not expected to pay upwards of $600 to buy all the content. If FG had this foundational approach I would consider moving across and buying adventure paths and the core books (like dark archive for gatewalkers) that I want as reference in the game. Already paying Paizo a subscription for the content and then having to essentially re-buy (even at a discount) books I don't really need so I can use the characters really feels like a leaf out of the WOTC playbook - especially given the open nature of this content across platforms like AON. Please don't take this as a criticism of FG - I love how easy it is to run encounters/maps/custom notes and I think you guys have done a bang-up job with the adventure paths. I wish I could give it a go but it's not commercially viable to place this much additional load on GMs who already carry a high financial burden. I think this will hurt further adoption of FG going forward when the competition makes barrier to entry so much easier.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by hackRPG View Post
    I really think FG needs to rethink this approach. Just some background - new to FG and have been running a bunch of Pathfinder adventures and campaigns (current Gatewalkers) on Foundry. Foundry currently has built in all the rules content for 2e including creatures, hazards, feats, spells. There are no limits to character creation and a GM is not expected to pay upwards of $600 to buy all the content. If FG had this foundational approach I would consider moving across and buying adventure paths and the core books (like dark archive for gatewalkers) that I want as reference in the game. Already paying Paizo a subscription for the content and then having to essentially re-buy (even at a discount) books I don't really need so I can use the characters really feels like a leaf out of the WOTC playbook - especially given the open nature of this content across platforms like AON. Please don't take this as a criticism of FG - I love how easy it is to run encounters/maps/custom notes and I think you guys have done a bang-up job with the adventure paths. I wish I could give it a go but it's not commercially viable to place this much additional load on GMs who already carry a high financial burden. I think this will hurt further adoption of FG going forward when the competition makes barrier to entry so much easier.
    There is nothing to stop you as an individual entering the material in yourself, and if you stick to materials covered under whatever open licenses Paizo is currently using you can share the materials for free. Various people have spent thousands (that is not a typo) of hours building the ruleset and converting material, in addition to the cost and effort that Paizo spent developing the system and content. I think that everyone involved deserves the small amount of money they each get from the content sales.

  7. #7
    I wouldn't suggest buying "all" the content anyway - I would suggest buying just the core rules and what you plan to run, and then whichever specific books your players need.

    I have also historically asked my players to help crowdsource the cost of especially player-focused books, and that has gone over well with them.

    I think the tradition that "the GM buys all the books and the players just show up" is a bit toxic, especially since GMs do so much work. Putting all the workload AND all the financial burden on the GM has never sat right with me.

  8. #8
    I hear you - it's a tricky one especially with additional manual effort involved. I am not talking about paying for the new contents of a book, or for the conversion of an adventure path - I'd be happy to pay for an adventure path on FG, or having the Dark Archive content as referenced in my Gatewalkers campaign. I'm specifically talking about a baseline set of information to allow players to roll up characters without gate-keeping it behind buying or re-buying content - I literally have bought the FG core rules/gatewalkers adventure paths and now find myself unable to proceed because my existing players have rolled up a thaumaterge, magus, and swashbuckler. So Mr GM kindly go off and re-buy Dark Archive, Adv Players Guide and Secrets of magic or no game for you - I don't believe this is the right approach. I also don't feel "just add it in yourself" is an adequate answer in a highly competitive VTT space.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by hackRPG View Post
    I hear you - it's a tricky one especially with additional manual effort involved. I am not talking about paying for the new contents of a book, or for the conversion of an adventure path - I'd be happy to pay for an adventure path on FG, or having the Dark Archive content as referenced in my Gatewalkers campaign. I'm specifically talking about a baseline set of information to allow players to roll up characters without gate-keeping it behind buying or re-buying content - I literally have bought the FG core rules/gatewalkers adventure paths and now find myself unable to proceed because my existing players have rolled up a thaumaterge, magus, and swashbuckler. So Mr GM kindly go off and re-buy Dark Archive, Adv Players Guide and Secrets of magic or no game for you - I don't believe this is the right approach. I also don't feel "just add it in yourself" is an adequate answer in a highly competitive VTT space.
    I have to agree with damned on this one - a heck of a lot of work went into converting those books to Fantasy Grounds, and I feel like the people who did that work deserve to be paid for it. You clearly don't want to do the work for free yourself, just to point out.

    I will also reiterate a bit of confusion - if your players need those books, why are your players not (at least helping) paying for them?

    EDIT: Actually, on rereading, I'm even more confused.

    How is a new playable class not "new contents of a book"?

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by hackRPG View Post
    I'm specifically talking about a baseline set of information to allow players to roll up characters without gate-keeping it behind buying or re-buying content...
    I understand this in principle - but what do you class as baseline content? To fully create a PC you need access to classes and related lookup data, ancestries and heritages, backgrounds, feats, spells (for spell casters) and equipment. For a lot of books this is the vast majority of the content. If there's just a subset of this provided (e.g. classes) then that wouldn't be seen as enough and there'd be further requests for ancestries (and heritages), feats, spells, etc.. And you're basically saying you want this for free? Or would you be willing to contribute towards the many hours of development that has gone into creating this content?

    Quote Originally Posted by hackRPG View Post
    ...my existing players have rolled up a thaumaterge, magus, and swashbuckler.
    Taking this as an example, these classes are in Dark Archive, Secrets of Magic and the APG, so to satisfy your situation you're really not looking at "... a baseline set of information to allow players to roll up characters..." you'd want *everything* mechanically from those books (and others) otherwise you'd still have to enter in some information yourself.

    As has been mentioned above, there has been thousands of hours of development gone into the Pathfinder Second Edition ruleset and official DLC - resulting in there being by far and away the most content available for PF2 on any single VTT (approx. 140 official products). This wouldn't have been done without the license from Paizo, with associated small commissions to the work for hire content developers and converters - who receive nothing from any of your previous Paizo PF2 purchases outside of Fantasy Grounds. Paizo set the prices of their products on Fantasy Grounds. Their very generous PDF sync/discount scheme helps to reduce the cost for the products; unfortunately, this is where Paizo's policy of low-cost base rulebook PDFs (compared to setting and adventure books) means that the cost of FG PF2 rulebooks, even if you own the PDF, is still a big chunk of money. We hope to have ways of alleviating this in some ways in the future, but for now we have to work within the current licensing agreement with Paizo.
    Last edited by Trenloe; August 14th, 2023 at 10:22.
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