- Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
- Advanced Player’s Guide
- Ultimate Combat
- Ultimate Magic
- Advanced Class Guide
- Occult Adventures
...with Ultimate Intrigue coming later, or course. The add-on books are kind of spotty, with the following being considered core for us:
- Advanced Race Guide
- Pathfinder Unchained
- Inner Sea Gods
- ...and I want to add Inner Sea Races soon, maybe
These are optional, since they are less-character focused (Campaign, Gamemastery, NPC Codex, and Equipment), or game-changing (Mythic):
- Ultimate Campaign
- Mythic Adventures
- Ultimate Equipment
- NPC Codex
- Gamemastery Guide
Monsters are needed!
- Pathfinder Bestiary 1
- Pathfinder Bestiary 2
- Pathfinder Bestiary 3
- Pathfinder Bestiary 4
- Pathfinder Bestiary 5
- Monster Codex
- I also use Tome of Horrors Complete to throw in unpredictable 3rd party wild-cards
- ...I would like to add Tome of Horrors IV and Advanced Bestiary as well
The following third party spell add-ons are also used, I feel they are must-haves to add extra spell and class options:
- 1001 Spells
- Deep Magic
- Gothic Campaign Compendium
The following two are optional class add-ons, they have some good options but they need some work integrating into everything:
- Secrets of Adventuring
- New Paths Compendium
Everything else is a nice-to-have item, if we have it, great, and it adds color and options. We also use the following worldbooks and adventure design books for extra color:
- Inner Sea World Guide
- Rise of the Drow
- Tome of Adventure Design
- ...I would like to add some of the mega-dungeons as well:
- Rappan Athuk
- The Slumbering Tsar Saga
We add as we go, and the game world morphs and takes on its own shape and form. I like the third-party additions, and they keep things unpredictable and off the standard Paizo railroad tracks - especially the trio of Gothic Campaign Compendium, 1001 Spells, and Deep Magic. These three (yes they have some unbalanced spells) take magic-based classes and give them a really cool and wonderful custom flavor and feeling.
Races are whatever you want, we have this crazy, almost World-of-Warcraft meets Star Wars creature cantina view of races where anything cool you can come up with using race design with the Advanced Race Guide is cool with us. Our Jade Regent game seen races derived from the Zodiac populating those lands, so we have ratlings, snakemen, rooster/birdmen, dragonmen, and all sorts of other crazy animal-hybrids populating those lands. Why? Just for fun, and the adventure path never laid out what was there so we ran with it. Race design is cool, and while it leads to some crazy races and combos, it is very cool and lets all sorts of strange characters appear in our games. A top-hat wearing bear-man investigator of crimes committed by undead with a crab-man kung-fu monk sidekick?
Go for it. Have fun. Do not take yourself seriously. But...please take the rules and playing seriously.
And this list never stays really the same for long. If something new comes out, we collect it, and figure out a place for it. Once you accept the throy and fun of modding, and open yourself up to the possibilities, you begin to see the strength of an open system such as Pathfinder and all of the crazy, wonderful, and insane creations you can build with all of these books. This openness, plus a desire to let player's imaginations go, is what makes the game special for our group, and keeps us playing despite other games being out there and waiting for our attention.
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