What Packages do I -as a player- need

[KiwiBlaze]

Do I as a player of Pathfinder Games benefit from having access to other packages? What do I as only a player [PC] gain from them?

I have a few books [my cousin used to be hard core into this, and I brought his collection of books for like 100 bucks. But I'm very time pour and have only looked at some of them. But it seems to me that some of these packages are mostly for [or are only for] GMs. So what do I as a player need?

The likes of:
Bestiaries
Adventure Paths
Player Companion
Campaign Setting
Frog God Games – Tomb of Horrors
Green Ronin Publishing – Advanced Bestiary
Kobold Press – To many to list
Legendary Games – Gothic Campaign
Rite Publishing - Heroes of the Jade Oath
Rite Publishing - In The Company Of Monsters (I have the other two)

I'm not sure if I own these books, some of them have ripped or torn covers (not as in "this book wasn't sold ... copyright ", but torn as in too much use and kids not knowing the worth [to the owner]) does that matter?

I want to continue to support the work of Lone Wolf, and well hey if it can help build my Playing Characters, I can at least get it.

[Portilis]

Bestiaries you can probably get away without.

APs, if you're playing in any you will likely want them as they will include magic items from that AP.

Player Companions/Campaign Settings - largely comes down to whether you want access to the contents of the books - feats, spells, gear, archetypes, etc.

Non-Paizo books - again, up to you, and down to whether your GM allows them.

[Portilis]

Oh, on a side note, the AP packs are more aimed at GMs - the items, etc, are released as part of the core Pathfinder package, so you probably don't need to buy extra.

[AndrewD2]

Speaking as the person that coded the Rite Publishing Packages: In the Company of Monsters is great is you want to play some new races and they have Paragon Classes (basically they can become better at being their race) and Jade Oath has some Eastern classes and a bunch of new races for the setting.

[liz]

Originally Posted by KiwiBlaze

Do I as a player of Pathfinder Games benefit from having access to other packages? What do I as only a player [PC] gain from them?

I'm going to respond to this with an example of my time as a Hero Lab user prior to joining Lone Wolf as an employee. Why? Well, I think that the packages that are right for you depends a lot on you as a player.

When I played Pathfinder prior to joining Lone Wolf, I played once every month to two months in an on-going campaign (it was my only game). I had one primary character in that campaign. Because of the focus I chose for her, I enjoyed having the Advanced Players Guide (I used an archetype for my main character), and Ultimate Combat (there were some feats I thought would be perfect for my main character, and some performance feats for her follower/bard). Yep, I only had two packages.

For me, I played pretty rarely and I only had the one character, so the two packages was enough. However, other gamers playing once every 1-2 months would love to have a ton of options - maybe Advanced Players Guide, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Equipment, and Player Companion #6 (because we were playing a sea-focused campaign).

The packages are like the books, they give you more options and rule variants when building your character. If you ask a Hero Lab user "what do you need when starting out with Hero Lab?", the answer will vary from user to user. Some will say, "just the core package", while others will say "Advanced Players Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, and Advanced Race Guide." I say, take a look at the physical books that you own and see what options you want to use when building your character. If you notice you're picking a lot of options from one book, that may be a package you want to consider for Hero Lab. If you don't know what book it is, I'd recommend throwing a feat/spell into Google along with "Pathfinder". You should be able to figure it out pretty quick.

Originally Posted by KiwiBlaze

I'm not sure if I own these books, some of them have ripped or torn covers (not as in "this book wasn't sold ... copyright ", but torn as in too much use and kids not knowing the worth [to the owner]) does that matter?

We always recommend that Hero Lab users own the physical book or PDF of the packages they purchase in Hero Lab, as the actual text provides a lot of context for the content you receive in Hero Lab. That being said, we don't double-check that every user owns a copy of the book.


I hope all of this helps!

[KiwiBlaze]

Awesome sauce. I have most of the packages I can get on Hero Labs for Pathfinder, but wasn't sure if I should "pokemon" them or if I can skip them and get what I needed.

Thanks for the information on what is in the Jade Oath packagees. I may have to sort the books and see what I have from Rite Publishing since I enjoy a good mix of options and playing Eastern themed options is always interesting!

I'm always fiddling with character ideas, if Im not playing, have spare time, Im creating backstories and seeing what I can find that makes the character work. I have only once done min/maxing characters and I just felt -meh- about it.

Thanks for the responses!

[liz]

Originally Posted by KiwiBlaze

Awesome sauce. I have most of the packages I can get on Hero Labs for Pathfinder, but wasn't sure if I should "pokemon" them or if I can skip them and get what I needed.

I mean... you can "catch them all". But I'd be the greedy, slimy business-type if I told any user that they needed all of the packages to get the most out of Hero Lab.