I recently acquired the core books for Pathfinder...

I recently acquired the core books for Pathfinder. Does anyone have any advice on how I should go about running a pre-gameplay discussion of characters and stuff? I'm not very experienced as a GM.

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>Session zero
>You gather your players around the table
>You ritually burn the Pathfinder book, chanting mantras against evil
>After all the evil spirits are gone, you pull out DnD 5e, a much better game

Play OSR, 4E, or 5E

...I can't burn a pdf

Don't.

Make sure you're using Unchained for the 4 core classes that have Unchained versions, the original classes are FUBAR.

To start with get everyone on the same page regarding the game you're playing, some people want to roll lots of dice and see big numbers on their sheet, others want an immersive storytelling world with lots of opportunity for stuff other than combat. Find out what your players want and consider what you want, then decide how much combat you'll be doing and how much storytelling, how much NPC interaction etc. If you're running an adventure pack like Rise of the Runelords or Kingmaker a lot of people and personalities are there for you to use, get to know them before the session so you can organically act them out when the PCs meet them rather than spending a few minutes reading their backstories, the AP books mention characters in the story then have a sort of appendix of their personalities at the end, same goes for locations. You should also draw up some random encounter and loot tables, or google them, or use this site: donjon.bin.sh/pathfinder/treasure/

Regarding the discussion itself, try to involve your players in the story, prepare some handouts for them to make them feel more involved in the world and let them know what's coming so they have some motivation beyond playing a game, encourage them to use campaign traits listed in the APs and design a backstory with those in mind. The ultimate aim of a pre-game discussion is to make sure that everyone has fun, including you so make it as interactive as possible.

Also there's this: d20pfsrd.com/

Determine what setting you'll be in, what levels you'll be playing in, and discuss how to design encounters to better suit the party and how to cater to mixed parties

Let me guess, they were hand-me-downs?

No way any sane man would buy pathfinder now better shit is out.

Do not listen to as he is a vile heretic. Pick up a module off the website, there's plenty of free starter ones, if you want a long campaign to run look into an adventure path like Kingmaker. There will be plenty of resources in those books to guide a new gm.

Decent deal on humble bundle. Also, I am slightly retarded.

You... Didn't even pirate it?

>kingmaker
>plenty of resources

Oh boy. Kingmaker is empty but the world does give the GM a lot of opportunity to insert meandering quests and adventures. As an inexperienced GM I'd start with Rise of the Runelords, like 70 named and described NPCs in the starting town.

My second point.

Base Barbarian is hardly FUBAR by any means. Neither is the Summoner really, unless you are against fun.

Base Rogue is utterly useless and UC Rogue is a straight and simple upgrade it sorely needed. UC Monk makes the monk a solid martial option, rather than a gimmicky high-risk one (that admittedly still has a few functioning builds due to its insane amount of Archetypes).

Use the d20pfsrd.com and archiveofnethys.com websites for splatbook resources if you need them. Particularly stuff like bestiary entries and NPCs are very nice to grab from it. Unless you run a straight Adventure Path or Module ofc, in which case all you need should be in those.

5e is an overbalanced system with zero content ensuring no fun is had unless your group and GM are both good enough to have fun regardless of the quality of system. 4e is not D&D - take that how you will.

Pathfinder is a lot like the internet. There's a virtual fuckton of content and you can usually do what you want, but you need to learn how to filter out the shit parts to get there. It takes plenty of system mastery to enjoy, but mastering the system is also enjoyable. Tread carefully but with expectations of a good time.

>he is a vile heretic.
Found the Paidrone

Christ, that's real?

Yes.

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It's true though. 5e is a decent system with a very small slowly-growing pile of mediocre content. I won't oppose the fact that it fixes some parts of the idiot things 3.PF does, but it doesn't do enough of that to compensate for the sheer lack of things to do with the content. It's fine for your average pissboy normie group who have just started getting into D&D, but that's all there's to it. There's zero depth to 5e.

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Playing and enjoying pathfinder requires an arbitrary amount of ignoring what paizuzu says.

It's been over 3 years since 5E came out and there still isn't anything even remotely close to as good as ToB.

See, I'd agree with this if it weren't for the fact that gunslingers are hot shit if you don't use all the exploits you can to pump out more damage.
Is it stupid that a gunslinger is juggling pistols faster than humanly possible? Obviously. But, if you're taking out the reason gunslingers suck because it doesn't make sense, surely you can at least give something that does make sense that compensates.

That mushroom is adorable.

My main issue with Pathfinder is the constant number crunching. You have layers upon layers of situational bonuses and spells and abilities that you have to work out for your attacks and checks every goddamn time, having to keep in mind which types stack and which don't. And if you don't do the buffing game, you can't compete with the mid-to-high-level enemies and monsters. Starting from level 8 or so, the game slows down considerably and is a mess to keep track of and not make arithmetic blunders. And then there's the rocket tag; where even moderately optimized builds or monsters can take out PCs in a single turn or two and tactics devolve into trying to pack the most punch into your alpha strike so the enemy dies before you, because at some point offensive ability growth far, far outstrips any and all attempts to defend. It's not called Mathfinder without reason.

After release 4E and 5E in general exposed me to the opposite and after having it ruin any semblance of enjoyment I could have gotten out of the combat, I will never understand why people complain about rocket tag.

Play Mutants and Masterminds. You'd like it.

I did and I can't tell if you're trying to be ironic or not because of how swingy the system is. I've seen characters last for several rounds longer than they had any right to and seen big bruisers get dropped in a round due to shit luck.