Hey folks. Was given a copy of Pathfinder (that I wanted!) and was wondering first, what other books are must haves? Second, since I'm loath to read cover to cover by this weekend since I know 3.5 REALLY well, what are the major differences between it and 3.5?

I'm not sure bout a lot of the differences, skills are tweaked to be much better in my opinion. As for other books, all you really need is which has basically all the information posted. New books added pretty quickly after release too.

First - the outlines most of the changes.

In particular - skills are no longer multiplied by 4 at first level. This means that it no longer matters when you take rogue for a multiclassed character. Many skills have been consolidated. Synergy bonuses are gone (but easy enough to put back, if you want).

Combat maneuvers now have a unified system.

Most Save or Die effects have been mitigated. Shapechange abilities and spells have been codified and balanced. (You do not become a dragon, you become something that is much like a dragon, for example.)

Sorcerers are now cool. No longer the wizard's redheaded stepchild their bloodlines now make a difference. Coolest change in the base game.

Races now get a total modifier of +2, either two stats with +2 balanced with one stat of -2 or one stat with +2. Half orcs no longer have a -2 total modifier.

Must haves.... The Bestiary if you plan to run a game. The Advanced Player's Guide for a book of just plain awesome - introducing archetypes, allowing the customization of classes to a great degree. Many concepts that became classes in 3.5 have become class archetypes in PFRPG. The new classes are interesting - I especially like the witch. The book where I think Pathfinder became its own game.

Everything else is secondary - often cool, but secondary. The Gamemastery Guide is very good, but it is definitely a GM guide - not much crunch for players. Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat add many new options, including new archetypes. I like UM more, but I like both.

There is also a free playtest of the - subject to major changes, but fun.

The Kingmaker Adventure Path adds new mechanics for kingdom building - Jon Brazer Enterprises . Somehow this path is very old school - the players can become the movers and shakers of their own realm.

The Auld Grump

If you can do 3.5 then really just start playing PF and you will find the differences and either ignore them, or use them. I had been a Basic, 1st, 2nd ED gm fro decades, one of my players talked me into playing a 3.5 game for a while so i got a basic understanding of it; then my fiance got me draft to run a PFS scenario for the FLGS group of PFS DM's with no prep time. After that I can tell you, you slot in to playing it like an old pair of gloves., the GM's loved it and I got stuck in to the GM rotation.

Like Gump said all you really need is the Core and APG, and I would added the bestiary. Can't have a good game without things to go hack on.

Thinking the beastiary is my next purchase. I'm DMing, so kinda crucial. For now, can fill in with the D&D one I suppose. Thanks for the feedback!

As for the errata...how do I know which version of the book I have?

Feats have changed. Cleave and Power Attack are not the same as they used to be. Just a heads up, there are lots of "little" things that may surprise you.

$10?! I'll be getting those then and putting them on my Kindle Fire! Amazing. Just found it finally. I did get a 5th printing! So should be up to date (I think).

White Wolf isn't much better...$10 for a PDF seems absolutely doable. For that much, I'm likely to grab a book from them every month.

Picked up the Beastiary book in PDF form and uploaded to my Kindle Fire. Nothing else needed. Just works! Very nice.

Yeah, Ms. Stevens stating that Paizo is using the business model that Dancey originally planned for 3.0 put things in perspective - good adventures sell.

Heck - Paizo charges more for PDFs of their adventure paths than they do for PDFs of their core books or the main setting book. And they have a lot of good adventures - Burnt Offerings, the first Pathfinder offering, was a classic. That first appearance of the goblins of their setting, fire, mayhem, goblins hiding in lit stoves.... the goblins seem very much like fey to me. (We be goblins! You be food!) Evil, nasty blighters!

The Auld Grump

Running a home-brew for now, but I may have to pick up one of the adventure paths.

First session tonight went well! Slight learning curve, but differences were not at all insurmountable. Had a skirmish of three groups of two orcs ambushing the party. No one was taken out, but the cleric was seriously injured. Nothing a couple spells and a good nights rest couldn't fix, though!

I've been DMing and playing Pathfinder for almost 2 years now and I STILL keep coming across little things in the rules that have changed since 3.5. So, just realize that your whole group is likely to miss a handful of little changes and come across them over time. Thankfully, very few spells have changed, so you won't feel too much need to read through every one. It's mostly the little combat rules and skills and feats that have had small changes to them--Power Attack and Cleave are some of the best examples of this as someone else noted.

Other than the Core Rulebook and Bestiary (you could make do with the 3.5 Monster Manual if you had to), my preference would be for getting the Advanced Player's Guide. Tons of new options for the core classes that give each one a little different flavor--but this is mostly interesting for players, really. I would avoid their Gamemastery Guide unless you like having lots of suggestions for DMs and details about how to run games in different settings and such. It doesn't have prestige classes or magic items in it like the 3.0/3.5 DMG did, so a lot of folks don't find it a necessity.

And if no one linked the Pathfinder SRD, . Note that this is the OFFICIAL one, maintained by Paizo. There's also a popular UNOFFICIAL one, maintained by fans .

there was a document linked to on the Paizo boards that listed a bunch of "little known rules". I'm not sure where the link is but I have the file. PM me your email and I'll send it to you.

yeah tell me about it. I'm in teh same boat....playing and DMing for about 2 years and I looked at that and thought "REALLY???". And yes, I even opened up my books and checked it, lol.

Caught that! Will have to transfer to my Fire ASAP.