Buying Pathfinder Books (what to buy)

[Nosta]

I first got in to Dice Rp 5 years ago when my friends invited me to play in a Bleach D20 Game (Big anime nerd)
and over the course of a small 5 years I have grown to Adore these games.

well this last year my group as put up the 3.5 mantle and switched to PF as we all like it better

Well The current GM has Bought the Players hand book hard cover.

well I will have at least 160 to spend next month as i have saved up.

My question is for a group that dose more custom made worlds and stories.
what Books should i by and should i by hard or paper back copies.
Also PDFs are ok how ever i prefer physical copies

I like to know so i can gift them to my rp group

[Confusing Zark]

The pdf would give you more bang for your buck and they are easier to share However nothing beats the real thing.

The essentials are
The core rulebook (your gm already bought this)
Advanced Players Guide
The Gamemasters guide (only for gm)

Those are all you really need

What kind of play style does your group have? is there someone who loves to play divine classes? Are any of them in love with spellcasters?

My personal recommendations would be...
Advanced players guide
Ultimate Combat (it has one of my favorite classes the samurai and fun variant rules such as dueling, piecemeal armors, damage reduction as Armor Class and ship combat rules)
Ultimate Equipment (for all your item and magic item needs)
Advanced Race guide( more in depth choices for the core races and add a bunch more and it has race building rules in the back for your custom worlds)

For those who like to use divine characters, I recommend
Inner sea gods ( it has tenets for a lot of the gods, feats, and prestige classes)
Path of righteousness (has a bunch of prestige class including my favorite Crimson Templars

also, most of the books will be in a hardback format, I think only the chronicle series and companion books in paper format.

[digiman619]

How open are you to third party material? Because I'd highly recommend Dreamscarred Press' body of work.

[Nosta]

How open are you to third party material? Because I'd highly recommend Dreamscarred Press' body of work.

whats that?

[digiman619]

whats that?

If you want psionics, Tome of battle martial maneuvers, or incarnum in Pathfinder, they're the folks to look for.

[Florian]

Generally speaking, the "Ultimate" and "Advanced" product lines are what could be considered "core" and work independent from Golarion (that would be the "Companion" and "Campaign" lines).

[khadgar567]

nosta check your mail there is a goood colection of free books in there

[Calthropstu]

In order of priority I recommend the following:

Core rulebook (every group needs at least 2)
Advanced players guide
Advanced race guide
Ultimate Equipment
Ultimate combat
Ultimate intrigue
Inner Sea world guide (if playing in golarion)

In addition, I also recommend getting the Bestiary pawn collection, as well as the summon monster pawn collection.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Occult Adventures is a good book or PDF for somebody in the group to own, and Ultimate Intrigue's Vigilante class is quite good.

[NomGarret]

Advanced Players Guide and Advanced Race Guide would be my universal recommendations. Beyond that, it depends more on what you like and what you want. You said you're switching from 3.5. What did you like in that system that you're worried you'll miss? What didn't you like that you're looking for from PF?

[Rynjin]

There is no need to purchase rulebooks for Pathfinder as the core line stuff is available on their official PRD and a lot of the non-core-line stuff from splatbooks (along with everything from the previous link) is available on the unofficial but legal SRD.

If you have the Core Rulebook (the only one I'd suggest owning since it's a bit easier to read the rules straight through and learn the basic mechanics), the best use of your money is either on the Adventure Paths (your $160 would get you one six book AP with $40 left over. I recommend Carrion Crown as a potential purchase) or on the aforementioned Dreamscarred Press' books. Those are available on the SRD as well, but TBH I think Dreamscarred Press are more deserving of your money than Paizo is.