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| Image courtesy of Paizo, Inc. |
General Page Design
The following features carry through the entirety of the
book and I'm only going to talk about them here. If something on a specific
page later in the book requires a special mention, I'll make note of it.
The font choices, colors, spacing, and general layout are
all good, easy to read, and consistent throughout the book.
In the upper left corner of the even pages is a little space
for an image with a frame that is mirrored (if longer) on the odd pages (if
longer on this side) for the chapter reference list. This is a nice consistent
use of a design feature. Unfortunately, the image that they chose for the even
pages is not good. It's the red dragon head from the cover breathing fire.
Because of how it's cropped, it's mostly a blob of yellow with some red smeared
around it. Each chapter getting one of the iconic characters instead would have
been nice considering there are 12 sections and 12 core classes. This would
have also been an additional indicator of what chapter the reader is currently
in.
Under each of these is a strip of very dark red with a
subtle texture to it and a weird torn page edge image. The torn page thing
doesn't look good and they could have removed it completely. They could replace
it with a stripe of the lighter tan/parchment color if they wanted a thicker
border. In the case of the odd-numbered pages, it blends in with the color of the
list of sections, which isn't great.
This torn page border carries over into the little banners
that surround the small page numbers at the bottom of each page, and the name
of the book and chapter at the top of the pages. It looks like Paizo gave these
banners the same fancy border as the image of the dragon and the list of
sections on the upper corners of the page, but they get lost in the torn page
edges. This is unfortunate. The fancy border would have been enough and might
have only required a thicker border to make it stand out a bit.
Chapter Overview
This chapter is well put together and structured in a way to
introduce all the basics and terminology of the game clearly and concisely. I
don't think the example of play is all that useful, but I'm sure someone else
will disagree. The Format of Rules Elements section on page 17 is particularly
great. The style guide they lay out is clear and easy to remember and lets the
reader know if the book is referencing a game mechanic or spell.
The iconography for Single Actions, Two- and Three-Action
Activities, Reactions, and Free Actions are extremely well designed. They also
read well regardless of the size of the icons.
Page 7
Under "Flow of the Game:" Remove everything after
the comma in the last sentence and replace the comma with a period. All of that
information was already established in the sentences before.
Under "The Players:" The first sentence of the second paragraph should read "During the game, players describe the
actions their characters take, use their characters' abilities, and roll dice
at the direction of the GM." Vice "During the game, players describe
the actions their characters take and roll dice, using their characters'
abilities."
Under "The Players:" Remove "(or
roleplaying)" from the third sentence. This implies that you are only
roleplaying when speaking in character and not doing it is less than.
In the sidebar about dice, it looks like the dice is a photo
of real dice. It's the only picture of real things in the book and a drawing of
dice would have fit in the book better.
Page 8
Under "The Game Master:" Remove the word
"naturally" from the last sentence. GMing doesn't come naturally to
some people.
Under "Gaming is for All:" Replace the first two
sentences in the "Bestiary" subsection with the following for ease of
reading:
"From terrifying dragons to mischievous gremlins,
monsters are a common threat that the PCs might face. Each type has its own
statistics and abilities and can be found in the Pathfinder Bestiary, an invaluable book for GMs."
Page 9
Add "during character creation" to the end of the
first sentence in the third paragraph.
The third sentence in the third paragraph makes it sound
like the background choice brings you from a lowly street urchin up to a
wealthy noble rather than them being a range of background options.
Remove "Finally, and" from the last sentence in
the third paragraph. After this sentence, they are immediately diving into more
defining features.
Add "and skills" after "feats" in the
first sentence of the fourth paragraph. Change the last sentence of the fourth
paragraph to:
"Skills measure the character's ability to hide, swim,
bargain, and perform other common tasks."
Under "Creating a Narrative:" The comma after
"So" is unnecessary. As is the "So" to be honest.
The last sentence of
the second paragraph is just a repeat of the last sentence of the first
paragraph. Not necessarily a bad thing if done on purpose to really nail home a
concept, but I mention it here in case it was not.
Page 11
While the image of Lem, the iconic bard, is nice, an image
of something happening in either exploration or encounter mode would be better.
Add ", a special type of difficulty class," after "Armor Class (AC)." This makes it clear right from the beginning that armor class is also a difficulty class when DCs are referenced later.
Remove the fourth, fifth, and sixth sentences from the third
paragraph and combine the fourth paragraph with the third. Add "See page
446-447 for more detailed information on attacking." to the end of the
paragraph.
The first sentence of the fifth paragraph is more complex
than it needs to be. Split the sentence in two, removing the comma after
"saving throw" and starting the next sentence with "Saving
throws represent your…". Though the subject of the new sentence is pretty
much repeated later when describing each individual Saving Throw.
Page 12 & 13
The descriptions of the various key terms are all concise
and clear and the references to various chapters in the book are all accurate.
Alignment could reference that they are described in full later in this chapter
as they did for Ability Score. AC, Attack, Round, Saving Throw, Speed, and Turn
could reference Chapter 9, Currency could reference Chapter 6, and Game Master
could reference Chapter 10.
Page 14 & 15
When Judy wants to make a knowledge check to identify the
undead creature at the end of page 14, Erik asks her to make a Religion check.
It should be a Recall Knowledge check. Additionally, Erik needs to make a
secret check in the same way that he rolled James's perception check to search
for traps earlier.
Page 16
While this page is fine, its unnecessary. The information on
this page is stated more succinctly in the Table of Contents. Shrink the images
on the top half of the Table of Contents and expand the descriptions there if
you desire a more verbose description. Or remove the images completely. This
book weighs in at over 600 pages. Remove unnecessary pages.
Page 18
Add "two- or three-action activities," after
"Actions," in the third sentence of the third paragraph so it reads, "Actions, two- or three-action activities, reactions, and free actions each have the corresponding icon next to their name to indicate their type.
Replace the fourth sentence in the fourth paragraph with "An activity that takes longer than a single turn to complete omits these icons." since the whole first chunk of that sentence would now be covered by the previous sentence.
I'll cover the walkthrough of the character creation next time.
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