PF book opinions

[Sajiri]

I was browsing the paizo site and saw there's quite a few new products since the last time I looked. I was thinking of ordering a few as a surprise gift for my husband, but not sure what to pick up.

The ones we have from memory..

Core Rulebook
Advanced Races Guide
Bestiaries 1-3
Ultimate Combat
Ultimate Magic
Ultimate Equipment
Dragon Empires Gazeteer and Primer
I think we have Advanced Players Guide, but I don't remember for sure, and I cant remember what was in it.

Anyone have any opinions/suggestions on others? I was particularly looking at Ultimate Campaign.

Edit: Also have the NPC codex, forgot.

[Sylthia]

Do you have the Game Mastery Guide?

Also, if you both play, it can be nice to have two copies of the Core Rulebook to go around the table. It can be a bit pricey, though.

[Sajiri]

We don't have the GM guide, as silly as it sounds I didn't realise there was one (When he first told me about PF he was under the impression the core rulebook was player and GM book together, he played 3.5 back then and I hadn't played anything so didnt know any better)

We do both play, he's more into it than me though. Thanks to lack of people interested in RPGs/tabletops around here we play online though and use pdfs then usually, but we like having physical copies to read in our own time/for fun, so second copies aren't worth it.

Actually, looking at the gm guide description, I would want that for myself to read even ahaha. I've been wanting to try DMing but never known where to start/what to do.

[Rainshine]

The GM guide is nice. It doesn't really have any rules in it, but good tips for running tables and the like.

[Sajiri]

I'll likely grab the GM guide. Anyone know about Ultimate Campaign, or any of the smaller books?

[avr]

Ultimate Campaign has some stuff for character backgrounds (so-so IMO), downtime (pretty good, includes retraining, basic businesses), honor and reputation systems and a little more detail on alignment (all highly optional), and a kingdom building and mass combat system (hard to analyse without a playtest, which I haven't done).

You can take a look at these subsystems for yourself on d20pfsrd.com before you decide whether to buy.

[NamelessNPC]

I'd recommend buying the smaller books. Everything from the Ultimates is updated reguklarly in d20pfsrd, it's the stuff from, for example, People of the North that is more difficult to find