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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 6270787" data-attributes="member: 6680772">With the caveat that of course anything could happen, based on what they have said what I expect is:Starter Set - This will be the Basic game, as described by Mearls, probably very much resembling Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle.  Full game, at least 10 levels, with long-term campaign adventure.  Just spitballing, I suspect it'll come with a Players Book that contains rules to play and chargen, and a DM's book that contains the adventure, DM advice, and bestiary.  They could quite easily go with the physical contents of the Essentials Red Box: 2 books, maps, and tokens, and all they need to do is beef up the written content.  And y'know, one way that I think it would be really cool to control costs is to go old school layout: forego the colorful, glossy paper for some black & white artwork on sturdy paper.Player's Handbook - This will be the Standard game.  Basically a fleshed out version of the playtest.  The current playtest is a total of 320-some pages.  The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is 578.  This gives them plenty of room to add some artwork as well as more classes, monsters, and optional modules.  It's going to be big, but really the only book you'll need to play.  Rules Cyclopedia, on steroids.Dungeon Master's Guide - Mearls has said that they're likely to put DMing advice online, rather than in the DMG.  So the DMG will likely be filled with campaign-level optional modules, to further fine-tune the game.  For the hard core collector, or the DM really into configuring D&D for their table, it'll be a useful addition.  But casual players and DMs will not need to buy it.Monster Manual - If the Player's Handbook does contain something like the playtest's Bestiary, then the Monster Manual will be an optional book for those who want more monsters, and more detailed entries.A lot of their focus has been on easy of buy-in for the game, so I don't expect them to really put out a Standard Game of three $50 books.  They'll just get the same situation they had with 4e and Essentials: a lot of people interested and buying the starting set, but very few transitioning to their other products.  Instead, it'll be gradual transition: newcomers, and veterans who like simple games can get into the Starter Set.  Those who want to move on to more options or who want a meatier set of rules to begin with can go with the Player's Handbook -- by itself cheaper than the old "buy three core books" model.  The completists and hardcore folk who enjoy buying splats and campaign books, will add the DMG and MM to their collection for optional fun.  By front loading on the PHB, you end up simplifying the buy-in, while maintaining the selection for those who like to buy a lot of splats.Well, that's one way it might happen...</blockquote>

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