PathfinderWiki:FAQ

Welcome to PathfinderWiki! Whether you're here as a reader or editor, the community values you and your input. Below are some of the most frequently asked questions regarding the wiki. If you have additional questions not covered in this FAQ, drop by the Discord chat to pose the question, or leave a message for one of the community's administrators.

There's too much text here. I just want to ask a question!

Join the PathfinderWiki Discord chat to ask any questions or provide feedback about the wiki.

What is the mission of PathfinderWiki?

See also: PathfinderWiki:Scope of the project

PathfinderWiki's goal is to compile an easily navigable resource for canon of the Pathfinder campaign setting. With dozens of official Pathfinder products released each year, it can be hard to know where to look for information, whether you're a player, a GM, or just someone interested in fantasy settings. This wiki aims to be a comprehensive resource document of official Pathfinder material.

Is PathfinderWiki a First Edition reference or a Second Edition reference? or,

• Does PathfinderWiki incorporate the Remaster?
• Can I choose to view only First or Second Edition content?

PathfinderWiki is a lore reference for the official campaign setting and therefore edition agnostic. Many subjects from First Edition remain canon in Second Edition, implicitly or explicitly and by design. More recent sources are preferred. The Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project made more sweeping and retroactive changes, but the campaign setting has so much material that many lore subjects not explicitly mentioned in the Remaster also remain exactly as they did before it.

More importantly, PathfinderWiki incorporates sources based not only on both First and Second Edition but also the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game; official fiction published in print, as ebooks, and to the Paizo blog; licensed comic books; and other officially licensed non-RPG products like board and video games.

Some rule-based classifications are referenced in infoboxes or categories to help with navigation, but the content of articles avoids mechanical content, is written from an in-universe point of view, attempts to incorporate all valid sources, and resolves conflicts between them through a tiered system of sources and consensus between active editors.

For details about how conflicts are resolved and which sources take priority over others, see the canon policy. But as a rule of thumb: if Paizo has published something about Pathfinder regardless of which (or any) Pathfinder rules are involved, it's likely a valid source for PathfinderWiki.

I don't know how to edit a wiki, but I want to help.

We hear this one a lot. PathfinderWiki uses the same Visual Editor as Wikipedia, which lets you type and format text directly into articles and doesn't require knowledge of complicated syntax to edit existing articles or create new articles. We have a great set of help pages, a tutorial, and a Discord chat to answer specific technical and stylistic questions.

But if that's complicated or confusing, request an account, login, and simply write plain text into an article. Don't worry about style, formatting, categories, or infoboxes. Cite sources with as much detail as possible in parentheses, or denote them another way. Contribute the best you can, and someone with more experience will be by to clean it up and add formatting.

PathfinderWiki is built to be edited. All changes can be improved, any mistakes can be reverted, and every contribution helps. You have our permission to be bold in updating pages.

Check back to the site to see what changes were made and how they changed the look of the page, then try to replicate that style when making your next edit. It's not as steep a learning curve as it might seem, so stick with it. We'd rather you make edits that need to be tidied up than not contribute at all.

Do I have to request an account?

Due to a slew of automated spammers and vandals and a lack of administrative resources, users must request an account and login to edit PathfinderWiki. As such, if you wish to contribute to the project—and we want and encourage you to do so—you'll need to request an account, confirm your email address, and be logged in before you can edit any content herein. User registrations are approved quickly once an admin confirms it isn't from an automated spammer.

If for any reason you don't quickly receive a confirmation of your account, join the PathfinderWiki Discord server. Administrators might not have any other way of knowing otherwise.

Other benefits of being a registered member include:

• Your edits and additions to the site can be attributed to you
• You can add articles to a watchlist and be notified when they change
• Other members can contact you through your user talk page
• You can set preferences that customize your wiki browsing experience

There are a lot of spoiler warnings. Is PathfinderWiki safe for players to use?

PathfinderWiki tries to be a comprehensive lore resource, which by necessity means including information that might spoil products. Since the Pathfinder campaign setting also advances in real time, newer products sometimes state as new canon the outcomes of older adventures, which could constitute spoilers for those going back to play them.

Rather than hiding spoiler information, PathfinderWiki attempts to warn when an article might spoil a specific adventure. If you see a spoiler warning for an adventure that you're playing in, check with your GM to confirm whether the article's contents might be a problem for your table.

Do you have permission from Paizo to use their intellectual property?

See also: Project:Community Use Policy

• Can I upload images I find from other websites or copy text from Paizo books onto the wiki?

Paizo Inc., the owners of the copyright to the Pathfinder campaign setting and related products, has been extremely helpful and open since the wiki's inception in March 2008. In February 2009, they officially released their Community Use Policy (CUP), which granted registered websites and publishers permission to use Paizo's intellectual property for free resources that abided by the guidelines of the policy itself. Paizo's Community Use Policy is recorded at their website.

These policies also limit what we can incorporate and how. The CUP grants permission to use and share artwork posted to the Paizo blog or included in official Community Use Packages, and to describe canon subjects and events. However, we can't use images that aren't covered by the CUP even if they appear in other official sources, and we can't use verbatim text from Pathfinder works.

The Wiki is incorrect about something, or missing information on "x". How do I report this?

PathfinderWiki is a community-driven operation. We have articles and information only on subjects that others have taken the time to compile and write. If whatever you're looking for isn't here, either no one has had the time or motivation to write that specific article, or Paizo hasn't released official canon relating to that topic. But you're more than welcome and encouraged to start a new article or add to an existing one with whatever information you have on the topic. Someone else might just come along and fill in the missing bits you were looking for in the first place.

If you don't have an account and don't want to register, you can join the PathfinderWiki Discord chat and notify editors there of missing or incorrect information, or provide feedback about PathfinderWiki in general.

Can I add my own homebrew/fan-fiction material to the site?

PathfinderWiki is a resource for canon Pathfinder campaign setting content only. If you cannot cite any official Pathfinder sources for content you post on the wiki, it doesn't belong here. There are many places on the internet where one can post this type of information, but PathfinderWiki is not one of them.

Is Starfinder part of this wiki?

Starfinder's canon setting is officially a separate continuity and is documented on StarfinderWiki . Due to technical limitations, it requires a separate account registration to edit.

I created a page about spell/feat/trait/etc. but somebody deleted it! I thought you wanted people to contribute?

We most certainly want you to contribute, but PathfinderWiki has a No Crunch Policy. The Community Use Policy also prohibits PathfinderWiki from including content that is predominantly composed of game mechanics. Please feel free to rewrite the article from an in-universe point of view without mechanics and repost it.