Adding a Missing SRD Entry
The feat you want isn't in the Library, but it's a real Paizo rule you can see in a book or on the PRD. You can add it — you're copying published Open Game Content, not writing something new.
This page is about adding Paizo content the Library is simply missing yet. Adding a rule from a third-party publisher works a little differently — that has its own page. Adding your own homebrew is a different thing again; that's the rest of this guide.
Yes, if it's Open Game Content and you copy it faithfully. Almost every rule Paizo published for Pathfinder 1st Edition — the feats, traits, spells, class features, monster stat blocks — is designated Open Game Content under the Open Game License 1.0a. That designation is exactly what lets it be reproduced. You are not claiming to have written it; you're transcribing something that is already open, into a shared library so the character builder can use it and so the next person doesn't have to.
What you are not doing: inventing new rules, reskinning an ability with new flavor, or copying anything that isn't the mechanics. See Open Game Content vs Product Identity for where that line sits.
- Start from the not-found state. When the character builder can't find the feat or trait you're looking for — it's not in your library and not in the core list — use Add it to the Library, or go to the Forge and create a new record of that type.
- Transcribe the mechanics from the source. Match the numbers, the prerequisites, the action economy, and the benefit text against a real reference — Paizo's Archives of Nethys, the Pathfinder Reference Document, or d20pfsrd. Faithful means faithful: don't paraphrase the numbers, don't "improve" it, don't fill gaps with your own reading.
- Cite the book. Put the real source book in the record's source field — Advanced Class Guide, Ultimate Combat, and so on. This is what connects the entry to the site's Section 15 record.
- Set the publisher to Paizo Inc. It's their book. (In the API this is publisher id 1.)
- Submit for review. If you're not a moderator, the record doesn't go straight into the public compendium — it lands in a review queue with the status core-pending. Your draft is saved; nothing is public yet.
- A moderator checks it and approves it. Once approved, the status becomes core and the entry is in the shared Library for every builder on the site.
You can keep using your own draft copy while it's pending — the review is about promoting it to shared content, not about letting you use it.
The OGL lets you reproduce Open Game Content. It does not let you reproduce Product Identity — proper names of specific characters, organizations, places, deities, and settings; artwork; and flavor text that exists to evoke a particular world. For most feats and traits this never comes up: the name and the mechanics are both OGC and there's nothing to strip.
Where it does come up, take out the Product Identity and keep the rule. The examples below are illustrative, not quotations:
| Illustrative source phrasing | What goes in the Library |
|---|---|
| "You have trained with the Aldori Swordlords of Rostland. You gain a +2 bonus on…" | "You have trained in an aristocratic duelling tradition. You gain a +2 bonus on…" — the mechanic is unchanged; the named order and region are left out. |
| A trait that only functions "while in the River Kingdoms" | Generalize the condition ("while in your home region") or leave the trait out if the mechanic can't be separated from the setting reference. |
| The book's illustration or its evocative opening paragraph | Nothing — write a plain one-line summary of what the ability does. |
If you can't tell whether a name is Product Identity, check the book's own Section 15 / declaration page or the glossary — and if you're still unsure, leave it out. The rule still works without it.
When you publish your own homebrew, it becomes a third-party record with your own Section 15 line — you're the publisher, and the license makes you add your entry to the chain.
A faithful transcription of a Paizo rule is different. It becomes core content: System Reference Document / Open Game Content that TheCrazyGM reproduces from Paizo under OGL 1.0a § 6 and § 8, covered by the sitewide Section 15 notice for that book, which is already registered. You do not attach your own copyright line, because you are not the publisher of that rule — Paizo is, and the accountability record for it already exists. The core label is TheCrazyGM's assertion that the entry faithfully matches its cited source.
The one field you set that carries through review is the source book. Everything downstream — which Section 15 notice applies, how the chain-walk card renders — follows from it.
- Faithfulness. The core designation is a claim that the entry matches what the book actually says. A moderator confirms the numbers and prerequisites before that claim goes live.
- It's shared. Once approved, every builder on the site resolves characters against this entry. A transcription error becomes everyone's error, so it's caught before promotion rather than after.
- It's not a bottleneck by design. The gaps shrink over time — we're actively filling them ourselves (the source-data pipeline, ongoing class and archetype work). If what you want is a whole class or a large subsystem, it may already be in progress. A single missing feat or trait is exactly what this path is for.
Reviewed by Eco.