Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box
Ezequielramone
Explorer
5 out of 5 rating for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box
this is wonderful, every piece of the box is beautiful. plus I'm introducing my girl to rpgs trough this.
this is wonderful, every piece of the box is beautiful. plus I'm introducing my girl to rpgs trough this.
5 out of 5 rating for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box
In my thirty years of table-top RPGs, this is the most complete starter set I've ever seen. Re-usable play surface? Check. Nice-looking tokens? Check. GM advice includes everything from dungeon hazards to map symbols. Add a dry erase pen for mapping and you're pretty much set, especially if you mine the PRD for stuff to convert.
In my thirty years of table-top RPGs, this is the most complete starter set I've ever seen. Re-usable play surface? Check. Nice-looking tokens? Check. GM advice includes everything from dungeon hazards to map symbols. Add a dry erase pen for mapping and you're pretty much set, especially if you mine the PRD for stuff to convert.
delericho
Legend
5 out of 5 rating for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box
Prior to the release of the 5e set, if you'd asked me to describe how to do a Starter Set for an RPG, I would have described the Pathfinder Beginner Box. (In light of 5e, my position has changed very slightly: this box is no longer the way to do a Starter Set, just a way to do so.)
This set very much takes a page from the old Red Box set that I started with back in the late 80's: the core of the set is two booklets, one giving a cut down set of player rules (including, crucially, character creation rules), the other a cut down set of DM rules and a short bestiary. The DM booklet also includes a couple of short adventures. Between them, these two should contain enough material to take characters through levels 1-5, by which point the group should be happy enough with the system to progress to the full-blown Pathfinder Core Rulebook.
In addition to the booklets, the box also contains a fair number of 'goodies' that should retain value even for more experienced users: a two-sides card battlemat, a set of polyhedral dice, and a set of 'pawns', providing a quick and cheap way to represent many creatures on the battlemat - I especially like these. The set also includes a couple of blank character sheets, but to be honest this is probably of little value given the internet!
But perhaps my favourite feature of the set are the pregenerated character sheets, each of which presents the character on a large sheet, with the actual character sheet shown in the middle and various key areas highlighted and explained at the sides, so a brand-new player can grab the sheet and have everything explained to him right there.
I do have one nitpick with the set. It is my belief that the Starter Set of a game should endeavour, as far as possible, to present the same rules of the game as the Core Rulebook(s). If a rule doesn't fit it can be omitted entirely, but what I don't like to see is a place where the rules are actively different. This set breaks that rule with its handling of 5-foot steps and Attacks of Opportunity - a necessary sacrifice given the complexity of those rules in Pathfinder and the size of this box, but an unfortunate one.
But that's a nitpick on what is a truly great boxed set, and one that I recommend highly to anyone interested in learning Pathfinder.
(I'm not going to comment on whether its approach is better or worse than that of the 5e Starter Set. I think the choice of which set to get will depend on which game you want to learn, but I think both approaches have merit.)
Prior to the release of the 5e set, if you'd asked me to describe how to do a Starter Set for an RPG, I would have described the Pathfinder Beginner Box. (In light of 5e, my position has changed very slightly: this box is no longer the way to do a Starter Set, just a way to do so.)
This set very much takes a page from the old Red Box set that I started with back in the late 80's: the core of the set is two booklets, one giving a cut down set of player rules (including, crucially, character creation rules), the other a cut down set of DM rules and a short bestiary. The DM booklet also includes a couple of short adventures. Between them, these two should contain enough material to take characters through levels 1-5, by which point the group should be happy enough with the system to progress to the full-blown Pathfinder Core Rulebook.
In addition to the booklets, the box also contains a fair number of 'goodies' that should retain value even for more experienced users: a two-sides card battlemat, a set of polyhedral dice, and a set of 'pawns', providing a quick and cheap way to represent many creatures on the battlemat - I especially like these. The set also includes a couple of blank character sheets, but to be honest this is probably of little value given the internet!
But perhaps my favourite feature of the set are the pregenerated character sheets, each of which presents the character on a large sheet, with the actual character sheet shown in the middle and various key areas highlighted and explained at the sides, so a brand-new player can grab the sheet and have everything explained to him right there.
I do have one nitpick with the set. It is my belief that the Starter Set of a game should endeavour, as far as possible, to present the same rules of the game as the Core Rulebook(s). If a rule doesn't fit it can be omitted entirely, but what I don't like to see is a place where the rules are actively different. This set breaks that rule with its handling of 5-foot steps and Attacks of Opportunity - a necessary sacrifice given the complexity of those rules in Pathfinder and the size of this box, but an unfortunate one.
But that's a nitpick on what is a truly great boxed set, and one that I recommend highly to anyone interested in learning Pathfinder.
(I'm not going to comment on whether its approach is better or worse than that of the 5e Starter Set. I think the choice of which set to get will depend on which game you want to learn, but I think both approaches have merit.)
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