Pathfinder Beginner Box Review

Hello buckaroos! We return once again from the feet of the golem with a new PAIZO PRODUCT REVIEW! Today we’re looking at the new Pathfinder Beginner Box, Paizo’s latest in a hugely successful line of products for newcomers to our hobby. Spoiler alert: they’ve got another success on their hands. Let’s get into it!

First Impressions​

We start off this box review with an initial impression, and the initial impression is good! Bright, colorful, cheerful lettering, and a good heft—all things that say “good RPG thing must buy” to my primal dicegoblin brain. Upon first opening, we see a bag of dice, a bag of token bases, and a handful of small inserts culminating in a page that says READ THIS FIRST.

Of course I do not READ THAT FIRST! I huck the token bases to the side and take a gander at the dice. One each of d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20, each in strong, single colors with clear lettering. I’m of mixed mind on these dice. On one hand, I appreciate a grab-bag approach to starter dice: my first starter set in a beginner box had mixed colors, and non-uniform dice to me makes them easier to share. That said, the bright primary colors evoke a handful of crayons, and while beginner boxes are in part meant to accommodate a younger audience and get them excited, I think the color-scheme may be skewing a bit young. The Crayola colors are easily forgiven as soon as you dig past the READ THIS FIRST page and you see the character sheets with delightful reference images for each of the dice—but we’ll get to the character sheets in a bit. I only have a few minor issues left with the dice. This is a bit snobbish, but I consider any dice set that doesn’t have two d10 and four d6 to be incomplete. Also, I’d prefer a resealable dice bag over the disposable one: my first set of dice from my beginner box is down to just five dice from the original ten because they spent their lives rattling around loose in their box.

Now, the inserts! A little postcard lets you know that there’s a custom Syrinscape playlist for the adventure contained within. Neat! The other postcards are player reference cards, which are about the best attempt at getting new players over the fairly steep Pathfinder learning curve I’ve seen yet. That said, there is a bit of a shock when you turn them over and are greeted with a wall of text. Finally, the READ THIS FIRST page is short, sweet, and to the point, laying out how to approach the Box as a solo player or with a group of players.

Character Sheets​

Below the READ THIS FIRST we have the character sheets, and here’s where the Box starts to show its hand a bit. You’re clearly meant to use this with a group of players, as it’s those pregenerated character folios which appear before the Hero’s Handbook which contains the solo adventure. That said, I have quite a lot of good things to say about these character sheets. Cover page features a name, a class, a huge splash art of the character’s portrait, and a quick description to help potential newcomers choose their playstyle.

Like the reference cards, the meat and potatoes of the character sheets can seem like an overwhelming barrage of information, but thankfully a solid half of that text is dedicated to explaining and leading a new player through the rather complicated process of understanding a Pathfinder character sheet. Truly excellent layout design is on display here—little coordinating lettered yellow circles lead the reader easily from explanation to relevant box, and the most-used sections of the sheet (AC, hit points, so on) are boxed out in red to stand out from the regular black. As I said before, there’s a handsome little sidebar displaying each of the dice available and their abbreviations—excellent! Also, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this on a Pathfinder character sheet before, but these now have a space for personal pronouns! Finally, the layout artist gets a cheeky point from me for putting a few characters of character history on the back page of the folio—literal backstory.

As an aside: Wayne Reynolds' art maintains his high level of technical excellence, but there’s something repetitive about the characters' poses. This all stands in contrast to the cover art for the Hero’s Handbook, done by Ekaterina Burmak. The character posing here helps focus the eye on defining aspects of each character: Kyra’s pose pulls back and up into her holy symbol, shining forth with protecting energy against the lightning blast of the dragon. Valeros pushes forward into his shield, taking the brunt of the blast, emphasizing his role on the front line and the use of his shield in his playstyle. And then, off to the side, we see Merisiel darting in, lines almost blurred with speed, unseen by the dragon, dagger darting forward to the exposed neck. Sure, Wayne’s art is technically more accurate to the adventure—the dragon is green, and on top of one of the massive mushrooms in its cavern—but I definitely like Ekaterina’s art more.

The Hero's Handbook​

The Hero's Handbook kicks off with a solo adventure, a delightful little romp through a quick little cavern with a few nasties and quite a bit of treasure. My advice for those taking their own crack at it? Fortune favors the bold. The rest of the Hero’s Handbook concerns itself with expertly navigating a new player through the process of making a new character, complete with the colorful lettered circles that connect to spaces on the provided empty character sheets. Also, the Hero’s Handbook FINALLY does away with the difference between ability scores and ability modifiers—thank goodness.

The Game Master's Guide​

Like the Hero’s Handbook, the Game Master’s Guide kicks off with an adventure. As a GM and as an adventure designer, I do appreciate the way the adventure designers generally nail one-page sections for each room or encounter. Like with the solo adventure, there’s excellent escalation of challenges: first simple combat, then a combat with some saving throws, then skill checks, puzzles, persistent damage, and some undead to let the cleric shine in an offensive moment. Other nice spots of design include magical boon rewards and defending monsters getting some home turf advantages. Also, it must be said: this features a dragon in a dungeon. Points again!

My only real issues with the adventure was the tired artifact of XP—if we’re going to be doing away with ability scores and modifiers, just take the leap to milestone XP, especially if the Game Master’s Guide later insists all players advance equally anyway—and the climactic encounters seem a little lackluster. Perhaps it’s just a glut of excellent encounter design I’ve seen from other places lately, but I tend to expect a little more action from the environment. That said, this is an introductory adventure, and I wouldn’t want to throw a new GM too far into the deep end.

The rest of the Game Master’s Guide is simply excellent material for a new GM learning the ropes, and indeed is a fantastic refresher for experienced GMs wanting a straightforward and concise presentation of the fundamentals of running tabletop games in general and Pathfinder 2E in specific. My only issue with this section is that there's more ogre art in line with their supposed foul and flabby nature. I can tell this was a deliberate choice because much of the rest of the monster art, specifically that of the orcs, is lifted directly from the Bestiary. I will keep my ogres beautiful and beefy, thank you very much.

The Rest​

What’s left? Well, we have the fold-out maps, which are excellent and which absolutely require a full table to use properly. There are tokens for every monster that appears in the Game Master’s Guide, and even tokens for every ancestry/gender/class combination possible with the limited options available in the Hero’s Handbook. Also, some tokens with action and reaction symbols on them for use with the relevant spaces on the included character sheets.

In summary, the Pathfinder Beginner Box is an excellent introduction to the game for new solo players and new groups, and an excellent reintroduction for veterans looking for a refresh on the game’s core identity. Well worth the investment and guaranteed to be a hit at your table.

 

[transmission89]

Really? I mostly only run homebrew and haven't run into that at all, I'm not saying I disbelieve you though, given how some of the debates hinge on some users overemphasizing the APs. The only thing I feel isn't super well represented on any community right now (and part of why I do come here actually) is the new-old-school style of play, which I specifically find weird because of how well designed the system actually is for it, while maintaining the modern sensibility towards character building.

What is this “new-old school style of play”? I’m intrigued. Like Kenada, I’ve mainly moved to OSE for my gaming fix as I’m falling in love more and more with the assumptions of OSR gaming. Whenever I get the urge for something crunchy, I’ve jettisoned 5e for pf2 for my more “modern” gaming.

 

[kenada]

What is this “new-old school style of play”? I’m intrigued. Like Kenada, I’ve mainly moved to OSE for my gaming fix as I’m falling in love more and more with the assumptions of OSR gaming. Whenever I get the urge for something crunchy, I’ve jettisoned 5e for pf2 for my more “modern” gaming.

When I use it, I’m talking about running exploration-based games in PF2. Exploration mode is analogous to OSE’s exploration procedure. There are gaps, but it’s a decent framework for running that kind of game.

Edit: To elaborate a bit more. There’s not a lot of discussion around that style of play. There are a few of us here, and you sometimes see it mentioned in other places. It’s just not very visible, so if one doesn’t already have those sensibilities, then it may not be obvious that PF2 can be run that way. The same could be said about 5e (or any game), but exploration mode provides a firmer basis than the exploration pillar.

 

[Campbell]

For what it's worth the way that I ran (and will run in the future) Pathfinder Second Edition is somewhat based on the design of games like Darksouls, Bloodborne, and Middle Earth : Shadow of War. It's not one big sandbox, but a series of smaller sandboxes deliberately constructed to fit the narrative demands of the game, but played relatively straight. Most of the things players will encounter fit within the band of stuff players can interact with in interesting ways.

I don't decide what sort of encounters players will face. That's up to how they play the game, but most things are within striking range if players play skillfully. I also make sure the immediate environment is as dynamic as possible usually with internal conflicts within factions players can exploit.

This is my preferred way to run games with a high skill component like Exalted Third Edition and the new Legend of the Five Rings as well.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Basically, as Kenada said, it has a number of qualities that are reminiscent of and supportive of an OSR style of game. My primary touchstone for that culture is 'The Alexandrian' so that colors my viewpoint, but the game really has a lot of the 'procedures' being discussed on that blog deliberately built into them, ranging from exploration and downtime modes, to the victory point subsystems for tracking infiltration and such.

The way the encounter guidelines work, you can break them into pieces, or combine those pieces to move between difficulty categories, and those fights on the higher end will be meaningful enough to facilitate a 'combat as war' framework where the party is looking for ways to make the encounters easier through their exploration-- e.g. you want to cut off enemies from being joined by other enemies because the resulting encounter would potentially bring it to severe or extreme.

The only trick to this is deliberately not loading encounters up to heavily to leave room for combination, I use adversary rosters and 'enemy groups' that I treat like lego bricks depending on the situation to build out the encounters the players actually face, e.g. this low encounter group, and a moderate encounter group might combine if not handled carefully into a severe encounter- which is risky, but not unwinnable by any means.

Treasure can easily be made flexible, while still being very desirable, which rewards a material motivation to adventure and complex environments to adventure through. I'm reminded of the dungeon complexes of yesteryear, or of the concept of Jaquaying the Dungeon.

In fact, the game almost demands it-- like it works just fine with the more plotted modern campaign scheme, but its notable that a lot of options in character building fall to the wayside if you do so, feats that help navigation, that help you with traversal, that help you with environmental effects, that help you with crafting, that help you with self-determined approaches to social problems (influence rumor anyone?) and so forth that you really only reach the full potential of the rules in a somewhat sandboxy experience of the kind you can see Campbell discussing above.

But the 'new' part lies with the third and fourth edition character building sensibility, where you have a great deal of power to customize your characters abilities, players are empowered to get a-hold of Magic Items they would like, and combats are primarily 'combat as sport' in their execution, your actual moment to moment tactics are still very influential. The game treats rolling as a variant rule, and players are still quite powerful relative to encounters, especially if they know what they're doing.

Pathfinder 2e combines these ideas to create a game where I believe its full potential, is predicated on full use of its procedures to explore a world (rather than a plotted sequence of scenes) with interesting dungeon complexes and other environments, where the players determine their own approach with differing consequences for those approaches, while retaining the tactical mentality, character customization, and player empowerment of more modern systems. It even seems to best retain exp based leveling, utilizing a mixture of combat and accomplishments to level within an internally coherent, if somewhat gamist, simulation.

 

[Cendragon]

I don't understand how a Climber's Kit, which contains 50 feet of rope plus other items costs 5sp and 50 feet of rope cost 5sp. Why would anyone just buy the rope only?

 

[transmission89]

When I use it, I’m talking about running exploration-based games in PF2. Exploration mode is analogous to OSE’s exploration procedure. There are gaps, but it’s a decent framework for running that kind of game.

Edit: To elaborate a bit more. There’s not a lot of discussion around that style of play. There are a few of us here, and you sometimes see it mentioned in other places. It’s just not very visible, so if one doesn’t already have those sensibilities, then it may not be obvious that PF2 can be run that way. The same could be said about 5e (or any game), but exploration mode provides a firmer basis than the exploration pillar.

Ok, I must have glossed over this when I read the through the rulebook. In what way would you say exploration mode provides a stronger basis than the exploration pillar in 5e? They basically say, when you’re not in combat in the dungeon, you can explore and look around and I was like, yeah that’s what you do...

For example, in B/X, you have the codified turns and actions that consume turns with the ticking pressure of the wandering monster checks. With the blistering fast combats, that’s a feasible thing. I couldn’t imagine that in pf2 as the combats are wonderfully detailed, but I imagine wandering monsters would just make it a non stop combat slog.

So when I was reading pf2, I was envisioning more of a 4e style approach in that you have fewer, key encounters rather than fighting trash mobs.

 

[transmission89]

Basically, as Kenada said, it has a number of qualities that are reminiscent of and supportive of an OSR style of game. My primary touchstone for that culture is 'The Alexandrian' so that colors my viewpoint, but the game really has a lot of the 'procedures' being discussed on that blog deliberately built into them, ranging from exploration and downtime modes, to the victory point subsystems for tracking infiltration and such.

The way the encounter guidelines work, you can break them into pieces, or combine those pieces to move between difficulty categories, and those fights on the higher end will be meaningful enough to facilitate a 'combat as war' framework where the party is looking for ways to make the encounters easier through their exploration-- e.g. you want to cut off enemies from being joined by other enemies because the resulting encounter would potentially bring it to severe or extreme.

The only trick to this is deliberately not loading encounters up to heavily to leave room for combination, I use adversary rosters and 'enemy groups' that I treat like lego bricks depending on the situation to build out the encounters the players actually face, e.g. this low encounter group, and a moderate encounter group might combine if not handled carefully into a severe encounter- which is risky, but not unwinnable by any means.

Treasure can easily be made flexible, while still being very desirable, which rewards a material motivation to adventure and complex environments to adventure through. I'm reminded of the dungeon complexes of yesteryear, or of the concept of Jaquaying the Dungeon.

In fact, the game almost demands it-- like it works just fine with the more plotted modern campaign scheme, but its notable that a lot of options in character building fall to the wayside if you do so, feats that help navigation, that help you with traversal, that help you with environmental effects, that help you with crafting, that help you with self-determined approaches to social problems (influence rumor anyone?) and so forth that you really only reach the full potential of the rules in a somewhat sandboxy experience of the kind you can see Campbell discussing above.

But the 'new' part lies with the third and fourth edition character building sensibility, where you have a great deal of power to customize your characters abilities, players are empowered to get a-hold of Magic Items they would like, and combats are primarily 'combat as sport' in their execution, your actual moment to moment tactics are still very influential. The game treats rolling as a variant rule, and players are still quite powerful relative to encounters, especially if they know what they're doing.

Pathfinder 2e combines these ideas to create a game where I believe its full potential, is predicated on full use of its procedures to explore a world (rather than a plotted sequence of scenes) with interesting dungeon complexes and other environments, where the players determine their own approach with differing consequences for those approaches, while retaining the tactical mentality, character customization, and player empowerment of more modern systems. It even seems to best retain exp based leveling, utilizing a mixture of combat and accomplishments to level within an internally coherent, if somewhat gamist, simulation.

Ok, but how does pf2 specifically enable this as a rule set compared to say 5e? I genuinely seemed to have missed this possibility from my reading of the rules.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Ok, but how does pf2 specifically enable this as a rule set compared to say 5e? I genuinely seemed to have missed this possibility from my reading of the rules.

Basically, 5e doesn't do much of anything to enable them, Pathfinder 2e gives you actual rules for conducting them-- like 'Exploration Activities' or 'Downtime Activities' for instance. 5e gives a little advice for it but basically leaves it to the GM to adjudicate how they will, whereas Pathfinder 2e codifies it and adds to it extensively with its lists of options. Like, you can obviously wander a dungeon in 5e, making skill checks and such but PF2e codifies a system of exploration activities that each party member is doing on an ongoing basis, designating roles in the marching order and defining the increment of passing time as 10 minutes at least in duration. It basically does more to make the activity less of a liminal space in the game rules, and more of a defined, codified space the way encounters are.

Because of that, the system can hang more on those areas of the game-- more player abilities and unique perks, more opportunities for real game play. Ditto for downtime's codification.

 

[transmission89]

Basically, 5e doesn't do much of anything to enable them, Pathfinder 2e gives you actual rules for conducting them-- like 'Exploration Activities' or 'Downtime Activities' for instance. 5e gives a little advice for it but basically leaves it to the GM to adjudicate how they will, whereas Pathfinder 2e codifies it and adds to it extensively with its lists of options. Like, you can obviously wander a dungeon in 5e, making skill checks and such but PF2e codifies a system of exploration activities that each party member is doing on an ongoing basis, designating roles in the marching order and defining the increment of passing time as 10 minutes at least in duration. It basically does more to make the activity less of a liminal space in the game rules, and more of a defined, codified space the way encounters are.

Because of that, the system can hang more on those areas of the game-- more player abilities and unique perks, more opportunities for real game play. Ditto for downtime's codification.

Right yeah, I get it. The ten minute activities here are good indicators for resource consumption and that mirrors b/x.

 

[kenada]

Ok, I must have glossed over this when I read the through the rulebook. In what way would you say exploration mode provides a stronger basis than the exploration pillar in 5e? They basically say, when you’re not in combat in the dungeon, you can explore and look around and I was like, yeah that’s what you do...

For example, in B/X, you have the codified turns and actions that consume turns with the ticking pressure of the wandering monster checks. With the blistering fast combats, that’s a feasible thing. I couldn’t imagine that in pf2 as the combats are wonderfully detailed, but I imagine wandering monsters would just make it a non stop combat slog.

So when I was reading pf2, I was envisioning more of a 4e style approach in that you have fewer, key encounters rather than fighting trash mobs.

Exploration activities generally take at least ten minutes. It’s the same timescale as a turn in B/X. PCs describe what they are doing, which determines their activities, and then the GM describes what happens. You can use that back and forth to create an experience similar to B/X. 5e doesn’t have the breadth of activities codified that PF2 does. Where you run into limitations is the gaps.

For a B/X style approach, the biggest things that PF2 lacks are morale and a robust encounter procedure. In particular, the latter lets PCs control their engagement. It’s just assumed that an encounter means a fight unless it has been signposted otherwise. With a B/C-style encounter procedure, PCs would first decide what they do (fight, parlay, escape, etc), and then you would procede.

When I ran, I used morale rolls from B/X. You could also do something like have creatures make Will saving throws versus their Wisdom DCs. I had reaction rolls, but I never used them. Now that I’m giving OSE a try, I’d also use its encounter procedure. If not ever encounter is a fight, then wandering monsters don’t risk turning dungeons into a slog. For an escape procedure, I’d build off the chase subsystem in the GMG.

Speaking of wandering monsters, I rolled them every other “turn” just like B/X. The default assumption that exploration activities take at least ten minutes makes it easy to bring over the B/X approach. I didn’t make every encounter a fight, but in retrospect, I wish I had brought over the full encounter procedure from B/X.

The reason why I’m not still doing this comes down to other issues, mostly of taste. As I’ve tun, I’ve come to the conclusion that what I want in a system is at odds with how modern D&Ds are designed (this includes 5e).