Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box

OMG Incredible VALUE here!! I got this for around $20 USD and have had more than 20 hours of playtime with it. The components are top-quality and you can also download other small adventures from Paizo's website. Amazing value for what you get, much much much better than the DnD Starter Set IMO. You can't go wrong with this beginner box.

After everything - it's been like a month of prep - and still haven't played a session yet. I will admit I am a father to an 18 month old baby girl and her 3 month old sister and I am currently building a business with my wife.
Would I recomend that you buy this? Yes. Why? Because it's a great deal. You get a lot - a peek into Pathfinder, the dice, the eraseable player board.. I mean this is a great value.
So why three stars. It's not the full Pathfinder rules - it's been simplified. You look into it and if you end up enjoying this you're sort of stuck buying all these books which cost around 35 - 40 dollars a piece. The quests go's up to level five or so I think. So it's really designed for you to sort of take a bite and see if you're hooked or not. If you are - you will undoubtedly not mind spending the money to expand your game. If not - you can find a lot of resources for free online but for me having it all right there in an indexed and orderly fashion is neccesary.
Another thing - I have never DM'ed a game. So .. that could be around 50 percent of my issues here. Honestly - did a lot of research on all the game systems and this one seemed the best ( PATHFINDER ).
Why RPG's. I bought a Risk game a few years ago. Metal Gear Solid version. My wife was hesitant but ended up loving it. She wins - a lot. But over time I found myself wishing for a more co-operative game that would foster team work, connection, critical thinking and using our skills together for a common goal instead of the incessant competition I saw in most games. I remembered D&D, Gamma World, Star Wars and other games from my child hood and thought - HEY, why not? It teaches good things like cause and effect, encourages learning mathmatics, comprehension - ect. So why not? That's really why I bought this - I wanted something more positive and fun for my family. I won't know how that turns out till we actually play it though.

A great introduction to role playing games. However, don't expect everything to go smoothly the first time you play. Checking and double-checking rules takes time and you need to set aside at least 90 minutes to play your first game if you've never played before. This streamlines the rules nicely, but you'll need to read quite a bit before you play your first group game. Remember that you're going to need at least 3 people to play (one person is the game master) and it is designed for a 5 person group of gamers. My 8th grader and 4th grader both loved it!

As a very experienced GM I found this box helpful for teaching new players through a simplified format, and it came with a great matt that I still use on occasion, and some pretty good dice. Even though I have better supplies because I've invested money in my set, this was a welcomed addition.

Haven't played yet but the hand books are excellent, I'm already learning the rules and can't wait to gm an adventure.
the box has more than enough extra space that It will hold all the supplemental online material once it's all printed out and is strong enough to hold a couple sets of dice and a notebook for when you play.

Top notch product.

Very simple rules, very easy to follow along in the quick campaign for new players or new GMs. There is a lot of room to adapt and expand, even several story hooks provided, so a veteran GM with new players can easily add their own flavor or twist. The box includes all of the punch-out pawns needed for the campaign, as well as extra punch-out pawns to supplement random encounters (a chart by terrain is even included).

i have played through every generation of D&D, including fourth edition. They finally got it right with pathfinder. I love this game and the box is perfect for beginners. I bought it for my wife. With it she now knows the full game and is learning how to gamemaster. This box is all you need to start. Simple adventures can be created after reading the game master manual that came with it to extend the life of the set. So i say get it and have some fun already.

Dungeons and Dragons is my favorite game, and this beginner box is not going to make me switch worlds any time soon. But I still found this to be an impressive offering. The array of cardboard cutouts is fantastic, and a great value for the money. We frequently use things like quarters or dimes to represent monsters (pennies if it's a huge army, like of zombies), but I am thrilled to have these cutouts for more visual gameplay. The map is sturdy, large, and incredibly useful for all kinds of campaigns. I like that one side is totally blank except for the squares, because sometimes you just need to know how far you are from something for range, etc. One small quibble is that I think it's a bit misleading to advertise that this game is for 2-5 players. They do give a solo "adventure" (think of a choose-your-own-adventure style game), but the adventure that's laid out in the GM guide is for 4 level 1 players, which means you would need 5 players, or a GM who is able to modify for fewer players (take out some monsters, for example). I was hoping that this was somehow different, and would allow me to play this as a 2-player game with my son when the others in our party aren't available, but that really isn't going to work.

As well as the components, I do like the GM guide. It's very well written, and explains how to run a storyline. The GM is the most important person in a role-playing game (characters can and do die, but the GM is "god" in the world), and getting that role right is super important. I found this guide extremely clear and excellent for a first-time GM and role-player.

I liked the Hero's Handbook less. Whereas the GM guide really explains the motivations and role of the GM, the Hero's Handbook just jumps into statistics and abilities. A few pages explaining the whys and hows of role-playing for the Heroes would be very helpful, especially because the Heroes are not even allowed to read the GM guide. On the positive side, it is in full-color.

For me the biggest issue with this set is that by skipping straight to the statistics and numbers and dice-rolling how-to, the Heroes Handbook does not lay out the full potential of a role-playing game, but makes it seem like it's all about killing monsters and not about interacting with other players.
A full role-playing game can be hard to get into, but part of what makes it really cool is the depth and investment in the world and its characters. You lose some of that with this set, which simplifies that part of the game. Playing a full role-playing game takes some time before you actually play, so that you can fully experience the depth of your character. This also requires some pre-game study, but seems nearly to eliminate the role-playing aspect.

In other words, yes, it's quicker to dive into and get started, but you end up merely with something like a regular board game with very difficult and complicated rules. You sacrifice something to gain that ease of getting started. In gaming encounters with my group, we frequently have full sessions that involve no combat whatsoever--we will be fact-finding, negotiating, tricking, researching, stealing, whatever, but not fighting. This is pure role-playing, and it can be exciting, hilarious, nerve-wracking, and absorbing, all without any bloodshed.

What I'm getting at is that this beginner box loses all that, and it's not just a minor thing to lose. For me, that's the most fun part of a role-playing adventure. True, in our first adventures years ago we hadn't really figured all that out, and it was all about killing goblins, and that's a great place to start. And the components alone make this a good purchase. But please know that this set really only offers a hint of what a full campaign is like (by which I mean an extended story arc, that might be played out in 10 to 20 sittings). By all means, get this if you're intimidated by diving into the full version, or get this if you want the map & cardboard characters. But then "graduate" to the real deal as soon as you feel comfortable with this--the extra work is totally worth it.

As to whether D & D or Pathfinder is the way to go, well, I still prefer D & D. There seems to be more depth to it, although, to be fair, I haven't seen the mammoth compendium to Pathfinder. I have read the 5th edition D & D Player's Handbook many times, and I find it easy to read and very explanatory, if you take the time to learn it. I use Pathfinder components (figures, maps, etc) with D & D all the times, and I found Pathfinder to be what I would unkindly call a "knockoff" of D & D. But the two seem so similar that I really think it's a "whatever floats your boat" situation.

When you look at the Pathfinder RPG rules set, which for all extent and purposes is the 4th edition of D&D that should have been, it can be intimidating for a beginner. A massive Core Rule book, several 280+ page books for players that add more layers of spells and rules and new classes players can play - and that's not even touching on the dozens of books for game masters (a.k.a. DM's) -- there are 5 Bestiaries full of monsters already in print.

This box set is a way to make the game run at its most basic level, and it is an OUTSTANDING product. Here you have everything you need to get going, try it out, and perhaps later move up to the tomes of data available for more complex play. There is a 84 page Hero's handbook for players, cuts to the chase, gives you plenty of options but makes the rules simple and clear. For the game master a 96 page books gives you all you need to know how to run a game, including monsters and treasures. There is a set of dice and 80 full color pawns to visualize character movement and the relative size between characters and monsters. There are four pre-written characters if you want to dive right in and avoid character creation from scratch (though you certainly still can do that). There is a Flip Map to scale with the pawns that you can write on with dry-erase markers (it says you can use any marker, but I advise Dry-Erase). and a 16 page booklet that gives you the details on how to take your beginner set characters into a full fledged campaign if you desire.

The game is well written and made basic enough that you can discover table-top RPG without the giant expenditure to buy a set of books to have all the options at your command. This is a FANTASTIC introduction to the game that allows an interested group of players to test out the system and see if it is for them. Cannot sing the praises for this product loud enough for those who want to explore the game and see if it is for them!

Ever since Dungeons & Dragons first arrived in the mid-1970s, people have loved playing fantasy roleplaying games (RPG). You imagine yourself as a hero battling monsters, exploring castles and caverns, using your wits to solve puzzles, and you don't have to leave the comfort of your own living room.

### PAIZO'S PATHFINDER RPG BEGINNER BOX ###

The Pathfinder RPG is a spin-off of sorts from Dungeons & Dragons and has overtaken it in popularity across much of the world. To help more people get into Pathfinder, the maker of the game, Paizo, has created this Beginner Box.

And it truly is a fantasy come true.

In roleplaying games, there is min/maxing. It's when you build an almost unbelievable character to play in the game by making every possible choice in favor of maxing out that character's abilities to fight, take damage, cast spells, and endure the vicissitudes of life within the game. This comes at the expense of some throwaway mins in character skills that you wouldn't use much anyway.

This is min/maxing.

Now, imagine a box of RPG goodness that comes min/maxed to the nth degree, with no mins to speak of and max in everything else. Consider an entry into roleplaying games that does nothing wrong and everything right. You'd pay $100 for that kind of start, right?

Nope. It's an MSRP of $34.99. That's it. Just $35 to get nearly everything you need to start playing in the immersive fantasy world of Pathfinder.

We're talking (see pictures below, also)...

87 - double-sided cutout monsters and player characters, standing 2"-2½" tall
4 - double-sided character sheets
4 - pregenerated player characters (rogue, fighter, cleric, and wizard) with full stats explanations, race and character class distinctives, and backstories on a 4-page reference sheet
1 - 64-page Hero's Handbook
1 - 96-page Gamemaster's Guide
1 - 16-page Transition Guide
1 - welcome sheet, with quick-start explanations
1 - 24" x 30" double-sided, dry-erase-marker-friendly "dungeon" and blank map
1 - Pathfinder Society and Core rulebooks promo sheet
1 - pack of character stands
1 - standard set of 7 polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d%, d12, and d20)

As someone who works in marketing professionally, this is a marketing toolbox supreme. What Paizo has done is give the average person who knows nothing of roleplaying games everything needed to launch into a basic version of the game.

### THE GUIDES ###

The Gamemaster's Guide delivers all the rules of a slightly stripped-down version of the game in a compact form for use by the person who guides the players through the story that comprises the game. It adds an encounter, Black Fang's Dungeon, and goes through the following chapters:

* Gamemastering
* Building an Adventure
* Environment
* Magic Items
* Monsters
* Random Encounters
* Sandpoint
* Game Master's Reference
* Conditions
* Index
* Where to Go From Here

The glossy-covered paperback book is jammed with what amounts to an abridged version of the Core Rulebook of Pathfinder, but with a ton more helps in getting started. The language and terminologies are simplified for people who have never played an RPG before, with Paizo guiding gently and logically through the game system. Item information, monsters, map symbols, magic item explanations—they're all in here, and much more.

The Hero's Handbook features a solo adventure, Skeleton King's Crypt, and then delves into the following:

* Examples of Play
* Getting Started
* Creating a Character
* Races
* Cleric
* Fighter
* Rogue
* Wizard
* Finishing Your Character
* Skills
* Feats
* Equipment
* Playing the Game
* Level Up!
* Index

Here you get all the details for creating and building up a player character for within the game. You get further info on various spells and weapons, the many special abilities players get through their races, classes, feats, skills, and so on. Again, this is a condensed version of the Core Rulebook information, but in a simpler, step-by-step form that can help you get a player character leveled up from level 1 to level 5.

Most of the basic terms of Pathfinder (and other RPGs) are included in the two handbooks. You'll get about 80% of the standard Pathfinder experience in a simplified form that cuts out some of the (arguably fiddly) advanced rules in the full game. But Paizo even covers that...

The Transition Guide explains how this Beginner Box differs from the more advanced Pathfinder game as found in the Pathfinder Core rulebook and various supporting rulebooks:

* Taking the Next Step
* New Rules to Know
* Reading a Core Rulebook Spell Stat Block
* Reading a Bestiary Monster Stat Block
* 6th Level and Beyond
* Converting Adventures

Now that you're comfortable with the basic game, if you want to get into advanced combat (base attack values, attacks of opportunity, disarm, grapple, trip), advanced armor rules (checks, penalties), making your character more than one class (multiclassing) and much, much more, this guide provides overviews of those rules and how to transition into them. It also tells how to adapt the adventures you played in this set or created on your own to work in the more advanced game.

### OTHER COMPONENTS ###

Beyond the books that drive the game, Paizo has provided thick cardboard standees of the players and monsters encountered in the Beginner Box scenarios. These come with plastic stands and correspond nicely to the size of the double-sided dungeon and blank map included. The artwork on all the characters and within the books is extraordinarily nice, and anyone who has played any kind of fantasy-world game before, both board or card, will be pleased at the high quality of everything in this box.

The box also comes with the prerequisite, single set of seven polyhedral dice so prevalent in RPGs. While this is a fine set, with clear, nicely filled engravings, each player would do best to have their own set of dice to speed up the play.

The pregenerated characters and character sheets help players new to the game understand what is represented in their characters. The sheets allow players to track growth of their character and leveling up. The four-page pregen stories and data make it easy to understand a player character and quickly show players what each of the classes can do. Again, just top notch intro helps.

### SUMMARY ###

EVERYTHING about this box is stellar. As someone who has played roleplaying games since their first days with 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons way back in the 1970s, I can say without hesitation that if this box had been available to us us then, we would have lost our minds with joy. It's that fantastic. Clear, beautiful, simple—it's everything you want in an introduction to roleplaying games.

As someone who has reviewed hundreds of items and products on the store over the years, I find it exceedingly rare that anything is perfect. But this Pathfinder Beginner Box is, especially at this MSRP. I don't know how it can be improved at this price. It really is maxed.

### PATHFINDER VS. D&D 5e ###

The Pathfinder system blew away the similar system in Dungeons & Dragons from which it developed, and for years Pathfinder has been the game to play. The new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, 5e, has worked hard to restore its former luster and it has, in part, by returning to a simpler method of play. This Beginner Box of Pathfinder does the same, eliminating even some of the fiddliness in the Pathfinder system. Comparable beginner's systems and play within D&D 5e are nowhere near as slick as this Pathfinder offering. Both Pathfinder and D&D have their pros and cons, but when it comes to starting out as a new RPG player and for organized play leagues, Pathfinder wins hands down. (Hey, you can always play both some day, right?)

### THE LAST WORD ###

In short, this Pathfinder Beginner Box is utterly awesome for anyone wanting to get into roleplaying games and the Pathfinder system in particular.

This surprisingly-heavy box is ideal for anyone who is looking to get involved in one of the most popular role-playing games around. Pathfinder is a traditional game in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons, with races like Elves, Dwarves, and Humans, and classes like Wizards, Rogues, Clerics, and Fighters. The materials in this box give you enough information to get characters up to level 5. It includes a map, and a bunch of "pawns" (stand up paper playing pieces), various dice, and several handbooks.

The box says 2-6 players, but that's not quite accurate. There's a solo adventure to get you acquainted with the idea of exploration and combat. You read a section, make a choice, skip to another section as directed, and roll for combat as instructed. It's pretty simple but it's entertaining and gets the idea across.

There's also a pre-built adventure that needs one person to run the game, and several players to play it. There really isn't anything for just two people to do with the contents of this box.

And that's the only real downside. You'll need several people to really take advantage of it. (But this is an issue with all such Roleplaying Games, not just this one.) If it's just you, or just you and one friend, you're better off with a computer game. The fun in this kind of game is getting together with a group. If you've got that, though, this is the ideal starter set. Recommended!

A great value and great game. It comes w/ everything you need to jump in and play. Dice, DM guide, Players Handbook, cardboard cutouts for players and monsters, a dungeon adventure, a solo adventure, a 2-sided dry erasable map, some premade characters, and background on the town of Sandpoint which is a great setting for creating even more adventures.
Beyond that, you really don't need to buy much more as the Core rules, Beastiaries, and guides are available online at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/

How does it play? Well, coming from D&D 1 and 2 years ago, (this was my first foray into D&D 3.x as Pathfinder can be considered 3.75 and really had no interest in D&D 4, Yuck!) it is goes a bit deeper in many ways. That becomes obvious making your first character. The rules are meatier but explained well in this Beginner Box. For the price and what you get, I recommend it.

Wow, this is a really well-thought out product! It starts at the very beginning -- I mean, the VERY beginning: a paragraph-based "Choose Your Own Adventure" type story. From there, it introduces the basics of role-playing in a very clear and entertaining manner. I've been playing RPGs and other hobby games since the old late-'70s Dungeons & Dragons sets, and of all the products I've seen, this would be my first recommendation to someone curious about how it all works.

The physical quality of everything in the package is really impressive, especially considering the more than reasonable price tag. It says "play me" from the moment you open the box.

As for me, an experienced hobby gamer who has never tried Pathfinder before, the material here is fun enough that I enjoyed going through it all, not just skipping to the meaty parts. And it's making me feel frisky enough that I might try it out on my game-curious neighbors, and maybe even my non-gamer wife!

I wanted to get into tabletop roleplay and based on reviews I thought this was a good place to start. Wrong! It's very easy, simple, and basic, cake to master. But it isn't Pathfinder. I joined Society soon after, and after six months I still don't understand anything about the game's mechanics and can't do a thing on my own. This box prepped me for nothing. It doesn't even get into "modifiers," and basically every stat in Pathfinder requires a modification at some point. That's why people tell me they prefer D&D to Pathfinder, because the actual game is overly complicated. The Beginner Box does not prepare you for actual gameplay where you would be employing the full books with all the real rules.

My girlfriend decided to buy this after gaining interest in tabletop RPG games. The other reviews for this have been stellar, and for ~$30, it seemed like a good investment. We recieved the game yesterday and cracked it open.
First off, the quality is superb. The books are sturdy, with fantastic illustrations. The cardboard miniatures of players and 'monsters' are great, and help bring the game to life.
The dice can seem overwhelming at first, what with there being 7 of different shapes and numbers, but make a lot of sense once you start playing.
The solo adventure is a perfect place to start. The way we played was having one person read (kind of like a GM) while the other played, and then switched so we could both experience playing and being the GM.
In the Hero's Handguide, it takes you step-by-step through creating your own character, which was much more simple than I was expecting.
I'm super excited to delve into this game even more. I've never played an RPG like this before, and I feel they've done a great job keeping things simple enough for a newbie like me.

Tons of fun. Great layout. Very colorful and vibrant art. My kids loved the booklet, and character sheets. No attacks of opportunity leads for smoother gameplay. DM needs to be careful with the final encounter of the intro game.

This Beginner set is quite possibly the best value on the market.

you get monster tokens
maps
the written adventure
basic gm guide
character sheets
dice

all for a low price.. compare that to the other set from WOTC and you a similar set minus the map and monster tokens.
But lets be serious the maps themselves go for almost 10 dollars retail and the tokens are easily worth 10 dollars. So you are getting the rest of the set for almost free .

What can I say about this outstanding product that has not been said before?Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box.
This is a much needed update of the original Pathfinder Beginner Box, and this contains a very important 16 page Transition Guide "to bring your hero to the full Pathfinder Roleplaying game." It should be noted that there are many modules available on the internet as free or inexpensive PDFs, or available for purchase on the store Pathfinder Module: Murder's Markand that the Paizo website has a large number of free downloads for the player.

This system cannot be praised too highly, and many of us feel that it has injected badly needed new life into the role-playing genre.

My friends and I decided to dabble into the world of roleplaying and had a hard time deciding between this and dungeons and dragons. W choose pathfinders in the end because of the little markers and other reviews from many different sources. We made the right choice! Even though we are all completely new into roleplaying the beginner box is exactly what you need. With pre generated characters already there you can dwelve right in and play. The rules are still confusing and we had to Google some stuff, especially when making your own character, but the box has what you need to get in there and learn how to play. I recommend this game to anyone who wishes to play any role-playing game.

for those starting Pathfinder this is it their is no better. It comes with everything you need to begin your adventures. I cant wait for Gen Con so I can try my character out against another GMs dungeon. Buy this game you will not regret it.

It is very difficult to find other adventures/scenarios that use the rules that come with this game. The publisher has only one other scenario available that would go with this, and that is difficult for the beginner to find.

We purchased this because we are complete newbies, and this did a good job introducing us to RPG. And it's good quality.

But we assumed we could get more experiences before moving go to the core rules. Instead it feels like we paid only for a 3 hr demo.

I picked this up because my girlfriend told me one day "I want to play a table top RPG" - seriously the most musical words in the English language for a woman to speak! But since she had limited experience with these types of games she wanted to ease in gradually. For those that don't know, this is Pathfinder, created by Pazio, the company responsible for the long time running periodicals Dragon and Dungeon which were made to accompany Dungeons and Dragons. With the 4th edition, Wizards of the Coast divided the table top RPG society in two: those who did not like the new updates to D&D (myself included) wanted something more along the lines of the D&D 3.5 edition (I still love and miss AD&D 2nd Edition!!!). Pazio took the D&D 3.5 rules and adapted them to a format commonly referred to as D&D 3.75.

As a beginner tool it is very well put together. The adventure included has a lot of little 'hiccups' which help newbies understand the correct 3 dimensional thinking while playing a game presented either verbally or in 2D maps. The adventure itself has increasing challenge: players start by tackling some goblins and such, but then there are skeletons (damage reduction factors in) and a water borne surprise enemy (flat footed and surprise attack comes into play) and a dragon at the end which, despite being reduced in power, is still more formidable than what the players should be able to tackle.

The pre-built characters are balanced for quick and easy play.

Here are the issues however: the rules included and the character sheets included make for a very rudimentary game playing experience. You MUST have the Core Rulebook to properly play an adventure and campaign. This beginner guide will take players to about level 5, but then you actually might learn a few 'bad habits' of sorts... basically things that aren't covered in these introductory guides but are included in the Core Rules (such as broader selections of skills and feats, different spell lists and spell rules, and more classes and races).

The set itself has one very good plus: the dry erase marker ready map. The front map can be adjusted a bit to suit a variety of adventures (by drawing walls in to seal rooms, etc...) but the back side of the map is a blank map ready for use for newly created campaigns and adventures. A good tip: I use the plain map for drawing a room in a setting and play out the scenarios in that room - then erase it and draw the next room the players enter - keeping a master copy paper map and having players casually map on their own. The set also includes some basic cardboard characters (PCs, NPCs, monsters).

Overall the set is a good value if you want the map, a set of dice, and the cardboard characters. If you don't need or want these, it might be better to just pick up the Core Rules and then purchase (or get one of the free) modules from the Pazio website for level one adventures and see how it goes.

Overall a good set, sturdy construction, and a lot of contents. Long term usefulness is low... but it's great for getting started and seeing how a typical quest in Pathfinder is run. Highly recommended for those new to tabletop RPG, not recommended for tabletop RPG veterans.