A year ago, the buzz of GenCon 2019 was Paizo’s release of the 2nd edition of Pathfinder, their tabletop roleplaying game. The venture was the biggest new launch that Paizo had attempted and it was met with an astonishing amount of attention and enthusiasm.
For the last year, many have enjoyed Pathfinder 2nd Edition. And Paizo has continued to support the game in the year since.
Thankfully, us nerds got another key Pathfinder announcement that seems to be saying loudly and clearly that Paizo is looking to grow the Pathfinder 2E player base: the Pathfinder 2E Beginner Box.
Clearly inspired by the successful Starfinder Beginner Box, it has all the core elements that someone might need to jump into the game and get started on their own, without having to do a deep dive into the massive core rulebook.
Here is what is included in the box:
- An 80-page Hero’s Handbook, including rules for character generation, a solo adventure, skills, spells, and equipment.
- A 96-page Game Master’s Handbook, containing an introductory adventure, over 20 pages of monsters, rules for building your own adventure, and magic items.
- 4 premade characters so you can jump right into the action and four blank character sheets if you want to make your own hero.
- Over 100 character and monster pawns to use on the full-color double-sided adventure map.
- Four game reference cards to help players remember their actions.
- A complete set of polyhedral dice.
We’re assuming this will be priced cheaper than the Core Rulebook and given that it will give all the key information needed to start play in Golarion, the Pathfinder setting, it’s a great bargain.
I know for me, this will be an excellent gift to give to my friends who need just a little bit of a push and option to get them to try Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Overall, this is an excellent resource, providing a lot of bang for the buck and an outstanding introductory product. The future of Pathfinder looks great and this box set will be a great addition when it comes out in Fall of 2020.
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