Pathfinder Pawns: Monster Codex Box

If you're not familiar with the concept, Paizo's line of pawns for Pathfinder are thick cardboard two-dimensional tokens, with full-colour artwork of a creature printed on both sides. The pawns slot into a base that takes up the same amount of space on a 5' grid as the creature should, so a large-sized creature's token is larger and slots into a large-sized base. The reason this line is so popular is that pawns are an affordable way to amass a practical but handsome-looking collection of monster and NPC tokens. They're easy to use, easy to store, and won't cost the thousands of dollars it would take to amass an equivalent size collection of plastic or metal miniatures.

The Pathfinder Pawns: Monster Codex Box is based on the enormously popular hardcover Monster Codex. In that book, twenty classic races from the Pathfinder RPG were fleshed out and stats were provided for a wide variety of examples of that race: the Core Bestiary has ogres, but the Monster Codex has Ogre Bosses, Ogre Priestesses, Ogre Kings, etc. Accordingly, the pawn set for the book has at least one pawn for every one of those two hundred+ variations, along with multiple tokens for some of the more common ones. To take just one example, the "Gnolls" category is represented by four regular gnoll tokens, three "gnoll bruisers", three hyenas, and then single tokens for 9 other types of gnolls. Each pawn in the set is labelled and numbered for easy sorting, and the back of the box has an index to make things easier. The box includes 20 medium bases and 5 large bases.

If nothing else, the collection is a nice supplement to the pawns presented in the Bestiary pawn collections--it's always helpful to have more tokens of common monsters for larger encounters. But the real value of this particular pawn box is when a GM has a major story arc (or even campaign) that focuses on a particular race of monsters. You don't need ten different variations of an orc if it's just a random wilderness encounter, but if you have PCs invading an orc stronghold, being able to differentiate between "common" orcs, "Orc Sergeants", "Orc Witch Doctors", and the "Orc Warlord" adds a lot to the battlemap. I got this box because I'm running the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, and I've been able to make great use of the varieties of Ghouls, Goblins, and Ogres included in the box.

My recommendation would be to scan the list of monster races covered by the Monster Codex, and if you think any of them will have a serious presence in your game, go ahead and pick up this box. The artwork is gorgeous, the variety is excellent, and it's something you can use for any fantasy RPG even if you change games or editions.

The Monster Codex Pawn Box is the perfect set with which to build your monster armies. Get the basics with the first Bestiary Box and then stat it up and pimp out your enemies with this amazing set of monster pawns. You get everything listed in the set description and more as you will strike fear into your players as you load up trays with a never ending flood of villainy!

Buy it today - if you can!

As I've mentioned in other reviews, I have always loved the idea behind the Pathfinder Pawns, but even with a Bestiary Boxes 1 and 2 and a few Adventure Path pawn sets, I didn't really use them that often. Most of the time I stuck to my old minis, for two main reasons:
1) There were hardly any of a lot of the common monsters like kobolds, hobgoblins, and bugbears.
2) There wasn't a great variety of potential PC's.

This box solves problem 1! This is a great set and is absolutely necessary to own. If you only buy one Pawns boxed set, let it be this one. Such a huge variety of the common monster races. I can finally use kobolds in my game! And bugbears and Hobgoblins. It also has some great orcs.

The art is, on average, also larger and easier to see than previous sets. Great job, Paizo.

If you are new to Pathfinder Pawns and don't know where to start, here's what I recommend:

1) Monster Codex
2) NPC Codex
3) Summon Monster
4) Bestiary Box 1

These four will give you a solid base of almost everything you need. Everything else you get after that will add variety and zest to your pawn collection.

Received the PDF today. The hardcopy is in transit.

First, for those of you wondering if there is new artwork, the answer to that is yes. I'll get to that in a moment. If you're familiar with the Monster Codex book, you'll be happy to know that ALL of the artwork from the book is included.

Now for the new art (which was the part that surprised me), Paizo included some additional characters in this book from previous books.

* The boggard swampseer - art from one of the previous APs.
* Ghoul - artwork not included in the book. It looks familiar and possibly from an AP.
* Gnoll packlord - this art is from the advanced race guide (I'm pretty sure). Note to Paizo - MORE artwork from the advanced race guide for future pawn sets would be great!
* Hobgoblin - this particular artwork is from the Jade Regent Adventure Path. I'm certain of it.
*Hobgoblin Battlefield zealot - this artwork is from a standard Paizo image I've seen before. Very cool image.
* Orc Lieutenant - I've never seen this one before, but it's probably one of the neatest images in this collection.
* Orc war drummer - image looks like it's from one of the APs.
* Degenerate Serpantfolk - this image is from the Serpent's Skull AP. Very cool image.
* Troglodyte priest -this is the troglodyte image from the Legacy of Fire.
* Troll Warden - this is the cover image for the troll on one of the Reign of Winter Aventure Path books.

***** Special note to Paizo ***** keep including artwork from former APs in your future pawn collections. Also, I'd highly recommend that you include the artwork from Chronicles of the Righteous, the servitors from Inner Sea gods, and the remaining art from Advanced Race Guide. You did a great job with this current collection incorporating old artwork that hadn't been used on pawns. Please keep doing it!