Take the first step into an amazing world of fantasy adventure! The Pathfinder Beginner Box contains everything you need to learn how to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, including rules to create your own fantasy hero and tools to make your own amazing stories.
Will you be a courageous fighter, charging headfirst into battle, or a sly rogue, moving quietly to strike at foes from the shadows? Maybe you will be a knowledgeable wizard, wielding incredible arcane spells or a wise and pious cleric, using the power of your deity to shape the world for the better. It is all up to you!
Inside you will find a rich toolbox, filled with everything you need to get started, including rules for character generation, an introductory adventure, guidelines to build your own campaign, character sheets, a full-color map, character pawns, and dice. This deluxe box set is the ideal introduction to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, leading the way to a lifetime of adventure!
The Pathfinder Beginner Box includes:
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.
Four 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, including a d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, and d4. (Available to purchase separately here!)
ISBN: 978-1-64078-284-6
Note: Due to the special nature of this product, the Pathfinder Beginner Box is not included in any of our subscriptions.
The adventure in the Pathfinder Beginner Box, "Menace Under Otari," is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (761 kb PDF).
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
I picked this up to teach some new folks the system, and every time it goes really smoothly, even for people who've never played a TTRPG before. I can't recommend this highly enough for people who want to try PF2 out as an easy to learn intro.
About the only thing I would criticize is that it is a little bit dry on its own, but that's easy to remedy by adding some RP potential between the kobolds and the players.
I received the Beginner Box for Christmas, and it’s such a high quality product. I’ve been playing 2e for a year+ now and have the core books (Core Rulebook, Bestiary, Gamemastery Guide) and a handful of others to boot, so the rules aren’t new to me. But the presentation in the Beginner’s Box is first-class and, most importantly, I was able to open the box and just start playing the game with my second grader (with basically no prep time). I simplified some of the descriptions for him, but he was immersed in the world from the get go and had a blast starting his first 2e adventure. Hats off to Paizo on this one.
Context: I own the 2E Beginner Box in both PDF and print (where it truly shines).
The good: This box really offers unparalleled value for money in terms of the physical components. Everything you need to play is here. I especially liked the fact that six player reference cards were included, making them useful for games that include more than the four included pregens. Also noteworthy is the selection of pawns, which makes an ideal supplement to the Bestiary Box with respect to additional low-level baddies. The included adventure also seems well-crafted. Finally, I love that -- unlike the 1E beginner box -- the rules are fully compatible with the "full-fat" game. These factors combine to make the package compelling, even for established players.
The bad: Providing a flip-mat with one blank side would have better supported homebrew adventures, possibly extending the utility of the box. Speaking of the included flip-mat, the squares are -- like the Star-Finder basic flip map -- a bit too large. Not a huge deal, as this map probably won't be mixed and matched with other maps/tiles, but seeing this continue to happen years down the road is unfortunate.
I love Pathfinder. It has given me countless hours of fun. I love Pathfinder 2, I think it's a great update and addition to the game. I have a 5 year old and, as 5 year olds are wont to do, he wants to play "Daddy's game." But as much as I would love to play a game with him, he's just starting to read and a 500 page tomb like the CRB is just too much for him. I am pretty excited about this, as it will be a simpler and less vast option for me to play with him. This will definitely be under the tree at our house this year. Really looking forward to this.
Will it have slightly watered down rules like the PF1E Beginner box had?
Erik Mona answered me on Facebook.
"no these are the full rules, only with fewer choices and more attention paid to explaining the concepts. Your Beginner Box character will be 100% compatible with the Core Rules."
P2 rules are already pretty simple. You just don't need 150+ pages of spells ranging from 1-10. Just include level 1 spells (and not even the uncommon ones).
This decision also means that if you want to run a Beginner Box adventure but you want to use a different monster, for instance, you can just do it if you have access to the Bestiary, and if you want to level past the upper range of the box, you just can if you have access to the CRB, using your same character.
It is good to hear that the beginner box will use the full Rules.
So we can use all the skills right from the start (even skills such as entertain, crafting or survival (which were not included in the 1st edition Beginner box).
I am also looking forward to the "starting town" of Otari (the "stat block" is already included in the gamemastery guide, but I hope we will get a map, too).
And last but not least more pawns are always better.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber
Firebull5 wrote:
It is good to hear that the beginner box will use the full Rules.
So we can use all the skills right from the start (even skills such as entertain, crafting or survival (which were not included in the 1st edition Beginner box).
I think you missed the fewer choices part of the comment.
It's not clear from that paraphrase that ALL of anything will be available in the Beginner Box rules.
For example, it looks like it will only include four classes.
It's not clear from that paraphrase that ALL of anything will be available in the Beginner Box rules.
For example, it looks like it will only include four classes.
I am aware of the facts that:
- we will have only 4 classes instead of 12 to choose from
- That we maybe only get to choose between 2 feats instead of 4 per level
- that maybe our cleric will just get to choose between 10 Level 1 Spells instead of 21.
- that the beginner box will again go up to about level 5.
I am completely fine with the choice of Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard, this is the "classic" adventuring party and a great entrance point for new and experienced gamers.
I would not want the full rules in the beginner box, too.
But I just hope to see the comlplete skill list including skills such as Entertain, Intimidation, Crafting or Survival (skills like these were not included in the Pathfinder 1 Beginner Box since the Skills list -though shorter compared to D&D 3.5- was still quite long) so we can have even more variety in playing the published adventures and designing our own ones.
Pathfinder Companion, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Firebull5 wrote:
CrystalSeas wrote:
It's not clear from that paraphrase that ALL of anything will be available in the Beginner Box rules.
For example, it looks like it will only include four classes.
I am aware of the facts that:
- we will have only 4 classes instead of 12 to choose from
- That we maybe only get to choose between 2 feats instead of 4 per level
- that maybe our cleric will just get to choose between 10 Level 1 Spells instead of 21.
- that the beginner box will again go up to about level 5.
I am completely fine with the choice of Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard, this is the "classic" adventuring party and a great entrance point for new and experienced gamers.
I would not want the full rules in the beginner box, too.
But I just hope to see the comlplete skill list including skills such as Entertain, Intimidation, Crafting or Survival (skills like these were not included in the Pathfinder 1 Beginner Box since the Skills list -though shorter compared to D&D 3.5- was still quite long) so we can have even more variety in playing the published adventures and designing our own ones.
I remember someone saying that there would be a few actions missing from the BB, the example used was Fly as no one can do that at the levels of the BB. So I would expect we get all the skills, but not necessarily all of the actions for each skill and not any feats that require Expert in a skill.
My group started off with the Starfinder BB before we moved on to the core rules, and we were kind of disappointed with the differences between the two. We had to rejigger the characters a relearn stuff.
I hope the PF2 box is closer to core. Like the PF1 box was.
My group started off with the Starfinder BB before we moved on to the core rules, and we were kind of disappointed with the differences between the two. We had to rejigger the characters a relearn stuff.
I hope the PF2 box is closer to core. Like the PF1 box was.
I believe they confirmed above that it is the same as core, just with a lot cut out that doesn't get covered in the adventure. Things like 8 of the core classes, probably a lot of the complex conditions, and so forth.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber
Green Goat wrote:
Like the PF1 box was.
My experience with the PF1 Beginner Box was that it has some major differences from core (like no Attacks of Opportunity), and moving from the BB to Core was a real struggle to unlearn tactics and strategies for my new-to-Pathfinder players.
Strategies that worked just fine for PF1 BB scenarios were deadly for the players when used in "regular" PF1 games.
I'm hoping from the staff comments that there won't be this kind of disconnect between the rules for PF2 Beginner Box and the Core Rulebook.
During PaizoCon Online it was revealed that PF2BB will use the same ruleset as PF2 full. So, unlike the PF1 Beginner Box, which was significantly different from the full game.
It is a rulebook, but the subscription does not include every Rulebook.
This page would show it in the “upcoming products in this subscription” section, if it were a subscription item. As you can see, the only currently announced future item is the Advanced Player’s Guide.
In PF1 they did include the beginner box as a subscription item from memory, and they received a lot of flak for it.
Typically when they used to do this, subscribers who preordered such titles received any associated PDFs for free. Not sure if they’re going to continue with that into the future though.
Any indication if there will be PDF or other electronic versions? In the current age of "Stay away from everybody" many of us are now doing our games online. I would love to be able to run this every now and then via our Virtual Table Tops. Please? Please?
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber
RobertTHEPerylous wrote:
Any indication if there will be PDF or other electronic versions? In the current age of "Stay away from everybody" many of us are now doing our games online. I would love to be able to run this every now and then via our Virtual Table Tops. Please? Please?
The PF1 Beginner Box download had the following PDF files
Beginner Box cover
Game Master's Guide
Hero's Handbook
Read This First
Transition Guide
And the following "Additional Material" PDFs
1. Character Sheet
2 Flip mat
3 Pregen Cleric
4 Pregen Fighter
5 Pregen Rogue
6 Pregen Wizard
7 Token Sheet ((the pawns that came in the box, as a PDF)
There were also several additional Beginner Box files later, including, IIRC, an adventure or two, and some additional classes.
Hmmm...I noticed that the description references a "full-color double-sided adventure map," rather than a flip-mat. I wonder if that is just odd phrasing, or possibly a cost-saving measure? I suspect the latter, given the minimal price hike over the 1E version, additional of the reference cards, etc.
Also curious if subscribers will get the PDF's if pre-ordering. I'm assuming not since other recent products (like Flip Mat Classics) have the product note specifying that subscribers who preorder will get the PDF. The note on this page is lacking that language