Beginner Box and other classes as pregens?


Pathfinder Beginner Box


Will Paizo be offering other pregenerated characters for the Beginner Box? I've read the fiction about Otari and the oracle character, Osgrath, has really stood out! I plan on finally introducing my son to the game now as I think he's old enough at 10 years to really understand the game. I'm hoping there will soon be more options with the other classes as pregens for he and his friends.


I mean, you can get pretty much all the Iconics as pre-gens for PF2. Tey don't come with the BB layout of course but it shouldn't be to hard to write them on a BB character sheet, I'd think.


Blave wrote:
I mean, you can get pretty much all the Iconics as pre-gens for PF2. Tey don't come with the BB layout of course but it shouldn't be to hard to write them on a BB character sheet, I'd think.

The PFS Iconics pregens are built differently from the Beginner Box pregens. There are a number of significant differences that include shields, armor, and hit points.

The Iconic characters are built differently, sometimes using choices from the Hero's Handbook that aren't available in the CRB. For example, the Beginner Box has a different Human heritage available (Warden), which isn't available in the CRB (and thus for the Iconics)

BB Cleric has a shield, Iconic cleric does not.
BB Cleric has 21 HP, Iconic cleric has 16.
BB Cleric has trained light and medium armor proficiency, Iconic has only light armor proficiency.
BB Cleric has 1st lvl spells Burning Hands, Magic Weapon, Heal. Iconic has Bless, Heal, and Sanctuary.
BB Cleric has cantrips Detect Magic, Message, Disrupt Undead, Light, Stabilize;
Iconic Cleric has Daze, Guidance, Disrupt Undead, Light, Stabilize.

The other three BB pregens are also built differently from the corresponding Iconics.

All in all, you can't just copy over the stats from the Iconic pregen and have it work for a Beginner Box character. They will be significantly more fragile.


steelhead wrote:
Will Paizo be offering other pregenerated characters for the Beginner Box?

Probably not. The Beginner Box is meant to be training wheels for the full rule set.

In PF1, community members created some other pregenerated characters, but as far as I remember, Paizo themselves did not. And PF2 BB only goes up to level 3, when PF1 went up to level 5.

It looks like they don't intend for people to linger with the BB rules. And they've got a lot of new material specifically written for 1st level players (see Pathfinder Bounties) that help new people get familiar with the complete rules.

They've even got an Adventure (Troubles In Otari) that has material to help you transition your 3rd level BB characters to regular PF2 characters.


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CrystalSeas wrote:
Blave wrote:
I mean, you can get pretty much all the Iconics as pre-gens for PF2. Tey don't come with the BB layout of course but it shouldn't be to hard to write them on a BB character sheet, I'd think.

The PFS Iconics pregens are built differently from the Beginner Box pregens. There are a number of significant differences that include shields, armor, and hit points.

The Iconic characters are built differently, sometimes using choices from the Hero's Handbook that aren't available in the CRB. For example, the Beginner Box has a different Human heritage available (Warden), which isn't available in the CRB (and thus for the Iconics)

BB Cleric has a shield, Iconic cleric does not.
BB Cleric has 21 HP, Iconic cleric has 16.
BB Cleric has trained light and medium armor proficiency, Iconic has only light armor proficiency.
BB Cleric has 1st lvl spells Burning Hands, Magic Weapon, Heal. Iconic has Bless, Heal, and Sanctuary.
BB Cleric has cantrips Detect Magic, Message, Disrupt Undead, Light, Stabilize;
Iconic Cleric has Daze, Guidance, Disrupt Undead, Light, Stabilize.

The other three BB pregens are also built differently from the corresponding Iconics.

All in all, you can't just copy over the stats from the Iconic pregen and have it work for a Beginner Box character. They will be significantly more fragile.

In the beginner box, some of what in core, are separate choices, get bundled together. Attribute boosts, are another example. The heritage choice you say doesn’t exist, if I remember my investigation, is the combination of choices or a heritage and an ancestry feat as a bundle. I’m fairly certain, aside from their missing the interaction between human free choices and the class choices bundle, all BB characters are intended to be recreate-able via Core.

So yes the iconic are different, in the beginner box. In a home game someone should be able to use either if they like. In a society game, obviously they have to use the society sanctioning rules for playable characters.

In theory, if playing Beginner box, and a player wants to play a non-beginner box class, it’s up to the players and GM. It’s like starting with core and considering an option that just came out in APG.

Part of the draw to BB is the reduced complexity by reduced scope of options. But introducing an alternate pregen is still reducing the scope from the scope of everything.

If you know he’d love to play that iconic, print out the normal one and let him use it, or as mentioned copy it over to a BB style sheet for him to use and simply be prepare to use the oracle rules in addition to BB.

As to being fragile, I imagine the BB cleric was made to be a bit more of a tank, so as to survive better, even if making a few beginner’s tactical errors. But I don’t believe the rules are just flat giving more HP in beginner box.


Loreguard wrote:
But I don’t believe the rules are just flat giving more HP in beginner box.

They certainly give more HP at 1st level.

Human Ancestry, Warden Heritage, gives you the option of +4 HP at character creation.

There is no way to get that much HP using any combination of Human Heritage and Ancestry Feats at 1st level. There is nothing that allows you to re-create that character using the CRB.

And if you simply transfer information from the Iconic pregen sheet to the BB character sheet, you're going to have a character with less protection and fewer HP than the BB pregens have.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Will it pose a problem running this with normal generated pcs?


H2Osw wrote:
Will it pose a problem running this with normal generated pcs?

Probably not. There's nothing unique about the creatures in the first adventure that would cause a problem. But they were built to be run against only four classes: Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard. And only three ancestries: Dwarf, Elf, Human.

If you've got players who build highly-maximized characters using other ancestries and classes, you might want to increase the difficulty of the encounters a bit, because it's really more of a teaching module for new-to-gaming GMs and players than something tricky to challenge experienced players.

The extra HP for the pregens seems to be there mostly to protect new players from killing off their characters with tactics and moves that they might not recognize as dangerous.

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