Pathfinder Beginner Box (P2)

Product Information

Support for importing the content both in English or with the official German translation provided by Ulisses Spiele. The Pathfinder Beginner Box is an excellent introduction to the world of tabletop roleplaying games. It is designed specifically for new players, providing everything needed to start playing the Pathfinder RPG right out of the box. I also don't quite understand how the line could be drawn to say that you're not playing Pathfinder by bringing in Star Wars characters. I just hope that eventually we do have enough repeatable scenarios at levels 1-4 to gain 48xp, so 11 scenarios, allowing for 4 early bounties/quests. It is no rush as I have an idea of how long it takes to write such a creation, not to mention adding in the mechanics and then adjusting everything just so, to prepare for release. :D This is my wish for the far future, 4 more repeatable level 1-4 scenarios by the time Pathfinder is on Year 4 or 5. :D

As noted above, the Beginner Box is the perfect introduction into the world of Pathfinder. From there, we’ve put together a series of next steps leading adventurers to a career in the Pathfinder Society. First up, we recommend the upcoming Bounty titled The Road from Otari, scheduled to debut in January. The story builds on Menace Under Otari, leading your first-level characters from Otari to Absalom, where you arrive at the Grand Lodge to begin your career as a Pathfinder! From there, we recommend PFS 1-01: The Absalom Initiation, where new characters can meet the various important Society NPCs, and the upcoming PFS 2-11: The Pathfinder Trials, which gives a peek into how the Society trains its initiates. Post-training, a good start to the Year of Corruption’s Reach, this year’s metaplot, is PFS 2-01: Citadel of Corruption, or characters can dive into being Pathfinders via any other Pathfinder Society adventure! Just as in the introductory adventure, information is delivered on a need-to-know basis. The copy itself is both uplifting for players and encouraging for new GMs, with a focus on faking it until you make it through your first few sessions.

For physical copies, I recommend starting with your friendly local game store. If you don’t know where to find your FLGS, I recommend using the Paizo Store Locator. The pre-generated characters come complete with filled out character sheet at level 1, including a detailed description of each of their initial abilities and actions, and enough information to start ‘getting into their headspace’. Many starter sets have included similarly helpful and attractive pre-generated character information, but what sets this product apart is the fact that they also include here blank character sheets for the bolder ones among us who also want to create our own personal characters. This omission form other starter sets is something that I’ve always found strange so I’m delighted to see the inclusion here. It does encourage multiple characters if one wants to experience the bounties anyway, seeing as how there are so many in the pipeline.

Scenes pre-configured with walls, lights, sound, tokens, and hazards already placed to provide GMs the most convenient experience running the adventure. Integration between the Pathfinder rules and Foundry VTT's canvas offers effortless support for advanced features like immersive vision mechanics, positional flanking, immunities, weaknesses, resistances, and real-time range detection

For suggestions on running the adventure Menace Under Otari, see “The Adventure”, below. The Adventure Area #5: This encounter is intended to teach players about weaknesses and resistances. Tell them that before they go into the encounter, and they might put in a little more thought than when they killed the giant rats earlier. You don’t need to tell the players why you explained weaknesses and resistances, but you could encourage them to use the Recall Knowledge action. Make sure to read Jason’s review of the Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook, as well as his review of the Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide, Pathfinder Lost Omens: Legends, Pathfinder World Guide, Character Guide, Gods & Magic, Gamemastery Guide, and Bestiary 2. One of the strengths of the Beginner Box is that it includes a simplified version of the full Pathfinder ruleset. This allows new players to learn the basics of the game without feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the full rules. However, the simplified rules still provide plenty of depth and complexity, allowing players to experience the full range of Pathfinder gameplay.

Starting with the Hero’s Handbook, you’ll want to read the rules to get a basic understanding of the game’s rules. If the book is being passed around, the GM should go first because they’ll also need to read the Game Master’s Guide so they’ll need some time to do that. The Rest​What’s left? Well, we have the fold-out maps, which are excellent and which absolutely require a full table to use properly. There are tokens for every monster that appears in the Game Master’s Guide, and even tokens for every ancestry/gender/class combination possible with the limited options available in the Hero’s Handbook. Also, some tokens with action and reaction symbols on them for use with the relevant spaces on the included character sheets. I don't feel like I have much more clarity on my original question, though, in terms of something definitive. Open up a GitHub issue stating exactly what you did and exactly what error you are getting. Likely someone in #pf2e can help you phrase this.

The Beginner Box assumes that you’ll have characters equivalent to a cleric, a fighter, a rogue, and a wizard. It’s totally fine to deviate from that classic 4-class party, but for the Beginner Box I recommend staying close to that makeup unless everyone the group is experienced with tabletop RPGs and ready to handle any gaps in the party’s capabilities.

Setting up character sheets and tokens for a new character is somewhat tedious, but you only need to do it once per character and it will save you a lot of effort after that. For example: when moving between maps, a character’s hit points will persist so you don’t need to update the tokens in multiple places. If you and your players like their current characters, you can continue the adventure by following the suggestions at the end of the Otari Document, which I’ve blatantly stolen and reproduced here with added links to Paizo’s online store:

Area #6: My party got here and they were missing 1 hit point between the entire party (they first two encounters went really well for them). I didn’t want the effect of the bowl to go to waste, so I gave them any extra healing as temporary hit points which lasted for 1 hour. My players enjoyed that, and I got to teach them how temporary hit points worked. The rest of the Game Master’s Guide is simply excellent material for a new GM learning the ropes, and indeed is a fantastic refresher for experienced GMs wanting a straightforward and concise presentation of the fundamentals of running tabletop games in general and Pathfinder 2E in specific. My only issue with this section is that there's more ogre art in line with their supposed foul and flabby nature. I can tell this was a deliberate choice because much of the rest of the monster art, specifically that of the orcs, is lifted directly from the Bestiary. I will keep my ogres beautiful and beefy, thank you very much. Running the adventure is fairly simple, and the text of the adventure explains how to proceed. The adventure is designed to gradually introduce complex rules concepts, allowing players to learn and practice the rules as they go.