Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Is Pathfinder Beginner box the new Red Box?

There was a time when there was a rift in the rpg community. Dungeons and Dragons went to 4th edition, but a large number of players did not follow them in this new direction. This left a void! But of course the 3.5 SRD was still valid so someone could, if they wanted to, go back and make a new game.

Of course someone did this. Paizo the company that had been publishing Dungeon and Dragon magazines for years decided to shift into the game making market. They had already been creating an adventure path for use with 3.5 and had been expanding on that system. The next step for them was to create a game.. . . and compete with the company that had been producing the most popular RPG ever for the last 10 years.

The game is Pathfinder and Paizo has been producing it for some time, releasing huge tomes of rules. It has been very successful, but it has had issues with being able to get new players, as the size usually intermediates these new players. Paizo recently developed a beginner box set and this may be the best beginner box set to come out of the RPG industry in years.

The box is jam packed with lots of high quality products. Dice, Glossy full colored rule books, a battle mat, Cardboard counters, character sheets and enough rules to run an adventure up to level 5. This set gets me excited about role Playing again.

Take a look at what is in the box.

The rules are slightly simplified taking out some abstract rules such as attack of opportunity, but over all the rules set is fantastic and ye old D20 system. The amount of stuff you get in this box alone is worth the price of 30$ (or less at amazon).

If you are interested in role playing games, or want to get back into them, The Pathfinder Beginner box is an excellent place to start!