After following the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box for quite some time, it has finally arrived. Here are my first impressions of it.
Small Package, Huge Content
The box looked smaller than I expected (maybe because the box cover has a horizontal image rather than the usual vertical one found on D&D box game). As I open the box and glanced through what was inside, I couldn't help but found myself awed by the quality of the products. The hero's handbook and game master's guide screams quality, with the contents extremely well laid out and easy on the eyes. I believe it will be extremely easy to grasp for those new to table-top roleplaying games. The box also comes with 87 full-colored, double sided pawns that are used on the game map. I was very pleased with that as they are much more useful compared to tokens, and the artwork on the pawns are beautifully done.
Where's the Backstory?
This is where I found the game to be of a letdown: the lack of a good backstory. As I glanced through the introductory adventure, it somehow reminded me of Descent: Journeys in the Dark, and I was a bit disappointed with it, not because I dislike Descent (it is actually one of my top board games), but I expected more of a backstory before the heroes start slaying monsters and rampaging the dungeon (Descent feels like a miniature game with a slapped-on backstory). Instead, the quest consist of 3 short paragraphs telling the tale of the killer "Black Fang", after which, the heroes are brought to the entrance of the cave where their dungeon delving journey starts. A bit lackluster, in my opinion, when another game of the same genre, Dragon Age RPG: Set 1, provides tons of backstory for the game. However, the dungeon adventures looks quite good themselves, and I believe that after a run through of the adventures, my gaming group should be ready to plunge into the world of Pathfinder.
I will be testing out the game with my gaming group this week to see how the game goes. Below is a look at what you can find inside the box.
