Comparing the D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e Starter sets

greetings gamers my name is anto and today we're continuing our series looking at the comparison between fifth edition and pathfinder second edition by looking at the starter sets for the two different games and how they compare and contrast so we're gonna dive straight into it okay so here we have our two starter sets you can see they're reasonably similar in size in terms of footprint they're pretty much exactly the same size the pathfinder start set is a little bit thicker but it's really not that much thicker but immediately when you pick them up you can feel there is so much more heft in the pathfinder second edition box than there is in the 5v box i want to say that we're not going to be diving super in depth into the adventures for this because whether or not you enjoy the adventure is largely going to be subjective i'm looking at this from the point of view of i'm a brand new player i've never played either of these systems before i've picked up the starter set to learn to play the system how good of a job does each box do of onboarding me into that system we're going to start with the fifth edition set most of you are probably super familiar with this one so we won't spend as much time on it there's also not as much in it so that is kind of works out well for us but we're gonna start with the fifth edition start set the lost minds of fandalva adventure this retails i think for about twenty dollars you can pick it up for as cheap as i think like 12 sometimes a couple times a year they have sales on it it's super available everywhere easy to get don't start by taking a look at the back you walk into a store you pick this up off the shelf what does it tell you it's getting started with dnd fifth edition you get a 64-page adventure book with everything you need as a dungeon master 32-page rulebook for playing characters level one to five five pre-generated characters with a character sheet and support and reference material and six game dice i was misremembering and thought you got more in this box i just cracked it open to make sure most of the bits were in there for this video and i was like have i missed a bunch of blank character sheets like i'm sure i feel like this came with blank character sheets nope it doesn't just has the five pre-generated character sheets so i guess we'll open it up and take a look so you crack into the box you have your 32-page starter rulebook you have the last minds of fandalva adventure and then you have your five character sheets weirdly at least two of these are fighters i believe if i remember correctly so we've got a noble fighter and a folk hero fighter we've got a wizard and we have a rogue odd that they would double up on the fighters instead of giving you another class that seems like a weird option to choose and then the rest of the box is empty there's the dice but i've already taken those dice out it's just a basic set of polyhedrals and then this little backer so we'll just get that out of here and take a look this is the the real meat of what you get in this this is what you're paying yeah 12 to 20 dollars for the start set rule book the last mine's a fandalver adventure and five pre-gen character sheets no blank character sheets no supplementary game aids as far as it goes for getting people into the hobby i do think that this is pretty weak set i know that the essentials kit has some more stuff and i know that the new starter set has some better character sheets but i chose to look at this one one because it's the one i have but two it's the most commonly recommended starter set for people when people are like i'm looking to get into fifth edition what should i pick up people always recommend this specific starter set they always recommend the lost mine of vandal as their first adventure and looking at it now kind of eight years removed from the launch of this edition i'm not 100 sure when this first came out i assume it came out around the same time as the player's handbook looking at it multiple years removed it's really underwhelming how much stuff or how little stuff you get in this box for onboarding new players i mean it's done its job it's done its job incredibly well you know fifth edition has had an explosion of new players but it blows my mind that they could do so much with so little so looking at the start set rule book getting straight stick in we have our little getting started thing there hey welcome to d d this is what a role-playing game is i think yeah this is what role playing game is here's how the dice work here's how the general structure of player works here's your abilities the advantage disadvantage system ability checks all of your different base skills how saving throws work straight into combat how combat works what the different options that you can take in combat how damaging healing works how drop into zero hit points and death works i'm not going to create you out going into adventuring there's travel getting experience points equipment leveling not leveling carrying capacity some different options for weapons miscellaneous gear and services spell casting section how to cast a spell and some spell lists and then that's pretty much it i don't think yeah that's pretty much it there's an appendix for your conditions it's handy to have that on the back of the book because that's something a lot of people are going to want to reference really frequently is the conditions but as far as here's an introduction to the game goes it's pretty light um no information on making a character no information on leveling up a character is very very much intended to be pick this up as an isolated standalone experience and then if you enjoy this and you want to play like real day and day go and get the players handbook and read that for all of your information then there's last minute found out there a lot of people love it a lot of people have a lot of problems with how something account is a belt but it's a well-regarded adventure at least um 50 pages of adventure and then some match cam descriptions some monster stat blocks and stuff a reasonable thing to give a new denture master let's see how much see the box says oh this is a book to get you started as a dungeon master but then it jumps straight into the adventure where is the primer on being a dungeon master i'll tell you where it is it's like those five paragraphs what like if i am a brand new player i've never played dnd before and i've never been a dungeon master i want more than that i want more than that to tell me about who who i am like what is my role what is expected of me and some you know tips and tricks as to how to run a game beyond what we've got like a page maybe a page and a half worth of advice on being a denture master before we're straight into an adventure that is fairly open-ended like there are sections here where the players could easily go off the rails and be like now we're not interested in finding gundrum let's just leave this town and go somewhere else where's the advice on what what do you do when that happens if you're a new dungeon master and you've never played before kind of endemic to fifth edition in general i think not the greatest system for onboarding new dungeon masters very much feels the same through the starter set but a well-regarded adventure plenty of people have found uh a good time in this set even if it does have a lot of weird shortcomings like i've never really looked i i picked it up i've run through part of the adventure before but i've never sat down and looked at it through the lens of how would this experience go if i had no idea of anything to do with d d and this was my very first time it wasn't really until i picked up the pathfinder version that it really hit me what a night and day difference it is so then we get our character sheets pretty standard character sheets and a description of some of our abilities so they're all level one and then on the back there's some information on the races the class the backgrounds and how you gain levels and what you get up to level five so the level up information is there but it's all pre-generated characters if you want to make your own character using this box you can't it's as simple as that you can you're just not going to be able to which i do think is a letdown because it would be nice to be able to run through this adventure with custom characters to introduce people to the system a little more but let's get that out of here that is not what that box set is clearly intended for it's very much a linear experience of here you go pre-generated characters just get started see if you like it and then if you do go and pick up the players handbook and go into the full system from there so then let's look at the pathfinder second edition starter box set now i've always really enjoyed paizo's box sets i think they make incredible box sets i really enjoyed the pathfinder first edition box set and i know that this box set has got a lot of stuff i like in it so let's kind of give you an unboxing show you what's included and i'll talk about why i think this is a much better onboarding experience than the 5es that's it so like i said they're about the same size price-wise this is about two times as expensive i think it's about 40 dollars most of the time if you buy that new from somewhere like amazon so it is more expensive but i do think you get a much more complete package in this and when it comes to spending 20 bucks for the starter set for 5e or spending 40 for what you get in the beginner box for pathfinder i'd rather spend that 40 and get those extra supplement materials so let's have a look and see what it says comes inside so we have a 72 page heroes handbook which presents the rules for playing the game and creating characters including their skills spells and gear an 88-page game masters guide four pre-made heroes over 100 characters and monster pawns four game reference cards complete set of polyhedral dice and a double-sided game map so a lot more steph you get a lot more staff in this than you do in the fifth edition one so let's crack it open and take a look so off top of the back we have our bases for these standy tokens we have a set of dice immediately more useful than the fifth edition dice because they're color coded when you are a new player it is much easier for someone say to you right roll the red dice than it is to understand what someone means when they say roll the 20-sided dice or d20 you just say right roll your red dice what number did you get okay you've done your damage roll the orange dice and we'll figure out how much damage you've done over time you can start saying right roll the red d20 and phase out the coloration of the dice but for that initial experience individually coloured dice incredibly impressive makes it much easier to get into the game and they incorporate it throughout the character sheets which we'll show a little bit later on next my absolute favorite part of this entire set these little cards player reference cards that tell you how the basic role works what a critical success and failure is roll in natural 20s and ones what difficulty classes are what you get to do on your turn including what your actions are and some of your action options and then on the other side all your conditions give one of these to each of your players they can read these in between their turns so they can figure out right what can i do okay i've got these options i can use my turn to do these things or i have an ability that imparts this condition i can look at this card and see what the condition does for the sake of a couple of cents worth of card and printing this should be in every single start set for every single game should have little reference cards little cheat sheets like this if you're interested in getting cheat sheets like that for fifth edition i have a bundle of 5e character class cheat sheets that give you a cheat sheet for each of the srd classes so the core 12 classes that walk players through what their abilities are how they can use them and it also comes with custom character sheets that are more user friendly than the base character sheets comes with player reference sheets kind of like that they summarize the base rules and it's got a whole bunch of other goodies i will leave the link to that in the description below if you want to help make playing and learning 5th edition easier than ever before then we get a little ad card for sirenscape which is the ambient audio platform and then just immediately the experience of opening this as a very first time player with the pathfinder system you have this big card read this first big bold letters and it tells you how to interact with all of these items so what is pathfinder crap a cooperative tabletop game also called an rpg a fantasy adventure grab some friends etc etc if you are on your own you have a solo adventure that you can play to introduce you to the chord ice mechanic and to the concept of making decisions and the consequences of actions as well as a little bit of combat this is excellent because it doesn't assume that you need a full group of people to start interacting with the rules and start learning the system again something that i would like to see for every starter set for every system it's not a fully authentic experience obviously because you don't have that interaction with other people but it introduces the mechanics in a way that a person on their own can start to get grips with so that when you play with other people you are familiar with right okay i know how to resolve a skill check i know how to make an attack roll because i've gone through this starter adventure that's built on my own it's only short it's like a choose your own adventure flip through the pages kind of thing but it makes a massive difference for learning the fundamental mechanics of a game then it says if you have a group if you want to start straight away there's pre-generated characters if you want to make your own characters there's rules for that in here and blank character sheets and then if you want to be a game master there is a game masters guide in here flipping it over it tells you everything that you've got in your box so you've got your hero's handbook game master guide the polyhedral dice the 124 character and monster pawns as well as the bases reference cards six blank character sheets four generated pre-generated cards and the double flip side mat i do wish this double flip side map had a blank gridded version like the pathfinder first edition box set had that was super useful but having a map makes a big difference so let's get that out of here and then next we have our character sheets and our pre-gens so one thing that i like about the pre-gens for this is that it's not just an individual sheet it's for a little booklet so this introduces the character of valaros the fighter player fighter if you want to fight on the front lines use the best weapons in armor and react quickly to enemy actions one thing that i really like about pathfinder second edition is the way that it contextualizes different character options so with classes it says this is how the class is typically going to perform if you want to do x y and z this is the class for you it's a really nice quality of life thing then opening this up you can see we have the character sheet including the dice color coded to the actual dice that are in the box and then you can see that there are little icons little letters for each of the sections and they correspond to things in the rules and as you go through the rules they reference all of these elements which means that when you are playing if your gender bastard says right make me a perception jack and you go okay how do i do that and they go look at section h and you'll see a little number there the big number the plus number roll a red dice and add that number to it so look in section h roll the red dice add the big number to it what's the result okay you succeed you see the thing or you fail you don't see the thing same with attack rolls right you want to make a weapon attack against this monster cool in section k what does it say your weapon is oh i've got a long sword right okay so roll the red dice and your big number to it okay then what's the damage it says 1d8 plus 4. i can look at this i can see that one day is the orange dice i know to roll the orange dice and add four this makes the process of learning the game so much easier because it gives you a common language that you can speak with your players they don't need to know the language of the game you have icons that you can reference you have you have color coded dice that you can reference and whilst you're getting them up to speed it makes things so much easier and then the rules throughout the heroes handbook reference those sections in a similar way so when it comes time to build your character you have that same experience so that's the pre-generated characters out the way and then we come to our like blank character sheet again all the bass die on the left here along with what the symbols for the actions are information on proficiency and how that works and then similarly we have all of our sections labeled it means when you're going through the hero's handbook and making your character it is much easier because you are told exactly where each number needs to go on the back here we keep our dice and actions and stuff and we just have some more information on spellcasting equipment and all of that good stuff much more user-friendly options than in fifth edition you don't even get blank ones in the base starter set but having everything labeled like that makes it much easier to figure out what you're doing okay then we come to our players handbook our beginners box heroes handbook this is entirely aimed at new players it's got everything marked and referenced in relation to those starter set character cards character cards character sheet character sheets um it starts with a solo adventure so very old school flip to this page if x flip to this page if y style adventure that introduces a lot of the core mechanics how to use your actions how to use your skills which is really nice if you want to get a feel for how the game works without having to have a full group together then it jumps straight into an example of play which is really nice it walks through a situation showing you the interactions between a player and a game master and then we get the getting started section it explains the core concept explains the actions the three action economy the different dice types how to read rules where the character sheet references are gonna be and then it moves into creating your heroes so you get pre-generated heroes in this but it also gives you the option to make your own and walks you through that entire process tells you about your ability modifiers gives you a few ancestries just three so it's not overwhelmed and gives you four different class options again not to overwhelm and goes through the options that you're going to have and the things that you can choose for these different ancestries and classes gives you a small selection of backgrounds and you can see throughout the text it references the little lettered sections from the character sheet to tell you okay as you make a gambler add plus one to your charisma which is found in section d make sure that you check the t box for your proficiency in the lore [Music] lore skill for games under section g in your background ability area b write lie to me if someone lies to you you know it's a lie if their result is less than either your deception dc or your perception dc so it tells you exactly what to put and where to put it then we get information on the classes again player cleric if you want to do these things during combat encounters you'll typically do these while exploring here is how you will help the party these how you play your character what they're good at super useful for new players to understand what makes this class different and if i want a particular game experience am i going to find it in this class then we get things like the cleric spells and abilities they're different features over a few pages same with the fighter we get the fighters abilities the rogue and the wizard including wizard spells and then following on from the class section we get some information on armor and shields weapons different items and adventuring gear how to finish your hero again with those lettered markers so you can make a note on your character sheet where they are then information on how to use all of the skills and what abilities you get based on your skills then some information on actually playing the game how dc's work how the general dice mechanic works how rest light and darkness all of that stuff works how basic actions work and then there's a little information on playing on the grid and using templates right at the end now the last two pages have got information on leveling your character up it makes note to say that this character will be compatible going beyond third level if you pick up the core book you can keep all your progress and just add to it and then reference for getting knocked out and dying and then a quick reference sheet at the end then we come to the game mastery guide the start of which includes the menace under otari adventure 28 pages it does tell you right at the start if you aren't ready to play this adventure skip through to page 28 and start learning how to be a game master all throughout it's got breakout boxes of common terms different references for you as a gm how to gm how to run your game how to plan a session how to do exploration and downtime how to award experience points how to set difficulty classes based on different things actual advice on building an adventure and building challenges how to use different hazards and things against your players how to reward them what they should be getting in terms of treasure by level and what their coinage should be by level information on environments and hazards and magic items that you can give and then a little bestiary section with artwork for a bunch of different monsters so you've got a bunch of options for different things you can throw at the players without having to go and buy the core three books then it finishes off with a little summary of the otari village so you can use that as a home base for your players moving forward then we get a little reference for some of the difficulty classes and hazards and some of the tables and same quick reference guide on the back then when we come to the big differences between this and the fifth edition box where most of the weight and where most of the cost come from we have a double-sided flip map for our adventure for menace under yeah let's open this up so this this is this gigantic play map that's got two different sides one side is this part of the cabin and the other side is a different part of the cabin like i said i would have preferred them to follow the pathfinder first edition model of giving you a gridded blank side because that that's really useful saves you home to buy a gridded map but then the real juice comes from all of the tokens there's a hundred and something tokens here we've got tokens for actions and reactions so you can make a note of which characters have acted who's used their activation and then tokens for a bunch of different monsters there's four different sheets here with low level monsters high level small large medium creatures as well as a sheet of player character options so we've got human clerics we've got dwarf clerics we've got elf clerics yeah and then he so cleric fighter rogue wizard across human dwarf and elf then down here at the bottom we've got the four iconics from the pre-generated character sheets that you can use as well these are really cool i have used the pawns that came in my pathfinder first edition box in most of my in-person play so these will be joining that collection and then right at the bottom we have another little page the adventure continues want more pathfinder with additional adventures suited for the beginner's box or jump into the full version of pathfinder so the troubles in otari adventure path so if you enjoyed the beginner box adventure and you want to continue beyond the second adventure you can level up to fourth at up to fourth level with the rules in this adventure or you can get into the core game and get one of the four core books and then just a little ad for the pathfinder society which is like the dnd adventurers league on the back so all in all when it comes to these two box sets i cannot recommend pathfinder second edition highly enough if you have never played pathfinder and you're interested in the system and you've thought to yourself it seems like quite a crunchy system quite difficult to get into pick up this starter set pick up the beginner box because it walks you through everything in a really simple and easy to understand way everything is labeled everything is clearly laid out i don't think you'll find a better way to onboard as making a new character and learn in a system in a starter set that i think i've ever come across this is one of the best starter sets i've ever encountered when it comes to a ttrpg it's worlds better than the fandalva starbucks i've not i don't own the other two but i've seen unboxings of them i've seen the essentials kit up close i like the essentials kit for a lot of the accessories that it comes with but in terms of onboarding brand new players for making new characters and learning to play the game this is the gold standard as far as i'm concerned i don't think it's fair to claim that pathfinder is a difficult system to get into when this box set exists yes if you are going straight into the call rule book having come from fifth edition if you especially if you're coming from d d beyond fifth edition dmd beyond character creator makes it incredibly easy to make characters if that's what you're familiar with and that's how you learned to make characters and to play the game going into the core rulebook straight away for pathfinder second edition is gonna be overwhelming but coming into this where everything is neatly laid out and it tells you exactly where to put what information how things work and it keeps referencing back to other core rules that you need to know throughout you couldn't ask for a much more player friendly and new player friendly approach to learning a game system i really hope that you've enjoyed this video and found it helpful or useful if you did please do leave a like and drop a comment down below let me know what you think of either of the two starter sets as long as people keep liking these pathfinder versus 5th edition videos i'll keep making them but i need to know that you're enjoying them so please do let me down let me down let me know down below but until next time happy gaming

Channel: Icarus Games

Views: 22,396

Keywords: Dnd, d&d, dungeons and dragons, dungeonsanddragons, rpg, onenote campaign dnd, “Icarus Games”, tabletop, dmtips, OneNote DM, DM Bible, dnd 5e, D&D 5e, onenote dm bible, dungeon master tips, be a better game master, best dnd, how to play dnd, game master tips, dungeon master, DM Tips, DM advice, how to D&D, homebrew dnd, homebrew, pathfinder, pathfinder2e, pf2, pathfinder starter set, pathfinder starter set review

Id: bsSai4Dz-2I

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 26 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/evaned]

FWIW, you mention that you can get the 5e starter set for $12 when there are sales and such, but I prices in that vicinity are the norm, not the exception. Like literally right now it's $13.29 on Amazon and Target.com, and according to CamelCamelCamel the average Amazon price is $12.52, with sale prices as low as $4.65. That puts the 2e box at ~2.5x the price (or more than 3x comparing average Amazon prices per CamelCamelCamel).

This price difference increases even further if you pair BB with Troubles in Otari so you get an adventure that is more comparable to LMoP -- you'll pay more for Troubles than for the entire 5e starter set. And I think it's otherwise a bit unfair to the Starter Set to ignore the fact that LMoP is actually a "full" adventure and the BB's is, IMO, not. (Though ironically that does make the fact that the Starter Set doesn't come with character sheets and creation rules even worse.)

None of this is to detract from the points that the BB really is excellent at rules introductions and things like players' aids, and the color-coded dice is brilliant.

[u/Icarus_Miniatures]

Hey folks, Anto here again continuing my series exploring PF2 coming from 5e and this week I'm pitting the beginner box head to head with the 5e starter set.

I've always been a fan of Paizo's boxed sets, but I was still surprised by what a great job the PF2 box does to accommodate brand new players.

So much so, that I would say looking purely at the two products in isolation, I think a brand new player would have an easier time getting to grips with PF2 than 5e if only using the starter set!

[u/Vivid-Web-5422]

the BB is crap. I have no idea why it gets so much praise. It is essentially a giant combat slog. There is very little outside of back to back fights. The dungeon has no connecting theme, and very little lore beside “It was Otari before but was abandoned and built over.”…great.

There are no social encounters, barely any exploration, and barebones lore. A bunch of different gods are featured around the dungeon in shrines with no explanation for their purpose.

The saving grace is the strength of PF2e’s combat, but when it is nothing but fight after fight, that got tedious.

We had much more fun with Threshold of Knowledge.

​

Lost Mine is for one, MUCH longer and better value. It has an interesting region, varied quests, and a good balance of the three pillars. It isn’t flawless, but works as a great introduction. It is fleshed out enough that you can provide quick information when needed, but loose enough that you can easily put your own spin on things and tie non-pregen characters to the adventure fairly easy. Though cramped, the various dungeons contain alternate entrances, secret passages, environmental hazards, lore and roleplay. The BB can’t stack up to it at all.

​

Now, I am sick to death with 5e, but credit where it is due, LMoP is excellent for what it is. We are dropping 5e come the end of our current campaign (lvl 14) and I would recommend PF2e over 5e to most people, but I’d steer them clear of the BB and toward Big Trouble in Little Absalom and Threshold of Knowledge

[u/[deleted]]

I think the title answers the question for you. With the 5e starter set, you have to play 5e, and that's already worse value.

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