D&D Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle VS Pathfinder Beginner Box Honest Review and Unboxing

hey welcome back glitches today we're unboxing and reviewing the dungeons and dragons starter kit dragons of storm wreck isle today isn't just any unboxing and reviewing today we're going head to head with pathfinder beginners box baby it wouldn't be a litchi review if we didn't come at you guys with some comparisons to the competitors make sure we're keeping wizards of the coast on their little wizard toes make sure that they're up to par does this starter set have what it takes to compete with this really heavy beginner's box super light we're going to unbox and compare these two then we want to know your opinions we'll put a poll out yeah check out our new community tab oh it's so fancy all right what are we going to tear into first i think you guys want to see what's in this starter set this dragons of storm wreck isle we'll come back to this beginner's box later and at the very end stay to the end of the video we'll have a head-to-head mortal kombat fight to the death to determine the one true starter set which of these boxes is best for someone that's never played a role-playing game before that's sort of what we think these products should be right this a starter set is your first dipping your toes into the brand of dungeons and dragons or maybe pathfinder you're supposed to pick up one of these play it and immediately say i want to keep playing i want more apparently the gateway to the adventuring world of the cooperative gameplay of dungeons and dragons it has a 48 page adventure uh includes a 32-page role book for levels 1-3 includes five fully fleshed out character sheets except for names and has six polyhedral dice this is for two to six players ages 12 and up this was 19.99 target exclusive i'm sure when this thing is out in the wild and you can buy it from the amazonies you can get it you'll be able to get it for like 10 12 bucks like the current starter set which we do not know if it's technically being phased out or not is this going to become the only starter set available does it make sense to keep two products out there with the same goddamn name not really let's take a look inside and see what wizards of the coast has bestowed upon us today so first up first thing we're hit with is what dice six only six dice here uh we're not getting the d100 right you do not have a percentile die yep they're okay yeah i mean they're pretty basic looking yeah they kind of have that blue opal finish like squirrely malaysian swirl little blue swirl yeah there's only a single d6 in here and not a full set of like three or four because you're not rolling to create characters in this there are no rules in this box for character creation it is 100 you have to use the pre-gens if you want rules on how to create your own characters you need to download the basic rules online or get the dnd essentials kit or a full-fledged product like the player's handbook it also looks like they don't have any blank character sheets in here so you'll have to download and print those as well if you planned on doing that the rule book real book it here 32 page rule book staple bound yes not have a cover no cover table of contents cover reused artwork i think these rules are actually shorter and they're more tight than the the original starter set and the basic rules that you can download on wizard's website which we will provide a link to in the nether realm down below it is your basic rule book it looks like this starter set rule book really gives a starting gm a good idea of what the game is about what the dungeon master should be doing it says things um like how to be a player being a player being the dm rhythm of play which involves the dm describes the environment the players decide what their characters do the dm narrates the result of the action your typical basic of how the game is run it gives you things like terms to remember at the beginning of this rulebook the goes over the goes over the six abilities that have a picture of the dice in there explaining which die is what not yet no no there is a picture of dice it's a picture of dice but not in an artistic format uh with with no explanation on what's what yet so movement and position is explained but not in a way that assumes you have a playing field right doesn't it it doesn't assume anything there is nothing in here that gives a new dungeon master tips on how to run theater of the mind anything there's nothing in here telling you hey this is all in everyone's imaginations but you as the dungeon master have to constantly tell your players oh this enemy is 15 feet away uh you could probably hit two people with your your blast weapon or your blast here doesn't give you any sort of information like that like if you're running multiple enemies in theater of the mind you might want to tell your players like oh there's four uh i don't want to say what enemies are in here but there's four goblins and this one has a hook for a hand and this one is wearing a funny hat this one has is missing teeth so that your players know i want to attack the one with missing teeth or i want to attack the fun the funny hat one really simple tips that would help a new dungeon master this shit's nowhere to be found in here i know chris berkins has said in his 1dnd announcement video that he's going to take the time to rewrite the dungeon masters guide to make it more friendly for new dm's please do this this stuff i i'm bitching and moaning about it kamo and i have so much experience running and playing games that these rules are so we know them like the back of our hands but a new dungeon master doesn't have any of that they have videos that you can click on like there's little qr codes that'll bring you to youtube videos that'll give you more information but i've even watched the one on running like the basic the first combat in the game again doesn't do anything about mentioning like pull out a grid or hey have some graph paper on hand or a blank page just so you can have reference of hey you guys are here the things you're attacking are moving here they're about x amount of feet away blows my mind that that is not included somewhere within those starter set rules or in this stormwreck aisle adventure right here this is sort of like the dms guide it does do a good job i will say of giving you hints and of how to run things but also not enough i'm not going to lie especially when it comes to role playing like there are some really important characters that you meet that you're going to be talking to over and over again there should be like a very in-depth section be like this character is the main npc of this adventure here is how you should be role playing this person here are some tips here are some phrases that they constantly say here are their mannerisms why are you not doing something as basic as that for what is supposed to be someone's very first time dungeon mastering and playing d and d so there are multiple areas that you can have that players can explore in this there are no maps included in this box spoilers there is a main location that is sort of like the player's hub i had to draw that i hand drew that like i like doing that stuff but a new dungeon master shouldn't have to do that there should just be like a little thing about the size of this being like here's here's dragon's rest uh cloister you know this is what it looks like also i hate and i know d d does this with every one of their adventures i hate having an appendix with all of the monster stats at the back of the book i want to just have the stats right where the adventure is there the adventure is like i'm fighting this just give me the give me the greatest hits give me the tiny little stat block it works so well when you're running an adventure to have the stat blocks of the enemies that you're running there right with the lore write with the descriptions sure where the area is and what you're fighting at the same time you're not flipping between pages you're not bouncing back and forth you already have to go back and reference the rules to make sure you're making the right calls as a new dungeon master the adventure so far it's been it's so good but we won't we'll dive into that at a later date in time but that really depends on how good your dungeon master is anyway going deeper they put a nice uh our cardboard filler put a cardboard filler in here because that's how much isn't in here nothing yeah they're filling wow what did you get because there's nothing really and it goes that way so that it cuts out like a quarter of an inch out of the bottom yeah wow before the large filler cardboard insert pre-generated characters nameless characters you have your fighter what elf you have a human paladin a cleric hill dwarf wizard high elf and rogue lightfoot halfling everyone's at first level i like how these are broken down aside from kind of not having beginner names and very little character artwork one of my biggest problems with this entire set is it lacks that immersive creativity some of those hooks to pull you in something pretty to look at colorful imaginative to kind of spark imagination i don't know how i feel about the nameless sheets how do you feel if i'm making pregens for my players i for the for d d specifically i'll just make names yeah i just i think i'll make a name because again it's just you're trying to cut down the amount of time before it's like lights camera action go i think for the brand new player i'd rather have the name spelled out same because for us as avid seasoned players with our group yeah we like that kind of stuff but not everyone does we like to come up with our own name even though the character is already built out i do like how these character sheets are laid out they are different than the ones in the essentials kit and the previous starter set they explain what everything does bravo excellent job wizards it tells you what your proficiencies are when you're attacking with something it tells you what you are attacking with what to roll everything is crystal clear right there for the player in one spot beautifully done i love that that's how every starter set pre-gen should be for a d game hey they even went the extra mile they provided backstories and hooks for every single character to have a reason to go on this adventure a little personal backstory a reason why you're going to the stormwreck aisle right excellent very good idea i don't know how well they're executed now that i've read through the adventure and how it's going to play through but we'll let you know in a future video can we let you in on a secret okay so these character sheets that come with this game are you don't need them no you can go to the link that we have in the nether realm down below you can download these and print them out for free so you don't need these these are that's already free this is already free the basic rules you don't need you can already click the link down in the realm those are free so really you're paying 20 for the dragons of storm wreck aisle adventure and six dice [Music] that is everything you're paying for i'm gonna say that again all you're getting in this box are six dice and this very short one to third level adventure that is your starter set okay so clearly we are not super enthused about the dragons of storm wreck isle maybe we'll have a little bit better luck with this pathfinder beginners box pathfinder which is uh just by fondling it a little bit getting my old litchy paws on this thing it's the cream of the crop green rice this thing is hefty it is super thick i wonder if there's a quarter inch cardboard insert in there i'm gonna i'm willing to bet not beginner's box this thing includes a 72 page heroes handbook an 88-page game masters guide four pre-made heroes over a hundred character and monster pawns four game reference cards and a complete set of polyhedral dice and there is also a full color double-sided adventure map for two to five players ages 13 and up you got to be one more year older to play pathfinder boys and girls darker themes darker themes i mean feel this i mean this thing you could if you put all three if you put the essentials kit and the two starter sets on top of each other this thing would still probably work so what was the price of this baby i want to say this thing retails for 50 bucks 39.99 nice so it is twice the amount of money is it twice the fun is it twice as much stuff we don't know we're going to tear into it right now box fart box farm oh yeah what do you know colored dice so that we can teach our players what each dice is wow wow what's a d8 oh hey it's the orange guy oh cool that makes sense now when i go for a d8 i'm going to think orange let's be honest when you're first looking at polyhedral dice you like wtf like what's what and you don't know how many sides are in each dice yeah give me a 12 sided there camo this is beautiful and what a great concept this is the funny thing is the quality is a little lighter on the dice in these these are cheap dice i think actually that the d d dice are better quality yeah but i love the concept of each one being different yes uh we have a bunch of bases pawn bases which means we're going to be getting uh actual figurines and tokens and things in this already looking like an improvement if you are an avid player of pathfinder please tell us why there's this little green green one in here yeah we have another we have another pawn box that we purchased from pathfinder that includes these bases there's always a single green base in here maybe just like the monster leader or i don't know an elite monster or something let us know in the comments also we've never played pathfinder let's let's say that straight up we are pathfinder noobs we're pathfinder noobs we've played a lot of d d we've played a lot of other systems but we've never dove deep into pathfinder so this is really our first foray into any one of their products for realsies what we got here oh hey reference cards these are awesome player reference cards oh wow that's a lot of text oh hey that's a lot of really tiny text yeah wow but we know that pathfinder is a little crunchier and then they have these these nice nifty little uh on your turn you get three actions this is for like battle combat you can use three actions and a reaction and i'm assuming there's gonna be uh some tokens further down in here so you can put tokens down on your little your handy-dandy reference card this is pretty great i love it i love that you have something here you're playing this game it's introducing you to this game it wants to snag you and keep you yeah right they want you to play and buy their stuff and let's be i mean they have to know they've got a little bit of an uphill battle right yeah so you need a reference card you need this type of thing but i'd still like to see this in d and d for real oh cool looks like it's got like a choose your own adventure that you can play through in the players and the hero's handbook oh cool all right digging in looks like we got some pre-gens here whoa these are cool these are all right so these are your all right we have some blank character sheets which hey look at that all right what do you know the different colored dice they have different colored dice what they look like shapes and what they look like on the character sheets sick wow what a novel concept and they're even on the back it's almost like they want to teach you how to play your hit points has like a heart your perception's got a magnifying glass your ac is a shield so on these character sheets everything has a b c so when you're filling it out as a dungeon master someone's like oh i need to fill out my perception oh that's that's h on your character sheet so you can look at the little yellow bubbles and you know exactly where you're looking so for our pre-gens we have whoa mauricio the rogue or ezrin the wizard fellairos the fighter and last kyra the cleric for a second i thought she had a blade arm but it's she's holding it whoa these teach you how to like fill everything out whoa these are awesome damn you start off with 21 hit points is a cleric in pathfinder hey maybe that'll mean you won't get crit death there's some character backstory here on the back cover i like that here's where the reference is you have all the pieces of your character sheet explained on the next page right his ancestry b is background c is class they even tried to match it up to abc as much as possible too no this is friggin incredible i love this on the front too it's like play it cleric if you want to support and heal your allies with divine spells know about religious writing and images oppose and destroy evil undead creatures to spark imagination to spark some kind of excitement well here's i mean here's the thing we're not noobs we've been playing these games we've been playing video games and all sorts of like this for our entire lives we know what a cleric is we know what a rogue does maybe your 13 year old daughter doesn't you know you have having these things spelled out explicitly like hey do you like doing these things like i want to cast spells that sounds awesome i do want to know secrets about magic and ancient lore i would like to solve problems with my magic i would like to be ezran the wizard so now in front of us um we're gonna have a character and we're gonna have a reference card yep um pretty cool god love the artwork so inspiring yeah i want to play your game nice color artwork as well hey what do you know a cover perfect bound they're not staple bounds a little bit more quality there can bend them back if you need them open uh the beginner box heroes handbook looking at the table of contents we just have uh i love that solo adventure adventure that is such a fun way to start off call a cthulhu starter set has that as well so if you've never played a role playing game before you can just sort of it guides you and you it's a choose your own adventure yeah but it gets you to break out your dice and you're recording your damage that you're doing you get the cycle and you get the feel for how the game hey yes hell yeah without other players at the table yep and especially if you're interested in doing and playing the game just on your own and you don't know if your friends want to play and you buy this you have something to do here yeah you've got that little adventure and that's going to whet your appetite right yeah pirates kings plunder set in otari oh hey what do you know the actual areas of effect on a grid and what and how the spells affect the grid everything missing from the from the deal how did they forget that man yeah it's not like that's their first starter set next up is the advent shop next up is the it's not only an adventure this is also a mini game master's guide talking about difficulty classes they're game mastering from 28 to 36. and building adventures is the adventure even in here oh yeah the the adventure is only from two to page page two to sixteen oh wow the adventure's right in the beginning menace under otari are the creatures wrapped into the story yeah they are there they are yeah awesome as well as maps and then you have but then it's got a little mini bestiary back here damn this artwork's awesome look at this ooze sewer this is it man double-sided playing surface oh hey look at that i'm sure you can i'm sure this thing looks dry and wet a race maybe or maybe just wet a race what a nice big play surface to inspire your um new players with hell's yeah and then we're into pawns whoa wow a lot of pawns not just a few pawns four full ass sheets of puns i was right they have those and then you get your action token action tokens there looks like every creature that is mentioned in the yeah the gamemaster's guide exists in the back oh and there's a quick rules reference on the back of the uh the gm's guide moving on a grid you can actually play a tabletop game with this you've got the pawns you have the map you have character reference character sheet this is everything you need to open the portal into an adventure world i think we've seen enough i think we i think we're ready for some comparisons here also keep in mind that one product is twice as much in cost sure as the other one [Music] that thunder needs to work on their boxes hey when you actually put crap in there you know it's a little harder make it nice and tight final thoughts on this battle of the ages you got the pathfinder beginners box versus starter set 2.0 dragons of storm wreck aisle what are we thinking here camo what do you think about dungeon master learnability who wins it's kind of hard to say because i know the rules of d d so well yeah but i think this is a little bit more user friendly because i don't know jack squat about pathfinder and i was just reading through some of the hero's handbook and the game masters guide seems pretty straightforward it makes an extra effort in teaching the dungeon master in this one a little farther than this one i would say um there are there is a good chunk of information here for new dungeon masters and that's part of what you're buying right because that's part of one of the books that you actually are buying from this that you can't get for free anywhere else except for youtube content creators i guess we should look up and find out if anything in this box is downloadable on paizo's website if it is we'll throw it down in the uh the nether realm below as well what do you think about player learnability hands down this one with that play through solo adventure and those colored dice the colored dice having the pre gens that have literal like double you open it up like a folder and it's like alphabetical sections tells you exactly what every single thing is on the character sheet they went above and beyond to be like hey guys please please please please try our starter set please try our game yeah if we can convince you to try this we think you're gonna love it what's next just stuff all right stuff like yeah like content slash inspiration slash how much of a tabletop game is this this has everything for a tabletop game and i think that's everything you get with the extra 20 bucks that you're paying except there's i still feel like there's no reason this should be 20 with half of it being free content that we could just download you're paying yeah you're paying for a dice and an adventure and let's be real there's everyone has a smartphone you can have a dice roller app yeah you know it's not the same but here's how i'm judging this how much does this make me want to play it and trying to have that of the trying to have the eye of the beginner trying to come at this with a fresh look of like i don't know what this is i know it's a game i'm gonna try it out for me this thing does such a tremendous job sort of hitting you with that siren song role playing and luscious illustrations i've never played pathfinder either edition we have a video coming up of running this adventure i'm gonna run this as well i think we sort of need to see what pathfinders actually bring into the table we review a lot of paizo products because you can use them intermittently with with dungeons and dragons stuff but i think it's high time for us to try the system out and i'm gonna i'm gonna this box basically convinced me i didn't think that pathfinder was a system i really wanted to learn i thought it was a lot crunchier and meatier than than i thought it was gonna be it's not there is no excuse for a product like this it lacks inspiration this isn't going to pick up any new players i'm sorry the sad part is this is probably going to outsell this pathfinder box by like three to one just because the price point price point it's in target name recognition brand recognition again i'm coming back to it this is the first time someone will be interacting with your brand this is the first time someone's ever gonna touch a dungeons and dragons product and you know what this tells me dungeons and dragons stuff is cheap it's poorly made that's that's what i get out of that starter box like the 20 adventure this wasn't even a competition no and i i think we knew it was going to be that way i don't know people sort of like i don't know if you're bagging us as like path again we you can't even say we're like pathfinder fanboys or anything we've never played we've never touched it yeah but i want to dive into this box this thing is twice the price is this they've packed in so much wonderful stuff and everything screams high quality those pathfinder pawns are amazing those fold out character sheets your players handbooks and dungeon masters guides are perfect bound they're thick they're fleshed out i don't know i think i think it's a clear winner what do you guys think have you guys tried out this beginner's box is this really as good as we're making it out to be let us know are we making a massive mistake here by not recommending the starter set dutchess and dragons visit the coasts i don't know if you're laying back because you don't have to make as much of an effort not sure as if you just know this is gonna sell um that's how it comes across you know what paizo if you they're they're hungry they want to topple you guys they're putting out products they're just frankly better so sad because we're such avid fans of dungeons and dragons for so long we love d and d it really kind of hurts our feelings when we start seeing stuff like this we will always be brutally honest we try to stay neutral we just want good products we want excitement we want something to dig our teeth into with products like this not sponsored by the way this stuff is none of this stuff was sent to us both of these boxes were paid out of the lich is fun baby uh out of our pockets from us to you that is our goal is to inform the community as to what is out there as always thank you for watching so much we want to hear what you think about these products leave comments down in the description if it sparks you don't forget to told the dead and subscribe gagong baby good gong peace out oh wow [Laughter] peace you

Channel: Basic Liches

Views: 23,745

Keywords: DnD, Dungeons and Dragons, pathfinder 2e, pathfinder beginners box, beginners box review

Id: k9M3_A-JO24

Length: 28min 54sec (1734 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 16 2022