Saturday, December 22, 2018

Pathfinder Pawns: "Bestiary Box" [RPG]

I'm finding it hard to figure out what to say when reviewing the Pathfinder pawn boxes.  The product details are listed on the back of the packaging, so for the Bestiary Box you'll know you're getting 256 different creature pawns, with some of them coming in multiples for a final count of over 300.  The pawns are thick, sturdy cardboard and have held up well through months and years of play.  They slot neatly into little round plastic bases, and the box comes with 21 small/medium bases, 10 large bases, and 5 huge ones.  Although there might be an omission here or there (I haven't cross-checked), almost every creature that appears in the Bestiary will have a corresponding pawn in this set.  The only consistent exceptions are any creatures larger than Huge, as Paizo has refused to come out with any pawns that big.  The artwork is full-colour and matches the creature pictures in the book, the pawns are titled and numbered to match the list on the back of the box for easy sorting, and there are little set indicators so you don't get the pawns from this box mixed up with pawns from other boxes.  If I had any criticisms of Bestiary Box specifically, it's that it's not always intuitive why they chose some creatures to have multiple pawns and others to only have one: for example, there are two "Bralani Azatas" (I'm not exactly sure what that is), but only one Shadow and only one Wraith, etc.  Still, quibbles aside, this is an excellent set, and having these pawns sure beats checkers, coins, random minis ("Gandalf is the hyena"), and the various other things GMs sometimes have to put on the table.  From one point of view, I can see why it sounds ridiculous to spend $ 44.99 USD on little pieces of cardboard.  But . . . somehow it's worth it!

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