Today Paizo released a free supplement to their Pathfinder Beginner Box product called Beginner Box Transitions. This PDF release is designed to help a player that entered the Pathfinder system through the Beginner Box to transition beyond 5^th level and into the Core Rulebook.

Readers of The Iron Tavern know I have posted a fair number of articles around the Beginner Box. While I have played Pathfinder with my son in the past, the Beginner Box was the set that allowed me to hand him a set of books and he was able to read them himself and learn to play and GM his own games. Even many months later, my son still can be found reading his Beginner Box rule books, creating characters and designing encounters. I was certainly curious to see what this Beginner Box Transitions PDF was all about.

The artistic quality of the PDF is excellent as one has come to expect from Paizo products. The PDF does include an index at the end to help find certain rules quickly. I was disappointed to see that there was not a bookmarked table of contents. Those can be very handy when looking to jump to a certain section of a PDF. Not a major issue, but it would be nice to see a Bookmarked table of contents, maybe in a future update.

The PDF includes 9 chapters covering a myriad of topics from new rules to know when moving to the core rulebook, reading stat block entries from the core rules and bestiary, adventure conversions, leveling your character, and more.

The PDF handles all of this in a very clear and easy to follow manner. New rules are covered in small sub-sections, graphics are used to help dissect spell and monster stat blocks. They really strive to make the transition as easy as possible.

The PDF includes a conversion guide for Master of the Fallen Fortress. Using those steps a reader can get a good feel on how to convert many other modules in the Pathfinder Module line. The PDF includes a list and short summary of several eligible modules.

There is a lot of information in this free download from Paizo to make a person’s transition from the Beginner Box to the Core Rules as painless as possible. My post here is based on a quick read (it has only been out for a few hours), but it looks like an excellent free product to transition those Beginner Box players into the full set of rules. Well done Paizo!