Pathfinder Beginner Box: Secrets of the Unlit Star hits retail May 6, 2026

Paizo’s new Beginner Box arrives with everything a table needs to start Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster play: a 72-page Hero’s Handbook, an 88-page Game Master’s Guide, four premade characters, four blank sheets, over 100 paperboard pawns, a double-sided map, four reference cards and a full polyhedral dice set. Priced at $49.99, Secrets of the Unlit Star is positioned as an all-inclusive on-ramp, not a sampler, and it is heading to retail on May 6, 2026.

For a brand-new group, that package matters. The Hero’s Handbook covers character generation, a solo adventure, skills, spells and equipment, while the Game Master’s Guide carries the introductory adventure plus more than 20 pages of monsters, rules for building your own adventure and magic items. The result is a first-session experience that can begin with teaching, move through a solo learning exercise, and land at the table with a complete scenario already in hand.

The class spread shows the same intent. Paizo is highlighting barbarian, bard, monk and sorcerer as the box’s ready-to-play options, and the company says the new version revitalizes player options with more ancestries and four different classes. That gives a fresh table a broader spread of characters than a barebones intro product, while still keeping the choices focused enough that a new GM can explain them without opening a second shelf of books.

Paizo is also tying the box directly to Lost Omens, so the first purchase is not just a rules lesson but an entry point into the larger setting. That matters for groups deciding whether to start with a boxed set or jump straight to the Core books. Secrets of the Unlit Star bundles the teaching tools, the prebuilt heroes, the map, the pawns and the dice in one place, which lowers the amount of prep and eliminates a long shopping list before the campaign even begins.

The same release day also brings Pathfinder Adventure: Troubles in Grayce Adventure Anthology. That book is built for characters of levels 2-4, includes six short independent adventures set in Ustalav, and is meant to follow the Beginner Box as part of a larger arc. Put together, the two products form a clean runway: learn Pathfinder with Secrets of the Unlit Star, then carry that table into Grayce and beyond.