Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
You know the saying—a spell in the pocket is worth two on the character sheet. Actually, most Gamemasters probably wouldn’t allow that interpretation at the table. There is something to be said, however, about player aids and tools that improve efficiency at the table. Nobody wants to spend their precious table time flipping through sourcebooks. Enter the Pathfinder Remastered Spell Cards for Second Edition.
Pathfinder Remastered Spell Cards Overview
Take every spell in the Pathfinder Player Core and Pathfinder Player Core 2. Condense that information into individual reference cards in a standard playing card size format. That’s exactly what you get in the Pathfinder Remastered Spell Cards, although they are split up between the individual magic traditions:
- Primal
- Divine
- Arcane
- Occult
- Focus
This means that if you want a complete set, you’d be forking out around $150 at retail. For most players, a single initial set would be fine, as the main spellcasting of characters is limited to a single spell tradition. Even versatile classes like the Witch or Sorcerer have their spell tradition determined by their patron and bloodline, respectively.
These spell cards are useful because of their clear and concise formatting, which match the same entries that you’ll find in their respective books. It makes referencing spells a breeze. Spell name is in the upper left, followed by the number of actions required of the spell. The far right header has the spell type and level such as Cantrip 1 or Spell 2.
Below that are the tags and traits that Pathfinder is known for. If you’re familiar with the Pathfinder Remaster Project, one of the big takeaways and improvements of the process is that Paizo has eschewed materials—spells that used to have verbal, somatic, or material components have been reworked in the remaster to no longer have those traits.
This is especially helpful because in the past you would have to remember that any spell with a somatic component indirectly gave the manipulate trait to the spell, making you subject to attacks of opportunity. It was never easy to remember this rule in particular, but the spell cards reflect the remaster changes in that any spells that previously had a somatic trait simply have the manipulate trait instead. So helpful!
It’s important to note that spells of multiple traditions are present in each corresponding box. For example, the Daze spell falls into the arcane, divine, and occult traditions, so you will find that card in three boxes. That shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone, but I could see it happening where a company would only have a single copy so that you would have to buy an entirely different box to complete your arcane cards. Luckily for us, Paizo has a conscience.
Each box is presorted by Spell level, ascending, and then alphabetically. Please don’t shuffle these decks otherwise they might as well be nothing more than an RPG-themed paperweight.
Lastly, let’s touch on the spells that have extensive text. My go-to example is always Illusory Creature in this scenario, thanks to a crafty kobold wizard who uses it at every opportunity in our Sky King’s Tomb playthrough. Previously on their Monster cards, Paizo had split up monster entries onto multiple cards simply because they have the creature art on one side of the card, limiting their text real estate. For the spell cards, I have yet to find a spell that isn’t contained by a single card, front and back. Illusory Creature falls in this category, using all of the available space but not exceeding it.
Pathfinder Remastered Spell Cards: Who It’s For
As always, every Paizo product isn’t made specifically for every player out there and the Pathfinder Remastered Spell Cards are no exception. I’m most frequently a Gamemaster, and therefore I find that my use of these is very limiting at the table. Most of the enemies I run aren’t spellcasters, so it doesn’t make sense for me to dig through multiple boxes of spell cards to dig out the cards for a single encounter. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Players, however, are piloting the same character week-in and week-out (hopefully) and therefore the Spell Cards make way more sense for them. Just take out the spells on your character sheet and suddenly you have your own little spellbook that you can fit in your pocket. Of course, all of this information is available freely online, so they really work best for people that play in-person.
At risk of severely dating myself, there’s arguably more value in using these more like a fantasy Rolodex when you level up. Oh, you gained two new level 2 spells? Break out that subset of spell cards and easily flip through them to pick out your selections before adding them to your spellbook stack.
You can also use these cards as a way to differentiate which spells that you’ve already cast in between rests. Just have some kind of divider or flip them over to denote that they’ve been used. This makes it easy to see how much figurative juice you have left in the spellcasting tank when determining if you should open one more door in the dungeon.
These are even more useful to players who tend to gravitate towards a specific class or tradition of magic, as it limits the number of boxes you’d want to pick up. Do you dig Clerics and Oracles? The Divine Spell Cards practically have your name on them.
If tradition is to be followed, Paizo will continue to release supplementary spell cards when new sourcebooks have enough spells to warrant it, like they did with Secrets of Magic. Once you’re locked into using spell cards, you’re sort of beholden to keeping your collection current as it will be incomplete the second a new spell comes out.
Also, please keep in mind that as a physical product these Remastered Spell Cards are subject to inaccuracies if relevant rules errata is released. That’s a risk posed with every physical Pathfinder product, but it’s worth mentioning.
Pathfinder Remastered Spell Cards: Sanity for Spell-slingers
For players looking for a tangible set of spell cards for their characters, the Remastered Spell Cards for Pathfinder Second Edition are a prime example of reference done right. They are legible, concise, and make it easy to keep track of your character’s abilities.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to use these as flashcards to brush up on my spell knowledge.
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