Have you ever craved some tabletop combat action but didn’t have time to set up a whole four-hour session? Or no one was available so you needed a solo game to pass the time? Sure, you could fire up Baldur’s Gate 3. There’s also plenty of solo journaling TTRPGs to help you dig into a character all on your own. But consider Pathfinder Dice Conquest from WizKids – it’s a simple but challenging dice roller with plenty of monsters to slay.
You start by choosing one of the six hero characters, who do a good job of replicating their best-known feats from the Pathfinder TTRPG. Monks can strike multiple times in one round, while the Alchemist can explode damage under specific circumstances. The cards sport the gorgeous, stylized art of Pathfinder 2nd Edition, as do their monster foes.
As for those monsters, you randomly assign one of three tough foes to be the final boss and place them at the bottom of the deck. Your goal is to defeat the boss, which of course means working your way through the entire rest of the creature deck (minus of course the other two bosses you didn’t pick). The threat comes from the fact that every enemy in play damages you at the end of every round. They chip away at your 20 hit points, which are divided amongst 1-4 players. If even one player drops to 0, it’s game over.
You slay monsters by rolling your full set of d4-d20 dice and assigning the resulting numbers as damage. The trick is that several monsters punish you for dealing them damage, or can only be defeated by odd numbers, or summon more monsters. Therein lies the strategy – distributing your dice in such a way that you minimize enemy abilities and take the least damage you can. Your hero abilities help in this endeavor by allowing you to do things like reroll dice or block enemy damage. You can also earn magic items by defeating certain monsters.

These goals of efficiently clearing out enemy cards and preserving your HP are immediately apparent and therefore quick to grasp. Yet there’s enough variation in the card abilities to make the game challenging. Almost too challenging depending on how you draw, which can overwhelm a single player. This does give replayability, as does having multiple boss cards and heroes to play as. There’s also an advanced variation that adds spell cards players can use to broaden their strategy.
It’s easy to recommend Pathfinder Dice Conquest. The box is small so it makes for easy setup and easy travel. It’s quick to learn but can tickle the brains of strategy fans with its mix of variables. And it captures the simple appeal of tabletop games: rolling dice and trying to come out the heroes. It’s a neat game to bring out when one of our DnD group calls five minutes before session and says they’ll be an hour late. Or to have on hand when you’re stuck in a convention line and need to pass the time with fellow hobbyists.
Pathfinder Dice Conquest is $19.99. You can find it on the WizKids website or at your local game store.
Sergio Solórzano is the best Dungeon Master in the USA (according to a Wizards of the Coast competition, anyway). He loves minis and terrain but also goes all-in on improv!