I absolutely cannot get along without a surface plate and gage blocks any more. If you do not have known accurate references, you are guessing at everything you do. You buy a new digital micrometer, it reads to 50 millionths. Great, but is what it says really true? Grab some Jo blocks and test it at different increments, especially the important increment you need to hit dead nuts for a precision project. Without known good references, all your tools become guess-o-meters, and you just hope it is correct because you paid a lot for it. Instead of believing the advertising, test it! Having a surface that you know is flat to within 50 millionths over the compete extent of the plate, and Jo blocks accurate to a few millionths, you know the answer pretty much for sure. I have a bunch of machinist squares of various sorts, no two of which gave the same indication of squareness. If you have a surface plate and a granite angle block or a cylinder square, you can make them all correct to close limits and they all will actually agree with each other. I have slowly been calibrating my (old) Starrett squares to make them correctly square. Just takes time, a little effort, and accurate references. If you like to be a believer, that is an easy way to get by in life. If you want to know the truth, test it and find out.
Some very good import surface plates are now available quite cheap. The freight can cost more than the plate.
Inexpensive Jo blocks as well...
If you have a very accurate flat, a very accurate 90 degrees, and very accurate length references, you become your own reference standard in a home shop.
The precision I need is almost always way (WAY!) lower than what I can test, and that is a very good thing...
But to answer your question, no, a beginner does not _need_ those things.