Creating a Character Starting a Character Making a Character

Character Creation Guide

Gear (15gp starting gold)

• Adventurer's Pack (1gp, 1sp)

Then buy...

• Melee Weapon
• Ranged Weapon
• Armor
• Other relevant, optional equipment
  • Shield (if you're using a two-handed weapon, don't forget about a Buckler)
  • Material Component Pouch (for casters)

If you have a Shield, spend 5sp on Shield Spikes or Shield Boss.

For armor, remember that Chain Mail is Medium Armor in Pathfinder 2e. Splint Mail is Medium Armor and Scale Mail is Heavy Armor.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=587

https://ashenvault.com/starting-gold-by-level-pathfinder/

• Add runes to weapons/armor
• Healing Kits, Repair Kits, etc.

How will your character spend the recovery window time?

Things that generally take 10 minutes after combat:

• Identify Magic
• Treat Wounds
• Refocus
• Repair an item

How will your character spend downtime?

Ability Scores

18/16/12 or 18/14/14

Do player characters have to have 18 in their main stat?

Nope, I started with a 16 in my primary stat and 14 in three secondary stats so I can push them all up to 20 by 20. It's a few points behind when making combat rolls but honestly it's not much of a loss for me.

Worth mention that starting at 16 instead of 18, will make you be +1 Bonus behind... but only half of the time.

From Lv5 to Lv9 and from Lv15 to 19, you will have the same modifiers as the guy that started with 18 in their main stat (asuming both of you are trying to maximize that stats with the boosts every 5 levels). You will peak at Lv15 with a 20 (+5) to your main stat, and they will pick at Lv20, with 22 (+6) to their main stat.

Skills

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/usjwh6/what_skills_are_okay_to_leave_at_trained/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/n1f3rl/how_do_you_rank_the_various_skills/

Outside of skills that fit your class and character concept well, there are some skills you'll want to pick up to help (even if they aren't tied to your primary or secondary ability scores):

• Medicine: Resourceless healing, this should be the default "I don't know where to put a skill point" option.
• Arcane/Nature/Occultism/Divine: A minimum of one of these is nice and ideally you work with the rest of the players at the table to make sure all four of these are covered; the Recall Knowledge and Identify Magic actions are almost always useful
  • Trick Magic Device: Lets you use scrolls and wands even if you don't have access to the appropriate spell list, it's still useful for Spellcasters as it gives them access to spells they might not normally have
• Crafting: Repairing items, particularly useful if you're using a shield and want to be self-reliant... As an INT-based class, I'd probably take this to help out the party (maybe even over something like Medicine).
  • Quick Repair: This allows someone with a poor Crafting score to still reliably repair an item after an encounter.
  • Magical Crafting: The crafting rules aren't great but this allows you to transfer runes on gear (it takes a day and it costs 10% of the value of whatever you're transferring). This lets you transfer the +1 potency rune from the Dagger you just found to your fighter's Greatword.
• Thievery: Disabling devices and picking locks is essential

Outside of those skills, some are a little more campaign dependent but situationally good:

• Society: The defacto "make a history/local check"
• Survival:

You'll know if Acrobatics or Athletics is good for your character but since Escape isn't tied to either of those skills, they are less useful than others. Even though Deception and Intimidation are Charisma-based skills, at least one of them are useful for martial characters.

Lore

Don't forget about Lore skills. DMs are supposed to adjust the DC of Lore checks to make them easier when they are relevant, so you can get a lot of mileage out of them if you choose well. Backgrounds provided in Paizo have some good suggestions, like picking the town you grew up in (or maybe the town the campaign starts in). Outside of that, if your GM allows you to pick creature types (e.g. dragons or beasts), you'll have some pretty obvious checks; you can get some more mileage out of this by choosing something like Hunting then making a case that you should be able to use it to recall knowledge about creatures in the Beast class. For example, I had Lore: Farming in a campaign where we needed to track a Haunted Boar and I was able to use my Lore skill from my Farmhand Background to good use.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Skills.aspx?ID=8

• https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/rdbxcq/where_does_it_says_that_using_lore_skills_lowers/ https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1203 https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=552

Identifying Creatures

Creature Identification
Lore skills can also be used to identify their specific creature. Using the applicable Lore usually has an easy or very easy DC (before adjusting for rarity).

Downtime Activities

Lore also gives every character some way to use downtime to Earn Income and could be more important for character that aren't invested in Crafting or Performance. Using that same Lore: Farming example, my character could have worked on a farm to earn income in the same manner that an Artisan could use their Crafting skill to earn an income at a blacksmith.

Skill Feat: Additional Lore

The Additional Skill Feat is a great choice if you have a Skill Feat that you don't know how to use. You gain a Lore skill that automatically increases as you level.

Additional Lore: Your knowledge has expanded to encompass a new field. Choose an additional Lore skill subcategory. You become trained in it. At 3rd, 7th, and 15th levels, you gain an additional skill increase you can apply only to the chosen Lore subcategory.

Gear

For armor, there's a generally guideline of how it will impact ability scores as the game goes on:

The gist around armor is that you're trading stats during character creation for a bonus to your AC. Baseline stats for your level one character should be one of these combinations:

• 16 STR, 12 DEX (Medium Armor, specifically Breastplate)
  • 18 STR, 12 DEX (STR - Heavy Armor)
  • 16 STR, 14 DEX (STR - Medium Armor)
  • 18 STR, 10 or less STR (STR - Heavy Armor, specifically full Plate)
• 14 STR, 14 DEX (Medium Armor)
• 12 STR, 16 DEX (Light Armor, specifically Chain Shirt)
• 10 STR, 18 DEX (Light Armor)
• 10 or less STR, 14+ DEX (Unarmored)

Chain Shirts (Light Armor) will be ideal for the classes that have access to Light Armor but don't have DEX as their primary stat (e.g. Bards, Investigators, Oracles, etc.).

If you're Unarmored, pick up Explorer's Clothing, a Gi, or Scroll Robes for the option of adding Runes or the extra utility they provide.

The general rule is start at 14 STR and 14 DEX, then start adjusting those values increments of 2 to find your ideal ability scores for your AC.

• If you're proficient in light armor and DEX isn't your primary stat, you probably want 12 STR; in a lot of cases, getting 14 STR and 14 DEX at level 5 for an Armored Coat is your best bet for maximizing your AC. Even in cases where DEX is your primary stat, you shouldn't have STR below 10 until your DEX is at least 20.
• If you're proficient in medium armor and your primary stat is STR, you want to start with 12 STR for a Breastplate then increase your DEX to 14 at level 5 so you can increase your medium armor options (and increase your Reflex save)
• If you're proficient in heavy armor, you want to start with 12 DEX and probably never increase it after that. If you somehow have access to Full Plate during character creation (e.g. not starting at level 1), you can pick up Full Plate and ignore DEX entirely.
• If you aren't proficient in any armor, you'll want to increase DEX at every chance you get but you can more than likely ignore strength entirely.

Heavy Armor has a weird exception that if you're not starting at level 1 (and being essentially forced to start in Medium Armor) that you can dump DEX to 8 with the slight drawback of not being able to use other armor from the Heavy category -- thanks to the Bulwark trait on Full Plate.

Light Armor is a little weird for the Bard and Investigator. To maximize AC, their starting stats should be +6 INT and +4 DEX instead of the more common +6 INT, +2 CON, +2 DEX spread I'd recommend.

Languages

Languages are tough choose, so read over the Player's Guide for the campaign or ask the DM for help.

Don't forget about the Multilingual Skill Feat or using an Ability Score increase (available every 5 levels) to increase your Intelligence to pick up a language you might have learned would be important to the campaign. In one of the adventures I was in, it was a running joke that my Fighter was trying to identify the language the creatures we encountered were using for two levels; I attempted numerous Recall Knowledge checks to identify the language before hitting level 5 so I could learn the language.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=116

If an ability boost increases your character’s Intelligence modifier, they become trained in an additional skill and language.

Rules

• Always bring a ranged weapon.
• Carry extra weapons. Thrown weapons like Dagger (or Chakram) will always be useful since it offers flexibility.
• Be self-reliant and learn how to adapt. If you use a Shield, it's probably a good idea to invest in a Repair Kit and be at least Trained in the Crafting skill. If someone in the group is better than you at Crafting, then ask them to repair your equipment with your Repair Kit.