Who wants to play D&D online again?

You know what? I forgot to apply a racial bonus. "+2 to One Ability Score: Human characters get a +2 bonus to one ability score of their choice at creation to represent their varied nature." So I guess I'll make that 8 WIS into a 10.

Also I forgot to mention that you should be putting these stats on a character sheet. Since we're playing on Roll20 you can just log in and put the numbers on the Roll20 sheet, or you can do it on your computer with the character sheet I'm linking, which actually does most of the work for you:

www.commonroomgames.com/PF_char_sheet-fillable_3_pgs.pdf

Anyway it's time to pick my character's skills. Basically, a skill in Pathfinder is something your character has trained in. The description of the class you picked will state how many skill ranks (i.e., skill points) you get every time you level up.

However, there is such a thing known as Favored Class. When you create a character, you pick a class and every time you gain a level in that class, you can choose to get 1 hit point or 1 skill rank. You can't change your Favored Class ever, which usually isn't a problem unless later on you decide to multiclass, like a fighter-thief or whatever.

As a Human my character gets 1 extra skill rank. I pick Cavalier as my Favored Class so I could choose to get another skill rank but I've decided to get an additional hit point instead. And as a Cavalier my character gets 4 skill ranks plus whatever my Intelligence modifier is.

An Ability Score modifier represents your character's level of ability. 10 is average and anything above 12 gets a modifier. My character's INT is 12, which gives a +1 modifier. This means that whenever a situation arises in which my character needs to use their INT, any dice I roll always gets 1 point added to the result to represent my character's above-average intelligence.

There are also what's known as class skills, which are skills a character would be especially proficient in thanks to their class, so long as they've had the training (i.e., put a skill rank in the skill). The class skills for Cavalier are Bluff, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Profession, Ride, Sense Motive, and Swim, so I check those off on the character sheet I linked above. According to the Civilized trait I picked earlier, Knowledge (local) is a class skill, so I check that off as well. A Cavalier is supposed to pick an order to join, so I decide on the Order of the Lion. According to the description for that order, I'm supposed to add Knowledge (local) and Knowledge (nobility) to my class skills. I already have the first skill so I just check off the second.

By the way, Knowledge skills represent stuff that your character knows but you, the player, might not. I have no idea who the local guard captain is but my character is from the neighbourhood so this is something they probably know. I use the skill Knowledge (local), and if the dice are favourable then it means my character passed their Knowledge check and the GM will tell me who the local guard captain is.

Anyway my Human Cavalier gets 6 skill ranks for me to distribute - 4 for being a Cavalier, 1 for having above average INT, and 1 more for being Human.

I decide to put 1 point each into my class skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge (local), and Knowledge (nobility). I think my character would be conversant in history so I add Knowledge (history) and put a point in it. I get bonuses if I use Knowledge (history) but not as much as when I use a class skill (specifically, class skills get a +3 trained bonus).

Now I need to pick Feats, which are basically special moves my character can do. This is actually pretty simple. You get 1 Feat at 1st level, and as long as you have the prerequisite(s) then you're good. However, as a Human I get an additional Feat.

Note that as part of being a Cavalier, a character can actually share Teamwork feats with allies, which is pretty okay since normally to pull off a Teamwork feat both characters need to have it. Thus I pick the Teamfork feat Coordinated Maneuvers, which gives a +2 bonus on all Combat Maneuvers I attempt with an adjacent ally - stuff like bowling someone over, disarming them, dogpiling, tripping the opponent, etc.

For my 2nd Feat I select Dodge, which gives +1 dodge bonus to Armor Class, which despite the name isn't entirely about armor but actually represents how difficult it is to damage a character, so it incorporates how good a character's armor is, how good they are at dodging, etc. 

Finally, I need to know how many Hit Points I have. According to the class description, Cavaliers use a d10 for Hit Die. Normally I would roll a d10 to find out how many hit points I have, but since this is my 1st level then I get the maximum. So my level 1 character has 10 Hit Points.

Next I need to find out what Equipment my character has, which will in turn determine the Armor Class. There are a couple of other things like saving throws and attack bonus which I still need to cover. More to come in the next and final installment.

So everyone, to summarize character creation:

1. Download a character sheet here.
2. Generate ability scores and put them on the character sheet. Use the Standard method of rolling 4d6, discarding the lowest result, and adding the remaining 3 results, then repeating 6 times.
3. Pick which score goes with each ability.
4. Put it on the character sheet.
5. Follow along with the rest of what this website is saying. But stay out of anything labelled 3rd party content.

You know what? I forgot to mention Alignment. It's supposed to represent your character's moral philosophy, except since this is a game then it's not just flavour text and actually has mechanical consequences for how you can play. In-game, these various philosophies have an objective existence with observable effects in the physical universe.

Alignment works on two axes: one is Evil/Good and the other is Chaotic/Lawful. Evil/Good is easy enough to get, but Chaotic/Lawful represents how much of a stickler for rules, laws, and tradition your character is. In between each extreme is Neutral. So if you're Neutral on Evil/Good you don't care much about doing the right thing, while being Neutral on Chaotic/Lawful means that your character will follow or break the law according to the specific circumstances. Alignment is rather shit at representing real world attitudes - I mean, the Nazis thought they were the good guys, after all - but it's a rather core part of D&D and its derivative games. Let's just accept that in this fantasy universe, Good and Evil can be objectively determined by casting Detect Evil or straight up asking a god what the right thing to do is.

This page gets into more detail about alignment: www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-description/additional-rules

The Player's Guide mentions alignment. Mostly it's saying that pretty much any alignment can be played as long as you can properly think of a reason your character is trying to make the empire of Taldor a better place (not really that difficult even for Evil characters since there can be political and financial rewards).

A lingua franca spoken by the denizens of the underground realms in Forgotten Realms.

Probably Drow since the Drow were the most populous race in the underrealms, but I don't know.

Also, I still need to work out the details of this character, but is there anything in principle about making my character a chaotic good gnome rogue that would conflict with the sorts of characters we are supposed to be making here?  Or have other people already chosen gnome and rogue characters, and should I choose a different sort of character on that basis?

I made a half-elf wizard on the D20 site, but none of her spells show up on the sheet, and I don't see a way to buy her equipment--do I need to copy all her info into this other format?

patbat I see you figured out the Charactermancer on Roll20 and added your spells. Nice job on the character sheet. I've created a token for your character and locked your character sheet to your account so no one else can screw with it.

Now, here's something the Charactermancer didn't do for you, though there's a hint about it in the language portion of the sheet, and it's also something everyone else should remember (including me, since I forgot to do it for my example character):

Your character's Intelligence is 15, with a +2 modifier. This counts as high Intelligence, and you can therefore pick the same number of additional languages as your +2 Intelligence modifier. Please choose 2 more languages for your character except secret languages. And, as a wizard, you also have the option of dropping Elven and sticking Draconic in there instead. Here is a list of languages: www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/linguistics

I can also see you've picked some skills but this made me realize that I never provided a description of the skills. Sorry, I'm so used to the routine that I forget there are steps missing in my explanation.

This gives a list of skills and their descriptions: pathfinder.d20srd.org/coreRulebook/skillDescriptions.html

The "C" means that it's a class skill for that particular class. For example, Acrobatics is a class skill for bards, meaning that if they put any skill ranks (a.k.a. skill points for videogamers) into it, they get higher bonuses when they use it than for non-class skills. "Untrained" means you can try to use a skill even if you don't have any ranks in it, although obviously you have a higher chance of failure. For example, anyone can Climb, but you better believe you need training if you want to Disable Device.

Now, I can see that you put a skill rank in Profession. Profession basically means that your character has experience in a specific job, can actually perform it and answer questions about the job, or they can even use their job skills to earn income on their off hours (explained here). It can be Profession: architect or butcher or librarian or whatever, but you should list something in there if you're putting a rank in the skill. You can even just put a profession in there if you want to represent something from your character's background - for example, I once played a vampire hunter character who used to be an actor so I put a skill rank in Profession: actor even though I never once used the skill in the game (and yes, I was roleplaying as Wesley Snipes if he became Blade for real).

Also, your character needs to prepare spells. Basically, unlike video games your spells aren't limited by your mana. Instead, while your character may know a bunch of spells, they will only be able to use them a certain number of times per day. Someone out there wrote a decent explanation on preparing spells:
So your character has 2 level 1 slots. This means that you have 2 open slots you can stick level 1 spells in. You can put the same spell in twice or pick whatever two level 1 spells you want that's on your list. How do you know what to pick? You just have to guess what you think will be especially useful in the next day. You can change the spells you prepared but only after your character has rested. However, your Spell-Like abilities don't fall under this restriction and it looks like you can use one of them at will while the other can be used 5x per day.

As a wizard you'll need a spellbook which you'll use when preparing spells, so you'll have to pick one of the spellbook options listed here. And yes, if your spellbook gets lost or destroyed you're boned until you get a replacement, so you need to make sure it's secure.

Anyway, if you want to rejigger anything in your character sheet you can still do so since the campaign hasn't started yet.

I made a character. I picked a class that wasn't in the drop down menu thing on the character sheet on the site so I had to input a bunch of junk longform. If there's anything that looks wonky just let me know and I'll fix it up.

Cestuses were simple weapons that were close enough to the claws that I decided to go with them instead so I'll stick with power attack or whatever that other random ass thing was called. With Favored Classes I went with the +1 hp but I'm not really clear whether you actually get locked into +1 hp per level or +1 skill per level or you get to pick and choose at each new level. The stuff I saw on various message boards made it seem like the latter but if you've seen something in an official tome I won't argue that it should be some other way.

You're a life-saver!

Can you shed a little light on how Arcane Bond and Multitalented work?

Arcane Bond lets you either have a magic pet or a magic item.

But you can't have anything cool like a tiger or a dragon for a wizard's familiar, all the options are for animals that can fit in a handbag. You'd essentially get a second character you can control, but none of the animals are actually great powerhouses so I wouldn't use them too much in combat since getting a new one is a pain (it involves waiting 1 week, paying 200 gold per level of your character, and then doing a ritual for 8 hours straight). The choice of animal gives you different bonuses. For example, a cat gives you +3 to Stealth while a monkey gives you +3 to Acrobatics. The standard list of familiars is here, plus a few more here. I can help you with the stats for a familiar if you choose this option.

Or you can make an Arcane Bond with an object. It can be an amulet, ring, staff, wand, or weapon. If you're wearing it or holding it, then once a day you can cast any spell in your spellbook, not just the ones you've prepared. If you cast a spell but you're not wearing or holding the bonded object then you have a greater chance at spell failure. If the item is destroyed then you have to do a special ritual to get a new one.

While we're discussing spells, I can see you picked Enchantment as your Arcane School, meaning your wizard is a specialist in this discipline. There are some things to consider when becoming a specialist versus a universalist wizard which I need to cover with you but I'll get to it in a bit. Also I think you have too many spells in your spellbook but I'll get to that also.

Anyway, you also need to pick a Campaign Trait for your character's background to connect her to the story of the campaign. They're listed in the Player Guide and the same information is in the Journal on Roll20. Since your character is supposed to be an outsider (and I assume isn't a high school football hero and can't be an Athletic Champion) then you're either a Rising Star, Taldan Patriot, or Young Reformer. From what you currently have in your character sheet then Rising Star may be the most appropriate.


I dunno, maybe your character is an expert magician making a name for herself? A world-class merchant? A middlingly successful romance novelist? Just throwing those out there. Or maybe your character is lying and is actually a secret member of one of the noble families, in which case the other Campaign traits open up for you.

The second thing. You don't need to put in anything since it's only for if your race has anything besides normal human senses, like seeing in the dark for half-orcs. But halflings just have regular human senses.

*coughs*

I, uh, did not notice this before. I also hear there's a slot open?

Give me, like, a day or two to make a character and I'm in.

Okay, I think I fixed my spell list.  I picked Abjuration and Necromancy as my opposed schools, because Goha views those as "cleric shit."
I don't understand enough about how leveling works in Pathfinder to bother with multiclassing (plus I don't really feel like min-maxing), so I'll leave that alone, for now at least.
I think I bought my gear correctly? Looking online it appeared that I got a couple of things for free due to my class and background.  I really wanted to buy a Masterwork Backpack to make up for my terrible Strength score, but I didn't know if that was allowed since it wasn't on the drag-and-drop list. Other than that, I think I'm ready--unless we're going to need trail supplies?