I use a lot of randomization in setting up my characters, because I've noticed that I tend to gravitate toward samey characters if I don't. For PFS2 I wrote a program that picks a random ancestry, heritage, background, and class specialization, and applies semi-random boosts (making sure boosts get allocated to get the key stat up to at least 16). This is how I've wound up with an elven wizard who spends a lot of time in melee and a warpriest of Desna.
For my third PFS2 character, it was a mixture of mechanics and randomization. I knew I wanted to try out the witch class, and use the Hao Jin Tapestry Refugee background, and either use a versatile heritage or one of the boon ancestries. I now have a musetouched aasimar goblin.
For those of us, like me, who can't make up their mind where to start, I've made a random 2e character generator. It uses the core rulebook only, and I have no plans to expand it, but I lay out the method it uses there so that you can apply it to whatever pool of ancestries etc. you want.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it looks like I have an arctic elf abjurer to finish putting together...
Welcome, players! Please sign in with the following:
Player name: Character name: PFS #: Faction: Day job: Character sheet if on a different site: Any unusual mechanics you want to warn me about in advance:
Greetings, players! Please check in with the following:
Player name: Character sheet if somewhere other than your Paizo page: PFS #: Faction: Day job roll: Any odd character mechanics you want to warn me about in advance:
Greetings, players! Please check in with the following:
Player name: Character sheet if somewhere other than your Paizo page: PFS #: Faction: Day job roll: Any odd character mechanics you want to warn me about in advance:
It is a chilly day in Daggermark as you gather at Dryblade House. The venture-captain is speaking to someone in his office and will be with you shortly.
It is a chilly day in Daggermark as you gather at Dryblade House. The venture-captain is speaking to someone in his office and will be with you shortly.
Greetings, players! Please check in with the following:
Player name: Character sheet if somewhere other than your Paizo page: PFS #: Faction: Day job roll: Any odd mechanics you want to warn me about in advance:
The early morning sun illuminates the edge of Mishkar, a bustling human town built of stone and wood in a mixture of Varisian and Taldan styles.
The town of Mishkar sits atop a hill, surrounded by walls that are old but well maintained. People, mostly humans, stream in and out of the gates, watched over by sharp-eyed guards. Past the gate is a bustling market, beyond which is a town of low wooden and stone buildings. Most of the construction looks fairly new and of human design, with no sign of the cyclops remnants upon which most Iobarian settlements are built.
The letter that has sent you on this mission reads thus:
"Pathfinders,
As you are no doubt aware, the Fifth Mendevian Crusade has won significant victories of late with the help of our own Society, and in the wake of these victories, we have discovered a number of old Sarkorian sites about which there is great mystery. We are trying to track down some of the original inhabitants of these sites, or their descendants, in the hopes that they will be able to shed some light on the history and significance of these locations, and perhaps we could even help them resettle their old lands!
It is to that end that I am dispatching you to the town of Mishkar in Iobaria, where our agents have discovered that a survivor of the Farheaven Clan is said to dwell. According to our sources, she goes by the name Nelket, and it is my hope that she can speak about her clan's history, or point you to someone who can. Learn what you can, and bring the information back to the Society. If you can bring Nelket or some of her kinfolk with you, all the better.
I do not expect you will face much difficulty in this task. However, Iobaria is a wild and dangerous land, so be on your guard.
Inheritor's grace be with you,
Venture-Captain Jorsal of Lauterbury"
I'm just noticing now how much language learning is limited in the playtest compared to 1e. No Linguistics skill, maximum 1 extra language if you have high Int, Potion of Tongues is hella expensive. I'm not going to complain about that here; I think if it's been dialed down too far that's something that's only going to emerge after a season or two of 2e and seeing if there are too many mismatches between what a scenario makes use of and what a party can speak.
But here's one thing that immediately doesn't make sense to me: languages spoken by many nonhuman races are common, whereas all human languages but one are uncommon. I feel like it shouldn't be harder for an adventurer to have visited the massive empire of Kelesh or one of the large number of Lung Wa successor states than to have lived among giants or ogres, for instance, long enough to have picked up their language.
I'm not arguing for all regional languages to be common, but the ones associated with major political entities ought to be.
The new character creation system feels like the fight to avoid samey characters will be tougher than ever, but let's see how much randomization will help us out.
1. Start with either 10s or 4d6-minus-lowest.
2. 1d6 for Ancestry. Roll 1d6 to select the stat for free ability boosts.
3. 1d19 for Background. 1d2 when you have two choices for a boost, and 1d6 for free ones, rerolling if the ability selected is already 18.
4. 4 x 1d6 for free boosts. Re-roll if the ability selected is already 18.
5. Select class and feats.
6. Come up with a plausible story. See how far you can stretch the background in particular.
Stats so far: Str 12 Dex 12 Con 10 Int 18 Wis 12 Cha 14
Class selection is a little more interesting because you want to pick something where your key stat isn't 18 already. So let's look for one that has Intelligence as a secondary... uh... damn. All right, let's at least embrace the opportunity for skill-monkey-ing and make them a bard with the Polymath muse.
Character story: Advika was born in Vudra and claims to have visited every one of the more than 100 kingdoms by the time e was 12. E comes from a family of travelling entertainers, and inherited a full measure of wanderlust from both eir parents. After striking out on eir own, e travelled with Keleshite caravans for several years as a guard and jack-of-all-trades and became comfortable with the company of animals as well as humans. Now e may be found with an adventuring party or exploring by emself, practicing a cheerful tune for the entertainment of only a pack animal.
[Edited to change pronouns after it occurred to me that if I'm going all in on the character concept of someone who is pursuing enlightenment in all things, e ought to be enby and pansexual as well.]
I got a chronicle sheet at a con a few days ago that I'm only just now getting a chance to look at in detail. It's got an item with no cost listed. How is this resolved, in general?
In this particular case, the scenario was #5-15 Destiny of the Sands, part 2 and the item is
It just occurred to me... is the method of setting up initial stats with a point buy going to change? Is the number of points going to change? I'm fine with the current method, but since everything else is undergoing big changes, have we heard anything about this?
Since everyone is posting what they most dearly want to see in 2e even if it is clearly impossible, here's something I'd love:
Could there not be so much artwork of the "fully clothed man in anatomically plausible pose, woman in skimpy outfit or weirdly shaped armor contorted into a position designed to show off her female attributes" type? Like maybe at least not have it right on the cover of the one rulebook everyone has to buy?
(I see the playtest cover art is already visible, so I accept that the battle for sensibly dressed women is lost until actual 2e.)
After hearing about VTTs, I thought I might like to try playing a VTT game. Looking for PFS games on Fantasy Grounds and Roll20, it looks like there's not much going on, though. Is everything happening on some other site, or are there a lot of games going on which are private, or at least not visible to someone without a paid account?
When I made this post here, the dice results were 246, 4, 1, 2, 2, and 1. They changed at some point, I think between Sunday and this morning. It doesn't seem to have affected any other posts I've made recently. What might have happened?
I like to roll up random ability scores when I start a new character. For my first PFS one, I came up with a complicated approach involving picking the numbers one by one and recalculating the range of available ones after each step. Since then, and after looking around at other proposed methods, it's occurred to me that there's a much simpler way to go about it, which I intend to use for all my future characters.
1. Make a list of all possible legal combinations of scores.
3. Create a random permutation by selecting 1 of 6, 1 of the remaining 5, etc.
1d6 ⇒ 4
10, 10, 12, [13], 14, 16 => Strength 13
1d5 ⇒ 4
[10], 10, 12, 14, 16 => Dexterity 10
1d4 ⇒ 3
10, [12], 14, 16 => Constitution 12
1d3 ⇒ 3
10, [14], 16 => Intelligence 14
1d2 ⇒ 2
[10], 16 => Wisdom 10
Charisma 16
4. Stop and make a character, because if you give in to the urge to reroll, you might as well just decide without the dice.
So if I went with a nagaji, the strength boost might make one of the charisma-based fightery classes workable. A serpentine skald sounds interesting...
I have a character set up and can post to messageboards as that character. But I can't figure out how to set an avatar icon for the character. The character doesn't appear in the "Messageboard Aliases" section of "My Account" and I can't find any options on the character page for adding an icon. Help?
Someone I know is thinking of trying out PFS with a cleric character. They're going to be using the Core material from the PRD if so. I was just looking at the cleric class description so I can help them out if they decide to take the plunge, and came across something I'm not sure how they should handle.
Clerics have to either select a deity and pick from the deity's domains, or have no specific deity and pick "two domains to represent her spiritual inclinations and abilities (subject to GM approval)". There are no deities in the Core section of the PRD, and with the possibility of GM rulings varying... how is this handled? Will they have to buy a copy of the Core Rulebook in order to be able to use one of the deities in that in play? Are invented deities permitted? Is there something I'm completely misunderstanding?
Hi, total newbie here. I'm planning to try out Pathfinder for the first time at my local gaming con (Game Storm) in a couple weeks. I've read the online documents and created a character.
Looking at the con schedule, nearly all of the low-level Pathfinder sessions are including pre-generated characters. Is this a rule of some scenarios that you can only use the provided characters? If not, is it general practice to allow someone to play a custom character, or will most GMs insist on sticking with the pregens?
(Signups start well before the con, so if I wait until then to ask, I'm afraid I'll miss my chance to sign up. But I don't want to take up a signup slot away from someone else if it turns out I can't bring my custom character. And no, the signup system doesn't provide any way to ask a GM a question directly.)
Hi, I'm a newbie planning to try out Pathfinder for the first time at Game Storm. I noticed most of the low-level adventures are listed in the con schedule as having pregenerated characters provided. Can I bring my own character, or are those sessions limited to pregens only?
Newbie here. My local gaming con always has a bunch of Pathfinder Society sessions, so I thought I'd dip a toe in the water this year. I'm trying to create a character with the online documentation, but I got stuck here:
The number of skill ranks my wizard character has available at level 1 is "2 + Int modifier". Okay, but what's the Int modifier?? The table just links back to the basic definition of Intelligence. I've been back and forth through the documentation. tried the search, and can't find anything explaining how to calculate the modifier.
