Some quick questions about Pathfinders character creation.

[Moonkis]

Hello all, today is my first time playing Pathfinder.

I had some questions about:

- Buying Attributes
- Buying Skillranks

First things first:
We are going with buying option were everyone starts with 10 ( modifies with racial bonuses ) and then spends points.

I'm assuming that lowering your attributes from the racial bonuses don't grant you any extra points. But when you want to buy a skill from level 7 to level 8 do you ignore the -x and just pay x? Because you can't actually get skill points from BUYING a higher skill level.

Also the rules says an attribute can't go below 7 does this only applies in character creation? including racial bonuses?

Second things second:
When buying skill ranks after you level the rules say you skill limit is limited by your Hit Dice. For a Player Character this is equal to there total level? One skill rank cost one point, correct?

Also other skills besides your favored class they also costs the same? Because I remember in some other D20 game that the favored class skills only costed 1 but your other class skills costed 2 per rank, this is not the case in Pathfinder?

Is there a limit of how many classes you can have? ( Multiclassing )

Additional Question:
I'm going to play a Dwarven Sorcerer, which by the rules is not ideal.
My question is how hard is the game rules going to punish me for not going with an ideal class? Is it still going to be possible to play a good sorcerer ( although it wont be as optimized as the ideal class/race combo. ) or is it going to punish me hard and make the character near to useless?

Thanks for your time and I'm eagerly awaiting your responses.

[Michael Foster 989]

Effectively im answering your questions in reverse order because I figured your most important question was if your dwarf would be effective.

Mechanically the -2 cha will mean instead of getting a 18-20 max charisma at level 1 you get a 16 which lowers your save DC's by 2 and thats about it, you lose out on bonus spells at spell levels (4 and 5) which is quite late in your development (as a sorcerer you get level 3 spells at character level 6 so I wouldnt worry too much about the lost charisma).

This means effectively that monsters have a slightly easier time saving against your spells that allow saves (although you can always use spells that dont allow saves to counter this). I run 16 Charisma sorcerers all the time and they have no issues being mechanically useful.

There is no limit to the number of classes you can have for multiclassing

Every skill costs 1 point in pathfinder, the difference from 3.5 is that class skills get a +3 bonus if you have 1 rank in them.

Character level is effectively hit dice (basically the total of all your class levels is the maximum number of ranks you get)

Racial modifiers are applied AFTER you pay for your attribute points.

[wraithstrike]

You can't buy away racial bonuses or penalties they are added on at the end.

As for the extra ability point you get at levels 4 and 8 those are 1 for one, and are not regulated by the point by scale.

As an example if I have a score of 17 in strength at level 7, and I go to level 8 I can make that 17 into an 18.

Your limit in skills ranks is the same as your total level and skill ranks are cost one point.

Pathfinder got rid of cross-class skills. You never pay more than one point, but if you put 1 point/rank into a class skill you get a +3 bonus to that skill.
If you multiclass then anytime you level up a skill from either class is always a class skill.

You can make any race and class combo work, even though some races are better for certain things than other.