Hi,
So i am trying to teach myself the new system by building a dwarf fighter. I started at level 1 and have been going level by level. I just hit level 5 and get 4 free ability boosts. I boosted strength to 19, constitution to 18, Dexterity to 14 and wisdom to 16.
Constitution is the problem. So far I have been adding 13 hit points per level when I level up (10 from fighter and 3 from con modifier). When I increase my con at 5th level do i retroactively get more hit points for my previous level (like you would in 1st edition) or do i only starting getting the extra hp at 5th level.
I scoured the rule book for every mention of increasing hp and boosting con and found nothing. Any thoughts?
I've been wondering the same thing. Also, I've been wondering whether boosting your intelligence by +2 would give you an extra trained skill, or give you an extra language if you boosted it to 14. The Playtest Rulebook doesn't seem to cover these cases.
'Potent' items do give you retroactive benefits (with the possible exception of bonus language), which implies it should probably be retroactive in general, but that isn't stated anywhere.
When you invest an item that has the potent trait, it improves one of your ability scores, either increasing it by 2 or increasing it to a total of 18, whichever grants the higher score. This gives you the benefits of the new ability score: increasing Intelligence lets you become trained in an additional skill, increasing Charisma adds to your Resonance Points, increasing Constitution gives you more Hit Points, and so on. These benefits go away once the investiture runs out.
According to the 5th-level pregenerated iconics stats, Increasing Con retroactively increases the number of bonus HP you get, which is how increasing Con worked in Pathfinder 1E.
Or, to put it another way: When calculating your character's HP, take the points granted by your Ancestry, add Class HP x your Level, and add your Con modifier x your Level.
As an example, the 5th-Level Valeros (Human, Fighter) has the following HP breakdown
Ancestry (Human): 8 HP
Class (Fighter): 10 HP/level
Constitution 14 (+2): 2 HP/level
For a total of 68 HP (8 + 50 + 10).