Doomsday Dawn Part 2 character creation time

[Ironwedge]

I made a character for Part 2 of Doomsday Dawn. I made an elf alchemist, scholar background. It took me about 3 hours from blank sheet to finished. I find it is taking me a long time to wrap my head around how a character is all put together. Ancestry, class, background, skill selection, feat selection, feat progressions, alchemical formulas (in this case), buying gear, and polishing off the roleplay aspects (name, deity, etc.) and how all these things interrelate with one another is a lot to look up and compare.

One thing I find taking longer is ancestry selection because unlike PF1, I don't get all the abilities a race offers at 1st level. There is a feat progression in ancestry as well. These feats can sometimes make other things available, such as Otherworldly Magic, which I took, so I had to look up Cantrips too.

For my skill feat, I took Arcane Sense, which gave Detect Magic. It didn't take me long to decide on this feat as I was wanting to push my character in a more magical direction. I didn't really read up on many others I could have taken.

Class feat selection and progression took me the longest, because I chose to make an alchemist that did not throw bombs, but I wanted to make a poisoner that shot arrows/threw daggers. So many feats, especially low level ones, only apply to bombs that I felt very confined to my choices, but still in comparing what I wanted versus what was available, I found myself taking a long time to make the choices.

In buying my gear, I had a very hard time trying to stay under the encumbered Bulk number, since my strength was only 10. I finally settled on being encumbered and ended up with 5 Bulk by the time I got my Alchemist Tools, Formula Book, Shortbow, daggers, and studded leather armor.

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider!

[Klamachpin]

I too am having a hard time navigating the book as it is currently written for character creation. I imagine this is less of an issue for players that have time to delve into the book and learn all the intricacies, but I'm very casual, and want to be able to create a playable character within one session (about 3 hours). So far, I have not been able to do that.

The placement of specific rules in sidebars or within general information paragraphs is the most vexing piece, followed closely by not having brief 3-7 word descriptions of what various feats do within reference tables. Simply putting feats in skill categories is not enough, since each skill has multiple applications.

Gear and magic item selection are also issues, since by the time I get to the gear section I just want to be done with character creation and get to playing. A magic item table by level and rarity (with brief 3-7 word descriptions) would help greatly. Mundane gear with the bulk rules becomes a hassle of too many calculations and no general starting point shown.

After reluctantly delving into the mundane gear I've come up with a potential starting point which I'll be using for characters going forward in the form of an "Adventurers' Essentials Kit", which is just a common collection of mundane items that neatly calculate as described below:

Adventurer's Essentials Kit - 35 sp, 1 Bulk; contains a Backpack, Bedroll, 2 Belt Pouches, 10 pieces Chalk, 3 sets of Clothing (Ordinary), Flint & Steel, Lantern (Hooded), 3 pints Oil, Mug, 3 days Rations, 50' Silk Rope, 5 Sacks, 1 Sheath, 1 Tent (Pup), 10 Torches, and a Waterskin.

As a starting point I'd like to see something like this in explicitly pointed out in the rulebook, along with effective reference tables, so new players or casual players like myself can get past the minutia easily and start playing the game quicker!

[Draco18s]

I measured to the minute how long it took me to make my chapter 3 character.

210 almost exactly. Started about 10 minutes after 9pm and finished at 12:38 (with only a handful of minutes spent on Discord going "I have created a monster")

And that was already knowing what class and race I was going to be and merely looking at the list of available feats, spells, and equipment. Spells and equipment (combined) took about a half hour (as there's virtually no equipment to choose from).