I need a flow chart or a quiz to help me figure out which class i want to play.

[Mittens the Maleficent]

there is just so .. so .. many choices lol.

[PainkillerDCXVI]

Spend the next two to three hours reading about the classes and features like everyone else lol.

[Mittens the Maleficent]

yeah ha ha ha thats what im doing right now, i shut the game down when i realized i was going to just have to study up on this. thats when i thought ♥♥♥♥.. i could use a flow chart or something here lol. im looking at the blood ranger class but i keep looking at all the other classes as well and im like.. they all sound so cool.

[Mittens the Maleficent]

Chat GPT came up with this for me thou.

Creating a flowchart for choosing a class in "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous" involves considering various factors like playstyle preference, party composition, and personal preferences. Here's a simplified flowchart to help you decide:

Do you prefer to deal damage from a distance or up close?

Yes (Ranged): Consider Ranger, Sorcerer (Archer), or Rogue (Ranged).
No (Melee): Move to question 2.
Do you prefer to be heavily armored and in the front line, or more agile and nimble?

Heavy Armor: Consider Fighter, Paladin, or Barbarian.
Agile/Nimble: Move to question 3.
Do you want to cast spells and support allies, or focus more on physical combat?

Spells/Support: Consider Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, or Bard.
Physical Combat: Move to question 4.
Do you prefer stealth and precision strikes, or brute force and durability?

Stealth/Precision: Consider Rogue, Monk, or Ranger.
Brute Force/Durability: Consider Barbarian, Fighter, or Paladin.
Consider your role in a party:

Tank (Absorb Damage): Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian.
Damage Dealer (High DPS): Ranger, Sorcerer, Rogue.
Support/Healer (Buff/Heal Allies): Cleric, Bard, Druid.
Final Decision:

Based on your answers, choose a class that matches your preferences and complements your party composition.
This flowchart aims to guide you towards a class that aligns with how you like to play and what your group might benefit from. Remember, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous allows for diverse character builds, so feel free to customize further based on specific abilities and feats that interest you!

[Mugiwara]

First playthrough? Pick a basic concept. Ie spell caster go for wizard, sorcerer or cleric. Most are variations of a theme, a hybrid class or do something a little unique.

Simple breakdown:

Fighter - standard melee class
Paladin - Mostly fighter, slightly cleric
Warpriest - Hybrid Fighter & Cleric
Rogue - Standard Thief type
Slayer - Assassin type
Ranger - Off shoot fighter class with some cleric spells
Hunter - Part ranger part cleric
Barbarian - Off shoot fighter class with raging mechanics
Bloodrager - Hybrid Mage & Barbarian Class
Cavalier - Knight with a mount
Magus - Fighter & Mage hybrid
Cleric - Typical D&D Buffer & Healer with some Offensive spells. Can also fight frontlines.
Oracle - As above but hey cast spontaneously
Wizard - Typical D&D Mage
Sorcerer - As above but spontaneous caster
Witch - Kind of a mix of all the above spellcasters but also have hexes and curses.
Arcanist - Kind of a cross between Wizard & Sorcerer. Also healer variants.
Druid - Healer and buffer type similar to cleric, but with pets
Shaman - Similar to Druid but depending on the archetype chosen is what it will hybridise with
Alchemist - Buffer and bomber
Inquisitor - Hard to pinpoint this one but a jack of all trades so to speak
Monk - Unarmed fighter
Kineticist - Like a magic monk

No doubt I have missed a few of the header classes and havn't included the prestige classes because yes there are loads. The additional archetypes under each headed class tend to vary the playstyle further. So back to my first question if its a first playthrough pick a class you think you will enjoy and dont sweat the rest for now. You can always hire mercs when you get curious to learn more and see how these classes play.

Edit:

Missed Bards & Skalds, like Inquisitors they are jack of all trades

[Mittens the Maleficent]

ahh good point about how i can always hire mercs when i et curious to learn more and see how the other classes play. the rest of your simple breakdowns for each class helps a LOT. thank you so much.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Mittens the Maleficent:

there is just so .. so .. many choices lol.

So, basics:

Every class can be a swordsman or archer. Every class can be a tank. Every class can use magic items. Every class can sneak. Every class can locate traps. Every class can disarm traps. And so forth. Certain classes specialize, definitely, but you can make anything into anything if you really try and are willing to accept "suboptimal" results.

Same with Races. It is notable that the assimar and tiefling are superior options for racial choices, and in the Pathfinder pen & paper, you'd only be able to select them with a penalty that this game does not impose.

All classes are essentially variations and combinations of the core 4: Warrior, thief, cleric, and Wizard.

BAB is low, med, high. warrior types will be high BAB, since it adds to hit and CMB and determines bonus attacks, while mages will be low because they get their offensive power from spells. You'll notice the classes with higher levels of spell access, will often have lower BAB. The exception, at first glance is the cleric/oracle, but those classes have access to less offensive spells within their spell lists (mostly heals, buffs and debuffs). Thief variations will likely have more skill points per level, and more class skills than warriors or mages, but are often lacking in both BAB and spells.

Ability scores...your casting stat needs to be 10+spell level to cast spells, so if you have access to 9th level spells, your caster will eventually need to have 19 in that casting stat. But the game doesn't force your wizard to actually be able to cast spells, it's all up to you and your build.

Things being a "class skill" adds +3 to using it if you put ranks in it. Some skills can't be used if you don't have ranks in them (like trickery), while others can be used without any investment (like athletics). Worn Armor and shields will impose an armor check penalty on skills that use Str or Dex.

If you take weapon focus at 1st level, this game almost always has a cold iron version of that weapon available in a chest just before the first combat of the entire game. You can only take weapon focus, normally, if you have BAB +1, which means only high BAB characters can do this at 1st level (warpriest and a few others can take weapon focus without needing prerequisites).

Hope that helps.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by Mugiwara:

Missed Bards & Skalds, like Inquisitors they are jack of all trades

They´re also the ones which aren´t covered by the companions You meet in the game.

Topic:

Don´t go for a glass canon build, or You will be frustrated. While in general: classes which look tanky -> aren´t tanky. Classes which look squishy -> are tanky.

Like strength is more for damage and hitting people, and dex is more for defense, like most of the buffs and spells.

And i guess like half of the feats and abilities, if not more - are not use- or helpful in the game at all, and most people wouldn´t take them. Same as with the class choices. It only looks much on paper, but if they would take 60% of them out of the game, most people wouldn´t miss them, and only complain about it, for the sake of complaining. Depends a bit on difficulty, but if You play above story mode. You have like a set couple of abilities which everyone takes with a certain class to make them work.

It´s called mathfinder by some for a reason. It´s about stacking buffs and comparing numbers, while owlcat pushed it to the absolute extremes, when some enemies only have one counter, and You need to buff everything, to feel somehow safe.

[jonnin]

Well, lets go way, way back to D&D original release. You had fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue.
That is very much still true today, in this 20th generation version of that game. Every class is one of those 4 or a hybrid of 2 or more of those 4, and the hybrids are just specialized versions of 'true multi-classing' where you spend 50% of your levels across 2 classes, eg a level 10 mage/thief, or the dreaded triple splits (eg fighter-mage-thief) which leveled up so slowly no one much used them back then.

This will get you where you want to be, as weird and obscure as it probably seems so far.
Pick 1 or 2 of those 4 roles for your character's training and style.
that narrows it way down, and then you can re-examine your game info sources to get a list of what qualifies for your picks, and narrow it down first to a class, and then to a subclass of that.

Its a little more research now because its branched out so far... eg the witch spell list would give anyone pause trying to figure out if they are a cleric or a mage based caster, and a couple of other places like that will make it a little more effort than it used to be, but even so, its a starting point that will serve you well I hope.

If you want to multiclass, though, its going to be a steep learning curve. Lots of things should work, but don't, and lots of other things work, but should not. Between them, its a mess.

[ṣ̷h̵ệ̵p̷.̷ ̸😈]

Pathfinder is a horrifically mathematically crunchy game. If you don't have the time or patience for all that then I recommend going to CRPGbro's youtube channel and picking a build that seems interesting form the PF playlist.

[SapphicSpider]

Originally posted by Mittens the Maleficent:

there is just so .. so .. many choices lol.

If you want something thematically appropriate a wizard or caster of some kind would be appropriate. If you wanna be super efficient about stuff you get, the ability to shoot a bow is super important, and at one point you get a very neat sword (and another neat sword later on!)

Otherwise it's just about play style. You can build yourself around buffing, or debuffing, or healing, or artillery casting, or ranged attacks, or melee. A lot of the non-turn based play can be broken down into "pre-buff at the beginning of a dungeon and then just click through it until you run into a difficult fight or puzzle to solve." so most of the class feature stuff only really comes into play for higher difficulty or turn based. Otherwise there's no reason *not* to just stack a bunch of buffs, go melee, and then stack feats that let you and other melee attack 10 times a round chaining off of each others crits with your like 8 opp attacks per round of combat.

[Shadow]

My advice, don't worry about the math yet. First decide what kind of character you'd like to be. A spellcaster? A fighter? A holy man? A hunter, or maybe assassin type? A scientist or scholar?

Once you get a general idea of what kind of character you want to aim for, then you can look at the classes and sort out which ones fit the description, then examine the subclasses to really dial it in. And keep in mind, you can multiclass as you level to get as close as feasibly possible within the game rules to the character you're picturing.

Remember, it's an RPG. The classes are just a game mechanic intended to help you bring your character that you created to life within the game world. It's a complete reversal in perspective from a game like say, Overwatch or Diablo, where you're selecting a pre-existing character that somebody else created.

[Teddy]

Sometimes I get inspired by just looking at the portraits. But I have a wide range of custom portraits to choose from.

[Toxic Spammer]

personally I like to make my characters high int, so that makes it easy to choose a class after that

[CHAO$$$]

If you want Angel or lich mythic you should pick these:

Angel? > divine caster namely wildlands shaman is the best option, eccelsithurge is the best cleric, dont bother with oracle unless you have a very specific build based around oracle uniques in mind, druids are sadness
merge spellboks with angel to be op

Lich > arcane caster namely Brown fur transmuter (arcanist) is the best, sylvan sorcerer is good for beginners, wizards are generally worse than that
merge spellbooks with lich

The other paths are much more flexible

Trickster probably wants a martial and gets neat bonuses for sneak attackers.
Azata arguably gets his best features with spellcasters.

But yea neither of these 2 nor the others really want a specific class. Angel and Lich really do tho.

[DragonNoz]

I'm considering doing a first playthrough myself, but I'm a bit paralyzed at the choices: several I think are cool: Mutation Warrior fighter, Drunken Master Monk, Invulnerable Rager Barbarian... probably the Mutation Warrior or Invulnerable Rager to start, huh? 'cause they're both easy to build around.