Overwhelmed? Struggling to create a character

[Troubles The Cat]

I don't play DnD the board game reeeeaaally. I'm used to playing games like Divinity original sin. This seemed like it was really cool, but I'm so so overwhelmed by the character creation and can't understand any of where to begin or what seems good or even what goes together. Seeing magic users use charisma and strength or whatever and all sorts just has me completely lost.

[mcolton1]

I would just pick one of the pre-made characters to start. You can always change things up later

[Frostfeather]

Well, you can just do whatever you want to go with if you have the difficulty turned down, which you'll probably want to. So my best advice is to create a character centered around a roleplay concept and keep the difficulty low... then turn it up later if you feel like it's too easy.

We can't really tell you what character/roleplay concept would appeal to you, and we can't really dump a massive post of Pathfinder rules on you without making you feel even more overwhelmed. But we can help you come up with a character idea if we have a starting point.

[Troubles The Cat]

Originally posted by night4:

Well, you can just do whatever you want to go with if you have the difficulty turned down, which you'll probably want to. So my best advice is to create a character centered around a roleplay concept and keep the difficulty low... then turn it up later if you feel like it's too easy.

We can't really tell you what character/roleplay concept would appeal to you, and we can't really dump a massive post of Pathfinder rules on you without making you feel even more overwhelmed. But we can help you come up with a character idea if we have a starting point.

Problem is all the kinda preconcieved knowledge and common knowledge I have makes no sense in this game it seems. I mean hell, a lot of the character stuff isn't even explained. I'm like right, I'll make a magic user, oh there's multiple magic type classes, erm, no idea what the differences are it's just telling me lore, hold on one is using dexterity? aaaaand I'm lost.

[Troubles The Cat]

Originally posted by mcolton1:

I would just pick one of the pre-made characters to start. You can always change things up later

I would, but no female magic user. Also I like tweaking things, I like my main character being exactly who I would wanna be

[Ilja]

If you want to start with spell caster, then I would recommend starting out with Wizard / Conjurer. That class is easy to manage.

Grab following feats when you can.
- Spell focus: Conjuration (required for next)
- Augment Summoning: Stronger summoned creatures.
- Superior Summoning: More summoned creatures, if spell has dice roll on it.

Conjurer is a hard start, but they will grow strong very fast. The prologue part is likely the hardest with any wizard. Summoner has easier way far later in the game. There can be some really nasty enemies swarming your team. Summoning couple of sets of strong creatures will keep them occupied, while you go smacking around most dangerous enemies - like spell casters.

Wizard is INT based character. They get more spells from high INT. Intelligence also affects on how many skills you get. Wizard doesn't get much, but he does get all the Knowledge and Lore skills as class skills. Those can get very useful in both dialogue checks and inspecting enemy weaknesses.

Otherwise just tell us what sort of character you would like to play and we can give some pointers how to get there.

Remember to check wiki as well. It explains these classes quite well.

https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Pathfinder:_Kingmaker_Wiki

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by ❅Lonely ♥♥♥♥♥ Cat❅:

Problem is all the kinda preconcieved knowledge and common knowledge I have makes no sense in this game it seems. I mean hell, a lot of the character stuff isn't even explained. I'm like right, I'll make a magic user, oh there's multiple magic type classes, erm, no idea what the differences are it's just telling me lore, hold on one is using dexterity? aaaaand I'm lost.

How about Sylvan Sorcerer? It's commonly recommended for beginners for a reason. Have high Charisma as that's your main stat. You get a pet to make things easier especially in the early game.

Remember you can respec your character after the intro area and at most any time after that. You're not locked in forever.

[Sidian]

The way i see it is:

Almost every class wants to focus on two abilities/attributes.

Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma are mainly for casters. You want to have one of those as high as possible, depending on your caster class. For example, Wizard uses Intelligence, Sorcerer uses Charisma and Druid uses Wisdom to cast spells. Some Archetypes scale with different stats (e.g. the Sage Sorcerer scales with Int instead of Cha).

In general, if you want to play a ranged class, you want Dexterity for damage. Even spell casters use Dexterity for "ranged touch spells" like rays. If you want to play a melee class, Strength is your go-to stat to deal damage and hit things. Melee touch spells use strength for their hit chance as well, just like ranged touch spells use Dex.

Constitution is somewhat important for everyone to avoid being killed to quickly, some classes even have abilities that scale with it.

And then you have exceptions to the general rule, like classes that use the Weapon Finesse feat to make certain melee weapons scale with Dex instead of Str (Rogues are a popular example for that), and classes that deal damage with bows might also want to get a few points in Strength if they use composite bows (since they scale their damage with Strength, but still use Dex for their hit chance).

So, in short, pure melee characters want to have Strength and Constitution (or Dexterity and Constitution if they use the Weapon Finesse feat). Pure casters want to have Dexterity and their spell attribute. Hybrid classes want to have either Strength and their spell attribute or Dexterity and their spell attribute, depending on if they are melee or ranged (e.g. Paladin uses Wisdom and Strength, Magus uses Intelligence and Strength, Eldritch Archer uses Intelligence and Dexterity).

Also, there are two different types of spell casters: Casters who use spell slots (like Wizards) and, well, casters who don't (like Sorcerers). The difference is that the spell slot users can learn and use more spells, but they have to select the spells they want to use and how often they want to use them in their spell book. The "spontaneous" casters have fewer spells but can use them more often between rests, and they have a pool of uses for each spell level instead for each spell.

Try to cover all skills with your entire group and usually focus on the skills where your characters already get bonusses, e.g. Wizards will have high Knowledge stats since they are based on Int and Wizards also get a class bonus on those stats.

[Jack Jester]

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[TheCr33pur]

Seeing magic users use charisma and strength? That cant be right, i know this isnt DnD, but they are different how they got their games setup. Idk are they Russia? Frankly i like DnD Cores much better, hell most other games got their ideas, etc dont even use the Alignments and they should and it play important roles in your party and actions.

Glad i didnt buy that Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, doesnt make much sense how they set things up over there. Look interesting, but i wouldnt like it how things are laid out.

[vysionier]

Originally posted by TheCr33pur:

Seeing magic users use charisma and strength? That cant be right, i know this isnt DnD, but they are different how they got their games setup. Idk are they Russia? Frankly i like DnD Cores much better, hell most other games got their ideas, etc dont even use the Alignments and they should and it play important roles in your party and actions.

Glad i didnt buy that Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, doesnt make much sense how they set things up over there. Look interesting, but i wouldnt like it how things are laid out.

You can have a str/cha caster in pathfinder, but it’s a niche setup designed for shape shifting spells. But In general, fighters use str, wizards use int, sorcerers and bards use cha, rogues use dex, priests use wis.

[jonnin]

If you are going to play this, it is worth your time to spend a little time learning the system.

breaking down D&D into a simple form, lets see what we have...
you have 4 main classes.
- fighters (heavy armor and weapons, hit stuff with them)
- clerics (buffs, heals, debuffs, summons, minor damage casting decent armor and weapons)
- mages (soft, easy to die, powerful spells/powerful AOE)
- rogues (sneak attacks, open locks/traps)

in traditional D&D (AD&D, 2.x, etc) every class was really an adaptation of the above templates, combining 2 or even 3 of the above into something new. For example a druid was a morphed cleric, a paladin is a fighter/cleric mix, an assassin is a fighter/rogue of sorts, and so on. Bards were somewhere between a rogue/mage and rogue/cleric, a little strange.

pathfinder adds to the above and has morphed out even more classes, but most of them still follow the above. Alchemist, kineticist and such can be a bit odd to try to fit in.

from there, you have picked a class, now you need to understand stats.
str - how much you can carry and how hard you hit with big heavy weapons, and so on.
dex- dodge, skill with ranged weapons, and precision weapons.
con- how tough you are
wis - strange mix of mental toughness, common sense, and understanding the divine
int - how smart you are
cha - how much other people/beings like you, a mix of beauty, personality, charm, etc

falling back on the traditional classes, fighters need str or dex or both, clerics use wis, mages use int, rogues use dex. Branched out morphed classes frequently have any kind of caster using cha instead of wis or int, like a bard or sorcerer.

skills in pathfinder are greatly nerfed down to just a few, and basically, you just need a good mix of those across your party. The skills are tied to stats, so a fighter might be good at athletics while a mage might be good at arcane knowledge because their stats match the stats needed for those skills. Easy enough to get good scores in each skill across a full party... this is the least of your worries, though you may want a mega buffed up character to pop traps if not using a +level to skill class for that and your main character is well off to be rather persuasive / cha based....

that leaves feats. Feats are advanced, and each class has builds from these choices that lead to great power. It will take a while to learn how to apply them but in general you can play on easier difficulty with bad choices, just take things that seem to make sense, eg a fighter should take stuff like better using weapons, not better opening locks....

This is a very simple get started cut... its obviously complex and rich with choices and builds. But everything just branches out from here... hopefully it helps understand most of the starting concepts.

[Sotnik]

For a magic user it is simpler to play as a Sorcerer. Main stat is Charisma. You choose new spells on level up. Spells of the same level share "mana pool" (1 point to cast 1 spell).

[Zalie]

I would say just pick a class (any class) and just go from there. Don't worry about reading up on all the classes, subclasses, feats, skills, etc and just take things as they come. It is generally easier to learn as you go and learn a few new things at a time, maybe even play on a lower difficulty first time around.

I can understand though if you feel lost. When i started playing this game i probaly spent some 30 min just reading up in character creation before just giving up and just picked a class, and i have played loads of game like this in the past...

[heskyttberg]

He has a point even if your used to rules and played before, like I played BG series, Icewind Dale. I even played them again when they came to PS4. But I still don't remember all magic schools by heart. So just a little text under explaining what kind of spells are under each school would have been very helpful. So I don't have to google them to remember what they all do, some you understand from the name but not others.