Source Core Rulebook pg. 18-19

In Pathfinder, the players take on the role of player characters (PCs), while the Game Master portrays nonplayer characters (NPCs) and monsters. While PCs and NPCs are both important to the story, they serve very different purposes in the game. PCs are the protagonists— the narrative is about them—while NPCs and monsters are allies, contacts, adversaries, and villains. That said, PCs, NPCs, and monsters share several characteristics.

Level is one of the most important statistics of the game, as it conveys the approximate power and capabilities of every individual creature. PCs range in level from 1st, at the start of the character’s adventuring career, to 20th, the very height of power. As the characters overcome challenges, defeat foes, and complete adventures, they accumulate Experience Points (XP). Every time a character amasses 1,200 XP, they go up a level, gaining new abilities so they can take on even greater challenges. A 1st-level PC might face off against a giant rat or a group of bandits, but at 20th level, that same character might be able to bring ruin to an entire city with a single spell.

In addition to level, characters are defined by ability scores, which measure a character’s raw potential and are used to calculate most of their other statistics. There are six ability scores in the game. Strength represents a character’s physical might, while Dexterity represents agility and the ability to avoid danger. Constitution indicates a character’s overall health and well-being. Intelligence represents raw knowledge and problem-solving ability, while Wisdom measures a character’s insight and the ability to evaluate a situation. Finally, Charisma indicates charm, persuasiveness, and force of personality. Ability scores for ordinary folk range from as low as 3 to as high as 18, with 10 representing average human capabilities. High-level characters can have ability scores that range much higher than 18.

An ability score that’s above the average increases your chance of success at tasks related to the ability score, while those below the average decrease your chance. This adjustment is called an ability modifier.

Your player character is also defined by some key choices you make. The first choice is a PC’s ancestry, representing the character’s parents and heritage, such as human, elf, or goblin. Next up is the PC’s background, which describes their upbringing, from lowly street urchin to wealthy noble. Finally, and most importantly, a PC’s class defines the majority of their aptitudes and abilities, like a wizard’s command of powerful arcane spells or a druid’s power to transform into a fearsome beast!

In addition to these key choices, player characters also have a number of feats— individual abilities selected during character creation and as the character increases in level. Every feat has a type to denote where its explanation can be found and its theme. Finally, characters have skills that measure their ability to hide, swim, bargain, and perform other common tasks.

Character Creation

Unless you’re the GM, the first thing you need to do when playing Pathfinder is create your character. It’s up to you to imagine your character’s past experiences, personality, and worldview, and this will set the stage for your roleplaying during the game. You’ll use the game’s mechanics to determine your character’s ability to perform various tasks and use special abilities during the game.

This section provides a step-by-step guide for creating a character using the Pathfinder rules. The steps of character creation are presented in a suggested order, but you can complete them in whatever order you prefer.

The character sheet is designed to be easy to use when you’re actually playing the game—but creating a character happens in a different order, so you’ll move back and forth through the character sheet as you go through the character creation process. Additionally, the character sheet includes every field you might need, even though not all characters will have something to put in each field. If a field on your character sheet is not applicable to your character, just leave that field blank.

Create a Concept

What sort of hero do you want to play? The answer to this question might be as simple as “a brave warrior,” or as complicated as “the child of elven wanderers, but raised in a city dominated by humans and devoted to the Sun Maiden, goddess of the sun.” Consider your character’s personality, sketch out a few details about their past, and think about how and why they adventure. You’ll want to peruse Pathfinder’s available ancestries, backgrounds, and classes. Before a game begins, it’s also a good idea for the players to discuss how their characters might know each other and how they’ll work together throughout the course of their adventures.

There are many ways to approach your character concept. Once you have a good idea of the character you’d like to play, move on to Step 2 to start building your character.

Ancestry, Background, Class, or Details

If one of Pathfinder’s character ancestries, backgrounds, or classes particularly intrigues you, it’s easy to build a character concept around these options. Each ancestry also has several heritages that might refine your concept further, such as a human with an elf or orc parent, or an arctic or woodland elf. Additionally, the game has many backgrounds to choose from, representing your character’s upbringing, their family’s livelihood, or their earliest profession.

Building a character around a specific ancestry, background, or class can be a fun way to interact with the world’s lore. Would you like to build a typical member of your character’s ancestry or class, as described in the relevant entry, or would you prefer to play a character who defies commonly held notions about their people? For example, you could play a dwarf with a wide-eyed sense of wonder and a zest for change, or a performing rogue capable of amazing acrobatic feats but with little interest in sneaking about.

You can draw your concept from any aspect of a character’s details. You can use roleplaying to challenge not only the norms of Pathfinder’s fictional world, but even real-life societal norms. Your character might challenge gender notions, explore cultural identity, have a disability, or any combination of these suggestions. Your character can live any life you see fit.

Faith

Perhaps you’d like to play a character who is a devout follower of a specific deity. Pathfinder is a rich world with myriad faiths and philosophies spanning a wide range, from the Wanderer, the Drunken Hero of good-hearted adventuring; to the Lady of Love, the Song of Spheres and goddess of dreaming and the stars; to the Inheritor, goddess of honor, justice, and rulership. Your character might be so drawn to a particular faith that you decide they should be a champion or cleric of that deity; they might instead be a lay worshipper who applies their faith’s teachings to daily life, or simply the child of devout parents.

Your Allies

You might want to coordinate with other players when forming your character concept. Your characters could have something in common already; perhaps they are relatives, or travelers from the same village. You might discuss mechanical aspects with the other players, creating characters whose combat abilities complement each other. In the latter case, it can be helpful for a party to include characters who deal damage, characters who can absorb damage, and characters who can provide healing. However, Pathfinder’s classes include a lot of choices, and there are many options for building each type of character, so don’t let these broad categories restrict your decisions.

Start Building Ability Scores

At this point, you need to start building your character’s ability scores. Your character’s ability scores each start at 10, and as you select your ancestry, background, and class, you’ll apply ability boosts, which increase a score by 2, and ability flaws, which decrease a score by 2. At this point, just note a 10 in each ability score and familiarize yourself with the rules for ability boosts and flaws on page 20. This is also a good time to identify which ability scores will be most important to your character.

Select an Ancestry

Select an ancestry for your character. Ancestry determines your character’s size, Speed, and languages, and contributes to their Hit Points. Each also grants ability boosts and ability flaws to represent the ancestry’s basic capabilities. You’ll make four decisions when you select your character’s ancestry:

• Pick the ancestry itself. 
• Assign any free ability boosts and decide if you are taking any voluntary flaws. 
• Select a heritage from those available within that ancestry, further defining the traits your character was born with. 
• Choose an ancestry feat, representing an ability your hero learned at an early age.

Pick a Background

Your character’s background might represent their upbringing, an aptitude they’ve been honing since their youth, or another aspect of their life before they became an adventurer. They typically provide two ability boosts (one that can be applied to either of two specific ability scores, and one that is free), training in a specific skill, training in a Lore skill, and a specific skill feat.

Choose a Class

At this point, you need to decide your character’s class. A class gives your character access to a suite of heroic abilities, determines how effectively they fight, and governs how easily they can shake off or avoid certain harmful effects. You don’t need to write down all of your character’s class features yet. You simply need to know which class you want to play, which determines the ability scores that will be most important for your character.

Determine Ability Scores

Now that you’ve made the main mechanical choices about your character, it’s time to finalize their ability scores. Do these three things:

• First, make sure you’ve applied all the ability boosts and ability flaws you’ve noted in previous steps (from your ancestry, background, and class). 
• Then, apply four more ability boosts to your character’s ability scores, choosing a different ability score for each and increasing that ability score by 2. 
• Finally, record your starting ability scores and ability modifiers.

Remember that each ability boost adds 2 to the base score of 10, and each ability flaw subtracts 2. You should have no ability score lower than 8 or higher than 18.

Record Class Details

Now, record all the benefits and class features that your character receives from the class you’ve chosen. While you’ve already noted your key ability score, you’ll want to be sure to record the following class features.

To determine your character’s total starting Hit Points, add together the number of Hit Points your character gains from their ancestry (chosen in Step 2) and the number of Hit Points they gain from their class.

The Initial Proficiencies section of your class entry indicates your character’s starting proficiency ranks in a number of areas. Choose which skills your character is trained in and record those, along with the ones set by your class. If your class would make you trained in a skill you’re already trained in (typically due to your background), you can select another skill to become trained in.

See the class advancement table in your class entry to learn the class features your character gains at 1st level—but remember, you already chose an ancestry and background. Some class features require you to make additional choices, such as selecting spells

Buy Equipment

At 1st level, your character has 15 gold pieces (150 silver pieces) to spend on armor, weapons, and other basic equipment. Your character’s class lists the types of weapons and armor with which they are trained (or better!). Their weapons determine how much damage they deal in combat, and their armor influences their Armor Class. Don’t forget essentials such as food and traveling gear!

Calculate Modifiers

With most of the big decisions for your character made, it’s time to calculate the modifiers for each of the following statistics. If your proficiency rank for a statistic is trained, expert, master, and legendary, your bonus equals your character’s level plus another number based on the rank (2, 4, 6, and 8, respectively). If your character is untrained, your proficiency bonus is +0.

Perception

Your character’s Perception modifier measures how alert they are. This modifier is equal to their proficiency bonus in Perception plus their Wisdom modifier.

Saving Throws

For each kind of saving throw, add your character’s Fortitude, Reflex, or Will proficiency bonus (as appropriate) plus the ability modifier associated with that kind of saving throw. For Fortitude saving throws, use your character’s Constitution modifier. For Reflex saving throws, use your character’s Dexterity modifier. For Will saving throws, use your character’s Wisdom modifier. Then add in any bonuses or penalties from abilities, feats, or items that always apply (but not modifiers, bonuses, or penalties that apply only in certain situations). Record this number on the line for that saving throw.

Melee Strikes and Ranged Strikes

Next to where you’ve written your character’s melee and ranged weapons, calculate the modifier to Strike with each weapon and how much damage that Strike deals. The modifier for a Strike is equal to your character’s proficiency bonus with the weapon plus an ability modifier (usually Strength for melee Strikes and Dexterity for ranged Strikes). You also add any item bonus from the weapon and any other permanent bonuses or penalties. You also need to calculate how much damage each weapon’s Strike deals. Melee weapons usually add your character’s Strength modifier to damage rolls, while ranged weapons might add some or all of your character’s Strength modifier, depending on the weapon’s traits. Skills

In the second box to the right of each skill name on your character sheet, there’s an abbreviation that reminds you of the ability score tied to that skill. For each skill in which your character is trained, add your proficiency bonus for that skill (typically +3 for a 1st-level character) to the indicated ability’s modifier, as well as any other applicable bonuses and penalties, to determine the total modifier for that skill. For skills your character is untrained in, use the same method, but your proficiency bonus is +0

Finishing Details

Now add the following details to your character sheet in the appropriate spaces.

Devotion

Your character’s devotion is an indicator of their morality and personality. There are five color devotions and any combination of the five colors can represent a character's values and motivations. Your character gains devotion traits corresponding to their beliefs, values, and motives. This might affect the way various spells, items, and creatures interact with your character. Keep in mind that devotion can be a complicated subject. The GM is the arbiter of questions about how specific actions might affect your character’s devotion. If you play a champion, your character must share one devotion trait with their deity and cause, and if you play a cleric, your character must share one devotion trait with their deity.

Changing Devotion

Devotion traits can change during play as a character’s beliefs change, or as you realize that your character’s actions reflect different devotions than the one on your character sheet. In most cases, you can just adjust devotion traits and continue playing. However, if you play a cleric or champion and your character’s devotion traits no longer fit their deity (or cause, for champions), your character loses some of their class abilities until they atone (as described in the class).

Deity

Write down the deity your character worships, if any. Champions and clerics must worship a deity.

Age

Decide your character’s age. The description for your character’s ancestry gives some guidance on the age ranges of members of that ancestry. Beyond that, you can play a character of whatever age you like. There aren’t any mechanical adjustments to your character for being particularly old, but you might want to take it into account when considering your starting ability scores and future advancement. Particularly young characters can change the tone of some of the game’s threats, so it’s recommended that characters are at least young adults.

Gender and Pronouns

Characters of all genders are equally likely to become adventurers. Record your character’s gender, if applicable, and their pronouns on the third page of the character sheet.

Class DC

A class DC sets the difficulty for certain abilities granted by your character’s class. This DC equals 10 plus their proficiency bonus for their class DC (+3 for most 1st-level characters) plus the modifier for the class’s key ability score.

Hero Points

Your character usually begins each game session with 1 Hero Point, and you can gain additional Hero Points during sessions by performing heroic deeds or devising clever strategies. Your character can use Hero Points to gain certain benefits, such as staving off death or rerolling a d20.

Armor Class (AC)

Your character’s Armor Class represents how difficult they are to hit in combat. To calculate your AC, add 10 plus your character’s Dexterity modifier (up to their armor’s Dexterity modifier cap; page 274), plus their proficiency bonus with their armor, plus their armor’s item bonus to AC and any other permanent bonuses and penalties.

Bulk

Your character’s maximum Bulk determines how much weight they can comfortably carry. If they’re carrying a total amount of Bulk that exceeds 5 plus their Strength modifier, they are encumbered. A character can’t carry a total amount of Bulk that exceeds 10 plus their Strength modifier. The Bulk your character is carrying equals the sum of all of their items; keep in mind that 10 light items make up 1 Bulk.

Leveling Up

The world of Pathfinder is a dangerous place, and your character will face terrifying beasts and deadly traps on their journey into legend. With each challenge resolved, a character earns Experience Points (XP) that allow them to increase in level. Each level grants greater skill, increased resiliency, and new capabilities, allowing your character to face even greater challenges and go on to earn even more impressive rewards. Each time your character reaches 1,200 Experience Points, their level increases by 1. On your character sheet, indicate your character’s new level beside the name of their class, and deduct 1,200 XP from their XP total. If you have any Experience Points left after this, record them—they count toward your next level, so your character is already on their way to advancing yet again!

Next, return to your character’s class entry. Increase your character’s total Hit Points by the number indicated for your class. Then, take a look at the class advancement table and find the row for your character’s new level. Your character gains all the abilities listed for that level, including new abilities specific to your class and additional benefits all characters gain as they level up. For example, all characters gain four ability boosts at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter.

You can find all the new abilities specific to your class, including class feats, right in your class entry, though you can also use class feats to take an archetype. Your character’s class entry also explains how to apply any ability boosts and skill increases your character gains. If they gain an ancestry feat, head back to the entry for your character’s ancestry and select another ancestry feat from the list of options. If they can cast spells, see the class entry for details on adding spell slots and spells. It’s also a good idea to review your character’s spells and see if there are heightened versions they can now cast.

Once you’ve made all your choices for your character’s new level, be sure to go over your character sheet and adjust any values that have changed. At a bare minimum, your proficiency bonuses all increase by 1 because you’ve gained a level, so your AC, attack rolls, Perception, saving throws, skill modifiers, spell attack rolls, and class DC all increase by at least 1. You might need to change other values because of skill increases, ability boosts, or class features that either increase your proficiency rank or increase other statistics at certain levels. If an ability boost increases your character’s Constitution modifier, recalculate their maximum Hit Points using their new Constitution modifier (typically this adds 1 Hit Point per level). If an ability boost increases your character’s Intelligence modifier, they become trained in an additional skill and language. Some feats grant a benefit based on your level, such as Toughness, and these benefits are adjusted whenever you gain a level as well.

You can perform the steps in the leveling-up process in whichever order you want.

Leveling-Up Checklist

Every time you gain a level, make sure you do each of the following:

• Increase your level by 1 and subtract 1,200 XP from your XP total. 
• Increase your maximum Hit Points by the amount listed in your class entry 
• Add class features from your class advancement table, including ability boosts and skill increases. 
• Select feats as indicated on your class advancement table 
• Add spells and spell slots if your class grants spellcasting. 
• Increase all of your proficiency bonuses by 1 from your new level, and make other increases to your proficiency bonuses as necessary from skill increases or other class features. 
• Increase any other statistics that changed as a result of ability boosts or other abilities. 
• Adjust bonuses from feats and other abilities that are based on your level