Your Strength modifier gets added to melee damage rolls and determines how much your character can carry.ĭexterity Source Core Rulebook pg.
Strength is important if your character plans to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Strength measures your character’s physical power. When imagining your character, you should also decide what ability scores you want to focus on to give you the best chance at success. In contrast, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are mental ability scores and measure your character’s learned prowess, awareness, and force of personality.Įxcellence in an ability score improves the checks and statistics related to that ability, as described below. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are physical ability scores, measuring your character’s physical power, agility, and stamina. Determining your ability scores is not done all at once, but instead happens over several steps during character creation.Ībility scores are split into two main groups: physical and mental. These scores represent your character’s raw potential and influence nearly every other statistic on your character sheet. One of the most important aspects of your character is their ability scores. The Six Ability Scores Source Core Rulebook pg. If you’re creating a higher-level character, it’s a good idea to begin with the instructions here, then turn to page 29 for instructions on leveling up characters. If the field you need to fill out is on the third or fourth page of the character sheet, which aren’t shown, the text will tell you.
If a field on your character sheet is not applicable to your character, just leave that field blank.Īll the steps of character creation are detailed on the following pages each is marked with a number that corresponds to the sample character sheet on pages 24–25, showing you where the information goes. Additionally, the character sheet includes every field you might need, even though not all characters will have something to put in each field. 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.
The character sheet is shown on pages 24–25 you can find a copy in the back of this book or online as a free pdf. Many of the steps on pages 21–28 instruct you to fill out fields on your character sheet. The steps of character creation are presented in a suggested order, but you can complete them in whatever order you prefer. These scores are a critical part of your character, and you will be asked to make choices about them during many of the following steps. This section provides a step-by-step guide for creating a character using the Pathfinder rules, preceded by a guide to help you understand ability scores. You’ll use the game’s mechanics to determine your character’s ability to perform various tasks and use special abilities during the game. 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. Unless you’re the GM, the first thing you need to do when playing Pathfinder is create your character. Character Creation Source Core Rulebook pg.