High Level Games
High Level Games
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures

Welcome to the High Level Games Blog, News, and other stuff to take your games to the next level!

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

5 Things You May Have Missed When Making Your Pathfinder Character

1/8/2017

3 Comments

 
Picture
The character sheet is a maze of information. Sections of it are winding paths of boxes and lines that ultimately lead to a dead-end. Even the most experienced character builders will miss something and get lost sometimes. Missing bonuses, ranks, and ability increases will cause characters to fall behind in combat. Pathfinder can be pretty unforgiving and optimal character building is the secret to getting the most advantage you can in combat. Here are 5 things you may have missed that will help make your character the best character they can be.

1) Ability Score Improvements
When you first build your character you get a bonus to ability scores depending on your race. For example, humans get a +2 racial bonus to one of their stats. This allows you to turnover your class’ most useful skill to a higher modifier. A 16 versus an 18 unlocks a plethora of new potential for your character. This allows you to take advantage of their primary stat.

There are a few other ability score improvements that you can take advantage of as your character levels. This is extra important if your GM is asking you to roll a character higher than the 1st level. At levels 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 you get to increase one of your character’s ability scores. This can turn a 15 into a 16, which immediately adds to the potential of that stat. Losing out on these ability score improvements will lead to characters falling behind.

2) Everyone Gets Extra Feats
As a non-fighter, it feels a little disappointing when the fighter gets a bunch of extra feats and you’re sitting around with one. Sure, you can cast light and a few other neat cantrips, but the fighter can do a bunch of cool things in combat while you act as a glass cannon that is a bit too much glass and a bit too little cannon. Worry not! A few extra feats are coming your way that a lot of players may forget about.

Starting at the third level and every second level thereafter you get to add a new feat to your character. Missing out on these feats will seriously put your character behind. There are a lot of feats that can further amplify a character to take advantage of their specializations. Don’t forget about these!

3) Favoured Class Bonus
A small little detail that can really add up over time is the Favoured Class Bonuses. These are little bonuses that you can take each level instead of gaining an additional skill rank or hit point. When you build a character you choose their favoured class, then depending on your character’s race they are granted a class bonus as an option whenever you level up.

It may not seem like much when you initially glance at it, but if you level up a character ten times in their favoured class you potentially lose out on that ability ten-fold. Each class has their own different favoured class bonuses, so when you’re looking at building a character check all those out and see if any can influence your game plan.

4) Class Skill Bonuses
This is an aspect of character building that I personally didn’t learn for a long time. I always thought that the class skills your class starts with are just examples of things your character can do. Instead, class skills are something that every character should take advantage of.

When you place at least one rank in any of your class skills you get an automatic +3 bonus to that skill. For example, if diplomacy was a class skill, placing one rank in it automatically makes the bonus +4 for all diplomacy rolls. This is an incredibly strong bonus that helps characters really feel the strengths of their class. It also allows a convenient use of extra ranks to pad out your character.

5) Bonus Spells
As a spellcaster you have a limited number of spells. You gain extra spells each level, but did you know you also can gain extra spells depending on the ability score of your casting stat? There’s a handy table that is hidden within all of the resources of Pathfinder that lists bonus spells available to spellcasters.

An ability score of 16-17 grants one additional spell per day in the level 1, 2 and 3 spell slots. These extra spells allow spellcasters to have more free use of their spells and give them more wiggle room on the battlefield. These numbers get especially strong if the casting stat is in the 20s. Losing out on these spells will put your character in a bad place on the battlefield as you’ll have to weigh out your decisions against the remaining resources you have. The bonus spells make that decision a little less stressful.

Now you’ll be able to look at your character sheet in confidence and know that you dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s. Your character is stronger, more diverse, and working at maximum efficiency. This will allow you to spend more time building the roleplaying side of the character, and that’s where the real fun begins.

Is there anything else you’ve recently discovered or always missed about making your character? Let me know in the comments. Pathfinder is a big beast and I’m confident there are still things I’ve yet to learn.

Image belongs to Paizo

Justin Cauti is a writer and Twitch streamer. He plays board/roleplaying games on the internet at http://www.playingboardgames.tv. Follow him on Twitter for updates on his boring life and writing projects @LeftSideJustin.


Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, and Fun! - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
3 Comments
bigpapa2000 link
11/6/2018 04:06:38 pm

This is for noobs.

Reply
Alan Jennings link
20/1/2021 12:06:36 am

this is very informative and intersting, thanks :)

Reply
Meta Generator link
28/4/2021 07:21:24 am

Love this post! Thanks so much for sharing it :)

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    All blog materials created and developed by the staff here at High Level Games 

    ​

    Picture
    Click here to support our community for as a little as $1.00 for exclusive content, free downloadable stuff, and even discounts on role-playing game items.

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    13th Age
    2d20
    2nd Edition
    3.5 Edition
    3Deep
    4th Edition
    5th Edition
    7th Sea
    Acquisitions Inc
    Actual Play
    AD&D
    AdventureLookUp.com
    Adventurers!
    Aether Sea
    A+ Fantasy
    After Collapse
    Alignment
    Amazing Tales
    Amazon
    Anima: Beyond Fantasy
    Anime
    Apocalypse World
    Atomic Robo
    Australian
    Award Winning
    Basic Fantasy
    Belly Of The Beast
    Big Eyes Small Mouth
    Black Lives Matter
    Black Void
    Blades In The Dark
    Blood Pangea
    Board Games
    Book Of Exalted Darkness
    BrigadeCon
    Burning Wheel RPG
    Call Of Cthulhu
    Capers RPG
    Casual Roleplaying
    Changeling: The Dreaming
    Chaosium
    Character Arcs
    Character Creation
    Chris Spivey
    Cinematic RP
    Classics
    Comic-books
    Conventions
    Corvus Belli: Infinity
    Crawl
    Creators
    Critical Role
    Cthulhutech
    D100 Dungeon
    D20
    D&D
    D&D Beyond
    Deadlands
    Defenders Of Tokyo
    Degenesis
    Detako Saga
    Discord
    DMsGuild.com
    Dnd
    Dndbeyond
    Doctor-who
    Double-cross
    Dread
    Dresden-files
    DriveThruRPG.com
    Dr. Who
    Dungeon Crawl Classics
    Dungeons
    Dungeons And Dragons
    Dungeon Slayers
    Dungeon World
    Dystopia Rising
    Encounters
    Era: The Consortium
    Era: The Empowered
    Esper Genesis
    Evil Hat
    Exalted
    Faith RPG
    Fandom
    Fantasy-age
    Fantasy-flight
    Fantasy Grounds
    FATE
    Fate Accelerated Edition
    Fate Core
    Fate Rpg
    Fate-rpg
    Final Fantasy
    Forgotten Realms
    Fragged Empire
    Free League Publishing
    Furries
    Game Design
    Game Lore
    Gencon
    Ghosts Of NPCs Past
    GMTips
    Golden-sky-stories
    GoodmanGames.com
    Grognards
    GUMSHOE
    GURPS
    GURPS Lite
    Halloween
    Harlem Unbound
    Harry-potter
    Hero Builder
    Heroes Against Darkness
    Heroes-unlimited
    HERO System
    High Level Games
    Historical Fantasy
    HLG Con 2018
    HLG Reviews
    Homebrew
    Humble Bundle
    Indie
    Interface Zero 2.0
    Interview
    Invisible Suns
    Japanese RPGs
    JRR Tolkien
    Kickstarter
    KoboldPress.com
    KULT
    L5R
    Lankhmar
    LARP
    Lasers And Feelings
    Legendlore
    Legend Of The Five Rings
    LexOccultum
    LOTR
    Low Magic
    Mage
    Mage: The Awakening
    Magic And Steel
    MAID
    Mayhem
    Mazes And Minotaurs
    Meikyuu Kingdom
    Mekton Zero
    Mental Health
    Middle Earth
    Mighty Narwhal
    Mini Six
    Modern Adventures RPG
    Modiphius
    Monarchies Of Mau
    Monsterhearts
    Monte Cook Games
    Morra
    Mummy: The Curse
    Mutants And Masterminds
    Mythender
    Narrative Games
    Nechronica
    Night's Black Agents
    Novel
    NPC
    Numenara
    Odyssey Of The Dragonlords
    One Shot
    Online Gaming
    Orun
    OSCRIC
    Osr
    OVA
    Palladium
    Pathfinder
    Pathfinder 2.0
    PbtA
    PDQ
    Pire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
    Play By Post
    Player Tips
    Podcast
    Powered By Apocalypse
    Power Outage RPG
    Preview
    Promethean: The Created
    Pugmire
    Pulp
    Puzzles
    Questlings
    Ravenloft
    Ravnica
    Red Markets: A Game Of Economic Horror
    Research
    Review
    Review Article
    Rifts
    Risus
    Role Play
    Roll20
    Romance Of The Perilous Land
    Ryuutama
    Satanic Panic
    Savage Rifts
    Savage Tokusatsu
    Savage Worlds
    Seeds Of Wars
    Setting
    Settings
    Settlement Building
    Shadowrun
    SIGMATA
    Snowhaven
    Social Combat
    Social Systems
    Solo Play
    Standard Roleplay System
    Star Trek Adventures
    Star Wars
    Storytellers Vault
    Suited RPG
    Summerland
    Supplements
    System Design
    Table Top
    Tabletop Simulator
    Tales From The Loop
    Tales Of Equestria
    Talislanta
    Tariffs
    Teenagers From Outerspace
    Ten Candles
    Tenra Bansho Zero
    The Dark Eye
    The End Of The World RPG
    The Great Long Dark
    The One Ring
    The Very Important Task
    Titan Effect
    To The Temple Of Doom
    Trial Of Cthulhu
    Trinity Continuum
    TSR Marvel Super Heroes
    Ttrpg
    Twitch
    USTR
    Va
    Valiant Rpg
    Vampire: The Masquerade
    Video Games
    Villian
    Volo
    Vs Ghosts
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Werewolf: The Apocalypse
    Westbound RPG
    Wild West
    World Building
    World Of Darkness
    Writing Tips
    Year Zero
    Zweihander

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly