Just as your character’s ancestry plays a key role in expressing their identity and worldview, their class indicates the training they have and will improve upon as an adventurer. Choosing your character’s class is perhaps the most important decision you will make for them. Groups of players often create characters whose skills and abilities complement each other mechanically—for example, ensuring your party includes a healer, a combat-oriented character, a stealthy character, and someone with command over magic—so you may wish to discuss options with your group before deciding.

The rules within each class allow you to bring a wealth of character concepts to life. Perhaps you want to create a brilliant but scatterbrained wizard who can rattle off complex formulas for magic items but has trouble remembering his best friend’s birthday. Or perhaps you want your character to be a muscle-bound swordswoman who becomes as immovable as a mountain when she hoists a shield. Maybe they’ll be a hot-tempered witch whose gesticulating fingers pulse with power granted through dealings with a mysterious patron. The choices you make for your character within their class—such as a cleric’s choice of deity, a fighter’s choice of weapon, or a school where a wizard studied—bring these visions to life within the context of the rules and the world.

The entries on the pages that follow describe 8 classes in Pathfinder. Each entry contains the information you need to play a character of that class, as well as how to develop them from their humble beginnings at 1st level to the dizzying heights of power at 20th level. In addition to the class entries, you might need to reference the following sections, which detail additional character options and how to advance your character in level.

• Leveling Up tells you how to make your character stronger when you get enough Experience Points to reach a new level.
• Companions and Familiars provides rules to create an animal companion or a familiar to share your adventures with. You must have a class feature or feat that grants you a companion or familiar to use these rules.
• Archetypes gives you thematic options that allow you to further customize your character’s abilities. Though these rules are not recommended for beginners, the archetypes in this book allow you to gain abilities from other classes starting at 2nd level.