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 alchemist who can rattle off complex formulas for alchemical 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 sorcerer whose gesticulating fingers pulse with light from an angelic ancestor. 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 sorcerer’s bloodline—bring these visions to life within the context of the rules and the world.

In These Free Basic Rules, the entries on the pages that follow describe 4 core classes in Pathfinder. Each entry contains the information you need to play a character of that class, as well as to advance them from their humble beginnings at 1st level up to 5th level. In addition to the class entries, you might need to reference the following section, which details 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.

Classes

These Free Basic Rules only have 4 classes, with features and feats up to level 5. For 8 more classes and tons of feats and features, upgrade to the complete Pathfinder Core Rulebook!

  Cleric
  Fighter
  Rogue
  Wizard