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This step-by-step example illustrates the process of creating a Pathfinder character.

Steps 1 and 2

Adam is making his first Pathfinder character. After talking about it with the rest of the group, he’s decided to make a dwarven druid. After jotting down a few ideas, he begins by writing down a 10 for each ability score.

Step 3

Adam looks up the dwarf entry in Chapter 2. He records the ability boosts to his Constitution and Wisdom scores (bringing both up to 12). He also applies the ability flaw to his Charisma, dropping it to 8. For his free ability boost, he chooses Dexterity to boost his defenses, raising it to 12 as well. He also records the 10 Hit Points the ancestry gives him. Next, he returns to his character sheet to record the size, Speed, language, and darkvision ability he gets from being a dwarf. Finally, he decides on a heritage, writing “rock dwarf” next to dwarf, and he picks an ancestry feat, deciding on Rock Runner, to show his character’s strong connection to stone.

Step 4

Looking through the backgrounds, Adam likes the idea of a solitary dwarven druid, and the nomad background makes for a good choice. For the first ability boost granted by the background, Adam chooses Wisdom, and for the free ability boost, he choses Constitution, taking both up to 14. On the second page, he writes “Assurance (Survival)” in the Skill Feats area, on the Background line. Finally, returning to the first page, he writes “cave” next to the first Lore skill entry and checks the box under the “T” for that skill and Survival.

Step 5

Adam writes “druid” on the class line of his character sheet and fills in the number 1 in the level box. The druid class grants an ability boost to its key ability score, which is Wisdom, so Adam’s character has his Wisdom raised to 16. 

Step 6

Adam applies four more ability boosts to his ability scores to determine his starting scores. After giving it some thought, he applies them to Wisdom (raising it to 18), since that’s the most important ability score for his class, and to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution (raising them to 12, 14, and 16, respectively) to make him better in combat. He then looks at Table 1–1 to determine the ability modifiers for each score and writes all of his ability scores and modifiers down on his character sheet.

Step 7

As Adam applies his class, he has a number of things to figure out. First, he starts by recording all of his initial proficiencies, marking the appropriate boxes in the Armor Class, Saving Throws, Weapon Proficiencies, Spell Attack Roll, and Spell DCs areas of his sheet. Turning to skills, he marks Nature as trained and notes that once he picks his druid order, he’ll become trained in another skill determined by that order. He then gets to choose three more skills (if he had a higher Intelligence, he would have gotten more). He decides on Athletics, Diplomacy, and Medicine, marking all of them as trained. Next, he adds the 8 Hit Points from the druid class and his Constitution modifier of +3 to the 10 Hit Points from his dwarf ancestry for an impressive 21 total Hit Points. 

Moving on to class features, Adam marks down wild empathy in the class feats and abilities area, as well as the Shield Block feat in the bonus feats area. He makes note of the anathema for being a druid and records Druidic in his language section. Next, he looks through the druid orders and decides upon the wild order, which gives him his final trained skill (Intimidation), the ability to cast wild morph, as well as the Wild Shape feat, which lets him cast a spell to turn into an animal. He writes these spells in the focus spell area of his character sheet and also notes that he has 1 Focus Point to use to cast these spells. 

Finally, a druid can cast a limited number of primal spells. Although he can change them every morning, Adam is curious, and he turns to Chapter 7: Spells to decide what spells he might cast. He jots down five cantrips and two 1st-level spells and marks them as prepared.

Step 8

Next up, Adam turns to Chapter 6: Equipment. He’s trained in medium armor, but since wearing metal armor is anathema to druids, he chooses hide armor. For weapons, he decides on a spear, but he buys two just in case he wants to throw the first one. He writes all of these on the front of his character sheet. Adam lists the spear under both melee Strikes and ranged Strikes, and he also writes the claws he gains from wild morph under his melee Strikes, because he’s sure that he’ll be casting that spell a lot. He records the rest of his gear in the Inventory section on the second page, along with coin left over after buying his starting gear.

Step 9

Adam records all of the ability modifiers for Perception, saving throws, Strikes, and skills. He then puts a “+3” in the box marked Prof to indicate his proficiency bonus for each statistic he’s trained in (1 for his level, plus 2 for being trained) and "+5" in any that he is an expert. Then, he adds up his modifiers for each statistic. 

Step 10

Finally, Adam fills out the final details of his character, noting his neutral alignment and calculating his AC and Bulk limits. Last but not least, he fills in some last-minute information about his character and decides on a name. Gar the dwarf druid is ready for his first adventure!