A Pathfinder 2e Playtest Character

Guess we're actually playtesting 1e, or something

I'm going to go through the process of making a PF2e character, and it's going to be done roughly.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Pathfinder or much any DnD, but I do enjoy looking at systems just to create characters in them, so I'll be doing that.
This is not going to go over the entire ruleset in a "review" way, although I will comment on what I do encounter in the process of character generation.

The Documents

Right off the bat I have three files to download: The Rulebook, the Rulebook Updates and a Character Sheet. I'm operating off Updates v1.6.

We're already off to a clunky start - the Updates IMO should be folded into the Rulebook, with the Updates used to highlight the changes, but whatever. The Character Sheet isn't form fillable, which renders it largely useless for me unless I want to manually make my own entries. Which I can fairly easily do, mind you, it's just irritating and frankly pathetic that they haven't made their own form-fill. Heck, I can do it in a couple hours and I don't get paid the Big Grog Bux™.

Fortunately, for the purposes of "actually useful sheets" there is this Pathfinder 2e Autosheet which I will be using. My character will be at this link. A note: the default one is fairly filled in, so I had to delete a bunch of built-in stuff. If I missed something, welp.

The Process

 Page 12 is where it starts, and the steps are as follows:

1. Determine your Character's Concept.
2. Choose an Ancestry
3. Choose a Background
4. Choose a Class
5. Finalize your Ability Scores
6. Apply your Class
7. Determine Skill Modifiers
8. Buy Equipment
9. Fill in the Finishing Details

Pretty standard process.

Character Concept

Is this comic directly related? Perhaps not.

I'm a fan of Wizards. Wizards get to do fun stuff, mess with everything, summon shotguns, and wear a dress with nobody thinking he's weird for that - just for the rest of their abilities and personality. 
That's an easy enough class pick, but the race, which flavors their personality, is a bit harder.
I feel like making a knowledge-obsessed Wizard at the moment, which fits the Gnome. I'll talk more about the Gnome...now!
 

Ancestrous Choosings

How's that for an awkward and not at all forced header, Alexander?

I traditionally gravitate to Elfsves, as mechanically they tend to favor what I like (Wizards), but I'm also fond (totally not jealous) of the idea of a long-lived somewhat-elite knowledgeable species that spends absurd amounts of time mastering trivial things. I mean, there are probably actual masters at underwater basket weaving in elfkind, for no reason other than they can be.

However! I'm going with Gnome here, both to go with something new, but also because they suffer from what the game calls The Bleaching. This is some mystical affliction that will drain the color (literally) from a gnome unless it continuously dreams, innovates, or has new experiences, and is almost-always fatal. I think this is rather interesting and keeps the idea of gnomes of being tinkerers, but doesn't necessitate the "gnomes are all eccentric hooligans" idea that some settings go with. I mean, excepting for the fact that the paragraph under "Gnome" says "their origin manifests in modern gnomes’ bizarre reasoning and eccentricity." Dammit.

That being said, here are the rough traits of the Gnomish Species
HP: 8; Size: Small; Speed: 25 Feet
Ability Boosts: CON, CHA, Free; Ability Flaws: STR
Languages: Common, Gnomish, Sylvan; Bonus language at INT 14.
Traits: Gmome, Humanoid; Low Light Vision

A few things to note here:
First off, like Starfinder, part of your HP is decided by the race itself. The Gnome grants me 8HP. Secondly, the 25 feet speed was modified in the Rules Update, increased from 20ft. 25 feet is the normal Human speed, so that's cool. Not a fan of slower species, myself.
Thirdly, what the heck are Ability Boosts? Well, they're +2s to those stats, with some limitations (Mostly based around not exceeding 18 at character creation). Flaws are similar, but -2s and no qualifiers.

Past this I get to pick an Ancestry Feat. Side note: I love Ancestry Feats. FantasyCraft had them and they let you make a TON of cool ancestral offshoots. These ones? They're slightly less about making offshoots of that species, and more of granting specific benefits some members of those species display, and in particular ones previous versions of DnD had built in already. For example, one Gnome might be able to whisper to animals with the Animal Whisperer Feat, while another has a good Nose via the Discerning Smell Feat. 

This alteration, while letting you customize the character more (which is good), does feel slightly wasted. But, twist: the Rules Update added Heritages that everybody gets for free, in addition to the Ancestry Feat! Huzzah! And these function exactly like the ones in FantasyCraft, so they're great.

Gnome Heritages are Bleachling (Odd that they didn't have that option in immediately, but maybe it was just a WIP rather than a feedback thing), Deep Gnome, Fell Gnome, and Sharp-Nosed Gnome. The last one is odd, but it's because that Discerning Smell feat I mentioned above is actually removed.

I really REALLY love Cantrips, and the Fell Gnome offers one of my choosing, taken from the Primal spell list.  What's more, a Fell Gnome is vaguely darker but not excessively so. I like this because I can't particularly play overly jubilant characters much, and this helps justify my toning down the eccentric silliness to a more reasonable level.

I don't intend to be in Melee, but I still love Cantrips.

For the level-1 Ancestry Feat I have several options: Animal Accomplice, Animal Speaker, Animal Whisperer, Fey Fellowship, First World Magic, Illusion Sense, Obsessive, Weapon Familiarity (Gnome), and Weapon Innovator (Gnome). Well, the last one & Animal Whisperer are level-5 feats so not an option now, but it will be an option when I get another Ancestry Feat at level 5 (as you get more at level 5 and every 4th level).

That's a lot of Animal-related Feats...and I'm not angling for any of them right now. First World Magic grants me any cantrip from the Primal Spell List, and that's what I am grabbing. Boy, I sure am a magical gnome. What spell is that? Let's look at our options.

I appreciate how they grouped the Spell Lists this time around, but damn is it still long.

That "H" means it's better when Heightened (cast at a higher level), which I will get for free when I meet the minimum level requirement (Character level/2, rounded up)

Ideally, I pick a spell here that interests me and isn't on the Arcane Spell List. This also lets me narrow my options, which makes choosing easier. That leaves Guidance, Know Direction, and Stabilize. Hmm. I'm not overly concerned with knowing north (the Heightened is cool though, letting you know the direction to a location I am very familiar with), so that leaves Guidance and Stabilize.

Stabilize lets a target go from 0HP to 1HP, and Heightened-4 lowers their "Dying Value" by 1. This is a nice enough ability. Who doesn't appreciate a comrade who can prevent you from bleeding out on the floor? 

Guidance, on the other hand, grants a +1 Conditional bonus to a bunch of things the target attempts within the next turn. Is that good, and quite useful? Yes. Is it something I want to bother with? Probably not. Why? Well, it's basically remembering yet another modifier you can throw on a bunch of rolls (ATK, Perception, saving throw, skill checks) and frankly I can be lazy and I don't want to have to remember to both do that and also say that I am doing it, which would get old fast.

So we can stabilize our buddies with weird hand gyrations from 30ft. Great! First-Responder Gnome.

I'm not sorry, you're sorry.

 

Backgrounds

These are as you'd expect - what you did before you began adventuring. They aren't flashy; they're all basically one paragraph of description, two ability boosts (one chosen between two, the other free), a skill feat, and training in a relevant Lore skill.
There are 19 of them: Acolyte, Acrobat, Animal Whisperer (Distinct from the Feat), Barkeep, Blacksmith, Criminal, Entertainer, Farmhand, Gladiator, Hunter, Laborer, Merchant, Noble, Nomad, Sailor, Scholar, Scout, Street Urchin, Warrior.

I've picked Nomad, as it fits the idea of a gnome exploring a lot for new things and experiences. I considered Scholar, because it could fit for him learn and experiment with the arcane. He did, though - just not as extensively as some. Gotta get that real world experience, yknow?

Nomad's boosts are chosen between Con and Wis (I go with Wisdom to represent life experiences) and a free one, which I decide goes to Intelligence. I also gain the Assurance (Survival) skill feat, and a Lore for a terrain I traveled in. For that, we'll go with good old Woodlands (it doesn't actually list Terrain types, but, hey.) Simple.

Class Warfare

This is actually a no-war-allowed zone, so the choice is obvious: cleric WIZARD. 

So if you've read much in the way of the 2e rule changes, you'll know that they changed up how proficiency and things changed. But, roughly speaking: They took a bit from DnD4e. Things are marked as "Trained" a la 4e, but have further levels of training - expert, master, legendary.

My starting proficiencies, as a Wizard, are:
Trained: Perception, Fortitude, Reflex, Skills equal to 2+INT, Club, Dagger, Heavy & Light Crossbows, Staff, Arcane Spell Rolls & DCs, Arcane Attacks
Expert: Will
Signature Skills: Arcana, Crafting
My HP is 8+CON, which is added to my Gnome's 6.

To pick my starting skills, I'll assume I'll end up with an INT of 4 (an Intelligence of 18), leaving me with 6 Trained skills. Now, my "Signature Skills" are not auto-trained. Rather, they are indicative of what people with your skillset are assumed to have, and which ones can be eventually raised to  Master or Legendary. 

With this in mind, I choose Arcana, Crafting, Survival to match my Nomad background, Acrobatics to go with the idea of an agile Gnome, Stealth so I don't get got, and Medicine to aid others and myself (although frankly, I have doubts Medicine will be overly useful, given the system).  

An interesting Daily.

A couple other Class features are granted to me as well - Arcane Spellcasting, obviously, which goes over how to manage spells and that I use INT as my Spellcasting Stat, rather than the default Charisma. I then get the Drain Arcane Focus ability which lets me drain magic pooled in an "Arcane Focus" I have (which can be anything at all, and is assigned on a daily basis) to recast a previously prepared & cast spell that day. Lastly, I get to pick an Arcane School. I go with Universalist. Magic is magic, and to specialize is to minimize!

Universalist lets me use Drain Arcane Focus an amount of times day equal to the highest level spell I can cast (which is still 1, for now), and an extra wizard feat. There's a fair amount of these - 32, it seems, although most are not available at level 1. There's a neat "Hand of the Apprentice" feat that, like the other Arcane Schools, grants me a special spell of the same name and spell points with which to cast it. I'll go with that, although getting a Familiar is very tempting due to how fun it can be.

Oh Wait, The Actual Spells.

So important, it gets a mild header of its own. The Wizard gets his classic spellbook. It starts filled with 10 cantrips and 8 first-level spells. From those, you prepare 4 cantrips and 2 first-level spells each day. What this means right now though, is we have to make a bunch of choices.

First up, cantrips: We already know Chill Touch and Stabilize as innate primal spells. From the Arcane Spell List, there are 19 Cantrips. To keep it short, I will select: Light, Prestidigitation, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Ray of Frost, Tanglefoot, Detect Magic, Read Aura, Message, and Produce Flame. 
Out of those, I will probably ready Light, Ray of Frost, Tanglefoot, and Mage Hand, although it would obviously vary. I don't select Shield because it appears to be a normal action to get a +1 "Raise a Shield"-like AC bonus, done once every 10 minutes, versus one attack. Pfft.

Next, 8 first-level spells. There's even more of these to select from. We'll go with classics: Color Spray, Grease, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Sleep, Fleet Step, Feather Fall, and Burning Hands. Mage Armor and Color Spray will likely be my defaults.

Ability Scores

Look, it's the header, but fancy!

This is where we do all them stats. Could reasonably do them throughout the character creation, but I decided not to. At this stage in particular you get four ability boosts to apply as you please. Note that "freely chosen" ability boosts cannot be applied to the same stat that received a boost in the same instance where you received that boost.

All scores all start at 10 by default. From my Gnome Ancestry, I receive Con, Cha, a free Boost (which I put towards Int) boosts, as well as a STR Flaw. 
My stats are now STR 8, DEX 10, CON 12, INT 12, WIS 10, CHA 12.
Applying my background benefits of WIS and INT, that raises INT to 14 and WIS to 12.
My four free ability boosts are applied to Wisdom, Dexterity, Charisma, and Intelligence.
Finally, as a Wizard, I get an Intelligence Boost.

This leaves me at STR 8, DEX 12, CON 12, INT 18, WIS 14, CHA 14. Normally I prefer more Dextrous Wizards, but what can you do?

Because I have an INT >=14, I get a free language chosen from the Gnome list. I choose Elven - I spent some time with them in my travels, and it aided greatly in my ability to further refine my magical knowledge base.

Rinky-Dink Skill Modifiers

Arithmetic time, baby. Add up the skills with their proficiency and their associated attribute Ability Score. Not going to bore you on this one, there's nothing advanced here. My Trained proficiency grants me +1 (as that is my level), and my Expert Will is +2 (Which is my level, +1). Thankfully, the sheet does all of this!

Buying Gear

My spellbook's title is "Mountain Banditry 101"

250sp is what I got. Also technically a free "10sp or less" for a spellbook (spellbooks cost 10sp.)
At this stage I buy some basic survival and adventuring gear, an emergency dagger, and Studded Leather.
Armor is a bit wonky. I'm untrained in all armor, which also includes"unarmored defense." Armor is based on the Armor Value + your proficiency, and given my proficiency is a net of -1 (Untrained is Level-2), everything I wear. Or, in the case of "Unarmored Defense", don't wear.

The End

That's it, largely.  The final section is adding up your inventory weights, figuring out ACs, determining age and alignment, deciding on a deity to worship, calculating perception roll, resonance points, saving throws, melee/ranged strikes.

I went with Chaotic Neutral here. Chaos due to the gnomish mandatory for new things and a disliking of rigidity, and Neutral because I didn't imagine them to be overly Good enough to qualify for that, although they definitely lean more Good than Evil. For my deity I went with Nethys, the God of Magic. Kind of vanilla, but still good. Cayden Cailean would be a good alternative - the God of Freedom, Wine, and Ale.

Now, the character sheet has some personality questions on it, but I don't see those anywhere in the book. They're either added by the creator, my ctrl-f failed me, or they're in another document. If I were properly going to play this character I would easily answer those questions, but I would prefer to do them with other players or with more consideration.

Mild Thoughts

Pretty ambivalent. Going through it there's some decent ideas, but they're more of decent ideas over 3.PF than "in the world of RPGs." I still see a lot of small modifiers everywhere, the spell lists are still enormous, and a variety of the core assumptions that can rub me the wrong way still exist.

Is it all bad? No, of course not. I've barely read it - I can't even compare the Monk to the Bard to the Alchemist to the Wizard, etc. Notably I like removal of skill points (although now you essentially just get 1 SP for every skill, every level...), the unification of Untrained/Trained/Expert/Master/Legendary to everything, the character creation method is decent fun (although nothing really new), the "return" of Fort/Will/Reflex is amusing, and the presentation of powers and abilities looks cleaner.

Really it seems to be striking me as a mix between all 3 latest DnD versions - 3.5, 4e, and 5e. It has the larger simulation-ism of 3.5, the some of streamlining of 5e, and a bit of the elegance of 4e, although I fear that is really only in appearance. In this genre, I'm still tempted to believe FantasyCraft is superior for crunchy goodness, Shadow of the Demon Lord for a lighter but still decently crunchy setup, and DnD4e for tactical combat.

Once again, my character file.

An Edit: Egads, the Errata

Turns out, the updates change more than I expected.
Signature skills? Deleted it. They're mostly training. For the Wizard, "Crafting" is gone as a Signature skill, and you get Arcana Training for free. That frees up a skill, which I will then move to Diplomacy. My travels lead me to meeting many peoples, and being friendly gets a wanderer far.

I also received an extra 2 skills trained! Up from 2+INT to 4+INT. Thrilling! I grab Occultism and Society to reflect a period of my life where I spent some time lightly dabbling in some classic occultism in a city. Gotta learn new things, huh?

Prepared Cantrips went from 4 to 5. Nothing much changes on the sheet, but that's a real cool thing to have. Means my Wizard has 7 cantrips available to them at any given point (5 prepared, 2 innate).

The "Quick Preparation" Wizard feat was folded in as a Class Feature, rather than a Feat. A few lines of text were added to Expert, Master & Legendary Spellcaster to facilitate trading in 2 spell slots of the same level to receive a slot of a higher-level.

Oh, that stuff with Untrained being Level-2? It's "Level-4" now. This would make my armor situation even worse, but there was also errata to say all classes are trained in Unarmored Defense, which means I'm now I'm better at avoiding hits while going without armor.  Stabilize was changed - no more 1hp or heightened, but it removes the Dying condition. Fair enough.