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The following is a step-by-step tutorial for creating a character in the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 / Pathfinder (3.P) ruleset for use in the World of the Ledge. It's probably best to read through any sections you're not familiar with before you get started, and to open any links in a new tab.
Alternatively, if you'd prefer to just use a pre-made character, I'll list them here:
[[Nadir of Rrhos]] is a ruggedly-handsome, up-to-no-good Artifact Smuggler (Rogue / Bard) that wants to find the lost city of Urypt or just somewhere he can belong.
For this tutorial, we'll use Nadir as an example 4th level character. I should note that players will have multiple opportunities to make and play characters, so it might be best to play it safe for your first one.
Concept & Rules Review
So you're a fan of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. You wish Harrison Ford had stayed young forever and that you could live that life. You're told by the Game Master that this isn't your typcial medieval fantasy sandbox, and that this continent especially isn't at all like Western Europe. So you throw "Harrison Ford" in an anagram solver and you get "Nadir of Rrhos". Sounds good.
Next it makes sense to review the 3.P ruleset:
[[http://www.d20srd.org/|Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 System Reference Document]]
[[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/|Pathfinder System Reference Document]]
[[http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136890|Quick Summary of the Changes from 3.5 to Pathfinder]]
[[http://paizo.com/products/btpy89m6?Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game-Conversion-Guide|Pathfinder RPG Conversion Guide]]
As well as the house rules document [[3.P House Rules|here]] (we'll address the parts relevant to character creation in this tutorial).
It's easy to get lost in the rules and forget that you're building a means to play with others. It's worthwhile to spend a moment thinking about what role you see the character playing in the group. In combat, and out. For example, the tank, healer, and striker are [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAdventurerIsYou|common combat roles]], while the leader, lancer, and smart guy are [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand|common social roles]]. None of these are set in stone, of course, and there's a fair amount of crossover between roles, but I find that everything tends to go more smoothly when players know their role and play to (or strategically against) their role. Just something to think about. Nadir sounds like a guy who likes to shoot first and ask questions later, so probably a striker / lancer type.
Deciding Classes, Races, and Description
I find it easier to decide on a character's classes first, and then to work backward. There's a lot of work involved with leveling each class, so let's just make the initial decisions now and we can fill in the blanks later.
Nadir's previous incarnations were a tomb raider and smuggler, with a mix of archeology and roguish tricks thrown in as well. He has elements of a lady-killer and delver of secrets too, so of the core classes Rogue and Bard sound like the best fit. Factotum, Gunslinger or Swashbucker might work as well. We know he uses a whip, probably a gun too, and relies on his dexterity and charsima to overcome most challenges. Likely just human, with dark hair and dashing good looks.
So let's start filling in the character sheet. At some point, it'll be a good idea to put the final stat block on the character's card here, or to fill in a sheet on Roll20 (or whatever online platform we're using), but for now it's fine to just use whatever type of sheet you're most comfortable with. I'll use Myth-weavers for convenience. Here's a copy of [[http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=709737|Nadir's sheet]]. You can find some description guidance [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-description/description|here]]. If you want to make a portrait for Nadir, we've been given permission to use [[http://www.heromachine.com/|Hero Machine]], so check that out. We'll go ahead and fill in some basic details (ignoring the XP sections for now).
Ability Scores and Age
These represent (or measure) your aptitude for achieving various tasks. The higher the better. Use the ability score point buy rules (rather than rolling, see [[http://webpages.charter.net/tedsarah/Pathfinder/utilities/pointBuyCalc.htm|here]]). No reason to needlessly gamble on a long-term investment. Use the High Fantasy amount of 20 points. We'll apply any modifications to your ability scores later.
Looking ahead, we imagine Nadir as a middle-aged character, which means that he'd receive a -1 to his physical stats and a +1 to his mental stats. This allows us to take advantage of the cheaper pricing for odd-numbered ability scores, so we spend our 20 points to give him a starting allocation something like this:
Initial Ability Scores
STR
11
DEX
15
CON
11
INT
13
WIS
11
CHA
15
After accounting for his age-based bonuses/penalties, adding the +2 from Human (still not final on this yet, add to Dex), and the +1 to an ability score at 4th level (add to Cha), we get the following:
Base Ability Scores
STR
10
DEX
16
CON
10
INT
14
WIS
12
CHA
17
Notice that 10, 10, 12, 14, 14, 16 would normally cost more than 20 points, but with the odd-scores we were able to take advantage of some savings. We may change his age or race, or add a template or item that would change his stats, but this looks like a good baseline for now.
Gender
Genders in the World of the Ledge don't directly affect your gameplay statistics, but there are some non-standard genders available anyway. See [[Gender|here]]. If you don't specify, I'll assume that your character is just default male or female (or we can always roll it).
Race & Templates
Fantasy races of all kinds can be found in the World of the Ledge, but one's race, in general, is only as important as one chooses for it to be. Cultural background and nationality typically play a larger role as factional divides drive conflict, but a character's ethnicity can still provide interesting opportunities for roleplaying. You'll have to play to learn more about the factions.
Nadir has been previously established as a human, possibly even a human paragon, so since that's also a strong option it seems naturally to stick with what works. Half-elf might be a consideration, if only because it provides useful favored class bonuses, but both are equally potent and human feels more flavorful. Let's record the [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/human|standard human racial traits]] (noting the extra feat for later). There is no universal common language for the whole world, so Humans start with the language most common to their region. For [[A Maze pf Grain (Group 2)]] that would be the [[Vei'Dathan language]]. The [[Ohmani Language]] comes a close second, so we'll probably choose that as a bonus langage. For more languages, see here: {{Common Languages|closed}}
Players are free to use the [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/creating-new-races|Pathfinder Race Builder]] to establish their own races, but keep the total race points used to 15. Anything more comes out of your Character Points on a 1-to-1 basis. We'll build a comprehensive race list soon, but the most common races in general are Human, [[Sauren]], and [[Teotl]]. The setting for [[A Maze of Grain (Group 2)]] features [[Qin]] prominently, as well.
Templates cost a minimum of their cumulative ability score bonuses and penalties. So if you'd get a +4 Str and -2 Int, the template costs at minimum 2 CPs. Most templates are strong enough that they can increase a character's tier at low levels, but then they drop off in effectiveness in later levels. So typically you'll just pay a lump sum for a template, roughly equal to the level adjustment times the costs of the tier it would place you at. For example, the vampire template is considered fairly poor, around tier 5, but this is mostly on account of the high level adjustment (+8 in D&D 3.5). I'd price this at 8 x 2 CP = 16 CP. In Pathfinder, it's pegged at CR+2, so as an LA+2 template it might be tier 3, or 2 x 8 CP = 16 CP again. This also agrees with the minimum based on cumulative ability score bonuses/penalties (6+4+2+2+4=18, with the nonability in Con counting as at least -2). If you took the template progression slowly over several levels, I might treat it like it were a tier 5 class, so you'd only pay 1 for the first level, giving you a 1 point discount. Once you've paid for the template or progression, you pay CP costs as normal for your tier(s). You can always put the Level Adjusted levels from templates on another track, so they don't need to interrupt your other class levels (and gestalting class levels with LA gives you the BAB, Saves, and other bonuses of the class since the LA counts for zero). Don't go overboard with this and you should be fine. Note that I'll price [[http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7044|high tier templates]] more.
First Class Levels
We've already figured Nadir as a Rogue / Bard, but let's go into the details of his first levels now. Note: Typically you'd write gestalt class levels like Rogue // Bard, with multiclassing using the regular slash. Since you can always take levels on a different track in tiered gestalt, there's no good way to indicate that except on a table, and multiclassing here isn't really different than gestalt, so Rogue / Bard is fine.
There aren't any [[http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7908|alternate class features]] that seem to fit well, but the [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo---rogue-archetypes/smuggler|Smuggler]] and [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-archetypes/archaeologist|Archaeologist]] archytpes look perfect. At first level, we have 2 CPs, so we spend 1 CP to buy the Rogue level, and 1 CP to buy the Bard level (recording both tracks and their costs on a table somewhere). Our archetypes don't change any of our base statistics, so we can begin record our BAB and Saves.
Both classes have a medium BAB, good reflex saves, and poor fortitude saves, so we record 0.75 as our base attack bonus, 2.5 as our base reflex save, and 0.33 as our base fortitude save (following the house rules for fractional BAB and saves). Bards have a good will save, while Rogues have a poor one, so we go with the higher bonus of 2.5. Hite Die are the same (d8) and we get max Hit Points at first level, so we record an 8. Rogues have more skill points, so we can put 8+2+1=11 down ready to be allocated (I usually record this at the bottom of the skill list first, don't forget human bonus skill points). While we're looking at skills, we can mark the class skills for each class (just check off each item on both lists). For example, it looks like in the case of Nadir, all standard skills but Fly, Handle Animal, Heal, Ride, and Survival are class skills since the Rogue and Bard already cover a lot. We might pick up more later, so we'll wait to fill in our skill ranks. Similar to class skills, we can add all the weapon and armor proficiencies together and record them (for convenience, I typically use one column for feats, and another for class/race features). We'll choose rogue as our favored class, so we can use the human option of +1/6th of a rogue trick per level (we can record the fraction now).
Moving on to the other class features, we'd better be careful that we keep track of what's been replaced by our archetypes. Bards get a few spells at first level, but like skills and feats, we can just record the slots we have for these now and fill them in later. With a Charisma of 17, this amounts to 2 spells per day chosen from 2 known 1st level spells, and then 4 cantrips that he can use any number of times per day. Rogues get +1d6 sneak attack and Bards get +1/2 level to Knowledge skills through Bardic Knowledge, so we can go ahead and record that. Normally Rogues get trapfinding and bards get performances, but due to Nadir's archetypes, the Archaeologist actually gives us trapfinding (through Clever Explorer, at 2nd level) and the Smuggler adds Conceal Item. We can record Archaelogist's Luck while we're at it.
Alternatively, if you'd prefer to just use a pre-made character, I'll list them here:
[[Nadir of Rrhos]] is a ruggedly-handsome, up-to-no-good Artifact Smuggler (Rogue / Bard) that wants to find the lost city of Urypt or just somewhere he can belong.
For this tutorial, we'll use Nadir as an example 4th level character. I should note that players will have multiple opportunities to make and play characters, so it might be best to play it safe for your first one.
Concept & Rules Review
So you're a fan of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. You wish Harrison Ford had stayed young forever and that you could live that life. You're told by the Game Master that this isn't your typcial medieval fantasy sandbox, and that this continent especially isn't at all like Western Europe. So you throw "Harrison Ford" in an anagram solver and you get "Nadir of Rrhos". Sounds good.
Next it makes sense to review the 3.P ruleset:
[[http://www.d20srd.org/|Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 System Reference Document]]
[[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/|Pathfinder System Reference Document]]
[[http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136890|Quick Summary of the Changes from 3.5 to Pathfinder]]
[[http://paizo.com/products/btpy89m6?Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game-Conversion-Guide|Pathfinder RPG Conversion Guide]]
As well as the house rules document [[3.P House Rules|here]] (we'll address the parts relevant to character creation in this tutorial).
It's easy to get lost in the rules and forget that you're building a means to play with others. It's worthwhile to spend a moment thinking about what role you see the character playing in the group. In combat, and out. For example, the tank, healer, and striker are [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAdventurerIsYou|common combat roles]], while the leader, lancer, and smart guy are [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand|common social roles]]. None of these are set in stone, of course, and there's a fair amount of crossover between roles, but I find that everything tends to go more smoothly when players know their role and play to (or strategically against) their role. Just something to think about. Nadir sounds like a guy who likes to shoot first and ask questions later, so probably a striker / lancer type.
Deciding Classes, Races, and Description
I find it easier to decide on a character's classes first, and then to work backward. There's a lot of work involved with leveling each class, so let's just make the initial decisions now and we can fill in the blanks later.
Nadir's previous incarnations were a tomb raider and smuggler, with a mix of archeology and roguish tricks thrown in as well. He has elements of a lady-killer and delver of secrets too, so of the core classes Rogue and Bard sound like the best fit. Factotum, Gunslinger or Swashbucker might work as well. We know he uses a whip, probably a gun too, and relies on his dexterity and charsima to overcome most challenges. Likely just human, with dark hair and dashing good looks.
So let's start filling in the character sheet. At some point, it'll be a good idea to put the final stat block on the character's card here, or to fill in a sheet on Roll20 (or whatever online platform we're using), but for now it's fine to just use whatever type of sheet you're most comfortable with. I'll use Myth-weavers for convenience. Here's a copy of [[http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=709737|Nadir's sheet]]. You can find some description guidance [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-description/description|here]]. If you want to make a portrait for Nadir, we've been given permission to use [[http://www.heromachine.com/|Hero Machine]], so check that out. We'll go ahead and fill in some basic details (ignoring the XP sections for now).
Ability Scores and Age
These represent (or measure) your aptitude for achieving various tasks. The higher the better. Use the ability score point buy rules (rather than rolling, see [[http://webpages.charter.net/tedsarah/Pathfinder/utilities/pointBuyCalc.htm|here]]). No reason to needlessly gamble on a long-term investment. Use the High Fantasy amount of 20 points. We'll apply any modifications to your ability scores later.
Looking ahead, we imagine Nadir as a middle-aged character, which means that he'd receive a -1 to his physical stats and a +1 to his mental stats. This allows us to take advantage of the cheaper pricing for odd-numbered ability scores, so we spend our 20 points to give him a starting allocation something like this:
Initial Ability Scores
STR
11
DEX
15
CON
11
INT
13
WIS
11
CHA
15
After accounting for his age-based bonuses/penalties, adding the +2 from Human (still not final on this yet, add to Dex), and the +1 to an ability score at 4th level (add to Cha), we get the following:
Base Ability Scores
STR
10
DEX
16
CON
10
INT
14
WIS
12
CHA
17
Notice that 10, 10, 12, 14, 14, 16 would normally cost more than 20 points, but with the odd-scores we were able to take advantage of some savings. We may change his age or race, or add a template or item that would change his stats, but this looks like a good baseline for now.
Gender
Genders in the World of the Ledge don't directly affect your gameplay statistics, but there are some non-standard genders available anyway. See [[Gender|here]]. If you don't specify, I'll assume that your character is just default male or female (or we can always roll it).
Race & Templates
Fantasy races of all kinds can be found in the World of the Ledge, but one's race, in general, is only as important as one chooses for it to be. Cultural background and nationality typically play a larger role as factional divides drive conflict, but a character's ethnicity can still provide interesting opportunities for roleplaying. You'll have to play to learn more about the factions.
Nadir has been previously established as a human, possibly even a human paragon, so since that's also a strong option it seems naturally to stick with what works. Half-elf might be a consideration, if only because it provides useful favored class bonuses, but both are equally potent and human feels more flavorful. Let's record the [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/human|standard human racial traits]] (noting the extra feat for later). There is no universal common language for the whole world, so Humans start with the language most common to their region. For [[A Maze pf Grain (Group 2)]] that would be the [[Vei'Dathan language]]. The [[Ohmani Language]] comes a close second, so we'll probably choose that as a bonus langage. For more languages, see here: {{Common Languages|closed}}
Players are free to use the [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/creating-new-races|Pathfinder Race Builder]] to establish their own races, but keep the total race points used to 15. Anything more comes out of your Character Points on a 1-to-1 basis. We'll build a comprehensive race list soon, but the most common races in general are Human, [[Sauren]], and [[Teotl]]. The setting for [[A Maze of Grain (Group 2)]] features [[Qin]] prominently, as well.
Templates cost a minimum of their cumulative ability score bonuses and penalties. So if you'd get a +4 Str and -2 Int, the template costs at minimum 2 CPs. Most templates are strong enough that they can increase a character's tier at low levels, but then they drop off in effectiveness in later levels. So typically you'll just pay a lump sum for a template, roughly equal to the level adjustment times the costs of the tier it would place you at. For example, the vampire template is considered fairly poor, around tier 5, but this is mostly on account of the high level adjustment (+8 in D&D 3.5). I'd price this at 8 x 2 CP = 16 CP. In Pathfinder, it's pegged at CR+2, so as an LA+2 template it might be tier 3, or 2 x 8 CP = 16 CP again. This also agrees with the minimum based on cumulative ability score bonuses/penalties (6+4+2+2+4=18, with the nonability in Con counting as at least -2). If you took the template progression slowly over several levels, I might treat it like it were a tier 5 class, so you'd only pay 1 for the first level, giving you a 1 point discount. Once you've paid for the template or progression, you pay CP costs as normal for your tier(s). You can always put the Level Adjusted levels from templates on another track, so they don't need to interrupt your other class levels (and gestalting class levels with LA gives you the BAB, Saves, and other bonuses of the class since the LA counts for zero). Don't go overboard with this and you should be fine. Note that I'll price [[http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7044|high tier templates]] more.
First Class Levels
We've already figured Nadir as a Rogue / Bard, but let's go into the details of his first levels now. Note: Typically you'd write gestalt class levels like Rogue // Bard, with multiclassing using the regular slash. Since you can always take levels on a different track in tiered gestalt, there's no good way to indicate that except on a table, and multiclassing here isn't really different than gestalt, so Rogue / Bard is fine.
There aren't any [[http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7908|alternate class features]] that seem to fit well, but the [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo---rogue-archetypes/smuggler|Smuggler]] and [[http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-archetypes/archaeologist|Archaeologist]] archytpes look perfect. At first level, we have 2 CPs, so we spend 1 CP to buy the Rogue level, and 1 CP to buy the Bard level (recording both tracks and their costs on a table somewhere). Our archetypes don't change any of our base statistics, so we can begin record our BAB and Saves.
Both classes have a medium BAB, good reflex saves, and poor fortitude saves, so we record 0.75 as our base attack bonus, 2.5 as our base reflex save, and 0.33 as our base fortitude save (following the house rules for fractional BAB and saves). Bards have a good will save, while Rogues have a poor one, so we go with the higher bonus of 2.5. Hite Die are the same (d8) and we get max Hit Points at first level, so we record an 8. Rogues have more skill points, so we can put 8+2+1=11 down ready to be allocated (I usually record this at the bottom of the skill list first, don't forget human bonus skill points). While we're looking at skills, we can mark the class skills for each class (just check off each item on both lists). For example, it looks like in the case of Nadir, all standard skills but Fly, Handle Animal, Heal, Ride, and Survival are class skills since the Rogue and Bard already cover a lot. We might pick up more later, so we'll wait to fill in our skill ranks. Similar to class skills, we can add all the weapon and armor proficiencies together and record them (for convenience, I typically use one column for feats, and another for class/race features). We'll choose rogue as our favored class, so we can use the human option of +1/6th of a rogue trick per level (we can record the fraction now).
Moving on to the other class features, we'd better be careful that we keep track of what's been replaced by our archetypes. Bards get a few spells at first level, but like skills and feats, we can just record the slots we have for these now and fill them in later. With a Charisma of 17, this amounts to 2 spells per day chosen from 2 known 1st level spells, and then 4 cantrips that he can use any number of times per day. Rogues get +1d6 sneak attack and Bards get +1/2 level to Knowledge skills through Bardic Knowledge, so we can go ahead and record that. Normally Rogues get trapfinding and bards get performances, but due to Nadir's archetypes, the Archaeologist actually gives us trapfinding (through Clever Explorer, at 2nd level) and the Smuggler adds Conceal Item. We can record Archaelogist's Luck while we're at it.