How I Make Characters in Pathfinder 2e

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Making a character is a lot of work, so I'm going to tell you exactly how I handle it personally!

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[Nonats]

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[TheEventide]

I spit out characters every 15 minutes most days. I have a problem. You should see my Pathbuilder library.

[Atrianpaul]

Nonat: I goning to walk you through my whay is apparetly my 9 step process
Also Nonay: And my 10 and final step is...

Love it

[TheVampireking]

I have to say that I am coming from 5e and your videos on pf2e have been extremely helpful.

[nilescaron-sadkfpemployee]

Ah, perfect, a character creation video. Just what I needed, considering my character of 3 years just died last session. I’m totally not coping or seething or malding about it btw.

Also YES NoNat we have the same naming process. One of my recent characters name was Kotori, meaning Ash Bird, if I recall. The character I’m making to temporarily replace my deceased one is a Jinx Tengu named Feliz (Man of fortune) Desgracia (Misfortune)

[VafnirGrafta]

Naming characters is definitely one of my favorite parts of creating a character. My female Gnoll Oracle with the Ancestors Mystery is called Anima Singura, which means as much as "Lonely Soul" or "Singular Soul", which is kind of ironic considering she carries the souls/spirits of her ancestors in her.

[ishythetaffer]

These days i come up with characters sort of randomly.
I usually search down for art of fantasy OCs around the internet, and the one that inspire me, i save them in a folder.
Then, when its time to play, i usually open the folder, scroll down, take the art that inspires me the most and create a character based on the vibe, following it or subverting it.
For the name i take random generators, see what inspire me and then modify it.

[kylone]

I still think my favorite name was my female Gnome named Ann. Who was into theatre. (she wasn't a bard, she was an inventor, but took the Gnome Obsession feat for theatre lore)

[zamba]

My character Creation goes as such.

#1, i speak with the other players to see what general role and skillsets they want to play. I have enough preset builds to cover any role or concept.

#2, i speak with the DM about the specics of their setting. I don't often create a specific counter to their campaign, but nobody wants to be a Vampire Hunter in a dragon-slaying campaign.

#3, if there is an NPC that fits, i ask to naritively replace that NPC. Did this once for one of my players, and it was fantasic! Otherwize, i imbed myself in the setting.

#4, Import one of my hundreds of pre-planned characters and edit the sheet to fit, or start a new one if my idea is unique enough.

I pick a background first. Usually, this is the day job or role i am filling in society

I usually pick a native Ancestry, or an ancestry related to the social story i want to tell. Sometimes i pick for Mechanical reasons, such as my Superstitious Orc /Superstitious Barbarian Priest.

Class is related to my role in the party. I usually pick interesting combos. Barbarian Priest, Fighter Sage, Witch Chef, Paladin Pole-Dancer. It isn't always unrelated though, like an Swashbuckler Acrobat

My favorite way to play is with Free Archetype rules, and i like to make this an extention of my character's Background/Job.

Choices past this are purely for Flavor. Spells, weapons, armor, feats. I ignore power and choose flavor. Sometimes character creation starts here, "i want to play a Sleep Bard with a Scythe for super-powered Gaurenteed crits and Heavy Armor. He'll be the town Executioner."

#5, i make sheets for all family, friends, rivals, and possible Antagonists. Sometimes, they are Also secondary PCs for when my other character is busy, or i want a break. "I have too many customers to Adventure, ask my sister."

6# names...i HATE names. I usually find something that fits before session 1, though.

[blevenox]

Absolute yes for the spells. 100% agree. Why should my Abjuration wizard know fireball? They just want to protect. Made a bard who only had sound/voice themed spells cause they were a singer.

[carbonscythe]

It's fun that you and I have the same strategy for naming our characters, this was for DND however but I named my Half-orc Oath of redemption paladin Raka Marumaru, Rakau means Shield and Whakamarumaru means protection, both in Maori. His idea is that he just runs around the battle field and protects his friends with his shield and different spells and feats that make sure there is as little combat as possible.

Raka Marumaru means Broken Wood though, which in general is just a cool name.

[LadyKjell]

For me, how the process starts varies; sometimes I'm just looking at fantasy art and a pretty picture gives me an idea, or I'm watching a show and a moment/character inspires me, sometimes it's song lyrics! Or I'm told a campaign premise someone is running and I start drawing on half-formed ideas in my head, or I go looking for imagery/songs that get me in that premise's mood.
But generally, I try to come up with a concept/backstory idea/class all together, as they're somewhat entwined for me; sometimes the backstory leads me to a class, or the class gives me an idea for a backstory. Generally, it's all guided by the personality, occupation, or other campaign context I have in mind.
I basically mess around with this stuff, talk to GM/players about classes/niches filled and what to expect from the campaign, and I'll fine tune the ideas after a while. Sometimes I have a concept I'd love to try sometime, but it takes a while to find the right campaign/opportunity.

[Jasonwfd]

I approach character creation very similarly. The big thing that stuck out to me is in step 1, where you said you usually let the other players make their ideas first and then try to fill in a role that the group is lacking. This is absolutely what I often prefer to do! Like you said, I can always think of 1000 different character concepts that could be fun to play, so I don't want to take anyone else's thunder away from them if I'd just as easily and happily play something else.

[KyU]

Pathbuilder is an amazing tool for character creation too, just need to throw it out there! :)

[kelpiekit]

I had a grung (5e) character called Syllulluniau for the Welsh words for staring and paintings. Him habitually staring at paintings as a youngling led to him becoming a scribe and painter for his tribe, which eventually led to him becoming an anthropologist outside the tribe. I also felt the name was nicely rhythmic like frog song. He fought as a barbarian using a concoction he discovered when developing new pigments, but that wasn't a significant portion of his identity.

[kwintenkoeter]

My method of character creation is always mechanics first. What do I wanna do? Am I aiming for certain feats? What's my role in the party? Flavour comes pretty much dead last. I like to have a point of reference I can fall back on, starting on a completely blank page scares the hell out of me.
Backgrounds I usually leave up to flavour; only when stats are really important (for an archetype, for instance) or if I'm starved for skills I'll pick an optimal one, but since my backstory's still undefined at this point, the character could literally be anything.
As said, backstory comes last. I like to come up with "how did I end up here" and work my way backwards (or work towards), rather than creating something from nothing and seeing what fits best.

[CommissarMitch]

Oh I agree on a lot of points.

I have a Kobold Rogue who holds a Fangwire and Leather armour because he is a Hired Killer.

He is essentially Kobold 47.

[queenannsrevenge]

My two character inspirations:
1) our group has one person who has PRACTICALLY EVERY MINI AND BONES KICKSTARTER EVEN DONE, and I sometimes browse the minis to get inspiration, and work backward from the mini.
2) I have a concept of something mechanical, like “never played a fighter, that expert/master/legendary weapons thing sounds cool”, or “the alchemist infusion mechanic sounds neat” and work from that mechanic to optimize it and see how far it goes. I then decide what kind of character was informed from that choice, what person came into that profession or class, or what they did when born as that ancestry.

[JeremyLohan]

it's exactly the way I do it, I love the whole creation process. My character is called Morana Senka, she is a necromancer, and her name means dark death. AMAZING!

[vincentbouscarle]

Mostly same process at the end of the day, but a few exceptions:
-sometimes the first spark of concept can be a gameplay gimmick (especially if I know the game enough to want to try a specific combo, or if summoning/pets are available and manageable), a specific choice like an ancestry or class or power that caught my eye (like leshys <3), or a pure joke like a very weird combination (barbarian-wizard anyone?) or a pun for a name
-picture is key, like when I have the core skeleton of the character, things I really want to bring to the table, I search for illustrations and go through a selection process to finally settle on one that might inspire a lot of the other details afterwards. I really dislike not having/finding a good pic for my character, so searching for it early saves the trouble of finding the perfect fit when a lot has been decided. It's especially true for rare ancestries, very old or very young, not average-muscular-hero body type, not average gender expression, not white... when I decided my human bard would be a black woman, ex-doctor and mother of two, who changed lifestyle to a magical diva after midlife crisis, I really thought "stop, it will be very hard to find a satisfying picture with just that, don't add weaponry or culture or hairstyle !" ahah. Cute space turtle was a struggle too recently XD