In the two previous articles (here and here), I’ve addressed some of the very basics of character creation while moving into the more complex statistics required for playing the game. This time, I’m going to keep to one box on the sheet: Skills. There are plenty of other boxes of information you’ll need to create your character, but some of them can vary from game to game. Rather than bog everyone down with just Pathfinder game information, I’m going to end our creation section with the Skills you need to choose in order to accomplish your goal.
That’s a list of things! The first column labeled “CS” denotes if the skill is a Class Skill. The second column is the name of the skill; the third column indicates the required ability to use the skill; and the remaining columns are math. The first of the math columns is the total amount of bonus you have for a skill. If you look at “Handle Animal,” Suviel has a +11 in that column. This means, when she rolls her d20, she will add 11 to the total she gets on the die. The second math column is “Modifications.” The numbers here come from the bonuses from the Ability table. Handle Animal requires Charisma; Suviel’s Charisma (CHA) is 15, which gives her a +2 bonus or modification on skills requiring Charisma.
The third math column is “Ranks,” or how much that character has trained in that particular skill. You cannot have more ranks in a skill than you have levels. In other words, Suviel could not have 7 ranks in Handle Animal if she is only level 6. You cannot learn something before you are born! It would be like having a Master’s degree in Psychology before you have turned 5. Obviously, there are exceptions in the real world (such as child prodigies), but in the gaming world, anomalies are even less common.
The final math column is for any miscellaneous modifiers you may receive from magic items or spells. These can be positive or negative, depending on the situation, and will affect your total (Math Column 1). Note that “Survival” uses all the math columns; Suviel has a total of +11 to Survival, based on her +1 Wisdom bonus, her 4 ranks, and a miscellaneous bonus of +3 (from a Feat that we will discuss in a subsequent article).
If you are building the Character of You, what skills do you think you would need to succeed in your job? Can you make an honest assessment of how many ranks you believe you have in those skills? Do those ranks match with your level? How do your Ability Scores help you? If you would like help with creating the Character of You, please feel free to contact me and we can work on You, together!
There is a lot of room in business for role-playing games. And there is a lot of room in role-playing games for business. Critically analyzing your skills and abilities in terms of a character sheet can give you an idea of where you want to go. You can start to plan your career and maybe even branch out and do something we call “Multi-Class.” The world is your oyster! With a bit of divergent thinking and creative problem-solving, you can make your career a Critical Success!