[PF] I’m DMing a short adventure tomorrow, and need PCs...

[Lonely Tylenol]

Hey, so, here’s the story:

I’ve got this friend who I used to play 3.5/Pathfinder with all the time. Good guy, had a regular outing with him for years, as well as both our girlfriends at the time, before he moved away a couple years back.

Well, he’s back—for a wedding with the aforementioned girlfriend—and I’m hosting his bachelor party tomorrow at my place. Everyone decided on Monday that they wanted something relatively chill instead of a club outing or anything, so, well... Why not a game of D&D, for old time’s sake?

I have an idea for a brief adventure (they’re going to crash a wedding with an array of monsters who are either drunk, or doing catering, and so on, but it’s going to be worded as a standard dungeon crawl until the end). The only problem is... I’ve been asked to run Pathfinder for the group, and I haven’t played Pathfinder since 5e’s release.

I guess this is a lame thing to do, but can you guys help me come up with a few player character ideas for a one-off? I’m looking for characters that will be interesting to play, but aren’t too hard for a relative new player to pick up.

Here’s what I have in mind for character creation:
- Level 3.
- All characters will have an array of 18/16/14/12/10/8 (pre-racial).
- No flaws.
- All races and classes available on the PFSRD are open game.
- I’d like to get 8 PCs built for the game, so the players have choices.

I’ll even take simple suggestions like “Race X/Class Y with A, B, C feats” - I can fill in the blank; I just don’t know about navigating the SRD to build everyone’s characters on the fly, with how many options there are these days!

[Geddy2112]

Since it is a one shot, I would stick to the basic core classes and races, perhaps even tropes. Even if the group are seasoned vets, if they are asking for premade characters easy ready to run characters are best. Maybe even go as far as prepare spells for divine casters. If you really want one stop shopping, just use the iconic PC's, pick 8 of the 11 core classes.

If I were to build 8 characters, I would go with
-Halfling rogue, two weapon fighting
-Gnome Sorcerer, evocation/blaster
-Dwarf Cleric 2 handed weapon, power attack/divine feat
-Half Elf Archery Ranger, Point Blank/Precise/Rapid Shot
-Human/Half Orc Barbarian, 2 handed weapon, power attack/furious focus
-Human/Half Orc Paladin w/2 handed weapon, Power attack/divine feat
-Elf Wizard, Conjuration focused
-Human/Half Orc/Half Elf Phalanx Fighter(fighter Archetype) Reach weapon+shield , power attack, combat reflexes, other feats a la carte.

[Florian]

I´d reduce the choice thing a bit. You'll want a regular and functioning party of 4, so only two choices per functional position.

Frontline:
Fighter or Paladin

Damage Dealer:
Rogue or Magus

Support:
Cleric or Druid

Artillery:
Wizard or Sorcerer

Don´t overcomplicate things, especially not for a one-shot, simply use the PF Iconics and be done with it. They may not be optimized, but they work.

[zlefin]

you could use some of the npc lists and just tweak the chars slightly (they're using npc wealth rather than pc wealth levels iirc)
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/npc-s/npc-2/

[Bucky]

If it's a one-shot, you can hold the entire episode in one in-game day. This lets you tell the casters "...and here are the spells you've prepared" rather than making them crawl their whole spell list.

[Lonely Tylenol]

you could use some of the npc lists and just tweak the chars slightly (they're using npc wealth rather than pc wealth levels iirc)
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/npc-s/npc-2/

This is great, thanks! I didn't even know about these - were they released within the last few years?


If it's a one-shot, you can hold the entire episode in one in-game day. This lets you tell the casters "...and here are the spells you've prepared" rather than making them crawl their whole spell list.

Yep, that's the plan!