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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Porridge" data-source="post: 8894229" data-attributes="member: 7020143">JThursby's answer to this question is pretty much a perfect answer, IMO. Building on that, two further comments:1. If you want to avoid the headache of tracking this, you can just use the (very popular) Automatic Bonus Progression optional rules in the Gamemastery Guide. This is, IMO, a big quality of life bump -- you don't have to worry about gear at all, and can just hand out magic items whenever it feels fun/flavorful to do so.2. It's often said that it's impossible to build a bad character in PF2 if you follow a few guidelines, and that's basically true. But it's nice going in to know what those guidelines are!<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You want your main attribute to be 16+.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You want your (AC bonus from armor)+(Dex modifier) to be 4+.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">(This one is often omitted, and IMO pretty much the only real trap of character creation): You want to build your character to have at least a couple effective third action options.</li> </ol>To expound on #3 a bit: When you're building a character, you want to be thinking about what you’ll generally be doing with your third action. With a -10 MAP (Multiple Attack Penalty) it’s generally not worth attacking a third time. So you want something else effective you can do, or else you’re effectively throwing away a third of your actions. There are lots of options, but most will require some mechanical investment on your part to do well. For example:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Raise Shield is a great option. But that means you’ll want a shield, a free hand, and probably the Shield Block feat.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Casting the Shield cantrip (or some other good 1-action spell like Guidance) is good. But that means you need to make sure you know that cantrip.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Demoralize (using Intimidation), Bon Mot (using Diplomacy), or other social attacks: fantastic choices. But these require an investment in Intimidate or Diplomacy skills, and a decent Cha.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Recall Knowledge: This can be very useful, but it requires an investment in knowledge skills, and a decent Int.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Moving like a skirmisher in range to attack, and then back out of range again. But if you want to make your enemy spend more actions moving than you do, you'll want a high speed - to pick up the Fleet feat, or go for an ancestry with a movement bonus (Elf) or ancestry feats which grant movement bonuses, have a class bonus to movement speed, look into styles which help with this like Tiger Stance, etc.</li> </ul>And so on. Ideally you want at least a couple good third action options to choose between. But that requires choosing these options ahead of time, and building to make them effective.</blockquote>

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