pathfinder decision paralysis

[bestmiaou]

this week i've been putting together my first pathfinder character, and the number of feat and class option combinations is frankly ridiculous. the only reason that i could actually get through most of character creation was because there were more experienced players around to tell me the "standard" choices for the character i wanted to play. i'm still working on equipment after several hours of looking through the lists, but that's mostly because sorcerers don't have many ways to get enhancements via equipment options, and i'm trying to figure out decent ways to spend my money.

the only game i've played that may be worse is GURPS, and i'm not sure about that. the point buy system in GURPS makes it easy to have both big abilities and small ones. in pathfinder, if you want a big ability that isn't tied to a class (like, say, being able to effectively wield 2 weapons at one), it has to be split up between several feats, which just inflates the number of feats by a ridiculous amount.

Comments

[bestmiaou]

we are only level 2 and have been given a budget of a little more than 1000 gp, so the more obviously useful items are out of my price range. i did find a couple useful ones, tho. the cloak of resistance is good (or the protean cloak for a cheaper option). and there is always a mithral buckler for some quick armor bonus. bracers of armor also would fit, and perform a similar function, tho i don't know the system quite well enough to know the trade offs involved in that choice.

[crimisin]

Bracers of armor are good for characters that don't have armor proficiency or aren't allowed to wear metal armor. Or, if you don't intend to wear other armor (the bracers don't stack with traditional armor) they're a good way to get the ac boost without taking an armor check penalty or arcane spell failure %.
The buckler is better if you'll be wearing other armor but in addition to the -1 ac penalty and 5% chance of arcane spell failure there's also a -1 to two handed weapons or dual wielding (only on the hand that has the buckler)