There's a Pathbuilder 1e, but I think it might only be for Android. I haven't seen a web-based version.

OG publisher of notoriously crunchtastic system *[Rifts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifts_(role-playing_game))* (FWIW, *[G.U.R.P.S.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS)*), by Steve Jackson, is even more so — I misremembered them both being Paladium publications when posting above, honestly.) If you don't see the Matrix as endless spreadsheets, these are not the systems you're looking for.

Eh, there's at least 1 exception: toxicologist alchemist. Especially if you're about to play Abomination vaults

Just keep in mind that cross-referencing options with Archives of Nethys is also super important. I've had 2 players build overly complicated characters and needed a ton of help to unbork them simply because they didn't read anything before making a selection

While there are some dead-end builds, they're pretty rare. As in, avoid the toxicologist subclass for alchemist and you're largely fine. There are some classes I wouldn't recommend for new players due to complexity, like the alchemist and the psychic, but that's only because they're complicated. Another thing to keep in mind is that martial and caster classes are actually balanced against each other now, and melee characters are going to do more damage than ranged characters due to them being on the front lines and taking more risks. This isn't critical for effective gameplay, I'm just trying to let you know what to expect. While you go about making a character in Pathbuilder, I recommend also looking up the same options in Archives of Nethys, which is the semi-official source of game rules. It will have everything available on there except for adventure paths and lore books, with the full text of every option and rule. There's chapters available on there on how to play the game and I recommend reading it. Another reason to use Archives of Nethys is because it gives more context on options. You could build a character that is a rare ancestry like a Conrasu or Goloma, but without a picture and full description you're not going to know what your character actually is.

honestly choosing the coolest thing every time is probably the best way to build a character maybe, but for tryhard games you'd make a tryhard character anyway

hmm why is that?

> maybe, but for tryhard games you’d make a tryhard character anyway > That's the thing though I have no idea how. Since PF2 came out I got by just fine on making unique and fun but _entirely_ unoptimised characters. So I never bothered _learning_ what synergises with what to make a tryhard character.

oh well you'd just have to play a bunch of characters and see what is strongest or watch videos about optimizing characters. there are a bunch of those (a couple of youtube channels i'd recommend for that are swingripper and mathfinder)

*Laughs in GURPS*

Oh man, I really tried it one time.... But I couldn't really wrap my head around it, nor get my players to learn it. Also I wanted some pre-made monsters to toss into an encounter... Couldn't find anything like that. You have to make every monster from scratch? I might be remembering that wrong.

You can do that in Dungeon Fantasy, which is basically just GURPS with a bunch of pre-made classes and stuff. But the strength of regular GURPS is the ability to handle any idea you can throw at it. It really shines when making your genre-bent homebrew come to life. Once you get comfortable with how the system scales things, you can really just wing it with monsters on the fly.

Toxicology got some buffs in the remaster that let them morph poison damage to acid if its favorable, iirc

Lots of creature types are immune to poison, such as undead and automatons. And there's a *lot* of undead in the Abomination Vaults campaign. Plus, there's a lot of poisons that are very underwhelming. Especially ones that have an onset period; those are essentially useless in combat

Haha we used to live for that shit in the days of 3e/3.5

There are a few places I've found with lots of prebuilt monsters for GURPS, though they aren't really consolidated in one place. I usually look through one if the following if I want something prebuilt: - the creatures of the night books (mostly solitary monsters you could design an adventure around, with suggestions for each one) - the fantasy bestiary (lots of generic and mythological monsters from all over the world, with stats and descriptions for each one) - dungeon fantasy monsters 1-3 (lots of monsters, kinda built with dungeon fantasy settings and power levels in mind) - the gurps repository also has tons of free and generic statblocks

finally i can play out my fantasy of being a were-tailor