In Pathfinder, you can pick out professions to give more flavor to your world or character. While this is often just a nice extra perk to have and fleshes out your background and the world around ou a bit, knowing the best professions in Pathfinder can be quite useful for your adventure and all things loosely attached to it.
We have ranked be best professions in Pathfinder according to a few criteria. Here is how we judged them:
- Our personal experience with the profession
- How useful the Pathfinder Profession is in the average campaign
- The perks of this profession
- The drawbacks (if any) of choosing it
- How does this profession stack up to other good professions in Pathfinder
- How easy it is to implement in your world
DMs I strongly recommend to homebrew a bit with the ones you find on the list. They should not be too rigid, and some should be easily combinable with others. Make sure the professions make sense in the world your campaign takes place.
Top Pathfinder Professions
Generally, Pathfinder professions are a background choice, and we always recommend going with the one you feel comfortable using. Below, we have listed Pathfinder’s Best Professions in the game, telling you a bit about their perks or usability. But, of course, you can always combine various professional skills to make the best one for your needs.
1. Barrister
Barristers handle legal matters because of their experience in the courtroom, handling legal manuals and helping you out in all legal matters. Choosing a barrister will put you in a good situation for defense in court or prosecution.
Mostly, barristers are stationary, working in a specific area under a court of law. But, mostly, it depends on the government, and you can make your clients from the populace, acting as a jury or even as a judge during disputes.
You can choose between two ability boosts; one must be between charisma and intelligence. While the other one is an ability boost that you get completely free. The training is the skill of diplomacy and the skill of legal lore. With a barrister, you skill feat of group impression.
2. Sailors
These professions are exactly what you would guess as they are used to seas from their youth. However, sailors also include merchants, the navy, scalawags, and pirates. So, it might include any of those when sailors come into reference.
Sailors are typically not connected to a particular port because they get hired for an extra hand on the ship. Organized sailors will work in a full crew on ships.
You have the choice to choose between two ability boosts. One ranges between dexterity and strength, while you get an ability boost free of cost as your second. The training for sailors is in the skill of athletics and the skill of sailing lore. With a sailor, you will have the skill feat of the marauder.
3. Merchant
Merchants usually spend their life in dusty shops, stalls, or caravans for merchants. Your job is to trade goods as a merchant, but the skills you choose here will provide you with an adventurous life. A piece of advice is to wear good armor in this profession, as it can save your life.
Traveling merchants are a blessing to the caravan or mule packs. They are mostly found on the corners of the streets, allowing the shopkeeper to deal in every type of trade.
With merchants, you have the choice of getting two ability boosts, one must be from charisma or intelligence, and the other one is an ability boost free of cost. In addition, the training for merchants is in the skill of diplomacy and the skill of mercantile lore. Finally, you will have the skill feat of a bargain hunter.
4. Cook
Cooks are the experts in the kitchen, and it is like their natural habitat. Cooks spent their youth in the tavern kitchen or other types of establishments related to dining and perfected it there. You can do brewing, baking, and cooking.
Being someone who loves adventure, you travel with caravans, wagons and military units. But, on the other hand, if you like to stay at a place, there are pubs and restaurants where you can run and deal with your clients.
With cooks, you can get two ability boosts; one must be from intelligence or constitution, while the second is an ability boost free of cost. Cooks are trained in the skill of survival and also the skill of cooking lore, gaining the skill feat of seasoned.
5. Librarian
Librarians are the experts of books and are trained to maintain, manage and find information from tomes. Librarians move around the map and set up their businesses to help people who can’t afford reading materials.
There are two types of librarians, the permanent ones have specialized or small shops for specific subjects, while the private librarians have their own business dealing with clients for large cash. Often, wizards visit these librarians to get items and more.
With a librarian, you have the choice of getting two ability boosts, one must be from the librarian profession or linguistics, and the other one is free of cost ability boost.
The skill increases whenever you read a book, and you get a bonus of 1 added to your stats. Librarian is of the least used but most interesting pathfinder professions in m opinion!
6. Soldier
The soldier Profession is one of the best in Pathfinder since fighting is just so crucial to the game. From a role playing perspective it also makes a ton of sense to have this one. Soldiers are related to fighting and go where they find it. In the segment of soldiers, you will find marines, guards, and even mercenaries. The marines can accept the coin for the prowess of combat in exchange.
On the other hand, mercenaries are in charge of the armies or units to run businesses of good size. Organizations with various services of guards and escorts to nobles and merchants could benefit from soldiers.
7. Architect
These are one of the most common types of professions you will find in Pathfinder. On the other hand, architects who like to do adventure are quite rare and have their workspace around nobles, building strongholds and houses.
Architects also train military units to construct their defenses on the battlefield. Being a business-oriented architect, you can sell projects, and construction plans and create buildings for others to earn a living.
8. Engineers
The working of engineers is similar to architects, so there is no going into detail there. However, engineers focus on the mechanical side of providing their service to the community. An addition is a mercenary engineer who can lead engineers from the military, having experience in their profession.
9. Clerk
On to the next entry on our list for best professions in Pathfinder: the clerk. Clerks are the masters of paperwork, roaming around with mayors, clergy members, nobles, etc. There are typically two types of clerks, and mostly traveling ones are super rare.
Traveling clerks have to move around to do paperwork with various top members of the town, like mayors, nobles, and so on. Clerks can also do their own business, operating storefronts, providing bookkeeping services, and anything.
10. Driver
If you truly love to travel around the land, then the driver profession is your best bet. Drivers are natural travelers, and mostly they work independently. Independent ones are associated with the caravans, wagons, pulling animals, carts, and military units.
However, the local ones are more on the business side, offering their services to other shops like carriage service, contract-based drivers, etc. Even mercenary drivers focus on chariot games to earn a living.
11. Gambler
A pretty funny but solid pick for a great profession in pathfinder is this one. The thrill of taking chances and winning forced you into the profession of a gambler. Aside from the risky adventures in the other professions, the gambler is risky but not life-threatening.
Gamblers can either be hired to teach others how to gamble, which is common in nobles, or you can also make your own business of betting houses, casinos, and services for bookies.
There are two ability boosts, one of which can be charisma or dexterity. The other one is a free ability boost. Unfortunately, the skills you are trained in our deception and game lore, while the skill feat here is a lie to me.
12. Farmer
In an agrarian society, being a farmer is the most common and one of the best professions in Pathfinder form a role playing perspective. Farmer is a decent profession that involves both stationary and mobile work. The mobile farmers usually travel around, working between various farms for crop gathering. These farmers are under the landowners and work under them.
If you get skilled in farming, you can travel freely to various places and sell your crops, plant breeds or even check out other people’s farms. One type of farmer is growing crops in their own field and selling them themselves.
13. Baker
Last on our list of the best professions in Pathfinder is the Baker. Mostly, people mistake cooking for the baker and vice versa. But, honestly, the baker is a completely different profession and allows you to peddle goods being a street vendor.
It might not have to be a street vendor; you can also sell it on carts or stalls in the bazaar. If you are a renowned baker, you can simply travel the world and offer your baked goods.
If you like to go independent, you can simply open your store and sell the cakes, pies, bread, and so on to the customers. If you enter a wealthy town, you can also offer custom creations to consumers.
Final verdict on best Pathfinder Professions
Well, here is the end to our Pathfinder best profession guide. You can go for many professions in Pathfinder, but we went a step ahead and sorted out the best or most popular ones. There might be a chance that you couldn’t find a profession suitable for your gameplay; therefore, you can simply combine the skills of various professions to make the best one for yourself.
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