Backgrounds

Backgrounds describe training or environments your character experienced before becoming an adventurer. Your character’s background provides ability boosts, skill training, and a skill feat.

Backgrounds allow you to customize your character based on their life before adventuring.

Your character’s background can help you learn or portray more about their personality while also suggesting what sorts of things they’re likely to know. Consider what events set your character on their path to the life of an adventurer and how those circumstances relate to their background.

At 1st level when you create your character, you gain a background of your choice. This decision is permanent; you can’t change it at later levels. Each background listed here grants two ability boosts, a skill feat, and the trained proficiency rank in two skills, one of which is a Lore skill.

If you gain the trained proficiency rank in a skill from your background and would then gain the trained proficiency rank in the same skill from your class at 1st level, you instead become trained in another skill of your choice.

If a Lore skill involves a choice (for instance, a choice of terrain), explain your preference to the GM, who has final say on whether it’s acceptable or not. If you’d like some suggestions, the Common Lore Subcategories sidebar lists a number of Lore skills that are suitable for most campaigns.

Skill feats expand the functions of your skills and appear in Feats.

Magical Backgrounds

The world is full of adventurers of all sorts of origins, but these backgrounds directly verge on the magical. While these backgrounds are common, and any character can take them, they are particularly appropriate choices for a character in a game focused on magic and its secrets.

Rare Magical Backgrounds

Some magical backgrounds come from such special circumstances that they mark your character as forever distinct. You twist the prophecy in your favor, which will have consequences later. Reroll the failed check. You must use the result of the second roll. For 24 hours afterward, the GM can force you to reroll a successful saving throw, attack roll, or skill check as fate balances the scale. This is a misfortune effect. You can’t use prophecy’s pawn again until the GM uses this option or 24 hours pass, whichever comes first.

These rare backgrounds can give a player a significantly different roleplaying experience by setting their character up with a history or legacy beyond the norm. Whether a character with the chosen one background has been prophesied to achieve a goal that’s part of the main plot of the campaign or a side quest just for them, the character is situated in a special position within the narrative. Your character’s background is an intrinsic part of where they come from and not something they earn during the game. Rare backgrounds should be chosen only after a discussion between the GM and the other players as to whether one would apply for a particular character in your group’s game.

List of Backgrounds

Background	Publisher	Type	Source
Common Backgrounds
Acrobat	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Animal Whisperer	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Artisan	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Artist	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Barkeep	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Barrister	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Bounty Hunter	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Charlatan	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Criminal	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Detective	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Emissary	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Entertainer	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Farmhand	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Field Medic	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Fortune Teller	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Gambler	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Gladiator	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Guard	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Herbalist	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Hermit	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Hunter	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Laborer	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Martial Disciple	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Merchant	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Miner	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Noble	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Nomad	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Prisoner	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Sailor	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Scholar	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Scout	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Street Urchin	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Tinker	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Warrior	Paizo	Common	PCR2E
Magical Backgrounds
Academy Dropout	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Astrologer	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Eidolon Contact	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Energy Scarred	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
False Medium	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Magical Merchant	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Magical Misfit	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Musical Prodigy	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Mystic Tutor	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Occult Librarian	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Plant Whisperer	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Street Preacher	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Student of Magic	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Surge Investigator	Paizo	Magical	PSOM
Magical (Rare)
Anti-Magical	Paizo	Magical (Rare)	PSOM
Chosen One	Paizo	Magical (Rare)	PSOM
Genie-Blessed	Paizo	Magical (Rare)	PSOM
Magical Experiment	Paizo	Magical (Rare)	PSOM
Seer of the Dead	Paizo	Magical (Rare)	PSOM
Song of the Deep	Paizo	Magical (Rare)	PSOM
Time Traveler	Paizo	Magical (Rare)	PSOM