Astril’s player is Sarah, and she creates her character by using the following steps:
Sarah’s GM is using the default method of Ability Scores. Thus, she is going to pick up 4 six-sided dice (4d6) and roll them, adding the result, and that will be her Strength Score. She rolls a 2, 4, 4, and 5. Dropping the 2, her Strength Score is 13. She repeats this for Dexterity, and gets 1, 1, 1 and 3. Dropping one of the 1s she rolled, she gets a 5. Then Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma, getting 6, 9, 12, and 11.
Sarah has triggered the default rules for a non-adventuring character. Not only does she have 2 Ability Scores that are 6 or lower (Dexterity of 5, and Constitution of 6), but the sum of her ability score modifiers are -3, and a -2 would cause her to reroll.
So, she rolls again. This time she gets 12 Strength, 7 Dexterity, 10 Constitution, 15 Intelligence, 14 Wisdom, and 11 Charisma.
Sarah has Decent Strength, Constitution, and Charisma, as well as really good Intelligence and Wisdom. She is spoiled for choice! These rolls would make a great Cleric, Fighter, Mage, Stone Speaker, or even Elven Keepers or Elven Wanderers. She could make a passible thief too, although that dexterity would likely shorten her life her in the long run.
However, Sarah’s creative juices are flowing. She wants to play a warrior-priest and wants to be half-elven. She looks over the multi-classing rules to see if she wants to do a Cleric\Fighter, but decides that clerics are “fighter enough” for her vision of her character.
She decides that she will be a half-elven cleric. She knows that her Intelligence is higher than her Wisdom, and thus she would make a good Mage, but she really wants to play a Cleric.
As noted above, Astril decides to be a half-elf. She reads the section on half-elves, and gains a better understanding about how they function in the world, although she had a good idea already. She notes some of the gameplay information.
First, half-elves can increase any ability score by 1 point, but must reduce any other (except charisma) by 1. She can only do this once. Looking over, she could bump her Wisdom up to 15, but a 14 and 15 have the same “Modifier”. She could increase her Strength to 13, and lower her intelligence to 14, which would not move her intelligence modifier, but bump her Strength to +1! She could also do the same with a Dexterity Adjustment, allowing her to no longer have the -1 penalty, and instead have an 8 Dexterity (+0). She decides to bring her Strength up to 13 (+1) and lower her Intelligence down to 14 (still +1).
After adjustments, her Ability Scores are: Strength (13), Dexterity (7), Constitution (10), Intelligence (14), Wisdom (14), Charisma (11).
<aside> <img src="/icons/exclamation-mark_gray.svg" alt="/icons/exclamation-mark_gray.svg" width="40px" /> As a reminder, in this example, Astril was looking at modifiers to decide what she is doing, but later in your character’s career, they may wish to train to increase ability scores. Sometimes, increasing an ability score that doesn’t result in a modifier bonus is still a good move that allows your character to spend less time training later.
</aside>
Next, she notes that she is a medium sized creature, that her move speed is 25 feet, and that she can read\write and speak common. Additionally, she can read elven. Finally, with a 15 Intelligence score, she can learn to speak another language, or read\write elven. She selects to be able to read\write elven.
Finally, she goes over her features. Elf-Like Immunities and Elf-Like Resistances grant her a +4 Racial Bonus to certain saving throws (against magical sleep and paralyzing touch of undead creatures). Additionally, she gains Resistance to profane damage equal to 1/2 her Charisma score.
She also gains low-light vision, allowing her to see in low-light conditions (but not total darkness) and 1 extra Weapon Proficiency Point to use.
Astril chooses to roll for her vital statistics, instead of picking them. How to do this is listed in each race, and it is different for each race. Since she is a half-elf, she will use the half-elf values. For her age, she knows that a cleric’s archetype is a Priest, so she rolls 2d8 and gets an 8. She adds that 8 to 16 (base age), and she is 24 years old.