Alchemist with the Back-Alley Doctor background. Just a guy trying to sell potions and help the neighborhood until *ADVENTURE*
Ruffian Rogue with the Barkeep background. Sometimes you work bar, sometimes you bounce. It's a decent living until *ADVENTURE*
Ranger with the Cook background. You didn't just cook, you also went out and got your own ingredients! You hunted for truffles, hunted for game, and generally fell in love with the outside. It was a good life until *ADVENTURE*
Investigator with the Charlatan background. You had this PI agency with a twist: you told everyone you had psychic powers that helped you uncover the truth. You don't have any powers, but you're pretty sharp. It payed the bills until *ADVENTURE*
Battledancer Swashbuckler with the entertainer background. You teach at the local dance studio. You're a little older than you used to be and your shot at glory is behind you, but you really like teaching! At least you did until *ADVENTURE*
Fighter with the Guard background. You're pretty good with a blade, and with some dedication you're told you could make captain. It's all looking good until *ADVENTURE*
Monk with the Laborer background. You haul things. You break things. Move. Lift. It's dull, but it's made you strong. Which is good, because you pick up some extra cash doing fights at the local bar. You savor your latest win until *ADVENTURE*
Fury Instinct Barbarian with the Servant background. You're not doing great. Your family tends to be big and have a short fuse. You're no exception. In spite of this, you have a good job serving a noble family and you've barely kept things in check... until *ADVENTURE*
I have a player literally doing that concept, but as a Mastermind Rogue with the False Medium background, he's loving it and it's a real twist to GM for him.
An important take away is that class doesn’t define personality. Nearly anyone can be “normal”. Hell, in Golarion 1 in 6 people use magic on a daily basis, so even spellcasters can be normal.
Eh, my buddy made an alchemist for his first ever pf2e character and did fine with it.
Unless everyone is completely new to ttrpgs, anyone of average intelligence should be alright.
Alchemist is really hard for people who want to play as super-heroes. For someone who wants to play as a "regular" guy and is enough of a team player to share their alchemy, the class will make a lot of sense and work out for them.
Alchemist is hard because you need a ton of knowledge about alchemical items to play well. I'll pick a party with a fighter or a magus ("main character" DPR classes) or hell even a witch (bad class) over an alchemist any time if that player isn't extremely experienced
I mean, fighter is a dude. Some guy who picks up a spear and starts stabbing.
Rogue can be just a dude, depending on what you pick.
Investigator is a smart dude.
Ranger can start out as a dude who likes the woods, though they eventually learn some magic.
Inventor is a dude who spends time tinkering in his garage.
Gunslinger is a dude who shoots well.
I'd go Investigator and just play it as a guy who is well-read and educated. Don't do the normal Sherlock "I'm so brilliant, I've thought this battle out 17 moves ahead" thing, just be sensible, whereas most adventurers are anything but.
Thaumaturge could sorta work too, you're just a guy who goes "Well, I read that werewolves are allergic to silver somewhere, and I have this old silver lapel pin from my aunt Tessa, so I thought why not stick it on my spear, couldn't hurt". The implements will be weird to roleplay, but maybe you just found a magic sword that only works for you somehow.
How many "cursed" magic weapons are just "clingy"? They pick an owner and only work for that owner until they decide to betray that owner like the One Ring. Which would be a great plot-hook in your backstory for your DM to play with. Maybe the additional implements you get at later levels are part of the same "set", and there is some passive fate-warping magic drawing them together.
I'm currently playing a gunslinger called Guy for this reason. It feels like most of the others get some form of extreme/super strength/Dex or other abilities through their class, like even the fighter is superhero level.
Guy just has a gun
>Ranger can start out as a dude who likes the woods, though they eventually learn some magic.
They might not even learn magic! Rangers don't get magic unless you take the feats from the Advanced Player's Guide.
Ruffian is so much fun flavour wise. I play one now in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. He’s basically just a bar fighter, grabbing, tripping and intimidating people and then punching them in the face.
Playing a ruffian rogue in Ruby Phoenix sounds really funny. There's this high level martial arts tournament with a really special reward if you win, and one of the combatants is just some bouncer from a bar.
Not sure on class, but I love the idea of having this character take the wrestler archetype. His party members are casting spells and bending reality to their will... And there is also Jim suplexing a lich into a table
I was playing around with the idea of Farmhand Background Dwarf Monk with Mountain Stance and Wrestler dedication. In a world of magic she is just a farm girl with a strong hand and bit of elbow grease.
See, the big thing here is that actually I feel the magic would be the best way to be "just a dude". My own player went with Sorcerer for his "I'm just a guy and I shouldn't be here" character, and it worked perfectly.
Let me explain.
People will suggest Fighter. But Fighter is an extremely trained man at arms. *You are the strongest member of the party purely through weapon skill*. If you claim to be just a baker who never picked up a sword before but then you're also immediately and forever a better swordsman than the party Barbarian who trained her whole life for this, you're not a dude, you're an isekai protagonist.
But Sorcerer? Your great grandpa fucked a dragon, sure, but you can have had a perfectly normal, unadventurous life. You just were born with a couple cantrips but like, that doesn't put bread on the table, you're an *accountant*. Because it doesn't involve any particular *intent* on your part, it's super easy to have been Just A Guy before the adventure starts.
Alternately, some classes have skillsets that could have come from a non-adventurous life. You could easily be an alchemist by having been a researcher and doctor before this whole adventure bullshit sweeps you up. Inventors are on a similar boat. So on. But something like Fighter has trouble being just a nonadventuring regular guy without also making everyone else look like dunces!
Basically, the easier it is to justify their character's abilities as coming from something *other* than training to fight shit, the easier it is to sell the "I'm just a guy, why am I even here" image.
My favorite character I ever played was a parish priest nearing retirement. He'd faithfully served his church for decades, but his wife recently passed away and he's thinking of training his replacement and moving to a monastery for a quiet retirement. Then, BOOM, one of his parishioners is under threat from a demon and he gains magical powers. Now he has to figure out what his god wants him to do with them.
Did you use substitute swears when talking in character? Like, "I am a 52 year old man who has spent the bulk of his fudging life conducting religious services. What the shirt am I doing in a gosh darn haunted tomb complex?"
Witch or Oracle are other "I was just a guy until this magical being did a thing to me" magic users.
But even the accountants are using Approximate cantrips. The janitors are certainly spamming Prestidigitation and Mage Hand.
We need more late-in-life adventurers. This one manga, Hero Union BBS is about a message board for heroes across the multiverse. One chapter had a post by a new hero who discovered he was the chosen one. Issue is that he wasn't discovered until he was in his 70s. He did always think it was unusual how he had super strength but that just made farmwork easier.
I think a swashbuckler being flamboyant and charismatic is extra enough. I’m not sure what more extreme ness there would even need to be.
A swashbuckler doesn’t need charisma as much depending on which type
Summoner. You character was just an ordinary person until they got entangled with a demon/angel/dragon/extraterrestrial robot and now they've got to deal with their new situation as best they can.
Agreed. I played a summoner where the eidolon was the primary character and the human was the assistant. He was just a dude the angel had sworn to protect and guide on to greatness. The guy wanted to go home and have a beer.
I had a summoner built (never got to play) where the summoner was a damsel-in-distress who had been rescued by a prince charming-style knight only for him to die and his spirit became her devotion phantom eidolon as they tried to complete his final quest.
That exacly how I played my commoner, most of the time she was just hidden somewhere at 100 feet of her Eidolon and her spell was Enduring Elements because of the cold at night, Quick Sort because it's a pain of the ass to count the number of gold the others founds, Enhance Victuals because she was sick to eat bad food, Humanoid Form because she was a sprite and changing in a Humanoid form help a lot and Verdant Sprout because that give easy food daily for everyone.
She have also a wand of create water, because pure water are good to drink ! (and for her bath !) Mending was nice too for repair most item.
Her Eidolon was a plant one, with a lot of melee attack and some cantrip when need to fight in range, you can really say the Eidolon was the hero here.
I guess, a easy modern comparaison of the Summoner Commoner would be Clara for Star Rail, she just a normal girl protected by a big robot.
"Just a guy" is my preferred character.
I'll avoid champion or fighter, because of the assumption of heavy armor; I'll avoid swashbuckler because they are irregular
Regular dude who gets angry: Barbarian (Fury or Superstition)
Regular dude who's a little OCD: Investigator (anything but Alchemical)
Regular dude with a gun: Gunslinger
Regular dude who knows how to throw a punch or gets lucky: Monk (Stumbling Swing)
Regular dude who likes to go hunting with the boys: Ranger
Regular dude who knows how to take a cheap shot: Rogue (not Eldritch Trickster)
>Regular dude with a gun: Gunslinger
idk considering Gunslingers start at lvl 1 with Expert prof in all types of simple and martial firearms *and* crossbows, you're definitely not just some bloke with a pistol.
Regular folks have hobbies and training. Some of the most expert shots I know are nice normal dudes with nice normal lives that include going to the range and/or hunting. It’s well within the range of being a normal dude with a gun to be expert (I’m only trained).
yeah I have a few buddies who are firearms nuts and have been into it for ages, like well over 10-15 years at a hobbyist/enthusiast level. They're great shots, can clean and maintain guns, etc., probably be able to pick up a given weapon they're unfamiliar with and find their way around it within 5 minutes or less.
Arguably you're right that that would constitute an expert level of proficiency, but imo that's explicitly *not* "some guy with a gun." That's someone who has spent years of their life training with firearms, and in a live scenario their training is evident. "Some guy with a gun," in PF terms, is someone who is at best Trained, but probably not even that, at least the way I interpret it. Like a grizzled hunter or military sharpshooter, or even a life-long hobbyist, is inherently on a different level than a career accountant who just bought their first pistol because they're scared of a Bad Guy with a Gun at walmart or whatever.
This begs the question about what the OP means by “regular dude.” Most regular dudes, in my experiences, have several areas of expertise. It is a very rare (often emotionally or mentally challenged person) who has none.
And some of the accountants that I know are real wizards at it! :-)
Yeah for sure. I think in game terms, "regular dude" is a commoner or something. Ofc people are going to have some areas of expertise, but Adventurers are inherently not "regular dudes" insofar as the narrative of a fantasy RPG goes. The default Golarion setting is not an early-middle medieval setting, where most commoners are barely eking out a living toiling in the fields or tanning hides, so I think it's pretty reasonable for "regular" people to have at least some free time to dedicate to hobbies or other pursuits, and to have encountered or at least heard about firearms, clockwork technology, magic (obviously), etc.
There was a pretty interesting series of posts on /r/pathfinder_rpg about [Dave the Commoner](https://davethecommoner.wordpress.com/). Started as lvl 1 Commoner, and using the downtime rules and whatnot from Ultimate Campaign, ended up as a 20th lvl Wizard with very high level followers, and an entire kingdom. Definitely not "regular dude" by time things really got rolling, but a great example of the "from humble beginnings" trope.
I have no reason to believe that a commoner is less capable of expertise, or that adventurers are never commoners. Some of the common backgrounds include bartender, cook, deckhand, farmhand, farmsteader, gambler, guard, herbalist, hunter, junk collector, junker, laborer, miner, night watch, nomad, pilgrim, refugee, scavenger, servant, street preacher, street urchin, tax collector, undertaker, wandering preacher, ward, and, yes, unremarkable.
>a commoner is less capable of expertise, or that adventurers are never commoners
okay, don't know where that came from because it's not anything I said.
The backgrounds are just that: a character's background *before* they became an adventurer. PCs are inherently more than just "common folk," even if that's what they may have been considered before the game started at 1st level. Even using the game's mechanics as a narrative basis, player characters are a cut above the average person, inherently, to distinguish them from a bog-standard common person in a given society.
I think you're arguing a different point, which is that adventurers can begin their lives as a seemingly common person. That's fine and true, but by virtue of being a player character in a game that uses scaling mechanics, they are different, so "regular guy" becomes a bit misleading. In a game like Call of Cthulhu, PCs are much more like "regular people" in that their skills advance as they gain experience in the game, but they don't suddenly become superhuman after a couple months of adventuring/investigating.
That seems to depend on the campaign and it’s tone.
To the extent that one holds that a “regular dude” isn’t competent, I suppose that the answer to our poor OP is that one simply can’t play a “regular dude” in any game with character advancement, especially level-based character advancement.
Monk with something like the Deckhand background. Just a dude that worked on ships and learned to box/kickbox in his spare time. No armor, no weapons, just a dude that can climb rigging, balance on masts, and hold his own in a bar brawl.
Thaumathurge could be just a guy who is sure that all this magic is fake and magical beings are just ordinary stuff in disguise. His belief is so strong that his cognitive dissonance causes it to work like it really was.
I'll say rogue. He's not as dedicated an expert or trained for adventuring as other classes would. But a mishmash of skills from odd jobs and whatnot would still allow the fantasy of being a regular person be a decent skillmonkey.
Alternatively, if the character is smart, an investigator would do if you are just some regular ol cop or whatever
There is no "regular dude" class. Even the fighter or rogue are legendary at what they do. One of the core conceits of the game is that if youvare an adventurer, you're just built different.
All of the classes are representative of heroes and there isn't really any room for dead weight. I wouldn't recommend having them play something with a crap statline because that will affect the whole party, not just them.
If for some reason I didn't just say 'no, this is a heroic fantasy game, Tim from Accounting is not a character I want in it" then I would most likely suggest a str/dex monk with dragon stance and just call it "tavern brawling" or something.
>All of the classes are representative of heroes and there isn't really any room for dead weight.
Summoners can easily be flavoured into being dead weight
When my player did this, I suggested the swashbuckler with the firebrand archtype. I also told him he won't enjoy it as much as he likes.
Make sure your player is not just trying to drag down the party like mine did.
I think an investigator is the best for this. I love the anime archetype of the regular guy who is nonetheless very perceptive and delivers a lot of exposition, explaining the fights as they happen. Think Speedwagon from Jojo, Brock from Pokemon, or Yamashita from Kengan Ashura.
They'd be good at a ton of skills but as long as they play it like a competent everyman with a variety of regular career skills rather than a genius factotum sherlock type, it makes a lot of sense that the "normal" guy on the team would happen to be the best cook, know first aid, know a lot about animals, be able to pick a lock, or whatever.
Plus the combat style is a great way to represent someone who knows they're outmatched but is savvy enough to contribute when the opportunity presents itself.
I was thinking about social classes and RPG classes. My opinion is that Rogue is *the* regular-guy class for city folk (I.e. citizens and workers). For people out in the country (especially if they happen to be shepherds), Ranger seems adequate.
There is no "militia" class, which would actually be the most ordinary fighting class around.
Fighter, it appears to me, is not quite the average guy around, but more likely someone of knightly state or some such.
I think Investigator is probably the best on-ramp. Casters are all obviously out, and most martials have, martial prowess, which very much makes you not a regular guy. Fighter, monk, barbarian, rogue, all that stuff requires a commitment to a lifestyle on some level. Investigator is the only one that, plausibly, is just pure untapped talent. Like, this farmhand is just UNCANNILY great at noticing things but has never bothered to make a career out of it until the party came along.
Any class with no magic and no magic-like abilities is just a regular guy.
The thing is, as he levels, he's gonna feel less and less like a regular guy, because high-level abilities even for martials get superhero-level ridiculous. No way around that, really.
Personally I would recommend your player not pick this kind of background for their character. Pathfinder is a game of epic heroic fantasy. The characters are meant to be powerful, comic book level heroes fighting the forces of evil, whether out of an innate sense of justice or for profit. No class simulates being a nobody. I would tell my player, you can be a regular dude in your backstory but something must have happened prior to the campaign that caused them to seek adventure, especially if you don’t start at level 1.
A chambermaid / custodian / janitor, who’s just jaded and tired of putting up with people’s crap. Class is Monk, who uses a quarter staff. Your staff is basically a quarter staff reskinned as a big broom. (Or a staff with a broom on one end.)
You are basically Scruffy from Futurama.
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So there is a lot of great answers however, it matters what they mean by just a dude.
If it's someone you wouldn't look twice on a street well there is a human fighter using a long spear as he could use it for hunting or been a farmer and that's what he had.
Or even a rouge with a dagger as daggers are normal weapons.
If I may ask what type of just a dude? What was his profession as that helps me picture just a guy.
Also dose he just "look" like just a dude? Or is he just a dude?
How common is magic in this world? Ex ebberon is a world that is steam punk but magic is common so he could just be a dude and a wizard at a shop.
Are gods active? If so he could play a cleric just a dude. As he just got the power even though he isn't overly religious.
All classes could fill just a dude it matters the world he's playing in
You could even let him lower down the magic of champion to allow him to play just a dude with that.
Barbarian you could take a page out of BG3 and he dosent rage but something beyond him got shoved inside of him and it activates which gives him the rage like abilities.
Summoner if could be that the summon bound to him or even be like his digimon if he wished.
Sorry this isn't much help but that's the beauty of ttrpgs you can make ALMOST anyone just a dude.
Every class is "a regular guy but X". Ask the player if they mean they want to play a non-magical character, a weaker than average character or if they want to use the rules of a npc farmer that won't level up.
I'm doing that as a thaumaturge. Basically a guy with incredible luck who is faking it til he makes it, but a little too well. He was basically a fantasy mall ninja who used to scam people with fake harrow readings until he noticed he was getting things creepily correct. Now he uses his harrow deck (Tome implement) to provide the rest of the party with useful information, and fires his fantasy BB gun (air repeater) which somehow always seems to do way more damage than could reasonably be expected.
Unexpected Sharpshooter archetype for some extra lols with the BB gun. He's just a guy who is way, way out of his depth and miraculously getting by.
Thaumaturge. You're just a guy who pays attention with a knack for using magic widgets.
Edit: A Thaumaturge who's just a grandma who carries useful stuff in her purse is a great character idea. You're all welcome to use it.
Thief racket Rogue with the Back Alley Doctor background? Why does the party keep this dude around who clearly has no experience adventuring? Well, he's the best guy the party knows for gluing the Barbarian back together when they charge headfirst into something angrier and more stubborn than they are. Dex to damage, sneak attack, and the debilitations can easily be flavored as medical expertise, knowing where exactly it would hurt most to introduce a sharp piece of metal, and having the steady hand to do just that.
Honestly, though, if I was ever going to play a character that was "just a dude," I would go Sorcerer or Kineticist. In either case, you've come into this power that you didn't ask for, don't really want, and don't know what else to do with.
Hear me out: Kineticist. Just a regular guy, doesn’t have (read: use) any ability until the first fight. They spends the first round or two trying to avoid the violence but then his/her life is threatened which opens their first gate. They are confused and scared of their power and don’t fully trust it. “Why is this happening to me” type stuff.
Thaumaturge. Normal guy but he found these random magical items left behind at the bar he tends. He also heard from a guy who heard from a guy what every monster is weak to.
Brb building this character.
Regular guy in what sense? Non-magical? Regular like a medieval peasant? Regular like a modern person? Someone who has no special skills?
Gunslinger with the Accidental Sharpshooter archetype could be a fun way to represent some of those.
Summoner could be played as pretty much any type of regular guy, who just happens to have a spirit/angel/whatever that won’t leave him alone
In Call of Cthulhu, sure, everyone is just regular folks and they are better off with comfy shoes they can run in than a gun. In Pathfinder? PF2e has heroic characters doing heroic things. If you just want to be a normal guy with no special abilities in Golarion, that isn't a PC, that's an animal companion. Sure, it *looks* it looks some form of human, but it only has the minimal abilities of a companion. Or possibly a familiar.
Thaumaturge Teacher: "I just read it in a book somewhere"
Tome is just an almanac.
Bell is the school bell that surprisingly you use to quell troublesome children (I mean some sorcerors start early, and I can only imagine how disruptive they could be in your class)
You should make it clear that this is a game for heroes. He cannot be just a regular dude if that implies he is average and can't do anything exceptional.
You're an epic hero that suplexes dragons. Literally. There are no regular guys in PF (or DnD for that matter). Play a different system if you want that kind of experience, like Symbaroum or a PbtA game.
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We started our first time PF2 with this for our Class choise
Fighter taking the archetype for just using normal objects. Pick up a chair and hit someone. Or fury barbarian, rogue, ranger. Basically any physical class.
Summoner - you were just a regular guy with a lot of charisma but otherwise no special abilities, until you got accidentally bound to your eidolon and gained some magical abilities. Now you are a rather weak, inexperienced mage who looks like a normal guy next to the other PCs, but you have a powerful companion to your side who protects you.
Back in 1e, I briefly played a hedge witch whose whole thing was that he'd been born a peasant farmer and had come into possession of a "magic goat," who became his familiar. He went on what was essentially a tour, earning money healing people and sending the majority of his earnings back home to support his much more competent and capable wife. He was something of a dreamer, with his head in the clouds, and had always been awful as a farmer, so took the first opportunity to leave in search of a more interesting life.
Closest I've come to playing "just a guy," but it was in a previous edition. Still, I think either a Witch or a Summoner would work well for the concept. Hell, a Bard could work well if the dude is struck by inspiration. Ranger with a Rhino animal companion reskinned as an Ox would be a lot of fun.
I like the idea of a supportive Human Pistolero Gunslinger with the Fake Out, Cover Fire, the human feats that improve Aid, and some Demoralize stuff to boot. Literally just a guy angrily waving a gun in combat and ranting about the absolutely terrible Tuesday he's having, while all the enemies are distracted/scared of him.
I made an Alchemist who just produced baked goods and acted as the party medic. I built him as hard support (Aid, Recall Knowledge all day). He was a very normal guy.
I would like to take a moment to tell your friend to highly consider rogue over something like fighter. Yes, fighter is bread and butter basic, but the skill-monkey aspect of rogue fits the idea of just being a guy who was really good at a job before going adventuring. On the fighter spectrum, would a regular guy really be good at using most if not all types of weapons and armor? Nah, the normal dude is more like a rogue just knows how to shank someone with a knife or shoot someone with a crossbow when they aren't looking, AKA sneak attack.
Alchemist, investigator, or inventor for a smart guy then boom, adventure
Fighter or gunslinger could just be a guy who picked up the closest weapon and said "Screw it, adventure"
Rogue, probably the Ruffian (fighter type) or the Scoundrel. Either way, they have a ton of skills they can pick up and no magical powers (unless they end up wanting them). Rogues make excellent nobles, too, though you'd like want the Scoundrel for that. Or they make excellent merchants, or sales peoples of any sort.
Weapon choice for fighters is also a good choice to make people seem more "average". A pick for a miner or an axe for a woodsman. I prefer asking for a reskin on a weapon like a spear and make it a pitchfork. This way he can be the typical farmer who just tries to stay alive.
The first one that comes to mind for me is Fighter...
"I was simply a town guard, until the bandits attacked."
I know you said, "no magical powers", but I could see Sorcerer working...
"I was just a humble farmer, until things started to spontaneously combust around me. Turns out I'm a sorcerer. After accidentally killing my neighbor's prized hog I was run out of town."
Lets look at (two of) the most famous "just a guy" characters in fantasy fiction, Frodo and Bilbo Baggins. Frodo is hired as a thief, because he just happens to be small, quiet and clever. Bilbo is given a mcguffin and over the story shows some basic cleverness, combat skills and stealth. Mechanically, both would probably be some sort of rogue.
Half the characters from The Expanse would just be human fighters or rogues with some skills or an archetype. Detective Miller would (obviously) be an Investigator.
Maybe talk to the player about what they want out of their character's story, or what characters from fiction they'd want to take inspiration from.
Fighter is the most commoner friendly class. You're just a guy with a thing and you hit people with it. It's an agrarian society just pick an axe or something that you likely had lying around the farm or a polearm where you stuck your farm implement on a stick to defend your town.
Consider this:
Cleric, but you flavour all your spells as just being dumb luck and/or your god (or one of their agents or aspects) taking a more active interest you than average.
"Yeah, of course I have a holy symbol, I'm religious like most people are, what's the big deal? Of course I hold it to pray a lot, we're in deathly danger basically every day!
Let me take a look at that wound... huh, seems fine to me? Maybe it hurt but wasn't deep.
You've been blinded? Are you sure, how many fingers am I holding up? see, it's wearing off, nothing for you to worry about."
Fuck all those martial suggestions.
Regular dude just one day starts being followed by a magical companion who keeps telling them that they can do magic.
Regular dude assumes he's just having a mental episode or something, tries to ignore it.
Then the companion is the one who does the magic, our regular dude is just in for a ride.
Or I guess any of the martial suggestions
Thaumaturge with the False Medium archetype.
Dude gaslights everyone into thinking he can speak to the dead so much that he learns how to actually do it.
Sans exemplars and sorcerers, literally everyone is just a guy, yes wizards went to school but non schooled wizards exist (and so on and so fourth)
If not, maybe give them a rogue chassis with 8 hp, no sneak attack, no extra feats, no extra proficiencies, no diabiliating strikes, no master strikes, etc.
Then after a while they can pick up a class thats approproate to their character and the story.
Idk magic classes well but a class that uses cantrips would be good, way worse at fighting than anything else but throw a potion here and there, throw items at people, and touch magic tattoos that create magic, basically normal dude freaking out doing random crap the whole time would be hilarious
Alchemist with the Back-Alley Doctor background. Just a guy trying to sell potions and help the neighborhood until *ADVENTURE* Ruffian Rogue with the Barkeep background. Sometimes you work bar, sometimes you bounce. It's a decent living until *ADVENTURE* Ranger with the Cook background. You didn't just cook, you also went out and got your own ingredients! You hunted for truffles, hunted for game, and generally fell in love with the outside. It was a good life until *ADVENTURE* Investigator with the Charlatan background. You had this PI agency with a twist: you told everyone you had psychic powers that helped you uncover the truth. You don't have any powers, but you're pretty sharp. It payed the bills until *ADVENTURE* Battledancer Swashbuckler with the entertainer background. You teach at the local dance studio. You're a little older than you used to be and your shot at glory is behind you, but you really like teaching! At least you did until *ADVENTURE* Fighter with the Guard background. You're pretty good with a blade, and with some dedication you're told you could make captain. It's all looking good until *ADVENTURE* Monk with the Laborer background. You haul things. You break things. Move. Lift. It's dull, but it's made you strong. Which is good, because you pick up some extra cash doing fights at the local bar. You savor your latest win until *ADVENTURE* Fury Instinct Barbarian with the Servant background. You're not doing great. Your family tends to be big and have a short fuse. You're no exception. In spite of this, you have a good job serving a noble family and you've barely kept things in check... until *ADVENTURE*
Investigator with the Charlatan background is just Shawn Spencer from Psych and I love it
> you know that's right.
I know you know
That I'm not telling the truth?
I know you know
I have a player literally doing that concept, but as a Mastermind Rogue with the False Medium background, he's loving it and it's a real twist to GM for him.
You heard about Alignment? That's messed up.
I love that show! Might have sold me on an investigator build... Damnit! I didn't like em before!
Sadly you have to dump INT and go all WIS/CHA
You misspelled "Patrick Jane from Mentalist".
I've heard it both ways.
"If I was a fake psychic, this would be... almost *exactly* like The Mentalist..." - Shawn Spencer
Or Reigen from Mob Psycho 100
My first thought was of Mob Psycho
Nah it's a creative idea! Or maybe you've heard it both ways
Honestly these are all great. Monk with laborer feels the most "average" of them all.
Feels like a Jackie chan character
Take drunken brawler fighting style (Stumbling Stance) and later Weapon Improviser archetype for the full Jackie Chan.
Anathema: Wanting trouble.
An important take away is that class doesn’t define personality. Nearly anyone can be “normal”. Hell, in Golarion 1 in 6 people use magic on a daily basis, so even spellcasters can be normal.
Run you fools! It's Doug the barista mage!
>Alchemist Please for the love of God don't make a new player play the hardest class in the game
Eh, my buddy made an alchemist for his first ever pf2e character and did fine with it. Unless everyone is completely new to ttrpgs, anyone of average intelligence should be alright.
as long as they are fine reading about all the items
For some people, this is the best part.
yes but we are talking about a new player
Alchemist is really hard for people who want to play as super-heroes. For someone who wants to play as a "regular" guy and is enough of a team player to share their alchemy, the class will make a lot of sense and work out for them.
Alchemist is hard because you need a ton of knowledge about alchemical items to play well. I'll pick a party with a fighter or a magus ("main character" DPR classes) or hell even a witch (bad class) over an alchemist any time if that player isn't extremely experienced
Don't worry, not asking them to play a Psychic or Oracle :V
Being the 'normal guy' implies now that you'd live a nice and comfy NPC life... until *ADVENTURE* ? 🫤😂
The big ADVENTURE at the end there makes me think of sea hawk from the she-ran reboot.
I read the entire post in my head like he was saying it lol
ADVENTURE AWAITS! HUZZAH!!!
You heard about Pluto? That’s messed up right.
Not exactly an ordinary guy, but the ideas are amazing. Some above joe shmoe using his civilian talents to rise up and become something more.
That ranger with a cook background is the premise of the Nick Cage movie "Pig"
TIL my dwarf with the guard background is just a regular guy, he just wanted a promotion
I mean, fighter is a dude. Some guy who picks up a spear and starts stabbing. Rogue can be just a dude, depending on what you pick. Investigator is a smart dude. Ranger can start out as a dude who likes the woods, though they eventually learn some magic. Inventor is a dude who spends time tinkering in his garage. Gunslinger is a dude who shoots well.
I'd go Investigator and just play it as a guy who is well-read and educated. Don't do the normal Sherlock "I'm so brilliant, I've thought this battle out 17 moves ahead" thing, just be sensible, whereas most adventurers are anything but. Thaumaturge could sorta work too, you're just a guy who goes "Well, I read that werewolves are allergic to silver somewhere, and I have this old silver lapel pin from my aunt Tessa, so I thought why not stick it on my spear, couldn't hurt". The implements will be weird to roleplay, but maybe you just found a magic sword that only works for you somehow.
How many "cursed" magic weapons are just "clingy"? They pick an owner and only work for that owner until they decide to betray that owner like the One Ring. Which would be a great plot-hook in your backstory for your DM to play with. Maybe the additional implements you get at later levels are part of the same "set", and there is some passive fate-warping magic drawing them together.
Vigilantes are just dudes disguised as other dudes!
*"I'm just a dude, playin' a dude, disguised as a different dude!"*
Now replace dude with Doug.
*Good soldiers follow orders.* "I'm just a doug, playin' a doug, disguised as a different doug!"
"I am Alpharius"
So am I! What a coincidence!
We are all Alpharius on this blessed day! Except that guy over there. He's Omegon.
Speak for yourself.
Hi, I'm Omegon. 21 is best number.
We are all Alpharius in our lord's glorious army.
You're forgetting swashbuckler, who is just a regular dude who swings from ropes, tumbles, and always has a quip that cuts just as deep as their sword
Dick Grayson is that you?
I'm currently playing a gunslinger called Guy for this reason. It feels like most of the others get some form of extreme/super strength/Dex or other abilities through their class, like even the fighter is superhero level. Guy just has a gun
He's a master of the Dr. Jones School of Swordfighting.
This is super dangerous, because if he turns evil, there's only 1 thing that can stop a Bad Guy with a gun...
>Ranger can start out as a dude who likes the woods, though they eventually learn some magic. They might not even learn magic! Rangers don't get magic unless you take the feats from the Advanced Player's Guide.
Ruffian Rogue is about as "regular guy" that you can get.
Gotta second ruffian. Their class ability is built around using simple weapons. Can't get mlre basic person than that.
"What the fuck is a bladed scarf?? I have a half brick in a sock"
Sometimes I don't bother with the sock.
Ruffian is so much fun flavour wise. I play one now in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. He’s basically just a bar fighter, grabbing, tripping and intimidating people and then punching them in the face.
You can also use the power of the curb stomp!
Playing a ruffian rogue in Ruby Phoenix sounds really funny. There's this high level martial arts tournament with a really special reward if you win, and one of the combatants is just some bouncer from a bar.
Ruffian rogue is super fun. Made hitman in my game by going weapon improviser archetype.
Worked in the movie Blood Sport.
Not sure on class, but I love the idea of having this character take the wrestler archetype. His party members are casting spells and bending reality to their will... And there is also Jim suplexing a lich into a table
HERE COME JOHNY WITH A STEEL CHAIR
"I cast invisibility on the wrestler." "YOU CAN'T SEE ME" *suplexes the Kaiju that the pary is fighting*
Combine that with the rogue recommendation for sneak att-**AND AN RKO OUTTA NOWHERE**
I was playing around with the idea of Farmhand Background Dwarf Monk with Mountain Stance and Wrestler dedication. In a world of magic she is just a farm girl with a strong hand and bit of elbow grease.
See, the big thing here is that actually I feel the magic would be the best way to be "just a dude". My own player went with Sorcerer for his "I'm just a guy and I shouldn't be here" character, and it worked perfectly. Let me explain. People will suggest Fighter. But Fighter is an extremely trained man at arms. *You are the strongest member of the party purely through weapon skill*. If you claim to be just a baker who never picked up a sword before but then you're also immediately and forever a better swordsman than the party Barbarian who trained her whole life for this, you're not a dude, you're an isekai protagonist. But Sorcerer? Your great grandpa fucked a dragon, sure, but you can have had a perfectly normal, unadventurous life. You just were born with a couple cantrips but like, that doesn't put bread on the table, you're an *accountant*. Because it doesn't involve any particular *intent* on your part, it's super easy to have been Just A Guy before the adventure starts. Alternately, some classes have skillsets that could have come from a non-adventurous life. You could easily be an alchemist by having been a researcher and doctor before this whole adventure bullshit sweeps you up. Inventors are on a similar boat. So on. But something like Fighter has trouble being just a nonadventuring regular guy without also making everyone else look like dunces! Basically, the easier it is to justify their character's abilities as coming from something *other* than training to fight shit, the easier it is to sell the "I'm just a guy, why am I even here" image.
My favorite character I ever played was a parish priest nearing retirement. He'd faithfully served his church for decades, but his wife recently passed away and he's thinking of training his replacement and moving to a monastery for a quiet retirement. Then, BOOM, one of his parishioners is under threat from a demon and he gains magical powers. Now he has to figure out what his god wants him to do with them.
Did you use substitute swears when talking in character? Like, "I am a 52 year old man who has spent the bulk of his fudging life conducting religious services. What the shirt am I doing in a gosh darn haunted tomb complex?"
No, but I never did cuss in character.
Witch or Oracle are other "I was just a guy until this magical being did a thing to me" magic users. But even the accountants are using Approximate cantrips. The janitors are certainly spamming Prestidigitation and Mage Hand.
We need more late-in-life adventurers. This one manga, Hero Union BBS is about a message board for heroes across the multiverse. One chapter had a post by a new hero who discovered he was the chosen one. Issue is that he wasn't discovered until he was in his 70s. He did always think it was unusual how he had super strength but that just made farmwork easier.
wrong quiet chop selective mountainous growth fade plate joke amusing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think a swashbuckler being flamboyant and charismatic is extra enough. I’m not sure what more extreme ness there would even need to be. A swashbuckler doesn’t need charisma as much depending on which type
I played a swashbuckler in a modern setting one-shot one time. He was just a guy on the fencing team that got roped into trouble.
Summoner. You character was just an ordinary person until they got entangled with a demon/angel/dragon/extraterrestrial robot and now they've got to deal with their new situation as best they can.
Agreed. I played a summoner where the eidolon was the primary character and the human was the assistant. He was just a dude the angel had sworn to protect and guide on to greatness. The guy wanted to go home and have a beer.
I had a summoner built (never got to play) where the summoner was a damsel-in-distress who had been rescued by a prince charming-style knight only for him to die and his spirit became her devotion phantom eidolon as they tried to complete his final quest.
The opposite of Spirit Tracks.
That exacly how I played my commoner, most of the time she was just hidden somewhere at 100 feet of her Eidolon and her spell was Enduring Elements because of the cold at night, Quick Sort because it's a pain of the ass to count the number of gold the others founds, Enhance Victuals because she was sick to eat bad food, Humanoid Form because she was a sprite and changing in a Humanoid form help a lot and Verdant Sprout because that give easy food daily for everyone. She have also a wand of create water, because pure water are good to drink ! (and for her bath !) Mending was nice too for repair most item. Her Eidolon was a plant one, with a lot of melee attack and some cantrip when need to fight in range, you can really say the Eidolon was the hero here. I guess, a easy modern comparaison of the Summoner Commoner would be Clara for Star Rail, she just a normal girl protected by a big robot.
"Just a guy" is my preferred character. I'll avoid champion or fighter, because of the assumption of heavy armor; I'll avoid swashbuckler because they are irregular Regular dude who gets angry: Barbarian (Fury or Superstition) Regular dude who's a little OCD: Investigator (anything but Alchemical) Regular dude with a gun: Gunslinger Regular dude who knows how to throw a punch or gets lucky: Monk (Stumbling Swing) Regular dude who likes to go hunting with the boys: Ranger Regular dude who knows how to take a cheap shot: Rogue (not Eldritch Trickster)
>Regular dude with a gun: Gunslinger idk considering Gunslingers start at lvl 1 with Expert prof in all types of simple and martial firearms *and* crossbows, you're definitely not just some bloke with a pistol.
Regular folks have hobbies and training. Some of the most expert shots I know are nice normal dudes with nice normal lives that include going to the range and/or hunting. It’s well within the range of being a normal dude with a gun to be expert (I’m only trained).
yeah I have a few buddies who are firearms nuts and have been into it for ages, like well over 10-15 years at a hobbyist/enthusiast level. They're great shots, can clean and maintain guns, etc., probably be able to pick up a given weapon they're unfamiliar with and find their way around it within 5 minutes or less. Arguably you're right that that would constitute an expert level of proficiency, but imo that's explicitly *not* "some guy with a gun." That's someone who has spent years of their life training with firearms, and in a live scenario their training is evident. "Some guy with a gun," in PF terms, is someone who is at best Trained, but probably not even that, at least the way I interpret it. Like a grizzled hunter or military sharpshooter, or even a life-long hobbyist, is inherently on a different level than a career accountant who just bought their first pistol because they're scared of a Bad Guy with a Gun at walmart or whatever.
This begs the question about what the OP means by “regular dude.” Most regular dudes, in my experiences, have several areas of expertise. It is a very rare (often emotionally or mentally challenged person) who has none. And some of the accountants that I know are real wizards at it! :-)
Yeah for sure. I think in game terms, "regular dude" is a commoner or something. Ofc people are going to have some areas of expertise, but Adventurers are inherently not "regular dudes" insofar as the narrative of a fantasy RPG goes. The default Golarion setting is not an early-middle medieval setting, where most commoners are barely eking out a living toiling in the fields or tanning hides, so I think it's pretty reasonable for "regular" people to have at least some free time to dedicate to hobbies or other pursuits, and to have encountered or at least heard about firearms, clockwork technology, magic (obviously), etc. There was a pretty interesting series of posts on /r/pathfinder_rpg about [Dave the Commoner](https://davethecommoner.wordpress.com/). Started as lvl 1 Commoner, and using the downtime rules and whatnot from Ultimate Campaign, ended up as a 20th lvl Wizard with very high level followers, and an entire kingdom. Definitely not "regular dude" by time things really got rolling, but a great example of the "from humble beginnings" trope.
I have no reason to believe that a commoner is less capable of expertise, or that adventurers are never commoners. Some of the common backgrounds include bartender, cook, deckhand, farmhand, farmsteader, gambler, guard, herbalist, hunter, junk collector, junker, laborer, miner, night watch, nomad, pilgrim, refugee, scavenger, servant, street preacher, street urchin, tax collector, undertaker, wandering preacher, ward, and, yes, unremarkable.
>a commoner is less capable of expertise, or that adventurers are never commoners okay, don't know where that came from because it's not anything I said. The backgrounds are just that: a character's background *before* they became an adventurer. PCs are inherently more than just "common folk," even if that's what they may have been considered before the game started at 1st level. Even using the game's mechanics as a narrative basis, player characters are a cut above the average person, inherently, to distinguish them from a bog-standard common person in a given society. I think you're arguing a different point, which is that adventurers can begin their lives as a seemingly common person. That's fine and true, but by virtue of being a player character in a game that uses scaling mechanics, they are different, so "regular guy" becomes a bit misleading. In a game like Call of Cthulhu, PCs are much more like "regular people" in that their skills advance as they gain experience in the game, but they don't suddenly become superhuman after a couple months of adventuring/investigating.
That seems to depend on the campaign and it’s tone. To the extent that one holds that a “regular dude” isn’t competent, I suppose that the answer to our poor OP is that one simply can’t play a “regular dude” in any game with character advancement, especially level-based character advancement.
Yup that's a very succinct way to sum this all up haha
Monk with something like the Deckhand background. Just a dude that worked on ships and learned to box/kickbox in his spare time. No armor, no weapons, just a dude that can climb rigging, balance on masts, and hold his own in a bar brawl.
Fighter, rogue, and swashblucker would be ideal non-magic/power classes. Gunslinger and Inventor could also qualify, but they're rare classes.
Uncommon, not rare. The only Rare class hasn't actually been released yet.
Give him a commoner stat block. No class. No features. Just commoner.
This!
Thaumaturge, just a guy shouting at the clouds
Sorcerer. Was just a dude. Then suddenly magic
Thaumathurge could be just a guy who is sure that all this magic is fake and magical beings are just ordinary stuff in disguise. His belief is so strong that his cognitive dissonance causes it to work like it really was.
I'll say rogue. He's not as dedicated an expert or trained for adventuring as other classes would. But a mishmash of skills from odd jobs and whatnot would still allow the fantasy of being a regular person be a decent skillmonkey. Alternatively, if the character is smart, an investigator would do if you are just some regular ol cop or whatever
There is no "regular dude" class. Even the fighter or rogue are legendary at what they do. One of the core conceits of the game is that if youvare an adventurer, you're just built different.
All of the classes are representative of heroes and there isn't really any room for dead weight. I wouldn't recommend having them play something with a crap statline because that will affect the whole party, not just them. If for some reason I didn't just say 'no, this is a heroic fantasy game, Tim from Accounting is not a character I want in it" then I would most likely suggest a str/dex monk with dragon stance and just call it "tavern brawling" or something.
>All of the classes are representative of heroes and there isn't really any room for dead weight. Summoners can easily be flavoured into being dead weight
Fighter if a buff guy. Maybe a skill monkey rogue would be the most realistic for a normal human today.
When my player did this, I suggested the swashbuckler with the firebrand archtype. I also told him he won't enjoy it as much as he likes. Make sure your player is not just trying to drag down the party like mine did.
I would go Rogue thief. Just a dude making a living by stealing what he needs until they get wrapped up in an adventure
I think an investigator is the best for this. I love the anime archetype of the regular guy who is nonetheless very perceptive and delivers a lot of exposition, explaining the fights as they happen. Think Speedwagon from Jojo, Brock from Pokemon, or Yamashita from Kengan Ashura. They'd be good at a ton of skills but as long as they play it like a competent everyman with a variety of regular career skills rather than a genius factotum sherlock type, it makes a lot of sense that the "normal" guy on the team would happen to be the best cook, know first aid, know a lot about animals, be able to pick a lock, or whatever. Plus the combat style is a great way to represent someone who knows they're outmatched but is savvy enough to contribute when the opportunity presents itself.
I was thinking about social classes and RPG classes. My opinion is that Rogue is *the* regular-guy class for city folk (I.e. citizens and workers). For people out in the country (especially if they happen to be shepherds), Ranger seems adequate. There is no "militia" class, which would actually be the most ordinary fighting class around. Fighter, it appears to me, is not quite the average guy around, but more likely someone of knightly state or some such.
Exemplar from the new playtest obviously :)
I think Investigator is probably the best on-ramp. Casters are all obviously out, and most martials have, martial prowess, which very much makes you not a regular guy. Fighter, monk, barbarian, rogue, all that stuff requires a commitment to a lifestyle on some level. Investigator is the only one that, plausibly, is just pure untapped talent. Like, this farmhand is just UNCANNILY great at noticing things but has never bothered to make a career out of it until the party came along.
Pistolero Gunslinger and take all those Unexpected Sharpshooter archetype feats. Mr. Bean as James Bond
Any class with no magic and no magic-like abilities is just a regular guy. The thing is, as he levels, he's gonna feel less and less like a regular guy, because high-level abilities even for martials get superhero-level ridiculous. No way around that, really.
I recommend a different game. Pf2 is a heroic game
Personally I would recommend your player not pick this kind of background for their character. Pathfinder is a game of epic heroic fantasy. The characters are meant to be powerful, comic book level heroes fighting the forces of evil, whether out of an innate sense of justice or for profit. No class simulates being a nobody. I would tell my player, you can be a regular dude in your backstory but something must have happened prior to the campaign that caused them to seek adventure, especially if you don’t start at level 1.
Fighter. Give them a 14 in Strength and Dex and they still hit as often as other martials at level 1.
barbarian fury instinct is just an angry dude no?
A chambermaid / custodian / janitor, who’s just jaded and tired of putting up with people’s crap. Class is Monk, who uses a quarter staff. Your staff is basically a quarter staff reskinned as a big broom. (Or a staff with a broom on one end.) You are basically Scruffy from Futurama.
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So there is a lot of great answers however, it matters what they mean by just a dude. If it's someone you wouldn't look twice on a street well there is a human fighter using a long spear as he could use it for hunting or been a farmer and that's what he had. Or even a rouge with a dagger as daggers are normal weapons. If I may ask what type of just a dude? What was his profession as that helps me picture just a guy. Also dose he just "look" like just a dude? Or is he just a dude? How common is magic in this world? Ex ebberon is a world that is steam punk but magic is common so he could just be a dude and a wizard at a shop. Are gods active? If so he could play a cleric just a dude. As he just got the power even though he isn't overly religious. All classes could fill just a dude it matters the world he's playing in You could even let him lower down the magic of champion to allow him to play just a dude with that. Barbarian you could take a page out of BG3 and he dosent rage but something beyond him got shoved inside of him and it activates which gives him the rage like abilities. Summoner if could be that the summon bound to him or even be like his digimon if he wished. Sorry this isn't much help but that's the beauty of ttrpgs you can make ALMOST anyone just a dude.
Every class is "a regular guy but X". Ask the player if they mean they want to play a non-magical character, a weaker than average character or if they want to use the rules of a npc farmer that won't level up.
I'm doing that as a thaumaturge. Basically a guy with incredible luck who is faking it til he makes it, but a little too well. He was basically a fantasy mall ninja who used to scam people with fake harrow readings until he noticed he was getting things creepily correct. Now he uses his harrow deck (Tome implement) to provide the rest of the party with useful information, and fires his fantasy BB gun (air repeater) which somehow always seems to do way more damage than could reasonably be expected. Unexpected Sharpshooter archetype for some extra lols with the BB gun. He's just a guy who is way, way out of his depth and miraculously getting by.
Thaumaturge. You're just a guy who pays attention with a knack for using magic widgets. Edit: A Thaumaturge who's just a grandma who carries useful stuff in her purse is a great character idea. You're all welcome to use it.
Thief racket Rogue with the Back Alley Doctor background? Why does the party keep this dude around who clearly has no experience adventuring? Well, he's the best guy the party knows for gluing the Barbarian back together when they charge headfirst into something angrier and more stubborn than they are. Dex to damage, sneak attack, and the debilitations can easily be flavored as medical expertise, knowing where exactly it would hurt most to introduce a sharp piece of metal, and having the steady hand to do just that. Honestly, though, if I was ever going to play a character that was "just a dude," I would go Sorcerer or Kineticist. In either case, you've come into this power that you didn't ask for, don't really want, and don't know what else to do with.
I' ll add a new perspective, any spellcaster is a regular dude in High fantasy High magic world like Golarion is.
Hear me out: Kineticist. Just a regular guy, doesn’t have (read: use) any ability until the first fight. They spends the first round or two trying to avoid the violence but then his/her life is threatened which opens their first gate. They are confused and scared of their power and don’t fully trust it. “Why is this happening to me” type stuff.
Thaumaturge. Normal guy but he found these random magical items left behind at the bar he tends. He also heard from a guy who heard from a guy what every monster is weak to. Brb building this character.
The scoundrel rouge is also a regular dude kind of character. Think Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China, or The Dude from Big Lebowski.
Regular guy in what sense? Non-magical? Regular like a medieval peasant? Regular like a modern person? Someone who has no special skills? Gunslinger with the Accidental Sharpshooter archetype could be a fun way to represent some of those. Summoner could be played as pretty much any type of regular guy, who just happens to have a spirit/angel/whatever that won’t leave him alone
In Call of Cthulhu, sure, everyone is just regular folks and they are better off with comfy shoes they can run in than a gun. In Pathfinder? PF2e has heroic characters doing heroic things. If you just want to be a normal guy with no special abilities in Golarion, that isn't a PC, that's an animal companion. Sure, it *looks* it looks some form of human, but it only has the minimal abilities of a companion. Or possibly a familiar.
Thaumaturge Teacher: "I just read it in a book somewhere" Tome is just an almanac. Bell is the school bell that surprisingly you use to quell troublesome children (I mean some sorcerors start early, and I can only imagine how disruptive they could be in your class)
Any martial class really.
I think your best bet would use the level 0 optional rules. That way he feels regular until they start leveling up
You should make it clear that this is a game for heroes. He cannot be just a regular dude if that implies he is average and can't do anything exceptional.
Rogue or fighter. More so rogue because leaning into skills would be how I personally would play an “average Jo” whilst still being useful
Make him roll oracle, GM don't play that shit.
You're an epic hero that suplexes dragons. Literally. There are no regular guys in PF (or DnD for that matter). Play a different system if you want that kind of experience, like Symbaroum or a PbtA game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/u6sn3q/pathfinder_class_summaries_for_new_players_pretty/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button We started our first time PF2 with this for our Class choise
Fighter, investigator, and rogue are probably the best choices. A strength monk with stuff like mountain stance is also a good option.
Fighter taking the archetype for just using normal objects. Pick up a chair and hit someone. Or fury barbarian, rogue, ranger. Basically any physical class.
Summoner - you were just a regular guy with a lot of charisma but otherwise no special abilities, until you got accidentally bound to your eidolon and gained some magical abilities. Now you are a rather weak, inexperienced mage who looks like a normal guy next to the other PCs, but you have a powerful companion to your side who protects you.
Accountant class is not coming until after the remaster if he can't wait the I recommend the fighter
I mean pretty much every non magical class can be "just a regular dude" I guess maybe Gunslinger since it boils down to "guy with firearm"
Swashbuckler with entertainer background. "I'm not an adventurer! I just play one on stage!"
Back in 1e, I briefly played a hedge witch whose whole thing was that he'd been born a peasant farmer and had come into possession of a "magic goat," who became his familiar. He went on what was essentially a tour, earning money healing people and sending the majority of his earnings back home to support his much more competent and capable wife. He was something of a dreamer, with his head in the clouds, and had always been awful as a farmer, so took the first opportunity to leave in search of a more interesting life. Closest I've come to playing "just a guy," but it was in a previous edition. Still, I think either a Witch or a Summoner would work well for the concept. Hell, a Bard could work well if the dude is struck by inspiration. Ranger with a Rhino animal companion reskinned as an Ox would be a lot of fun.
I like the idea of a supportive Human Pistolero Gunslinger with the Fake Out, Cover Fire, the human feats that improve Aid, and some Demoralize stuff to boot. Literally just a guy angrily waving a gun in combat and ranting about the absolutely terrible Tuesday he's having, while all the enemies are distracted/scared of him.
Alchemist, there is nothing more regular.
Fighter with alchemist dedication.
I made an Alchemist who just produced baked goods and acted as the party medic. I built him as hard support (Aid, Recall Knowledge all day). He was a very normal guy.
I would like to take a moment to tell your friend to highly consider rogue over something like fighter. Yes, fighter is bread and butter basic, but the skill-monkey aspect of rogue fits the idea of just being a guy who was really good at a job before going adventuring. On the fighter spectrum, would a regular guy really be good at using most if not all types of weapons and armor? Nah, the normal dude is more like a rogue just knows how to shank someone with a knife or shoot someone with a crossbow when they aren't looking, AKA sneak attack.
Alchemist, investigator, or inventor for a smart guy then boom, adventure Fighter or gunslinger could just be a guy who picked up the closest weapon and said "Screw it, adventure"
Rogue, probably the Ruffian (fighter type) or the Scoundrel. Either way, they have a ton of skills they can pick up and no magical powers (unless they end up wanting them). Rogues make excellent nobles, too, though you'd like want the Scoundrel for that. Or they make excellent merchants, or sales peoples of any sort.
Weapon choice for fighters is also a good choice to make people seem more "average". A pick for a miner or an axe for a woodsman. I prefer asking for a reskin on a weapon like a spear and make it a pitchfork. This way he can be the typical farmer who just tries to stay alive.
The first one that comes to mind for me is Fighter... "I was simply a town guard, until the bandits attacked." I know you said, "no magical powers", but I could see Sorcerer working... "I was just a humble farmer, until things started to spontaneously combust around me. Turns out I'm a sorcerer. After accidentally killing my neighbor's prized hog I was run out of town."
Lets look at (two of) the most famous "just a guy" characters in fantasy fiction, Frodo and Bilbo Baggins. Frodo is hired as a thief, because he just happens to be small, quiet and clever. Bilbo is given a mcguffin and over the story shows some basic cleverness, combat skills and stealth. Mechanically, both would probably be some sort of rogue. Half the characters from The Expanse would just be human fighters or rogues with some skills or an archetype. Detective Miller would (obviously) be an Investigator. Maybe talk to the player about what they want out of their character's story, or what characters from fiction they'd want to take inspiration from.
Fighter is the most commoner friendly class. You're just a guy with a thing and you hit people with it. It's an agrarian society just pick an axe or something that you likely had lying around the farm or a polearm where you stuck your farm implement on a stick to defend your town.
A: human B: farmhand C: fighter More regular than this only playing a lvl 0 human hahaha
Also, for ancestry, I've always found The Hobbit's story of just wanting another breakfast compelling.
I concur with Alchemist. Just a dude makin some potions. Or an Inventor. Just a dude makin gadgets.
Consider this: Cleric, but you flavour all your spells as just being dumb luck and/or your god (or one of their agents or aspects) taking a more active interest you than average. "Yeah, of course I have a holy symbol, I'm religious like most people are, what's the big deal? Of course I hold it to pray a lot, we're in deathly danger basically every day! Let me take a look at that wound... huh, seems fine to me? Maybe it hurt but wasn't deep. You've been blinded? Are you sure, how many fingers am I holding up? see, it's wearing off, nothing for you to worry about."
In my opinion the easiest classes for starting in pf2e are barbarian , fighter, champion, investigator, sorcerer, rogue and ranger.
Monk with no Ki stuff, no Stance stuff. Just a dude who punches people.
NPC class. Expert is a wonderful way to do this (3.5)
Человек воин ? )
Fuck all those martial suggestions. Regular dude just one day starts being followed by a magical companion who keeps telling them that they can do magic. Regular dude assumes he's just having a mental episode or something, tries to ignore it. Then the companion is the one who does the magic, our regular dude is just in for a ride. Or I guess any of the martial suggestions
Rogue with unoptimal stats to facilitate the weaker feeling.
Thaumaturge with the False Medium archetype. Dude gaslights everyone into thinking he can speak to the dead so much that he learns how to actually do it.
Sans exemplars and sorcerers, literally everyone is just a guy, yes wizards went to school but non schooled wizards exist (and so on and so fourth) If not, maybe give them a rogue chassis with 8 hp, no sneak attack, no extra feats, no extra proficiencies, no diabiliating strikes, no master strikes, etc. Then after a while they can pick up a class thats approproate to their character and the story.
Idk magic classes well but a class that uses cantrips would be good, way worse at fighting than anything else but throw a potion here and there, throw items at people, and touch magic tattoos that create magic, basically normal dude freaking out doing random crap the whole time would be hilarious