This is a slight deviation for me as most of the things I make are on the other side of the DM screen. But this is a level 1 through 20 build for a Pathfinder Second Edition character. The characters featured in these posts will typically be drawn from various franchises and media because I want to focus more on the building and worry less about the character. Having a character gives me an end goal to work towards to instead of getting lost along the way. It’s also a bit of a challenge for the system, seeing how close I can build to the original vision of the character. I’m gonna try to find a balance between making an effective character and mimicking the chosen character’s abilities.
Related to that, these characters are gonna be created in a vacuum – skills and the likes are picked for what seems best without the context of the adventure. Heist-type adventures might call for Stealth and Thievery on a character that otherwise wouldn’t take it, so keep that in mind. I’m also not gonna do gear, aside from real basic stuff like preferred armor and weapons. I want to focus more on the build of the character.
I’m gonna go level by level for these builds but only cover actual choices – such as skill increases, feats, and ability score boosts. Stuff that automatically increases due to level, such as an increase in saving throws, more HP, and the like, are going to go unmentioned.
So with that, let's get into the build for Lovisa Coldeyes!
CHARACTER Lovisa Coldeyes
SOURCE Magic the Gathering
GOAL A legendary mono-red creature from Magic the Gathering, Lovisa Coldeyes is typed as a ‘Human’ (a ‘Human Lord’ in some of her older cards) who empowers barbarians, warriors, and berserkers. Her 3/3 Power/Toughness is nothing extraordinary, but the buff she grants is very noticeable. Art shows her wearing a mix of hide and lamellar armor while wielding a one-handed axe and shield, so we want to make sure she can use that armor and weapon. Furthermore, she lived during Dominaria’s Ice Age as part of a barbarian horde.
LEVEL 1 We’re gonna start with our ABCs of character building – ancestry, background, and class. Lovisa is obviously a human with the wintertouched heritage to reflect her life in the frozen times of the Ice Age. With our free boosts from being human, we’re going to put one in Strength and another in Charisma and we’ll pick up Viking Shieldbearer as our ancestry feat, which gets us Shield Block.
For background, we go martial disciple. Lovisa’s whole life has been a fight for survival and it has hardened her, giving her a boost to Strength and Constitution. It also gives her training in Athletics and Warfare Lore as well as the Quick Jump feat.
Class stumped me for a bit, but I liked barbarian the best for her, which gives us another boost to Strength. Our last four boosts go into Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, which leaves our final array as such: Str 18, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 14. We become trained in Crafting (to fix our shields), Intimidation (to menace our foes), Society (to keep the traditions of our people alive), and Survival (to survive the frozen Balduvian mountains and tundra). For our barbarian instinct, fury was a pretty obvious choice to me, which also gets us an extra 1st-level barbarian feat. With two barbarian feats available to us, we take Sudden Charge to help us get into the fray faster and Raging Intimidation to allow us to Demoralize in combat and get the Intimidating Glare and Scare to Death feats as soon as we qualify for them – which is immediately for the former. These aren’t super important to replicating Lovisa, but they do help us function better as a barbarian by getting us into combat and giving us something else to do with our third action. We’re also going to use Intimidation quite a bit for some of our future plans.
LEVEL 2 We get a skill feat and a barbarian class feat with second level. For the skill feat, we take Titan Wrestler to use maneuvers against even larger foes. For our class feat, instead of picking up a barbarian feat, we are going to take the Marshal Dedication feat, which lets us become expert in Intimidation and gives us a 10’ aura that grants a bonus to allies within it a bonus against fear effects. This is the first step towards making Lovisa a leader for her people.
LEVEL 3 Our skill increase for this level goes into Athletics, making us expert in it. We grab Toughness with our general feat to increase our overall tankiness.
LEVEL 4 Another skill feat nets us Terrifying Resistance, which grants us a 24-hour status bonus on saving throws against spells of creatures we’ve Demoralized. Once again, we’re diving into the marshal archetype in place of a barbarian feat, this time picking up Dread Marshal Stance. As a single action, we enter this stance and attempt an Intimidation check. On a success, we increase the damage of our allies within our aura and allow them to make enemies they hit with critical hits frightened. A critical success does the same effect, but also increases the range of our aura. This stance helps replicate the idea of increasing power of others creatures as per Lovisa’s card.
LEVEL 5 First thing we get from 5th level is four boosts, which we put into Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma giving us this new array: Str 19, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 16. We also become trained in Diplomacy, which opens up some new options for us. For our ancestry feat, we take Haughty Obstinacy, which makes us harder to Intimidate or control with magic.
LEVEL 6 We take Group Coercion with out skill feat, giving us some greater utility outside of combat. For our barbarian feat, we pick up Cadence Call, which allows us to quicken nearby allies for a round only for them to be slowed next round. This helps replicate her ability to give haste to barbarians, berserkers, and warriors.
LEVEL 7 Being able to get to master proficiency in our skills, we raise Intimidation with our skill increase so that we can get better at our Dread Marshal Stance. For our general feat, we picked up Diehard. As a front-line combatant who lowers their AC through rage, things that buff our survivability are immensely valuable.
LEVEL 8 Since we our now a master in Intimidation, we can pick up the Battle Cry skill feat at this level, which allows us to attempt to Demoralize as a free action when we roll initiative. Our class feat is going to be Steel Yourself!, from the Marshal Dedication feat once again. This feat allows us to grant some temporary hit points and a bonus of Fort saves to a creature in our aura, helping to replicate the bonus to toughness that Lovisa grants in her card.
LEVEL 9 Our skill increase goes to Athletics, making us a master in it to give us an edge with any maneuvers and stuff like that we might want to do. As appropriate for a leader, we take Cooperative Nature as our ancestry feat, which lets us better help out our allies when we Aid them.
LEVEL 10 With our four free boosts, we’re going for Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma and giving us this array: Str 20, Dex 12, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 18. Our skill feat is Terrified Retreat, which allows us to send somebody we Demoralize with a critical success to go running. For our class feat, we’re finally dipping back into our barbarian feats to pick up Terrifying Howl, allowing us to attempt to Demoralize a whole group of creatures as a single action.
LEVEL 11 Our level 11th skill increase goes to Diplomacy, making us an expert. For our general feat, we pick up Incredible Initiative so that we can try to act earlier and start spreading the buffs with our Dread Marshal Stance.
LEVEL 12 We grab Intimidating Prowess with our skill feat, which makes us better at Demoralizing others when we can physically threaten them. We’re going back to the marshal archetype to pick up Coordinated Charge. While it doesn’t give us quite the distance of Sudden Charge, this does allow us to run into combat and hit a foe. More importantly, on a successful blow, you allow allies within 60 feet to use a reaction to move towards the target you hit.
LEVEL 13 We become expert in Society with our skill increase and then pick up Cooperative Soul with our ancestry feat. This makes it impossible for us to fail to Aid in skills that we are at least expert in.
LEVEL 14 By picking up Quick Repair, we can fix things on the fly, such as our shields. With our marshal archetype, we pick up Tactical Cadence. This enhances our Cadence Call, making it so our allies aren’t slowed on the following round and they can use the extra action from quickened for greater effect.
LEVEL 15 These four ability boosts go to Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma so our array now looks like this: Str 20, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 19. With our increased Intelligence, we get training in a new skill and a language. Nature seemed appropriate as a skill and Jotun felt like a fitting language for her to know. Our skill increase goes to Intimidation, granting us legendary in proficiency. That allows us to automatically pick up Scare to Death due to Raging Intimidation we picked up all the way back at level 1. For our general feat, we take Fleet to help us get into combat just a tiny bit faster.
LEVEL 16 Running somewhat thin on good feats for Lovisa, we pick up Quick Climber, which allows her to better manage her mountainous homeland. Furious Vengeance grants us a reaction to attack foes that critically hit us in case we don’t have our shield raised or if it’s already destroyed.
LEVEL 17 For our skill increase at this level, we take master in Diplomacy. What I post here is just how I would build the character in a vacuum. On that topic, we pick up Natural Skill as our ancestry feat to become trained in Acrobatics and Deception.
LEVEL 18 We’re nearing the end, but we do have a couple more feats and other little things to go through! In this case, another skill and class feat. For the former, we take Combat Climber in case our Quick Climb isn’t enough to get us through whatever we’re climbing before we’re attacked. And then for the later, we grab Brutal Critical. Being a master in our weapons, we have a decent chance of landing critical hits on weaker foes, and this will allow us to take better advantage of that.
LEVEL 19 Our very last skill increase goes into Athletics, so that we are finally legendary in it. And on that same note, our last general feat is Expeditious Search, allowing us to search places quickly before moving on.
LEVEL 20 The final ability boosts go into Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma which us leaves at this: Str 20, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 20. With our increased Intelligence, we pick up the Draconic language and become trained in Stealth for those rare instances she wants to ambush somebody. Our last skill feat is going to be Underwater Marauder. Combat in the freezing waters of the Ice Age is generally a bad idea, but you can’t always simply avoid it. That leaves us with our final class feat – Unstoppable Juggernaut. The resistances from this allow us to stay in the fight even longer to issue commands to our allies.
CONCLUSION And that is Lovisa built! A powerful warrior who leads the charge while bolstering her companions and terrorizing her foes. A heavier focus on commanding than the combat-based feats of the barbarian fits her card’s lower power/toughness without completely crippling her as a character. For preferred armaments, I outfitted her with hide armor, a wooden shield, a battle axe, and some hatchets.
Thanks for taking the time to check out this build and please let me know what you think. Does this build work? Does it represent the character? What would you change about it? Is it something you’d like to play?
Lemme know what other characters you might like to see and if you’re so inclined, join the blog’s Discord server at the following link: https://discord.gg/W4THAs5
Have a great day!