Returning to a League of Legends for a new build like it’s a security blanket, I wanted to do a build of one of the classes from the brand-new book because I already have my Secrets of Magic PDF. Since I know that not everybody has this book, I tried to explain a little bit more as to what the new feats I took did although I did invest heavily in an archetype for this build. If I didn’t go in-depth enough, feel free to berate me because I have plans for a magus build next week and need to know what to include. It's worth noting that this build and the gear for it is picked in a vacuum without consideration for what adventure it may be in, so certain options might be better in specific situations.
With that out of the way, let's get into the build for Annie, the Dark Child from League of Legends!
ANNIE, THE DARK CHILD
CHARACTER Annie Hastur
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Annie Hastur is a mage of League of Legends who wields fire magic as well as a monstrous bear named Tibbers. The daughter of a witch, Annie was raised in the borderlands of Noxus until her mother died and her father remarried a woman with a new daughter. This ended in disaster when Annie’s stepsister died in the wilderness of their home and Annie received the blame for it, her stepmom trying to destroy Tibbers and causing Annie to unleash her pyromancy in a rage, orphaning herself. She remained in the wilderness, occasionally using her adorably precocious exterior to get a hot meal and fresh clothes from a pioneer family. Her Pyromania passive gains a stack whenever she casts an ability, up to 4. Once she has 4 stacks, her next ability cast consumes all the stacks and stuns damaged foes. Disintegrate, her first activated ability, hurls a fireball at a target whereas Incinerate unleashes a cone of fire. With Molten Shield, she can shield herself or another, increasing their speed and causing those that attack them to take damage. Her ultimate, Summon: Tibbers, calls forth the eponymous bear in a burst of flame where he remains, attacking all at Annie’s behest. Tibbers himself is wreathed in flame, dealing damage in an area around him, and becomes enraged against stunned champions. If Annie is slain while Tibbers is still alive, he enrages and hunts down her killer – or the lowest-health victim nearby.
LEVEL 1 While I’m not sure if Annie’s unconventional education included learning the ABCs, we’re still gonna go through them – her ancestry, background, and class. While this may seem a little out of place, I’m gonna use the fact that Annie’s mother is specifically called out as a witch to build her as a human with the changeling heritage. Our ancestry will give us free boosts to Dexterity and Charisma as well as the Veil May ancestry feat. While this feat doesn’t feel terribly appropriate for Annie, outside of the fact that she disguises her nature somewhat to get food from families, it is important for ancestry feats that we’ll be taking later.
Curiously, there doesn’t seem to be an orphan background and I imagine that is because it’s too open of a concept. There’s some out there that have a similar feel, but I decided to settle on hermit for Annie’s background, following in her parents’ footsteps. The first boost from this background goes into our Constitution while the free boost from it will bolster our Charisma again. We become trained in Occultism and Mountain Lore, or whatever terrain you dub appropriate, and then receive the Dubious Knowledge skill feat. With this feat, we receive information on a subject we Recall Knowledge about even if we fail - but this correct information is given alongside a piece of erroneous info.
As with most characters, there’s a few routes you could go for a build with Annie, but I want to place a heavier focus on Tibbers and build Annie as a summoner with a brutal beast eidolon. As a summoner, we receive an automatic boost to Charisma, followed by four boosts that we’ll put towards Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 18). Our choice of eidolon causes us to become automatically trained in the Intimidation and Nature skills. We also become trained in Athletics, Deception, Performance, and Survival. Getting Tibbers himself, his primary attack will be a jaws attack that deals 1d8 piercing damage and has the trip trait while his secondary attack is a claw that deals 1d6 and has the agile and finesse traits. With the initial evolution feat we receive, we’ll take Elemental Heart, choosing fire for our element. This changes one of his attacks, in this case jaws, to deal that damage type while also giving him resistance to that damage type equal to half of our level. We also receive the boost eidolon link cantrip, a single action spell that we can cast on Tibbers to bolster his damage for a round.
Known Spells: Cantrips - detect magic, produce flame, protect companion, read aura, tame; 1st - burning hands, magic fang
LEVEL 2 Annie needs a way to ingratiate herself to those pioneers and frontiersmen that she meets, and we’ll achieve that with Charming Liar skill feat, allowing us to use our Deception skill to Make an Impression. For our class feat, we’ll actually peel away from summoner briefly to take the Sorcerer Dedication with the fire elemental bloodline, making us trained in Athletics and Diplomacy. The idea behind taking this archetype is to increase the number of spells that Annie can toss around. This works very well with her because the traditions and related ability score match, meaning her sorcerer spells will scale off of her summoner spell DC.
Gear: dull grey aeon stone
Known Spells: 1st - burning hands, magic fang, summon animal
Sorcerer Repertoire: Cantrips - electric arc, light
LEVEL 3 With Annie having to survive out in the wilds, and to help her advance her archetype, we’ll start with a skill increase to Nature. For our general feat, we pick up Fleet as a sort of nod towards the speed buff of her Molten Shield.
Gear: +1 sling, ring of discretion, dull grey aeon stone
Known Spells: 1st - burning hands, magic fang, summon animal; 2nd - elemental zone
LEVEL 4 Building off of the idea that Annie has to feed herself when she can’t find families to fleece, I like the idea of taking the Forager skill feat. From the Sorcerer Dedication, we pick up Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting to gain a spell repertoire starting with a single 1st-level spell.
Gear: flaming star, +1 sling, hand of the mage, dull grey aeon stone
Known Spells: 1st - burning hands, magic fang, summon animal; 2nd - elemental zone, flame wisp
Spell Repertoire: 1st - shockwave
LEVEL 5 From this level-up, we receive four ability boosts to for Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 10, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 19). However, our eidolon also receives four ability boosts that we’ll apply to its Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 19, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 12). We’ll put this level’s skill increase towards Deception, allowing us to achieve master proficiency in it. For our ancestry feat, since Hag’s Sight doesn’t state that it has to be taken at first level, we’ll pick up that one to gain darkvision.
Gear: +1 striking sling, flaming star, staff of fire, hand of the mage, ring of discretion, dull grey aeon stone
Known Spells: 2nd - elemental zone, flame wisp; 3rd - burning hands, fireball
LEVEL 6 I like the idea of Annie really playing into being this precocious child and I want to keep building on that idea by taking the Confabulator skill feat that reduces the bonuses that others receive against her repeated deceptions. If we start fights without Tibbers at the ready, we can use the Ostentatious Arrival summoner feat to modify how we Manifest him, causing his appearance to deal 1d4 fire damage per two levels to all creatures within 10 feet without a save.
Gear: +1 explorer’s clothing, +1 striking sling, demon mask, flaming star, hand of the mage, hat of disguise
Known Spells: 2nd - elemental zone, flame wisp; 3rd - burning hands, fireball, haste
Spell Repertoire: flaming sphere*
LEVEL 7 By taking a skill increase to Nature, which would raise it to master proficiency, we set ourselves up to take more spellcasting feats from our archetype. With the Toughness general feat, we’re increasing the pool of HP that we share with Tibbers, which is also the main reason that we have been taking boosts to Constitution. From being a beast eidolon, Tibbers gains the Primal Roar ability, a two-action activity that allows him to Demoralize each enemy that can hear its roar without penalty for not sharing a language.
Gear: ring of fire resistance, +1 explorer’s clothing, necklace of fireballs I, +1 striking sling, flaming star, staff of fire
Known Spells: 3rd - burning hands, fireball, haste; 4th - fire shield, wall of fire
LEVEL 8 We’re gonna take a brief step away from Deception for now and focus on another Charisma-based skill by taking the Intimidating Glare skill feat so that we can Demoralize creatures even if we don’t share a language with them. We can use the Hulking Size summoner feat to increase Tibbers to a Large size, also extending his reach to 10 feet.
Gear: necklace of fireballs II, staff of evocation, ring of fire resistance, +1 explorer’s clothing, +1 striking sling, demon mask
Known Spells: 3rd - burning hands, haste; 4th - fireball, fire shield, wall of fire
Spell Repertoire: 3rd - fireball*
LEVEL 9 By increasing our proficiency in Intimidation to expert proficiency, we’re not only helping Annie have something else to do with her actions should she be running low on spells, but it will also increase Tibbers effectiveness with such checks, like when he uses Primal Roar since the eidolon shares the summoner’s skill proficiency. From our changeling heritage, we receive the ancestry feat that led to me picking Veil May in the first place - Invoke the Elements. We can use this once per day to gain concealment against creatures further than 5 feet away and deal fire damage to those closer, which does help invoke the feeling of Molten Shield a little bit.
Gear: +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater hat of disguise, necklace of fireballs II, ring of fire resistance, goggles of night, +1 striking sling
Known Spells: 4th - fireball, fire shield, wall of fire; 5th - flammable fumes, mantle of the magma heart
LEVEL 10 This time around, we’ll take ability boosts to Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 10, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 20). Once again, Tibbers receives four ability boosts, which we’ll slot into Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 20, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 16). Going back into the Deception feats, we’ll take Discreet Inquiry to Gather Information without being obvious about it. We’ll use Bloodline Breadth from the Sorcerer Dedication to increase the range of spells that we get from it, increasing both the spell slots it provides as well as the spells in its repertoire.
Gear: necklace of fireballs III, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater staff of fire, necklace of fireballs II, ring of fire resistance, +1 striking sling
Known Spells: 4th - fireball, fire shield; 5th - burning hands, flammable fumes, mantle of the magma heart
Spell Repertoire: 1st - animal allies
LEVEL 11 Once again, we’ll increase Intimidation to master proficiency with our skill increase. Annie needs to invest in a weapon to give Tibbers the benefit of her weapon runes, so we’ll take Incredible Investiture, giving us some extra items that we can invest in.
Gear: +2 striking sling, necklace of fireballs III, mask of the banshee, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater hat of disguise, greater hat of disguise
Known Spells: 5th - burning hands, flammable fumes, mantle of the magma heart; 6th - fire shield, flame vortex
LEVEL 12 While I did want to dip into Intimidation, Annie isn’t associated with a lot of fear effects, so I didn’t want to invest too much into those feats. Admittedly, I don’t have a lot of stuff to back up Influence Nature either, but it felt more appropriate for Annie, as her intrinsically using her magic to discourage the creatures of her home from attacking her. With that master proficiency in Nature, we can take the Expert Sorcerer Spellcasting archetype feat and gain burning hands as a signature spell.
Gear: +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, +2 striking sling, greater demon mask, greater necklace of fireballs III, greater staff of fire, wand of smoldering fireballs (3rd)
Known Spells: 5th - flammable fumes, mantle of the magma heart; 6th - burning hands, fire shield, flame vortex
Spell Repertoire: 2nd - elemental zone; 4th - elemental gift
LEVEL 13 This time around, we’ll go ahead and increase Deception to master proficiency. From our human ancestry, we’ll pick up the Adapted Cantrip ancestry feat to gain the shield cantrip from the arcane spell list.
Gear: +2 greater striking sling, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, necklace of fireballs IV, greater demon mask, necklace of fireballs III, greater staff of fire
Known Spells: 6th - burning hands, fire shield, flame vortex; 7th - fireball, haste
LEVEL 14 We’ll use that shiny new proficiency in Deception to pick up Slippery Secrets, making Annie difficult to figure out. Tibbers gets the ability to deal 1d6 persistent bleed damage on a critical hit thanks to the Bloodletting Claws evolution feat for the summoner.
Gear: hellfire boots, +2 greater striking sling, stampede medallion, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater demon mask, fire-jump ring
Known Spells: 6th - fire shield, flame vortex; 7th - burning hands, fireball, haste
Spell Repertoire: 3rd - haste; 5th - blazing fissure
LEVEL 15 We get a quarter of ability boosts that will go towards Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 12, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 21). With the boosts that we receive for Tibbers at this level, we’ll increase our Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 21, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 18). That increase to Intelligence let’s us learn a new language and makes us trained in Arcana. Setting up for the future, we’ll take this skill increase to Nature and achieve legendary proficiency in it. I had one final idea to play into Annie’s adorable facade and that was the A Home in Every Port general feat, allowing Annie to always find a place to rest her head no matter where she goes.
Gear: +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, necklace of fireballs V, hellfire boots, +2 greater striking sling, greater goggles of night, bag of holding (type III)
Known Spells: 7th - burning hands, fireball, haste; 8th - burning blossoms, fire shield
LEVEL 16 Following a similar train of thought that I did for the Influence Nature skill feat, we’ll gain the Consult the Spirits skill feat, and then follow it up with the Flexible Transmogrification summoner feat, which functions in a manner similar to the fighter’s combat flexibility. When we make our daily preparations, this allows us to choose an evolution feat of 6th level or lower to grant to Tibbers for the day. While this affords us some of that eponymous flexibility, the main evolution feat I’m looking at is Blood Frenzy, which we can use to simulate Tibbers’s enrage ability whenever he manages to inflict bleed with his Bloodletting Claws.
Gear: major stampede medallion, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, major ring of fire resistance, hellfire boots, +2 greater striking sling, major flaming star
Known Spells: 7th - burning hands, haste; 8th - burning blossoms, fireball, fire shield
Spell Repertoire: 4th - summon animal; 6th - fire shield
LEVEL 17 Next up on the skill increase block is Intimidation, boosting it to legendary proficiency. Our final ancestry feat, Stormy Heart, allows us to Invoke the Elements once per ten minutes rather than once per day. The summoner class grants us the Eidolon Transcendence power, which gives us the final eidolon power of our type as well as +2 to a single ability score for it, which will go towards its Strength.
Gear: +3 greater striking sling, greater flaming weapon rune, greater stampede medallion, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, necklace of fireballs V, hellfire boots
Known Spells: 8th - burning blossoms, fireball, fire shield; 9th - burning hands, meteor swarm
LEVEL 18 With that increase to Intimidation, we can pick up the Scare to Death skill feat because it’s still one of my favorites. For our last feat from our Sorcerer Dedication, we’ll get Master Sorcerer Spellcasting, granting us another signature spell, which will be summon animal.
Gear: circlet of persuasion, +3 greater striking sling, wand of smoldering fireballs (7th), greater stampede medallion, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, major ring of fire resistance
Known Spells: 8th - burning blossoms, fire shield; 9th - burning hands, fireball, meteor swarm
Spell Repertoire: 5th - mantle of the the magma heart; 7th - elemental zone
LEVEL 19 While we’re at it, we might as well increase our Deception skill to legendary proficiency with this skill increase. We’ll pick up Incredible Initiative. Pathfinder 2e is much less rocket tag than 1e is, but there’s still a definite advantage to acting earlier, especially if we don’t have our eidolon manifested.
Gear: +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, mask of allure, necklace of fireballs VII, +3 greater striking sling, greater flaming weapon rune, greater stampede medallion
Known Spells: 8th - burning blossoms, fire shield; 9th - burning hands, fireball, meteor swarm
LEVEL 20 These final ability boosts will go to Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 22). The final ability boosts we gain for Tibbers will go towards his Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 24, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 19). We receive an extra language from our increase to Intelligence as well as the trained proficiency in the Acrobatics skill. It always feels weird picking out a skill feat at this level because it doesn’t feel impactful to me, but Quick Jump helps our action economy in a pinch, and that’s something to be mindful of with the summoner. Our class feat will be Eternal Boost, making us permanently quickened though only to cast the boost eidolon link cantrip. It also allows us to cast it even while doing another exploration activity, letting Tibbers start with the spell active.
Gear: +3 major striking sling, +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, mask of allure, necklace of fireballs VII, speed weapon rune, wand of smoldering fireballs (7th)
Known Spells: 8th - burning blossoms, fire shield; 9th - burning hands, fireball, meteor swarm
Spell Repertoire: 6th - flame vortex; 8th - burning blossoms
CONCLUSION This build for Annie has a slightly heavier focus on Tibbers who we’ll, hopefully, have summoned more frequently than not. While her spell list is somewhat limited, which I tried to fix with the Sorcerer Dedication, we achieved a heavy focus on fire spells. The produce flame cantrip is probably the closest to Disintegrate in terms of function while Incinerate is covered by burning hands. For her activated abilities, the hardest to copy was Molten Shield, which I tried to do with stuff like haste and fire shield. Obviously, Summon: Tibbers is handled by the Manifest Eidolon activity, with Ostentatious Arrival adding on the initial burst of damage. I even managed to include his enrage feature, in a sense. I could have simply taking the Blood Frenzy feat, but I like the adaptability that Flexible Transmogrification offers us. I did struggle with figuring out how to get the effects of her Pyromania passive but did take stuff like shockwave and the fascination effect of burning blossoms. Speaking of spells, it might seem weird that I took a lot of the same spells for both the Sorcerer Dedication and from the summoner. My idea there is to mostly give Annie more chances to cast those sorts of spells, but if you’re content with the four slots that summoner gives (or want to focus your fire spells with your sorcerer spells), feel free to change them around.
Be sure to let me know what you think of the build!
If you want to join in on the discussion of these builds and the ones I do for monsters or just hang out with a bunch of fellow TTRPG nerd, check out the Discord server. We also have a Twitter where we try to post teasers for the blog and are trying to get some milestones made up for. Coming up next week, I have access to my Secrets of Magic, so I'll be doing a build from that book!
Have a fantastic Friday!
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