Still on a bit of a hiatus from League characters because I feel I've done too many of them (though there's still a ton to do), so I went back into my memory for a character from a game I often played among my friends. Nightmare may have been my favorite, but all the characters are fun and might be others that I come back to. 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 Astaroth from Soul Calibur!
ASTAROTH
CHARACTER Astaroth
SOURCE Soul Calibur
GOAL A golem created by a cult that worshipped Ares, Astaroth was built for the purpose of retrieving Soul Edge. The priest that created him intended to take Soul Edge for himself and became a god instead of handing it over to his master, but Ares used his own tricks to ensure this never happened. Astaroth fights with an immense axe called Kulutues, utilizing slow but powerful strikes and taking advantage of his opponents when they’re falling or on the ground, seen in some of his combos. His other popular combos including a charging attack, slamming people onto the ground, and even producing small shockwaves along the floor. His Critical Finish is Eternal Damnation where he knocks the foe down before dragging them around the ring and flinging them into the air. Among his basic combos are launching people into the air and then striking them as they’re falling.
LEVEL 1 These ended up being some strange choices but stick with me as we go through Astaroth’s ABCs – his ancestry, background, and class. First off, there isn’t a golem-esque ancestry. It could be argued that android or conrasu could possibly be used for this idea or maybe even that I should wait for automaton that’ll come out in Guns and Gears, but I think I can make this idea work with what we have. To start with, we’ll be building Astaroth as a grave orc, giving him a natural resistance to negative energy and necromancy in general since he isn’t ‘alive.’ Being an orc nets us an automatic boost to Strength as well as a free boost that we’ll apply to Constitution. Our Iron Fists ancestry feat removes the nonlethal trait from our blows and gives them the shove trait instead, bringing to mind his little kicks I used to spam when I was messing around.
Although Astaroth was simply made by cultists, taking the cultist background for him feels appropriate. This gives us a boost that to Intelligence as well as a free boost to Strength. This makes us trained in Occultism as well as Ares Lore since that is who his cult follows. This also grants us the Schooled in Secrets skill feat, making us good at ferreting out info about other cults, assisting in the hunt of Soul Edge.
Finally, our class will be barbarian with giant instinct because I want to pick something different than usual and because Astaroth is massive compared to the other fighters. As a barbarian, we receive an automatic boost to Strength, followed by four free boots to Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12). Being a barbarian makes us automatically trained in Athletics. Our four other starting skills will be Acrobatics, Arcana, Crafting, and Survival. Representing the short burst of charges that he does will be Sudden Charge, allowing him to get into the fray.
LEVEL 2 Using his training in Arcana, Astaroth will pick up the Arcane Sense skill feat so that he can better hunt his quarry. This is something of a dead feat for us as the only thing we’ll be getting out of it is critical specializations even when we’re not raging once we hit 5th level, but the Mauler Dedication has some things that I like and I want to get it now because there’s something else I want to pick up.
Gear: psychopomp mask
LEVEL 3 I know it seems like I’m making a lot of strange choices but there is a reason for it – even for taking our first skill increase to Crafting, pushing it up to expert proficiency. Astaroth is a beefy fellow, so we’ll go ahead and pick up Toughness for our first general feat, granting us additional Hit Points.
Gear: +1 greataxe, ring of discretion, psychopomp mask
LEVEL 4 Astaroth is a big dude and to make him seem even bigger, we’ll take the Titan Wrestler skill feat so that he can push around creatures much larger than him. From the Mauler Dedication, we’ll pick up Knockdown so that we can try to knock foes flat when we strike them since Astaroth seems to like putting people in the dirt.
Gear: 3, +1 greataxe, handwraps of mighty blows (+1), psychopomp mask
LEVEL 5 We receive four ability boosts that we’ll apply to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom (Str 19, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 12). Going along with the skill increase to Crafting will be a skill increase to Arcana, boosting it up to expert proficiency. While Bloody Blows doesn’t relate to anything in particular about Astaroth’s skill set, we’re looking to emulate that in other ways. For the time being, it goes along with a portion of the build that we’re going for.
Gear: +1 striking greataxe, bracelet of dashing, tracker’s goggles, handwraps of mighty blows (+1), ring of discretion, psychopomp mask
LEVEL 6 Astaroth is lugging around some heavy gear, and to make that a little bit easier on him, we’ll take the Hefty Hauler skill feat. For his class feat, we’ll use his Mauler Dedication to get Power Attack, which makes his attack slower, as it requires two actions to perform, but it strikes heavier.
Gear: +1 hide armor, +1 striking greataxe, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), bracelet of dashing, necklace of knives, brooch of shielding
LEVEL 7 Since we have our Arcana and Crafting where we need them, we’ll take a this skill increase to Athletics, pushing it up to expert proficiency. For our general feat,we’ll take Diehard so that we’re harder to slay.
Gear: ring of the ram, +1 hide armor, fearsome weapon rune, +1 striking greataxe, bracelet of dashing, tracker’s goggles
LEVEL 8 Since we don’t have a heavy focus on our Dexterity or anything like that, we’ll pick up Rapid Mantel so that we have the option to use Athletics instead of Reflex to Grab an Edge. For our class feat, we’ll pick up the feat that we were prepping for with the increases to Arcana and Crafting – the Golem Grafter Dedication. This first feat makes Astaroth significantly tankier, giving him extra health and physical resistance even when he’s not raging. This plays into the fact that Astaroth is fully a golem.
Gear: boots of bounding, ring of fire resistance, ring of the ram, +1 hide armor, +1 striking greataxe, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking)
LEVEL 9 We’ve got Arcana and Crafting where they need to be so that we can now focus on Athletics, increasing our proficiency in it to master. With the Scar-Thick Skin, we decrease the flat check needed to stop persistent bleed damage, which feels appropriate for a golem.
Gear: +1 resilient hide armor, boots of bounding, clear spindle aeon stone, ring of the ram, fearsome weapon rune, +1 striking greataxe
LEVEL 10 These ability boosts will buff our Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 20, Dex 12, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 12). This increase to Intelligence will give an additional language as well as the trained proficiency in Intimidation. We’ll immediately make use of this new skill to gain the Intimidating Glare skill feat so that we can threaten people without having to use our words. Also, we’ll finally pick up another class feat from our actual class with Knockback, allowing us to send a foe flying with a blow.
Gear: armbands of athleticism, +1 resilient hide armor, flaming weapon rune, boots of bounding, ring of the ram, +1 striking greataxe
LEVEL 11 We just gained the Intimidation skill, but that’s the one we’ll be increasing with this skill increase, achieving expert proficiency in it. Similar to Diehard, the Fast Recovery general feat we’re picking up at this level doesn’t have a lot of bearing on his in-game capabilities, but it feels appropriate for a golem to have, in some sense.
Gear: +2 striking greataxe, armbands of athleticism, horn of blasting, +1 resilient hide armor, boots of bounding, clear spindle aeon stone
LEVEL 12 Taking the Intimidating Prowess skill feat almost makes Intimidating Glare obsolete, but I feel like there are plenty of instances where physically menacing some can’t or shouldn’t be done, so this adds a nice little bonus to checks when we can while not completely obscuring Intimidating Glare’s purpose. Now that we have Knockback out of the way, we can start getting into some of the toys from our fun new archetype – starting with the Accursed Clay Fist! This bumps up the damage of Astaroth’s fist, while also removing the agile and finesse traits from it which actually makes it even better when we’re raging, and adds a nifty effect involving curses that we probably won’t ever use – but somebody else in our party certainly could!
Gear: +2 resilient hide armor, +2 striking greataxe, handwraps of mighty blows (+2 striking), armbands of athleticism, flaming weapon rune, greater rhinoceros mask
LEVEL 13 Once again, we’ll take a skill increase to Intimidation so that it has master proficiency. For our ancestry fear, we’ll finally pick up Orc Ferocity to stave off the call of death, acting even as our body crumbles – like an unfeeling, unrelenting golem.
Gear: +2 greater striking greataxe, +2 resilient hide armor, bag of holding (type III), handwraps of mighty blows (+2 striking), armbands of athleticism, horn of blasting
LEVEL 14 Since we didn’t invest in Raging Intimidating, Battle Cry seems like a smart move to me as it allows us to attempt to Demoralize a target at the start of the combat – before we start raging and are unable to do so. We will be taking another brief intermission from Golem Grafter to get Improved Knockdown from the Mauler Dedication since Astaroth has a lot of moves that put people in the dirt. We no longer need to attempt a Trip and instead automatically do so when we hit, while also dealing extra damage.
Gear: greater ring of the ram, +2 greater striking greataxe, handwraps of mighty blows (+2 greater striking), +2 resilient hide armor, golem stylus, greater demon mask
LEVEL 15 Coming up on the end game of this build, we’ll apply these four ability boosts to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom (Str 21, Dex 14, Con 19, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 12). We’ll use this skill increase to get Athletics to legendary proficiency and then pick up Terrified Retreat with our general feat since none of the others really feel like a good fit to me and this lets him use Intimidation to send foes running.
Gear: +2 greater resilient hide armor, greater ring of the ram, hellfire boots, +2 greater striking greataxe, bag of holding (type III), greater crafter’s eyepiece
LEVEL 16 Astaroth’s saves, well mostly his Reflex, are less than stellar, so we’ll use Terrifying Resistance to bolster them against foes that we manage to Demoralize. From Golem Grafter Dedication, we get Legs of Stone, which make it harder to Trip and Shove us and also allow us to Shove others even if we don’t have a free hand.
Gear: greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient hide armor, greater boots of bounding, greater ring of the ram, +2 greater striking greataxe, handwraps of mighty blows (+2 greater striking)
LEVEL 17 Our skill increase gives us legendary proficiency in Intimidation while our Rampaging Ferocity ancestry feat gives us a chance to brutally murder somebody when we use Orc Ferocity. If we succeed in that attempt, we don’t expend that use of Orc Ferocity, meaning we can try to use it again later.
Gear: +3 greater striking greataxe, greater flaming weapon rune, dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient hide armor, greater ring of the ram, hellfire boots
LEVEL 18 With that skill increase we just got to Intimidation, we’ll take Scare to Death so that we can murder with fear alone. Our last feat from Golem Grafter will be Quicken Heartbeat, allowing us to reduce our slowed condition by 1 for a single action, which is handy for long-term slowing effects. It does also given us quickened on our next turn, but that’s pretty much just trading actions and that’s honestly very situational.
Gear: belt of giant’s strength, +3 greater striking greataxe, handwraps of mighty blows (+3 greater striking), greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient hide armor, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 19 Because I’m running out of skills to increase and Astaroth can use this in tracking down Soul Edge or those connected to it, we’ll increase Survival to expert proficiency. For our skill feat, we’ll grab Powerful Leap so that Astaroth can jump just a tiny bit farther.
Gear: +3 greater resilient hide armor, belt of giant’s strength, vorpal weapon rune, +3 greater striking greataxe, greater flaming weapon rune, dragonscale amulet
LEVEL 20 Our final set of ability boosts will be for Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 22, Dex 14, Con 20, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 14). This final boost to Intelligence will make us trained in Religion and give us another language though maybe the latter should have been a little bit sooner given that he is the creation of a cult. Given that his purpose is to retrieve Soul Edge, Crafter’s Appraisal feels like a good get though likely one that should have come sooner. Our final feat will be Hammer Quake. Quaking Stomp might be more powerful though more limited in its usage, but Hammer Quake better captures the weight and feel of Astaroth’s heavy attacks.
Gear: +3 major striking greataxe, +3 greater resilient hide armor, greater fortification armor rune, belt of giant’s strength, handwraps of mighty blows (+3 greater striking), speed weapon rune
CONCLUSION This build leaves us with a powerful bruiser whose inhuman nature is reflected in the golem parts he has replaced his own body with. His incredible size and might is reflected in his barbarian instinct while his array of feats allow him to push foes around or slam them into the ground. His charge attack is reflected in his Sudden Charge feat, his ground slams are achieved through his Knockdown feat, and he produces shockwaves along the ground with Hammer Quake. Eternal Damnation is a little harder to pull off, but can be effectively performed in a round with Knockdown followed up with a Knockback against the prone creature, producing the effect mechanically if not visually.
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'm trying out a build for a character from a classic videogame that will allow me to use an ancestry from the new Mwangi Expanse book.
Have a fantastic Friday!
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