As those of you read that the bit on the end of my last Full Build Friday, you may know that I had planned to attempt a build for Mordred from Arthurian legends, but the descriptions of him were far too vague. The major points are actually replicated in Mordred from the Fate series, specifically that he struck out at Arthur even after being fatally wounded. I found that the parts of the build that I could actually manage to work out were too similar to the Fate Mordred, I have thus decided to move onto a different build. I’ve actually had the idea for this build sitting in the back of my head since Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse came out, but I wanted to wait on Secrets of Magic to see if that offered anything new to this build to make it function better. It pretty much didn’t, but there are a few minor new spells here and there that work with it. 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 Elise, the Spider Queen, from League of Legends!
ELISE, THE SPIDER QUEEN
CHARACTER Elise Kythera-Zaavan
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Long ago, Elise was a noblewoman who ensnared an even more prestigious husband whose position she eventually stole, murdering him in the process. She was recruited by a power-hungry secret society that eventually led to her meeting the spider god, Vilemaw, who bestowed her with his ‘blessing’ as long as she continued to bring him new offerings. In-game, Elise’s abilities are splint into human form and spider form. I’ll go through the former first. Her passive Spider Queen causes her to store a dormant spiderling whenever she hits an enemy with an ability. Neurotoxin fires a toxin that damages a target, Volatile Spiderling summons an explosive spider that crawls towards enemies, and Cocoon wraps a target in web, stunning them. Finally, her ultimate is Spider Form/Human Form, allowing her to change between her forms. When she changes into Spider Form, she becomes faster, switches to melee range, and summons all her stored spiderlings. Her passive in Spider Form causes her to deal additional damage and heal from her attacks. With Venomous Bite, she pounces on a target and deals additional damage based on their missing health. Skittering Frenzy has a passive effect that increases the attack speed of her spiderlings but she can also activate it to give herself and her spiderlings even more attack speed. Rappel causes her and her spiderlings to lift up into the air before she descends shortly thereafter.
LEVEL 1 Let’s get into it with Elise’s ABCs – her ancestry, background, and class. I’m actually really glad that I waited to do this build because while I might have tried human of some sort, maybe with beastkin, the release of the anadi in Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse gave me a perfect ancestry for her with their venomous heritage being another fantastic fit, giving her a Venomous Bite. As an anadi, she actually gets boosts to the exact abilities we’ll be looking for with this build, starting with automatic boosts to Dexterity and Wisdom. The flaw to Constitution is a bit unfortunate, but we’re going to spend our free boost here to increase her Intelligence because she’s a little skill hungry. Initially, I had looked at Skittertalk for her ancestry feat, but our class choice ends up covering that already. Instead, we’ll give Elise the Web Walker ancestry feat, which is admittedly situational, but is at least partially representative of her Rappel, helping her avoid dangers.
You could reach back and select noble or something similar for Elise’s background and it would be a fine fit, it might even be more beneficial in regards to her skills, but I wanted something that was more appropriate for the larger part of her life – as a cultist of Vilemaw, the spider god. The first boost from this background goes to Charisma so that she can lure people to her god and we’ll follow it up with a free boost to Wisdom. She becomes trained in Occultism and Vilemaw Lore, and also receives the Schooled in Secrets skill feat, which is appropriate as she’s part of another secret society.
Some of you probably already guessed it, but we’ll be taking the druid for Elise, specifically taking the wild order to gain Wild Shape, granting us a focus spell of the same name, and the wild morph focus spell. As a druid, Elise receives an automatic boost to her Wisdom, which we’ll follow up with four free boosts to her Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 10, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 14). Druids are automatically trained in Nature and the wild order makes her trained in Intimidation as well. Unfortunately, druids don’t receive too many other skills, so she’ll only get to become trained in Athletics, Diplomacy, and Religion.
LEVEL 2 While this isn’t directly referenced in any of her abilities, Elise is a spider lady and spiders are adept climbers, so I want to take the Combat Climber skill feat just to make her safer when she’s climbing. This could be taken later, but I kind of wanted to get it out of the way. For her class feat, Elise will take Rogue Dedication which makes her trained in light armor, Stealth, and Deception. The light armor proficiency doesn’t give us anything as druid already grants it to us, but we do also receive a skill feat. We’ll give Elise Group Impression for that so that she can Make an Impression at multiple people once with greater ease. This Rogue Dedication is gonna help Elise out with a lot of stuff she needs in the future.
Gear: dull grey aeon stone
LEVEL 3 Although it is a skill that we took later, Deception is at the core of Elise’s operations, at least lore-wise, and we’ll use her first skill increase to bump it up to expert proficiency. For her general feat, Elise wants to get into the thick of the fight to mix it up while she’s in her Spider Form, so we’ll want a way to shore up her defenses. We’ll start with Toughness to give her extra Hit Points equal to her level, effectively giving her 1 higher Constitution modifier.
Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+1), dull grey aeon stone, ring of discretion
LEVEL 4 Elise weaves a web of lies and deception, and she makes these repeated deceptions easier with the use of the Confabulator skill feat. From the rogue’s bag of tricks, we’ll pick up Basic Trickery to get Mobility, allowing her to move at half Speed without triggering reactions, a closer reference to Rappel than her Web Walker is.
Gear: lesser rope of climbing, handwraps of mighty blows (+1), skittering mask, dull grey aeon stone
LEVEL 5 For Elise’s four free ability boosts at this level, we’ll increase her Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 10, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 19, Cha 16). In part to facilitate a future character choice, Elise’s skill increase at this level will bump Diplomacy up to expert proficiency. This next ancestry feat is mostly just to make Elise’s life easier and is reflective of her current appearance – Hybrid Shape lets her use her anadi natural attacks and similar abilities as well as held items while adopting a form somewhere between that of her human and spider form.
Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), bracelet of dashing, lesser rope of climbing, skittering mask, dull grey aeon stone, ring of discretion
LEVEL 6 I ended up choosing to have a minor focus on Intimidation for Elise because her card from Legends of Runeterra has Fearsome, preventing weaker creatures from blocking her. Building off of that, I gave her Intimidating Glare so that she can make use of her Intimidation even while in a form granted to her by wild shape. Speaking of which, we are finally at the level where we can take Insect Shape. While this provides several different battle forms, the main one we’re concerned with is the spider shape it grants though, if I’m being honest, I think we can achieve a similar effect by simply turning into our regular spider shape as an anadi. The spider form does have nice effects to it, being able to shoot a web that entangles creatures, dealing persistent poison damage, and having a climb Speed. However, while this might find some use here and there, past level 10 it begins to lose in effectiveness to a spider form, especially when we’re keeping up on fundamental runes for Elise’s handwraps of mighty blows.
Gear: +1 armor, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), poisoner’s staff, bracelet of dashing, skittering mask, necklace of knives
LEVEL 7 With the advent of 7th level, Elise can use her skill increase to pump Deception up to master proficiency. It is at this point of the build that I want to say that you can choose to ignore the Diplomacy increases, if you so desire. Swap them out with Intimidation or another skill of your choosing, but the main reason that I took them was to give Elise a way to get an in with people and for a skill feat that I thought was appropriate, but not hugely important, down the line. She might work much better with a higher Intimidation earlier and if that’s the case, feel free to go that route. With that out of the way, we have a general feat to give to Elise and for this option, I like Incredible Initiative. Typically played as a jungler, Elise lets getting the drop on foes and this helps her do just that.
Gear: staff of conjuration, +1 studded leather armor, goggles of night, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), bracelet of dashing, lesser rope of climbing
LEVEL 8 Between Elise’s true nature as a servitor of Vilemaw and a member of the Black Rose, she has a lot of secrets to protect and I think one of the best ways to do that is with the Slippery Secrets skill feat. This gives her the chance to elude magical effects to read her mind or reveal her deceptions with a Deception check before any other rolls are made. After that brief return to druid, we’re back picking through the rogue’s stuff to get Advanced Trickery, using it to gain Dread Striker so that frightened creatures are flat-footed to us. With our to-hit a bit behind our martial allies, this will help Elise mix it up in melee even when she doesn’t have somebody flanking with her though I suggest having at least one other distraction for them to deal with.
Gear: wand of the spider (2nd-level), primeval mistletoe, clandestine cloak, +1 studded leather armor, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), poisoner’s staff
LEVEL 9 To help facilitate Dread Striker more regularly, we’ll go ahead and increase Elise’s Intimidation skill up to master proficiency. From the anadi ancestry, we gain Disorienting Venom. With this, whenever we hit a foe with our anadi venom from our heritage, they have to make a save or become flat-footed for 1 round. The handy thing about this is that it scales off of Elise’s spell DC, which will get up to legendary proficiency.
Gear: +1 resilient studded leather armor, slippers of spider climbing, wand of the spider (2nd-level), staff of conjuration, goggles of night, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking)
LEVEL 10 This time around, we’ll take these ability boosts to Elise’s Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom (Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 20, Cha 16). It’s very possible to skip the Strength increase and apply it elsewhere, possibly even Charisma, but I like boosting it for a little extra damage on Elise’s bites. If it seems too meager, I’d advise skipping it and increasing one of the other two remaining ability scores. With Glad-Hand, Elise can try to swiftly enthrall her victims with her deadly allure though she can choose to take longer if she doesn’t roll well. While in her spider form, Elise gains lifesteal but that’s not really a mechanic in most TTRPGs. However, we can at least take Healing Transformation so that when Elise can spend an extra action to modify her next non-cantrip, single-target polymorph spell so that it restores 1d6 HP per the spell’s level. This means that turning into a giant spider, using insect shape, will restore 5d6 Hit Points, a decent amount to try to cover that portion of her Spider Queen passive.
Gear: mask of the banshee, +1 resilient leather armor, greater poisoner’s staff, wand of the spider (2nd-level), primeval mistletoe, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking)
LEVEL 11 This next skill increase probably isn’t one that you really need, I just want to vary up Elise’s skills a little bit. Again, focusing on Intimidation is perfectly fine and gels well with the build. However, the skill we’ll increase will be Stealth, bumping it up to expert proficiency. To extend the range of how far she can Sneak, we’ll give Elise the Fleet general feat.
Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+2 striking), mask of the banshee, greater shadow armor rune, +1 resilient leather armor, slippers of spider climbing, wand of the spider (2nd-level)
LEVEL 12 The Sow Rumor skill feat feels very appropriate for a reclusive spider-lady that lures victims to her home and then to their death at the hands of her god. Finally, to make use of all those abilities we got to make a creature flat-footed, mostly Dread Striker and Disorienting Venom, we’ll pick up Sneak Attacker for Elise. This isn’t a huge boost to damage, but an extra 1d6 damage to any flat-footed foe she hits is a handy little boost. My idea is to also somewhat treat this as her spider form’s Venomous Bite, dealing damage to a vulnerable foe.
Gear: +2 resilient leather armor, handwraps of mighty blows (+2 striking), druid’s vestments, mask of the banshee, greater poisoner’s staff, corrosive weapon rune
LEVEL 13 Once again, we’ll use this skill increase to boost up Elise’s Stealth skill, getting it up to master proficiency. From her ancestry, we gain Webslinger, a three-action activity that she can use once every 10 minutes to cast a 2nd-level web spell with her spell DC. I think that this is a little to be getting such a low-leveled spell but its effects don’t change too much from being heightened and she can likely use it each combat. While we can prepare the web spell to represent her Cocoon, this lets her prepare other spells in slots she would use that for.
Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+2 greater striking), +2 resilient leather armor, wand of the spider (4th-level), druid’s vestments, armbands of athleticism, greater shadow armor rune
LEVEL 14 From that increase to Stealth, we can pick up Swift Sneak for Elise. Again ,this isn’t something that directly relates to her powers in any game, but it feels appropriate for a spider-lady to have and helps her ambush her prey. I had initially looked at Reactive Transformation, but you have to have specific forms for that, none of which match what she has. Instead, we’ll pick up Ageless Nature as Vilemaw’s gift has left Elise seemingly immortal.
Gear: spell-storing weapon rune, handwraps of mighty blows (+2 greater striking), ring of climbing, +2 resilient leather armor, greater demon mask, druid’s vestments
LEVEL 15 With this level up, Elise will take four ability boosts to her Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 21, Cha 18). This increase to Intelligence gives her a bonus language and makes her trained in Survival. She also receives a skill increase to Deception, making her legendary in that skill. For her general feat, I like Skitter mostly for pun-based purposes.
Gear: +2 greater resilient leather armor, boots of speed, spell-storing weapon rune, handwraps of mighty blows (+2 greater striking), greater goggles of night, wand of the spider (4th-level)
LEVEL 16 Like a spider sitting in her web, Elise tugs on strands and controls the fates of those caught within it, and the way I want to represent that is with Reveal Machinations. While I like that flavor of it, it also presents us with an additional means of inflicting the frightened condition upon a creature. From the druid class, we’ll grant Elise access to Effortless Concentration, allowing her to maintain a single concentrate spell, such as one used to summon a spider, as a free action once per turn.
Gear: greater corrosive weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, major poisoner’s staff, spell-storing weapon rune, handwraps of mighty blows (+2 greater striking), ring of climbing
LEVEL 17 As we approach the end, we’ll increase Elise’s Diplomacy skill to master proficiency. As mentioned previously, climbing isn’t something that Elise really does, but we’ll pick up Strand Strider to give her a 25 foot climb speed.
Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+3 greater striking), earthglide cloak, greater corrosive weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, boots of speed, spell-storing weapon rune
LEVEL 18 I increased Elise’s Diplomacy skill so that she could take Evangelize, the feat that I mentioned previously, extolling the virtue of Vilemaw and leaving a victim stupefied by how insane she is. Since I ended up giving up Reactive Transformation because I misread it my first time around, I had to move some class feats around and was left with an empty space here. Call of the Wild lets her spend 10 minutes to swap out one of her prepared spells for summon animal so that she can summon more spiders.
Gear: headband of inspired wisdom, handwraps of mighty blows (+3 greater striking), speed weapon rune, greater corrosive weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, major poisoner’s staff
LEVEL 19 We’ll increase Intimidation to master proficiency so that Elise can make use of her Dread Striker with greater ease. As mentioned previously, if you want to switch things around and put greater import on Intimidation, that’s completely understandable and might even function better. For Elise’s final general feat, we’ll grab Feather Step for her so that she can dart like a spider out of danger.
Gear: +3 greater resilient leather armor, headband of inspired wisdom, dread blindfold, handwraps of mighty blows (+3 greater striking), earthglide cloak, greater corrosive weapon rune
LEVEL 20 For Elise’s final ability boosts, we’ll increase her Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 16, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 16, Wis 22, Cha 18). Once again, this increase to Intelligence grants us yet another language as well as trained proficiency in Acrobatics, something that I would have liked to have picked up earlier but struggled with due to the low number of skills that druids get. We’ll also give Elise a skill feat from Diplomacy again, getting Shameless Request so that she can make insane demands of her suitors. Her final class feat will be Hierophant’s Power, granting her an extra 10th-level spell slot with which to cast spells – like using summon animal to summon a black scorpion, a level 15 monster.
Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+3 major striking), +3 greater resilient leather armor, sage’s lash, dread blindfold, speed weapon rune, wand of slaying (7th-level)
CONCLUSION This was a fun build in part because I didn’t have to worry about picking feats to cover Elise’s powers – most of them are actually covered through her spells. Thematically, acid splash is a cantrip that can cover her Neruotoxin though you could take puff of poison to be more on brand – though that does put you closer to the enemy. Volatile Spiderling actually requires two spells – first up, a summon animal spell that can be of low-level followed up with a final sacrifice. Cocoon is covered by the web spell, which we get an extra casting of with Webslinger. Spider Form is covered in two different ways – both through her natural ability as an anadi as well as Insect Shape from our druid class. Since there isn’t really life steal in Pathfinder, I wanted to cover the healing capabilities of her spider form through the use of Healing Transformation. Venomous Bite is covered with her heritage as a venomous anadi, but can also be achieved through spells like spider sting and its higher level variants. Skittering Frenzy is a little boring because we just achieve the effects through haste. Rappel is probably the hardest to cover, but I feel like Mobility isn’t bad way to do it or with stuff like her climb speed even if she receives it at a late level. It’s not something I plan to do a lot, but I also had some fun leaning into her Legends of Runeterra card with the focus on Intimidation and taking advantage of it with Dread Striker and Sneak Attack.
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 looking at a character from DC Comics who should be out of this world. After that, I have an entire month of spooky builds to celebrate the month of Halloween.
Have a fantastic Friday!
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