When my sister was leveling up her rogue the other weekend, she discovered a feat that ended up inspiring this build. Comics and superhero cartoons were a big part of my childhood, so I'm happy to present a build for the X-Man, Gambit!
GAMBIT
CHARACTER Remy LeBeau
SOURCE Marvel’s X-Men
GOAL Remy LeBeau is better known as Gambit, a member of the X-Men whose mutant power allows him to supercharge objects with kinetic energy. This allows him to wield a variety of implements as weapons though he favors playing cards or a staff that he wields in melee and to help him in his maneuvers. Before he joined the X-Men, Remy was raised in the New Orleans Thieves Guild where he was trained in skills of subterfuge and stealth. In addition to his skills as a thief, Remy is a natural charmer who is as capable of using his charisma to get out of a scrape as he is his powers or other skills.
LEVEL 1 The first step of any character is figuring out our ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. For ancestry, we’ll be looking at human with the skilled heritage because we want a lot of skills. Which skills we’ll take, I’ll include with the choices we make as part of our class. As a human, we receive two free boosts which will go towards Dexterity and Charisma. Finally, we take the Arcane Tattoos (enchantment) ancestry feat, giving Remy some innate magic in the form of the daze cantrip. This doesn’t exactly make sense for Gambit, but it can possibly be flavored as him delivering one of his particularly scathing insults.
The criminal background seems like a good fit for a character who was taken in and raised by a thieves guild. This nets us a boost to Dexterity and then a free boost Charisma, increasing Gambit’s southern charm. We become trained in Stealth and Underworld Lore from this background and also receive the Experienced Smuggler skill feat. This feat lets us hide things better from passive observers, essentially making it so that we can’t roll below a 10 on our attempts to do so.
Finally, we get to the class, which we’ll take Rogue for. From there, we select our racket – in this case, eldritch trickster to gain the Sorcerer Dedication. I picked sorcerer in particular because inherent magic from one’s bloodline sounds like a perfect fit for mutant powers. We could choose Charisma as our primary ability score here, but I still like Dexterity better for Gambit, so we’ll get another boost to that. We then receive four more boosts, which we will put towards Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 12, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 16). We would automatically become trained in Stealth, but since we got that through our background, we’ll become trained in Thievery instead. Our racket makes us trained in Arcana and Society as well and become trained in nine more skills – seven from our class and two more from our heritage. We’ll take Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Occultism, Performance, Religion, and Survival. There aren’t too many great class feats to grab at first level for the rogue, but Tumble Behind seems suitable enough, allowing us to make a creature flat-footed while positioning around the battlefield. As a rogue, we get a skill feat at every level and our
Spell Repertoire: prestidigitation, telekinetic projectile
LEVEL 2 Rogues also get a skill increase every level after first, the first of which will be going to make Stealth expert proficiency. Gambit is a charmer by nature, and Charming Liar make it so that even his fabrications can improve the attitudes of others. Then we get our most important feat – Fane’s Fourberie. This is a nifty little stance feat that, after entering into the stance, allows us to use a deck of cards as our choice of daggers or darts. Discovering this feat was what prompted my whole idea for this build.
Gear: predictable silver piece
LEVEL 3 This skill increase will bump Thievery up to expert. We’ll grab Lengthy Diversion as a skill feat, allowing us to remain hidden even after the end of our turn. For our first general feat, we’ll snag Incredible Initiative to help us act before others and make use of our Surprise Attack class feature.
Gear: +1 deck of cards, ring of discretion, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 4 Rounding out our subterfuge trio of skills, we’ll bump our Deception skill expert up to expert proficiency. As befitting a member of a thieves guild, Gambit will take the Pickpocket skill feat to make it easier to lift valuables off people. Another important feat for this build is Quick Draw, a class feat that lets us draw and Strike with a weapon as a single action. This lets us throw our cards fast enough to make three attacks per round if we so desire.
Gear: staff of fire, +1 deck of cards, +1 staff, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 5 The four boosts for this level will go to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 19, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 18). This time, we’ll slot our skill increase into Acrobatics so that we achieve expert proficiency in it. With the Subtle Theft skill feat, it makes our stealing from others harder to detect. Since we have Arcane Tattoos, we can grab Ornate Tattoo to gain the pummeling rubble spell as an innate spell, which I view as Gambit supercharging some rubble with kinetic energy.
Gear: +1 striking deck of cards, lesser rope of climbing, staff of fire, +1 staff, ring of discretion, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 6 This time around, we’ll bump Diplomacy up to expert with this skill increase. The Bon Mot skill feat lets us launch barbs at foes with our words to shake their will, and then the Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting feat gives us some new sorcerer spells, which I’ve noted below. I like these ones for some basic damage and they feel in line with Gambit’s abilities.
Spell Repertoire: magic missile (1st), acid arrow (2nd)
Signature Spell: magic missile
Gear: +1 leather armor, +1 striking deck of cards, sleeves of storage, staff of fire, +1 staff, necklace of knives
LEVEL 7 We can finally bump our skills up to master proficiency, the first of which will be Stealth. The reason behind this particular choice is so that we can grab the Swift Sneak skill feat to move at full speed while sneaking. Gambit moves in and out of combat, so we grab Toughness to bolster our HP a bit.
Gear: clandestine cloak, +1 leather armor, goggles of night, +1 striking deck of cards, staff of fire, +1 staff
LEVEL 8 Since Gambit is one of the best thieves in the Marvel universe, this skill increase will bump Thievery up to master proficiency. With the Cat Fall skill feat, we don’t have to worry about falling as much. Then we finally grab Magical Trickster, a rogue class feat allowing us to apply our sneak attack damage to our spells.
Spell Repertoire: haste (3rd)
Gear: gloves of storing, staff of evocation, clandestine cloak, +1 leather armor, +1 striking deck of cards, +1 striking staff
LEVEL 9 This Cajun charmer gets by on his charms as much as he does his powers, so this skill increase will go to Diplomacy, getting it to master proficiency. We can take advantage of that with the Group Impression skill feat to put the charm on more than one person at once. Continuing the line we started earlier, we’ll grab Virtue-Forged Tattoo to give us an innate lightning bolt spell that we can use once per day.
Gear: +1 resilient leather armor, gloves of storing, staff of evocation, clandestine cloak, cunning weapon rune, +1 striking deck of cards
LEVEL 10 More ability boosts! These ones will go to Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 16, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 19). Acrobatics will reach master proficiency with this skill increase. Our Glad-Hand skill feat lets us Make an Impression much quicker than usual but with a penalty. Basic Blood Potency is a feat from our Sorcerer Dedication that lets us pick up an early level sorcerer feat – in this case, Bespell Weapon. With this feat, whenever we cast a spell, we can then channel its magical energy into our attacks, ‘charging’ our cards with extra power. This feels like one of the best ways to replicate Gambit’s power to me.
Gear: greater sleeves of storage, greater staff of fire, +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, clandestine cloak, +1 striking deck of cards
LEVEL 11 This skill increase might not make a whole lot of sense, but we’re going to grab expert proficiency in Arcana here to set us up for something else down the line. We’ll also get Quick Unlock as a skill feat so that we can pick a lock with a single action instead of two. For our general feat, we’ll take Fleet to make us a little bit faster.
Gear: +2 striking deck of cards, greater shadow armor rune, greater staff of fire, +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, gloves of storing
LEVEL 12 Deception goes up to master proficiency with this skill increase while our skill feat will get us the highly useful Kip Up skill feat so that we can stand up as a free action when we go prone. Far Throw is a simple little rogue feat that extends the range increment of our thrown weapons, which is handy for our otherwise short-ranged armaments.
Gear: +2 resilient leather armor, +2 striking deck of cards, greater staff of evocation, greater shadow armor rune, flaming weapon rune, boots of bounding
LEVEL 13 Again, this might seem a little odd, but we put this skill increase towards Arcana to achieve master proficiency in it. We’ll take the very appropriate Streetwise skill feat as well as Cooperative Nature ancestry feat, which lets us Aid our allies with greater ease – helpful to somebody like this with so many skills and fitting for a character who has almost always worked with a team, whether that team be the thieves guild, the Marauders, or the X-Men.
Gear: +2 greater striking deck of cards, +2 resilient leather armor, greater goggles of night, greater staff of evocation, greater shadow armor rune, greater sleeves of storage
LEVEL 14 Gambit is intimately familiar with how the world works, especially the seedier side of it, which we represent with a skill increase to Society to get us to expert proficiency. With that level of proficiency and Streetwise under our belt, we can now grab Criminal Connections, representing the lingering ties that Gambit has to his old family. Finally, all those increases to Arcana are going to pay off as we take Expert Sorcerer Spellcasting. In my first iteration of this build, this wasn’t a feat that I took, but getting Gambit’s spell attack rolls and DCs up to expert was something I wanted given the nature of spells in PF2e, so I picked it up. Weapon storm does actually feel like a really fitting spell for Gambit with him just throwing an entire deck of cards but black tentacles doesn’t fit at all. However, it does give us another spell attack roll to proc Magical Trickster off of.
Spell Repertoire: weapon storm (4th), black tentacles (5th)
Signature Spell: weapon storm
Gear: spell-storing weapon rune, +2 greater striking deck of cards, major staff of fire, +2 resilient leather armor, greater invisibility armor rune, greater clandestine cloak
LEVEL 15 Even more ability boosts! We’ll bump up the familiar Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 21, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 20) though I think that argument could be made that Gambit should have a higher intelligence. This level grants us the opportunity to finally increase skills to legendary proficiency and the first to receive that honor, just as it was at 7th level, will be Stealth. This lets us immediately pick up the Legendary Sneak skill feat so that we can Hide or Sneak even without cover or concealment. Feather Step is a general feat that is a big help to mobility and getting out of dangerous situations that we might find ourselves in.
Gear: +2 greater resilient leather armor, spell-storing weapon runes, major staff of fire, +2 greater striking deck of cards, greater goggles of night, greater invisibility armor rune
LEVEL 16 Of course we’re going to apply this skill increase to Thievery to achieve legendary proficiency in it and then grab the Legendary Thief skill feat. With this feat, we can do something as ridiculous as steal the shoes off of someone’s feet. It’s silly and fun, which is a good fit for a comic book character. The Sly Striker class feat adds some extra oomph to our attacks.
Spell Repertoire: repulsion (6th)
Gear: greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater boots of bounding, spell-storing weapon rune, +2 greater striking deck of cards, major staff of fire
LEVEL 17 You might already guess what this is for, but this skill increase will apply to Arcana, making it so that we have legendary proficiency in that skill. Underground Network is a skill feat that further builds upon Gambit’s connection to the thieves guild, giving him a way to Gather Information without attracting too much attention. From the Cooperative Nature ancestry feat that we took earlier, we’re able to grab Cooperative Soul now, making it impossible for us to Aid on skills that we’re at least expert in. I think that, in general, this is a very handy ancestry feat for rogues and one I would try to take earlier on most other rogue builds.
Gear: +3 greater striking deck of cards, greater flaming weapon rune, major staff of evocation, +2 greater resilient leather armor, boots of speed, spell-storing weapon rune
LEVEL 18 With a skill increase to Diplomacy, we make it to legendary proficiency in it. Shameless Request plays into Gambit’s crazy charm, allowing him to attempt to Make a Request that others wouldn’t dare to suggest with lowered chance of repercussions. That Arcana increase comes into play here, allowing us to grab Master Sorcerer Spellcasting to snag a few more spells and bump up our spell attack rolls and DCs to master proficiency. My main reason for taking disintegrate is that it’s another spell attack roll that Gambit can use his Magical Trickster feat with.
Spell Repertoire: disintegrate (7th)
Signature Spell: disintegrate
Gear: anklets of alacrity, +3 greater striking deck of cards, speed weapon rune, greater flaming weapon rune, major staff of evocation, +2 greater resilient leather armor
LEVEL 19 Rounding out our subterfuge trifecta, we get Deception up to legendary proficiency with this skill increase. Taking advantage of last level’s skill increase, we also get Legendary Negotiation so that we can parley with foes even in the midst of combat. X-Men characters are notoriously hard to kill off (at least with lasting effects), so Diehard feels like an appropriate general feat for Gambit to take.
Gear: +3 greater resilient leather armor, anklets of alacrity, major shadow armor rune, +3 greater striking deck of cards, greater flaming weapon rune, major staff of evocation
LEVEL 20 Our final array of ability boosts will go to Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 18, Dex 22, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 20). The increased Intelligence makes us trained in Crafting – one of the three skills, not counting Lore – that Gambit isn’t trained in. Acrobatics joins the hallowed halls of our other skills with legendary proficiency. We might not get a huge use out of the Trick Magic Item skill feat, but it will allow us to try to borrow some spells from other traditions, like occult and divine spells. Impossible Striker makes it so that even fully aware targets will be taking our sneak attack damage, making Gambit’s simple little playing cards extremely deadly. Again, polar ray is not a great fit – but it is a spell attack roll for Magical Trickster.
Spell Repertoire: polar ray (8th)
Gear: +3 major striking deck of cards, +3 greater resilient leather armor, anklets of alacrity, major shadow armor rune, speed weapon rune, major staff of evocation
CONCLUSION We are left with a dashing master thief that is able to wield powerful magic along with simple playing cards that he can charge with energy and hurl at his foes. This build might have been a better fit if I had waited for the upcoming Secrets of Magic book and the magus contained therein (and I might even take another look at this when it comes out), but I wanted to test out and see if I could do a build that felt good without it. I absolutely don’t think this is an optimal build, but I also don’t think it’s a completely worthless one either and can find its place in groups. I do think that, if nothing else, this is definitely a fun build that I might just have to try for myself one of these days.
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?
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Have a Fantastic Friday!
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