This build harkens back to my youth to a show that I loved despite it clearly being made purely to sell toys. Street Sharks didn't really make sense, but I still enjoyed the show and I wanted to try out a build for one of the characters from 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.
Now, let's get into the build for Clint 'Jab' Bolton from Street Sharks!
JAB
CHARACTER Clint Bolton
SOURCE Street Sharks
GOAL Once a normal human and a member of four brothers, Clint ‘Jab’ Bolton was ‘gene-slammed’ with a hammerhead shark, turning him into an anthropomorphic creature with slightly odd proportions. This left him with incredible strength, durability, and the ability to ‘swim’ through concrete as though it were water. Out of his brothers, Jab is the most temperamental and prone to animalistic snarls and growls. Despite this, he is also a competent boxer, the source of his nickname, and surprisingly talented when it comes to mechanics and engineering. When in combat, he tends to use his head as a battering ram. A lot of this build is going to be from memory for me – I remember being immensely fond of this show, but the information kept online about it isn’t terribly in-depth and they tend to echo each other.
LEVEL 1 Even for shark men that are 30% jaws, we start the same place that we do for everybody else, with our ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. We’ll start off with the first of those and look at picking up human since that is what Clint once was. But to get the shark feeling, we’ll pick up beastkin as our heritage instead of one of the regular human heritages. Our two free boosts will go towards Strength and Constitution so that we can charge headfirst into combat without fear. For ancestry feats, Animal Senses to get low-light vision seems reasonable to me.
As mentioned previously, Clint demonstrated skill with mechanics and the best fit for that seems to be tinker, which will give us an initial boost to Intelligence followed by a free boost to Strength. This also makes us trained in Crafting and Engineering Lore as well as giving us Specialty Crafting as a skill feat, which we’ll pick blacksmithing for to give him a bonus to that for lack of a more appropriate option.
Given Jab’s ferocity and shark abilities, I feel the obvious choice here is the barbarian class with the shark animal instinct, which will give us a powerful bite attack when we rage. As a barbarian, we receive an automatic boost to Strength then four more boosts that we’ll put to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom (Str 18, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 10). We’ll also become automatically trained in Athletics. For the skills we actually get to pick, we’ll become trained in Acrobatics, Intimidation, Society, and Survival. Given his habit of charging into combat, Sudden Charge is a good pick here, but there were other charging feats for the barbarian that I liked better. Instead, I went with Raging Intimidation since Jab is the most bestial and aggressive of his brothers.
LEVEL 2 Since Jab is after all a shark man, his first skill feat is kind of obvious - Underwater Marauder, allowing him to fight better in aquatic environments. Our class feat will be one of those charge feats I just mentioned a little bit ago, in this case, Bashing Charge. This allows us to move and then try to break through stuff, which is unfortunately as close as we’ll get to his swimming through streets without items, which we’ll touch upon later.
Gear: everburning torch
LEVEL 3 To increase his likelihood of breaking through stuff with Bashing Charge, we’ll apply our first skill increase to Athletics to get it up to expert proficiency. With the Ancestral Paragon general feat, we’ll dive back into our ancestry feats to pick up Animal Senses again, this time improving our low-light vision to darkvision.
Gear: handwraps of might blow (+1), everburning torch, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 4 From Dr. Paradigm in his high-tech diving suit to Moby Lick, Jab is often pitted against foes larger than him, making Titan Wrestler an appropriate pick for a skill feat. Since we have darkvision from our Animal Senses, we can pick up Acute Scent from our barbarian feats to gain an imprecise scent ability while we’re raging, which makes sense for a shark.
Gear: bracelet of dashing, handwraps of might blow (+1), brooch of shielding, everburning torch
LEVEL 5 For the four ability boosts we get at this level, we’ll apply them to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 19, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12). With our other main skill being Intimidation, we’ll take our skill increase from this level to it, putting it up to expert proficiency. We can take Quick Shape as our ancestry feat so that we can change as a free action when we roll initiative. That way, it doesn’t have to compete with Rage as one of our actions.
Gear: handwraps of might blow (+1 striking), bracelet of dashing, bracers of missile deflection, brooch of shielding, everburning torch, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 6 We already have Intimidating Glare so since we’re lacking in Charisma but stacked on Strength, we’ll grab Intimidating Prowess to bolster our Intimidation skill when we can threaten folk. With the Animal Skin class feat while we’re raging, we don’t have to worry about wearing armor anymore, which is appropriate given that Jab, and all of his brothers for that matter, only ever seem to wear pants.
Gear: +1 explorer’s clothing, +1 striking weapon, demon mask, bracelet of dashing, brooch of shielding, necklace of knives
LEVEL 7 To further help with Bashing Charge, we’ll take that skill increase to Athletics to achieve master proficiency in it. The next feat is a general feat that I thought about taking earlier but had trouble fitting in until now – Breath Control is unfortunately the closest we can get to breathing underwater without fully turning into a shark. Since that’s not a route I really want to go with Jab, we’ll take this to help with that idea.
Gear: ring of the ram, +1 explorer’s clothing, fearsome weapon rune, handwraps of might blow (+1 striking), bracelet of dashing, brooch of shielding
LEVEL 8 For much the same reason we took Breath Control, we’ll pick up Quick Swim to increase the speed at which we can swim. For our class feat, we’ll be picking up one of the other charge-based feats with Barreling Charge that allows us to plow through our enemies.
Gear: wounding weapon rune, ring of cold-resistance, ring of the ram, +1 explorer’s clothing, handwraps of might blow (+1 striking), demon mask
LEVEL 9 This skill increase pumps Intimidation up to master proficiency. Then we take Animalistic Resistance to become better at fighting off diseases and poisons.
Gear: +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, boots of bounding, wounding weapon rune, ring of the ram, moderate rope of climbing, handwraps of might blow (+1 striking)
LEVEL 10 These ability boosts will boost up Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 20, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 14). Helping to clear up some of our early rounds, we’ll take Battle Cry so that we can Demoralize a creature as a free action when we roll for initiative. Building out of Barreling Charge, we’ll grab Overpowering Charge and deal damage to enemies that we charge through.
Gear: armbands of athleticism, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, cold-resistant armor rune, wounding weapon rune, ring of the ram, handwraps of might blow (+1 striking)
LEVEL 11 Since we have Athletics and Intimidation as high as we can get them for now, we’ll look at Crafting for Jab, increasing it to expert proficiency. I stayed away from this general feat for as long as I could because taking it just feels like repeating myself, but we’ll grab Toughness to increase our HP.
Gear: handwraps of might blow (+2 striking), armbands of athleticism, grievous weapon rune, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, wounding weapon rune, boots of bounding
LEVEL 12 I distinctly remember Jab sending folks running in terror once or twice, so we’ll take Terrified Retreat for our skill feat to do just that. Supernatural Senses just felt like a fun class feat to grab for Jab when there weren’t any other feats clamoring for my attention.
Gear: +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, handwraps of might blow (+2 striking), greater demon mask, armbands of athleticism, cold-resistant armor rune, wounding weapon rune
LEVEL 13 I want to diversify a little bit, so we’ll take this skill increase to Survival this time around to get it up to expert proficiency. Then, to represent the fact that Jab often fights as a member of a group, his brothers, we’ll take Pack Tactics from the beastkin ancestry feats so that that enemies within reach of us and at least two other allies are flat-footed to us.
Gear: handwraps of might blow (+2 greater striking), +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, bag of holding (type III), greater demon mask, armbands of athleticism, grievous weapon rune
LEVEL 14 All right, I’ll admit that this choice doesn’t make much sense. But with all the advanced senses that Jab has, I felt like I wanted to pick this up, so this level’s skill feat is Experienced Tracker. The Predator’s Pounce class feat mostly helps us with our action economy if we want to close the gap on a single enemy. A potentially fun thing to do would be to Predator’s Pounce one enemy and then Overpowering Charge through them to others behind them.
Gear: greater ring of the ram, handwraps of might blow (+2 greater striking), greater fearsome weapon rune, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater demon mask, greater ring of cold resistance
LEVEL 15 We finally see a change in the way we assign ability boosts as we apply these to Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 21, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 16). This increase to Intelligence grants us a bonus language and makes us trained in Nature since we’re a shark man. Given our past skill increases, I imagine you think I’m gonna pick to increase Athletics again, but you’re wrong! We’re actually going to increase Intimidation first, getting that to legendary so that Raging Intimidation automatically gives us Scare to Death. We’ll then use our general feat to pick up Fleet, increasing our Speed and thereby extending the range of all our move and attack type abilities such as Preadtor’s Pounce, Bashing Charge, and Barreling Charge.
Gear: +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, greater ring of the ram, boots of speed, handwraps of might blow (+2 greater striking), bag of holding (type III), greater insistent door knocker
LEVEL 16 We’re a shark, so it feels natural that we should take Terrain Expertise – Aquatic for our skill feat. Because it feels very animalistic, we’ll pick up Terrifying Howl, which we can use to Demoralize every creature within a radius around us. Also, we do get a way to finally swim through the earth with the earthglide cloak item.
Gear: earthglide cloak, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, greater boots of bounding, greater ring of the ram, handwraps of might blow (+2 greater striking), greater fearsome weapon rune
LEVEL 17 Since we took that first legendary skill increase to Intimidation, we’ll take this one to Athletics. Thanks to our Quick Swim skill feat, this means we automatically gain a swim speed. Before I had realized this, I had picked Animal Swiftness as our final ancestry feat, but upon realizing that, I think it’s better to go Natural Ambition and then take Sudden Charge just to complete our collection of those types of feats.
Gear: handwraps of might blow (+3 greater striking), dragonscale amulet, earthglide cloak, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, greater ring of the ram, boots of speed
LEVEL 18 We’ll get some use out of our Crafting skill by picking up Quick Repair, helping out any of our allies that use shields and occasionally with other stuff that need fixed. Given Jab’s propensity for animalistic rages and his temper issues, we’ll take Reckless Abandon to put ourself in danger while increasing our chance to hit.
Gear: belt of giant’s strength, handwraps of might blow (+3 greater striking), speed weapon rune, earthglide cloak, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 19 There’s really only two choices for skill increases here and I feel like it makes more sense to go for Crafting, bumping it up to master proficiency. So that we can get a jump on our foes and dive into a feeding frenzy, we’ll pick up Incredible Initiative as our final general feat.
Gear: +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, belt of giant’s strength, dread blindfold, handwraps of might blow (+3 greater striking), earthglide cloak, dragonscale amulet
LEVEL 20 We receive one final set of ability boosts that we’ll take to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 22, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 16, Wis 16, Cha 18). Another increase to Intelligence gets us another language and will make us trained in Stealth because I think that’s of the most use to him. Really diving into the whole bit of him being shown as an engineer, we’ll pick up Inventor for our skill feat. Then we’ll take Annihilating Swing as our last class feat to become better at destroying things. This will help us break through walls, floors, all of that, and bite through concrete and harder as he and his brothers often did in the show.
Gear: handwraps of might blow (+3 major striking), +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, dread blindfold, belt of giant’s strength, speed weapon rune, greater talisman cord
CONCLUSION I got everything in that I could remember! Given his style of combat, I put a focus on charging into and through foes as well as some abilities so that he can burst through walls, doors, and the like. I even managed to get him the ability to swim through the ground thanks to the earthglide cloak! This was a fun, silly build to do, I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Pic by Farkwhad
Be sure to lemme know what you think of the build. Does it work? Does it represent the character? Would you ever use it? What other characters should I 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. Next week, the build will be for a character from Magic the Gathering.
Have a fantastic Friday!
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