Most of the things I make are on the other side of the DM screen, but this is a level 1 through 20 build for a Pathfinder Second Edition character. The characters featured in these posts will typically be drawn from various franchises and media because I want to focus more on the building and worry less about the character. Having a character gives me an end goal to work towards to instead of getting lost along the way. It’s also a bit of a challenge for the system, seeing how close I can build to the original vision of the character. I’m gonna try to find a balance between making an effective character and mimicking the chosen character’s abilities.
Related to that, these characters are gonna be created in a vacuum – skills and the likes are picked for what seems best without the context of the adventure. Heist-type adventures might call for Stealth and Thievery on a character that otherwise wouldn’t take it, so keep that in mind. At a friend's suggestion, I'm gonna start including gear in these builds but I'm gonna keep it basic - just picking magical gear based on what level of equipment a character should have at that level.
I’m gonna go level by level for these builds but only cover actual choices – such as skill increases, feats, and ability score boosts. Stuff that automatically increases due to level, such as an increase in saving throws, more HP, and the like, are going to go unmentioned.
So with that, let’s get into the build for Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance!
CHARACTER Kalista
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Hailing from the League of Legends universe, Kalista is a marksman known as the Spear of Vengeance, a spectral figure who hunts down traitors. Her Martial Poise has several effects but most notably allows her to jump when she makes an attack, Pierce allows her to throw a spear that will continue traveling if it kills a target, Sentinel increases her damage with her ally but also lets her summon a spirit to patrol an area, Rend allows her to tear spears that she has imbedded in a target out for damage, and Fate’s Call gives her the ability to call her bonded ally close before they launch themselves in a direction. In her lore, Kalista was a general and the niece of a king who was betrayed by a former comrade and murdered before she returned as a spirit of vengeance.
LEVEL 1 We start working through our ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. In life, Kalista was a human and to represent her undead nature, we can take the dhampir heritage, which grants us low-light vision. Our two free boosts as a human will go towards Dexterity and Constitution while our ancestry feat will be Eyes of the Night, advancing our low-light vision to darkvision.
Given Kalista’s lore as a general, the warrior background seems like a good fit for Kalista, which will grant her a boost to Strength and another one to Dexterity. We become trained in Intimidation and Warfare Lore, and then receive the Intimidating Glare skill feat.
This is undoubtedly an odd pick for class and there’s definitely different ways to take the character, but I want to take barbarian for this particular build, which grants us a boost to Strength. The four free boosts we receive will be going to Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, which leaves us with the following as our starting array: Str 14, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12. As a barbarian, we automatically become trained in Athletics, and we’ll also become trained in Acrobatics, Religion, and Survival. Trained in Athletics (automatic), Acrobatics, Religion, and Survival. As a barbarian, we receive an instinct that fuels our rage – for Kalista, we’ll take spirit instinct. Finally, we’ll take the Raging Thrower class feat to apply our rage damage to thrown weapons, a highly important for Kalista going forward.
LEVEL 2 Our very first skill feat that we actually get to pick will be Quick Jump, allowing us to jump as a single action instead of having to take two. Instead of a barbarian feat, we’ll take the Ranger Dedication. Since we’re already trained in Survival, we’ll become trained in Stealth, but we also receive the Hunt Prey action, which is handy because we can attack targets in our second range increment without penalty.
Gear: ring of discretion
LEVEL 3 This first skill increase will go to Athletics, making us an expert in it and making us better at jumping. The general feat we’ll take at this level is Feather Step, allowing us to Step into difficult terrain without issue.
Gear: +1 spear, ring of discretion, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 4 This time, we grab Powerful Leap, letting us jump farther any time we jump. Since we have Ranger Dedication, we grab Basic Hunter’s Trick, which we’ll use to take Quick Draw, a very important feat for a ranged thrower combatant since it lets us Interact to draw the weapon and Strike with it as a single action.
Gear: returning weapon rune, +1 spear, necklace of knives, ring of discretion
LEVEL 5 We get another set of ability boosts, which we’ll put into Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma, giving us this array: Str 16, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 14. We become expert in Survival with this skill increase so that we can better track down betrayers and their ilk. We receive an ancestry feat, which we’ll use to take Necromantic Physiology. Mechanically, this makes us more resistant to disease, but flavor-wise, we become closer to a true undead creature.
Gear: +1 striking spear, returning weapon rune, bracelets of dashing, necklace of knives, predictable silver piece, ring of discretion
LEVEL 6 To help with that finding betrayers thing, we take Experienced Tracker, letting us move faster when tracking for a penalty. We’re finally going to grab another barbarian feat, this one being Spiritual Guides, allowing us to reroll a failed skill or Perception check once per day. While hardly exact, this does help us simulate Kalista’s Sentinel ability, the spirits warning us of oncoming danger.
Gear: +1 leather armor, +1 striking spear, demon mask, returning weapon rune, necklace of knives, brooch of shielding
LEVEL 7 Since we’re now able to do so, we’ll become master in Athletics to keep up our mad hops. With Fleet, we increase our Speed, which both helps us get around faster and allows us to Leap further since you can’t jump farther than your speed.
Gear: ring of fire resistance, +1 leather armor, corpseward pendant, +1 striking spear, returning weapon rune, bracelets of dashing
LEVEL 8 With the feats that fit with Kalista’s skills, the wells are starting to run a bit dry, so we’ll grab Combat Climber, allowing us to pursue targets with ease even if they seek an escape upwards. Another class feat for the barbarian gets us the feat that inspired my whole idea for this build – Friendly Toss. This allows Kalista to grab an ally and throw them somewhere, attacking an enemy if they land next to one, almost perfectly replicating Fate’s Call.
Gear: boots of bounding, ring of fire resistance, ring of the ram, +1 leather armor, +1 striking spear, demon mask (the returning weapon rune is 3rd-level, but something that is important to the character so just assume we’re spending gold to retain it if need be)
LEVEL 9 Another skill increase goes to Survival, giving us master proficiency in that skill. For this ancestry feat, we grab Natural Ambition to take Raging Intimidation, letting us use Intimidation while raging.
Gear: +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, wounding weapon rune, ring of fire resistance, corpseward pendant, +1 striking spear
LEVEL 10 Another set of ability boosts go to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence to give us this array: Str 18, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 14. This increase in Intelligence, gets us trained in Stealth and gain Necril as a language. For our skill feat, we grab Wall Jump, so that we can jump off of a wall after completing a jump. We’re also going to take Sudden Leap for our class feat, allowing us to make a jump and then attack midway through it.
Gear: greater tracker’s goggles, +1 resilient leather armor, lover’s gloves, boots of bounding, ring of fire resistance, +1 striking spear
LEVEL 11 This skill increase goes to Acrobatics to achieve expert proficiency in it. For general feats, we look towards Diehard, making us harder to kill as we won’t be permanently dead until dying 5.
Gear: +2 striking spear, greater tracker’s goggles, mask of the banshee, +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, wounding weapon rune
LEVEL 12 With our skill feat, Cat Fall, we treat all falls as shorter, likely helping with any mistakes we make when we jump. Going back into our Ranger Dedication, we’ll use Advanced Ranger’s Trick to grab Skirmish Strike, which can only be used once per round, but still allows us to Step and Strike as a single action. This helps better emulate Kalista’s Martial Poise.
Gear: +2 resilient leather armor, +2 striking spear, winged boots, mask of the banshee, lover’s gloves, wounding weapon rune
LEVEL 13 Another skill increase, this one going to Acrobatics, and giving us master proficiency in it. The ancestry feat Bounce Back lets us come back from the dying condition without gaining the wounded condition once per day.
Gear: +2 greater striking spear, +2 resilient leather armor, bag of holding (type III), winged boots, mask of the banshee, greater tracker’s goggles
LEVEL 14 Since we got our Acrobatics to master proficiency, we’ll grab Kip Up, which is probably the best skill feat in the Acrobatics line, at the very least. It has no frequency, meaning we can use it pretty much whenever, since it’s a free action. While not really representative of any of Kalista’s abilities, Spirit’s Wrath is a neat class feat that allows us to launch a spirit that can deal negative or positive damage.
Gear: greater ring of the ram, +2 greater striking spear, ring of climbing, +2 resilient leather armor, winged boots, greater demon mask
LEVEL 15 We receive another set ability boosts as we enter the final stretch of the character, and these will all go to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom to give us this array: Str 19, Dex 20, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 14. With level 15, we can now reach legendary proficiency in Athletics, which we’ll do. With this general feat, we’ll take Thorough Search so that we can take our time when searching something to gain a bonus on our Perception check.
Gear: +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater ring of the ram, hellfire boots, +2 greater striking spear, bag of holding (type III), greater skeleton key
LEVEL 16 The Cloud Jump skill feat allows us to jump farther than our Speed by spending additional actions on the attempt to do so. I was surprised to find the Penetrating Projectile class feat in the list for the barbarians, but I was glad to take it as I felt it was a decent representation of Pierce, allowing us to throw a spear and hit everybody in the line.
Gear: greater frost weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater boots of bounding, greater ring of the ram, +2 greater striking spear, ring of climbing
LEVEL 17 I wasn’t really to focus on it with this character, but we’ll take a skill increase to Intimidation to gain expert proficiency in it. Again, I don’t think there’s a lot of great ancestry feats for this character, but Sense Allies could be useful when it comes to hurling friends at our foes.
Gear: +3 greater striking spear, greater frost weapon rune, dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater ring of the ram, hellfire boots
LEVEL 18 With the recent increase in Intimidation, we’ll grab Terrifying Resistance, helping us be more resistant to the abilities of creatures we Demoralize. This next class feat, unfortunately only works with melee Strikes, otherwise it would be a great representation of her Rend. But Impaling Thrust lets us stab and then either hold the target in place or tear out our weapon to inflict bleed.
Gear: anklets of alacrity, +3 greater striking spear, greater talisman cord, greater frost weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 19 Our final skill increase goes to Intimidation, getting us up to master proficiency. As something to sort of further help represent Sentinel, we can take Incredible Scout so that we can help our allies react faster to threats thanks to a higher bonus we provide with the Scout exploration activity.
Gear: +3 greater resilient leather armor, anklets of alacrity, dread blindfold, +3 greater striking spear, greater frost weapon rune, dragonscale amulet
LEVEL 20 These last ability boosts will be for Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma to give us this final set of stats: Str 20, Dex 20, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 16. This Intelligence increase makes us trained in Society and then you can pick up whatever language you want. With the Battle Cry skill feat, we can Demoralize as a free action when we roll for initiative, helping us lay down some debuffs before combat even begins. While Kalista normally builds for attack speed rather than crit, I like the Brutal Critical class feat for her, allowing us to deal an additional die of damage on a crit and inflict bleed.
Gear: +3 major striking spear, +3 greater resilient leather armor, clockwork cloak, anklets of alacrity, greater talisman cord, speed weapon rune
CONCLUSION Kalista is a furious fighter, encircled by spirits as she hurls spears with deadly force and remains highly mobile. I feel content with my attempts to emulate Fate’s Call, Martial Poise, and Pierce, but we’re missing out a bit on Sentinel, mostly its passive effect, and Rend. I was considering investing in a dedication that might give us a familiar to help reflect the roving sentinel, but it didn’t feel worth it to me for this build. This was one that I really wanted to try out as soon as I read Friendly Toss, and I’m glad that I finally got the chance to do it, even if I might be overdoing it on barbarians.
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?
Lemme know what other characters you might like to see and if you’re so inclined, join the blog’s Discord server or can watch some guys beat up my monsters on my Twitch, where I usually stream Friday and Saturday nights.
Have a Fantastic Friday!
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