Sorry for missing last week - had some computer issues that I have since resolved, so let's get into the usual spiel!
This is a slight deviation for me as 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 Lulu, the Fae Sorceress!
LULU, THE FAE SORCERESS
CHARACTER Lulu
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Hailing from the League of Legends universe, Lulu is a yordle mage who is defined as an enchanter, a spellcaster who mainly bolsters allies through her magic. She is accompanied by a fae companion who fires mystic bolts at her foes, launches slowing rays of magic, turn foes into harmless creatures or hasten allies, send her fae ally to pester a foe or guard an ally, or enlarging allies. In her youth, she was brought to the world of the fae by Pix, her fairy companion. When she returned from the fae world, known as the Glade, she found that centuries had passed during her time there and struggled to connect with people once again. For much of Lulu’s abilities, we’ll mostly be looking to our spells to replicate them rather than our feats.
LEVEL 1 Let’s go through our ABCs – our ancestry, background, and class. The best translation for yordles in a setting like Pathfinder’s are the gnome ancestry with the fey-touched heritage being a good fit for her character. This heritage grants Lulu a primal cantrip, which will be guidance to assist her in her role as a support. As a gnome, we receive a boost to Charisma and Constitution and take a flaw to Strength. Our free boost will go to Dexterity, and then our ancestry feat will be Fey Fellowship so that Lulu can talk and deal with fey better.
We find the perfect background in the feybound background, which gives us a boost to Charisma and a free boost to Dexterity. We become trained in Fey Lore and instead of gaining the trained proficiency in another skill or a background feat, we get the Fey’s Fortune free action. We have to follow a limitation based on our pact with the fey, but once per day we can roll twice on a skill check and take the better result.
The class that feels like the best fit to me for Lulu is, as her title suggests, sorcerer. This grants us a boost to Charisma and then our four other boosts will go to Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma to give us this set of ability scores: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 18. Since Lulu is a ‘Fae Sorceress,’ we take the fey bloodline, which makes us automatically trained in Deception and Nature along with a few other fun things. We’ll also become trained in Acrobatics, Arcana, and Diplomacy.
Spell Repertoire: Cantrips – dancing lights, detect magic, ghost sound, stabilize, tanglefoot; 1st – charm, pest form, shattering gem
LEVEL 2 Figuring out spells could be important, so we’ll take Recognize Spell as a skill feat so we can do so as a reaction. Then we take the Familiar class feat to give us a little magical companion to represent Pix.
Spell Repertoire: 1st – alarm
Gear: dull grey aeon stone
LEVEL 3 Our first skill increase will push Nature up to expert, which will help us recognize spells and reforge our pact with the fey if we break it somehow. Our general feat will be Toughness, which will help us survive in combat given our small pool of health.
Spell Repertoire: 2nd – enlarge, hideous laughter, sudden bolt
Signature Spells: 1st – shattering gem; 2nd – sudden bolt
Gear: hand of the mage, predictable silver piece, dull grey aeon stone
LEVEL 4 With the Bon Mot skill feat, I envision this to be less insults and more Lulu’s bizarre turn of phrases confusing foes. We try to make Pix a bit more powerful with the Enhanced Familiar class feat, letting us select four familiar abilities each day.
Spell Repertoire: 2nd – glitterdust
Gear: hat of the magi, +1 staff, hand of the mage, dull grey aeon stone
LEVEL 5 First set of ability boosts since 1st level, we’ll plug these into Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma to give us this array: Str 10, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 19. This skill increase will go towards Diplomacy, giving us expert proficiency in it. With the First World Magic ancestry feat, we gain ray of frost as a primal innate spell. I ended up picking a decent number of cold spells for Lulu, which is mostly in reference to her Winter Wonder skin.
Spell Repertoire: 3rd – enthrall, haste, lightning bolt
Signature Spell: 3rd – lightning bolt
Gear: +1 striking staff, dusty rose prism aeon stone, hat of the magi, hand of the mage, predictable silver piece, dull grey aeon stone
LEVEL 6 With this skill feat, we’ll take Group Impression so that we can Make an Impression on multiple characters at once. Then we take the Advanced Bloodline feat to gain more magic from our fey bloodline.
Spell Repertoire: 3rd – slow
Gear: +1 explorer’s clothing, +1 striking staff, cloak of repute, hat of the magi, hand of the mage, brooch of shielding
LEVEL 7 We get to expert proficiency in Deception with this skill increase and then take the Prescient Planner general feat, which I see as less of Lulu actually planning for eventualities and more her just buying random things that just end up being useful later.
Spell Repertoire: 4th – enlarge, suggestion, ice storm
Signature Spell: 4th – ice storm
Gear: verdant staff, +1 explorer’s clothing, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking staff, dusty rose prism aeon stone, hat of the magi
LEVEL 8 This skill feat will be Lengthy Diversion, so that we can remain hidden for a longer period of time after we Create a Diversion. Reach Spell is a probably one of the handiest metamagic feats we could pick, allowing us to extend the reach of our spells by spending an additional action when casting them.
Spell Repertoire: 4th – fly
Gear: greater everyneed pack, verdant staff, diplomat’s badge, +1 explorer’s clothing, +1 striking staff, bag of holding (type I)
LEVEL 9 Since we can get up to master proficiency in our skills, we’re going to do so with Diplomacy. The First World Adept ancestry feat gives us once per day primal innate spells with faerie fire and invisibility.
Spell Repertoire: 5th – cloak of colors, cone of cold, passwall
Signature Spell: 5th – cone of cold
Gear: +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater everyneed pack, primeval mistletoe, verdant staff, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking staff
LEVEL 10 This set of ability boosts go to Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, leaving us with this array: Str 10, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 20. Our increased Intelligence makes us trained in Crafting and gives us another language. Lulu can use her apparent innocence (or insanity) to Make a Request without coming off as insulting with the Shameless Request skill feat. We take Greater Bloodline for our class feat, so that we gain even more magic from our bloodline.
Spell Repertoire: 5th – tree stride
Gear: greater hat of the magi, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater everyneed pack, primeval mistletoe, verdant staff, +1 striking staff
LEVEL 11 This skill increase will bring out proficiency in Nature to master. For our general feat, we’ll grab Prescient Consumable since we picked up Prescient Planner earlier, allowing us to pull out a potion or another consumable when in dire straits.
Spell Repertoire: 6th – baleful polymorph, mislead, scintillating safeguard
Signature Spell: 6th – scintillating safeguard
Gear: +2 striking staff, greater hat of the magi, greater cloak of repute, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, primeval mistletoe, verdant staff
LEVEL 12 With the Quick Recognition skill feat, we can attempt to Recognize a Spell with a free action once per round instead of as a reaction. We’ll take another metamagic feat in the form of Quickened Casting, letting us reduce the number of actions needed to cast a spell once per day.
Spell Repertoire: 6th – blanket of stars
Gear: +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, +2 striking staff, staff of nature’s vengeance, greater hat of the magic, greater everyneed pack, primeval mistletoe
LEVEL 13 We use our skill increase to reach master proficiency with Deception. For our ancestry feat, we look towards Energized Font. With this feat, once per day, we can spend a single action to regain 1 focus point, which could be helpful in an emergency.
Spell Repertoire: 7th – visions of danger, plane shift, sunburst
Signature Spell: sunburst
Gear: +2 greater striking staff, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, bag of holding (type III), staff of nature’s vengeance, greater hat of the magi, greater cloak of reputre
LEVEL 14 This level’s skill feat will be Doublespeak, allowing Lulu to pass on pertinent information to her allies while speaking in her bizarre phrases. The Spell Shroud class feat is another metamagic feat which can help us protect ourselves and our allies a little bit by creating clouds when we cast spells on ourself.
Spell Repertoire: 7th – haste
Gear: bag of holding (type IV), +2 greater striking staff, greater verdant staff, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, winged boots, greater hat of the magi
LEVEL 15 Four more ability boosts, which will go to Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, so that we have this array: Str 12, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 21. With 15th-level, we can increase skills to legendary proficiency, which is exactly what we’ll do with our Diplomacy skill. We can grab Incredible Initiative so that we can hopefully go earlier to lay down some buffs and debuffs before others act.
Spell Repertoire: 8th – polar ray, uncontrollable dance, wind walk
Signature Spell: 8th – polar ray
Gear: +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, pale lavender ellipsoid aeon stone, bag of holding (type IV), +2 greater striking staff, staff of nature’s vengeance, winged boots
LEVEL 16 With the Natural Medicine, we can tend to our allies’ injuries outside of battle without having to invest in Medicine. We can grab the Scintillating Spell metamagic feat to dazzle or blind our foes with our spells by spending an extra action, which we can use to help protect our allies.
Spell Repertoire: 8th – punishing winds
Gear: robe of the archmagi, wand of the snowfields (5th-level), greater primeval mistletoe, bag of holding (type IV), +2 greater striking staff, greater verdant staff
LEVEL 17 To help the Natural Medicine we got last level, we put this skill increase in Nature to become legendary. The Homeward Bound ancestry feat lets us travel to the First World so that Lulu can visit her friends there.
Spell Repertoire: 9th – nature’s enmity, resplendent mansion, implosion
Signature Spell: 9th – implosion
Gear: +3 greater striking staff, robe of the archmagi, greater staff of nature’s vengeance, greater primeval mistletoe, bag of holding (type IV), pale lavender ellipsoid aeon stone
LEVEL 18 Since there aren’t many good skill feats at this point that match the skills we took, we grab Legendary Negotiation, which isn’t a bad choice for a support type character. The Echoing Spell class feat lets us double cast a spell of 4th-level or lower without spending the second slot and only taking a single extra action.
Spell Repertoire: 9th – regeneration
Gear: circlet of persuasion, +3 greater staff of striking, orange prism aeon stone, robe of the archmagi, wand of the snowfields, greater staff of nature’s vengeance
LEVEL 19 Our final skill increase will put Crafting up to expert proficiency. Then we grab Incredible Investiture so that we can wield more magical invested items.
Spell Repertoire: 10th – primal phenomenon, revival
Gear: major staff of nature’s vengeance, circlet of persuasion, major cloak of the repute, +3 greater striking staff, robe of the archmagi, greater primeval mistletoe
LEVEL 20 Our final set of ability boosts will increase Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma to give us this as our final array: Str 14, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 16, Wis 18, Cha 22. Our increased Intelligence will make us trained in Society and give us another language. For our final skill feat, we’ll grab Magical Crafting so that we can make magic items. Then, since we took so many metamagic feats throughout the course of this build, we’ll take Metamagic Mastery as our final class feat, allowing us to use any metamagic feat as a free action rather than a single action.
Spell Repertoire: 9th – energy aegis
Gear: greater robe of the archmagi, major staff of nature’s vengeance, wand of the snowfields (7th-level), circlet of persuasion, +3 greater striking staff, orange prism aeon stone
CONCLUSION There we have it! Lulu, the Fae Sorceress is built – a sorcerer with deep ties to the fey who predominantly uses her magic to bolster her allies or hinder her foes. As I noted earlier, a lot of her abilities aren’t replicated by her feats so much as they are by her spells – for example, enlarge is her Wild Growth, baleful polymorph captures the essence of Whimsy targeting foes while haste is the effects of Whimsy on allies. I’m pretty confident with the choices I made for equipment, but I also feel like wands could be swapped into the build wherever you think they’d be useful.
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 try to stream Friday and Saturday nights.
Have a Fantastic Friday!
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