It's been a little while since I did a Full Build Friday - holidays and my own shoddy memory are to blame.
NEFERTINA
CHARACTER Nefertina
SOURCE Mummies Alive
GOAL A character hailing from one of the beloved cartoons of my childhood, Nefertina is a mummy from the show Mummies Alive. When alive, she was a charioteer who hid her gender to keep her role. As a guardian of the prince, she was slain in a battle against an evil vizier and mummified only to wake up centuries later to resume her role as a protector. Nefertina wears armor based off of a cat and wields a whip with great agility, entangling foes or outright defeating them. She works alongside the other mummies to protect their ward and their new home in modern times.
LEVEL 1 As always, we go through our ABCs – our ancestry, background, and heritage. The best way I found to replicate a mummy-type character is to pick a human with the duskwalker versatile heritage, which starts us off with low-light vision. Since we’re going to look at using a whip, we put our two free boosts to Strength and Dexterity. For our ancestry feat, we’ll take Gravesight, which grants us darkvision.
There isn’t an exact background to reflect Nefertina’s position as a charioteer. The closest thing I could find was the outrider background, which will give Nefertina a boost to Wisdom and another one to Dexterity. She becomes trained in Nature and Plains Lore (Desert Lore would be a better fit, but I’ll take it). This also grants us the Express Rider skill feat.
I feel like there are a couple options to take Nefertina, but I went with swashbuckler. This gives us a boost to Dexterity and then four more boosts to Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 12, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12). For her swashbuckler style, gymnast felt like the best fit. With our class and style, we automatically become trained in Acrobatics and Athletics, and then we pick Deception, Diplomacy, Religion, Society, and Stealth for our other skills. Finally, we’ll take Nimble Dodge as our class feat to help us potentially avoid some damage.
LEVEL 2 To capture the essence of an agile character, our first skill feat will be Quick Jump so that we can jump as a single action without automatically failing. With the Tumble Behind class feat, we can make foes that we Tumble Through flat-footed to our next attack, which could be helpful to landing powerful blows or using Athletics to earn panache and hinder foes.
Gear: ring of discretion
LEVEL 3 We take a skill increase to Athletics early to offset our low Strength, getting up to expert proficiency. For our general feat, we’ll take Fleet, increasing our speed. This will be helpful when using Tumble Through to move around since we treat the enemy-occupied space as difficult terrain. We also receive an extra Acrobatics or Athletics skill feat from our stylish tricks class feature, which lets us pick up Combat Climber, allowing us to fight even while scaling buildings and the like.
Gear: +1 scorpion whip, predictable silver piece, ring of discretion
LEVEL 4 To help with our gymnast style as we come up against bigger foes, we’ll grab Titan Wrestler early so that we can Disarm, Grapple, Shove, or Trip larger creatures. Since we have a slight focus on jump and springing about – and because I remember Nefertina using her cat claws for climbing at least once – Flamboyant Athlete seems like a decent class feat for her.
Gear: bracelet of dashing, +1 scorpion whip, necklace of knives, ring of discretion
LEVEL 5 These ability boosts slot into Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 19, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 14). This time we take our skill increase to Acrobatics to reach expert proficiency in it, and then we use our ancestry feat to take Ghost Hunter from our duskwalker heritage, making our weapons more effective against spectral foes.
Gear: +1 striking scorpion whip, bracelet of dashing, golden legion epaulet, necklace of knives, predictable silver piece, ring of discretion
LEVEL 6 In part because I just want to reference Nefertina’s motif and because it’s not a bad skill feat, Cat Fall will be the next one we pick up, letting us treat falls as though they’re shorter than they actually are. For our class feat, we pick up Attack of Opportunity. This essentially ups Nefertina’s vigilance, which is fitting for a woman who was once a guard for a prince, and makes good use of her whip’s reach.
Gear: +1 leather armor, +1 striking scorpion whip, lesser talisman cord, bracelet of dashing, necklace of knives, brooch of shielding
LEVEL 7 Since we still need help on it, we’ll increase our proficiency in Athletics to master. Ride is a general feat that just makes sense for Nefertina, allowing her to control her mounts with ease. Another stylish trick gives us the Rapid Mantel skill feat, letting us grab and pull ourselves onto a ledge as part of the reaction.
Gear: ready armor rune, +1 leather armor, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking scorpion whip, bracelet of dashing, golden legion epaulet
LEVEL 8 This is one of those feats I feel like I should’ve taken sooner, but Powerful Leap will help us Leap farther. With Bleeding Finisher, we can deliver a finisher that inflicts persistent bleed damage – while not a perfect fit for Nefertina, it’s a good finisher feat that adds a little more offense capabilities to our arsenal.
Gear: boots of bounding, ready armor rune, clandestine cloak, +1 leather armor, +1 striking scorpion whip, lesser talisman cord
LEVEL 9 We get up to master proficiency in Acrobatics with this skill increase. We also pick up the Spirit Strikes ancestry feat, infusing all our Strikes with magic and slightly increasing damage we deal to living and undead creatures.
Gear: +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II), ready armor rune, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking scorpion whip
LEVEL 10 More ability boosts, which will go to Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 16, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 16). With our master proficiency in Acrobatics, we can grab up the incredible handy Kip Up skill feat with which we can stand up as a free action. Since we have a good collection of reactions, the Reflexive Riposte is a handy class feat as it gives us an extra reaction to use Opportune Riposte with.
Gear: armbands of athleticism, +1 leather armor, flaming weapon rune, boots of bounding, ready armor rune, +1 striking scorpion whip
LEVEL 11 This might seem a bit odd, but we’ll take this skill increase to Nature, reaching expert proficiency in it. This is so that we can fill in Nefertina’s ability as a master charioteer. Feather Step is a handy general feat that allows us to Step into difficult terrain.
Gear: +2 striking scorpion whip, armbands of athleticism, urn of ashes, +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II)
LEVEL 12 Since Nefertina would presumably be good at training the horses for her chariots, we pick up the Train Animal skill feat. For our class feat, we’ll take Targeting Finisher because it feels appropriate for a character using a whip to hinder people with it.
Gear: +2 resilient leather armor, +2 striking scorpion whip, daredevil boots, armbands of athleticism, flame weapon rune, invisibility armor rune
LEVEL 13 We look towards Diplomacy for this skill increase, bumping it up to expert proficiency. Since Nefertina’s character is technically undead, Resist Ruin feels like an appropriate ancestry feat for Nefertina, granting her resistance to negative damage and a single use of the innate spell death ward.
Gear: +2 greater striking scorpion whip, +2 resilient leather armor, greater ready armor rune, daredevil boots, armbands of athleticism, urn of ashes
LEVEL 14 Going further into our Nature skills, we pick up Bonded Animal as a skill feat so that we can train an animal to be permanently helpful to us. Flamboyant Leap is a fun class feat that allows us to leap and make a single-action finisher mid-leap.
Gear: keen weapon rune, +2 greater striking scorpion whip, ring of climbing, +2 resilient leather armor, daredevil boots, armbands of athleticism
LEVEL 15 We’ll put these ability boosts to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 21, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 18). Once again, we’ll increase Athletics first, raising it to legendary proficiency. Our Incredible Initiative general feat will help us act sooner in combat. Our final stylish trick will grant us Steady Balance so that we’re more agile and capable of unstable or slippery surfaces.
Gear: +2 greater resilient leather armor, keen weapon rune, boots of speed, +2 greater striking scorpion whip, greater ready armor rune, bag of holding (type III)
LEVEL 16 Wall Jump feels like an appropriate feat for Nefertina, allowing her to jump again after making a jump as long as there’s something for her to jump off of. With the Deadly Grace class feat, we give any agile and finesse weapon we wield the deadly d8 trait.
Gear: dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater boots of bounding, keen weapon rune, +2 greater striking scorpion whip, ring of climbing
LEVEL 17 This skill increase will push Diplomacy to master proficiency. For lack of a better ancestry feat, Heroic Presence lets us bolster our allies around in.
Gear: +3 greater striking scorpion whip, dragonscale amulet, greater boots of bounding, +2 greater resilient leather armor, keen weapon rune, bag of holding (type IV)
LEVEL 18 The final Athletics skill feat will be Cloud Jump, which allows us to jump beyond what our normal capabilities would allow. Then we can grab Felicitous Riposte, allowing us to roll twice on attack rolls we make when using Opportune Riposte and take the better result.
Gear: anklets of alacrity, +3 greater striking scorpion whip, greater talisman cord, dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 19 Our final skill increase for this build will go towards Nature, which grants us master proficiency in it. Toughness will be our general feat, granting us some extra HP.
Gear: +3 greater resilient leather armor, greater armbands of athleticism, anklets of alacrity, +3 greater striking scorpion whip, dragonscale amulet, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 20 Our final set of ability boosts will be for Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 18, Dex 22, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 18). For our last skill feat, we grab Group Impression, so that we can Make an Impression on multiple creatures at once. Since we have kept a number of reactions that we might like to use, we grab Inexhaustible Countermoves, which gives us an extra reaction at the start of every turn.
Gear: +3 major striking scorpion whip, +3 greater resilient leather armor, greater armbands of athleticism, anklets of alacrity, greater talisman cord, speed weapon rune
CONCLUSION Nefertina is an agile fighter who controls the battlefield with her whip and is a master at driving a chariot - or just about any vehicle you put her in. This build leaves us with a character who can leap and tumble around the battlefield with ease, wielding her whip to trip up and hamper foes before making powerful strikes to take them out. I had thought about maybe dipping into cavalier for the build but it didn't feel like a big enough part of the character to include in that manner. Getting Adopted Ancestry for catfolk and picking up some of their feats had also occurred to me, which is another thing I had considered before deciding against.
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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