League of Legends has a wealth of fun and interesting characters that are fun to make a Pathfinder build for, so I present Nidalee, the Bestial Huntress. Having a wide array of abilities, three in her human form and three in her cougar form, gave me a lot to figure out, which I enjoyed doing.
NIDALEE
CHARACTER Nidalee, the Bestial Huntress
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Nidalee is a specialist type champion who fights at ranged with spears and tends to inhabit the jungle. Due to her multiple forms, Nidalee has a wide range of abilities with only two that really stay consistent – her passive, Prowl, and fourth ability, Aspect of the Cougar. While the latter simply allows her to switch between her human and cougar forms, and the different powers they possess, Prowl allows her to move faster in bushes and marks enemies hit by certain abilities, increasing her speed towards them. As a human, Nidalee can use Javelin Toss to launch a spear that increases in damage depending on how far it travels. Bushwhack places a trap that deals damage and reveals enemies who step on it, and her Primal Surge restores health and increases the attack sped of a target. In her cougar form, Takedown increases the range of her next attack which deals damage based on the target’s missing health, Pounce allows her to dash a short distance and deal damage on impact, and Swipe damages creatures in an area around her. Getting her human abilities is going to be a bit more complicated as all of her cougar abilities are pretty much just using different actions such as Leap and Strike or making multiple Strikes. However, we do have to find a way to turn into a cougar in the first place.
LEVEL 1 Per the usual, we’ll start by going through our ABCs – our ancestry, background, and class. Despite her mystical powers, Nidalee seems to be a human but one of our first steps towards channeling the power of a cougar will come from the beastkin versatile heritage. For this heritage, our animal will be a cougar. Our two free boosts from being human will provide an increase to our Dexterity and Strength so that we can fight effectively at range with thrown weapons. From beastkin, we can pick up Animal Senses as our ancestry feat and gain low-light vision.
Nidalee’s background involves her being found and raised by cougars, so feral child is a perfect fit. This will give her a boost to Dexterity and make her trained in Nature and Survival. Since she has low-light vision from her ancestry feat, she will gain darkvision from this background as well as scent (imprecise) with a range of 30 feet. In addition to all this, Nidalee also gains Forager as a skill feat, allowing her to feed people when she Subsists.
We’ll take ranger as our class and choose precision edge to amplify the damage of our first attack against our hunted prey. Picking Dexterity for our boost from our class, we then take four more boosts to Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 18, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12). Since we’re already trained in Nature and Survival from our background, we’ll become trained in Crafting and Stealth. We will become trained in Acrobatics, Athletics, Intimidation, and Medicine. None of the class feats really stand out to me, but we’ll take Gravity Weapon, giving us a focus spell to amp up the damage of our first attack in a round, which will stack with our precision edge.
LEVEL 2 Since Nidalee grew up in the jungle, we can take Terrain Expertise – Forest so that we gain a bonus on any Survival check we make in that sort of terrain. To help with our thrown weapons, we can use Quick Draw to draw a weapon and Strike with it as a single action.
Gear: ring of discretion
LEVEL 3 Since Nidalee grew up as a hunter, surviving in the jungle with her cougar family, we’ll take our first skill increase to Survival to reach expert proficiency. Fleet increases our general speed, playing into Prowl.
Gear: +1 spear, ring of discretion, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 4 With our trained proficiency in Crafting, we can pick up Snare Crafting so that we can make snares to emulate Nidalee’s Bushwhack. This also gives us the formula for four snares and these are the ones that I would take, at least off the bat – caltrop snare, hampering snare, marking snare, and spike snare. Since the traps reveal the creature in League, marking snare works particularly well. Our class feat will be Far Shot to emphasize the range of Nidalee’s Javelin Toss as it has a super long range.
Gear: returning weapon rune, +1 spear, necklace of knives, ring of discretion
LEVEL 5 We’ll take these ability boosts to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom (Str 16, Dex 19, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 12). We’ll take this skill increase to Crafting, which will get that to expert proficiency to help with some of our trap making. There aren’t any ancestry feats that really leap out to me, but Animalistic Resistance makes sense for somebody who grew up in the jungle as it makes her more resilient to disease and poison.
Gear: +1 striking spear, returning weapon rune, coyote cloak, necklace of knives, ring of discretion, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 6 Akin to Terrain Expertise, we’ll take Terrain Stalker – Underbrush so that we can move slowly in underbrush to sneak without having to roll. To capture the essence of Nidalee’s Pounce, we can take Skirmish Strike so that we can Step and Strike or vice versa once per round as a single action.
Gear: +1 leather armor, +1 striking spear, bag of holding (type I), returning weapon rune, necklace of knives, bracelet of dashing
LEVEL 7 We’re spreading ourselves a little wide on skills, but we’re still going to take this increase to Stealth to reach expert proficiency so that we can sneak up on prey more easily. We receive a general feat but we’ll be using that to take Battle Medicine, which we’ll use to somewhat copy the effects of Primal Surge though we’ll be getting a closer approximation of that later.
Gear: primeval mistletoe, +1 leather armor, boots of elvenkind, +1 striking spear, returning weapon rune, coyote cloak
LEVEL 8 Since Nidalee used to hunt along her cougar brethren, we’ll take Quiet Allies to help them Sneak. By taking Snare Specialist we get some snares that we can make every day so that it’s easier to gain the effects of Bushwhack.
Gear: boots of bounding, primeval mistletoe, clandestine cloak, +1 leather armor, +1 striking spear, bag of holding (type I)
LEVEL 9 Taking a skill increase to Nature, we get it up to expert proficiency. We look towards our human ancestry for our next feat to pick up Multitalented, which gives us a multiclass dedication. We’ll be taking Druid Dedication so that Nidalee can wield some magic and pick up a few other effects. We’re going to be part of the wild order and aside from two primal cantrips, the only other thing we’re getting for now is being trained in Jungle Lore and Thievery.
Gear: +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II), primeval mistletoe, boots of elvenkind, +1 striking spear
LEVEL 10 This time around, we’ll take four ability boosts to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 18, Dex 20, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 12). With this increased Intelligence, we’ll become trained in Diplomacy and gain another language. We can use the Experienced Tracker skill feat to better stalk our prey while our class feat will be Powerful Snares so that our snares increase in power as we do, meaning that even low level snares have the chance to be impactful. This is the last snare feat we’ll be taking.
Gear: greater coyote cloak, +1 resilient leather armor, swarmeater’s clasp, boots of bounding, primeval mistletoe, +1 striking spear
LEVEL 11 We’re finally going to get a skill up to master proficiency by taking a skill increase to Survival. With our general feat, we’ll take Ancestral Paragon to gain another 1st-level ancestry feat, which will be Quick Shape so that we can shift as a free action whenever combat begins.
Gear: +2 striking spear, greater coyote cloak, eyes of the eagle, +1 resilient leather armor, boots of bounding, bag of holding (type II)
LEVEL 12 By taking the Natural Medicine skill feat, we can patch up our allies more proficiently outside of combat since we’ll be able to use Nature to Treat Wounds and will get a bonus in wild environments. We can look into our Druid Dedication to pick up Basic Wilding, which gives us a 1st-level druid feat. Since we are part of the wild order, we can take Wild Shape, granting us a focus spell of the same name that we’ll be able to use like Aspect of the Cougar, as the automatic heightening of this will let us use animal form at its 5th level version.
Gear: +2 resilient leather armor, +2 striking spear, druid’s vestments, greater coyote cloak, swarmeater’s clasp, thundering weapon rune
LEVEL 13 Our next skill to reach master proficiency will be Nature. Another ancestry feat nets us Animal Magic, granting us a few spells that let us better communicate and interact with animals.
Gear: +2 greater striking spear, +2 resilient leather armor, gorget of the primal roar, druid’s vestments, greater coyote cloak, eyes of the eagle
LEVEL 14 For this level’s skill feat, we can take Bonded Animal so that we can train an animal to be permanently helpful, such as one of Nidalee’s cougar siblings. Dipping into druid again, Basic Druid Spellcasting will get us a single spell at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level. We can now potentially cast heal and haste in the same turn which is a pretty direct copy of Primal Surge. We’re not gonna worry about our spell attack or DC too much because we’ll mainly be looking for spells to bolster allies or ourselves.
Gear: boots of speed, +2 greater striking spear, greater cloak of elvenkind, +2 resilient leather armor, gorget of the primal roar, greater boots of elvenkind
LEVEL 15 In this final stretch, we’ll take our ability boosts to Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 21, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 14). We’ll manage to get our Stealth skill up to master proficiency with this skill increase and then take Incredible Scout for our general feat to provide our allies a greater bonus when we Scout for our exploration activity.
Gear: +2 greater resilient leather armor, boots of speed, keen weapon property, +2 greater striking spear, greater boots of elvenkind, bag of holding (type III)
LEVEL 16 Since we have our Stealth skill up to master proficiency, we can pick up Swift Stealth so that we can Sneak at our full speed. We’ll take Expert Druid Spellcasting to give us access to spells all the way up to 6th-level. An important part of this will be that we can prepare animal form as a 5th-level spell so that we can turn into a Huge cat more often, ala Aspect of the Cougar.
Gear: greater thundering weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater primeval mistletoe, boots of speed, +2 greater striking spear, greater cloak of elvenkind
LEVEL 17 Our first skill to make it to legendary proficiency will be Survival thanks to this increase. The Animal Shape ancestry feat gives us a limited casting of a 5th-level animal shape so that we can do it even more often.
Gear: +3 greater striking spear, greater thundering weapon rune, dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient leather armor, boots of speed, keen weapon property
LEVEL 18 Using that new legendary proficiency in Survival, we can take Legendary Guide so that we speed up our party when traveling through the wilds. Meanwhile, Primal Breadth as a class feat gives us more spells at each level that we can cast so that we can turn into a cat even more.
Gear: anklets of alacrity, +3 greater striking spear, speed weapon rune, greater thundering weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather armor, greater primeval mistletoe
LEVEL 19 The very last skill we will apply an increase to is Nature, getting it up to Legendary proficiency. Finally, we’ll take Toughness for our general feat. I didn’t really feel like she need this feat but I can’t see too many more general feats that I liked for her. The fact that we have to wade into melee combat in our cougar form means that the extra health is probably at least a bit helpful.
Gear: +3 greater resilient leather armor, anklets of alacrity, greater armbands of athleticism, +3 greater striking spear, greater thundering weapon rune, dragonscale amulet
LEVEL 20 This final set of ability boosts will increase our Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 22, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 16). Once more, we get trained in a new skill thanks to our increase to Intelligence, which will be Society. With Influence Nature, we can change the way that nature behaves around us by spending some downtime in an area. Some of the 20th-level ranger feats aren’t really good fits or have prerequisites that we don’t meet, but we can take Legendary Shot, which greatly increases the range of our attacks against our hunted prey.
Gear: +3 major striking spear, +3 greater resilient leather armor, major goggles of night, anklets of alacrity, speed weapon rune, handwraps of mighty blows (+3 greater striking)
CONCLUSION There we have it! We managed to capture the effects of all of Nidalee's abilities with Far Shot/Legendary Shot being a stand-in for her Javelin Toss, Snare Specialist getting us the effects of Bushwhack, some spells giving us Primal Surge, Skirmish Strike helping us get the effects of Pounce, a number of sources letting us turn into a cat as per Aspect of the Cougar, and most of her other abilities able to simply be copied by taking specific actions.
I feel like I do a lot of ranger builds. 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. I'm still trying to figure out a good build for Katarina from League of Legends with the big issue being the replication of her ultimate. If you have any ideas, please let me know! Have a fantastic Friday!
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