After last week's summoner building, I wanted to keep it rolling with one of the brand new classes and settled on magus. This week's build is a little ambitious and one that I certainly didn't copy perfect, but it is one that I like and really enjoyed working on. This is probably the build that I've done the most revision to after completing it though, which I believe is due to the newness of the class and my feeling about some of the original choices I made. Forgive me if it gets a little long-winded but I try to go into what the magus does for those that don't have the book yet. 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.
With that out of the way, let's get into the build for Nightcrawler from Marvel comics.
NIGHTCRAWLER
CHARACTER Kurt Wagner
SOURCE Marvel Comics
GOAL Kurt Wagner is a mutant with traditionally demonic features and the power to teleport, achieved by passing through a place known as the Brimstone Dimension. The child of the shape-shifting mutant Mystique and the demonic mutant Azazel, Nightcrawler nevertheless came to be a hero. His teleportation through the Brimstone Dimension leaves behind a distinct, brimstone stench as well as his signature ‘BAMF’ sound. Among his other powers is the ability to stick to surfaces, a prehensile tail, shadow blending, and supernatural agility that is helped by his flexible bone structure. He has also developed skills as a master acrobat and is a highly skilled fencer who is able to wield a blade even in his tail. Despite his demonic appearance, Nightcrawler is a well-known and highly devout Roman Catholic to the point where he tried to be a priest. While born to a pair of powerful mutants, Nightcrawler was not raised by either of them and was instead raised by a Romani sorceress named Margali Szardos who found him floating down the river as a baby. She posed as a fortuneteller in a traveling circus in which Nightcrawler was raised, becoming the circus’ star acrobat and aerial artist at a very young age. Eventually, he joined the X-Men after Professor Xavier stopped an angry mob from killing him – which was the second time he had.
LEVEL 1 Nightcrawler might be an X-Man, but he’s still got to start with his ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. Given Nightcrawler’s descent from Azazel who belongs to a demonic band of mutants as well as Kurt’s own appearance, I decided to build him as a tiefling human. As a human, his free boosts go towards Dexterity and Strength while his ancestry feat will come from his infernal heritage. Fiendish Eyes grants him darkvision, allowing him to operate in his preferred environment of the shadows and also mimic one of the many ancillary powers that Nightcrawler has in the comics.
Sometimes, picking out an appropriate background can be difficult, but was markedly easy for Nightcrawler. The Acrobat background covers the role her served in the circus he was raised in and even provides him with Circus Lore! It’s honestly a perfect fit as are the boosts we’ll take from it. The first of those will be Dexterity while the second and free boost will go to Charisma – Nightcrawler’s a gregarious fellow, his appearance notwithstanding. This background makes him, predictably, trained in Acrobatics and, as previously mentioned, Circus Lore. He also gains Steady Balance as a skill feat from this background. With Nightcrawler’s penchant for perching in precarious places, this makes it so that he’s not flat-footed when attempting to balance on narrow surfaces and uneven ground while turning any successes he rolls to Balance into critical successes, which captures part of his ability to cling to surfaces.
Just as last week was a chance to explore the brand-new summoner, this build will be exploring the magus, which is honestly the only way I could see a build for Nightcrawler working. The magus comes with two options for its key ability score and for this particular build, we’ll be choosing Dexterity. We’ll follow that choice up with four free boosts that will go towards Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 12, Dex 18, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 14). As with the summoner, I want to go over the magus’s features a little bit more even though by the time I post this, it should be widely available. The central class feature of the magus is Spellstrike, a two-action activity in which you Cast a Spell and Strike. The spell must be one or two actions and must be one that requires a spell attack roll. You couple the spell with your attack – if your Strike hits, so does the spell. You then can’t use Spellstrike again until you recharge which you can do by spending a single action to concentrate or by casting a conflux spell, a focus spell, that takes at least 1 action to cast. Following right off of Spellstrike is Arcane Cascade, a single action stance that you can only enter if your most recent action was to Cast a Spell or make a Spellstrike. It gives your attacks bonus damage in the vein of Bespell Weapon except at a lower value but more consistently. Finally, we get to the Hybrid Study, which covers how your magus learned to mix magic and martial prowess. For Nightcrawler, our hybrid study is Laughing Shadow, which grants a few bonuses. Firstly, it gives us the dimensional assault conflux spell. This is gonna be the bread and butter for Nightcrawler as it allows him to teleport up to half his speed as a single action and then make a single melee Strike against a creature in range. The other aspects of Laughing Shadow come into play when we’re in Arcane Cascade, increasing our Speed and allowing us to deal extra damage to flat-footed creatures. We’ve gone through a lot, but we just have a little bit more before we’re done with first level. As a magus, Nightcrawler is automatically trained in Arcana and will also become trained in Athletics, Deception, Religion, and Stealth. I’m not a huge fan of the 1st-level magus feats, but I do like Arcane Fists, which allow his fists to deal 1d6 damage, not require them to take a -2 penalty for lethal attacks, gives them the arcane trait, and grants us access to the critical specialization effects of weapons in the brawling group at 5th level. The X-Men do most of their fighting with their fists or their powers and while Nightcrawler favors a rapier or cutlass like a swashbuckler, this is a good backup.
Spellbook: Cantrips – dancing lights, ghost sound, gouging claw, message, prestidigitation, ray of frost, shield, telekinetic projectile; 1st – befuddle, echoing weapon, magic weapon, shocking grasp
LEVEL 2 I’m have little doubt that in his training as an acrobat, Nightcrawler took at least a tumble or two and probably learned how to fall safely, leading to the choice of the Cat Fall skill feat, reducing damage taken from falling. From the magus class feats, we’ll pick up Force Fang, a conflux spell that turns our attack into a guaranteed hit that deals 1d4+1 force damage, which can be heightened, to the target. None of this particularly plays into Nightcrawler’s abilities, but it does give us a second focus point so that we can use dimensional assault and teleport around the battlefield more frequently.
Gear: ring of discretion
Spellbook: 1st – thicket of knives, thoughtful gift
LEVEL 3 Our first skill feat is going to build towards our next class feat and will go towards Deception. This does two things big things for the build – makes Nightcrawler better at feinting and also makes him better at disguising himself as he is want to do. For a general feat, Toughness offers him extra health, which is always good when you’re a melee combatant with only 8 class HP.
Gear: +1 rapier, predictable silver piece, ring of discretion
Spellbook: 2nd – befitting attire, telekinetic maneuver
LEVEL 4 There’s going to be a lot of skill feats that we pick up for Nightcrawler that could honestly be taken in just about any order. This time around, I went with Acrobatic Performer so that he could perform his aerial stunts in the circus. Most of the options for 4th-level magus feats are ways to modify your Spellstrike, linked to the different hybrid studies. I went for Distracting Spellstrike, which is linked to our laughing shadow hybrid study, and allows us to Feint as part of making our Spellstrike. This does require a free hand, but it helps us set up for some extra damage thanks to our hybrid study and does make it easier for us to hit.
Gear: bracelet of dashing, +1 rapier, necklace of knives, ring of discretion
Spellbook: 2nd – ash cloud, blur
LEVEL 5 We’re afforded four free ability boosts, as is usual, at this level, and we’ll apply those to Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 12, Dex 19, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 10, Cha 16). This increase to Intelligence lets us learn another language and makes us trained in Diplomacy since, as mentioned, he’s a friendly fellow once you get pass his appearance. However, our skill increase will be going to Stealth, making us an expert in it, given his fur’s ability to blend into shadow. From the tiefling ancestry, we pick up Skillful Tail, which doesn’t capture the full prehensile nature of his tail, but brings it about as close as we’re going to get.
Gear: +1 striking rapier, bracelet of dashing, ventriloquist’s ring, necklace of knives, predictable silver piece, ring of discretion
Spellbook: 3rd – shadow projectile, stinking cloud
LEVEL 6 Both representing Nightcrawler’s faith and allowing him to get a jump on the enemies, the Pilgrim’s Token skill feat allows him to win on initiative ties. This level’s class feat is one that I struggled with for a while before landing on Attack of Opportunity. This gives something to use his reaction with and the other option I was looking at, Expansive Spellstrike, didn’t really sit well with me as it relies on the DC of his spells that don’t have spell attacks and that’s always going to be lagging behind, especially at later levels.
Gear: +1 leather armor, +1 striking rapier, bag of holding (type I), bracelet of dashing, necklace of knives, hat of disguise
Spellbook: 3rd – ghostly weapon, warding aggression
LEVEL 7 To keep us capable at landing those Feints when we use Distracting Spellstrike, we’ll increase Deception to master with this skill increase. For a general feat, picking up Fleet increases our Speed, which in turn increases how far we can go with dimensional assault. While the magus is admittedly limited on spells, they do gain a boost in the form of studious spells at this level – two spell slots that can be used to prepare limited, buffing spells. There’s a standard list consisting of spider climb (which is good for Nightcrawler), true strike, and water breathing, but we also receive one based on our hybrid study. Laughing shadow receives mirror image as a studious spell, which could potentially be flavored as Nightcrawler teleporting so fast that it looks like there are multiples of him.
Gear: clandestine cloak, +1 leather armor, shadow armor rune, +1 striking rapier, bracelet of dashing, ventriloquist’s ring
Spellbook: 4th – dimension door, weapon storm
LEVEL 8 It’s been hard to fit Athletics and feats from it into this build, which is important for two main reasons – it determines how far Nightcrawler can jump, which can be flavored as him teleporting with nice enough GMs, and how well he climbs, which the comic book version can do very well thanks to his ability to suction to surfaces. This build doesn’t make it as far as I’d like with that, but we do at least pick up Combat Climber as a skill feat at this level, reflecting his ability to cling to walls while still fighting at his fullest. I had trouble finding a class feat I liked for this level and while there were a few that could increase his focus pool, none of them felt particularly appropriate. I didn’t want to go back to Expansive Spellstrike either so I settled on Steady Spellcasting. As some folks have noticed, the magus class doesn’t really have any protection from attacks of opportunity when it uses Spellstrike. Hopefully, this feat will afford Nightcrawler some from such events though fortunately Attack of Opportunity only disrupts spells on a critical hit.
Gear: slippers of spider climbing, ring of fire resistance, clandestine cloak, +1 leather armor, +1 striking rapier, bag of holding (type I)
Spellbook: 4th – freedom of movement, confusion
LEVEL 9 With Deception already at master, we’ll pick up a skill increase to Stealth, pushing it to master proficiency. After selecting tiefling ancestry feats the past few times, we’ll finally pick up a human ancestry feat – Multitalented. This grants us a multiclass dedication, and there’s no better multiclass fit for the fuzzy elf than the Swashbuckler Dedication. When we choose this, we also pick a swashbuckler style and the one that fits best with this build is Fencer. This allows Nightcrawler to gain panache whenever he Feints in addition to the regular ways, which works superbly well with Distracting Spellstrike. The panache class feat does grant him a bonus to Speed, which unfortunately won’t stack with the Speed bonus from Arcane Cascade, but also gives him a +1 bonus on checks that would grant him panache – so other Feints that we do. Normally, we’d become trained in the skill related to our style, which is Deception, and Acrobatics, but since we’re trained in both, we instead become trained in a skill of our choosing. Society makes the most sense to me as Nightcrawler is very much a people person that likes being around others and learning of them.
Gear: +1 resilient leather armor, slippers of spider climb, bag of holding (type II), clandestine cloak, shadow armor rune, +1 striking rapier
Spellbook: 5th – blink charge, return beacon
LEVEL 10 Unsurprisingly, this level is a big one, and while that is partially due to the four ability boosts I’m about to go over, it’s not the only reason. These four ability boosts find themselves bolstering our Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 20, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 18). Once again, we’ve increased our Intelligence to a point where we get a bonus language and also become trained in Occultism. However, with this increase to Dexterity, we can swap out our leather armor for explorer’s clothing, which means we’re unarmored and will get a +10-foot status bonus to Speed when we’re in Arcane Cascade instead of +5. You could absolutely make this switch sooner, but given the relative fragility of the magus class as well as their need to be in the thick of it, for this build at least, I value that +1 to AC over the extra mobility. This level also comes with a skill feat and class feat, the former of which will be Swift Sneak so that Nightcrawler can prowl around at full speed while staying hidden. We’re also gaining Finishing Precision from our shiny new dedication. This gives us an additional 1 damage while we have panache, so when we Distracting Spellstrike and successfully Feint, we automatically gain panache and get to add that to our attack’s damage. It’s not much, but it’s a handy little booster and every little bit counts. It does give us the options of using a Basic Finisher to lose panache but deal an additional 1d6 damage as a single action.
Gear: greater ventriloquist’s ring, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, flaming weapon rune, slippers of spider climbing, clandestine cloak, +1 striking rapier
Spellbook: 5th – flammable fumes, shadow walk
LEVEL 11 There is absolutely a build for Nightcrawler where you focus more on Acrobatics and it’s completely legitimate. I honestly feel bad that we’re only increasing his Acrobatics to expert with this skill increase instead of master, and it’s something that I could consider swapping out our Stealth increases for though I think, overall, the Stealth skill feats offer more value. In reference to his image inducer, which I think was honestly a bigger thing in the X-Men Evolution show than it ever was in the comics, we’ll pick up Quick Disguise for his general feat. We add haste to our studious spells, which is always handy, as well as shift blame from the laughing shadow. This doesn’t fit quite as well, but we still have all those other options for our studious spells.
Gear: +2 striking rapier, greater ventriloquist’s ring, greater shadow armor rune, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, slippers of spider climb, bag of holding (type II)
Spellbook: 6th – teleport, unexpected transposition
LEVEL 12 Once again building into that idea of flavoring his jump as teleportation, we’ll go ahead and grab Quick Jump as a skill feat for Nightcrawler. We can also finally take Conflux Focus for our class feat, which is pretty classic across classes with focus spells. It lets us recover 2 Focus Points when we Refocus instead of 1 as long as we’ve spent at least 2 Focus Points since the last time we Refocused. One of the main reasons I want this is that now we can use dimensional assault twice per combat without being limited by it later. It’s all about that teleporatation.
Gear: +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, +2 striking rapier, cape of the mountebank, greater shadow armor rune, flaming weapon rune, greater backfire mantle
Spellbook: 6th – collective transposition, disintegrate
LEVEL 13 Originally, I’d taken a skill increase to Diplomacy with this level, but unless you’re playing a more social campaign, I think I’d instead go for Acrobatics, boosting it to master proficiency. This sets us up for a handy skill feat next level. The tiefling heritage gives us access to Fiend’s Door, an ancestry feat that gives us a 1/day casting of dimension door, giving us more of that delicious teleportation we want for this build. We add fly to our studious spells and, appropriately enough, get dimension door from our hybrid study.
Gear: +2 greater striking rapier, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, holy weapon rune, cape of the mountebank, greater shadow armor rune, greater cloak of repute
Spellbook: 7th – plane shift, shadow raid
LEVEL 14 Going along with the former Diplomacy bump, I did have a Diplomacy skill feat here that has been replaced with Kip Up, an Acrobatics skill feat that lets us stand from prone as a free action without provoking. Always handy. From the magus, Nightcrawler can pick up Hasted Assault for his class feat, which is a single action conflux spell that makes him quickened though the extra action can only be used to Strike. Once again, the main point here is to give us more focus points with which to use dimensional assault, but Nightcrawler can teleport so quick sometimes, that this isn’t a bad conflux spell for him either.
Gear: hellfire boots, +2 greater striking rapier, ring of climbing, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, cape of the mountebank, daredevil boots
Spellbook: 7th – contingency, maze of locked doors
LEVEL 15 I always view this level as the sort of final stretch of any build because it’s the second to last time we gain ability boosts, which will be for Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 21, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 19). This is another skill increase to Deception, getting it to legendary proficiency so that we can trigger those sweet, sweet Feints. We’ll finally play up his Diplomacy a bit by grabbing Group Impression so that Nightcrawler can try to befriend multiple people at once. Another possibility is Reveal Machinations to give Nightcrawler a chance to poke fun at people that think him an actual demon.
Gear: +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, hellfire boots, keen weapon rune, +2 greater striking rapier, holy weapon rune, bag of holding (type III)
Spellbook: 8th – maze, polar ray
LEVEL 16 With Backup Disguise, Nightcrawler can gets closer to the feel of his image inducer with being able to slip into his disguise with a single action due to his legendary proficiency in Deception. His Swashbuckler Dedication lets him pick up Basic Flair to get the Tumble Behind swashbuckler feat. This is another one that your GM hopefully lets you flavor as teleportation, and while we’re usually gonna want to make use of Feint to make foes flat-footed instead of this, it does give us an option to get out of certain sticky situations.
Gear: greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, greater boots of bounding, keen weapon rune, +2 greater striking rapier, ring of climbing
Spellbook: 8th – disappearance, acid arrow
LEVEL 17 Those Diplomacy increases we put off will come around now, increasing our it to expert proficiency. This might’ve been an ancestry feat we wanted to take earlier, but Devil in Plain Sight lets us fully appear human for the effect of the image inducer thought it does prevent us from using Skillful Tail until we shift back.
Gear: +3 greater striking rapier, greater flaming weapon rune, dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, hellfire boots, keen weapon rune
Spellbook: 9th – linnorm sting, prismatic shield
LEVEL 18 We’ll go more into the Diplomacy tree to pick up Glad-Hand so that Nightcrawler can try to befriend people before they freak out about his appearance. Following the same logic as Conflux Focus from when we took it earlier, we can grab Conflux Wellspring so that we regain 3 Focus Points when we Refocus as long as we’ve spent 3 since the last time we Refocused. Again, this is mainly so that we can dimensional assault three times per combat and then Refocus and do it all again.
Gear: anklets of alacrity, +3 greater striking rapier, speed weapon rune, greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, greater boots of bounding
Spellbook: 9th – implosion, meteor swarm
LEVEL 19 All right, I gotta be honest. The choices I make here are kinda dumb and purely for flavor. You want to be effective? You swap out that last skill increase with Stealth, bumping it to legendary and then take Legendary Sneak. But we’re not doing that. Nope, we’re increasing Diplomacy again, increasing it to master proficiency, so that Nightcrawler can get Evangelize with his general feat and be the good Catholic boy that he is.
Gear: +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, anklets of alacrity, major shadow armor rune, +3 greater striking rapier, greater flaming weapon rune, dragonscale amulet
Spellbook: 9th – admonishing ray, hydraulic push
LEVEL 20 Our final ability boosts will increase Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 16, Dex 22, Con 16, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 20). With the Powerful Leap skill feat, we increase the range of Nightcrawler’s leaps, which is, once again, handy for flavoring them as teleports. We can use the magus class feat Supreme Spellstrike to become permanently quickened as long as that extra action is used for a Strike or to recharge Spellstrike.
Gear: +3 major striking rapier, +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, mercurial mantle, greater armbands of athleticism, orange prism aeon stone, headband of translocation
Spellbook: 9th – snowball, true target
CONCLUSION This build leaves us with a wily teleporter who wields his blade with panache and flair. I settled on rapier as his preferred weapon due to the lack of cutlass in the game though you could probably flavor the rapier as such though might want to change its damage to slashing for that. By 12th level, we can teleport a limited distance twice without fear in combat as we are assured to regain two Focus Points when we Refocus. Nightcrawler's demonic appearance is covered by his tiefling heritage, which grants him a free use of dimension door once per day as well as a useful though not entirely prehensile tail. Some spells, like stinking cloud, are based on the brimstone-smelling aftermath of his teleportations. I aimed for spells that felt at least thematically appropriate while staying useful to him. Stuff like blur is somewhat reminiscent of his natural ability to blend into shadows while I included slippers of spider climb, Combat Climber, and similar abilities to give the feel of his ability to cling to walls.
Be sure to let me know what you think of the build!
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Have a fantastic Friday!
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