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. I meant to include the magical gear like I have in the past, but with Thanksgiving this week, and stuff picking up in work, I unfortunately didn't get the chance to do so. My apologies on that.
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 Poison Ivy!
POISON IVY
CHARACTER Pamely Isley/Poison Ivy
SOURCE Detective Comics
GOAL A classic villain of the Batman universe, Pamela Isley was a botanist who became part plant due to the experiments of a fellow scientist. Her change granted her the power to manipulate plants as well as made her toxic. An eco-terrorist that values plants more than animal life, she uses seduction, ingenuity, and her powers over nature to achieve her goals. Beyond that, Pamela Isley’s particular powers can vary wildly between the iterations and universe that she takes place in. For this particular build, we’re looking at a general, somewhat more grounded take on the character.
LEVEL 1 The first step is, as always, going through our ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. Part of me thought about going leshy for this character to bring her closer to the plant person that she is, but they didn’t feel like a great fit. I ended up picking the human ancestry and while I considered a suggestion for the duskwalker heritage, I picked skilled. As something of a mastermind character, Ivy needs a lot of skills, so this helps with that as it makes us trained in Diplomacy. Our two free boosts as a human will go towards Intelligence and Charisma while the Natural Skill ancestry feat gives us even more skills – this time Survival and Deception.
There are a few options to go with Ivy’s background, but I like herbalist for her. The first boost from it goes to Wisdom while the second boost bumps up our Dexterity. This background makes us trained in Nature and Herbalism Lore, and also gives us the Natural Medicine skill feat so that we can use our Nature skill to Treat Wounds.
Ivy is a character that I built to 10th-level before realizing that I didn’t like the original class choice I made for her (druid) so I went back and picked the alchemist class, taking a slightly more grounded approach to the character. As an alchemist, we receive a boost to Intelligence before we receive four more boosts, which go to Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. This set of boosts gives us this array: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 14. We automatically become trained in Crafting, and then also pick up Acrobatics, Arcana, Plant Lore, Medicine, Society, and Stealth. As an alchemist, we receive Alchemical Crafting as a bonus feat and then receive a research field, which will be toxicologist, making us more versed in the creation of poisons. Finally, we take the Quick Bomber class feat so that we can Interact to draw a bomb and then Strike with it as a single action, which will be handy down the line.
Formulas: arsenic, giant centipede venom, lesser antidote, lesser blight bomb, lesser peshpine grenade, lesser silvertongue mutagen, lesser tanglefoot bag, minor elixir of life
LEVEL 2 Ivy’s powers allow her to outright control others, which was a little difficult in the realm of her build, but a step towards that idea is the Group Impression skill feat, allowing us to Make an Impression on two people at once. With Poison Resistance from our class feats, we reduce poison damage we would take and get a bonus on saves against them, which doesn’t quite cover Ivy’s almost full immunity to toxins.
Formulas: belladonna, lesser darkvision elixir
LEVEL 3 Our first skill increase will go toward Nature, granting us expert proficiency in it. Like any decent Batman villain, Ivy as her own assortment of goons but thanks to her powers, she can be a bit more discerning. To reflect that, we can take Hireling Manager, so that any hirelings we get are better at what they do.
Formulas: moderate blight bomb, violet venom
LEVEL 4 The Specialty Crafting – Poisons gives us a bonus on Crafting checks whenever we make poisons. With the Tenacious Toxins class feat, we extend the duration of the poisons we make.
Formulas: moderate peshpine grenade, moderate silvertongue mutagen
LEVEL 5 These four ability boosts will increase our Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma to give us this array: Str 10, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 16, Cha 16. With our increase Intelligence, we become trained in Occultism. Due to our skilled heritage, Diplomacy automatically increases to expert as does Crafting since we’re gonna select it for our skill increase. As an almost perfect fit for Ivy, we can take the Fey Influence (Dryad) for her, granting us an innate summon plants or fungus.
Formulas: false death, lesser elixir of life
LEVEL 6 The Glad-Hand skill feat makes it so that we can Make an Impression much quicker than usual. Debilitating Bomb is class feat that lets us add additional effects to our bombs, which I like envisioning as Ivy mixing some of her poisons in with her bombs.
Formulas: moderate antidote, yellow musk vial
LEVEL 7 We achieve master proficiency in Nature with this skill increase. Incredible Initiative helps us act first in combat so that we can lay down some debilitating effects.
Formulas: addlebrain, moderate darkvision elixir
LEVEL 8 While the description of this skill feat lists it as affecting more animals, Influence Nature still feels really appropriate for Ivy. We can also grab Sticky Bomb to improve the persistent damage of our bombs.
Formulas: nettleweed residue, greater darkvision elixir
LEVEL 9 To further play into Ivy’s role as a seductress, we take a skill increase to Diplomacy, making us a master. Then, we take something I’ve been waiting on – Multitalented (Druid Dedication), granting us some primal cantrips, the leaf order anathema, and the trained proficiency in Athletics and Intimidation.
Formulas: moderate antiplague, moderate elixir of life
LEVEL 10 We drop these four ability boosts into Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma, so that we have this array: Str 10, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 19, Wis 16, Cha 18. Given that Ivy makes ridiculous requests and demands of her minions, the Shameless Request skill feat makes it easier to do so. Using our Druid Dedication, we grab Basic Druid Spellcasting to pick up some stronger plant-themed spells.
Formulas: fearweed, greater antidote
LEVEL 11 So that it becomes easier for us to make poisons, we get up to master proficiency in Crafting with this skill increase. We use our general feat, Toughness, we gain more Hit Points, helping to make up our somewhat lacking Constitution and bringing us more in line with the hard to put down Ivy of the comics.
Formulas: greater blight bomb, greater peshpine grenade
LEVEL 12 Ivy’s devotion to the Green is nothing short of fanatical, and she can attempt to share that devotion with the Evangelize skill feat. We gain even more primal spells by taking Expert Druid Spellcasting.
Formulas: greater silvertongue mutagen, honeyscent
LEVEL 13 With our major skills at the highest level they can be, we place this skill increase towards Plant Lore, becoming an expert. We can take the Hardy Traveler ancestry feat to increase our overland travel speed and carrying capacity to reflect the hardening of her body by becoming part-plant.
Formulas: deathcap powder, greater elixir of life
LEVEL 14 With Impeccable Crafter, we become even more proficient at crafting poisons during our downtime, and to help out with the poisons made during that time, we can take Potent Poisoner, which makes our non-infused toxins more powerful.
Formulas: gorgon’s breath, greater bomber’s eye elixir
LEVEL 15 Four more ability boosts, this time going to Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma. Our array is now looking like this: Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 16, Cha 19. Another increase to Intelligence allows us to become trained in Athletics. We hit legendary proficiency in Nature with this skill increase – a choice I deliberated on briefly before deciding that this was a better fit than another increase to Crafting. To help Ivy get out of sticky situations, we pick up Feather Step, which allows us to Step into difficult terrain.
Formulas: major elixir of life, mindfog mist
LEVEL 16 While this is a traditionally an early level skill feat, Hobnobber allows us to Gather Information more swiftly. The Primal Breadth feat from the Druid Dedication gives us more spell slots for every level of spells we can cast.
Formulas: major antidote, weeping midnight
LEVEL 17 Another skill increase goes to Diplomacy, allowing us to achieve legendary proficiency in it. There’s a lack of decent ancestry feats for her at this late level, but Heroic Presence helps capture the idea of the frenzy she can instill in her followers – though it might be better as Villainous Presence for her.
Formulas: major blight bomb, major peshpine grenade
LEVEL 18 Since we picked up Hobnobber, we can also snatch Entourage, which gives Ivy some out-of-combat followers to help with gathering information – likely men and women hoping to earn her affection. Our final feat from our Druid Dedication will be Master Druid Spellcasting to give us the most druid spells we can get.
Formulas: frenzy oil, major silvertongue mutagen
LEVEL 19 This last skill increase bumps us up to legendary proficiency in Crafting. Since breathing isn’t as necessary to Ivy since she became part-plant, Breath Control reflects that and makes her more resilient to inhaled dangers.
Formulas: hemlock, true elixir of life
LEVEL 20 This final set of ability boosts will go towards Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma to give us this final set of ability scores: Str 14, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 20, Wis 18, Cha 20. Ivy can attempt to Make a Request of foes even in the midst of combat with her sheer charisma thanks to the Legendary Negotiation skill feat. Our last class feat ended up being something of a toss-up between the one I chose and something more from the Druid Dedication so this could very easily be swapped out for another feat. However, I chose Shaped Containment because I envisioned it as Ivy blowing a poisoned kiss as she does it, which feels like a perfect fit.
Formulas: sun orchid elixir, tears of death
CONCLUSION There’s our girl! Poison Ivy is an intelligent mastermind who seeks to overwhelm animal life with those of plants and uses seduction, toxins, and her control over plants to bring about that end. With the holidays and having to restart this build, I ran out of time to select gear, but most of it would be pretty typical stuff. Upon reaching 9th-level, it’d be good to grab some wands among her gear to help supplant her limited number of spells. Part of me was thinking about taking the Druid Dedication earlier, but I’m not sure that there’s much I would have done with it, outside of taking feats such as Green Empathy or Woodland Stride.
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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