INTRO
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’m also not gonna do gear, aside from real basic stuff like preferred armor and weapons. I want to focus more on the build of the character.
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 Rengar, the Pridestalker!
Character Rengar, the Pridestalker
Source League of Legends
GOAL A vastayan from League of Legends resembling a humanoid lion, Rengar is a trophy hunter who searches for the most fearsome beasts to stalk and slay so that he can revel in the hunt. He is capable of terrible ferocity and takes trophies from his victims to add to his Bonetooth Necklace, increasing his strength. His abilities involve him making vicious stabs, unleashing a roar that bolsters him, throwing bolas, and go invisible to ambush prey.
LEVEL 1 Easy as 1, 2, 3, we’re gonna go through the ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. Rengar was a deliberate choice because I wanted to do something other than a human for once. In this case, Rengar is a catfolk with the hunting heritage. Unfortunately, the options for our ancestry feats are somewhat limited, but Catfolk Weapon Familiarity seems like the choice. With one free boost as a catfolk, we apply it to our Strength.
Although initially an outcast from his tribe, Rengar ended up establishing himself as a respected hunter, which naturally leads to me picking the hunter background. Our first ability boost is going to Wisdom to balance out the flaw we took to it while our free boost goes to Strength. We receive training in Survival and Tanning Lore, and also get the Survey Wildlife skill feat.
The choice for his class was a pretty easy choice for me that I held little doubt for though my buddy felt like rogue would also have been a good fit. While I can understand going that route, I favored the ranger class for the build. We take the Strength boost from the class before applying our four free boosts to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom, giving us this array: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12. We automatically get trained in Nature and Survival but since we’re already trained in Survival, we’re gonna take that proficiency in Stealth. Trained in four additional skills, we pick up Athletics, Crafting, Intimidation, and Medicine. For our hunter’s edge, we go precision to mimic the burst damage that Rengar is renowned for. I was split on our first ranger feat but picked up Twin Takedown to start with. Monster Hunter was another good choice, but for the time being, Rengar only really has a chance of identifying it with Nature. Becoming trained in more skills that use Recall Knowledge might make that feat worth coming back to.
LEVEL 2 Sometimes when I’m doing these, I struggle to find what I think would be the best skill feats for the character I’m building, but there’s a lot of skill feats that work well for Rengar. Our first skill feat is gonna work towards his classic leap from the bushes – Quick Jump. For our first ranger feat, we pick up Quick Draw so that we can get our shortsword and claw blade out without sacrificing too many actions.
LEVEL 3 By putting our skill increases towards Athletics and becoming an expert in it, we set ourselves up for further jumping skill feats. We take Fleet for our general feat to stalk after prey when it attempts to run.
LEVEL 4 Our skill feat lets us take up Powerful Leap, increasing the distance of our jumps and feeding into that aspect of the character. Now, this next feat is probably gonna sound like an odd choice at first but hear me out. We’re picking up Talisman Dabbler, an archetype that allows us to create temporary talismans and the like. I know, I know. You think I’ve lost it. But my idea here is that these talismans are crafted off of bits and pieces of the monsters he’s hunted – they’re his trophies. By taking this dedication, we are able to vaguely mimic his Bonetooth Necklace.
LEVEL 5 We slot our ability boosts into Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, putting us at: Str 19, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 14. We use our skill increase to pump up Stealth to expert. Our Catfolk Weapon Rake makes us deadlier with some of our preferred weapons.
LEVEL 6 We pick up a Survival skill feat this time, getting the thematically appropriate Experienced Tracker, which allows us to track without slowing down. We can take Disrupt Prey to stop creatures that we’re hunting from escaping.
LEVEL 7 An increase to Survival brings it up to expert proficiency. By picking up Expeditious Search with our general feat, we can quickly search areas before returning to hunting our prey.
LEVEL 8 Picking up Terrain Stalker as our skill feat allows us to creep through underbrush without even needing to make Stealth checks. Deeper Dabbler is a feat from the talisman dabbler archetype that allows us to construct even more temporary talismans.
LEVEL 9 By increasing our proficiency in Survival to expert, we can now use Experienced Tracker without penalty. For our ancestry feat, Wary Skulker allows us to Avoid Notice and Scout simultaneously when in exploration mode, probably one of my favorite catfolk feats.
LEVEL 10 This time around, our boosts go to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom, which gives us the following array: Str 20, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 14. Rengar is such an adept hunter, he is able to hunt and find food in any environment, even alien ones, which leads to us getting Planar Survival as our skill feat. Our class feat is gonna be Skirmish Strike, allowing him to dart in and out of combat.
LEVEL 11 Our proficiency in Stealth gets bumped up to master thanks to our skill increase here. Our general feat is gonna be Pick Up the Pace so that we can hurry our group onwards to the next hunt. This isn’t an exact fit for the character’s gameplay, but I do think it plays well into the theme.
LEVEL 12 The skill feat we pick up at this level, Swift Sneak, allows us to move at full speed when we Sneak, which is important for the character. Double Prey is our ranger class feat that allows us to hunt two different creatures when we use the Hunt Prey action.
LEVEL 13 Plugging our skill increase into Athletics raises our proficiency in it to master. Unfortunately, we are hampered by our ancestry feat choices as none of the level 13 options seem like a great choice. Caterwaul is interesting but not really suited for Rengar. I picked Catfolk Lore to snag some additional skill proficiencies, most notably in using the spare increase because we already have Survival to become trained in Occultism, which should help in our hunting of alien bugs.
LEVEL 14 We grab Wall Jump as our skill feat, allowing us to bound from tree to tree when prey attempts to flee through them. With our class feat, we pick up Sense the Unseen to better hunt more elusive prey.
LEVEL 15 We apply our ability boosts to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence, leaving us with this array: Str 21, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 14. Our new modifier from Intelligence grants us the trained proficiency in Society as well as the Aklo language. With our skill increase, we can become legendary in Survival. Then we can use our general feat to select Incredible Scout, increasing the bonus we provide from scouting to our allies, which synergizes with our Wary Skulker ancestry feat.
LEVEL 16 The skill feat for this level could honestly be taken earlier if you want to fit it in, but Intimidating Glare lets us Demoralize creatures that don’t share a language with us without penalty, such as animals, beasts, and other common targets of our hunts. This build of Rengar isn’t really designed around Intimidation, which is why I was in no rush to get it. Due to a lack of fitting two-weapon combat style feats in ranger (there’s the Twin Riposte line, but they don’t really fit Rengar), we’re gonna dip into Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication for our last few feats.
LEVEL 17 A skill increase in Stealth brings us up to legendary proficiency in it. Due to limited options, we take the Caterwaul ancestry feat as its vaguely akin to Rengar’s Battle Roar – except it affects allies instead of himself.
LEVEL 18 By taking the skill feat Legendary Sneak, we can disappear from sight, in a manner that somewhat mimics Rengar’s Thrill of the Hunt. Flensing Slice, gained from our Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication, is a powerful ability that can weaken a monster, opening up opportunities for our allies.
LEVEL 19 Our last skill increase goes to Athletics, making us a master in it. We pick up True Perception with our general feat, a crazy ability that puts us under the constant effect of a true seeing spell.
LEVEL 20 With our very last ability boosts, we increase our Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma and leaves us off with this array: Str 22, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 16. Our bonus trained skill from our increased Intelligence is Religion, rounding out skills we can use to hunt various creatures, and the extra language is Sylvan for all the time we spend in the forest. The skill feat Cloud Jump allows us to leap even further to savage foes. We use our dual-weapon warrior archetype to pick up Two-Weapon Flurry, which lets us make two attacks, one with each weapon, against a creature as a single action, similar to our Twin Takedown.
CONCLUSION At the end, we are left with a premier catfolk hunter able to leap vast distances and savage foes with his sword and claw blade empowered by talismans he’s claimed from past prey. There’s definitely a few routes to take Rengar and, as I noted, he suffered a little bit from the limited ancestry feat options. I felt pretty good with his skill feats and the only issue I ran into with class feats was the lack of two-weapon style feats that weren’t the Twin Riposte line. For basic gear, I started him out with hide armor, several bolas, a shortsword (as a stand-in for his kirai saber), and a claw blade (in place of his arm blades).
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 at the following link: https://discord.gg/W4THAs5
Have a great day!
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