This is a request that I wanted to fulfill, which involved me using an archetype that I've had my eyes on for a hot minute. As always, this build is conceptualized entirely in a vacuum, with choices made in my best attempt to fit the character. These choice may not hold up in a campaign with different themes and should be adjusted accordingly.
Our next remastered character will be Marrow-Gnawer, but that will have to wait for January because we're going to be doing Disneycember builds! Until then, consider checking out the YouTube video for this build.
Let's get into the build for X-23 from Marvel comics!
X-23
CHARACTER Laura Kinney
SOURCE X-Men Franchise
BUILD GOALS
o A mutant artificially created using DNA of Wolverine to serve as an assassin
o Laura’s primary mutant power is an accelerated healing factor, which makes her immune to diseases and drugs
o She possesses superhumanly acute senses, agility, durability, and stamina
o On each hand, she has a pair of retractable bone claws and she has a retractable bone claw on each foot. These claws have been coated with adamantium
o Her mind demonstrates considerable psychic defenses
o She was raised in captivity as a covert operative, leading to her being a master hand-to-hand combatant, a capable marksman, and an expert in assassination techniques
o In part due to her enhanced senses, she is an expert tracker
LEVEL 1
Ancestry & Heritage: Changeling Fleshwarp
o Ability Boosts & Flaws: +Constitution, +Dexterity
o Ancestry Feat: Slag May
Background: Mantis Scion
o Ability Boosts: +Dexterity, +Strength
o Skill Increase: Stealth (trained), Assassin Lore (trained)
o Background Feat: Assurance (Stealth)
Class & Subclass: Thief Rogue
o Class Ability Boost: +Dexterity
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (trained), Athletics (trained), Deception (trained), Intimidation (trained), Medicine (trained), Nature (trained), Society (trained), Survival (trained), Thievery (trained)
o Class Feat: Tumble Behind
o Skill Feat: Experienced Tracker
Details
o Ability Boosts: +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Wisdom, +Charisma (Str +1, Dex +4, Con +2, Int +0, Wis +1, Cha +1)
To represent the fact that X-23 is an artificial human, a being created in a lab, she uses the fleshwarp ancestry but skips any of its innate heritages to instead use the changeling heritage. This will allow her to take the Slag May ancestry feat, which gives her a claw attack that is specifically mentioned to be made of cold iron – resembling the adamantium-laced claws that she carries. By shifting her experimental nature into her ancestry, this lets her use the mantis scion background, resembling her rearing as a weapon and trained killer but magical experiment is still optionable as it will allow her to gain the scent ability. It just locks her into using Constitution as the only ability boost she gets from her background, which isn’t great. While I’m not a fan of doubling up week-to-week, X-23 uses the rogue class but at least switches up by taking the thief racket, making her a more dexterous character. She can’t use Twin Feint with her claws, so she’ll take Tumble Behind instead to throw off enemies that she Tumbles Through. As a rogue, she also receives a skill feat, which she can use to take Experienced Tracker. This build lacks the scent ability, but she can at least capture her capability as a tracker.
LEVEL 2
o Class Feat: Clawdancer Dedication
o Skill Feat: Titan Wrestler
o Skill Increase: Athletics (expert)
o Gear: cloak of feline rest
LEVEL 3
o General Feat: Fast Recovery
o Skill Feat: Quick Jump
o Skill Increase: Survival (expert)
o Gear: handwarps of mighty blows (+1), cloak of feline rest, genealogy mask
LEVEL 4
o Class Feat: Claw Snag
o Skill Feat: Powerful Leap
o Skill Increase: Stealth (expert)
o Gear: bracelet of dashing, handwarps of mighty blows (+1), necklace of knives, cloak of feline rest
LEVEL 5
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Wisdom (Str +2, Dex +4.5, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +2, Cha +1)
o Ancestry Feat: Living Weapon – Claws
o Skill Feat: Cat Fall
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (expert)
o Gear: handwarps of mighty blows (+1 striking), bracelet of dashing, pearly white spindle aeon stone, necklace of knives, cloak of feline rest, genealogy mask
At first level, we were able to grant X-23 a claw Strike, but unlike her father, she is not limited to claws upon her hand. She also has claws implanted in her feet and to represent that she takes up the Clawdancer Dedication, which will allow her to swap between agile claws and sweeping talons. Both of these have the finesse trait, which means that she can sneak attack with them, and will help illustrate the variety in her fighting style. Grappling is a good way to make enemies off-guard for her to eviscerate, and Claw Snag is a good feat to go along with that, allowing her to punish foes that attempt to escape her grasp. Given her tendency to fight foes significantly larger than herself, ranging from Juggernaut to the absolutely oversized Sentinels, Titan Wrestler feels like a natural fit as does Quick Jump and Powerful Leap letting her spring into the fray. She can take up Cat Fall to pull off those superhero landings and while those skill feats are handy, none of them are going to be representing any of her particular powers. However, in a bit of a surprising twist, she does find a bit of her powers in a general feat with Fast Recovery allowing her to more swiftly overcome diseases and poisons and heal faster while resting to play into her enhanced healing factor. She also gains a third claw attack with Living Weapon giving her more claws. I don’t entirely understand how that works, but I think it’s real funny, so there’s that.
LEVEL 6
o Class Feat: High-Speed Regeneration
o Skill Feat: Combat Climber
o Skill Increase: Intimidation (expert)
o Gear: +1 leather, handwarps of mighty blows (+1 striking), belt of good health, bracelet of dashing, necklace of knives, Jack’s tattered cape
LEVEL 7
o General Feat: Fleet
o Skill Feat: Intimidating Glare
o Skill Increase: Athletics (master)
o Gear: clandestine cloak, +1 leather, quick runner’s shirt, handwarps of mighty blows (+1 striking), bracelet of dashing, pearly white spindle aeon stone
LEVEL 8
o Class Feat: Spinning Standing
o Skill Feat: Rolling Landing
o Skill Increase: Stealth (master)
o Gear: wounding weapon rune, clandestine cloak, ring of the ram, +1 leather, handwarps of mighty blows (+1 striking), belt of good health
LEVEL 9
o Ancestry Feat: Mutate Weapon
o Skill Feat: Slippery Prey
o Skill Increase: Survival (master)
o Gear: +1 resilient leather, boots of bounding, wounding weapon rune, clandestine cloak, quick runner’s shirt, handwarps of mighty blows (+1 striking)
LEVEL 10
o Ability Boosts: +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Intelligence, +Wisdom (Str +2, Dex +5, Con +4, Int +1, Wis +3, Cha +1)
o Class Feat: Barbarian Dedication – Bear Instinct
o Skill Feat: Quick Climb
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (master), Occultism (trained), Performance (trained)
o Gear: bloodknuckles, +1 resilient leather, alluring scarf, boots of bounding, clandestine cloak, ring of the ram
Fast Recovery was a good first step but we can more properly cover her healing capabilities with High-Speed Regeneration, a deviant power that will allow her to take a free action to heal herself. X-23 is pretty quick and so she explores her archetype with Spinning Stand this block as well, letting her combine a Stand with a Strike without provoking reactions while only spending a single action to do so. It’s a really fantastic combination of effects that helps to demonstrate how quick she is. She rounds out this block’s class feats with a Barbarian Dedication. Rage may not be as core a feature to her as Wolverine, but she does have a trigger scent that drives her feral and this is a step towards demonstrating that. She has to choose an instinct upon taking this feat, so she’ll use the animal instinct with the bear option since wolverine isn’t a choice and bear at least comes with claws if she takes the Instinct Ability. As is always the case with rogues, there’s a ton of skill feats to talk about so we’ll start with Combat Climber and Quick Climb, which is inspired by X-23 using her claws to stab into builds and scale them with ease. Like her pops, X-23 isn’t much for talking, so Intimidating Glare is a solid fit as well. Generally pretty fast, she gets some use out of Fleet and then to reference her mutant nature, she takes Mutate Weapon, which required her to take Living Weapon earlier.
LEVEL 11
o General Feat: Robust Health
o Skill Feat: Battle Cry
o Skill Increase: Intimidation (master)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+2 striking), armbands of athleticism, greater tracker’s goggles, +1 resilient leather, boots of bounding, wounding weapon rune
LEVEL 12
o Class Feat: Claw and Talon Flow
o Skill Feat: Swift Sneak
o Skill Increase: Thievery (expert)
o Gear: +2 resilient leather, bloodknuckles (+2 striking), instinct crown, greater tracker’s goggles, flaming weapon rune, alluring scarf
LEVEL 13
o Ancestry Feat: Spiteful Rake
o Skill Feat: Planar Survival
o Skill Increase: Thievery (master)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), +2 resilient leather, greater ash gown, instinct crown, thunderblast slippers, greater tracker’s goggles
LEVEL 14
o Class Feat: Dashing Pounce
o Skill Feat: Wall Jump
o Skill Increase: Medicine (expert)
o Gear: propulsive boots, bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), moderate dread armor rune, +2 resilient leather, serrating weapon rune, instinct crown
LEVEL 15
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Wisdom (Str +3, Dex +5.5, Con +4.5, Int +1, Wis +4, Cha +1)
o General Feat: Toughness
o Skill Feat: Legendary Sneak
o Skill Increase: Stealth (legendary)
o Gear: +2 greater resilient leather, greater ring of the ram, propulsive boots, bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), greater ash gown, bravery baldric (stoneskin)
Claw and Talon Flow just helps her move between stances faster, switching up her claws and talons and Dashing Pounce allows her to leap into the fight, taking advantage of her Powerful Leap and condensing three actions into two since it includes a Leap and two frenzied claw Strikes. She has Battle Cry as a classic fit among the more feral mutants, Swift Sneak and Legendary Sneak to reference her training as an assassin, and Planar Survival because the X-Men have traveled to dozens of dimensions – X-23 herself has traveled to The Vault, an alternate dimension where time moves much faster. This makes her a far more capable survivor in such harsh realms, letting her pull through in even the most extreme conditions. For similar reasons as the Fast Recovery she took previously, she takes Robust Health here as it will allow her allies to heal her more regularly and for greater effect. Rounding out this level is Spiteful Rake, which is mainly just because I think it is cool that her ancestry is giving her some fun stuff to do with her claws.
LEVEL 16
o Class Feat: Precise Hooks
o Skill Feat: Cloud Jump
o Skill Increase: Athletics (legendary)
o Gear: greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather, greater ring of the ram, propulsive boots, bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), moderate dread armor rune
LEVEL 17
o Ancestry Feat: Accursed Claws
o Skill Feat: Rapid Mantel
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (legendary)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+3 greater striking), greater flaming weapon rune, greater shock weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather, greater ring of the ram, propulsive boots
LEVEL 18
o Class Feat: Precise Debilitations
o Skill Feat: Legendary Survivalist
o Skill Increase: Survival (legendary)
o Gear: cloak of swiftness, bloodknuckles (+3 greater striking), quickstrike weapon rune, greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient leather, greater boots of bounding
LEVEL 19
o General Feat: Diehard
o Skill Feat: Scare to Death
o Skill Increase: Intimidation (legendary
o Gear: +3 greater resilient leather, cloak of swiftness, armbands of athleticism, bloodknuckles (+3 greater striking), greater flaming weapon rune, greater thunderblast slippers
LEVEL 20
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Charisma (Str +4, Dex +6, Con +5, Int +1, Wis +4, Cha +2)
o Class Feat: Storm of Claws
o Skill Feat: Too Angry to Die
o Skill Increase: Thievery (legendary)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+3 major striking), +3 greater resilient leather, mercurial mantle, armbands of athleticism, bloodthirsty weapon rune, quickstrike weapon rune
Precise Hooks is a very neat feat as it adds critical specialization to X-23’s claws and talons while also retaining the normal critical specialization of her attacks, which means that when she crits an off-guard foe with her frenzied claws, she causes them to start bleeding and has a chance of stunning them. She returns to the rogue class for Precise Debilitations, letting her make a foe off-guard to her allies or hit for even more damage, befitting her training as an assassin. However, she’s back to the clawdancer archetype for her final class feat with Storm of Claws letting her unleash a series of slashes sure to snuff out opponents while also enhancing her mobility, letting her Step between Strikes. She mostly just follows her legendary skills with her skill feats with the exception of Rapid Mantel and Too Angry to Die. The former will let use her claws to catch herself and then swiftly pull herself back up, and the latter feels like a fantastic fit for a character whose healing factor ensures that she doesn’t stay down for long. On that point, she uses Diehard as her final general feat because there’s no better fit for a comic book character than something like this. She also takes Accursed Claws as another ancestry feat that enhances her claws without having any resemblance to any of her abilities. Again, it’s just a neat combination with her various claws.
FREE ARCHETYPE SUGGESTIONS: There’s quite a bit you can do in a free archetype, which would obviously allow her to take more rogue feats. Getting more debilitations would be great, Bloody Debilitation is one I’ll mention here, and Head Stomp would fit in with her unarmed combat. There’s also some real good stuff in clawdancer that we didn’t get, such as Springboard for some fun mobility, Wheeling Grab which can kind of work in conjunction with her Tumble Behind, and then Tear Tendons to literally let her maim foes. She could also expand upon the Barbarian Dedication with some great effects. Acute Scent gives her the scent ability, Renewed Vigor gives her another way of healing herself, and by getting Instinct Ability, she could actually explore some of the animal instinct feats to tear people apart.
BUILD CONCLUSION
X-23, properly named Laura Kinney, is a changeling fleshwarp rogue of the thief racket. This ancestry resembles the experiments that were used to create Laura in the first place and her assassin training comes from her mantis scion background as well as the rogue class itself. She focuses on hand-to-hand combat but can pick up a ranged weapon with ease thanks to her investment in Dexterity. Her knowledge of assassination techniques are perhaps best demonstrated with Precise Debilitations, and she has a vast array of skills to help her carry those out. In addition to that, she has legitimate super powers, relying on the High-Speed Regeneration deviant power, Fast Recovery, and Robust Health to resemble her accelerated healing factor. Her fleshwarp ancestry actually helps to inure her to diseases and poisons and Fast Recovery allows her to more swiftly recover from them. She further explores the increased durability and the like that this affords her with options such as Toughness as well as the increased Reflexes of her class. Of course, we have to represent the classic claws. We start off with Slag May, which grants her metal claws, but she can use them to go into the Clawdancer Dedication. The Claw Stance of this archetype covers the pair of claws she has in her hands while its Talon Stance simulates the ones on her feet with more options from the archetype covering her general fighting style, letting her cycle between her claws and talons in a deadly display.
This marvelous mutant maiden mauls malefactors with the mighty manus of her mitts, making mincemeat out of malignants with masterful moxie in melees most morbid.
Let me know what you think and what other builds you'd like to see!
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Have a fantastic Friday!
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