Aetrimonde

For the last post on Valdo the Bat-Eater, I’m going to provide a peek at how Valdo might advance over the course of his early adventures. Partly, I’m going to use this to show off some different kinds of Spiritual powers, because the powers I’ve given him to start with, which are tied to animal spirits, are only about a quarter of the powers available to Spiritual characters.

As with any character, Valdo gains a power, a feat, and a perk per level.

Level 1

I’m building Valdo partly as an ambush predator; he has one power already that has heightened effects against flatfooted creatures. What he still needs is a way to make his ambushes easier. So, let’s give him Forest Growth, which will let him create an area of difficult and impeding terrain. Being difficult terrain, which costs twice as much movement, is useful, but the part of this power that will help Valdo pull of ambushes is that it is impeding terrain, which grants cover (one of two ways to hide) if line of effect passes through it. Like many Spiritual powers, the zone gets larger the longer Valdo concentrates, until it reaches a maximum size of 4 (which is to say, every square within 4 of the zone’s center) and then expires. This power has the Plant keyword, one of the keywords associated with elemental spirits.

One thing that Valdo currently lacks is a good normal attack: he has good melee attacks, but they’re all powers, not anything that he can use to make an opportune strike with any kind of accuracy. Let’s fix that by taking Spirit-Touched Natural Weapons: in addition to letting Valdo use <WIS> instead of <STR> for normal unarmed attacks (including Carnivorous Bite!), it gives him the benefit of a lesser magical weapon and implement, which can overcome some forms of damage resistance.

Finally, his perk: after fleeing Der Eisenvald and falling in with some adventurers, Valdo realizes that he needs a way of supporting himself. Luckily, he already has a calling, but he will now formalize his training as a monster hunter, and take the Profession [Monster Hunter] perk. In addition to giving him the benefit of training on checks related to the professional side of monster hunting (things like finding work, outfitting an expedition, and recruiting hirelings), it lets him earn a little extra cash in the downtime between adventures. This will not amount to much, but it could let him afford an extra healing potion every once in a while, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Level 2

With his newfound ability to create a stand of trees in which to hide, Valdo is now even better situated for ambushing than he was before. Let’s lean into this: Cunning Slash is essentially an upgraded version of Feline Cunning as a greater power, dealing even more damage to flatfooted creatures.

And, further increasing his damage, Valdo will also take Mighty Spirits, allowing him to add his expertise bonus (+2, increasing to +3 as soon as level 5) to the damage rolls of certain Spiritual powers. This feat allows Valdo to choose two keywords that it applies to; since all of his damaging powers are either Bear or Panther powers, he’ll choose those two keywords.

For his perk at this level, Valdo will take Contacts [Eisenvaldean Hunters]. He’s had enough time to cool off after fleeing Der Eisenvald, and he’s now thinking of going back and finishing off the vampires he offended earlier in his career…but when he does, he’s going in prepared.

Level 3

Valdo continues to seek allies in anticipation of a return to Der Eisenvald, but mortal hunters are not his only allies. He takes Irate Spirit as his power this level, allowing him to summon forth a spirit that piles on to his allies’ attacks. This power has the Destroyer keyword, which is associated with ancient spirits; these are most commonly spirits of ancient people, but since Valdo is a skinchanger, we’ll instead flavor this power as calling up the spirit of a great predatory beast. It won’t benefit from the Mighty Spirits feat Valdo took at his last level, since it lacks the Bear or Panther keyword, but it’ll still be a nice source of extra damage in conjunction with his allies’ attacks.

Summoning Powers

Summoning powers like Irate Spirit create a semi-independent creature that follows the instructions of the summoner. They take their turns simultaneously with the summoner, who can use their own actions to command that the summoned creature do things during their turn; many summoned creatures, like the Irate Spirit, can also be commanded to do certain things between the summoner’s turns. Summoned creatures have their own supply of movement and their own pool of hit points, although creatures summoned by lesser powers are generally destroyed as soon as they take damage.

Let’s continue making Valdo’s powers more deadly by taking Razor Claws, allowing his already quite damaging Panther powers to also make their targets bleed out. A creature taking repeated damage incurs that damage at the end of each of their turns (rolling for damage each time), typically until they succeed on a recovery roll. Repeated damage does benefit from bonuses to damage rolls, so thanks to Mighty Spirits, this 1d4 damage already becomes 1d4 + 2. Adding in that bleed damage ignores armor resistance, this will make Valdo’s Panther powers increasingly deadly.

Valdo is increasingly confused by the way that his preferred tactics (leaping onto a monster from hiding and messily tearing it to ribbons) makes people turn green and flee. So, for his perk, he will take Esoteric Knowledge [Ordinary Human Behavior]. It remains to be seen whether his painstaking observation of human behavior allows him to relate better to his would-be rescuees…

Level 4

Another thing that Valdo still lacks is a way to deal with several enemies at once. Let’s give him one using Thrashing Claws, which as a Bear power benefits from his Mighty Spirits feat but not Razor Claws. It will still be enough to help get him out of situations where he’s surrounded by a few weaker enemies.

Valdo is beginning to feel the cost of his quite low AC; to shore that up, he will take Defensive Expertise, which gives a simple +1 feat bonus to AC.

Valdo continues to make plans for his vengeful return to Der Eisenvald, and practices making a variety of holy symbols that he can use, in a pinch, to fend off a vampire. He gains the Craft [Holy Symbol] perk.

Level 5

As part of his preparations for another round of vampire hunting, Valdo bonds a spirit of the desert that one of his adventures takes him to, allowing him to call on the brutally punishing sun of the deep sands…even at night, and even indoors. This gives him the Sunbake power, which he can use to great effect against vampires: in addition to weakening them so that they can’t harm him as easily, it also exploits their vulnerability to the sun! It gives Valdo a nice ranged attack (far better than his hunting crossbow would be…) but because it’s a Spiritual ranged power, he can also use it as a melee attack via his Wild Strike class feature. Sunbake has the Desert keyword, one of the keywords associated with spirits of the land.

Valdo will also take the Landsense feat, since he gained the Spirit Domain power by multiclassing to Wakener. This will help him out by letting him be aware of any pesky vampires that have the bright idea to try to ambush him while he’s trying to ambush them.

Finally, as one of his last steps before embarking on his great vampire hunt, Valdo will read every book he can find about vampires, hoping that it will prove useful. He gains the Esoteric Knowledge [Vampirism] perk.

Up Next

This wraps up Valdo the Bat-Eater! I’m going to take a break from character creation posts for a couple of weeks, but when I get back to them, I’ll be starting the third sample character, an elf artificer named Guinne of House Midwinter.