Orc/Dhampir Fighter/Tyrant
I wanted to create some sort of psychic vampire build or something flat out scary and intimidating as a concept. I really was looking for something that gives you the same kind of vibe like when Darth Vader walks into a room.
I think I was able to capture that feel with this concept here.
The overall vibe is going to be of a player character that may look down his nose at others that do not have the power he does. Or perhaps, he is more focused on those that are weak of mind or spirit, in any event, he is poised to use his abilities to his advantage to achieve his goals. I want to walk through my selections to explain why I may have chosen something for mechanical purposes, thematic purposes or no purpose at all.
So without further ado, lets get to building this PC.
Level 1
Let’s start with the Ancestry, Background and Class.
For Ancestry I chose Orc, because they get Darkvision, 10 hit points at level 1 and get a boost to Strength and one Free boost.
For the background I chose Wanted Witness. I did not really have much reason other than it gives a boost to Charisma, which you will need for the Champion Archetype and a couple of interesting skills. I do like the free read lips feat that can simulate someone being able to know your thoughts without hearing you speak. It also comes with society trained and a city lore trained, which indicates someone that understands humanoid behavior and especially those of a particular location, in addition to knowledge of that location itself.
I selected Fighter as the class for the immediate access to Attacks of Opportunity or Reactive Stikes as they are now known. This feat is important right away, but really pays off at level 10 when you get “Combat Reflexes”. The juicy weapon proficiency progression does not hurt either. No melee build will be hitting as often as the fighter in most cases.
You can see here where I put the starting points for his ability boosts. Strength is his most important ability, Charisma has to be at 14 (or +2 as it is known now) to be able to select the Champion Archetype and for good measure, I added a point to Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom to help with saving throws.
At 8th level his skills will eventually look like this. To start however, I selected: Acrobatics, Intimidation and Medicine. Society came free from the background, Athletics came free from selecting Fighter, Religion comes free after selecting Champion at level 2 and you get another free skill at 2 where I took Survival.
I think these skills round out the physically imposing style character that can hunt you down fairly well.
Heritage, I chose Dhampir so I could select the Adhyabhau Ancestry feat.
You descend from the rare psychic vampires known as vetalaranas. Your forebear gained sustenance from the mental and emotional energy of living creatures, which manifests in you as powerful resistance to such effects. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Will saves against effects with the emotion trait, and when you roll a success on a saving throw against such an effect, you get a critical success instead.
Right away you are mentally strong and very difficult to control or manipulate with emotional effects, but it gets even better at later levels.
For his starting class feat, I took Power Attack, because why not? I am going to make him a two-handed reach weapon build and hitting really, really hard fits this guy’s profile. The weapon I selected for this PC is the Kusarigama which has the Reach, Disarm, Trip and Versatile S/B traits and is in the Knife group.
Throw some Heavy armor on him and now you have a hard-hitting fighter that can trip and disarm foes while using a two-handed weapon. That reactive strike will also come in handy as foes rush in to close the distance and pass through squares you threaten. Right off the bat you deal damage, have a respectable armor class and can manipulate the battlefield a bit.
Levels 2 and 3
Here is where things can start to get a little dicey depending on the GM running the adventure, how other PCs interact with this player and how the player plays this character concept. In order to get the true feel of the Vader-like Psychic Vampire you are going to have to choose the Champion Archetype and then Tyrant as his Champions cause. Even though character alignment is going away in the remaster, it may be difficult for players and gamemasters alike to forget that the Tyrant cause currently requires you to be Lawful Evil in alignment.
I do not find this as big of a problem as other might for a number of reasons. First of all I played through Wrath of the Righteous on PC and Regil the gnome, was a Lawful Evil Hell knight. Even though he had this alignment, he rarely if ever was evil just for the sake of being evil. Sure, he had some questionable tactics, but it was more or less what he truly believed to be the most efficient course of action to achieve the strategic goals he was after. Which in this case, was to win a war against a vicious hoard of demons.
Another reason I do not worry about this alignment so much as the actual gods you can worship. For instance, the God Irori has followers that are Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil. Characters of all of these alignments manage to coexist in temples of Irori and the share common values as well. So, while a LE Champion of Irori may not be inclined to go rescue a poor farmer from a pack of wolves, he instead may want to prove his physical superiority against the pack of marauding animals.
Lastly, taking the Champion archetype still means this is your “part time” gig. No matter how devout you are, you are never TRULY a full-on Champion and the feats abilities available to you are scaled down. As such, I do not think you have to be as “hardcore” as your normal full-blooded Champion. Your God gives you a portion of the abilities because you give him a portion of your focus and devotion. Seems like a fair trade off to me.
Your GM may feel differently and that’s for your table to decide, but Lawful Evil does not mean Lawful Stupid either, he will definitely work well within a group so long as the end result serves his purposes.
As I mentioned earlier you get Religion free for choosing the Champion Archetype, you get another Free Feat and you have to select a Class and a Skill feat as well as the Champions cause, which we already explained.
Titan Wrestler is pretty much a must have here since you will be tripping fools with regularity, and you want to be able to knock down creatures that are larger than yourself.
Dragging Strike is a pretty cool feat, but it has the “Press” trait, which means it cannot be the first attack action of your round. Basically, you make a strike, if it hits then the target is flat footed to you until the end of that turn AND you can move it 5 feet towards you and you can move that same distance in that same direction. How might this be useful?
Imagine you are near an open doorway but are being flanked by two enemies. If you succeed at a dragging strike you can step into the doorway and out of flank and drag an enemy in front of that doorway, creating an obstacle making it more difficult if not impossible for his buddy to attack you, all in one action!
Not only have you changed positioning on the battlefield you can choose to make a 3rd attack and even though you will be suffering from even more “MAP” (multiple attack penalty) you will do so using the opponent being “Flat Footed” or “Off Guard” as it will be known soon. Flat footed opponents suffer -2 to their armor class, making them easier to hit.
Again, flavor wise it emulates your PC moving enemies around unwillingly.
Level three feats are pretty cut and dry. You get Bravery for free, which raises your Will saving throws from trained to expert and if you succeed vs a fear effect you get a critical success instead. You also automatically reduce a frightened condition by 1 in the event of a failure. For his General Feat I chose “Fleet”, which adds 5 feet to his movement speed. This will come in handy if you have him wearing heavy armor.
Level 4
At level 4 you get a Free Archetype Feat, a Class Feat and a Skill Feat. Remember everything I said about him being Lawful Evil and maybe being a little abrasive?
Well, here you go, A bit of self-sufficiency. Now you do not have to kiss the healers hind end anymore, because you can take care of yourself in and out of combat.
You take Battle Medicine here to fix yourself up and when you really need some on the go healing, the “Healing Touch” Feat gives you “Touch of Corruption” as a Tyrant.
As a Dhampir you can be healed with negative heal effects that heal undead, 6 points for every 2-character levels. Alternately, you can use that touch of corruption to do 1d6 damage for every 2 levels of your PC.
This is a Focus Spell so you can regain focus points within 10 minutes outside of combat.
Swipe is really cool because it lets you target two opponents that are next to each other and within your reach. Since you are using a reach weapon that can also mean that you can attack two creatures that are next to each other even if one of them is 10 feet away from you! Not too bad, one attack roll, at your best BAB presumably (base attack bonus), and if hits their ACs you hit them both! It does take two actions, but it can be worth it depending on the situation.
Level 5
There is going to be a little foreshadowing at level 5. You will have a feat that you just cannot quite put to use, but be patient in one level you will.
First though, this is the level that you get to boost your ability scores. So, for this PC I chose Strength, Constitution, Wisdom and Dexterity. This is not necessarily set in stone, and you can vary those choices as you desire. For instance, some of you may dump the Dexterity and bump up the Charisma in order to make this PC a little scarier. Others may leave the Wisdom alone in favor of some other ability score. For me, I like getting the scores up that directly affect saving throws and then of course Strength is extremely important since it is tied to athletics, which is tied to Trip, Grapple and other maneuver checks.
You also get to bump up a skill. We already have improved Athletics from Trained to Expert, but we are not allowed to improve it to Master yet. In this case I went with Medicine. Again, he may need to self-heal since most casters will be using positive energy and being self-reliant might be important in your campaign. That said, there is nothing wrong with improving your Intimidation instead, or some other skills like Religion or Survival. The medicine skill improvement was just to be practical.
You get an Ancestry Feat at 5th level and for this PC I took “Feed on Pain”. Feed on Pain is a reaction that you can use when you deal “Mental” damage to an enemy. You recover half of the mental damage you deal in a given round. I do not see ANY limitations to this feat aside from you cannot feed on multiple enemies’ pain in a single round and that any temporary hit points go away after one minute.
We currently have no way to deal mental damage though, but one level from now, you will!
Level 6
This is the level we have been waiting for! Well, this and level 10 for Combat reflexes, but I digress.
Here is where this build becomes REALLY fun! As the Class feat, instead of taking one from Fighter, we will be selecting one from Champion. Yes, this is perfectly legal and exactly how players can still multiclass even without Free Archetypes.
But since we do have Free Archetype, it makes level 6 all the sweeter.
We are going to take Champions Reaction and the Tyrant gets “Iron Command”.
You put an impertinent foe who dared harm you in their proper place. You command your enemy to kneel before you in obedience. If they dare to refuse, they must pay the price in pain and anguish. The foe must choose one of the following options.
- The enemy kneels, dropping prone as a free action.
- The enemy refuses, and you deal 1d6 mental damage to it. This damage increases to 2d6 at 5th level, 3d6 at 9th level, 4d6 at 12th level, 5d6 at 16th level, and 6d6 at 19th level.
In addition, your Strikes against the triggering creature deal 1 extra damage until the end of your next turn. You choose whether the damage type is evil or negative each time you use this reaction. This extra damage increases to 2 at 9th level and 3 at 16th level.
Pretty sweet huh? But wait, there’s more! We took Basic Devotion here as the Free Archetype and we selected “Iron Repercussions”.
Disobeying your Iron Command has lasting consequences. If an enemy refuses to kneel to you, you can deal persistent mental damage instead of normal mental damage. You must decide whether the mental damage will be persistent before your enemy chooses whether to kneel or not. The amount of damage is unchanged.
What this means is that if an enemy within 15 of you does you any damage, as a reaction, you can either force them to drop prone OR they can be made to take PERSISTENT mental damage. In this case, that is 2d6 points of damage every round until they make a flat DC 15 check to break the persistent damage, which is not easy.
Do you see where I am going with this? While you are a little “Reaction Starved” the fact that you can apply persistent mental damage means you can use that reaction to Feed on the Pain that your persistent mental damage is dealing!
Here, lets walk through this as if we were in an in-game scenario. A vicious Ogre has attacked the party and suddenly he wins initiative and strikes you. As a reaction you force him to make a decision, drop prone or stay standing and take mental damage. If he drops prone the Ogre is going to have to attack you at a disadvantage or he is going to have to waste an action to stand up OR he can remain standing and take persistent mental damage. If he chooses to take the damage (Afterall he is an Ogre, not a scholar) the very next round you can choose to use a reaction to “Feed on Pain” so have of whatever damage you do is going to heal you.
Pretty sweet huh? Well, at 10th level it gets better with the Combat Reflexes feat. In this particular situation, the Ogre that decides to go prone only loses an action if he stands up. BUT if you take Combat Reflexes at 10th level you get ONE MORE reaction which you can only use for Attacks of Opportunity aka Reactive Strikes.
Do you know what is one of the actions that triggers that reaction? Standing up! So, at 10th level no matter what the enemy decides to do with your Iron Command, he is very likely going to take physical damage, unless he is happy to attack you from a prone position.
Level 7 and Beyond
In conclusion, this character build for PF2e offers a dynamic, versatile, and engaging role in any campaign. Our Orc/Dhampir Fighter with a Champion Archetype (Tyrant) is not just a force on the battlefield but also a strategic tool, capable of controlling the flow of combat while dealing significant damage. With the potential for persistent bleed damage, self-healing abilities, and the power to manipulate enemy actions, this character can adapt to an array of situations, ensuring every gaming session is a thrilling experience.
As we venture beyond level 6, the possibilities for growth and development are virtually limitless. This build provides a solid foundation upon which you can layer additional feats, skills, and strategies to further enhance this character’s effectiveness and complexity. Whether you choose to focus more on offense, defense, or utility, this character is poised to excel and evolve alongside your campaign.
Your contributions, thoughts, and insights are invaluable, as they enrich our shared gaming experience. If you have suggestions for enhancing this build or if you spot any potential corrections, please feel free to share them. Your engagement helps us all learn and grow in our tabletop adventures. In the end, the beauty of Pathfinder lies in its flexibility and the creativity it allows each player. So, here’s to countless epic adventures with our Orc/Dhampir Fighter/Champion – may his tale be one of triumph and legendary feats!
