#runescarred

Ancestry and Background

Another servant that would’ve been Custom Lineage if she came out now, but thankfully Pathfinder has enough robot races to make this work. Specifically, Altera is an Android, giving you an ability boost in one of your choice like Strength as well as Intelligence and Dexterity, at the cost of a Charisma flaw. Altera’s pretty scary, but she’s not exactly great at talking to people. She also gets low-light vision, and thanks to being synthetic she gets a +1 bonus on saves against diseases, poisons, and radiation. She’s also emotionally unaware, giving her a -1 penalty to diplomacy and performance checks, as well as sense motive checks. Altera’s kingdom more came about from ass kicking, not smart internal politics.

At level one you become a Warrior Android, which doesn’t actually do much since you’d be trained in simple and martial weapons from your class anyway. The Cleansing Subroutine is nice though, it increases your ability to purge poisons, reducing the stage by one more than it would otherwise whenever you succeed your save. Natural Body for the win!

At level five your Inoculation Subroutine does the same thing against disease.

At level nine your Repair Module gives you fast healing for a minute once per day, giving you half your level in HP at the start of each turn, and it also prevents you from dying due to the dying condition. I wasn’t expecting a guts from this, but hey it’s free. The downside is it blocks you from using other nanite-based skills like your subroutines.

At thirteenth level you can activate a Nanite Surge once per hour as a reaction, adding +2 to a triggering skill check. It also makes your scars glow for a round, which is neat.

Finally at level 17 you gain an Offensive Subroutine. That doesn’t make you better at telling shitty jokes, but it does let you use your Nanite Surge on attack rolls for a +1 to the roll.

As a member of the Huns you are of course a Nomad, making you trained in Survival and Plains Lore. You also have Assurance in survival, letting you skip rolling to get a flat 10 + your proficiency bonus instead.

You also get another ability boost in Constitution and Strength. Swing sword, win fight, end civ. It’s nice to play a character whose flow chart is a single line sometimes.

Class levels

1. Okay, making this quick. You’re trained in Perception, Religion, Reflex, Class and Spell DCs, all weapons and armor, and as you level up in intelligence Nature, Diplomacy and Intimidation. You’re also an expert in fortitude and will saves.

Beyond that, you get an Ability Boost in Strength, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma. That’s what you’re getting every time we level up, so get used to it.

We also dip into your Deity’s Domain a bit, and you can’t destroy a bad civ without some Destruction. This gives you the domain spell Cry of Destruction, a two-action spell that deals damage to every creature and object in a 15’ cone, and if you’ve already dealt damage before it gets even better, turning the damage from a d8 to a d12. It’s not quite an orbital laser, but by the end of the build it’ll be heightened to deal 10d12 in sonic damage, a type few things resist.

You’re chaotic good, so you obey the Tenets of Good and are a Liberator. So don’t do bad things, and respect people’s choices and freedom to make their own decisions. You can’t threaten anyone, so it’s a good thing you don’t kill people, you just destroy their civilizations. It’s a loophole, but it’s a bigun. You can use the Champion’s Reaction known as Liberating Step and can use Lay on Hands to heal people. The latter does pretty much what you expect, and the former lets you react to an enemy damaging, grabbing, or grappling a nearby ally, either granting them resistance to the triggering damage or giving them an extra chance to escape the effect. Regardless, they can then step as a free action. The Huns are pretty mobile. It’s kind of their thing.

You also get trained in Athletics to really beef up your strength.

Also, once again you can Shield Block, though you don’t use shields. Yet.

2. At second level your Resilient Mind gives you a +1 bonus against mental saves, and a +2 bonus if they’re caused by the undead. A brain is part of your Natural Body, I assume. Honestly you’re clearly not human, so who the fuck knows.

The crazy damage stuff will take a while, so for now we’ll work on your Hunnery. Pick up the Tame Animal feat to bring wild horses under your control, and then grab the Ranger Dedication to Hunt Prey, giving you a bonus to seeking and tracking prey you’ve either seen before or are currently tracking. Tyrants are bad civ, cut them down.

Since you’re already trained in survival, we’ll pick up Society instead. You’re a warrior king, but you’re still a king, politics aren’t completely foreign to you. Okay maybe they are, but take the training anyway.

3. At third level you gain a Divine Ally in your Blade, letting you put a property rune in one of your weapons each long rest while you wield it. As a champion of good, you can have a disrupting, ghost touch, returning, or shifting weapon, and for once the shifting is a good pick! It lets you turn your weapon into another weapon that uses the same number of hands, so your one-handed sword can turn into a whip and back again. Disrupting deals extra damage to undead, and ghost touch lets the weapon touch ghosts. Returning only works on thrown weapons so fuck it. You also gain the critical specialization of the weapon you’ve runed. A sword’s makes the target flat-footed for a round, while in whip form it will knock the creature prone, meaning they’re flat-footed and have to take an action to stand up. So, the whip finally has a leg up on any other weapon for a change! PF2E is wild coming from just 5e.

We also continue ruling the huns by grabbing the Ride feat, letting you use move commands on animals with automatic success, and they act on your turn as well. To stay on it better, we’ll up your training in Athletics.

4. At level four we get our last natural body buff in Divine Health, giving you another +1 bonus against disease, and any success against one is a critical success. It is really hard to make a robot sick.

For more physical buffs, becoming a Titan Wrestler helps you disarm, grapple, shove, or trip creatures up to two sizes larger than you, and even up to three sizes bigger once you’re legendary in athletics.

We also finally get some extra damage when we learn a Basic Hunter’s Trick, United Assault. You can make a strike as an action, but you can add 1 to the damage roll for each other creature that damaged it since the target’s last turn, up to +4. This only works once per turn, but extra damage is extra damage.

5. At fifth level you get expertise in Intimidation as well as all weapons. You also get another Ability Boost.

6. Sixth level is more exciting- if you want to deal more damage, more attacks will help. To get that, we can use an Attack of Opportunity to attack on the enemy’s turn if they’re trying to run away. Running away is completely understandable though, given your Intimidating Prowess, which gives you a +1 bonus to demoralization and coercion checks, plus you don’t have to know the target’s language. Turns out the Scourge of God is pretty scary to see in action- who knew? When your strength hits 20+ and you’re a master at intimidation, this will increase to a +2 bonus.

Finally, you learn an Advanced Hunter’s Trick, letting you turn your weapon into a Gravity Weapon. This increases your focus pool , and you can spend an action to empower your weapon for 1 minute, dealing extra damage equal to 2x your damage dice the first time you hit each turn.

7. Seventh level is another pretty quiet one. You’re now a master in Athletics, and your Weapon Specialization lets you deal extra damage the more proficient you are with a blade. You also have Armor Expertise even though you don’t use it, and you Die hard. I mean you’re a Diehard, so you die at dying 5, not dying 4.

8. Okay, enough pussyfootin around, it’s time for some serious damage! …After we get the Express Rider feat. Now you can make nature checks to speed up your horse while traveling.

Okay, now it’s damage time! Your Advanced Deity’s Domain gives you access to a Destructive Aura, giving every creature within 15’ of you (including you) a -2 to all resistances. And every four levels that increases by another 2, so by the time you’re level 20 that’s an extra 8 damage to everything for a minute.

If you want to protect yourself from all that damage, you might want to dip into the Barbarian Dedication for the ability to Rage. This gives you plenty of temporary HP and lasts up to a minute, until there’s no more enemies around, or you fall unconscious. While raging, you deal extra damage- +2 for most melee weapons, +1 with agile attacks. You also take a -1 penalty to AC and can’t use concentrate actions while raging. Fortunately, neither Destructive Aura nor Gravity Weapon are concentration spells! After you rage, you have to wait a minute before raging again.

Technically you’re a Fury Barbarian, though that doesn’t really affect anything. On the plus side since you’re pretty good with athletics you become trained in Arcana instead. Don’t ask how that works.

9. Ninth level! Real simple- expert in class and reflex saves, master in fortitude saves and intimidation. You also only get critical successes on fortitude saves now.

Finally, your Divine Smite means if the enemy that triggers your liberating step was trying to grab, restrain, immobilize, or paralyze your friend, they take persistent good damage equal to your charisma modifier. Because grabbing is bad civ, I guess.

10. At tenth level you get another Ability Boost, and you gain a Radiant Blade Spirit for even more ways to customize your sword. It can be flaming, anarchic, or holy. Flaming’s simple: deal fire damage, plus some persistent damage on a crit. Anarchic is pretty fun though- you deal extra damage on lawful targets, and your crits are extra random, making you roll a d6 to see what happens. On a 1-2, you deal minimum damage- a 3-4 is a regular crit, and a 5-6 deals maximum damage on top of your crit doubling. Finally, holy works on evil targets, and once a day when you crit you regain hp. While I still vote for the whipsword, having extra options is always a good idea.

When you roll initiative, you can shout out a Battle Cry and demoralize a foe for free. Once you’re legendary in intimidation, you can do this every time you critically hit.

We also get a little Basic Fury thanks to our barbarian dip, letting you make a Bashing Charge- spend two actions to stride twice, and if you move through or end at an obstacle, you can make a free force open check to blast through the thing with a +1 bonus. It’s actually really hard to get moves that specifically destroy civilizations, but at least you’ll do a number on cities now.

11. Another quicky. You’re an expert in perception and nature, and a master in Will saves- you also always have crit successes on will saves now.

Your liberating step also exalts your allies now. If the targeted ally doesn’t try to break free of anything, you and all allies in 15’ can step alongside the triggering ally. Extra mobility is never a bad move! Literally.

On the topic of never staying in one place, you show Incredible Initiative, so you get a +2 bonus to all initiative checks. You don’t come to the Mongol hordes, the Mongol hordes come to you.

12. Twelfth level champions can become a Blade of …Justice?, letting you spend two actions to deal a strike against a creature harming an ally or the innocent, dealing two extra weapon damage dice on evil targets, and also converting the damage to good if you want to. Now your sword/whip is a magical rainbow whip/sword! Coincidentally, this also supercharges your Gravity Weapon spell with extra damage, so opening with this is a pretty solid choice if you’ve cast that already.

You also have a Terrifying Resistance, so if you demoralize a creature successfully you have a +1 bonus against all their spells for 24 hours. I know I said we were done with Natural Body stuff, I forgot.

Finally, we pop back to ranger to become a Master Spotter, making you a master in Perception so you can spot enemies across the steppe.

13. Thirteenth level is fast too. Mastery in Armor and Weapons, and Expertise in Society. God, that was fast.

14. You and your allies get a bit more untouchable by bad civs thanks to your Aura of Righteousness, giving you and everyone you like within 15’ evil resistance 5. This includes you Bonded Animal, btw. You have to spend 7 days of downtime hanging out with your horse, but if you succeed on a nature check afterwards that animal is permanently helpful, though you can only have one at a time.

You also have Advanced Fury so you can get some Raging Intimidation. This lets you demoralize and scare to death even while raging, and you get the Intimidating Glare and Scare to Death feats for free. Once you qualify for them, of course. This means the whole battle cry thing won’t get in the way once you start critting.

You also immediately qualify for Intimidating Glare, letting you freak people out at a glance and avoid taking a penalty if the creature doesn’t speak your language. Technically this means you can now issue a battle cry without actually crying, but don’t think about it too hard.

15. At fifteenth level you get another Ability Boost, and you can make some Powerful Leaps, for extra distance. You also have Greater Weapon Specializations to deal even more damage with every weapon you hit with, and you’re a legend in Athletics.

16. Sixteenth level champions can exude an Aura of Faith, making all your strikes deal an extra 1 good damage, and all your nearby allies also get a +1 bonus on their first strike each round.

That makes you terrifying enough to do Group Coercion, intimidating up to 10 creatures at a time in a single Intimidation check, increasing to 25 when legendary.

You also look into what your glowy skin lines do and become Runescarred, giving you training in Thassilon Lore and expertise in Arcana. I… guess living in a moon computer helps you figure out magic? Maybe?

It also lets you cast Shield freely, making a magic shield you don’t need to spend a hand holding onto. I know the blocking shell thing in extella is a gameplay abstraction, but fuck it, we ball. You can shield block with the thing too, though this ends the spell and can be used against magic missiles. Its hardness increases as you level up, currently being Hardness 20.

17. Seventeenth level is… actually not barren, an oddity for odd levels. You’re a master with Class stuff, and a legend with armor and intimidation, which would normally be the end of it, but this means you automatically get Scare to Death as well!

Scare to Death lets you spend an action to make an intimidation check against a living creature within 30’, and makes them immune to further scaring to death for 1 minute. On a success or failure, the target is frightened. On a critical success, it gets fun. The target must then make a fortitude save against that check you rolled, and on a critical failure it dies instantly, and this effect has the Death trait so most guts effects won’t save against it. On any other result, they’re frightened 2 and fleeing for a round.

Also you can demoralize as a free action every time you crit, but like. The killing people via being scary is wayy more interesting.

18. At eighteenth level you can Smite Evil, spending an action to single out one motherfucker to really whale into. Until your next turn, all your strikes deal 6 extra good damage, and if they try to attack an ally the effect keeps going next turn too.

You can also Cloud Jump to move triple the distance, but w/e.

For more damage, you can use some more Advanced Fury to Cleave as a reaction. If you kill or ko a creature, you can follow through an make an attack against an adjacent creature as well. That whip’s got some reach.

19. We’ve got almost everything you’d want, but we’ve got some extra time to kill. So now you’re Fleet so even if you’re not riding a horse you’ll move 5’ more per round. You also have a Hero’s Defiance, a devotion spell that lets you not die when you should. You wouldn’t be the Scourge of God if you were easy to smite. Ironically, stuff like Scare to Death cuts right through this.

Also, expertise in Diplomacy, why not.

20. You get one last Ability Boost, and you become a Radiant Blade Master so you can make your sword dancing, greater disrupting, or keen. Keen’s the best one here, giving you critical hits on 19s and 20s.

You can also force foes to make a Terrified Retreat, so if you critically succeed at demoralizing someone they have to flee for one round. Assuming you didn’t just blow them up with your voice at level 17.

We also get one last look into Advanced Fury to pick up a Great Cleave. Now if your cleave Kos someone you can keep making attacks until you make on that doesn’t knock someone out or until you can’t reach another creature. This just goes to show that a character doesn’t have to be drawn by Raita to have great cleavage.

And with that 18-year-old joke out of the way, onto pros and cons.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

You might not have a laser, but you really don’t need one with the kind of damage you can pump out. Rage + Destructive Aura + Gravity Weapon + Blade of Justice = A shitload of damage, and that’s before we take into account how Destructive Aura helps every member of your team, not just you. Not only do you hit hard, you hit everything hard. You’ve also got the highest strength we’ve managed so far, which only drives the point home further.

While you can smash through objects with the greatest of ease, a lot of your build went towards scaring off the people of a civilization more than just smashing their toys. You can coerce up to 25 people at a time with your sheer might, and you can even scare people so hard they straight up die. Salter also had a lot of this kit, but keying in the barbarian levels really makes the whole thing shine.

You’re also great at commanding animals, and while that’s technically a situational thing, riding into battle on the back of a horse- or really any mountable beast- is fucking cool. It’s also great since if anyone tries to mess with your horse that just powers some of your champion abilities even more!

Cons:

You don’t have a laser. While you can do a lot of damage, all of that is kept within 15’ of you unless you pick the dancing weapon rune. So unless you can find a Pegasus on short notice, flying enemies will be entirely out of your reach. If you’re playing to character.

On a related note: random horses are not level 20. That means they will last all of eight seconds on the battlefield before being shot out from under you, and your aura of destruction doesn’t make things any better since it affects the horse too.