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With War of Immortals having introduced the Exemplar class a while ago, I thought it would be fun to start a thread where we can swap ideas and experiences.
- What Exemplar character concepts have you come up with?
- What are you playing now, or planning to play later?
- Do you have a favorite concept that you think really shines with this class?
- What characters worked particularly well for you in play, and why?
I’d love to hear about all kinds of builds and concepts--whether it’s a serious campaign character, a quirky one-shot idea, or just a “dream build” you’d love to try someday.
Looking forward to seeing what everyone’s put together!
I for one made a gangly, cowardly thief who robbed a tomb, then became possessed by the imprinted memories of the long dead warriors that wore the stolen armor before him. His mind has thus become fractured by the weight of countless imprinted memories, leaving him uncertain where his own identity ends and others’ begin. He suffers sudden flashes of déjà vu, intrusive thoughts, and emotional swings as conflicting ideals war within him. Though his composure hides the turmoil, he is never free of the fear that one day the borrowed voices will drown out his own. His alternating between ikons mirrors his personality shifts. One round he could be a skilled swordsman, then an expert marksman in the next, and later on take on the personality of a braggadocio nearly impervious to damage.
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I think some part of the fun of playing an Exemplar is choosing your epithets based on what actually happens in the story, so I wouldn't want to plan the character too far in advance.
But the Exemplar I really want to play is sort of an "Anti-Barbarian" an Orc with a giant axe who is impossibly calm and heals himself constantly between Barrow's Edge and Scar of the Survivor. Take the Ferocity Feats so it's disturbingly difficult to bring you down in a way that sticks.
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I play a Kholo Exemplar in Season of Ghosts, he is a foundling, adopted by a far traveled explorer and his dwarven wife during an orcish raid in Varisia.
Grew up to become a hunter for the village, and after some vicious attacks of a tiger on a lumber camp the hunt was on.
The tiger escaped them time after time, and on the way back Shu Zhàměng vanished into the woods, pulled by something without his knowledge.
He stalked the tiger, or the tiger stalked him, and nobody really knows what happened, only that he returned a changed person, with a kind of spark.
My inspiration was the Desmedona and Penric stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, where chaos demons jump to the next living creature when their host dies.
He fights unarmed with a shield, using his bite as his main weapon and focusing on athletic maneuvers.
Mirrored Aegis, Hands of the Wildling and Titan's Breaker are the chosen ikons.
The Hands were only used once so far, the rotation with Aegis and Titan's Breaker is solid as is.
We play with Free Archetype, i have chosen Rivethun Invoker to have a strong connection to the spirit world and enhance my unarmed attacks - just have to take care that i have actions left.
He is only level 2 so far, we don't get to play as much as i'd like to in this campaign, but i enjoy the character a lot.
Some time ago, I was coming up with character concepts that would show off the sheer depth and breadth of the Pathfinder 2e system to my cousins with whom I was playing 5e. Since we were already planning on playing Season of Ghosts after the 5e campaign wrapped up, I created a sample party, including one Kenji. Kenji is at least partly based on a cute character drawing which delighted me even more when I realized it was fully playable in 2e.
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The stories tell of a time when Kenji defended an entire village from raiding bandits for seven days and seven nights using only hit wits, his trusty sword, and his fearsome warrior spirit. Few who meet the honourable warrior can fail to be charmed by his humble grace and good nature.
His sweet temperament and and kind nature conceal a painful secret, however. Once, Kenji lived in service to a cruel and unjust master. He served him faithfully and obediently until he finally saw the daimyo's cruelty for what it was. In his shame, he fled into the night with only a stolen sword, vowing never to stand idly by and allow the innocent to suffer at the hands of those who would exploit them.
Since then, his travels have taken him across the sea to the empire of Lung Wa, into the mountains of Shenmen.
Ancestry: Shiba Inu
Class: Exemplar
Ikons: Pelt of the Beast, Gleaming Blade, and some third thing, perhaps Scar of the Survivor or Skin Hard as Iron
Archetype: Starlit Sentinel under the sign of the Dog
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So, yes, I absolutely leaned in on this character concept to make the absolute most over-the-top fun character I could imagine, with at least three Rare options, but if I'm honest I would 100% allow somebody to play him. I didn't really get into the transformation trinket part of his biography when writing him, but it wouldn't be terribly hard to fill in some object of significance which compels him with a sign from the stars that his destiny lies in Willowshore.
... And of course if you blinked and missed it, yes, Kenji is the goodest boy who used to be the faithful dog of a cruel lord until one day he awakened under mysterious circumstances, stole a sword, and swore never to be blinded by evil again. He is so extra and I love him.
I think some part of the fun of playing an Exemplar is choosing your epithets based on what actually happens in the story, so I wouldn't want to plan the character too far in advance.
But the Exemplar I really want to play is sort of an "Anti-Barbarian" an Orc with a giant axe who is impossibly calm and heals himself constantly between Barrow's Edge and Scar of the Survivor. Take the Ferocity Feats so it's disturbingly difficult to bring you down in a way that sticks.
I feel the same way for character building in general, let the story guide it, especially for Exemplar.
I would like to play a spear using Exemplar at some point, based on the Greek Amazons, which is not as creative as some of the excellent ideas in this thread, but which I think would still be a lot of fun.
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I have a concept I've been working on for a campaign set in Tian Xia. The character would be a Yaoguai Exemplar with the Cultivator Free Archetype, but I've been excited about the backstory I've been fiddling with -
Basically, when Gorum died and parts of his divine essence were scattered to the wind, Sun Wukong managed to come across one in his wanderings and he trapped it in a gourd and continued on. He vowed he would give it to the first monkey that made him laugh, and it just so happened that ends up being my character, a Yaoguai.
So, Sun Wukong gives him the spark and leaves behind his Ikons -
- Noble Branch, being a bo staff, obviously, eventually becoming his Signature Weapon with those Yaoguai Feats.
- Thousand-League Sandals, being from Quain, they would be open-foot sandals and wrappings often worn by martial artists.
- Victor's Wreath, a circlet not unlike Sun Wukong's own.
For Epithets, I would imagine The Brave for Root, Dancer in the Seasons for Dominion, and either Healer of the World or The Last Ruler for Sovereignty.
It's a character I'm real excited to play eventually.
How about a stormtossed tengu archer?
Storm's Lash as the 1st level ancestry feat and Energized Spark (Electricity) as the 1st level exemplar class feat.
Ikons - Gaze Sharp as Steel, Gleaming Blade (Starknife), Unfailing Bow
Lightning Swap as the 2nd level class feat. The Deft as the root epithet at 3rd level (retrain Lightning Swap to Hurl at the Horizon); get a returning rune on the starknife ASAP. Through the Needle's Eye at 4th and Binding Serpents Celestial Arrow at 6th. Who's Cry is Thunder (of course!) as the dominion epithet at 7th level. Rejoice in Solstice Storm at 8th.
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I've had a character concept percolating in my head for a while that can essentially be described as a tiny shard of the Norse god Odin incarnated into the body of a recently deceased mortal, travelling around under an array of (thinly veiled) aliases doing classically godly/heroic deeds and seeking out knowledge and secrets in typical Odin fashion.
I originally envisioned the character for use in D&D's Planescape setting, but it doesn't take much effort to make it work for Golarion - pretty easy to imagine why a god known for an interest/obsession with prophecy might find the causes/ramifications of the Age of Lost Omens worthy of investigation.
Basics of the build would be a Human with the Battleblooded Nephilim heritage (or if I can swing it, possibly Starfinder's Borai), using a Barrow's Edge spear with the Gaze Sharp as Steel ikon and Energized Spark (Wood) to try to hit hard with piercing damage, which in turn feeds into the Barrow's Edge self-healing.
Less firm on the third and optional fourth ikons: considering Scar of the Survivor (for even more self-healing/survivability), Bands of Imprisonment (for speed/mobility), and Victor's Wreath (for party support).
Epithets would be The Cunning, Peerless Under Heaven, and probably The Last Ruler.
Too many feat choice permutations to get into, but if I can make it fit (or if Free Archetype/Dual-Class is in play), very likely to pick up a spellcaster multiclass archetype, probably Witch.
My GM uses a homebrew setting and neither of us liked the "you need to have a bit of a god within you to be an exemplar" since the announcement of the class, so when I started making the backstory of my exemplar I had a ton of ideas that could potentially clash with concepts he had with his setting or that could probably overlap with lore he had already written but didn't reveal to us. The TLDR is that I went with a "descedant of legendary mutant giant" approach, being trained in Occultism instead of Religion since it fits better with how giants are in this setting.
I could go a bit more in-depth about the whole concept but I think its a bit convoluted to describe in a forum comment.
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I've been pondering the possibilities of playing an Exemplar in Starfinder, and while there are in-lore options--absorbed a bit of the Newborn's cosmic placenta (aucturnite chakram is solid for shadow sheath), offspring of an avatar of Weydan, Vesk descendant of a Battle Saint--the idea that really tickles me is just going for a full Jack Kirby New Gods vibe. Colorful geometric armor and a crazy pronged helmet.
Either of the ranged Icons works okay with lasers, Unfailing Bow I even thinks works well with an automatic weapon. (Nothing works with area weapons, unfortunately) And given the focus on ranged combat Gaze Sharp As Steel is a really solid pick. Could go human for an original Thor-as-a-regular-guy angle or Yaksha to be an outright spiritual being embodying nature and freedom.
For a slightly more setting agnostic concept, there's Frankensaint. As a once-noble church faces persecution from the war spreading across the land, brave nuns and priests escape into the night bearing the holy relics of long dead saints. At last cornered in a final standing monastery, the surviving faithful took stock, and realized they had enough saint bodyparts to make up a whole person.
So they did!
A frankensteinian amalgamation of gilded bones and pickled organs stitched together with silver wire and annointed with herbs, Frankensaint is the holy defender of the faith!
Created Fleshwarp, Sanctified Soul, Scar of the Survivor, choice of weapon.
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My GM uses a homebrew setting and neither of us liked the "you need to have a bit of a god within you to be an exemplar" since the announcement of the classNone of my Exemplar ideas are dependent on "and then Gorum died messily, all over the planet". They are always things that predate Gorums death. Like stuff made in other planes millennia ago. Or where each Ikon only provides part of the spark, rather then the spark being external.
Certainly not a necessary component.
I have two "paired" exemplar concepts that can basically be summed up as a "shonen manga protagonist" wandering samurai-style swordswoman straight out of One Piece and her childhood friend/lifelong rival constantly chasing after a rematch (and totally not just to hang out).
Both have a little something extra in their ancestry ("protag" is a hungerseed, "rival" is an imperial sky dragon dragonblood - I like my versatile heritages), but don't really have anything else to justify their abilities beyond several years of harsh but otherwise relatively mundane martial arts/kendo training at a mountaintop dojo in Minkai.
In terms of builds, both are lightly armored "lightning bruisers".
"Protag" would combine a Barrow's Edge katana and Scar of the Survivor with the hungerseed's Bloodsoaked Dash and Oni Rampage feats to get advantages for taking a lot of damage while being difficult to actually put down. Energized Spark for Metal (slashing) and Fire damage. For Epithets: The Brave, either Born of the Bones of the Earth or Peerless Under Heaven, then the Last Ruler.
"Rival" takes the opposite approach, combining the dragonblood's Scaly Hide feat with the Skin Hard as Horn ikon to be very damage resistant while using a Gleaming Blade katana alongside Gaze Sharp as Steel. Energized Spark for Metal (slashing) and Electricity damage. For Epithets: The Proud, either Peerless Under Heaven or Whose Cry is Thunder, then the Last Ruler.
Both might pick up the Spirit Warrior archetype along with an unarmed Titan's Breaker fourth ikon, and "rival" will probably try to pick up Quick Draw via Duelist for iaijutsu purposes.
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Moving away from the Gorum splash origin, I had an idea for a Jotunborn Exemplar. The divine orthodoxy are rumoured to have formed the peaceful that cam to be known as the Jotunborn from the remains of the voracious titans. This story had little importance for contemporary Jotumborn. Until Mormo, that is. Mormo was a mostly unremarkable child, but as he grew he became an overly enthusiastic member of his village. Strong and tall, even oung his pears, he was loud in all things. He was always first to let out and bring in the iivlar, alway willing to put forth the extra tome to help others. Mormo was also first in line at meals, often first in games, and generally loud about, well everything. He was not overtly disruptive, but he was eager and rash. He ate, and drank, more than the average Jotunborn, which is saying a lot. His contributions to the community always just outweighed his appetites. That is until a phase spider swarm descended upon the village's iilvar. While the other herders worked to remove the livestock, Mormo charged in heedless with his spade. His battle fury was devastating to the spiders, and horrifying to the normally placid Jotunborn. The elders of the village realized Mormo contained an unusually strong spark of the Titans. While Mormo had never shown any desire for destruction, the elders felt it prudent to send Mormo out in to the material plane to learn better control and perspective.
Jotunborn Exemplar with icons focusing on the idea of the hunger of titans (Mormo is also named after a Roman/Etruscan child eating underworld spirit). Ivpns are Barrows Edge and Scar of the Survivor, with Fetching Bangles. I think he would be a great expression of an over the top figure, yet sincerely wants to help people.
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How about a stormtossed tengu archer?
Storm's Lash as the 1st level ancestry feat and Energized Spark (Electricity) as the 1st level exemplar class feat.
Ikons - Gaze Sharp as Steel, Gleaming Blade (Starknife), Unfailing Bow
Lightning Swap as the 2nd level class feat. The Deft as the root epithet at 3rd level (retrain Lightning Swap to Hurl at the Horizon); get a returning rune on the starknife ASAP. Through the Needle's Eye at 4th and Binding Serpents Celestial Arrow at 6th. Who's Cry is Thunder (of course!) as the dominion epithet at 7th level. Rejoice in Solstice Storm at 8th.
Kind of similar to my tengu exemplar idea, though mine leaned into the katana as kind of a nod to the idea of the mythical tengu sometimes being teachers of swordsmanship. Went with a lot of the same lightning ideas like you to kind of give the idea of "lightning fast strikes", though I used Tengu Weapon Familiarity to guarantee access to the katana/wakizashi, and for the ikons I swapped Unfailing Bow for Victor's Wreath, flavored as a hachimaki (those white Japanese headbands). Not entirely sure how I'd build at higher levels, but the concept of a "tengu kensei" felt like a neat one to play with as an exemplar.
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Sort of an odd idea that just occurred to me:
A Yaoguai or Tsukumogami Poppet that IS the legendary weapon (which also serves as their weapon Ikon).
The Spirit of Hei Feng's own sword, sent down to Golarion in the form of a mortal Tengu, their beak a Gleaming Blade, their Skin Hard as Iron, the rings set into their back Fetching Bangles.
Hell yeah.
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Human Exemplar with Fighter dedication wielding a Greatsword and fullplate
Daughter of Gorum, no record of her existence before Gorums death now she wanders in searching for new and larger battles.
leaving it open if she really have any connection to Gorum or his death,
or if she is just a fanatic follower trying to keep his legacy alive.
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simple and abit corny but i like it :p
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Red the Inexplicable is a skittermander exemplar who washed ashore in Absalom harbor a few days after the death of Gorum. Whatever brought her there left her with a nasty head wound and retrograde amnesia.
Her head wound having healed into a scar of the survivor, she focuses on protecting allies with her mirrored aegis and is taking bastion dedication to better do that. In case of enemies who stay out of range of her shield boss attacks, she has a shadow sheath full of throwing knives as backup.