Hey I'm Jake, I make rpg supplements, builds and videos about Pathfinder2 or Pfftoo.
I LOVE Pfftoo and as a long-time player of DnD, I want to share the things that I find along the way and share them with you in a way that makes them easy to digest and hopefully... FUN!
All information for PF2 can be found on the Archives of Nethys for free.
Otherwise, if you want to get a physical copy of the books you can find most relevant information in the Core Rulebook.
The plant/animal companion can be found in the Advanced Player's Guide.
The Ghoran Ancestry is found in the Lost Omens Impossible Lands.
The Soulforger and Geomancer Archetypes and many of the spells in this build are in the Secrets of Magic. One of the most flavorful spells in the build Torturous Trauma is available in the Bloodlords Adventure Path: Ghost King's Rage. The Psychic is in the Dark Archive.
Please note, these links are affiliate links and if you use one to purchase, we may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!
So I ran a poll on our Youtube community tab a few weeks back and I felt like being SILLY... so I came up with a throwaway idea of making a Cabbagemancer build. Which a lot of people voted for. So you're getting it. Everything that's about to happen is your fault. And so I bring you an entirely silly build...
The Cabbagemancer!
Starting with Backstory; pffft even if it's a joke character you KNOW I'm gonna do Story for it! Come on!
Our Hero's name is Leif Hardcore. A Ghoran Druid with a... "special" connection to Nature.
Before we get into that though I want to let you know more details about the Ancestry and Heritage.
As most of you will know, a Ghoran is an intelligent, sapient plant in the form of a humanoid. They are the product of evolution from a magical type of plant made by the Druid Ghorus long ago. So y'know... a walking Salad.
They live for about 20 years, then they plant a seed from their body, it takes a few weeks to grow, then their soul transfers from their current body into the new one, and their old body becomes just a lifeless pile of vegetables.
They have several traits that plants would logically have like Photosynthesis and proficiency with weapons that harvest plants! ...yeah, that doesn't really make any sense. Another thing about the Ghorans as some of you may have read on a recent community post is ...they have a pitiful collection of Ancestry Feats. So I made a few. That's available for download too.
Living many lives is very very trying on the Psyche. Leif had a difficult time growing up and remembering these past lives while maturing and it seems to have taken a permanent toll on his sense of well-being.
It seems that in every life he's lived, he had already planted his seed in preparation for The Wilting, a few weeks had passed and he was ALMOOOST ready to be reborn...when he was betrayed, attacked, left for dead, then EATEN by animals. SOME-HOW he barely lived long enough to be transferred into his newly-developed seed and thereby survive.
Knowing the face of his killer in every life taught him that it was the Animals (the non-plant peoples) that killed him. And sometimes he wakes up screaming from nightmares of bleeding out while he could only lay there in mute horror, the wide eyes of a rabbit, deer or squirrel happily consuming him. This scene often replays itself and he's never come to terms with it - spurring him on to some of his more... creative beliefs.
"The Great Cabbage" appeared to him one night in a dream, though it was a concept that had been growing in his mind for years, subconsciously. The secret whispered to his paranoid and grieving mind was the Truth of the Layered Leaves. When people stand together, they are very difficult to destroy or chop to pieces; they have to be peeled away in layers, losing 1 at a time being the only way to reveal the heart and kill the entire plant.
The Great Cabbage is a Divine Force for Unity - it needs no god or goddess; it claims very little ownership over the world. It represents peace, growth, survival, stability, and the ideal of a people become one. Leif has become clergy, a preacher of the Truth of the Layered Leaves! Maybe if he causes enough people to learn that they are best off together and that PEACE is the only option for survival then HIS OWN survival will be easier to secure. He's certain that based on his past lives, that THIS time around he will not live again. If he doesn't do SOMETHING to address the past betrayals in his current life, then he will die forever in this one and his people will be weakened. And he can't betray THEM how he's been betrayed (He's a bit obsessed on this point).
And peace IS the goal. Peace and community. But some people are little more thick-headed. Some people need peace BEATEN into their faces. And to that end, The Great Cabbage grants the powers of nature on it's followers. Devastating summonings of cabbage and plant-folk; painful intestinal disruption and blunt force trauma in the effigy of our blessed saviour and guide.
The symbols of The Great Cabbage's presence and the messages that it sends to it's faithful... are everywhere. This is a character who is going to be OBSESSED with portents and "signs". "Aaah the Layers reveal the truth!"... meaning this is an important aspect of The Great Cabbage. Or "become one with the leaves!" Meaning join the "church" of the Cabbage.
Reasons Leif Hardcore might adventure are to bring the great cabbage to other people, increasing the unity and bonds between differing peoples.
Also, any reason that promotes unity and peace.
Or fear of being vulnerable alone.
Fears: Herbivores, especially rabbits. Being betrayed. Betraying others accidentally.
Level 1
BACKGROUND The Background is one of trying to convince people to join The Great Cabbage in body and spirit. So we choose: Street Preacher Which says: "Forget the church orthodoxy and the stuffy cloisters— spreading the word of your god to the people is your calling. You've preached on the street corners and in public houses, to wanderers on the road and to captives in the stocks. Adventuring can take you across the world. What vocation could better serve to take your holy words to fresh ears? Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Wisdom or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost. You're trained in the Religion skill and the Lore skill for your patron deity. You gain the Dubious Knowledge skill feat." But as you may have figured out, there's not really any such thing as a Great Cabbage so Religion won't really fit. Besides, we don't really care about Religions, we really only care about spreading our idea of organizing a Society in a particular way. And we're kinda just making up the Lore of this pseudo-religion so the Lore skill for a Religion doesn't make sense. And Dubious knowledge COULD work, but... why? Instead I'd like to propose that we take the skill selection from an entirely different Background, the Anti-Tech Activist It says: "You've seen the sorts of things that technology brings— polluted environments, workers put out of their jobs or horribly injured, and the slow erosion of society—and you've vowed to inform the larger world of these ills. You do so with long, impassioned speeches on street corners and village squares and by talking personally with the heads of various guilds. Adventuring into the wider world could help spread your message even farther." Y'see how these are kinda close in outlook? And the skills it has: "You're trained in the Intimidation skill and the Guild Lore skill. You gain the Group Coercion skill feat." I don't really care about the Guild Lore, but maybe replace it with the lore of whatever city you're in or a cultural Lore appropriate to your adventure. Makes sense that if we're trying to change society, we'd look into how it works. ANCESTRY, HERITAGE For Heritage we'll take one that I made:
Layered Cabbage
"Your body is comprised of overlapping leaves which can be shed to protect the rest of your body from harm. Your flat check to recover from persistent physical (including bleed), energy, or poison damage is DC 10 (rather than DC 15), or DC 5 when provided particularly effective assistance."
It's not amazingly impressive or flashy, sure. But it seems to make sense to me if we're making a Cabbage Salad and it feels kinda right. Your outer leaves wilt, you just peel 'em off. Just make sure to describe that your outer leaves char and wilt, so you slowly rip off the top layer with a rubbery grating sound. 1st level Ancestry Feat Which I made: "When you succeed at a saving throw against a disease or poison, you reduce the stage by 2 (or 1 for a virulent disease or poison), and when you critically succeed, you reduce the stage by 3 (or 2 for a virulent disease or poison)."
1st Level Class Druid! Leaf Order... kinda on the nose... you get a Leshy Familiar yay it's a little cabbage friend! Yeah it's made of leaves and it's a little roly-poly cabbage. I kinda tend to give my familiars Independence so it's 1 less thing I have to keep track of in combat. Speech is also universally useful.
At first level you also get Wild Empathy, letting you use Diplomacy with animals, and Shield Block.
Level 2
2nd level Class Feat
For the Druid Feat we'll take Order Explorer (Animal Order) Animal Companion... which, for some reason can be a Plant. Yeah, that's weird to me. It still counts as an Animal Companion, it's just a Plant. Just a happy little creepy as hell cabbage with a face and wiggly roots.
2nd level Free Archetype feat cuz Free Archetype.
Psychic Dedication we'll take the Conscious Mind: Tangible Dream, for: The Psychic's Shield cantrip, if you use a Focus point you can summon a Shield on yourself or an ally with up to 3 layers... like leaves... of cabbage. Yeah when you create a shield it always looks like 3 layers of cabbage leaves. "The Great Cabbage protects us!" You shout that out whenever you use this ability.
2nd level skill feat
Group Impression. Now we can affect people with either Intimidation OR Diplomacy to get them to do what we want. Like having people join our Cul.... uuuh way of thinking! For the betterment of all people....
Level 3
3rd level Druid
We get Alertness and Great Fortitude which increase our Proficiency in Perception and Fortitude Saves. Cool, useful... not very sexy.
And 3rd level General Feat we will take Adopted Ancestry (Elf) for an Ancestry Feat that we will take at 5th level, but also; it could easily make sense that we've spent time talking with the Elves about The Great Cabbage and learned a few things from them as well. How to get deeper to our layered roots.
Level 4
4th level Class Feat!
Mature "Animal" Companion. And our violent cabbage Animal gets an action every round if we command it or not. Awesome.
Archetype Feat: Psychic: Basic Thoughtform: Cantrip Expansion. From the Occult Spell list.
Now... we should take spells that are not on the Primal spell list. Bullhorn. Oh yeah, now people can hear you for up to 500 ft, and it lasts for 10 minutes. It also adds +1 to our Coerce attempts. Fire and brimstone cabbage preacher yeeeellin' his truth across town.
And Read the Air; gives us cues of how to act in a social setting; adds 1 to Diplomacy to "Make an Impression". We have to make sure that we are inoffensive and make a good impression to pass along the word of the Layered Leaves!
4th level skill feat
Alchemical Crafting so that we can distill the essence of Skunk Cabbage and make Cabbage Skunk Bombs. And Animal Repellent. We have a fear of being eaten by herbivores, remember.
Level 5
5th level Ancestry Feat: we'll take the Elven Otherworldly Magic for Tortuous Trauma!
"...you batter a creature's internal organs, leaving no external signs of the immense pain you delivered. The target takes bludgeoning damage equal to 1d4 + your spellcasting modifier with a basic Fortitude save. If it critically fails, the target is also fatigued until the start of your next turn. Creatures that lack internal organs are unaffected by this spell."
Bludgeoning damage of your organs that leaves you fatigued? Sounds like intestinal pain from eating undercooked cabbage to me! Bloating that can kill you. ew.
5th level Druid gets Lightning Reflexes, raising our Reflex saves to Expert.
Level 6
6th level Class Feat
Psychic Archetype feat: Basic Spellcasting which at this level, gives you a 1st and 2nd level spell. For the 1st level Occult Spell, we'll take Phantom Pain, which says...
"Illusory pain wracks the target, dealing 2d4 mental damage and 1d4 persistent mental damage. They must also make a Will save."
Doesn't really sound like it fits, huh? But in the save results, if they fail they're sickened 1, and critical fail is sickened 2. This feels very much like convincing them that they're suffering bloating and intestinal pain which makes them nauseous. Seems like it fits to me.
For the 2nd level Occult Spell, either Spiritual Weapon or one of the community-themed spells.
"Spiritual Weapon creates a weapon of pure magical force within 1f20 ft. next to an enemy and attacks them then and every time you sustain it; it manifests as a club, a dagger, or your deity's favored weapon." So it's a Cabbage. A Cannonball cabbage, which is a freakin' weird name for a cabbage.
If you wanna choose something that fits the more social aspects of Roleplaying this character, you can choose Empathic Link, Pack Attack, Paranoia, or Status.
Empathic Link lets you and a friend feel each others emotions for up to a mile, sorta like you're each other's familiar.
Pack Attack allows you and a friend to flank a creature that you're both adjacent to, not just opposite sides of.
Paranoia says: You cause the target to see all other creatures as dire threats. The target is stricken by intense paranoia toward all creatures around it and must attempt a Will save.
Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success "The target believes everyone it sees is a potential threat. It becomes unfriendly to all creatures to which it wasn't already hostile, even those that were previously allies. It treats no one as an ally. The spell ends after 1 round."
Failure As success, but the effect lasts 1 minute.
Critical Failure "As failure, except the target believes that everyone it sees is a mortal enemy. It uses its reactions and free actions against everyone, regardless of whether they were previously its allies, as determined by the GM. It otherwise acts as rationally as it normally does and likely prefers to attack creatures that are actively attacking or hindering it over those leaving it alone."
This essentially passes Leif's own outlook on life to another person. Seems like it really fits.
And Status makes you aware of 1 particular friend's direction, distance, and any conditions affecting it for the rest of the day.
And 6th level Archetype Feat
Soulforger! I really love this Archetype.
"You bind an armament—a weapon, shield, or suit of armor—to your soul when you select the Soulforger Dedication feat. You can choose an existing item or manifest one that you choose the form of from your spiritual essence, which changes the appearance to match the state of your soul. It might have a perfect surface and gleam in the faintest light if you have a noble soul or have a twisting, chaotic shape if your soul is wracked with turmoil. Most soulforgers also choose a unique name for their armament."
Sooooooo... We choose a staff! It'll work for Shillelagh and we can already put up a shield with 3 cabbage leaf layers but enough for mechanics. It's a green shaft with little studs popped out all over it's length, little brussels sprouts attached to each stud. It's a cabbage staff! And it's name? The Coleslawer! Or "The Slawer" for short. Get it? Slayer - Slawer, just a little play on words there...
The Soulforged Armament gets a special magical power; I'd recommend either
Healing Grace
"You gain fast healing equal to half your level. You can cast heal once as an innate spell with a level equal to half your level rounded up."
or Heroic Heart
"You gain a +1 status bonus to attack rolls, Perception checks, skill checks, and saves."
This power is borne of the concept of the special calling you have to BE as Soulforger. It's like a higher power gave you this ability and so this weapon should be VERY customized. So the mission of this character is to spread the word and purpose of The Great Cabbage.
Bearing that in mind, you could have instead chosen a Shield, which could look like a single cabbage leaf. I like the shield for this because if the shield gets destroyed by using it to absorb damage, you just summon another one. I just couldn't look past how cool the staff looks. It's just a Brussels Sprouts stalk. Nothing special, but it's perfect for this character!
6th level Skill feat
Snare Crafting. Because we're a little paranoid about being eaten, which is why we have Animal Repellent and why we try to keep allies around us at all times, to ensure we don't get eaten by Herbivores. So we set out traps when we sleep so we're safer.
This also preps you to take Snarecrafter Archetype later if you want; more snares, bigger snares, more lethal snares will all keep you safer.
Spell Selection!
Primal spells that fit this theme by level. Cantrips Torturous Trauma (death by bloating) Puff of Poison (skunk cabbage) Breadcrumbs (the person you targeted drops cabbage leaves behind them instead of just sparkles)
Guidance (whisper into your targets ear "let the cabbage compel you")
Protect Companion (cabbage leaf shield or even a cascade of purple cabbages deflects the blow)
Scatter Scree (bunches of bok choy fall from the sky),
1st level
Noxious Vapors (leaves all over you spin and turn purple as you emit a cloud of skunk stench) Skunk cabbage.
Shillelagh (for your staff, the Slawer)
Summon Plant or Fungus (leaf leshies)
2nd level
Barkskin (causes the target to look like you; cabbage face)
Create Food (just lots and lots of coleslaw and sauerkraut)
Phantom Steed (the steed looks wrapped in cabbage leaves, like you are)
It says that it's "clearly phantasmal in nature" so it looks like ghost cabbage leaves.
3rd level
Mad Monkeys (just a bunch of leaf leshies)
Stinking Cloud (skunky cabbage, maybe cabbages even spring up in the area)
Soothing Blossoms (big purple cabbages appear with huge stalks of yellow flours growing out of them)
It says: "Blossoms grow from the ground in a small area, soothing away afflictions and persistent pains and harm."
For later levels after 6th, you could take another Soulforged Armament in the shape of a shield or armor to get one of the protective abilities or you could skip Soulforger altogether and take the Steady Spellcasting Druid feat if you're worried about being hit while casting a spell.
You could also take Herbalist, I suppose. I almost went Geomancer. If you take 2 feats in it, any time you cast a Plant spell, you can make the ground difficult terrain with branches or vines... or CABBAGES!
The Druid Feats Incredible Companion at 8th and Plant Shape at 10th are worth thinking about too. Cuz you should always try to become a bigger cabbage.
Character Quotes:
"We are the leaves of the Cabbage. Singly we can be cut, chopped, and wrapped around savory pork or beef. But together, we are strong. Firm. UNYIELDING! We WON'T BE BOILED! They can NEVER make us coleslaw if we stick together!"
"Now the trials of the Great Cabbage are many and we must stomach what we can and let the discomfort and pain of our efforts make us tougher, adaptable; so that we may overcome ANYTHING we're forced to take."
"The enemies of cabbage need ACID to turn us into something they can handle! Well we won't be their sauerkraut, we'll hit them where it hurts. Right in the belly! Even those times when some leaves ARE boiled or fried we shall strike back with vengeance."
This character's already filled in PDF character sheet and additional Ghoran Heritage and Feats are available for download. It already has everything you need to play this crazy fun preacher cabbage.
Thank you for being here. If you liked this build walk through there is a lot more where that came from. Make sure to get subscribed to our Youtube channel to get notifications when I release a new one. And feel free to leave a comment if I missed something or if you have ideas that could go with this build. And remember... You may not believe in the Great Cabbage... but that's because you're dumb.
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