Refusing to Die: A Guardian Who Never Drops to 0
With the release of the Guardian Rose I thought it'd be fun to create a build dedicated to never dropping to 0 hp. I will be using free archetype for this, but it's possible to do without. Let's begin!
Ancestry: Sturdy Skeleton (trust the process)
Background: Last Survivor
Class: Guardian
I won't cover everything, but here is the Pathbuilder and let's discuss all the ways (up to level 16) it resists death.
- Orc Ferocity: {Reaction} Through As in Life, So in Death, our skeleton picks up the Orc Ancestry and can take the ever-reliable Ferocity.
- Entity's Resurgence: {Reaction} When you drop to 0 hit points, the being of death this skeleton made a pact with takes the wheel to keep you fighting.
- x2 Guardian Roses: {Free Action} Through the Talisman Dabbler archetype and its feat Talismanic Sage, our skeleton can rock two Guardian Roses at once! They're much nicer as they don't take a reaction.
- Keep Up the Good Fight: {Reaction} They can do this all day. The Guardian's own version of Orc Ferocity.
Emergency Regeneration: {Reaction} Gain the 7th rank regeneration spell when you drop to 0 from damage that isn't fire or acid. The power of calcium? {NOTE: WILL NOT WORK WITH THE SKELETON ANCESTRY DUE TO THE VITALITY TRAIT} (as mentioned by u/celestial_drag0n)- Pact of the Final Breath: {Free Action} Your psychopomp entity gives you a lending hand, stopping you from dropping to 0 hp and giving you some extra fast healing and HP to stay in the land of the... living?
In total, assuming you take all of those, you can have 6 means of refusing to drop to 0 HP. What's more, with all of guardian's defenses and the skeleton's collapse reaction to eat critical hits, actually reaching 0 hp would be more surprising than anything.
Additionally, you may wonder why I chose skeleton instead of just going with Orc. This is because Skeleton gains the Basic Undead Benefits, which, among other things, include one VERY IMPORTANT TRAIT:
>You're immune to death effects. This keeps you from being automatically killed or from having your dying value automatically increase
This is your safeguard against cheeky Executes or Phantasmal Killers trying to ruin your repeated avoidance of death.
Unfortunately, the majority of these take reactions, so the maximum number of times in one turn you can avoid dropping to 0 hp is FIVE (KUTGF + Other Reaction + x2 Guardian Roses + Pact of the Final Breath)....... but that's plenty.
Enjoy!