Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be looking at a build for Groot, from Guardians of the Galaxy.

As a result of this FAQ clarification, this build does not work as written. As plant creatures, ghorans are immune to morale effects, and therefore cannot bloodrage. It is unclear as to whether they are simply locked out of the Strength and Constitution bonuses, or from all effects of the bloodrage (such as bloodline powers). If you want to continue using this build, my suggestion would be to have your GM create a ghoran version of the Empathy feat, from People of the Stars. If your GM allows it, I would take this feat at 1st level and push back all of the other character advancement feats that Groot gets, ultimately dropping Stunning Assault from the build. Alternatively, you could make Groot a reflavored nagaji; the overall attitude and ability score modifiers and traits are close enough that it would work. If you’re the GM, screw the FAQ. Do what ever is fun for the encounters and stories that you want to tell and mod the ghoran race as appropriate for your campaign. Chances are your PCs will kill this character in a session or two anyway, right? – Alex

Getting awfully close to finishing my Guardians of the Galaxy series! Today is by far the hardest of the Guardians to stat, a character with the most distinguished of linguistic abilities. I’m talking, of course, of Groot.

Background

From the Marvel Wiki.

I am Groot.

Build Concept

Alright, so now that we’ve gotten the background out of the way, let’s talk about the options that we need to make ‘ole Groot.

• Ghoran: I was between this race (from the Inner Sea Bestiary) and some sort of weird treant variant, but I ultimately went with Ghoran because of the Ghoran Seed ability. The ability to effectively rebuild your character is EXACTLY what our Groot needs to be believable. The fact that he’s delicious is only a benefit.
• Bloodrager: That’s right! All of that weird plant stuff that Groot does in the movie? We’re going to simulate it with spells. Lots and lots of low-level spells. In the meantime, the ready-and-raging playstyle of the bloodrager is absolutely perfect for Groot. Now, let’s talk Archetypes.
• Crossblooded: I really like this archetype, and for our purposes we’re going with Aberrant and Arcane. I came close to using Fey instead for its entangle spell, but there was really NOTHING on the list that suited Groot. Aberrant is perfect, however, and Arcane has a nice trick that I’m going to be explaining in a bit.
• Bloody-Knuckled Rowdy: This hilariously-named archetype hails from the Melee Tactics Toolbox, and its basically an unarmed bloodrager. Its perfect for our needs!

And with that, let’s take a look at our Groot.

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: bloodrager (bloody-knuckled rowdy, crossblooded) 7
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Power Attack (1st), Snapping Turtle Style (Bonus), Improved Grapple (3rd), Eschew Materials (Bonus), Combat Style Master (Bonus), Snapping Turtle Clutch (5th), Greater Grapple (7th)
• Abilities: blood sanctuary, bloodline powers (staggering strike, abnormal reach), bloodline spells (enlarge person), bloodrage, crossblooded (aberrant, arcane), drawbacks, hand-to-hand training, pugalist
• 2nd-Level Bloodrager Spells (1): vine strike
• 1st-Level Bloodrager Spells (3): enlarge person; blade lash, long arm, shield

The basic idea with this build is to combine ridiculous strength and fortitude with an even more ridiculous reach, mirroring the scene in Guardians of the Galaxy where Groot turns his arms into massive vines and knocks everyone dead. Also, because he’s a plant, I figured that grappling would be appropriate; after all, Groot already has the Improved Unarmed Strike part of it. The bloody-knuckled rowdy also gets a single style feat for free, and the list of feats that it can take at 2nd level (when it gains this bonus feat) is small. I ended up going with Snapping Turtle Style for a cool combo. Basically, the idea is that you take Snapping Turtle Clutch and then activate a miss chance effect like blur or displacement. If a melee attack strikes you and misses, you get to spend an immediate action to make a grapple attempt against the attacker. Useful! I like to picture it as someone stabbing Groot, only for him to regrow his plant-like body around their sheathed weapon while snarling.

Spell-wise, I ended up grabbing vine strike for obvious reasons, as well as long arm and blade lash. I also took staggering strike and abnormal reach with my crossblooded rage powers. At Level 7, Groot has the unarmed strike damage of a 5th level monk, which is pretty good. He also manages to grab Greater Grapple to help with his Snapping Turtle Clutch feat. Groot has a number of useful self-buffs at this level as well, namely enlarge person, which can help him grapple even easier.

Very simple, very straight-forward, very Groot. Let’s move on to the next tier of gameplay and see how Groot looks.

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: bloodrager (bloody-knuckled rowdy, crossblooded) 14
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Power Attack (1st), Snapping Turtle Style (Bonus), Improved Grapple (3rd), Eschew Materials (Bonus), Combat Style Master (Bonus), Snapping Turtle Clutch (5th), Greater Grapple (7th), Iron Will (Bonus), Cleave (9th), Cleaving Finish (11th), Improved Initiative (Bonus), Great Cleave (13th)
• Abilities: blood sanctuary, bloodline powers (staggering strike, abnormal reach, greater arcane bloodrage, abnormal reach), bloodline spells (enlarge person, see invisibility, displacement), bloodrage, crossblooded (aberrant, arcane), drawbacks, hand-to-hand training, pugalist
• 4th-Level Bloodrager Spells (1): stoneskin
• 3rd-Level Bloodrager Spells (3): displacement; force hook charge, haste, heroism
• 2nd-Level Bloodrager Spells (4): see invisibility; glitterdust, mirror image, tremor blast, vine strike
• 1st-Level Bloodrager Spells (5): enlarge person; blade lash, feather fall, long arm, shield, true strike

Level 8 is the earliest that our Snapping Turtle Style combo can turn on, and its only regularly possible with the Arcane bloodline. Basically, the greater arcane bloodrage ability allows you to gain your choice of the benefits of displacement or haste, and if you choose displacement, then your enemies have a 50% chance to miss you with their attacks. That miss will trigger Snapping Turtle Clutch, which means that you can rip your enemies to shreds, then grab the first bloke who tries to attack you in kind and proceed to rip THAT enemy to shreds as well!

After getting this combo, the next step is to try to mimic Groot’s ridiculous AoE potential from the movie. For this, I grabbed as many Cleave feats as I could; Cleave, Great Cleave, and Cleaving Finish at this stage of the game. I also took Iron Will as one of my bloodline bonus feats, although not much is going to be able to mentally attack a ghoran, seeing as they’re immune to mind-affecting effects. If you find that this feat isn’t worth your time, bump up Improved Initiative and take Combat Reflexes instead.

I think the spells are pretty self-explanatory, but I took glitterdust for that one scene where Groot just randomly releases all of the fireflies. That seemed close enough to me. Onward to the End Game!

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: bloodrager (bloody-knuckled rowdy, crossblooded) 20
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Power Attack (1st), Snapping Turtle Style (Bonus), Improved Grapple (3rd), Eschew Materials (Bonus), Combat Style Master (Bonus), Snapping Turtle Clutch (5th), Greater Grapple (7th), Iron Will (Bonus), Cleave (9th), Cleaving Finish (11th), Improved Initiative (Bonus), Great Cleave (13th), Disruptive (Bonus), Improved Cleaving Finish (15th), Dazing Assault (17th), Spellbreaker (Bonus), Stunning Assault (19th)
• Abilities: blood sanctuary, bloodline powers (staggering strike, abnormal reach, greater arcane bloodrage, abnormal reach, aberrant resistance, aberrant form), bloodline spells (enlarge person, see invisibility, displacement), bloodrage, crossblooded (aberrant, arcane), drawbacks, hand-to-hand training, pugalist
• 4th-Level Bloodrager Spells (4): black tentacles; absorbing inhalation, greater false life, shout, stoneskin
• 3rd-Level Bloodrager Spells (5): displacement; force hook charge, greater animal aspect, greater magic weapon, haste, heroism
• 2nd-Level Bloodrager Spells (5): see invisibility; ablative barrier, glitterdust, mirror image, tremor blast, vine strike
• 1st-Level Bloodrager Spells (5): enlarge person; blade lash, feather fall, long arm, shield, true strike

If you’ve been following along with the goals of this build, you’re probably not too surprised with my choices. With all of the majorly helpful Grapple-based options taken (except Rapid Grapple, which is a personal preference thing), I grabbed special abilities that would allow Groot to sow negative conditions onto enemies. I also kept to most of the Aberrant bloodline’s powers, as their defenses are EXTREMELY useful for Groot. With everything we’ve chosen, Groot is scary-strong defensively, even if his AC is going to be relatively low.

Black tentacles made too much sense to me as Groot’s final bloodline spell; I like to pretend that they’re roots, not tentacles, and its Groot burrowing into the ground like in the movies. I also picked up Disruptive and Spellbreak as Groot’s last two bloodline feats; his reach is massive enough that it will be extremely difficult to escape his grasp. Aside from that, there isn’t much left to say about Groot. So with that, I’m going to sign out!

What do you think of this build? What would you tweak or alter? Is this something you would use, assuming Ghorans were allowed? What would you change if Ghorans aren’t allowed in your game? Leave your questions and comments below, and I’ll see you next week for another installment of Guidance! Take care.

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex also cohosts the Private Sanctuary Podcast, along with fellow blogger Anthony Li, and you can follow their exploits on Facebook in the 3.5 Private Sanctuary Group, or on Alex’s Twitter, @AlJAug.