Introduction

Duskwalkers are humanoids allowed to reincarnate due to a deal between two powerful servants of the goddess of death who created a path to reincarnation for select individuals whose first life was cut short while in the service to the natural cycle of life and death.

Much of the Duskwalker’s themes involve combating undead foes, and they really shine in a campaign where undead enemies are prominent. In other campaigns, many of the Duskwalker’s Ancestry Feats will be nearly useless.

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Duskwalker Traits

Like many Versatile Heritages, the Duskwalker grants low-light vision, or Darkvision if your Ancestry already has low-light vision. This on its own is a great option, and even if you don’t take any Heritage-specific Ancestry Feats it can still be an impactful Heritage option for Ancestries which normally have poor vision options.

In addition, a Duskwalker’s body and spirit cannot become undead. This is unlikely to benefit a player directly since becoming undead requires that you be dead in most cases, but it’s thematically interesting.

Duskwalker Feats

Level 1

  • Duskwalker Lore: Training in two good skills and Boneyard Lore.
  • Ghost Hunter: A Ghost Touch rune costs just 75gp, making it a trivial cost beyond low levels. Unless you’re planning to max out on other property runes, this isn’t worth the feat.
  • Gravesight: If you don’t already get Darkvision between your Ancestry and the Changeling Heritage traits, this is an absolute must. The ability to see in darkness is simply too good to pass up.

Level 5

  • Lifesense: Even as an imprecise sense with such limited range, you can still use this to detect hidden or invisible enemies.
  • Spirit Soother: Only applies in a campaign where your GM uses Haunts.
  • Ward Against Corruption: Too situational.

Level 9

  • Duskwalker Magic: Augury is one of my favorite divinations, but it’s also a 2nd-level spell that spellcasters have had access to for 6 levels. If you need it, consider a wand. Gentle Respose is extremely situational. Buy a scroll.
  • Spirit Strikes: Against most creatures this isn’t anywhere near an important amount of damage. But it’s exactly enough to trigger the bonus damage from damage weaknesses, which makes this extremely effective against some creatures like zombies (weakness to positive).

Level 13

  • Resist Ruin: Situational. Not worth the feat unless you face a lot of undead foes.

Level 17

  • Boneyard’s Call: A really interesting concept, but Plane Shift has been available for at least 3 levels on every spell list. This is not worth a feat, especially one this high-level.