How to Build Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII Remake in DnD
Yuffie Kisaragi, Final Fantasy VII’s cute but awkward ninja is a threat to enemies from any range, using her large shuriken as both a melee and ranged weapon. She’s highly mobile as well, using her acrobatics and natural athleticism to dash around the battlefield or survive accidental falls off of cliffs. All of that adds up to a pretty fun DnD character. Just watch your materia around her. Here’s how to build her.
Picking a Class and Subclass
With Yuffie’s mobility and speed, Monk is a natural fit, but Monks aren’t typically known for ranged attacks. Ideally, a Yuffie character would be just as deadly at range as she is up close. What we’re going for is a knife thrower build—or, rather, a dart-throwing build, but we’ll re-flavor the darts as throwing knives or shurikens. This is a niche build, but I have a whole guide on how to make an effective dart thrower, and that would be a great fit for Yuffie.
A knife-throwing Monk does well with the Kensei subclass, which has some features that boost the effectiveness of ranged attacks. Darts aren’t Monk weapons by default, but you can specify darts as one of your Kensei weapons to make their damage scale with your martial arts die. You can’t make ranged attacks with your bonus action, but at level 3, you get a feature to use your bonus action to add damage to any ranged attacks you make on that turn.
At level 6, any attacks you make with a Kensei weapon (which should include darts) counts as magical, so you don’t have to have an unlimited supply of +1 Darts. You can also use your ki points to boost the damage of your attacks. At levels 11 and 17, you gain features to boost your accuracy with darts, making it easier to land hits.
Add to this the optional Monk features from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, which allow you to use your ki points to boost accuracy (at level 5), and you have a ranged build with greater potential for accuracy than almost any other ranged build. This makes it a natural fit for the Sharpshooter feat, which allows you to take a penalty to your attack roll to gain a massive boost in damage.
The guide linked above details multiclassing options, but taking a few levels of either Fighter or Ranger can grant you the Archery fighting style (to boost your accuracy even higher) and some extra tools to increase your damage more. Fighter will give you Action Surge to boost your damage when you need it, and Ranger will give you the Hunter’s Mark spell to boost your damage on every attack. Ranger will also grant you expertise in one skill, which can be used to give you a higher Athletics score even if you don’t have a high Strength score. You can also use it to gain expertise in Sleight of Hand, if you want to be a thieving ninja.
This covers the ranged aspect of Yuffie. For melee attacks, a Monk has no trouble with those and can easily keep up with damage potential. As a Kensei, you can use a longsword as your main weapon (re-flavor as a katana) and use Dexterity with it instead of Strength. You can also use your bonus action to make extra attacks (either 1 or 2, if you use a ki point for Flurry of Blows).
Picking a Race
I see this character concept as a small race. I just love the idea of a little tiny character hitting an enemy so hard that they can’t move for a full turn, and Yuffie’s boastful nature works with the smaller size to add to the comic effect. Most small races have a lower speed than medium creatures, but this is offset by the extra speed you gain from the Monk class. There are several options that work well with this.
An energetic Gnome can match Yuffie’s enthusiasm and personality well. Gnome racial features would grant her advantage on saving rolls against magic, which is useful for any ranged character. You also gain some minor illusion magic, which can be useful for a tricky ninja.
A Halfling gains advantage on rolls to save against Fear, playing into Yuffie’s bravado and courage. The race also lets you re-roll natural 1s on attack rolls (and many other things), which is a massive benefit that will further boost your accuracy.
Goblins also gain some useful features. Being able to disengage or hide as a bonus action will save you some ki points, and both are useful for ranged attackers. Fury of the Small adds a small damage boost when you want it. Goblins also do not have a lower speed than medium creatures, so they end up being a little faster than Gnomes and Halflings.
If I had to pick just one of these, I’d go with a Lightfoot Halfling, but any of these options can work well with this character concept.
Background, Alignment, and Personality
Yuffie’s background is a tricky one. She previously served in Wutai’s Special Forces and now works for an eco-terrorist organization (Avalanche). But she’s also a thief with impressive skills in that department.
If you want to cover Yuffie’s background as a covert agent, the Faction Agent from Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is a good fit. This background has a tie-in with one of the five factions: The Harpers, The Order of the Gauntlet, The Emerald Enclave, The Lords’ Alliance, and The Zhentarim. This gives a lot of flexibility in what kind of character you want to be and has lots of potential for story hooks later in the campaign. The Faction Agent background grants proficiency in Insight and one Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma skill of your choice.
If you instead want a background that gives you some good tools to be a thieving ninja, the Urchin background grants proficiency with the Sleight of Hand and Stealth skills, as well as the Disguise Kit and Thieves’ Tools—all useful for a thief-type character who’s not a rogue. This changes her background story somewhat, but it’s a great fit mechanically.
As far as alignment, Yuffie is a hard Chaotic, but she can be either Good or Neutral depending on how you want to play her. In the game, she does what’s best for her home country of Wutai, but she does that by double-crossing anyone she wants to. She joins an eco-terrorist organization and has no qualms with creating a mess if she sees it as the right thing to do. That points to a Chaotic Good alignment, but she could easily be played as a Chaotic Neutral if you don’t want to tie yourself to larger entities and organizations.
Yuffie is equally effective at melee distance and long range, and her quickness and mobility give her a lot of flexibility on the battlefield. The whole Monk feature set comes in handy in a lot of situations outside of battle as well, making a Yuffie character surprisingly diverse when it comes to solving problems. You may lack the raw power of a Barbarian or the full utility of an Artificer, but you’ll never be lacking in options.
About the Author
Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a web developer and writer in the Kansas City area. He's been playing TTRPGs since 2020 and is involved in the disability-related TTRPG podcast Tales from the Crips. He's into classic movies, mental health, and, of course, DnD. Also, he's in a band. One time, they rocked so hard it killed a man.