#Rolled a crit for that performance for sure

[heir-of-hope]

After tonight's VMAs performance, I think Chappell Roan is definitely a Paladin/Bard.

She would worship the goddess Sune, who aligns with Roan almost perfectly.

Like, just look at this.

[tjemegames]

HSR: Character Build Archive - Nihility

IX

The Aeon that presides over the Path of Nihility. THEIR existence is a mystery. IX doesn't interact with the other Aeons. THEY believe that the ultimate fate of the multiverse is nothingness, and therefore, worthless.

Certain character descriptions may contain story spoilers: Acheron. If you’re not caught up to the most current version of the game, please read them at your own discretion.

Acheron

An aloof and taciturn traveler, a Self-Annihilator who returned from the shadows of IX the Nihility. In her battle against destiny, she tirelessly brandishes her blade, seeking to sever the Paths.

unowned: not interested in pulling at this time. might pull in the future if I haven’t already dedicated myself to another 5-star lightning dps unit

Black Swan

A laid-back and enigmatic Memokeeper who collects intriguing memories. She firmly believes that fate is not beyond comprehension and that everything will eventually become "known" within the eternal realm of memories.

unowned: not interested in pulling with my current roster

Fugue

unreleased (2.7)

not sure what I'll be doing yet, gonna have to wait for kit information to see whether or not she'd be useful to me. as it stands, I don't really play DoT so she'd need to be quite the debuffer or an enabler or some sort for me to want her. new design looks sick though, so she's got that going for her

Guinaifen

A performance artist visiting the Xianzhou Luofu — in other words, a street performer. She's chasing a new life on the Luofu when not concerned with food and shelter.

honestly didn't think that I'd play with guin when she first came out, but she's been very enjoyable to play with

currently one of my best built units bc I got really lucky during the week that I decided to hyperfocus on fixing her; my planars were synthesized and they rolled so much better than I was expecting them to

not a whole lot to nitpick with this one; she's a bit squishy but that's not really an issue since she's always paired with a well-built sustainer

might try to roll a new hand piece for better survivability; I can afford to lose a little bit of speed. who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and roll 6/7 speed + tank stats?

latest upgrade - 6.6.24

Jiaoqiu

An advisor under Feixiao. Responsible for her food and health. To him, a medicine-boiling cauldron is no different from a hotpot on a stove, and the ingredients of meals are also no different from medication...

unowned: not pulling due to high investment in guinaifen

Kafka

A member of the Stellaron Hunters. A dashing, collected, and professional beauty. Used the enchantment of Spirit Whisper to set up (Trailblazer) to absorb the Stellaron. Her hobby is shopping for and organizing her collection of coats.

unowned: lost 50/50 on debut banner & no longer interested in pulling

Luka

The boxing champion in Belobog's Underworld, and one of Wildfire's most capable fighters. The consecutive reigning champion of the Fight Club, whose enthusiasm inspires children of the Underworld to dream big.

unleveled: lvl 1, e6

Pela

An intelligence officer for the Silvermane Guards. She has a serious personality and is revered by other members of the Silvermane Guards.

there’s a vision in my head of 4pc wind + vonwacq pela but the game is fighting me on it

vonwacq is incredibly stingy so getting the right pieces has been incredibly slow-going; my current pieces will stay +12 for the foreseeable future

need to farm eagle (def/hp body) & vonwacq (hp/def sphere + err rope); could also go for better head/hand pieces but I really don't feel like it

latest upgrade - 6.25.24

Sampo

A merchant who freely travels between the Overworld and the Underworld. He acts like he is everyone's friend, is enthusiastically humorous, and is good at bantering.

crit sampo build: weights were adjusted to mirror a traditional crit build; .75 atk, 1 spd/crate/cdmg/wind dmg

this build is a bit of a meme that I've yet to fix because it surprisingly works well. he's hitting almost all the breakpoints you'd want him to in his traditional build; ≥ 67% ehr, ≥ 2800 atk, ≥ 135 spd (glamoth), his hp/def are a bit low but that's unsurprising with the relics he's got on

soon to be retired (mines permitting); head/hands can be kept for updated build, but the rest will need to be replaced

latest upgrade - 5.16.24

Silver Wolf

A member of the Stellaron Hunters and a genius hacker. She sees the universe as a big immersive simulation game and has fun with it. She's mastered the skill known as "aether editing," which can be used to tamper with the data of reality.

passively working on while farming new messenger and wuthering snow pieces for bronya/sparkle

haven't decided if I solely want to run her as a breaker or debuffer; main stats wouldn't change but I would need to roll more break if I decided to go that route

need to farm genius (ehr body or spd boots) & fleet (quantum sphere + err rope)

latest upgrade - 7.25.24

Welt

A senior member of the Crew. The passion in his heart burns for another long and enjoyable adventure. Occasionally, he might draw the experiences of his journey in a sketchbook.

outdated build: hand & sphere are the only recently rolled pieces

don't be fooled by the light cone lvl; both my copies are actually unleveled

won't lie, I have no idea how to build this man because I haven't played with him since 1.4

from my vague memory of his kit, I will more than likely need to replace half of his relics; don't know for sure though so I'll come back and update this after I do my research

latest upgrade - 7.14.24

The most recent version of a character’s build(s) will be listed here; older build versions can be found on their designated changelog. To avoid word/image limit issues, information on a retired build will be removed from the path archive and a link to the build’s changelog will be provided in its place. Changelogs will only be created and maintained for the characters that I actively use; they will be updated whenever significant relic upgrades/changes have been made. Characters that have multiple builds (i.e. additional builds that are non-traditional, niche, or memes) will have a dedicated changelog for each one. Return to Navigation

[noneatnonedotcom]

pathfinder second edition Jaune arc build

so this is a build i recently made and I wanted to make jaune something different than a normal paladin, think of this jaune as what he would have become if aura wasn't a thing. I'll be taking it to level 4 stats str: 10 dex: 16 con:12 int: 18 (22 with magical gear) wis:12 (18 with magical gear) cha: 10 hp: 44 race: human (versatile) background: sword scion class: investigator with mastermind rouge archetype methodology; forensic medicine:

You've learned that in most cases, especially murders, criminals tend to leave more evidence of the crime on the body than they'd like to believe. Information from bruising, bone fractures, blood spatters, and even the life cycle of carrion insects can provide valuable clues that help reconstruct the scene.

You're trained in Medicine and gain the Forensic Acumen and Battle Medicine skill feats. When you use Battle Medicine, on a success the target recovers additional Hit Points equal to your level, and the target becomes temporarily immune for only 1 hour, not 1 day.

bio: jaune arc was the child of the famous arc family, having been taught from a young age how to use a sword effectively jaune had a deep knowledge of the human body and how best to cause harm. instead of simply becoming a hired killer like most of his family did jaune instead tried to become a superhero. with no powers he did so using his mind. one of the greatest strategic minds on earth and an accomplished doctor besides the young arc is ready to make his mark on the world..... it's just a shame he's a huge dork and has very little charisma and little strength training. boy is a noodle. but he's on the case at least.

gonna cut off the feats and skills here so it's not too long but you can read below to see the descriptions. but as an explanation jaune's entire fighting style is based around using devise a stratagem combined with mastermind's use of recall knowledge to keep his enemy flat-footed and therefore easier to hit and crit. with this in mind when using his warfare lore it's impossible for him to get a crit fail thanks to experienced professional and unmistakable lore and even if he fails he still gets better information than anyone else. with automatic knowledge, he does his lore checks as a free action In combat and with assurance he's always doing so at a 24 for dice checks more than enough to make sure that no matter what his enemy is always flat footed. jaune can hit more often and is doing more damage than even a two-handed fighter. thanks to sneak attack and strategic strike. in essence even at a low level jaune's probably the greatest strategic mind in the world and it shows in combat. his ability to use medicine checks in combat to keep himself and his allies up and fighting also references his semblance and keeps him as a sort of godless paladin. with science being his smite! lol. in essence, jaune's a militarized Batman who's investigations are more about learning key targets then working to take them out. using his soldiers and connections to do the groundwork and investigate his enemies for him so he can put together a strategy and pick them apart. his day job is an officer in some sort of military apparatus which is more just for the earn income action but with all his feats in the warfare lore skill he's pretty much consistently making 4 gp a week (with weekends off) and a comfortable lifestyle only costs 1 gp a week meaning jaune's got quite a bit going into his savings even as young as he is. @weatherman667 any ideas as to what jaune's job would actually be? he's supposed to be his cannon age so i doubt he'd be an officer already but he's doing hard dice checks for his earn income action without having to roll so i imagine it's something important and difficult even as new to things as he is.

feats:

assurance (warfare-lore): Even in the worst circumstances, you can perform basic tasks. Choose a skill you’re trained in. You can forgo rolling a skill check for that skill to instead receive a result of 10 + your proficiency bonus (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).

streetwise: You know about life on the streets and feel the pulse of your local settlement. You can use your Society modifier instead of your Diplomacy modifier to Gather Information. In any settlement you frequent regularly, you can use the Recall Knowledge action with Society to know the same sorts of information that you could discover with Diplomacy to Gather Information. The DC is usually significantly higher, but you know the information without spending time gathering it. If you fail to recall the information, you can still subsequently attempt to Gather Information normally. devise a stratagem: You assess a foe's weaknesses in combat and use them to formulate a plan of attack against your enemy. Choose a creature you can see and roll a d20. If you Strike the chosen creature later this round, you must use the result of the roll you made to Devise a Stratagem for your Strike's attack roll instead of rolling. You make this substitution only for the first Strike you make against the creature this round, not any subsequent attacks.

When you make this substitution, you can also add your Intelligence modifier to your attack roll instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier, provided your Strike uses an agile or finesse melee weapon,

strategic strike: When you strike carefully and with forethought, you deal a telling blow. When making a Strike that adds your Intelligence modifier on your attack roll due to Devising a Stratagem, you deal an additional 1d6 precision damage.

As your investigator level increases, so too does the deadliness of your strategic strike. Increase the number of dice by one at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels. rouge (mastermind) dedication: Where others might use sleight of hand or a silver tongue to achieve their objectives, you rely on your intellect to craft intricate schemes. You likely view your operations as a chess game, always planning 10 steps ahead where others might plan three. You might be a detective determined to solve crimes or a spymaster in the service of a powerful family or nation. If you operate outside the law, you might be an aspiring crime lord or information broker, excellent at directing others toward suitable jobs.

If you successfully identify a creature using Recall Knowledge, that creature is flat-footed against your attacks until the start of your next turn; if you critically succeed, it's flat-footed against your attacks for 1 minute.

battle planner: You are constantly drawing up plans and battle scenarios, assembling strategies and gathered intelligence for later use. When you scout an enemy's position or receive a detailed report from an ally who scouted the enemy's position, if you have a clear indication of the number, position, and identities of your potential foes, you can spend 1 minute to come up with a battle plan that takes such potential factors into account and reduces the role luck plays in the equation. Roll a Warfare Lore check. As long as the information was accurate and remains accurate when you roll initiative against those enemies, you can use the Warfare Lore result you previously rolled for your initiative roll; if you do, this is a fortune effect. catfall: Your catlike aerial acrobatics allow you to cushion your falls. Treat falls as 10 feet shorter. If you’re an expert in Acrobatics, treat falls as 25 feet shorter. If you’re a master in Acrobatics, treat them as 50 feet shorter. If you’re legendary in Acrobatics, you always land on your feet and don’t take damage, regardless of the distance of the fall.

automatic knowledge(warfare lore): Prerequisites expert in a skill with the Recall Knowledge action, Assurance in that skill You know basic facts off the top of your head. Choose a skill you’re an expert in that has the Recall Knowledge action and for which you have the Assurance feat. You can use the Recall Knowledge action with that skill as a free action once per round. If you do, you must use Assurance on the skill check.

experianced professional: You carefully safeguard your professional endeavors to prevent disaster. When you use Lore to Earn Income, if you roll a critical failure, you instead get a failure. If you’re an expert in Lore, you gain twice as much income from a failed check to Earn Income, unless it was originally a critical failure.

sneak attacker: you gain access to the sneak attack class feature (page 181), except it deals 1d4 damage, increasing to 1d6 at 6th level. You don’t increase the number of dice as you gain levels.

unmistakeable lore (warfare-lore): You never get information about your areas of expertise wrong. When you Recall Knowledge using any Lore subcategory in which you’re trained, if you roll a critical failure, you get a failure instead. If you’re a master in a Lore subcategory, on a critical success, you gain even more information or context than usual. skills (there's a lot)

arcana: trained +12 athletics: trained +6 crafting: trained +15 deception: trained +6 diplomacy: expert +8 lore warfare: expert +14 medicine: expert +12 occultism: expert +12 society: trained +12 stealth: trained +9 thievery: trained +9

[frees-erotic-writings]

Sinful 2C: Keyleth finds herself helplessly alone against a Goliath much less friendly than Grog, and much more eager to put a sexy redheaded elf like her in her place.

Sinful Gifs 2C

The massive Goliath known as Grond Kraghammar couldn't help but smirk while he forced the sexy half-elven redhead to ride his massive monstrous cock. Over and over again Grond slammed Keyleth down. Making sure every single inch was stuffed deep into her pussy.

"Doesn't matter how much, or how often you scream for help~" Grond growled into one of her pointed ears, while slamming Keyleth down harder onto his cock. At this point, all she was to him was a living fleshlight. "Nobody's going to come save you~"

Keyleth's eyes had long since rolled into the back of her head. The poor Druid just couldn't seem to make her Constitution Saves. And it felt like this Barbarian had seriously crit on his Strength and Performance checks.

"D-dont wanna be saved...~ She moaned weakly. The multiple climaxes had seriously scrambled her brain, and made speech very difficult. Her lips brushed against his, as she was continuously bounced on Grond's monster cock. "Stay with you...~"

"Then welcome to your new life!~" Grond declared, and captured Keyleth's lips in a deep kiss. Thick hot sticky cum pumping into her pussy. Filling her womb to capacity.

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Battle Tower (Alt) Leon

I hate that it’s alt, but I guess “Battle Tower Leon” is a lot more to write out, so they went with Alt Leon.  Sure.  Thankfully, he got the cool outfit, and the cool Ghost Pokemon, so he’s-Dragon type?  Really?  Come on.

General Overview Leon is a Dragon Tech, who really should’ve been a Striker.  Leon’s main selling point is Dragon Darts, an effectively 200BP move.  This is excellent, and is actually stronger than SS Serena’s Core Enforcer.  With just this and a trainer move that performs the standard +4/+3 self buff, and an excellent speed tier of over 500 with +1 speed on TM, Leon really didn’t need for much more.  But he got it, in Piercing Blows.  Not only is his damage excellent, his gauge control is strong, and his damage cannot be stopped.  Adding a Max Move for burst damage makes this even more threatening.  Impervious, while generally inconsequential, does permit Leon some tools that will likely do well in Gauntlet.

So why do I not feel as impressed with him?  I think it comes down to expectation vs reality.  Leon’s a Tech, and his conditions are...painful.  Burn requirement but no Go Viral until 4/5, and needing as many debuffs as possible but only getting maybe 4 at a time is incredibly damning.  His opening sync is very slow acting and kind of a pain, and legitimately I think it’s less worth it to run his Buddy move if he’s the star of the show.  Just throw out Dragon Darts, it’ll do more.  His sync damage is around the standard for Tech, which means a bit better than Lucas and Drasna but not as good as Anni Raihan or C!Iris.

Leon is still really good.  I love debuffs, so I’m kinda partial to the kit, but he’s also really...odd.  He reminds me a bit of SS Cyrus, in the sense of “pick one thing and only do that.”  If he’s supporting another striker, just spam Buddy move.  If he’s dealing damage, just spam Dragon Darts.  There’s basically no reason to ever burn someone yourself.

EX and Move Level? Because he’s a Tech, EX is generally recommended.  That said, I do stand by the belief that his strength is DPS and having a Max Move.  1/5 is likely serviceable.  His sync multipliers are a rough time anyway, and he’s not getting great boosts to DPS since it’s only Burn Synergy 3, which is hard to set up.  I don’t agree with it.  But, there is a strong case to be made for 4/5, sadly.  Go Viral is legitimately fantastic when you’re running Burn multipliers and...*sigh*...Breaking Swipe: Hit Burned Opp Stat Down 9.  Guys, I know these skills are meant to be descriptive so people know what they do, but can be please just go back to using keywords?  You sound ridiculous.

Team 1: Alt Leon, H!Caitlin, Lucas Did someone say caps crit but needs a bit of attack?!  Hello naughty children, it’s Caitlin time!  Truth be told, she’s likely overkill, you can use something lower tier than that, but favoritism.  Lucas is chosen for the Zone, but admittedly, this is an issue with Leon.  He’s physical, and the Dragon Zone is special.  CS demands reallocation of points as a result.  Which isn’t great, but it’s manageable if desired.

Team 2: Alt Leon, V!Agatha/Bugscyther, H!Morty/V!Kiawe If only Bugscyther were real.  Anyway, the focus of this is on Leon’s sync.  H!Morty is a decent partner here, thanks to Spread Burn.  V!Kiawe can at least set up Power Play, and with Defense Crush lucky skill, actually contributes meaningfully to anything.  Bugscyther tops off attack and gets Leer debuffs, but in absence of him, any defense debuffing support like V!Agatha can work out.

Team 3: Alt Leon, Skyla One of the nice things about Leon is that he has Piercing Blows, and the ability to debuff, making him a pretty solid Gauntlet Duo choice.  Skyla in particular is great.  Defense buffs complement his attack debuffs, and the speed keeps gauge rolling.  Potion for survival, and you’re set to go.

Team 4: Alt Leon, C!Iris, Sonia Alt Leon’s debuffs are basically a buffed Leer that deals respectable damage in addition.  It’s a worthwhile consideration!  It’s especially worthwhile when you’re dealing with a partner who can hit for roughly eleventy billion damage on a single target, provided some debuffs are present.  C!Iris is a great partner to Leon.  Leon’s DPS is super strong, but C!Iris is the sync nuking monster that capitalizes on it all.  I actually ran this exact team this morning, with Leon 1/5, and we actually cleared before Iris could sync.  Leon’s spread damage is very respectable, and Iris’ Dragon Rush is more than enough to kill on-type.

Final Thoughts Here’s a question for you.  It’s the month before anniversary.  All of this is bait, and you might be looking at your gem stash, cautiously considering whether it’s really worth it to get any of these new pairs.  What does Leon offer you that doesn’t already exist?  That you don’t already have?  AoE Atk/Def/Spd debuffing?  SC Steven does that while pumping your damage up to infinity.  Burn?  Not until 4/5 he doesn’t, and SS Lysandre is far more significant for off-type clears given the absurdity of his damage and Buddy move.  Dragon damage?  It’s top of the chart, but I don’t think it’s necessary to pick up.

I think Leon is good; very good, even.  If you’re a paying player looking to pick something up this month, he’s not a bad choice.  But if you’re not?  If you’re saving for anniversary?  Why break for him?  What’s he offering that doesn’t exist elsewhere?  Is this necessary?  And if it is...do you need anything beyond 1/5?

[awellboiledicicle]

I feel like you'd appreciate this story and hopefully it'll distract you a bit?

So, many moons ago, I played in a Curse of Strahd campaign with some friends. My starting character was called Charcoal Feather. She was a Rogue with Big Bard Energy, having heard stories of Dashing Rogues and wanting to be just like them.

Charcoal had a huge fascination with stories and songs, even having an instrument to play and proficiency in performance. Unfortunately, at one point she managed to piss off the Big Bad vampire, who drained her like a caprisun, and thus ended her tale.

SO, flash forward to today. I'm feeling that BG3 urge again but I don't feel like continuing my current save, so I decide to roll up a new character. I chose Bard, but having no idea what to make them look and act like, I decided to recreate Charcoal as a bard and play that.

So I wandered around the map, did some quests, picked up Astarion, took a long rest, and woke up to Astarion trying to take a big sippy.

Well, I figure, Charcoal would probably let him take a drink both for pragmatic reasons and because she would feel bad for him, and also she doesn't know that a vampire killed her in the Strahd campaign, so sure.

Aaand then she crit failed the persuasion roll to get him to stop.

Well no problem, I tell myself, since there's a second persuasion roll she can try.

A swing... and a miss, rolling a 6 for a DC of 15. And Astarion drains Charcoal dry.

The same way she died in the Strahd campaign so long ago.

All I could do was laugh.

Fate said Charcoal dies by vampire, its canon

[kyogre-blue]

Writing this out for myself. 

Tomorrow, I will finally get Yaoyao. I’ll need to grind her cube drops for the next few days (it needs Dendro, so I’m waiting for her to do it), but I’m only taking her to 80/80 for now, so it should be possible to finish that using next week’s battle pass mission for 10 bosses. With the event rewards, I should also have enough books to take her talents to 2/8/8. She’ll be working on Keqing Aggravate, hopefully. 

Then for the rest of the week, I’ll do exp book leyline, since I’m going to be dipping into my Mika books for Yaoyao, and I also have a bunch of other characters I want to take 70 > 80 later. 

For the rest of the patch, I need to focus on grinding for Mika and the 3.5 event claymore. Mika needs 27 more wenut drops and a lot of ballad books. (Bonus: I’m probably going to get enough Anemo drops to max ascend Heizou, my last sub-80/90 Anemo, from all this.) I’m going to hold off on the books until the end of patch overflow event, since Mond book domains is...... eh. It needs a different team than what I use for normal dailies and grinding, so it’s a hassle. I should be able to grind out everything he needs in one week if I focus on it specifically, and the 3.5 events will also help fill out anything I’m missing. 

The claymore needs more consecrated beast shells, chains, and weapon ore. The chains aren’t too big a deal, I’ll probably do them on Sundays over the patch, and I should hopefully be able to get the shells during exploration and with the scorpion at Yashiori + bird close to Old Varanara. 

For artifacts, Yaoyao should be okay with a 4pc Tenacity I’ll half take from Dori and half originally intended for Kuki non-Bloom set. Some of her specific pieces will depend on how she performs though, especially her healing and energy needs. I don’t plan to have her burst every rotation with Keqing, so it should be easier to manage. 

For Mika, he’ll use Candace’s Noblesse, though I need to check if any of the pieces need to be switched. He’ll be taking Zhongli’s Fav Lance, so he’ll need more crit than Candace has. 

Yaoyao will use either Kitain or Moonpiercer. Moonpiercer isn’t levelled, but her personal damage is going to be negligible right now either way, so it’s just for the atk buff effect. 

I need to level some more stuff, but I’ll just... put artifacts on hold for a while. It’s too depressing. 

For pulling, this patch is a skip, which is boring, but I’m at 65 rolls on both character and weapon, haha.... It’s too risky to roll even once more. I’ll have enough for Eula for sure, at least, though it’ll be tough getting Mika. Might need to risk C1 Eula... I’m pretty sure they’ll be on the same banner, at least, though we don’t know which half or who will run with them. My guess would be Dehya on first half and Eula on second half, I don’t think they’ll be together. The leaks also suggest Cyno will be rerunning, but the last open slot is being heavily contested between Shenhe and various other Mond characters. It’s fine as long as it’s not Klee, which would be really hard for me to swing. 

If I had to choose which C1 to risk... man, it’s hard to say, they’re all bad to pointless. Venti’s is useless, and while his C2 shreds Anemo, it’s not like... super useful in the taser and occasional freeze teams I use him on. Albedo’s C1 is useless, and his C2 theoretically adds DEF scaling to his burst, which is nice, but it’s pretty limited. Eula C1 is the most generically useable, since it increases her Phys DMG after hold skill following a tap skill (so, right before her burst). I’ve heard it’s not particularly powerful, but at least it’s something. 

I do need the starglitter from pulls though, since I want to buy Amber and Razor in April (68 starglitter total), Lisa in May (34 starglitter), and Kaeya in June (34 starglitter). Lisa is the most skippable purchase, but it’s still 102 starglitter, when we only get 2 every ten pulls or so. At this point, it’s almost useful to get C6′d 4 stars, since that’s a whole 5 starglitter. 

Jokes aside, the 4 stars longest without rerun are Fischl (9), Diona (9), Sucrose (8), Chongyun (12), Kuki (7), Collei (9), Dori (8), Candace (7). I have Fischl and Diona at C6, but Chongyun is C5, Sucrose is C3, and the rest are even lower. Given that I do want the starglitter, I don’t have any super strong preferences on the rate up 4 stars, though Kuki or Sucrose cons would be the nicest, and I guess I did want Candace cons too. 

Post 3.5, it’ll be Baizhu and maaaybe Kaveh. I want to get some Dendro man, but I’m waiting to see what their kits are. Kaveh might be a 4 star, it’s hard to say. I’m really hoping Baizhu is something that doesn’t care for Nahida, though a healer would be really nice. The other thing I’m considering is getting Nilou, as long as one of the Dendro men can run in her team instead of Nahida. But since Cyno is (probably) rerunning, Nilou might be in 3.6 with the theorized Baizhu launch and Nahida rerun. Which... would be really hard to manage.

(I also considered planning for Ayaka, since her costume solves basically all my issues with her design, but I ultimately decided against it, just because there’s already so much I want. Freeze team would be nice, but it’s not priority enough, compared to other stuff.) 

But this is getting into really unsubstantiated speculation, so it’ll likely get changed a lot once we’re in 3.5 and the 3.6 beta. 

[mothenbythighs]

And we're back! Doing these daily was kinda a pipe dream maybe one every 3 ish days. So the last few archetypes have been from adventure paths which is why they were a) uncommon and b) kind of under developed. And when I saw the next one is uncommon I was dreading it was the same thing, but this one is from Dark archive and while originally I thought it was just a clone of the vigilante archetype it's actually a lot more interesting than I gave it credit for.

Day 4: Alter Ego

To pick up the dedication you have to be trained in deception and stealth, you become expert in deception and get the assume a role action.

Assume a role is a giant block of text so let me try and simplify it a bit. If in the last 3 days you spent an hour studying someone visually you can impersonate that persons job better. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to deception check to impersonate and a lore skill relating to the job you're impersonating, you can add your level to the proficiency of the lore skill. If you start studying someone else your impersonation ends (which i really don't like. Kinda goes against the fantasy for me)

So this archetype is trying to fit the master of disguise fantasy, unlike vigilante that gives you two identities this one let's you with just an hour of prep time become whatever you need for your undercover stealth mission. I especially love it giving you a lore skill for your role, if you impersonate a cook you actually become a good cook!

We're on the List is an uncommon skill feat that you can pick up if you're trained in society. If your ally fails a deception check to impersonate you can use society to aid them, if you succeed not only do they get the aid bonus they also get advantage on their roll (I know that's a 5e term idc). Honestly even tho this is really situational it's really good when it comes up, if you're playing this archetype this is is probably pretty good in your campaign. This feat is pretty firebrands themed, even mentioning a named character but I dont see why you couldn't reflavor it.

Change of Face is the first of a few of this archetypes feats that uses occult magic, it's a skill feat that lets you use illusions and transmutation to impersonate without a disguise kit. This is just cool tbh, its gonna come up exactly once when you get caught by a guard and they take your disguise kit from you but it'll be really cool when that does happen.

Our first non skill feat is Fake It Till You Make It. When you take on a role you get the same bonuses from your lore skill to 2 regular skills. Amazing! Sometimes there's not a lore skill that fits your role perfectly, if you impersonate a guard you're gonna want to be trained in athletics and intimidation.

Sound Mirror is weirdly good you can cast ghost sound, ventriloquism and silence as innate occult spells, the ladder two only once a day and silence can only be cast on yourself. Even with the only self silencing restriction this is just a basic X spellcasting that all the caster archetypes get. And all of them help with stealth which is exactly what you wanna be doing.

In Plain Sight is a skill feat that lets you use deception instead of stealth to avoid notice. Sure! Your stealth is probably pretty good but your deception is probably a little better especially with your dedications +1

Swap reflection is the sickest shit I've seen in my life once every 10 minutes for two actions you swap your reflection with an enemy in 120 feet and then your reflection pulls them into the reflection, they make a Will save with the incapacitation trait

Muscle mimicry is a skill feat that needs master in deception and trained in athletics. If you saw an enemy perform any of the athletic maneuvers you can use a reaction to get a +1 circumstance bonus to using that same maneuver, or a plus 2 if they crit but you lose the bonus if you don't use it in your next turn. The timing restriction makes this kinda awkward to use but god it's so cool god it's so fucking cool you get to copy their move but do it better it's so fucking cool.

On a crit success nothing happens

On a success you either swap places with them or you warp adjacent to them whichever they prefer

On a failure it's the same as success but it's whichever you prefer instead

On a crit failure you swap places with them and they become trapped in their own reflection for one minute AND HAVE TO SPEND ACTIONS TO MAKE WILL SAVES TO GET OUT

I know they're rarely gonna crit fail and the incapacitation trait makes it kinda situational but like come on how can you not love this. The only way it could've been better is if it also dealt damage to the target somehow

Illusory Identity is a giant wall of text but tldr it's another uncommon firebrands feat and during your daily preparation you can take a blank piece of paper and create fake documentation for whatever identity you want, more complex documents need a more time. A creature that sees the documentation has to make a Will save to see if they believe it or disbelieve the illusion. Sure

Borrow Memories is an uncommon feat that lets you cast Mind Probe as an innate occult spell once a day, if you use the spell on the person you're studying for assume a role you can delay the effect of the spell until you assume the role if you do you can sustain it up to ten minutes, each time you sustain it you ask the target a question and you might get the answer answer. Yeah I can see why this is uncommon this can easily break campaigns. Really cool tho

Finally for our capstone at level 14 it's another uncommon firebrands feat It Was Me All Along! For one action if your identity is hidden you can remove your disguise stride up to your speed and feint a target in 30 feet and if you succeed you get advantage on your first attack against them that round. Kinda disappointing for a capstone, don't get me wrong it's a good effect but like at level 14 people are picking up feats like whirlwind strike and this is kinda disappointing in comparison. Gotta in the top 10 feat names in the game tho

This archetype honestly surprised me. It's flavor is amazing the mechanics back that up really well it has a lot of skill feats which you don't see very often in archetypes and all of the occult magic gives it an interesting depth with stuff like Swap Reflection just a slam dunk outta the park with this one. Alter ego is the first archetype to get my patented Underrated Archetype seal of approval.

For the best class to use this my pick goes the Investigator, you can go on undercover investigations so the flavor is outta the park, and mechanically you have a high int so you'll be good at using your role lore skill and you get a lot of skills so you can impersonate them even better.

[unfortunate-beetle-and-friends]

Boy crit his Performance roll. *grins* A man after the heart of your own humble musical folk hero, for sure! Imagine what I could flog a solid gold fiddle for...

[straws-and-stats]

Rusty Quill Gaming Stats! (Part 3)

[part 1] [part 2]

As a tribute to the crew who made the show so special, I'd like to end the stats by taking a look at a statistically interesting tidbit for each of the 9 characters featured in the book.

Here goes:

SASHA - In the table below, I recorded when the party arrived in each location and compared that to when Sasha used the skill Knowledge (Local) for the first time in that location. Sasha acclimated to location changes quickly, using Knowledge (Local) within an average of 2.5 episodes after arriving somewhere new.

ZOLF - Since Zolf did the bulk of the party's healing across the campaign, below is a bar chart containing all 27 of his heal checks across his days as both cleric of Poseidon and cleric of hope. Overall, he does exceedingly well at it, which is part of why he healed the party for the most points.

BERTIE - Despite his insistence on his own greatness, Bertie was largely statistically uninteresting. However, as seen in the table below which contains stats on the saving throws in the campaign for character, he rolled the most saves per capita, averaging nearly 1 save per episode. This is likely due to a combination of James antagonizing Alex & Bertie antagonizing everyone.

GRIZZOP - I have zero idea how Ben pulled this off, but the spread of nat 1s and nat 20s for Grizzop is ridiculously beautiful. The tables below contain information on the crits for skill checks, saves, and attacks, as well as a combined total for all three metrics. Skill check & save crits were perfectly balanced as all crits should be, and there was only a 3 crit disparity in attacks. Plus, the total number of natural 1s and natural 20s was just about 10%. This is incredibly close to what you would expect to see using d20s in an ideal system, which our world patently isn’t, so wow!

HAMID - You might have trouble remembering, but Hamid used a little spell called "fireball" once or twice amidst other firey attacks. Here's a nice bar chart comparing just Hamid's fire damage, which was 71% of his total damage dealt, to everyone else's total damage. Cel is the only one whose total damage just barely eeks out Hamid’s fire damage, and that only happened in the last 3 episodes of the campaign!

AZU - A bar chart of Azu’s Knowledge (Religion) rolls. Of the 16 rolls, 3 were natural 1s, which had a 3.6% or 1 in 28 chance of happening. Understandable it did, though, Azu had better things to be doing than paying attention in seminary...

CEL - From Cel’s 28 Knowledge (Engineering) rolls in the bar chart below, we can see that they really know their stuff! Nothing was below a 12, and a decent portion of rolls hovered around 30.

WILDE - And for my next trick, I shall perform the most difficult of statistician's techniques I toiled for years to perfect: glaring in the vague direction of London and spamming memes.

(thanks to serhawke (@cityelf​) for the Dragon!Alex Dice Hoarder doodle)

SKRAAK - A bar char of Skraak’s 8 stealth rolls. These checks themselves rolled a natural 20 on stealth. They look deceptively poor until you remember to look at the scaling on the left (how are none of these values below 25?!?!).

And now, weary, my labours completed, I shall impart upon you all one last tidbit:

WHY SKILL CHECKS PER MINUTE (SCPM) IS THE SUPERIOR UNIT FOR CAMPAIGN ANALYSIS

So I’m sure you all can hear the voice of my PhD supervisor in the background shouting “Straw, skill checks per minute (scpm) is an utterly meaningless measurement for evaluating episode content across a large campaign since the small amount of interesting information it could give you is in a format that is difficult for humans to conceptualize, what could you possibly use this for? What are you even trying to say with this unit, Straw?!” 

And, well, to an extend, he (and literally all of us who are thinking this) would be correct. However, and hear me out on this:

- You can pronounce scpm as “skip-uhm” and that’s just the kobold’s knees - Anything above 1 or really close to 0 is an obvious outlier and should be easy to spot in the mass of data. Sure, you could find them just as easily in other formats, but this range is fun and perky. -It’s just a really neat unit and you can pry it from my cold, dead claws.

In all seriousness, to all who worked on RQG - thank you. If not for you, we would not have had this fun sandbox of numbers to play with, nor this wonderful adventure to all embark on together.

Thank you.

If you liked this post, friendly reminder to check out “LOLOMG - A Performance Review by Oscar Wilde”! It contains more stats, and elaborate maths joke I made with “loads of hitpoints” as the punch line, and tons of really cool art, some tailoring notes for each character, and really funny text ghostwritten by Oscar Wilde from my friends! My friends did such a good job, y’all! Seriously, go check it out!

[inkdemonapologist]

[BatIM Call of Cthulhu Masterpost]

WE STARTED.... A NEW SCENARIO..... as you may have read in Boo’s summary post, for some unknown reason aLL MUSICAL AND PERFORMANCE ABILITY SEEMS TO BE??? GONE??? Sammy woke up, realised he couldn’t hold even the simplest tune in his head, and immediately lost THIRTY-ONE SANITY in one hit

..... YOU KNOW THAT MAKES SENSE HONESTLY

 anyway i have a some out-of-context quotes from the game for u all under the readmore if ur into that kinda thing!!!

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[GM] It's a tough voice to do, so you can't be as choosy, and your resident Bendy cannot act to save his life, so that's no good-- [Joey] Uh-oh. [Jack] Sorry, Lurks. [Joey] I'm just so worried he's going to have to act now... [Jack] Clearly, he should've used the time between scenarios to train that! [GM] Yeah, that's just what everybody wants I'm sure, is the Lurker training in LYING. That sounds like a great idea!

[GM] *asking for dice rolls to see how well our actual jobs are going* We can do a little bit of mundanity to, to treasure, and keep you warm later!

[Henry] Should I spend Luck points on this? No, I'm not spending Luck on work. [Sammy] That's a good general life policy

[Jack] Does Jack have any contacts? [Joey] No, he has glasses! :D [Jack] noooo that's my job! It's my job to make Jack's puns! ....Contacts probably didn't exist in the 1930s, that's okay. [Sammy] No, don't say that! Boo's going to have to look it up now!

[GM] What spell is Joey working on? [Jack] (Spell of Make Investor Like You)

[Joey] I think he probably has filing cabinets specifically to put occult stuff in and lock. And then the rest of his office is just piles and tables of animation stuff that you're like "...shouldn't this??? be??? in the filing cabinet???"

[GM] Allison remarks, "The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power of our minds, which hardly any later friend can obtain." [Sammy] Y'know, normal, just nORMAL CASUAL CHATTER, [GM] Tom, working on the pipe, just kinda mutters, "I enjoy friends, dear not only by habit and association, but from their own merits." And she gives him a look! [Jack] ...love at first whATEVER THIS IS,

[Sammy] ...Sammy's not amused. [GM] The band's amused! [Jack] Jack is probably amused.

[GM] So far things are going very well, but y'know, [Jack] Only so long until we crit fail something! [Sammy] NEVER TOO LATE TO MESS IT UP!

[GM] Allison's vibe is like, I Didn't Study This Exactly, But I Was Hoping It Could Just Work Out! [Jack] ...She has a lot of practice at just... making things work out, huh.... 

[GM] Is there anything else Joey would try to show off? [Joey] Tries to think... what else is at the Studio... [Jack] "Do you wanna talk to our janitor? He's really cool!"

[Joey] I roll to see if Joey can put two brain cells together,

[Jack] I have to appreciate that Bendy said he didn’t have the keys today. He’s been stealing them before, but THIS TIME isn’t his doing!

[Sammy] If there’s anything he needs to do himself, then he’ll come in early, but I don’t know what state we’re in -- [Joey] Uh, New York. [Sammy] ...what? [Joey] You didn’t know what state we’re in. :) [Sammy] [Sammy] thanks

[Joey] Oh Joey’s absolutely coming in early. Joey woke up, and felt great, so he’s going to menace every other department today, because he has the energy to get his fingers into everything! [Sammy] *distressed sounds in the background*

[Sammy] Hey how come when we did a Halloween cartoon, we all went to Haiti, but we’re doing a cartoon about a fair and we’re not going to a fair? [Jack] [Jack] I think we all know why.

*trying to decide who goes to Joey’s fancy dinner with an investor* [Sammy] I don’t know if Sammy will help you... [Sammy] Unless you bring Sammy and put him on a piano, like a small child that needs to be immediately handed crayons.

[Joey] Joey will say that they’re essentially the second hands in each of the departments-- [Jack] Yeah, Abby, the second hand… entire Art Department director, [GM] Uh-huh. [Joey] She… she knows,, [GM] Joey, [Joey] She knows that Joey… is … Big Gay for Henry,,, [GM] This is true, but I think she likes nominal acknowledgement that she holds a position, [Jack] He can just say that they’re high-ranking, and not-- [Joey] No I rolled badly, Joey’s going to say that Sammy and Henry are busy, so he brought his second-best! :) [GM] Abby is massaging her temples. [Joey] Sorry, Abby. He is,, an idiot,,, [GM] I think she’d be a lot more bothered if she couldn’t go and commiserate with Henry about it. Like, “why can’t he keep it straight?” [GM] ……………….well. She knows why he can’t keep it straight.

[GM] It’s about midnight, and something... strange.... happens. The trumpet player, who is leading the band -- [Joey] -- has a trumpet for a head! [GM] what no

*Joey succeeds a sanity check, Jack fails it* [GM] Joey, roll 1d10! [Joey] Uh, 3? [GM] Okay, you’re only down three sanity, that’s not so bad! [GM] Jack, roll 6d10! [Jack] what? [Joey] Six??? SIX d10s????? [GM] Yeah! [Joey] nICE KNOWING YOU, JACK!!! It’s time for Sillytime Jack.

[Jack] Smash cut to Henry, curled up in bed, nice and cozy,

[GM] I will also note, you cannot seem to Fast Talk. [Joey] ...what else can I do? [GM] Just normal talk. Like a normal person.

[Jack] I feel like Jack probably has a hunch that it’s weird nightmarish horror nonsense, on account of he just lost nineteen sanity,

[GM] Abby’s gonna try to take him to the hospital. [Jack] Jack’s just going to let that happen, because he’s shaken enough that he doesn’t have any significantly better ideas! Other than AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA,

[Sammy] *rolling sanity damage* 9… 9, stop that…. 4, [Jack] You’ve already lost more than Jack! [Sammy] 2, ...6, and 1! [Joey] That’s 31. [GM] Okay, Sammy has six sanity! [Sammy] eXCUSE ME?????

[Joey] Joey does want to head home… what day is it? [GM] Friday, the 13th! [Jack] HM, [Sammy] I GUESS IT IS, ISN’T IT… I wasn’t keeping track, but I guess it sure is! [GM] A delightful treat for myself, when I was looking up days in July, in 1934, [Sammy] WAIT, NO, ITS ACTUALLY A COINCIDENCE? Oh my gosh, [Jack] Because Friday the 13th wouldn’t even be a spooky day at this point in time! [GM] It is now! [Jack] It’s spooky, but just for us!

[Sammy] Sammy would try to call Jack, he’d try to call Joey, he’d try to call Henry -- probably several times, [Henry] sammy gets jack’s cat [Henry] phone is answered with meows [Jack] That does seem fitting for a really bad luck roll; the phone gets answered, and Sammy’s really relieved -- and it’s just the cat. [Sammy] Sammy, at 6 sanity: “jack’s tuRNED INTO A CAT,”

[Joey] The phone kept on ringing, so the cat just batted it off the cradle, [Jack] I feel like Jack probably doesn’t usually get a significant number of calls, so like, this many calls in a row is just obnoxious! [Jack] Cat’s having none of it. [Jack] Phone ring isn’t breakfast! [Jack] Where is the soft provider of food.

[GM] Oh no, you know what’s going to happen? Henry’s gonna get through to Jack, and then when Sammy calls it’s busy! [Sammy] cALLS JACK IT’S BUSY, CALLS HENRY IT’S BUSY, [Jack] I was gonna say maybe Henry would call Sammy first, because Sammy was one of the original three. [Jack] …Henry calls Sammy, Sammy is busy because SAMMY is trying to call someone, and then Henry calls Jack, and Sammy tries to call Jack again-- [Sammy] *laughing* THE HORROR, The deep, bone-chilling horror of A TIME BEFORE CALL-WAITING!!

[Henry] Is Joey there? [Jack] Yeah. [Henry] Are you guys alright? [Jack] ……………….hm,

[Jack] Cat is just sat on Joey, purring. Something is wrong with the human. Purr to fix the human.

[Henry] I called Sammy to make sure he’s okay, but-- [Abby] Was he? [Henry] No.

[Joey] Joey is going to be… obstinate feels like the wrong word? [Joey] He’s being the cat where you put the leash on, and the cat just sits down. [Joey] That is the Joseph mood right now.

[Sammy] *muttering* First one boyfriend turns into a cat, now the other boyfriend’s voice is wrong, today is terrible,

[Joey] This is Joey’s everything. [Sammy] That’s Joey’s contribution to the party! That’s like, your bard can no longer play music. [Sammy] ……….which is also true, but Sammy contributes other things. [Jack] Like Intimidate! [Sammy] Right now he contributes paranoia!

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #198

Happy New Year! (If it is not new years, please disregard.) Today we're crossing into the 2020 servants; hopefully this build makes that clear.

Today we're building Katsushika Hokusai, the daughter/fatheroctopus painter duo, most famous for... waves? And also making a deal with Cthulhu. We're grabbing some levels in Creation Bard for the former, and Hexblade Warlock for the latter. Don't worry, it'll make sense as we go.

Check out their build breakdown below the cut, or their character sheet over here!

Next up:

Race and Background

Oui is a Human. Her dad's an octopus, which is weird, but we'll deal with that later. Also, we're making her a variant human for cool stuff. She gets +1 Wisdom and Charisma, as well as Animal Handling proficiency to get along with her parents and the Magic Initiate feat, which uses her Wisdom to cast druid spells. Since magical paintbrushes aren't an official weapon in D&D 5e, we'll call it a quarterstaff instead, which means you can use Shillelagh to make it fancy and magical for the duration. It also turns the damage die into a d8, deals magical damage, and uses your wisdom instead of strength to hit things and deal damage. You also get Frostbite to splash cold water on people, and Protection from Evil and Good. You can cast that last one once a day for free, and it'll protect you against aberrations (plus celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead) for ten minutes with concentration. They'll have disadvantage to hit you, and they cant' charm, frighten, or possess you, and any existing effects of that ilk you can shake off with advantage. No spoilers, but that'll come in handy soon enough.

You also get the Guild Artisan background, because you paint for money. That gives you Insight and Persuasion proficiency.

Ability Scores

Make your Charisma as high as possible. You paint good, and you have the mental fortitude to keep an elder god from yeeting your soul from your body. Good job. Second highest is Dexterity, painting lifesized waves in the air around you doesn't actually need all the backflips, you just like to show off. Your Wisdom is also pretty good, it's hard to paint things you can't see well, and again that whole "mental fortitude" thing. Your Constitution is pretty good, you handle all-nighters pretty well. That means your Strength isn't great, but we're dumping Intelligence. You're kind of a hick, after all. Plus, really? Swordbeauties?

Class Levels

Bard 1: You weren't born with the squid powers, so we'll grab those up a bit later. Right now you're just a plucky young artist with a dream. As a bard, you get proficiency with Dexterity and Charisma saves, as well as three skills of your choice. Performance and Nature will help you paint nature, and Arcana will help you find the squid guy in the first place. You get Bardic Inspiration, Charisma Modifier d6s per long rest, and you can give one to your allies to boost one attack, check, or save by however much they roll. Nothing like some tasteful nudes to get the spirits up. You also get Spells that you can cast using your Charisma. Friends makes it easier to pass charisma checks against a creature for a minute, but they'll know you magicked them afterwards. Thankfully, getting paid doesn't take that long. Minor Illusion helps you bring your paintings to life, but just a little bit. It'll create a still object or sound that lasts for up to a minute. Creatures can tell it's an illusion with an investigation check, or by touching it. You also get Animal Friendship- your dad can be hard to get along with. Color Spray weaponizes your paints to blind creatures in the area, and Illusory Script lets you write one thing, but really write another. I'm sure you can argue this should count for paintings as well. Oh, you also get Dissonant Whispers. You're a Foreigner, you can be a little creepy if ya wanna.

Bard 2: Second level bards become a Jack of All Trades, adding half their proficiency to skill checks they aren't proficient in. You're an anime character, it's an unwritten rule you should be good at everything. You also get a Song of Rest, adding a d6 to healing your party does over a short rest. On top of that, your bardic inspiration becomes Magical Inspiration, letting your allies add it to the damage or healing of a spell. Finally, grab the spell Silent Image for moving images, so now you can paint birds and/or waves and have them look just like the real thing. Now, third level of bard is where things start getting funky, so before we can do that, let's make a deal.

Warlock 1: Bouncing over to warlock lets you become a Hexblade, which sounds kind of weird, but there's a reason for that. You don't do weird mind stuff like the GOOlocks, and you don't really use Tentacles like the Fathomlocks. What you do need though, is a fancy magic brush, and a fancy magic octopus. There isn't a familiar-based subclass yet, so we had to go with the weapon-based one, and we'll pick up your dad later. Anyways, starting off as a Hexblade lets you invoke a Hexblade's Curse as a bonus action, dealing your proficiency in extra damage to the cursed creature, crit on 19s, and heal yourself when the cursed creature dies. The curse lasts 1 minute, and you can use this once per short rest. Hokusai also become a Hex Warrior, turning one non-two-handed weapon into a special weapon at the end of a long rest. Now your brush uses your Charisma to attack, nice. Unfortunately, this doesn't include magical damage, but you can stack this with Shillelagh if you really need to. You also get another set of spells with your Pact Magic. These slots recharge on short rests, and it means your multiclassing doesn't mix slots like most spellcasting classes would. You can still use one kind of slot to cast the other kind of spells though. Speaking of spells, grab Eldritch Blast for some paint splashes, and Mage Hand for a pseudo-octopus that'll grab things for you. Cause Fear lets you paint a really creepy thing one target can see, forcing a wisdom save and scaring them if they fail. Arms of Hadar will give you a little bit of tentacles, as a treat. They'll force a strength save on creatures near you, dealing necrotic damage and making them too gooey to take reactions.

Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, mini-feats to help you cope with only having two spell slots. Grab Armor of Shadows for free Mage Armor on yourself at will. Your family is your armor, and I mean that literally. Stop wearing your dad, it's creepy. You also get a second one, but we're saving that for the next level. Don't not take one now though, I'm just saying it won't matter in the long run.

Bard 3: Now that your pact is sealed, we can get the real living paintings going. If you're thinking 'bout an inking feel free to shuffle levels around, I just want to hit Font of Inspiration quickly. As a Creation bard, Hokusai gets an Inkling of Potential, adding extra effects to her bardic inspiration. Ability checks let the user roll twice, attack rolls deal extra thunder damage, and saving throws add temporary HP to the user. She can also enact the Performance of Creation, creating a nonmagical item nearby. Currently it must cost less than 20 times your bard level, and it has to be medium or smaller. You can do this once per long rest, or by spending a 2nd level slot, but doing so destroys the first object if it still exists. Right now this only makes medium objects, but a 5' wave of water is nothing to sneeze at. You also get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency them. Pick up Insight and Performance for the ultimate style-copying skills. Finally, you get second level spells. We can't focus too much on non-charisma abilities, but this'll give you a leg up on seeing the true nature of things. It gives you advantage on any one kind of ability check for up to a minute.

Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma. Now you have more inspiration, better spells, and a bigger brush. Charisma's good, you'll like charisma. You can also paint Dancing Lights and a Phantasmal Force now. The former lights up an area, the latter creates a phantasmal creature or object that only one creature can see for up to a minute. It can break the illusion with an Investigation check, but until then it treats the thing as completely real, rationalizing away inconsistencies. It also can take a bit of psychic damage if the illusion would cause harm within 5' of itself.

Bard 5: Fifth level bards become a Font of Inspiration like we talked about earlier, giving you inspiration recharges on short rests instead of long ones. Your inspiration also jumps to d8s. Finally, grab Major Image for more major illusions than minor image. It creates an object up to 20' on each side, and includes effects like sound, smell, and temperature, as long as they wouldn't deal damage. You can also move the illusion using your action. Same rules apply to breaking it though- investigation check or just touching it.

Warlock 3: Finally back in warlock, you get your pact boon, and the Pact of the Chain gives you Find Familiar as a ritual, and you can skip your own attack to attack with your familiar. Wildly enough, Octopus is already a rules as written option for Find Familiar. Awkward point; octopi can only be out of water for 30 minutes. Good luck with that! On top of that, Mirror Image lets you paint duplicates of yourself, making it harder to hit you. Boom, evade skill achieved. You get three extra copies, and every time you get hit, there's only a 25% chance of actually hitting the real one. If an illusion gets hit, it's destroyed, so the odds go up to 33%, then 50%. You also put in the Investment of the Chain Master, giving your dad a flying speed, the ability to attack as a bonus action, magical weapons, your DC for saves, and you can react to give the little bugger resistance to one instance of damage. Literally everyone else's dad is dead already, try not to add one more to the pile. Except for Romani's, but that's sad in its own way.

Warlock 4: Another ASI, max out your Charisma. It's good, you use it for literally everything. For spells, Mind Sliver deals psychic damage an makes the target's next save a bit harder to make. You also get a Crown of Madness, which gives you control over a creature's attack action. Just because you're less spooky than Abby doesn't mean you're not spooky.

Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get a new invocation and third level spell. Summon Shadowspawn lets you paint one of three kinds of shadowspawn, creepy little things that can scare people by screaming at them. They'll obey your commands, and it'll last up to an hour, until they hit 0 HP, or you drop concentration. Your last invocation is the Gift of the Depths, letting you breathe underwater and swim as fast as you can walk. Now it's slightly less awkward to carry your dad around, yay. You can also cast Water Breathing for free once per long rest.

Bard 6: Finally back in bard now, sixth level creation bards can put on an Animating Performance, turning a large or smaller item into a Dancing Item with its own stats and everything. You have to use your bonus action to command it in battle, but you can inspire people at the same time. I'm not sure how well animating water would work, but it's something to look into. You also learn how to Countercharm, spending your action to give creatures near you advantage on saves against being charmed or frightened. For something better, grab Intellect Fortress. For up to an hour, you'll resist psychic damage, and you get advantage on all Int, Wis, and Chr saves.

Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells, like Hallucinatory Terrain! Now you can paint a landscape- literally! It's only 150' in range, but that's still plenty of space to mess with people. It doesn't really change anything, but forcing people to look at non-euclidean geometry is its own reward.

Bard 8: Another ASI. Bump up your Dex now so you're less likely to get hit, then grab Phantasmal Killer to paint a scary creature that will follow the target around and beat them up. It's a shame only one creature gets to see it.

Bard 9: Ninth level bards get a better song of rest, but more importantly you get fifth level spells. Legend Lore will help you see the true meaning of things more easily, and the more you already know about something the more you'll learn. That's why your Arcana and Nature skills are so high. Oh, wait, sorry, one sec...

Bard 10: And that's why your Arcana and Nature skills are so high... starting now, with another round of Expertise. Your inspiration also jumps to d10s, and you learn Magical Secrets, two spells from any spell list you can cast. On top of that, you get Prestidigitation to paint up small objects. For your secrets, Conjure Animals lets you paint up some real animals that'll attack enemies for you. Alternatively, you can Control Water to make those waves we've been trying to do with way less fuss than a Song of Creation or Animating Performance. It does come with the limit of using existing water, though you can also Part Water, cause a Whirlpool, or Redirect Flow with this one.

Bard 11: Eleventh level bards get a sixth level spell, and True Seeing will help you see All Things in Nature, letting you see through illusions, invisibility and the like.

Bard 12: One last ASI; bump up your Constitution for better concentration and more HP.

Bard 13: Your Song of Rest is a d10 now, and you get a seventh level spell. Prismatic Spray is the return of Color Spray, but it's taken steroids. Now it deals plenty of damage of a random type to each creature in its area, or it has a chance to shove them into another dimension or petrify them.

Bard 14: Your last goody from the college of creation is a Creative Crescendo, allowing you to paint up to your Charisma Modifier in items when you use a Performance of Creation. Only one can be a biggun, the rest have to be small or tiny. Also, your max size is Huge now, and a 15' cube of water will make a pretty big splash. You also get another round of Magical Secrets, grabbing you Conjure Elemental for a more symbolic approach to flooding people, and Wrath of Nature to paint a landscape that'll really fuck with someone. The grass turns land into difficult terrain, the trees will slash at enemies nearby, Roots and vines restrain enemies, and Rocks will throw themselves at enemies, knocking them prone on a failed strength save. It's not mind melting geometries, but it's still mess with people's heads.

Bard 15: Your ultimate level gives you a d12 inspiration die. You also get one last spell, of the eighth level. Feeblemind will handle all the mind melting the last level failed to live up to, forcing an intelligence save and dealing damage regardless. On a failed save, the creature's Intelligence and Charisma drop to 1, and it can't cast spells, use magic items, talk, or understand people. The only ways to fix this are with another Intelligence saving throw (every 30 days) or using Greater Restoration, Heal, or Wish.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Like the regular Hokusai, this build has a great deal of flexibility, with pretty good AC, HP, and physical attack options to get up close and personal, as well as ways to buff allies and attack with spells at a distance.

Speaking of spells, they give you a lot of crowd control options. You can create extra allies with summoning spells and Animating Performance, blow them away with waves from Control Water or Performance of Creation, or keep them tied up with various illusions.

You're also really good at fighting other spellcasters. Spells like Protection from Evil and Good and Intellect Fortress will shore up most of your saves against fancier spells, and you can use Feeblemind to completely shut down anyone who isn't a wizard or artificer.

So piss off your patron and kick the ass of their flunkies, easy! Wait, there's still cons.

Cons:

Okay, so there are some problems with throwing waves all over the place: they're hard to control where exactly they end up. Also, your best wave requires real water, which won't always be available.

On a similar note, you specialize in summons and illusions, both of which tend to require Concentration saves. Yours aren't that great, and on top of that it means you can only have one up at a time. Unless you're cool with an elemental running around willy nilly, but that fits into Con #1.

Your Familiar can only stay on dry land for 30 minutes at a time. If you're going to play this in a landlocked campaign, switch the octopus and last invocation for something else, it'll be a pain otherwise.

Okay, she isn't perfect, just make sure you carry an aquarium with you, problem solved, right?

[nero-draco]

Summary for each stage:

Stage 1

Stage 1 wasn't too hard. The enemy apply burn every turn. Arc clear the Avenger enemy by NP+Brave chain and Iskandar mop up the rest.

Stage 2

2nd stage gimmick is the enemy has crit resist buff which seems to be deactivate when I apply debuff to them(?)

Regardless Summer Abby NP + Summer Nero NP clears it.

Stage 3

3rd stage is Ashvatthaman with an atk buff. He hits really hard and nearly KO Enkidu in a single turn. I just brute force it and Summer Tam dealt the finishing blow.

Stage 4

4th stage gimmick is that both enemy will resurrect unless you kill them both at once. I prepared Arjuna with SBG in tandem with Oberon, and Morgan tagging along for extra buff + damage. Might be overkill but I dunno I didn't see the final damage.

Stage 5

5th stage is Summer Kriem with atk+def buff. Since the enemy is berserker I aim for quick clear with Nero Bride + supports.

Stage 6

6th stage is Quetz with buster buff. I got lucky that I rolled two King hassan buster card so I can perform NPBB with crits which took large chunk of her HP at the beginning.

Stage 7

7th stage is a dragon though I don't really get its gimmick. I think it'll change class advantage when it uses charge attack.

Its funny seeing Siegfried NP deal 400k HP though.

Stage 8

8th stage is CasCu with 3 turn evasion. So sure hit/pierce invul is mandatory here.

Stage 9

9th stage is Foreigner which will apply NP resist the moment she uses skill. I got lucky with the cards again as I had two buster from Super Bunyan. NPBB crits with Merlin buff destroyed this boss.

Stage 10

10th stage is U Olga and definitely the hardest. Use your best team here. She has NP seal, pierce invul, etc among her skills.

Apparently the whole deal is similar to Iri in Fate Zero collab in which she split into 4 elements. This U Olga is Fire element so I just find it funny that Draco deal the last blow by commanding her dragon to fire breath U Olga.

My party for the recent Ordeal Call raid.

There are ten rounds and you need to select 3 servants that will fight in each round. The catch is that not only you can't reuse the same servants, but the same with CE too. So if one of your servant use Kaleidoscope then the other servants can't equip it.

Each stage also has its own gimmick. For example Stage 4 has two enemy that keep resurrect unless you kill them at the same time. Stage 8 has enemy with 3 turn evasion at battle start. Each enemies more or less has 600k hp in total (either 3x 200k HP, 2x 300k HP, or single enemy with 600k HP).

[crystalelemental]

Initial thoughts on everyone:

SS Wally has Fairy Zone, Double Gardevoir confirmed. Unfortunately he got hit with the 5/5 requirement for full sync grid, so I will be going maybe 1/5 and stopping. Sorry shiny Gardevoir, I love you so much, but gacha gonna gach, and I don’t play that shit anymore. I will say the nodes are good but not worth it. Discombobulate is only useful marginally against Latias, Head Start 1 is fine but only with fast ramping that most Fairies don’t have, Zone Extension 3 hurts because the usual is 5 so this is about half as good, and one stack of special moves next on Fairy Wish is okay but you don’t want to spam the multiplier. So the expansion nodes for 4-5/5 are somewhat easily ignored.

Victor is good but in a way that sucks. I forgot about Gigantamax. He doesn’t even have Grassy Terrain. Oh but they did give him Piercing fucking Blows for some reason. I dunno, he’s boring. Just straight Grass damage. Ground is barely worth registering, his gimmick is speed debuffs, there’s not much interesting at all.

Melony is solidly okay, but it’s telling her best utility is Sing. For all her shield extension, none of that matters when you have built-in Vigilance to run Sing Troublemaker and have Precision Pals on your buff. Perfect accuracy sleep support. Which is good because she effectively buffs nothing. +2 Sp Def and +1 crit. Lodge Cynthia performs your role comparably in the buff department and doesn’t even need 3/5 for it. Damning if not for Sing.

Gordie is also fine. Cakewalk hurts, and his move damage may as well not exist. He’s also got Tar Shot. I think Wally had something like this, but they’re introducing Type Rebuff, I assume to increase damage while off-type? Sure guys. That’s definitely necessary.

Allister stole Gourgeist. I’m going to kill everyone. More seasonal Galar and they took my child from me. I’m pissed. Worse, his gimmick is a disaster. Trainer move gives +3 crit and from 0-5 random effects. If you want any other buff, you get All Ramped Up on an attack. So he’s slow as hell and super inefficient and really only good at healing each action. They not only did Galar seasonal and gave it my child, they also made my child kinda suck depending on those conditions. Blinding fury.

Iris is amazing. Poison Zone is a godsend. Don’t love the Hyper Beam thing but fine. Acid got On a Roll 9 on grid and that is fantastic. I do think it’s hilarious that they tried to limit her by going “what if we only give her +2 crit from the trainer move?” As if BP Janine doesn’t exist with Team Sharp Entry and every buff she needs with Toxic Fang as backup. Halloween Iris is amazing. Need to see grid placement for full understanding but she wants for little and hits for much.

Norman got Standfast 3 and 5. That’s it. He did, however, get Hostile Environment 2, so he is a glorified paralysis bot for Whitney. Tate got Cakewalk instead of Haymaker so all is dust for sun rock. Lucy got really solid stuff, including Hostile Environment for Poison Fang, so that’s nice. Raihan got an extension that’s pretty strong but 4-5/5 so no. And…*sigh* Glacia. They didn’t even try. Healthy Buffer. Not Benefits, Buffer. Just moves. God forbid she be as good as *checks notes* Hop. Synchro Healing is something but her mega still sucks. Durable is nice, if she buffed anything. The reason it works well for Roxanne and Hilbert is because of how much they can get done in that extra turn. Glacia cannot. Glacia has problems. But! They did give her Focus Group to buff crit rate for allies. Which is…something. Now to figure out how to rearrange grid and make this garbage work.

Oh, and Hex Maniac. She’s fine but they gave her Haunter. Abysmal pick, 0/10, I’m really bothered by it.

[blaydiud]

Irony of ironies, it seems, for the powers that be to deem this match a necessity in the first round of the entire affair. Mitama would laugh, if she was not still reeling over the fact she was to be here at all.

The fabled deer hunter, facing off against the (proudly) crowned lion killer. She recalls the pompous titles they had been bequeathed the last time they went through this affair. Could she be blamed, for finding the affair hilarious? (She had jokingly threatened to redeem Claude's pathetic attempt. It seems they took her seriously.)

However, there is no time for pondering over the ridiculousness of the situation. Mock or not, a battlefield this remains, and while Mitama would rather bow out gracefully and spend the day napping, she cannot stop the competitive edge that bubbles at the sight of her target. (She gets that from her father, lamentably.)

Mitama moves quickly, using her lack of height to advantage. Darting in past the reach of the lance, she tightens her grip upon the sword as she aims a hit sharp against his side. "What an event this will be, hmm, Wyvern?" She calls with a laugh as she quickly darts back, raising the blade in anticipation of his counter.

"I only ask that you spare my face Claude's treatment! I am far more delicate, and rather fond of my current bone structure besides."

(Mitama rolls a d20-2 (Dimitr's AVO +10). 14 = Crit! -3 damage).

And so, as they do every year, The Battle of Eagle and Lion finally began. The moment for them to show off their skills and everything that they have learned so far, as well as a celebration for the legendary battle of the same name.

To Dimitri it was a little more than just a celebratory battle and an exam of sorts- there was a bit of pride involved in as well. After all, it was the battle where Faerghus got independence from the Empire and became its own country, proudly won by King Loog. Winning for the Blue Lions- mainly for him, was paramount. People would be watching from the sidelines, as a prince his performance in the battle, mock or not, was very important.

"Mitama." Grimbelle hovered within an acceptable distance to the mage, allowing him to be able to hear her voice. He remembers the last results- while Dimitri got crowned the 'deer hunter', Mitama had been named the 'lion killer' as well.

Mitama attacks! Roll D20-2= 14, critical! | Dimitri HP= 2/5

It didn't need to be stressed how skilled she was, and the prince made a mistake in thinking her abilities were limited to light magic. Before Grimbelle could swivel out of the way, the blade of Mitama's ax made a swift and well aimed cut at his side, earning a hiss from the prince.

So early on, and already faltering? Will you trip and fall on your face in your coronation, too?

Dimitri shook his head, he had to focus now. "You are...just as skilled as I expected, Mitama." With a gentle tug on the reigns, Grimbelle flew upwards to gain more distance between them- only to swiftly dive in Mitama's direction, the blessed lance pointed and ready for a strike aimed at the mage's side.

Dimitri counters! Roll20-2 = 18, critical! | Mitama HP= 2/5

A satisfactory hit- perhaps half fueled by the crumbs of retaliation for getting struck so hard so early on. Be careful, this is a mock battle you fool. Don't take it too seriously and hurt her too much.

Blessed Lance heals Dimitri for +1HP, Dimitri HP= 3/5

The fresh injury on his side was starting to get patched up by the blessed lance's embued magic, and so Grimbelle flew in a circle above Mitama, readying an angle for Dimitri to try for an advance of his own. His hands gripped the lance harder, he prepared himself and-

Dimitri attacks! Roll20-2 = 2, miss!

He wasn't sure what happened. If it was a roar of cheer for the Golden Deer in the background that somehow distracted him, or if it was the spike of pain from the strike he had gotten on his side, but he managed to miss his attack in a rather...embarrassing way, praying that nobody had seen such disgraced error. The prince winces at his own mistake. "Ah, sorry about that." A stray apology for no reason, but he felt like he had to say it nonetheless.

[alieninatrenchcoat]

Master of Christmas Cookies

(msr one shot ficlet where Scully invites Mulder over on Christmas Eve to help her prepare cookies to bring to her family ) 

The sun was beginning to set, and the last light of day, as orange as ever, found its way to Scully’s brilliant head. Her tight white top suddenly matched her mane. She was practically turning into an orange. Mulder was busying his hands with a plop of freshly made cookie dough, rolling little clumps into round balls to place on a cookie sheet beside him. He had been rolling it delicately, but mindlessly. His thoughts were not on the dough, but of his company. He was completely preoccupied with Scully’s orange glow, not concentrating a bit on the job at hand. The goop between his fingers started to flatten as his brain slowly forgot what its task was, allowing for his hands to still around the sugar-cookie-to-be. He watched her move at her counter top a few feet away. Her hair swaying between gleams of light and shadow, how wonderfully angelic her choice in outfit complimented the sun’s warm kiss goodnight. His thoughts were aching to reach her own in hopes that she would telepathically receive his message: ‘Please turn around so I can see how the sun looks in your eyes. Please. I bet they look gorgeous. Sculllllllllyyyyy turn around. Just for a sec.’ She was closely examining the temperature on her oven, expectantly waiting for the number to bump up by an interval of 10, meaning the preheating process could be completed. As the anticipated beep sounded, she bent over to open it up. Mulder couldn't help but stare, but his mind was quickly drawn back to reality when she dusted off her hands on the front of her pant legs and turned around to meet his gaze. His eyes quickly averted to her face. Just as he expected- 

Her eyes did in fact look brilliant. 

He must have been distracted again because he wasn't expecting Scully to make any remarks just yet. Arms crossed, “ If you needed me to teach you how to roll the dough, It would have been proficient to let me know instead of waiting for me to figure it out on my own.”

His eyes went wide as he noticed he had not placed a single cookie on the sheet yet. Remembering the glob in his hand, he theatrically placed it onto the middle of the cookie sheet and looked back up at her with an innocent smile. He didn't consider vocalizing that she looked beautiful, or angelic. This was how she always was. The sun had finally disappeared, but she was just as radiant. His Scully. He wishes he’d be able to stay with her longer tonight. Baking Christmas cookies with Scully reminded him of when he and his mother had taught younger Samantha how to mix ingredients and cut out shapes with the Santa-shaped cookie cutter for the first time. The thought of Scully baking with a child of her own one day warmed his heart much more than the warmth of the December sun ever could, but he wouldn't be sharing this with her out loud. Though, he wouldn’t mind if she received the message telepathically, that way he wouldn't feel the need to explain himself. 

“Oh, I know how to roll the dough. It's a meticulous process, and it takes much effort for me to produce one of this level of finesse,” he stated proudly. A smile tugged at Scully’s lips. 

“Is that so?” she challenged. It was more of a statement. The serious nature of Mulder’s voice was a stark contrast to his grin. 

“Miss Dana, you might wanna take some notes from the pro,” he returned to the giant metallic mixing bowl of untouched dough, grabbing another clump and slowly rolling between his palms. Bringing his paralleled hands up to his eye level as if performing a spell, he stared down the rounding dough taking shape before him. He faked a concentrated-death stare with the dough and with a “wa - la” he procured the cookie sphere out to Scully, before slapping it onto the sheet.

“I’m overwhelmingly impressed. I don't think my skills could ever amount to yours,” she supplied, matching his sarcasm. She met him at the table, taking a piece of dough from the bowl and whipping it into a ball. Then another. And another. And another. 

“No no no. you're doing it all wrong. You gotta finesse the dough.” Scully gave him the singular eyebrow raise. “C’mere, let the master guide the student. I will assume the role of your sensei, young pupil,” he held out a sugar-covered hand for her to take into her own. A hesitant smirk played across her face, but she took his hand and he pulled her down into the wooden chair beside him.

“Here,” he grabbed a piece of dough, her hand still in his grasp. He turned her palm face-up to receive the dough, and held out his free hand for her other to take. He placed her dough-less hand over the glob of cookie dough, and they began to roll it into a ball together. His hands over her own small, delicate, motherly hands. Warm from the oven. 

His face was naturally within close proximity to her own, and he could smell the Christmas season all over her. Her scented candle, her peppermint hand wash, or was it a lotion? She smelled as if she could be a cookie herself. 

“Good,” he drawled. “That’s good.” She smiled, watching their hands move around the dough together. It was already in the desired shape, of course, but she let him continue to ease her hands into gyration. 

“Don't you think it’s ready, sensei?” she let out a giggle. 

“Patience, pupil.” he admonished. 

“Y’know, I really hope the oven doesn’t start the building on fire. I'd hate for this talent of yours to go to waste on teaching me.” 

“Nothing can go waste on you, my pupil” Scully couldn't contain her laughter at his seriousness and the fact that the same piece of dough was still between her hands. “Alright, I think you have mastered the art.” He released her hands, and she placed the finished product on the sheet with no time to spare. She grabbed another piece of dough and looked at him expectantly. 

“Now you are ready, master Scully. You no longer need me help.” He leaned against the table, resting his head in one of his hands to watch her fondly. Her cold eyes said ‘really’?’ but her warm smile betrayed her amusement. 

As she rolled the final piece, the classical vinyl she had chosen for them to listen to, came to an end. Mulder reached out to move a piece of her auburn hair behind her ear as he stood to get the oven mits. His hands fit the red, puffy material snugly, and he wondered how Scully could even hold a cookie sheet with these on her tiny hands. 

“Excellent work, master Scully,” He bowed and took the tray from her reverently, slipping it into the oven that he was sure must have cooled down to half its temperature by now.

Scully washed her hands, then made her way to the well-loved couch, patting the cushion to signal him over. Mulder settled himself down next to her.

“Thanks for helping me today Mulder, I really do appreciate it.” 

“Bill better like them. Tell him I made them. Maybe he’ll cut me some slack” 

“I'm sure he will.” 

“Hey Scully, I got you a little something,” He broke eye contact for a split second to rummage deep into the pocket of his jeans to pull out a small charm bracelet. Golden, with a portrait of the Virgin Mary. He took Scully’s clean hand in his own like he did with the dough -yep, it was definitely peppermint scented hand wash- and placed the accessory in her hand. Her smile softened.

“I - Mulder I thought we agreed on not doing gifts this year!”

“Consider it less of a gift, and more of an inheritance,” Scully looked at him, puzzled.

“What for?”

“It was my mothers.”

“Oh, Mulder you don't need to-”

“-She wasn't much for religion, but a nurse sent it to my address in the mail saying it was found in a pocket of hers. It didn’t mean much to me, I had never noticed it before, but I saved it for a while, thinking maybe I could pass it on to one of my future children if I ever had any, like your mother had given that to you,” He gestured his chin to the spot on her neck. Her gold cross. “But I didn’t feel like waiting around for the possibility, y’know? It would be better off in your possession anyway.”

Scully ran a finger over the charm, porcelain and glowing in the lamp light behind them. 

“It's beautiful. Thank you, Mulder. Really, you shouldn't have.”

“I know it's in good hands. Merry Christmas, Scully.” 

Drawing her attention away from the bracelet, she turned back to Mulder as she slipped it on. “I know you said you had to leave soon, but you're welcome to stay a little longer if you'd like. ‘Alone on Christmas Eve’ isn't a good title for a Master sensei.” She was hoping he’d agree, and that he did not miraculously have plans elsewhere, but to her minor disappointment, he did indeed have plans. 

“I gotta get back to my place before the Gunmen show up. They have some sort of drink-and-code mania they wanted my help with. You could always come join Scully,” He stood from the couch and made his way to the leather jacket waiting for him on the back of his cookie-making throne. 

“That's alright. I'm not so sure I'd like to consort with a drunk Frohike at the moment,” this earned a chuckle from Mulder. 

“Tell Maggie I said hello. Stop by with some of those cookies on your way out tomorrow?” 

“I'll see if I have room in my schedule to add ‘delivering cookies to my hungover partner,’’ she joined him at the door and opened it for him. “Merry Christmas Mulder.” 

“Merry Christmas, cookie master” He leaned over and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek on his way out, and the way her eyes sparkled at him in return was enough to top any gift he’d be receiving from her this year. 

-

(feedback/constructive crit. is always welcomed :) `hope everyone is having a great Christmas season!! )