#anyway in addition to having the stats to use every weapon and spell + being at either the soft or hard cap for the 3 non damage stats

[infestedslime]

Happy birthday elden ring

[greetings-inferiors]

DND Class Ideas: Runeblade

A class all about using their strength and intelligence in tandem, to the point where rolls take away the difference between the two stats, Runeblades focus on multiple attacks of the mundane and magical each round. They use runes to get more attacks and damage in each round, but each subclass does so in a different way. Also, instead of adding their proficiency bonus to attack rolls, they add their strength AND intelligence modifiers, but take away the difference in the strength and intelligence stats (if you had 20 str and 10 int, your attack rolls would get +5 because of str, +0 because of int, and -10 because of the difference in stats. if you had 16 str and 16 int, you'd get +3 from str, +3 from int, then -0 because the stats are the same.). All subclasses will gain passive runes over an hour period, with the max passive runes being your proficiency bonus multiplied by your level.

Subclasses:

Runeblades have two categories of subclass: the Rune (which element one specialises in) and the Blade (which weapon one specialises in). I'll start by going over the Blades, and then the Runes.

Blades:

Sword: These runeblades focus on the duality and synchronicity between their strength and intelligence. When they make an attack, they gain runes equal to their proficiency bonus, and can expend runes to cast spells (in the same way other martial classes can attack twice with one action), with the spell costing 2^x runes, where x is the spell's level (cantrips cost 1, level 1s cost 2, etc.). At higher levels they also get an action surge (although it costs runes).

Dagger: These runeblades focus on the more magical side - they get runes by casting spells (half your proficiency bonus rounded up multiplied by the spell level, or just 1 rune for cantrips) and can expend them by gaining bonus actions (1 for the first bonus action, 2 for the second, 4 for the third, etc.) which can be used to attack, or whatever else. They are also full spellcasters (the other classes are half spellcasters).

Axe: These runeblades focus more on the physical side - They can't actively gain runes, relying solely on their passive pool. They can expend runes to coat their weapon with their specialised elemental energy, adding their proficiency bonus to attack rolls, and adding their strint modifier (str + int mods - difference in stats) to their damage. This lasts a number of turns equal to their proficiency bonus, and costs half their proficiency bonus. They can go into this state by casting a spell of their specialised element, but then it may cost their full action. At higher levels they gain the ability to spend runes to do extra attacks.

Runes:

Fire: These runeblades focus on higher damage with a higher cost. They get the level 1 spell Fire Blast, which does xd4 fire damage where x is your proficiency bonus in a 5ft cone. At level 5 it becomes a 10ft cone, at level 10 a 15ft cone, and at level 15 a 20ft cone. Upcasting it adds a d8 per level.

Ice: These runeblades focus on weaker magic that is easier to cast. They get the cantrip Ray of frost, but it costs half as many runes (round down), is worth double, and from level 5 can be upcast, doing 1d4 per level.

Lightning: These runeblades focus on additional weapon damage. Casting a lightning spell gives you a lightning charge (I just learnt they aren't in 5e, but these are slightly different to in bg3 anyway so shut up), making your attacks deal +x lightning damage where x is the number of lightning charges. Your lightning charges halve (round down) when you make an attack, or at the end of the turn (if you didn't make an attack). You gain the level 1 spell charge, which adds lightning charges to your weapon equal to your proficiency bonus and only uses a bonus action. The lightning bolt that hits your weapon also can do 1d6 damage for every lightning charge on your weapon (including the charges added by the spell). When upcast it adds two charges per level.

Anyway let me know whether this is overpowered or not. I tried to make each Rune have an obvious synergy with one Blade, while still being useful and interesting with the other two (i.e. sword works best with fire because it gains enough runes to cast it without using spell slots each turn, but ice lets it gain runes for free each turn and lightning will qucikly ramp up its damage while letting you cast two spells (because shut up I'll allow it); dagger works best with ice as dagger can't gain spell slots, but fire lets them crowd control and lightning lets them use all their stored charges in one turn doing disgusting damage; axe works best with lightning, as they can coat their weapon using a bonus action without spending runes, and they focus more on single attacks getting more use out of the lightning charges, but fire and ice have more utility with crowd control and range). If you have any ideas for more Runes and Blades, also let me know!

[wobinofylisse]

I've been thinking of getting last faith cause I love thw bloodborne vibes and I absolutely LOVE blasphemous 1 and 2 (god I hope we get DLC for 2 like we did 1).

Anyways what issues are you referring to so I'll know

So when you look at the game it's very important to note that it's essentially a castlevania game but with some souls stuff thrown in. Kinda in a way that it feels like it was added for marketing purposes.

I'll start with a subjective issue which is the music kinda sucks. It's sad piano music throughout almost the entire game and my brained tuned it out so much that sometimes I'd eventually notice that at some point the music had stopped in entirely in the area I entered.

That aside, the dark souls stuff holds the game back.

The game doesn't ever pause despite there not being any online and you can't even use items from your inventory and have to manually set things to your hot bar so it's not like you could gain an advantage through it.

You lose currency in death but there's no physical currency you can use and health items are a limited consumable. So every time you lose a fight and want to level a different weapon or just get more health items, you gotta grind for it.

Difficulty can be all over the place so it's very hard to tell if you shouldn't be somewhere or it's just a stupid difficulty spike.

While the ds leveling system is a cool addition to the castlevania style of game, pretty much all dex weapons have actually garbage damage output and guns are so bad that the instinct stat can just be ignored altogether unless you want to use the few spells that scale with it.

Status effects are so detrimental that especially early game, getting inflicted with a status is pretty much just a death sentence.

Moving on to the more actual gameplay design.

Movement is done in such a weird way where it feels kinda clunky and a lot of moves don't properly flow together as smooth as they should.

Double jump is like 60-70% into the game which wouldn't be an issue but almost all ledges are meant to be grabbed and your jump height will only take you to the ledge, so you're constantly watching the climbing animation everytime you make a jump. It's small but it's frustrating.

Early game gives you almost nothing to work with unless you go str, which if you do play it you should. Otherwise not only is the early game gonna be a lot harder but the late game is filled with enemies that deal frost damage which your frost res scales with strength making the late game that much worse.

Guns suck especially when compared to magic as an alternative for your off hand slot. Magic doesn't need to be upgraded like guns and will scale with mind well enough and occasionally instinct. Guns only scale with instinct and with the exception of one gun they all scale very poorly. Guns need to be upgraded the same as your primary weapon but upgrading weapons is very very expensive. Guns use a limited bullet resource that when depleted requires you to scavenge from enemies when depleted meaning that they're very inconsistent in terms of use unlike magic where you can use items to restore fp. Neither guns or magic can be used in the air but some magic has anti-air potential at least. Guns don't do enough damage to bypass any of its flaws and outside of a few niche situations, it's almost always better to just walk over and hit whatever you would shoot at.

Again with the guns and magic can't be used in the air. This means that anything flying requires you to poke it to death. Some of the endgame bosses only fly around. No this is not fun to deal with.

Lots and lots of projectile spam from enemies. Your roll only gives i-frames against projectiles but it neither tells you this nor is it consistent in what you can roll through.

The parry requires you to hold r1 and press y which for some people is a really big deal, I don't really see it as an issue tho. The issue with the parry tho is that it is extremely inconsistent and you can't tell what attacks you can actually parry.

While it is encouraged for you to use elemental buffs on your weapon, it's not very well communicated what will be effective against what and at some point I think bosses stop getting status effects all together.

Side quests seem very basic and are pretty much all just find the 1 thing that the character asked you for then you get no reward and they might just leave the game forever. There's a point of no return at the end of the game that you aren't told about and it makes it impossible to finish any side quests.

Story is kinda eh. Lot of it is characters vagueing about stuff or talking in jargon and I stopped feeling invested in the world building because it felt is need to watch some randos video essay just to understand anything. Especially with how little it explains towards the end.

I say all this and I still think it has the bones of a good game and with the proper work it could be made much better.

I'm hopeful.

[monstersdownthepath]

Lord of the Sixth: Moloch, the Ashen Bull

CR 29

Lawful Evil Huge Ousider

Bestiary 6, pg. 30-31

Moloch is a refreshingly simple Archdevil in nearly every respect. He’s a titanic physical threat, perhaps the greatest warrior in Hell, whose statblock is mercifully undecorated compared to his kin. Beyond his stats, his goals are straightforward: Total military conquest. Left to his own devices, he will put his legions through ruthless drills and even mock wars with one another to prepare them, awaiting his superiors to give him a target to use all his tactics on. His focus is entirely on soldiers, tactics, and the analysis of every advantage Hell has at its disposal and every power offered by every individual soldier in his army. He rarely deigns to craft anything himself and is often seen as uncreative, leaving the invention of new weapons to the more imaginative Belial and the creation of said weapons to the skilled forgemaster that is Dispater... but his actual creativity shines when he finally gets his hands on these weapons and soldiers, putting staggering genius into finding how to utilize them to their fullest potential and further Hell’s reach.

Even beyond this, however, Moloch is the “safest” of the Archdevils to bargain with. His infernal contracts are almost suspiciously straightforward, as the diabolic general sees little need for subterfuge and trickery, preferring to utilize a technique that is practically unheard of and nigh alien in Hell: simply giving mortals exactly what they ask for in exchange for a clear, obvious price that has no hidden clauses or gotchas. If you ask for rain for your land to fix a drought, you will get exactly the rain you ask for, delivered safely over time instead of all at once in a deluge. If you ask for riches, you’ll wake up the next day with treasure chests packed with coin and gems at your bedside. If you ask for Moloch to shield your town from an incoming attack, iron walls 40 feet high will erupt from the earth, staffed by infernal petitioners to do exactly that. All his promises delivered as soon as convenient, his Mythic Wish spell-like used liberally and directly. 

No strings attached! None you didn’t see him wrapping around you, anyway. A being without subtlety, Moloch demands the same of his followers; don’t hide what you are. Raise temples in his name, burn sacrifices publicly, praise him for his aid and thank Hell for the salvation it has brought to you and your people, tell everyone that they have been saved by the Ashen Bull. His prices are likewise simple: Provisions, weapons, animals, and people sacrificed in great burning pits, everything claimed by the sacred fires teleporting directly to him, everything used. The more you ask for, the more you must burn to satisfy him. And, of course, there’s always one additional caveat: Those that bargain with him are bound to him. No marching the River of Souls, no trial in the Boneyard, no attempt to get out of the bargain, no ifs, no ands, no buts, no negotiation. The simplicity of his contacts is a double-edged sword, because if he gives you what you asked for as you asked for it when you needed it most, where’s the wiggle room to spare yourself from damnation? Where’s the loophole you can squeeze through to escape the fires of Malebolge? Where’s the clause you can point to and claim the whole thing annulled?

No. Moloch’s contracts are as ironclad as he is. There’s no escape from the fires you’ve thrown yourself on. That’s why “safest” was in quotes! But now that we have a bit of background on our boisterous bull, lets take a look at what he can do if he takes the front lines himself...

Fun fact for you, Moloch’s sacred weapon is the whip. You wouldn’t be able to tell based on his own personal weapons of choice, a +3 Unholy Vorpal Battleaxe named Goreletch and a +3 Axiomatic Cruel Unholy Wounding Longsword named Ramithaine, but therein lays the difference between Moloch’s minions and Moloch himself: He expects his followers to be wise and lead from the back, driving their forces forward with their whip, while he personally prefers to fight from the front lines. Not all the time--gotta give the troops a chance to prove their worth to him--but whenever the opportunity arises to crush a foe under his heel and remind the enemy forces what they’re up against, you can be sure he’ll take it.

Though he can easily just swap them back and forth to suit whatever enemy he’s fighting, Moloch typically uses Goreletch in his main hand (for four attacks a round) and Ramithaine in his off-hand (for two more), relying on Goreletch’s Vorpal ability to close out battles by instantly killing most foes he confirms critical hits against. Even if they somehow survive the decapitation (or if the critical hit came from a 19 instead of the 20 that Vorpal activates on), Moloch’s Barbed Blademaster increases the critical hit modifier of any weapon he wields by 1, meaning Goreletch deals x4 damage on a crit, and Ramithaine x3. Both weapons deal 3d6+18 damage per hit, but Goreletch adds +2d6 to Good targets, and Ramithaine +2d6 to Good and another +2d6 versus Chaotic while also adding +1 bleed damage. A crit from Goreletch does, at minimum, 84 damage, while Ramithaine has a more modest 63.  

Even without the threat of a Vorpal crit, the Ashen Bull is still dealing a minimum of about 140 damage from a Full-Attack, or--more realistically--an average of around 170, give or take about 15 or so points depending on his target’s alignment. A single critical hit from either weapon drastically changes that as well as potentially preventing any reprisal via his Staggering Critical, and if you think I’m talking up his critical hits too much, you’re probably right! After all, what level 20+ party would risk sending in their frontline without some protection against critical hits? That’s just common sense at this point!

Unfortunately, Barbed Blademaster is a potent ability; it not only expands the critical hit multiplier of his weapons, but it also reduces all Fortification--the most common means of blocking incoming crits--by half. This doesn’t just work on enchanted armor, but all forms of Fortification, even natural sources (such as, ironically, Geryon’s Threefold Body). You may as well go for full crit immunity at that point instead of risking 90+ damage (or even instant death) from a single attack.

15ft of space and 15ft of reach already give Moloch a considerable threat radius, but his comparatively low speed of a mere 40ft makes him easy to kite... which is why he can cause the arena to shrink to his command with his at-will Wall of Fire hedging combatants inwards and, far more dangerously, a 3/day Quickened Blade Barrier to further shape the battlefield to his liking without giving up his actions for the turn. Wall of Fire may not appear too impressive, but the passive damage will stack up, because ALL fire created or wielded by Moloch becomes infused with his Spirit of Hellfire, causing half the damage to be Fire, while the other becomes an irresistible unholy force that deals twice as much damage to any Good-aligned creatures caught in the flames. This affects his Wall of Fire, at-will Fireball, his 3/day Empowered Fire Storm (how’s 30d6 Fire damage to 232 different 5ft squares sound?), and his 1/day Meteor Swarm, among... other things.

Those ‘other things’ being his Burn, 2d6 persistent Hellfire damage to any creature he hits with his token natural attacks: a gore or a bite (2d8+7 damage each). His Fiendish Furnace also ignites anything that comes too close to him, dealing 2d8 Hellfire damage to anyone who comes within 10ft of him or starts their turn there. In addition, anyone striking Moloch in melee risks bursting into flames with every attack, taking his Burn automatically unless they succeed a DC 43 Reflex save every single time they hit him. While the Burn isn’t impressive (like the Bleed from Ramithaine), all Fire from Moloch should be looked at warily, because being reduced to 0 HP from the fire or being reduced to 0 while on fire from the Burn causes instant death. Such poor souls are Incinerated unless they succeed a DC 38 Fortitude save, resurrection no longer possible unless 9th level magic is used.

Most creatures who end up Incinerated were likely caught in his Empowered Fire Storm being thrown out to finish off victims hovering near death while blasting every other combatant at the same time, but there is one more reliable way he has to make sure his victims can’t come back: eating them. His bite damage is low, but anyone bitten can end up Grabbed and subsequently Fast Swallowed into his hollow, blazing body, surrounded on all sides not by churning flesh and boiling acid but sheer, unavoidable, hellish heat. Such victims take 20d10 Hellfire damage each round they remain inside Moloch’s body, the fires so intensely agonizing that victims must make a DC 43 Will save to do anything but shriek and wail in pain which, y’know, completely fair, but come on man you’re totally letting down the rest of the team! Enough that anyone hearing the screams of pain has to immediately save against Moloch’s Frightful Presence, with the save going from 38 to 42. Hopefully you have some fear immunity, or have already succeeded against his Frightful Presence in a previous round, because being frightened of this titan of Helfire--again, understandable--just means your death will be all the quicker and messier.

Simple, straightforward, effective. Moloch is pure efficiency in every way he can be: A melee threat meant to tear anyone nearby to shreds, while relying on Hellfire to chew through any and all elemental resistances. He has some minor flexibility with his flaming magic and his Swallow Whole, but for the most part he’s an optimized Two-Weapon Fighter who’s been buffed to Huge size and gifted a mountain of resistances and immunities. And Quickened Blade Barrier. And Empowered Fire Storm. Really, what more do you need in a soldier?

You can read more about him here.

[6ad6ro]

now that i've beaten elden ring, i'm ready to talk about it. i'll be vague in order to not spoil anything.

so it's in my top 10 favorite games ever, something that no game in over ten years has managed. it is BY FAR the best open world game that has ever existed. it's a game that ACTUALLY deserves the sort of praise that people were giving things like zelda botw a few years back. whereas zelda was maybe a little overrated, this actually goes above and beyond it's reputation. i can safely say that it's the most important game in the world right now.

that isn't to say i didn't have the occasional issue with it. but it just did so dang much to improve on the souls series. i always said that the souls series had the potential to be a masterpiece on the level of things like "zelda oot", and elden ring proves this.

anyways here are the things i think er did to vastly improve upon the souls formula (or are just good in general):

• more reasonable difficulty for most of the game.

• ability to "grind out" of areas that were too hard. leveling is so much more meaningful!

• the nature of it being open world means cheap bosses no longer act as artificial "walls" keeping you from playing the game. if something is too hard, you can go do something else and return later.

• most bosses are more fair, and often have spawnpoints or bonfires RIGHT before their fights. no more stupid runs to the fights.

• summoning ash. the permanent ability to summon in an ai cooperator for most tough fights is just amazing. you can still solo if you WANT, but this just makes the game way more fun and accessible for newer players.

• multiplayer is so much easier in general. co-op especially. less choke points for invaders to target low level players. and less opportunity for harassment by the worst players on the planet. invasion is way less frequent in general. invaders are now the ones at the disadvantage, rather than the invaded. as it should be.

• no more "hollow" mechanics to create unnecessary additional punishment associated with dying. being invaded in co-op is less stressful and more fun because you don't have to use a limited and valuable item every time you die just to play with your friends again. this was always a bad mechanic and good riddance.

• the inclusion of traditional souls areas in addition to the amazing open world. it feels like they combined the old formula with the new and nothing was lost. only gained. map design that puts even ds1 to shame.

• not only does this game feel like 10x bigger than the other souls, it feels bigger than ANY game. imagine a game larger than skyrim where every bit of content was actually DIFFERENT from each other and generally compelling? imagine if castlevania sotn had so much map that it was almost TOO much.

• FUCKING MUSIC! fucking actual music in the world and in dungeons. and it's good! sorry but "minimalistic sound design" is code for "i hate music". maybe they realised how badly breath of the wild was criticized after the fact for it's sparse music??

• more weapons and spells and abilities etc than anyone knows what to do with. they took the same approach as castlevania sotn did and said "throw everything in there". tho it's all fairly balanced (but not so much that it's boring).

• every build is fun and viable, often from the start. no stats are dead.

• poise is actually good but also optional.

• little things with how your player moves around and interacts with the world keep you from dying unfairly as often. player mistakes, rather than input mistakes, are what tend to kill you.

• JUMPING. thank god. a jump button. adds so much. fixes so much.

• removed the "press up on the analog stick as you attack" to do certain moves. nobody liked accidentally kicking in the older games. it was sloppy and thank god it's gone.

• enemy groups (and certain enemies) recharge your health and mana flasks. so you're rewarded for continuing to play rather than punished.

there's probably other good stuff i'm forgetting, but i also wanted to bring up my few complaints. if these were changed then it could have been even better:

• STILL NO DIFFICULTY SETTINGS 🙄... i cannot comprehend how anyone can defend this. even just having an OPTIONAL "casual" mode alongside the normal mode? would open this game up to tons of new fans. miyazaki's whole "joy of overcoming hardship" is frankly a moronic philosophy. and elden ring is actually objective proof that more people like souls games when they're easier. even the most insufferable ds1 tryhards ADORE this game and consider it the best. how can that be possible if an easy mode would "compromise the game's vision"?? the answer is simple. it fucking wouldn't.

• still no pause 🙄. most of us are adults. shut the fuck up and put a pause in your game so i can answer an important call without dying. hell, you can make pausing a toggle and disable it when online. stop making excuses for lacking basic functionality.

• while i still enjoyed some of it, the last 15% of the game is comparatively flawed and unfair. basic enemies suddenly soak up and dish out 10x more damage. the world design can feel obnoxious. and i'm being way less critical than most. a lot of people HATE this part.

• a couple of the bosses are pure shit. IT'S ONLY LIKE TWO THO! the first (and worst) offender is actually near the start of the game and it blocks off progress. it just doesn't make sense for it to be so hard considering where it's at. i know it was the final boss of the network test, but it should have been nerfed/moved/removed in the main game. the second was at least an optional endgame boss, but it was SO cheap. nothing about it felt fair. the fight is so bad that the main strategy used to beat it is "just respec and cheese it, then respec back after". to be fair, that's only two bad bosses in like... what... 70?!?

• still no way to make invaders optional. even if it wasn't nearly as much of a problem this time, it's still annoying. because most ppl who invade always try to cheat or exploit because they have no honor (or skill).

• nobody likes your poison swamps, miyazaki.

• a few other annoying mechanics too, like one hit kill death chariots. or teleportation chests.

• stop nerfing things via updates... you're gonna ruin a good thing if you overbalance. this is a single player game first and foremost. it doesn't really NEED a lot of balance patches. it certainly doesn't need to be any harder...

most of my complaints are fairly minor in comparison, and made less frustrating due to all of the vast improvements elden ring brings to souls. tbh most of the divisive aspects of the souls series are gone. and i finally have a souls game that i adore without compromise. i'd recommend this game to anyone who can play games. and if you can't play games? watch someone play it. because it's one of the most wonderful games ever made.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Olaf, the Beserker build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Phroilan Gardner. Made for Riot Games.)

Olaf sounds like ProZD’s Archibald voice. Especially Olaf’s voice lines for using his Q it sounds exactly like ProZD’s “Huah! I think that enemy got the point!” Like I’m not crazy right? Please tell me I’m not the only one who hears this.

Anyways Olaf has been on my To Do List ever since I realized that I haven’t made a single champion whose name starts with the letter O. My desire to make Olaf was only further accentuated by the Sentinels of Light event, even if his inclusion in that event could best be summed up with...

But I won’t ignore Olaf just because the Sentinels of Light event was a flop. He’s still a compelling character that I have actually gotten some requests to make. After all: the dual-axe wielding Barbarian is an iconic image!

I mean, Olaf is probably just going to be 20 levels in Beserker Barbarian so I don’t know why you need me to make a build for that.

GOALS

C'mon, I won't hurt you - We’ll need ways to heal when we harm in the middle of combat.

Death by steel! - Swing axe, throw axe; unga bunga me play Olaf.

The might of Lokfar approaches - I didn’t manage to do so with Mundo but Olaf is going to need to have CC immunity.

RACE

Olaf is a human; feel free to pick a different race like Goliath or even Custom Lineage to justify him being Iceborn but Variant Human is still the best option. Increase your Strength by 1 as well as your Constitution, grab any skill proficiency of your choice as it honestly doesn’t matter much for Olaf (maybe you should’ve been Custom Lineage for Darkvision after all?), and the Primordial language because I’m sure you picked up on the language of the wild.

For your feat you have a choice: Dual Wielder will let you wield two d8 Battleaxes (instead of d6 Handaxes) and also increase your AC by 1 while dual-wielding, but the Fighting Initiate feat will let you grab Two-Weapon Fighting which will let you add your Strength modifier to your second axe’s swing. I persually opted for Dual Wielder as it gives you more benefits overall, and we’ll be getting ways to throw axes without having to hold onto them first.

ABILITY SCORES

15; STRENGTH - I mean, you’re a shirtless Barbarian running around with two axes. You thought this would be a DEX build?

14; CONSTITUTION - The reason you can’t die is because you’re so hardy. Sucks!

13; CHARISMA - Despite Riot’s great attempts at writing you as poorly as possible you do still have some sort of Charisma. Remember that Charisma is force of personality, not necessarily good looks or personal hygiene. Charisma is needed for Intimidation as well as multiclassing.

12; DEXTERITY - You need to be quick on your feet to run at your enemies with reckless abandon.

10; WISDOM - If you were wise you wouldn’t be trying to kill yourself.

8; INTELLIGENCE - You stopped caring about education the moment you were born. Battle is the only thing in your blood!

This build is also quite viable with Point Buy, going for a stat array like 15 / 12 / 14 / 8 / 8 / 14 if you want lower mental stats but higher combat stats.

BACKGROUND

The Uthgardt Tribe Member background from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is basically the Outlander background but you actually belonged to Freljordian society once. Regardless you do get proficiency in Athletics as well as Survival (”Survival” as in finding food to eat, not as in keeping safe on the battlefield!), a musical instrument or artisan’s tool of your choice (choose whatever you fancy and make your own Olaf, as long as it’s something a warrior would do! I personally opted for Smith’s Tools to sharpen your axes), and a language of your choice (pick whatever language they spoke back in the villages.)

Your background Uthgardt Heritage is the Outlander’s Wanderer feature with extra steps: along with being able to find food and water you are also treated well by nomads and wanderers who have heard of your glorious battles!

(Artwork by Marie Magny and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - BARBARIAN 1

Starting off as a Barbarian because what else would we be? You get proficiency in two skills from the Barbarian list: Intimidation is an obvious must and Perception will help you find good fights to take!

As a Barbarian you get Unarmored Defense equal to your Dexterity plus your Constitution, which is currently a 13... Well Medium Armor is an option if you want to finally put on a shirt. And of course as a Barbarian you can Rage to deal more damage and resist incoming damage! You can’t cast spells while Raging, but that won’t matter, right? It’s not like I’m about to give you caster levels.

LEVEL 2 - FIGHTER 1

Quickly hopping over to Fighter to further your martial skills. You can grab a Fighting Style like Thrown Weapon Fighting to draw weapons in the same action you make to throw them, and also do +2 damage with thrown weapon attacks. See? Told you we’d be able to throw axes easily!

You also get Second Wind for some not-quite-Lifesteal to keep you in the fight to claim even more glory! Certainly not to stay alive.

LEVEL 3 - FIGHTER 2

Well another Fighter level for Action Surge is certainly worth it, as you can push yourself to destroy your foes!

LEVEL 4 - FIGHTER 3

But we need one more Fighter level to be able to get our axes back after we throw them. Eldritch Knights get Weapon Bond, allowing them to always keep two weapons on hand and never lose them. While bonded with a weapon you can’t be disarmed of them, and you can use a Bonus Action to recall a weapon if it’s not in your hands. My suggestion would be to bond to a Battleaxe and a Handaxe, so you can’t be disarmed of at least one of your main weapons and can also call your thrown axe back to throw it again!

You also get Spellcasting as an Eldritch Knight: You learn two cantrips from the Wizard list, and three spells as well. You may be thinking “wait; didn’t you dump Intelligence?” That is correct, but you don’t need Intelligence to cast Light to see with your dumb human eyes (I mean technically you need Intelligence if you want to cast Light on someone else but it’s probably easier just to light up your axe and throw it at them) or Prestidigitation, which is a better spell for creating bonfires than the actual Create Bonfire spell.

Your leveled spells have to be from either the Evocation or Abjuration schools, but thankfully Absorb Elements and Shield are both from the Abjuration school and also don’t need Intelligence. Protect yourself from damage to have a truly glorious death! Because it’s not like blocking attacks will keep you alive.

You can also learn one spell from any school and uhhhh... Pick your poison between Jump and Longstrider, to make it easier to chase your foes. Are there probably better spells? Yeah, but do they fit Olaf?

(Artwork by Xiao Guang Sun and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 5 - PALADIN 1

Jumping over to Paladin for a few abilities, such as Divine Sense to find some things that will put up a good fight like Fiends, Undead, or... Celestials? I’m sure they hit hard! You can also find a good desecrated (or consecrated) battleground with this ability, as I’m sure there will be good enemies there! You only know of an enemy’s type however, not their name. And if they’re hiding from you this ability won’t make it any easier to find them.

You also get Lay on Hands, which is like lifesteal you can give to allies! You have a pool of hit points equal to your Paladin level times 5, and you can use it to either heal (at a rate of 1 point per hitpoint) or neutralize a poison or disease affecting a target. (5 Lay on Hands health to neutralize one poison or disease.) Dying to natural causes isn’t a glorious death, brother!

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 2

We’ll also need second level in Paladin to get a Fighting Style, but since Wizards of the Coast hates fun you can’t can’t take Two-Weapon Fighting, and since we’re running around in our birthday suit Defense also isn’t an option. The best official Fighting Style you can take is Blind Fighting (Blessed Warrior is okay too if you want Guidance I guess) but talk to your DM about potentially letting you take Two-Weapon Fighting? It’s not like it’s OP or anything (in all honesty it’s kinda shit.)

Paladins also get... more Spellcasting?! Disgusting! Well this spellcasting is based on your Charisma modifier instead of your Intelligence, which might be why we have it at a 14. But even so you can’t prepare that many spells: Divine Favor will let you empower all your attacks with more damage for some Vicious Strikes, Cure Wounds will again be acting as life-not-quite-steal, and Shield of Faith will let you or an ally absorb more blows, not that you want to live or anything. Also remember to check the Player’s Handbook to see how many spell slots you’d have after mixing two casters together.

But I still think the best course of action for your spell slots is to use them for Divine Smite! Throw caution and magic to the wind to make a Reckless Swing that does extra Radiant damage (depending on the level of the spell slot used.) The Smite deals 2d8 of damage for a first level slot, and an additional d8 of damage for every slot above first. (The simple way to remember this is that you roll a number of d8s equal to the spell slot used plus one.) If the enemy is a Fiend or Undead the damage increases by a d8! The maximum level spell slot you can use for this is a 4th level slot (for 5d8 damage, or 6d8 against a Fiend or Undead), but I doubt we’ll get spell slots that big.

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 3

We may as well take a third level in Paladin for a Sacred Oath, and you swore an Oath of Glory in battle! Along with Guiding Bolt and Heroism being added to your spell list (as if you can cast spells lmao) you get two Channel Divinity options: Peerless Athlete turns you into... well, a Peerless Athlete with advantage on Athletics and Acrobatics checks. You can also carry, push, drag, and lift twice as much weight as normal, and to top it off the distance of your long and high jumps increases by 10 feet. This boost lasts for 10 minutes which should be more than enough to give it your all in battle!

Alternatively for some more not-quite-lifesteal Inspiring Smite can be activated after you Smite to give yourself or nearby allies within 30 feet temporary hitpoints. The total number of temporary hit points gained by this ability equals 2d8 + your Paladin level, and you can distribute them amongst yourself and your allies however you wish. Technically the most gameplay-accurate way to split the Temp HP would be to take it all yourself but being helpful has its benefits. A battle is truly glorious if fought alongside an army of companions!

You also get Divine Health, because Glory doesn’t die on sick days!

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 4

It’s about time to take that 4th Paladin level to finally get an Ability Score Improvement: +2 to Strength for stronger axe swings is an obvious choice!

You can also prepare another spell like Bless, which will make it easier for you and your allies to smite your foes and survive their blows! Wait, what was that about surviving?

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - PALADIN 5

Since it’s so close we may as well take the 5th level of Paladin so you can finally make an Extra Attack. That means you have two attacks normally and a third attack with your Bonus Action thanks to Two-Weapon Fighting!

You can also prepare second level Paladin spells now, and the Oath of Glory gives you Enhance Ability and Magic Weapon as spells you can cast. Believe it or not these are actually useful, even with your low spellcasting modifier!

LEVEL 10 - PALADIN 6

The 6th level of Paladin is honestly too good to pass up: even though Aura of Protection is only adding +2 to all your saving throws (since your Charisma is kinda uhhh... not good?) that’s still +2 to all your saves, as well as the saves of your allies within 10 feet. That’s like, two whole Rings of Protection!

Speaking of rings: Warding Bond was added to the Paladin spell list thanks to Tasha’s and it’ll let you take damage for your allies to die in their place! As long as you don’t mind wearing some platnium rings in your beard, at least.

LEVEL 11 - PALADIN 7

What we’re really here for is the 7th level of Glory Paladin. Aura of Alacrity will increase the speed of you and your allies within 5 feet (not 10, because Wizards of the Coast are weird) by 10 feet, so you can charge at your foes with the might of Ragnarok!

LEVEL 12 - PALADIN 8

But we may as well take the 8th level of Paladin for another Ability Score Improvement: cap off your Strength for the deadliest strikes possible.

You can also prepare another spell but it would be wise to wait for...

(Artwork by JoJo So. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - PALADIN 9

9th level Paladins can prepare third level spells like Crusader’s Mantle to give all your nearby allies the Divine Favor buff to rush into battle with you! But the main reason we’re dipping this deep into Paladin is for the two spells from the Oath of Glory: Protection from Energy perhaps isn’t all that fitting, but Haste is insanely useful and powerful. More attacks, more speed, more... armor? Well, it’s no matter. More glorious battle!

LEVEL 14 - PALADIN 10

10th level Paladins won’t be swayed by magic swaying their hearts! Aura of Courage will let you (and your allies within 10 feet) laugh in the face of death as you gain immunity to the Frightened condition!

You can also prepare another spell like Aura of Vitality: you can use it to heal yourself but healing your allies will lead to a far more glorious story to tell of your death.

LEVEL 15 - PALADIN 11

I promise that we’ll go back to Barbarian levels soon but 11th level Paladins get a huge boost to their damage output thanks to Improved Divine Smite. This ability affects all your attacks (not just your Smites despite the name) to give them an extra d8 of Radiant damage. This has obvious synergy with your choice to swing two axes since your Two-Weapon Fighting attack will also get that extra d8 of damage!

LEVEL 16 - PALADIN 12

Okay but let’s quickly grab the 12th level of Paladin first. You can either increase your Constitution for more health and AC, or your Charisma for better saving throws and spellcasting. I personally opted for Charisma but if you value health and AC then Constitution is good too!

Oh and yeah you can prepare more spells, but there aren’t really that many other third level spells I want.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - PALADIN 13

That’s because 13th level Paladins finally get 4th spells which most importantly means Freedom of Movement! There you go you finally have Ragnarok’s CC immunity! You also get Compulsion which sure would be a good spell if you had any Charisma to actually cast it.

But you can also prepare more spells like Aura of Purity so you and your allies can shrug off whatever your foes might throw at you to stop you from reaching them, or Death Ward which you ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT USE ON YOURSELF.

LEVEL 18 - PALADIN 14

Okay but the 14th level of Paladin gives you Cleansing Touch, letting you cleanse spells without spell slots to cast Freedom of Movement. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier and regain all expended uses at the end of a Long Rest.

You could also perhaps prepare another spell like... Aid? I don’t know really by this point the magic is secondary. We’ll be going back to Barbarian soon anyways.

LEVEL 19 - PALADIN 15

But 15th level Glory Paladins get Glorious Defense, and we can’t pass that up! When you or another creature you can see (technically an enemy if you so desire!) within 10 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to grant a bonus to the target’s AC against that attack equal to your Charisma modifier. If the attack misses you can make one weapon attack against the attacker as part of this reaction, provided the attacker is within your weapon’s range. You can do this a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, and regain all uses at the end of a Long Rest.

LEVEL 20 - PALADIN 16

But since it’s so close one final level in Paladin would be good for one final ASI: again more Constitution means more health and AC, but more Charisma will boost all your Paladin abilities!

Speaking of Paladin abilities you can prepare one more spell before we start taking more Barbarian levels... honestly you can pick your poison as it won’t matter much when your Raging!

...Wait.

WHY NO BARBARIAN LEVELS?

There’s a lot of things that I can’t do as a Barbarian. The most notable option that would be restricted if I went pure Barbarian would be Freedom of Movement, and while crowd control is somewhat rare in D&D being able to ignore it is far more important to Olaf as a character.

There’s also no Barbarian that has lifesteal besides Path of the Beast, and the only Barbarian that can throw its axe easily is Path of Wild Magic. Obviously neither of these fit Olaf.

Ultimately Paladin gave us more of Olaf’s abilities. The only ability that Barbarians have which fit Olaf other than Unarmored Defense and I guess Unarmored Movement would be Feral Instinct. But even the Barbarian subclasses don’t fit Olaf with the only ones which make any sense being maybe Totem Warrior? (Despite Olaf’s title Berserker wouldn’t fit him well, mostly because Berserker is a bad subclass.) But we miss out on so many of Olaf’s actual abilities by making him a Barbarian.

tl;dr Barbarians can’t do magic and Olaf has a ton of abilities that can only be recreated in D&D with magic

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Urge to kill rising... - Two-Weapon Fighting really doesn’t get the respect it deserves by the D&D community. You wouldn’t be able to get three attacks as a level 11 Paladin in any other way, meaning that you can truly capitalize on Improved Divine Smite. Not to mention the general increased DPS of 3 attacks and 3 chances to Smite!

Faster to battle! - It was not my intention but Glory Paladins are surprisingly good team players with a variety of spells and abilities that can keep your team alive and increase their strength in battle.

Obliteration! - You’re fairly hard to kill... oops. But between decently high health, spells to defend yourself, and damn high saving throws no matter how you increase your Charisma you’ll be quite a challenge to eventually take down! Sure your AC might suck... we should probably talk about that.

CONS

The worth of a man can be measured by the length of his beard, and the girth of his belt buckle - Hey remember that one Barbarian level I took pretty much entirely so you could have Unarmored Defense? Yeah honestly it’s gimping you hard, to the point that even Mage Armor would give you more AC. Honestly playing this build as Fighter 4 / Paladin 16 would be far better as you’d get one more ASI at the cost of actually having to wear armor. Hell going full Paladin 20 would give you the Living Legend capstone which is crazy strong, and while the loss of Action Surge would hurt you can grab the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style with a feat. (Or just take Two-Weapon Fighting style with your Variant Human Feat and run around with Hand Axes.)

If you’re really dead-set on going unarmored beg your DM for a Barrier Tattoo: either a Rare one (you’ll still need 14 DEX for something something legally-not-Medium Armor) or a Very Rare one (so you don’t even have to worry about Dexterity.) You can even go the Tahm Kench route and grab Eldritch Adept for Disguise Self to look unarmored if it’s really that important to you.

Well that was a pretty long con to say “Barbarian Olaf bad.” What else is there?

Chop chop! - Who would’ve guessed that dumping both mental stats would make you a dummy? While Aura of Protection saves you to some extent the party won’t be turning to you for any History checks.

Finally, some fun! - You have a rather silly amount of spells relative to your spell slots, and a good number of them are Concentration as well. Throwing all your slots to the wind to Divine Smite with reckless abandon sounds fun but managing both your Concentration and your spell slots will take some effort.

But your choice to go in without armor is just a self-handicap after all: you really want to die, and prove yourself in death! Fight the toughest fights and take down the strongest foes until you finally prove your prophecy wrong and fall before the blade of the mightiest foe! But perhaps you should instead sit down and have a muffin, and think about why you truly want to die die die.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #94: Astolfo

Happy 2021! To celebrate the new year, we’re giving y’all this one a day early. Our research team has shown that “with Astolfo” is the best way to celebrate any holiday.

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making everyone’s favorite nonbinary and Ereshkigal’s main squeeze, Astolfo; the knight of evaporated reason! They have a ton of Noble Phantasms accumulated from their adventures, so you’ll have plenty of fun stuff to do with this build.

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

Next up: Ooh child, things are gonna get easier.

Race and Background

Astolfo is a Human, despite their otherwise unexplained Monstrous Strength. This gives them +1 to all stats. They’re also a Knight of the Order, “the Order” being the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne. This gives them Persuasion and History proficiency. Astolfo is a leader, and they’re literally a part of history (In FGO. Assume Orlando Furioso is an accurate history book at your own peril).

Ability Scores

Make Charisma your highest score; Astolfo is the heart of the party, and can inspire even other servants to greater acts of heroism than they accomplished in life. Second is your Strength; one of your personal skills is all about how strong you are, and you need to be able to haul a lance around for a couple levels before you get your mount. Third is Constitution- you took a trip to the moon, so you’re probably really good at holding your breath. After that is Dexterity- that’s not really heavy armor you’re wearing. Your Intelligence is a little low; you’re not really stupid, per se, but you don’t think your actions through that often. Finally, dump Wisdom. “Evaporated Sanity” does not a cleric make.

Class Levels

1. Paladin 1: Yes, we’re making the paladin a paladin. Look, later builds are going to make me figure out how to put a jetpack in someone’s butt in a medieval fantasy setting, let me have the obvious ones. This gives you proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as Insight and Athletics. Despite your evaporated sanity, you’re really good at reading people, and you can hang onto a hippogriff mid-flight.

You also have a Divine Sense, letting you sense celestials, fiends, and undead within 60′ of you as an action. You can also Lay on Hands as an action to heal a creature you touch, with a maximum of 5 times your paladin level HP to hand out per long rest. You can also spend 5 hit points from the feature to end a disease or poison effect.

2. Paladin 2: Second level paladins get a Fighting Style. Great Weapon Fighting will make your lance a little less unwieldy by letting you re-roll a one or two on damage when using a two-handed weapon. Technically this doesn’t work with lances, as they have the “special” property, not the “two-handed” property, but honestly your DM should have some pity on you, you’re using a weapon that comes with disadvantage on most of its attacks.

You also can use spell slots to create Divine Smites at this level, spending magical energy for more powerful attacks. Speaking of spell slots, you can also use those to cast Spells if you really want to, preparing and casting them using your Charisma score. Spells like Heroism turns one creature you target into basically you, gaining temporary hit points each turn and having immunity to being frightened. You can also use a Thunderous Smite for an early Trap of Argalia, knocking your target prone if they fail a strength saving throw with a DC of 8 plus your charisma modifier plus your proficiency bonus. They also get thrown a good 10′ away, which is a solid unhorsing if ever I saw one.

3. Paladin 3: At third level, you become the envy of Okitas everywhere with your Divine Health, making you immune to disease. You also take up a Sacred Oath, a promise you’ll uphold to your dying breath, which for you is every promise. That’s why you’re an Oath of Devotion paladin. When you take the class, you gain the oath spells Protection from Evil and Good and Sanctuary, protecting one creature from extraplanar enemies by imposing disadvantage or from any enemies by forcing a wisdom save respectively. 

You also gain one use of Channel Divinity per short rest, which can be used in one of two ways. Sacred Weapon empowers your Lance, adding your charisma modifier to attack rolls and making the weapon magical for the duration of a minute. Turn the Unholy is similar to Turn Undead, though it works on fiends and undead, and only forces them to flee from you if they fail a wisdom save.

4. Paladin 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to round out your Strength and Dexterity for stronger attacks and less getting attacked.

5. Paladin 5: You get an Extra Attack per attack action, but also gain access to second level spells! Lesser Restoration can heal a target of various diseases or conditions like blinded, deafened, paralyzed or poisoned. You can also make a Zone of Truth to force others to tell the truth if they fail a charisma save. Other spells to look at include Magic Weapon so you don’t have to use your Channel Divinity to pierce through enemy defenses and Warding Bond for dramatic heroic sacrifices.

6. Paladin 6: At sixth level you recover the first pages of the Luna Break Manual with Astolfo’s Aura of Protection. Any ally (including themself) within 10′ of them can add your Charisma modifier to any save they make. Suddenly your wisdom saves aren’t nearly as bad as they were before.

7. Paladin 7: The pages keep coming with your Aura of Devotion, making yourself and any allies within 10′ of you immune to being charmed. Look at your bard, now back to me. Now back to your bard, now back to me. Sadly, their countercharm isn’t this, but if they stopped being a bard and took seven levels in paladin they could block charms like this.

8. Paladin 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for more powerful protections and stronger spells.

9. Paladin 9: Ninth level paladins get third level spells, like your oath spells, Beacon of Hope and Dispel Magic. The former will make your and your allies’ wisdom saves even stronger, and boosts your death saves and healing as well for up to a minute. The latter is yet another addition to your Luna Break Manual, breaking down any spells you come across, not just charms on you and your friends. You can also pick up Remove Curse for yet another way to destroy magical effects on your party.

10. Paladin 10: At tenth level, your Aura of Courage shuts down any frightening effects used on allies within 10′ of you. You’re basically a nightmare to any status-effect dependent creatures now.

11. Paladin 11: Your Improved Divine Smite adds a bit of radiant damage to all your attacks, for an even shinier weapon.

12. Paladin 12: Use this ASI to get the Mounted Combatant Feat, and use Martial Versatility to swap your fighting style to Dueling. These are secret tools that will help us later. The feat gives you advantage on attacks against unmounted creatures smaller than your mount, and you can redirect attacks at your mount to you instead. Your mount also gets its own evasion for extra survivability. Dueling adds 2 to a melee weapon’s damage if you’re using it one-handed, and thankfully it works with a mounted lance without having to fudge anything.

13. Paladin 13: Thirteenth level paladins get fourth level spells, like your oath spells Freedom of Movement and Guardian of Faith. Astolfo has kind of a Roger Rabbit-esque relationship with shackles, and calling on a friend never hurt. Well, it will hurt the people it attacks, just not you. More importantly, you can Find Greater Steeds, like a Griffon! The summoned creatures is a celestial, fey, or fiend, and it has an enhanced intelligence so it can understand you. You can communicate telepathically with them while you’re within a mile, and you can target yourself and your mount with a single spell. The creature disappears when it hits 0 HP, but you can re-summon it by casting the spell again.

We know it’s not a Hippogriff, but those are much weaker in D&D. Trust me, you do not want a flying mount with only 19 HP, especially since we’re not getting feather fall for another level.

14. Bard 1: We’ve got two of your Noble Phantasms, but we need to make a class change to pick up your third. Multiclassing into bard nets you performance proficiency, which will be handy when you’re actually playing La Black Luna. You also gain another set of Spells that use your Charisma to cast-check the multiclassing table to figure out how many spell slots you have at each level. You also get Bardic Inspiration, d6s you can hand out to other party members to aid them in saves, checks, and attack rolls. You get a number of these dice per long rest equal to your charisma modifier, and you can hand them out one at a time as a bonus action.

For your spells, pick up Friends and Vicious Mockery as your cantrips. Astolfo’s easy to get along with, but they’re also incredibly good at telling you exactly what you don’t want people to talk about. Also, pick up Animal Friendship and Speak with Animals for more Griffon fun, Earth Tremor for yet another way to knock people on their ass, and Feather Fall for when your mount is inevitably shot out from under you 1000′ in the air. Is it an ability Astolfo has? No. Is it something you should absolutely pick up before getting on a griffon anyway? Absolutely.

15. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to all checks you’re not proficient in. This works on skills, but also things like initiative rolls, lucky you. You also get a Song of Rest, adding 1d6 to healing done over short rests, and Magical Inspiration. Your allies can now add your inspiration to magical damage and healing as well! Astolfo has many talents, they probably have something to help with healing on them somewhere.

Speaking of healing, pick up Healing Word for another way to use your bonus action. Knocking people on their ass is funny, but not everything can be solved with thunderous smites. Probably.

16. Bard 3: Sixteenth level might seem a bit late to graduate from college, but life doesn’t have a set pace; go at whatever speed you’re comfortable with. Graduating from the College of Valor lets you turn your Bardic Inspiration into Combat Inspiration; inspired allies can now add your inspiration to damage rolls as well as their AC against a single attack. You also get a round of Expertise, doubling your proficiency in Insight and Persuasion. We’re not improving your wisdom, but you’re really good at reading a room. This is the compromise.

To help social situations even more, pick up Calm Emotions. You’re pretty good at defusing a situation, even if that means you’ll be getting yelled at from both sides of the argument.

17. Bard 4: Your final ASI makes you a Fighting Initiate, so you can pick up one more fighting style. The Superior Technique style nets you a Battle Master Maneuver that you can use once per short rest, adding 1d6 to your damage roll when you make a Tripping Attack. The target also has to make a strength save against a DC of 8 plus your proficiency plus your strength modifier or fall prone. A little extra tripping power isn’t a bad idea, especially if you’re trying to keep a different concentration spell up at the time.

You also get Prestidigitation for general magical effects (you’ve gotta have more trinkets to show off, right?) and Enhance Ability for your Monstrous Strength. As well as monstrous dexterity, monstrous constitution... the spell gives your target advantage on one kind of ability check, is what we’re trying to say.

18. Bard 5: Fifth level bards see their Bardic Inspiration enhanced to d8s, and you become a Font of Inspiration, so your inspiration refills on short rests instead of long ones.

You also get a third level spell, so we can finally toot La Black Luna with the help of the Fear spell. Each creature in a 30′ cone must make a wisdom save or drop what its holding and become frightened. They have to dash away from you for the duration of the spell, which lasts up to a minute or until they make another wisdom save after losing sight of you, you lose concentration, or a minute passes.

19. Paladin 14: Fourteenth level paladins can spend an action to use their Cleansing Touch, ending a spell effect on a willing creature within touch range a number of times per long rest equal to your charisma modifier. You pretty much no-sell most status effects by now, this is just the icing on the cake.

20. Paladin 15: Your capstone ability weaponizes your Purity of Spirit as your final addition to the Luna Break Manual, giving you the effect of Protection from Evil and Good permanently. This means aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead have disadvantage to attack you, and you can’t be charmed, frightened, or possessed by them. You already had most of those effects blocked off, but the extra insurance is appreciated.

Pros

Your high charisma and skill proficiencies plus your immunity to common socializing status effects makes you an excellent party face, especially in high-magic settings where you can expect nobles to charm you into following their lead. Astolfo don’t care.

Getting knocked prone is annoying. It wastes half your movement, and gives melee attackers advantage on hitting you. And you’re really good at knocking people prone. Trip them, smite them, or rip apart the ground under their feet. Effective and hilarious.

Being a bard is great, but sometimes you have to go off on your own for solo adventures, which renders your inspiration useless. Always having your mount by  your side means your inspiration always has a target, which can make you an even more terrifying duo than you already were.

Cons

Going by the book, mounted combat is a little unwieldy, and also becomes an issue in tight spaces where your griffon can’t enter or fly around.

You have great saves thanks to your auras, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have really low wisdom. Good luck perceiving anything.

This is more a complaint than a weakness, but I’m a bit mad that they made Hippogriffs so much weaker than Griffons. I wouldn’t think adding horses would make them that much weaker, but here we are.

[askkrenko]

Krenko's Guide to Pokemon: Slowpoke Line

Posted as early as could be expected.

DESIGN:

Slowpoke is some sort of hippo lizard sloth thing, and honestly I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I do know that it's cute, goofy, and unique. There's a great deal of simplicity to Slowpoke, but it all works out in its favor, making it just seem like some sort of normal animal that exists in an environment.

The Galarian form has some yellow bits which, honestly, I do not care about. I don't have a probelm with the design of Galarian Slowpoke, I just think that it's not different enough from regular Slowpoke for me to care.

Slowbro takes the basic Slowpoke and puts it upright by balancing it with the huge shell on its tail. It adds an interesting visual component similar to a hermit crab, but I'll admit, I don't really get it. I don't dislike it or anything, but I don't understand how having an angry shell on its tail makes Slowbro smarter and more powerful.

Galarian Slowbro, on the other hand, takes that shell and uses it to shoot some sort of toxic whatever, and frankly I love that idea. You've added a megabuster-like-weapon to a slowpoke and you've got something that's clearly displaying new attack forms. Weirdly, it relies on the assumption taht the shell is high in poison, which means a Shellder, a non-poison Pokemon, transformed into something high in Poison. The fact that Turban never became its own Pokemon really seems like we're missing a lot of explanation on this.

And then there's Mega Slowbro which I can't even take seriously enough to talk about look at this stupid thing I love it so much it's the dumbest design ever and I can't stop grinning.

Slowking, the alternate evolution, involves the shell biting Slowpoke's head instead of its tail, turning into a hat. This directly injects the poisons that Shellder DOESN'T HAVE into Slowpoke's brain, making it much smarter somehow. Seriously, we need to see Turban as a Water/Poison type so we can get our understanding of how Slowpoke works better.

Galarian Slowking is a similar design, but the Evolved Shellder is lower and covers its face, because on this Pokemon, the Shellder is in charge. Gone is your Slowpoke entirely. Like with Parasect or Hydreigon, you have effectively killed your Pokemon by evolving it. I hope you're proud of yourself, you monster.

Visually, I don’t like how the purple goes. It looks too much like the top half is in shadow rather than the top half being a different color. I’d much rather the purple appear in more of a pattern, or spots, like on Galarian Slowbro.

EVOLUTIONS:

Uuuuuuugh.

Slowpoke evolves into Slowpoke at 37, or Slowking when traded with a King's Rock, but Galarian Slowpoke uses a Galarica Cuff or a Galarica Wreath to evolve, which are basically the same thing, and none of these evolutions address the question of where the Shellder comes from and how it evolves into Turban. This is possibly the messiest evolutionary line in all of Pokemon.

And then there's a Mega Slowbro, which is cool, but only one of the four potential Slowpoke evolutions gets a Mega Form, and that's just weird, right? It's like if there was a Mega Jolteon and no other Mega Eevees, or if there was a Mega Hitmonlee but not a Mega Hitmonchan or Mega Hitmontop.

Art by JoshuaDunlop

TYPING:

Slowpoke, Slowbro, and Slowking are all Water/Psychic, as is Mega Slowbro.  Galarian Slowpoke is pure psychic, with both Galarian evolutions being Psychic/Poison.

Water/Psychic is a decent defensive type, with five weaknesses and six resistances. Offensively, the pair only works Super-Effective against five types, but with no shared resistances, Slowbro and Slowking don't need to worry about additional attacks for coverage.

Psychic/Poison has just three weaknesses, but also only four resistances, which is a reasonable tradeoff.  Offensively, it's much weaker, only super-effective against four types, and with no attacks that work well against Steel type opponents.

Art by Twarda8

STATS:

Stats of the four Slowpoke evolution are all somewhat similar. All have a respectable 95 HP and an expectedly awful 30 speed. Most have 100 special attack, with Galarian Slowking's a bit better at 110.  Their physical attacks vary wildly, but only Galarian Slowbro's, at 100, is high enough to warrant using Physical Attacks with. The rest are strictly special attackers. The tradeoff comes in that Galarian Slowbro also has the worst defenses, with its defenses being 95 and 70 instead of the 110 and 80 (physical lean for Slowpoke, special for Slowking) that the other three have.

Mega Slowbro is of course just better. Though its special defense is still only 80, its physical defense is a whopping 180, and its special attack jumps to 130, making it something that can both take hits and dish them out.

Art by Carbonated-James

ABILITIES:

Every Slowpoke evolution has Own Tempo, which prevents Confusion and Intimidate, and it's frankly the wrong answer for all of them. Confusion's just not that huge an issue.

The Water-Type evolutions can also get Oblivious, which prevents infatuation, taunting, and intimidate, which is... still not really important.

Galarian Slowbro gets a unique ability option called QUick Draw, which gives Slowbro a chance to go first even when it has slower speed, which is most of the time. This is decent, but a 30% chance means it's unreliable. Long term it'll come up often enough, but not enough to ensure it matters when you need it to.

Galarian Slowking has a unique ability called Curious Medicine, which resets stat  changes of ally Pokemon when it enters the battlefield. This only matters in 2v2s, and even then is a niche feature, because switching out a pokemon resets its stat changes anyway.

But then they all get Regenerator.

Regenerator heals the pokemon by 1/3 its max HP when you switch it out. This means switching isn't a waste of a turn, and Slowpoke's evolutions all have decent enough HP that 1/3 is a reasonable number. It's a hidden ability, but the simple fact is that Regenerator is the best choice for all Slowpokes.

Mega Slowbro has Shell Armor, making it immune to critical hits. This is fine. It's not the most impressive, but it's the only option.

Yadon Bay by Tymkiev

MOVES:

Water-type Slowbro and Slowking are Scald Tanks. Their role is very simple: They use Scald to do damage and burn the target, then they use Slack Off to heal up. Leftovers help. Everything else is secondary. Their only real differences are that one's better against physical attacks and the other's better against special attacks... and Slowbro can Mega Evolve.

Everything else is secondary. Nasty Plot or Calm Mind can be used to increase damage. Psychic, Psyshock, or Future Sight can be used as a second attack for coverage, as can off-type attacks like Shadow Ball, Flamethrower, and Ice Beam. Thunder Wave can reduce damage from special attackers. With Regenerator, Slowbro and Slowking users will often want to make use of Teleport, as it lets you switch after taking a hit rather than before. Assuming the hit doesn't drop your Slowpokemon, they'll immediately heal some of it while your other pokemon arrives without eating an attack.

Galarian Slowbro's signature attack, Shell Side Arm, uses Physical or Special attack depending on the opponent's defenses, suggesting that it should focus on being good at both physical and special attacks. This can prove advantageous against many pokemon and inhibits the ability to tank against it. Unfortunately, while Galarian Slowbro has access to Calm Mind, Curse, Nasty Plot, and Belly Drum, it doesn't get any way to increase both Physical and Special attack at the same time, and investing in both physical and special attack for stats means taking away from other places. Losing the heightened defenses of the Slowbro in favor of being able to use both physical and special attacks just isn't a great deal.

Galarian Slowbro is still competent enough that it can be built as a special attacker with Sludge Bomb, Psychic, decent coverage moves, Nasty Plot or Calm Mind, and reasonable bulk, but it's just going to be generally weaker about it than Galarian Slowking, which goes the other way and trades off the Physical Attack it wasn't using for more Special Attack.

Galarian Slowking's signature attack, Eerie Spell, is a bit weaker than Psychic, but also does PP damage. It's possible this winds up being tactically useful, especailly if building Galarian Slowking with Slack Off for longer combats, but I expect Galarian Slowking's best psychic attack option to be Psychic, Psyshock, or the slow-but-powerful Future Sight. For a Poison attack, Sludge Bomb is the obvious answer.

Despite not being water type Galarian Slowking can still use Scaled to try and poison its targets, both doing damage while it Slacks Off and reducing their physical attack. Similarly, Thunder Wave is still an option.  Really, you can just build Galarian Slowking as you would a Kantonian Slowbro or Slowking, with the note that you're also able to use Sludge Bomb.

The Slowpoke Family by Zerochan923600

OVERALL:

Slowbro and Slowking are basically the same Pokemon, and it's actually kind of weird that they're not. The only relevant difference is which is higher of physical or special defense, and while I suppose that IS relevant, it's odd that we have four Pokemon here that all basically play the same... Except Galarian Slowbro which just got the short end of the stick.

Overall I like Slowbro and both Slowkings, but Galarian Slowbro really feels like it needs a bit more oomf to compete with all of them. A higher physical attack would be great, or if Shell Side Arm always used Slowbro's Special but could attack Physical or Special defense, or even just getting "Work Up" or something that increased both Physical and Special at once would be good, but the simple fact is, Galarian Slowbro's offense increase doesn't really matter in the face of Galarian Slowking. And why the hell can’t Galarian Slowbro learn Toxic? Its pokedex entry absolutely says it can.

Also, at this point I'm confident in saying Eevee's going to be more than one article.

[hellyeahheroes]

Building Aqualad in D&D 5e

I told myself I will do at least one more of these for the Pride Month. This time it is technically for two characters who are two sides of the same coin. Despite opposite backstories they both share simlair abilitties. Kaldur’Ahm, raised in Atlantis leader of Young Justice and future Aquaman and leader of Justice League is in many ways what Jackson Hyde, his less-experienced, surface-raised gay counterpart from comics may become if he is allwoed to grow. So we will try to make a build that reflects on both of them and basically let YOU roleplay this growth.

As always (since I lifted template for these posts from Tulok The Barbarian we will kick it off with stating our Goals. First of all, we need to have power to use water as a weapon. Second, we need to have a variety of ways in which we can face our enemies. Finally, we need to be able to move as well on both surface and underwater

For Ability Scores we’ll be using Standard Points Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8). If you want to roll or use point buy, use this as a guideline and keep in mind our Multiclassig Requirements will ask for at least 13 in Wisdom and Dexterity. Kaldur’ahm seems good in pretty much everything but Jackson does not...anyway, we will prioritize stats we need the most.

Strength: 8. Kaldur wore some heavy armors but we don’t really need this one.

Dexterity: 14, two-weapon fighting is traditionally associated with high Dexterity.

Constitution: 13, both have taken hits from some heavy hitters

Intelligence: 12, Kaldur is strategist of the team

Wisdom: 15, Kaldur is pretty stoic and Jackson has patience of a saint to put up with some of reckless people he is working with.

Charisma: 10, you either have Robin challenge your authority or you follow a smaller, angrier Robin. 

For D&D way to say species, Race, whichever version of the character you want to be, your mother was from underwater kingdom of Xibil and your dad is Black Manta, a living proof of human assholery. There is no half-human half-Xibilian race, so we will go with Triton. You get +1 to Strength, Constitution and Charisma, can breathe on both surface and udnerwater, have land and swim speed of 30 feet, resistance to cold damage, ignore drawbacks caused by deep underwater enviroment, can communicate simple ideas to sea creatures, know Common and Primodial and can cast Fog Cloud once per day, heavily obscuring area in a 20 foot radius. Apparently Tritons come with a built-in smoke grenade. Atlantean training is hardcore.

We will build a custom Background, pick up Insight and Investigation as your skills, a proficiency in any campaign-relevant language and any thieves’ tools and Safe Haven feature from Faction Agent background, meaning you have a way to communicate with hidden allies providing you with a place to stay get information, but they won’t risk their lives or revealing their secret identities for you.

Now for Class Levels:

Level 1: We Will kick things off as a Ranger. First level Ranger gets proficiency in simple and martial weapons, light and medium armors, shields, Strength and Dexterity saving throws and three skills, pick Perception, Stealth and Survival for whenever your team gets separated again. 

Your two features we will swap for those from Unearthed Arcana. Favored Foe lets you mark a target with a Hunter’s Mark number of times equal your Wisdom Modifier per long rest, letting you deal extra 1d6 of damage whenever you hit the target with a weapon attack and gain advantage on Perception and Survival checks to track it down and you can as a bonus action move it on to another target once icurrent one drops to zero hit points.

Deft Explorer lets you pick one of 3 features. Rowing adds 5 to your walking speed and ensures your climbing and swimming speed is equal to it. This is a little better than Triton giving us flat 30 feet of swimming speed.

Level 2: 2nd Level Rangers gets to pick a Fighting Style. Druidic Warrior is from the same Unearthed Arcana and lets you pick up two Cantrips from Druid’s spell-list. Which is nice since we get Spellcasting on this level as well.

Rangers know a specific number of spells, which we will use to roleplay some of kaldur and Jack’s powers and/or gadgets. Cantrips you can cast as many times as you want and they scale with your level, while spells you need to extend spell slots to cast (they regenerate on a long rest). You can know spells of level you have spell slots for avialable and every time you level up as a Ranger in addition to learnign a new spell you can unlearn one in place of another. if Spell asks you to make an spell attack you add your Proficiency and Wisdom modifiers to it. If it asks target to make a saving throw it must beats a DC equals sum of those two numbers +8.

Shape Water gives you limited, harmless control over water, mostly small stuff but may be fun to better roleplay.

Thorn Whip lets you make a spell attack against a target within 30 feet of you, dealing 1d6 damage on a hit. If it’s Large or smaller you also pull it 10 feet closer to you. This will be our Water Whip. Some of you may wonder why I’m getting is this way when a 3rd level Way Of the Four Elements Monk can use Water Whip which is actual water and deals more damage. The thing is, Monks cast this from their Ki Points, which is horribly limited. With this you can cast Kaldur’s iconic water whips as many times as you want.

Longstrider lets you for an hour increase your speed by 10 feet, which will also increase your swimming speed as well due to your Rowing abilitty..

Cure Wounds lets you cure 1d8+Your Wisdom modifier of damage dealt to you or someone else. Be it medipack or reassuring word, you know a thing abotu staying in combat.

Level 3: Tritons for some reason get Gust of Wind at this level, letting you choose a line and blow wind forcing all creatures in it to succeed a Strength saving throw (agaisnt your Charisma not Wisdom) or be pushed 15 feet away. I guess it’s some gadget picked from your teammates? Or maybe you can refluff it as a stream of water?

Anyway, some of you were probably wondering why I picked Druidic Warrior for Aqualad’s fighting style over Two-Weapon Fighting, since it is such an iconic thing done by Kaldur and Jake. Don’t worry, we will amend this one. 1st Level Fighter gets to pick another Fighting Style - Two-Weapon Fighting lets you add your dexterity modifier to an attack you make with your off-hand weapon.

You also get Second Wind, letting you regenerate 1d10+Your Fighter Level of Damage as a bonus action once per short or long rest. This keeps you up in combat longer, and whichever version of character you use, they are known for their heroic determination.

Level 4: 3rd Level Ranger gets to Pick a Ranger Conclave. I was thinking which one would fit best and arrived at a conclusion that it’s Monster Slayer from Xanathar’s Guide To Everything. Apparently it included Xibil, who wuld have thought.

Slayer’s Sense lets you a number of time equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest observe one creature in line of sight within 60 feet from you as an action. Unless it is shielded from divination magic, you learn what kinds of damage resistances, immunities or vurnerabilities it possesses, if any. Meanwhile Slayer’s Prey lets you as a bonus action designate one creature within 60 feet that you can see and deal it extra 1d6 of damage on your first weapon attack that hits on each turn. These two fit the idea of Kaldur as someone more level-headed, waiting for a good moment to strike.

Unearthed Arcana will let you pick Primal Awareness - it grants you a number of spells you can cast without expending a spell slot but the price is you can do it only once per long rest. As in, only one of all those spell per long rest. I guess it is some sort of Atlantean Sorcery focused on being one with the ocean. I will be marking these spells as (PA) when listing them with other spells you get (which now will also include Monster Slayer’s bonus spells, neither of which counts against your normal number of spells known).

Speaking of which, spells of this level:

Detect Magic (PA) lets you sense magic in the area of 30 feet, as long as it is not  separated from you by (deep breath) 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. If you sense something you can use your action to also learn what school of magic it is and see its aura around any obcject in the room.

Speak With Animals (PA) lets you talk to fish and other animals too, no wonder you replaced Orin as Aquaman. They won’t tell you much but at minimum will inform you of monsters in the area and what they have seen within past day. If you persuade them (read: the DM) the ycan do you a small favor too.

Protection From Evil And Good lets you grant yourself or another protection against aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends and undead, imposing disadvantage on their attacks against the target, making the target imune to being charmed, frightened or posessed by these creatures and if that already happenned, they get an advantage on future saving throw to shake this effect off. Raven’s dad? A fiend. Ghost of Nabu? An undead. Whatever crawled from the sea to eat Arthur? Probably an Aberration. New Gods? Celestials. And I think Klarion counts as a fey.

Detect Poison and Disease lets you identify all kinds of poisons and diseases present within 30 feet from you, unless you are hidden by the same barriers as listed under detect magic. I guess you need to see them to be able to tell if this fish is poisonous or not.

Level 5: On this level Triton allows you to cast Wall of Water once a day. You can shape water into a straigth wall 30 feet long and 10 feet high or round one 20 feet long and 20 feet high, either of them 1 foot thick. It counts as difficult terrain, attacks passing through it have disadvantage and all fire damage of attacks or spells is halved, but if anything that deals ice damage is flung through it, it freezes 5 feet of the wall, turning it into a block of ice with 5 AC and 15 HP that is not filled when broken with an attack.

4th Level Rangers get an Ability Score Improvement, bumb your Dexterity for better attack rolls and armor class.

Level 6: 5th level Ranger gets an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice for each attack action.

And now for the spells, since you just got access to 2nd level ones:

Beast Sense (PA) let’s you strap a camera to an animal and see through its eyes and hear through its ears, but you cannto do anythign else while you watch it.

Locate Animal or Plants (PA) let’s you name a kind of animal or a plant and you know where, as in derection and distance from you, to find closest one within 5 miles.

Darkvision let’s you for 8 hours with no concentration see for 60 feet in the dim light as in bright and in darkness as in dim light, but iwthout discerning colors. This is something that you, as a Triton player, has spent last 5 levels yelling at DM you should have and WotC did a mistake to not let you have it. 

Zone of Truth allows you to make it impossible to lie in a 15-foot radius. Creatures who are in the area or enter it must make a Charisma saving throw or are unable to tell a lie on purpose and you know they have attempted the save and passed or not. I’m not saying this would have solved so many issues in Young Justice but it sure owuld make things easier. Or not, I’m sure Vandal Savage’s Charisma save is like +15.

Level 7: We hop back to Fighter to get Action Surge, letting you once per short rest. Meaning you can in one turn make your full attack and cast a spell, make four or five attacks if you also use your off-hand weapon, or cast two spells. In fact, this is the only way to cast two spells (as opposed to a spell and a cantrip) in a single turn.

Level 8: 3rd Level Fighter gets to choose a Martial Archetype. Eldritch Knight  lets you for a bond with both your weapons, meaning you cannot be unwillingly disarmed unless you are incapitated and if you drop the weapon, you can use your bonus action to summon it to your hand as long as you’re on the same plane of existence.

You also learn two Cantrips and 3 1st Level Spells from Wizard Spell List. They work the same as your Ranger spelsl except using Intelligence instead of Wisdom.

Booming Blade lets you make a single attack. If you hit you deal extra 1d8 thunder damage and if and the target willingly moves before start of your next turn it is dealt 2d8 thunder damage. 

Shocking Grasp let’s you make a single meele spell attack, with advantage if target is wearing metal armor, to deal 2d8 lightning damage. Both this and Booming Blade increase with levels and let you imitate some of minor electric powers shown by both Jackson and Kaldur

Shield lets you add +5 to AC would you be hit by an attack, potentially making it miss you. I guess in your case it owuld be a water shield.

Absorb Elements grants you as a reaction resistance to acid, cold, fire, lighting or thunder damage - you cast it as a reaction when you take one of those types of damage and it lasts until start of your next turn. And during your next turn first time you hit a foe you deal extra 1d6 damage of that type. Kaldur withstood hits from Black Lightning and his dad runs around with a heat-beam blasting cooking pot on his head, this will be useful.

Chromatic Orb lets you make a spell attack against a target and deal it 3d8 of your choice  acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder damage. Most of the time you will likely stick to cold and lightning or thunder which are most fitting the character but you can refluff other options as special weapons for one-time use.

Level 9: Back to the Ranger, on 6th Level you get another form of Deft Explorer. Canny allows you to pick one more skill from  Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Stealth, or Survival to get proficient in OR get your proficiency bonus to it doubled. Personally I would go with History - you know a lot about the world and have good memory and a number of times my party got themselves in trouble by failing a simple History check would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Also, you get Favored Enemy, since apparently Favored Foe only replaces the first one. Choose one type of creatures:  aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead, or two races of humanoids. You get advantage on Survival rolls to track them and Intelligence checks to recall information about. Yes, that’s it. You see why I forgot this feature on America Chavez build on this level? To be fair you also learn one language spoken by whatever you picked, which mixes well with Kaldur being fluent in multiple languages. Though Ancient Greeks are not valid choice on any setting except theros and it would be extremly fucked up anyway.

Level 10: 7th Level Monster Slayer gains Supernatural Defense, letting you add 1d6 to escape being grappled by or to saving throws forced on you by targer of your Slayer’s Prey.

Our Spell for this level is Protection From Poison. The target that is poisoned has effects of one poison neutralized and for an hour makes all saving throws against poison with an advantage. Which is somewhat better than Kaldur’s resistance to poison of some udnerwater flora and fauna.

Level 11: 8th Level Rangers gain an Abilitty Score Improvement, keep investing in your Dexterity. You also no longer slow your movement for moving through difficult terrain and nonmagical plants and you get an advantage on saving throw against magical plants to impede your movement. I would say this applies to moving underwater but consult your DM.

Level 12: 9th Level Ranger gains access to 3rd Level Spells.

Speak With Plants (PA) make you make all plants in 30 feet from you GAIN SENTIENCE so you can question them or make difficult terrain normal one for the duration. I know some Aquaman comics argued there is a sea-faring force similiar to the Green that Arthur (and apparently in our take also Kaldur) can tap into but man, this is ridiculous. 

Magic Circle is a force field of 10 feet radius and 20 feet height. At your choice it can be used so that creatures cannot enter or leave area inside it and pass a Charisma Saving Throw is they try to bypass that by teleportation, have disadvantages on attacks against creatures on the other side and cannot frighter, charm or possess them. This is likely another gadget or you somehow enchanced water to do it.

Protection From Energy is list a better version of Absorb Elements - continuous resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage up to an hour on Concentration. Again, your dad wears a cooking pot that shoots heat beams.

ALTERNATIVES: Magic Weapon can be a good choice too since your blades/whips are weird and if DM doesn’t throw a pair of magic weapons your way, this will help you roleplay them better.

Level 13: 10th Level Unearthed Arcana Ranger gains the stealthsuit - once every short or long rest you can become invisible until start of your next round 

Level 14: 11th Level Monster Slayer becomes a Magic User’s Nemesis, letting you attempt to foil an enemy within 60 feet of you from casting a spell or teleport by forcing a Wisdom saving throw on them. if they fail, their spell or teleport is fasted. I don’t even want to count how many times it would get Vandal Savage and rest of the Light in a tight spot.

 Our Spell for this Level will be Water Walk, letting you for one hour give up to 10 creatures within 30 feet an abilitty to walk on water as if it was solid ground. It os not exactly water pillars Kaldur uses to save people from burning buildings but maybe if you combine it with Wall of Water...

level 15: 12th Level Ranger means another Ability Score Improvement, you should have Dexterity around 18 so now focus on Wisdom since more and more of your spells and abilitties require saving throws.

Level 16: 13th Level Ranger gains more spells and acess to 4th level spells

Locate Creature (PA) lets you locate a specific creature you know or a nearest creature of a type you have seen up close that is within 1 thousand miles, except if its in a different form or at least 10 feet of running water crosses the area between you and it. If the creature is moving you know its direction. Basically, if your team wants to track someone specific, like Ras Al’Ghul or Deathstroke or your dad, you can do it.

Banishment let’s you push a target into a portal to somewhere else if the fail Charisma saving throw - if the target is native to this plane of existence, it will be back once the spell ends. but if it’s not from around here and you hold the concentration for 1 minute, they are permamently sent back home. So theorethically you could roleplay this as kicking Darkseid into his own Boom Tube, just saying.

Freedom of Movement is basically a better version of your 10th level Ranger feature - you ignore difficult therrain and spells that would reduce your movement or make you paralyzed or restrained, being  underwater does not impede your movement or attacks, you can spend 5 feet from your movement to automatically escape all nonmagical ways of impeding your movement or restraining you. Beast Boy will likely joke about you being slippery like an eel once you use it to escape being grappled by Grodd or Monsieur Mallah or ultra Humanite... Young Justice has fought a lot of gorillas, come to think of it.

Level 17: 14th Level Ranger gets Vanish, letting you Hide as a bonus action like a Rogue of a...2nd fucking level wtf Wizards... and make it impossible to track you by nonmagical means.  Also, you get one more option to pick for Favored Enemy.

Level 18: 15th Level Monster Slayer gets Slayer’s Counter - if the target of your Slayer’s Prey forces you to make a saving throw you can make one attack against them. If you hit you deal normal damage and automatically succeed the saving throw. If you miss, you still roll as usual. Your old man’s cooking pot beam? Like a Dexterity save. Dark Robin’s toxin? Probably Wisdom. M’Gann trying to clean up your mind? Intelligence. I liek this abilitty because you have an image of someone like Psimon trying to mess with your mind and getting punched in the face.

Our Spell for this level will be Death Ward, letting you protect someone from dying. For 8 hours after you cast it, the spell goess of if one of two things happen - the target is reduced to 0 hit points, in which case it’s reduced to 1 instead, or is outright killed, in which case the effect that did it is negated. It has only one charge but it will likely protect someone from becoming another statue or hologram in your team’s hall of fallen heroes.

Level 19: 16th Level Ranger gets final Abilitty Score Improvement., go for Wisdom since more and mroe things you do require saving throws.

Level 20: We will finish with a 17th Level Ranger for a set of 5th level spells.

Commune With Nature (PA) let’s you gather informations about the area within 3 miles or 300 feet underground, letting you know three facts about terrain and bodies of water, prevalent plants, minerals, animals, or peoples, powerful celestials, fey, fiends, elementals, or undead, influence from other planes of existence or buildings in the area. Doesn’t work in towns or dungeons.

Hold Monster - you force a Wisdom saving throw on any creature and if they fail, they become Paralyzed until spell ends, you break concentration or they succeed another saving throw atr the end of  each of their turns. I would play it as you wrapping your water whip around the target.

Greater Restoration let’s you remove one effect that charmed, petrified, cursed, reduced abilitty scores or hit points maximum of the target.

Overview: My take on Aqualad is a Triton Monster Slayer Ranger 17/Eldritch Knight Fighter 3. Let’s now see how well does it work.

Pros: You are pretty well-rounded in both defensive and offensive ways, letting you be able to deal damage and to mess with your enemies. Second, you have multiple ways to protect yourself or your allies. Third, there is no terrain that will stop you, if your DM loves using tricks related to that you two will have a blast trying to outmaneuver one another. Finally, you are pretty good at information gathering, meaning you can be team tactician, setting up plans for combat.

Cons: Your Constitution is mediocre, meaning your concentration will run out fast and your Hit Points aren’t that imnpressive - on average you should be slightly below 150 which is not bad but could be better. We didn’t cap either Dexterity or Wisdom - while +4 is not that much worse than +5, sometimes it will make a difference. Finally, a lot of your abilitties are situational and/or once per day, meaning there will be a lot of times when you won’t be able to utilize your strategic powers well.

Overall however, all these weak points fit your character - whenever you build Kaldur or Jacke, you are a team player. You don’t operate alone, you lay down a plan and you protect and support your teammates. A good party that works together and doesn’t underestiamte you will be grateful to have you on board

Alternatives: 

Pick a  Shillelagh as a Druidic Warrior Cantrip, replace your swords with a staff and for other fighting style pick Great Weapon Fighting, then maximalize Wisdom and Constitution. Fits well with you beinga tactical person as now you punch with your Wisdom. But it does stay away from Aqualad’s iconic blades.

Instead of Canny pick Tireless as your second Deft Explorer, giving you more ways to regenerate damage - you will be mroe a determinator than a wise guy, pushing you a bit closer to Jack than Kaldur.

In you want to sacrifice electric powers, grab Battlemaster archetype for Fight or even consider replacing it with Cleric - Protection, Solidarity or Unity Domains will work pretty well for you as a great team player.

- Admin

[majingojira]

Godzilla as a PC for D&D

Yes, you read that right.  I’ve figured it out.  It’s so simple that I had to share it.  Admittedly, it falls appart a little at 20, but this is damn solid otherwise. 

But there are some concessions.  Namely, to size.  Godzilla is many things, and most of them are huge. However, since he is a character first and foremost, he is going to need to interact with the rest of the cast, so the only giant size he’s going to get is through a magic item or potion. 

We’ll be following Tulok’s example for this one by and large, so we’re going to start out with our goals. 

1. Atomic Breath -- he’s going to need to project beams of “SCREW YOU!” energy at enemies. 

2. Juggernaut - Godzilla is very much a tank, and his stats should reflect that. 

3. Amphibious - Godzilla is equally at home in the water as he is on land. 

We’ll begin with the Standard Point Array. We’ll start with Dexterity (15).  Despite his size, Godzilla is quite agile for his size, so a smaller Godzilla would be quite agile, and while we aren’t dumping Strength, it’s not as important for the overall power of this build.  Following that is Wisdom (14).  Godzilla is a clever in the way Animals are clever.  Following that is Constitution (13).  Surviving thermonuclear detonation takes a lot.  Strength is next (12), I’d like it to be higher, but sacrifices have to occur somewhere. Charisma is next (10).  You work mostly through intimidation anyway. Our dump stat is Intelligence (8). Godzilla is not clever in the traditional sense of the word. 

So, the array looks like this:  Strength: 12 Dexterity: 15 Consitution: 13 Intelligence: 8 Wisdom: 14 Charisma: 10 For race, go with Lizardfolk.  Lizardfolk have a +2 to Constitution (15) and +1 Wisdom (15).  They have a base speed of 30ft.  

They can Bite dealing 1d6 Slashing Damage.  The Hungry Jaws ability means they can take a bite as a Bonus Acton, and gain temporary Hit Points from it equal to their Constitution Modifier once every short rest.  Lizardfolk are also Cunning Artisans, making weapons from the carcasses of foes they defeat.  Godzilla ALMOST did this to Ebirah, so I say it tracks.  Lizardfolk can Hold their Breath for 15 Minutes at a time, and have a swim speed of 30ft. 

They also have Hunters Lore, allowing them to pick two skills from Animal Handling, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival. Go with Stealth and Perception.  

Lizardfolk also have Natural Armor, meaning their AC is 13 + Dexterity Modifier.   They also know how to speak Common and Draconic. 

For Background, Godzilla is a being from the deepest oceans, so Outlander is probably the best bet.  This nabs Athletics and Survival.  For Class, we’re going with Monk.  Godzilla doesn’t really use weapons that often, mostly relying on his fists to to do the fighting.  They gain two skills, grab Acrobatics and Athletics.  As a monk, he gets Unarmed Defense and Martial Arts. However, as of right now his Natural Armor is better than the bonus Unarmed Defense would provide and they don’t stack, so right now his AC is 15.  

Martial Arts allows him to deal 1d4 + his Dexterity or Strength bonus on unarmed strikes, and can make an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action when he attack.  Godzilla lays down beatdowns like crazy.   

Second Level Monks gain Ki and Unarmored Movement.  Godzilla’s movement speed increases by +10, and this applies to his swimming speed as well, as long as he doesn’t have Armor or aren’t using a Shield. 

Ki is what fuels a Monk. At level 2 he has 2 Ki Points. He can use this to perform Flurry of Blows (1 Ki point to get 2 unarmed strikes as a Bonus Action), Patient Defense (1 Ki Point to Dodge as a bonus action), and Step of the Wind (1 Ki to Disengage or Dash as a Bonus Action).  The save for Ki effects is equal to 8 + the Proficiency Bonus + the Wisdom Modifier. 

3rd Level Monks gain Deflect Missiles, allowing Godzilla to use a Reaction to catch missiles, reducing ranged attacks by 1d10 + Dexterity Modifier + Monk Level.  If the damage is reduced to 0, and the missile is small enough, he can spend a Ki point to toss it right back at the foe and treat it as a Monk weapon. 

But also at this stage, he gets his Monastic Tradition.  Here, go with Sunsoul Monk.  Sunsoul Monks get Radiant Sun Bolt at 3rd level.  This hurls a searing bolt of radiant energy at a foe. This deals damage equal to the Monk’s Unarmed Strike damage.  They can spend 1 Ki point to attack with this beam twice as their action.  Flavor text that the beams are coming from his Mouth (or Back, or Tail) and we have his first type of Atomic Breath. 

4th level monks gain an Ability Score improvement.  Increase Dexterity and Wisdom by 1 each (making them 16). They also gain Slow Fall, allowing Godzilla to reduce any Falling damage they take by 5x his Monk level. 

5th level monks gain an Extra Attack, as well as Stunning Strike. Godzilla can spend 1 Ki point to force the target of his pummeling's to make a Constitution save or be stunned until the end of his next turn.  The die for their unarmed strikes (and Radiant Sun Bolts) increases to 1d6.  

6th level monks gain Ki-Empowered Strikes, meaning his fists are now magical to bypass resilience. Sunsoul Monks also gain Searing Arc Strike, allowing them to spend 2 Ki points (they have 6 at this point) to cast Burning Hands as a Bonus Action after taking the Attack Action.  For every Ki Point spent on the Searing Hands after that increases the spell’s level (and thus its damage di) by 1. So now we have our second “Breath Weapon” to flavor text.  The amount of Ki that can be spent on this ability in total is equal to 1/2 the Monk’s level.  They also get increase their Unarmored Movement to +15ft. 

7th level Monks get Evasion. Meaning on a successful Dexterity Save, they take no damage, and only half damage when they fail.  Flavor this as walking through the blasts and it should be good.  They also get Stillness of Mind, allowing Godzilla to spend an action to end the effects of Charmed or Frightened. 

8th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement.  Bump Dexterity (18) for better hits and better Evasiveness. 

9th level Monks get the ability to run along vertical surfaces and across liquids. If there were only things big enough for Godzilla to climb, he could totally do this on the regular.  Maybe. 

10th level Monks gain Purity of Body, making them immune to Ki and Poison.  Godzilla’s movement speed also increases to +20ft. 

11th level Monks have their Unarmed Strike damage raised to 1d8.  Sunsoul Monks also gain the Searing Sunburst, creating an orb of light that explodes over a 20ft radius dealing Radiant Damage.  It forces a Constitution save, the victims taking 2d6 Radiant Damage. This has a range of 150ft and simply costs an Acton.  Up to 3 Ki can be spent to increase the damage, each Ki adding 2d6 (meaning the biggest boom for this is 8d6).  And now we have all the breath weapons. 

12th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement. Cap Dexterity for the best hits and best AC you can get. 

13th level Monks get Tongue of the Sun and Moon, meaning they can talk to anyone. This includes other creatures as long as they understand a language. Which explains “Monster Talk” perfectly. 

14th level Monks have a +25 bonus to their movement speed and Diamond Soul.  They are now proficient in all saving throws and can spend 1 Ki to re-roll a failed save and take the second result. 

15th level Monks have Timeless Body, meaning they no longer age physically, and no longer need food or water. 

16th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement. Bump Wisdom (18) for better saves on your special attacks. 

17th level Monks bump their Unarmed Attack die up to 1d10, and gain their last monastic tradition feature.  This is the Sun Shield.  At will, they can become wreathed in luminous magical aura, shedding bright light in a 30ft radius, and dim light an additional 30ft.  This is turned on and off with a bonus action.  Even better, when hit with a melee attack when ‘glowing’, Godzilla can use a reaction to deal radiant damage to the creature equal to 5 + his Wisdom Modifier.  We now have the G-Pulse. 

18th level Monks have +30 movement speed as well as Empty Body.  for 4 Ki, Godzilla can now become Invisible for 1 Minute, as well as Resistant to all damage save Force damage.  For 8 Ki, he can now astral project.  Even Ghosts aren’t safe from Godzilla’s wrath. And he can disappear as needed when under heavy attack.  

19th level Monks have an Ability Score Improvement, or a feat. Get the Tough feat to fully represent how thick the King of Monsters is with 38 extra hit points. 

Our Capstone is the 20th level of Monk is Perfect Self.  When a Monk rolls Initiative and has no Ki remaining, he regains 4 Ki.  

So, what’s good and bad about this build? 

On the positives:  Mobility - Godzilla can move extremely fast on several different types of terrain.  

Magical Attacks - Meaning you get to bypass many resistances, and Radiant Damage is not resisted that often (except by holy things).  You also have Fire and 

Sticking Around - We have an AC of 19 with Evasion, as well as becoming Resistant to all damage (save Force) 1 minute.  The Invisibility is just a bonus perk. Throw in the Tough feat and we have 180 Hit Points on top of it, putting you in the range of front-line fighters.  Also, you’re a monk an utterly unique Backstory unrelated to monasteries! 

On the negative side, he’s dumb as a post. So he may know things and have ‘wisdom’ but who will listen to anything but a pummeling? 

The range is largely short, and Ki is an issue for long battles. 

Finally, socially, the character is awkward as hell.  No negative modifier, but he is a Lizardfolk.  

But you don’t play Godzilla to play someone eloquent and dashing.  Crush your enemies and remind them who the King of the Monsters really is. 

[wearesorcerer]

Spell Components & You, Pt. 1

I got to thinking about my comment about material/focus components in the Animator homebrew Sorcerous Origin and thought, “Hey! This can be a nifty guide!” It’s going to be fairly bare-bones, though, as I want it to translate between editions.

There are five components a Sorcerer needs to worry about: Verbal, Somatic, Material, Focus, and XP. (The only other one that exists, to my knowledge, is Divine Focus [{un}holy symbol]. There might be an archetype somewhere which requires it. Eh.) If you were to flip M and F, these would be in order best to worst. 5e combines M and F for a minor/no reason (see below). XP only existed in 3.0 and 3.5 (barring some aberration in a later edition). Generally speaking, if you can avoid having an extra component, you should: components are ways for enemies to stop your casting without having dispel magic, counterspells, or antimagic field ready. These exist also for flavor, but if they were only flavor all of them (well, except XP) would be entirely optional. All of that said, I don’t recommend using metamagic to negate verbal and somatic components unless the situation demands it, as almost all spells require those two components.

Verbal

Incantations. Words/songs of power are so intimately associated with magic that a good portion of our words for magic refer to singing (charm, enchantment, evocation/invocation, possibly glamour, grimoire, spell, etc.); Bardic Music is simultaneously the epitome of this (being a mechanic that actually deals with how speech works) and redundant.

Contrary to a lot of fiction (YuYu Hakusho is the first to come to mind, but there are others) but aligning with others, no target needs to be able to hear your verbal components for them to work -- you just have to pronounce them correctly. (This implies that you’re invoking the magic, though earlier editions did specify that no one was quite sure why the words worked, just that they had to be exact.)

Counteracting verbal components is the second most difficult of the five (after XP), but is also the most widely known course to take -- to the point that the spell silence has become the term most often seen in other games for status effects that prevent casting, even if they don’t literally interrupt sound. The go-to methods are deafening the caster, spells like silence which prevent the caster from speaking at all, and gags. Obviously, gagging is fairly difficult (you have to apprehend the caster first), but deafening and silencing casters through other means are almost always magical effects anyway.

Verbal components are also the easiest to get rid of (besides Somatic ones): 3.x has the Silent Spell metamagic feat (+1 level), 5e combines that with 3.x’s Still Spell at a reduced cost, and there are references here and there to allowing deaf/hard-of-hearing casters to ignore this penalty.

Somatic

Gestures. “Somatic” means “having to do with the body;” you’d think TSR or WotC could have come up with a better word for these, but whatever. Somatic components are the reason used to justify armor interfering with arcane magic. Given that you can wear gauntlets as weapons in 3.x without incurring the penalty and almost all types of armor interfere with casting regardless of whether or not they include gauntlets (and regardless of the edition), it would seem that you need a very good range of motion with your arms at a decent speed in order to cast spells with somatic components.

In both 3.x and 5e, you must have at least one hand free in order to cast a spell. This is probably to skirt around action economy for dropping, stowing, and picking up items/weapons, specifically so that you can hold a staff and cast. There are a number of options in 3.x for using a weapon (which could be a staff) to cast your somatic components, but this is mainly for eldritch knight types who want to dual-wield.

Anything that restrains a caster can justify interfering or negating spells with somatic components. This is why grappling a caster is a common tactic (besides Strength being a stereotypical dump stat).

Material and Focus

3.x distinguished between Material and Focus components in definition: spells always consume any material components they specify but never any focus components. However, this caused some wonkiness in gameplay: they get used similarly (the rules don’t even specify if you need to hold them, let alone if you can hold them in the same hand doing your gestures), but rules which apply to one don’t often apply to the other.

For example, the Eschew Materials feat (3.x, 3.P) lets you ignore any material components costing 1 gp. or less. In theory, this means you wouldn’t need to buy a spell component pouch (or spend money on upkeep for one if your DM were to go that route). In practice, it doesn’t also apply to foci, which means either you need to buy a spell component pouch, ask your DM for an exception, or avoid certain spells (there are several and many are desirable).

5e combined the two into a single mechanic and instead specified in each spell description whether or not the component got consumed. That’s slightly better; I think it would have been easier to include Focus components under Spellcasting: Casting a Spell -- Components and simply state that any rule that governs Material components also applies to Foci, but that they aren’t used up in the casting process. That would leave a simple M & F notation rather than redundant verbiage. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

In general, a focus is better than a material component because you don’t have to worry about replacing it. Thus, if you were playing something by strict RAW and didn’t have access to 5e’s (glorious) addition of spellcasting foci (which should have been in the game from OD&D), you could fill a spell component pouch with your foci and (likely) never have to spend any money on upkeep. (Perhaps every time you learned a new spell with a focus.)

That’s not much of a consolation. Any effect which can steal from you can disable spells with either component. Any effect which stops a spell with a somatic component also stops one with a material or focus component. The Animator Sorcerous Origin sidestepped both of these in that the focus could also be environmental, but since that requires you to be around something specific for each of your spells, it’s not a consolation prize.

The worst aspect of these sorts of components is that many are costly -- often hundreds or thousands of gp. worth of gems and precious metals, frequently shattered or ground into dust.

Experience

As far as I am aware, Pathfinder got rid of XP costs in spells and 5e followed suit. I could be wrong on the latter, but Pathfinder was pretty strict about getting rid of XP costs in magic (it was a cornerstone of magic item creation in 3.0 and 3.5). 3.5 didn’t have many core spells with XP costs (14: atonement, awaken, commune, gate, limited wish/miracle/wish, permanency, the planar ally series, greater restoration, simulacrum, and vision), but there were others scattered hither and yon.

I note this component at all for two reasons: first, for anyone converting between 3.5 and Pathfinder to pay attention to these when converting, and second, to point out that XP costs (while horrible) had the advantage of being uncounterable (no one and nothing could prevent you from using the component as a way of interrupting the spell). You could use that to build a new casting method, but why would you?

Other Notes

The main combat advantage psionics has had over arcane magic in most editions (other than being overpowered due to an idiotic lack of transparency) is that powers usually didn’t require components (though they did have tells). The psychic magic system of Pathfinder‘s Occult Adventures supplement does have thought and emotion components, but as these are entirely mental all they do is give alternatives to the silence spell as ways to stop casters.

I will have a part two, which will be entirely about why spells specify material components and which spells to think about regarding material/focus costs.

[murasaki-murasame]

Oh boy that sure was a whole lotta stuff going on in the 1.5-year anniversary digest video, huh?

I was hoping to post some of my predictions and hopes for it beforehand but life stuff got in the way so here we are, lol.

Anyway there’s a lot I wanna talk about across the board so it’ll go under a cut.

When I saw that this digest was like 20 minutes long I figured it’d be padded out, but lol it’s actually even more dense with material than the last one we got. This really makes up for the recent drought of news and content.

Firstly, they immediately showed off Gala Alex, since she’s a given at this point and we all knew it was gonna happen. Funnily enough she actually seems like she might more or less be bait for the banner happening afterward, which also seems to be a shadow element banner.

In general Gala Alex is a weird and complicated character and I’m not sure what to make of her. At first glance she doesn’t seem super essential or game-breaking, but she has poison infliction and buff dispel, so I’d probably benefit from getting her since I don’t really have good units with that sort of utility in my shadow team yet. But I’m not gonna bother doing more than the free daily tenfold summons on this gala, since as a whole she doesn’t interest me much and I think I could live without her.

On top of her weird skill chain mechanic which I’m struggling to wrap my head around, she also introduces the chain co-ability feature, but I’ll get to that later since it’s a whole big thing.

Hopefully she’ll at least let people start accepting sword units into eKai, lol. That fight has a very open and accepting meta, unless you’re a sword unit in which case you’re fucked because there’s currently no meta shadow sword units people want for that fight.

We’re also getting two separate platinum summons for this gala that cover the past gala units, which is honestly kinda tempting to me since I still don’t have Gala Elly, but I’d just have a 1/3 chance of getting her instead of the other two gala units on her platinum summon, who I already have, so it wouldn’t be worth it.

Then there’s a whole bunch of free summons and wyrmite from new endeavors and co-op rewards getting reset. Which will be helpful in building my stash back up, but I’m probably still gonna avoid spending any resources on this gala.

I’m happy that this gala seems like one I can skip, since I went all in to get Tobias, and I didn’t want to end up regretting that.

Anyway, we also got a look at the next raid event, which will start at the end of this month. It looks like it’s another shadow element one, which just reminds me even more how much we need another wind element raid event, but it looks cool. Aldred has a fun, edgy design. I hope he’s actually worth using. As a shadow unit, he’ll at least be competing with the most stacked element in the game. It also looks like the event’s story is gonna involve the Syndicate, which we’ve actually known about via wyrmprint lore since the game came out, but they’ve never come up until now, so that’s interesting.

They also showed off the banner units, who look cool, but it’d take a lot for me to want to summon for them since I have so many good shadow units as it is. They also said it’ll be another two-part banner, which is getting really annoying.

We’re also getting a rerun of the FEH collab event, along with some sort of a new part two event for it, so that’s cool. I started playing the game at the tail end of the FEH collab originally, but I didn’t actually take part in it since I had performance anxiety about doing any of the co-op stuff, lol. So this means i’ll at least finally be able to get Alfonse.

I think the part two event is probably gonna involve more Fire Emblem characters who’ll be on their own banner, but like with the existing FE units, i don’t really have any attachment to that franchise so I probably wouldn’t be interested in pulling for them.

Though on that note, they did say that all of the four existing FEH units will get mana spirals, which might be interesting. But since I already have Euden and Xainfried at 70MC, as well as Gleo, I don’t think I’d be interested in pulling for Marth, Fjorm, or Veronica, lol. It’s at least interesting to set up this precedent, though. I guess we can assume that if Megaman ever gets rerun, he’ll get a mana spiral too.

If we get new FEH units in a part two banner for the event, I feel like they might end up being a bit underwhelming, since they probably won’t come with mana spirals built into their kits, but we’ll see how it goes.

We also got teasers for the next three main story chapters, which isn’t what I expected at all. We already knew when they’d be coming out since they’re on a fixed schedule now, but I didn’t expect actual teasers of the story content in them. Though tbh the thing that intrigues me the most is the gameplay clips of chapter 14 that involve unique maps based around the Alberian capital. I didn’t think we’d get to actually do stuff there, so that’s cool.

Also, them teasing at Leif showing up in chapter 13 is making me think that either he’ll be the next gala unit, or a welfare unit. Hopefully the latter, since he’s obviously a light sword unit and we already have Gala Euden as a light sword. If he’s a welfare unit, though, I hope he’s not super weak like Laxi.

We’re also getting the event replay feature, but sadly it seems like there won’t be any raid events in it at first, and the facility events included from the start are ones that have gotten reruns relatively recently. So that’s a bit lame. I’m glad they said that they plan on adding raid events to it, though. It looks like you can at least get the facilities from the facility events, so I hope we can also get the welfare units from raid events.

With the new version update they’re also apparently introducing a new currency called fafnir medals which can, to some degree or another, be exchanged for different materials. There’s a whole list of them, but let’s be honest here. The only one that actually matters is the gold testaments, lmao. Unless there’s a really rigid cap on how many of them you can trade for each week/month, that’ll probably be the main thing people trade for. Hopefully it can help address the need for more testaments [especially now that co-abilities are a bit more important]

Then there’s a few bits and pieces to the 1.18 update that they didn’t even mention in the digest. Like how there’ll be adjustments to daily endeavors, the addition of normal endeavors related to using skip tickets on your daily stages, and the ability to check your summon history. But the biggest deal they didn’t mention is how they’re standardizing drop rates in e/mHDTs, and adding horns to the weekly bonus chests for eHDTs. Which is basically exactly what people had been asking for.

We’re also eventually gonna get our encyclopedia feature, which will be nice, especially since it apparently comes with rewards based on how much stuff you have. Which will probably provide a huge batch of rewards to old players right off the bat.

They also showed off two more Agito bosses, who will probably be the next two ones. They didn’t say which would come out next, exactly, but we at least got their names and full designs, which also spells out what elements they are. I can’t actually remember their names at the moment, but the Sylvan lady is water, while the twins are flame. Since wind units have been getting some attention lately, I think the Sylvan lady will be next, and then the flame twins afterward, but we’ll see. One way or another I think the final Agito is gonna be the shadow element one. Which is a bit lame, since my light team really needs a boost. Oh well.

Oh, and they also teased at the Agito, or at least Volk, being formally introduced in chapter 14 of the main campaign, so that’s interesting.

And of course one of the biggest things in this whole update is the huge changes to co-abilities in general. Chain co-abilities are the main thing, but I’m also really intrigued by how in co-op matches, you’ll now take on the effects of your own team’s co-abilities, rather than the co-abilities of the main units your team-mates are using. On the one hand it means you can more comfortably run multiple units of the same weapon type in co-op without feeling like it’s a waste, but I feel like it’s also gonna introduce new ways to cheese some fights, like how 4-Gleo comps can now benefit from stuff like defensive co-abilities from AI units. I think that sort of situation was an intentional choice on Cygames’ part, though. It seems like their way of helping to make end-game content easier and more accessible. It also means that you have to depend less on your team-mates if you need stuff like defensive coabilities to survive an opening blast or something. So you can control that yourself and not worry about what co-op room you end up in.

But the real star of the show, whether or not it ends up being more game-changing than the change to how co-abilities are applied in general, is the chain co-ability feature. Which basically just seems to be a straight up second co-ability that every unit gets, but with the unique quality that they can stack with each other. I don’t actually know how often you’d bother stacking them, though. I looked through all the units I own and what chain co-abilities they have, and it seems like in each element, it’s usually units of the same weapon type that have overlapping chain co-abilities [like Mitsuhide and Fritz getting combo time]. So most of the time I don’t think you’d bother. It also looks like they’re kinda under-tuned, stat-wise, probably to compensate for them being stackable, so I think they might ultimately not be a huge deal, but hey, it’s just a straight up bonus set of stats on top of everything else, lol.

It’s a bit overwhelming since literally EVERY character has a chain co-ability now, and there’s way more variety in them than with regular co-abilities, but there are a few that stick out to me.

-Water seems to be the only element with units that have buff time chain co-abilities, from what I can tell, with Renee, S-Estelle, and Cibella having it. I think this might make S-Estelle a more valued AI team-mate for water teams, since buff time is a pretty big deal, and she also brings the skill damage coability.

-Light seems like one of the main cases where you might stack chain co-abilities, since S-Luca, Annelie, and Fritz have the same one that gives a strength buff whenever you get an energy stack [with a cooldown]. Which I think has a lot of potential, depending on how exactly it works.

-On a similar note, Lucretia has one that gives her a chance to get inspiration stacks when she gets energy stacks [I forget if it applies to just her or the whole team, though], which is interesting. I had a feeling they’d start adding inspiration mechanics to light to complement the amount of energy mechanics going on with them.

-OG Xainfried gets Dragon Claws VI, which seems like it’ll probably be a pretty huge deal for him. Pipple also gets about 18% dragon haste when he’s maxed out, which seems like it’d complement really nicely with Xainfried’s kit.

-Mitsuhide and Fritz’s combo time chain co-ability is gonna be REALLY nice for Gala Luca, since he kinda struggles to keep a high combo, but part of his kit relies on it.

-There’s a whole lot of units who get defensive chain co-abilities which will probably help people get by in HDTs even more. Including units with offensive co-abilities like Mikoto and Valerio.

All in all it seems like a really overwhelming and potentially game-changing mechanic. I also think it’s gonna be just about impossible to properly reflect the implications of it in the DPS sims, lol. This introduces way too many variables. And even then, the DPS sims won’t account for any of the more defensive ones, which have their own value.

Since the chain co-abilities seem to be tied to the regular co-abilities with how they get upgraded, it sounds like this is gonna incentivize getting more people’s co-ability nodes, which will also involve more use of testaments.

The chain co-abilities are one thing, but there’s also some interesting uses for how you benefit from your own AI members’ co-abilities in co-op. Mainly for characters with unique co-abilities like Tobias, H-Mym, and V-Melody. I think Ezelith is gonna basically always want to have an H-Mym on her team, Lin You is gonna want V-Melody on her team, and any wind buffer other than Tobias is gonna want a Tobias on the team to give them more buff-time.

Oh, and I almost forgot that they also casually mentioned that they’re gonna be bringing back defensive battle event types in the future. They didn’t go into much detail about it, but I assume it means that we’ll get more random events once in a while with the same sort of format as the FEH one. Hopefully that’d help alleviate the feeling of stagnation that comes with constantly alternating between raid and facility events endlessly. Since I didn’t actually participate in the FEH event I don’t know what that whole event type entails, though.

I’m probably forgetting lots of stuff they talked about, but they talked about a LOT of stuff, lol. It’s hard to keep track of it all. I wasn’t expecting such a substantial update for the 1.5-year anniversary, but I’m happy with it.

[niftybottle]

Hey @tulipsandsake, I’m your @bering-and-wells-exchange person. I saw you reblog D&D and Critical Role stuff, so I thought I’d do designs for Myka and Helena as D&D characters. Helena is a half-Drow multiclass Bard (College of Glamour)/Artificer (Battle Smith), while Myka is an old-school (2e/AD&D/Baldur’s Gate era) human dual Kensai->Mage. (I don’t have races/subclasses for everyone, but Artie is a college of lore bard, Claudia is an Artificer, Pete is a fighter, and I’m not sure what Leena is). Helena is very much a “seduce anything that moves” ~D&D Bard~, while Artie is very much not - he leans hard into the collection of lore/jack of all trades angle, and while he can play music very well he borders on anti-social. This is the source of some of the tension between them, with his distrust for her Drow parentage occupying most of the rest.

At this point I’m going interrupt to give a blanket apology if I explain something you already know - it’s hard to judge knowledge levels with a gift exchange without ruining the surprise, so I’m going to err on the side of explaining things just in case.

Helena is a bard to capture the importance of her novels, but novel-writing isn't the most practical in a fight or as a live performance, so I gave her an instrument. I chose the hurdy-gurdy, which is a (real) instrument with a very silly name. I picked it because it is very complex and mechanical, like something she might have invented or cobbled together. It’s kind of like an automatic violin or fiddle - rather than being plucked or bowed, a crank on the side is rotated, which moves a wheel across the strings. Rather than frets there are keys which hold the strings at certain points when pressed. There are also “drone” strings, which play a given note (that can be adjusted using a tuning peg) whenever the wheel is turned. You can technically “play” a drone string by holding a sting as if a guitar string as the wheel turns, but that isn’t traditional. Both drone and melody strings can be adjusted using tuning pegs, and apparently you can adjust the exact note the keys play. Some hurdy-gurdys (but not Helena's) also have additional strings not played by the wheel that can be played like a guitar. Hurdy-gurdys do not have much standardization, and the number/presence of all the different kinds of strings can vary.

Helena's bard college I went back and forth with - the college of glamour is about charming, as in the magic, which does suit her, but the college of lore would also be good. Ultimately I decided that college of lore would be better for Artie. Battle Smith, her artificer specialization, I kind of chose to make the character a little more practical to play - artillerist might have suited her character a touch more, but not too much more, and the battle smith's ability to use intelligence for (magic) weapon attacks/damage reduces the important stats to two (int and cha) rather than three (adding str or dex for weapon rolls). Helena's Steel Defender is Dickens the Mechanical Cat, and he can turn the crank for the hurdy-gurdy, letting her play it with one hand.

I don't have her backstory completely pinned down; I feel like her Drow parent escaped to the surface rather than being a functioning member of Drow society, if only to reduce the sketchiness of the alternative method of conception. Christina is definitely a valid "reason for adventuring", but Endless Wonder or fleeing the consequences of a lab accident or charm spell wearing off are also possibilities.

In terms of the illustration itself, I tried to balance bard flamboyance, artificer practicality with a touch of mad science, and Helena's canonical slightly Victorian elegance. I definitely needed the fancy bard hat, because I am of the firm belief that every bard needs a fancy hat. She's wearing a cute pair of overalls (and I now have "stylish overalls" in my google search history), but they got covered by Dickens :( . With the more muted browns inspired by the artificer half as well as her canon style, she was looking a little drab for a bard, so I added a little cape. In terms of skin/hair/eyes and being half-Drow my thoughts were kind of: leaning in to the purplish/blue/lavender skin thing some illustrations of Drow have, because between the inherent problems of the evil elves having black skin and wanting to stay fifty feet away from anything that might come close to being a race-bend I wasn't going to deal with having her skin be darker. I think it turned out OK? For some reason Helena's eye color is significant to me, so they stayed brown rather than Drow purple or something, though they wound up a bit brighter thanks to my attempts to add a little purple. Jaime Murray's hair is iconic, but more for its smoothness and luster than its color, so I was fine making it white as long as I kept the style. The hurdy-gurdy was a bit of a nightmare (twice over, since I had to ink it), which isn't surprising - I kind of cursed myself with that instrument choice, but it was so perfect ;_; . In general, and especially in comparison with Myka, Helena's illustration fought me the whole way down. If you watch the time-lapse, you can see some of the references I used, but far from all - I streamed so much hurdy-gurdy playing youtube is still confused, and the pose went through some shenanigans.

Now, to Myka. Thinking of her pre-med before pre-law before secret service vaguely remembered quote, I thought of the old Baldur's Gate fighter(kensai)->mage cheese build, and thought it might be a good way to capture that simultaneous indecision and discipline/intelligence.

Going very briefly into Baldur's Gate/2e: Kensai, in BG, is a Fighter kit. Kits, in BG and 2e both, are a little like specializations in 5e, in that they are a kind of further customization beyond the class itself. The difference is, not every character has a kit - there is a base class (fighter) and a kit is a set of trade-offs, taking away base class features in exchange for various benefits. So fighter, the base kit, is pretty similar to the fighter in other editions - good at using weapons and armor and attacking a lot. Can equip the best stuff, and use it well, but doesn't get a lot of bonuses apart from that of equipment. Kensai (in BG), on the other hand, trades the ability to wear armor (and use non-thrown ranged weapons) for scaling bonuses to to-hit and damage (abstracting some things for you), and a minor one-time bonus to natural armor, as well as the Kai ability, which temporarily maxes out damage on successful attacks, usable a few times a day, depending on class level. In short, they trade off the armor portions of the Fighter class for additional weapon bonuses.

In Baldur's Gate, if you want to build a dual fighter/wizard, kensai is a great pick for kit, since wizards can't cast in armor anyway, but they can cast spells to boost their AC, mitigating some of the disadvantage of the kit. Mage is a base class and basically what would be called a wizard in later editions. Mage kits, with the exception of wild mage (in BG), which is a whole thing I won't get into, are pretty much picking a school to specialize in - they get bonuses to spells of that school, but there is an "opposing" school which they can't use at all. I wouldn't be terribly interested in those specializations even if I could use them for Myka, but I couldn't, because of how dual-classing works.

Dual-classing in BG and 2e is one of two methods to have more than one class on a character. Which one you can do depends on your race (as does a lot of things in 2e). If you're human, you dual-class; if you're not, you multi-class. Multi-class characters are more what you'd expect from multi-classing in other editions - you have two classes, you gain levels in both. There are differences (exp is divided evenly between classes, rather than choosing what to level, class and combination restrictions), but most relevantly, you can't use any kits with multi-class characters. So, we want to dual-class, not multi-class, so that Myka can use the Kensai (BG) kit, which makes her human, which is fine.

Dual-classing, compared to multi-classing, is weird. Basically, you start off in one class, with a kit if you like, and level normally in that class/kit until you decide to switch, at which point you are done with the first class and can't level in it anymore. Then you *start over* in your new class (which cannot have a kit), as if you were a level one character in that class, without (effectively) the ability to use anything from the previous class (except hp). This continues until the number of levels in the second class exceeds that of the levels in the first class, at which point the character regains all the qualities and abilities of their first class. Dual classes can wind up quite powerful, but they require both planning and a willingness to be weaker for a time to be more powerful later (which I feel suit Myka well - she's a planner and has the patience and discipline to accept temporary weakness to be stronger later). So, given that we want to use the Kensai (BG) kit, Myka needs to start with it, and then switch to mage later, since the second class can't have a kit.

At this point I want to clarify why I keep specifying Baldur's Gate and/or D&D 2e for things. Turns out, Baldur's Gate does use D&D 2e as a base, but makes some modifications. One of the changes it makes, which I didn't know when I started this, is the Kensai kit itself. Kensai is not officially a 2e kit, and technically isn't in 2e at all. There is a (fighter-ish) class in the "Oriental Adventures" book for first edition, but it isn't quite the same, more it's own class that happens to share some tables with fighter. Since the end goal is character design, not creating a legal 2e character, I won't go too far into it, but I did create both a (cheated to level up) Baldur's Gate kensai -> mage and a (1e-ish)Kensai->(2e)Mage, using the rules from 2e for most things not directly in the Kensai class description (and ignoring the stat requirements for dual-classing since I didn't roll any 17s); screenshots of both should be in the supplemental reblog, in addition to a link to Helena's dndbeyond character sheet.

Fortunately for me and my lack of foresight, both BG Kensai and 1/2e Kensai have similar flavor: a heavily "eastern" inspired warrior with even more discipline and asceticism than standard fighters, focused on their weapons and unable to wear armor, with a restriction to either lawful (1/2e) or at least not chaotic (BG) alignments (if this sounds a little monk-ish WotC agrees - kensai is a monk specialization in 5e, being a monk that can use a not-monk weapon). Also fortunately for me, mage is wizard is mage, regardless of edition. Magic from book learning/intelligence. Not too complicated.

In terms of character narrative, in canon, I feel like coming to the Warehouse was a significant breakpoint in Myka's life and worldview. Not being a writer, this small essay notwithstanding, I'm going to sum it up as a break from tradition and from seeking the approval of her father. Where joining the Warehouse crew was for canon Myka, I want dualing from Kensai to Mage to be for DnD Myka, with reaching the point where she can use Kensai features again representing the peace with her past she eventually reaches at the warehouse in canon. What I'm picturing is: Myka is from an isolated and very traditional mountain village where the kensai tradition (and 2e mechanics) has been preserved. Myka is trained in this tradition, and has both the mental discipline and physical capabilities to excel. The people of this village are purists and don't believe in using magic, especially in conjunction with being a kensai. Somehow (at this point my having thought this through starts to fail) Myka gets ahold of some spellbooks, and with her love of books and curiosity, begins to read and reread them, until one day she casts some magic. This is against the rules, and she's kicked out of the village for "corrupting" their traditions, and now she has to make her way through the world with only her fledgling mage talent to rely on.

Talking about the illustration/design itself: given the heavily eastern vibe, I'm trying for a samurai/ronin style based on my recollections from my weeb phase. I wanted in particular with the robe/kimono to make something that would be in between the plain practicality of Myka's kensai kimono and the flashiness of wizard robes (if you watch the timelapse, you may spot the part where I accidentally took a left turn into fallout's vault boy coloration before tweaking it a bit). I also wanted to have her using magic, and I think the magic effect turned out well. Really, this illustration just came out really easy. I was just … drawing hands. If you watch the timelapse, I even saved a third hand for a while because it was so nice (but at the wrong angle). I don't know what happened. Really the only snags were the aforementioned Vault Boy Moment and coloring Myka's hair (although I did decide to leave her face as a sketch rather than try to ink it).

I think maybe I've babbled enough for now. I'll reblog this in a moment (since tumblr hates links) with character sheets, timelapses of the drawings, and a bonus doodle that came to me reading the artificer specializations.

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Hanspur, the Water Rat (and Ashkaelae)

Chaotic Neutral God of Rivers, River Travel, and Smugglers

Domains: Chaos, Death, Travel, Water Subdomains: Exploration, Murder, Rivers, Trade

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 58~63

Obedience: With the assistance of another priest of Hanspur or by yourself, simulate the act of drowning. You can do this by fully submerging yourself in a body of water, exhaling all of your breath, and painfully inhaling water instead of air. Alternatively, you can lie on your back with your head at a lower elevation than your legs while water is slowly poured on your face and up your nose. If you choose the latter method, you must cover your face with a cloth while the water is poured. When you conclude this simulated drowning, contemplate your life and how your goals coincide with the teachings of Hanspur and the Six River Freedoms. Benefit: You gain a +4 sacred or profane bonus on Survival checks attempted while on or near rivers.

Just reading this makes my sinuses burn and my lungs itch, and not just because it’s springtime and I have allergies! As anyone who’s ever been in a body of water large enough to slap their face with a wave can attest to, inhaling large amounts of water sucks. While this Obedience requires only one wet breath, some... well, some pretty severe complications can arise from it, if your DM ponders even slightly what doing this to yourself every day would do. Dry drowning and secondary drowning are both real dangers from brief immersion, let alone concentrated efforts at simulating one of the worst fates someone can experience (I say this a lot but basically anything that deprives you of air is pretty terrible). The ‘simulation’ will likely only last a few seconds while the rest of the hour is spent recovering from your experience and meditating, but even that may not be enough to offset the fluid likely building up in your lungs. Priests of Hanspur must sound atrocious, coughing themselves ragged every day! No wonder it’s recommended your ritual is overseen by another priest, either, because they’d likely be skilled in helping you manage your symptoms.

Dangers of daily drownings aside, keeping up with the demands of this ritual is pretty easy so long as you’re somewhere with easy access to water. In Hanspur’s homelands, the River Kingdoms, this is pathetically simple! Everywhere else? It’s a lot harder! While I do appreciate that there’s a secondary ritual you can do if total immersion is impossible, but what happens if you’re stuck somewhere with no easy water access? Your waterskins won’t carry you for very long, even if you pilfer them from your party as well. Better invest in a Decanter of Endless Water! Or do something ridiculous like fill the party’s Bag of Holding up so you can just hop in and out whenever you need to.

That benefit is also the weakest I’ve seen in a long time, granting a bonus to only a single skill type and only while near rivers. Survival checks aren’t even all that commonly made, unless your DM is kind enough to let you use Survival to navigate with river rafts rather than Profession or Ride checks. Hanspur really doesn’t want his faithful straying too far from the River Kingdoms, which is only further exacerbated by how his Boons work, so if you’re not the type to linger near rivers you may just want to skip him entirely.

Boons are gathered slowly, typically obtained when a given character has 12, 16, and 20 hit dice. Unlike fiend-worshipers, servants of the Eldest, and devoted of the Empyreal Lords, characters worshiping Neutral gods do not have catch-all classes… but Neutral-aligned characters can enter the Evangelist, Sentinel, and Exalted Prestige Classes earlier than Evil characters, classing in as early as level 6 (they need +5 BAB, 5 ranks in a single skill, or the ability to cast lvl 3 spells); entered ASAP, one can gain the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14. 

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: River Sage. Gain Hydraulic Push 3/day, River Whip 2/day, or Hydraulic Torrent 1/day.

Hydraulic Push and Hydraulic Torrent live in the same niche of “giant water spouts what push stuff around,” with Torrent being obviously an order of magnitude more powerful than Push. While Push has a range of Close and can target only a single creature or square, Torrent is a 60ft line that Bull Rushes or attempts to destroy everything it encounters, so it really depends on if you’re thinking you’ll need three small streams or one really, really big one. Notably, Torrent can Bull Rush targets of any size, unrestricted by the limits of your pathetic frame, while Push contains no such limiter removal and thus likely means you can only blast creatures up to a size larger than you.

Also of note, Torrent attempts to shatter everything it comes into contact with until it runs into something or someone it cannot destroy or push past. The Strength score the Torrent uses is equal to your caster level plus your casting ability modifier, meaning it will start out barely stronger than you are but will eventually be able to punch holes in iron and shatter stone. Hell, with a lucky roll, it may be able to do that anyway. Your choice on which two to take wholly depends on if you want to push three Medium critters around or launch one Colossal one.

What? River Whip? I don’t see any spell like that here! Lets move on! (alright alright; i just don’t like it. it’s good as an emergency weapon but more or less anything else is better in any scenario)

Boon 2: River Scion. As a free action you can breathe underwater, as if affected by Water Breathing, for a number of hours per day equal to the number of Hit Dice you possess. These hours need not be used consecutively, but must be used in 1-hour increments.

A disappointingly weak Boon. Really, what else is there to see or say? If you need to go underwater, this ability is great and has zero downsides. If you don’t, this Boon doesn’t exist. It’s a very binary Boon that relies on your environment, which means that if you’re overjoyed if you’ve remained in the River Kingdoms, but in a desert or jungle or mountain peak, you’re going to be extremely disappointed upon hitting level 11.

Boon 3: River’s Embodiment. 1/day as a standard action, you can transform yourself into a Huge water elemental, as per Elemental Body IV. You can stay in this form for 1 minute per Hit Die you possess, and can dismiss this effect as a free action.

Finally, a transformation ability that doesn’t suck! What does suck is that this is a level 7 spell being granted to you 1/day, when other Boons are equivalent to level 9 spells in power. Hanspur could have at least given you a little bonus on top of it, or made it 2/day, but it’s hard to complain about the force you become under Elemental Body IV. You become immune to bleed, critical hits, Sneak Attacks, and on top of it all get insurmountable DR 5, and the stack of stats you get? Mmmm-mm! Chef’s kiss!

+6 AC, +8 Con, +4 Str, all for the price of -2 Dex (more than made up for with the +AC). And, of course, a swim speed and the power to collapse yourself into a destructive Vortex, but those are only useful if you’re in water, while the rest of the stat buffs are far more universally useful. You’re not exactly the destructive and terrifying Fire Elemental or the deceptively sneaky Earth Elemental, but a wall of surging water can still wreak all manner of havoc on your enemies, your new dual slams able to smash ships (and bones) to pieces, and since Water Elementals are capable of speech and gesture, you can merely bask in your new tank stats while still casting spells.

There’s also the much more amusing but niche use of transforming while already polymorphed by a hostile effect, as having a new polymorph effect used on you while you’re already changed can end the first automatically.

While I wish the effect was usable more often, or at least broken into 1-minute increments, I can’t call it a bad Boon by any means.

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: River Guide. Gain Obscuring Mist 3/day, Haunting Mists2/day, or Aqueous Orb 1/day.

I love the name of this ability because two of the three spells do the opposite of guiding people. Now I’m a big fan of Obscuring Mist; it’s a simple staple in my list for almost every caster I make just because of how versatile it is! But now that I know there’s an alternative, it may have competition. Both Obscuring Mist and Haunting Mists do roughly the same thing, but one could argue that Haunting Mists does it better; in addition to granting concealment and shutting off an enemy’s eyes, it deals 1d2 Wisdom damage and shakes up anyone starting their turn inside the mist... But as a Figment spell with the Fear descriptor, there are a great many creatures immune to its unique power, and True Seeing allows one to see through it perfectly, whereas Obscuring Mist remains impenetrable to the apex predator of the Illusion school.

While it cannot be dispelled by wind or motion like a tangible fog, it’s important to note that there’s no way to protect specific creatures from the sanity-damaging effects of Haunting Mists, and its casting distance of 20ft and 20ft spread means that you will likely always be caught in its radius. The range means using it offensively is painfully limited, unless you want to cast it from invisibility after sneaking into the middle of an enemy formation, which... you probably, definitely don’t want to make a habit of.

It’s great for covering your retreat, but not your advance or setup like the normal Mist is.

Aqueous Orb is a good choice if your party is getting screwed over by the mist more than the enemy, creating a big ol’ 10ft ball of water that intercepts and engulfs anything that moves into it, or which it moves into. It deals 2d6 nonlethal damage whenever it rams into a creature and a further 2d6 to everything it has engulfed each round, but the damage isn’t so much the main draw as the fact it’s a massive, roving Sphere of Grappling, snaring and drowning any creature it manages to get ahold of if they fail the Reflex save. It’s a fun little spell that’s great for mopping up and controlling minions, especially ones you don’t actually want to kill, and even at its worst it can become a makeshift barrier in a narrow hallway since there’s no written way to actually move through it beyond wasting 2, 3, or more rounds by slamming into it and swimming through to the other side while your party books it in the other direction.

Boon 2: River Traveler. As a free action, you can grant yourself and any allies within 30 feet of you a swim speed of 60 feet. This effect lasts for 1 round per Hit Die you possess or until you dismiss it as a free action, whichever comes first. Your allies must remain within 30 feet of you or lose this benefit. In addition, you gain a +2 profane or sacred bonus on saves against spells with the Water descriptor.

See, this should have been added to River Scion as a bonus. River Scion and River Traveler feel like they could have combined into a single Boon to make something decent, but as it is they both fall into the same niche: Solves the encounter they’re meant to solve, useless otherwise. This ability is noteworthy for having no restrictions about how many times it can be used, essentially letting you switch swimming off and on at will. The fact it doesn’t take an action is incredibly important, because using the massive 60ft swim speed the ability grants actually removes the bonus, as getting further than 30ft from you makes it fizzle.

I don’t really understand why it would grant 60ft of movespeed if they’re restricted to a 30ft bubble, nor do I understand the purpose of the bubble in the first place. It makes exploration a slog, and escape scenarios more finicky than they should be. Since it can be activated whenever you need to as a free action, the duration feels unneeded. There’s so much about this ability that conflicts with itself that it bugs me too much to say much in the way of positives. The +2 to saves vs Water spells is a fun little ribbon, though most Water spells tend to be harmless utility spells rather than ones you’d need to make a save against.

Boon 3: River’s Depths. 1/day as a standard action, you can cause one creature within 30 feet to begin drowning, filling its lungs with water. The target of this ability can attempt a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Wis mod) to negate the effect. If the target succeeds, it is staggered for 1 round. If it fails, the target immediately begins to suffocate. On the target’s next turn, it falls unconscious and is reduced to 0 hit points. One round later, the target drops to –1 hit points and is dying. One round after that, the target dies. Each round, the target can attempt a Fortitude save to end the effect. This ability affects only living creatures that must breathe and cannot breathe underwater. This is a curse effect.

Now this one’s just insulting, being a technically weaker version of a level 5 spell, Suffocation. It’s weaker in four ways: 1) It fails against creatures which are amphibious which, if you’re in the River Kingdoms, is many. 2) It’s curse effect, which can mean some creatures are resistant or immune to it. 3) It has a 30ft range, unlike Suffocation’s range of Close (25ft + 5ft/level). And, finally, 4) Just ONE successful save ends the effect entirely, while Suffocation continues to torment and stagger the victim for 3 rounds until its effects finally expire.

It’s hard to ignore fact that it’s a basically a Save-Or-Die with excellent DC scaling, but I can’t get over it being weaker than an existing level 5 spell! ... Granted, Suffocation could probably get away with being bumped an extra level or two higher given how frighteningly effective it is at shutting down any creature who needs to breathe even if they succeed their save. I’m probably slamming down too hard on an ability that, again, is a Save-Or-Die at best and an unavoidable stagger at worst (good for making some emergency repairs against a powerful full-attacker), and for extra fun can be used without any components involved, so you can just drop it on someone out of the blue and they’ll have no idea who just tried to kill them. While I am disappointed it doesn’t meet the power of other Boons, it’s undeniably effective against a large portion of the creatures you’ll be fighting, even at 1/day.

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: River Warden. Gain Wave Shield 3/day, Masterwork Transformation 2/day, or Quench 1/day.

Wave Shield is one of those rare spells that are amazing to have, but not especially good to prepare or to waste a precious Spells Known slot on. It’s an immediate action spell that grants insurmountable DR and Fire Resistance equal to half your caster level in response to a single incoming attack, which isn’t stupendous at low levels but is a generous equivalent to immediate, on-demand temporary HP as you get higher and higher level. If a creature relies on a lot of little hits rather than a few big ones, blocking even one of them can save you in the long run, and if your DR cancels out the damage from a poisoned or diseased attack, all the better!

It’s not an especially strong spell given how it only works once before fading away, but it’s better than the other two options by a country mile. Masterwork Transformation is something you’ll rarely need more than a few times in a campaign before masterwork items fall into your laps (or you can simply buy them), and by the time you gain this ability it will likely no longer matter. That being said, if you’re in a low-wealth campaign or have been forced to scavenge for your gear, Masterwork Transformation will save you THOUSANDS of gp over the course of your life, because as a spell-like, the material components are ignored and thus you can slowly upgrade your entire party’s armaments for free. Given its ability to affect a generous 50 pieces of ammunition per casting as well means the Ranger and Gunslinger will adore you, and you can work in tandem with a mystic craftsman (PC or otherwise) to get all of your favorite gear enchanted without discarding your precious family heirloom sword for that masterwork one you looted.

Not to mention the simple joy in taking all the gear off a bandit clan, Masterworking all of it, and selling it for a tidy profit.

Compared to the combat utility of Wave Shield and noncombat utility of Masterwork Transformation, it’s hard to make a case for Quench, which falls into the category of ‘niche spell’ like Water Breathing and Water Walking in that it will instantly solve a handful of scenarios and be utterly useless in the rest. Yes, you may need to put out a forest fire or stop a building you’re in from burning to a crisp, but you’ll have to decide if it’s worth giving up three emergency DR 4/-- and Fire Resistance 4 bandages... as the martial-focused Sentinel. If you plan on fighting a fire that day or encountering a magic item that can generate fires (which Quench shuts off for 1d4 hours) and no one else in your party bothered learning Quench, by all means, but as the Sentinel having the DR is probably better in most cases.

Boon 2: River Champion. 3/day as a standard action, you can sculpt water into the form of a melee weapon that you are proficient with. You must have enough water to form the weapon, an amount equal to the weapon’s normal weight. Once formed, the weapon behaves as a weapon of its type with an enhancement bonus of +1, which increases by 1 for every 5 additional HD you have beyond 5 (max +4). This weapon deals double damage to creatures with the Fire subtype. The weapon dissolves into ordinary water after a number of rounds equal to your HD or as soon as it leaves your hand, whichever happens first.

Boons which call weapons to your hand are alright in cases where your signature weapon has been taken from you, and by the time you receive this ability you will have a signature weapon, but such times tend to come few and far between. This one also has the additional caveat that you don’t actually create the weapon from nowhere, there must already be water around to make it, at least enough water to match the weapon’s typical weight. The good news is that a gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds, and a trident--Hanspur’s holy weapon--weighs only 4, with most other weapons barely ever approaching 10, so you can reasonably carry around an emergency weapon in a waterskin or in your backpack... And you know, now that I think about it, it’s kind of cool to be able to turn a glass of water into a dagger.

But when will you need to? How often do you find yourself bereft of a usable weapon often enough to need an emergency armament like this? I can see the niche in front of me, making a new weapon as-needed against creatures whose DR makes them difficult to damage with your normal gear or taking advantage of that delicious little tidbit about doing double-damage to fire-based creatures, but they take your whole standard action to make and last for only a single combat (if that), and you can’t even shuffle around the +1 bonuses for additional effects!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s by no means bad (unless you’re both in a waterless area and haven’t filled your waterskin), especially at 3/day, but I can’t help but wonder when you’d actually need it at level 11+ when you likely already have a primary weapon and several backups. 

Boon 3: River’s Renewal. When completely submerged in water, you gain Fast Healing 2. You can recover a total number of hit points equal to twice your HD in this manner each day. At 20 HD, if you fall below 0 hit points and your body is fully submerged in a river, you automatically stabilize.

As a final Boon, I wish the Fast Healing had a higher threshold than just 28 points a day (+2 per level). In combat it likely won’t matter, and while out of combat it’s a decent amount of healing, usually enough to spare a couple spell slots from your healers or some potions, it’s just not all that impressive for a third and final Boon. Sentinels are the only followers of Hanspur who don’t get some method to easily navigate the seas, so taking advantage of this Boon to its fullest extent relies on an outside method of gaining water breathing or a swim speed.

Funnily enough, you can carry around a Bag of Holding filled with water and use it as a recuperative pod in case you don’t have access to a deep puddle, which is dubiously useful but not entirely terrible. HOWEVER, the little addition at the end is also a kick in the teeth; why does that only happen at level 20? Why can’t that be a base part of the Boon? It’s just insul--Wait, it only works if you’re submerged in a river, too? You can’t stabilize with some good old pond water? The mighty ocean? Can’t take a dip in a bathtub to stop bleeding out? Come on, Hanspur!!! Be a little more generous to your worshipers!

I dunno, maybe I’m underselling the out-of-combat healing this Boon offers, but it just doesn’t feel worth it to put up with the Water Rat for your entire adventuring career just for an extra 1/8th of an HP bar.

You can read more about him here.

[furiious]

          “ what separates the wolf from the sheep is not a matter of good or evil.               we all have teeth  —  but only some of us are willing to use them. ”

* ╰ danielle rose russell ; 17 ; she/her —— wow,  alecto carrow  sure has changed. i guess  she  is feeling isolated from the other  ravenclaw  members. guess you can’t really blame her. i still remember her being so  sharp & poised  now she just seems  cautious & proud  guess being a  pureblood  isn’t helping matters much either. i’m hopeful though. they’ll be just fine. ( zoe ; cst ; 21 ; she/her ) 

WARNINGS:  discussions of war, feelings of parental neglect, alcohol mention, weapon mention, manipulation   ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:   alecto’s playlist, stats page, & pinterest board    ADDITIONAL NOTES:  in a shocking move this intro was ALSO frankensteined from a series of old intros, apologies in advance for any nonsense

the carrow family had amycus, so it wasn’t a total let down when alecto ilse carrow was born and was born a girl. but if everyone was being honest, there wasn’t any real thrill there for her either. they loved her in a rote way and cared for her in a rote way and their distance and cool removal from her life spoke more than anything they ever did for her.

they would tell strangers, of course we love our daughter, she’s beautiful, she’s clever, what a gift to the carrow name. but alecto herself couldn’t recall ever hearing them tell her they loved her, not to her face. such was life. 

the carrows, historically, were not the most refined when it came to the most sacred. they were a good and righteous family, sure, sometimes zealots but seldom forgotten. they were still one of the best families. they had wealth and connections enough, bloodlines going as far back as any of the other twenty-eight’s; but they were not half so perfect. 

their history was a colorful one, not polished to a bland and shining silver. 

alecto didn’t like people not expecting greatness from her so she made changing that expectation her mission at, let’s be real, too young an age.

they thought carrows weren’t the ones to beat. fine. wasn’t she one to beat all on her own? wasn’t she enough to change the tides of her family’s reputation?

her parents, they were amused; let her try, for soon she’d realize that she was a girl, and would always, always fall short of expectations. 

she decided this at eight years old; so to start, this mission of hers meant letting her parents make her beautiful, set her hair with sparkling combs and dress her in delicate dresses. she presented a flawless front to anyone looking at her expecting another carrow wildcard. she’d always been very, very smart; she knew what game they were all playing & just how to play it.

( didn’t they all know how easy it was? to become like them? )

around the same time as she came to this decision for the path she’d tackle the rest of her life, her aunt dulcinea died and crushed alecto’s heart. aunt dulcinea & uncle anatole were distant carrow relatives and in alecto’s weaker, punishable, childish moments  —  she’d wished they’d been her parents. she wished it stupidly, in place of wishing for her own parents to love her.

she received dulcinea’s wand (  12 ¼", griffin feather and aspen, quite flexible and carved with a loving hand ) after her death, and though she wasn’t of an age yet to use magic, her uncle practiced dueling with her using sticks found in the gardens on the carrow estate. even before she could legally utter a single spell, alecto was a skilled duelist. she tucked this into her back pocket like a secret; would let out shining peals of false laughter if ever anyone asked about those dueling lessons. her, dueling? no, no, no. she was itty, bitty, and ladylike, faint at the very idea of fighting. her uncle anatole had simply been indulging her silly games of make - believe.

she made friends greedily as a child, ostensibly so she could have those connections, that network, that was so vital in the lives of adults in her society. but she also just fed on human connection. she loathed how much liked people to like her and resented that she needed people at all.

probably tried to imitate that distance her parents had with her with every new friend or acquaintance. she loved talking and hated talking all at once, but she did pride herself on being able to fill hours of conversation with no substance at all.

of course, all the feigned distance in the world couldn’t keep her from finding actual friends, and she would honestly kill for those she cares for.  

generally indiscriminate about the people she did make casual friends or acquaintances of; she let herself think this was because she a.) didn’t actually care about blood status and b.) needed to present neutral anyway, but it was probably because she just liked not being alone.

if she found someone she fit with, it was done. blood status was immaterial to that.

she could be very cruel to those around her  —  not necessarily on purpose, but also not not on purpose. there was a threshold, where acquaintances shifted into someone alecto would trust with her life. at that threshold she tended to turn mean, to turn people away, and it was a horrible habit and one she wouldn’t break.

alecto couldn’t be paid to give two shits about blood status. but just because she can care for or befriend a muggleborn with no internal struggle doesn’t mean she'd ever actively do anything to help them out. she didn’t have much exposure to people of other blood statuses as a child & that’s when she set her heart on winning at life in pureblood circles. 

so while her stomach curls at the lack of intelligence she sees as inherit in blood purist ideologies she doesn’t actually  ...  fight the fact that pureblood circles are run on purist ideologies. plus, for as much as she hates being tied to her parents, she’s loyal to the carrow name. if they’re not jumping ship and joining the equality train, then she won’t either. 

she’d rather break her heart and throw herself into a cause liable to kill her than become her own person separate from the life she’s wasted years building.

( this is what she tells herself. it is a lie, her biggest one: so she needn’t think on all the million escape plans and defections in her head. )

alecto just had to strap her knives and wand to her thigh with pretty little garters, the better to flash the steel beneath silk skirts and lace robes. she learned to enjoy the refined burn of shots worth more galleons than some could ever see. she learned to love glittering adornments, and tossing her hair, and beguiling with a single flash of her pearly-white fangs. she was good. except when she was bad. and loathe though she was to admit it, she could still find enough ancient carrow in her to be very, very bad  ...  when she so chose. 

badness could very easily be written off as youth, except by those who shared alecto’s youth with her. to them, well, it was her destructive tendencies coming out to play. it was her forgetting which line in the sand she was supposed to pretend to care about. it was her growing tired of the never ending act she’d started years and years ago. it was her doing very reckless things, perhaps unknowingly  ---  or perhaps awaiting the mess she’d leave in her wake.

she’d have to fix the mess, of course, and in that fixing would lie the cool reminder that while she looks like any of the rest of them, she will always be a carrow. and carrows are too sharp, too much, and so alecto is, too.

( the secret was she was too much alecto to be anything, really )

she doesn’t even? like pureblood society that much?? she resents the idea that she’ll have to marry some man eventually, who she likely won’t care about and who likely won’t appreciate her for all that she is. but if she wants to be more than a wife or mother she knows she’d have to show her hand  ---  reveal that she has a mind for strategy & knows a thousand wicked things, sign herself away to the war for a side she doesn’t believe in. neither option is a good one.

alecto didn’t want to fight; but she knew if she has to give in, she could get away with bartering her mind to instead concoct a hundred awful plans of attack. she’d never have to lift her own wand  ...  but she’d have to bear the reality of the things done under her advice. that might even be worse than letting herself be an unimportant soldier.

in a perfect world she could lay down in neutral ground and not move a muscle for either side. but what would that make of her family loyalty? the last thing she wants is more disappointment from her parents. more proof that she’s never been what they wanted.

this was, of course, no perfect world. alecto was not the sort of girl who lived in happy endings. so while she didn’t want to join the war, had no desire to loan her mind to the death eaters  ---  she knew she would. she would have to. she was a carrow, and so of course she’d join the fight.

the plain and simple fact of the matter was that there was no possible path for her that didn’t beat her heart into bloody submission. so that life, that planned future, was better than nothing at all. right?

no one needed to know she hated this; softness was worse than wildness, in alecto’s eyes. her wildness couldn’t be helped, but she’d die before anyone saw her weak. let them see a ruthless game-player with a heart carved from crystalline ice. let them see a girl, damnably neutral while she still could be, cards always held close to the chest. 

masks like that were simple. alecto knew masks, could pluck one from her shelves and put it on in her sleep. it was easier, after all, to not think; some part of alecto has always known this, long learned how to turn off her racing thoughts, her conscience, her heart, in order to do what needed to be done. she hates it. but she does it. 

sooner or later alecto will give in  ---  in a way that can never be undone. or, perhaps, she will come to hate feeling her family’s belated pride resting on her head like poisoned laurels. 

she prays for the former and hopes for the latter, with her wicked, traitorous heart.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Kai’Sa, the Daughter of the Void build (League of Legends)

(Artwork made for Riot Games)

Dammit I couldn’t help myself. Sorry mister T B Skyen but Kai’Sa is queen. I just find her fun: I still think her design is awful but man she’s fun to play. Also Kai’Sa is queen of K/DA and Ahri is a thot. Evelynn > Akali > Kai’Sa > Seraphine > Ahri don’t @ me.

GOALS

A moving target lives longer - In order to survive the void you need to improvise. Dodge attacks and keep ready for danger from all angles.

This skin lives on me, and hunts with me - If you want to fight back you need to adapt with a suit that doesn’t just fight with you, but fights as you.

Prey marked - To overcome the void you need to cut it down to size with deadly plasma clinging to them and slicing through their armor.

RACE

Kai’Sa is a Human but being forced to survive against the Void gives you more than a bit of variance. And hey: Tasha’s exists, so how about we use some Tasha’s rules on a Mark of Finding Human! Normally Mark of Finding increases your Wisdom and Constitution but I’d instead suggest increasing your Intelligence by 2 and your Charisma by 1, to learn how the void acts and somehow look great while doing it.

Regardless of your Ability Scores you get Darkvision which humans don’t normally get, Hunter’s Intuition to add a d4 to Perception and Survival checks, and Finder’s Magic to cast Hunter’s Mark once per Long Rest, for a low level Caustic Wounds mark. You can also cast Locate Object once per Long Rest with this feature once you hit level 3 to search for Tears.

If Eberron content isn’t allowed: The reason I opted for a Dragonmarked race is because there aren’t many interesting feats that work for Kai’Sa. However Sharpshooter, Prodigy, Mobile, Alert, Observant (increase Intelligence), and the Tracker feat from Tasha’s are all good.

Elemental Adept is also good if you choose Lightning, however please discuss with your DM the specific wording of this feat! You won’t be using spells with this feat which means that depending on interpretation Elemental Adept may not work!

ABILITY SCORES

15; INTELLIGENCE - Survival is more than just instinct. Yes I am aware that Survival is a Wisdom skill in 5e, but you need intellect to create the tools to survive the Void.

14; DEXTERITY - The life of an ADC is one of constantly running and gunning. 14 DEX will give us enough maneuverability as an ADC for something important.

13; CHARISMA - Apparently the Void does wonders for the complexion, as you’ve got the looks to make it in K-Pop.

12; WISDOM - Hey here’s where that Survival proficiency comes in.

10; CONSTITUTION - You’re an ADC with an ADC’s health bar but you’re still allowed to not instantly die.

8; STRENGTH - The suit does most of the lifting; all we need to do is shoot.

(Something something feel free to swap WIS and CON if you want better HP and worse RP.)

BACKGROUND

There are quite a few backgrounds that would make sense for the daughter of the void, but the most logical one would probably be the Haunted One background from Curse of Strahd. Survival proficiency is a must and you can opt for either Arcana or Investigation proficiency as your other skill. (I personally took Investigation.) You also get a language of your choice (pick whatever you think Shuriman is) as well as an exotic language: Deep Speech is likely what they speak in the Void.

Your feature Heart of Darkness lets everyone know that you have seen the Void, and it is coming. Commoners will extend every courtesy to try to help you, as long as you’ve not proven to be a danger to them. They will even take up arms to fight alongside you, should you find yourself facing an enemy alone.  "The monsters are coming. We'll be ready. I'll make sure of it."

(Artwork made for Riot Games)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue because the first step in survival is being skilled. Thankfully you get four skills, so grab Stealth, Insight (important later), Acrobatics, and Performance. Because you need to be able to do the dance numbers after all! You also get Expertise in two skills that you’re proficient in: Survival will help you survive (yeah duh) and Stealth will help you hide (also yeah duh.) And finally you get Thieves’ Cant: a secret code you can speak so that the creatures of the Void don’t listen in.

But of course the main feature of being a Rogue is Sneak Attack. If you attack an enemy with Advantage, or if the enemy is within 5 feet of an ally, you’ll inflict a Caustic Wound to do an additional d6 of damage. You can only Sneak Attack with a Ranged or a Finesse weapon, and you haven’t got the suit yet so opt for a Crossbow until then is my advice.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues get Cunning Action to Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. You won’t be Supercharging your suit to turn invisible yet because... well you don’t have a suit. But if you can’t fight you must take flight.  "It's fight or flight, only now I do not run."

LEVEL 3 - ARTIFICER 1

To survive the Rogue you need to make it part of yourself. Artificers don’t necessarily bond with Void symbiotes, but they do create tools for survival with Magical Tinkering. You can apply a bunch of effects to small, non-magical items such as sounds for distractions, smells for distractions, or messages for messages. Read over the ability to see everything you can do.

You also get Spellcasting as an Artificer. You can learn two cantrips from the Artificer list: for a bit of a boost to your abilities take Guidance for the extra bit of human determination. If you want to coordinate a team up with your support Message will let you keep your plans relatively secret.

You can prepare 3 spells from the Artificer list: Longstrider will keep you in the fight while staying away from danger, and Featherfall will give you and your friends a safe way out in a pinch. And taking Heal is never a bad choice as an ADC, so grab Cure Wounds in case of emergency.

LEVEL 4 - ARTIFICER 2

Second level Artificers get Infusions, which allows you to turn regular items into magic items. To keep the void away your main tool will be an Enhanced Weapon, making your shots just a little more deadly. To make sure you (or your allies) can see any incoming danger Goggles of Night will either provide or improve darkvision. To keep your items on hand a Bag of Holding will allow you to carry everything. And for your final infusion Armor of Magical Strength will help you fight against tanks and knockups. Well, knockdowns anyways. You can also prepare another spell like Disguise Self, because skins equal wins.

LEVEL 5 - ARTIFICER 3

Level 3 Artificers can choose their subclass and it’s Tasha’s time! The Armorer gets a suit of armor that lives with you and fights with you. Tools of the Trade gives you proficiency with Smith’s Tools as well as Heavy Armor, both of which don’t matter because we won’t be using them much.

But you can use your Smith’s Tools to make any armor (not just heavy armor!) into Arcane Armor. The main initial features to note is that you can use the armor as a spellcasting focus, the armor can’t be removed against your will, it expands to cover your entire body (although you can retract or deploy the helmet as a bonus action by pressing F6), the armor replaces any missing limbs, and finally you can doff or don the armor as an action.

But this is all secondary to your choice of Armor Model, and we will be going for the Infiltrator armor. You have Powered Steps for +5 movement speed and a Dampening Field which makes your Armor provide Advantage on Stealth checks. I should mention that if you haven’t already you should grab some Medium armor: a Breastplate would be your best bet without giving Disadvantage on Stealth.

But the best feature is the Lightning Launcher. It counts as a simple ranged weapon, with a normal range of 90 feet and a long range of 300 feet. It deals a d6 of lightning damage, and once per turn when you hit a creature you can deal an extra d6 lightning damage to that target. Now here’s the thing: it may use INT to attack but Sneak Attack works on any ranged weapon, regardless of what stat you use to attack! So RAW you can sneak attack with the Lightning Launcher!

Additionally because I’m obliged to mention it you get The Right Tool for the Job, allowing you to make a set of Artisan’s Tools over the course of an hour. You also get Magic Missile and Thunderwave as Armorer subclass-specific spells, for some Icathian Rain and some support peeling. 

(Artwork made for Riot Games)

LEVEL 6 - ARTIFICER 4

4th level Artificers get an Ability Score Improvement but I’m going to instead suggest the Skill Expert Feat from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. You can increase an ability score of your choice by 1 (increase Intelligence because it’s uneven and it’s tied to your Lightning Launchers), you get proficiency in one skill of your choice (I opted for Arcana because to defeat the Void you must know it inside and out), and you get Expertise in a skill of your choice. (I went for Insight which will be useful later.)

You can also prepare more spells with more INT but we’re going to wait for...

LEVEL 7 - ARTIFICER 5

5th level Armorers get an Extra Attack, allowing them to attack twice instead of once with the attack action as the name “Extra Attack” implies. More attacks means more chances to Sneak Attack, don’t forget!

You also get access to second level spells. Armorer Artificers get Shatter and Mirror Image innately, for some AP offense and some MR defense. You can also grab those spells I didn’t prepare earlier: for some more defense take Blur to give enemies disadvantage to hit you, and to turn invisible with Supercharge grab Invisibility!

LEVEL 8 - ROGUE 3

Hey remember when we were a Rogue? Third level Rogues get to choose their Roguish Archetype and here’s something out of left field: we’ll be going for the Inquisitive archetype. You have an Ear for Deceit so you can’t roll below an 8 on an Insight check to determine if someone is lying (meaning that with Expertise you can’t roll below a 15) and Eye for Detail lets you make a Perception or Investigation check as a Bonus Action.

But remember when I told you to take Insight expertise? Well Insightful Fighting lets you mark a foe with Caustic Wounds to do more damage to them. As a bonus action you can make an Insight check against a creature's Deception. If you succeed, you can use your Sneak Attack against that target even if you don’t have advantage on the attack roll, but not if you have disadvantage. This benefit lasts for 1 minute or until you successfully use this feature against a different target. This will be how we’ll Sneak Attack while still remaining on the move, which on that note your Sneak Attack damage increases to 2d6.

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 1

(Shit meme by yours truly.)

Hi hi ecks dee Warlock time. More specifically an Archfey Warlock for more K-Pop fame.

Your choice of Warlock subclass doesn’t matter too much. Celestial, Fiend, and Great Old One also work well but I felt that Archfey made the most sense given the abilities. Technically any Warlock works, but I didn’t opt for the other Warlocks as they have abilities that Kai’Sa doesn’t have. (Flight, Tentacles, Summoning Ghosts, etc.)

As an Archfey Warlock you have Fey Presence: as an action you can cause each creature in a 10 foot cube to make a Wisdom saving throw against your Warlock spell DC. The creatures that fail their saving throws are all charmed or frightened by you (depending on if you do K-Pop Dances or use your Frightening Void Suit) until the end of your next turn. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

You also get Pact Magic, which is like spellcasting only you have funny meme spell slots! You get two cantrips from the Warlock list: to do some general void shenanigans take Prestidigitation, and for a Void Seeker you’re likely not going to use because your auto attacks are better take Eldritch Blast.

You also get two spells from the Warlock list and the main one we’re here for is Hex to mark your enemies with more Caustic Wounds. Other than that? Eh: Comprehend Languages might be good after being in the Void for so long. Truthfully there’s little in particular that we need from the early levels other than Hex.

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get access to Eldritch Invocations and man am I happy that Tasha’s made Eldritch Mind available to all Warlocks, because I don’t have space in this build for Warcaster. But Eldritch Mind gives you Advantage on Concentration checks to keep your marks up! Your other invocation doesn’t matter much: I personally opted for Devil’s Sight but we’re going to end up replacing it eventually.

You can also learn another Warlock spell like Charm Person if you need to persuade people to follow your cause.

LEVEL 11 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks get their Pact Boon and hey wouldn’t it be funny if I took the new and all-around “worst” Pact Boon because none of the other ones make sense? The Pact of the Talisman grants a talisman (yeah duh) that you can wear or you can give to an ally. If the wearer fails a skill check while wearing the talisman they can add a d4 to the check. They can use definitely-not-Guidance a number of times equal to your Proficiency bonus, and the talisman regains all uses at the end of a Long Rest.

I’ll be honest: this item is already pretty bad, and the fact that it only works on failed skill checks just makes it worse. Talk to your DM about potentially just making this a bottle of Guidance. You know what isn’t bad? Second level spells like Misty Step for not Flash. 

(Artwork made for Riot Games)

LEVEL 12 - WARLOCK 4

4th level Warlocks get another Ability Score Improvement: cap off your Intelligence for a deadly duo with your armor.

You can also learn another spell and I know you already have Invisibility as an Artificer spell but it doesn’t depend much on your Charisma, so better to take it as a Warlock spell and prepare another Artificer spell. Which by the way: more INT means you can prepare more Artificer spells, but I won’t mention them for now.

You also get another cantrip like Mage Hand for some utility. Who says the suit can’t grab stuff off the high shelf?

LEVEL 13 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks get more Eldritch Invocations. You know what’s fun for someone with levels in Rogue? MORE Invisibility! One With Shadows lets you turn invisible with an action if you’re in an area of dim light or darkness. The invisibility stops if you move, but if it works for Teemo it can work for you.

You can also learn third level spells like Blink from the Archfey list to make it even harder to hit you!

LEVEL 14 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Archfey Warlocks can Flash and Dash into invisibly with Misty Escape. When you take damage, you can use your reaction to turn invisible and teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. You remain invisible until the start of your next turn unless you attack or cast a spell. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

You can also learn another spell like Tongues, in case the creatures of the Void want some last words.

LEVEL 15 - WARLOCK 7

7th level Warlocks finally get the Eldritch Invocations we want! Firstly grab Relentless Hex for some Killer Instinct to quickly close the distance with a foe. Is this massively redundant for a ranged build that can Dash every turn? Yeah probably, but it is in-character.

Additionally you can replace one of your other invocations with Protection of the Talisman, giving you another set of d4s that can be added to failed Saving Throws! So now along with being pocket Guidance the talisman is also pocket Bless! But you have a proficiency bonus number of d4s that you can use on Saving Throws in a pinch, which also come back on a Long Rest.

You can also learn 4th level spells and how about we just stop becoming visible entirely? Greater Invisibility from the Archfey list lets you be invisible even if you attack! Yeah it’s unfair, but the Void doesn’t care. You can also get rid of regular Invisibility for a stronger mark thanks to Elemental Bane: make an enemy lose resistance to Lightning damage and take extra damage when you shoot them with your Lightning zappers!

(Artwork made for Riot Games)

LEVEL 16 - ARTIFICER 6

About time we finished upgrading our suit. 6th level Artificers get Tool Expertise, which is exactly what it sounds like: double proficiency when making checks with tools.

But more importantly you get more Infusions: for a better +1 blaster that can be used Defensively a Radiant Weapon can be used as a flashlight, and you can use a reaction to blind an enemy that attacks you. So you can either choose to flash away or fight back. If you need to do more AP damage instead a Spell-Refueling Ring will let you restore a spell slot of third level or lower once per day. Adaptability is key to survival.

And speaking of adaptability: you can prepare some new spells like Invisibility that we ditched from Warlock, as well as See Invisibility for some control wards. The support can’t be the only one warding!

LEVEL 17 - ARTIFICER 7

7th level Artificers can save others after saving themselves. Flash of Genius lets you use your Reaction to give yourself or an ally a boost to an ability check or saving throw equal to your Intelligence modifier. You’ve spent so much time in the Void that you know every step to survive, even if Survival is a Wisdom skill.

LEVEL 18 - ARTIFICER 8

8th level Artificers get an Ability Score Improvement. Hey wouldn’t it be funny if we ignored our secondary spellcasting modifier and just made our blaster better? The Sharpshooter feat gives a number of benefits: you can attack at Long Range without Disadvantage (meaning that you can Sneak Attack from 300 feet away), you can ignore half and three-quarters cover, and before attacking with a ranged weapon you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll to do +10 damage if it hits. This means against weak foes with low armor you’ll be shredding through them with ease!

You can also prepare another spell like Enhance Ability to further adapt to danger.

LEVEL 19 - ARTIFICER 9

9th level Armorers can get six slotted thanks to Armor Modifications. Each piece of your armor counts as a separate item for the sake of infusions, and you can make two more infusions as long as they apply to your armor!

You can also prepare third level Artificer spells: as an Armorer you know Hypnotic Pattern and Lightning Bolt, one of which is far more in-character than the other. But if you want to just be harder, better, faster, and stronger take Haste. Just don’t lose concentration and get stunned in a team fight.

LEVEL 20 - ARTIFICER 10

Our capstone is the 10th level of Artificer to actually get 6-slotted thanks to Magic Item Adept. You can attune to up to 4 magic items, and you can also craft magic items more cheaply like that matters at level 20.

Being able to attune to more items is good because you can make more infusions like a Cloak of Protection for a bit more protection (duh) or a Helm of Awareness for advantage on initiative checks and the inability to be surprised.

It should also be mentioned that your Enhanced Weapon infusion is now a +2 instead of a +1, so it might be good to replace the Radiant Weapon with something more deadly.

But most importantly you can prepare another Artificer spell like Aid back at second level, because you are allowed to get defensive stats as an ADC. But above all else you finally at long last get ANOTHER ARTIFICER CANTRIP! Take Mending to fix your dance dress and pretend that a new utility cantrip at level 20 is in any way useful.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

This skin is fashioned for survival - Who would’ve guessed that a character in power armor with half a dozen ways to turn invisible or otherwise be harder to hit would be evasive? You’ve got ridiculous mobility by dashing every turn, tons of spells to make it all the harder to hit you, and of course a Breastplate that gives you 16 AC. Which pro tip: RAW you can equip a shield and still use your blaster! Heck, you can equip a sword too so you can defend yourself in melee range!

And honed by instinct - It wasn’t really my intention but you’re quite the little skill monkey, with a good spread of proficiencies and Expertise in some very useful ones like Insight.

Marked by the void - Your damage without aid isn’t amazing, but you have plenty of marks to easily up your DPS without jumping through too many hoops to do so.

CONS

Void rule number one: don’t die - You invested a lot in damage... not so much in the other areas. Sub-par saving throws, bad health, and even if you have a lot of skills you have even more that you don’t know jack about.

Take your time, Kai'Sa - You need a few rounds to get to your full effectiveness. At a bare minimum you need two rounds to buff yourself. Not to mention that all your best abilities are limited throughout the day by spell slots and charges.

Stay alert, stay aggressive - Your kit is rather loaded with many options clawing for your bonus action or reaction, and many Concentration spells that are difficult to keep when your CON saves are at a flat 0. (Even if you have Advantage thanks to Eldritch Mind.)

But you’re not here to be perfect. Your job is to survive and then save the world. Become one with the end of the universe, and then go in to destroy it. Be ready for anything that may come your way, be it giant monsters, little deadly critters, or a potential music label.

(Artwork made for Riot Games)