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nellynee · 4 years ago

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The makings of greatness, or why, as a ride or die Treasure Planet stan, I’m glad there’s no Treasure Plant 2

You ever see somethings that makes you unreasonably angry? Yes I understand exactly what I’m saying, and how that indicates that my emotions and opinions on this are exactly that. Opinions. There’s a good chance I have some objective truths mixed in, but that does not make my opinions based on those truths truth. If you disagree or have different tastes or opinions or interpretations, cool, let me know! maybe you’ll change my mind. That being said.

The plot synopsis for the Treasure Planet sequel makes me angry. Not like, actively so, just annoyed enough to be in a bad mood. And now you guys all have to be in one as well. Why?

Reason 1, and probably least important: Disney sequel syndrome.

Ok so Disney sequels aren’t inherently bad. I’ll stan the Aladdin sequels to my grave, who knew Cinderella could world build, obligatory Rescuers Down Under (the first one was better) blah blah blah.

But there is an inherit problem with sequels in general, and that usually has to do with cast and crew. An original piece of fiction has to grab the audience yes, but there’s also freedom in that. Media touches people in different way. The worldbuilding can mean more to some than others. Some are in it for the animation, or the character developments, or relationships. What connects with one person won’t connect with another. The problem with sequels is that different people who worked out the original material might and usually do not work on the new. And those new people are already working on that new material with their own personal lenses and experiences and interpretations coloring the old. The reason sequels (and remakes, and big budget presentations of other materials like books into movies) tend to bomb hard is because you are essentially being forced to accept someone’s fanfiction into the canon material. Usually, there’s a pretty strong correlation between more successful franchises/extension material, works staying true to the core material, original crew working on the material, and the enjoyment of the audience.

And sources say very few of the original crew remained. Some yes, but mostly voice cast. Even worse, TP2 was a DisneyToon production, not even a mainline feature. Now I’m not saying the new people weren’t talented, or passionate about the project, or were lacking in experience. It doesn’t really matter if any of those things are true or not. It’s the warping of their personal lenses I don’t trust. Fanfic I can disregard, meta I can disregard. This would have been canon.

And reading the Artbook makes is abundantly clear that the parts that touched me personally would have been missing. The very core of Treasure Planet for me was the relationship between Jim and Silver (and their exquisite animation budget). However you choose to interpret that relationship, you can not deny that Treasure Planet is a powerfully emotionally romantic movie. It’s quiet moments and emotional resonance shaped my views of intimacy with a sharp and fine touch. Silver and Jim’s bond is as undeniable and powerful as it is compelling and awe inspiring to witness unfold.

And a lot of that is owed not only to the voice acting of Joseph Gorden-Levitt (Jim) and Brian Murray (Silver), But to animators Glen Keane and John Ripa, who were the head animators of Silver and Jim respectively. Not only did Gorden-Levitt and Brian Murray deliver stunning performances, but made sure to work together and jointly play off each other in ways most voice actors don’t have the opportunity to do. And the Masters Keane and Ripa took an already stellar and carefully crafted vocal rapport and took it one step further. I highly recommend the Artbook as a good read, both Keane and Ripa talk about the journey of discovering who Jim and Silver were with delight, acting out entire scenes together using their own body language to build the characters together, using the same animation reals to animate, tag teaming in and out of the program rather than do it separately, becoming so attuned with their characters attitudes and mannerisms that you can tell they poured entire pieces of themselves into Jim and Silver.

I’m not saying the Sequel would have been inherently bad because it’s a sequel, or because a new crew worked on it, but I am saying I wouldn’t trust it with a ten foot pole.

Reason 2: Thanks I hate it (I’m saying it’s inherently bad because the plot is bad and I hate it)

I’m sorry for the length, but for you to really understand just how bad this is, I actually have to pick through every single line and tell you why it fails critically at some junctures and where it would be so simple to fix. For those of you who were unaware that there was a sequel in the works at some point, I’m pulling these quotes pretty much wholesale from the AnimateVeiws article Buried Treasure: The ill-fated voyage to Treasure Planet 2, specifically the interview with Jun Falkenstein who was set to direct the now canceled sequel. Spoiler warning, I guess?

So, from the begining

“The sequel was to pick up where the first film left off, with Jim Hawkins going to the Royal Interstellar Academy. At the Academy, he is a hotshot “natural,” but he doesn’t follow the rules very well.” - Strong start but then dropped the finish. I think the interstellar academy would be a very compelling starting point. I see no fault in it at least, it’s a good opportunity to world build. Clemence and Musket like to make a point that Jim was crafted to connect with the emotionally wounded and distant youth in a age of divorce, so showing what happens when that youth hikes up their britches and gets to work can extend on that theme aaaaaaand you dropped it. Dropped that strong start. Yes, Jim was more than a bit of a bite back rebel in the film, but that was a reactionary response to the bad place he started in. Jim was abandoned, and tied his self worth into that abandonment. His kickback against society was a reaction stemming from an inability to see his personal worth and any sort of future he could craft from it. He outgrew this, his very character development was about this in the film. His character arc was about realizing his inherent worth, embracing a sense of confidence and learning what he could do. Even disregarding that, bonus material outside of the film shows that Jim has a very strong sense of respect for Captain Amelia, her military career, and the hard work she put into it, and he’s there on her recommendation. Why would he act out in this? He is a natural yes, but the film shows he’s incredibly sharp and intelligent, if unlearned, and more than ready to learn given opportunity.

“Hence, he gets off to a shaky start – especially with his classmate Kate, who is very smart and has a type A personality. Kate’s father is Admiral Blake, the Commander of the Navy. Jim and Kate vie for top of the class but have very different skills.” - So building off this to fix the problem before. I guess the dynamic they are going for is something like “the kind of a jerk hotshit hotshot who’s got it all figured out and the straight laced rule fallowing stick in the ass rival”? I’m not apposed to to a rivalry, but lets tweak this, given how “hot shot natural jerk” isn’t really where Jim settles at the end of the film. Jim is a natural talent, who excels under tutelage, but more importantly, he has practical experience. While the time period spent on the RLS Legacy is not defined, they do sail to a deep and unexplored part of the galaxy, probably well outside of regular settlements, so no small distance, though Jim is young enough that a very long period of time would be noted in physical growth. Given comparisons to classic nautical sailing of the source time, months, perhaps up to a year? That’s a long time to spend, learning the rough and tumble basics, tying knots, experiencing food and water rations, extreme temperatures, playing with the rigging and mechanical aspects of the boat. Jim knows what it’s like to actually sail. Meanwhile, this is the Royal Academy, who probably takes in upper class second born children and pumps out military accolades for well learned mathematicians and strategists. Jim doesn’t fit in because he can visualize, he can think outside of the box, he can weld a damn engine to a hunk of shrapnel and ignite it freefalling against a metal hellscape and outrace a boat in a high adrenaline situation. He adapts where the other’s frantically look through their notes for the answer. Worse yet, he’s poor and not classically educated. Make it a class issue. In this aspect I do like Kate. Being the Daughter of the Commander of the Navy, she probably has a very technical and far more expansive understanding of navel ships, particularly the running of them. In this way Jim and Kate are perfect foils. Jim representing the poor, instinctually and practically knowledgeable crew, and Kate the upper-class, technically knowledgeable command, a dichotomy representing the haves and have nots in their skills, experiences, an class.

I don’t want to post a picture and break the post, but I do love Kate’s design. I do recommend looking up the article and checking it out. that being said, being a feline species, they messed up not spelling it Cate.

“Captain Amelia is dean of the Academy, which has a brand-new vessel: the Centurion.” - I… why, why is Amelia the dean? Additional material shows that Amelia broke ties with the military because she didn’t like their rule stickling ways and red tape. Why would she want a red tape position? She helped with a war and then bailed first opportunity to become a freelance captain so she could fallow her own rules. Even if you don’t know any of that additional material, you do know that she is a freelance captain. Why is she dean? what happened to the old one? Are they dead? Did DisneyToon kill them? Did Disneytoon kill the old dean?

“Designed by Doctor Doppler, the Centurion is the fastest ship in the galaxy.” - HE’S NOT THAT KIND OF DOCTOR!

“B.E.N. is its pilot”. - NO

In all seriousness all three of those statements show a serious problem, in that none of those characters are in fact those things. Amelia I’ve already explained. But Doppler was a debatably youngish bachelor with too much money who was fascinated by astronomy specifically and who suffered from ennui. And BEN was a navigational unit, so maybe it makes sense for him to be a pilot, but why is a robot who was functioning under a galaxy feared pirate for who knows how long given any kind of agency over a brand new incredibly important ship? These decisions were probably made to incorporate as much of the old cast as possible, to not exclude fan faves. But any decision that makes BEN a prominent part of the plot and thus gets more screen time is a BAD one.

“The pirate Ironbeard desires to commandeer the Centurion. This ruthless villain is relatively all iron – almost nothing of whom he originally was, inside and out, is left.” - On the one hand, I have a weird feeling that this would somehow violate the 30-70 rule. Buuuuut on the other hand, the Artbook does describe the decision making process of what and how was mechanical on Silver (my favorite tidbit was the wheel on his head representing his constant thinking and assessing) and states that that they in a way represent the pieces of humanity he gave up looking for Flint’s Trove. Extending that to a pirate who has given up everything could be a powerful thematic tool if used right (or intentionally)

“He leads a group of pirates to hijack the Centurion while Jim and Kate are aboard.” - ok, yeah, I’ll buy that. If they are butting heads constantly, I could see them sneaking off to the new piece of hardware to one up each other on who knows their stuff, or maybe bond over wanting to learn about the said new tech and being frustrated with restrictions.

“The Navy can’t catch the Centurion, due to the vessel’s speed and armor.”- sure

“Jim and Kate escape the Centurion. Jim decides he needs a pirate to help catch pirates. They find his old buddy Long John Silver in the Lagoon Nebula, where he is running a smuggling ring. “ - So what Jim just goes “I know just the pirate to help us” and then finds him? That journey of itself deserves it’s own movie, anything less is a disappointment. Alternative. Jim and Kate escape onto a particularly lawless planet. Jim has some tricks to keep them safe and fed, maybe he even excels in ways he’s been straight up stop gapped at the academy. Maybe his knowhow is appreciated by others who society also rejects. But Kate is a frustrating fish out of water, getting offended and worked up over things that are big deals to an average citizen but not criminals and pirates. But such reactions are putting them in danger and she needs to get perspective fast. It’s plausible maybe that Silver tracks them down through interesting rumors, but more than that, let it be fate. Neither having any idea the other is there till the second they see each other. Bonus points if Jim and Kate get in a bind and Silver is the leader of the harassers. Better yet lets add some thematic mirroring not only to the scene where Silver saved Jim from Scroop, but directly contrast it to the scene where Silver doubled back and down against the notion of caring for Jim when called out before the mutiny. *kisses finger* Touching and hilarious.

“ Silver agrees to help when he hears about the Centurion. “ - Silver agrees to help when he hears about the Centurion without Jim even having to ask. Storywise, lets make some kind of deal over how Jim, an upstanding enrollee of the academy, apparently is chummy with a pirate. Tension doesn’t just have to be external, and Kate is the daughter of the Commander of the Army. Maybe she’s recognized and this gets them in trouble. Maybe Kate has issues with her identity outside of her father’s career and need to learn a lesson about being outside of a rigid social structure?

“Jim and Kate receive a tracking signal from B.E.N. – who is currently hostage aboard the Centurion – and follow via Silver’s creaky vessel. They discover the Centurion docked near the Botany Bay Prison Asteroid. “ - While being the fastest ship yet is a good excuse for wanting it to get stolen, my suspension of disbelief breaks a little at any ship, let alone a creaky little pirate vessel, catching up to the fastest ship yet, or the tracking signal being the only way to track it to a guarded prison. Seeing as how I’ve written BEN out of this scenario lets fix it. After the events of the movie, the Royal Military swoops in after to confiscate the debris of Treasure Planet. For those in the know, canon lore states that the Planet was a giant computer, and it and the map were the byproducts of an ancient and advanced civilization. Studying the debris led to the Centurion, notable not for it’s speed, but for it’s stealth. It can cloak itself. Which is why no-one can find it. Meanwhile Silver lets it slip that he snagged the map from it’s pedestal as they escaped the planet as a souvenir. (handwave why the portal was still open with a “the whole thing was exploding, the computer froze). The map is able to track the remnants of said planet, aka the Centurion, meaning Silver has the only means of tracking the cloaked ship

“Ironbeard is using the Centurion to disable Botany Bay’s security systems. Jim, Kate and Silver sneak aboard the Centurion, where Silver reveals to Jim that he wants to take the Centurion for himself. He asks Jim to join him.“ YES. YES YES YES YES YES YES! Understanding that Jim’s decision to not go with Silver in the first movie is key here. He rejected Silver’s offer the first time because Silver had shown him he had intrinsic value, and Jim finally felt that the natural gifts he had were worth cultivating, that he did have the chance to explore who he could be on his own terms. Jim was comfortable being on his own, because he felt capable. Now, Jim and Silver bring out the best in each other, and the time apart has done them harm. Jim’s strings of social rejections are starting to fell like a glass ceiling he can’t overcome, and is finding more and more comfort in being a big fish in a pirates small pond, and the emotions of of being wanted that come with Silver is a powerful drug. But it’s a one way ticket away from any opportunities he could work towards, not to mention his barely repaired relationship with his mother. Meanwhile Silver has been slowly slipping back into the colder, more selfish self he was, a necessity for his lifestyle, and doesn’t want to loose his connection to Jim and what Jim brings out in him, but is still far enough gone to make the offer and try for the boat anyways, even if he knows it’s not what’s best. It’s an emotionally compelling decision. You want them to say yes, you know they shouldn’t

“Kate overhears this and is horrified, especially since the two have, of course, started falling for each other during the adventure.” - Hate. this I hate. Leaving shipping to they way side, what’s that “of course”? why do they have to fall for each other? Why the Disneytoon sequel love interest? I have a feeling her characterization would come at the cost of it. Why can’t they be rivals? why can’t they develop a mutual respect outside of attraction? Why can’t they both learn an individualized lesson about finding their own place in the world outside of social constraints as foils without macking? I hate this concept. Kate overhears, and is horrified, because Silver is a Pirate which is actually in universe get yourself hanged offense, and Jim is considering this, and they are going to steal a VERY IMPORTANT BOAT and and leave her stranded in a dagerous prison, and are making an objectively morally bad decision.

“Ironbeard discovers the intruders, charging into a fight in which Silver is injured. Meanwhile, the other pirates throw down ladders to the prison below, allowing swarms of elated prisoners to climb up into the ship. Silver, Jim, and Kate exit the Centurion amidst all the confusion. However, Ironbeard shoots down Silver’s ship. They plummet to the prison asteroid below, crash-landing” - cool. Drama. But for my purposes, lets tweak it so Silver isn’t injured yet. But I really want to emphasize that this attack does not interrupt before Jim can react to Silver’s offer. Even something as tentative as “I’m not sure” has consequences. None of this “misunderstanding” BS.

“ Kate is angry at Jim and storms off. “- again, make it clear that Jim showed a real chance of agreeing to steal the ship. if she’s angry before he had a chance to answer that’s contrivance for drama’s sake. Give her a reason to be mad

“ Jim is about to blow her off as well when Silver tells him to give her a chance. He reveals a part of his past through a flashback, when a young (non-cyborg) Silver screwed up a relationship with the love of his life – a decision which directly led to his life of piracy. “ - nope. nope nope nope . I’m gonna put a big old * here because this is reason number 3 why I hate this potential movie, and I will get to that believe me, but here’s me, putting a pin in it. That being said, have Silver selfishly try to double down on getting Jim to join him in a three way argument instead. This is the conflict of the film. Kate, who was learning to grow outside of the strict restrictions of her life and do her own work, make her own way, is being rejected. She is as morally repulsed as she is hurt that she wasn’t included, and hates herself for that hurt as well. Jim is torn between the freedom of what he could be after the academy paired with the strict social constructs around it, and the freedom of a life “full of himself and no ties to anyone” but running from the law and the two friends they represent. Silver is the aggressor here. He likes Kate, he does, but he loves Jim and only has one place in his heart, and has spent his life being selfish. There’s already a crew on board, and Iron beard is hooked into the Centurion. With having the only other means to navigate, they take down ironbeard, the rest will surely fall in line. This is paydirt. A fantastic ship, a bloodthirsty crew, and Jim.

“Silver has a very dangerous cargo with him that he had been trying to smuggle and sell for a fortune, which has the power of a neutron bomb. Jim, Kate and Silver reconcile and work together to fix Silver’s ship and prevent the Centurion, filled with the most evil pirates in the galaxy, from going on an insane robbing-and-killing spree. At the last second, Silver reluctantly gives up his “retirement fund” in order to destroy the Centurion, with Ironbeard and all the pirates on board.” - this entire section needs rewritten. That’s a mcguffin Silver put it away. I have retconned the mcguffin to be the old map, so that is now moot. Now to not blow up the ship. Afterall, Silver and Jim have both already overcome what Treasure Planet represented with it’s destruction. Rather, B plot

If we are that desperate to have past characters in, let’s have Amelia and Delbert back home. When the Centurion is captured, Amelia immediately volunteers to fallow, feeling responsible for Jim and secretly pining for some adventure. Delbert feels the same, and he to a bit of an adrenaline junkie after the events of the first movie, but they have the children to think about and only one can leave. Delbert is the one chosen to help by the navy officials searching for the Centurion. While Amelia bickers with the Admiral Blake over his pragmatic but emotionally distant decisions over the situation of his missing daughter, Delbert is an astronomer, and is blah blah blah science meta, fallow the flashing and bending lights around the cloaked ship to find it. As in Delbert is helpful. Amelia in a reflation to Admiral Blake, is torn between her family and commandeering her own ship to help. Blake is frustratingly headstrong in his decisions, and the script makes it seem like that emotional distance is disinterests, but reveals to the audience that it incorporates a great deal of suppression of his anxieties and worries over his daughter, and trust in her abilities, though he has issues expressing this pride to Kate herself. Amelia, Delbert and fam make what is probably a poor decision in commandeering a ship and leaving on their own to track the Centurion, the navy hot on their heels.

Back to A plot, the navy is approaching. Jim has to make a decision. He is the only one who knows how to unmask the ship using the old ones tech without training, as it’s based off the map. While Kate and Silver are distracting iron beard, he has to either steal the ship and sail off, or uncloak it for the navy. Iron beard is taken down, but not without Silver getting injured. Jim decides that Silver’s life is worth more than anything, and after agreeing with Kate that she’ll commandeer a doctor and wont let Silver die, uncloaks the ship. The Centurion is retaken in a blaze of naval glory that is the action climax. The pirates fight back up are over run. Maybe Kate gets taken hostage as the Admirals daughter, as an opportunity for a resolution with her arc as Blake’s distant daughter, though obviously said resolution comes at her showing her abilities in taking care of herself and the practical skills she has learned.

“Silver again parts from Jim and Kate, telling them to take care of each other. A few years later, Jim and Kate graduate with honors, while a proud Silver secretly watches from the shadows, smiling” - Boooooo. Kate and her dad make up, and she challenges him that she’s going to one day Captain the Centurion, with him understanding that she needs less a mentor and more an emotional support while she works her way up the ranks. She invites Jim to be her first mate, to which Jim accepts as a navigator, (a thing I’ve pointed out to be his real strength in another post). But to Silver, who has been “pardoned” for his part in retaking the Centurion, the movie hinting that he to would be on the eventual crew there I fixed it fic to come I s2g.

yeah there’s a lot of good there, but it’s so easy to fix the bad it’s frustrating. which brings me to

Reason 3: that little pin

Nope nope nope I’ll tell you why.

First of all, sources like the artbook say that Jim is so Important to Silver because he’s the first person Silver has ever let become important. he’s specifically stated to have no family, never married, no children. And that’s something he cultivated actively. His life of piracy, his metal limbs, his loneliness and moral failings were all gleefully accumulated for one reason and one reason only

Treasure Planet.

Treasure Planet was the great love of Silver’s life. It was a lifelong obsession. It destroyed his body, took his youth, his opportunities and nearly his life. He broke Jim’s heart over it.

And he let it go. For Jim.

And Jim understood this

This is the crux of treasure planet’s very themes. This is where Jim found self worth. Another person finally looked at him and said “you matter, you matter more than anything. I like being around you and I choose you first.” and it made Jim realize he’s someone worth choosing.

The treasure was EVERYTHING to Silver, and Silver let it go, for Jim.

That one line there, attributing the start of Silver’s fall to a girl? that actively retcons the entire theme of the previous movie. IT rewrite the emotional linchpin of Silver’s sacrifice of the gold. And actually fuck that. right into the ground. I do not accept. I do not pass go. I refuse. Fuck you non existent movie. That makes me mad. every single time. Hate I shall never let go.

#Disney #Treasure Planet #Jim Hawkins #long john silver #john silver #long post #meta #god I hate this non existent movie #This outline is the closest I've ever come to writing spitefic and its still up in the air #Treasure Planet is such a romantic movie and you come into my house and try to shred the emotional core and themes by recontextualizing?#fuck off #Fuck I love Treasure Planet #sequel synopsis can die in a fire tho

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tigerkirby215 · 4 years ago

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5e Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness build (My Little Pony: FIM)

(Artwork by SophiesPlushies on DeviantArt.)

Like, it took me a solid 5 minutes to find the first image in this post and I had to sift through so much softcore porn to find it. I didn’t even find it by searching DeviantArt I had to go on fucking derpibooru oh my lord.

Anyways: here’s another shit brony build because people don’t hate me enough! Well that and I do genuinely love the characters from My Little Pony, and think that they’d be fun to make builds for. But feel free to call me a garbage brony at your leisure.

These are the words of a man who has been beaten down after being a brony for around 10 years.

GOALS

I'm just good with animals - Fluttershy talks to animals. That’s one of the main things she does really.

I'm doing this because you're my very best friend - As the element of kindness we of course need to share our heart and soul with our friends.

Nopony pushes new Fluttershy around! - MLP Wiki makes an express point of mentioning The Stare in Fluttershy’s powers, so of course we’ll do our best to include that.

RACE

Before you say anything no I’m not a pegasi stan just because I did both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Regardless Aaracokra still makes the most sense for Fluttershy unfortunately because there’s few bird races and fewer flying races.

As an Aaracokra you +2 to Dexterity and +1 to Wisdom which we’ll be keeping because I don’t know if your DM will allow Tasha’s rules. You also get 50 feet of Flight but you can’t be wearing Medium or Heavy Armor to do this, which means I don’t get to say “something something Medium Armor.” And finally you can buck someone to deal damage equal to a d4 plus your Strength; technically their Talons which deal slashing damage but feel free to view them however you want.

If I was to build Fluttershy I’d honestly use the Owlfolk UA race (which will hopefully be out in Wild Beyond the Witchlight and / or Strixhaven) for a multitude of reasons, the most notable of which being the fact that you can fly with Medium armor as an Owlfolk. But the Detect Magic Ritual ability is also nice as is the reaction to stop yourself from falling. Unfortunately Aaracokra technically made more sense since Fluttershy can’t detect magic.

Basically even I have to make choices which are suboptimal in order to ensure maximum roleplay, and even when I play my builds I change them to make them better to play.

ABILITY SCORES

15; WISDOM - You are compassionate and good with animals: both those things are Wisdom skills!

14; DEXTERITY - Since I can’t go “something something medium armor” for this build (yay Aaracokra) I guess getting a 16 in DEX thanks to your race is a good call. If playing an Owlfolk or something you can afford to having 14 total in DEX, as you can then wear medium armor.

13; CONSTITUTION - Look, roleplay stats are great and all but so is not dying.

12; CHARISMA - You are cute small pony... bird... Pony-bird...

10; INTELLIGENCE - Most of your time was spent taking care of animals and most of your knowledge comes from on-hand training as opposed to studying. Basically you’re not Twilight.

8; STRENGTH - As a young filly Rainbow Dash would do most of the heavy lifting for you. As a young mare Rainbow Dash still does most the heavy lifting for you. She is a Barbarian after all!

BACKGROUND

Most ponies know to come to you if their pets are in trouble, and if you’ve ever had pets you know the doctor that helps them is a true Folk Hero. As a Folk Hero you get proficiency in Animal Handling (yay) but I’d swap the Survival proficiency out for Stealth because well... you’re very good at hiding. You also get proficiency with Land Vehicles (most Land Vehicles in D&D are controlled by animals; usually horses! Wait... aren’t you a horse?) and an Artisan’s Tool of your choice: go for Carpenter’s Tools to make some bird houses and chicken coops!

After living in Ponyville for so long most ponies are willing to give you some Rustic Hospitality, giving you a warm place to rest and recover... as long as you can get over your crippling shyness! Eep!

(Artwork by probablyfakeblonde on DeviantArt.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - CLERIC 1

Starting off as a Cleric because I thought Wisdom and Charisma saves were more fitting for Fluttershy, and for the Insight and Medicine skill proficiencies.

As a Cleric you get to choose your subclass at level 1, and there’s nothing you love more than a little bit of Peace and quiet. As a Peace Cleric you get proficiency in Performance thanks to Implement of Peace, for those great MLP song numbers. But more importantly you can call on the power of friendship for an Emboldening Bond!

As an action, you choose a number of friends within 30 feet of you (this can include yourself) equal to your proficiency bonus. Your friendship bonds them together for 10 minutes or until you use this feature again. While any bonded creature is within 30 feet of another they get a d4 they can add to an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw once per turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

And finally we can talk about the Spellcasting! You get three cantrips from the Cleric list at level 1: Guidance is always welcome among friends, and Spare the Dying can be a literal life safer! Other than that you are still expected to fight in D&D so take Sacred Flame to defend yourself. You can also prepare a number of spells equal to your Cleric level plus your Wisdom modifier. As a Peace Domain Cleric you can inspire Heroism among your friends, or protect yourself (and hide!) with Sanctuary.

Other than that Healing Word is a staple healing spell (we aren’t taking Cure Wounds right now for reasons but feel free to prepare it), Shield of Faith will let you defend your allies, Protection from Evil and Good will help you invoke the Elements of Harmony against the big bad of the season, and Detect Evil and Good will help you find the Elements of Harmony!

You could also take Bless, but I’m not going to tell you to take Bless because optimizers would crucify me for telling you to double up on d4s.

LEVEL 2 - CLERIC 2

Second level Clerics get their Channel Divinity once per short rest and you have a variety of options to choose from:

Turn Undead will make skeletons and zombies not want to hurt the cute little ponies, which will force them to run away for awhile.

Balm of Peace (the main reason we took the second level in Cleric) will let you run around and heal all your friends for 2d6 plus your Wisdom modifier.

And Harness Divine Power (ty Tasha’s) will let you recover a spell slot, but can only be used a limited amount of times per Long Rest.

You can also prepare another spell and be a little less nice with Command. Telling your enemies to “LOVE” isn’t going to be that effective, but making them grovel or drop works just as fine.

LEVEL 3 - RANGER 1

When you spend enough time around animals you’re automatically either a Ranger or a Druid. Quinn? Never heard of ‘em. Regardless multiclassing into Ranger gives you proficiency in a skill from the Ranger list and it’s good to know about Nature so you can find plants to help your fluffy buddies! Deft Explorer also gives you two language proficiencies (again: pick your poison) and Expertise in a skill. You’ll never guess which skill we’ll be getting... it’s Animal Handling. You’re good with animals.

We actually aren’t going to be taking Favored Foe because we aren’t using weapons for one, but more importantly despite it’s name Favored Enemy is also good for tracking friends! You have advantage on Survival checks to track your favored “enemies”, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them. Go for Beasts to easily find a feathered or fluffy friend! Oh and you also get more languages because I don’t know why, so again pick your poison.

LEVEL 4 - RANGER 2

Second level Rangers get their Fighting Style, or as I like to call it your Helping Style because we’ll be going for Druidic Warrior! You can pick up two cantrips from the Druid list: I opted for Druidcraft (you can grow some flowers for your friends; yay!) and Mending to tend to your cottage.

And of course with cantrips we also get more Spellcasting! You can learn two spells from the Druid list: you’re never not going to want Cure Wounds (which is why we didn’t take it earlier btw) and Animal Friendship is an obvious must.

LEVEL 5 - RANGER 3

Third level Rangers get to choose their Ranger Archetype and we’ll be going for the Gloomsta- Ah you all know it’s going to be Beast Master. You get a Ranger’s Companion not from the PHB but from Tasha’s! The Beast of Land would make the most sense and while it’s probably expected that they be a wolf or something you can pretend that you’re playing Fighting is Magic and have Angel Bunny fight for you! Anyways here’s a crash course on your new fluffy friend:

Their AC is equal to 13 plus your proficiency bonus (currently 16.)

Their health is equal to 5 + five times your Ranger level (currently 20) and they have a number of d8 hit die equal to your Ranger level.

They have a 40 foot movement speed and a 40 foot climbing speed.

You can command it to attack with your bonus action; it has the same hit chance as your spell hit chance (WIS mod + Prof Bonus [currently 6]) and deals a d8 + 2 + prof bonus damage.

If they move at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hit with an attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 1d6 slashing damage and must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC (if they’re a creature.) If they fail they’re knocked prone.

You can command the beast to attack, dash, disengage, or hide with your bonus action.

If you don’t command it they take the dodge action.

You can revive them with a spell of first level or higher 1 hour after they die, and can change your beast after a long rest.

Man, who knew that taking care of a pet was so difficult? Well you also get Primeval Awareness (because Primal Awareness actually doesn’t work that well for this build.) You can use your action and one spell slot to sense the following types of creatures within 1 mile of you: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This lasts for one minute, and doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.

And you learn another spell: Goodberry is good to feed yourself and all your friends! As long as they’re okay with eating berries, of course. C’mon... they’re good for you! Pleeeease?

(Artwork by AssasinMonkey on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 6 - RANGER 4

Finally an Ability Score Improvement... or Feat? We’ll be going for Eldritch Adept, which is admittedly weird but it’s the only way to get Beast Speech so you can Speak with Animals at will! Is total level 6 a little late to finally be able to speak with animals? Yeah, but this is unlimited so it fits better and doesn’t spend your spell slots.

LEVEL 7 - CLERIC 3

Finally back to Cleric land which means finally we can prepare some second level spells! As a Peace domain Cleric you automatically get Aid and Warding Bond prepared, both of which are very good for keeping your friends alive. You can also finally get Hold Person to finally have The Stare!

LEVEL 8 - CLERIC 4

Level 4 in Cleric means another Ability Score Improvement: Wisdom is still your core stat so increasing that by 2 would be your best choice.

You also get another cantrip at this level, and can prepare two more spells! For cantrips I’d recommend Light to see with your dumb bird eyes unless you’re an Owlfolk, and I’d recommend preparing Lesser Restoration and Enhance Ability to further boost your friends.

(Artwork by Koveliana on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 9 - CLERIC 5

5th level Clerics can now Destroy Undead of CR 1/2 or lower with their Channel Divinity. Don’t feel too bad about it; they were big dumb meanies anyways!

You can also prepare third level spells too! As a Peace Domain Cleric you get Beacon of Hope to help with healing, and Spike can send letters out for you with Sending. You can also prepare Dispel Magic in case Twilight needs help with more dangerous spells.

LEVEL 10 - CLERIC 6

6th level Peace Clerics get Protective Bond. When a creature affected by your Emboldening Bond is about to take damage, another bonded creature within 30 feet of the first can use its reaction to teleport to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the first creature. That creature then takes all the damage instead. It’s worth mentioning that since this specifies “creature” you can actually bond with your beast companion and have it use its reaction, or have others go in to defend angel.

You can also prepare another third level spell like Revivify, so you don’t lose any friends. And to top it off you can use your Channel Divinity twice per short rest! Woohoo!

LEVEL 11 - CLERIC 7

7th level Cleric, 4th level spells. As a Peace Domain Cleric you get Aura of Purity to protect your friends, and Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere to put your enemies in time out. You can also prepare another spell like Freedom of Movement, in case you need to run!

LEVEL 12 - CLERIC 8

8th level Clerics get a variety of features. To start off you get an Ability Score Improvement, which means we can finally cap off your Wisdom for maximum spellcasting! This also means you can prepare more spells, but we’re actually going to hold off on getting more spells for now.

You can also put a little more LOVE into your spells with Potent Spellcasting, adding your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips. And finally your Channel Divinity will now Destroy Undead or CR 1 or lower.

LEVEL 13 - CLERIC 9

The reason we held off on getting more Cleric spells last level is because now we get those big 5th level spells! As a Peace Domain Cleric you can help your friends out of any jam with Greater Restoration, and know what they really mean to say thanks to Rary’s Telepathic Bond.

You can also prepare some of those big hitter spells like Mass Cure Wounds to save your friends, and you can cast both Dawn and Summon Celestial to call on Celestia herself! Isn’t that Twilight’s job? Well, it’s still good to have contacts!

(Artwork by CigarsCigarettes on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 14 - RANGER 5

Now that we’ve got all the support we could need for our friends it’s time to return to our roots and focus on Angel! Feel free to focus more on Ranger instead of Cleric if you so desire when building this yourself; I simply opted for more healing instead of damage.

We’re finally 5th level with Ranger which finally means you’ll be getting an Extra Attack!... Which you probably won’t use because you can use cantrips instead. Well it’s still nice to have?

The good thing though is that you can learn more Ranger spells like Healing Spirit, which is a really strong healing spell that was kinda gutted by erratas. But it’s still nice and efficient regardless of what spell slot you casted it at, effectively being a 6d6 heal for a second level spell slot!

LEVEL 15 - RANGER 6

6th level Rangers can now add Roving to their list of skills from Deft Explorer. Your movement speed increases by 5 feet, and you get both a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walking speed. Is total level 15 a little late to get a 30 foot movement speed? Yeah probably, but every little bit helps!

Speaking of another little bit you get another Favored Enemy... I mean friend! ...I don’t know pick whatever you think will be relevant for the campaign. Also yes: you do get more languages, because Ranger.

LEVEL 16 - RANGER 7

7th level Beast Masters have Exceptional Training with their Animal Companion. You can use a bonus action to command the beast to take the Dash, Disengage, or Help action on its turn... which you could already do anyways thanks to Tasha’s.

I’d say that after Tasha’s this feature would work even if you don’t command your beast, but as always discuss the rules with your DM.

Well at least Angel’s attacks count as magical to overcome resistances, which is good because you were probably dealing with nonmagical resistance for awhile now.

You can also prepare another spell like Pass Without Trace, so you and your friends can sneak around unseen. Pass Without Trace is one of those spells that is always useful regardless of what level you are, so picking it up now is still useful!

LEVEL 17 - RANGER 8

8th level Rangers get another Ability Score Improvement. You’ve probably noticed our uneven Constitution score by this point: yeah that was because we were going to grab Resilient Constitution at some point. Increasing your CON gives you a nice +17 to your health and makes your Constitution saves (and concentration saves!) a +8 total.

You’ve also spent so much time on the ground moving through nonmagical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement thanks to Land’s Stride. You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them or taking damage from them. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement. You may be able to fly but that doesn’t mean being able to move on the ground isn’t useful!

(Artwork by AssasinMonkey on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 18 - RANGER 9

9th level Rangers can learn third level spells, and you’ve probably spent enough time training with Rainbow Dash by this point to make a Wind Wall to protect your friends! (Basically the Ranger spell list sucks and we’re only really going down Ranger still for more subclass features.)

LEVEL 19 - RANGER 10

You get a new feature from Deft Explorer at this level: you are now Tireless! As an action you can give yourself a number of temporary hit points equal to 1d8 plus your Wisdom modifier (so 5.) You can use this action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Additionally whenever you finish a short rest your exhaustion level is decreased by 1.

You’re also a master of avoiding social interaction. Nature’s Veil lets you turn invisible as a Bonus Action until the start of your next turn. You can also use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

LEVEL 20 - RANGER 11

11th level Beast Masters can invoke Bestial Fury! With 11 level in Ranger and 20 total levels in this build your Animal Companion can now... attack twice! Look Beast Master is playable now, I never said it was good.

At least you can learn one last Ranger spell: in your ultimate stand against darkness Daylight will help you banish the dark! ...Or something. Look again: the Ranger spell list sucks.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

You do not hurt my friends! You got that? - Even with the multiclassing you still get spell slots up to 7th level, and have more than enough magic to shake a stick at. Not to mention that Angel will always be by your side to pump out a bit more damage with your Bonus Action!

You’re the cutest thing ever - Maxed out Wisdom was rather expected from a Cleric, but Expertise in Animal Handling combined with unlimited Beast Speech means that you can easily make friends with any beast you come across! Just make sure your DM is okay with you giving a hydra belly rubs.

Whatever you wanna do is fine... - You’ve got quite a good mix of features that will help you both in and out of combat, meaning that there’s plenty that your friends can rely on you to help with! In fact there’s a lot of things that only you can do as a Ranger which are quite helpful!

CONS

You’re such a loudmouth... - Most of your class resources only come back after a Long Rest, with only your Channel Divinity coming back after a Short Rest. You’re still plenty capable with just Angel by your side but don’t spend everything in one fight, or else you’ll be left with nothing but Sacred Flame and Animal Companion attacks.

Are you coughing because... - So let’s talk about Angel: even with 11 levels in Ranger they’re not great. AC of 19 is pretty good but they’ll probably max out around 60 HP. Your average Wizard will have more HP than this by level 20. Two maul attacks will do decent damage but you could get equal value out of Spiritual Weapon, and you only get the second attack with Angel at total build level 20. And yeah for most of this build Angel is going to be sitting around 25 max HP, meaning they’re likely to go down a lot. Aid can help keep your pets healthy and happy but don’t be upset when your level 4 Ranger companion keeps going down.

Awful, just awful! - We kinda miss the best of both worlds for the sake of a build that’s “in-character.” No 10th level of Cleric means no Divine Intervention (even if it’s only a 10% chance it’s still good to have), and no 12th level of Ranger means no ASIs. One good thing about this build is that it does peak around level 10 or so where the multiclassing doesn’t start to damage it, but if you really expect to run all the way to level 20 I’d sooner play either a straight Ranger or a straight Cleric.

But you’re coming along to share your kindness with everypony around you, and guide your friends to victory! Use your expertise to keep your friends alive while Angel kicks some major tail! Get down and be assertive, but remember not to push yourself too hard. Everypony already loves you for who you are, even if you’re in fact a little shy.

(Artwork by Rodrigues404 on DeviantArt.)

#dnd #dnd build #dnd guide #My Little Pony #Friendship is Magic #mlp: fim #brony #dnd ranger #dnd cleric #fluttershy #flutter pony #animals

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #137: Chloe von Einzbern

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making yet another servant with absolutely no other media beyond Fate Grand Order, Chloe von Einzbern! Basically, small, vampiric Emiya.

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

Next up: Another 13-year-old anime character in a bikini. Joy.

Race and Background

Like your sister you’re a homunculus... kinda? Anyway, that means we’re going Custom Origin from Tasha’s giving you +2 Dexterity, a Small build, History proficiency to keep track of those cards, and the Piercer feat. That bumps your dexterity up by another point, you can re-roll a die of piercing damage each turn, and critical hits deal an extra die of damage if you’re using a piercing weapon. Knives pierce, use those.

Since you were your sister (or rather you two were the same person who wasn’t entirely one or the other previously... plurality is weird.) for most of your life, that means you’re also an Inheritor. Survival is the default proficiency, but since you took most of the magic when you left you also get Arcana proficiency.

Ability Scores

In case you couldn’t tell from your racial bonuses, you’re pretty good at Dexterity. You’re fast, and you’re good with knives. After that is Charisma, to help you tease Illya a bit. Also, you’re a kid, kids are cute. Your Wisdom comes next, you can’t tease people if you don’t notice stuff to tease them on. After that is Constitution, you’re the more physical fighter of the family. Your Intelligence isn’t great since you’re a kid, and even though it’s one of our casting modifiers that doesn’t mean we actually need it. Finally, dump Strength. You are child, you have noodle arms.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: You specialize with daggers, but we need to be good with every kind of projection you can make, that means we’re a fighter first and foremost. As a fighter, you learn the Thrown Weapon fighting style, letting you toss more daggers in a turn and also deal +2 damage with thrown weapon attacks.

You can also use your bonus action to use your Second Wind to heal yourself. Not super fancy, but not dying’s always nice.

2. Monk 1: First level monks get Unarmored Defense, because... yeah, that doesn’t qualify. This means your AC is now 10 + your dexterity modifier + your wisdom modifier while not stuck in armor. Plate mail isn’t really your thing.

You also learn Martial Arts, giving your monk attacks a base damage of 1d4. You can also use dexterity instead of strength when attacking, in case you find yourself using something larger than a knife. Finally, you can use your bonus action to make an unarmed attack if you make a monk attack with your action. You’re already probably using your bonus action for knife attacks, but switching things up is a good strategy.

3. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge once per short rest, letting you slap an extra action onto a turn. It’s kind of like an extra attack, but not!

4. Fighter 3: Third level fighters get their martial archetype, and if you want to summon weapons there’s no better way to do it than the Eldritch Knight. Thanks to their Weapon Bond (a ritual performed over a short rest) they can summon one of two bonded weapons to their hand as a bonus action, and you can’t be disarmed unless you’re incapacitated. You also learn some Spells, but since they use your intelligence we’ll have to hold off on the big guns for now.

Grab Blade Ward and Shield for some protective weapon summoning, Mage Hand for finer weapon control at a distance, False Life for a tiny bit of vampirism, and Magic Missile for some super accurate dagger tossing.

Also worth noting that your Weapon Bond only lets you project the same two weapons over and over again, but I mean... you already do that.

5. Fighter 4: For your first Ability Score Improvement, bump up your Wisdom for some more AC. Can’t have enough of that stuff.

You also learn the Alarm spell, because it’s one of the few that barely even feels like a spell. Just flavor it as like, a regular alarm system. Bam, done.

6. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an Extra Attack, for more smack when you attack.

7. Fighter 6: You’re cursed to share Illya’s pain, so it makes sense that you should also get Illya’s Tough feat for some extra HP. Probably.

8. Monk 2: Back in monk now, second level monks can use their Ki to dash, disengage, dodge, or attack twice with their bonus action. You have a number of ki points equal to your monk level, and they recharge on short rests.

You also get Unarmored Movement, making yourself a bit more agile as long as you aren’t stuck in some leather.

9. Monk 3: You like stabbing. Kensei monks also like stabbing. It’s a match made in heaven! As a kensei monk you gain Kensei Weapons, two types of weapon (one melee, one ranged) that will be used for other features. I’d highly suggest daggers as your melee, the rest can be whatever you’d like to project later. You can use kensei weapons to make an Agile Parry, adding 2 to your AC when you make an unarmed strike as part of your attack action if you’re holding onto it. You can also make a Kensei’s Shot with your ranged weapons as a bonus action, adding 1d4 damage to the attack. Throwing a knife counts as a ranged attack, so slap as much damage onto it as possible.

You also learn the Way of the Brush, obtaining the power of the gods, Painter’s Supplies proficiency.

Also also, you can Deflect Missiles as a reaction, reducing incoming missile damage, and possibly yeeting it back by spending a ki point if you reduce the damage to 0.

10. Monk 4: Fourth level monks can Slow Fall as a reaction to reduce falling damage. I mean, if you project enough knives downward, it’ll eventually break your fall! Wait...

You also bump up your Charisma with this level’s ASI. It’ll make more sense in a bit.

11. Monk 5: Your extra attack isn’t usable here, but you do get a Stunning Strike, forcing a constitution save when you smack someone by spending a ki point. If they fail (its DC is 8+ your proficiency + your wisdom modifier btw) they’re stunned until the start of your next turn.

Finally, you can burn ki even faster thanks to your Focused Aim, spending 1-3 ki points to add 2 per point to an attack roll for extra accuracy.

12. Monk 6: Ki-Empowered Strikes and Magic Kensei Weapons mean all your monk attacks are magical to avoid resistances. You can also spend ki to make Deft Strikes, adding a martial arts die in damage to a kensei weapon attack once per turn.

13. Warlock 1: Yeah, sorry, this is another 3-class build. We need vampirism, what can I say?

We’ve called the grail a Great Old One before, and I think that can work here too. As part of your pact you learn Pact Magic, spells that you can cast using Charisma and that recharge on short rests.

Your Awakened Mind lets you speak telepathically to creatures within 30′ of you, even if you don’t share a language. I mean you probably have some kind of twin bond with Illya, right? We’re mostly here for the later levels anyway.

For spells: Sword Burst and Eldritch Blast let you summon more flying knives without having to worry about actually making them. You also get Expeditious Retreat for even more speed, and Charm Person to lay on the smarm.

14. Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, ways to spice up your warlock life. Grab Agonizing Blast for deadlier knives, and Beguiling Influence to beef up your Deception and Persuasion checks for deadlier puppy-dog eyes.

Yeah, we’re not getting improved pact weapon for once. Are we running a fever?

You can also cast Comprehend Languages now to translate your anime. Just make sure to get subs too!

15. Warlock 3: Thanks to the Pact of the Blade, you can now project any weapon you want into existence as an action. The weapon counts as magical, and you always have proficiency with it.

You can also cast Cloud of Daggers to make a cloud... of daggers! They take up a 5 foot cube, and deals damage to creatures who walk into the area or start their turn in it.

16. Warlock 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for stronger and more accurate spells.

Speaking of being more accurate, the cantrip True Strike lets you get advantage on an attack next turn, but it’s a lot easier just to attack twice. You can also use Misty Step to speed up past the point the eye can see.

17. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get third level spells, meaning we can finally get our hands on Vampiric Touch for an energy draining kiss. You can make a touch attack each turn for up to a minute, dealing necrotic damage and healing half that amount each time you hit.

You also learn the invocation Eldritch Spear to up the range on your magical dagger throws. Just because they’re 100 feet away is no excuse to not attack them.

18. Warlock 6: Our last goolock goodie is the Entropic Ward. Once per short rest you can impose disadvantage on an incoming attack. If that attack misses, you get advantage on one attack against them. Evasion and a critical rate up, that’s dangerously close to an actual skill!

You also learn Counterspell this level. Rule Breaker is a weapon, so you should be able to project it well enough.

19. Monk 7: Finally bouncing back to monk after our long time away for Evasion. Half damage from failed dexterity saves, no damage from successes, you probably know the drill by now. You also get Stillness of Mind, letting you end charms and frigtens as an action.

20. Monk 8: Our capstone level gives us one last ASI, so max out that Dexterity. More AC, more damage, what’s not to love?

Pros:

Thanks to your various damage bonuses, you’ve got some deadly daggers on hand that can deal very consistent damage. You can deal 2d6+1d4+7 piercing damage on a single dagger with few resources spent, meaning you can keep that damage going for the long haul.

Speaking of dragging out a fight, you’re hard to hit thanks to a base AC of 17, the ability to boos that with Agile Parries and Shield to a maximum of 30, and disadvantage thanks to entropic ward. Getting hit: not even once.

Throwing daggers around gives you range, and your 45 feet of movement and teleportation gives you the mobility to abuse that. You’re even harder to hit when you’re constantly out of the enemy’s range.

Cons:

Even if options for making more, throwing weapons are still a pain to use, and require a bonus action or full action to recreate. On top of that, your spell slots and ki points are also pretty limited, reducing your effectiveness in long battles somewhat. Efficiency only goes so far.

Your bonus action is pretty crowded, thanks to regular monk stuff, healing, weapon bonds, and so on. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean you’ll have to prioritize.

Your Low Strength means that the occasional enemy that gets too close can knock you around. Just hope Illya’s around to distract them while you get back up.

#fate grand order #FGO #D&D 5e #Chloe von Einzbern #Fate and Phantasms #Fighter #Monk #Warlock

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radramblog · 3 years ago

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On the origins of Shiny Pokémon

Shiny Pokémon are a quirk of the franchise that has blossomed into a huge part of the Pokémon fandom, to the point where content creators (streamers, mostly) have built careers on spending hours and hours hunting for them.

Considering the humble origins of the concept, it’s kind of a surprise how we got here, frankly.

Shiny Pokémon were introduced in the series' second generation, in Gold and Silver. These were the first games in the series to be in colour, basic as the palettes were, and the developers thought that having variations in a species’ colour, kind of like albinism, would be an interesting idea to use this new technology. At least, I assume that’s what happened, I obviously wasn’t there. There wasn’t originally an official term for Shinies, though “Alternate colour” or “rare” were in some of the earlier games- the first official use of “Shiny” was in a promotional TCG card in 2009. Interestingly, Gold and Silver (but not Crystal) were actually playable on an original Game Boy, albeit in greyscale, which is why the twinkle animation and sound effect that gives the phenomenon its name were added in the first place.

The addition of the Red Gyarados plotline was kind of a genius way of introducing the concept to the player and fanbase. After all, the phenomena are typically extremely rare at 1/8192 per Pokémon encounter, and I believe only one very missable NPC alludes to them in the entire game. It’s quite possible that without all the fuss about the Red Gyarados and the Lake of Rage plot in general, Shinies would have been the subject of the same schoolyard rumours that surrounded the early generations, like “Pikablu” (Marill leaking before its official introduction) or the Pokegods.

I know I didn’t know what a Shiny was when I first encountered one. Sure didn’t catch it either, though I know I was trying to. It was a Ponyta, in Fire Red, and it was on the path up to Mt. Ember who’s name I’ve forgotten. I definitely spent a long time running around after accidentally KO’ing it in order to find this “Blue flame Ponyta” again, to no luck.

The introduction of shinies in Gen II led to some interesting quirks in their original iteration, considering the jank of early gen Pokémon. Shininess, like many other things that generation, were determined by IVs, a calculation that would later be replaced by an individualized “personality value” for each Pokémon. A Gen II (or Gen I, if trading is used) Pokémon will be Shiny if its IVs are all 10 except for Attack (2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, or 15) and HP (which is calculated from the remainder), which ironically means the aesthetic bonus that’s not supposed to have an in-game function actually is a result of largely above-average stats. This calculation comes with a few other quirks resulting from other things attached to IV calculations- they can only have a Hidden Power of Grass or Dragon with 49 or 69 power, any species that has a 7:1 male:female ratio such as the starters or Eevee cannot produce a female shiny (Gender is determined by Attack IV, and those species only are female with a 0 or 1 Attack), and, perhaps ironically, only the I and V Unown variants can be Shiny.

That’s a lot of bullshit trivia, isn’t it!

Both in and out of the actual games, it would be a while before Shinies were properly recognized and further integrated into the canon of Pokémon. A few TCG cards featured them, along with a rule in which you could only have one in your deck- I’m not sure how powerful they actually were, but the rarity was at least accurately represented. A handful of trainers in Firered/Leafgreen’s Trainer Tower have them by default, the first (and, I think, only? (nope just checked there’s one guy in Gen VII)) NPC trainers guaranteed to have a Shiny in the games. As well, the Celebi event in Heartgold/Soulsilver would feature a Shiny Pichu, the first guaranteed Shiny since the original Gold/Silver (it also has the Red Gyarados, being a remake), and that generation would feature the series’s first method of increasing the encounter rate with the Poké Radar (as well as the Masuda breeding method), but beyond this, the odds were still and always 1/8192.

It wasn’t until Generation V and Black and White that more effort was taken in the games to acknowledge Shiny Pokémon. This was the first time that the term was actually used inside the game, for one, and Shiny Hunters were given their first real tool in the Shiny Charm- a passive item available by completing the entire Pokédex that effectively triples the encounter rate and stacks with the aforementioned Masuda method (which was also slightly buffed).

This came at a cost, however- the Shiny Lock mechanic. This is an inbuilt feature in the encounter code that prevents certain species of Pokémon from ever generating as Shiny- in this game, that applies to Reshiram and Zekrom, the games’ cover legendaries, as well as the Mythical event Pokémon Victini and anything obtained through the Dream World feature. Shiny sprites for these species still existed in the game, effectively as failsafes, but nothing you could do in the game short of cheating/hacking would let you actually access them. This Lock feature would continue for every main series game that followed, though it would almost exclusively apply to Legendary Pokémon, and would often be taken off of them the generation later- and while I understand the inconsistency between a Pokémon's appearance in story cutscenes and actual battle would be awkward, it is still frustrating that such cool designs like Shiny Victini are completely unavailable.

It wasn’t all bad, though, since through some of these mechanics and the growing popularity of the franchise, more players were exposed to the idea of Shiny Pokémon. Black 2 and White 2 also had the games’ second and third Guaranteed Shinies in the form of a gift Gible or Dratini (depending on version) available through a postgame challenge and a Haxorus catchable in an area unlocked by completing the regional Pokédex. This was also when they were more exposed in other media- more TCG cards, their appearance in one of the movies (and the associated in-game events), etcetera.

Were it not for Generation V’s changes and additions, it’s very likely that Shiny Pokémon would be substantially more obscure than the popular huntable prize they are now. For better or for worse, I suppose. Probably better, ultimately, because they are pretty much just a fun thing to have around? I’m not sure how I feel about people spending hours upon hours for a slightly differently coloured mon (though I have done it a couple times), but it’s just a nice thing that exists for people. A little mystery to a series that’s so utterly picked apart, as it were.

#ramble #pokemon #shiny pokemon #this is kind of just a pile of trivia

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raygirlramblings · 5 years ago

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I’m just wondering but do you have any Rayman Princess headcanons of your own since you said in your top 5 that it’s something you’d like to see in future Rayman games. (I do too if you’d like to see them...)

Oh I’m SO glad you asked!!!

I don’t have any big character headcannons for the princess, just a lot of little personality traits, quirks and bits which differentiate them from one another. Also I don’t have many headcannons for all the ‘sister’ princesses. I'm just sticking with the original 10 from legends, not the bonus princesses like Holly or Avelina XD

Barbara

Most adventurous princess

Barbara is the princess closest to Rayman and Globox and as such she is more likely to hang out with them than the others.

Barbara has a lot of responsibility issues. In my headcannon while she is princess of her own people she doesn’t want to settle down and rule them. She wants to find adventure and explore an thinks being a ruler will cramp her style. She doesn’t hate her people or family, it’s more the concept of being a leader which intimidates her. Maybe she doesn't think she'd make a worthy leader...

Barbara is the first princess to make her way through the Hall of Doors into Rayman’s home world. She was chasing a thief who stole precious jewels from her village and the pair stumbled into the Glade. Barbara, assuming the world was going to be hostile, acted in kind and wrecked havoc before Rayman caught up with her and convinced her they weren’t enemies.

While Barbara is besties with Rayman and Globox her super best friend is Clark. As a fellow warrior they will happily spend free hours sparring, training, arm wrestling and chatting weapons. Clark admires Barbara’s skill and strength and respects her as a fellow warrior. Barbara is an unofficial member of Clark’s Glade security force. Note: I do not ship them. They are BROS.

Elysia

I don't have many headcannons for her. She's similar to Barbara in many ways but has fewer hangups about being a leader

Aurora

Most serious minded Princess

I’ve always seen Aurora as being very tactical minded. She will happily leap into a fight but she likes to have a plan in place for the best possible result that get as few of her allies hurt as possible.

She has a VERY short temper, especially when people don’t listen to her.

She is very much ‘serious business’ all the time, and it takes a lot to loosen her up.

The only time she shows her gentle side is with kids and baby animals. Her big thing is keeping people safe, and since babies are innocents she will do anything to protect them. But at the same time she knows that her being a warrior could be a threat to them so she keeps her distance :(

One time a Globox kid called her 'Aunto Roro' and it almost broke her. Now it's what all the kids call her ;D

Twila

Again, don't have many headcannons. I see her as being more outgoing and less stuffy than Aurora. She's one of the few people who can pull Aurora out her focus, mostly by driving her sister insane XD

Olympia

Most self-absorbed princes

Considered a celebrity/pop idol in her home world. While she is a good soul she is very vain and considers her beauty to be her most defining feature.

Lives in a home full of mirrored surfaces so she can always have one eye on herself

Despite her vanity she is a ferocious warrior. She's not a girly girl (the type who is worried about getting muddy etc). She KNOWS she looks amazing and it doesn't matter if she's dirty or battle scarred. On top of that she doesn't feel the need to put others down to make herself feel better because her ego is iron clad XD There is beauty in everything...she should know ;)

She has developed a friendship with Betina who has introduced her to the concept of cellsphones (with the help of Cookie!) and as such she has discovered the art of the selfie. Olympia LOVES selfies

Sibylla

Olympia's polar opposite personality wise. Where Olympia is selfish Sibylla is selfless and doesn't care much for her own beauty or style. While she has lots of admirers she's not about being a celebrity and can be very shy and self deprecating.

Spends a lot of time hunting monsters in dark caves and underground, avoiding the light.

LOVES bats. Bats are her favourite animal.

Loves her sister dearly but is a little conflicted as they are so vastly different. She also has a sneaking suspicious that Olympia doesn't value her the same way she values Olympia. Basically Olympia's ego has unknowingly driven a wedge between them.

I think she'd be good friends with Begonaix as she would be all about building up her friend's confidence.

Ursula and Emma

Techno Princesses!

I put these two together as I see them being the strongest pair. They work well as a team despite being different in personality.

They work as elite spy/hackers infiltrating gang hideouts and treasure stashes of the rich. They then distribute this wealth to the poor via charities and services without a trace.

Ursula is cool, calm and analytical. Emma is high-energy, cheery and outgoing. The pair bounce off one another with surprising skill and share a lot of banter through their missions.

Ursula and Emma both have strong British accents, though Ursula rarely speaks. I imagine Emma's accent to be as outrageous as Tracer in Overwatch (COR BLIMEY GUV).

When not on missions Ursula enjoys reading, and Emma is an avid online gamer. She swears a lot. It's hilarious.

Ursula cannot handle compliments. The slightest praise turns her into a blushing mess and Emma teases her relentlessly about it.

I can see them getting on well with Cookie and sometimes going to him for help with tech, gadgets and planning for missions.

Estelia

PARTY PRINCESS

Girl just loves to party...any kind of party. She loves parades and festivals and luau’s and picnics and themed parties...any party of Estelia's idea of a good time.

Seemingly boundless energy. No one is sure how she stays awake as she never seems to sleep.

Despite loving parties Estelia is tea-total and avoids any and all alcohol. She won't stop others enjoying it though!

She has a photographic memory for birthdays. In some cases it's unclear how she finds this information, but she is always right.

Selena

As stated in cannon Selena is the darker side of Estelia. She's not evil, just far more subdued and cynical.

Selena loves parties too, she's just not as hysterical about them as Estelia. It's hard to tell if she is having a good time as she tends to rely on morbid humour and dark jokes. If Selena were at a college party she would be the one on the back porch smoking and discussing philosophy while watching the stars.

Unlike Estelia Selena has a crazy high tolerance for alcohol and can drink anyone under the table.

I can see Selena being besties with Voodoo Mama, sharing jokes and booze and talking about dark stuff while the party rages on.

If anyone tries to ruin/crash one of Estelia's parties then they better be prepared for the wrath of Selena as she is super protective of her sibling.

Hah, I need to draw some of these as they make me happy. I'm sorry if any of my headcannons conflict with other people's, I'm not about stepping on toes or enforcing my views as being right ^_^* These are purely how I see the princesses!

#Rayman #headcannons

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royalreef · 5 years ago

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(( ENJOY A MASSIVE POST ABOUT MERFOLK TAXONOMY, because biology has long been my BIGGEST special interest ( yes I’m including paleontology under this, I know it’s more considered an earth science and part of geology, shush ).

Merfolk as a whole are a part of an ancient group of animals that diverged from basal amniotes around the same time amniotes themselves came about, 312 mya (million years ago). I say about, because I haven’t fully decided where exactly to put them in this case, whether they’re fully counted as amniotes or no, and I still need to do a large amount of research into this.

I classify this split as happening there, as opposed to somewhere else, because merfolk are obviously tetrapods, and have some adaptations for full land living that amniotes have, though the merfolk themselves are fully adapted for a watery niche. Their eggs certainly were carried internally for a long time, so there’s probably some convergent evolution to how mammalian live birth happened, hence all the more reason to put them under amniotes, but they’re definitely not synapsids and thus definitely not mammals.

These early ancestors also retained their gills and ability to breathe water. They do have lungs too, and conceptually they filled a very fluid niche, where they had to be able to rapidly switch from aquatic life to terrestrial life, with most being oppurtunists who used this wide variability to be able to get a wider variety of food and resources that other animals couldn’t.

I will say these early ancestors mostly resembled newts/salamanders or small lizards, and somewhere along the line they independently evolved scales, both for providing armor and for retaining water when they were on land, along with all the other reasons to evolve scales.

( Ideally, I’d say they never evolved hair, but considering that I can’t fully redesign Miranda for this blog for fear of inability to use my icons and basically making her fully an OC, she has to keep the hair on her head. Her eyebrows are a maybe, since I joke aplenty about them just being markings or her drawing them on. Landfolk get weird when they see her without any eyebrows, so she has to appear to have them! )

They also generally retained the same amount of digits as other tetrapods, so that’s how Miranda has five fingers still, though merfolk lost one of the toes on their feet, bringing that total down to four.

And yes, all of this does mean that merfolk have plenty of ancestors in deep time that probably fossilized and could be found by even human scientists, but they’re probably thought of in this world as an offshoot of tetrapods that has no extant relatives, with what fossils remain being sparse or incomplete, or even caught in nomen dubium hell. Certainly they weren’t featured in this world’s Jurassic Park, that’s for sure, and if they are represented it’d be in something like ARK.

This also does mean that there are plenty of ancestors that fell into more unique or odd niches, with stranger body plans or something much more different from the rest. 312 mya is a long time, after all! Lots of time for there to be more experimental species, though they didn’t pan out in the long run.

So, with merfolk themselves, I generally have the idea of them as coming from a branch of that tree that hung around the ocean’s edge, sticking closer to the shoreline than the mer alive today, though they were oddly social for a tiny, lizard-like species, probably already communicating through small squeaks and chirps. Lizardy kinda sounds. They spend a good amount of their time on rocky shores and cliffs, so they’re good at climbing over and up them. Likely already had something akin to their fins on the sides of their face, used for communication and display, along with pushing additional water over their gills, or maybe even the fins being used in addition to the gills to extract extra oxygen from the water is basal to merfolk, but only the abyssals really retained most of that feature.

As token as it sounds, I think the K/T extinction event was probably what pushed them to evolve into the branch that became merfolk. The death of much larger marine creatures opened up the ability to go more fully ocean-bound, and to take over a role akin to marine reptiles in the past and the marine mammals that were also evolving at that time, but with the addition of having gills to not have to surface for oxygen.

Their evolution from that point probably was a bit like primates - lots of trying out different shapes and styles, more of that basal form than true merfolk, except their roles being out competeted or otherwise led to extinction, until you get the “true” merfolk - which would occur with a focus on social behavior and language, along with tool use, as was the bonus to being a tetrapod that went back into the ocean but never lost their hands.

This is where we get to the merfolk family tree. I’d say probably the first mer was mid-size, generally had all of the traits of the merfolk you see today, very general, but very adaptive.

The abyssal (royal) merfolk were probably the first to branch off. Their tails resemble mosasaurs’ and early icthyosaurs’ a lot, having a much larger lower lobe of their tail where the bone is, and the upper lobe, being all fleshy, isn’t too pronounced. They went down into the deep sea, branching off early from the rest of the merfolk, and thus were generally super isolated from the rest, which you can see today in how the Merkingdom itself generally is conducted.

There are plenty of other species of merfolk, however, and the abyssals (and Miranda) are not representative of the entire group. There’s a lot of different takes on the same body plan, with different niches and different adaptations and different types of behavior associated with each. They’re all super vocal and adapted to be able to hear well, so that’s also basal to the group, but that also means when they all started forming their own societies and cultures and general settlements, it’s even weirder than how humans do it.

Effectively, merfolk are a lot like the homonid family tree, and for that reason they also generally take after the concept of the “braided stream” more than just the tree of life. It’s also why I can feel more confident saying they’re seperate species and not subspecies, despite being able to reproduce and make viable offspring - and anyway species as a whole are fake and weird. There’s a lot of hybridization going on, with some populations getting some genes from others that benefit them and get genetic and physical variation. In more nomadic merfolk, there’s a lot of their genes spread around in other species and a lot of genetic variation in them, because they roam and run into different species - meanwhile, the abyssals are much more genetically restricted, since the abyss is a generally isolated place that isn’t easy to access unless you’re made for it.

I’m pretty bad at clarifying when I’m talking about abyssal mer vs all merfolk, since there’s a huge amount of difference between the two. Abyssals are probably the merfolk with the most bioluminenscence - while some species probably do have a little or even a lot, it’s not as much of a need as with the abyssals. The abyssals also might have gone through deep-sea gigantism? They’re pretty big by merfolk standards. And yes, that is taking into account how tiny Miranda herself is - since she’s kind of an exception to the rule, being that she didn’t really grow right and her bones didn’t get the chance to form correctly, leaving her as a rather unhealthy-looking runt of an abyssal. I’m generally thinking mer grow throughout their entire lives, as something that’s also basal to the group, they just slow down after a point - so if you got proper care for Miranda’s health issues she might be able to fix some of that problems, and mer medicine is waaaaay more sophisticated and generally ahead than current human medicine, so if it was treated she might be able to come up to a respectable height and avoid some of the isssues of that kind of deformity that’ll occur later in life.

I do believe as a whole, merfolk are rather large. Some are more sleek than others, but especially with abyssal mer, they put on fat and muscle really easily. They’re a lot like large crocodiles in that respect. Again, Miranda is an exception to this rule, as she’s really not healthy - but overall, merfolk are DENSE. Abyssals tend to have tough armor, dense bones, put on muscle and fat easily, and generally should be MUCH heavier than a human of the same size. Not to mention their tails, as unless a mer is in the really late stages of starvation, they keep most of the muscle on their tails. It’s how they swim and get around, so losing that muscle is basically a death sentence to merfolk.

There’s also variation in diet, dentition, and what they can digest. I will say all merfolk generally can handle meat - some of them are more adapted towards eating coral or plant matter or filter-feeding, but generally they can all digest and handle it and won’t turn it down if they do get it. The abyssals do tend towards being carnivores and most of their diet should be meat, but they can handle other biological material as well. They’re equal parts predator and scavenger - their jaw strength is a lot like a hyena’s or a T. rex’s (at least, in the theory of them being scavengers and not predators). It’s VERY useful in getting into any hard material the ocean can throw at them, cracking not only bone but shell and scale and cartilage and shell too, and to extract as much nutrition from any food they find. I can say their jaw strength is probably the strongest among the merfolk for that reason.

This also means, while abyssal mer have their triangular, serrated teeth like a great white shark’s - that tooth shape is more unique to them and their specific niche than to merfolk as a whole, who have a LOT more variation. I imagine at least one has teeth that come together a bit like a parrotfish’s beak, and one has teeth more similar to a crabeater seal’s, useful for seiving through water.

Abyssal mer are also the ones that really retained the ability to extract extra oxygen from the water through their facial fins. That’s why Miranda’s fins are so fluffy and large - they’re basically pseudo-gills, and that’s why they’re so sensitive. Other mer do also have some of that ability, but it’s to a lesser degree than abyssal merfolk, and most are probably less sensitive because of that. That being said, the shape of the fins is kept, as is the “fluff” closer to the cheek. That fluff actually has a purpose beyond oxygen extraction - they’re little outgrowths of flesh and skin that act a lot like an owl’s facial feathers. They’re effectively radar dishes, helping pick up on sounds in the water and assists their hearing and communication. The fins are also universally used for communication and display - they move with a merfolk’s emotions for a reason! They’re really good silent communication when hunting.

I also think mer do universally have the pads on their hands and feet. Honestly, they aren’t really anaogous to a cat’s or dog’s paws. They’re far closer to what you’d find on an Osprey’s foot, and provide a lot of the same uses - namely being used as a grip in holding onto slippery prey, but also in movement, when mer cling to sheer rocks or climb over coral or what have you. Normally they’re very rough and thick - but because Miranda is a royal, she files hers down, and so they’re much softer and thinner. They’re all pretty squishy though.

I’d add more but I think that’s MOSTLY it. Can you tell I have a special interest?

#Most secret royal advisor || OOC #Given by Divine Right || Headcanons #You built up a world of magic ; Because your real life is tragic || Self #(( spell check gave up on me like a third of the way through so...#(( im very very sorry #(( rip mobile users #long post

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tigerkirby215 · 4 years ago

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5e Rell, the Iron Maiden build (League of Legends)

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

I SHOULD BE MAKING AKALI RIGHT NOW :))))))

I did a coinflip with Rell: it was either her or Akali and she ended up winning. I’m honestly super hyped for Rell which is odd because I don’t really play tank supports. I find Leona and Nautilus boring as sin, though I do enjoy Galio and Maokai on occasion. I guess I’ve just been playing in top lane a lot more and I want a big bulky tank who I can dive into teamfights with as a support.

Also the memes for this champ are freaking golden.

But Rell presents a very unique kit that has a lot of potential in D&D. Basically I get to make a character other than Nunu & Willump who rides a mount and I get to stick everything I can remotely justify as being Ferromancy onto this character.

GOALS

Run ‘em all down - Rell is the third champ to have a mount. Aren’t horses just the best?

We fight together - Your outside may be cold but connecting to people is how you move on from trauma... or use that trauma for a massive stun in a teamfight.

I’ll bust you down to scrap! - Rell’s quirk is Ferromancy, the magic of manipulating metal, most specifically through magnetism. Fucking magnets; how do they work?

RACE

Rell is a human... but we can’t always go for Variant Human, so let’s spice it up a bit! She may not have divine blood but I’m sure someone at the academy had healing magic. So since she’s a support with eyes aglow with energy why not go for an Aasimar? More specifically a Scourge Aasimar. Your Charisma increases by 2 and your Constitution increases by 1.

Your glyphs give you a big mix of magic from your friends back at the academy: Darkvision for darkvision, Celestial Resistance for resistance to necrotic and radiant damage, Light Bearer for the Light cantrip, and Healing Hands for a bit of healing magic. Your Scourge subrace also gives you Radiant Consumption at level 3, which I’ll cover when you get there.

If you’re set on playing a human: A Variant Human (+1 CON, +1 STR) with either the Mounted Combatant feat or Heavy Armor Master feat would make sense. There are other feats to consider but these would be the most in-character for Rell.

ABILITITY SCORES

15; STRENGTH - Iron stands eternal, and iron is heavy.

14; CHARISMA - You may be a grouchy teenager, and you may also be incredibly awkward when hitting on people, but Charisma is considered as “inner strength” in 5e. You’ve certainly got plenty of that!

13; CONSTITUTION - You are a tank after all, and with the +1 from our race that equals a 14 for a nice boost to HP.

12; DEXTERITY - As heavy as iron is you were trained for peak physical condition. DEX is tied to many things, notably Initiative which is very important for a frontliner.

10; INTELLIGENCE - You went to an academy, but it was a Noxian war academy. Still it’s possible that you got some history lessons.

8; WISDOM - You’re a hothead in both the metaphorical and literal sense. You think asking questions is on the mind of a teenager who’s angry with the world?

BACKGROUND

There’s a lot of backgrounds that would fit Rell, though unfortunately nothing edgy enough like “Test Subject Turned Human Superweapon.” But considering your lifestyle of roaming the Noxian countryside Outlander is probably pretty accurate. You get proficiency in Athletics and Survival and while you’d normally get a Musical Instrument I’d actually suggest you grab Smith’s Tools instead because... yeah duh. You can also learn a Language of your choice so pick whatever you think would constitute Noxian.

Your Wanderer background feature will make sure you survive and thrive on the Noxian countryside. You always remember the general layout of the land, and you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day. And you can even rip some iron out of the earth to make them bowls and cups to eat and drink with!

(Concept art by Riot Games)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - PALADIN 1

Starting off as a Paladin because even if proficiency in Wisdom saves is weird we need the Heavy Armor proficiency because... yeah duh. Speaking of proficiencies take Intimidation because you’re a murder-hungry metalmancer, and I dunno Medicine would make sense since you’re a support and all.

You also get Divine Sense, as the magic in your veins helps you detect celestials, fiends, or undead. And because you’re a support you can use Shattering Strike to heal thanks to Lay on Hands. I could explain both these abilities in detail, but I’m also an angry teenager who’s sick of explaining abilities with insanely long descriptions that you can read for yourself.

LEVEL 2 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins get their Fighting Style, and of course for a tank support Defense would be best for more AC. You also get some Ferromancy Spellcasting. (Well technically Divine spellcasting but don’t tell anyone that.) You can prepare a number of Paladin spells equal to your Charisma modifier plus half your Paladin level:

To sharpen your lace (or more realistically pike) a little more Divine Favor will make every blow hurt just a little bit more.

Heroism will help in times of strife to let your anger take over any fear.

To manipulate armor to block some more blows Shield of Faith will increase the target’s AC for a time.

To stun with Attract and Repel Thunderous Smite will do damage and knock enemies prone, making them easier to hit and forcing them to spend time getting up.

But of course you can just as easily ignore all of that in favor of Divine Smite, channeling all your magic and hatred into a burst of Radiant damage on your weapon attacks. Particularly effective against undead!

On Rell’s weapon: I’d suggest a Pike over a Lance because a d12 isn’t worth Disadvantage in melee range, even if you will eventually be performing mounted combat. Feel free to have a lance as backup for when you do start riding a horse.

LEVEL 3 - PALADIN 3

At third level you can choose your Sacred Oath, and I know how much you hate Noxus but Oath of the Crown actually has some pretty good abilities for our purposes. Yup of all the champions to break out the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide for it’s Rell.

You get two Channel Divinity options: Champion Challenge makes enemies unable to move more than 30 feet away from you for a Magnetic Overload, and Turn the Tide will heal everyone of your choice for a d6 plus your Charisma (if they’re below half health) for some Redemption saves.

But both of these Channel Divinities are admittedly situational, so if your DM allows Tasha’s rulings then Harness Divine Power will also let you recover a first level spell slot. Speaking of spells as a Crown Paladin you get Command to twist your enemy’s armor to your whim, and Compelled Duel for a single-target Concentration version of Champion Challenge.

And as a Scourge Aasimar you get now get Radiant Consumption. As an action you can unleash the magic within you, glowing violently and doing Radiant damage equal to half your level to everyone around you. Additionally, once on each of your turns you can deal extra radiant damage when you damage an enemy with an attack or a spell. The extra radiant damage equals your level. You can only go all out just once per long rest, so if your ever wonder why anime protagonists keep their ultimate attack until the end of the fight: it burns you so much you can only use it once.

LEVEL 4 - PALADIN 4

4th level means another Ability Score Improvement but instead we’re going to be taking a Feat. You’re probably thinking we’re going for Mounted Combatant, right?

WRONG! We’re taking Heavy Armor Master, because you can literally control your armor to make it stronger! Your Strength increases by 1 and any damage you take from non-magic weapons is reduced by 3!

You can also prepare another spell, but we’ll wait for...

(Concept art by Riot Games)

LEVEL 5 - PALADIN 5

5th level time for Extra Attack. Two attacks in a turn to pretend you’re the ADC!

Also time for HONSE! Find Steed lets you summon a Warhorse, and others but a Warhorse is probably the most accurate representation of your mount. The steed is considered a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice), and its intelligence is set to 6. It can also understand one language you can speak, which is good because you can speak to it telepathically.

You can make any spell that only targets you also target your steed, and when it drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can dismiss your steed at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, casting this spell again summons the same steed, restored to its hit point maximum.

And thanks to your subclass you also learn Warding Bond to bond with an ally, and Zone of Truth to get the Black Rose to admit to what they did. Technically speaking you can’t put a ring on your horse, but as a DM I’d probably allow you to make a 50 gp platinum horse shoe to give the honse a Warding Bond.

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 6

6th level Paladins get Aura of Protection. You and everyone within 10 feet of you gets a bonus to saving throws equal to your Charisma modifier, because iron stands eternal and so does teenage angst.

You can also prepare another spell like Aid to steel your party’s resolve for any danger. Metal pun unintended.

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 7

Here’s why we aren’t taking Mounted Combatant. 7th level Crown Paladins get Divine Allegiance, allowing you to use your reaction to take damage for a creature within 5 feet of you. They take no damage, but the damage you take can’t be reduced or prevented in any way.

Sure a 5 foot aura is just objectively worse than the Redemption Paladin’s 10 foot Aura of the Guardian that does literally the exact same thing (pro tip: ask your DM to just increase the range of the aura), but you know what’s always within 5 feet of you? Your horse. So feel free to take hits for your trusty mount. And if an ally is nearby you should probably tank for them too.

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 8

8th level means an Ability Score Improvement. We’re still riding around in big bulky armor so more Strength to carry that armor would be nice.

You can also prepare another spell like Lesser Restoration for some Tenacity.

(Concept art by Riot Games)

LEVEL 9 - BARD 1

How’s this for a surprise? Multiclassing into Bard gives you proficiency in one skill, and one musical instrument. Take Animal Handling because you literally summon a horse for yourself, and a Noxian War Drum.

Bards get Bardic Inspiration: d6s equal to your Charisma modifier to help support your allies. They can add the d6 to an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw they make. Buff up their armor, or weaken the enemy’s armor!

But of course as a Bard you get more Spellcasting! Check page whatever-it-is for how multiclassing works. You get two cantrips from the Bard list: Mage Hand will let you magnetize an object closer to you, and Vicious Mockery will let you yell angrily at the enemy not to hurt your friends.

You can also learn 4 spells from the Bard list: you are a support so you can take Cure Wounds for some Summoner: Heal. Disguise Self will help you if Noxian police are looking for you. And both Earth Tremor and Thunderwave will help you manipulate the metal beneath your enemies’ feet and sunder the ground beneath them.

LEVEL 10 - BARD 2

You have a little bit of everything in your glyphs which means Jack of All Trades will always be able to help you. You can also recuperate after a long night on the Noxian countryside thanks to Song of Rest.

You can also learn another spell but we will wait for...

LEVEL 11 - BARD 3

Third level Bards can choose their Bardic College and you did go to the academy to become a weapon after all. College of Valor Bards are instruments of war with Combat Inspiration, letting allies use their Bardic Inspiration to hurt more with their swords or defend themselves better with their armor. “Fight like you mean it. Die for something that matters!” You do also get some skill proficiencies but... you already had them.

You do get Expertise in two skills however! Intimidation comes naturally to a living weapon, and even though it’s technically not a living animal in LoL you still need Animal Handling for your mount from Find Steed.

And finally you can learn spells. If you want the honest truth the only reason we took Bard levels is for Heat Metal, the obligatory Ferromancy spell. But you can also grab Hold Person to lock a foe’s armor in place.

LEVEL 12 - BARD 4

4th level means an Ability Score Improvement, and since we’re now investing in the spellcasting side of things I’d recommend some Charisma to make that better. Remember that more Charisma does mean more Paladin spells, so be sure to hop back there to prepare more.

Because I’m not going to tell you what to prepare, as we need to concentrate on your new cantrip! You are the ferromancer, so Mending is kinda obligatory. You can also learn another spell but again we shall wait for...

LEVEL 13 - BARD 5

5th level Bards get Font of Inspiration, letting their Bardic Inspiration come back on a Short Rest. Which is good, because your Bardic Inspiration increases to a d8!

You can also learn third level spells now which means we can finally take Mass Healing Word to further our support role, and Hypnotic Pattern for a massive team-wide stun.

(Artwork by @Cookie3v3 on Twitter)

LEVEL 14 - SORCERER 1

You were born with magic after all, so I’d have to go into Sorcerer at some point. It’s just that the other levels were more important, and this kinda ends up being more for flavor than anything. Regardless you get your subclass at level 1 as a Sorcerer and hey I actually get to use the Clockwork Soul for a Ferromancer. You can Restore Balance at level 1, denying Advantage or Disadvantage and turn it into a straight roll.

Oh and hey: more Spellcasting! But this time with a side of Clockwork Magic for Abjuration or Transmutation spells. Since both the spells you’d normally get a little iffy I’d suggest replacing them with both Absorb Elements and Shield for some Magic Resistance and Armor.

You also get four cantrips and two leveled spells. Fire Bolt lets you fling a piece of molten metal at the enemy, because you may as well have a ranged weapon. For some basic metal sundering from the ground Mold Earth will let you manipulate small pockets of iron in the soil. Message will let you coordinate with your teammates without yelling everything in /all. And because you’ve got a ridiculous amount of cantrips you may as well grab Prestidigitation for basic magic manipulation.

For your leveled spells Magic Missile will let you fling metal with the utmost precision, and Burning Hands for burning metal addressed to “whom it may concern.”

LEVEL 15 - SORCERER 2

Second level Sorcerers get a Font of Magic. You get 2 Sorcery Points that can be converted into spell slots... for now. So basically you get another first level spell slot!

LEVEL 16 - SORCERER 3

3rd level Sorcerers get their Metamagic. These are features that use your Sorcery points to augment your spells: to make sure that no one lives to hide the tale of the academy Heightened Spell will give an enemy disadvantage on their first saving throw against one of your spells. Alternatively if you want to both stab and smash Quickened Spell will let you cast a spell as a Bonus Action, to really maximize your APM.

You also get more Clockwork Magic, but since you already have both Aid and Lesser Restoration I’d instead suggest taking Levitate for some reverse-magnetism, and a little spell from Elemental Evil called Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp.

If your opponent doesn’t know how magnets work then Blur can really mess with their ability to hit you. And you know I haven’t taken Flash yet so... Misty Step!

LEVEL 17 - SORCERER 4

Fourth level Sorcerers get an Ability Score Improvement and well we did invest in 3 different spellcasters, so increasing that spellcasting with more Charisma would probably be smart. Remember that more Charisma means more Paladin spells! As well as a stronger Paladin aura and more Bardic Inspiration.

You also get another spell known and honestly there are a lot of great ones at second level of Sorcerer but Shatter is the best for ripping through metal. You also get another cantrip because I guess Sorcerers don’t have enough cantrips: if you get surrounded you can sunder the ground as if swords were bursting around you... in a Sword Burst... yeah...

(Artwork made for Riot Games)

LEVEL 18 - SORCERER 5

5th level Sorcerers get third level spells and I’d hate to admit it but both Dispel Magic and Protection from Energy from Clockwork Magic do make sense for Rell.

But you know what we don’t have enough of? Ground-based attacks. So take Erupting Earth, because your magic is Ferromancy. Not Fireballs or Haste, both of which would probably honestly be stronger. Honestly feel free to drop some of your early Sorcerer spells, because you’ve got more than enough spell slots for the big stuff.

LEVEL 19 - SORCERER 6

6th level Clockwork Soul Sorcerers get the feature we kinda went into this subclass for: Bastion of Law. As an action, you can spend 1 to 5 sorcery points to create a magical ward around yourself or another creature within 30 feet.

The warded creature gets a number of d8s equal to the number of sorcery points spent to create it. When the warded creature takes damage, it can expend any number of those dice to roll them and reduce the damage taken by the total rolled on those dice. This is going to be one of your main supportive features... atop of all your other “main supportive features.”

Oh and you’d get more spells but I kinda want...

LEVEL 20 - SORCERER 7

7th level Sorcerers can learn 4th spells like Sickening Radiance for some good old-fashioned war crimes, and Fire Shield which was added to the Sorcerer spell list thanks to Tasha’s! Clockwork Magic also lets you weaponize your horse with Summon Construct, but I’d suggest grabbing Banishment as your other spell to lock the weak away like they did to the Null.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Fighting together? Guess it's not too bad - You’ve got plenty of good assists. Bardic Inspiration and Bastion of Law shields, and a big pile of spells to help the team.

Nothing gets in; no one gets out - Turns out that manipulating metal means very little can get at you. Strong AC, very good range with Reach to play keep-away in melee and a horse to run around, and of course Aura of Protection to turn your weakest save into a +5! And decent HP to boot!

This is who I am now - It wasn’t my intention when making the character but... turns out Jack of All Trades does in fact make you a jack of all trades. Decent skill checks all around and a crazy good Intimidation check means that while you maybe won’t be the first choice you’ll always be up for the task.

CONS

“Excellence is measured in sacrifice”... or whatever - Three way multiclassing gives you a lot, but not a whole lot of it. Your spell slots go all the way up to 8th level but your best spells max out at 4th level. Smites exist and you can always melt down your spell slots, but perhaps it would’ve been smarter to lessen the number of classes and get more value out of what you have.

That's... that's cool... I'm cool... - Ever heard of the concept known as “choice paralysis?” With so many spells to choose on top of subclass features that take your actions it can be hard to pick what’s right in every scenario. Woes of playing support, where you need to think of everything at once. Can’t just run in and stab.

The helpless fight; the hardened live - Jack of All Trades is good for skill checks... not for combat. You can fight, heal, and sling spells decently but don’t really stand out in any particular area. You’ve got a hundred different tools to deal with the rabble but when your friends go All Out you’ll likely be stuck getting assists.

But you’ve got all a girl could ever ask for: a cute pony and enough armor to survive a ballistic missile. You were built to be a weapon and a damn good weapon you are: as sharp as you are sturdy, and as versatile as you are resourceful. Who cares if you’re a little rough around the edges? You’re sixteen! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you! Minus the lingering trauma of being tortured by your own mother... Eh. Who doesn’t have a tragic backstory nowadays?

(Artwork by @dreadstardraws on Twitter.)

#dnd #dnd 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #League of Legends #League of Legends Rell #Rell #ferromancy #dnd paladin #dnd bard #dnd sorcerer #fuck #Noxus #bisexual #iron stands eternal

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #130: Marie Antoinette (Caster)

The encores keep coming on Fate and Phantasms with today’s build, Marie Antoinette! A volleyball player in D&D is probably one of the weirder things we’ve done so far, but I’m sure we can set up something good for y’all. Charm everyone you can, and smash those you can’t in the face with your beachballs!

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

Next up: Met a girl(s), crazy for me!

Race and Background

As a variant of Marie, you’re also a variant human, giving you +1 wisdom and charisma. You’re a bit more active than your rider counterpart, so you also get Athletics proficiency and the Fighting Initiate feat, which nets you the Thrown Weapon Fighting fighting style. Now you can grab and throw weapons in the same move, and you deal +2 damage with thrown weapons! Sadly, WoTC forgot to weaponize balls in D&D, but light hammers are the closest thing we have to work with. Yes, that does mean Tortle Antoinette is dangerously close to being a Hammer Bro.

Like always, you’re a Noble, giving you History and Persuasion proficiencies.

Ability Scores

If you know anything about Marie, you know her Charisma is pretty high. If we want to be good a sports we’ll need some Dexterity though, make that second. Your Wisdom isn’t half bad, you were a queen once. Your Constitution isn’t amazing, but hey that just gives you an excuse to order one of those umbrella drinks and relax. Your Intelligence is rather low by elimination, (again, no one wants to think in the summer,) but you’re not stupid so we’re still dumping your Strength. Surprisingly, beach balls aren’t heavy lifting.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: Remember when I said not all of the summer servants were going to be beach ready? I’m starting to think that might not be true. As a monk, you get proficiency with Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as two monk skills. I’d grab Acrobatics for more volleyball skills and Insight for better rulings.

You also get Unarmored Defense, making your AC based on your wisdom as well as your dexterity, and Martial Arts. Now you can use dexterity instead of strength when attacking with monk weapons (light hammers are simple, so they count), and you can make an unarmed strike as a bonus action after attacking. Also, all your monk attacks do a minimum of 1d4 damage, which scales as you level up. The good news is it only gets better from here.

2. Monk 2: Second level monks get a number of Ki points each short rest equal to their monk level. They can use these to make two attacks, dodge, disengage, or dash as a bonus action. You also get Unarmored Movement, helping you get across the court thanks to an extra 10′ of movement speed that also increases as you level up.

3. Monk 3: They probably wouldn’t tell you this, but it turns out Way of the Kensei monks are super into beach volleyball. That’s why at third level you learn the Path of the Kensei, a totally not confusingly named feature that’s really four features in one. You get Kensei Weapons, a melee (Light Hammer) and ranged (Darts? It doesn’t really matter much) weapon that will be used by later features. One of those is an Agile Parry, giving you a bonus to your AC for a round when you make an unarmed attack with a kensei weapon in hand. Use the volleyballs for ranged attacks, hands for melee attacks, they’re pretty mutually exclusive. Another way to use your deadly weapons is a Kensei’s Shot, which normally doesn’t come up in these builds. Using your bonus action you can deal an extra 1d4 of damage each time you make a ranged attack that turn, effectively doubling your output. You also learn the Way of the Brush, which will be super useful when you’re stuck making manga over and over again in summer 3.

Finally, you volleyball skills come in handy by teaching you how to Deflect Missiles. Using your reaction you can set a ranged attack to deal less damage to you, and if you mitigate it entirely you can spike it back at the attacker.

4. Monk 4: Your very first Ability Score Improvement will go towards Dexterity. Being able to aim your shots helps. You can Slow Fall to reduce sandburn from those dives, and you get some Quickened Healing for a bit of that sunflower power, spending ki and an action to heal yourself.

5. Bard 1: Despite everything, you’re still you. And You is still a bard! This means you get Performance proficiency to get the crowd on your side, as well as some Spells you can cast using your Charisma. You can also give Bardic Inspiration to your allies a number of times per long rest equal to your charisma modifier. This lets them add a d6 to one of their attack rolls, saving throws, or ability checks.

Speaking of spells, Light will make you the center of attention, either creating a light source out of thin air of turning an object into a free torch. You also get Friends, Charm Person, and Animal Friendship to wrap the world around your finger, because some things never change. If you have to get a bit forceful, you can also use Command, or Cure Wounds if you’re in a more merciful mood.

6. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to checks that don’t already use it. As a queen, you have to be well-versed in just about everything. You also get a Song of Rest, adding 1d6 to healing done over short rests. Finally, your Magical Inspiration augments your bardic inspiration. It can now be added to spell damage and healing.

Speaking of spell damage and healing, Bane does neither of those things. However, it does force a charisma save (DC 8 + proficiency + charisma modifier) on a couple creatures, and the ones that fail subtract 1d4 from all attacks and saves they make for the duration. You’re pretty distracting.

7. Bard 3: Your bard levels aren’t changing things up much from your original setup- yes, you’re still going to the College of Glamour. As a glamour bard, your Mantle of Inspiration can be built using just a use of Inspiration and your bonus action, giving a couple of friendly creatures 5 temporary hp, and the ability to react to move without causing opportunity attacks.

You can also put on an Enthralling Performance. After you play for at least a minute, you can try to charm a couple people who saw the entire thing, basically turning them into your groupies if they fail a wisdom save. You can use this once per short rest.

Finally, you get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus in Acrobatics and Performance. You’re good at what you do, and even better at making it look good while you do it.

You can also cast Calm Emotions to soothe enemies or friends alike. Like Guda always says, “An enemy is just a friend that’s still trying to kill you.”

8. Bard 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for stronger spells and more inspiration.

You can also cast True Strike this level for more accurate strikes, or Enhance Ability to inspire greatness in an ally, giving them advantage on one kind of skill check for the duration.

9. Bard 5: At fifth level your bardic inspiration grows to a d8, and you become a Font of Inspiration. That means your inspiration pops back up on short rests and long ones!

Being a queen isn’t easy. Even if you’re nice you still gotta punish people sometimes. Sometimes that punishment is curses. Bestow Curse can help with that. This is one of those open-ended spells- if your DM’s cool with creativity, you can probably do some nasty stuff with this spell.

10. Bard 6: Sixth level bards can waste an action on Countercharm, giving allies advantage against being charmed or frightened for the round. Alternatively, you can use your Mantle of Majesty as a bonus action, allowing you to cast command for free each bonus action and upon use. Any creature charmed by you automatically fails the save, but this feature uses your concentration, so it’s only really useful with teamwork or your Enthralling Performance. You can use this once per long rest.

We can duplicate the effects of your noble phantasm easy, but none of these really make you a giant glass jellyfish, do they? Major Image can help with that. This creates an illusion that fits within a 20′ square, and you can move it with you too!

11. Monk 5: Bouncing back to monk for an Extra Attack each attack action. You can also make a Stunning Strike, forcing a constitution save (DC 8+proficiency+wisdom modifier) or they’re stunned for the round. (This only works on melee attacks tho, boo hiss.)

For something more useful, Focused Aim lets you spend 1-3 ki points to add 2-6 to an attack roll. Volleyball is all about that aim.

12. Monk 6: Sixth level monks get Ki Empowered Strikes, making your unarmed attacks magical against resistances. You also become One with the Blade, which makes your kensei weapons magical against resistances, and you can use a Deft Strike to add your martial arts die to your damage once per turn.

You also get another kensei weapon, but it doesn’t really matter what you pick bc we’re still volleyballing here.

13. Monk 7: Once again, you get the super useful Evasion, halving damage from failed dex saves and removing damage from successes. You also get a Stillness of Mind, letting you spend an action to shut down frightening and charming effects.

14. Bard 7: Bouncing back to bard again for some fourth level spells, like Charm Monster. Fish love you, women love you, basically everyone loves you.

15. Bard 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for more AC and better attacks. Turns out, monks like dexterity! Who’da thunk it. Your glass dress also gets a bit scarier at this level, turning it into a Phantasmal Killer. If your target fails a Wisdom save, they become frightened, and at the end of each turn they have to make another save or take psychic damage. Technically this makes one of their worst fears, but I bet glass chafes something awful, so I’d count it.

16. Bard 9: Ninth level bards get a stronger song of rest, and you can cast fifth level spells! Dominate Person forces a wisdom save on a creature or they get charmed. While charmed, you can issue commands to the target or take total control of them. You’re a celebrity, you do what you want. And other people do what you want too.

17. Bard 10: Tenth level bards get a d10 for their inspiration, and they get Magical Secrets, two spells from any spell list. Also a cantrip, which makes introducing the spells succinctly a pain in the ass. You get a Thunderclap if you spike the ball hard enough, but the stars of the show are Conjure Volley (yes we got it entirely for the pun) and Find Greater Steed. Horses aren’t practical on a beach, but glass horses aren’t about practicality.

You also get Expertise in athletics and persuasion to truly master volleyball and the popularity that comes with it.

18. Monk 8: Use your last ASI to bump up your Constitution for 18 free hit points.

19. Monk 9: Your unarmored movement improvement lets you literally walk on water, for those dramatic Baywatch-style shots.

20. Monk 10: Your final level gives you a Purity of Body, making you immune to disease and poison. Not the flashiest way to end a build, but I def wouldn’t complain about that right now.

Pros:

Throwing hammers around gives you a range advantage on most melee enemies, and your monk mobility gives you plenty of speed to abuse it with.

Your high dex and kensei features make your shots accurate, and your damage consistent.

Despite trading half your bard levels for monk, you’re still charming as all hell- literally. Fighting still isn’t your strong suit, but you’ve got plenty of ways to avoid them where possible.

Cons:

YOU ARE USING LIGHT HAMMERS. There isn’t even a stereotype about them in those “what does you favorite weapon say about you” videos because NO ONE USES THEM. Even with being a monk, you still won’t be doing much damage with them. Pulling out all the stops nets you 2d6+1d4+6 Bludgeoning damage at level 20. Let the fighters take care of the fighting, you’ll be a lot happier for it.

A lot of your abilities are tied to inspiration and ki, both of which are limited resources.

Unless you’ve got an artificer in your group or a generous dm, throwing weapons are a pain to use. You’ve either got to carry around a lot of them (which might be an issue with your dumped strength) or get used to picking them up between attacks.

#Fate and Phantasms #FGO #D&D 5e #Marie Antoinette #Fate Grand Order #Bard #Monk

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toxicdogars · 5 years ago

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DND!!

Tumblr Meets D&D - Your Muse as a D&D Character

Blue

The last of my builds for this round, we finally get to a Pokemon Adventures character, which means we actually have a heckin’ lot to base this build off of, both from the canon source and from @maskedthief‘s interpretation of her. Blue is the third trainer to rise from Pallet Town, having set out on her journey around Kanto to take part in the league tournament after stealing a Squirtle from Professor Oak’s lab. She’s run into the likes of Red and Green plenty of times, though major moments include stealing Red’s Boulder and Cascade Badges as well as selling him a bunch of fake items. There’s also the raid on Silph Co, where she helped Red and Green knock Team Rocket outa there, even pulling a few fast ones on the mistress of Psychic Types and Rocket Admin, Sabrina. We should also be reminded of her backstory, kidnapped at a young age by a giant bird and raised as one of the Masked Man’s minions. It was there she learned all about Evolution- when something will evolve, how it evolves, how fast it can evolve, etc. These are skills we should be able to translate into some forms of knowledge, which is our first goal. In addition we need to make sure her hands are fast and just as sticky and that she can move fast to wing it outta there. Lastly, let’s try to get some of her Pokemon team represented, with the bulk of them being of the Fairy Type, we should ensure that Blue has plenty of fey influence. Once again, we’ll be using Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition and all books and articles related to it.

Ability Scores

These ventures will use standard array, a set of numbers given as a sort of average stat pool. Feel free to roll for stats if you wanted to use this character, just treat this arrangement as a general order for what stats are most important. We won’t need to bother with multiclassing, so just make sure you use the stat spread as a guideline and you’ll be passing with flying colors. ...Too soon?

Strength: 8 (Won’t really help us.) Dexterity: 15 (Main attacking stat and useful for thievery) Constitution: 10 (I don’t wanna dump it.) Intelligence: 13 (Need this to be pretty solid.) Wisdom: 12 (Definitely has decent Insight rolls.) Charisma: 14 (Definitely knows how to please people.)

Race

Let’s look at some options here. We could make Blue a Human, since she is one (as far as we’re aware) and get her a free Feat. But I think we can do that juuuuust a little bit better. Know how I mentioned the fey earlier? Let’s actually make Blue a Half-Elf. Half-Elves get the best of Humans and Elves, starting with the typical 30 feet of movement, +2 to their Charisma score (raising it to 16), +1 to two different stats of their choice (bump Dexterity to 16 and Intelligence to 14), and Darkvision out to 60 feet. It doesn’t look very easy to see outta that mask, so she definitely had to see better in low light. Not to mention it’s very handy for a thief. Her Fey Ancestry would also give her advantage on charm saves and she wouldn’t be able to be put to sleep by magic, great for staying away from insomnia and nightmares, eh? She would also get Skill Versatility, gaining two skills of her choice. I’d recommend Arcana for her knowledge of magical metamorphosis and History to cover any research on Evolution already done. As for Languages, she gets Common, Elvish, and a language of her choice. Perhaps Auran, the language of beings close to the Elemental Plane of Air?

Class and Background

Now, for our thief-y little girl here, I’m thinking that the best way to go is Bard, her About page does mention she’s a good singer, right? Okay that’s a big fat lie and we know it. It’s obvious, she’s a Rogue. Do I even need to explain why? No, she probably stole the reason and flew on outta here.

Rogues start with a d8 hit die (decent, not the best), proficiency in Dexterity and Intelligence saving throws, simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords, thieves’ tools, and four skills from a pretty big list. Of the options listed, Acrobatics, Deception, Investigation, and Persuasion cover her agility and people skills effectively. We’ll get some more skills to aid her thieving from her background. Toss on some light armor, I’d recommend studded leather. As for what weapons to focus on, I’d suggest any Finesse weapon to pair well with her Dexterity. While there’s no real in-character option, but a rapier is pretty stylish and could evoke a sweet masked thief vibe. It deals a d8 + her Dexterity modifier in damage too, making it the strongest option for her.

As for her background, let’s focus on her time with the Masked Man and call her an Urchin. But since we’re altering it a bit, feel free to rename it Kidnapped Youth or something like that. Take proficiency in Sleight of Hand and Perception to round off her thief-y skills. As I’ve said before, backgrounds also give you access to tools. Her Ditto could be represented early with proficiency in a Disguise Kit while proficiency in the Forgery Kit could make her just as deceptive in writing as she is with spoken word.

This build’s gonna be pretty easy, Rogue from start to finish. We’ll take a look at what Blue gets at each level and discuss ways to make use of them and cover any choices that need to be made. At Rogue 1, Blue gets one of the best things about being a Rogue, a way to make her anime as fuck with incredible skill checks in the skills she uses most:

Expertise: Choose two of your skill proficiencies, or one of your skill proficiencies and your proficiency with thieves' tools. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies..

I’d suggest Arcana to make her an expert in Evolution and Sleight of Hand to make her hands as fast as possible. For the record, proficiency bonuses start at +2 and reach +6 by level twenty, so that’s a free +12 in those stats by the end of the build. Pretty dang good if you ask me. Rogues also get their other key feature at this level, which helps them deal more damage in their turn:

Sneak Attack: Once per turn, you can deal extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon.You don't need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the attack roll.

And lastly our girl Blue gets Thieves’ Cant, a secret language of ciphers and symbols that can carry secret messages. Pretty handy way to exchange secret communications.

Thieves’ Cant: You know thieves' cant, a secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation. Only another creature that knows thieves' cant understands such messages. It takes four times longer to convey such a message than it does to speak the same idea plainly. In addition, you understand a set of secret signs and symbols used to convey short, simple messages, such as whether an area is dangerous or the territory of a thieves' guild, whether loot is nearby, or whether the people in an area are easy marks or will provide a safe house for thieves on the run.

At Rogue 2, we can satisfy that speedy goal of mine and get a way for her to soar like a Pidgeot compared to the average adventurer:

Cunning Action: You can use your Bonus Action to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action. Thanks to the Class Feature Variant Unearthed Arcana article, she can additionally use this bonus action to Aim. When using your bonus action in this way, you give yourself advantage on your next attack roll on the current turn. You can use this bonus action only if you haven’t moved during this turn, and after you use the bonus action, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn

At Rogue 3, Blue can pick a roguish archetype. Arcane Tricksters gain the ability to cast wizard spells, relying on their Intelligence modifier to enchant and illuse. This means her Intelligence modifier is added to the attack rolls of spells and the difficulty check of saving throws her spells require. She gains two cantrips from the wizard list alongside Mage Hand, and three first spells, two of which must be enchantment or illusion schools with the third being free of that restriction. In case someone doesn’t know the difference, cantrips are simple magical tricks you can pull off at will, while leveled spells require expending one of your spell slots of a level equal to or higher than the spell’s level. Here’s some options:

Mage Hand: A conjuration cantrip that manifests a spectral hand that can be used to do a ton of really small things like lifting small objects, pulling levers from a distance, that sort of thing. It’s like a tiny ghost thing, which would be perfect if Blue ever picked up, say, a Shuppet or something. Especially with the benefits that Arcane Trickster gives her, as you’ll see down below. Dancing Lights: An evocation cantrip that creates lines of multicolored orbs of light, like fairy lights. It does require concentration to maintain them, but it’s still a nice little spell for its effects. Message: An transmutation cantrip that that allows the user to send a telepathic message to someone they point at, and that individual can respond telepathically. It’s like a walkie talkie, or a cell phone. A shitty cell phone. With a range of only a hundred and twenty feet. Disguise Self: A first level illusion spell that will let Blue take on different appearances. This is essentially her Ditto, able to shift her into the likeness of Sabrina, for instance. Charm Person: A first level enchantment spell forces a Wisdom saving throw on the target, and if they fail they become charmed by her and basically become her bestest friend while they’re affected. A great way to get what she wants if her own natural charisma isn’t enough. Find Familiar: A first level conjuration spell that has a buncha random rules, that you’re gonna wanna look up, but it basically amounts to the ability to summon a pet that will stick around and help her out. I’d recommend a pooch of some sort, and since this spell can allow the beast summoned to be considered a different creature type, it could be a fey dog. You know. Like Snubbull.

Also at this level, Blue gains some swanky upgrades to her Mage Hand spell, letting her use it for more rogue-y things. Additionally, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 2d6:

Mage Hand Legerdemain: When you cast Mage Hand, you can make the spectral hand invisible, and you can perform the following additional tasks with it: -You can stow one object the hand is holding in a container worn or carried by another creature. -You can retrieve an object in a container worn or carried by another creature. -You can use thieves' tools to pick locks and disarm traps at range. -You can perform one of these tasks without being noticed by a creature if you succeed on a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check contested by the creatures Wisdom (Perception) check. -In addition, you can use the bonus action granted by your Cunning Action to control the hand.

At Rouge 4, Blue gets the first of her Ability Score Improvements (ASIs). Let’s take the +2 and put it in Dexterity, bumping that up to 18 for better hit and damage rolls with her rapier and better armor. She also gets another spell, which can be from the enchantment or illusion schools:

Color Spray: A first level illusion spell that releases brilliant light in a cone that blinds a certain amount of hit points’ worth of individuals for one round. It’s not the best way to stall a foe, but it’s certainly in character. It’s a solid use of Flash, which would have been an HM back in the day that I suspect one of her team would have had.

At Rouge 5, Blue gets another incredibly helpful core feature that makes it a lot easier for Rogues to survive in the midst of combat. And it certainly fits her character, as the Pokemon Adventures trainers aren’t hesitant to get right up there with their foes in battles. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 3d6:

Uncanny Dodge: When an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack's damage against you.

At Rogue 6, Blue gains Expertise in two more skills (or her thieves’ tools) of her choice. Let’s make her social skills even more busted and take expertise in Deception and Persuasion.

At Rogue 7, Blue gets a spell, which can now be of second level, and another key feature which makes her even harder to hit than she was before, even by some of the strongest spells in the game. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 4d6:

Mirror Image: A second level illusion spell that functions like Double Team, creating illusory clones that can draw fire, making it harder to hit the real Blue. A handy little technique that I could see Blue making a lot of use of. Evasion: When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

At Rogue 8, Blue gets her second ASI and let’s use that to max her Dexterity score at 20 for the best hit, damage, and armor modifiers for her level. She also gets a spell from any school:

Thunderwave: A first level evocation spell that blasts a fifteen foot radius around her with damaging sound, a bit like Hyper Voice, which I have no doubt her Jiggly knows. It’s handy to have magical damage, and with such a focus on utility spells this might be the best option for damage if her rapier won’t cut it.

At Rogue 9, Blue gets another Arcane Trickster feature that makes her oh-so deliciously more capable of messing with her enemies. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 5d6:

Magical Ambush: If you are hidden from a creature when you cast a spell on it, the creature has disadvantage on any saving throw it makes against the spell this turn.

At Rogue 10, Blue gets her third ASI and lets use that to bump her Intelligence by +2 (raising it to 16) for better saves and and hit rolls. She also gets her fourth cantrip and another spell, which again must be from the enchantment or illusion schools:

Ray of Frost: An evocation cantrip that looses a blast of cold energy like some sort of beam or ray of ice. The book says it’s fired from the caster, but I see no trouble flavoring it as tossing out a pokeball to summon a mighty Blastoise to douse a foe with cold water. Some nice damage at range, since cantrips scale up with level, gaining additional damage dice. Hold Person: A second level enchantment spell that forces a Wisdom saving throw on a foe, restraining them in place if they fail. This is your Whirlpool on Blasty or some sorta weird fairy magic from Jiggly or Clefy. Combine it with Magical Ambush to make it really hard for the enemy to pass the save.

At Rogue 11, Blue gains another spell from the enchantment or illusion schools and another touchstone feature for improving her skills, and let’s just say it’s going to make her a complete monster with the skills she has expertise in. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 6d6:

Sleep: A first level enchantment spell that uses Sing to put a certain number of hit points’ worth of foes in the area to sleep. This is a little more effective than Color Spray and hits over a wider area, but there are times when blinding a foe may be more useful than simply knocking them out. Regardless, a useful spell to have in her kit. Reliable Talent: Whenever you make an ability check that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

Seriously, consider this for a second. A Sleight of Hand check from her at this level has a bonus of +13 (5 from Dexterity, 8 from doubled proficiency). That means the lowest she can roll on a Sleight of hand check is 23. Lowest. That’s crazy. And super amazing for stealing her friends’ wallets before casually handing them back to them.

At Rogue 12, Blue gets her fourth ASI and lets use that to bump her Charisma by +2 (raising it to 16) to make her all the more sociable and manipulative.

At Rogue 13, she gets another spell, which can now be of third level. Blue apparently decided that it wasn’t good enough to be stabbing people and casting spells at the same time and decided to make it so she can really fuck up a single person that was getting on her nerves. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 7d6:

Fear: A third level illusion spell that forces foes to make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened by some terrifying visage. Why not show her enemies a massive shadowy bird of doom? Oh, they aren’t afraid of birds? Ouch. I suppose ya could spook ‘em with something else though. Versatile Trickster: As a bonus action on your turn, you can designate a creature within 5 feet of your Mage Hand. Doing so gives you advantage on attack rolls against that creature until the end of the turn.

At Rogue 14, Blue gains another spell from any school and a feature that may not be perfectly in character, but it does extrapolate on how low to the ground her ears can be. And I see nothing wrong with giving characters features that build on their canon:

Tidal Wave: A third level conjuration spell that releases a massive wave of crushing water, dealing bludgeoning damage over a wide area should the targets fail a Dexterity saving throw. This is the best approximation of Blasty’s Hydro Cannon I could find. Blindsense: If you are able to hear, you are aware of the location of any hidden or invisible creature within 10 feet of you.

At Rogue 15, Blue gets a really handy way to mitigate that lower Wisdom score, something I’d wanted to deal with since the beginning. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 8d6:

Slippery Mind: You gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws.

At Rogue 16, Blue gets her fifth ASI and honestly her stats look pretty fine, so let’s exchange that ASI for a Feat, and I’d recommend a way to give her more skill proficiencies- as in the Skilled Feat. She also gets another spell from either of her restricted schools:

Skilled: You gain proficiency in any combination of 3 skills or tools of your choice. Round off her survival skills by taking Survival, Nature, and Animal Handling. Invisibility: A second level illusion spell that does what it says on the tin, turning Blue invisible for the duration, as long as she maintains her concentration. Really dang handy, and something I suspect could be possible with Ditty, reflecting the light around them to turn invisible or something.

At Rogue 17, Blue gets another Arcane Trickster feature that makes her the bane of enemy casters. Considering her smarts and her knowledge of Pokemon, it does make sense that she’d be able to put her magical know-how to fuck up other people’s days. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 9d6:

Spell Thief: Immediately after a creature casts a spell that targets you or includes you in its area of effect, you can use your reaction to force the creature to make a saving throw with its spellcasting ability modifier. The DC equals your spell save DC. On a failed save, you negate the spell's effect against you, and you steal the knowledge of the spell if it is at least 1st-level and of a level you can cast (it doesn't need to be a wizard spell). For the next 8 hours, you know the spell, can cast it using your spell slots, and the creature can't cast that spell until the 8 hours have passed. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

At Rogue 18, Blue gets yet another feature that makes her really damn hard to hit. Kinda terrifying if ya ask me, she’s lookin’ more like a DBZ character with how many options she has to dodge:

Elusive: No attack roll has advantage against you while you aren't incapacitated.

At Rogue 19 Blue gets her sixth ASI and lets also trade that one in for a Feat. I’d recommend Alert, so she’s always making use of her skills to keep an eye on things. She also gets another spell from one of her restricted schools, which can now be of fourth level. In addition, her Sneak Attack dice go up to 10d6:

Alert: Always on the lookout for danger, you gain the following benefits: -You can't be surprised while you are conscious. -You gain a +5 bonus to initiative. -Other creatures don't gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being unseen by you. Charm Monster: A fourth level enchantment spell that does what Charm Person does to people but to monsters. it forces a Wisdom saving throw, and if the monster fails they become Blue’s best friendy-wend. Very handy to stop marauding monstrous beastly Pokemon if ya ask me.

At Rogue 20, Blue gets her another spell from any school, and her capstone feature, and a pretty solid one at that:

Mordenkainen’s Faithful Hound: A fourth level conjuration spell that yes, may seem a bit odd of a pick, but it’s actually kinda nifty. It summons an invisible dog that guards you for eight hours, chompin’ on anything that gets in Blue’s way for 4d8 piercing damage. Now I said that her Familiar could be Snubbull, and I stand by that, so I suggest you use this spell to emulate her Nido instead. The loyal Nidoqueen already behaves like a guard dog, so it seemed pretty dang fitting to me. Stroke of Luck: If your attack misses a target within range, you can turn the miss into a hit. Alternatively, if you fail an ability check, you can treat the d20 roll as a 20. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

See what I mean? A once per short rest instant win button. Call it her Dex Holder plot armor if ya want.

Final Thoughts

Know how I said Clair was terrifying? Blue is just as much, if not moreso. I’ve already talked about just how busted Expertise is and how good it is on someone like Blue, but let’s look at just how many of her skill checks are going to be amazing. There are eighteen skills in the game, and Blue has proficiency in eleven of them. Hell, she practically has proficiency in the hidden nineteenth skill, Initiative! Alert gives her a bonus that’s only one off of her proficiency, so yeah. Not to mention that four of the skills she’s proficiency in will never roll lower than a 20 on the die, seeing as her +12 proficiency bonus stacks on top of Reliable Talent’s ability to turn anything under 10 to 10. That’s just. Really damn good. The few skills she’s not proficient in are just ones she probably wouldn’t need to take anyway. With only seven skills left, her allies could easily handle them. I mean. Yellow definitely has the Medicine and Religion skills covered, both Green and Red have Athletics no doubt. What’s left? Performance? She’s not good at singing. Stealth? Why be sneaky when you can waltz right in and take what you want? Intimidation? That’s more Green’s thing. Insight? That’s more Yellow’s thing. And ah. That’s all the skills left. Yeah. Blue’s a freakin’ skill monkey. And she’s got great damage with her Sneak Attack and plenty of ways to get advantage so she can always get the big damage off. Not to mention her spells make her a threat even at range, mixing in magical damage to boot.

There’s not many cons. I mean… spell slots are a limited resource, sure, but that’s why you gotta be picky about you use them. We also never boosted her Constitution, leaving her with pretty low hit points throughout the build, even with maximum rolls on the hit dice. But that’s why I always say you roll for stats- You’re more than likely going to get a roll you like better to at least get a small bonus. My advice? If you can get a Constitution score of 14 as a Rogue or some sort of caster, then you are perfectly fine as is. And if ya don’t have the Con, Blue still has a ton of ways to avoid damage with all those features from Rogue. Seriously, twenty levels of Rogue makes for a stupidly infuriating game of cat and mouse, and I’m sure Blue would love that.

I hope you enjoyed this. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am with my choices.

#[Memes]#maskedthief

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #101: Rama

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the number 1 member of the Arcade hatedom, Rama! If you’ve seen my previous Indian heroes you know this build is also going to get a bit funky, but by the end of it you’ll have a cool sword you can throw around, the ability to fight off demons, and a monkey army.

Check out Rama’s build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: One Strike Man

Race and Background

We know we had a thing going with Arjuna and Karna being Genasi, but Vishnu’s more of a general god than a themed one, so we have to be basic and go Aasimar on this one. Specifically Scourge Aasimar, because you’re not edgy and can’t fly. We’re also using the new Tasha’s rules about races to swap some bonuses around, so you’re going to get +1 Constitution and +2 Intelligence instead of charisma. You also get some Darkvision, Celestial Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage, the Light cantrip, and Healing Hands to heal a creature as an action once per long rest. Trust me, you’ll need it for the early levels.

Like a lot of servants, you’re a Noble, gaining History and Persuasion proficiencies.

Ability Scores

This build pretty much uses every score, so we had to make some tough cuts. Make your Strength the highest score, you’re a saber, you should be good at sabing. Second is Wisdom, you were born wise, which is a pretty amazing feat. I’m not sure how the figured that out before you could talk, but it’s still cool. Third is your Charisma, your star-crossed love transcends the bonds of the universe and has literally saved your life on occasion. Your Dexterity isn’t as high as I’d like it-we need it for multiclassing, but we’ll get it bumped up in time. Also, I’m willing to be generous here and say you’re wearing medium armor, that’s kind of a breastplate. Your Intelligence is also lower than I’d like, but that’s also getting a boost from your racial bonuses, so I guess it’s fine. Unfortunately, that means we’re dumping Constitution. It’s not fun, but it’s also the only score we aren’t actively using. Don’t worry, we’ll get it up into at least neutral territory as soon as possible.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: Fighters are pretty cool, and starting out as one gives you proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, as well as the Animal Handling and Perception skills. A monkey may be your mortal enemy, but you also command an army of them.

You get a fighting style, and Dueling will make your one handed attacks a bit stronger so you can keep a hand open for spells. You also get a Second Wind for another way to heal yourself as a bonus action.

2. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, tacking an extra action onto one of your turns once per short rest. This level is pretty light, so I’ll also take a second to say that we’re using a Trident as your weapon in this build, for reasons that will become apparent in a couple levels. It’s unorthodox, but you’re used to making swords out of other weapons, so it shouldn’t be that big a deal.

3. Fighter 3: I’m not going to beat around the bush here, you’re an Eldritch Knight. That means you’re learning some Spells, most of which will be abjuration or evocation and all of which will use your Intelligence to cast. You also gain a Weapon Bond, preventing you from being disarmed while conscious, and you can summon your weapon as a bonus action from anywhere in the plane. You also get your Radiant Consumption, which deals radiant damage to all creatures in a radius around you, including you. You can also add radiant damage to one attack per turn. The transformation lasts up to a minute, and you can use it once per long rest.

But you’re probably interested in those spells, right? Message is just useful, Sword Burst and Shield will protect you until we can get that constitution mess sorted, Find Familiar will help you get your first monkey friend, and Burning Hands is also there.

4. Fighter 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to round up your Constitution and bring your Dexterity into multiclassing range. Also, now that we’ve got a way to get your weapon back, we’ll switch out our old fighting style for Thrown Weapon Fighting as a part of your Martial Versatility. This allows you to draw a throwing weapon as part of an attack, and you deal more damage when throwing them. Who needs artificers and their returning weapons when you’ve got this?

You also learn the Snare spell to get some less magical monkey friends.

5. Fighter 5: Your Extra Attack lets you make two attacks per action. We’ll be seeing this feature a lot, but it doesn’t stack from multiple classes.

6. Paladin 1: You’re kind of literally a god, so this is something of an inevitability. You get a Divine Sense to help you track down Ravana, and can Lay on Hands for yet another way to heal yourself or other party members.

7. Paladin 2: Paladins also get a fighting style, so grab Dueling again, for the same reasons we got it in the first place. You can also cast and prepare another set of Spells, using your Charisma to cast. If you’re sick of casting spells though, you can also use your spell slots for Divine Smites, adding extra radiant damage to a melee attack, and even more to fiends and the undead.

Some first level spells to look out for are Command for some of the same reason as Arjuna and Karna- if someone of sufficient power says something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. You can also use Heroism to help your party even more and Divine Favor to give you a bit of a smite even on thrown attacks.

8. Paladin 3: Your defining trait is your endless search for your wife, so the Devotion oath is a pretty solid pick. You get some Oath Spells about beating up demons that are always prepared for you, as well as two ways to Channel Divinity. Sacred Weapon adds your charisma modifier to attack rolls with a weapon, and turns the weapon magical for the duration. This also ends if you stop holding the weapon, so again, it doesn’t fit with throwing it around. You can also Turn the Unholy, forcing Fiends and Undead that fail a wisdom saving throw to run away until it takes damage.

We’re already eight levels in, but we have like one monkey! That’s not an army! That’s unacceptable, someone should do something about that.

9. Ranger 1: If we want animal sidekicks, Ranger’s the best option. At first level you get a skill proficiency, so grab Stealth so you can sneak up on your arch-monkey-enemies. You also have a Favored Foe, marking a creature upon attacking it for up to a minute with concentration. Then, once per turn you deal an extra 1d4 damage to that enemy. You can mark enemies this way a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus. You’re also a Deft Explorer, doubling your proficiency in Animal Handling. You can literally talk to the little bastards, that’ll give you quite the edge.

10. Ranger 2: Being a second level ranger nets you a third fighting style; the Archery style gives your ranged attacks (including thrown weapons) a +2 to hit. You also get a third Spell list, which uses Wisdom to cast. Grab Longstrider and Zephyr Strike for ways to stay mobile and still deal damage.

11. Ranger 3: Be honest, you thought we were going beastmaster, didn’t you? Like we said earlier, one monkey does not an army make, and Swarmkeeper fairs much better with multiclassing anyway. You have a Primal Awareness letting you Speak with Animals either as a normal spell or once per long rest you can cast it for free. Swarmkeepers also get Swarmkeeper Magic, which is just an extended spell list. We’ll get into those with the regular spell you’re learning this level. Last but not least is the feature swarmkeepers are named for, the Gathered Swarm. You now have countless pygmy marmosets swarming over your body at all times. That’s a class feature, I am so sorry. It’s not all bad news though, because after hitting a creature with any attack, your swarm can deal extra damage, push the target 15′ in any direction if they fail a strength save, or move you 5′ in any direction. Save yourself a bonus action by throwing a weapon at an enemy, closing the gap with your swarm, then getting it back the old fashioned way!

You get Mage Hand as part of being a swarmkeeper, and it’s flavored as Literally Just a Monkey. You also learn Faerie Fire this way, and your normal spell this level is Animal Friendship. If they’re going to be crawling all over you, it’s best to stay on their good side.

12. Paladin 4: Now that we finally have your base kit set up, we can revisit some of your classes. Use this ASI to round up your Strength for stronger hits, and Charisma for more and better paladin spells. This is also a secret tool that will help us out in a little bit.

13. Paladin 5: The extra attack you get this level is a lie; it doesn’t stack with your fighter extra attack. The good news is you get second level spells this level as well, so it’s not a complete waste. You get Lesser Restoration and Zone of Truth as oath spells.

14. Paladin 6: Our last stop in the paladin class gives you an Aura of Protection, increasing all your saving throws (as well as any ally within 10 feet of you) by your charisma modifier.

15. Ranger 4: Since we don’t have to worry about your concentration saves anymore, we can just go for more health. Use this ASI to get the Tough feat, for an extra 2 HP per level.

16. Ranger 5: Once again, you get another useless extra attack, and once again you also get second level spells. You can Summon Beast to make a monkey that will be pretty scary when you get a fourth level spell slot at 17th level. You can also make Webs, or use Beast Sense once a day for free. Don’t ask what the webs are made out of.

17. Ranger 6: Your Favored Foe damage ramps up to 1d6, and you’re now Roving, meaning your movement speed increases, and you gain a climbing and swimming speed. Monkeys are pretty agile, you need to be able to keep up with them.

18. Fighter 6: We’re ending this build where we began, with the fighter class. Use this ASI for even more Charisma for better saves, more spells, and a more winning smile.

19. Fighter 7: Seventh level eldritch knights know War Magic, meaning that if you use a cantrip as your main action, you can still attack as a bonus action. I’m not sure why you’d message someone in the middle of battle, but here you go.

You also get second level spells, for the third time. Any evocation or abjuration spell is good here, but I chose Gust of Wind because it’s hard to throw weapons around if enemies are getting close to you.

20. Your capstone feature is another ASI, so grab the Piercer feat to round up your Dexterity and make your sword just a little more deadly. Once per turn, you can reroll a piercing damage die, and your critical hits deal a little more piercing damage.

Pros:

Despite your patchwork class levels, one thing that really shines through is your support abilities. Your Aura of Protection offers a solid +3 to all saves within 10′ of you, and you have multiple ways to heal other party members in a pinch.

You can also deal pretty dependable damage, thanks to your multitude of fighting styles mixing together to overcome your low ability scores. Despite having a strength of 16, you can aim your throws like you have a 20, and deal damage like you have a 24. You also have plenty of ways to incrementally add damage to each attack. Adding Favored Foe, smites, and your swarm damage to your attack racks up damage quickly.

You’ve got solid movement options, both for yourself and enemies. Being able to shove enemies around and into hazards with your swarm is a huge game changer.

Cons:

Eldritch Knights use their bonus action to resummon their weapon. Rangers use it to apply Favored Foe. Paladins use it for smites. Basically what I’m saying is your bonus action is super crowded, and it’s nearly impossible for you to go a round in combat without either holding back or making a tough decision about what to use it on.

If you couldn’t tell from the introduction, you depend on a ton of ability scores, to the point that constitution was the safest thing to dump early on. Even now, most of your spells aren’t particularly strong.

A lot of this build was about making a throwing weapon powerful, and thrown weapons don’t gel with paladins at all. It breaks your Channel Divinity and can’t be used with smites, limiting your power.

#D&D 5e #Fate Grand Order #FGO #Rama #Fate and Phantasms

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