#battlemaster

[canopiancatboy]

Figured I'd start out with some for funsies mechs I made a while back while learning how to use a resin 3D printer. Printed them in clear resin and gave them a simple blue wash to make them look like holograms. Went with unseen sculpts for them for the nostalgia, I wanted the Holographic game table look, a la the old Wolf's Dragoons sourcebook cover or the Millenium Falcons Holotable

[llamatech]

Motivation has finally returned to me but not enough to keep going with my catapult so I decided to try dry brushing on my battlemaster.

I did vallejo scarlet red with dry brushing with a vallejo scarlet blood. I struggled with the base coat because I STUPIDLY didnt do the under coat brown so I needed a lot of layers but I also had problems with the red paint I got. It was way too thin right out of the bottle to the point where I left it out for a day to dry before using it. You can see where it just fell off the model on the foot when I first tried. I think it mightve been tampered with and returned to the store.

The dry brushing was awesome. I think I didnt wipe enough off the brush but it was okay because the colours were quite close together so it looked pretty nice but I wasnt a fan of how the wash turned out this time. Maybe i used too much? Maybe I should stop using it on everything without thinking about it? I like the texture of the paint before i put the wash on so maybe I should look into other ways of doing shading.

The bubble cockpit was a bit intimidating but came out pretty cool. The battlemaster has a pretty unique canopy shape so it was very interesting. I love how it turned out and I think Im learning a thing or two about how light works for this all haha.

Another mini Im happy with how it turned out and oh my god I'm yapping more and more with each post. I guess its good that Im thinking about it all in more detail. (Also leadbelcher is awesome)

[jellisdraws]

Red sky at morning…

[rkdvanguard]

Commission from MarmGuild (twitter)!

"Jessica Hardy, pretty in pink and bloodsplatter. She knows how to pierce your heart, in more ways than one <3"

[bubblyernie]

Cadmium Cadaver Red, my new OC for a campaign!! I'm so excited to play a dhampir fighter, its a class and a race I've always wanted to try >:3 

art tag // commission info

[ivycrowned]

She is so calm and happy living live in her own skin! Rowan embracing her femininity and her Knighthood at the same time is my favorite thing.

[greyeisacreativecolor]

I think that Drawga and the Ladies Book Club are criminally underrated, so I did some more traditional fantasy leaning designs for all my fellow drawfee old guard.

Ryjinah is of course an Undying Warlock with Pact of the Chain for Boneregard

Rah'oxah is a Battlemaster Fighter with the Unarmed fighting style

And I landed on Arcan Trickster with Artificer/leg flavor for our favorite Halfling Rogue Legzi Shortstakk

[kasperl-ruprecht]

So they've got "premium" Battlemasters and Nova Cats over at GenCon. Before you ask, no, the Nova Cat does not have the bits to make a Nova Cat Bravo.

[azurecanary]

Me, making any DnD build: "Now at what point shall i multiclass Battlemaster Fighter?"

[pocoslip]

Lifeline unknowingly holds a Deity as if he is some kind of Toy

[houseoferem]

took a break from making art to make some art before making some art

[justavulcan]

Backgrounds With Class: Selesnya Initiate

I'll be honest: Ravnica has always fascinated me. I was a high schooler when the first set came out, and I was immediately consumed creating characters for the setting. Now that we've actually received my long-awaited crossover, I thought it would be nice to write a love letter to the setting in the form of another Backgrounds with Class series. After all: some guilds have natural class choices tied in, from a conceptual standpoint. Boros and Fighter, Izzet and Wizard, Selesnya and Druid. But guilds aren’t class-restricted, and so I wonder what it would look like if you paired every class with every guild background, even the ones that seem at odds, like Izzet and Barbarian, or Gruul and Artificer.  So I thought about it, and this is what I came up with.  Some character concepts for each class, and each Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica background for each class.

The Selesnya Initiate Artificer has kept an ear to the Selesnya’s Worldsong since she was young.  As a mason and sometime healer for the Conclave, she’s not as attuned to the song as some, but her ear is still beyond reproach in some ways; one day, as she was putting the final touches on a life-sized wolf carving, it begun to sing the song of all living things, and came to life under her hand.  Now convinced this can’t be the only time this has happened, she roams eagerly, listening for more stone that sings with life.

The Selesnya Initiate Barbarian has always been...excitable.  Not well-suited for guard duty, meditation, or tending gardens, this centaur has instead put his overflowing font of energy into training to become a ledev guardian.  His dream is to run the roads on his own, spreading the joy and passion of the Conclave's Worldsong to all who will listen and take that righteous ecstasy as a weapon to those who wish harm to his fellow travelers.

The Selesnya Initiate Bard has always been fascinated by dryads and their ways- after all, sharing a soul with a tree is such a foreign thing to one only of the flesh.  Ever since he was young, he has sought after them and their ways, and eventually met forbearance in a charitable soul who took the time to explain to him not just the way she and her tree were connected, but how all life was in the Worldsong of the Conclave.  Ever since, he's taken it on himself to sing it aloud- such that those who do not know it by heart may hear the call and, perhaps, become one with the Conclave he loves.

The Selesnya Initiate Cleric is a pacifist by nature, and the blessings he finds pursuing the worship of Ravnica’s own natural life have not changed that.  Far from opposed to combat in defense of the helpless or the Conclave, he instead prefers to incapacitate his foes by nonlethal means, or by placing them in positions that they must hurt themselves to harm others.  Every time he sheds blood aggrieves him, but the lesson is slowly coming to him that sometimes nature is as red in tooth as it is green as leaves.

The Selesnya Initiate Druid wasn’t born, they were awakened.  Pulled from a place of rest for defense against a Gruul raid on Selesnyan holdings, they did not lie back down and return to being inanimate dirt.  Instead, they’ve remained awake and surprisingly self-directed, volunteering in the vernadi gardens and fields to commune with the plants.  As a living patch of grassland, they’ve proved to have an intuitive grasp of the land’s needs and will, and have become a personage of importance for the other initiates.

The Selesnya Initiate Fighter was a cadet in the Boros Legion whose sergeant was a bully.  Sickened by his exposure to the abuse of authority in so crude a figure, he left for the Conclave.  There, his training was more evenly supplemented by a sense of community and fairness that left little room for the kind of deliberate fear-mongering he saw.  Now he trains in maneuvers as part of a unit, enabling his allies and striking with precision and teamwork unlike that the Legion showed him.

The Selesnya Initiate Monk was trained by a ghost.  Her mentor, one of the ancient Quietmen of the Conclave, was once an extension of the Worldsong’s will, a weapon in body alone and a witness for the Conclave’s parun.  They were supposed to be destroyed, after their treachery during the Decamillenial almost led to Mat’Selesnya’s destruction.  Forced to keep her master’s secret while balancing the needs of the Conclave, she finds a growing tension within her, a tension that only violence has helped resolve- hardly the attitude of one nominally seeking peace of mind.

The Selesnya Initiate Paladin was brought up in the Conclave, but over the last few weeks, starting with a friend leaving the guild in favor of the Boros Legion, he’s started to doubt.  Is this really the life for him?  What other paths might he pursue?  Surrounded by the comraderie of other squires and soldiers, the only time he really feels the Worldsong is in battle, fighting along like-minded souls.  With the day for his oath drawing near and his meditations bringing him no feeling of welcoming, doubt and curiosity might form the wedge that splits him off from the Conclave too.

The Selesnya Initiate Ranger is, like many of the Conclave’s dryads, not actually bound to the tree that she calls her heartwood and home.  Free-roaming and imbued with a greater-than-average share of her people’s magic, she wanders the roads as a ledev trainee, a gifted traveler and guardian of those who travel Ravnica’s highways.  Trostani herself oversees the promotion of ledev guardians from among the Selesnyan cadets, and she yearns for the recognition of this most elder of her kind.

The Selesnya Initiate Rogue serves as one of the Conclave’s covert investigators.  An odd pursuit for a vedalken, but one they take to with relish.  Part of their community as much as or more than any other, they don’t take their training as an investigator as a way to stay separate, but a way to stick together to their friends.  Picking up on the subtle clues of when someone is not at their best or may be hiding a danger to the conclave and licensed to pursue the investigation where they wish, they serve covertly as an in-house problem solver at worst and a counselor and therapist at best.

The Selesnya Initiate Sorcerer’s family has always been rumored to have some connection with the boros legion’s angels.  Certainly her statuesque beauty supports this notion, but the true testament is her sorcerous powers.  A gift of the celestial blood running through her veins, they’ve proved valuable on more occasions than not, as she lays hands on soldiers protecting Selesnya interests and blesses them before battle.  She is proud of her power, and those elder around her murmur that she has real potential as an evangel or hierarch someday…if she can reign in her ego.

The Selesnya Initiate Warlock is fortunate enough to have a direct connection with Trostani herselves.  Having sworn herself to their personal service, she benefots from a taste of their fey magic- a taste she hopes one day to grow into a glut.  Her aspiration is nothing less than to become Trostani’s rightmost hand.  She has a long way to go, but the tiny wooden drake that clings to her is proof she has the talent to bring life to the lifeless, demonstrating her aptitude with Trostani’s gifts.

The Selesnya Initiate Wizard was, like so many others, not born a part of the Conclave.  She was born and raised until quite recently among the stacks and papers of the Azorius archives, trained in defensive magics as an on-call riot squad member.  Unfortunately, first contact with the enemy- a golgari tenement filled with more desperation than criminality- tainted her impression of the cold, sterile law in favor of something warmer and more communal.  The Selesnya welcomed her compassion with open arms, and as yet have only ever asked to help or protect others- even those outside the Combine.

[graciedart]

commission for @/fedeschon

[thehydromancer]

I dunno how everyone else is taking such killer pics/clips of their Tavs, but here's my first run, Azurum the Deadeye. Gloomstalker 5/Battlemaster 4/Thief 3. I do wish (although very understandable why not) there'd been more body options. My 8 strength/charisma boi over here looks way too beefy and intimidating.

[theworldbrewery]

In your opinion, would a ranged battlemaster fighter work well mechanically? I'm aware that many of the Maneuvers are for melee fighting, but I've been toying around with an idea for a crossbow or gun wielding battlemaster. Tbh the only reason that I'm concerned about the "functionality" of it is because the rest of my group minmaxes like crazy and I don't want my character to die cuz it can't keep up with the rest of the group. Not to yuck their yum or say I'm not having fun in the group! I just wanna know if this is a build that will hold up.

I am pretty much constantly thinking about Battle Master maneuver strats, so you came to the right place!

A few key points:

The only Core Rulebook maneuvers that require you to be in melee when attacking are feinting attack, lunging attack, and sweeping attack (pushing attack is in a grey area; I would rule the "pushed up to 15 feet away from you" as being up to 15 feet in a direction away from your location, not that 15 is a limiting distance from your character--but another DM might not agree).

Parry and riposte involve an enemy getting into melee with you, which is possible even if you're a ranged attacker, but not necessarily ideal.

Disarming strike, distracting strike, goading attack, menacing attack, precision attack, and trip attack are all delicious options for a ranged attacker to take. (Ambush, from TCoE, is another good choice)

Basically, you should always have *some* means of melee attack if you're going to choose this subclass, because you can't guarantee that your enemies won't move around the battlefield and Get You. But in general, focusing your skillset around ranged attacks is perfectly possible.

Battlemaster mechanics are made for manipulating your enemies' and allies' options. A disarming strike gives an ally in melee a chance to steal the enemy's weapon, for example. Other options mentioned above might give your allies' attacks advantage, put the enemies at disadvantage, or impose other conditions (frightened, prone) in addition to more standard effects like dealing extra damage or boosting your own rolls.

With that in mind -- if you have a caster-heavy party and they also enjoy these types of strategic moves, you will want to choose your maneuvers with care. Nerfing an enemy will always feel cool, but with AOE effects, they can often hit multiple enemies with their effects at the same time. Assuming you're playing with people who aren't all about hogging the spotlight, though, you can just tell them this is a mechanical role you're planning to take, and they will likely not step all over your fun.

Now, as you've noted, the Battle Master isn't built with ranged combat in mind. There is another option: the Arcane Archer. It works in a similar way; you get a limited number of special effects you can apply to your ranged attacks. These effects are explicitly magical, but they are not spells. The main caveats to this proposal are as follows:

This subclass calls for a high (or at least decent) Intelligence score, since the save DCs are calculated using that ability.

You get fewer uses per short/long rest. When you take the subclass, you get two uses of the special "arcane shot" effects per short rest, instead of the 4 you start with in Battle Master.

This is likely negotiable with the right DM, but Arcane Archer is dedicated to archers specifically -- no firearms allowed, RAW.

With that information at hand, I really do recommend reviewing the list of Arcane Shot options -- they're long, so I can't recap them all here, but they tend to work more like particularly beefy cantrips with multiple damage effects and an additional, usually single-round debuff, e.g. reduced speed, banishing an enemy for a round, or limiting the enemy's field of vision.

To me, this subclass needs some reworking (a core subclass ability shouldn't be a two-and-done, IMO), but it has a charm of its own. In many ways, these two subclasses are mirrors of one another. I just think that structurally, Battle Master is more mechanically sound -- and therefore, unless you have a homebrew-minded DM, you should probably go for that one.

(Also! If you're concerned about the so-called "caster-martial divide" or other "power creep" issues, talk with your DM about it! They ostensibly want you to have a good time and not feel left behind, so if a liberal hand with martial-oriented items you can use to offset some of those power gaps.)

[mushroompancake]

Shark himbo returns!!!