#i'm coming straight from bbs and the difference is just striking

[airenyah]

also!! watching jimmy is so exciting omg i'm having the time of my life

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #220

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're building the Beach Babe, the Baddest Bitch, the one, the only; BB. We're not doing the whole alliteration thing this time, sorry. She's a Hexblade Warlock to pull any weapon she could possibly want out of hammerspace and a Chronurgy Wizard for some time loops. And fire. And turning people into pigs. And turning into a giant and crushing people. You do a lot of stuff, huh?

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

Next up: But first; lemme take a selfie!

Race and Background

The good news is this part barely changed at all since last time. She's still a Custom Lineage since WotC won't return my calls about the omnipotent AI race I keep asking them to put in 5.5e. She gets +2 Charisma, a medium size, Darkvision to dunk on the humans, and the Lucky feat. Three times a day you can react to roll another d20 when you make a check, save, or attack roll and use either result. It's a time loop, you literally just do the same thing twice for a different result. You can also use this on an enemy's attack if they're hitting you, they tend to get sloppy after making the same attack for three days straight.

If anything, making you a Rakdos Cultist makes even more sense now, what with the elder god powers and fireballs. You get Acrobatics and Performance proficiency, as well as a bunch of spells. We'll talk about them more when we get your wizard levels.

Ability Scores

Your Intelligence should be number one, you're an AI and you're from the future, and you already know how this stuff'll turn out since it's the third time you've seen it happen. After that is Charisma, you somehow manage to motivate your senpai to keep making manga well into the second century of his vacation; that's impressive. Your Dexterity comes next, we don't need it for weapons, but you do some impressive pirouettes at times, and we need you to not die while bringing a bathing suit to a battle. Your Constitution isn't that high, but you're not one for a fair fight anyways. This means your Wisdom is a bit low, haphazardly designed AI aren't the most rational, and we're dumping Strength. You don't need to do heavy lifting when you can just trap people in time loops until they do it for you.

Class Levels

Warlock 1: Starting as a wizard would probably be more in-character, but you need all the health you can get so we're starting with the bigger hit die and the free mage armor. You don't get the latter yet, but as a Hexblade you do get plenty other goodies. You can invoke a Hexblade's Curse as a bonus action once per short rest, cursing a creature for up to a minute. While it's cursed, you can add your proficiency bonus to damage you do to the creature, deal crits on 19s and 20s, and when the target dies, you regain HP. Your second skill is kind of a grab bag, so I'm glad we got a little healing in place. You're also a Hex Warrior, so you can use medium armor if you really want to. Also, after a long rest you can touch a non-two-handed weapon and use your charisma instead of strength/dexterity when you use it to attack. Finally, your Spells. You cast them using your Charisma, and the slots come back on short rests. Err, slot. Sorry. Pick up Eldritch Blast for some caster balls, Prestidigitation for smaller reality bending, Hellish Rebuke for a little fire power out the gate when someone hits you, and Illusory Script. Write one contract, then go back in time and replace it with another! The most devilish of time manipulations. That makes sense, right?

Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, mini-feats you get for being a warlock. Armor of Shadows lets you cast mage armor for free, forever, as long as you only help yourself. You also pick up the spell Protection from Evil and Good, so you can strike up a conversation with an elder god without going mad.

Warlock 3: Third level warlocks get their pact boon, and with the Pact of the Blade you can now summon almost any weapon in the game as an action. Since you're a hexblade, this weapon automatically uses your charisma instead of anything else. Also, you're supposed to get two invocations at level 2, but we always save the second for Improved Pact Weapon around here. Your attacks and damage rolls get +1, and the list of weapons you can make expands even further. I think the only ones you can't make now are bows, and maybe slings? Flails, scythes, and... whatever you'd call those tentacles are all on the table. You can also cast Mirror Image to create three copies of yourself to take hits for you. You'll get more tangible options later, but your AC is pretty bad now.

Wizard 1: Bouncing over to wizard starts you off with a wizard spell list, giving you an absolutely bonkers six 1st level spells now, and two more every time you level up. That's a lot, so we're not going over all of them in this article, check the character sheet for the full list. Most of them will fit under the categories of fire damage, eldritch madness, or time mischief, so take those as guiding tenets. We will still go over spells we feel need justification, fall outside of those categories, or are central to the build. You also gain an Arcane Recovery, so once per long rest you can regain some spell slots on a short rest. A wild concept, to be sure. Also while we're on the subject, your warlock and wizard spell slots don't mix, so just treat your slot numbers as if you weren't multiclassing and add them together. You can use warlock slots for wizard spells and vice versa, but don't use the multiclassing table. Pick up the Mending cantrip to bring small items back to when they were whole, and Comprehend Languages so you can understand your new penpal. Oh right, the background spells. I'm not entirely sure how this works with wizard spells, but your spell list is big enough you could probably get away with it if they aren't added wholesale. You get Fire Bolt and Vicious Mockery for cantrips, plus Burning Hands, Dissonant Whispers, and Hellish Rebuke for first level spells.

Wizard 2: Second level wizards learn their school of magic, and as a Chronurgist you specialize at fucking with the time stream. At second level your Temporal Awareness adds your intelligence to initiative rolls, and you can activate a Chronal Shift twice per long rest as a reaction. This lets you force a re-roll on any check, save, or attack roll within 30' of you, and the re-roller has to use the second option. One time loop is rookie numbers, but we have to start somewhere.

Wizard 3: Third level wizards get second level spells, Enlarge/Reduce makes you bigger. Or smaller, but we want to be bigger for crushing craters. You add 1d4 to your attack rolls while big and get advantage on strength checks and saves, vice versa if you're small. You also get Crown of Madness, Enthrall, and Flaming Sphere from your background. Insanity and fire, all nice things.

Wizard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to round up your Dexterity and Intelligence for a +2 to your initiative! Also, better AC, and stronger spells. You also learn Sword Burst to swing your weapons all over, and Hold Person to do that tentacle lock-in thing from your extra attack.

Wizard 5: Fifth level wizards get third level spells! Our main spells are just fire, but you get Fear and Haste from your background.

Wizard 6: Sixth level chronurgists can put a large or smaller creature into Momentary Stasis as an action, forcing a constitution save against your spell save. If they fail, they're trapped in a time loop for a round or until they take damage. A round outside. Who knows how long inside. You can do this int mod times per long rest.

Wizard 7: Fourth level spells baybee! Evard's Black Tentacles is fun, as long as you aren't slumming it with a bunch of melee fighters. You also get Confusion and Wall of Fire from your background.

Wizard 8: ASI time! Bump up your Intelligence for better spells and more smarts! Also, you can now Banishment people into a time loop outside of this reality, for up to a minute. If they're from outside our world, it'll be permanent after that. Take that, Mysterious Heroine!

Wizard 9: Fifth level spells! You can Mislead people to sneak up on them while your illusory copy distracts them, or you can Dominate Person thanks to your background. Everyone comes around to your side eventually. You have all the time in the world to get them to change their mind.

Wizard 10: You can now use Arcane Abeyance to slow down your own spells. If you really want to, I guess. When you cast a spell that's level 4 or lower, you can turn the spell into a bead that lasts up to an hour. The bead has 1 HP, and if it gets crushed or the hour is up the spell goes poof. Otherwise, give the bead to a friend, let them pop the bead to cast the spell, and boom! It uses your DC and attack bonus, but the popper's the caster for any effects of the spell. Try this out once per short rest!

Wizard 11: Now that you have sixth level spells, you can use Tenser's Transformation to fight people without, y'know, dying. You get 50 temporary HP, advantage on weapon attacks, deal extra force damage, proficiency in strength and constitution saves, and attack twice per action. It lasts up to ten minutes with concentration, and afterwards you have to make a constitution save or you get one level of exhaustion. Also, you can't cast spells while using this one. But that's why you have the beads.

Wizard 12: Since we can hit people without dying now, use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for better warlock spells and better scythings. Also, grab Mental Prison and Soul Cage to keep senpai locked away forever.

Wizard 13: Seventh level spells! Reverse Gravity pulls people up and slaps them back down, kind of like your Cursed Crushing Crater.

Wizard 14: We save the best time nonsense for last! As a reaction, you can force a Convergent Future when a creature makes an attack, check, or save. You ignore their roll, and decide for yourself if they succeed or not. That's right, you're the DM now! There's technically no limit, but every time you use it you get one level of Exhaustion, and this one can only be removed by a long rest. So, six times. But that's to be expected, going through a thousand time loops to find the one way to seduce the dragon is going to be taxing. You also get Mirage Arcane so you can restructure some hawaiian islands. It's technically an illusion, but it has tactile sensations? So? I really don't know how it's an illusion?

Wizard 15: Eighth level spells are where we really get the cool stuff. Turns out elder gods use high level stuff. Wild. You can create some Clones to hold your costumes, and use a Reality Break to properly slap people into the dirt.

Wizard 16: Use your last ASI to bump up your Constitution. It's pretty useful for you.

Wizard 17: Your last level, and your last spell level! Ninth level spells are fun. Foresight lets you travel back in time with all the information you need to succeed, making you immune to surprise. You also have advantage on attacks, checks, and saves, and other creatures have disadvantage on attacks against you. Also, get True Polymorph to turn Robin into a pig. Did you think we forgot that? :P

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Being able to force dice rolls is great, there's a reason it's usually reserved for the DM. Even before you can make a Convergent Future you've still got Chronal Shift and plenty of Lucky points to help make sure everything runs smoothly.

Being able to mess with saves also means your Illusions are way more likely to work in your favor. Your other spells too, but you can mislead an entire army with a well placed Mirage Arcane. Or stick your BBEG away for safekeeping with Banishment. Really, do whatever the hell you wanna, you're BB.

Going further into that last bit, having tons of spells and weapon proficiencies gives you plenty of variety when it comes to tackling problems. Use illusions to avoid them entirely, blast fireballs from the back, or pop a Tenser's Transformation and Foresight to wade into the thick of combat.

Cons:

Wading into the thick of combat without Tenser's is a bad idea. You have barely over 100 HP, and your AC is 15 unless you break character for some medium armor.

On a related note, both TT and your Convergent Future feature plays with Exhaustion, the single deadliest status effect in the game. Forcing the future or getting unlucky with the transformation will quickly mess your day up, ending with your own death after six levels.

While you have variety with your spells, almost all your damage comes from Fire. It's not a great damage type to focus on.