#top 10 d20 scenes tbh

[aceacebaby1]

"if confidence could keep you alive Geoffrey would still be here"

Brennan, how about you just rip my heart out with your bare hands instead because I think it would be less painful than that line

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (21-27 Jul 2024)

it is objectively 50% more hilarious when alex comes for someone's neck. them deciding to kick izzy's character when she was down was *chef's kiss*

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🙂 Look sometimes you just wanna spend a hot Sunday reading porny omegaverse crack. The heart (or whatever organ) wants what the heart wants. I went thru 3 Lacey Daize KU offerings (all novellas): Team's Omega (Gimme MMMMMore #1) [15K] & Neighbors' Omega (Gimme MMMMMore #2) [18K], both porny omegaverse poly crack and Breedable Boys from Outer Space [20K] which honestly? not enough breeding of Boys from Outer Space! like, girl, we're here for one thing!

🥰 (i'll keep) my tongue behind my teeth (greatunironic) - 40K steddie modern AU where they both move back to Hawkins for their 2nd acts in life - REALLY LOVED THIS - loved the backstories! loved the supporting characters esp Heather (hilarious). You can see the miscommunication/angst coming but it's so right for the character I wasn't mad about it! (miscommunication done badly is one of my personal bugbears). The reconciliation was equally believable. And the sex was super hot: visceral, wet, messy.

🥰 from love, obviously (bizarrestars) - 52K drarry - very funny, great characterizations, stayed up too late to finish which is always a compliment to a fic

😊 The Queen of Poisons (The Marlow Murder Club #3) (Robert Thorogood, author; Nicolette McKenzie, narrator) - still loving the characters - I am fully 75% of the way to becoming Judith tbh. didn't love the fatphobia element, even as the text made an attempt to rebuke it. like. just don't. but wasn't enough to spoil the experience entirely.

😍 I'll Light Your Way Home series (BeaArthurPendragon) - 61K, no powers Vietnam era au - just fucking love this series; both characterizations are incredible, their journey together is great -

💖💖 +174K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

Frost Caught Fire On Our Lips (the1918, author; kocuria-arts (kocuria), artist) - MCU: stucky, 7K - short, hot, Bucky works at a diner, Steve comes thru on the regular

in the heat of the summer (you know that you should be my boy) (greatunironic) - Stranger Things: steddie, 17K - LOVED THIS - rockstar Eddie thirsts on main for Olympic swimmer Steve

the valentine experience (greatunironic) - Stranger Things: steddie, 15K - "In which Mike and Eddie have a bet, Steve is the victim of circumstance, and he's not super mad about it."

baby what's the scene? (carbonbased000) - Stranger Things: steddie, 8K - great fic! - "Horny in Indy. 5’11’’, long hair, tats, Top wants bottom, 20-30. Into athletic types, good boys, roleplay, bondage. Tell me your fantasies & let me hurt you just the way you like. Write to: Ed, Box #2177 . Or: Steve responds to a personal ad and has an extremely casual hook-up."

Savage God (LenneWithMilkAndHoney, PottersPink) - MCU: stucky, 36K - absolutely fantastic alt timeline AU where 2014 WS Bucky spends 3 days in 1936 with preserum Steve

Let Me Be Your Good Night (indelicate) - Stranger Things: steddie, 9K - "Or, Steve interrupts Eddie’s hookup and comforts him through a subdrop after. That's how it starts." (OMG they were ROOMMATES)

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Taskmaster - s12, e6-10; s13, e1-2

Make Some Noise - s3, e3

Dropout Presents: Bigger! With Brennan and Izzy

Thousandaires - s1, e5

D20: Never Stop Blowing Up - "Double Death Doggy Style" (s22, e5)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Ziggy Zany Yeah" (s17, e5)

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

99% Invisible - The Power Broker #07: Sec. Pete Buttigieg

Overinvested - Ep. 302: AMC's Interview with the Vampire

Consider This - 'Twister,' 'Twisters' and the actual practice of storm chasing

You're Dead to Me - LGBTQ Life in Weimar Germany

Re: Dracula - July 22: Rough Weather

NPR's Book of the Day - Griffin Dunne's memoir chronicles fame, art and tragedy in his Hollywood upbringing

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Meet the Man Who Sets America’s Living Rooms on Fire

The Sporkful - Cookbooks That Need ‘The Grandma Disclaimer’ (Live)

Imaginary Worlds - Fantasy and Fascism & Fantasy and Fascism Part II: When Democracy Fails

Short Wave - Outer Space Changes You, Literally. Here's What It Does To The Human Body

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Three great karaoke songs

Switched on Pop - Is country the new hip hop?

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Arrow Stork

Re: Dracula - July 24: There Will be Some Trouble

Vibe Check - Hold Onto Your Wigs

Short Wave - Dancing Yeti Crabs, Morphing Cuttlefish, Other Stories From The Deep Sea

⭐ Code Switch - The return of the U.S.'s oldest drag king

⭐ It's Been a Minute - 'Cats: The Jellicle Ball' gets 10s across the board

99% Invisible - The 2024 Olympics Spectacular

NPR's Book of the Day - Khushbu Shah's cookbook 'Amrikan' honors the Indian American diaspora

Pop Culture Happy Hour - In The Decameron, the Black Death makes for black comedy

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Our Lives Through Hollywood’s Eyes

Shedunnit - Christianna Brand's Impossible Crimes

You Are Good - Do the Right Thing w. Ify Nwadiwe

Our Opinions Are Correct - Dinosaurs and Furries, with Riley Black

Re: Dracula - July 26: Just Starting for Home

What Next: TBD - Is Silicon Valley Trump-Vance Country?

Dear Prudence - My Brother-In-Law’s Girlfriend Wore A Transparent Dress To My Wedding. Help!

Dear Prudence - Prudie Plus: I Came Home From Errands and My Fiance Got A Dog. Help!

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Deadpool & Wolverine and what's making us happy

It's Been a Minute - Olympic hurdles for women athletes; plus, big trucks and big questions

Today, Explained - Breaking the Olympics

Endless Thread - The American Lean

Re: Dracula - July 27: No News

Hit Parade - The Bridge: Getting Hot in Herre

Re-Creative - Tanya Davis and Dirty Dancing

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Shaun Cassidy Radio • Upbeat

Soft Rock Ballads

Rob Zombie

Rock Sugar

Iron Maiden Radio • Popular • Familiar

Reinas

Old-School Reggaeton

The Go-Go's

The Donnas

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #159

Today on Fate and Phantasms we bring you the outlaw star himself, Assassin of Shinjuku! As always, it’s hard to go into detail about Sassyshin’s abilities without giving away his identity, so true name spoilers below the cut.

Check out his build breakdown below, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: Wait a minute, I thought King Arthur was a girl!

This build blends Yan Qing’s Shadow Monk techniques with the Doppelganger’s shapeshifting, here represented by the Whispers Bard levels. Kill people, steal their identity, repeat!

Race and Background

Technically Yan Qing is part ghost, but it’s a lot easier to call him a Variant Human instead. If you really want to lean into the doppelganger thing Changeling’s right there, but then you won’t get +1 Dexterity and Charisma, Acrobatics proficiency to jump up entire castles with ease, and the Observant feat to show off why they call you the Skillful Star. This feat gives you +1 Wisdom, the ability to read lips, and you get +5 to your passive Perception and Investigation scores so your disguises are a bit more detailed.

Of course you get the Criminal background, giving you Deception and Stealth proficiencies.

Ability Scores

Speaking of being the Skillful Star, all that martial arts training should make your Dexterity pretty freaking high. After that is Charisma, you’re really good at disguises, and almost as good at making convincing arguments. Almost. After that is Wisdom for more skill and more observational skills. Your Constitution isn’t half bad, you can take a lot of damage and keep going. When you’re fighting against Guda. When you’re actually on their team, that’s a different story. Your Strength should probably be a bit higher, but it’s not very useful for the build. Finally, dump Intelligence. Sassy-shin is many things to many people, but Himbo is definitely one of them.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: Starting with monk will help you get your shirtless scenes going earlier thanks to your Unarmored Defense giving you an AC based on your dexterity and wisdom. You also get some Martial Arts, letting you use dexterity instead of strength when fighting, giving you a minimum of a d4 in damage when using unarmed attacks, and you can attack as a bonus action if you attack as an action.

On top of all that, you also get proficiency with Strength and Dexterity saves as well as Athletics for even better climbing skills and Insight, because you can’t manipulate people if you don’t know what they want.

2. Monk 2: Second level monks get Ki points each short rest equal to their monk level. Currently, that lets you Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Attack Twice as a bonus action, but more stuff will come up as we go. Your Unarmored Movement also lets you move just a bit faster while shirtless.

3. Bard 1: Your impersonation powers come from the doppelganger, a fictional creature (also you’re fictional, but hush), so bard’s as good as any class to get their powers from. Grabbing bard second gives you Perception proficiency for even more detailed disguises, as well as Bardic Inspiration. Right now they’re a pool of d6s that recharge on long rests. You can hand out to allies to help them with their d20 rolls-checks, saves, attacks, all that good stuff. Unless your DM somehow incorporated C. Stars into their game, this is one of the closest ways you have to get the actual Skillful Star skill in D&D.

Beyond that, you also learn a couple Spells that use your Charisma to cast. Light helps your dumb human eyes see in the dark and also do the glowy hand thing. It won’t actually help with damage, but it looks cool, and that’s what’s really important. You also get Vicious Mockery, tbh stealing the memory of an enemy’s loved ones means you can get some really disturbing insults.

For first level spells, grab Bane for more insults, Disguise Self for a cheapo disguise that doesn’t even work physically, Longstrider to press your speed advantage further, and Heroism, because you’re a pretty nice guy when you put aside the identity theft.

4. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to checks that you’re not proficient in, even making you a little bit faster by boosting your initiative bonus. You can also use a Song of Rest to add a d6 to the healing your party does over a short rest. I mean, you’re a character in a novel, you’ve got to have some good stories to share, right?

For your spell this level, grab Speak with Animals. Working with Lobo is always rough, but at least now you’ll be able to tell his “I’ll tear you limb from limb” bark from his “I’ll tear you limb from limb later” bark.

5. Bard 3: Your doppelganger side grants you the power of a bard from the college of Whispers. When you join the college, you can use your bardic inspiration to create Psychic Blades, adding 2d6 psychic damage to a weapon attack once per turn. I’ve given up trying to figure out if hitting things with your hands count as weapon attacks, so maybe just keep a knife on standby.

You also learn Words of Terror, spending a minute alone with your target to force a wisdom save (DC 8+proficiency+charisma mod) or they become frightened of a creature you choose for up to an hour or until it or an ally takes damage where it can see you. You can use this once per short rest, and if they succeed on their save there’s not tell that you did anything. You also get Expertise in Insight and Deception to make your disguises flawless.

Your spell this time is Enhance Ability, making you even better at whatever you set out to do by giving you (or another creature) advantage on one kind of ability check. For those of you playing along at home, this means you now have a +8 to deception checks, with advantage. Even without your disguises, you’re already doing pretty well for yourself.

6. Bard 4: But “pretty well” isn’t perfect. We can do better. Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Actor feat, rounding up your Charisma for extra inspiration and stronger spells. You also get advantage on deception and performance checks to act as a different person, no spells required. On top of all that, you can mimic the speech of a creature you’ve heard talking for at least a minute, requiring a contested Insight check vs your Deception check to figure things out.

For those rare times you’re trying to be yourself, you can also use Friends to get advantage instead. When that inevitably backfires, use Mirror Image to create some shadow clones for an easier escape. The spell makes three copies of yourself, and when you would get hit by an attack there’s a 75% chance it will hit one of them instead. After they take a hit for you, they pop, reducing the odds of blocking the next attack. MI is technically UA, but it’s not exactly a massive power boost.

7. Bard 5: Fifth level bards see their inspiration dice grow to d8s. While that doesn’t affect your psychic blades, your Font of Inspiration does, letting you recharge inspiration on short rests for more consistent support and damage.

You also learn how to Feign Death to escape any criminal/detective duos on your trail. Admittedly this isn’t as effective as disguising yourself as a civilian, as it basically knocks you out for an hour, giving you resistance to most types of damage and prevents any sort of effect from diseases or poison.

8. Bard 6: The sixth level of bard is where our plan really comes together. No, I’m not talking about Countercharm, get that shit outta here. We’re here for the Mantle of Whispers, letting you steal a humanoid’s shadow when it dies nearby once per short rest. Using their shadow, you can create an hour-long disguise that not only makes you look like the person, but gives you information they would give away to acquaintances. Creatures can see through the disguise with an Insight check against your Deception check, but you get a +5 to that, on top of everything else.

9. Monk 3: Stealing peoples’ identity is nice, but it’s time we got back to punching good. Third level monks get their way, and Way of Shadow helps you take advantage of Shinjuku’s oppressive atmosphere to make the town your own. Your Shadow Arts lets you cast spells like Darkness, Darkvision, Pass without Trace, or Silence using your Ki points. You can also cast Minor Illusion to take your stealth to the next level with some free distractions.

Besides all that, you can Deflect Missiles, catching them out of the air to reduce damage and possibly even throwing them back as a reaction.

Now that you have a bunch of things eating away at your Ki points, you can use your Ki-Fueled Attack to attack as a bonus action if your main action uses your Ki. Now nothing can stop you from delivering those hands.

10. Monk 4: Been a while since your last ASI, huh? Use this one to boost your Dexterity for a better AC and stronger attacks. You can also Slow Fall as a reaction, reducing fall damage by five times your monk level. As Moriarty could tell you, falling off a skyscraper hurts.

11. Monk 5: Fifth level monks get an Extra Attack each attack action, and you can turn those attacks into Stunning Strikes by using Ki. If the target fails a constitution save all attacks on them for the round have advantage. Great way to fish for crits for your psychic blades.

12. Monk 6: Sixth level monks get Ki-empowered Strikes, making your unarmed attacks magic against resistances. You’re a Tier-3 character, you’ll probably need this.

You can also use your brand new Shadow Step to teleport between shadows as a bonus action. Moving so quickly also gives you advantage on your next attack.

13. Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells, like using Phantasmal Killer to create a more offensive shadow clone. For up to a minute one targeted creature needs to make a wisdom save. If they fail, they’re frightened and at the end of each turn they have to make another wisdom save or they take psychic damage.

14. Bard 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma again for stronger spells and inspiration. You can also use Freedom of Movement to escape from impossible binds. Just disguise yourself as a free person, I can’t believe nobody thought of this before.

15. Bard 9: Our last level of bard charges your Song of Rest to a d8, and you get a fifth level spell. Mislead lets you move so fast enemies will have to hit your afterimage, simultaneously turning you invisible and creating an illusion of yourself.  The illusion lasts for an hour, but you only stay invisible until you attack or cast another spell. It can speak or gesture just like you, and you can even see through its eyes.

16. Monk 7: Seventh level monks finally get Evasion, turning your dex saves into supersaves. Now your failures deal as much damage as your successes, and your successes avoid all damage entirely. Your Stillness of Mind also lets you shut down effects that are charming or frightening you.

17. Monk 8: Use your last ASI to bump up your Wisdom for a stronger AC. Technically grabbing more Dexterity would be better here, but I like rounding stuff up more than capping it out. Makes room for DM stuff.

18. Monk 9: Your Unarmored Movement Improvement lets you run up walls and over water, so long as you don’t end your turn there. You can finally climb up that huge freaking castle you’ve been eyeing for a while!

19. Monk 10: Tenth level monks get a Purity of Body that makes you immune to disease and poison. At least this isn’t your capstone?

20. Monk 11: As an eleventh level shadow monk gets a Cloak of Shadows, letting you disguise yourself as a Vashta Narada as an action, becoming invisible in dim light or darker. This lasts until you attack, cast a spell, or leave the shadows. I’m pretty sure this qualifies for that whole “cast no shadow” thing you’re always going on about, right?

Pros:

You are the one true imposter. With advantage as well as +21 to all your deception rolls to disguise yourself, you’re pretty much undiscoverable. On top of that, you’re also great at reading people with a +15 to insight. The only person doing impressions around here is you, thank ya kindly.

Like all monks, you’re really fast, with 50′ of movement speed, dash options, teleporting options, and ways to make yourself even faster via magic. You go down harder than the KT event, but you’re fine as long as you don’t get hit.

You also come with tons of ways to mess with the enemy. Make yourself invisible, shoot darkness like a squid shoots ink, have them chasing an illusion, or even just disguise yourself as a loved one. You are a terror to fight.

Cons:

Touching on that thing I said back in Pro #2, you’re pretty squishy, with barely over 100 HP and only 17 AC. Stick to the shadows, you’ll need them.

You also have a serious issue with range. Anything that can outspeed you will find it pretty easy to have you running in circles, since your best ranged attacks are cantrips.

This build is also a little bit complicated, with balancing your Ki, inspirations, who you can disguise as, who you can mimic, and all that fun stuff. Like a lot of the clever people builds, don’t expect to play this one like you would a barbarian.