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tigerkirby215 · 3 years

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5e Quinn, Demacia's Wings build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Katie "TeaTime" De Sousa. Made for Riot Games.)

lol who gives a shit about Quinn?

I do. I do Riot. :(

Honestly while I haven’t played Quinn in awhile I still think she’s an extremely fun champion, and not just because you get to bully the enemy top laner with discount Vayne. Quinn has a very unique playstyle that’s so different from every other champ in the game which makes her real refreshing to play after sticking to other champs for an extended period of time.

But let’s be real the main reason I’m making a Quinn build is so I can have a cheat day. I mean she’s obviously just a Beastmaster Ranger, right?

GOALS

Valor, to me! - Burd up! I really wish that Quinn was called “Quinn and Valor” in game.

Stick to the plan, Val - When the going gets tough it helps to be a swift scout, dashing around the enemy and vaulting off them if they get too close.

I'd keep my head down if I were you - While it’s perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind Quinn is known for letting down a volley of arrows when she first engages with Valor on her back.

RACE

League of humans, at least until I go back to Ionia to make more furries. Regardless we’ll be switching it up a bit with a Mark of Finding Dragonmark from Eberron! You get a +2 to Dexterity and +1 to an ability score of your choice: I went for Charisma because “League of Legends female body types.”

You get an early set of boots with the Mark of Finding, since Courier’s Speed increases your base movement speed to 35 feet. And to help with backflips Intuitive Motion will let you add a d4 to your Acrobatics checks (or your Land Vehicle checks, but I’d perhaps discuss with your DM to change that to Air Vehicles instead?) But most importantly you get Magical Passage for a one-time use of Misty Step, for Flash!

IF DRAGONMARKS AREN’T ALLOWED: A Variant Human works fine. Take a +1 to Dexterity and Charisma and the Crossbow Expert feat a little earlier than usual.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Dexterity is tied to shooting and back flips, both of which you’ll be doing a lot of.

14; WISDOM - You have a bird’s eye view; the best advantage.

13; CHARISMA - This is partially because “League of Legends female body types” but mostly for multiclassing.

12; CONSTITUTION - Demacians are no easy prey, and spending so much time behind enemy lines has made you sturdier than most.

10; INTELLIGENCE - Intelligence is tied to military tactics among other things.

8; STRENGTH - This is partially because “League of Legends female body types” but mostly for multiclassing because we don’t need it over the other stats.

Feel free to swap Wisdom and Constitution if you want worse skill checks but better durability.

BACKGROUND

We’ll be going for Faction Agent not because it fits best but because it has the abilities that make the most sense. I’m sure you could refer to the Demacian Scouts as a faction after all. Regardless you get proficiency in Insight along with one WIS, INT, or CHA skill of your choice: I opted for Perception for that bird’s eye view. You also get proficiency in two languages so once again pick your poison.

The main reason we opted for Faction Agent was for access to a Safe Haven behind enemy lines. You can always find insiders to give you a place to hide, or to give you information. Not that Val needs any help finding people. "Sometimes I swear that bird is just showing off."

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue for the skill proficiencies primarily. Acrobatics and Stealth are the two main ones we want but I’d also recommend Investigation and Intimidation. (Persuasion may be more useful in the average campaign but it doesn’t fit Quinn well feel free to build the character however you want but I focus on making the character as lore accurate and gameplay accurate as possible.) Anyways as a Rogue you also get Expertise in two skills: I’d recommend buffing your Perception right out the gate, as well as your Stealth because... it’ll be useful as a Rogue I assure you.

Rogues can chat with spies and infiltrators behind enemy lines thanks to Thieves’ Cant, a mixture of words and phrases that don’t actually mean what they sound like. But of course what we’re really here for as a Rogue is good ol’ Sneak Attack, for a d6 if you sneak attack an enemy (duh) or if Val (or another ally) is distracting them.

I’m going to briefly mention what weapons you’re probably going to want to start out with: a Hand Crossbow is an obvious must but until about level 6 or so you can honestly just stick to a Light Crossbow to do more damage at a better range early on.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues can further abuse their range thanks to Cunning Action, letting them Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. Play around bushes to get the jump on your Harrier marks.

LEVEL 3 - BARD 1

Seeing as Bards are good at everything we’ll be taking some Bard levels. As a Bard you get proficiency in one skill as well as a musical instrument: pick whatever instrument you prefer and I’d of course take Animal Handling to take care of Valor.

You also get Bardic Inspiration to tell your allies of information you scouted ahead with your bonus action, letting them add an extra d6 to skill checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that they know are coming. You have a number of inspirations equal to your Charisma modifier, and regain all expended inspiration die at the end of a long rest.

But of course the main boon from being a Bard is access to Spellcasting! You get two cantrips from the Bard list: Light will let you see with your dumb human eyes, and Message will let you chat with your team behind enemy lines. You also get four first level spells from the Bard list: Animal Friendship is kinda an obvious one, as is Speak with Animals. Other than that Heroism will help you (or your allies) keep their cool behind enemy lines, and Color Spray (ty Tasha’s) will let Valor blind your foes so you can get away!

LEVEL 4 - BARD 2

Second level Bards get Jack of All Trades, letting you flex into whatever role your party may need. You also get Song of Rest to heal for an extra d6 of health during short rests to patch yourself up after getting into a scrap. And finally Tasha’s gave you Magical Inspiration, letting your allies with Bardic Inspiration add a roll on their inspiration die to the damage or healing of a spell.

You also learn another first level spell like Feather Fall, in case Valor needs to drop you.

LEVEL 5 - BARD 3

Third level Bards get Expertise in two skills: Acrobatics proficiency is a requirement for backflips, and Animal Handling would be good to handle Valor. (But more realistically expertise in Insight or Investigation would be more useful.)

But more importantly we can finally get some combat ability out of the Bard! The College of Swords gives you proficiency with medium armor and shields, neither of which we really need. It also gives you a Fighting Style you won’t use with a Hand Crossbow, but Dueling is probably better for your purposes.

What we’re mainly here for is Blade Flourish, which despite the name works on ranged attacks! When you take the attack action on your turn Harrier will increase your movement speed by 10 feet, and once per turn you can use one of the following Blade Flourishes:

Defensive Flourish increases the damage of the shot by a roll of your Bardic Inspiration and let you add the number to your AC as Valor makes it harder for the enemy to hit you.

Slashing Flourish will let you pick up a Runaan's Hurricane to deal extra damage to the target and everyone within 5 feet of them.

Mobile Flourish lets you vault off an enemy, dealing extra damage equal to a roll of your Bardic Inspiration and pushing them back a number of feet equal to 5 plus whatever you rolled on your Bardic Inspiration. If you want you can then use your reaction to run up to them, but I don’t know why you’d want to do that.

Basically no matter what your Blade Flourish does extra damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration, and you can choose to either make yourself harder to hit, do AoE damage, or push the enemy away. Oh and you can now learn second level spells like Animal Messenger so Val can get important information back to Demacia.

(Artwork by Michelle Hoefener. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - BARD 4

4th level Bards get the first of many Ability Score Improvements but we’re actually going to take a Feat: the Crossbow Expert feat will let you ignore the Loading property of crossbows to attack more than once on your turn, attack in melee range without disadvantage, but most importantly if you attack with your hand crossbow you can make one more attack with your bonus action!

You also learn another spell, and another cantrip! For your cantrip Minor Illusion is great to make a distraction, and for your leveled spell Locate Object will help if you need to find an important artifact belonging to the enemy. Are there more useful spells? Yes, but I’m building what would make the most sense for Quinn as a character. Feel free to take Heat Metal or Lesser Restoration as you’re allowed to change my builds however you want.

LEVEL 7 - BARD 5

Grabbing the 5th level of Bard for Font of Inspiration, letting your Bardic Inspiration (and Blade Flourishes!) come back after a Short Rest. Which is good because your Bardic Inspiration increases to a d8!

You can also learn third level spells like Leomund’s Tiny Hut for a safe place to rest after a long combat.

LEVEL 8 - BARD 6

But of course the 6th level of Bard wouldn’t hurt, as you’d now get an Extra Attack from the College of Swords! You can also learn another third level spell like Sending to send information more directly. Again: feel free to take spells that you feel are more practical if you wish.

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - ROGUE 3

Going back to Rogue to get our Scouting badge, specifically with the Scout subclass! You get to officially be classified as a Skirmisher, and can move half your movement speed if an enemy ends their turn within 5 feet of you. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks either, so I’d flavor it as you vaulting off the foe to safety.

You’re also a natural Survivalist, with Expertise in the Nature and Survival skills. That’s why we didn’t get Survival proficiency earlier! And to top it off your Sneak Attack increases to 2d6.

LEVEL 10 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement, and we’ve been sitting on an uneven Dexterity score for awhile now. So the Piercer feat will let you increase your Dexterity by 1 while also augmenting your skills with a Light Crossbow, allowing you to reroll the damage die of one of your attacks and deal triple damage if you crit!

I’d discuss with your DM if your Blade Flourishes count as “weapon damage die” for the sake of Piercer, because if they do you’ll likely get a lot more value out of this feat. If not well... it’s still useful regardless!

(Artwork by bekkomi on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 11 - BARD 7

Quickly going back to Bard for some 4th level spell slots to cast spells like Dimension Door to quickly get out of danger.

LEVEL 12 - BARD 8

But of course the 8th level of Bard will get you some more Ability Score Improvements: more Dexterity will mean deadlier shots and more AC. And you can learn another 4th level spell like Freedom of Movement to get out of sticky situations.

LEVEL 13 - BARD 9

9th level Bards get to pretend that a d8 Song of Rest die by total level 14 is valuable. You do at least get 5th level spells like Rary's Telepathic Bond to keep communication up with your team.

LEVEL 14 - BARD 10

But what we’re mainly here for is the 10th level of Bard. To start off you get Expertise in two more skills: Insight and Investigation would both be the most practical choices. Your Bardic Inspiration also increases to a d10, which means that your Blade Flourishes increase to a d10 as well!

But far more importantly you get Magical Secrets, and hey look by total level 15 we finally got Valor! Summon Beast will let you summon a beast of land, sea, or (most realistically) air to fight alongside you! The flying beast has a 60 foot flying speed, Flyby (which lets it avoid attacks of opportunity), and can attack using your spell attack modifier to deal damage equal to a d8 + 4 + the level of the spell slot you used to cast this spell. It’s only a second level spell but it gets quite strong when upcast, so you can choose how strong you want Valor to be!

Alternatively if you want to fly Behind Enemy Lines, look no further than Fly! It gives you a 60 foot flying speed, plain and simple! And if you upcast it Valor can even bring a friend, or several friends!

You can also learn another cantrip like Mending, because it’s good to keep your armor in check as well as your falconer’s glove.

LEVEL 15 - BARD 11

Seeing as we got Valor we may as well grab a few more small things from Bard. 11th level Bards get 6th level spells like Find the Path, to find the path to the objective. Again: feel free to take more practical spells I am merely taking what makes sense for Quinn.

LEVEL 16 - BARD 12

12th level Bards don’t get new spells but they do get Ability Score Improvements. I’ll leave you with a choice: more Charisma will increase your Bard saving throw DCs (and Valor’s hit chance) as well as give you more Blade Floruishes, but the Sharpshooter feat will let you consistently add more damage to your shots while also ignoring range limitations and cover.

(Artwork by Ina Wong and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - BARD 13

Grabbing 7th level spells from the 13th level of Bard like Teleport, to recall back to base when needed. You also get to pretend that a d10 Song of Rest die by total level 18 is majorly impactful.

LEVEL 18 - BARD 14

14th level Swords Bards get the Master’s Flourish, letting you make a Blade Flourish every turn without spending a Bardic Inspiration, as long as you make your Blade Flourish a d6 instead.

But you also get two more Magical Secrets! To call down a Skystrike try Steel Wind Strike, which will damage up to 5 creates in the area and also let you teleport to one of them after using it. Your other spell doesn’t really matter much so... I dunno. Blindness / Deafness so Valor can make a Blinding Assault? Again feel free to make your own choices to customize the build.

LEVEL 19 - BARD 15

We’ll be stopping at the 15th level of Bard for a d12 Bardic Inspiration, as well as an 8th level spell like Feeblemind to weaken an enemy beyond any capability of fighting.

LEVEL 20 - BARD 16

But we may as well grab one more Bard level for one last Ability Score Improvement. Again up to you if you want to cap out that Charisma modifier or take Sharpshooter for some more damage.

Now that that’s done it’s time for some Ranger levels! Oh wait...

WHY NO RANGER LEVELS? - Put simply it would’ve been very hard to get Quinn’s unique skill set without some weird multiclassing shenanigans or a Bard investment. The three things I needed for Quinn were the following:

* Bird companion (Ranger or Druid)

* Flight (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Artificer, or some weird stretches of logic like “be a Druid and turn into a bird to fly lol.”)

* Skystrike (either Conjure Barrage [bad] on Ranger or Battle Smith Artificer, or Steel Wind Strike on [high level] Ranger or Wizard)

Put simply there was no combination of subclasses that wouldn’t result in weird mix of classes other than Bard. Add in the fact that I really wanted Scout Rogue levels as well as Crossbow Expert (both of which would conflict with Beast Master Ranger) and Bard seemed like the most logical course of action.

The sad truth is that in all honesty Quinn doesn’t even use Valor that much in her kit is kinda the main thing. I wanted to prioritize the crossbow shooting of Quinn more than anything. If you want a more traditional Quinn build that prioritizes the Bird then Scout Rogue 8 / Beastmaster 12 (using Tasha’s Beastmaster companions) will give you more bird and just about everything that this build did minus the flight. (If you build like this I’d also recommend dropping Crossbow Expert and simply opting for a Longbow, or seeing if you can get an Artificer teammate to make you a Repeating Heavy Crossbow.)

If you really want flight and are willing to stretch your imagination then Scout 4 / Drake Warden (UA) 16 gets Perfected Bond by Ranger level 15, allowing you to ride the flying mount. Yes you’ll have a Fireproof Valor but you can just call that Phoenix Quinn.

Of course all of this can be avoided if your DM either gives you a magic item that provides Flight or lets you put Fly on the Ranger spell list. The golden rule is to always discuss with your DM if you have a particular vision in mind, or else accept the sacrifices you’ll have to make for practicality.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Just like hunting thresher geese - 3 hand crossbow attacks per round with a 3d6 Sneak Attack and a d6 (or d12) Blade Flourish adds up to some pretty decent damage per round overall, and that isn’t even considering Sharpshooter.

I'll follow your lead, Valor - Most of your spellcasting is utility based, meaning that you don’t need to worry about your spellcasting modifier. And hey: we got Valor without having to go for Beastmaster Ranger!

Buy me some time - Mixing Bard and Rogue together means that you have proficiency in quite a lot of skills! Expertise in 8 total skills, proficiency in one more, and Jack of All Trades for the remaining skills. You can fill any role that the party may need!

CONS

Look Val; snacks - It takes us quite awhile to get Valor; some would argue too long. Put simply there’s very little way for us to get the very specific spell list required for Quinn (Summon Beast, Fly, Steel Wind Strike) without doing some weird multiclassing shenanigans. You could go Lore Bard if you want to get access to Summon Beast and Fly faster (Scout 3 / Lore 6 = basically everything to play Quinn by total level 9) but then you’d miss out on Extra Attack among other things.

Still heart, steady aim - Low Constitution along with a d8 hit die really doesn’t do you any favors. You’ll likely have a little over 100 health, which means that it won’t take much effort to put you in Power Word Kill range.

Who's there? Jarvan who? - Honestly our Charisma is low for a Bard, and while most of the spells we took are utility based it still sucks to only have two Blade Flourishes. Feel free to use Point Buy instead for some better starting stats and less in those fairly pointless stats like Intelligence. (8 / 15 / 12 / 8 / 13 / 15 would be my recommendation to have the best Charisma you can get while still having decent Wisdom to boot.)

But your job is to scout: any kills you pick up on the way are a nice bonus. Soften the enemies up with Valor by your side and do what needs to be done to win the war without the enemy knowing you’re there. Fight differently, fight dirty, and remember that no matter what at least you’re not playing Vayne top.

(Artwork by Xu “Crow God” Cheng. Made for Riot Games.)

#DnD 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #dnd #League of Legends #League of Legends Quinn #League of Legends Valor #League of Legends Quinn and Valor #Quinn #Valor #Quinn & Valor #dnd rogue #dnd bard #dnd ranger?#bird up

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masterweaverx · 3 years

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You know who would be a great party member? Salem! She was an adventurer before--heck, she even tried to slay a dragon or two back in the day. And I mean, who wouldn’t want the immortal witch queen of the Grimm in their party? There’s no way this could possibly go wrong!

Of course if Salem’s going to go Dungeoning, she needs to be immortal. And have, like, real powerful magic and a lot of it. Sway the hearts of men easily. Also be able to command Grimm. On the surface, this seems like it might all be pretty difficult--but you just have to know where to look, unearthed Arcana gives people a lot of options.

You don’t get a staff of loyal servants willing to help you destroy everything without being really good at talking to people, so Salem’s Charisma is going to be her primary stat--fifteen points from the point array. Wisdom is next with fourteen points, since she needs to be able to read people, and intelligence after that with thirteen, she’s something of a genius. Of her physical stats, constitution is the most important, so twelve points go in there, and ten points go to Dexterity--not that she’s going to use it often, but she does have some running skills. That makes Strength the dump stat with eight points; surprising, given she flipped a table once, but magic can more than make up for that.

Now no standard race is going to fit Salem’s unique situation, but the Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Heroes has produced a Revenant subrace that can be applied to a lot of other races. Being a Human Revenant means Salem gets +1 to Constitution and two additional +1s to put on her abilities; putting them on Constitution and Intelligence evens those both out to fourteen. And as a Revenant Salem gets a Relentless Nature, letting her regain one HP per round if she’s below half health, regenerate within a day if she’s outright killed, and know the distance between herself and any creature involved in whatever the Goal keeping her alive is. Which... well, she was cursed to live until she knew the value of Death, so she’s always in a room with herself, but you know.

For Background, I once again went with nerd Sage, so Salem has proficiency in Arcana and History, as well as the Researcher feature. Basically, if Salem doesn’t know something, she knows where to go to find out what she doesn’t know. She spent a lot of time in that tower, and she knows the value of stories, so... yeah, girl’s smart as a smart thing.

Salem is a Master Caster, and also a Master Manipulator. For the first, she’s going to get eight levels in Sorcerer--Abberant Mind Sorcerer, to be specific, since she did toss herself into a pool of demon goop that one time. For the second, she’ll be picking up twelve levels in Eloquence Bard, which gives her more magic and actually means she gets ALL THE SPELL SLOTS.

And five whole Ability Score Improvements! We’ll burn one to give Salem the Menacing feat, which not only ups her Charisma by one for a total of sixteen, but also gives her proficiency in Intimidation and the ability to use an attack action to just Frighten anybody within thirty feet. The remaining ASIs give two ability points each--putting four in Charisma maxes it out to twenty, and putting two each in Wisdom and Intelligence bring those up to sixteen apiece.

Since Salem’s first class is Sorcerer, she gets profiency with a small grab-bag of weapons: Daggers, Darts, Slings, Quarterstaffs, and Light Crossbows. She also gets proficiency with Constitution and Charisma saving throws, and two skills from the Sorcerer list--Deception and Insight fit her pretty well. Multiclassing into Bard lets Salem have proficiency with Light Armor, a Musical Instrument, and one more skill--Persuasion is the most fitting, honestly. And of course, there are perks beyond that for the number of levels in each class.

Sorcerers get Sorcery points equal to their Sorcerer level, which they can spend to use Metamagic--options which let Salem tweak a spell she’s casting just a bit. The Distant Spell metamagic lets her double the range of casting, and the Subtle Spell metamagic means she doesn’t even have to say anything to cast whatever spell she needs. Ordinarily this would also be the part where I say she can melt unused spell slots for sorcerer points--which she can--but there’s a twist.

At sixth level, Abberant Mind Sorcerers get Psionic casting. That means that instead of paying the price listed to build a spell slot, Salem can just cast a spell directly by spending an amount of sorcery points equal to the spell slot. That is a major game-changer in terms of resource management, and that’s on top of the Telepathic Speech (lets her talk silently to one person within range) and the Psychic Defenses (resistance to psychic damage and advantage against being frightened or charmed). And any spell she casts using Psionic casting doesn’t need verbal or somatic components--it’s basically already Subtle Spelled.

Twelve levels in Bard, meanwhile, make Salem’s support and leadership roles absolutely top teir. She’s got five Bardic Inspiration Die, each a D10, that she can use to give her allies a bonus on attacks, ability checks, or saving throws--and she regains them on a short or long rest. She can also use a Song of Rest to restore 1d8 HP to her allies during a short rest. As a Jack of All Trades, Salem can add half her proficiency bonus to any skill check she’s not already proficient in, and she’s got Expertise in four skills--I’d go with Persuasion, Intimidation, Insight, and Arcana for, well, obvious reasons. When it comes to magic, Salem can use Countercharm to give her allies advantage on saving throws against being Frightened or Charmed, and she knows Magical Secrets--which means two of the spells she can learn from the Bard list can actually be from any caster list.

Eloquence Bards have Silver Tongues, meaning they can’t roll lower than a ten on Persuasion and Deception checks. Salem knows exactly what to say to convince people, and she also knows how to use Unsettling Words, sabotaging somebody with a Bardic Inspiration die instead of supporting them. Her Unfailing Inspiration means that the dice she does give out to help will stay with whoever has them until they actually help--they won’t be expended on a failed check or save. Universal Speech comes free once per long rest, and costs a spell slot every time thereafter, but given that it lets Salem talk to five creatures and have them understand her that’s not too much of a problem.

When it comes to spells, well, Salem’s got options. Since she’s got twenty full caster levels, she gets 4 level one slots, 3 slots each for second through fifth levels, two each in sixth and seventh, and one apiece in eighth and ninth. While she only has spells up to level six, she can upcast some spells with higher slots or melt them for sorcery points, so the higher slots won’t go to waste.

Twelve levels in Bard gives Salem four Bard cantrips and fifteen spells up to level six, two of which can come from any spell list. Eight levels in Sorcerer gives her five Sorcerer Cantrips and nine Sorcerer spells, up to level four--and Abberant Mind sorcerers get specific extra spells for free, although they can choose to swap out one of those spells for an enchantment or divination spell of the same level from the Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard spell list. I decided that Detect Thoughts was something that Salem couldn’t actually do, and replaced it with Suggestion--other than that, I kept the list of bonus spells intact.

Cantrips: --Firebolt (Sorcerer) --Frostbolt (Sorcerer) --Gust (Sorcerer) --Message (Bard) --Mind Sliver (Aberrant Mind) --Minor Illusion (Bard) --Prestidigitation (Bard) --Shocking Grasp (Sorcerer) --Thunderclap (Sorcerer) --Vicious Mockery (Bard) L1 (4 Slots): --Arms of Hadar (Aberrant Mind) --Chaos Bolt (Sorcerer) --Charm Person (Bard) --Dissonant Whispers (Aberrant Mind) --Fog (Sorcerer) (Concentration) --Id Insinuation (Bard) (Concentration) --Mage Armor (Sorcerer) --Magic Missile (Sorcerer) --Unseen Servant (Bard) --Witch Bolt (Sorcerer) (Concentration) L2 (3 Slots): --Calm Emotions (Aberrant Mind) (Concentration) --Darkvision (Sorcerer) --Pyrotechnics (Bard) --Skywrite (Bard) (Concentration) --Suggestion (Aberrant Mind Replacement) (Concentration) L3 (3 Slots): --Enemies Abound (Bard) --Fireball (Sorcerer) --Fly (Sorcerer) (Concentration) --Hunger of Hadar (Aberrant Mind) (Concentration) --Lightning Bolt (Sorcerer) --Major Image (Bard) (Concentration) --Sending (Aberrant Mind) L4 (3 Slots): --Charm Monster (Bard) --Ego Whip (Bard) (Concentration) --Evard's Black Tentacles (Aberrant Mind) (Concentration) --Summon Aberration (Aberrant Mind) (Concentration) --Summon Greater Demon (Bard MS) (Concentration) L5 (3 Slots): --Bigby's Hand (Bard MS) (Concentration) --Scrying (Bard) (Concentration) L6 (2 Slots): --Guards and Wards (Bard) --Mass Suggestion (Bard) --Psychic Crush (Bard) L7 (2 Slots) L8 (1 Slots) L9 (1 Slots)

Look at all dem spells Salem got. Look at ‘em. Bigby’s hand lets her flip tables and crush Nevermores, Scrying lets her spy on people from afar, and just... look, she’s got a lot of magic, alright? Some to control and summon Grimm and some to give her elemental magic and some just to make her a people person. Sure, she can’t really use too many weapons, but do you think she needs to? When she can literally summon and control and coerce demons? Salem’s going to manipulate everybody else and look dang fine doing so.

So yeah, that’s Salem.

#Dungeons & Dragons #D&D 5E #RWBY #Salem #Character Build

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beingatoaster · 4 years

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I feel like I gave the bulk of the backstory, or at least the Call to Adventure, in the last post, so, in brief:

Sosefa Pereyra was a scullion maid who worked in the castle of a greedy, ambitious, and above all ruthless lord until she became pregnant, which ended her career as a servant and sent her back to the small village from which she came. She won’t say who Desamee’s father was, exactly, but the lord was known for dealing with devils, so there seem to be few options, given Desamee’s looks. The important part is that, whatever the circumstances, Sosefa loved her daughter very much, and Desamee grew up in a poor but caring home.

There are many reasons she set out on her own, most prominent being the events around the death of the local lord’s son, who had murdered her best friend--she didn’t want anyone knocking on her mother’s door with questions after that. But regardless, she fell in with a minstrel who helped her train what turned out to be developing bardic magic. Once she had it in hand, a combination of performance and adventuring brought in a fairly steady income.

Desamee, now going by the stage name Dismay, is a quiet, withdrawn, softspoken woman who would rather use her magic on Speak with Animals than any spell to influence other people, given the chance. But she’s also quick to anger when she sees injustice, and she’ll never shy away from a chance to make a wrong situation right. And she’s got a real knack with swords, these days, along with the music, so she has a lot of tools in her pocket to do so.

Race: Zariel Tiefling

ASI: Charisma +2, Strength +1

Age: Tieflings mature at the same age as the parent race but live a few years longer. Dismay is 2r years old.

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Size: Medium (5′11″, 200 lbs)

Speed: 30 feet

Darkvision: 60 feet

Hellish Resistance: You have resistance to fire damage.

Legacy of Avernus: Thaumaturgy cantrip; at 3rd level, Searing Smite as a 2nd-level turn once per long rest; at 5th level, Branding Smite once per long rest.

Languages: Common, Infernal

Class: Bard (College of Swords)

Defining Work: “Under the Lake,” an eerie song about a vengeful ghost pulling her faithless, murderous lover into an embrace in the same waters where he drowned her.

Instrument: A strange white harp that seems to be strung with hair and made of bone.

Embarrassment: When her speaking voice failed her while being presented to a king, and she had to sing all her words.

Armor proficiencies: Light armor, medium armor

Weapon proficiencies: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords, scimitars

Tool proficiencies: Harp, dulcimer, panpipes

Saving throw proficiencies: Dexterity, Charisma

Skill proficiencies:

Bardic Inspiration: Use a bonus action to grant an inspiration die to a creature who can hear you within 50 feet, useable on one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw within 10 minutes.

Jack of All Trades: Add half your proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any ability check that doesn’t already include your proficiency bonus.

Song of Rest: During a short rest, perform for your allies; any who can hear you and spent hit dice during the rest regain extra hit points.

Bonus proficiency: If you’re proficient with a simple or martial melee weapon, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells.

Fighting style: Dueling (when you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon)

Blade Flourish: When you take the Attack action on your turn, you get +10 walking speed until the end of the turn, and if a weapon attack that you make as part of this action hits a creature, you can use a single Blade Flourish option (Defensive Flourish, Slashing Flourish, or Mobile Flourish) by expending a Bardic Inspiration die.

Background: Folk Hero

Defining Event: I avenged a murdered peasant and destabilized the bloodline of a ruthless tyrant.

Skill proficiencies: Animal Handling, Survival

Tool Proficiencies: Cook’s utensils, land vehicles

Feature: Rustic Hospitality (other commoners will shield you from the law and give you a place to hide, rest, or recuperate, though they will not do so if it risks their lives or you seem to present a danger)

Personality Traits:

I judge people by their actions, not their words.

When I set my mind to something, I follow through no matter what gets in my way.

Thinking is for other people. I prefer action.

I’ve been isolated for so long that I rarely speak, preferring gestures and the occasional grunt. (from Hermit)

I feel far more comfortable around animals than people. (from Outlander)

Ideals:

Respect: People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

Freedom: Tyrants must not be allowed to oppress the people.

Honesty: Art should reflect the soul; it should come from within and reveal who we really are. (from Entertainer)

Bonds:

I protect those who cannot protect themselves.

My instrument is my most treasured possession, and it reminds me of someone I love. (from Entertainer)

My family is the most important thing in my life, even when they are far from me. (from Outlander)

Flaws:

The tyrant who rules my land will stop at nothing to see me killed.

I have trouble trusting in my allies.

A scandal prevents me from ever going home again. That kind of trouble seems to follow me around. (from Entertainer)

I like keeping secrets and won’t share them with anyone. (from Hermit)

#dismay #dnd chars

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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Building Gwen Poole in D&D 5e

Hey, guess who just got told my company is not working next week. Well, let’s celebrate by doing another D&D build, I had lately few ideas, including a character that makes me smile, unless she is making me feel bad for her

Let me quickly list the Goals for this build. First of all, we need to be able to enter Whitespace, cross beyond panel borders and then back. Second, we need to have knowledge only someone from real world entering a fantasy one could have. Finally, we need to summon Gwens from previous books to aid us. And one more for me is to not make this identical to Tulok the Barbarian’s Deadpool build, since the man already been an inspiration so much for these posts. Which will be hard since Gwen does lend herself well to similiar combination of two classes, spoiler alert.

As always, Ability Scores will be determiend by Standard points Array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8, if you or your DM prefer point buy or rolls, go ahead and treat these as guidelines.

Strength: 10, we really don’t need it but Gwen carries a lot of weapons around so I cannot give this an 8

Dexterity: 14, despite the big boots I really doubt your suit is a medium armor, what with those bare legs and all.

Constitution: 13, hit points aren’t meat points and you survive in dangerous situations just fine.

Intelligence: 12, you are well-read in world of your heroes

Wisdom: 8, you let Ms. Marvel convince you you’re an enteirly different species and your life is a lie and you also tried dating Quentin freaking Quire.

Charisma: 15, people like you and even if they don’t believe your claams of being from another world, they’ll likely dismiss them with a heartfelt laughter than trying to book you a psychologist appointment.

Now for Race, I hinted I don’t believe the “Gwen is a mutant” retcon so I’m going with Variant Human. If you think everything must be a mutant now, then go with any Aasimar or Half-Elf. Variant Humans get to be bitter about X-Men, add +1 to two Ability Scores, go with Charisma and Constitution, gain one free language and one free Skill, pick History since you know it because you’re a human from our world, and a feat. Crossbow Expert lets you ignore loading quality of crossbows, let’s you shoot creatures within 5 feet of you without a disadvantage and make an attack with a loaded crossbow as a bonus action after you hit a foe with a one-handed weapon attack. Crossbows are easy to reskin as guns but be warned that this does not turn a crossbow into an automated gun - you still need a hand to reload the crossbow after every shot, which now counts as a part of your attack, but requires a free hand. Which means you cannot wield two crossbows or fire more than one shot in a single round without a free hand. It could be fixed with some Artificer levels but we’re not doing that here, so make sure you’re on good terms with Riri Williams if you want to shoot two guns or use gun and a blade in an accord.

For Background, Far Traveller is someone who came from far, far away and you are literally from real world. You get Insight and Perception proficiency, can pick any free language of choice and one musical instrument or gaming tool and world has All Eyes On You - people notice you’re not from around and take interest in you.

Time to go with Class Levels

1st Level: We’ll kick things off as a Bard, letting gets to be proficient in any 3 skills, let’s go with Persuasion, Deception and Acrobatics. You are also proficient with Dexterity and Charisma saving throws, light armor, shields, simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords and three musical instruments of your choice.

You also get Bardic Inspiration, giving you a number of d6 dices equal to your Charisma modifier per long rest that you can hand over to someone that they can add to any ability check, attack roll, or saving throw that they make in the next 10 minutes. They can do it after they roll but before DM declares result of the roll. So you can now cheer on your heroes while fighting alongside them.

Bards are also spellcasters. You get to know a number of spells and have a number of spell slots per long rest that you can spend to cast them and if you cast one from higher level spell slot, it will be stronger. You learn more spells as you advance but cannot know a spell of level higher than highest spell slot you can use. You also get Cantrips which you can cast always and scale with your level, getting stronger at 5th, 11th and 17th character level. If a spell requires you to make an attack roll you sum up your Proficiency Bonus and your Charisma modifier to add to the roll. And if you add 8 to those two values you get your Save Difficulty, which a creature has to beat if your spell forces them to make a saving throws.

A Bard starts with two Cantrips and 4 known spells

Vicious Mockery is a staple for Bards, it lets you mock someone so bad, they must make a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage and have a distadvantage on next attack roll they make before end of its next turn.

Message is a spell functioning as a magic phone, letting you send a short message to someone within the range and then can make a short reply.

Identify lets you see if you recognize an item as something you once read in a comic book - it tells you if the item is magical, magic-imbued, what magical properties it has or what spells are affecting it, how to use it, if it requires attunment and how many charges it has.

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter makes you tell a joke that forces the target to make a Wisdom Saving Throw or fall prone and be incapitated and unable to stand up due to overwhelming laughter. Target gets another save at end of each of its turns or a save with an advantage whenever someone deals damage to it.

2nd Level: We stick to Bard to gain 2nd-Level feature Jack of All Trades, letting you add half of your Proficiency modifier to all skills you are not proficient with. You also gain Song of Rest, letting you play some music when your team is resting and rolling hit dice to regain hitpoints, letting everyone roll an additional 1d6. I don’t think it is a power per se that Gwen has, but could totally see her try to cheer up her friends and heroes.

And speaking of cheering up, you get one new spell - Heroism let’s you instill the bravery in one willing creature, making it immune to being frightened and on each of its turns letting them gain temporary hit points equal your Charisma modifier. Again, Hit Points can represent someone’s luck or will to fight so if you see Batroc having a hard time against Captain America, you can cheer him up to keep fighting. I mean, you would but you like Cap too, so maybe hope Batroc fights Taskmaster or something?

3rd Level: And it’s still a Bard, on 3rd Level gaining admission to something Gwen never got in real life - a college. Bardic College, to be more specific. I was thinking of College of Satire but really, College of Lore fits our needs much better. You gain profficiency with three more skills, I’d go with Athletics, Stealth and Sleight of Hand. Since all bards also gain Expertise, letting you choose two skills for which your Proficiency Bonus is doubled, use it on Athletics and Perception which depend on two lowest Ability Scores you have.

Your spell for the level is Invisibility, which lets you skip through eniemies you don’t feel like fighting, we can refluff this as early “slipping out” to the whitespace, but some creatures can still see you and you are “pulled back” (read: made visible) if you try to interact with something or attack anyone.

College of Lore also gets Cutting Words, which lets you say something that spooks or confuses a creature. Mechanically it lets you use your Inspiration die the opposite way they are normally used, letting you roll to subtract from attack roll, saving throw or an ability check.

I mean, that’s basically how it works

4th Level: Still sticking with the Bard for an Ability Score Improvement, go for your Charisma, since not only your spells but also Bardic Inspiration relies on it.

You also get a new spell and a new Cantrip

Prestidigitation lets you make a number of smaller effects you can play as you messing around with Whitespace. Knock let’s you unlock one nonmagical lock on door or an object. Maybe play it as you “skipping” the door through Whitespace or cutting out to when the object is already unlocked?

5th Level: Surprise, surprise, it is still Bard. 5th Level mostly improves Bardic Inspriation - now it uses d8s and you regain them on a short rest as well. You also gain the access to 3rd level spell - Nondetection can make you or someone else immune on being spied by magical means for 8 hours. Situational? Yes. But something Gwen can do as a person capable of walking out of the reality where people like Doctor Strange or Professor X cannot find her? Very. You can also use it on objects.

6th Level: Bar...oh hey, we’re doing Fighter now. 1st Level fighter gains proficiencies with light and medium armor and martial weapons as well as Second Wind, letting you once per short rest as a bonus action regain 1d10+your Fighter level hit points. You also get to choose a Fighting Style - Archery grants Gwen +2 to ranged weapon attacks.

ALTERNATIVES: As you can see, I decided to do Gwen as someone gun-toting, if you’d rather her use a sword then picking Defensive Duelist at first level and Dueling style now. Mind you, you need to have a free hand for spellcasting so unless you take a War Caster feat (which is also an option) you cannot duel-wield either sword and crossbow (which would also require sacrificing your Ability Score Improvement for Crossbow Expert) or two swords and use many of your abilitties. On a side note, Gwen is also profficient now with heavy Crossbow, so you can use that as a shotgun.

7th level: 2nd Level Fighter gets Action Surge, letting you once per Short rest gain an extra Standard Action

8th Level: 3d Level Fighter gains a Martial Achertype. I was thinking which one Gwen would choose. Wade went with a Champion but we don’t want Gwen to be exactly like him even if we’re already mixing two of the same classes Tulok did. I have a better pick. Gwen is suppsoed to represent the modern fandom that jumped into comics during New 10s, right? If that’s the case then, without streotyping here, we should ask ourselves what would likely be her possible gateway to D&D.

Echo Knight has been introduced in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, the world designed by Matt Mercer for his Critical Role games. You can use your bonus action to Manifest Echo, letting you pull an echo of yourself from another timeline or, in your case, another book you were in. This Gwen has AC 14+ your Proficiency modifier, 1 hit point and immunity to all conditions, uses your saving throws and you command her to moves on your turn. She vanishes if she dies, you’re incapitated, you dismiss her, summon another Gwen or find yourself more than 30 feet away from her.

As a bonus action you can sacrifice 15 feet of your movement to swap places with other Gwen, you can choose if your attacks originate from your position or her and you can use your reaction to have her make an opportunitty attack if an opponnent would trigger one. And a number of times equal your Constitution Modifier per Long rest you can make her take an extra attack as a part of your attack action with Unleash Incarnation.

Now, to get third Gwen we would need 18 levels of Echo Knight, but we would lose or all other abilitties about Whitespace then. Instead I suggest you circle through Gwens, as it seems that Echo Knight can summon an Echo as many times as they feel like, just not at once.

9th Level: 4th Level Fighter gets an Ability Score Improvement, Round up your Charisma

10th Level: 5th Level Fighter gains an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice as a part of the same action. Meaning you can make up to seven attacks with Action Surge, two uses of Unleash Incarnation and Crossbow Expert, provided you’re having a free hand. Unless DM allows it I do not think you can have other Gwen reload your guns, so all problems of Crossbow Expert still apply. Dual Wielding meele or mixed meele and ranged Gwen would get to the same level of attacks.

11th Level: 6th Level Fighter gets another Ability Score Improvement, start focusing on your Dexterity - even a meele Gwen is better off using finesse weapons and it adds to your AC.

12th Level: The Bard returns! 6th level Bard learns Countercharm, letting you use your action to give everyone you consider friendly an advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed - I guess it’s Gwen cheering other heroes up more or warning them she read about the baddie they’re facing and he has mind altering powers

You also get one more spell. It is sad we are behind with the spells...or are we? College of Lore Bard can gain Magical Secrets - a Bardic feature we will gain later as well, but this is an additional one and early. It lets you add two spells from any spell list to your spells known, as long as they’re on a level you can cast. Unlike the standard Bard version we will get later, the two spells we get now do not count to our maximum of spells know. Meaning we get three new spells

Tongues will let you read world baloons translated to English for the American readers and apparently let you add translation to your own dialogues for an hour.

Blink lets you roll at the end of each of your turns and if you get 11 or higher you slip into Whitespace a.k.a. Etheral Plane and reappear in space no more than 10 feet away from where you were at the beginning of your next turn. When you are in whitespace you cannot be attacked or interacted with creatures on material plane. It is not as powerful as in Pathfinder but still - don’t cheat on this, don’t be an asshole and if you are pray you never see a spider.

Fireball is your grenade/rocket launcher. Creatures within range are dealt 8d6 fire damage, half on a succesful Dexterity saving throw.

13th and 14th level: 7th level Bard gains an acess to 4th level spells and 8th Level bard gains an Ability Score Improvement, invest in Dexterity again. I’m doing the two together since each gives you one more spell too add:

Dimension Door lets you teleport anywhere with range of 500 feet, as long as you can see, visualize or know the area. You can bring anything up to your carrying capacity and one creature also carrying no more than its maximum with you. However, if another creature occupies the selected space, you run into it and get knocked back through Whitespace, taking 4d6 force damage.

Greater Invisibility works like Invisibility, but now you can take things with you or attack until it ends naturally. Play it as you slipping in and out of Whitespace.

15th Level: 9th Level Bard gets to improve Song of Rest, now using a 1d8 instead of 1d6. And you gain access to 5th level spells. Legend Lore is a spell seemingly tailor-made for a fangirl - you can gain (or in your case, recall that you’ve read) knowledge about specific person, object or location. It may be vague, the more you already know the better results. This lets you put fun in your fangirl...wait.

16th Level: 10th Level Bard improves Bardic Inspriation dice to d10s, gains Expertise in two more Skills, I’d go with History and Persuasion, and learns one more cantrip and Magical Secrets - this works like before but these spells count to your maximum of spells know.

Blade Wards grants you until end of your next turn resistance agaisnt bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from weapon attacks. Your armor is at best light, this may help if you want to go into meele.

Banishment let’s you force a creature to make a Charisma saving throw or let you send them into Whitespace. They get to come back like Paste Pot Pete did after it ends, but if they’re not from this plane and if you don’t break your concentration for one minute, they’re banished for good.

Banishing Smite is similiar - next time you hit a creature with a weapon attack, and it does not specify it must be a meele attack, you deal it extra 5d10 force damage and if you reduce it to 50 or less hit points, you send them to the Whitespace. There is no save, but there is no chance to keep target permamently out. Either spell still can save lives against tough enemies.

17th Level: 11th Level Bard learns to cast 6th level Spells, but I don’t see any so we will grab one more from 5th level - Scrying let’s you poke through Whitespace to find a person and observe them and their activities. They get a Wisdom saving throw to resist being spied on, I guess trying to reassert that their current narrative place is off-page. The better you know them and better materials connecting to them you have, the harder resisting your prying eyes gets. Just please don’t use it to stalk your friends, okay?

18th Level: 12th Level Bard gets last Ability Score Improvement, round up your Dexterity.

19th Level: 13th Level Bard improves Song of Rest to 1d10 and gains access to 7th level Spells. Etherialness lets you just hop to the Whitespace...I mean, Etherial Plane, for up to 8 hours, effectively saving you from an encounter if you would die othertwise. It let’s you regroup, regain your strength, plan ahead, move away or even bypass whole area, effectively skipping to different pages, and doesn’t require concentration to do it.

20th Level: And we wrap things up with 14th Level of Bard. College of Lore grants you Pearless Skill, letting you now use Bardic Inspiration on your own rolls. You also get two more Magical Secrets

Delayed Blast Fireball is a bomb - you put on a fireball in a place. Any creature that touches it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw to be able to throw it in a different place. Whenever they suceed or not, it explodes anyway, same if your spell ends or you break concentration. It deals 12d6 fire damage plus an extra 1d6 for each of your turn that ended without it detonating, half on a succesful Dexterity Saving Throw.

Plane Shift lets you and up to 8 creatures move to a different plane of existence, meaning you can now team-up with Squirrel Girl to kick Mephisto’s butt. Teleport could be more useful as it let’s you move within a single plane, but then you don’t get to freak Squirrel Girl out by pointing there is no reason someone isn’t punching the devil in the face at all times.

Overview: So this is how I’d do Gwenpool - College of Lore Bard 14/Echo Knight Fighter 6. Let’s see how valid this build is

Pros: You have a pretty decent amount of hit points, somewhere around 160 on average, while having multiple ways to avoid damage. You are a good utility caster with multiple ways to gather information or scout ahead and you have a pretty good array of skills on top of that, making you a good use for non-combat situations. You also have pretty good mobility options, letting you move as you wish across the battlefield. Finally, whenever you picked meele or ranged options, you can dish out a lot of attacks if needed, or even blast out some foes.

Cons: Your Constitution is mediocre, meaning your Concentration and use of Unleash Incarnation could be better. Second, your spell selection is somewhat situational, some of the options we took may not always be useful, even if they are in character. Third, your Wisdom saving throw is horrible so charming, frightening or just Hold Person will be your bane. Finally, you do not have any ways of dealing magical damage, unless your DM throws a magic rapier and/or crossbow your way and your fireballs deal fire damage, which many creatures are resistant or even immune to.

However overall you are able to fill or support in multiple roles, from scout to party face to damage dealer to information gatherer, which makes you great to have. Remember, however, that this is not one-person show and you work better as a part of a team.

For example

-Admin

#Gwenpool #Marvel #Dungeons & Dragons

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dmsden · 6 years

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With a Smile and a Song – Personal Plot for Bards

Prithee, Gentle Readers, give ear to mine article of this week. This go round, we are looking at a class that was made for performers – the Bard.

True confession: Bard is a class that was pretty much made for me. In real life, I’m very good at taking people into things, and I perform music and oratory regularly. So this class is a chance for me to use my skills in D&D to excel before I even pick up the dice (if I do say so myself.)

The bards of legend come primarily from Celtic and Norse traditions. Irish bards and Norse skalds are said to have had tremendous power and to garner enormous respect from the places they visited. People prized them for their skills, their news, and their knowledge. In Finnish myth, Vanamoinen practiced much of his magic through song, and the Greeks believed in the “music of the spheres”, which held echoes of creation. All of this sets the stage for an exciting class to play…even if badly-played bards spend time seducing everything in sight.

In the history of D&D, bards have been around almost from the beginning. At first, one had to be a fighter, then switch class to rogue, and then to druid…which also made you a bard. It was very confusing. Starting in 2nd edition, bards became their own class, but it took until 4th and 5th edition that they’ve really come into their own.

There are, of course, different subclasses of bards, related to their “colleges”. This is an idea that lingers from earlier editions, where there were different rival colleges of bards. Personally, I would run with this idea as a DM. I would create a specific college for a bard to be a part of, then create rivals that would always be working through guile and malice to besmirch my PC bard’s good name, giving ample opportunity for skirmishes, tricks, and contests of skill.

Bardic contests could be a whole plotline themselves. Perhaps there’s a contest every five or ten years that bards come from all over to take part in. Each day of the contest has a different theme – performance, debate, dueling, and so forth. Through a series of adventures, a bard might look for inspiration to carry them through these events, or they might seek a legendary bardic treasure, such as an Instrument of the Bards, in order to give themselves a bit of an edge.

It might be interesting to have a bard seeking elements of a song through encountering different creatures. All kinds of fey might have lovely voices, but a bard might seek out harpies, sirens, lamias, and other creatures with dangerous or unusual songs. Do aboleths sing in eerie, alien, whale-song like voices Maybe a bard needs to find out.

All jokes about seduction aside, bards seem to be a class built for romance. If you have a player who’s interested in such a plot, their bard might be seeking to woo a paramour. Alternately, imagine a Cyrano/Myles Standish situation in reverse, where the bard is hired to woo someone on behalf of a noble, only to become romantically entangled with the target. It becomes shades of Moulin Rouge!

Riddles feel like they should fall in the bard’s bailiwick as well. Perhaps there is a terrible sphinx taking a Prince hostage, and she will only yield him up if someone can answer a riddle. The bard could be called in because of her well-known wits, or they might quest to find another sphinx who can answer the riddle for them.

Many bards are also seekers of arcane lore and ancient history. Perhaps your bard is an Indiana Jones style archeologist, seeking the secret of the Old Ones deep in a subterranean lair. Or maybe the dead can’t be raised in your campaign, unless a bard learns the Resurrection spell (via their Magical Secrets feature) by finding the ancient Song of Life deep within the halls of Kadath in the Cold Waste, where the gods once danced. This sets the bard up to be a kind of Prometheus for the campaign.

By the by, if you’re looking for a great bardic character in fantasy literature, look no further than Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller series. There’s a reason Lin Manuel Miranda has been tapped to be executive producer and to make the music for the series. Kvothe is a consummate bard. If you can find Keith Taylor’s rollicking Bard series (imaginatively titled Bard, Bard II, Bard III, and Bard IV), those are a lot of fun as well.

Bards are considered to be a jack-of-all-trades type class, so they can fill in many places in your campaign, and they can take on all kinds of plots. I hope this article’s given you a bit of inspiration of your own.

#d&d #D&D #d&d 5e #d&d bard #dnd #DnD stuff #dnd shenanigans #DnD 5e #dnd bard #dungeons & dragons #Dungeons and Dragons #dungeons and dragons bard #dungeon master #DM advice #GM Advice

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grailfinders · 2 years

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Fate and Phantasms #276: Sei Shonagon

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re building one of the 72 immortal poem writers, it’s Sei Shonagon! Sei is a Glamour Bard to write poetry so evocative it can leave you in another world. We also dip into Banneret Fighter a bit to pick up Sei’s unique fighting style while still keeping the party alive.

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

Next up: I’m on my way, I don’t know where I’m going.

Race and Background

Sei Shonagon is a Human, surprisingly enough. But once again power creep strikes, so she has a Mark of Making. This gives her +2 Charisma and +1 Constitution, a Maker’s Gift for proficiency with Calligrapher’s Supplies, and an Artisan’s Intuition to add a d4 to Arcana and Artisan’s Tools checks. On top of that, you’re a Spellsmith, giving you the Mending cantrip for free to patch up torn poetry and the Magic Weapon spell with added benefits. Well, one benefit. It doesn’t use concentration, though in return you can only cast this special Magic Weapon this way once a day. Weirdly enough it doesn’t say you can cast Magic Weapon for free, so it’s a good thing we’re a spellcaster, huh?

Also there’s some Spells of the Mark that add to your spell list. It’s a lot so we won’t go into all of them here, though they’re all on the character sheet. We’ll just go over what we need when we need it.

She’s a Guild Artisan, giving her proficiency in Insight and Persuasion. Your poetry truly shows your knowledge of the people around you. Also you managed to keep those people from forming a mob while you kept deriding them in poem form.

Ability Scores

Number one is Charisma. I mean, duh. Your power literally comes from reciting poetry. After that is Dexterity, since floofy dresses aren’t really armor around here. Also because of those heels how the hell do you fight in those? Third is Strength. You’re not a beefcake, but you can throw a cellphone hard enough to do damage. Your Intelligence is honestly lower than I’d like, but we’re not using it here. That being said we’re not monstrous enough to dump Constitution, so that honor goes to Wisdom. You’re pretty flighty all things considered, and despite everything you have some serious trouble reading the feelings of your fellow writer.

Class Levels

Bard 1: Starting off as a bard is cool, you get proficiency in any three skills you want. I’d pick Performance for poetry reading, Acrobatics to fight in those heeeeels, and Perception to know when something poem-worthy is going down. You’re also good at Dexterity and Charisma save to protect your poetry from fireballs. Speaking of poetry, you can hand it out to your allies as a bonus action to give them some Bardic Inspiration. They’re d6s they can add to a check, save, or attack for up to a minute, and you get a number of them equal to your Charisma modifier per day. You can also use your Charisma to cast Spells! Pick up Prestidigitation to make ammo to throw and Vicious Mockery to chastise those in power. For your leveled spells, Charm Person will help make people more susceptible to your Noble Phantasm later. Trust me, it’ll make sense. You can also inspire some Heroism in your allies, and you can pull out your umbrella to create a Floating Disk (it might be Tenser’s, still not sure what’s going on there) to ride on, or to Feather Fall, letting you float to the ground all peaceful-like.

Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to every check you’re not proficient in. I’d call you a renaissance woman, but you were born 600 years before then. I guess the renaissance was a real Sei Shonagon moment. You can also perform a Poem of Rest over short rests, adding a d6 to your party’s healing during that time. On top of that, your Magical Inspiration means your inspiration dice can be added to the damage or healing of spells. Sei can do a lot, and she can do even more thanks to Disguise Self, giving her an easy way to perform costume changes on the fly!

Bard 3: At third level Sei becomes a Glamour Bard, so she can put on a Mantle of Inspiration as a bonus action. By spending an inspiration die you can give temporary HP to a couple creatures and let them move around without provoking opportunity attacks. More importantly, you can use an Enthralling Performance to turn a poetry slam into a brainwashing session, charming a couple nearby creatures into being your best friends. The effect ends if they take damage or you and your friends try to attack it. Otherwise, it lasts 1 hour, and you can do this once a short rest. You can also Enlarge/Reduce creatures. Making a chicken big enough to trample people is a really niche thing, but you can do it, so here. One last thing: you get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus in Performance and Insight.

Fighter 1: Your writing’s coming along nicely, but we still need a little more physicality. And that’s why we stopped off in fighter- at first level, you get a Fighting Style, and the Thrown style adds 2 to all damage done by thrown weapons, plus you can pull them out as fast as you can launch ‘em. It’ll come in handy when we have multiple attacks- pelting someone with garbage is more quantity over quality. One other thing: you can now spend your bonus action on a Second Wind, healing yourself for a bit. You get discouraged easily, but also encouraged easily. Just take a breather and you’ll be back on your feet in no time!

Bard 4: But if we want to throw random stuff at people, first we gotta improve our aim. that’s why we’re spending our first ability score improvement on the tavern brawler feat! this’ll round up your strength for more accurate and painful tosses, and it’ll make you proficient with improvised weapons! (i’d call your umbrella a quarterstaff, but everything else definitely counts.) Also, your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage, and if you use your action to make an improvised or unarmed attack, you can use your bonus action to grapple that target. I am not sure how in-character that last feature is, but the other three are mostly why we’re here. You can also use a cellphone for more than violence by casting Message to get in contact with a nearby ally. We’ll also pick up Magic Weapon proper so you can make your umbrella a terrifying force for more than one hour per day.

Bard 5: Fifth level bards gain a cavalcade of useful features. Your Bardic Inspiration dice increase to a d8, and your Font of Inspiration means you recover inspiration dice on short rests as well as long ones! On top of all that, you gain third level spells like Conjure Barrage! We’ll get a less spell-based option for item-throwing as we go, but if you want the most projectiles thrown in the shortest amount of time it’s hard to beat this spell.

Bard 6: Sixth level bards can Countercharm as an action, giving your allies advantage on saves against being charmed or frightened. This feature isn’t very powerful, but it is finally in-character! You’re energetic, but that doesn’t mean you’ll fall head over heels for every pretty face that comes your way. If you’d rather have other people fall head over heels for you, check out your new Mantle of Majesty feature. You can spend a bonus action to Command a creature without spending a spell slot and transform for a minute. During this minute, you can keep casting Command as a bonus action each turn. Also, any creatures you have charmed automatically fail their save against these commands! You can use this feature once a day. if you have a third level spell slot free and want to blow Countercharm out of the water, check out Intellect Fortress. It takes up your concentration and only works on one person per cast (unless you upcast), but the upside is it gives you advantage on all soft stat saves, plus you get resistance to psychic damage! And it lasts an hour, instead of taking up your action every turn!

Fighter 2: We’ve got all your skills set up now, and since your NP takes like 9 more levels to get we’ll go back to getting your attacks set up now. At second level, fighters can take an Action Surge once a short rest to add an action to their turn. Now you can throw two things a turn! Or cast two spells, that’s pretty useful too.

Fighter 3: At third level you become a Banneret, turning your Second Wind into a Rallying Cry- when you use it, you can also heal up to three other creatures around you. You’re the life of the party- literally, now.

Fighter 4: Fourth level fighters get an ASI of their own, so we can round up our Constitution and Charisma for a lot more health and stronger spells.

Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an Extra Attack each attack action. Now that’s four things getting thrown a turn if you use your action surge!

Bard 7: Alright, that’s enough short levels. Now you can use Hallucinatory Terrain to paint a scene in your reader’s mind and, more importantly, in the literal landscape around you. You can’t add in man-made structures, but you can get that classic Japanese Landscape Porn going at least.

Bard 8: Eighth level bards also get an ASI- max out your Charisma so you can Charm Monsters with the best of ‘em. Your NP doesn’t specify humanoids, so now you can bring just about anyone with you.

Bard 9: Ninth level bards get a d8 for their song of rest, plus fifth level spells like Legend Lore. You’ve written about people enough to really get to the meat of things, at least when it comes to people important enough to be considered “legendary”.

Bard 10: Tenth level bards get another round of Expertise- boost up Perception and Acrobatics for more idol-y skills. Your bardic inspiration also becomes a d10 now. On top of all that, you get the Light cantrip for a phone flashlight, plus some Magical Secrets- two spells from any spell list. This time around we’re keeping things simple- grab Mage Armor so you can fight in those poofy dresses you like so much and Shillelagh to power up your umbrella further. With this spell you can make your umbrella magical, it’ll always deal at least a d8, and you can use Charisma for your attacks instead of anything else. Combine this with an upcast concentration-free magic weapon for one hell of an improvised weapon! You’ll go from a +7 to hit all the way up to a +12!

Bard 11: For your sixth level spell, pick up Heroes’ Feast. Extra Health, a bonus to wisdom saves, and you and your buddies can’t be frightened or diseased. Not entirely sure how a poem about food does all that, but I’m also not sure how food does all that, so... eh?

Bard 12: Use your last ASI to bump up your Dexterity for more AC. I really hope you were using medium armor before we got mage armor, your bast AC isn’t good.

Bard 13: Thirteenth level bards get another boost to their song of rest, but tbh an extra 1d10 isn’t that huge. Definitely not as huge as your NP, Dream of the Blue Veil, that is. After a 10 minute casting time, you and up to 8 creatures fall unconscious for up to 6 hours, or until one of you takes damage. If they stay asleep for the full six hours, they’re taken to another world. Sei’s NP is all about getting lost in nostalgia, so trapping them in a 3.5e game would be appropriate. Now, some qualifications- you need a magical item or creature from the world you’re going to for this spell to work, so make sure you start this build by asking for an innocuous trinket from your DM. Or hope a really good poem about a world will suffice. Also you have to follow them into the new world, but then you can cast this again to get yourself out, leaving them trapped forever. Like this isn’t even a “they might find a portal and come back” kind of trapped, they’re just there. Also they need to be willing creatures for this to work, but that’s why we got those charming spells earlier. Just ask ‘em “Hey you guys want to see this really cool poem I’m working on?” then trap them in another module. Classic trick.

Bard 14: At fourteenth level your Unbreakable Majesty makes you a little more evasive. You can transform as a bonus action for a minute, forcing a charisma save on everyone when they try to attack you for the duration. If they fail, they have to pick a new target. If they succeed, they have disadvantage on all saves against your magic for a round. So goad someone into slapping you, then charm them and trap them in another reality for all time. That NP is kind of fucked up now that I think of it, huh? Also this feature works once a short rest. On top of that, you get another round of Magical Secrets. Mirage Arcane will let you create any kind of landscape, buildings included. So sight-see in another world, then show off your vacation photos in the most extravagant way possible. You can also use Skill Expertise to cheer on your friends when they’re doing something they’re good at, giving them expertise in one skill for the duration.

Bard 15: Our capstone level gives you d12s for inspiration, and the ultimate form of your Meeting Checkpoint in Osaka, Mind Blank. This spell gives its target immunity to psychic damage, mind reading, divination, or the charmed condition. You’ve got more important things to do than check out that succubus all day, dangit!

Pros and Cons

Pros:

You have enough random little skills that you can almost always be the at the center of the party, and I don’t just mean thanks to your +17 to performance. You can heal people, buff them, gather lore for the party, and even do a little bit of healing.

This all ties into your bigger strength, your sheer variety of options. You deal damage, fight with weapons, make better weapons debuff enemies, and even take them or the party to other dimensions.

Also, unlike a lot of charm-heavy builds we’ve done, you’ve got solid weapon skills to fall back on, with a powerful umbrella and fling-no-jutsu meaning you’re never completely harmless.

Cons:

You can do a lot, but not everything you do is useful. For starters, being good with weapons doesn’t help much when your AC is bad and your HP is barely above 100. Also, Blue Veil will only work against charmed enemies, and not at all if your DM isn’t cool with it. And improvised weapons don’t do much, so Tavern Brawler isn’t that great a feat.

You also have low wisdom, so when you’re not using those magic defense options you’re pretty easy to charm yourself.

Again, a lot of your features hinge on charming people, and anybody scary enough to warrant dumping in another reality over fighting them is probably immune to that.

#fgo #fate grand order #D&D 5e #DND #Sei Shonagon

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grailfinders · 2 years

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Fate and Phantasms #264: Katsushika Hokusai (Saber)

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're getting a little bit chuuni with Katsushika Hokusai! She's a Swords Bard to paint the battlefield with your suffering and an Echo Knight Fighter so Toto-sama can help her quadruple-wield.

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

Next up: The cards, the cards, the cards they tell your past, your present, and the future as well!

Race and Background

This is kinda harping on at this point, but putting on a swimsuit doesn't change your race or childhood, so Hokusai is still a Variant Human with the Guild Artisan background. This gives her proficiency in Insight, Persuasion, and Performance for flashier swordbeauty duels. She's also more combat oriented than OGkusai so instead of Magic Initiate pick up Dual Wielder. This gives you +1 AC while using two weapons, you can ignore the light restriction usually found on two-weapon fighting, and you can draw two weapons at the same time. This doesn't actually open up that much for us since we're sticking with finesse weapons anyway, but now you can dual wield rapiers if you want to power build! Or whips, if you want to do the exact opposite!

Ability Scores

Hokusai's biggest strength has always been Charisma, and now she believes in herself so much it warped her spirit origin. This means that her second highest skill is Dexterity. You fight in a bathing suit, and your fighting style is more about the sheer number of hits than the force behind them. Follow that up with Constitution, since you can't rally back in the second round if you die in the first. Your Intelligence is middling- Hokusai did a lot of studying, but I don't think she's worrying too much about it now. Since you've done all this working out your Strength isn't terrible, but we're dumping Wisdom. You've kinda gone way too gung ho on the chuuni stuff this time around, and you've been slacking off on your painting.

Class Levels

Bard 1: Before you were a swordbeauty, you were your father's student, which explains your class a bit. It gives you proficiency in Dexterity and Charisma saves, as well as any three skills like Acrobatics for the physical part of swordplay, Perception to apply your eye for detail, and Nature. Because it's really hard to draw a waterfall. To help with that, you get Bardic Inspiration, a couple of d6s that you can hand out one at a time as a bonus action to your allies. Then within the next minute they can use it to add that d6 to an attack, check, or save they make. These recharge on long rests, just like your Spell slots. Yeah you have those too. They use your Charisma to cast spells. For cantrips, pick up Mage Hand for a more standard floating octopus and Vicious Mockery to spew chuuni shit everywhere until your enemies hurt themselves in confusion. For leveled spells pick up Animal Friendship to get in the good graces of real octopi, Color Spray to throw paint in your enemy's eyes and blind them, and Longstrider for more pseudo-monk goodness. Also, pick up Faerie Fire. It doesn't really match up with something Hokusai can do, but it does have the word faerie in it.

Bard 2: A second level bard is a Jack of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to any check you make that doesn't normally include it. You can also perform a Song of Rest on a short rest, adding a d6 to whatever healing is done by your allies. This also doesn't match with Hokusai, but I don't think it ever has so w/e. You can also imbue yourself with Heroism to make yourself more of a swordbeauty, overcoming your weaknesses to gain temporary HP equal to your charisma modifier each turn and making you immune to being frightened. You dealt with Kingprotea without fouling the casino's pool, so you probably used this at least once.

Bard 3: Third level bards get to join their bard college, and Swords bards excel at blending magic an martial. Your Two-Weapon Fighting Style lets you add your dexterity modifier to the damage of your off-hand weapon, and you can also perform a Blade Flourish once per action. If you take the attack action, your movement speed increases by 10', and you can spend one inspiration die for a flourish, adding the roll to your damage on top of another bonus. Defensive flourishes add the roll to your AC, Slashing flourishes deal that damage to another nearby creature, and Mobile flourishes push the target backwards, and you can spend your reaction to follow them. You can also cast second level spells now like Enthrall. Have you seen what she's wearing? Obviously she'll be the center of attention. Sorry, one last thing: you gain Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus. That means your Performance and Nature checks are extra good.

Fighter 1: Now that we're getting more physical, let's swap over to fighter real quick. First level fighters can use a Second Wind on their bonus action for a quick inspirational speech from a senpai of your choice, healing you a bit. You also get another Fighting Style, and we're going with Mariner since you don't wear armor and that swimming speed is nice. This also means if you have your weapons out your AC is 12 + your dexterity mod, which is almost as good as mage armor.

Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge once per short rest, which lets you take an extra action in a single turn. Remember how Blade Flourish is once an action, not once a turn? This is why that's busted.

Fighter 3: Third level fighters finally get their specialty, and as an Echo Knight you can beef up that mage hand octopus into something that can wield weapons. You can Manifest Echo as a bonus action to create an echo that you can control for free. There's a bunch of stats for it out there, but basically: it's not a creature, you can attack from its space (including opportunity attacks), and you can use a bonus action to swap places with it, though it can only get 30' away from you before it'll go poof. Also, you can Unleash Incarnation this level, letting you make an Extra Attack from where the echo is standing Constitution Modifier times a day. Now we're triple wielding. Hold on a sec.

Fighter 4: At fourth level you finally get your first Ability Score Improvement, so bump up that Dexterity for a better AC and more accurate attacks.

Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters can make an Extra Attack each attack action. That's two attacks an action normally, and three with your Unleash Incarnation, plus another one with your off hand, for quadruple wielding.

Bard 4: Okay enough swordplay, back to art. Fourth level bards also get an ASI, so bump up your charisma for stronger spells and more inspiration. You also learn Minor Illusion to paint up smaller effects mid-duel, and can use a Kinetic Jaunt to get that octopus flow going with extra speed and the ability to ignore opportunity attacks.

Bard 5: Fifth level is a big one for bards. Your inspiration grows to a d8, and you become a Font of Inspiration meaning they recharge on short rests and long ones now. You can also give a Motivational Speech to your allies by spending a minute on this spell, giving them temporary HP and advantage on their Wisdom saves and attacks directly after getting hit. Something something power of friendship, or the real beauty was the friends we made along the way.

Fighter 6: Sixth level fighters get another ASI, so max out that Charisma. Illusions tend to suck if they don't work. You waste a whole spell slot and an action for nothing!

Fighter 7: Seventh level echo knights have an Echo Avatar, so you can give up your own sight and hearing to spy through your echo for 10 minutes. This also increases the range they can move in up to 1000 feet. You're not fused to your father this time, rejoice!

Fighter 8: Eighth level fighters get yet another ASI, so bump up your Dexterity for that defense and offense combo. It's nice.

Bard 6: Sixth level bards get a whole lotta nothing. You can waste your action on Countercharm. It gives advantage on checks against being frightened or charmed. Heroism is a first level spell that makes you immune to being frightened. Motivational Speech gives advantage on wisdom saves (usually what a charm save is) for an hour, and can be used ahead of time. Don't use this. You also fail to get another Extra Attack, since those don't stack. Major Image is cool though. Now your paintings can really capture the essence of motion! (It's because they move)

Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells, so channel your inner octopus with Freedom of Movement, preventing you from being restrained or paralyzed, and you can break out of nonmagical cuffs. You've never seen an octopus where it doesn't want to be, so this tracks.

Bard 8: Use this ASI to pick up a bit from your faerie side with Fey Touched. This bumps up your Intelligence and lets you cast Misty Step or Hunter's Mark once a day for free, or normally by using spell slots. You can also cast Hallucinatory Terrain by using spell slots. Boom. Waterfall, painted.

Bard 9: Ninth level bards know fifth level spells like Legend Lore. Any chuuni worth their salt can come up with dramatic-sounding nonsense for just about anything. (Though in-game this only works on "real" legendary stuff.) Also, song of rest is a d8 now.

Bard 10: Tenth level bards get tons of cool stuff, like d10s for inspiration and Magical Secrets, two spells from any spell list. Combine Water Walk and Spider Climb and you can even run up waterfalls, probably! See, no monk levels required! You can also use True Strike now. It's very bad, but that whole "scanning your enemy's weaknesses" is a classic chuuni move.

Bard 11: Eleventh level bards get sixth level spells! But I don't want any of them. Let's just say all your training has paid off and you're finally starting to improve over your father, so pick up Enhance Ability to give yourself advantage on one kind of skill check for a minute.

Bard 12: Our final level is one last ASI, so max out your Dexterity for the best swordplay and the toughest bikini armor possible.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Most gish suffer from having low HP, since it can be hard to get out of combat in a pinch. You don't have to worry in the department- You have tons of movement options to keep you light on your toes and shove people around if you need to get away.

You can also deal consistent damage with hunter's mark and a ton of attacks to take advantage of it. With 3-7 attacks in a single round you can deal a lot of pain in a little time.

Bards are just as good outside of combat as they are in it. You've got plenty of skills and ways to make those skills even better, plus you can always paint your way out of a problem. Probably.

Cons:

You have low Wisdom, which isn't a problem for your perception, but definitely your saving throws. If you're not using Heroism or Motivational Speech you'll have a bad time.

Dual Wielding also has some hitches we didn't quite fix. It ate up a feat already, but trying to cast spells while dual-wielding still sucks.

We don't get Font of Inspiration until level 10, so for a majority of your playthrough flourishes and spells will be very limited use.

#fate grand order #FGO #D&D 5e #DND #Katsushika Hokusai #Fighter #Bard

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grailfinders · 2 years

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Fate and Phantasms #269: Calamity Jane

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're gonna cheer on our friends alongside Calamity Jane! Calamity is a Valor Bard-a rarity in this day and age-to cheer on her friends and sabotage her enemies, and she's also a Battle Master Fighter to fight smarter, not harder.

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

Next up: He's got one monster of a sword

Race and Background

Calamity is from the servantverse, that means she's a servant. She's never been a human, so instead we'll make her a Custom Lineage. That means she gets +2 Charisma, proficiency in Persuasion to cheer up even Spishtar, and the Sharpshooter feat for one-in-a-million shots. You can attack at long range without disadvantage, ignore all but full cover, and you can take a -5 penalty to hit in order to get a +10 bonus to damage.

Calamity isn't exactly a Criminal, but honestly it's close enough. That means she has proficiency in Deception and Stealth as well. When you pick fights with gods, it's best you know how to lay low.

Ability Scores

Jane's strongest ability is how she can cheer on just about anyone, and that's Charisma. She's also pretty good with a gun, so that's Dexterity, which will also help you survive a gunfight with a cheerleader's outfit on. After that is her Intelligence- knowing someone's weakness means fuck all if you can't figure a way to exploit it, and she's also the techie of the team. Though considering she's hanging out with Guda and Spishtar, that really isn't saying much. She's a good survivalist, so her Constitution is above average. Her Wisdom is a weird case. Yes, someone good at finding an enemy's weakness would have good perception, but at the same time she doesn't have a lot of common sense, so that averages out to a neutral score. Don't worry, we can fix that later. That means we're dumping Strength. It's the future, nobody needs to lift things now.

Class Levels

Bard 1: Starting off as a bard will let us pick proficiencies in any three skills we want. Grab Sleight of Hand for some card tricks, Survival for some outdoorsmanship, and Perception to lock onto targets. You also get Bardic Inspiration, Charisma Modifier d6s that you can hand out one at a time as a bonus action. Give 'em to an ally and they can add them to an attack, check, or save in the next minute. Anybody can do a little better when they know someone's in their corner. These refresh on long rests though, so make good use of them. You also get Spells, you cast them with Charisma. Grab Blade Ward to sorta be a rogue with half damage from weapon attacks for a turn, and also pick up Friends to be friends with people. For short periods of time, they will 100% know you used magic on them after the spell ends, and that's usually a dealbreaker. For leveled spells, Faerie Fire pinpoints the weaknesses of enemies in its area of effect, giving anyone attacking them advantage on attacks against them. That includes allies though, so be careful. You can also use Detect Magic to find magical items and figure out what body part the bad guy is shielding. Spoiler: it's his weak point. Cheer on the party with Heroism, granting them temporary HP and immunity to fear for the duration, and sabotage your enemies with Bane. If they fail their save they'll have to subtract a d4 from most of their d20 rolls for the duration.

Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to every ability check you aren't proficient in. The Servantverse is a long running anime, I'm sure you've had all sorts of weird episodes by now. You also get a Song of Rest, which has almost never been in character but it's free healing on a short rest so just take it. Your last level-up goodie is Magical Inspiration. Now when you give an inspiration die to a friend, they can use it on magical damage or healing as well! I admit Illusory Script is a real stretch for a spell, but if someone gets bad information from a fake letter you wrote that's kinda like sabotage, right?

Bard 3: As a third level bard you finally graduate from college, and the Valor bards are the best at cheering their friends on in combat with Combat Inspiration! Now your friends can use their inspiration to boost their weapon damage or AC. You also get second level spells like See Invisibility. If someone has to fight you while invisible, they probably couldn't do it without that. Your Expertise doubles your proficiency in two skills. Double down on Persuasion for the ultimate cheer-up sessions, and Sleight of Hand to turn any bunch of five cards into a dead man's hand.

Bard 4: At fourth level you get your first Ability Score Improvement. Bump up your Dexterity for a better AC and more accurate shots. Speaking of accuracy, True Strike doesn't help with that. Just shoot twice. Neither does Enhance Ability, but it will help you cheer on an ally by giving them advantage on one kind of skill check, with additional bonuses if you choose strength, dexterity, or constitution.

Bard 5: Fifth level bards get third level spells like Motivational Speech, which will help you hit more shots! You give temporary HP to up to 5 creatures within 60' of you, and while they have that HP they have advantage on wisdom saves and hitting them causes them to have advantage on their next attack. Your bardic inspiration also grows to a d8, and by becoming a Font of Inspiration your dice recharge on short rests too! A good level all around.

Bard 6: Sixth level bards get a Countercharm which is such a waste of an action I won't cover it here. Instead attack twice with your Extra Attack. Or don't, since crossbows need to be loaded. Don't worry, we'll fix this soon. You can also cast Stinking Cloud, throwing out a gas bomb that'll waste the turn of anyone who fails their save inside of it. Mechanically this is part of Messenger of the Galaxy, flavorfully this is Sabotage, but it's good either way. Just don't use this against Ushiwakamaru.

Fighter 1: Bouncing over to fighter Archery now is great, you get the fighting style for a +2 to all your ranged attack rolls, plus you can find your Second Wind as a bonus action to cheer yourself up! Yeah that's about it.

Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells like the ultimate sabotage spell, Confusion. If the creatures in a 10' radius of the spell keep failing their wisdom saves, they'll have to roll to see what they do on their turn. This can make them: run into a wall, space out for a turn, punch someone at random, or maybe take its turn normally. Throw this down in a crowd for some serious pandemonium.

Bard 8: At eighth level we can finally fix that crossbow issue with Crossbow Expert, letting you ignore loading on weapons, fire at melee range without disadvantage, and you can use your bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow if you attacked with a one-handed weapon this turn. A hand crossbow is a one-handed weapon. You can fire that hand crossbow three times a turn if you want, is what I'm saying. We’re also popping back a bit to pick up Shatter for some explosives. Explosives make everything better! Except hangovers.

Bard 9: At ninth level bards get fifth level spells. Also, song of rest uses a d8 now. More importantly, pick up the spell Legend Lore so you can learn legendary stuff about legendary people, places, or things. A lot of legends will tell you a person’s big weakness, if indirectly. You’ll have to puzzle it out of a poem or something yourself.

Bard 10: Tenth level bards get a d10 for their inspiration, the Light cantrip (no anime character is complete without light coming out of somewhere), and Magical Secrets, two spells from any spell list in the game. If you can’t find a weakness, make one, with Elemental Bane! It only has one save, and if your target fails it not only removes their resistance to one elemental damage type, it will make the first instance of that damage they take each turn deal extra damage! If helping your friends is more your style, check out Circle of Power, giving you an aura of 30’ where your allies have advantage on saves against all spells and magical effects, plus, succeeding on that save to take half damage will actually reduce it to 0 damage instead. Your third skill hands out evasion, and now so do you. You also get another round of Expertise, so double down on Survival and Perception to survive out in the ol’ west. Yeehaw.

Bard 11: Eleventh level bard, sixth level spells. True Seeing will let you see through all sorts of illusions and invisibility to hit your mark every time.

Bard 12: Use this ASI to grab the Skill Expert feat to round up your Charisma for more inspiration and stronger spells. You also get proficiency in Insight and Expertise again in Insight to read people’s body language to find their weaknesses.

Fighter 2: Second level fighters can use an Action Surge to make two attacks in a single turn. There’s no limits on this one, so two spells, two attacks, dash really, really fast, it’s all cool.

Fighter 3: As a third level fighter you gain your martial archetype: the Battle Master. You become a Student of War for proficiency in one kind of artisan’s tools. You also get Combat Superiority, four d8s per short rest which you can use in three ways. You can use it on a Tactical Assessment, adding the die roll to an Investigation, History, or Insight check; a Distracting Strike, dealing extra damage on a hit and giving the next person to hit that creature advantage; or you can set an Ambush, adding the roll to a Stealth check or initiative roll. Either way you slice it, you’re very clever.

Fighter 4: But not as clever as you’ll be with the Observant feat rounding out your intelligence! You can also read lips now, and you get a +5 bonus to your passive perception and investigation scores.

Bard 13: Thirteenth level bards get seventh level spells (and again, song of rest is bigger but it scales badly so who cares) like Project Image. This lets you put an illusory copy of yourself anywhere you’ve been before within 500 miles of your body. It moves, speaks, and behaves however you want, and you can see and hear through it as though you were standing in its shoes. This is a sci-fi series, holograms exist. Now you have one.

Bard 14: Speaking of sci-fi, let’s get more of that with this level’s round of Magical Secrets. Now you can use Plane Shift to travel to any plane of existence you want with up to eight friends. With you and Spishtar working together, it’s almost like you have a whole spaceship! Alternatively, you can use Tenser’s Transformation to kick your combat prowess into high gear, gaining temporary HP, advantage on all attacks, extra damage when those attacks hit, and proficiency in strength and constitution saves for up to 10 minutes. The downside is you’ll suffer a level of exhaustion when the spell ends if you fail the constitution saving throw. This will make you tough enough to take on a god- just be careful of the blowback. You also learn Battle Magic, letting you cast a spell with your action and still attack with your bonus action.

Bard 15: For your last spell, it’s hard to pick anything other than Glibness. You’re just such a ray of sunshine even an evil god from another universe couldn’t help but learn the power of friendship from being around you. This makes it so you’ll always roll at least a 15 on all your charisma checks, plus magic can’t tell if you’re lying. Also your inspiration dice are d12s now, if you’re still interested in that.

Bard 16: Our final level for this build is simple, but effective. Use this last ASI to max out your Charisma. That’s all five inspiration dice, plus your spells are super powerful now.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

You have a ton you can do outside of combat, with proficiency in seven skills, expertise in five of those, and half proficiency on everything else, you really are able to help with just about everything.

You're also good at messing with people on the battlefield, seeing through their disguises or weakening them with banes, distractions, and gas bombs.

You're also good at supporting your team, helping them find opportunities to attack for extra damage. It's a shame you don't hang out with any assassins, they'd love to have advantage so often.

Cons:

True to your profile, you struggle when it comes to direct damage. Yes, you can use sharpshooter for a silly amount of pain, but since we didn't focus on your dexterity there's a good chance you'll miss more heavily armored targets.

You've also got too many options in a fight. Should you buff? Debuff? Attack? Inspire? There's so much shit going on, you'll have to actually know tactics to pick the right play at the right time.

Your buffs and debuffs both use up your Concentration, and since we didn't start as a fighter you're not great with those saves. Throwing down a sixth level spell just to have it knocked out of you next turn hurts.

#fate grand order #FGO #D&D #DND 5e #Calamity Jane #Fighter #Bard

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grailfinders · 2 years

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Fate and Phantasms #260: Salome

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're building Salome, the last two-star servant... ever, currently. We're also building John the Baptist, technically. (The build's mostly Salome, but we all know he's the real head of operations here.)

Salome is a Lorehold Bard because I understand WotC made a decision to not include the strixhaven subclasses in the official game, but I have determined that it's a dumbass decision. Also to get a skull to ride around on. She's also a Celestial Warlock to get some extra powers from John's skull.

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

Next up: I got that summertime, summertime ramen

Race and Background

Salome's a human. John was a human. Together they're variant human, which gives her +1 Intelligence and Charisma, as well as proficiency in Performance (duh) and the Gift of the Metallic Dragon feat. She learns the spell Cure Wounds and uses her Charisma to cast it, for free once a day or using spell slots. She also gets Protective Wings (veils) that add her proficiency bonus to her or another ally's AC to block an attack. You can do this proficiency times per day. Sadly this only gives her six veils by the end of this, but you do what you can.

She's the adopted daughter of a king, so that makes her a Noble, probably. I won't pretend I know how courts work. For our purposes though this just means she has proficiency in History and Persuasion checks. She's gotta get that skull somehow, y'know?

Ability Scores

Number one is Charisma. You dance so good it literally drives men mad, and you somehow convinced John to help you fight people after having him decapitated. That's a high persuasion DC. After that is Dexterity- I don't care what WotC says, a winning attitude does not count as dance classes. Third is Intelligence. Your whole scheme wasn't that complicated, but you're still smarter than the guys you tricked into helping you. Your Constitution isn't amazing, but you kinda have natural body so you shouldn't get sick that often. This means your Strength is pretty low, though it got a boost from Madness Enhancement so we're dumping Wisdom. Haha, berserkers.

Class Levels

Bard 1: Being a bard is cool, they get proficiency in three skills at the start from the bard skill list, a.k.a. every skill in the game. Pick up some Religion from your lover's skull, as well as Acrobatics for fancier dance moves and Athletics to ride on that skull easier. I mean, it's a smooth, round surface, your core's gotta be godlike to stay on that thing. You also get proficiency in Dexterity and Charisma saves. On top of that you gain Bardic Inspiration, letting you help out an ally as a bonus action, giving them a d6 they can add to a check, save, or attack roll within the next minute. You can do this Charisma Modifier times per long rest. It's like cheerleading, but for murder. Finally, you can cast Spells using your Charisma. Spells like Friends to make it easier to trick someone into decapitating a guy for you, or Charm Person to do the same. You also get Disguise Self for your Natural Body skill, letting you transform yourself, a totally natural thing for a body to do. You learn Dancing Lights mostly for the pun of it but also to help you see in the dark with your dumb human eyes, Faerie Fire because (as we learned with Nobu) bards suck at fire damage, and Dissonant Whispers to literally be so sexy it hurts. It'll also make the target run away if they fail a wisdom save.

Bard 2: At second level bards become a Jack of All Trades, adding half your proficiency to skill checks you're not proficient in. Being mad shouldn't make you bad at seeing things, and now it doesn't. (I mean you're still pretty bad at it with a +0, but w/e) You can also perform a Dance of Rest over a short rest, adding a d6 to the healing done by your party using their hit dice. This doesn't scale well, so enjoy it while you can. You can also cast Distort Value. I don't know if turning a crystal skull to gold raises or decreases its value, but now you can do either.

At third level you get a lot of stuff once you join the college of Lorehold, since they kind of expected you to join at level one. You get Expertise in two skills for a doubled proficiency bonus, so let's get really good at Persuasion and Performance. You also get a ton of free subclass spells: Sacred Flame, Comprehend Languages, Knock, and Locate Object. (Does a skull count as an object while the body around it is alive? Asking for a friend.) Your free spells' in-characterness is questionable, but the real reason we're here is for the feature you get upon joining the college, Ancient Companion. This lets you summon an ancient spirit and house it in a Medium sized statue like, say, a big crystal skull for example. Could be anything though. The important thing is it'll help you out if you use your bonus action to command it, otherwise it'll just dodge. They also come in three flavors. The Sage spirit helps nearby allies on intelligence and wisdom checks, a Healer can give out temporary HP, and a Warrior has a higher AC and can help nearby allies on strength and dexterity saves. While this statue is normally only medium size, you can use your new spell Enlarge/Reduce to grow it to Large, allowing you to ride it into battle. It isn't any faster than you'd be on foot, but you're riding into battle on a giant crystal skull, that's fucking awesome.

Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma for stronger spells. I know you're a berserker, but you have a giant skull to handle the punching for you now. You can also cast Mage Hand to make a smaller ghost skull carry stuff for you, and Enthrall to dance so good people have to pay attention to you and not your growing skull entourage.

Bard 5: Fifth level is good to bard. You get a bigger bardic inspiration die, you become a Font of Inspiration to get all those sweet sweet d8s back on a short rest, and you learn third level spells like Fast Friends. This basically lets you convince a creature to do whatever the hell you want as long as it wouldn't end in certain death for that creature. Certain death for someone else is totally on the table. You also get the freebies Speak with Dead to actually talk to that guy you like and Spirit Guardians to summon even more skulls to protect yourself, dealing damage in a circle around you to anything that gets too close.

Warlock 1: John the Baptist? Probably a cleric. So the powers you get from him probably match up with the Celestial patronage pretty well. This gives you the Light and Sacred Flame cantrips as well as a Healing Light, so you have your warlock level in d6s that you can use to heal a creature as a bonus action, spending up to 4d6 at a time, and 5 when your charisma bumps up later. Roll those dice together, heal that much to the target. You get all your dice back after a good night's sleep. You've got a little regeneration, as long as your dance doesn't remove it. Plus it's not like you were using that bonus action anyway, right? Oh. You also learn some Pact Magic, which is like normal magic but you get the spell slots back on short rests. Because of this it doesn't really gel with your existing spell slots, so rather than using the multiclassing table you use each class' slots separately. However, you can cast warlock spells with bard slots and vice-versa. Spells like Eldritch Blast (Throw a skull at them), Toll the Dead (Throw a spooky skull at them), Protection from Evil and Good (Use your big mirror to mess with radiant creatures), and Hex (Dance so good the boys go loco).

Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, extra goodies from your sugar skull daddy to tide you over. Stuff like Armor of Shadows for free mage armor since you're not exactly rocking platemail, and an Eldritch Mind to get advantage on concentration saves. You sling spells around while riding on a skull, that's tough to do. You also learn Expeditious Retreat this level, letting you pick up the tempo and dash as a bonus action. Use this as a retreating option, since you've got like 5 other bonus actions to use in a fight.

Warlock 3: At third level you get a pact boon from your patron. Since you already got a skull from your college we can use this feature to- oh, you already picked up another skull from the Pact of the Chain? Alright, that works too. You learn the Find Familiar spell and can cast it as a ritual, plus you can pick from an Imp, Pseudodragon, Quasit, or Sprite when you make your familiar. Technically there's no skull, but you can always flavor one to be a skull. You can also replace one of your terrible attacks with one of your familiar's terrible attacks. The important thing is your familiar doesn't use your bonus action, so you can have it take the help action so your other skull gets advantage to hit. You also get the spell Lesser Restoration. Natural Body = you don't get sick. But you the player probably do so please keep wearing a mask. I know it sucks, but do you really want to have wasted the last two years of your life just to get sick now?

Bard 6: Bouncing back to bard lets you waste a turn on Countercharm, giving your allies advantage against being charmed or frightened. On top of learning how useless this feature is you learn some Lessons of the Past, so your skull bf gives you a bonus depending on what spirit you choose to put in him. If it's a Healer you get a bonus to your hit point maximum and you get healed more per healing spell. With Sage you get advantage on all Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion checks, and once a turn you can deal extra force damage, making you a discount paladin. Appropriate for someone carrying around a cleric's skull. And finally, if you choose Warrior spending your action to cast a cantrip lets you make an attack in the same action, dealing radiant damage in the process. You can also charm a crowd now using your Hypnotic Pattern. Of dance moves, obviously.

Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells, so you can create a spooky skull only their target can see with Phantasmal Killer, send one off to spy on people as an Arcane Eye, or make more crystal skulls with Stone Shape.

Bard 8: Use this ASI to finally max out your Charisma for the strongest spells and most inspirational dances. Your flexibility on the dance floor also lets you get out of sticky situations now if you cast Freedom of Movement. You can't get slowed or paralyzed, and nonmagical restraints do almost nothing to you, only taking 5' of movement to break out of.

Bard 9: Ninth level bards get a stronger song of rest but also fifth level spells! Legend Lore is great if you want to gush about your boyfriend, and Destructive Wave is You can also finally cast Animate Objects, so now you can have up to ten tiny skulls floating around at once! These also require bonus action commands, but you can issue a general command at the start of a fight and just let them do their thing.

Bard 10: Tenth level bards get a d10 inspiration die, as well as another round of Expertise, this time in Acrobatics and Athletics. You get another cantrip which I don't really think matters that much, but you also learn Magical Secrets, two spells from any spell list, like Alter Self to properly shapeshift and Greater Restoration for some serious debuff immunity.

Warlock 4: Now that we have some good charisma, use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for a better AC and better dance moves. You can also finally have your skulls spit hot fire by flavoring up the spells Create Bonfire and Flaming Sphere.

Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get third level spells like Suggestion. It's kind of like Fast Friends but people won't get angry after the spell ends. You also pick up the invocation Gift of the Ever-Living Ones. While you're near John any dice that are being used to heal you always heal their maximum amount. That natural body does wonders for your health, it really does.

Warlock 6: Our last level of celestial servitude gives you a Radiant Soul, giving you resistance to radiant damage and you can add your charisma modifier to spells that deal fire or radiant damage. You can also Summon Undead, creating an Undead Spirit that'll hang around for up to an hour. And yes, a skeleton is an option. It doesn't even use your bonus action to command it!

Bard 11: Eleventh level bards get sixth level spells, and to be honest I don't really want any of them. That being said, I can't not include Otto's Irresistible Dance here. Despite the name, it doesn't actually make you dance, just your target. There's no save to start, but they can spend their action to make a wisdom save to end the spell. If they don't, they use all their movement dancing in place, and they have disadvantage on attacks and dexterity saves. Also, other creatures have advantage on attacking the target.

Bard 12: Use your last ASI of the build to bump up your Dexterity again. What can I say? You're flexible.

Bard 13: Again, we don't really need a seventh level spell at this point, but... it's called Dream of the Blue Veil. I couldn't not get it! And hey, now you have seven veils, just as promised.

Bard 14: We finish off this build with.. a problem. You see, the way the Strixhaven subclasses work is every time you would get something from a normal subclass, you can pick one option off their feature list. The issue here is, they have four features, and bards only get three subclass specific levels. Admittedly in this specific build you'd have to pick between War Echoes and History's Whims anyway. If you want to deal stupid damage, pick the former, but we're here to dance, so we're picking the latter. That means you can enter a funky dance state as a bonus action, letting you pick between one of three bonuses every turn as long as you don't pick the same one twice in a row. Luck lets you add a d6 to every saving throw you make for the turn, Resistance gives you resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage, and Swiftness gives you extra movement speed and you ignore opportunity attacks. The first one's nice, but we're here for using Resistance as a stand in for Natural Body and Swiftness as some kind of dancer's agility. Either way, the feature lasts one minute and you can use it once per long rest, or by spending a 4th level spell slot or higher. Speaking of spells, you get another round of Magical Secrets. You know how I said your skulls could spit fire with flavor? That's dumb. Use Dragon's Breath and they can do that rules as written. Slap it on your familiar or your companion and boom, every metal album ever. You can also use a Draconic Transformation to set yourself up with a super sick skull mount, giving you blindsight up to 30 feet, a Breath Weapon (That sadly only does force damage), and a Flying Speed so that floating skull of yours can actually, y'know, float.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

You game the action economy so hard it should be illegal. With a familiar skull, a companion skull, your own skull, and up to ten other skulls, you've got thirteen bodies on the field before we even bring up any sort of charms you've put on other people. I'm not saying they're powerful, but people will have a hell of a time trying to get through.

You're also pretty self-reliant in terms of survivability, with plenty of healing options to keep yourself alive and mobility options to keep the damage off you in the first place. I wouldn't say you're the party's healer, especially in late-game content, but you can help out a bit.

Speaking of parties, you're amazing at them. Ignoring your charming spells you still have a maxed out charisma stat and expertise in two charisma skills. And even if you need to deceive or intimidate someone you've got a +8 to the check, which isn't that bad.

Cons:

Your skulls are mostly really weak, so if your enemies or even your party has an Area of Effect Spell there's a good chance they'll destroy your entire army.

You also have a low wisdom, and if you get charmed now all those skulls are gonna be going after your party. Oops.

You also have issues with Concentration. Your saves aren't terrible, but the big issue is with exclusivity. You can't charm while animating objects, you can enlarge your skull and give it fire breath at the same time, it's just annoying.

#FGO #fate grand order #D&D 5e #DND #Salome #Bard #Warlock

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #198

Happy New Year! (If it is not new years, please disregard.) Today we're crossing into the 2020 servants; hopefully this build makes that clear.

Today we're building Katsushika Hokusai, the daughter/fatheroctopus painter duo, most famous for... waves? And also making a deal with Cthulhu. We're grabbing some levels in Creation Bard for the former, and Hexblade Warlock for the latter. Don't worry, it'll make sense as we go.

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

Next up:

Race and Background

Oui is a Human. Her dad's an octopus, which is weird, but we'll deal with that later. Also, we're making her a variant human for cool stuff. She gets +1 Wisdom and Charisma, as well as Animal Handling proficiency to get along with her parents and the Magic Initiate feat, which uses her Wisdom to cast druid spells. Since magical paintbrushes aren't an official weapon in D&D 5e, we'll call it a quarterstaff instead, which means you can use Shillelagh to make it fancy and magical for the duration. It also turns the damage die into a d8, deals magical damage, and uses your wisdom instead of strength to hit things and deal damage. You also get Frostbite to splash cold water on people, and Protection from Evil and Good. You can cast that last one once a day for free, and it'll protect you against aberrations (plus celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead) for ten minutes with concentration. They'll have disadvantage to hit you, and they cant' charm, frighten, or possess you, and any existing effects of that ilk you can shake off with advantage. No spoilers, but that'll come in handy soon enough.

You also get the Guild Artisan background, because you paint for money. That gives you Insight and Persuasion proficiency.

Ability Scores

Make your Charisma as high as possible. You paint good, and you have the mental fortitude to keep an elder god from yeeting your soul from your body. Good job. Second highest is Dexterity, painting lifesized waves in the air around you doesn't actually need all the backflips, you just like to show off. Your Wisdom is also pretty good, it's hard to paint things you can't see well, and again that whole "mental fortitude" thing. Your Constitution is pretty good, you handle all-nighters pretty well. That means your Strength isn't great, but we're dumping Intelligence. You're kind of a hick, after all. Plus, really? Swordbeauties?

Class Levels

Bard 1: You weren't born with the squid powers, so we'll grab those up a bit later. Right now you're just a plucky young artist with a dream. As a bard, you get proficiency with Dexterity and Charisma saves, as well as three skills of your choice. Performance and Nature will help you paint nature, and Arcana will help you find the squid guy in the first place. You get Bardic Inspiration, Charisma Modifier d6s per long rest, and you can give one to your allies to boost one attack, check, or save by however much they roll. Nothing like some tasteful nudes to get the spirits up. You also get Spells that you can cast using your Charisma. Friends makes it easier to pass charisma checks against a creature for a minute, but they'll know you magicked them afterwards. Thankfully, getting paid doesn't take that long. Minor Illusion helps you bring your paintings to life, but just a little bit. It'll create a still object or sound that lasts for up to a minute. Creatures can tell it's an illusion with an investigation check, or by touching it. You also get Animal Friendship- your dad can be hard to get along with. Color Spray weaponizes your paints to blind creatures in the area, and Illusory Script lets you write one thing, but really write another. I'm sure you can argue this should count for paintings as well. Oh, you also get Dissonant Whispers. You're a Foreigner, you can be a little creepy if ya wanna.

Bard 2: Second level bards become a Jack of All Trades, adding half their proficiency to skill checks they aren't proficient in. You're an anime character, it's an unwritten rule you should be good at everything. You also get a Song of Rest, adding a d6 to healing your party does over a short rest. On top of that, your bardic inspiration becomes Magical Inspiration, letting your allies add it to the damage or healing of a spell. Finally, grab the spell Silent Image for moving images, so now you can paint birds and/or waves and have them look just like the real thing. Now, third level of bard is where things start getting funky, so before we can do that, let's make a deal.

Warlock 1: Bouncing over to warlock lets you become a Hexblade, which sounds kind of weird, but there's a reason for that. You don't do weird mind stuff like the GOOlocks, and you don't really use Tentacles like the Fathomlocks. What you do need though, is a fancy magic brush, and a fancy magic octopus. There isn't a familiar-based subclass yet, so we had to go with the weapon-based one, and we'll pick up your dad later. Anyways, starting off as a Hexblade lets you invoke a Hexblade's Curse as a bonus action, dealing your proficiency in extra damage to the cursed creature, crit on 19s, and heal yourself when the cursed creature dies. The curse lasts 1 minute, and you can use this once per short rest. Hokusai also become a Hex Warrior, turning one non-two-handed weapon into a special weapon at the end of a long rest. Now your brush uses your Charisma to attack, nice. Unfortunately, this doesn't include magical damage, but you can stack this with Shillelagh if you really need to. You also get another set of spells with your Pact Magic. These slots recharge on short rests, and it means your multiclassing doesn't mix slots like most spellcasting classes would. You can still use one kind of slot to cast the other kind of spells though. Speaking of spells, grab Eldritch Blast for some paint splashes, and Mage Hand for a pseudo-octopus that'll grab things for you. Cause Fear lets you paint a really creepy thing one target can see, forcing a wisdom save and scaring them if they fail. Arms of Hadar will give you a little bit of tentacles, as a treat. They'll force a strength save on creatures near you, dealing necrotic damage and making them too gooey to take reactions.

Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, mini-feats to help you cope with only having two spell slots. Grab Armor of Shadows for free Mage Armor on yourself at will. Your family is your armor, and I mean that literally. Stop wearing your dad, it's creepy. You also get a second one, but we're saving that for the next level. Don't not take one now though, I'm just saying it won't matter in the long run.

Bard 3: Now that your pact is sealed, we can get the real living paintings going. If you're thinking 'bout an inking feel free to shuffle levels around, I just want to hit Font of Inspiration quickly. As a Creation bard, Hokusai gets an Inkling of Potential, adding extra effects to her bardic inspiration. Ability checks let the user roll twice, attack rolls deal extra thunder damage, and saving throws add temporary HP to the user. She can also enact the Performance of Creation, creating a nonmagical item nearby. Currently it must cost less than 20 times your bard level, and it has to be medium or smaller. You can do this once per long rest, or by spending a 2nd level slot, but doing so destroys the first object if it still exists. Right now this only makes medium objects, but a 5' wave of water is nothing to sneeze at. You also get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency them. Pick up Insight and Performance for the ultimate style-copying skills. Finally, you get second level spells. We can't focus too much on non-charisma abilities, but this'll give you a leg up on seeing the true nature of things. It gives you advantage on any one kind of ability check for up to a minute.

Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma. Now you have more inspiration, better spells, and a bigger brush. Charisma's good, you'll like charisma. You can also paint Dancing Lights and a Phantasmal Force now. The former lights up an area, the latter creates a phantasmal creature or object that only one creature can see for up to a minute. It can break the illusion with an Investigation check, but until then it treats the thing as completely real, rationalizing away inconsistencies. It also can take a bit of psychic damage if the illusion would cause harm within 5' of itself.

Bard 5: Fifth level bards become a Font of Inspiration like we talked about earlier, giving you inspiration recharges on short rests instead of long ones. Your inspiration also jumps to d8s. Finally, grab Major Image for more major illusions than minor image. It creates an object up to 20' on each side, and includes effects like sound, smell, and temperature, as long as they wouldn't deal damage. You can also move the illusion using your action. Same rules apply to breaking it though- investigation check or just touching it.

Warlock 3: Finally back in warlock, you get your pact boon, and the Pact of the Chain gives you Find Familiar as a ritual, and you can skip your own attack to attack with your familiar. Wildly enough, Octopus is already a rules as written option for Find Familiar. Awkward point; octopi can only be out of water for 30 minutes. Good luck with that! On top of that, Mirror Image lets you paint duplicates of yourself, making it harder to hit you. Boom, evade skill achieved. You get three extra copies, and every time you get hit, there's only a 25% chance of actually hitting the real one. If an illusion gets hit, it's destroyed, so the odds go up to 33%, then 50%. You also put in the Investment of the Chain Master, giving your dad a flying speed, the ability to attack as a bonus action, magical weapons, your DC for saves, and you can react to give the little bugger resistance to one instance of damage. Literally everyone else's dad is dead already, try not to add one more to the pile. Except for Romani's, but that's sad in its own way.

Warlock 4: Another ASI, max out your Charisma. It's good, you use it for literally everything. For spells, Mind Sliver deals psychic damage an makes the target's next save a bit harder to make. You also get a Crown of Madness, which gives you control over a creature's attack action. Just because you're less spooky than Abby doesn't mean you're not spooky.

Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get a new invocation and third level spell. Summon Shadowspawn lets you paint one of three kinds of shadowspawn, creepy little things that can scare people by screaming at them. They'll obey your commands, and it'll last up to an hour, until they hit 0 HP, or you drop concentration. Your last invocation is the Gift of the Depths, letting you breathe underwater and swim as fast as you can walk. Now it's slightly less awkward to carry your dad around, yay. You can also cast Water Breathing for free once per long rest.

Bard 6: Finally back in bard now, sixth level creation bards can put on an Animating Performance, turning a large or smaller item into a Dancing Item with its own stats and everything. You have to use your bonus action to command it in battle, but you can inspire people at the same time. I'm not sure how well animating water would work, but it's something to look into. You also learn how to Countercharm, spending your action to give creatures near you advantage on saves against being charmed or frightened. For something better, grab Intellect Fortress. For up to an hour, you'll resist psychic damage, and you get advantage on all Int, Wis, and Chr saves.

Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells, like Hallucinatory Terrain! Now you can paint a landscape- literally! It's only 150' in range, but that's still plenty of space to mess with people. It doesn't really change anything, but forcing people to look at non-euclidean geometry is its own reward.

Bard 8: Another ASI. Bump up your Dex now so you're less likely to get hit, then grab Phantasmal Killer to paint a scary creature that will follow the target around and beat them up. It's a shame only one creature gets to see it.

Bard 9: Ninth level bards get a better song of rest, but more importantly you get fifth level spells. Legend Lore will help you see the true meaning of things more easily, and the more you already know about something the more you'll learn. That's why your Arcana and Nature skills are so high. Oh, wait, sorry, one sec...

Bard 10: And that's why your Arcana and Nature skills are so high... starting now, with another round of Expertise. Your inspiration also jumps to d10s, and you learn Magical Secrets, two spells from any spell list you can cast. On top of that, you get Prestidigitation to paint up small objects. For your secrets, Conjure Animals lets you paint up some real animals that'll attack enemies for you. Alternatively, you can Control Water to make those waves we've been trying to do with way less fuss than a Song of Creation or Animating Performance. It does come with the limit of using existing water, though you can also Part Water, cause a Whirlpool, or Redirect Flow with this one.

Bard 11: Eleventh level bards get a sixth level spell, and True Seeing will help you see All Things in Nature, letting you see through illusions, invisibility and the like.

Bard 12: One last ASI; bump up your Constitution for better concentration and more HP.

Bard 13: Your Song of Rest is a d10 now, and you get a seventh level spell. Prismatic Spray is the return of Color Spray, but it's taken steroids. Now it deals plenty of damage of a random type to each creature in its area, or it has a chance to shove them into another dimension or petrify them.

Bard 14: Your last goody from the college of creation is a Creative Crescendo, allowing you to paint up to your Charisma Modifier in items when you use a Performance of Creation. Only one can be a biggun, the rest have to be small or tiny. Also, your max size is Huge now, and a 15' cube of water will make a pretty big splash. You also get another round of Magical Secrets, grabbing you Conjure Elemental for a more symbolic approach to flooding people, and Wrath of Nature to paint a landscape that'll really fuck with someone. The grass turns land into difficult terrain, the trees will slash at enemies nearby, Roots and vines restrain enemies, and Rocks will throw themselves at enemies, knocking them prone on a failed strength save. It's not mind melting geometries, but it's still mess with people's heads.

Bard 15: Your ultimate level gives you a d12 inspiration die. You also get one last spell, of the eighth level. Feeblemind will handle all the mind melting the last level failed to live up to, forcing an intelligence save and dealing damage regardless. On a failed save, the creature's Intelligence and Charisma drop to 1, and it can't cast spells, use magic items, talk, or understand people. The only ways to fix this are with another Intelligence saving throw (every 30 days) or using Greater Restoration, Heal, or Wish.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Like the regular Hokusai, this build has a great deal of flexibility, with pretty good AC, HP, and physical attack options to get up close and personal, as well as ways to buff allies and attack with spells at a distance.

Speaking of spells, they give you a lot of crowd control options. You can create extra allies with summoning spells and Animating Performance, blow them away with waves from Control Water or Performance of Creation, or keep them tied up with various illusions.

You're also really good at fighting other spellcasters. Spells like Protection from Evil and Good and Intellect Fortress will shore up most of your saves against fancier spells, and you can use Feeblemind to completely shut down anyone who isn't a wizard or artificer.

So piss off your patron and kick the ass of their flunkies, easy! Wait, there's still cons.

Cons:

Okay, so there are some problems with throwing waves all over the place: they're hard to control where exactly they end up. Also, your best wave requires real water, which won't always be available.

On a similar note, you specialize in summons and illusions, both of which tend to require Concentration saves. Yours aren't that great, and on top of that it means you can only have one up at a time. Unless you're cool with an elemental running around willy nilly, but that fits into Con #1.

Your Familiar can only stay on dry land for 30 minutes at a time. If you're going to play this in a landlocked campaign, switch the octopus and last invocation for something else, it'll be a pain otherwise.

Okay, she isn't perfect, just make sure you carry an aquarium with you, problem solved, right?

#fate grand order #fgo #D&D 5e #dnd #Katsushika Hokusai #Warlock #Bard

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #189

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the royal hikkikoneet of Himeji Castle, Osakabehime! This giant nerd is a Lore Bard, because it’s hard to stay in your room all day and not read things, as well as a Trickery Domain Cleric to fill your castle to the brim with ghostly defenses (and run away to your kotatsu when things get scary).

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

Next up: Prepare for trouble, and make it double!

Race and Background

Going by Fate’s official lore, Osakabehime is a kitsune like Tamamo. But, since Tamamo’s pretty insistent on No Doubles, O-heems here had to change her race, and so do we. So we’re making her a Hexblood to get some castle magic right off the bat. This makes Batty Fey and Humanoid, and she gets +1 Wisdom and +2 Charisma. She keeps the standard Medium size, but she still gets Darkvision, Fey Resilience against the charmed condition, Hex Magic which lets her cast Disguise Self and Hex using her Charisma. You can cast one of these spells for free each day, or by using spell slots.

She can also make Magic Tokens out of her hair (and other things, but those are gross), letting her send a message to the creature holding it. Also, while she’s within 10 miles of the token, she can enter a trance to see and hear through the token for 1 minute, after which the token is destroyed. She can make a token once per long rest, and they only last until her next long rest anyway, so don’t get excited about stockpiling them like I just did before reading that part.

Castle Guardian Spirit isn’t an official D&D background, but fortunately Mangaka is! Or at least, Guild Artisan has the same sort of ring to it. This gives Batty proficiency in Insight and Persuasion.

Ability Scores

Batty’s Wisdom should be her highest stat. Making good art requires good eyes to figure out how to improve your technique. Second best is her Charisma. She’s got that awkward underdog style going for her, despite how much she overthinks things. Her Dexterity is also pretty high. She might not move around much, but she’s an expert at hiding from responsibilities! Batty’s Intelligence is above average, it’s hard to spend that much time on the internet and not learn something. Her Constitution isn’t great, I blame staying inside all day, but we’re dumping Strength for pretty much the same reason. There’s nothing saying a NEET can’t be a gym rat, but that’s def not Batty.

Class Levels

Bard 1: Starting off as a bard gives Batty all sorts of proficiencies, like Dexterity and Charisma saves, Sleight of Hand and Performance to master her brushstrokes, History for living for so long, and Stealth to slip away from crowds. If she does end up next to people though, she can use her Bardic Inspiration to give them a d6 for one of their checks, saves, or attack rolls Charisma Bonus times per long rest. Batty can also use her Charisma to cast Spells! Minor Illusion and Silent Image will create the first soldiers in her origami army (they can’t touch people, but they can be distracting!). She also gets Feather Fall for some bat parachuting, Blade Ward to hide from physical attacks in her kotatsu dimension, Charm Person to avoid fights altogether, and Distort Value to make even a neck guard look like a proof of courage.

Cleric 1: Bouncing over to cleric real quick will give us all sorts of goodies. Since Batty is a Trickery cleric, she gets a Blessing of the Trickster, giving another creature advantage on stealth checks for an hour. Don’t you know heavy armor is uruso noisy? Keep it quiet! She also learns another set of spells (since we’re multiclassing you’ll have to use the special table to figure out how many slots you have now.) that use her Wisdom to cast and prepare them. She gets Charm Person and Disguise Self for free, which... she already had from level one... But, she also gets cantrips! Guidance and Resistance will make you a little more knowledgeable than everyone else about everything, and Thaumaturgy will help you get your spooky castle ghost thing going. You can also prepare spells like Bane to dull the senses of intruders, and Purify Food and Drink and Sanctuary to protect yourself and guests.

Bard 2: Second level bards are even better at everything since they’re Jacks of All Trades, adding half their proficiency to all skill checks. They also learn a Song of Rest, so anyone brave enough to spend a short rest in Himeji Castle will heal an extra d6 when they use hit dice. Your Magical Inspiration makes your bardic inspiration dice even better, letting your allies add the d6 to the damage or healing of a spell! Batty can also cast Speak with Animals now! Turns out she has an army of like 800 animal spirits helping out, which certainly explains all the origami.

Bard 3: As a Lore bard, Batty gets even more proficiencies, making her really good with Deception, Arcana, and Religion. I mean, she is kind of a god already. She can also turn her bardic inspiration into Cutting Words, reducing a creature’s check, attack roll, or damage by that amount instead of adding to it. She means well, but her cringey moments can get pretty uramessy. She also get Expertise in Performance and Stealth, doubling her jozu modifier. She can also cast Animal Messenger to make her first origami animal that can actually help you, delivering a message to a creature you specify in a location you’ve been before.

Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma for more inspiration and confidence, meaning more helpful hints and more cringey cutting words per long rest. This also makes your spells better! Speaking of, you get Prestidigitation to make real origami at will, and Phantasmal Force to make an origami horse that can really trample people. Well, kind of. It’s still an illusion, but the damage is real.

Bard 5: Fifth level bards get stronger Bardic Inspiration, their dice turning into d8s. They also become a Font of Inspiration, thanks to their inspiration dice refilling on short rests instead of long ones. You can also use third level spells now, like using a Glyph of Warding to hide Phantasmal Forces all around your castle. You can use these glyphs to create Explosive Runes for straight damage, or Spell Glyphs to store spells of the level you cast the glyph at or lower, which will target whatever activated the glyph in the first place. It takes an hour and 200 gold to cast, but it also lets you ignore concentration, so... actually this would be a great way to summon creatures. Just stick a glyph in a book, throw it at a creature’s head, boom, summons without concentration. You’re welcome.

Bard 6: Sixth level bards can waste their turn using Countercharm to give allies advantage on saves against being frightened or charmed. You already get half of that for free, so why bother. More importantly, you get Additional Magical Secrets, giving you two spells from any class. For your normal spell, grab Nondetection to prevent yourself from getting found through magic, then use magical secrets to pick up Leomund’s Tiny Hut to hide in a proper kotatsu of protection, and Conjure Animals for some slightly fleshier origami animals. We’ll get the real deal later, but this works just as well, yo-i.

Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells, like Hallucinatory Terrain. Changing up the whole castle grounds is a good way to get people lost, and if they’re lost they’re less likely to find you.

Bard 8: Max out your Charisma with this ASI for better spells and more cringe. You can also use Greater Invisibility to keep yourself hidden, even while making more origami.

Bard 9: Your last level of bard makes your Song of Rest a d8 too, but more importantly, you also get fifth level spells, meaning you can finally cast Animate Objects to make real origami animals of variable sizes. You can create up to 10 animals this way, with medium pieces of paper counting as two, large pieces as four, and huge objects as eight. You can also upcast this spell for more objects at once. Rise, my mighty karmy!

Cleric 2: Now that we have your origarmy ready to go, we can finally dip back into cleric! Second level clerics can Channel Divinity once per short rest, either Turning Undead with a wisdom save, or Invoking Duplicity to create an illusory copy of yourself for a minute. The illusion has to stay within 120 feet of you, but you can cast spells as though you were standing in its space. Perfect for when you have to fight but you want to stay in your tiny hut at the same time.

Cleric 3: Third level clerics get second level spells, like Mirror Image and Pass without Trace. Finally, you can make yourself sneaky! You also get access to a bunch of other spells that will make yourself more protected- Aid increases your and up to two other creature’s max HP for 8 hours, Protection from Poison protects you... from poison, and Zone of Truth makes sure nobody can hide their plans from you.

Cleric 4: With your bard stuff taken care of, you can use this ASI to bump up your Wisdom for stronger cleric spells. You also learn Mending. Your army is made of paper, they’re going to get torn eventually.

Cleric 5: Fifth level clerics can Destroy Undead of CR 1/2 or lower when they’re turned, and they also get third level spells, like Blink and Dispel Magic. Bringing your own magic into someone’s house is shitsurei manners, don’t you think? You can also Bestow Curses on particularly rude guests, Meld into Stone to hide away without a trace, and create Spirit Guardians to protect yourself from melee attacks.

Cleric 6: As a sixth level cleric, you can Channel Divinity twice per rest, and you can use it to put on a Cloak of Shadows, becoming invisible until the end of next turn, or until you attack or cast a spell.

Cleric 7: Seventh level clerics get fourth level spells, like Dimension Door to pop straight into your kotatsu from 500 feet away. You can also cast Polymorph to reclaim your foxy glory! Or turn into a T Rex, if you want to powergame. Your choice. You also get access to Guardians of Faith, which are like Spirit Guardians, but they don’t stick near you- perfect for when you want to avoid being in a fight entirely. You can also use an Aura of Life and/or Aura of Purity to make your hikkolife a bit easier. The former gives nearby allies resistance to necrotic damage, immunity to max HP reduction, and autoheals creatures when they start their turn with 0 hit points. Hey, another spell that would be really good to keep around in a glyph of warding! The latter prevents disease, gives creatures in it resistance against poison damage, and has advantage on saves against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned, and stunned.

Cleric 8: Use your last ASI to max out your Wisdom for the best cleric spells possible. Your Destroy Undead grows to affect creatures of CR 1 or lower, and you also get a Divine Strike, causing all your weapon attacks to deal an extra 1d8 poison damage. I mean... no reason to turn down a free gift, right?

Cleric 9: Ninth level clerics get fifth level spells, like Dominate Person and Modify Memory to sculpt the minds of those foolish enough to enter your castle without permission. You can also use Insect Plague to create a massive swarm of tiny origami bats, dealing piercing damage to creatures stuck in them. Alternatively, use Hallow to make your castle a more liminal space, adding a bunch of effects against celestials, elementals, fey (probably should just not include that one.), fiends, and undead, preventing them from entering the area and messing with their magic and mental effects. There’s also a ton of other effects you can add, just take a look at the spell, we’re not writing them all out here.

Cleric 10: Tenth level clerics get Divine Intervention, letting you pray to your god for a roya-l get out of jail free card once a day, with a week’s break after it actually works. You have a roughly 1 in 10 chance of it working each time you use it, based on your cleric level. If it works, you can get whatever your DM thinks is appropriate- maybe a couple robots show up to help out your plan to be lazy forever? Nah, that’d be silly. You can also cast Sacred Flame this level. I was running out of good cantrips to give you, and kitsune are known for will of wisps and the like, so it’s sort of on theme.

Cleric 11: Your capstone level makes Destroy Undead affect creatures of CR 2 or lower, and you get sixth level spells! Forbiddance locks magical travel out of an area for up to a day- if you cast the spell every day for a month, it’ll last until dispelled. You can also force extraplanar creatures to take a bunch of damage every turn they’re in the area without a save, so Tamamo will finally leave you alone. You can use Word of Recall to teleport back to your kotatsu from anywhere, no restrictions. (Technically you have to pick a spot that is involved with your god, but aside from that.) Or, you can use a Heroes’ Feast to make the rest of your party stronger so you won’t feel as bad when you leave the fighting to them. This cures creatures of all disease and poison, makes them immune to poison and being frightened, gives them advantage on wisdom saves, and increases their max HP, all for 24 hours.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Glyph of Warding lets you set up tons of traps and store spells away for later, all without using concentration. That is huge for a build whose main source of damage comes from summon spells. Not only does it let you cast more of them, it also means the ones you have up won’t disappear because you get hit.

Speaking of, it’s really easy for you to avoid combat entirely. Go invisible, hide in a tiny hut and let your duplicity do the fighting for you, throw gobs of paper at enemies then run the other way, whatever they do doesn’t matter because you won’t be around to get hit anyway!

If an enemy does try to chase you down, they’ll have to pass through your massive army of summons first-with an upcasted Animate Objects, that means they’ll be taking 18 attacks of opportunity before they even walk through them all, and that’s before factoring nonsense from your glyphs.

Cons:

You are terrible at fighting directly. You have very few spells that deal damage directly, you have barely over 100 HP, and your AC is 11 if you’re playing to character. Once somebody does make it past your paper, you’d better have a word of recall ready.

Multiclassing really hurts spellcasters. It means you don’t get 7th level or higher spells, you have to spend all your ASIs on casting modifiers to make them both good, and you don’t get the guaranteed intervention from only being a cleric.

You have a big army, but they’re still made of paper. If you go the tiny bat route, all your summons will only have 20 hp, which means one fireball will tear through all of them in a single blow.

#fate grand order #FGO #D&D 5e #DND #Osakabehime #Cleric #Bard

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #178

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re building the beach’s demon king of the sixth heaven, Oda Nobunaga (Berserker)! This extra spicy Nobu is a Swords Bard to make her axe a little more literal while still grabbing the freaking spaceship we need to build, a Four Elements Monk to grab that giant flaming skeleton, and just a bit of Fighter for high-speed guitar skills that would make Hellshake Yano weep with jealousy.

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

Next up: Team Tyrannical Shooting Star... again.

Race and Background

Nobu is still a Variant Human, giving her +1 Wisdom and Charisma. The Deception proficiency she gets is also super useful for your fool’s tactics, as is the Mobile feat, which gives you an extra 10′ of movement each move action, and you can escape from enemies you’ve attacked this turn without dealing with their attacks of opportunity.

She gets the Entertainer background this time though so she can rock out on the beach with proficiency in Acrobatics and Performance.

Ability Scores

Nobu’s Charisma is top notch, which isn’t surprising. She really knows how to make an entrance. After that is Dexterity, because playing a guitar is hard, but playing one with a chainsaw attached is even harder. The fact you still have both hands is tribute to your skills. Your Dexterity is next, your primary fuel for that fire is... you. A lesser servant would already be charcoal by now. Your Wisdom isn’t terrible, though that’s mostly for multiclassing. Your Strength’s a bit low, but your weapon’s damage comes from being a chainsaw more than you swinging it. Finally, dump Intelligence. You’re still Nobu, and you’re also a berserker this time around.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: We’re starting off as a fighter mostly for the weapon proficiencies, but the extra HP and concentration buff doesn’t hurt either. You get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as two skills- Insight will help make you a lot smarter than you look, and Intimidation is just really easy when you have a giant flaming skeleton backup singer.

You also get a Fighting Style, so grab Superior Technique to throw out a Distracting Strike once per short rest. When you hit a target with a distracting strike, you’ll deal more damage, and the next non-you creature to target it gets advantage.

You also get a Second Wind you can use as a bonus action once per short rest for a bit of healing. This isn’t even the last healing thing you get- I don’t know why you’ve got Garden of Avalon attached to a skill, and honestly I don’t care. It’s awesome.

2. Monk 1: One thing fighter doesn’t have going for it is the ability to duke it out in a T-shirt. Monk fixes that handily with Unarmored Defense, giving you an AC based on your Dexterity and Wisdom. It’s... not a huge boost, but it’s something?

Even better, you get Martial Arts, so now you can use your dexterity instead of strength to attack with your monk weapons. A guitar/cd player/chainsaw isn’t a monk weapon yet, but at least your punches will land.

3. Monk 2: At second level, monks can use their Ki for all sorts of things on their bonus action- dash, disengage, dodge, or attack twice as a bonus action, by spending ki points! You get Monk Level ki points per short rest. You also get Unarmored Movement, making you even faster while not wearing any kind of armor.

Most importantly, you can turn your axe into a Dedicated Weapon over a long rest, turning any non-two handed or heavy weapon into a monk weapon. Battleaxes are versatile, not two-handed, so now you’ve got an axe-sized axe that you can really use. And it only took three levels!

4. Fighter 2: We’re popping back to fighter one last time for Action Surge, giving you a second action on a turn once per short rest. I don’t know what qualifies as a “sick guitar solo” in D&D, but I hope playing twice within the same six seconds counts.

5. Bard 1: Now that you’ve got your speed up, your music should be a bit more magical. First level bards can use Bardic Inspiration as a bonus action, giving your allies a d6 to use on an attack, check, or save. You get Charisma Modifier inspiration dice to hand out per long rest. You also learn a couple Spells that will put your high Charisma to use.

Grab Vicious Mockery and Bane to throw people off their game, and Prestidigitation so you can do whatever you want to with minor magical effects. You also get Heroism and Cure Wounds for more party support, Faerie Fire for just a touch of flame right off the bat.

You also get one more skill proficiency, so grab History. You’re not an academic, but you are a historical figure.

6. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half their proficiency to checks you’re not proficient with. You also get a Song of Rest, adding a d6 to healing done over short rests. We’re still a ways away from your giant flaming skeleton, but for now you can use Silent Image so it looks like you have one.

7. Bard 3: We debated a lot between making you a Swords bard or a Valor bard, but in the end the former won out so you can make your weapon your casting implement. Thanks to your new Dueling fighting style, you can play the axe one-handed just as well as you do with two hands, and you also get Blade Flourishes using your Inspiration. When you take the attack action, your movement increases by 10′, and you can spend an inspiration die to deal extra damage and get another effect. A Defensive Flourish adds the roll to your AC for a round, a Slashing Flourish deals the extra damage to nearby creatures as well, and the Mobile Flourish pushes the creature away, and you can use your reaction to follow them.

You get Expertise in Performance and Deception, doubling your proficiency bonus in those checks. You also learn the second level spell Heat Metal. Real fire? In a fire-themed character build? Wild!

8. Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Dexterity for higher AC and better attacks. You can also use Minor Illusion for those times you want a fire skeleton, but you can’t waste a spell slot. If you want another second level spell, use Pyrotechnics to make, well, pyrotechnics. You can put out a small area of existing fire, and/or you can create Fireworks or Smoke from that area. The former forces a constitution save (DC 8 + Proficiency + charisma mod) on nearby creatures or they’re blinded for a round, and the latter creates a smoke cloud that creates a heavily obscured area for up to a minute.

9. Monk 3: Now that we’ve got a good lineup of music set to go, let’s finally get the skeleton. As a Four Elements monk, you’re a Disciple of the Elements, giving you two Elemental Disciplines. Elemental Attunement is mandatory, and it gives you several small effects, including the ability to create small fires as an action. More importantly, you can spend a ki point to turn your arms into Fangs of the Fire Snake, making your unarmed attacks deal fire damage for the turn, and your reach increases by 10′ for the turn. On top of that, you can spend even more ki points to deal more damage with each hit. They don’t specify the attacks are coming from a giant skeleton, but I’m pretty sure that’s an oversight.

You can also use your reaction to Deflect Missiles and reduce incoming damage from arrows. If you reduce it to zero, you can throw it back. Yeah, it’s okay. I’m still thinking about the fire skeleton though.

10. Monk 4: The ASIs are coming hard and heavy right now, so bump up your Dexterity for better armor and attacks. You also get to Slow Fall as a reaction, so jumping out a building isn’t quite as stupid an idea for you.

11. Monk 5: Fifth level monks get an Extra Attack for more punches each action. That means you’ve got two in a normal turn, three with martial arts, four with flurry of blows, and six with an Action surge. You also get to turn those punches into Stunning Strikes, forcing a constitution save on the target to avoid getting stunned for a round. That save’s based on your wisdom though, so don’t expect miracles.

12. Bard 5: Bouncing back to bard real quick makes your Bardic Inspiration stronger, turning all those dice into d8s. That buffs your flourish power, and your party support. As a bonus, you become a Font of Inspiration, so those dice recharge on short rests too!

Really this is just a banner level for you, since with third level spells you can also grab Major Image to create a really big skeleton that actually feels hot!

13. Bard 6: Sixth level bards get pretty much nothing, ‘cause your extra attack doesn’t stack. You also get a Countercharm, I guess. Spend your action to give advantage to allies dealing with Fear and Charm effects.

If you want to do that and still be useful, spend a minute to give your allies a Motivational Speech -er, concert- to give them temporary HP and advantage on wisdom saves. If they’re hit by an attack, they also get advantage on their next attack too. The spell ends for everyone after an hour, or for a creature after their temporary HP is destroyed.

14. Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells, like Hallucinatory Terrain. I know nobuserker won’t get the ability to set fields on fire for a while, but futureproofing is a good habit to get into.

15. Monk 6: Hopping back over to monk real quick for some Ki-Empowered Strikes, making your fists magical for overcoming resistance. You also get one more Elemental Discipline, and Sweeping Cinder Strike gives you Burning Hands for the low low cost of 2 ki points per cast. You can also spend an extra ki point to upcharge it, but honestly that’s more trouble than it’s worth.

16. Bard 8: Another ASI! Use this one to power up your Charisma for stronger heals, stronger spells, and more inspiration. You can also cast Phantasmal Killer so Skelly can go kill people on his own.

17. Bard 9: Your Song of Rest grows to a d8 as well, for sicker riffs while you’re jamming. You can also Animate Objects, so now you can really put the “chain” back in your chainsaw and go scooting around.

18. Bard 10: Your Bardic Inspiration grows one last time to a d10, and you get Magical Secrets, two spells from any class. (You also get a cantrip, so.. True Strike, why not.)

You also learn the spell Find Greater Steed so you can ride in style in your own customizable rocket. I’d recommend a Griffon, but anything with a flying speed is good. You also get Haste to make that griffon more rocket-y, doubling a target creature’s speed, giving it an extra action, advantage on dex saves and checks, and it’s AC goes up by 2. You’ll have to let the engines cool afterwards though, it’ll have to take a turn off once the spell ends. Also, make sure you keep that thing low to the ground, unless you want to get pancaked by Ishtar.

Also, more Expertise. Perfect your atsumori with Acrobatics and your cool poses with Intimidation.

19. Monk 7: It took a while to get here, but you finally get Evasion! Now your dexterity saves are super good, with failures only dealing half damage and successes avoiding all damage! You also get a Stillness of Mind that lets you end charming and frightening effects on yourself. Madness enhancement is one hell of a drug.

20. Monk 8: Your capstone level is one last ASI, and if you made it this far you deserve a pat on the back. And also the Tough feat for 40 extra HP.

Pros:

With support from your fighting techniques and bard spells plus damage from your monk stuff, you’ve got a lot of variety, so you can fill out any niche your party doesn’t have covered.

Being a mobile monk means you’re fast as hell and hard to retaliate against, making you perfect at hit and run tactics. Use that action surge for a burst of activity, then run off before anyone knows what happened.

Despite being a berserker you have a lot of support options and can fit a lot of roles, from preventing status effects with countercharm & motivational speech to healing with cure wounds to weakening enemies with vicious mockery, bane, and distracting strikes.

Cons:

A less generous person might say this build is too Cluttered. You’ve got inspiration and martial arts fighting for your bonus action, and while you can do many things, there are more dedicated builds that do them better.

This is in part due to limited resources for your best abilities, mostly tied to short rests. With limited action surges, distracting strikes, flourishes, and fire snake fangs, you’ve got a short fuse, and it’ll take work to make sure you don’t burn out before the fighting’s over.

Your ability scores are similarly spread out in all directions, with your wisdom being the big loser. This means that if you can’t outrun someone you’ll be an easy target with an AC of only 15, and your monk abilities like Sweeping Cinder Strike and Stunning Strike aren’t nearly as useful as they should be.

#Fate Grand Order #FGO #DND #D&D 5e #Oda Nobunaga #Monk #Fighter #Bard

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #175

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re entering the Dead Heat Summer Race! That’s right, we’re finally doing some Summer servants... in the Summer! We’re still a year off, but at least they’ve got the spirit!

As an added challenge, I’ll make sure all the teams get their own car! Fran & Maid Alter get a pass since they’re teamed up with people that already have cars (Babbage & Nero, respectively), but the others will all have their own vehicles to ride!

Anyways, today we’re building Nero Claudius... again. I promise this is... probably(?) the last time. She’s a Creation Bard to build up her golden theater on the sea as well as a sick car. She’s also a Draconic Soul Sorcerer to grab those giant guns she’s got on her back.

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

Next up: Team Electric Steam feat. Papa!

Race and Background

Nero is still a Human Noble. This gives her +1 to any two stats, and her Constitution and Charisma will need rounding up in a second, so go with those. She also gets proficiency with History, Persuasion, and Performance, plus the Lucky feat to re-roll her attacks, saves, and checks plus incoming attacks three times per long rest. You might be in a bikini, but you’re still the emperor. You get what you want, and what you want is just about everything.

Ability Scores

Surprising no one, your Charisma is your highest stat. The race was basically a popularity contest, and you won almost every leg of it. Second is Dexterity- you’re fighting in either a dress or a swimsuit, but in either case it’s definitely not armor. Your Constitution is next, races take a while and there’s no time to stop for snacks, so you’ll have to toughen up a bit. After that is Intelligence. You’re flighty, not dumb. Your Strength isn’t amazing, you don’t really need big muscles to look good, but we’re dumping Wisdom. It wouldn’t be high at the best of times, and the caster class suits you to a dangerous degree.

Class Levels

1. Sorcerer 1: Starting off as a sorcerer may get you less health and fewer proficiencies, but you still get Constitution and Charisma saves, as well as Arcana and Religion. You’re a caster now, it’s time to act like one.

The big reason we’re starting here right away is for the goody you get from being a Draconic Bloodline sorcerer, Draconic Resilience. Thanks to your great-great-great-great-great-grandparent Dragon Ancestor being a red dragon, you get an extra 1 hp for each level of this class, as well as a doubled proficiency bonus on charisma checks involving dragons.

You also get an unarmored defense of 13 + your dexterity modifier. Now you can wear a swimsuit anywhere you like without issues. I’d still recommend you don’t meet the king dressed like that, but you’re a noble, I’m sure he’s already expecting a bit of eccentricity.

You can also cast Spells using your Charisma, grab Light and Minor Illusion to put on a good show, Sword Burst so you can actually use a sword (we’ll get better options later), and Magic Missile and Create Bonfire for some quick shots from your cannons. You also get Absorb Elements, because this and Blade Ward are the easiest to get “weakness nullifying” spells, and this one’s actually good.

2. Bard 1: Bouncing over to bard real quick gives you another set of Spells that also use Charisma. You also get Bardic Inspiration, d6s you can hand out as a bonus action to allies. While they have one, they can add it to an attack, save, or check they have to make. You have Charisma Modifier inspiration dice to give out per long rest.

You do whatever you want, and while Prestidigitation isn’t quite that open-ended, it’s still pretty good for a single spell. You also get Friends, Command and Charm Person to be your usual charming self. Grab Cure Wounds for just a touch of healing, and Feather Fall. You’ve got giant metal wings, they should be good for something, right?

You get proficiency with Animal Handling as well.

3. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, adding half their proficiency bonus to all ability checks. You can also perform a Song of Rest on short rests, adding 1d6 to healing done. Your dulcet tones inspire everyone around you! (Usually to put as much distance between themselves and you as possible, but hush)

Your inspiration also turns into Magical Inspiration- creatures can use your inspiration to add to their spell’s damage or healing potential.

Finally, you get the spell Unearthly Chorus, which doesn’t have any damage or healing potential! It just makes you even better at charisma checks. It’s also very flavorful for someone about to open a theater.

4. Bard 3: Third level bards graduate from their college, and the College of Creation will one day allow you to afford a car! For now, you only have a Note of Potential, adding extra effects to your inspiration depending on how they’re used. Adding one to an ability check gives the user advantage on the die roll. Adding it to an attack roll deals thunder damage to the target and each creature next to it that fails a constitution save. Adding it to a saving throw adds temporary hp to the user equal to the roll plus your charisma modifier.

You know how I just said you only have the note? We lied. You can also make a Performance of Creation once per long rest or by spending a second level spell slot. You can create any nonmagical item, as long as it is worth less than 20 times your bard level in GP, and medium or smaller. Neither of those restrictions will help you make a car, but they’ll improve as you level up.

Finally, you get Expertise in Animal Handling and Arcana, doubling your proficiency bonus in both skills.

For your spell, Enhance Ability makes it easier to do whatever you set your mind to, giving advantage on one kind of ability check for the duration.

5. Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma for stronger spells and more inspiration.

You also learn the Dancing Lights cantrip so you can put on even better shows, and Pyrotechnics for pretty much the same reason. You need an existing source of fire to set it off, but you can always combo it with Create Bonfire in a pinch.

6. Bard 5: Fifth level bards are a Font of Inspiration, recharging your inspiration on short rests instead of long ones. Also, your inspiration grows to d8s.

You can also make a Motivational Speech with a third level spell slot, giving your party temporary HP, advantage on wisdom saves, and advantage on its next attack if it gets hit by an attack.

7. Bard 6: Countercharm is okay, spend an action to give advantage to your party on charm and frightening saves, but we’re really here for your subclass specialties. Your Performance of Creation can make Large objects now, and you can spend an action to make an Animating Performance, turning a large or smaller (gee, that worked out nicely) object into a Dancing Item for up to an hour. It’ll only dodge on its turn unless you use your bonus action to command the thing, but you can inspire people and command it in the same action. You can make a dancing item once per long rest, or by using third level spell slots. Also, you can only have one at a time. I’m pretty sure a functional car in a medieval setting is worth more than 120 gold though, so we’ll work on it some more later.

For your spell, I’d suggest Suggestion, it’s very useful for making the world revolve around you.

8. Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers become a Font of Magic (you are just becoming a font for all sorts of crap, huh?), giving you sorcery points equal to your sorcerer level. You can turn spell slots into points, or points into slots, or even cooler stuff next level!

For now, the big new thing is you can cast Shield. Those giant metal wings make it harder to hit you than you’d think.

9. Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers get that cooler thing I was just talking about, Metamagic! When you get it now, you get two metamagic options that can alter how your spells work; Heightened spells force disadvantage against their save on one creature they effect, and Twinned spells target two creatures instead of only one (Note: twinned spells only work on spells that target a single creature.)

You also get Scorching Ray, giving you a macross missile massacre of fire out of those organcannons you’re hauling around with you.

10. Bard 7: We’re stopping back in bard real quick to grab your fourth level spell, Hallucinatory Terrain. Somehow you always bring the waterfront with you when you use your NP, and now you really can do that!

11. Sorcerer 4: Use this ASI to max out your Charisma for the best spells possible. Speaking of the best spells possible, you can cast True Strike now for advantage on an attack next turn! You can also cast Shadow Blade so you have a sword you can attack with. A cool, spooky sword that deals psychic damage and has advantage against targets in the dark. Yes, it took us half the build to get a sword, that’s what happens when you’re a cavalry class.

12. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers are even better at skill checks now thanks to their Magical Guidance, using your sorcery points to reroll failed checks for, essentially, permanent advantage on whatever you do.

You can also cast Water Walk. Eventually your NP will involve actual water, so you’ll want to be prepared for that. Forcing your whole party to do the doggy paddle every time you want to cut loose isn’t a great look, be a team player here.

13. Sorcerer 6: Our last stop on the sorcerer train is sixth level, giving you an Elemental Affinity for fire. All your fire damage spells get your charisma added to their damage, and you can spend a sorcery point after casting one of them to gain resistance to fire damage for an hour. Always remember to apply sunscreen throughout the day. Now more than ever, that shit gets hot.

To take advantage of this new affinity, you can cast Melf’s Minute Meteors, launching chunks of those cannons off and firing a couple per turn at your enemies, dealing fire damage in a small area around their destination. Creatures have to make a dexterity save, and if they succeed they take half damage. Like scorching ray, these are multiple instances of fire damage, so add your charisma to each one.

14. Bard 8: Back in bard for good now! Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity so you can start being good with a sword. Just in case that’s still not enough, you can cast Charm Monster now too. You have enough gravitas to bend the authors to your will, I’m sure you can handle a manticore or two.

15. Bard 9: Your Song of Rest grows to 1d8 now, but more importantly you get fifth level spells! Animate Objects is another way to build your car (we’re still 5 levels away from performance of creation building it) or to get your cannon bits into position.

16. Bard 10: Tenth level bards get another cantrip! Honestly, we probably should’ve gotten Mending earlier. Adventuring in an outfit where a single snapped string can completely remove your top isn’t a great idea. You also get Magical Secrets, giving you two spells from any spell list. Flame Blade gives you a more thematically appropriate weapon, and Fireball is a big boom you can fire off.

On top of that, you get another round of Expertise, doubling your proficiency in Performance and Persuasion.

You also get a bigger inspiration, letting you hand out d10s.

17. Bard 11: Eleventh level bards get sixth level spells, like Mass Suggestion. It’s like Suggestion, but for the masses.

18. Bard 12: Use this last ASI to bump up your Dexterity again for a higher AC and better swordplay.

19. Bard 13: Your song of rest increases to a d10 as well, and you get the seventh level spell of champions, Mirage Arcane! If you make an illusion you can really feel, is it still an illusion? Anyways, you can make your golden theater now and the ocean surrounding it, and it all lasts for 10 days!

20. Bard 14: Your capstone level of bard lets you hit a Creative Crescendo, creating up to five items at once when you use your Performance of Creation. One of those objects can be Huge, the rest all have to be Small or smaller. You also don’t have to worry about cost when making objects, so that car is finally within reach!

You also get Magical Secrets again for two more spells. Prismatic Spray gives your golden theater some big ass cannons, creating a 60′ cone of light that deals different kinds of damage and effects. You also get Tenser’s Transformation, turning you from a full caster class into a proper fighter once more. You get temporary HP, permanent advantage on weapon attacks, you deal extra force damage, gain proficiency with all weapons as well as strength and constitution saves, and you can attack twice per action. The downsides are you can’t cast spells and after it ends you have to make a constitution save afterwards to prevent exhaustion, but I think it’s appropriate that we finally gave Nero those migraines she’s always complaining about.

Pros:

As usual, nero’s build is pretty adaptable, with a little bit of everything to help out any dedicated role in the party. She has healing, dps spells, utility, social graces, pretty much all skill checks, and also literally the ability to make whatever item she might need in a given situation.

Tenser’s Transformation is meant to turn wizards into melee fighters, and you’re (more or less) a bard. With almost 200 HP thanks to this spell and the ability to make your own armory, you can turn yourself into a terrifying war god practically at will.

Elemental Affinity can be really scary if you game the system right. Max out a casting of scorching ray to deal 20d6+50 damage to a single target. That’s better than a 9th level fireball. It also gives resistance to one of the most common damage types!

Cons:

Fire is one of the most common damage types, so it’s also one of the most common resistances. You have other stuff to fall back on, but it’ll put a crimp in your style if you go up against fire elementals. Or water elementals. Or fiends. Or- you get the picture.

We don’t improve on physical stats until level 14, which means you’ll be stuck with an AC of 15 for a majority of the game, and your sword skills won’t be that useful until very late in the campaign.

The big moment where the build really comes together as Nero is around level 19-20, meaning most players will never actually reach that point. Sorry guys, Nero is a luxury few can afford.

#fate grand order #FGO #D&D 5e #DND #Nero Claudius (Caster)#Sorcerer #Bard

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #153: Miyamoto Musashi

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re creating the ultimate wandering swordswoman, Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara no Harunobu a.k.a. Miyamoto Musashi!

This wandering samurai is an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer to wander from plane to plane and bend the world to her sword-wielding whims with her Empyrean Eye, as well as a Swords Bard, because you actually have to be good with swords too, I guess.

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

Next up: Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Announcement: Today (May 10, 2021) is also the last day to suggest possible servants for the anniversary build! If you’ve already sent yours in, you’re in the running! If you haven’t, just comment and/or reblog with any Type Moon character you’d like to see a build of and they’ll be added to the list! (One per person tho)

Race and Background

Musashi’s a Human, but popping in and out of reality isn’t that ordinary so we’ll go with the variant rules for this one. Variant Humans get +1 Dexterity and Constitution, as well as one feat and one skill proficiency. Grab the Performance proficiency to turn every duel into a mindfuck, and the Dual Wielder feat to dual wield. More specifically, this gives you +1 AC while dual wielding, you can use non-light weapons to dual-wield, so longswords are totally an option if you can get the proficiency in them. You can also draw or stow two weapons in the same amount of time you’d draw one.

Like your rival Kojirou, you’re also a Mercenary Veteran, giving you proficiency in Athletics and Persuasion.

Ability Scores

You’re really good with a sword, but that comes from technique, not brute force, so make your Dexterity as high as possible. That’ll also help with the fact that you’re clearly not wearing armor. Getting into your opponent’s head metaphorically is almost as important to your fighting style as getting into it literally, so Charisma should be number 2. Your Constitution should be next so you can stomach more bowls of udon in a single go. After that is Wisdom- your Empyrean Eye won’t do anything if you can’t see what you want to cut. Your Strength isn’t bad, we just needed other stuff more, but your Intelligence is kind of wonky. Shifting around the multiverse so much means world history is not your strong suit.

Class Levels

1. Bard 1: Going with bard right off the bat gives you a better hit die to start with, as well as a more forgiving skill list. Since bards can pick any three skills to be proficient with, I’d suggest Acrobatics, Intimidation, and Perception. I don’t know what exactly rattling your swords to provoke people would count as, but now you’ve got intimidation, performance, and persuasion, so it’s probably one of those. You also get proficiency with Dexterity and Charisma saves.

As a bard, you get Bardic Inspiration, a number of d6 equal to your charisma modifier per long rest. You can give one of these dice to your allies as a bonus action, which they can use to improve one of their attack rolls, saves, or checks.

You can also cast Spells using your Charisma. Vicious Mockery lets you get under the skin of your opponent just like the real Musashi, and Message is a neat lil walkie talkie. I assume Gudako gave you one by this point, it’d be really hard to chat with you otherwise.

You also get first level spells like Disguise Self so you can slap a big ol’ hat on your head and be completely unrecognizable, Heroism to be a hero, Detect Magic because it seems that kind of a baseline power in the nasuverse, and Bane for even more ways to insult your way to victory.

2. Bard 2: Second level bards become a Jack of All Trades, adding half your proficiency to any skill checks you aren’t already proficient in. That extra boost to survival checks will probably come in handy if you get rayshifted to the middle of nowhere again.

You also learn a Song of Rest, letting you and your party kick back a little harder on short rests, regaining an extra 1d6 hp if you use your hit dice.

Finally, you learn the spell Faerie Fire for a cheap and easy way to nullify invisibility. You’ll learn how to see through it eventually, but for now break out the light show.

3. Bard 3: Like I said before, you’re a Swords bard, giving you the Two-Weapon Fighting Style so you can add your dexterity modifier to attacks from both hands. You can also use Blade Flourishes, giving you an extra 10 feet of movement if you attack as your action. Once per turn you can also add one of three options to your attack by burning one use of Bardic Inspiration. Defense Flourish adds the die rolled to your damage and your AC for the round. Slashing Flourish deals the roll in damage to the target and any other creatures you want within 5′ of you. Mobile Flourish pushes the target and deals extra damage to them equal to the roll, and you can use your reaction to follow them.

Your Expertise doubles your proficiency bonus in Performance and Perception, so you can find enemies and goad them into fights easier.

You also learn Locate Object. It’s still not tracking down a creature, but it’s getting closer.

4. Sorcerer 1: Bouncing over to sorcerer now nets you Spells, and boy howdy do Aberrant Mind sorcerers get a lot of spells. By using your Charisma you can cast your normal spells, or your Psionic Spells, bonuses you get at certain levels. Most of those aren’t in-character, but thankfully we can swap them out as we go.

You also learn Telepathic Speech. Using a bonus action, you can speak telepathically with them for as long as you’re within Charisma Modifier miles of each other, for Sorcerer Level minutes.

Starting with your psionic spells, you get Arms of Hadar and Dissonant Whispers, but we swap out Mind Sliver for Friends. Whatever goading someone to fight is, it’s definitely a charisma check, so this will help with that. I mean this also helps since it turns the target hostile after the spell ends, but either way you get a fight.

On top of that, you get all your other spells, like Booming Blade, Blade Ward, Green-Flame Blade, and True Strike to make your swordplay even stronger. (On technicality in True Strike’s case, just attack twice) and Absorb Elements and Mage Armor for magical defenses.

Also, your spell levels do mix, so check the multiclassing table to see how much stuff you got at each level.

5. Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers become a Font of Magic, giving you Sorcery Points equal to your sorcerer level. You can turn spell levels into points or vice versa, but that’ll get more important in a couple levels.

You also learn Shield for more magic defense, and swap out Arms of Hadar for Comprehend Languages. Everyone in FGO speaks english for no reason anyway, so I bet everyone has this spell to begin with.

6. Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma modifier for better spells and more inspiration. You also learn the Light cantrip, and Knock. Breaking down a door barely counts as magic, but here we are.

7. Bard 5: Your bardic inspiration dice grows to d8s, and you become a Font of Inspiration, letting you regain inspiration on short rests instead of long ones. You also learn Major Image. It’ll be a while until you can summon a Nioh, at least it’ll look like you can now!

8. Bard 6: Sixth level bards can spend their action on a Countercharm, giving you and your allies advantage on saves against being frightened or charmed. More importantly, you get an Extra Attack with each attack action, which is way better than spending a whole action on some magic nonsense.

Speaking of spending an action to end magic nonsense, you can cast Dispel Magic to cut through magical effects. Raise Dead on permanent contingency is a bitch and a half to get through otherwise.

9. Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers learn Metamagic, ways to customize their spells using Sorcery Points. Quickened Spell lets you cast action spells as a bonus action, while Extended Spell doubles the length of time a spell remains active. Both are super useful on your buffs, but you can only have one active per spell.

For your psionic spells, replace Calm Emotions with Mind Spike for a bit of psychic damage and to let you ignore the target creature’s invisibility for up to an hour if it fails a wisdom saving throw. You also always know the target’s location if you’re on the same plane. You also get Detect Thoughts. for now. For your normal spell, Magic Weapon will help you out if your DM’s really stingy with magic items.

10. Sorcerer 4: Your spells are starting to get spicy, so let’s keep things working smoothly by grabbing War Caster this ASI. This feat gives you advantage on concentration saves, and you can cast spells while dual-wielding. On top of that, you can use spells as attacks of opportunity now! They have to be only targeting that one creature though, so Sword Burst and Darkvision won’t be super helpful.

We’re also replacing detect thoughts with See Invisibility for a saving throw free way to track creatures down.

11. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers can use Magical Guidance to turn a sorcery point into a re-roll on a failed skill check. You also learn Fear to send less interesting opponents running, and the psionic spells Sending to boost your walkie-talkie’s range and Tongues instead of Hunger of Hadar. If you’re going to insult someone they better understand you.

12. Sorcerer 6: Sixth level aberrant minds know Psionic Sorcery, letting you spend sorcery points to cast psionic spells instead of using a spell slot. If you do so, you can ignore verbal or somatic components, as well as unconsumed material components. You also get Psychic Defenses for resistance against psychic damage and advantage against being charmed or frightened. Oh hey, it’s like countercharm but significantly better!

You can also cast Haste now, doubling your actions for up to a minute, as well as giving you advantage on dexterity saves, a +2 to AC and doubled speed. (The second action can only be used to make one attack, but still, free attack.) After the spell ends you can’t move or take actions for a round while you take an udon break to refuel.

13. Sorcerer 7: Seventh level sorcerers can use fourth level spells, like Conjure Barlgura! It’s... kind of like a Nioh, if you squint really hard. Just keep it away from the rest of the party.

You also get more psionic spells with Evards Black Tentacles and Locate Creature instead of Summon Aberration.

14. Sorcerer 8: Use this ASI to finally bump up your Dexterity for a stronger AC and better attacks. You also gain Banishment to cut someone out of this plane of reality. (It’s temporary if they’re actually from whatever reality you’re currently in, but still.)

15. Sorcerer 9: Use your fifth level spell Skill Empowerment to make getting to your target even easier. Need to be really good at acrobatics to reach somebody? Sure, why not. You also get your last psionic spells, Rary’s Telepathic Bond for a long-term walkie-talkie, and Hold Monster in place of Telekinesis. Cutting things is so much easier when they stand still.

16. Sorcerer 10: Tenth level sorcerers get another Metamagic option. Heightened Spell gives a creature disadvantage on their first save against a spell, like Create Bonfire and Charm Monster. I’ll be honest there’s not a lot of fifth level spells that work for you, but you’re both cute and able to start fires, so I guess it works out.

17. Sorcerer 11: Eleventh level sorcerers gain a sixth level spell, and True Seeing lets you ignore any illusions, invisibility, or shapechangers you can see on your path to true swordsmanship, automatically making any saves against their deceptions.

18. Sorcerer 12: Use your last ASI to max out Dexterity for the swordiest swords and the least swordiest body possible.

19. Sorcerer 13: At the penultimate level we finally get our seventh level spell that we’ve been working so hard to reach- Plane Shift. You and up to eight creatures can move to a different plane of existence. Alternatively, you can make a spell attack against a creature, and if it hits and they fail a charisma save they have to find their way back from wherever the hell you sent them.

20. Sorcerer 14: Your capstone level makes you a Revelation in Flesh, spending a bonus action to transform yourself for up to 10 minutes. You can spend 1-4 sorcery points to activate one to four benefits: You can see invisible creatures, fly, swim and breathe underwater, or pass through inch wide gaps and escape restraints easily. Most of those...probably aren’t canon, but at least you get invisibility sight without using concentration.

Pros:

You come packing plenty of magic defenses, with a great dexterity save, advantage on mind altering effects, and the ability to tear down an enemy’s magical traps.

Seeing through invisibility and plenty of location spells makes you hard to escape, especially when you factor in plane shift to the mix. Those Empyrean Eyes aren’t just there for decoration, y’know.

Your psionic sorcery and multitude of telepathic abilities mean you can get a lot done while completely silent, which helps a lot on stealth missions. Your maxed out dexterity and JoAT certainly doesn’t hurt either.

Cons:

Gishes live and die on their concentration saves, and not starting with Sorcerer definitely hurt yours a lot. Even with advantage you’ve only got a +2 modifier. That’s going to drop spells more often than not.

Taking so many levels of sorcerer also leaves you with low hp, barely scratching past 100 by the end of the build. Your AC is very good, but when you get hit you’re going to feel it.

Focusing on dexterity and feats leaves you with a low charisma, at least by bard standards. This means you don’t have a lot of flourishes to work with, and your spells aren’t as strong as they could be. Your buffs and protection don’t really care about charisma though, so most of your kit isn’t that badly hurt from it.

#Fate Grand Order #FGO #Miyamoto Musashi #D&D 5e #DND #Sorcerer #Bard

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grailfinders · 4 years

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Fate and Phantasms #45: Mata Hari

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re building the living embodiment of clickbait, Mata Hari! If this post ends up getting five times as many notes as normal, it’s okay, I understand. Mata Hari is another bard/rogue combination, this time mixing the college of glamour with a mastermind. She can help out in combat, but her strongest points are going deep undercover to learn an enemy’s secrets.

You can read the level-by-level breakdown below the cut, or check out the summary spreadsheet here.

Race and Background

Mata Hari is a Human(though like the Phantom, if you want to spice it up Siren is a good place to start), giving her +1 to all stats. Mata Hari is the textbook example of a Charlatan, giving her proficiency in Deception and Sleight of Hand, as well as the Disguise and Forgery kits. She also has a False Identity she can assume, complete with disguises and documentation. Furthermore, she can forge documents she has seen before.

Stats

Your highest stat is Charisma: you’re so good at charming people they literally can’t tell you’re an enemy unless they’re told so, that’s pretty charming. You’re also a dancer, which requires a lot of Dexterity (or it would if dnd stats made sense). Next is your Wisdom, a good spy needs to know when they’re being watched. Follow this with Intelligence, you’re not unusually smart, but we need to keep your physical scores as low as possible. Constitution is next, because we’re never going to dump that if at all possible. Finally, we’re dumping strength, because dex builds don’t need it.

Class Levels

1. Rogue 1: We’re starting the build as a rogue because they have the most proficiencies, and they’re ones you want. At first level, you become proficient in Dexterity and Intelligence saves, as well as Persuasion and Performance for obvious reasons, Stealth for even more obvious reasons, and Insight. You can’t string people along if you don’t know what they want.

First level rogues get Expertise in two skills, doubling their proficiency. Your Deception and Persuasion should be as strong as possible, so let’s start there. You probably won’t use your Sneak Attack that often, but it’s always there if you need some extra damage on a creature you have advantage over or an ally within 5′ of. Finally, your Thieves’ Cant lets you talk to other rogues without people catching on, assuming there are other rogues. Maybe you should coordinate with another party member.

2. Rogue 2: At second level you get your Cunning Action, letting you disengage, dash, or hide as a bonus action. Ideally the enemy won’t know you’re working against them, but a way to get out of danger without being turned into a shishkebab is always a good idea.

3. Rogue 3: At third level you become an official Mastermind, becoming a Master of Intrigue and a Master of Tactics. Master of Intrigue gives you proficiencies you already have, two languages, and the ability to mimic speech patterns and accents that you’ve heard for more than a minute. There isn’t a limit on how long you can copy an accent for, so that’s why Mata Hari started the game with a thick scottish accent, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it’s the only accent I know, shut up. As a Master of Tactics, you can Help as a bonus action, and it has a range of 30′.

4. Rogue 4: 30′ is some rookie numbers, and we can improve that by using our first ASI on the Tandem Tactician feat. This increases your helping range by 10′, and you can help two people at once if they’re targeting the same enemy. Toss in some thieves’ cant or a foreign language and you’ll be useful for your party no matter which side you appear to be on.

5. Bard 1: When you multiclass into bard, you get one skill proficiency of your choice. Perception is a good choice-again, you need to know if anyone’s watching you before you do the whole “stealing state secrets” thing. You’re not making that mistake again.

First level bards have Spellcasting based on their charisma as well as Bardic Inspiration, a bunch of d6 you can throw at people to help them.

For spells, grab Friends, Unearthly Chorus, and Charm Person for extra charming action, Message because learning an enemy’s secrets doesn’t mean much if you can’t pass them off to your friends, Disguise Self to help you infiltrate no-humans-allowed areas, and Sleep for ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

6. Rogue 5: Your Uncanny Dodge lets you react to avoid half the damage of an attack. Getting hurt is bad, stop doing it.

7. Rogue 6: Your second round of Expertise boosts your Performance and Insight. You’re good at dancing, and stealing things from the saps watching you dance. Now you’re even better at doing both of those.

8. Rogue 7: Seventh level rogues gain Evasion, severely reducing the amount of damage you take from dexterity saving throw attacks. If you’re consorting with the enemy, some splash damage is going to hit you. Now it’ll hit you less!

9. Bard 2: You’re now a Jack of All Trades, adding half your proficiency to all nonproficient checks. You also learn how to sing a Song of Rest, adding a d6 to any healing your party does on short rests.

For your spell this level, grab Animal Friendship. Your charm might not hit most creatures, but it does work on Orion, so I’m counting it.

10. Rogue 8: Your next ASI is going to improve your Charisma for more charming and more Bard fun.

11. Bard 3: Speaking of Bard, here’s your last level in it. At third level you get Expertise in two more skills, pick Stealth and Sleight of Hand- you’re a spy, and those tend to help.

You also graduate from the College of Glamour at this level, giving you two more features. The Mantle of Inspiration lets you burn a bardic inspiration die as a bonus action to heal a couple people and let them move without causing attacks of opportunity. Is your wizard facing down a raging barbarian? Now they’re not.

You also learn to put on an Enthralling Performance, letting you charm a number of creatures once per short rest after you perform for a minute or more. They won’t fight for you unless they would anyway, but they’ll be good to you while they’re charmed.

Speaking of enthralling, Enthrall is your final bard spell. It causes any number of creatures within 60′ of you to make a wisdom save, and on a failure they have disadvantage against perceiving creatures who aren’t you. If you’re at the bar with your friends and your real friends show up, that could be a problem. This spell will keep everybody groovy for a while.

12. Rogue 9: You’re now an Insightful Manipulator, meaning if you chat up a creature for 1 minute outside of combat, you can learn two of the following characteristics: its Intelligence score, its Wisdom score, its Charisma score, or its class levels. You might also learn some of its history, and that last bit is the real goldmine here. You can’t be a fake manic pixie dream girl if you don’t know what hole in someone’s life you can pretend to fill.

13. Rogue 10: For this level’s ASI, you become a Linguist. This gives you a couple extra languages to pad out the number of countries you can pretend to be from, and more importantly lets you write down codes. Sometimes you need to talk to your party and you can’t get an opening for Message or Thieves’ Cant; this will help out.

14. Rogue 11: You now have Reliable Talent: any skill you’re proficient in will always have a roll of 10 or higher. This means your deception and persuasion rolls have a baseline of 24 that they’ll always be at or above, so your cover story is pretty much unbreakable.

15. Rogue 12: Max out your Charisma with this ASI for better lying, spells, and more inspiration.

16. Rogue 13: Thirteenth level masterminds learn Misdirection. If there’s an attack heading your way, and there’s a creature within 5′ of you between you and the attacker, you can react to make the attack hit them instead. This means if you play your cards right, your terrible AC is secretly someone else’s. Hang out around that guy in plate mail an get your party to send one attack your way each round, and he’ll be a pincushion in no time.

17. Rogue 14: You get Blindsense this level, letting you know the location of any creature within 10′ of you as long as you can hear. This isn’t particularly useful for this build, but you’re not one to turn down free things.

18. Rogue 15: You now have a Slippery Mind, giving you proficiency in Wisdom saves. Most of your stats aside from charisma aren’t great, so take what you can get.

19. Rogue 16: Use your last ASI to improve your Dexterity and Constitution. You aren’t using these that often, but if you go to stab the big bad in the back an miss, it would be really awkward.

20. Rogue 17: For your capstone level, you gain a Soul of Deceit. Your mind can’t be read unless you will it, and you can’t be magically compelled to tell the truth either. Falling into a zone of truth mid-job is a rookie mistake, one you won’t be making.

Pros: You’re an expert manipulator, knowing exactly what buttons to push to trick people into doing what you want. Moreover, you don’t have to worry about a fight breaking out, because your entire fighting style is letting someone else take care of it. Some advice here, a shove there, and soon enough you’re the only one still standing.

Cons: Your entire not-fighting style means you won’t get to use your sneak attack, and 9d6 damage per turn is a lot to just ignore. Skimping on bard levels leaves you with very little magic each day, and not getting the Font of Inspiration especially hurts. Finally, some games simply won’t work for you. Being a master of seduction doesn’t help when you’re fighting automatons. Also, like 90% of the evil groups in D&D are slavers; you probably don’t want to try and cozy up to them. Even when there’s an enemy army you can worm your way into, you might be forcing your DM to run two games at once, which they won’t appreciate.

Next up: We’re finishing off the assassins with someone we’ve already built twice. Kind of.

#fgo #fate grand order #mata hari #dnd 5e #Fate and Phantasms

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