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grailfinders · 6 months

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Grailfinders #327: Izumo no Okuni

merry nobumas, everyone! sadly, this event doesn’t have any new nobus, but at least it gives us cool builds like Izumo no Okuni! first we make the puppet with some Creation Bard levels, then we fuck demons up with the puppet with some Watcher Paladin levels.

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

next up: our good personal friend Ranmaru

EDIT: huh, okay, Izumo does use her own sword. okay then, ignore most of the negatives then. sorry about that, this is one of the perils of trying to get stuff out the second the story drops

Ancestry & Background

Okuni is a Human, but she also has a puppet- to make that, we’ll start by giving her a Mark of Making, giving her +2 Intelligence and +1 Charisma. this gives her an Artisan’s Intuition for an additional d4 added to all arcana checks and anything involving artisan’s tools, which covers both halves of your expertise! we also grab a free proficiency with woodworking tools so you can get started on building your puppet.

while you’re working, you already start off as a Spellsmith, giving you the Mending cantrip for free redos and you can cast Magic Weapon once a day, but it’s both spell-slot- and concentration-free. speaking of spells, your Spells of the Mark add some options to your spell lists- the full list of spells you can use is in the character sheet, but if you see us take a spell that isn’t on the bard list, that’s why.

you’re a shrine maiden, that’s an Acolyte, so you have proficiency in Insight and Religion as well.

Ability Scores

Charisma is your highest score, as you could probably guess from being a bard. you dance, you hit people with puppets, both of those are charisma. somehow. after that, Dexterity. it’s kind of weird dexterity doesn’t affect dancing, now that I think about it, but you’re a caster so you don’t wear plate mail. that being said we do need to make Strength higher than I’d like, but you’ll have to carry your puppet around most of the time, so it’s kind of a workout, I guess. Constitution is above average because it would suck to die before you even get a chance to use the puppet at all, so you’ll have to live for five levels without it. that means your Wisdom is lower than I’d like and we have to dump Intelligence pretty harshly. it’s far from ideal, but we only need those for skills and saves. thankfully, being a bard and a paladin both help a lot towards making up for these shortfalls, eventually.

Class Levels

1. Bard 1: starting off as a bard gives you proficiency in Dexterity, and Charisma saves, as well as three skills off the bard skill list, a.k.a. the entire skill list. we’ll use Performance to puppet our boy around, with Nature and Arcana to build him in the first place. you’ve got five levels, best of luck.

while you’re whittling, we can also bring up your Bardic Inspiration- you’ve got a couple d6s you can throw at a friend as a bonus action, and then they can use ‘em to improve an attack roll, save, or skill check in the next minute. you get those back on long rests.

also on the same time frame are your spell slots, which you use to cast Spells. Okuni’s a caster, so you can be a bit more liberal with her spell list than you are with most characters- most of the spells on the character sheet are my personal recommendations, or just ones I thought would be useful. if they’re vital for the build, I’ll bring them up here as they’re added. there aren’t any of those this level, but I do recommend picking up something like Identify- Okuni’s bio states multiple times how hip and with it she is, so she knows what’s going on a lot of the time.

2. Bard 2: second level bards are Jacks of all Trades, adding half their proficiency to any skill check they make that doesn’t add it, including your initiative check! you also learn a Song of Rest, adding a d6 to the healing your party does over short rests. standard issue, we’ve all seen it by now.

also, your bardic inspiration becomes Magical Inspiration, so now someone holding onto it can add their d6 to the damage or healing of a spell!

3. Bard 3: but I know that’s not enough uses for your inspiration, right? thankfully creation bards have another addition to it, the Mote of Potential. now when your allies use their inspiration on one of the three original effects, they get a bonus to boot! on a check, they can roll their inspiration twice and pick the higher number. on an attack roll, the die also deals whatever it rolled as damage to nearby enemies, and on a save they gain their roll in temporary hp! this practically turns your inspiration into a spell in its own right!

making your puppet also got… slightly easier, as you can now put on a Performance of Creation, creating any medium or smaller non-magical item as an action, with the only other limitation being your imagination, and your wallet. you can only create items with this feature that are worth 20 times your bard level or less- even a normal-sized puppet is worth 100g, so this hasn’t saved us too much time. it also only lasts a few hours, so you’ll still have to find a more permanent solution anyways. still, while it’s not a cure-all for our lack of puppetry, it does have a million and one uses besides! this recharges on long rests, or you can use a second level spell slot to use it again- just know that you can only have one summoned item at a time.

speaking of second level spells, Borrowed Knowledge is a great pick for Okuni, giving her proficiency in a skill of your choice for an hour, concentration free. again, she’s always in the know of the latest fads, so now you can make sure that’s true!

you also get expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus in Arcana and Performance checks. she’s good at dancing, that much is obvious- otherwise she wouldn’t be in this game.

4. Bard 4: fourth level bards get their first Ability Score Improvement, so improve that Charisma score for stronger spells and more inspiration. dancing better is a nice bonus.

if you’re really jonesing for a puppet by now, you can use something like Phantasmal Force to at least plant the idea of a puppet in someone’s head and have it hurt them that way. honestly sounds terrifying to me, even scarier than a real puppet beating me up.

5. Bard 5: fifth level bards have d8s for their inspiration now, as well as become a Font of Inspiration, recharging all spent inspiration uses on short rests as well as long ones! you also get third level spells now like Dispel Magic. demons like using magic, so you’d best spoil their fun.

6. Bard 6: sixth level bards get the Countercharm ability, and for once it’s good for the build. a lot of demons charm or frighten people, so now you can spend your action to give all your allies nearby advantage on saves against those effects. it only works for a round each time, so you’d have to spend each turn keeping the effect up- still, if you’re fighting something like Shuten-Douji, it’s a good idea to have on hand.

if you’d like to use your countercharm while also keeping the fight going, then good news! your puppet drought is over, and your cuppet runneth over thanks to an Animating Performance. as an action you can animate a large or smaller object and turn it into a Dancing Object for the next hour. you then have to use your bonus action each turn to control the puppet, but you can also give out inspiration at the same time.

you can bring out the puppet once a day, or by spending a third-level or higher spell slot.

7. Bard 7: seventh level bards get fourth level spells like Fabricate, letting you spend ten minutes to turn any kind of raw materials into processed goods- for example, a log into part of a puppet, perhaps. you can create a large or smaller object if you have enough material, though using metal shrinks down the possible puppetude to medium size. also, you need proficiency with the sorts of tools you’d have to use to make an item normally in order to make it with this spell, hence our focus on grabbing woodworking proficiency earlier and smithing later.

so yeah, during your next downtime, puppetry is just a spell away!

8. Bard 8: eighth level bards get another ASI, and we’re grabbing the Skilled feat for more proficiencies. you get the proficiency with Smith’s Tools I mentioned a second ago, as well as proficiency with Acrobatics in case your DM thinks that dexterity and dancing thing is as weird as I do, and History. you are history, after all.

9. Bard 9: at ninth level your song of rest grows to a d8, but more importantly you get fifth level spells. if you’re in a pinch, you can use Animate Objects instead of your usual puppetry to give your friend some backup- you can animate up to ten small objects, with bigger sizes doubling how many “objects” they count as for each size larger they are. that being said, they also use your bonus action to control, so trying to use both at once isn’t always the greatest idea. still, they make a good distraction if you need time to drag your bigger puppet out of the fight.

10. Bard 10: tenth level bards have a bigger inspiration die again, and you get another round of Expertise, this time doubling down on Religion and Nature. also, you get Magical Secrets- two spells from any spell list in the game. Legend Lore is a must for any bard, giving you the lowdown on whatever famous person or thing you’re faced with so you can dance appropriately. on the other hand Circle of Power is a must-have for combat, creating an aura around you that lasts up to ten minutes with concentration- during that time, friendly creatures (including you) have advantage on all saves against magical effects- furthermore, succeeding on that save prevents all damage instead of half if it’s that kind of save. demons like fireballs, puppets don’t. simple stuff.

11. Bard 11: with our last level of bard you get sixth level spell slots for stuff like True Seeing to see through demonic illusions and the like. though if I’m being honest we haven’t gotten too specialized yet- let’s fix that.

12. Paladin 1: moving over to paladin gives you a Divine Sense- spend an action up to five times a day to sense celestials, fiends, and undead within 60’ of you. you know the type and location, but not their identity. being able to sense demons feels pretty important for.. y’know, a demon hunter.

you can also Lay on Hands to heal an ally, you have a pool that scales with your level and it refills every long rest. worth noting, this does not work on constructs, so you’ll have to patch up your puppet the old-fashioned way.

13. Paladin 2: second level paladins get a Fighting Style, and with your Defense you get a +1 bonus to all types of armor. I know you don’t wear a lot, but I’d still call your first ascension fit light armor at minimum. also, since you’re attacking via puppet they aren’t “your” attacks, so none of them count for fighting styles.

they also don’t count for Divine Smites, which is problematic, but we’ll find a workaround soon enough. if you do end up using them though, you spend a spell slot when you hit something with a melee attack, dealing radiant damage that scales based on the slot’s level. also it deals extra damage against fiends, which is a nice bonus for a demon hunter.

speaking of spell slots you get another set of spells from being a paladin, but you’ll have to check the multiclassing rules for what slots you have when. for now you can perform Ceremonies and Detect Evil and Good, but you can swap around paladin spells every long rest, so don’t sweat over getting the perfect setup right away.

14. Paladin 3: at third level you devote yourself to defeating demons and other extraplanar monsters as a Watcher, giving you two kinds of Channel Divinity that you can use once per short rest. your Watcher’s Will gives most of your party advantage on intelligence, wisdom, and charisma saves for a minute, or you can Abjure the Extraplanar to send aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, and fiends nearby running for up to a minute if they fail a wisdom save.

you also gain access to a pool of permanently prepared performances, like Alarm and Detect Magic. finally, your Divine Health makes you immune to disease.

15. Paladin 4: a fourth level paladin gets their own Ability Score Improvement, so power up your Charisma for stronger spells, channeled divinity, and a stronger puppet as well.

16. Paladin 5: fifth level paladins get an Extra Attack, but that only applies to you, not your puppet. on the plus side, you also get second level spells! now you can cast Magic Weapon more than once a day for your puppet. you can also See Invisibility to detect hidden demons, and use Moonbeam to expose them or other shapechangers.

17. Paladin 6: as a sixth level paladin you emit an Aura of Protection, adding your hefty charisma modifier to every save you make, as well as the saves of nearby friends. up until now you had a +0 in wisdom saves, so that’ll really come in handy!

18. Paladin 7: seventh level watchers also get the Aura of the Sentinel, adding your proficiency bonus to your and nearby allies’ initiative rolls. this technically isn’t adding the proficiency directly, so you get a 1.5x bonus!

19. Paladin 8: eighth level paladins get one last ASI, so let’s bump up your Dexterity so you’ll get hit less often, dance better, and be better with a dagger in case of emergencies.

20. Paladin 9: we finish our build by gaining access to third level paladin spells, including your subclass specialties, Counterspell and Nondetection. more importantly, you gain access to the spell Crusader’s Mantle, finally giving your puppet the chance to deal radiant damage. and so can everyone else within thirty feet of you, for that matter!

Pros & Cons

Pros:

while you don’t get counterspell until very late in the game, you’re great at using it- and dispel magic to boot. both spells use ability checks to counter magical effects, and wouldn’t you know it, bards are great at those! with a maxed out charisma modifier plus half proficiency, you have roughly a 50/50 shot of countering even a ninth level spell while only spending a third level one.

your decent dexterity plus your watcher aura makes you great at hitting first in a fight, and when you add in your puppet’s ability to speed you up and slow down enemies, and you’ll be running circles around them in no time.

while focusing your build so hard on your puppet does create some challenges, it also opens up some great adventuring opportunities. this one’s more a plus for your DM so they don’t have to start power-creeping all the magic loot- instead of getting a +1 sword, maybe you’ll get better metal for your puppet’s armor and raise its AC, or wood that conducts magic better and lets it stay animate for longer, or maybe new puppetry techniques that let your extra attack or divine smites carry over to it. basically, having a physical object you’ll be building up the whole adventure will give you and your dm new avenues to find fun in D&D.

Cons:

that last bit, of course, requires your DM to be flexible, so if you’re playing in adventurer’s league games or just have a new DM that wants to stick to the book, it’s going to cause a problem. by the time you reach level 20 the base stats for your dancing items are woefully outmatched by just about everything you could be facing, so maybe run this idea by your DM before committing to it.

we did what we could to fix up your soft stats, but the hard truth is you still only have 10 intelligence and wisdom. you get an aura of protection, sure, but not until level 17. in the meantime, you risk falling for illusions and mental games from your more otherworldly foes.

your puppet only lasts one hour, so keeping it up and running for longer periods of time will eat through your magic like nothing else. if you burn through every spell slot you have, you can keep him walking for 12 hours a day, which is nice, but that leaves you with almost no magic for anything else. basically, if you’re traveling a lot, invest in a cart. your 13 strength ass is not dragging him around the whole continent.

#fgo #fate grand order #D&D 5e #DND #Izumo no okuni #Bard #Paladin

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