#considering taking magic initiate to get find familiar and some extra cantrips

[aceofwonders]

love being decked in the face with a new character idea....your honor i’ve had her only since last night but i am obsessed already

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #93: Amakusa Shirou

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making everyone’s favorite priest, Kotomine Shi- sorry, Amakusa Shirou. Shirou is a perfectly nice guy with absolutely no dark side who’s working for the salvation of humanity. What a great guy.

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

Next up: The first half of Chaldea’s newest power couple.

Race and Background

Amakusa is a Human, but we need a lot of feats, so we’re going with the old standby Variant Human for +1 to Wisdom and Charisma, persuasion proficiency, and the Weapon Master feat so you can actually use a short-sword without embarrassing yourself. You also get proficiency with three other weapons, but we’re just here for the sword. And also the +1 to Dexterity.

You may not be a bard, but I’d say Grinner is still a pretty good fit- you’re familiar with fighting people in power, and you’re not above putting on an act to get your way. This gives you Deception and Performance proficiency, to help people buy your false identity, and make Semiramis a very happy woman.

Ability Scores

You’re a priest, so it’s not that surprising that Wisdom is your highest stat. You have to know what people want to manipulate them-that’s insight, and insight’s a wisdom skill. Speaking of manipulating people, you’re really good at that, so make Charisma your second highest stat. Third highest is Dexterity- men of the cloth don’t go around wearing plate mail, so you’ll have to keep your dexterity up if you want to not die again. Your Intelligence isn’t bad; you’re a good tactician, we just needed other stats more. Your Constitution isn’t that high, but we’re dumping Strength because we just don’t need it.

Class Levels

1. You’re a man of God, so we’re sticking with a 100% Cleric build this time around. Don’t worry, I’m almost totally sure there will be at least one ruler that isn’t a cleric eventually. Probably.

God gave you some fancy arms that let you tap into any kind of magecraft you want, so the Arcana domain is a good place to pick up some spells. You become an Arcane Initiate, gaining two extra cantrips from the wizard list. You can also cast and prepare Spells using your Wisdom to determine their strength and the amount you can prepare per long rest. You’re also proficient in Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as Religion and Insight, for reasons explained in the ability scores section.

For spells, grab Guidance and Resistance to give yourself flashes of insight when you need it, as well as Toll the Dead for a ranged spell option and Booming Blade and Sword Burst to make your decision to pick up a sword less of a bad idea by empowering your weapon attacks and making it a bad idea to hang out in your melee range, respectively.

You also pick up Detect Magic and Magic Missile as domain spells, meaning they’re always prepared for you and don’t count towards the number of spells you have prepared. The former lets you root out any brewing issues in a grail war, while the latter lets you make three caster balls to lob at up to three targets without having to aim. Sometimes the dice just hate you, but this will help you pull off a miracle.

You’ll also be able to prepare spells that aren’t in your domain; I’d suggest checking out Command; it’s literally a command spell; Cure Wounds and Bless to convince your party that you’re a totally normal healer cleric, and Inflict Wounds for the people who insist on snooping around further.

2. Second level clerics can Channel Divinity once per short rest. You can use this feature in one of two ways; Turn Undead forces undead near you to make a wisdom saving throw (with a DC of 8 plus your wisdom modifier plus your proficiency modifier) or be forced to run away from you for up to a minute or until they take damage. Arcane Abjuration has a similar effect, but it targets a single Celestial, Elemental, Fey, or Fiend for the effect instead. If you find yourself facing more pedestrian enemies, you can also Harness Divine Power to recharge one spell slot with a level of half your proficiency bonus or lower as a bonus action. This feature uses one of your uses of Channel Divinity, and can only be used a number of times per long rest equal to the number of Channel Divinity uses you get per short rest.

3. Third level clerics get second level spells; Magic Weapon makes your short-sword more deadly, giving you a +1 on attack and damage rolls for up to an hour with concentration. Nystul’s Magic Aura makes it so much easier to hide what you’re doing from those pesky diviners, making a nonmagical item appear magical, a magical item appear nonmagical, or switching an item’s apparent school of magic. You can also mask creatures, changing their type or alignment as far as magical detection methods are concerned. These effects last 24 hours, but if you cast the same effect every day for a month, the illusion becomes permanent until dispelled. Make those paladins really respect you by showing up looking like a celestial- great fun at parties.

For outside-domain spells, Augury gives you visions from god, kind of; Spiritual Weapon gives you a sword that doesn’t require you be on the front lines, which really suits your squishiness; and Zone of Truth so that other people have to tell you the truth. Make sure you stay outside of it though: that would be awkward.

4. Use your first Ability Score Improvement to become an Eldritch Adept. Your noble phantasms unlock every kind of magic, and squid magic is no exception. This feat lets you pick up the eldritch invocation Armor of Shadows, letting you cast Mage Armor at will without using a spell slot. We’re not in FGO anymore, you can’t rely on your class advantage to save you.

You also get the Thaumaturgy cantrip. It has a variety of uses, including making distractions for when you don’t want to be noticed or making your voice three times louder for when you do.

5. At fifth level your Turn Undead becomes Destroy Undead, instantly killing undead of CR 1/2 or lower who fail their wisdom save. Similarly, your Arcane Abjuration becomes Arcane Banishment, banishing extraplanar creatures affected by your Arcane Abjuration for a minute if they’re CR 1/2 or lower. Both effects grow at the same time, so if I mention Destroy Undead later, know it applies to Arcane Abjuration as well.

You also get third level spells, like Dispel Magic to make sure your fancy magic effects are the only ones on the battlefield and Magic Circle to further ruin the day of Celestials, Elementals, Fey, Fiends, and Undead, blocking them from entering the circle, imposing disadvantage on attacks against creatures in the circle, and preventing them from charming, possessing, or frightening creatures in the circle.

Outside of your domain, take a look at Spirit Shroud if you’re dead-set on using your sword, Beacon of Hope to maximize your healing and minimize how often you have to heal, and Motivational Speech from Acquisitions Incorporated to turn your awesome manipulation skills into more tangible benefits for the party. Up to five creatures that hear you gain 5 temporary HP and have advantage on wisdom saves. If the creature is hit by an attack, they have advantage on the next attack roll they make. The spell ends for each creature after an hour, or once their temporary hit points are used up.

6. Sixth level clerics can Channel Divinity twice per short rest, and Arcana clerics become a Spell Breaker; healing an ally can also end a spell’s effect on them if the spell slot used for healing is higher than the spell you’re breaking. You’re a man of action. Spending one turn healing someone and another turn dispelling something on them is way too slow.

7. Seventh level clerics get fourth level spells, like Arcane Eye for visions from god in real time and Leomund’s Secret Chest for when you absolutely need to hide something. Turns out, very few people check the astral plane. Just be aware that there’s a chance of the chest staying on the astral plane forever, so don’t leave anything too vital in it.

Also consider getting Banishment for realisies, or Aura of Life to continue pretending to be a normal cleric.

8. Use this ASI to become an Inspiring Leader; spending 10 minutes to give creatures temporary HP equal to your level plus your charisma modifier once per short rest. Destroy Undead and Arcane Banishment both increase to effect CR 1 creatures now, and you learn Potent Spellcasting, adding your wisdom modifier to your cantrips’ damage.

9. Ninth level clerics get fifth level spells, like Planar Binding to force a Celestial, Fiend, or Fey to work for you for 24 hours. It’s a good way to practice your wording before you wish on the grail, because those slippery bastards will use every loophole they can find. You also learn how to make Teleportation Circles, which will make your party very happy that they no longer have to travel the long way.

10. At tenth level, God is willing to do you a solid with some Divine Intervention. Once per day you can ask your god to help you in some way that the DM agrees with. The likelihood of success increases as you level up, and succeeding with this means you have to wait a week before you do it again.

You also pick up Word of Radiance, because honestly why not at this point.

11. With this level, your Destroy Undead can effect creatures of CR 2 or lower. You also get sixth level spells, like Forbiddance. It locks down an area to planar travel, and Celestials, Fiends, and Fey who enter the area take radiant or necrotic damage if they show up without the password. Eventually you’ll put your scheme into action, and the last thing you need is your other party members teleporting in on you.

12. Use your next ASI to become a Skill Expert, giving you +1 Charisma, proficiency with Arcana, and Expertise in Deception. You might not be a rogue, but you’re pretty good at getting people to do what you want regardless.

13. Now you can use 7th level spells like Temple of the Gods, a quick and easy way to start your own villainous lair. Heroic lair, sorry. Only creatures you designate can open the door to the temple you make, and you can make the temple itself oppose Celestials, Elementals, Fiends, Fey, or the Undead, barring them from entrance with a Charisma save or weakening their movements in the temple. The temple blocks ethereal travel and scrying, and it empowers any healing done within it. The spell lasts 24 hours, but casting it every day for a year makes the temple permanent.

14. Fourteenth level clerics see their Destroy Undead effect creatures of CR 3 or lower. Not that exciting, but you’re probably busy building temples by this point.

15. At fifteenth level you get 8th level spells like Holy Aura, giving creatures of your choice around you advantage on all saves and imposing disadvantage on attacks against them. They also blind attacking fiends or undead if they fail a constitution save, because you haven’t been ruining the fiends’ day enough already.

16. Good news: We can finally use an ASI to improve our ability scores. Bump up your Dexterity so you can use your sword more efficiently and get hit less.

17. Seventeenth level is a big one. Your Destroy Undead effects CR 4 creatures, and you get ninth level spells. More importantly, you finally have enough power to use your big Noble Phantasm, Big Crunch. This is thanks to your Arcane Mastery, which lets you add a sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth level wizard spell to your domain spell list, meaning they’re always prepared and don’t add to your prepared spell amount. To make things simple, we’ll go from lowest level to highest here.

Gravity Fissure creates a line of energy that sucks in creatures around it, stretching out your dark matter for some extra utility. Prismatic Spray gives you some much-needed damage type versatility; burning, melting, shocking, poisoning, freezing, petrifying, or banishing up to eight creatures you target. Dark Star is much closer to what you’d expect from Big Crunch, creating a miniature black hole, creating a silent, darkened area of difficult terrain. While inside the area, creatures take large amounts of force damage, and any creature that reaches 0 HP in the star is disintegrated. For your ninth level spell, pick up Wish. Congratulations, you finally won the grail war. Just be careful what you wish for; any wish greater than copying a normal spell comes with a 33% chance of never being able to cast wish again.

18. You can use Channel Divinity three times per short rest but let’s be honest, it’s kind of a downgrade from getting wish last level.

19. Use your last ASI to improve your Wisdom for stronger and more prepared spells. 

20. Your capstone level is almost as good as wish, and comes with much less chance of bodily harm. At twentieth level, your Divine Intervention Improvement means your calls to God are always answered. I’m sure this won’t go to your head at all.

Pros:

Your selection of wizard spells makes you a very sneaky utility caster, opening up the ability to use magic as part of an information war by spying with arcane eyes and hiding powerful artifacts with Nystul’s Magic Aura and Leomund’s Secret Chest.

You’re strong against extraplanar incursions, with plenty of spells to shut down travel from other planes or shut down the travelers if they arrive. Block them with forbiddance, trap them with a magic circle, or bend them to your will with planar binding.

People don’t usually expect the cleric to be the sneaky one. Use this to your advantage to further your schemes while dropping all the blame on your local rogue. For the greater good, of course.

Cons:

We spent a lot of resources on giving you the option to use a sword. If you’re willing to give that up for extra magic, you’d be able to max out your wisdom, and you’d have a lot less difficulty early on.

Compounding that, you have a pretty low constitution, meaning your concentration spells are likely to fail, and you’re always at risk of being destroyed by Power Word Kill at higher levels. Or an appropriately angry barbarian, whichever comes first.

It takes a while for your kit to build up to its full strength. You took a lot of feats, which means it’s a while before you’re able to improve any ability scores. It could get a bit dicey in the midgame if you’re not careful. Your Arcana features aren’t particularly useful either if you’re not in a game about multiplanar events, at least not until level 17. Wishes are always pretty useful.