#immunity to instakill abilities

[leuxcrows]

i couldnt stop thinking about the hilarious implications of fae and undead magic just not working on the other species

[aroaceleovaldez]

non-exhaustive list of canon powers Nico di Angelo either has shown or is heavily implied to have:

Shadow-travel

Manipulation of shadows/darkness (also possibly use of shadows as a pocket-dimension a la Magicians using the Duat in The Kane Chronicles)

Becoming intangible/shadows

Complete control over skeletons/bones (dead or alive, including summoning, reanimation, and/or changing shape of them) and being able to sense their presence

Summoning, reanimating, commanding, and dispelling the dead/undead (Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, etc & varieties) and being able to sense their presence

Ability to understand/communicate with the dead/undead and potentially other beings of the Underworld

Inherent complete comprehension of Latin

Ability to perceive the usually unperceivable/possibly look upon a deity’s true form without repercussion (at least moreso than the average demigod, though possibly is restricted to chthonic beings) (ex: Tartarus, potentially also interacting with his parents, etc)

Interacting tangibly with ghosts (implied to be a Ghost King thing rather than a Hades/Pluto thing)

Partial or complete immunity to different effects of the Underworld/things within (can consume food/drink of or in the Underworld without repercussions, effects from the Lethe wear off over time instead of being permanent like usual for mortals, etc)

Astral projection/”Walking in dreams”

Dream manipulation and projection (Sending dreams to others, etc.) (presumably includes sharing/projecting dreams with others) alongside inflicting sleep upon others even from a distance.

Illusions

Manipulation of emotions/aura that inflicts specific emotions on others (ex.: radiating fear/death onto enemies)

Projection of emotions and memories onto others (can be so forceful it causes physical damage like a shockwave)

Geokinesis (all forms but also specifically generating black marble) (presumably also specialized control over precious gemstones & non-paper currency)

Temperature manipulation (seemingly only lowering temperature)/creating frost)

Control/manipulation of souls, including living beings (ex: ripping out Bryce Lawrence’s soul)

Perceiving/reading/judging of souls (most likely also a Ghost King thing over Hades/Pluto thing, but possibly both)

Converting living into dead/undead, aka instakill (ex: disintegrating monsters to bone with one touch)

Lowering or manipulation of own vitals (breathing, heart rate, etc)

Death Trance/pseudo-hibernation (possibly also general control over states of consciousness at least for self, in combo with control over vitals & dreams)

Sensing death (impending or when it occurs, sometimes receiving dreams/visions of it occurring)

Able to sense other children of Hades/Pluto (potentially also other chthonic beings in general/able to identify based on sense alone) and also just living beings in general, such as mortals (possibly via souls).

Improved navigation underground/in the Underworld and ability to traverse restricted or normally unnavigable parts of the Underworld

Enhanced strength/abilities when in the Underworld

Inherently unnaturally quiet (possibly able to silence sound on a designated target)

Hiding/shielding self from being perceived (seemingly related to shadows/silence)

[shuttershocky]

Is qaniplat good. From my perspective he is pretty good not the best but workable.

He's a more consistent levitator than Ho'olheyak lol

I would say he's decent for his niche. Cheaper than 6 star Core Caster and a very good 7 second levitation time on his S2 (which gets shortened to 3.5s on a heavy enemy, still alright)

I should note that Qanipalaat is an extreme counter to the second boss of IS#4, whose special ability is becoming unblockable multiple times and then running like hell for the blue gate to try to instakill you. Thing is, this boss is not immune to levitation, and the duration of their dash is 3 seconds. This means Qanipalaat is able to give them a ranged wedgie whenever the boss tries to run past your blocker, and only put them down once their buff has run out, trivializing the bossfight (though it's a pretty easy boss overall if you're prepared for it, the total opposite of Last Knight in IS#3)

[yusuke-of-valla]

Yeah exactly it's like how the Twins and Lavenza will insta kill you if you dare AOA them. Which is the correct way to play the game

Ok so in the Pokémon games the game will cheat if you like, bring a Spiritomb with Wonder Guard to the Battle Frontier, something that is literally impossible through normal gameplay.

But right before you unlock the request to fight Elizabeth, you gain the ability to fuse Lucifer.

If you bring Lucifer to this fight you cannot win it, because the game instakills you

There's forcing the player to change their strategies by throwing them solo up against someone who can change their strengths and weaknesses and then there's like. Whatever the fuck this is.

Again you could:

- Make her reflect Armageddon back at you so it's not a viable option

- Give her what is basically the Jack Bros Theurgy, ie an almighty move that always knocks the player down (if not just literally that)

There are ways to make this fight hard which aren't "literally don't allow the player to do something smart like bring Personas without weaknesses to the fight, somethign they can do and have INCREDIBLY EASY AT THIS POINT IN THE GAME

Also minor related hot take, if status effects are so broken that you have to make every boss immune to them, you need to rebalance status effects or just not give the player a way to use them. IMHO making something harder by outright blocking an otherwise perfectly legit strategy is cheap you know

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #24: Georgios

Welcome back to Fate and Phantasms, today we’re building Saint George of Cappadocia.  For this build, we have three goals:

Riding B: You’re a rider, you need a horse. We can’t make it take hits for you like the original Bayard, but we’ll make it sweet nonetheless.

Guardian Knight A+: In combat, you keep enemies looking at you so squishier allies don’t get turned into jelly, which is nice of you.

Ascalon: Sadly, turning people into dragons isn’t that effective a battle plan in D&D, but we can make a sword that will really hurt dragons instead.

As always, a spreadsheet for the build can be found here, and there’s an explanation under the cut!

Background and Race

We’re keeping things simple this time (and we also need all the ability points we can get), so you’re a Human, giving you +1 in all abilities. You’re also an Acolyte, giving you proficiency in Insight and Religion.

Stats

Put your highest score into Wisdom. You’re a holy man, and also just a really nice guy in general. Follow that with Strength, because you can and will beat a dragon senseless. Then Constitution. You’re going to be taking a lot of hits, so you need health to back that up. Next is Charisma, again you’re a sweet guy. And also we need this for multiclassing. After that is Dexterity; you don’t need to get out of the way of danger, that’s where you want to be. Finally, dump Intelligence. You’re not stupid, we just need everything else more.

Class Levels

1. Cleric 1: First level Clerics get two skills; grab History and Medicine because you’re a holy man and therefore a nerd. You also get Spellcasting, using wisdom as your spell ability. You can use every spell in the cleric list, but you have to ask god for it first by preparing it. You can prepare a number of spells equal to your cleric level + your wisdom modifier. You also pick what domain you worship at level 1. According to Catholic Canon, God falls under the category of “everything”, which makes picking one domain a problem. The good news is there’s a tiebreaker. St. George often gets mixed together with the god of harvest Ba’al Hadad, putting you firmly in the Nature Domain. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. At level 1, you get a Druid cantrip and a skill. Grab Druidcraft, the best spell in the game, and Animal Handling for all the horsing around you’ll do later. You also get three Cleric cantrips, so get Guidance to help your friends, and Spare the Dying and Thaumaturgy to put the fear of god into people. As a Nature Cleric, you also get Animal Friendship and Speak with Animals as domain spells. 

2. Cleric 2: You get your first taste of Channel Divinity, which at this level has two options: Charm Animals and Plants and Turn Undead. In either case, all named creatures in 30′ of you make a wisdom save and are either charmed or turned, respectively, for a minute.

3. Cleric 3: Third level clerics get 2nd level spells, adding Barkskin and Spike Growth to your domain spells.

4. Cleric 4: Use your first ASI to improve your Dexterity. (It’s a secret tool we’ll use later). You also gain another cantrip, Mending.

5. Cleric 5:  Your Turn Undead now instakills any undead creatures of CR 1/2 or lower, and you gain access to 3rd level spells. You also get Plant Growth and Wind Wall as domain spells.

6. Cleric 6: Sixth level clerics receive a Channel Divinity Improvement, so now you can use it twice per short rest instead of once. Nature Domain Clerics can also Dampen Elements, reacting to a friendly creature within 30′ of you being hit by an acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder attack to give them resistance to that attack’s damage.

7. Cleric 7: At seventh level, you gain 4th level spells, including Dominate Beast and Grasping Vine as your domain spells.

8. Cleric 8: Use your ASI to round out your Strength and Charisma. Your Destroy Undead feature improves again to kill anything under CR 1. You also gain a Divine Strike. Once per turn, you can add 1d8 of Cold, Fire, or Lightning damage to your weapon attack.

9. Ranger 1: When you multiclass into ranger, you get proficiency in martial weapons, and a new skill. Grab Perception to help with your photography hobby. At first level, you gain a Favored Enemy, so go with Dragons for obvious reasons. You have advantage on checks involving tracking and recalling information about your enemy. You are also a Natural Explorer of your mountainous Cappadocia. While traveling in mountains, difficult terrain doesn’t slow your party, they can’t become lost, you remain alert while traveling, foraging is twice as easy, and you know the exact number of creatures you’re tracking.

10. Ranger 2: Second level Rangers get a Fighting Style, so grab Defense for the extra AC. You also gain access to first level ranger spells at this level, so grab Cure Wounds for healing and Detect Poison and Disease to help track down any troublesome dragons. These spells also use your Wisdom.

11. Ranger 3: At third level, you have a Primeval Awareness, letting you burn a spell slot to detect aberrations, celestials, dragons, elemental, fey, fiends, and undead within a mile of you (or 6 miles if you’re in your favored terrain). You don’t know their location or number, though, so I’d think having a larger area to check in would be more of a downside than an upside. But hey, I’m not WotC. 

In more exciting news, you also join a conclave at this level, so get ready to become a Monster Slayer! When you pick the subclass, you get Protection from Evil and Good as a conclave spell. You also have a Hunter’s Sense, letting you use an action to learn the immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities of a creature within 60′ of you. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier per long rest.

You also learn how to make your enemies a Slayer’s Prey. As a bonus action, you can mark a creature within 60′ of you. On the first weapon attack you make against that creature each turn, you deal an extra 1d6 damage. This effect lasts until you finish your next rest, or mark another creature. You also get another spell at this level, so pick up Ensnaring Strike to keep your foes from flying off.

12. Paladin 1: At first level, paladins have Divine Sense, letting you detect celestials, fiends, and undead within 60′ of you with an action. You can use it 1+ your charisma modifier times per long rest. You also get Lay on Hands, a pool of HP that you can dole out with an action equal to your paladin level x 5, that refills with a long rest.

13. Paladin 2: You get another fighting style, so grab Dueling to make your hurtstick hurt even more. You also get paladin spells, which use charisma, and Divine Smite, which burns your spell slots to add radiant damage to your attacks.

14. Paladin 3: Third level paladins are immune to disease due to their Divine Health. You also get your Oath, so hop on board the Oath of the Crown, adding two more options to your channel divinity. Champion Challenge makes creatures you want to within 30′ make a wisdom save or they’re forced to stay within 30′ of you until you die. Turn the Tide heals any number of creatures with 30′ of you by 1d6 + your charisma modifier if they’re bloodied. Also, these new Channel Divinities don’t stack with your old ones, so you still only have 2 per short rest.

Also at this level, you get Command and Compelled Duel as Oath Spells.

15. Paladin 4: You’re getting dangerously close to having a horse, so use your last ASI for the Mounted Combatant feat. You have advantage on attacks against unmounted creatures smaller than your horse, you can redirect attacks from your mount to you, and your mount makes dex saves with evasion.

16. Paladin 5: You gain an extra attack each turn, and you finally have 2nd level Paladin spells. This gives you Warding Bond and Zone of Truth as Oath Spells, and you have access to Find Steed, giving you a cool horse.

17. Paladin 6: You have an Aura of Protection, adding your charisma modifier to any saving throws made by friendly creatures within 10′ of you.

18. Cleric 9: You get 5th level cleric spells, with Insect Plague and Tree Stride as your Domain Spells.

19. Cleric 10: You have a new cantrip, so grab Word of Radiance to dragon shout at those dragons. You also have Divine Intervention, letting you ask your god to help you not die. You roll a percentile die, and if you roll lower than your cleric level, god does you a solid. On a failure, you can’t try again until your next long rest or else you’ll look needy. On a success, you have to wait a whole week.

20. Cleric 11: With your final level, Destroy Undead instakills anything at CR 2 or under, and you gain 6th level spells.

Pros: You have a lot of flavors of sword, and can use those flavors effectively. You’re also good at defending against creatures that rely on elemental attacks like dragons.

Cons: Thanks to all the multiclassing done to get to this point, you don’t have very high ability scores, so you’re good at a lot of things, but not great at any one. You also don’t have a lot of ranged attacks, so fighting a dragon that isn’t too sporting about it will be difficult.

[thecreaturecodex]

Choke Creeper

Concept art from Guild Wars 2 © Kekai Kotaki, accessed at his site here

[With 25 Hit Dice and a 10% chance to instakill anything it’s grappling, the choke creeper is one of the most powerful monsters in the 1e Monster Manual II. Presumably its lack of an illustration is one of the reasons it’s not well remembered.]

Choke Creeper CR 17 NE Gargantuan Plant This enormous serpentine creature looks like a cluster of woven vines moving in unison. Its front is covered in dozens of luminous eyes, and tendrils extend along its length, clutching and grasping.

Choke creepers are malevolent carnivorous plants native to the First World. It is believed by some that they are ancestral to assassin vines, but rather than sustaining themselves on mere animals, they prey on giants, megafauna and the various monsters of that plane. They are sapient and cruel, and enjoy drawing out the suffering of their prey. Some fey lords intentionally cultivate them as deterrents to intruders, but even they tend to give these monsters a wide berth.

A choke creeper is a simple combatant, striking foes with its powerful tendrils in order to squeeze the life out of them. A single choke creeper can grapple an entire party of adventurers at once. If an individual opponent causes the choke creeper particular trouble, it will focus its attention on them, positioning its vines in a hangman’s grip and snapping the spine of the foe. Although they prefer to close into melee, they can uproot boulders and hurl them at enemies that keep their distance. They can only be permanently injured with acid and cold damage, and a choke creeper will flee an enemy that seems to have these damage types at a ready supply.

A choke creeper grows to about eighty feet long, but they coil like a snake when engaged in combat. They tend to maintain a wide territory which they slowly patrol—the valuables of their victims can sometimes be found littering these well-trod paths.

Choke Creeper   CR 17 XP 102,400 NE Gargantuan plant (extraplanar) Init +7; Senses Perception +19, tremorsense 60 ft. Defense AC 30, touch 10, flat-footed 26 (-4 size, +3 Dex, +1 dodge, +20 natural) hp 287 (25d8+175); regeneration 10 (acid, cold) Fort +21. Ref +13, Will +14 DR 15/magic and slashing; Immune electricity; Resist fire 10 Defensive Abilities electric alacrity Offense Speed 20 ft. Melee 6 slams +23 (2d6+8/19-20 plus grab) Ranged rock +17 (4d6+12) Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Special Attacks constrict (2d6+12), multigrab, rock throwing (120 ft.), strangle, throttling grip Statistics Str 26, Dex 17, Con 24, Int 2, Wis 23, Cha 7 Base Atk +18; CMB +30 (+32 bull rush, +34 grappling); CMD 44 (46 vs. bull rush, can’t be tripped) Feats Awesome Blow, Blind-fight, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (slam), Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Nimble Moves, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Stealth), Weapon Focus (slam)Skills Perception +19, Stealth +15 (+23 in forested areas); Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in forested areas Languages Sylvan (doesn’t speak) SQ compressionEcology Environment warm and temperate forest Organization solitary Treasure incidental Special Abilities Electric Alacrity (Ex) A choke creeper takes no damage from electricity, but instead gains a +1d4 bonus to its Dexterity every time it would take electricity damage. This bonus Dexterity is lost at a rate of one point per hour. Multigrab (Ex) A choke creeper does not gain the grappled condition unless it is grappling a creature of Huge or larger size. It can maintain up to one grapple per slam attack as a swift action, and deal damage with its constrict as it does so. If it chooses to pin an opponent or move a foe, it must take a standard action, as normal. Throttling Grip (Ex) When a choke creeper begins its turn with a pinned opponent in its grasp, it can attempt to snap its opponent’s neck as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. The grabbed creature can resist this with a successful DC 30 Fortitude save—if it fails, its neck is broken and it is immediately slain. This does not affect creatures without a head, or with multiple heads. The save DC is Strength based.

[appel-sfw-blog]

Things that piss me off in Overwatch

Doomfist, was a mistake

He has increased health, gets shields by hurting enemies with any of his abilities, moves fast, and disables any offensive and defensive options of his targets when he hits them. And he is also invulnerable when setting up his Ult. Also his personality is extremely fucking retarded.

Genji, has no weakness

Genji can move in any direction and his Swift Strike, which deals a lot of damage, resets if he gets a kill. Genji has no damage drop, and his stars fly in a straight line. He is faster and more agile than any Hero and only Torb’s turrent can easily hit him. Oh, but he also has deflect that can deflect ANYTHING that is a projectile and make it his own.

Pharah, the rocket has-been

She is firing ROCKETS, and they are travelling so fucking slow a Genji could catch up to them. And that is coming from me who was top 15% of Rocket Accuracy with Pharah. Her Jump Jet only goes upwards, and must rely on a very slow hover for movement in the air, meaning that our only FLYING Hero has LOWER air mobility than Genji. And when she flies she’s just a sitting duck. 

Reaper, cut my life in to pieces

Reaper used to get soul orbs when killing things. But because everyone kept crying to Kaplan because their favourite edgelord wasn’t powerful enough, the changed it to ‘heals whenever he deals damage’. This means Reaper had even less inventive to play carefully and just tanks all damage. He also has an increased health pool to boot, so have fun not killing this fucker, who can NOPE out whenever his feelings are hurt and be invulnerable for 4 seconds, and then instakill you if you were dumb enough to follow him.

Soldier, who’s special ability is to move slightly faster

WHY IS SPRINTING AN ABILITY?! SERIOUSLY!! Doomfist, Genji, Reaper, Sombra, Tracer, Junkrat, Widowmaker, DVa, Reinhardt, Winston, Lucio, and Mercy all have the ability to move faster, and they all have a useful function for it. Soldier just moves slightly faster (but not by much) and for longer, and it stops him from doing literally anything else! Just make him more faster by default and give him something else!

Sombra, overhyped garbage

If you just changed “hacking” to “nanomachines,” I wouldn’t have a problem with her. But no, she ‘hacks’ people. She uses computers to somehow hack into living flesh and make it impossible for a gorilla to get angry, a cowboy to roll, an old man to run, a fat man to vape; but somehow a robot can still walk around freely and kill her at his own discretion. Her porn is great, though. Thanks, Sunny.

Hanzo, the left nipple of a man is divine

NERF. HIS. SCATTER. ARROW. This motherfucker can 1HKO most heroes, even if they have armour by getting a headshot, which is easy because he fires FUCKING LOGS. And his scatter arrow allows him to instakill even TANKS if they had the dumb idea to take Hanzo on face-to-face. This piece of shit hero cannot be countered at any range without risk of being killed in one attack, and Hanzo isn’t even given some kind of drawback. BULLSHIT!

Junkrat, nepotism is a bitch

Because people couldn’t get into their heads that your own explosives kill you, people instead just nagged to Kaplan that Junkrat needed a buff. Why should he be affected by his own explosives when Pharah, Dva, Tracer, Soldier, and Zarya were also affected by their own explosives? It wasn’t fair!! So they made him immune to every explosive he had, including his ult, and his Total Mayhem means Junkrat is encouraged to body slam his opponent in the hopes that he gets to kamikaze them to death. What the actual FUCK?! Oh, and using 1 concussive mine was too useful, so now he has TWO of them!! What the hell?!

Mei, just... no

Her whole backstory just paints her as a PTSD ridden psychopath. Why does she freeze people? Why does she freeze herself?! It’s retarded!

Tobjörn, make Torb great again!!

Despite having one of the highest win rates, he also suffers from one of the lowest pick rates. Why? Because people consider Torb a troll pick. He cannot upgrade his turret if it has even a single point of damage, which even a Reaper could manage from across the map. His tiny size makes him ironically easy to kill since 50% of him is a head hitbox, and everyone looks DOWN to shoot him. His Ult lasts a long time, but he spends half of that time just reloading his damn gun! And people avoid Torb like the plague whenever he tries to give out Armour packs. So it’s hard to support your team. Please, buff or rework him. Make him fun to play!

Widowmaker, she’s a sniper so that sucks already

Unlike Hanzo, Widowmaker has a harder time instakilling close range, so she actually has a slight disadvantage. Oh way, NO SHE DOESN’T! Her sniper rifle actually defaults to an assault rifle at close range, with a BIGGER MAGAZINE THAN SOLDIER!! And she has great mobility since she also possess a grappling hook. But NOO IT HAS A 15 SECOND RECHARGE! PLEASE BUFF KAPLAN! I CANNOT LIVE IF MY WIDOWMAKER ISN’T AIRBOURNE 90% OF THE TIME!!

DVa, my teen gamer waifu isn’t OP enough

DVa suffered from the same problem as other explosive Heroes. She wasn’t immune to her Self-Desctuct. Apparently that was TOO HARD for the idiots who played her to figure out and instead of learning to seek cover, they complained to Kaplan until she was made immune to it. Meaning most DVa players will actively walk into the explosion, as it’s the safest place to be. Also when her mech breaks, you can’t predict where she’ll pop out and giving her a massive advantage to retreating or take a few shots and quickly get her mech back. So. Stupid. And she’s getting an offensive buff too! Because she wasn’t too good already.

Orisa, mechanical horse pussy

Her inclusion was pretty questionable. She’s a Reinhardt, Zarya, Bastion, and Mercy lovechild and I don’t know how to feel about that. Her shield is more versatile than Reinhardt, her pull is more available that Zarya, her long range is better than Bastion, and her damage boost is generally more helpful than Mercy.

Reinhardt, you cannot outrun him

You spot Reinhardt around a corner, and you are stuck for good. This bastard will not let you go until you are pummelled to death. It’s not fun. Why can he move so fast whilst swinging his hammer? And why is his hammer hitbox so fucking stupid? It’s not a cone, it’s a wall that makes him reach further if he looks away from you!

Roadhog, being balanced is to be unplayable

Once his one-hit kill (which was super easy to pull off) was removed, people cried foul and started cutting themselves. Now Roadhog can heal on the move (which is good), but he also gets a defence boost when he vapes. Which means he was already hard to kill whilst self-healing, but now he will be functionally immortal. Especially if he gets heal boosted. This is stupid...

A lot of work seems to go into Heroes that are already Meta or at least have a high pick rate. And when they don’t have a high pick rate, it’s because of some update that made them slightly less invaluable to a team comp.

Make every Hero fun to play, don’t just focus on the Heroes that already get the most love. :T

If you also have some personal gripes with some Heroes then you are free to put it in the comment here as well. I wanna know!