#multiclassing my beloved too i guess

[b1gwings]

swashbuckler rogue my beloved

[realfinemood]

Patch 5 Epilogue spoilers!

LAE'ZEL MY BELOVED!! Becoming the Comet in Orpheus' absence! Somehow being inspired by me of all people into doing diplomacy! Teaming up with the Githzerai!!!! Still planning on murdering the fuck out of Vlaakith! Planning on seeing her BFF again once said murder is finished! I'm so proud of her!!!

And in a massive amount of whiplash, I guess Gale is also here. As the god of ambition. And being fucking insufferable. At least I wasn't stuck with him AND ascended Astarion I suppose. They'd be a match made in hell. Thanks for deigning to grace us with your presence.

I did finally get to meet Tara though! Who is also right with me on not being able to fucking stand god Gale. Though ma'am it is not my fault that only the girls know how to make correct decisions when left to their own devices. She did agree with me on that though, and I will be meeting Gale's mom apparently! Brecca canonically has experience apologizing to mothers about their children's poor life choices so she's probably got this. (It was her own mother about herself and not "becoming an all powerful shithead" but still.)

Fading out of the Astarion romance epilogue (which works again yay!) and fading into Brecca wearing the exact clothes Astarion had been wearing. Cute.

Astarion is so ridiculously happy. And happy for everyone else too!! And also refusing to talk to anyone else besides complain loudly, but that's fine, not everyone likes parties babe. But please go talk to Boo though because apparently he has a bunch of ideas on how to solve the whole "curing vampirism" thing and Minsc is just stuck on the power of love solving everything.

Also yay a hug where he kneels instead of Brecca randomly become a tall person!!!

Sebastian sent a letter thanking me for seeing him as a person and excuse me as I go cry.

Love you too Barcus.

Shadowheart called me fat (okay sure "healthy") and then complained about the random food choices we made while camping. Ma'am how dare you, I am a halfling, I went out of my way to make sure I picked things that made some kind of sense as an actual meal. Except for that time we just drank 40 supplies worth of alcohol but, again, I am a halfling. But anyways I'm glad she's off fighting Sharrans with her girlfriend spying for her. And yay I got to belatedly give her a hug!

Yay Karlach actually going to get her engine fixed!!! I'm sad I couldn't say we would absolutely join the heist but also Withers did seem to be super hinting at some sort of DLC type thing so maybe??? But ma'am. Ma'am. My tiny self was the one carrying everyone's loot, let's not go rewriting history. Save that for my poor druid who has no strength and is constantly shoving her loot at Shadowheart to carry.

New Clyde for Karlach!

Wyll I sent you off to hell with much better clothes, what on earth are you wearing? Also, I multiclassed you with bard, how on earth did you become a ranger when you lost your warlock powers? (Also damn do you have a rosy view of how the Flaming Fist without Gortash are. I played a Flaming Fist character once. Gortash was absolutely not the only problem.)

The most on brand thing, Brecca failed the religion check to know who the fuck the musician was. Or clue into all the obvious hints. Weird that Withers apparently dragged some random dude to play music for us, oh well.

Also I googled "dnd god dark sun in white sky" and Cyric is the first result and if that's what this is supposed to be about that is honestly fucking hysterical for Brecca specifically. Can't escape that fucker in any universe apparently.

In conclusion, I can't believe they stole both my pets on top of not letting me adopt any tiefling children 0/10 worst game ever.

[crittingcritter]

cr2 theories?

Hmmm, sure why not. Below the cut because it is long-ish.

Fjord: Had some sort of accident while at sea and sailing. Possibly everyone but him died. Made a deal similar to Percy without really realizing. This is a pact more on survival rather than revenge though.

Yasha: She ran from being arrested because she used to be enslaved when younger so she hates cages. She doesn’t remove...uh shit, what is it called again? Fuck I can’t remember the thing she wears but I’m guessing it either hides some wings or the nubs/scars of ones that used to exist.

Caleb: Probably some manner of tragic backstory involving fire. Maybe he burned a younger sister alive on accident, possibly trying to show off his magical abilities. He mentioned having it but then not using it, so... I know he is a transmutation wizard but I just can’t get this idea he wants to be necromancer out of my head. Generally speaking you cannot take on more than one school of wizardry but Matt MIGHT allow it if done a certain way. Personally as a DM I would treat it as a multiclass or possibly the character in the narrative decides to forget what they know, or stop studying and lose that craft to gain the new one.

Beau: From money, possibly a shady family like Tary had. Major daddy issues. Authority issues too. Probably sent to be a monk much in the same way rich folks ship off their children to boarding or military school to teach them discipline or possibly just to pawn her off on someone else so she wouldn’t be their responsibility anymore. Doesn’t want anything to do with whatever the family business is.

Molly: Really dig the amnesia theory people are slinging around. Lawful neutral, dude definitely has some manner of code he follows imo. Scimitar ritual is important in how he uses them, like when he cuts himself and they get icy. Without the ritual he wouldn’t be able to do that. IDK if that is a bloodhunter thing, where they have to do some kind of ritual with their weapons to make them work? Or if that is a Molly specific thing. I don’t think his name Mollymauk or his surename Tealeaf.

Nott: Kicked out of her goblin tribe for not being vicious enough. She drinks as a coping mechanism. Possibly to forget her past and/or treatment she received when she did live goblins. Her and Fjord are the hardest to figure out, I think. So that is why there isn’t much on either of them.

Jester: Well, we got a lot of her backstory already but I like the idea her mom could be a succubus. But she sings though, so maybe a siren instead? I really want it to turn out her dad left and never came back because something stopped him from doing so, such as dying or winding up in prison. I think her mom does truly care about her, even if it doesn’t show well or translate into what we think our beloved blue tiefling deserves.

[toxicdogars]

Tumblr Meets D&D

Dokuro Homika

So. I like Pokemon. And I like D&D. Thing is, those two things don’t mix very well. Pokemon makes a very bad tabletop game, without having some structures in place to calculate the absurd amount of things required for something of that measure. I know there’s a few fan-made systems by I’ve tried them and they are a dumpsterfire to work with. So. I would like to introduce you to a new endeavor on this blog. I’m going to see what I can do to make a version of beloved Pokemon characters using all available material, both official books and UA articles, for Dungeons and Dragons 5e. Let’s start with my version of Homika, or rather Roxie from Black 2 and White 2.

Ability Scores

These ventures will use standard array, a set of numbers given as a sort of average stat pool. Feel free to roll for stats if you wanted to use this character, just treat this arrangement as a general order for what stats are most important. Just keep multiclass minimums in mind, since she’s gonna need it.

Strength: 8 (Not needed) Dexterity: 15 (Most important) Constitution: 12 (Wish I could put more, but others are needed more) Intelligence: 10 (Not really important, didn’t want it lower than Strength) Wisdom: 13 (Will get higher later, needed for multiclassing)  Charisma: 14 (Also useful, needed for multiclassing)

Race

Homika is a Human. I could have gone Lightfoot Halfling, playing up her short stature and giving her some extra luck and bonuses to Dexterity and Charisma, but there are other ways to give her those sorts of things. Variant Humans also get some snazzy bonuses. Put the two free points Variant Humans get into Dexterity and Wisdom to round those odd numbers up to evens. She also gets a base speed of 30 ft, a skill proficiency, and a free Feat. Let’s take Animal Handling, since she’s pretty good with the Pokemon around Virbank. And as for her Feat, she has those rollerblades in her boots, so how about Mobile?

Mobile: Your speed increases by 10 feet. When you use the Dash action, difficult terrain doesn't cost you extra movement on that turn. When you make a melee attack against a creature, you don't provoke opportunity attacks from that creature for the rest of the turn, whether you hit or not.

Class and Background

I know what you’re thinking. She plays the bass, she’s in a band. So she’s gotta be a Bard, right? Wrong! The one direction I took differently with my interpretation here is her ties to Koga and Janine’s (or rather Kyou and Anzu’s) family. Homika was trained as a ninja since an early age, so she starts with a different class. I considered Rogue, but the best way to make her really good with a pair of daggers is in fact... Monk.

Monks start with a d8 hit die (which isn’t terrible), proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saving throws, simple weapons, shortswords, and two skills from a short list. She’ll take Acrobatics and Stealth here, other things she needs she can get from other sources. She also gets proficiency with an instrument or an artisan tool, so here let’s take her lute. No bass guitars, so I figured this was the next best thing. 

As for her background, let’s reflect that early ninja training and give her proficiency in Perception, since she’d be pretty observant, and Persuasion, since she’s a little rascal who can get people to do what she wants. Since backgrounds can also give you tool proficiency, let’s take the poisoner’s kit to allude to her connection to Poison Type Pokemon. 

Since I don’t want this post to be massive, let’s summarize her leveling. Her first five levels will all go into Monk, giving her a number of features that let her become devastatingly brutal in combat even without a weapon. Martial Arts lets her punches and kicks do damage as well as improve the damage die of her daggers over time, Unarmored Defense and Unarmored Movement help her avoid attacks and move quickly respectively, and her Ki lets her do a whole heap of rad ninja things. Her character sheet, link below, will go into greater detail. She can also Deflect Missiles after hitting level three, where she also gets a chance to pick a Monastic Tradition. 

Know how I said I wasn’t going Bard? Well that’s kind of a lie. Since we’re injecting some Bard into this Monk with the Drunken Master tradition. She gets free proficiency in Performance and the ability to brew her own booze with the Brewer’s Supplies. I’d say any disciplined rock star can still fight at her best while sloshed to hell and back. She also gets an Ability Score Improvement at level four, which we’ll put the +2 into Dexterity, and Slow Fall, which lets her reduce falling damage. At level five, it’s Extra Attack and Stunning Strike. The former is obvious, it lets her slash with each dagger in her hands. The latter is also obvious, giving her hits a little more bite so she can stagger her foes more easily. 

So she’s got some training. How bout we start her music career? And for that, we’re going to go into Bard. Yes, I lied about that too. Multiclassing into Bard gives her light armor if she wanted it, but more importantly it gives her another skill proficiency, which we’ll take Athletics to help with her low Strength. With her first bard level she gets Bardic Inspiration, which she can give to her allies to bolster their rolls, as well as the ability to cast a few spells through the power of MUSIC. She starts with two cantrips and four first level spells from those in with bard list. First, the cantrips:

Minor Illusion: Gives her some weird ninja tricks. Vicious Mockery: Lets her weaponize her snark to deal psychic damage and make her enemies just a little bit less likely to smack her or her friends.

And the spells:

Thunderwave: Line your foes up and blast ‘em with the power of Rock. Even though your specialty is Poison. Animal Friendship: Will help you start to gather up some bestial allies. Charm Person: For when your persuasion ain’t enough, use magic. Hideous Laughter: Helps you stall your enemies, underestimatin’ you.

Now let’s take three more levels of Bard, bringing our girl up to Monk 5/Bard 4. These levels give her Song of Rest, a way to give her and her allies some extra healing during short rests, and Jack of All Trades, giving her a half-proficiency bonus to every ability check she isn’t proficient in, like Arcana or even Initiative rolls. It’s pretty good and one of the best parts of going Bard. She also gets some schooling at Bard 3, and let’s expand her view of the world with the College of Lore. Lore gives her a new way to abuse her Bardic Inspiration, using Cutting Words to weaken her foe’s dice rolls. The college also gives her three more skill proficiencies, which we’ll take in Medicine, Nature, and Survival to reflect her knowledge of poisons. It also compliments her Animal Handling, making her quite handy in the wilds. Speaking of which, this level also gives her Expertise, letting her double the proficiency bonuses for two of her skills- let’s make those Performance for obvious reasons and Nature for buffing her knowledge of plant-based poisons. Since there’s just so many Grass/Poison Types, right? These Bard level also give her three more spells and second level spell slots, so she can learn second level spells. Let’s take advantage of that.

See Invisibility: Synchronizes well with your ninja abilities, so she would be able to see what others can’t.  Locate Animals and Plants: Helps you find some creatures to use those nature-based skills on. Speak with Animals: Wouldn’t it be nice to talk with Pokemon? This was she can. Assuming they’re beast-like, I guess. Also meshes witht he other animal-based spells you got.

Oh, and Bard 4 gives her another Ability Score Improvement. Max that Dexterity at 20, and, speaking of Dexterity, I want better daggers, let’s go back to Monk for five more levels. 

These five levels will buff the damage die on her daggers, give her some movement options and the ability to redirect attacks with Tipsy Sway, as well as make her fists magical so she can punch all those nasty Steel Types that she mighta broken her hand on before. Level seven gives her Evasion, making it easier to avoid damage from those Dexterity save spells- which you also have a dang good save for anyway- as well as Stillness of Mind. Here’s the easy way to stave off the fear effects that Halflings would have had bonuses toward, but this also includes charm too. Level eight nets another Ability Score Increase, let’s dump that +2 in Wisdom to get a better Armor Class. 

And Monk 10 gives us the whole dang reason I went so deep into Monk- Purity of Body grants immunity to disease and poison, which includes both the poisoned condition and the poison damage type. Why is this crucial? Because it’s the skill Homika had to develop to be so close with her Poison Types like, Dogars, the ones constantly radiating toxic gas or sludge. Now at character level 14, let’s swing back to Bard for four more levels.

Bard 5 makes her Bardic Inspiration dice fresh on short rests, so she can play more concerts. Bard 6 gives her Countercharm, a way to give her allies a taste of being super awesome so they gain advantage on saves against being frightened or charmed. And because of our college, she gets a core Bard ability early, Early Magical Secrets. It lets her select two spells from any list, so let’s actually get some Pokemon on this Pokemon Trainer. With access to third level spells from Bard 5 onward and fourth level spells at Bard 7, she’s got some options. First, her Magical Secrets:

Fly: How could she not get her trusty Crobat to fly her places? Pass without Trace: A handy ability to make other people nearly as sneaky as her, and it could be flavored as a sort of arcane smokescreen, which ties in well with her Dogars. 

And for the other spells from her Bard levels:

Earth Tremor: A solid representation of her Scolipede’s Bulldoze move. Hold Person: It takes some flavor, but this could be a bunch of grasses and vines tying down a foe, a good example of Ruffresia’s Grass Knot.  Stinking Cloud: Took some time, but we have poison damage now with this stink cloud, which could be a great Sludge Bomb or Sludge Wave sorta thing, representing Dogars really well. Phantasmal Killer: And finally, a spell added to the Bard’s list from a recentish Class Feature Variant UA. This creates a nightmarish creature that spooks the heck outa your foes to murderify things. Sounds like a good Gangar substitute to me! And lines up with your other abilities pretty well.

Bard 8 also gives her another Ability Score Improvement, let’s dump that +2 into Charisma so she isn’t such a terrible Bard. 

And finally, two more levels in Monk to buff her Martial Arts one step further and give her a final Ability Score Improvement at Monk 12, so dump that in Wisdom to finally have a pretty dang respectable AC of 19. 

Final Thoughts

Monk 12/Bard 8 is a pretty solid combination. She doesn’t lose out on any ASIs, she has great damage with a capped Dexterity, varied ways of dealing damage with Bard spells, and spectacular team play with Bardic Inspiration. Not to mention fantastic utility with all her skills. 

Unfortunately, that usefulness came at a cost. Her hit points, taking the average, are well under 100 and fully capable of getting squooshed easily. Not to mention that neither her Wisdom nor her Charisma are capped, which weakens both her Ki saves and her Spell saves respectively. Having to focus on two mental stats makes her a little bit less effective at both of them. That said, this build works best as a sort of ambush tactic. Cast one of your ranged spells to lock down a foe, move in close to stabby-stab, and then duck out so you don’t get hit. Your movement speed is freakin’ 60, make use of that.

Here’s the character sheet I made with Dicecloud. 

Note: ASIs might be arranged differently, since the character sheets aren't always designed with the leveling path in mind.