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dnddiary · 2 years

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The Adventurer Formerly Known As A Prince

I asked a friend of mine what sort of character he'd like to see in a campaign, expecting an answer like Batman or Spiderman. Instead he threw me off guard by saying "Prince."

And I was gonna be like "oh I'm not so sure I can do that," but I had honestly already started doing it in my head. So I guess...here's Prince...in DnD

Race: Eladrin

Prince was known for being passionate, mercurial, and eccentric, all things you can say about the Eladrin subrace of elves.

The Eladrin are elves of the Feywild and are ethereal creatures ruled by strong emotions. After each long rest a player chooses what "season" their form should take, which dictates what sort of strong emotions they might feel, changes to their appearance, and how their special abilities behave.

And let's be real, if any man deserves the title "otherworldly"...

...it's him.

What that Gets You

Ability Score : Dex +2, Cha +1

Darkvision

Fey Ancestry: Advantage against being charmed and immunity to magical sleep

Trance: don't need to sleep, just meditate for four hours.

Keen senses: Proficiency with Perception skill (which is apropos considering Prince had his entire home bugged so he could see and hear everything)

Fey Step: Free thirty foot teleport per short/long rest with a single additional effect based on the season your character has currently chosen which include charming targets, frightening targets, dealing bonus damage, or teleporting an additional creature with you.

Background

Entertainer: Any performing background falls under this umbrella

What that Gets You

Proficiencies: Acrobatics, Performance, disguise kit, a musical instrument

Feature: by performing at a tavern you can get free lodging and people in that town will have a more positive reaction to you

Now for the important bits

Classes

Im doing this build up to level 11 because it involves a multi-classing option.

Primary Class: Bard...because duh

But the question is....what type of bard?

You could make an argument for several subclasses based on Prince's discography, personal life, or aesthetic flair, and if you wanna make your own Prince-based class you have some room for interpretation.

However, I've chosen to focus on two things that Prince did best; make infectious dance beats and CREATE. Prince was responsible for inspiring and cultivating an entire generation of artists and has one of the largest bodies of work imaginable spanning a huge number of different genres.

For that reason I'd say Prince would be a bard from the College of Creation

If anyone could hum a few bars from the Song that drives the Universe...it was Prince.

Ability Scores:

I don’t ascribe to any one particular ability score system and I’ll generally be open to whatever the players prefer. The aim of the game is for people to LIKE their characters after all.

However, whatever system you use the priorities for a character like this should be, in my opinion, as follows:

1. Charisma

2. Dexterity (You’ll be focusing on weapons with the Finesse property)

3a. Wisdom

3b. Intelligence (Both Wis and Int have their benefits for a bard and it’s just up to which one you value more)

4. Strength (Prince is a lot of things, but a frontliner is one you’d have to make a compelling argument for)

What That Gets You

Hit Dice:

1d8 per level.

Proficiencies:

Light Armor

Simple Weapons, Hand Crossbows, Longswords, rapiers, shortswords

Three Musical Instruments

Dexterity/Charisma Saving Throws

Any three skills (to reflect the subject of our build I’d choose Persuasion (Cha), Performance(Cha), and Acrobatics(Dex))

(I’d also homebrew a proficiency for exotic weapons because fucking look at this thing and tell me it couldn’t double as a weapon)

For the purpose of this build Prince’s main class is going to be up to level 8 to get some good flavor for it and give us the chance to add two feats

Class Features:

Bardic Inspiration: A bard can create “inspiration” for their party members through song. This is represented by an extra dice that a player can roll and add that value to an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check made within 10 minutes. Because Prince is a level 8 bard his Inspiration dice use a d8, he can give them out a number of times equal to his Charisma modifier, and he regains them on a short or long rest.

Jack of All Trades: A bard can add half their proficiency bonus, rounded down, to an ability check made using any skill that they are not already proficient with, which seems appropriate for a modern renaissance man like Prince.

Song of Rest: During a short res (which are an hour long) players can choose to expend a resource known as a “Hit Die” to regain some health. This ability allows the bard to increase that healing for anyone who chooses to use that feature. Again, because Prince is at level 8 the additional healing uses a d8.

Expertise: A bard can become an expert in two skills that they are already proficient with. Again, to reflect our subject today I’d choose to apply this benefit to Persuasion(Cha) and Performance(Cha).

Mote of Potential (College of Creation): Because our Prince hails from the college of Creation his Bardic Inspiration has additional benefits based on the type of roll it belongs to as well as some cool aesthetic flavor that is very Prince:

Ability Check: The Inspiration creates colorful sparks when used and lets the player roll the Inspiration die a second time, using the roll of their choice.

Attack Roll: The Inspiration creates a thunderous bang and the attack target plus each creature of your choice within a 5-foot radius must make a Constitution saving throw or take additional damage equal to the Inspiration roll.

Saving Throw: A soft musical note hangs in the air and the player using the Inspiration die gains temporary hit points equal to the roll plus Prince’s Charisma modifier.

Performance of Creation (College of Creation): This is where this class gets fun. Once per long rest (or if you expend a 2nd level or higher spell slot) you can create any nonmagical item within 10 feet of you. The item can be Large or smaller because of Prince’s level. There’s a value limit (160 gold for our purpose), but that leaves a lot of room for interpretation to an imaginative player.

Countercharm: Prince can choose to start a performance that gives all friendly creatures advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.

Animating Performance: This ability lets Prince bring an item that is Large or smaller to life. It must be within 30-feet and be non-magical. It uses the following stat block:

There’s some more minutiae in the restrictions pertaining to how you can use this and how you control the construct, but the gist is that this gives you a friendly construct with some impressive stats which, again, has a lot of uses in combat or out if you apply a little imagination. Furthermore, I feel this is the most “Prince-like” ability out of all of them because if I’m not at least bopping-around a little when Raspberry Beret comes on I. am. fucking. dead.

Okay, that was a lot. I’ve just got a little more to go.

The next thing to touch on is Prince’s...

✨✨✨SUBCLASS✨✨✨

Prince always had a presence about him that people could describe as “electric” and seemed to wield it with an innate elegance. For that reason I felt like Prince should have a dip into some Sorcerer levels (3 total, to get him access to metamagic and bring him to a total level of 11). Sorcerers also cast using Charisma as their attribute so it synergizes well with a Bardic main class.

Just like with his mainclass this brought up the question of WHAT TYPE OF SORCERER, but the answer here is a lot more obvious.

While researching subclasses I pulled up the Storm Sorceror and while this build isn’t necessarily the strongest for a main class it fits in perfectly for the concept we’re going for here. I’ll transcribe the bit that sold me directly.

“Your innate magic comes from the power of elemental air. Many with this power can trace their magic back to a near-death experience caused by the Great [in this case Purple] Rain.”

I dare someone to find a better fit for this idea.

There’s a lot less to go over here but this brings us to...

What That Gets You

Hit Dice:

1d6 per level

Proficiencies:

Nothing you didn’t already get from the Bard

Class Features

Wind Speaker (Storm Sorcery): Gain fluency in Primordial, letting you speak, read, write the language and its dialects (Aquan, Auran, Ignan, Terran).

Tempestuous Magic (Storm Sorcery): As a bonus action before or after you cast a spell of 1st level or higher Prince can summon elemental air which gives him the ability to fly for 10ft in any direction without triggering any attacks of opportunity. I’ve seen other DMs downplay this ability because it’s not great as just a method of movement, but I think people miss that this is EXACTLY the type of ability you want for a more spellcasting focused character. It gives you a little extra maneuverability without giving your opponents any free attacks and makes you VERY hard to pin down. Coupled with an Eladrin’s Fey Step ability makes for a spellcaster who’s not shit out of luck when an enemy frontliner gets close.

Font of Magic: This feature gives two sorcery points automatically, which scales to a number equal to your sorcerer level. It also allows Prince to convert sorcery points into spell slots and spell slots into sorcery points using the following table with the drawback being that you can never have more sorcery points than your sorcerer level. Alternatively, sorcery points restore on a long rest.

Metamagic: This is the big one for Sorcerers. When you obtain this feature you choose two metamagic skills and, using your sorcery points, you can activate them to augment your spells in various ways. For the Prince build I would recommend the following skills:

Heightened Spell: Several of the spells I’m going to share for this build involve a saving throw and this feature lets you give one target disadvantage on its saving throw. It’s expensive with a cost of 3 sorcery points, but it’s useful.

Twinned Spell: Any spell that targets only one creature other than yourself can be twinned by spending sorcery points equal to that spell’s level. Several of the spells for this build fit this build and are a low enough level that this option could be used at least twice before needing to restore sorcery points.

Spellcasting

Both Bards and Sorcerers choose which spells they learn as they level up with the option of switching out one spell known when they level up. To fit Prince’s aesthetic I chose spells that focus on charming/hypnotizing targets or spells that deal thunder damage, which is 5th edition’s name for “sonic” damage.

I won’t give a description of each spell because I also feel like the chosen spells could vary depending on how a player wanted to use this build. These are just my personal choices and really a suggestion more than anything.

Cantrips:

Thunderclap

Dancing Lights

Vicious Mockery

Gust

Mind Sliver

Prestidigitation

Message

1st-Level:

Unearthly Chorus

Thunderwave

Silvery Barbs

Command

Charm Person

Disguise Self

Shield

2nd-level:

Mirror Image

Suggestion

Shatter

Hold Person

3rd-level:

Hypnotic Patter

Clairvoyance

4th-Level:

Polymorph

Charm Monster

Last but not least: FEATS

At 4th and 8th level a player has the chance to either increase their ability scores or take feats. I am SO heavily predisposed to taking feats it’s not even funny. So for this build I’ve chosen two feats instead of the ASI bonuses.

4th Level Feat:

Fey Touched: This feat leans into that otherworldly quality we talked about earlier. Because of the characters affinity for the world of the fae they gain some additional bonuses to their build. This is a “half feat” that lets you buff one of your abilities as well as gives you an effect, in this case Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 1 (we’d probably want to buff Charisma) and you learn the Misty Step spell, which is another buff to Prince’s maneuverability in combat or out, as well as a 1st-level spell from the divination or enchantment schools. For this build it’s a toss up between learning the spell Bless (if you wanna buff allies) or Hex (if you wanna buff your own damage). It’s important to note that this feat lets you cast either spell once for free per long rest, but it explicitly states that you LEARN these spells meaning that even after that free casting you can choose to use a regular spell slot to cast them again.

8th Level Feat:

Actor: This allows you to increase your Charisma by 1, gives advantage on all Deception and Performance checks when trying to pass yourself off as someone else, and you can mimic the speech of another person or animal sounds. All in all, not super valuable, but it fits our theme really well.

And that’s my take on Prince as a DnD character. An incredible musician, a man of strong presence, and an inspiration to many.

Making unique and creative builds around a theme is actually something I greatly love to do, so if anyone has any suggestions for something they’d like to see or get my take on I’d love to hear it.

Happy Gaming

#Prince #the artist formerly known as prince #dnd bard #dnd 5th edition #homebrew #dnd sorcerer #multiclass

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