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grailfinders · 4 months

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Grailfinders #331: Taigong Wang

today on Grailfinders we’re making Jiang Ziya, a.k.a. Jiang Shang, a.k.a. Lu Shang, a.k.a. Master Shangfu, a.k.a. Taikoubou, a.k.a. Taigong Wang. almost as numerous as his aliases are his accomplishments, such as ousting the daji from China, defeating the shang dynasty, and even creating quite a few gods through the power of being a really cool dude.

thankfully his build is slightly less complicated than his biography- he’s a Beast Master Ranger for a shape-shifting mount, and a Drunken Master Monk to blend strategy with a god-slashing whip- and also that cool “step on their head” attack.

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

next up: it’s like someone stuck Artoria and Siegfried in a conceptual blender

Ancestry & Background

Taigong Wang is a Human, giving him +1 Dexterity and Wisdom, as well as proficiency in Acrobatics. you also get a feat of your choice here, but we’ll talk about that after we go over his background.

we’ve done plenty of tacticians before, but most of those guys weren’t running around with secrets from ancient mage societies, so we’re calling Shangfu a Mage of High Sorcery here, in part because of his investiture and secret magics, and in part because we need this background for a later feat. this gives you proficiency in Arcana and History, as well as the Initiate of High Sorcery feat- we’re grabbing the Lunitari version of the feat for Feather Fall and Longstrider- yes you’re a monk and that makes these spells mostly useless, but you don’t start as one, and multiclassing makes your speed and falling a little weaker than a full monk. you also get the True Strike cantrip to be all tactical and gain advantage on your next melee attack, but after six seconds of thinking you’ll realize the real tactical move was just to attack twice.

that being said it’s called the investiture of the gods for a reason, so we need to get a little godly. coming back around to your human feat, you’re also a Scion of the Outer Planes, specifically the good ones. this gives you resistance to radiant damage (making you an even better pick to fight gods), and you can cast Sacred Flame at will. I don’t think fire is part of your kit, but you’re practically a caster anyway, it’s fine.

Ability Scores

your Wisdom needs to be number 1, that’s how you know clever tactics like “don’t fuck up your government” and “don’t hire people who are bad at their job for your army”. I know it’s easy to clown on that now, but somebody had to figure it out the first time, right? second is Intelligence- if we didn’t need monk stuff and a horse you’d probably be a wizard, but you’re still smart regardless. your Dexterity is also pretty high because you don’t wear armor and use a whip. both of those make me question the “genius tactician” thing a bit, but they clearly work for you. this does mean your Constitution isn’t particularly high, but you don’t need HP if you don’t get hit. your Strength is neutral since we just don’t need it for the build, and we’re dumping Charisma. you’re so untrustworthy Fou gets merlin vibes from you. yikes.

Class Levels

1. Ranger 1: sadly, we need ranger levels first and foremost both to get your whip proficiency and so your background makes sense, but on the plus side at least you can have celestials as your Favored Enemy, giving you advantage to track them down and recall information about them. you put a lot of gods in heaven to begin with, it would be awkward if you forgot their names after all that.

you’re also a Deft Explorer, but before I go into that- you’re proficient with Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as Athletics, Perception, and Insight. the reason I bring this up is because the first part of deft explorer makes you Canny in one skill, such as Insight, doubling your proficiency bonus with it.

2. Ranger 2: second level rangers get a fighting style, and obviously we’re grabbing Duelist for a +2 bonus to one-handed attacks. whips are bad, but now it’s better. slightly.

also, you learn Spells that you cast using your wisdom, like Ensnaring Strike for a sick whip trick, forcing the next person you whip to make a strength save or become restrained for up to a minute. while trapped, they also take damage from the whip digging into them! if you’re worried about wasting damage on a long-term spell like that, you can instead use Hunter’s Mark, adding damage to your whip for up to an hour, plus you have advantage to track the target down if they flee. you also get a chance to move the spell over to another target after the current one dies, so it’s pretty economical!

3. Monk 1: okay, we’ve got the basics of whipping down, let’s get the rest of your fighting style. as a monk you gain Unarmored Defense, adding your wisdom score to your AC as long as you’re not wearing armor or a shield. I don’t care how sick the drip is, it’s not armor.

you also learn some Martial Arts, so now your whole body is a deadly weapon. you can use your dexterity instead of strength to attack with monk weapons or your fists, and if you use your action to attack with the aforementioned weapons you can make an unarmed strike as a bonus action. on top of that, your monk weapons and fists also do a minimum of a d4 of damage, and that amount will only go up as you level up. your whip isn’t a monk weapon yet, but give it a second- besides, it doesn’t gain much from martial arts at the moment anyway.

4. Monk 2: now that the second is up, second level monks can make their whip a Dedicated Weapon, so you can call it a monk weapon all you want after an hour of prep work. you also get Unarmored Movement, so you’re faster than everyone, and your Ki makes you even faster by letting you dash as a bonus action by spending some. you can also spend it to attack twice, dodge, or disengage as a bonus action, and your ki pool recharges every short rest.

5. Monk 3: at third level, this game finally becomes a party as you become a Drunken Master- you don’t actually have to be drunk for this, but you do have to act like it. that’s why you have proficiency with Performance and brewer’s supplies so you can pick for yourself.

that being said, beer doesn’t win every fight, so you get actual features too- your Drunken Technique means that every time you use a flurry of blows (the two attacks as a bonus action from last level) you also disengage, and your movement speed increases by 10’ to boot. maneuvering is always a big part of tactics, so anything that makes it easier for you to get where you want to go is just good strategy.

you can also Deflect Missiles now, reducing damage from incoming archers and even throwing the arrow back if you nullify the damage and spend ki.

6. Monk 4: fourth level monks get their first Ability Score Increase, so increase that Dexterity for better dodging and more accurate attacks. you can also Slow Fall now for reduced fall damage, so fighting Nikitich isn’t quite as bad an idea as before.

7. Monk 5: fifth level is huge for monks, if you’re the kind of person to like hitting things. your martial arts improve to deal d6s, you get an Extra Attack each action, and you can turn any attack into a Stunning Strike- force a constitution save on someone, or they get stunned for a round, giving advantage to everyone trying to hit them and keeping them from retaliating. “don’t get hit” is also pretty sage advice. of course, all this still requires you to hit someone- thankfully you can use Focused Aim by spending ki to add to your attack rolls. it’s a huge ki sink, but sometimes defeating an enemy now is more important than saving materials for later. I know, strategy, in the strategist build, wild right?

8. Monk 6: sixth level monks get Ki-Empowered Strikes, so now your unarmed attacks are magical and can overcome resistances to bludgeoning damage. it’s a shame this doesn’t apply to your whip as well, but I feel like any kind of god-chastising whip is more of a quest item than something you should just have. don’t worry though, by the end of this build your whip will be strong enough to chastise a lot of things, even if it isn’t a legendary weapon.

that being said, your Tipsy Sway is a pretty cool consolation prize- you can leap to your feet from prone for just 5’ of movement, and you can spend a ki point to redirect attacks that miss you into hitting another creature. I’m pretty sure that’s more Sun Tzu than Taigong, but the smartest people know when someone else had a good idea.

9. Monk 7: seventh level monks get Evasion, improving the damage reduction from dexterity saves. now you’re practically immune to fireballs, so fighting Nikitich is almost starting to look like a good idea!

you also have a Stillness of the Mind that lets you shut down any effects that are charming or frightening you. you don’t have a choleric temper, so enemies will not be irritating you much. wait, no, that’s still Sun Tzu, sorry.

10. Monk 8: I think we’re about at the point where you hit your third ascension, but before then we’re getting another ASI and making you an Adept of the Red Robes. first, this gives you access to a second level spell that you can cast for free once a day. for this build we’re grabbing Dragon’s Breath for your mount later, but if you want to help Guda and company when you first meet up you could grab Levitate instead. right now you can only cast it via this feat, but you can use second level spell slots to cast it like a normal spell once we get those.

thankfully, that’s not the only thing this feat does. you can also restore magical balance whenever you make an attack or check, turning your roll into a roll of ten, up to proficiency times per day. your strategy might not always work, but at least it will never fail.

11. Ranger 3: I think we’re doing good on the whip, but we’re not quite godly enough yet. heading back to ranger at least lets you hunt them down easier with Primeval Awareness- you can spend a spell slot to detect celestials within a mile of you, as well as various other kinds of extraplanar monsters. that means it should work pretty well against Koyanskaya too- or at least it would if she hadn’t surrounded herself with all other sorts of monsters.

you’re also a Beast Master now, which means you can summon a shape-shifting Primal Companion to pal around with. none of them can technically be ridden, but tbf you don’t look super comfortable on that tapir anyway. you and your companion both move on your turn, but the only way to make your animal do anything but dodge requires you to spend your bonus action telling it what to do. or for you to get knocked out. nobody said good strategies are easy to pull off.

you can spend spell slots to resummon a dead companion, or wait until you finish a long rest to summon one for free.

on top of that, you get another spell- since we’re not getting true flight, I hope grabbing Zephyr Strike will make up for that somewhat. for a minute you get free disengaging, and you can end the spell early to get advantage on a weapon attack and deal extra damage if it hits. on top of that, your walking speed increases by 30’ that round, letting you blast yourself a truly silly amount of distance.

12. Ranger 4: fourth level rangers get another ASI, and it’s finally time for you to become a Righteous Heritor. that increases your Dexterity score by one, and you can protect your allies by spending your reaction to reduce any incoming damage for them, up to proficiency times a day.

I’m not actually expecting anyone playing this build to have to come up with clever strategies all the time; having a couple “whoops we fucked up” buttons that undo damage is just as good.

13. Ranger 5: fifth level would be a dead level for you, but thankfully rangers get second level spells! it’s still not flying, but Gust of Wind can knock people around with air, so it’s the closest we’re getting. (plus if you gust someone off a cliff they’re technically flying… downward… for a short period of time…)

14. Ranger 6: sixth level rangers get another favored enemy, and if Daji isn’t a celestial she’s probably an Aberration. you don’t get any new additions to the feature, but it works on twice as many monsters. what is new this time around is your new Deft Explorer feature, Roving. you get a small boost in movement speed, and you have a climbing and swimming speed now. have you seen Chinese mountains? honestly it would probably be easier to just run straight up them.

15. Monk 9: ninth level monks can run straight up them thanks to your Unarmored Movement Improvement- as long as your turn ends on solid, flat ground, you can run over water or up walls. you might think this makes the last level of ranger useless, but having a climbing speed should make it easier to latch onto the cliff face in-between turns so you don’t just fall all the way back down. clever thinking like that’s why you’re a strategist.

16. Monk 10: tenth level monks have a Purity of Body that makes you immune to disease or poison. as far as I’m aware, Taigong Wang never got sick or poisoned in the Investiture of the Gods, and that book’s 100 chapters long. this is mostly because I never read the thing, but still.

17. Monk 11: eleventh level monks get d8s for their martial arts, but more importantly you have a Drunkard’s Luck- or possibly a drunkard’s strategy. whenever you’d have to make an attack, save, or check at disadvantage, you can spend two ki points to cancel it. this also works on rolls where your advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, which is extra fun. combine this with your magical balance, and now your plans should never fail.

18. Monk 12: we had to spend so many ASIs on feats that one of our stats is still odd, so this last one will be no different. the Slasher feat will even out your Dexterity, but it also reduces a targets speed when they take slashing damage from your whip, and critical hits force disadvantage on that creatures attack rolls for a turn. crits are luck-based, but luck is just strategy you’re too humble to claim ownership of.

19. Monk 13: our penultimate level gives you a Tongue of the Sun and Moon, letting you speak and understand all languages. if you get a couple hundred gods into heaven, you can skip your duolingo practice, those are the rules.

20. Monk 14: the real reason we stuck with monk for so long, our final level gives you a Diamond Soul, granting you proficiency on all saving throws, and even if you fail one, you can spend a ki point to reroll it. having to maintain concentration on hunter’s mark is the worst part of being a ranger, and now that shackle is lifted. go forth, and slap things with slightly more damage than usual.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Hunter’s Mark is always a fantastic spell to have on a monk due to how many attacks you get each turn. monks already do decent damage, and when you have your mark up you can put some serious pain on people. being able to almost constantly have the thing active since you’ll never drop concentration is also a nice bonus of the build.

speaking of, you almost never fail at anything. you can give yourself advantage, ignore disadvantage, and even fudge your roll a couple times a day. some call it luck, but if it came from a build you chose to use, that’s strategy. and Taigong Wang is a damn good strategist.

whip monks are also great, it’s a shame the last one we built was like, Cursed Arm. you’re already ridiculously fast, and by using a reach weapon you can attack enemies and bolt without needing to disengage, then run out of their reach so they can’t even attempt to retaliate. it’s not quite flight, but it’s up there in terms of good strategy.

Cons:

you can do a lot, but most of that a lot lands in your bonus action, forcing you to choose between most monk abilities. ranger spells, or actually using your beast. variety tends to be a better build goal than just doing one thing well, but it will mean you have to actually think about what you want to do and when.

we also grab a lot of feats, so your overall stat total is lower than most people’s. it’s not a huge issue, but it does mean you’re squishier than I’d like and your spells aren’t powerful.

Beast Master. just. beast master. literally any other ranger subclass would have been a more useful pick, but we needed a shapeshifting buddy. you can’t even ride on him- at least, not comfortably. your tapir will almost certainly die in one round if you take it into a fight, and even trying to use it in combat blocks you from using a ton of your monk abilities.

#fgo #fate grand order #D&D 5e #DND #Taigong Wang

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