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nagalias-mindscape · 5 months

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Long post. Post dnd session of the tiefling party. My poor, blind bard. She's getting all the shit and nearly died this session. Probably because she's one of two who has no sense of doom and is just bravely walking face-first into trouble, but still.

TL;DR: Medli is now suffering an abberation 'curse' of a necrotic nature, and no one other than DM knows how / when it was applied. She can now use spells without expanding any spell slots, but there's a whole slew of conditions that are applied. I'm still learning them.

This is what i've figured out, so far (not all are mentioned in the 'read more' section, and this is kinda long):

Medli can cast spells without expending any spell slots. ---

This 'curse' is preventing Medli from resting during the night, which prevents her from regaining any spells slots / health / removing exhaustion overnight. ---

If Medli passes a wisdom save, she only gets a single stack of exhaustion. No clue what happens to her once she fails a wisdom save. (which is funny it hasn't happened yet, because her wis save is +0). ---

Medli can cast spells on herself for minimal / no effect if she fails her spell save dc, but for full effect if she passes. Failure to pass keeps her exhaustion levels the same, passing increases them by one level. She has not encountered any enemies yet to cast harmful spells on. ---

This spell save dc only occurs when casting on herself, and normal effects apply when casting on others. ---

Medli is unable to cast magic if the ambient magic is absent from her surroundings. ie- someone needs to cast spells around her for her to be able to cast spells. This 'ambient magic' can be run out via Medli's casting, and will injure her if the attempt is forced. ---

Medli is now incredibly susceptible to almost all forms of damage. as in: receives double damage from all sources except necrotic. ---

Necrotic damage heals her... and damages the caster. ---

Wizard knows Chill Touch. DM ruled that Medli would only get half health from the cantrip before becoming unable to heal again for fifteen minutes this way and the rest of the damage is dealt to the Wizard. Oh, and Medli now has even more disadvantage than she did before. ---

Medli getting disadvantage from chill touch means that she's now considered an undead creature and the paladin that's been a dear friend since session one is now stuck in a spot where they really should be trying to kill her. Not only because infernal pact with a demon, but now she's also undead? yeah, that's a spot of trouble. ---

I can heal the wizard who healed me, so free healing every fifteen minutes! ---

Paladin Lay on hands is useless in trying to heal me. ---

Cleric finally discovered they know lesser restoration and tried it; it failed to return sight and did nothing for Medli. Cure wounds did nothing for Medli. In a fit of curiosity, they tried revivfy. It gave Medli 1 hit point, which she took from the cleric because it's a necromancy spell. ---

Cleric, for shits and giggles, cast daylight on Medli. We can now confirm that Medli is maybe not a really fucked up vampire? Maybe. DM was not clear on that, and everyone failed their investigation and history checks for that. Wizard is fairly certain with their arcana check of a a nat 26, that medli is not a new breed of vampire. ---

For even more shits and giggles, Cleric used warding bond on medli before chill touch was reapplied. Medli healed half damage, and the wizard and cleric split damage. Medli healed them up just fine afterwards. ---

Medli is currently unable to drop below level 1 exhaustion. This was not explained, and it hasn't been a full campaign-day since we started playing about with medli's curious affliction, so no clue what a full rest will bring.

DM: Alright. Everyone's tucked in for the night and watch rotations are in effect? yeah? great, Med's, roll me a Wis save.

Me: Um... Ha! Nat 20! Quick, out of character question- why are you making me roll wisdom saving throws every night? What about everyone else?

DM: ... Haven't figured it out, yet? Let's play your game: Roll me a basic D20.

Me: ... Uh, I rolled a 10.

DM: Yeah, no answers are forthcoming. To either you, or Medli. That said, all these saves are really making things worse for your party when you eventually fail that saving throw.

Rouge: Oh dear.

DM: Figured it out? Shush, no you haven't.

Rouge: Quick aside, [me]. What color are Medli's eyes?

Me: Uh, yellow.

Rouge: DM?

DM: Investigation check? Or insight, whichever is highest. Wait- none of you are- you know what, I'll hand wave it. You all woke up an Medli talked about how unrelaxing her nights are compared to everyone else's.

Rouge: 18.

DM: Don't worry, Medli's eyes are still their delightful black-and-yellow selves.

Rouge: That worries me even more, truthfully.

DM: Oh, right. Medli, add another exhaustion level to your character. How many have you stacked up?

Me: One sec... this would make level 4. That's... what, max hit points halved? Leaves me with... so I round down?

DM: Yep. You're really getting the shit stick this campaign. Doesn't help that everyone else is a coward, though... so, eh.

Me: I can do this two more nights before death, assuming nothing takes me out with my pitiful 19 heath. What the fuck.

DM: Hey, i shouldn't be saying this, but you lot have been loot goblins without bothering to check if anything's cursed or not.

Wizard: Uh, what would we need to do to check for cursed items?

DM: Anyone got detect magic or identify on them?

Me: I do! Detect magic.

DM: That isn't currently suffering from three- now four- nights of no rest? You haven't even gotten to recover spell slots.

Me: Oh, shit. Let me fix hat real quick. Did I not heal, either?

DM: Nope- get back to the health you had.

Me: Well, Medli is now down to seven health. Triple fuck.

Wizard: ... I can swap out my spells, right? I think I selected identify for my book, but don't have it currently equipped.

DM: You can swap out your prepared spells for those you already know in your spellbook, yes, but I'm only letting you do that once per day- so think carefully. Everyone else needs to wait until level up.

Wizard: Great, let me check real quick.

Wizard: Great. I now have identify and remove curse, so hopefully that helps.

DM: That's wonderful. What'd ya do?

Wizard: Well... i cast detect magic, first. It doesn't require any throws, but reveals to me if there's magic nearby, and what school of magic it belongs to.

DM: Of course, that's logical. I assume you're only focusing on Medli?

Wizard: Passively to make sure nothing is around us, but yeah. Focusing mostly on Medli.

DM: Roll two arcana checks, one with disadvantage and one without.

Wizard: Disadvantage is 10.

DM: You notice nothing around anyone else in the room.

Wizard: and the other is an 18.

DM: Yeah, Medli is lit up in a familiar glow that you know all too well as necrotic.

Wizard: Can I tell where it's focused on? As in- where the concentration is greatest?

DM: Hmm... Yeah, I'll give that to you: It's an even spread all across Medli, no particular section of her is glowing any more than anywhere else.

Wizard: That... is not helpful.

DM: Well, that's what the spell does. it has, infact, showed you that there's something weird going on with medli that is, infact, magic in nature. It's up to everyone else to figure this shit out.

Wizard: ... I don't even know how to begin trying to solve this...

Me: Was is something Medli ate?

DM: Roll me an insight check at disadvantage.

Me: Ya know, that tells me that the answer is yes. But sure, i'll play along. 10.

DM: Yeah, you're pretty certain it's nothing you ate- you've eaten everything everyone else has, and they aren't suffering like you are.

Me: well, bollocks.

Wizard: .. can the bard cast protection from good and evil on themselves?

DM: I'll allow it. What are you protecting yourself from, Medli?

Me: Um... Well, it's necrotic magic that's affecting me, so my first thought would be against the undead, but maybe the wizard has better insight onto that subject?

DM: Wanna roll an arcana check to provide assisstance?

Wizard: Seeing as the blind bard has nearly killed all of us- usually by accident- I don't want to see what they'll do if possessed by something, so... yeah. Uh, holy crap. Nat 26.

DM: oooh, things are getting heated! You realize that while the magic around medli is indeed necrotic in nature, you also realize that the magic isn't hostile or unfamiliar to you. You've been fighting them this entire time, and easily note the tang of abberation around Medli.

Wizard: huh. there's a kick. how is it not hostile if it's been eating up her exhaustion levels?

DM: Wanna roll an arcana and religion check at disadvantage? You've got the proficency for them, i'll allow it.

Me: Oh, please do. I'm invested in this, now. I- I am assuming we're all communication about this, yeah?

Wizard: Just assume that i'm talking aloud to myself as I have these revelations. Arcana's an 20, and religion's a 16.

DM: oh, shit. You passed that religion check by a hair's breadth. Alright, so here's the gig. You've seen something like this before- not too long ago, actually. The teachers at your old school- the one you got abducted from- they were just going over something like this in your lessons. Something about recycling the spent magic from a person to sustain them using the ambient magic of their environment instead. before anyone thinks too far onto that- give me a, what it's called... a history check? yeah, history check. recall lore. Gimme that.

Wizard: woo, another proficient skill. 18.

DM: You recall the stories, and remember that usually only the ones who could do this particular kind of ritual were only able to complete it because they were actively being aided by either some kind of god or god-like creature, or because they found a workaround for the imbalance created by forcibly expelling ones own innate magic.

Wizard: ... Hey, Medli? mind if I cast a spell on you?

Me: Identify? Go for it.

DM: Alright, give me one moment.

DM: Got it up. Alright, you cast identfy, yeah?

Wizard: Yep. Should have gone with this one in the beginning, really. "If you instead touch a creature throughout the casting, you learn what spells, if any, are currently affecting it."

DM: Yep. Just needed to see if there was some sort of save I needed someone to make. Medli, make another wisdom saving throw.

Me: Fuck. ... 17?

DM: Add another exhaustion level to yourself. Now, as you-

Me: Fuck! I can't walk anywhere!

DM: ... what?

Me: Exhaustion level 5- speed reduced to 0. I'm bed-bound, and on death's doorstep. Level 6 kills me.

DM: ... Huh. Now, as I was saying, as you cast identify on medli, you feel- wait. detect magic and identfy aren't both concentration spells, are they?

Wizard: nope.

DM: As you touch medli, you feel and see the necrotic aura around her shift a bit with unease and watch it swell for a moment before puttering out in harmless little firefly sparks, although the glow still stubbornly remains. For the briefest of moments, you feel a sense of cold dread as one of the necrotic bursts of light lands on your knee and harmlessly fade away. No name or spell comes surging forth in your mind as you watch and focus, but you definitely know this as the ritual that your teachers were talking about. How curious, though, that the ritual circle seems to be missing from this equation and that Medli is capable of walking about while it's active.

Wizard: ... freaky. Quick question, since i should know theoretically know this: would medli's condition be helped by casting spells?

DM: I don't would it?

Wizard: aren't you the dm?

DM: I am. But is medli going to try casting a spell?

Me: I mean. Sure, why not. What spell should she try? Keep in mind, she's on very limited spell slots at the moment.

Wizard: Try healing yourself. Or giving yourself armor.

Medli: She'll try doing that, in that order, unless you specify otherwise.

Wizard: Eh, go for it.

DM: give me... two... constitution checks.

Me: Oh dear. double 14.

DM: What's your spell save, again?

Me: ... can i say 13?

DM: Is it?

Me: no. It's 15.

DM: Heh. You feel the barest hints of relief when your magic washes over you, but no real easement of your pains. Give yourself... one sec... 3 hit points back, and your AC is raised by one until your next short rest.

Me: great, I'm now at 10 health, 13 Ac, and no spell slots.

Wizard: humor me again. Cast another spell.

Me: Sleep, I'm casting it on the wizard.

DM: I'll allow it.

Wizard: What, back up, What the fuck?

Me: What'd I need to roll for my save.

DM: Hm? Just your standard d8's to see how many hit points you need to overcome.

Me: i'm using a second level spell slot for this, which I don't have. Can I still do it?

DM: yep.

Me: Sweet. 31. How much health do ya have?

Wizard: ... 27. I'm now asleep.

Barbarian: Good going, the only one with an idea of what the fuck is happening is now out cold. Good going. idiot.

DM: hey, medli? Remove an exhaustion level from yourself.

Me: Just the one, or the do I do the same for the other two spells?

DM: Since you cast them on yourself, no exhaustion removal. Just incredibly useless unless you pass your own innate spell save of 15. On others, however? yeah, full effect.

Me: Great, I can move again. Still bloody exhausted, though.

#text #d&d homebrew

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tigerkirby215 · 3 years

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5e Azir, the Emperor of the Sands build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Bo Lu. Made for Riot Games.)

SHURIMA WILL RISE

BOTTOM TEXT

From the empress to the emperor: king chicken himself, bottom of the top, and lord of nerfs. Truthfully there’s a lot to be said for such a unique champion as Azir but all that’s shadowed by Riot’s insistence on having him be absolute bottom tier forever more. Well at least he’s pretty alright in Legends of Runeterra.

GOALS

My soldiers march on - The most important feature of Azir is of course his Sand Soldiers, allowing you to be everywhere at once as you command a legion of one to fight for you.

You need not follow me, but you cannot stop me - Can’t have the sand chicken be a sitting duck; we need to be able to dash to our soldiers for protection at a moment’s notice.

My city lives on - We need to be able to summon turrets... I guess? Look all Azir really does is summon soldiers so I don’t really have much to work with.

RACE

Azir may look like a bird but he can’t fly, so we’re not going to be taking any of the bird races. What Azir truly is however is a sand zombie reanimated by his distant daughter’s blood. With that being said we’re going to be going for a Reborn; a race lineage currently in UA that shall soon be published in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

You can increase one ability score of your choice by 2 and another one by 1: give yourself +2 Intelligence and +1 Dexterity. You also learn a language of your choice: take Celestial to speak like an Ascended! Your Creature Type is both Humanoid and Undead (or Construct, but you were reanimated from the dead so...) and can choose to be either Medium or Small. (You are Medium because you were once human.)

You have Darkvision (which I may as well mention because this lineage doesn’t have much) and your Deathless Nature means that you have a lot of benefits to resist mortal problems like sleep, food, disease, poison, or death saving throws. But your main feature is Knowledge from a Past Life, letting you add a d6 to skill checks you make as you remember something Nasus taught you. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses at the end of a Long Rest.

IF REBORN ISN’T ALLOWED: This build doesn’t really require a particular race / lineage; Reborn just made the most sense. Feel free to play Azir however you want: his build is very generalized and doesn’t require anything specific.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - The main reason we’re opting for DEX over STR is because you need to be able to make ranged attacks when you don’t have Sand Soldiers, but your armor does seem rather light.

14; INTELLIGENCE - Military tactics would be Intelligence, as well as magic which yeah: the guy who summons soldiers made of tiny rocks is in fact a mage.

13; CONSTITUTION - Azir is squishy in-game, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have good health for this build.

12; CHARISMA - You need Charisma to lead a nation.

10; WISDOM - Not saying that Azir is dumb, but you did think that freeing the slaves would be a good birthday gift for your super best friend Xerath.

8; STRENGTH - Sand and dust: they both struggle to pick up big weapons.

BACKGROUND

Shurima may be gone, but it won’t take long for you to be recognized as its Noble Emperor once again. With the Noble background you get proficiency with History and Persuasion as well as a Gaming set of your choice (Dragonchess makes sense for a tactician) and a language of your choice (pick your poison.)

You were born into a Position of Privilege, and even if your legacy was lost to the sand most still know to honor your name. You can even use that honor for some political meetings.

(Artwork by SIXMOREVODKA Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - FIGHTER 1

Making people fight for you is a type of fighting, right? Regardless as a Fighter you get proficiency in two skills from the Fighter list: Acrobatics is good for survival, and Insight is good to know if your slave BFF is starting to harbor resentment for you as the emperor of a nation run by slaves. You also get a Fighting Style at level 1: you need only one hand for your “spear” so Dueling will make that “spear” do more damage.

ABOUT AZIR’S WEAPON (and his Sand Soldiers): Grab a Rapier and a Shield for a DEX-based spear-like weapon... and a shield. This will be your loadout to keep alive as well as the loadout of your Sand Soldiers, which we will get soon.

In addition to survive mid lane you can take the Second Wind rune to heal yourself for a d10 plus your Fighter level as a Bonus Action. Does Azir take Second Wind? Does it look like I know how to play Azir?

LEVEL 2 - FIGHTER 2

Second level Fighters can grab some attack speed with Action Surge, allowing them to take an extra action on their turn for some pro plays!

LEVEL 3 - FIGHTER 3

Third level Fighters get to choose their Martial Archetype. Do you wish to harness the echoes of your nation? Then Echo Knight is a very good bet! As an Echo Knight you can Manifest Echo to create a Sand Soldier as a Bonus Action. The Sand Soldier (which is what I’ll be referring to your Echoes as in this build) has the following stats:

AC equal to 14 + your proficiency bonus

1 HP

Immunity to all conditions

The same saving throws as you

The same size as you

The ability to occupy a space

The appearance of a Sand Soldier (so its definitely not human)

You can move your Sand Soldier up to 30 feet without spending an action or bonus action. With your soldier in its location you have the following abilities:

You can “dash” (IE teleport) to your soldier and swap places with it as a bonus action, taking 15 feet of your movement (regardless of how far you “dashed.”)

When you take the attack action it can come from your soldier’s location.

If someone walks past your soldier you can make an attack of opportunity against them as if you were in the soldier’s location!

In a big nutshell the Sand Soldier acts like an extension of you, and can do basically everything you can. And you can take an additional attack from your Soldier’s location after attacking thanks to Unleash Incarnation, which has a limited number of uses equal to your Constitution modifier.

LEVEL 4 - FIGHTER 4

4th level Fighters get the first of many Ability Score Improvements. Dexterity is tied to most of what we do currently so increasing that by 2 would be beneficial.

LEVEL 5 - FIGHTER 5

5th level Fighters can increase their attack speed and make an Extra Attack with their action. This means two attacks in an action, four with Action Surge, and one extra with Unleash Incarnation. All from either your location or the location of your Sand Soldier.

(Artwork by Alex “alexplank” Flores. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - ARTIFICER 1

So I kinda got all I wanted from Fighter? And honestly if you’re playing in a low level campaign investing fully in Echo Knight is a great way to replicate Azir. But I can’t just cop out and say “Echo Knight 20 lol” for a champion like Azir so... Empires are built on invention. As an Artificer you get Magical Tinkering which is like Prestidigitation but bad. You can make an object glow slightly, make sounds, smell nice: all the sort of things that the magic of the Sun Disk provided Shurimans with daily.

But of course what we’re really here for is Spellcasting! You get two cantrips from the Artificer spell list: Prestidigitation proper will let you do better sand magic, and Guidance will help you help yourself to guide your nation.

You can also prepare a number of spells equal to your Intelligence modifier plus half your Artificer level, which means you can prepare three for now:

Absorb Elements will let you soak up some damage from the enemy laner before dishing it back out!

Faerie Fire will let you light up a target for your soldiers (IE yourself) to strike.

And Detect Magic will let you... detect magic...

LEVEL 7 - ARTIFICER 2

Second level Artificers get Infusions; ancient Shuriman artifacts that you acquired from the ruins to serve yourself. (Though you do have to apply them to existing items.)

Enhanced Weapon will let you make your Soldiers do magic damage, as well as yourself!

Grabbing a Repeating Shot weapon (probably a Hand Crossbow) will let you attack at range from both your own location and your Echo’s location.

The Mind Sharpener is kinda uhhh... dumb? But why shouldn’t an emperor be entitled to succeed their Concentration checks?

An Alchemy Jug will let you bring the waters back to Shurima... or potentially mayonnaise.

Additionally you can prepare another spell, and use those chicken feathers of yours to Feather Fall.

LEVEL 8 - ARTIFICER 3

Third level Artificers can make The Right Tool for the Job from the sands with an hour of work, allowing you to create a set of Artisan’s tools (or Thieves’ Tools) for whatever purpose you need. "You cannot topple Shurima."

But come on: we both know we’re here for our subclass. Now what Artificer subclass is capable of summoning artillery... Artillerist might work? Along with gaining Wood Carver’s Tools proficiency you can summon an Eldritch Cannon as an action. The cannon is either small or tiny: a small one occupies its space and is summoned within 5 feet of you, and you can hold a tiny cannon in your hand. You can create one cannon for free per Long Rest, but summoning additional cannons requires a spell slot of first level or higher.

The cannon has an AC of 18 and five times your Artificer level in hitpoints. It is immune to poison damage and psychic damage, and has 10 in all stats (for the sake of saving throws.) You can also heal it with Mending... which we don’t have. Oops. It’s almost like Artificers only get 2 cantrips.

Regardless: when you create the cannon you determine its appearance, if it can move, and its type. A Flamethrower turret shoots fire (duh) in a cone, forcing a DEX save to deal fire damage to everyone in the area. A Force Balista turret is like a regular Summoner’s Rift turret, shooting at one target within range to deal a good chunk of damage and push them back slightly. And to shield your army a Protector turret grants temporary hitpoints to everyone in its area of effect. Regardless of what turret you create activating it takes a Bonus Action. You can make the turret move up to 15 feet with that bonus action, and can’t activate the turret if you’re more than 60 feet away.

Additionally you get Shield and Thunderwave as Artillerist Spells, to protect yourself or deal some damage.

LEVEL 9 - ARTIFICER 4

4th level Artificers get another Ability Score Improvement. Generally speaking packing Flash is a good idea, so we’ll be grabbing the Fey Touched feat to increase our Intelligence by 1 and get the Misty Step spell added to our spell list (even if we don’t have second level spell slots yet.)

You can also add a Divination or Enchantment spell to your list as well and I’m going to recommend Hex to further increase your damage to whatever target you focus with your soldiers. You can cast both Misty Step and Hex once per Long Rest without using a spell slot, and can cast the spell more times by using the respective spell slot. Speaking of spells you would be able to prepare more of them but I’m going to wait for...

LEVEL 10 - ARTIFICER 5

5th level Artificers can turn a staff (or a wand or a rod, but realistically you’d use a staff) into an Arcane Firearm. When casting Artificer spells through the Arcane Firearm you gain a d8 bonus to one damage roll of the spell...

I’m going to be honest: you’re primarily a Fighter, and especially if you walk around with both a Shield and a Rapier Spear you probably won’t have a free hand for the Arcane Firearm anyways. Talk to your DM to see if they’ll let you add a d8 to your spells anyways. And if not? ...Nothing much lost by ignoring it.

But 5th level Artificers also get second level spell slots which means that they can prepare second level spells! You get both Scorching Ray and Shatter as Artillerist Spells, and can prepare Aid to boost your army for battle!

(Artwork by Zuoan Dong and Kudos Productions. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 11 - ARTIFICER 6

6th level Artificers get Tool Expertise, which is exactly what it sounds like: double your proficiency with tool checks. But more importantly you get more infusions such as the Spell-Refueling Ring to actually be a Mage, and a Repulsion Shield to recreate the push from Emperor's Divide and further break your AC.

You can also prepare another spell like Enhance Ability, so your subjects can build up your civilization! ...But not slaves, obviously.

LEVEL 12 - ARTIFICER 7

7th level emperors can direct their soldiers as a reaction with a Flash of Genius, letting you boost one of their Ability Checks or Saving Throws by an amount equal to your Intelligence modifier. The ability has a limited number of uses but both its number of uses and its total strength increases with your Intelligence modifier. Speaking of which...

LEVEL 13 - ARTIFICER 8

An Ability Score Improvement means we can finally round out that uneven Intelligence score, as well as your uneven Constitution. Nice round number will help you rule over yourself, which will make it easier to rule over a nation.

More Intelligence does also mean more prepared spells, but you’ll have to be patient for...

LEVEL 14 - ARTIFICER 9

9th level Artillerists can make their turret Self Destruct, as the Explosive Cannon causes each creature within 20 feet of it to make a Dexterity saving throw or take 3d8 force damage as the tower self-destructs, only taking half on a success. In addition your turrets deal an extra d8 of damage, or Temp HP shielding if you swing that way.

But to top it off you learn third level spells now! Wind Wall from the Artillerist Spells list will actually serve as Emperor's Divide, since while it does work like Yasuo’s Wind Wall it also pushes people back and stops them from going through it (to an extent.) As for Fireball well... it’s Fireball! Not everything needs to be justified.

Other than that you can prepare Haste to truly go to war (as long as you’re fine with leaving yourself vulnerable if you lose spell focus), and Create Food and Water to... create food and water. A great emperor must care for his people, especially his best friend.

(Artwork by Pang Chengwei. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 15 - FIGHTER 6

Hey Ability Score Improvements are fun! Dexterity is still kinda our “main” stat, since it’s used both for attacking and AC. So increasing DEX by 2 would be the best plan of action!

LEVEL 16 - FIGHTER 7

7th level Echo Knights see everything on their sands thanks to Echo Avatar. As an action you can see through your Sand Soldier, to direct them through espionage. You yourself can not see or hear during this time, and you can end this effect at any time as an action.

While spying through your sand soldier, it can be up to 1000 feet away from you without being destroyed. This does mean that you can swap places with it to get somewhere up to 1000 feet away!

LEVEL 17 - FIGHTER 8

Fighters are fun because while they get they get Ability Score Improvements in some of the places where other classes don’t they still get the standard ASIs at the standard levels. Cap off your Intelligence to have the best of both magic damage and attack speed!

(Artwork by SIXMOREVODKA Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - FIGHTER 9

9th level Fighters can survive with Ascended strength, as Indomitable lets them reroll one failed Saving Throw per Long Rest. You can still fail however so I’d perhaps only use this on the skills you have a good chance of succeeding in; even the Ascended have their limits.

LEVEL 19 - FIGHTER 10

At level 10 your Sand Soldiers will always be there to defend you, as Shadow Martyr allows your soldiers to defend an ally you can see with your reaction. Your soldier moves within 5 feet of the ally, and the attack is directed towards your soldier instead of your ally. "Nothing is beyond my reach."

LEVEL 20 - FIGHTER 11

Our final level is the 11th level of Fighter for another Extra Attack, resulting in three attacks total or six with Action Surge! Finally six-slotted for max Attack Speed!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Soldiers, onward! - You can deal tons of damage without ever getting close to the danger between your Sand Soldiers and your cannon, both of which can do the fighting for you as you stay back and direct their attacks.

Challenge Shurima; challenge fate - You also have plenty of utility in both your magic and your soldiers, notably an extreme level of mobility to escape if anyone does actually try to kill you. And in a worse case scenario your infusions can provide you with even more tools to rebuild your empire.

Emperors never die - It was not my intention but... Hey turns out that Fighter and Artificer are both very good at keeping themselves alive. Above average HP, strong saving throws (proficiency in the saves for your low stats help a lot!), and notably some damn high AC by walking around with a spear and shield. 19 AC with Studded Leather and a Shield which can be further increased with infusions.

CONS

My empire lives in every grain of sand - It takes quite awhile to prepare everything for combat. An action to summon your cannon, a bonus action to summon your echo, and then a Bonus Action every turn as long as you have your cannon up.

I will shift as the sands - A general you may be but a scholar you are not. With the exception of Acrobatics and History your skill checks are generally poor, and your ability scores overall leave a lot to be desired. Sure +5 to Religion or Arcana is nice but it’s not going to shatter the sun.

The bounty of Shurima still flows - One thing an emperor must manage is the resources of their kingdom, and you have plenty of limited tools that only come back after Long Rests. Some of them (mostly your Fighter stuff) come back on a Short Rest yes but you have limited spell slots, cannons, Flashes of Genius to protect your allies, and only one use of Indominable per Long Rest. Ration yourself wisely.

But an empire is built upon sacrifice. Conqueror with your soldiers before rebuilding. A nation as great as Shurima can not truly remain gone. But perhaps this time you should pay your workers? Especially if your best friend is the head of the union.

(Artwork by SIXMOREVODKA Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

#dnd #dnd build #dnd guide #League of Legends #League of Legends Azir #SHURIMA #WILL #RISE #dnd fighter #dnd artificer #egypt #gods of egypt #ancient egypt

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selemina · 4 years

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A Changling at a party sounds like some serious spy time, and what's this about her boyfriend/lover destroying people civilly who tried to assassinate him!? Also what's encode thoughts im not familiar?

Let me tell you all about this, but first, some context :

Duvud made an ally in a lady called the Marchioness. She is a noble of high standards, and one of the city’s council members. Recently she spearheaded the promotion of one of our guys to become captain of the guard in town, a vote that wasn’t quite unanimous... However, with everybody else secretly backing him up (and some of his own merit, let’s not lie), he took down a vampire that had been causing us trouble, essentially becoming a folk hero... and validating the Marchioness’ choice to have him promoted. Hence making her look good in her circle. >W> Two birds, one stone.

SO to celebrate that promotion (and socially show off a bit), the Marchioness invited all of the main families in town to a bit of a party! :) Formal attire required. Instead of showing off her tailoring skills, Unn decided to desguise herself as a member of staff, to be completely ignored and looked over during the party so she could listen to people and figure out who was scheming, and who was talking shit behind the Marchioness’ back.

Small spell interlude : Encode Thoughts. As a cantrip, it can be cast whenever without limit of energy spent. You pull a short memory from your mind and turn it into a small, glowing pearl, essentially creating a physical copy of it. You can then either re-absorb it later, or give it to someone else, so they can experience what you’ve experienced! A good way to discretely slip someone the knowledge that people are plotting against them, without exchanging a word. ;)

So after a few encodings, and discovering that another dragon in hiding was attempting to reach Duvud, Unn noticed a person moving away from the party. Following them, she realized they were a thief trying to get something from the Marchioness’ office. One completely overpowere spell later, the guy was on the ground almost dying, and Unn called people over. Another creative use of encode thoughts that nobody thought of : interrogation! :D Ask someone who they work for, then as they can’t help but think about it, encode their thoughts and give the resulting pearl to yourself! :D So we figured out that this guy worked for one of the present families, and decided to keep him as a “volunteer” to work with us on some of our projects. :)

On the way back, checking the party, Unn overheard a conversation about lizardfolks launching an attack on Essil’s estate. (Reminder : Essil is lord Duvud’s dragonborn son, he still represents some remnants of the dragon empire, under which lizardfolk were treated very poorly) Fortunately there is a secret tunnel linking the two estates, and half the party rushed there, while the other half kept an eye on the party. 13 obliterated assassins later (and all the windows open to vent the deadly gas in the estate), Essil was saved and about ready to show up at the party, “fashionably late” and looking in perfect health. :) Needless to say, Unn was positioned perfectly by then to record the lizardfolk’s reactions to seeing him walk in... then come straight to them for a “talk”.

At this point I would like to underline that Unn had been giving them some severe wine, known to boost emotions, so one of them eventually spat some racist slurs at Essil, unable to hold back. (At this point Unn gently took the bottle away from them, making them look like drunk assholes to the rest of the party) Essil stayed very calm and very positive, and eventually leaned forward to whisper to them that the next time they tried to attack him because he was the son of Duvud, he would make sure their children had a worse fate than they would have had under the empire. Needless to say, that shut them up pretty nicely!

Our DM even let me expend my last spell slot and a real pearl to encode that last memory into physical form forever, so we could rewatch that last part at will, and show Duvud how nicely his son had grown! :D The rest of the party went on without a problem, and it all ended in a big success! I was really happy to be able to show how well adjusted to spying Unn is. :) Just wish we could have had a little more changeling action, but at the same time maybe it’s best to keep it as an ace up our sleeve... ;)

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fairyboydammit · 7 years

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Modules: Compare and Contrast

So I'm gonna talk about RPG modules.

First a little background, I've been playing tabletop RPGs off and on for two decades. Most of my experience is in D&D and other sword & sorcery type games but I've also played a smattering of other stuff, including Star Trek, GURPS, Star Wars (D20, not the West End version sadly) BESM, Shadowrun, White Wolf and Warhammer 40k. I've run about half the games I've played in and have traveled the whole spectrum from “Only lazy uncreative chumps use premade modules“ to “They don't have the monster stats in the module book? They seriously expect me to run this with a monster manual open too?“ So I've had an evolving relationship with modules and premade adventures, these days I've come to embrace them as a wonderful tool for facilitating fun game nights, though I do still love writing my own stuff now and then.

The impetus to write this came from having run two very different modules with wildly different results and with my perspective and experience I'm going to try to talk about why I think my experiences were so different, and what the differences in the modules had to do with it.

So, the two adventures I've been running are Hoard of the Dragon Queen, a module for 5th edition D&D that came out recently, and the Witchfire Trilogy, a campaign written for the D&D 3.5 version of the Iron Kingdoms roleplaying game which I adapted to use the more recent Iron Kingdoms tabletop rules. Some early disclaimers; Witchfire I'm running in person, Hoard I ran over Roll20 and Discord, the parties for each game were composed of different groups of people, the only person these two games have in common is me running them, and I know the players and how I interacted with them have had an impact on how the game goes so I'm going to try to account for those factors in how I judge these modules, but my experiences will color my perceptions for good or ill, objectivity is unattainable.

Let's start with the beginnings, both adventures start the party at 1st level, parties fresh out of character creation and open with some action. In Witchfire, the party starts the game as hired caravan guards going through a swamp, they get ambushed by Goblins and must defend the caravan. This is a cakewalk of a combat encounter, the goblins are weak and don't pose a real threat to the party, their objective is to steal from the wagons more than kill the players. I've played through this module before and this is never a tough fight, it serves mostly as a tutorial to introduce combat to the party and set up travel to the city most of the adventure takes place in. When I ran it this time the party wiped out the goblins in about 3 turns and did a good job introducing them to the rules, what they were capable of and how the system worked. The first encounter in Hoard of the Dragon Queen is a village being attacked by a Dragon. With an army. The encounter is actually a series of encounters, the adventurers are approaching the village of Greenest, under attack by the dragon and an army of cultists and kobolds. The first encounter in the series of encounters this entails is very similar to the Witchfire one in some respects, eight kobolds attacking a family, the book states the kobolds will not even attack the party if they don't intervene. So much like Witchfire you have a low-power encounter without much real threat to the party. A key difference I notice is that in Witchfire, once the goblins are beaten, that's the end of the fighting, the caravan cleans up, repairs and heads on to town, the party doesn't have another fight for over a day (barring particularly violent and rambunctious players) in Hoard, this encounter is followed by a series of encounters aiding the villagers of Greenest, the book intends for the party to do about seven of these before getting a Long Rest (in 5th edition, Long Rests restore all hit points and expended spell slots, Short rests can replenish some health but at first level you can only benefit from one Short Rest before taking a Long one) given that most of these encounters involve combat of some kind, potentially lethal combat in some cases, this can be daunting or outright hazardous to a first level party as they have limited means to heal themselves at this point.

After the goblin ambush in Witchfire the party heads to Corvis and meets The Main Questgiver who sets them down the path of the adventure proper with some investigation missions, leaving aside combat for at least an entire game session while the party explores the city and gathers information. Hoard has the party hole up in the town's keep until morning and face a tacitly unfair combat encounter that will likely leave a party member dead. I don't want to get too wrapped up in minutiae or bogged down in encounters, but felt these two beginnings warranted being contrasted. Witchfire opens with a quick and easy fight to introduce the mechanics, and introduces the setting in a moment of peace, when the party has had time to collect themselves from the fight. Hoard bombards the party from the word go, spiking the tension for what could easily be the entire duration of your play session and chasing it almost immediately with another fight.

Gonna switch gears to structure. Witchfire has a positively immense amount of preamble, the book dedicates 32 pages to the background of the city, its environs, the events preceding the adventure, where the notable NPCs are concerned with it and what information needs to be imparted to the PCs, and what has happened that they will have no idea about yet. Hoard has barely a page of content before the first encounter and most of it is just general background on the setting, where the adventure will be taking them and an overview of the adventures events. I don't want to seem overly unfair to Hoard, as being set in the Forgotten Realms means all the lore is already out there in one form or another, so they don't need to include the entire history of the Time of Troubles or the Spellplague at the beginning of this adventure, but what background they do provide is very barebones, giving very one-dimensional accounts of the NPCs and their motivations, which leads to some severe confusion later on.

NPCs can be tricky to write in any situation, simply because it's impossible to hand a GM a script of everything someone might possibly say to account for what a party might be, say or do. Hoard has fairly minimalist scripts, giving most NPCs essentially just a blurb about what they need the party to do, sadly some of its best NPC characterization is wasted on an extended travelling section that my players at least just wanted to be over. Witchfire does a similar thing but goes an extra mile in giving extended NPC dialogues a rough outline. In situations where NPCs will have extended conversations with PCs, the books gives them introductory dialog and a few scripted lines, then lays out some ground rules, stating what the NPCs motivation is, what they know, what they will tell the players, and what they will ask the players. I cannot tell you how useful this extra information was, even when surprised by a situation the book didn't anticipate, the context provided by the additional background gave me enough to infer a consistent and in-character reaction. This forethought also helped turn what would have been exposition dumps into question and answer sessions that were engaging for the players. Hoard had some serious problems with not clearly describing NPC motives and intentions, to the point where I had the party walk in on a character who the book gave absolutely no indication how they would react, beyond implying he'd be kind of a dick about it.

Both of these campaigns have relatively little downtime, throwing developments and encounters without giving the party a lot of time to mess about and do other things, but the way they do this is set up drastically differently. Hoard has periods of intense activity at the beginning and end, with a sort of 'downtime' period in the middle, consisting mostly of travel. This approach is made necessary by the narrative but makes for bad pacing. By the time the party gets to the travel section they mostly just want to move on to the next dungeon/adventure beat because that's what the module has accustomed them to. To further exacerbate things, the travel section isn't even really downtime because of the random encounters and intrigue that persist throughout it, so it ends up being run like a poorly structured dungeon where the party is stuck on a wagon going through it. Witchfire has very little downtime but a much more regular pace, players generally have a period of buildup followed by a period of decompression surrounding each of the dungeons or action beats, which themselves gradually ramp up in scope and intensity before climaxing (usually near the end of each of the three 'books' the campaign is composed of) each one feels like an organic endpoint too, giving the party some good falling action and resolution before leading them into another adventure in the next book.

Let's talk nitty-gritty stuff now, dungeon and encounter layouts. Both of these campaigns have some impressive dungeons and some really fun encounters, Both also take steps to prepare the DM for the specifics of the dungeon environments, though Hoard takes a slightly more cumbersome path. The dungeons in Hoard will often have environmental conditions (light, effects of weather, patrols etc.) listed at the beginning of each dungeon but then not mentioned in the pertinent areas, which can be confusing if you haven't committed the entire section to memory or have lost details in the intervening time in the dungeon. Also, a thing that only happens once or twice but is still really frustrating that Hoard does: Information critical to the party in order to progress/accomplish a stated goal that they have literally no way of obtaining, that is bad structure. Witchfire by and large does a really good job putting all pertinent information in the room descriptions, as well as giving almost every dungeon room a clearly marked “Read this out loud“ flavor text callout (another thing Hoard neglects on a few occasions)

I suppose one more thing is important to cover before narrative structure and I suppose it can be best described as 'progression'. Progression and levelling systems are kind of the hallmark of the RPG genre, to the point where video games say they have 'RPG elements' because after you do a certain amount of stuff a number goes up, and levelling up is important to engagement and helps pace a campaign. I can't really compare these two games in terms of levelling up just because the adventures are different lengths, they use different systemic scales to determine levels and relative power, it just doesn't work that well, but there's another important progression system I can call upon: Loot. Loot is also a hallmark of RPGs and especially in games like D&D your equipment can be as much an indicator of your power as your level. Often times upgrading equipment eventually becomes the only way to improve key aspects of your character's capabilities, so its importance is hard to overstate. Even 20th level veteran characters can be total pushovers without the cartload of epic loot they've accumulated in that time. In Hoard of the Dragon Queen the party will find precisely zero magic items until the penultimate dungeon. Which they will be level 7 upon completing. Even basic equipment is startlingly rare throughout this campaign, with most of the enemies who use equipment having low-quality gear that party won't need. Even the treasure they do find (primarily currency; coins, gems etc.) isn't of much use as they're only in a town long enough to go shopping once near the beginning of the adventure. Now I've run low-magic/low-treasure games before, they can pose unique and interesting challenges and be a lot of fun if you're prepared for them. Whoever wrote this campaign however was not, as well before the party will see it's first +1 magic sword (in the final dungeon btw) they'll encounter monsters resistant to nonmagical attacks, making what should be relatively standard fights to build tension on the way to a real showdown into bone-crunching slogs where spellcasters exhaust their entire arsenal and fighters slash away for hours at enemies they can barely damage. This is, in my opinion, simply an unforgivable oversight in terms of game design. Given the numerous typos and editing mistakes in this campaign it would not surprise me at all if they had just left out some sections where the players were supposed to find some decent equipment, as it was I threw in a few caches to get my party up to having a fighting chance. I'm all for challenging players and giving them a fight that really tests them but there's an art to crafting a real challenge and throwing something at the party that you haven't given them the tools to deal with is not part of it. If I hadn't added my own loot to the game most of the party would be facing the final boss with the exact same gear they started with, and while that can work in some games, D&D is not one of them. Witchfire was a bit of an odd case because of how magic items work in IKRPG and the fact that it was written for an earlier edition of D&D made that a bit off for my campaign but as written, the party found a magic item (albeit a dagger) in the first dungeon, and had the potential to find more substantial equipment upgrades at a fairly regular pace throughout the game, and even had a reward for a side quest be „One free masterwork item of your choice“ at the local weapon shop, so even people with obscure weapon preferences could be assured they wouldn't be left out.

Okay now it's time for Narrative structure, buckle in. One of the big problems I had with Hoard was getting the characters invested, they never stayed in any place long enough to care about it, never spent enough time with an NPC to care about them, never encountered an antagonist enough times to build a rivalry with them, and while some of this I can chalk up to the travelling nature of the campaign, some it I can't. In the extended caravanning section the party has chances to meet up and talk with some NPCs but they're almost immediately shunted off somewhere else at the next stop, the party never returns to Greenest or speaks to anyone from it again. My party's most protracted NPC relationship was with a named Lizardfolk NPC about 2/3 into the campaign and didn't last past that particular dungeon. Even the organizations they were ostensibly working for only spoke to them once the entire adventure. This is not good writing, this is not good engagement, if I was reading a novel about these events I would constantly be asking myself “Why do these adventurers even care?” and I'm sure some of my players asked themselves that at least once over the course of this game, which is not a good sign. Witchfire on the other hand, I will first say has the rather significant benefit of actually being a series of novels, though honestly the roles of the adventurers are written in such a way that I can't even grasp what must happen in the novels, unless they just include a set of characters who make up the adventuring party. I'll actually probably go more in-depth in another piece about the writing in Witchfire but for now I'll stick to my comparisons. By having the campaign take place almost entirely in one city, the party has time, and inclination to get acquainted and invested in it, they're going to be interacting with this place for a while, they're going to go to places and visit people multiple times, the person they spoke to in chapter 1 will still be there in chapter 10 and that makes it easier for them to care. The primary quest giver, Father Dumas, is a staple of the campaign and rather than being relegated to a simple exclamation point telling the party where to go to next, he becomes a person, with a complex relationship to the story, the antagonist, the other NPCs, the city itself and yes, the characters. Even minor NPCs are given life and depth and engender empathy from the players. When terrible events befall the city my players were wracked with concern, vowing revenge on those who did this and putting thought and heart into how they were going to help.

Writing a novel is hard work, so is coming up with interesting and compelling scenarios for games, writing a tabletop campaign is a delicate alchemy of these endeavors and can be tougher than both. I wanted to write this primarily to show how a well-written and structured adventure could be truly amazing for everyone involved, and how laziness, poor structuring choices and a lack of attention to detail can make what should be a ton of fun with your friends feel mediocre, or even like a slog. I've learned a lot from these experiences, and I hope some of it I've been able to impart to others. To anyone out there thinking of writing a campaign or just running something fun with their friends, I hope this has been a helpful look into some of the harder to see aspects of gaming. Happy role-playing everyone!

#Dungeons and Dragons #Tabletop #modules #IKRPG #Iron Kingdoms #Witchfire #Hoard of the Dragon Queen #Forgotten Realms

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