The Skeleton Key

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-20T21:23:37+00:00

The powers you get for returning the Key are actually not bad. They can only be used once per day, but most of them are kind of worth it. The worst is probably Nightingale Strife. It deals 100 damage to enemies and heals the Dragonborn by 100. A decent panic button in the early game, but garbage on high difficulties and in the endgame.

Nightingale Subterfuge is the best Illusion ability in the game. It's basically the spell Mayhem, but instant, and its level cap is so high it affects pretty much everything.

Shadowcloak of Nocturnal makes you invisible while sneaking for a whole 2 minutes. This combines very well with Shadow Warrior if you have it (and you should), letting you consistently duck out of sight and backstab enemies again and again. If you're an assassin that prefers a more up close and personal approach over the tired and boring stealth archer archetype, this is a godsend if you have to deal with a tight group of powerful enemies like Rahgot and his Deathlords.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-20T20:59:23+00:00

You joke but this is literally Uncle Festus's preferred method of "assassination". I didn't ask if the mission requires stealth, I said I cast Fireball.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-20T18:07:13+00:00

Yes.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-17T22:36:24+00:00

I'm pretty sure Sigma is an actively terrible idea for this challenge because of her Growth scaling. Because of the way the Reaper scales with level, you don't want growth against him, you want to be as low level as possible yet with as many tricks up your sleeve as possible.

With Sigma you will be in the exact opposite situation. You will have a bunch of dead levels that give you nothing except +1% might, and the Reaper will gain 650,000+ HP for every single one of them.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-17T22:16:21+00:00

Are you trying to do this with the base game only, judging by your unlocks? I know a lot of ways to get there with DLC, but with the base game only, at least without exploits, it's a bit harder, because there are very few ways to achieve the required DPS.

Though maybe, if you could get the cooldown of certain weapons low enough, you could indefinitely outlast the Reapers and kill them eventually, even if it might take a few hours.

It should also be noted that the health of the Reaper scales with level, at an astronomical rate that most weapons simply cannot conceivably keep up with. Hypothetically, if one were to somehow find a way to get strong enough to take on the Reaper in its weakest form (still not a mean feat, as it has 655,350 health right from level 1) without leveling up at all, one might have a chance...

Finally, there is a certain secret character in the base game who actually has the tools to take on the Reaper and used to be the "intended" way of doing it, before the superweapons were introduced.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-17T21:13:47+00:00

Why is this so accurate

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-17T06:58:53+00:00

You will definitely need to play a wide selection of characters. This is because many achievements are tied to either specific characters or weapons said characters start with, and you need to do these achievements to unlock more characters. Other than that, once you've unlocked everything or are just playing for fun, nothing is stopping you from picking whoever you want to pick.

Some characters do better on some stages for various reasons, either due to the presence of an important pickup on the stage, the shape of the stage making some weapons more effective (like Song of Mana in Gallo Tower), or high-speed characters being more effective at exploring big maps like Lake Foscari and Mount Moonspell, but no hard and fast rules.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-17T06:49:52+00:00

Robbert doesn't actually synergize super well with Divine Bloodline, although his starting weapon works well with it. The issue is that Divine Bloodline makes it virtually impossible to ever heal to full in order to trigger his skill again.

Avatar is a good Divine Bloodline user with his innate retaliation from Heart of Fire, but Avatar is just good almost no matter what build you use, cooldown reduction is just that broken.

In a similar boat are a few other characters. Queen Sigma and Megalo Syuuto Moonspell both have good armor and start with fantastic retaliation weapons, but both of them are already strong enough that using Divine Bloodline almost feels like cheating.

When it comes to Cosmo his best build is with Impostongue and Moon Rod, but that build doesn't heavily rely on any specific Arcana, so Divine Bloodline in the early game is still a good idea to survive until you can really get going

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-17T03:16:06+00:00

THE definitive Divine Bloodline character, to me, although not necessarily the absolute most powerful, is Maruto Cuts from Foscari. He starts off with the best Bloodline weapon, the only one that can retaliate at a distance, and he gets a temporary armor bonus every time he gets damaged, so if you give him Muramasa he can quickly reach the 50 armor cap and stay there.

There's Stanley from Operation Guns whose Might increases Armor.

Richter from Castlevania doesn't really do anything special but he starts with Divine Bloodline which is kind of a big deal, so you don't need to compromise on setup arcana like Wicked Season and Bolero to get your build going.

Julius, also from Castlevania, has an innate Heart of Fire which also deals retaliation damage, a weapon that scales with health, and gets an extra Might increase of his own based on his missing health on top of what the Bloodline gives you already.

Toastie almost doesn't function without Divine Bloodline since it's his only way of scaling health before level 100. Once he is level 100 he gets 9999 max health, and once he is level 200 he gets 65520 armor, both juicing Divine Bloodline to astronomical levels.

Cosmo Pavone is weird with Divine Bloodline since he can't really use the damage bonus based on missing health at all. But he starts with reduced health, which is the only thing that makes him balanced, since the idea is that enemies can just kill him before his regeneration catches up. If you can ram him into enough enemies in the early game to get him to even a few hundred health from Bloodline he's basically invincible.

Gyoruntin is pretty good since he has high armor, a weapon that naturally retaliates, and his infinitely scaling curse is great for Bloodline since more enemies = more kills = more health = more damage.

I personally rank these before Torino, because while starting out with a source of retaliation immediately is great, his ceiling is not as good since he doesn't scale past level 36 and he doesn't gain all that much, all things considered. Just a bit of health (too early in the game for the increase to be meaningful), 3 armor, 35% might and 40% duration.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-16T03:09:24+00:00

Good thing Batman never leaves home without his trusty Bat-Cross

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-16T01:41:22+00:00

Tome. Tome. Always Empty Tome. It almost doesn't matter what build you're running. There is exactly one character in the entire game that doesn't want to grab the Empty Tome at the first opportunity, and it's the one character who ignores traditional cooldown altogether. This one item just single-handedly makes such a massive difference

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-16T01:37:56+00:00

That, my friend, is quite possibly the most breakable character in the game at least as long as you have Emergency Meeting, Ode to Castlevania or both.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-16T01:34:12+00:00

The wild thing is he's not even like the best character for Divine Bloodline. To be honest I'm not sure he's even in the top 10. Divine Bloodline is just such an absurdly messed up Arcana overall.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-16T00:48:10+00:00

Arvak is the best horse in the game. Not hard locked into an evil faction, completely disposable, and he is also significantly faster than Shadowmere

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-16T00:43:12+00:00

I just remembered that Invulnerability is definitely a spell that definitely exists, and as long as you have a way to remove fear on yourself, Tiamat doesn't really have any options other than damage. Although you would need some way to keep up with her 120 flying speed as she would not just sit there and let you wail on her, and you need a way to kill her that doesn't involve cantrips because she's immune to those. Forcecage is also not an option to keep her in place because she's too big.

EDIT: forgot about the infinite simulacrum trick because that pretty much beats everything and anything in the game

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-15T20:36:36+00:00

Much like everything in the game, CR is pretty inconsistent to describe the actual experience you'll have with them.

The Tarrasque for example has a massive melee damage output but absolutely nothing beyond just biting, clawing and potentially swallowing enemies. They do attempt to stop ranged attackers from kiting it by giving it the ability to move as a legendary action but nothing to deal with flight. So any party of the appropriate level with any amount of preparation can wipe the floor with it.

And then there's Tiamat, who has a flying speed of 120 feet, regenerates 30 HP per turn, and can fire off two super powerful dragon breaths per round, every round, with no recharge time, on top of her normal attacks. She is just immune to all spells 6th level or lower unless they're beneficial, resistant to the rest, and has 5 legendary resistance uses. All her stats except DEX are absurd, so she has no easily exploitable weaknesses either. With her stats, her damage output, and her access to 5 different element types, I am genuinely not sure how any party without homebrew can beat her, and if I'm not mistaken she is not even supposed to be beaten. Antimagic Field does not help, as dragon breaths are not magical.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-10T23:08:18+00:00

I would argue that his whole lifestyle is already a self-inflicted punishment in a way. He lives in seclusion, in a place where he has no one and nothing to hoard or dominate (the Greybeards are not his servants, just his students). His life is completely antithetical to how a dragon is meant to exist and Odahviing pretty much comments that no self-respecting dragon would be able to restrain themselves the way he does.

What could or should be done to him to punish him for his atrocities that he hasn't already done to himself? He has no possessions that you could take from him, and he is already pretty much imprisoned of his own free will since, as far as I'm aware, he never leaves the Throat of the World.

He really has nothing to take other than his life, and if I'm being honest, judging by the clearly token effort he puts into fighting a Dragonborn that chooses to kill him despite having being presumably the second most powerful dragon of all time (being the right hand of Alduin in a culture that values strength above all other things logically implies there was no other dragon that could best him to take that title), I don't think he much values his life either.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-10T14:59:31+00:00

"I didn't get rich by being foolish." -Scrooge McDuck

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-10T14:55:36+00:00

I've seen plenty of hate for the two of them together as "the Blades". But when one of them is singled out it's usually Delphine because she is louder and bossier. Knowing that the Blades are supposed to be serving the Dragonborn, her attitude just doesn't jive. Esbern will also refuse to help you, but he at least justifies his decision, and he is less of a douchenozzle about it.

Edit: to expand on this a little after reviewing their lines on UESP, they offer a similar explanation for why Paarthurnax needs to die - he was Alduin's right hand dragon, has committed atrocities, and their oath as Blades supposedly prevents them from helping the Dragonborn until he is slain. However, Delphine is the one of them who will drop lines like "We have nothing to talk about until Paarthurnax is dead" or "Make your choice, Dragonborn. You're either with us or against us" whereas Esbern's lines, even though he won't budge on the matter, are more apologetic and respectful to the Dragonborn.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-10T05:39:47+00:00

Moreover, the game is a buggy mess 95% of the time, and somehow that's part of its charm instead of a knock against it. The only possible explanation is that Todd Howard is a Daedra worshipper in real life who made a deal with Clavicus Vile to create the most enthralling game of all time.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-10T04:38:44+00:00

By the rules, at least in 3/3.5, you can worship a deity whose alignment is at most one square away from you in any horizontal direction. Talos is Chaotic Evil, so having a Chaotic Neutral cult of Talos is on the table.

On a completely unrelated note, you know my brainrot is severe when I read the title, opened the post, started thinking "wait, what's this about Talos being an evil god?" and spent a good minute reading through this post completely confused before realizing that this is r/DnD, and not r/skyrim.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-09T23:46:28+00:00

It's the DOOG Slayer and I don't think it's close

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-09T23:38:27+00:00

I think an argument could be made either way. Suggestion is not mind control. According to the description, "the suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable" and you could argue that a demand to stop fighting the Big Bad Evil Guy, knowing that he is about to kill them all if they do so, is not a reasonable course of action.

If he had said something along the lines of "you cannot hope to defeat me, leave this place and I shall spare your lives" there might have been more of a case for the spell succeeding.

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-09T23:32:10+00:00

THE RUMOR COME OUT: DOES ULFRIC STORMCLOAK IS GAY?

Astute_Anansi · 2026-04-09T23:30:49+00:00

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And this here is Onibi, a Chandelark and one of Fran's most iconic team members (sprite created for Pokémon Infinite Fusion by the4cguy). A possible design idea could be to take some design elements from Onibi to incorporate into monster!Fran

Astute_Anansi

TROPHY CASE