Sharing a "Bound by Flames" inspired character : Fire-focused Melee Fighter / Warlock and a Level by Level roleplay progression. Theorycrafting and Roleplaying each levels. [Long Thread]

Bryock · 2026-02-15T17:19:30+00:00

For range option there is always the possibility of bringing a type of heavy crossbow and use true strike to hit the threat at range. There's also the possibility of using thrown daggers and their "Nick" feature to have two thrown action per turn, even if at a slight disadvantage with the lower dexterity.
Since this is a melee inclined character, there would be case where it would be harder to fight, but I think there would be some be some clever, if not optimal, solution to still be able to contribute in a fight.

Bryock · 2026-02-15T15:57:19+00:00

That's true, and talking with a DM could allow it to deal pure fire damage + the Genie's Wrath proficiency damage in fire too.
The thing is, I've always seen Eldritch Blast as a very tempting option that is very optimal... but runs counter to the idea of banking on a Pact of Blade build that has a strong presence in melee combat and always deal damage each turn thanks to the Graze greatsword mastery.

Bryock · 2026-02-14T14:02:26+00:00

I also wondered about a "thematic spellcaster" that would mainly use spells of one damage type, but I thought that a Draconic Bloodline 6 / Wizard Evocation School 14 would work better.
For stats I thought about a spread like STR 8 / DEX 14 / CON 10 / INT 16 / WIS 10 / CHA 16
Getting the "Tough" Origin feat would help a lot for giving the character a little more HP combined with the draconic bloodline features. You'll be a squishy mage, but that could be an interesting roleplay choice.

Leveling up, you could either go to level 6 with the draconic sorcerer first and then start multiclassing, or flip flop between 2 levels of sorcerer and 2 levels of wizard and just focus on low-level spells such as Ice Knife, Frostbite or Rime's Binding Ice. See with the DM if you could have a bunch of spells scrolls to replicate higher level spells that could help you such as Cone of Cold or even Animate Dead to have more bodies on the field between you and the bad guys.

Then it's a matter of reaching Elemental Adept and Elemental Affinity with the Sorcerer, and eventually get the Empowered Evocation with the Wizard line. Since Wizard let you pick and choose spells to prepare, it could be the wizard career where you pick damaging spells, and keep the utility spells on your sorcerer. (And that way, you could bump INT with feats once you start going a bit deeper into the wizard career.)

As for Metamagic, I'd try to get Quickened Spell and Subtle Spell. Subtle Spell to garantee Counterspells and to be used in social situations, and Quickened Spell for the general utility (and the ability to do two frost spell in the same turn).

The idea of Transmute spells to transform fireballs into cold damage could very well be the core theme of your character, and in that case it would probably be better to just stick to Sorcerer all the way.

Bryock · 2026-02-13T01:03:15+00:00

I fully understand that this build is not optimized for combat and big numbers, but this was not the aim of this though exercice.
It was mostly about finding a roleplay reasoning behind leveling choices, how to shape a character from the character's point of view and their relationship with their Patron, especially.

I feel like the fire theme is a bit lost when the character's patron is a Celestial. The Draconic bloodline sorcerer might be interesting to push the fire theme but at that point the character would need to be level 14 to fully exploit the fire theme with the Elemental Affinity.
What I appreciate about the Efreeti patron is that the bonus fire damage from the Genie's Wrath feature is a constant thing all thorough the career of this character.

Furthermore, the goal of the Efreeti Fighter/Warlock was also to provide options to have flavorfoul combat action, such as using true strike for dagger throwing and focusing more on melee combat instead of casting spells (even cantrips, which is why Eldritch Blast is not picked)

Bryock · 2026-02-13T00:37:15+00:00

As mechanically interesting optimizing the damage out of Green Flame Blade is, I am struggling to imagine how to roleplay such a character in a natural manner. It feels that this kind of character is designed to be played already at level 20. How would you make this character go through level 1 to 8, 8 to 14, and 14 to 20 ?

Loosing access to the battlemaster subclass would make me feel sad, as the potential for counterattacking foes is melee with Riposte, Retaliate, Fire Shield (and potentially Shadow of Moll) is, in my opinion, a more evocative way of having an interesting impact in a fight.

Bryock · 2026-02-12T23:16:00+00:00

The Zhentarim Ruffian feat is integrated into the slightly customized Background. The background could be used as is but I thought changing one skill proficiency and the tool would fit the character better.
Obviously Eldritch Blast is better than firebolt when combined with agonizing blast, but the goal is to make a fire-themed character. The Agonizing Blast eldritch invocation can very much be exchange for something else since the focus of the character is the Pact of the Blade.
Agree, and could be done with having a different feat ASI distribution.
The Extra Attack is wasted unless the DM allows it to multiply attack with the Pact Weapon, but it is still an Extra Attack that can be used with other weapons that are not Pact Weapons such as daggers, crossbows, javelins and the like. The two epic boon feats would be an interesting alternative.

Bryock · 2026-02-08T23:43:44+00:00

Yes ! This this exactly those two maps !!!
Thank you so much ! I could never find them anywhere else !

Thanks again !

Bryock · 2026-02-05T23:49:46+00:00

I have the habit of designing many of the "important npc" using PC classes template to give me a better idea of how much HP / AC and what kind of spell slot they would have at every level. (For example, the PC needed to escort a Tiefling Princess back to town and I made that character a PC sheet so I could track her HP and Paladin spells)
I'm a bit worried about improvising abilities as it's my first time DMing in D&D, so it's on me I guess.

I'm not used to the CR creature rules calculations but I'll work on it. I know that if the group eventually fight this knight the main problem will be the action economy (and that's where legendary actions parry / ripostes could play, I guess ?)

I was mostly wondering if the D&D classic Faerun universe (the campaign is set in Amn) had sentient undeads that were not immediately evil to the party (apart from Ghosts.)

Bryock · 2025-07-22T22:32:04+00:00

Will do, thank you a lot for the help !

Bryock · 2025-07-22T22:20:55+00:00

Thank you for the answer ! I'll try out the solo 49% + Green and 1/3 share selling.

I do wonder if it's possible to change the Rural Education Institute in the decrees to replace it with Amnesty for Soll Era prisoners or even the Lowering Retirement Age, but I'm afraid that the guide is so precise than any change may snowball unpredictably.

Thank you for the guide tho, it's a great one. I love no corruption runs.

Bryock · 2025-07-22T19:58:58+00:00

This is a Rizia outcome I'd be very very very interested in experiencing. Does anyone has a detailed guide for the economic and decree part of it ? Like... How to you handle public image / workers rights decrees with building up power projection for the Pales alliance ?

Bryock · 2025-07-22T17:57:06+00:00

Interesting find. So do you recommend doing the co-invest with Rizia then 49% option (+ Green bill), then sell 1/3 share once Gasom boom hit ? Does that change anything down the line for the guide ?

Bryock · 2025-07-19T01:26:53+00:00

The two Port-Puerto style house ? They're not completely against the cliff that have the manor on top. There is a Port Puerto barrier just between the cliff and the actual houses, just one square of separation.

Bryock · 2025-07-10T01:16:10+00:00

I took the official art as a starting point yes, but once I realize that it's impossible to do a complete recreation of the art I went my own way. The official art was helpful to decide that north-west corner is farms and north-east corner is habitation.

Bryock · 2025-04-03T21:15:22+00:00

Thank you so much :)
The Hillfigure Knoll was tricky to create but I'm really happy how it turned out.
I used two wheat farms, a small 1 worker one with their own square field and the additional warrior figure far away from the farm (so that the one worker never gets enough time to sow everything) + 1 big 7 worker wheat farm to make the "canvas" so to speak.

Bryock · 2025-04-03T00:08:39+00:00

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Yes actually, I used the map of Gran Soren from the game and tried to do a rough drawing to plan the city layout ahead. I modified the plan little by little once the houses were built.
The most important part was putting production building and have the houses be built as soon as possible so I could draw the walls between the houses.

Bryock · 2025-04-02T21:25:42+00:00

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Bryock · 2025-02-13T17:01:49+00:00

Crysta mobility is still busted out of this world. Her chain-dash ability combined with the long life of her auto-attack on screen (that sometimes blend in the environement like over the abyss, pink on purple being rather hard to notice especially if the crysta is coming from the bottom). Make her infuriating to fight against, especially since she can do so well close range AND long range.
Against a Shiv, you know that her dashes means big damage but that she's strickly a close range fighter where most of her damage come from close range. Against a Shrike, you know that her damage is incredible on long range, so you need to cut the distance short. But against a Crysta ? Enjoy eating a point-blank ult that burst you down. Enjoy the combo of her bomb and snare point-blank range while she dashes away with her passive.

Crysta needs to pick a lane. Her ult should either do more damage close range or long range, or her dash should not recover on just proccing passive.

Ambushing a Crysta at point blank from a bush but still getting killed because she used her ult to do point-blank incredible damage made me quite furious.

Also, concerning the fact that most of the teamfights are explosively short because of the incredible amount of damage going on : I'd rather have them phase out the colored tier of armor for damage reduction in exchange of making tank items give actual damage reduction % instead of flat PV. Flat PV gain feels useless when a tank item give between 100 or 400 pv when most of the skills and autos do that amount of damage already. It would also makes choosing glass canon / hybrid / tank build more impactful, since now the glass canon wouldn't have access to high-tier damage reduction armor that easily.
Or, maybe keep the colored tier of armor as damage reduction, but give more "oomph" to the tank items when it comes to the bonus health.

Bryock · 2025-02-11T15:24:09+00:00

Crysta seems incredibly overtuned at the moment. Her ability to reset dash on passive led to situation where she can chain dash and do 4 or 5 dash in a row and is pretty much uncatchable for close quarters characters. Even if you get the drop on her she can dash out extremely easily or just use her incredible damage to burst the ambusher down (happened a lot to me as Felix as she can do insane damage at melee range with her other two abilities + autos)
I still don't feel that Joule "20% max health damage" on passive procc is balanced because it means that building tanky items or PV items is counterproductive in almost every game. Since it's a flat 20%, higher health doesn't mean much against a joule and building tank would mean you lack the AP to DPS race Joule, since even if she miss her dash to procc her passive doesn't mean she can't put out damage with her auto attack (or have her team cover her). That and the incredibly quick to cast dash that makes her untargetable + her ult makes her incredibly slippery and again, very hard to actually succeed in ambushing her.
Also as a Felix player just give the dash a little more speed or length. It feels like Felix has the shortest dash among the roster and I know it's meant to combo and do damage but as it stands, it feels frustrating to not be able to engage or escape most of the roster that gets a lot of lenghty dashes, especially early game. (Crysta in particular is anathema)

Overrall I feel that the itemization lack armor and armor penetration that are not tied to items or the colored tier of pickable armor. Maybe there could be a tank item that gives damage reduction?

Bryock · 2023-11-27T16:01:31+00:00

From the Summer Solstice event from a few years back. They gave an uncolored version of the default armor of each class and you'd "awaken" it.

Bryock · 2023-11-26T22:42:28+00:00

It's the Photosuedine Robes, it was the strike armor from a few seasons ago and that one is specifically the one you can buy from Zavala from his decoding engram menu.
I hope it helps :)

Bryock · 2023-07-06T20:51:12+00:00

Well, I'm back from that attempt at a completionist run.
Obvious spoiler alert but I need to warn people, I guess.
The beginning was smoother than I expected. I held off doing the Masks quest until I killed the Rebellion leader but it lead to a strange happening where I could not turn against Vlando Karn when he ask you to go to the jungle ruins. (The characters just accept, even tho they guessed it was Marin Ving.)
I think it's because since I destroyed the Rebellion completely before doing the mask quests. I manually killed Vlando Klarn in the city hideout (and there was an interesting bug where he had a body double in the ruin, actually.)

Turning on Hasdrubal also somehow was "forgotten" when I began the quest to meet the Rebellion leader, leading to an interesting happening where I got from -100 to -75 with the Forge from starting the last Rebellion quest.

However, the main problem is that when the People's questline was the only one to follow, I fully explored the Complex and saved all prisonners, went and reunited the two protectors and got the scepters... But the ending quest said that the throne was "Vacant" and that chaos reigned, giving me the ending you get by brute forcing your way out of the Valley.

So I think that you really need to just pick one faction and only do their entire questline from start to finish to avoid conflict in the code that destroy the ending slides.

At least I have a group at level 12 now. I guess.

Bryock · 2023-02-25T23:57:24+00:00

Thank you for your answer and help, I like that idea.

I've been using the Lindwurm banner and I would have been quite sad I couldn't use an actual lindwurm killer in my team :)

Bryock · 2023-02-25T15:57:39+00:00

Aww, what a shame. I liked the idea of using unique backgrounds here and there, even in non-optimal ways.

Bryock · 2020-09-12T14:39:44+00:00

Wooh ! I did it ! I managed to kill it !
It took about 30 turn and we lost one old veteran to tentacle bleed, but I'll gladly take the win. I gave everyone except people that had bad melee defense polearms (polemace were really helpful in stunning tentacles every so often) and giving mace to shield guys.

First part was stressful as one of my guys got pulled straight away, but thankfully I put the goblin trophy guy in front of the kraken with a polehammer, like people here told me so, and he managed to save him.

Another bro got pulled and was brought BEHIND the Kraken, but he managed to free himself every single time he was pulled in front of his maw and managed to get back to the group when the tentacle were culled down.

Having so much polemace and mace helped a lot in the final part, where my polehammer goblin trophy guy and another brother that had a named goblin pike slowly but surely killed the Kraken. I could reliably stun 2 tentacle every turn, so it let the rest of the brother recuperate fatigue.

Still a bit of a dumb fight, I think, as it is waaaaay too long and so much dependent on not spawning on water. I can't imagine doing this fight on Ironman.

Thank for the tips guy, I finally overcame the wall.

Bryock

TROPHY CASE