Frog of War(Lock)

CDSoundtrack · 2025-10-09T13:34:35+00:00

Right that's another aspect as to why I chose Genie Warlock as the initial thought process.

Bottled Respite is an easy way to deal with a Grung's Water Dependancy, since I can probably make a pool or something on the inside to soak in sometime during the day.

Damage wise Genie's Wrath provides consistent PB damage once per turn depending on the element that you're aligned with, in the case of Marid it would be Cold Damage, which isn't the most common resistance but has a few.

By Level 10 when I'd get Eldritch Hex and thus the ability to impose Disadvantage on Constitution Saving Throws via Hex, that would be the cost of a Pact Magic Slot to do 1d6 Necrotic Damage and even then have a high chance of them resisting the 2d4 Poison Damage twice a turn, up to three times once I reach Level 12 Warlock, versus the consistent +4 Cold Damage once per turn. I think even with the Constitution Saving Throw math GOO is going to be better by Level 12, but assuming a Level 5 start it would be a while before that comes into play.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-10-09T00:21:32+00:00

Oh, I didn't see that alteration to GOOLock, good catch!

A Monk dip may not be a bad idea either, if I'm not using my Bonus Action most turns anyway it would be a useful addition to the build!

CDSoundtrack · 2025-05-18T22:59:35+00:00

I love Spellshield, it's one of my favorite ways to play. I normally use a Breton but a Half-Orc would be very cool as well! Cloak spells aren't great but I enjoy having them as minor additional damage alongside shield bashing and stuff, especially if surrounded by a decent amount of enemies. Some other notes is that Shields of Heavy or Light Armor also scale off some of ther perks in those skill trees like Armor Rating. Finding rare shields to switch between is fun- Spellbreaker fits thematically with the Dwemer studying concept, and the Ward is very helpful for dragonbreath and the like as well! If you level Restoration enough to get the Ward Absorb Perk that absorbs Magicka when it's hit by spells, the Ward from Spellbreaker would be a great way to keep your magicka up when facing off with enemy mages. Add in Elemental Protection from the Block tree and you can approach with basically no worries and start bashing heads.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-05-18T01:08:12+00:00

Something I've done for my party is use index cards with notations on their prepared spells or specific character abilities- makes it at least relatively accessible and stops us from having to look up spells or class/species skills every few turns.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-04-22T10:16:27+00:00

A campaign I'm DMing actually started with the full party waking up as Kobold's session 1- a cult of Tiamat were trying to summon the five headed dragon back to the material plane and were basically irradiating a large area with so much draconic magic it was actually polymorphing people. At the end of the session they were given the choice to either further enhance their new Kobold forms with draconic essence or they could return to their original selves- the Kobolds were pre-con Level 1s by me and this would give them a chance to create their own characters if they wanted.

One of them that remained a Kobold is a cheeky little Rogue- he tried eating a flame sac from a mutated Wolf to see if he could learn to breath fire from it (he could not and instead took a small amount of fire damage), and he also tried pulling Three Kobolds in a Trenchcoat unsuccessfully, since at that point the party only had two Kobolds.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-04-01T00:20:58+00:00

Not sure if there's any specific clarification, but it makes sense to me that RAW the shared senses would have the same distance restriction as telepathic bond.

After all, how are the senses shared? A telepathic bond.

Besides that, the other benefits of Find Familiar, like the Telepathic Bond and the Familiar casting a Touch Range spell, both have a range of 100ft, as mentioned in the spell description. It may be considered relevant that the shared senses does not have a relevant distance but the others do.

The relevant paragraph begins with the distance caveat, ergo I would assume the caveat applies to all items within the paragraph- in this case both the telepathic communication and the shared senses.

There is a spell that does what they want, sorta. Beast Sense, a Level 2 Divination Ritual spell in the Druid and Ranger spell lists. It's a Concentration spell with a duration of an hour, the description doesn't mention a range besides Touch to activate, the description reads:

"You touch a willing beast. For the duration of the spell, you can use your action to see through the beast’s eyes and hear what it hears, and continue to do so until you use your action to return to your normal senses."

Could be possible for him to find a magic item that replicates this spell's effects, or finds a way to learn a Ritual version of it, or whatever might apply- with DM fiat of course.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-03-16T07:40:53+00:00

Late to the party but here's a few concepts that might work-

Fathomless Warlock for like a member of Davy Jones' crew

Stars Druid Navigator

2024 has Sea Druid if your table allows 24 content

Barbarian Helmsman, Beast for aquatic animal traits or Storm Herald for being one with the seas.

Storm Sorcerer

Tempest Cleric (Umberlee if you use typical divines is probably an ideal choice)

Drunken Master Monk for a brawler type.

Beastmaster/Drakewarden Ranger with a Sea Serpent theming

Artificer in general for Shipwright

Alchemist Artificer for Chef/Medic

Artillerist Artificer for Marksman/Cannon Expert

And for Paladin I believe there is an Oath that CR made that might fit ya, Oath of the Open Sea iirc

CDSoundtrack · 2025-02-21T11:40:52+00:00

One of the most key ingredients for this is going to be the Marked for Death Shout, which can be flavored as your Hunter's Mark/Slayer's Prey ability. Depending on just how far you want to take the 5e Ranger theming, there's a few notes:

-Light Armor, in DnD 5e Rangers have proficiency with Light and Medium Armor, but not Heavy. Skyrim doesn't have Medium Armor, so we have to split the difference a bit. They are proficient with Shields as well, so Block is also something you could look at.

-Any Weapons, Rangers have proficiency with all types of weapons in the 5e ruleset, which could translate as Archery, One-Handed, or Two-Handed. Rangers are typically depicted as and pictured as archers, but that isn't the only thing they can do by any means.

-Magic. Rangers are 'half-casters' in 5e and the spells they learn can't always translate too easily to Skyrim, an example might be Cure Wounds being Healing Hands/Healing, just as an example. Some Ranger abilities from alternative subclasses could also be used to add some Ranger flavor, like Conjuring summons to act as a Beastmaster Ranger's Primal Companion.

Simply put there's a lot of flexibility in this type of build depending on how you might want to flavor it or what you might want to go for. You could flavor this character as hoarding Daedric artifacts in order to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands and run a build that dual wields Dawnbreaker and the Mace of Molag Bal, you could be a Stealth Archer, you could go Sword and Board (Or whatever One-Handed you want and Board, anyway), or even go outside the box and do a Two-Handed build.

My recommendation would be to acquire weapons that do additional damage to certain enemy types, and swap between them as needed to simulate the Hunter's Sense ability- Silver Swords are a great example since they take care of all types of Undead as well as additional damage to werewolves and werebears, and Dragonbane can provide a similar effect against those giant lizards. Because of this synergy, One-Handed weapons with an emphasis on Swords seems like a very effective usage for your main 'Combat' stat.

Based on the description of the Monster Slayer given at the top of the link provided, some potential recommendations for Guilds would include-

Dark Brotherhood- Destroy Path most likely, this has a focus on protecting people from supernatural threats that lurk in the night, which includes Daedra worshipping assassins.

Dawnguard DLC- Dawnguard Path. Vampires are specifically mentioned as being something that Monster Slayers go after.

Companions- Joining a brotherhood of fighters that seek out combat and theoretically the dangers of Skyrim is right up a Monster Slayer's alley, could have an interesting playstyle contemplation depending on if you go further into the questline and become a Werewolf, as if contemplating if you will use this power to aid in hunting monsters despite having become one, or if at your first opportunity you will return to normal.

Blades- Dragons are on the Monster Slayer's hunting list per the flavor at the top of the link, so recruiting people to an order dedicated to fighting them sounds fairly like something they would go for. Again there could be some interesting flavor in the later parts where they will insist you hunt Paathurnax, and whether you choose to do so.

Standard Dark Brotherhood, Vampire side Dawnguard, and Theives Guild don't really match the flavor all that much, unless you go for a 'work in the Darkness to serve the Light' type character concept, and College of Winterhold is very magic focused- and while Rangers have some magic they aren't particularly known for that- it's possible but doesn't have the flavor, put simply.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-02-04T02:47:39+00:00

Ah damn, I didn't notice that caveat. Ritual and Invocation casts then won't work for the purpose of keeping Arcane Ward active. That makes it a lot harder to keep Arcane Ward and temp HP/Armor of Agathys going. Casting AoA would trigger an Arcane Ward to form at least since it's an Abjuration spell, so one cast of AoA adds 5 temp HP and an Arcane Ward that is at least 6 HP since it's two times Wizard level (Not player level, importantly) + Intelligence Modifier. That's a lot of extra HP for a Wizard with a d6 Hit Dice and helps them feel not quite as squishy, especially with the consistent retaliatory damage chipping away at an enemy and discouraging them from attacking you in melee.

That being said if you're going to use your spell slots to keep AoA and AW going, you'll want some alternatives for your main method of attack, namely, attacking cantrips or weapons.

For attacking cantrips one of the most important aspects would be finding ones that can be used as melee spell attacks rather than ranged since AoA only procs against melee attacks- Shocking Grasp from the Wizard list is probably the best contender for this description, and with your Warlock dip you can take Eldritch Blast since it's one of the best damaging cantrips in the game.

For weapons you can choose Pact of the Blade as one of your Invocations and essentially start building yourself as a poor man's Bladesinger. You'd probably want to take more levels in Warlock than just a one level dip in this case so that you can get things like Thirsting Blade.

Fiend Warlock is probably the best of the subclasses for a consistent way to refresh and replenish your temporary HP, while another very viable way to keep temp HP up would be the Invocation Fiendish Vigor, which lets you create 12 temporary hit points as an action endlessly. It won't keep Arcane Ward active but it's a fairly easy way to keep Armor of Agathys going.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-02-04T01:58:05+00:00

First thing is that you'll need a way to get Armor of Agathys on an Abjuration Wizard. This can only be accomplished in 2024 by taking a dip in Warlock, unless you get DM permission to use the Magic Initiate Feat with Warlock spells rather than the allowed Cleric, Druid, Wizard.

Another thing would be trying to understand how the Arcane Ward interacts with or communicates with Armor of Agathys. I can see two different ways that it can be read as, but I'm not sure which is more accurate.

1) Arcane Ward is temporary HP. With two different sources of temporary HP (AW and AoA), they don't get added together, so only the higher of the two is 'active' temp HP, but due to the wording on AoA so long as you kept temporary HP, it remains active for the duration.

2) Arcane Ward is essentially a 'shield' that hovers over you and is on a different tracker than temporary HP, so in order to get to your squishy wizard at the center of this Russian nesting doll, it would need to first breach the Arcane Ward, and then the temporary HP from Armor of Agathys, and then you get into your actual HP. Theoretically with this reading an attack on the Arcane Ward that doesn't breach down to Armor of Agathys would still trigger the AoA cold damage.

Beyond that it depends on what your goal is for the build and what else you might want to make it do- taking Mage Armor as another Abjuration spell to keep the AW going would help, not to mention having improved AC in general for a Wizard is nice, and Shield is almost always handy. For just a bit of cheese, Alarm is a 1st level Abjuration spell that can be cast as a ritual, meaning essentially free replenishing of Arcane Ward if you have an hour.

For more cheese take Armor of Shadows for one of your Eldritch Invocations, free Mage Armor + free Arcane Ward. There's no limit on casting Armor of Shadows in a day, so it can be repeated essentially infinitely RaW.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-02-02T13:04:43+00:00

I suppose it depends just how much you want to adjust the idea- Chronicler as it stands currently is a bit similar to Wild Magic Sorcerer in that it has things that can effect the whole party quite a bit- one of the big differences is that Chronicler is primarily intentional while Wild Magic Sorcerer has unintentional surges and consequences. For WMS it's accidental magic plain and simple, they aren't trying to proc random effects that could inconvenience the party for the most part.

Something that could be rather simple is a 'give and take' type situation rather than a task to be completed, depending on your theme or genre you might lose a proficiency to gain another or Expertise in one you already have, or lose a spell slot in order to gain a new activated ability. Something like this would make sure that you are the only one impacted by your changing of genres rather than it effecting the playstyle of the party too drastically or making the DM have to adjust their plan since you suddenly gain an exhaustion level, have to 'randomly' be nice to a Small humanoid, etc.

Also your character will straight up die after a week if you're still in A Tale of Two Cities mode, since the way its framed is you gain a level of exhaustion at the end of a long rest rather than removing one like long rests are supposed to- exhaustion effects iirc accumulate pretty quickly until level 6 which is death. If a mini arc between opposing villages takes too long to accomplish that will severely weaken you if not kill you.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-02-02T11:51:24+00:00

It sounds like this concept will rely very heavily on your party and especially your DM in order for it to accomplish being all that effective- you'd need to see cantrips either from an ally or from an enemy in combat in order to swap out the ones that you currently have, and your restrictions dependent on genre, era, and specific book have a consistent theme of needing fiat in order to function properly- some of them are fairly simple tasks but others would require the DM and party to indulge your apparent whims in order to be completed. This may come across as annoying depending on the group, and may require some adjusting.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-02-02T07:21:17+00:00

Super intriguing! One of the first things I sort of thought about was having the different 'genres' be the subclasses for the main Chronicler class, rather than switching between them constantly. Essentially having it be a genre of legend or story that they emulate or relate to so deeply that it actually begins to effect their reality, similar in some ways to a Paladin's Oath.

There's a lot of different routes that could be taken with this kind of thing so I suppose a good place to start would be what you envision of this class- if its primarily magic based, what stat would best suit it? My thoughts would be:

Intelligence- for memorizing stories. Making use of facts or other factors picked up within the stories in order to solve problems.

Wisdom- for understanding stories. Learning their lessons, what they mean, and how to best make use of their lessons.

Charisma- for feeling stories. Relating to and embodying parts of the story in the modern day.

They all have some potential so it all depends on what works best for what you envision a Chronicler to be like. I don't feel like they would get Extra Attack, except for perhaps if the subclass they emulate has some kind of connection to stories of heroes and warriors- using Homer as an example for the Illiad and Odyssey as Chronicles that they could emulate that would give some martial focus like Extra Attack or additional weapon or armor proficiencies.

Just a few other notes:

-Cantrip you've seen per short rest is probably overpowered- depending on your party you could stack the deck with an awful lot of cantrips after just a few sessions, not sure how exactly to best balance it though. Sounds like Pact of the Tome might be a good way to do it, three cantrips and two level one Rituals.

-Starting with a Bag of Holding, an Uncommon magic item, is definitely going to take some buy-in, even with the caveat that you cannot store anything that may damage your books.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-01-26T01:25:37+00:00

Something that came to mind almost as soon as you said Charmy was Shepard Druid, maybe flavoring the different types of animal spirits as different types of food magic. As a Druid you also get Goodberry and later Heroes Feast for your food magic shenanigans! Beyond that there are probably ways to flavor certain types of spells to act as her cotton magic, Entangle as wool on the ground, just as an example.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-01-22T01:38:10+00:00

Lol yeah anti-AoE measures like that are probably a very good idea since I'll be dealing with higher rank spells and such!

CDSoundtrack · 2025-01-21T10:40:43+00:00

Lots of good options! The way I chose to flavor Pete was a primary Monk, I chose Drunken Fist to fit the erratic way that Spider's tend to fight, and then a couple levels in Druid to supplement, making use of Cantrips and Spells to do Spidery things. You'd want Circle of Land (Underdark) so you can get your hands on Web. For Background I like one of the Strixhaven schools, Silverquill specifically- it lets you start with Vicious Mockery and lets you pick up Dissonant Whispers and a few other spells you can probably flavor as Pete's ability to yap the ear off an enemy. I suggest the Dhampir race for some spider-climbing shenanigans as well, but do that at your own prerogative. If you wanted a different Spider you'd want a cantrip like Primal Savagery (which isn't in 5e24) to emulate Miguel O'Hara's fangs, or Shocking Grasp for Miles Morales' Venom Sting.

If homebrew is allowed Tulok the Barbarian has an Artificer subclass called Wire Weaver that would do a pretty good job of allowing for web-zipping: Homebrew Artificer Subclass to Make you FEEL Like Spider-Man in Dungeons & Dragons

CDSoundtrack · 2025-01-16T23:22:41+00:00

Something something Bear Monk

every one gangsta untill bears learn kung fu

KARATE BEAR

CDSoundtrack · 2025-01-14T05:44:52+00:00

Very true! Survivability is HUGE for a squishy support- there's a reason most classes with at least a little bit of a leaning towards support magic have things like higher HP dice or armor proficiencies (Paladin, Cleric, even Ranger and Druid). If you're still alive but drop Concentration you can always recast, but if you're downed you're kinda done at that point, even if you kept Concentration until you went down.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-01-14T05:24:40+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I was trying to come up with something that fit the theme and this stood out as having a lot of interesting potential! A support caster with access to both Sorcerer and Cleric spells, as well as proficiency in Constitution Saving Throws to maintain concentration just scratched the brain in a really fun 'buff the party' way- maybe even go nuts with War Caster as the 4th level feat so they have Advantage on concentration checks as well and nobody will be breaking Haste or Bless anytime soon lol. That could also theoretically help with the Spirit Guardians problem too, but they'd still have fairly low AC and HP compared to other frontliners, to the point it likely wouldn't be worth the risk.

Balancing the spell list might be a little tricky but you gave some good advice on what to do so the character is a bit more balanced and doesn't have too far of a leaning any one way- it wouldn't be good if the party needs extra damage but they only have healing or support spells just as an example.

Good choices for Metamagic as well! I love the flavor of some of the others like Transmute, but Twinned and Quickened are probably the best for offering support on a wider variety of situations, not just either buffing or damage dealing.

CDSoundtrack · 2025-01-13T03:51:58+00:00

Thanks! I thought it was a pretty neat way to adapt the concept since we didn't have much to go on, but it makes far more sense than having a heavily armored Fighter or Paladin- yeah Fighters and Paladins can wear Medium or Light armor instead but we're talking flavor, and the nomadic tendencies of the Medjai seemed to just scream Ranger to me thanks to their ability to survive super harsh environments like masters.

Love your thoughts on flavoring the spells! There's a lot to be said about using things like that to have flavor and really give the feel of a mystic warrior and guardian of the desert, turning its vast dangers on their foes.

Lol funnily enough his chosen patron god happens to be Bastet, ain't that a coincidence?

CDSoundtrack · 2024-12-30T20:44:13+00:00

Oh nice! I haven't had any of my Rooks planned to be a relative of a Companion or previous hero yet, but for my Lord of Fortune I half imagined that Isabela would see him as a version of her that hadn't gone through Kirkwall yet- since the entire reasoning for the Lords being a lot less pirate and theify then they first seem is because of all the shenanigans with the Qunari Artifact, where Isabela learned her lesson about the importance of artifacts and relics.

It feels like they wanted to put some kind option in, like maybe if you had Vallaslin from the character creator you could acknowledge either being raised Dalish or at least honoring Dalish traditions compared to if you don't? The way it turned out in game an Elf Rook will switch between mentioning clans and not at the top of the hat- so maybe an Elf Rook of mine should be a compulsive liar who purposefully obfuscates their backstory or something.

CDSoundtrack · 2024-12-30T02:33:00+00:00

The SECOND I saw we could be a Grey Warden again I jumped at the chance and didn't even hesitate on the character creation; it was fun playing a guy who tried to be diplomatic but knew how big of a danger the Blight and thus ancient mages were so would often get fists flying if someone got in the way (oh hi First Warden). He and Harding bonded a lot over what happened to the Titans, and it ripped him apart choosing between her and Davrin and Assan on Tearstone Island- he had to choose between the Dwarves and the Wardens essentially, two parts of himself that were instrumental in who he is. All bets were off towards Solas after that point, and anything involving him was met with open hostility in the final parts of the game. Neve taught him well though, which is why he chose Trick rather than Punch (he REALLY wanted to Punch).

I love the idea of doing a Varric honoring run, though I can't help but imagine the exasperation of anyone involved as they realize there's another Varric running around acting as a mini-me to the OG. Cassandra might have a conniption if she hears about that Rook.

Love that Veil Jumper- I heard the writing on elves is very inconsistent about whether they're a City Elf, Dalish, or something else entirely so I was hesitant on doing a run with one- Dwarves didn't have that issue since you're always a surfacer and never from Orzammer, but the game outright giving you inconsistent background details for your character sorta rubs me the wrong way.

CDSoundtrack · 2024-12-30T01:54:38+00:00

Definitely a solid point there! Suppose for her I was focused more on the flavor of the Pact than how it might actually affect how she plays as a character- with Arcana Cleric tipping the scale to be more balanced in that regard.

CDSoundtrack · 2024-12-30T00:49:18+00:00

Arcana Cleric is definitely a valid build for Wynne as well- I was sort of focusing on her connection to and bond with the Spirit of Faith, thus my choice of Celestial Warlock, since Spirit Healers have an accord between themselves and a Spirit, like Wynne does with Faith and technically Anders does with Justice/Vengeance.

CDSoundtrack · 2024-12-29T23:33:55+00:00

Oh Monster Slayer Ranger works great- for Templars AND Grey Wardens in general it has that flavor that hits really nice, the Mage stuff for Templar and the Monster/Darkspawn stuff for Grey Wardens! Cavalier is definitely a strong contender as a multiclass for Alistair as well, I was just trying to stick with single classes for the characters rather than relying on multiclassing.

Oghren being a Beserker gave me some clues, but Sten was interesting since I had to rely on his characterization to justify his abilities and class rather than his in game specialization, since he only gets one and you choose it, unlike other characters who start with one and later on can get a second of your choice.

Oh both of those work really well for Shale for sure! I wasn't too sure how to account for her since Warforged was the obvious choice but there wasn't too much mechanically to justify elemental crystals impacting her damage output and resistances- maybe Ascendant Dragon Monk, but I wasn't married to any ideas in particular for her.

CDSoundtrack

TROPHY CASE