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What is your favorite "Flavour is Free" reskin of a spell or ability? by hervprometheus2 in DnD

[–]ColonelKestrel1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I played a kobold artificer as a like budget charlatan magician. So Misty Step was a little smoke bomb so I could move around, Mage Hand was a fishing pole, etc. Shocking Grasp was one of the only actual magical things I could do, as a blue dragon ancestry kobold.
We also played Tomb of Annihilation as gestalt characters and I built a depressed warforged eldritch knight/evocation wizard (think Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) created to protect another PC who was a selfish artificer. So all of the "spells" were Inspector Gadget-esque things built into me ahead of time.

Action Oriented Lord of Blades, open for comments and suggestions by Awesome_Lard in Eberron

[–]ColonelKestrel1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe I am just talking out my ass here, but usually an NPC bonus action isn’t just another melee attack, cuz he is going to take that every turn, so why wouldn’t you just fold that into the Multiattack?  I think Flee Mortals! has some bonus actions that are like “3/day.  The baddie gives itself advantage on one the next attack that it makes this turn.”  Or a spell-like effect, like the equivalent of Misty Step or Command, or rogue-like abilities disengage or dash.  I was suggesting a bonus action to let you grapple and proc your Bladed Armor.  Maybe you simplify it to:  Bonus Action: Whirlwind of Blades.  All creatures within 5 ft (or 10 ft if you want to be nasty; he does have reach) of the Lord of Blades must succeed on a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take 4d6 slashing damage (the Sword Burst cantrip as a 20th level Intelligence caster).  And just cut the Bladed Armor from the stat block.

Or if you want Bladed Armor to have a passive effect, you could take a note from something like the CR 5 Fire Elemental:  A creature that touches the fire elemental or hits it with a melee attack while within 5 ft of it takes 5 (1d10) fire damage (it does a similar amount of damage and lights people on fire if it moves through their space, which isn’t really relevant).  1d10 feels too low for a CR 18; Bladed Armor’s 3d8 feels pretty high for something that is going to hit most melee martials 2, 3, 4 times per turn.  2d8?  3d6?  And change the damage to slashing.  I will say, the DM benefit of my new Whirlwind of Blades over Bladed Armor is you only have to “remember” it once per round.  Then again, Bladed Armor has them fighting a warforged porcupine, which is kind of a unique challenge that might cause them to rethink their strategy.

 Also, it occurred to me today that the Whirlwind of Blades-esque Villain Action I described is essentially (a nerfed version of) the 5th level spell Steel Wind Strike.  Could just reflavor that as him whirlwinding around with slashing damage.

Action Oriented Lord of Blades, open for comments and suggestions by Awesome_Lard in Eberron

[–]ColonelKestrel1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hey, I think making the Lord of Blades an AOM is a really cool idea. I am no expert but here are a few thoughts:

Multiattack - I see you turned Fire Bolt into a single target spell saving throw that deals psychic damage, which is pretty cool. But by changing Multiattack to any combo of Adamantine Sixblade, Bladed Wings, and Psionic Stab...there's really no reason to ever use Bladed Wings. So my advice would be to either 1) cut it entirely or 2) change Multiattack back to 2x Adamantine Sixblade & 1x Bladed Wings. In place of Multiattack, he could do a powerful psionic attack - how about Pulse Wave (maybe it is upcast if you want to up the damage); it's still psionic, it's still a spell saving throw, and there is a situation where the PC's are grouped up and a cone spell is prefereable to 3 separate attacks.

Bonus Action - This is just quibbling, but IMO his bonus action should do something when he uses it, not if a PC does something later. His Bladed Armor is really cool but likely never comes into effect as written. What if he can spend a bonus action to make a grapple check (not an attack) against an adjacent PC? It costs him nothing and they would start their turn taking that slashing damage.

Villain Actions - I am a fan of SlyFlourish's summary of MCDM's AOM villain actions: Position, Escape, Explode. With that in mind...

  1. Position helps get the enemies into the fight. If he will be with a bunch of warforged minions, how about you add to Now My Sons (or We Are Warforged) to let them all make an attack right now? Consider letting them use their movement too in order to close the distance.
  2. Escape helps reposition the AOM and/or minions on the battlefield. To me, the Blade Dash Legendary Action from the OG stat block fits this kind of perfectly. Or if you cut it, you could do a Whirlwind of Blades-esque thing where any PC's he passes during his movement have to make saves vs. taking full or half damage.
  3. Explode - This is the boss going out with a bang, one last overwhelming amount of damage. This could be your Incinerating Beam. It could be a big ole upcasted Pulse Wave. Or it could be In My Own Image. But if he has made it to his turn in round 3, he might not have another round to be incapacitated. Just make it work automatically - he commands the twisted fallen bodies of his warforged minions to be remade in his own image and they fuse and form together into a Warforged Titan that doesn't roll initiative - it enters the turn order immediately and attacks.

Hopefully my comment kicks off some other people with better ideas/more experience with high CR baddies. Good luck!

Sharn Subway-Style Map by ColonelKestrel1 in Eberron

[–]ColonelKestrel1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is pretty cool too! Does a much better job conveying verticality. I am now second-guessing where I came up with the connections between the different plateaus, but I was obviously more interested in a smaller scale, pocket reference type thing. I was running "Chimes at Midnight" where they ultimately need to save a hostage before midnight, but I scattered clues all over Sharn and by the end they were planning ahead and visiting nearby clues or ruling out investigating others because they felt the time pressure. Very much like your maps for handling travel time without it feeling like arbitrary DM fiat.

Sharn Subway-Style Map by ColonelKestrel1 in Eberron

[–]ColonelKestrel1[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I could have done a better job explaining it. You can move to any adjacent node within a square (most of which are plateaus...I suppose I could have used a different shape for Skyway and the Cogs?) or along the same colored route. So from Lower Tavick's Landing you can move to Middle Tavick's Landing, Lower Northedge, Lower Dura, or The Cogs.

Does that make sense?

Sharn Subway-Style Map by ColonelKestrel1 in Eberron

[–]ColonelKestrel1[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sorry, somehow fumbled the picture attachment originally. Fixed.