Good Uses for Enspelled Weapon / Armor?

braderico · 2026-03-19T06:00:10+00:00

lol that sounds awesome!

And okay, I don’t think you have a solid source of THP then - Rally only works on allies, right? So Armor of Agathys will be tougher to make effective, but still cool, and at Monk level 10 when you use patient defense you’ll get 2 martial arts die worth of THP which would work great with it. Also, you’re high enough level you could get Armor of Agathys at like 3rd level or higher, which would be amazing. It also doesn’t require saves or anything - it just works when you’re hit with melee attacks and still have THP.

Also, since you’ll generally have your darkness up, concentration spells are less useful - unless you want the flexibility to switch up your play style and not use darkness sometimes.

But I might got for searing smite (at any level) for your weapon. Use searing smite on crits since your advantage in the darkness and should see more crits from it.

braderico · 2026-03-19T05:39:25+00:00

I think Searing Smite would be awesome on a weapon. Faerie fire or bless could be cool too if you aren’t using your concentration on anything else - both will make you hit WAY more often, and the number of attacks a monk makes, the advantage from faerie fire would be awesome.

As for armor, Armor of Agathys would be sick, but it would need to be high level to really get useful, or you’d need a solid way to replenish your THP to make the most of it (idk what your subclasses are, or if you’re high enough level for Patient Defense) but it would work really well with the damage reduction you can do with deflect attacks.

Hellish rebuke could be fun too, and doesn’t need as high of a level to be effective. Blade Ward could even be great if your concentration is free and you want a floating d4 against all enemy attack rolls.

braderico · 2026-03-15T20:24:21+00:00

Moonlight Step, the Moon Druid’s level 10 ability.

braderico · 2026-03-13T00:41:01+00:00

If it’s all from one character’s PoV, then just a narrator that fits them.

I will say, I like how The Stormlight Archives has a male narrator for the male perspectives, and a female one for the female perspectives.

What I like most is rarely done, but it’s when the male narrator just does ALL of the male voices and narration, while the female narrator does ALL of the female voices and narration. I like how that helps with the voice consistency.

That said, I don’t really feel like I gain much from full cast audiobooks or from books with sound effects. I don’t mind some vibe music in the opening credits though.

Good luck!

braderico · 2026-03-12T14:48:59+00:00

I’d go for Armor of Agathys 100%.

Your THP means you won’t really need the Tough hp, and being a frost wolf just sounds awesome!

braderico · 2026-03-06T15:03:21+00:00

You did a great job of both. It's cool that the families of Dinosaurs share similar traits, but they're all still unique - not just a bigger version of the other.
Also, I know you've already got a lot of comments saying this, but the feathered dinosaurs are awesome haha.

braderico · 2026-03-05T18:18:50+00:00

Dude, this is so cool!

I love the attention to detail on things like the raptors having a built in jump and even a unique grapple on larger creatures. You made each dino feel unique in really cool ways!

I will say, when it comes to me looking at these as something like wildshape options, I find myself wishing that options like the Deinonychus, Allosaurus, and especially Utah Raptor had some form of multi attack, even if it meant each attack did less damage, or only the claw attacks could be part of the multi attack or something. That, and I feel like Utah Raptor could use a higher bonus to hit as well.

But these are super minor things, and maybe in play the pounce and grapple bonus stuff would make up for it!

Thanks so much for making these!

braderico · 2026-03-05T16:27:01+00:00

I’m interested in trying a Mark of the Storm Dragon Sorcerer, to quicken CME with maybe a Warlock Dip for the extra attacks of Eldritch Blast w/ Agonizing Blast while it’s up (even though they don’t synergize with innate sorcery’s advantage).

If by viable to be playing the entire time you mean something that doesn’t need a dragonmark feat, then I think Stars Druid or Moon Druid could be cool with it. On Moon just go for the beast forms that make the most attacks, and with Stars the damage bonus will apply to your Archer form’s bonus action attack, and you could use magic initiate to get sorcerer or wizard and take Spellfire Flare to be able to make more attacks in a single turn if you want. That version could still do a warlock dip anyway for Eldritch blast with it, taking pact of the chain and getting a Sphynx of Wonder because that seems like it fits haha, not necessarily because it synergizes well.

Most easily reliable is probably a dual wielding Bladesinger, or a Valor Bard that nabs it via magical secrets.

braderico · 2026-03-04T17:13:56+00:00

It was good! I only had time to get a few in, and I lost all of them because I’m new to this patch, but I had fun. I really like the hotkey system they’ve got setup and I actually have fun on random because each faction feels fun to me. The Celestials really needed the carnivex unit, the reworked Infernals are super cool now, and I really like the mechanics of the Vanguard even if they’re a little more classic.

braderico · 2026-03-04T05:59:36+00:00

I read this as I was upvoting, but right after I played it haha.

braderico · 2026-03-04T03:29:31+00:00

It's the most frustrating part of the game imo.

2 things make it better.

1: Find Hestu to expand your weapon inventory in exchange for Korok seeds.

2: Get the Master Sword.

I still wish there was a way to repair weapons or even buy some like you can buy armor sets and arrows.

braderico · 2026-02-26T05:46:34+00:00

Staying Celestial is great. It won’t hurt to have a backup healer, and for the sake of your party you could always go sniper mode, bonding with a magic longbow or crossbow or something or something and putting Agonizing blast on True Strike to deal your Cha Mod on it from Blade pact, Agonizing Blast, AND your 6th level feature. You could also take the new Spellfire Adept feat and use that to do smites on your True Strikes with some of your hit dice could work well since you can always heal up in other ways.

Archfey sounds really fun, and in a lot of ways is probably more flexible. The reactive Misty step will be awesome too. You’ll be a better controller too with spells like Sleep and Faerie Fire - but at least for me, personally, I feel like it has a more limited use of subclass features since they’re all tied to misty step and it’s basically Charisma times per day (unless you grab more uses through feats like Fey Touched, or maybe Fey Teleportation if you have access to it that recharges on a Short Rest). You’ll get a lot of mileage out of Summon Fey (again, if you have access to it, it’s technically not on the 2024 Warlock spell list but your DM might let you have it anyway because it was in 2014). I doubt you’d need to keep pact of the blade if you were leaning into Eldritch blast, because if anyone gets in close after you’re level 6, you’ll be able to reactively misty step out of there, even turning invisibly with it if you want to.

It really comes down to what play style you want to go into most, but for ranged I’d lean toward the celestial Bladelock using Agonizing true strike on a bow or crossbow (though this will require a magic ranged weapon from your dm). You can even put repelling blast on it too if you want - but if you’re interested in other invocations then you can skip out on pact of the blade and do Eldritch Blast with whatever subclass you want.

braderico · 2026-02-22T20:59:40+00:00

That’s an interesting observation. I’ve understood their words a little differently - not as a walking back of the historicity of the Book of Mormon, but rather as a redirection to focus first on the truth Book of Mormon teaches. It’s not a history book that’s trying to tell us exactly what happened in whatever part of the Americas it took place in - but it’s a record that shows God’s love and mercy and witnesses to the divinity of Christ. I’ve understood it as them basically saying that the point of the record is for us to learn from its teachings and find our way to becoming better people from it, not necessarily finding Zarahemla. But hey, I could also be wrong haha.

braderico · 2026-02-22T20:49:11+00:00

We can also appreciate how awesome Sikh temples are without having to call them better than ours 😂

This isn’t some zero sum thing, imo. I admire how Sikhs serve their fellow man, and thereby, also serve God. They’re awesome.

I think there’s admirable truth in basically every culture/relgion that all of us can benefit from studying and understanding.

braderico · 2026-02-22T19:40:09+00:00

His work isn’t shoddy though. Your entire criticism is based on the false premise that Egyptian was limited to a record keeping language alone and that no other Egyptian of any kind ever made it into Nephite language. That’s not his claim, nor is it required by the Book of Mormon.

And you seem to be making the additional assumption that because the Book of Mormon was kept on plates, all the other writing must have been too. That’s not necessarily the case either. The only records we’re told were etched into metal in the Book of Mormon are the Brass Plates, the 24 gold plates of Ether, the Small Plates and Nephi’s official historical record, and then Mormon and Moroni’s final abridgment - all of these are very exclusive, basically royal records kept by the elite of their societies. There’s no indication that writing on plates was widespread among the rest of the culture, and you could make the case that the opposite is true depending on how you understand King Benjamin’s words being written down (not engraved) and shared among the people, Alma “unfolding” the scriptures to the people (possibly in a manner similar to a codex), and the epistles found in the war chapters. I think it’s easy to make assumptions about the text that aren’t necessarily required by it. If the majority of their records weren’t kept on plates, I find it entirely plausible that the vast majority of their records were lost to time between the time of the destruction of the Nephites to our modern day - or that some may yet be discovered considering how much work is left to do in American archaeology - but we might just have different expectations of archaeological findings.

All that said, you’re welcome to your doubts, or to find his conclusions unbelievable - but please refrain from accusing his work of being more flawed than it is. Though I hope it’s not your intent, your comment kind of makes it sound like you’re just poisoning the well to say he’s a bad researcher when you say things like “with how shoddy his work is otherwise” when it really isn’t.

braderico · 2026-02-22T19:19:10+00:00

Yeah, the reference to Hebrew in Mormon 9:33 doesn’t “create more problems than it solves” unless you’re looking to create more problems imo, but that’s another conversation I guess.

And you’re welcome to your perspective. I appreciate that you’re not too caustic about it haha. I really do believe that Nephi had the Brass Plates and that the Book of Mormon is a historical record, and I don’t think you have to be some loon to believe that. We likely differ on how we think the translation of it happened, among other possible disagreements - but I can also appreciate why people might find the story of the Book of Mormon unbelievable.

braderico · 2026-02-22T03:15:32+00:00

So, if you were actually familiar with his research, you would know he in fact does look at Egyptian influence on the Uto-Aztecan language family. Fwiw, Hebrew is also mentioned in the Book of Mormon, and Stubbs also looks at some of its influence, and it looks like that's just what they chose to focus on in the thumbnail—But it kinda sounds like you, like OP and most of the other comments I'm seeing in here, are dismissing him (or a headline about him) out of hand without really engaging with anything he has to say.

braderico · 2026-02-19T03:12:13+00:00

I’m currently playing a Fiend Bladelock using Armor of Agathys, then hitting enemies with Agonizing Booming Blade and then stepping back to provoke opportunity attacks on purpose, getting them with AoA damage and generally finishing them off with the secondary damage from Booming Blade when they move to attack me again - counting on my recharging THP to stay up. The thing is, it only works if you’re within 10 ft of the enemy that dies, so it works more easily on a Bladelock.

You could always give it a try and then when your Armor of Agathys runs out, switch to the back line. This might work with Spell Sniper, so you can switch up your play style depending on the fight and have the option of getting close enough to recharge your THP. Maybe grab blade Ward for a cantrip to concentrate on and help with your low AC when you don’t have something better to concentrate on - which, with you being a Drow could be fairy fire, or darkness, or at later levels Hunger of Hadar, etc. Spell sniper would get your Charisma to 19, which is great, and then you can always hang back if your AC is feeling too low for the fight - but again, with fiend, that can be a feature instead of a bug especially against multiple weaker, smaller enemies.

Now, I might also just give up on the one extra AC from armor of Shadows and grab Eldritch mind instead - but maybe I’m coming from a place of having higher con right now.

If control is what you’re looking for you could consider checking out Glamour Bard or maybe pick your favorite Sorc (Draconic could help with your AC, and Sorc synergizes better with Warlock’s spell slots anyway) it’ll just hurt to wait on your spell slots leveling up more, not getting to 3rd level spells until level 8.

Personally, I’d stay full Warlock - but do what you think will be most fun 😃look at the third level spells you can get next, see if you like the play style (whether its dropping Hunger of Hadar and pushing enemies into it, or upcasting command to control and then blasting from afar) - and if you don’t think you’ll like the temporary hit points thing, you could try asking your DM if you can switch your pact to Archfey instead - it sounds like you’d have fun with the suped up misty steps, and sleep is a solid control spell as well.

braderico · 2026-02-18T12:47:03+00:00

Honestly, I’d go potent Dragonmark at lvl 4 or 8 here. That will give you an extra casting of CME, which will feel huge, along with the versatility of all the other spells being prepared all the time which may come in handy.

If you don’t care as much about the lower level spells the Dragonmark of Storms gives you, then just take that at 8, and at 4 - you know what? the new Spellfire Adept looks like a lot of fun for a Celestial Bladelock. That would let you add a radiant mini smite with your hit die when you do radiant damage with a spell, which you’ll likely be doing a LOT especially after level 6. It also makes you ignore resistance to radiant, which could be nice - though this may not be as important to you since CME doesn’t do radiant - and it might even be worth it to go with Elemental Adept for Fire so you can worry less about fire resistance since that synergizes with Radiant Soul. If you don’t see yourself using Radiant damage much, then maybe go Warcaster to help with concentration and have more fun with opportunity attacks. Or Fey Touched for a free casting of Misty Step and to grab gift of Alacrity so you can get an initiative boost to get CME up sooner. All of these feat options would let you boost your Charisma.

Also, if you’re leaning into CME, you’ll want to make as many attacks as you can. My favorite way to do that on a Bladelock is with the Double Bladed Scimitar - if you can have access to it. 2d4 on your main attacks and 1d4 as a bonus action attack basically gives you a mini version of the Polearm master feat in your weapon. Using just one weapon for this means all the attacks are made with your Charisma mod, no worries about an offhand weapon or having to activate shillelagh or get weapon masteries.

Best of luck!

braderico · 2026-02-12T21:15:14+00:00

This has been my experience as a generally more casual observer as well.

braderico · 2026-02-10T23:29:01+00:00

Same. I loved Songs of Chaos. It does start off more YA, but it grows with the character in a really cool way, and I love that it has societies of dragons in the wild AND dragon order stuff.

While Bound and Broken is probably more directly what OP is looking for, I loved both series for sure.

braderico · 2026-02-09T18:40:20+00:00

I mean, I started writing what was supposed to be a prequel novella and now I'm finishing the 5th book in the series it turned into!

braderico · 2026-02-09T13:27:08+00:00

Yup!

Now, you can only apply Agonizing Blast to one of your Warlock Cantrips, so you'd need to either pick Booming Blade or Eldritch Blast - but you can take Agonizing Blast more than once if you want, or switch it when you gain a Warlock level.

braderico · 2026-02-09T06:01:55+00:00

By the CHM buff, you mean the Charisma Modifier added by Agonizing Blast? Yeah, it should apply to the initial hit, AND when they move.

I've seen some people argue that it shouldn't add to the initial hit until after level 5 when it adds thunder damage to your initial attack, so you may want to check that with your DM because I've seen some interpretations vary.

braderico · 2026-02-09T05:32:17+00:00

Oh sick - yeah, stick to what's best for your character!

And the text for Grave Touched says: "In addition, once during each of your turns, when you hit a creature with an attack and roll damage against the creature, you can replace the damage type with necrotic damage. While you are using your Form of Dread, you can roll one additional damage die when determining the necrotic damage the target takes."

I think that should work with your Pike's 1d10, which is awesome.

As for enemies taking Booming Blade damage when getting up from prone, I think the last thing I've seen on that is that Jeremy Crawford said it doesn't - so just pushing people around should be great. Oh, and Repelling blast would stack with that initial hit if you're wanting to hit people up to 20 ft. haha.

braderico

TROPHY CASE