Chrono Trigger - Episode 3

Low Level Character Playtest - The Armored Mage - D&D5e

 So I played the armored mage that I wrote about last week.

I was level 10 though, so it wasn't the level 5 build, but it did bring in quite a bit of information for how I would want to change things.

So let's start with what I did, what worked, what was lacking, and what I would change.

What I Did

So I built this as a Minotaur. Since this was a one-shot, we had a bunch of magic items, so my focus was more on having an action economy. My DM let me use Hammering Horns after Booming Blade. So that I could boom someone then toss them over my head. I also had a belt that increased my strength, and a way to fly. While those helped keep me in play with everyone else, I really felt like there were things missing in the build.

What Worked

Booming Blade as an attack was just perfect. I could focus on my Intelligence almost exclusively and used a magic item to enhance my strength. At 5th level, you'll be doing weapon+str/dex+1d8 damage. It's nice and consistent. You also add those extra psi-warrior d6s for a few attacks per fight.

Leveling up as Artificer gave me access to Sanctuary, which is surprisingly a great tank spell when you have a support build in your group. Actually Artificer gave a lot of options for the character and was a great 3rd class to step into. I would definitely try to go, full Artificer, if I were to go into it though.

I never got hit, as for my saves though ... Arcane Deflection almost never came up by 10th level, because either I rolled too low or too high. I don't want to say no to it just because of these 5 fights though. But this does lead me to:

What Was Lacking

This build is very reliant on Reactions and had almost no Bonus Actions except for an Artificer spell and a racial ability.

The power level of spells wasn't very high, so you can really just hold on to Silvery Barbs (again a reaction!), and having magic missile as a ranged attack option, that you know will hit is very useful.

The build also wants so strongly to attack with Booming Blade and has no synergy with the extra attack from Fighter or Artificer in that regard. Which is why I started thinking:

What I Would Change

As far as subclass recommendations, I feel like Psi-Warrior leaves you over filled with reaction possibilities and didn't interact well with the spell casting aspects of the build, while it worked fine with Booming Blade, which is your focus. So, if you are not going past level 3, I would have to change the recommendation of Psi-Warrior, to perhaps Battle Master (for additional Maneuvers).

You really want to get a bonus action attack. My DM allowed my Minotaur to use hammering horns with Booming Blade, though the wording does make it less likely for other DMs to approve it. Eldritch Knight lets you do a bonus action attack after the cantrip, and later on, after casting a spell.

Either way, if you only go 3 fighter levels and don't go to a full 8 or 18, you will not get enough benefit from the Psi-Warrior aspect of the build.

The Armorer suggestion worked great, but like I said earlier, the spell levels never reached high enough, and so you were mostly sitting on reaction spells like shield, silvery barbs and feather fall. Actually, because of how this actually played out, getting Arcane deflection wasn't worth it even as a free mini shield spell. Instead, I think going with the new Bladesinger (which is open to more races and gives you an extra attack with a cantrip) is actually the stronger option, even though you literally can't bladesing in heavy armor. This would be my recommendation if going deeper into wizard levels.

In the end, I played with the Artificer 3rd class option. You really don't want to use your spells for attacking with this playstyle. While the Artificer class gave things to do, it also takes too long to gain the cool benefits, especially when it's your third multiclass and it doesn't really kick off with cool stuff until 6th and 10th levels.

This build is one of the few that I would say should focus on certain racial abilities. If your DM allows it, I'd go with a Centaur or Minotaur for bonus action hoofs or horn toss. Goblin also has a benefit that you can run up, Booming Blade, then disengage making them have to chase you and trigger the boom.

Thanks for Reading!

If you like this build, let me know over on twitter @PangoriaF

You can also support me on Ko-Fi where I sell dnd PDFs.

You can also gain exclusive access to other things I'm working on over on my Patreon.

I'm planning to do videos of these builds on my youtube channel.

If you need any special work done for your business or personal projects, check out Fiverr! It's a great place to get character drawings for your campaign!

Chrono Trigger - Episode 2

Hello Gaymers, it's your Retro Sovreign, Pangoria Fallstar!

This time we get play an oldie but a goodie with Chrono Trigger. So now it's time to see the past, the future, and everything in between so stay tuned.

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Low Level Character Concept - The Armored Mage - D&D5e

 I love DnD5e and I keep thinking about one of my first character ideas, the armored mage. The point of it is to be incredibly tanky. The build didn't actually work out. So let's look at the build concept and go from there.

Please forgive me if I gloss over some things that don't relate to the build at a level up. I assume you have some knowledge with the classes already.

Level 1 - Fighter

Whenever you're building a multiclassing build that has fighter, you usually go with the fighter 1 for the heavy armor proficiency.

So what stats do we need for our end goal and what do we get from fighter 1?

Strength: 15

Dexterity 10

Constitution 14 + 2 = 16

Intelligence 13 +1 = 14

Wisdom 12

Charisma 8

I recommend getting +2 to Constitution and +1 to Intelligence.

We need at least 13 intelligence to get wizard levels, but we don't need to worry about it for most spells, but we do want to get it up higher to help us hit later.

So we get all the basic fighter stuff (gear, strength and constitution saving throws, hit points and skills).

Get chainmail, martial weapon and shield, hand axes and your favorite of the two packs.

Fighting style we are picking up superior technique with menacing attack.

And we get 2nd wind.

Level 2 & 3 - Wizard 1 and 2

We go multiclassing right away! We want those defenses! We are going with War Wizard at level 2. I like getting Component Pouches when I go multi-classing.

You get 3 cantrips:

Booming Blade (V, M which is your weapon)

Sword Burst (V)

Anything Else, depending on the DM I would choose Mold Earth or Presto (avoid those with material components)

You get 6 first level spells:

Find Familiar (You only ever cast this again if the Familiar dies, and you can ritual cast it)

Silvery Barbs (V)

Shield (V, S)

Magic Missile (V, S)

Feather Fall (V, M) (if you can't get a Gem of the Warmage, just go ahead and get something else that doesn't require material components)

Sleep (V, S, M) (this is usually not always a combat spell, so its okay that it has a material component)

Then 2 more at 2nd level:

Fog Cloud (V, S)

Detect Magic (V, S) (Ritual)

You also get Arcane Deflection (what we are here for!) and Tactical Wit (bonus to initiative).

And that's the build! We are online at level 3. We attack with booming blade, and scare the enemy so they run away from us and trigger the booming blade. We use Arcane Deflection to keep attacks from hitting.

So where do we go from here?

After wizard is online, we don't need too much more from it

Level 4 & 5 - Fighter 2 and 3

We pick up action surge and then become a Psi Warrior fighter. Psi Warrior abilities key off of Intelligence. You get damage reduction ability, which deals extra damage, and the ability to move large to tiny objects from far away.

Future of the Build

Well that's it! That's the build. You are pretty much doing what you wanted to do. Which is Booming Blade with Menacing Attack. You just wait for a critical hit. You get to force the Booming detonation. You also get a reaction bonus to your AC and Saves. And there are a lot of really cool choices for you!

Fighter

You can level up any which way from here, including going 18 levels into Fighter (you get great subclass features from Psi-Warrior all the way up). If you do so, you'll want to use Future ASI to bump up intelligence.

That means Level 4, 6 and 8 gets you to Intelligence 20, which you will want because your attack combo is Booming Blade, Menacing Attack (Fear), Telekenetic Thrust (Prone).

You get War Caster after that. And get more techniques with any other ASIs after.

Now you Booming Blade the enemy to the ground and make them scared of you. They get up triggering the explosion from the blade. They go running away from you, and you reaction attack them with Booming Blade, they immediately trigger it again as they move out of your reach.

Artificer

You can also go Artificer. Battle Smith gives you a Robot Buddy, and you can go 15 levels and get the full Subclass features for it, which can all work with the build. If you go for this build, swap your intelligence and strength starting scores. You will also want to get to Artificer 3 as soon as possible.

Armorer Artificer also lets you do some true tanking, with an actual taunt. If you are planning to go this route, you can just not take Magic Missle for your Wizard level.

Either way, one of your first infusions should probably be Armor enhancement.

Artificer likes getting to level 10 if you don't go 15. This gives you 5 levels which you can use to get to Wizard 6 for extra force damage from War Wizard, or Fighter 8 which gives you 3 ASIs and the 2nd set of Psi-Warrior abilities.

Wizard

You can mix in Wizard levels as well, though I am personally not a fan of War Mage after the first couple of levels, you are still a Wizard, which is just.... amazing. If you go deep into this, you'll be a full caster. The war wizard capstone would give you like 21 damage across 3 targets (7 each) that they don't get a save from, every time someone attacks you. You'd still have 3 levels to get to Fighter 6 or Artificer 3.

If you are planning to take artificer levels (which should be Battle Smith if you are going wizard), I suggest taking those levels first before going 14 Wizard.

You can also take the full 17 levels of Wizard and have level 9 spells.

Thanks for Reading!

If you like this build, let me know over on twitter @PangoriaF

You can also support me on Ko-Fi where I sell dnd PDFs.

You can also gain exclusive access to other things I'm working on over on my Patreon.

I'm planning to do videos of these builds on my youtube channel.

If you need any special work done for your business or personal projects, check out Fiverr! It's a great place to get character drawings for your campaign!

Chrono Trigger - Episode 1

The (Un)characteristic Urge to Quit Retail

 or

How I'm Currently Feeling

It's difficult to go around and say, hey, lets do this work here and have to deal with customers. I'm telling you right now, customers are the worst. I love helping people but I hate customers. People I can deal with, customers are just transactional vampires, who want to make everything one-sided in their favor, while not actually spending the amount of money necessary to get those benefits.

A guest of mine, would understand my limitations, and what I can offer them. We work together to give them the value they can afford. I guide them through the help they need to accomplish their goals, and using my advice and guidance, they reach their goals, because they try.

Customers want things done for them. They want you to do the work. They do not, can not, and refuse to do the work. Customers are stupid, lazy, and often bigoted.

So how can we avoid customers in our life?

I think it's about how we present ourselves. We want to filter customers away quickly. Get them to give up and move on as fast as possible. That means, we want to set our boundaries with them and enforce them. If they feel hurt by those boundaries, that's not our fault. Because plenty of others work around our boundaries.

Say NO

So one of the first things I realized when I started to get tired of kowtowing to customers was that I valued myself higher than I valued their money for the company that fails to pay me enough to pay my rent. With that in mind, I learned to say NO.

And honestly, there's nothing quite like saying no to an old entitled white person. They get angry so quickly. I don't know if it's the shock or embarrassment that they should have known better, but they become so furious. Like cartoony in how their face deforms.

"Can I get the key to the bathroom?"

"No."

"Why not, why won't you let me use the bathroom?"

"Because someone is in there right now."

Take time OFF

I also do my best to stay away from my job. I use my sick time when I need it, even if its just because of a headache, or I woke up feeling mopey. I take my time off, and don't hold onto some grand vacation I'll never take and can't afford anyway.

I also make specific time for friends and family. Seriously, spend time with people that love you.

Also while at work, take your breaks. And don't feel like you have to be the person who handles the crazy customer. Excuse yourself and grab your manager. That's what they are getting paid for. For trouble.

Do not let customers dictate your mood

And focus on those wonderful guests of yours. They are the ones that make the work worth it.

Do not help those who will not help themselves

The frustration of it will be too difficult to be worth it. Ask them to try to do it themselves or tell them you will guide them.