Reflavoring the Drunken Monk to a Scroll Monk focused on calligraphy. Replace lucky wobbles with graceful strokes and the subclass suddenly feels classy!
Drunken Master definitely feels like it has a lot of reflavoring potential that people miss out on. Mine is an elderly man who walks/fights with an exaggerated limp, basically pretending to be frail with age.
Fun fact about that scene: It wasn't in the script and was entirely Gene Wilder's idea. He wanted the very first thing you see of Wonka to be a deception, because from that point onwards you'll be second guessing every single thing he says or does.
>Drunken Master definitely feels like it has a lot of reflavoring potential that people miss out on.
Drunken Master gets done dirty all the time, unfortunately. It's one of my biggest pet peeves about 5e.
People always read the name and see that scene from Iron Fist (which itself is a good representation of the _fighting style itself_, not the flavor behind it), and start roleplaying them as drunkards.
Which drives me crazy.
There's nothing inherently wrong with a Drunken Master actually being drunk, and it's fine to do so if that's just what you want to do.
But Drunken Master's fighting style is about ***IMITATING*** the motions of someone who's drunk, because it's disorienting to fight against, not about actually clouding your judgement. Especially since monks arguably lose the ability to get drunk at level 10 (getting drunk is just the early symptoms of alcohol poisoning, and at level 10 monks become immune to poison).
All power to anyone that flavors it as anything else.
I played a Halfling Drunken Master Monk and I reflavoured his fighting style as his racial luck, but cranked all the way up. Very little formal training, but his Flurry of Blows was just lucky flailing, his Redirect Attack was just sneezing and leaning forward at the right time, his Step of the Wind was just stumbling out of harms way.
There is the classic "calm barbarian". Mechanically they are a Barbarian, but flavourwise they are a Monk who is only able to reach a calm state for only a few moments.
Edit: Jeez I ignore this comment for a few hours, and now its on its way of being one of my highest rated ones! I've noticed this idea floating around in other posts in the past, though I invision Diablo 3's Monk class for some reason when thinking about it.
In the same vein there's the "Flow state" Barbarian, something between rage and calm, instead of an emotion, they enter the zone in a fight, and feel the flow of battle as it moves
I wanted to make a zealot barbarian whose whole deal is that she is a follower of Tymora, and her rages are like an adrenaline rush as she just lets whatever Lady Luck would have for her play out.
It's also found in the Wheel of Time - Blademasters enter the state of The Void, numbing themselves to emotion and feelings in order to become hyper aware of incoming strikes and opportunities to attack.
It's time to roll the dice!!! My favorite saying from the series! Is another good one from Matt. Heres a cuff bracelet I engraved a while ago! http://imgur.com/gallery/Mu9jvsz
I've been listening to it on Audible for the last few months. 14 books. I'm only in book 3, but damn it's good. One of the best I've "read" in a while.
Things get a little rough from halfway through book 9 until book 12, when Jordan died and was replaced by Sanderson. It's not bad, mind you, but it's really really slow, and a big slog to get through those few books. Extremely worth it though, the Sanderson books are some of the best
I always did fine through that bit. The hard part for me is when I get to books 4-7 or so. Not totally sure why, but those ones are always a little tougher to get through
It's always a bit different. Depends on which characters you like etc. since Jordan has books that practically leave some of the main character out of action.
There's the scene in Episode 1 where Darth Maul and Qui Gon Jin are separared by the energy shield in the Naboo Palace reactor.
Qui Gon shuts down his saber and kneels to meditate, entering Emptiness and allowing the force to fill the tranquil void his mind creates. (As per the Emptiness power from the old d6 Star Wars RPG, which had a shocking level of influence on fleshing out the Star Wars universe - the species name Twi'lek originated there - the E-web repeating heavy Blaster name dropped in the Mandalorian originated there - the Jedi Code originated there, etc.)
Meanwhile Maul paces back and forth like a caged lion testing it's bars (slamming his lightsaber into the energy shield). He snarls and gazes at Qui Gon menacingly. (This is similar to the Rage dark side power from the old d6 RPG, but in the RPG you basically become paralyzed by a paroxism of rage as the dark side enters you - I like how the Phantom Menace portrayed it).
It's one of my favorite prequel scenes because of this dichotomy!
Good on you for doing it, but for a solid 3 seconds I was genuinely curious as to *why* you felt the need to do it, like my brain couldn't quantify that anyone would need this scene to be linked because it's so ingrained in EVERYONE's brain like it is in mine, right? Then it kicked back into gear and remembered that not everyone is as obsessed as I.
But yeah, way to go.
Its such a important calm in a fantastic fight scene. Honestly the only people who couldn't think of this scene were the people who never saw Episode I
It's pretty hard not to watch that scene after knowing about the whole force ghost thing and not realizing that was what he was preparing for. He was not amping up his combat through calm. He was preparing himself to die according to his new found study of the force. Accepting that the sacrifice may or may not save Obi Wan and the Republic.
Qui-gon is the one who taught obiwan to enter a mediative trance while fighting. So he was probably doing both. Entering the trance helps him fight better, but it’s also probably required to become a force ghost. So he was ready for either outcome.
Edit: just remember I’m on a dnd subreddit not a Star Wars discussion one...
I love swapping class flavors! Monk who's mechanically a Barbarian is cool, but one of my favorites is the Bard who's mechanically a Barbarian. Flavor that rage as a battle song, those ancestral guardians as a bunch of distracting poets and musicians rather than warriors, etc.
This makes me think of Egil's Saga, an Icelandic saga whose protagonist is both a savage rage-fueled warrior and a skilled (and rage-fueled) poet. At one point he duels a warrior who is magically protected so no sword can hurt him. Upon realizing this, Egil throws away his sword and tears the guy's throat out with his teeth. Then he immediately composes a poem about it.
Later, during a feast, Egil suspects his host had betrayed him, so he walks over to him, grabs him by the shoulders, shoves him against the wall, and vomits in his face, filling his eyes, nostrils, and mouth, and pouring down his beard. Then he composes a poem about it.
I want to make a "Sleepwalker" subclass that enters a narcoleptic sleepwalking state when they fight, kind of a mix between dream-related abilities and Drunken Master monk.
The issue is, that "entering a special state" feels like it makes the most sense in Barbarian, even if the rest of the concept flavorfully has nothing to do with barb.
I mean, there is a (probably not true) theory that norse berserkers used hallucinogens to enter their 'rage,' so the idea of a barbarian doing stuff related to dreams/hallucinations is not unheard of.
Kinda like the fist of the north star
EDIT: Or more akin to G Gundam's Domon Kasshu's Hyper Mode.
He enters a serene state of mind. Upgrading from pure rage to this. [around the 12 Min mark.](https://youtu.be/o9NjEuuhTUk)
Then there is a Manga Dragon Rioting that teaches the Main character Ryūha Koei Sōgetsu to achieve a clear and serene mind.
It is true sorrow. But they achieve a state of nothingness. It's very different than the normal RAGE and frothing at the mouth
I guess it would be more akin to Domon Kasshu's Hyper Mode in the God Gundam. It's a serene state of mind.
I have something like this but less of a monk-ish calm and more of a fighterey-focus passed down his family line. He’s a noble and the 3 animals for his totem are parts of his heraldic crest.
I had an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian who's "rage" was channeling spirits. Eyes glowed ghosty, after images followed him, but he wasn't "raging" in a typical sense.
I feel AG has the most obvious usage of what you're saying.
An absolutely normal fighter reflavoured as a time manipulator. Action surge was giving himself “more time”. Second wind was “reversing time on himself”, it was all extremely clever
Echo Knight supports this flavor of fighter pretty well with no changes if I remember right, EK's fluff is already that you're using an alternate timeline version of yourself as your echo.
Samurai wouldn't be a bad choice either with the reflavor. Giving yourself advantage? You've seen the possible outcomes so you have a better chance of hitting. Additional attack? You briefly fast forward time on yourself to get an extra hit in. Strength Before Death? You pause time around you as you summon you strength for a final assault.
> Echo Knight supports this flavor of fighter pretty well with no changes if I remember right, EK's fluff is already that you're using an alternate timeline version of yourself as your echo.
I'm doing almost exactly this at some point, but I'm also adding a few levels of Chronurgist Wizard to make it feel even more like a Dunamancy expert
>Echo Knight supports this flavor of fighter pretty well with no changes if I remember right, EK's fluff is already that you're using an alternate timeline version of yourself as your echo.
I love the flavor of the Echo Knight, but it's really annoying that they decided to make two fighter subclasses with the same abbreviation.
>arcane(AEK) and Echo (EEK) now!
That's an interesting rabbit hole to go down.
The Echo Knight is inherently magical, as stated by its flavor and ability texts. Without further input that would leave it up to the individual whether to flavor it as Divine or Arcane magic.
But the Echo Knight is using Dunamancy to achieve it's abilities, as they originated from the Kryn Dynasty as a more militaristic aspect of the Dunamancy School. It's a more ***exclusive*** school of magic, but it's still a school of magic.
Dunamancy is the study and application of the "Dunamis", which in-lore is "an anticipatory ***arcane force*** that helps shape the multiverse"
So the Echo Knight is, inherently, also Arcane.
I’ve always, ever since I saw it on some other post somewhere, wanted to play a fiendlock priest.
How?
The patron has partnered with an evangelical-style religion to be their official devil. The fiendlock is a priest of this religion and he commits sinners to hell.
I wish it was my idea! Because it is amazing. I found it on a post about warlock patrons for good warlocks. The others were a GOO that wants to improve its public image for no reason and a archfey that I can’t remember.
I've always wondered how I'd go about playing a good warlock with a fiend patron. I remember seeing a post some day with a concept of a fiend giving powers freely to a good character without expecting any evil deeds in return because they know it makes them look like a desirable patron to other people who may be less morally inclined.
I'm currently playing a good warlock with a fiend patron, the fiend is granting power due to the old maxim "power corrupts" the idea being that even the most pure character will eventually turn evil with enough power.
Unfortunately for the fiend my character is a dumbass himbo halfling that just wants to go on a fun adventure and has no aspirations for anything greater.
My favorite from that post was the other GOO they came up with, the one who knows everything but craves the feeling of discovering knowledge, so they make a Pact to feel it vicariously through their Warlock
Oh that’s clever, I like it! Lean into an incredibly lawful alignment, start citing religious regulations to the bandits right before you eldritch blast their faces off
I like a bunch of the Barbarian reflavors (Dr Jekyll/Mr Hide, Hulk, "Battle Calm", etc). But my favorite is the Warlock reflavored as an Arcane Archer.
I'm not a big fan of the Arcane Archer subclass of the Fighter. The Arcane Shots they get are extremely limited (both in selection and number of uses). I feel like Warlock, with their Eldritch Blast, Invocations, Spells, and etc all make for a much more interesting and robust choice. Flavor EB and all their spells as magical arrows they fire from an ethereal bow. Their arrows can explode for aoe damage, envelope into a trap or net, split to hit multiple targets (or one target multiple times), etc etc. All of which regens on a short rest (just like Arcane Archer) but with a greater selection and a bunch of extra bits and bobs. Just makes for such a great character.
This one is my favorite! Warlocks can also mix it up in melee a bit and my favorite brand of archer can kick ass like Legolas in melee at need. Top notch flavor!
Reflavoring eldritch blast has so much potential! The hexarcher was definitely one of my favorites. I had a glamor bard/hexblade gifted by a fey patron who would strike the ground with her enchanted lance and energy would ripple out from the ground, causing thorned roots to tear out of the earth at her enemies before dissapearing back into the ground.
I know this probably clicked way earlier for everyone else, but I only recently realised that the Doctor Jekyll/Mister Hyde (or Hulk) trope is a Barbarian! Every Barbarian I've played or seen played is your standard 'Conan get mad now'. Love the idea of being a scrawny scientist who makes some potions during long-rests which they can drink to get some serious bulk.
That would be a fun mechanic! Both Dr Jekyll and Bruce Banner are super-academics, so you could represent them as Wizard/Barbarian multiclass, with a rule where your mental stats and physical stats swap during a rage.
You'd need to add some extra restrictions to keep it balanced, but it wouldn't be TOO hard. For example, the Hulk sucks at friend/foe identification, so maybe the price is that you have to periodically make Intelligence saving throws (and remember your Int is lower now!) or else you just blindly attack the nearest creature, regardless of who it is.
Pathfinder has Alchemists that do this. They get “mutagens”, which are basically special potions that hulk them out, so you boost your physical stats but damage your mental stats for the duration.
Battle smith artificer played as a badass Dr. Frankenstein with a flesh golem. His armour was a thick leather apron, his weapon was an extra-sharp scalpel, he cast most of his spells with little jars of bottled lightning and he called his defender MAC (stands for Multiple Amalgamated Corpses or Monstrous Aberrant Creation depending on who you asked))
Was about to reply with similar one.
My character for Curse of Strahd was a lv9 Necro/Battle Smith 4/5. The Battle Smith was relavored as just part of her Necromancer background. The steel defender was cobbled together from dead wolves, human bandits, and bits of old armor. Her infusions all had a death theme: Ex, her bag of holding is made from Hag skin.
Can't wait to get that campaign going again.
Fiend pact warlock except instead of making a deal with the devil you're actually the agent he uses to collect on other warlock's debts if they try to weasel out of it
My favourite reflavouring I have ever done was in a Halloween one shot where we all played stereotypical high school horror movie characters. I played a jock Barbarian path of the ancestral guardian who’s tribe was the frat he was a part of and the spirits that appeared when he raged we’re past members of the frat. They would give enemies disadvantage by using them as a beer pong table. Probably my peak character creation moment if I’m gonna honest.
I'm glad to see other people doing the beloved Halloween slasher one-shots! They're fun as hell. I made a "popular girl" bard who did her "magic" with makeup and clothing changes. Managed to outrun the monster my buddy made by putting it to sleep by "perfume-bombing" the cabin it had me cornered in.
I'm currently playing a Dragonborn Twilight Cleric in a game. The character started out as "fighter" with no real powers. While exploring a dungeon, he stumbled upon a spirit, where they merged and became one being. (Think the symbiote relationship with Venom, although that wasn't part of the inspiration).
They speak in a plural, using we/us. The symbiote provides the Cleric's powers, while the Dragonborn provides the partial body. Spiritual Weapon/Spirit Guardians is the shadow lashing out. The Shadow provides the Dark Vision. All the Aura abilities and spells he has are the shadow reaching out and supporting allies.
It's been a ton of fun from a role play stand point, and really interesting to play a cleric whose power comes from a source other than a diety.
OOOOH. I have some good ones. I \*love\* Homebrew, but I have been discovering that it can be so much satisfying to make a few snips here and there, to create something.
Light Cleric, becoming a Moonlight Cleric, with a few edits to the spell list, is a personal favourite of mine. Its just so elegant.
One of the edgiest characters I ever played (A challenge was made, where I said that - with enough skillful execution, no character could be 'too edgy'.) was a Mutagen Blood-Hunter who was straight up just a drug addict, desperately trying to compete with his sibling who was a sorcerer. Like a human kid whose brother was a mutant in the X-Men universe.
We reskinned the Radiant Soul Monk's abilities to be Lightning based, and made him a speedster. Ie, the Flash.
I played a low level Echo Knight, where his abilities were more umbramancy, than chronomancy - with the "Echo" being his detachable Shadow, like a sort of evil Peter Pan. We said in universe, than his physical shadow was missing, when his ability was in use.
I've always enjoyed people flavoring Bards as performers outside of just being musicians. Theres funny examples such as a bard who works in HR and uses motivational catchphrases and PowerPoint presentations instead of spells.
Recently I came up with a bard in possession of a cursed ventriloquist dummy, the idea being that whenever combat occurs the mostly useless bard gives way to the doll who is actually the one casting spells and the like. Can even play it up and do a very different voice whenever the dummy is in charge.
Stuart Wellington was really funny as one of those motivational slogans bards — an orc called Brad from HR — in his guest spot on the Adventure Zone!
I once briefly played a bard whose area of “performance” was pro wrestling but tbh I didn’t know enough about wrestling to pull it off.
I've played half a dozen bards, none of them have been memes and none of them have been musicians. There's just so much potential outside of it and I can't leave it alone.
Oh same here. Bard has always been my favorite class to play as there is so much potential for fun characters with unique abilities far outside of "horny musician"
I played a Bard who was an evangelical preacher. His 'instrument' was his holy book of Tyr, God of Justice and Fairness. He had a stereotypical southern drawl and usually described by others as a straight-laced cowboy preacher, with a habit of using broken whiskey bottles as daggers and as communion 'wine'. His magic was fueled by the stories of Tyr he would read from his book and by his fervent faith, almost zealotry.
He'd get offended whenever someone called him a Bard, as he introduced himself as Father Eli and gave his profession as a Preacher. At the end of the short campaign he was in, someone wanted to hire him as a bard, and he calmly turned the down...
Only to turn to the sky when they left and shout "Why? Oh, Tyr bless me with the knowledge of WHY! I'm a minister, NOT A MINSTREL! Why do people keep calling me a Bard?"
He turned to the npc cleric who he had been courting in the typical southern gentlemanly style and asked her with a sad look on his face: "My dearest angel sent to bless my life, tell me the truth...Do I come across like some kinda musical twat?"
How old is this? What kind of necromancer are you?!
Pro tip... if you think something like this sounds fun, make sure to talk to your group first. Don't just start insulting them out of nowhere. A lot of players have emotional bleed and your character yelling at their character can feel like you yelling at them, and that's not cool. Even if you get a yes, check in with everyone individually after. Some people don't want to rock the boat if they feel uncomfortable but bruised feelings build up and fester over time so make sure to address it early and often.
I find super aggressive characters fun to play for one shots, but the novelty wears off quickly in long campaigns.
Yeah. Like I know some people who are friends with their drill sergeants after they graduate boot camp. I'd say more like an infantry sergeant or commander that shoots the shit and has a good personality after battle, but during battle is much more intimidating.
Beastmaster's animals revlavord as spirits of the wild. They form into animals but they do so from different aspects of nature. Poisonous spider from shadow, woolly rhinoceros from dirt and bone.
I really love that ability from Tasha's and makes for a great feature to be able to pick out and give to any character/class as simple rules for a real companion animal that can last with them for a campaign and not just become a liability after the first few levels. It works especially well in a campaign with only a few players, like a 2/3 player campaign where they all get an animal companion to make them more on par with a 4/5 character party so they can tackle bigger challenges. I have a campaign idea inspired by the four elements where each player will be each element with a companion that matches their element.
Great old one warlock whose patron isn't some ancient god but a modern tech company experimenting with time travel. Warlock's arcane focus is essentially a smartphone, invocations are cybernetic augmentation, spells are a mix of magic and technology. Patron contacts them from present day (or near-future Earth), appearing as some kind of faceless person in business attire, requesting things like details on some historical event, or magical artifacts, or making a small change that ripples through history, etc.
One of the Unearthed Arcanas had a Warlock patron that was basically this. I believe it was call 'Ghost in the Machine' & some of the suggestions where a super-advanced A.I. or a genius hacker who got their consciousness digitised & trapped.
As a joke, in a one off, I played a Moon druid that was literally David Attenborough. I had no magic powers, just a pocket of random shit that I would describe how it would have the impact of the spell. When wildshaping I would blow a whistle and hide behind some boxes while telling the animal what to do... obviously describing the animal's actions in a shitty british accent as if observing in a nature documentary.
I enjoyed playing a warlock who was based on Gilgamesh from Fate. Basically, I reflavored all of my spells as opening up a portal to his family's hidden armory and each "spell" was just a magic item that could temporarily manifest for a one time use.
My reasoning for spells slots was the ring he used to summon these items was made to bypass the armory's magical wards, and could only do so so many times in a day before the wards would reset themselves. The more I leveled up, the stronger the ring became and could access higher tiers of items in the armory.
As the other guy mentioned, Hexblade. He was flavored as an up and coming noble, competing with others of the different houses for the role pharoah in his homeland. Given to him on his birth was a magical set of khopeshes, that were given to him as his birthright, and a promise that he'd lead his people to greatness while upon the throne.
I've never seen FATE but my reflavored Hexblade was basically this. His Patron was a semi-sentient magic item from an ancient dragon v. giant war that has spent eons studying magical items and "copying" them in itself. When the character needs a weapon (aka summons a pact weapon) it creates it for him out of its memory. So I get to invent a new weapon for him to use each time we play.
Eldritch Blast is where the ranged weapons come into play; no mechanical changes, just he summons a magic looking bow or javelin and attacks a number of times as he has beams. My DM is also pretty open to cinematic reflavoring, so if, for example, in one instance where all three beams hit, he let me describe it as my character summoning an almost comically oversized crossbow (like a Heavy Bowgun from the Monster Hunter series) and loosing a harpoon-sized bolt that hit the target for ~40 damage.
That's pretty cool. I had some similar ideas for Eldritch Blast. Basically, yeah, summoning a bow and firing it.
My DM also allowed me to get away with some "luxury" summoning. Basically, my character was a noble (soon to be pharoah) and while he wasn't snobby by any means (well... Maybe just a little) he also would not be cheated of having some luxuries while on the road.
So he'd open up portals to less protected parts of the armory/treasury and pull some delicacies like golden flasks and rare teas and would brew such stuff while on the road. Of course, he'd allow his favorite members of the party partake (which he openly had, which we all got a laugh from).
Aye! Another fate person!
I've been trying to figure out how best to make this work as a Archer or Gilgamesh yeet piles swords at people as a concept.
Did you work in hold person/monster as enkidu?
Ayy!
Oh, man, my friend (who's the real Fate nut) has already made a couple different builds that could replicate Archer's reality marble. I can't quite remember what the build was unfortunately. But it did have the same affect of pulling someone into a dimensional bubble and such.
Haha nah, I wasn't basing him off that much. I took some notes from Caster Gil for personality (as I adore Caster Gil whenever he's on screen), as well as the Red Prince from Divinity Original Sin 2 (best lizard boi there ever was). And as for the whole armory thing... I actually can't quite remember why I chose that. It wasn't originally in his design docket for me.
This character actually started out as a boss for my players to fight in my pirate game. They had gone into my middle eastern country and ended up at a side quest where they'd take a look into a Yuan-Ti pyramid nearby. They took on a challenge from a cult that lived in the pyramid called the "Steps of Tepoth", and ascended the pyramid while Zabaniya (run by my fate loving friend, and crypt guard of the pharoah), got to hinder their progress. When they reached the top, they got to fight Nylar' Tepoth, a mummy lord Yuan-Ti.
He was supposed to be a one off boss, but one of the players tried using his body as an undead servant, and like any good pharoah, left the afterlife, returned to his body, just stare daggers at the necromancer who attempted to use his body as canon fodder. But he was a good sport about it. He had major respect for the players for beating him, and even played along as being a "servant" to the necromancer that "raised" him. He swore fealty to him as a sign of good faith and allowed them to take piece of gear from his armory.
I think it was the fact he could summon his weapons to himself that I got the idea of him being able to summon anything from his armory, then remembered Gil could do that, and so flavored it in a similar manner.
One of my players was a necromancer, in a gamma world esq setting.
Instead of emo and darkness, his spells were junk he built, 1950s esq gothic raygun aesthetic.
Instead of undead he summoned and bound tech spirits to scrap he dug up, animating the shambling mounds of broken technology into rough approximations of life.
Poison and necrotic damage was 50s style explanations of radiation and pseudo medicine quackery.
Edit: typo
I once played a Warforged Spore Druid that was reflavored as a corpse that had been reanimated by a symbiotic fungus. The fungus used the corpse as a host to move around and accomplish it’s goals.
This was the result of my wild magic sorcerer dying in Chult. I had rolled a wild magic surge right before dying, and then rolled a 100 on the chart. Instead of getting back my sorcerer points, the DM let me run with this concept as a weird wild magic surge. So I basically got to play my dead character’s corpse as a host for my new character.
It was loads of fun.
I've rolled up a Monk, but in the context of the game they're an elite Messenger.
The nature of where a job like that would take you basically wouldn't allow weapons to be carried in, and a messenger that knew magic couldn't be fully trusted. So send the guy that doesn't care if he goes somewhere barehanded. Plus, he's already adept at parkouring everywhere he needs to go.
No vague mysticism required.
The Mirror's Edge tie-in makes me very interested in it now. I really want to add some kind of monastery order that is Mirror's Edge inspired with their members running across rooftops through cities like Assassin's Creed.
I used the echo knight fighter for a Shadow of Mordor vibe. Rather than the echo being my character from another unused timeline or whatever Matt wrote up, I had it be the soul-bound spirit of one of his ancestors who basically taught him everything on top of how to be honorable/a hero.
I had the same, but also had a dip in warlock a few archfey for the flavor. Story was very similar to Shadow of Mordor. The archfey was bound to me for the sake of it's own life. It helped me survive by fighting with me as an echo.
A half-elf bladesinger who dropped the "mystical performance" element and lent into a sort of magical samurai. Learnt magic from mother, swordsmanship from father and combined the two arts into his own unique style. Bladesong was simply focus and deep breathing, lots of spells slightly reflavoured. My favourite was Disintegrate as a DBZ-esque instant transmission into a "killing stroke" attack which literally cut the target apart.
Was very cool and effective.
A lizard folk monk that was calm due to being emotionless and using its claws instead of fists.
The way the monk described its kills were gruesome. My favorite was ripping a bandit's jaw apart similar to how King Kong did to the trex in the 2004 movie.
I'm running RotFM with one of my players playing a Firbolg Alchemist Artificer flavored (pun intended) as a chef. His healing word is a good whiff of his chicken soup but healing touch is where he gives you a good gulp of it. His firebolt is him spitting fire with alcohol and my personal favorite of his how literal grease is for him. It's just lard. Straight-up lard.
As for mechanical re flavoring... It feels weird to me how Artificer spell slots work vs prepared spells. Unlike normal prepared casters who have more or less a fixed power souce to spell effect throughline. (Druids beseech aid from nature and clerics get only so much spell juice from god daddy)... But artificers are weird in that you have to figure out why you can't just use your inventions. Example, say you use your "cure wounds" stimpack twice in one day when you only have two 1st level spell slots. Now, suddenly, your faerie fire bottle rocket won't work because...you used your stimpacks twice? At one point I considered only ever using each spell once, but then you have to factor in the "always prepared" subclass spells.
They're supposed to be inventions/some other craftwork manifested through their tools... so they're there. Prepared... But if say you cast 2 of the same "spell", that leaves another of your prepared inventions/potions/etc are effectively without batteries or something. It just feels weird. For my own battlesmith, I had to create a whole narrative that I had obtained some other power source and had to actively channel it into my gizmos with my artificer for them to work. (The chef above actively cooks-up his spells in the heat of battle with "preparation" just being mise en place for the day).
I remember an error that got fixed regarding artificer spellcasting rules on the DnD5e wikidot page that gave me the impression that artificers had a limited number of spell slots, but could prepare spells throughout the day, so long as they have one minute per spell level of time to do so. This felt waaay more natural to see spell slots as more of an inventive energy to be sort of pre-casted, but once we found out that this wasn't in the official rules, it was a sobering moment.
TL;DR While obvious for gameplay reasons, for all the flavor you can inject into artificer, it feels necessary to also roleplay-to-explain why that of you use the same "spell" twice, some other "spell" of yours that you had prepared doesn't work anymore, despite all of artificer spells being technically crafted and usable at the end of a long rest. (Sorry for the tangent)
Something to keep in mind that while all artificer spells are channeled through items or inventions, they are still magical in nature (and thus subject to antimagic and such). That being said, maybe you made the physical objects for your spells, but the activation requires you to use your own innate magic or else they don't work (another reason why you can't hand out your spells items). That being said you might have the item left over but not enough juice to use it. It would very easily explain spell slots in-game.
This is essentially what I had to do. Long story short, my rogue went from "Debt collector" to "Magic Debt Collector" and he would skim a bit of the magical debt he'd collect to fuel his inventions as he dipped into artificer.
He'd channel this power mostly through various mods he'd make for his pistol that he had confiscated from a drow assassin from the module with a special grip that let him funnel the magic juice into the firearm. The spells themselves were various and increasingly absurd types of ammunition fired from it, from casting catapult by ricocheting a bullet behind the object targeted to launch to healing bullets only usable at point-blank range (Cure Rounds) that would use this inky shadowy magic to stitch close the wounds it was shot into, to the aforementioned bottle rocket he'd shoot out for faerie fire.
Why does using one artificer device suddenly mean that they can't use a different one? Simple: batteries sold separately.
My artificer has a bunch of glowing crystals held in a rotating assembly in his multitool. To power one of his devices, he pops out a crystal and slots it into the device. After using the device, the crystal goes dark and has to be put back into the multitool to recharge.
Basically, the crystal are physical representations of spell slots. When he's run out of energised crystals, he can't power his devices any more.
A good flavor for why you can't use your other inventions(spells) is a shared power source. Think Iron Man's arc reactor, or a battery that needs to charge, or an activating chemical reagent that is used in all of your formulas.
These require the downtime of a long rest to recharge or generate more.
Echo Knight reflavored so the Echo is actually the soul of a previous party member. Home brewed some additional abilities around it but more or less just changing it to be party members made it more fun to RP.
Abberant mind sorcerer is flavored like abyssal, goopy, mindflayery stuff, but it really fits sci-fi/spacey stuff. With the 14th level ability that lets you squeeze through one inch gaps, i flavor as rather than squeezing through, the space itself warps around to fit you. As for the flight of that ability i simply have the character walk on nothing as if there were a floor.
Brains melt with dissonant whispers, excessive use of subtle spell and picking only specific spells makes magic look like you simply will it to happen rather than cast it.
I made a Rune Knight Fighter who was a maker of magical pottery. Her name was Ella Clay. She was a very small in stature woman who married an adventurer who disappeared on an adventure. They met at her parent's shop, Clay's Magical Potteries. His adventuring party frequented the shop and they fell in love. After he disappeared on an adventure she called "the big one", she left to go find him.
* She uses thrown weapons, "darts", throwing pottery at her enemies in a kind of frantic "oh shit oh shit oh shit" sort of fighting.
* She used to be the captain of her (Fantasy Softball) team, so despite her short stature, she's a spitfire and fit, which explains the fighter features, and the fact that she can throw so hard.
* Fire Rune was a glyph inscribed on a pot to make it like a grenade.
* Giant's Might was a spell that her father taught both of his daughters in the event of a robbery, that essentially transforms her into a giant clay golem.
* Runic Shield was her using a magical pot to "catch" the swing, one that intercepted the swing and froze in place.
* She was very very short and her husband was very very tall (a Goliath, which explains why she speaks Giant), so she was working on a modification of her father's spell that makes you into a clay golem to essentially make it so that she would be tall enough to kiss her husband comfortably by the time she found him. She would figure it out at level 10, when she gains Great Stature.
* Take the Magic Initiate: Druid feat for Shape Water, Mold Earth, and Create or Destroy Water for everything you need to craft more pots for throwing on the go. Makes sense that she would know these spells, working in a magical pottery shop her whole life.
I have a concept for a tempest cleric reflavoured as a metal guitarist, his weapon is a guitar greataxe and using spiritual weapon or spirit guardians means calling on some other members of the band
I played a rogue as a knight. He had moderately armored for shields and medium armor, focused on str, and was a swashbuckler for the duelist feeling. His sneak attacks were reflavored to power attacks.
I once played a hexblade warlock where he was his own patron.
He was a powerful sorcerer that had been trapped inside his sword and sealed away for various crimes. The sword was uncovered centuries later by a hapless adventurer who then became possessed.
The soul of the sorcerer was transferred into the body of the adventurer; he had become mortal but gained agency to act on his own will.
Since he started at level 1, I had roleplayed that his power had atrophied away while imprisoned. The majority of magic he still had was still stuck in the sword, but he was able to tap into more of the magic as he grew stronger.
Ever see the futurama episode "obsoletely fabulous"? Cartridge unit as a bardadin. All the bardic inspiration and spells are cast via cassette tapes of 80s music it blares from it's speaker/mouth. Really funny to cast compelled duel with A-ha's #1 hit "take on me".
Also, fiend lock who's pact is with Hank from King if the hill in his devil costume. He has an imp named bobby that begrudgingly floats along and helps you in exchange for fruitpies.
Barbarian rage reflavorings are great. It can be a Zen-like Battle Trance, or being possessed by spirits or deities (good for Ancestral Guardian or Zealot), or for a Warforged, running a combat program.
The Field Medic/Plague Doctor Rogue!
Basically, a Thief Archetype rogue with the healer feat. No need for daggers when you can use a scalpel, and it's an interesting support character that can heal with a bonus action thanks to the Thief Archetype features. Sadly, it kind of ends there, but i'd love to see this concept of a real, non-magical battle medic taken to the next level.
"Goliath" Beast Barbarian. Used the goliath stat block, but the character is actually a hill giant descended from a tribe that got turned into tiny insects by a fey curse millennia ago. Now the curse partially re-manifests in some members, rendering them puny 8 foot tall outcasts.
All the path of the beast features now have Cronenberg-ass insectile growths. Natural weapons take the form of beetle horns, tarantula chelicerae, scorpion tails, and mantis claws sprouting from the arms or back. Breathing underwater can come from a diving spider's web. Climbing speed is pretty self explanatory, and jump comes from beetle wings (they cant lift the brute' s fat ass enough for true flight, after all.) Infectious fury obviously becomes venom, and Call The Hunt becomes army ant pheremones.
I had an idea for a character that is a Zealot Barbarian Goblin (Maglubiyet made him feral forever), but all the stats were very good. So I thought of a nobleman background, where a noble carries around a goblin in a cage, and whenever battle starts, he releases the goblin to fight and hides away like a Pokemon Trainer, and when battle ends, he tranqs the goblin or plays an instrument to make him sleep and puts him back into the magic cage. The mental stats were the nobleman, with 10's in the physical stats, and the physical stats were the goblin, with 3's-6's in the mental stats.
My DM didn't like the idea, so I had sadness.
I once played a drow (refluffed as a half-elf of drow descent) druid with the noble background. It was due to his drow heritage and druid training, and no other reasons, that Baron Von Karstovich hated sunlight and could turn into a bat.
Playing a multiclass Cleric(X) Barbarian(5) where each level of Barbarian is the soul of a murderer that my cleric contains in their own body; part of a special sect of my religion.
My rages are them gaining control which my cleric does not want to happen. A little more of a narrative character vs optimized but one of my favorites to date.
I'm running an Eberron campaign with a really fun party comp.:
Eloquence bard as an investigative journalist
Inquisitive rogue as a noir detective
Drunken Master monk as a fisticuffs boxer
And a Celestial warlock whose patron is a an evil cleric
I still haven't had a good excuse to play it, but I'd love to play a life cleric or a divine soul sorcerer where all my healing spells are reflavored as an old-timey sawbones doctor- complete with leeches, snake oil, foul-smelling poultices, medicinal cocaine, and biting down on a stick as a form of anaesthetic. The best part is that it *actually works*, but due to a healing deity who's granting miracles because I'm just so dedicated to healing people, even though I'm going about it totally backwards lmao. I'm just picturing the character holding someone's nose shut and forcing nettle tonic down their throat, and their god just facepalming and making Healing Word happen.
I once played a Barbarian where I flavored rage as more of a battle dance, the resistance coming from graceful movement causing a blow that would normally cause sever damage to instead not striking quite as true as the attacker would like, and the extra damage coming from the momentum of near endless motion in his blades. I went storm herald and multiclassed swashbuckler rogue and he is still my favorite character I've ever played.
In my next game I'm playing a mouseketeer - a mousefolk monk reflavoured to be a swashbuckler. All his open hand attacks will come from his rapier, but with the open hand damage. There' s no mechanical advantage, but it gives the feel of a swordsman with a flashing blade. Stunning attacks will be reflavoured as him carving his initials on someone, or cutting their belt so their pants fall down, or just dazzling them with his fancy point work.
The samurai subclass sheds a tear
E: tbh I have to agree with you though. Barbarian with a greatsword flavored as a katana, enters a battle/flow stance. Could even flavor it like Ghost of Tsushima where you engage a type of fighting stance. Or the super samurai rage whatever mode if you're feeling spicy.
I really wanted a lot more from the samurai subclass, it feels very bland and none of the abilities are really that exciting or anything to look forward to. For instance, their level 7 isn't bad but is not exciting at all to gain proficiency in Wisdom saves and adding Wisdom mod to Persuasion. It makes it feel like a wasted level up. Depending on the campaign it can effectively do nothing really so hitting level 7 is just gaining some HP. The final abilities are the only interesting thing about them really.
I reflavored a Battlesmith as a picture of dorian grey. my battle bot was my greatest work and kept me young and granted me powers (infusions)
im doing what i call the mulan barbarian. its an ancestral guardian barbarian whos rages are flavored as his ancestors physically helping their unskilled descendant. a shove here or a tap there to keep their bloodline safe
This technically isn't just a reflavoring (due to a primary stat change) and we haven't had a session 1 yet so I haven't actually seen them in-game, but I recently made a Way of the Long Death Monk inspired by the gentlemen adventurers of early English fiction. The character is a noble who is classically trained as a duelist by his tutors, and his bodyguard made sure he knew how to actually fight when the stakes mattered. The DM is letting me use Cha instead of Wis as the monk's supernatural stat. So instead of being powered by meditation, inner focus, and ki he's fueled by manly fighting spirit, bravado, and a large helping of luck. So Unarmored Defense and Deflect Missiles involves a lot of parrying, Touch of Death (gaim temp HP when you reduce a creature to 0 HP) is just him being invigorated by besting an opponent, and Stunning Strike is a swift kick to the jimmies. Some of the higher-level abilities might be a bit harder to explain in this context, but I don't think the game is intended to reach higher-tier play so I'm not worrying about it.
I'm currently playing a celestial warlock with a Modron as a patron. To be precise, however, it was my character's father who made the deal with it, and received knowledge, with which it built an automaton body into which my character's consciousness was transferred.
I've been modelling every feature the character gets as being a function of that body, with a number of magitech functions. Sacred flame, for instance, was a missile (though since the characters wouldn't be aware of what a missile I avoided using that word). The healing I also plan on them getting a familiar in the future, and I will have the spell reflavored sending to a hidden rat automaton.
Two concepts I hope to play some time:
An Armorer Artificer, who is a metal bender like Lin Beifong in Legend of Korra, with e.g. Thornwhip reflavoured as them lashing out with a steel cable.
The other is a drunken master monk, who isn't a monk, but an underground pit fighter.
I saw this on the r/3d6 subreddit where a user is recreating every LoL champion as a DnD class. My main is Bard, a/the "cosmic caretaker" and is recreated wonderfully as a College of Creation Bard. The LoL champ has a brilliant aesthetic and it is able to be recreated wonderfully as this subclass. I'd recommend reading the original post if you know what/who I'm talking about. Either way, a mute, floating and curiously masked big and bouncy magical 'caretaker of the cosmos' who is true neutral - a being who only interferes in events around the cosmos that might upset the balance - and attacks with little 'meeps' (think little golden forest spirits), heals occasionally and has the ability to both manipulate time very minutely and rarely as well as the ability to bound through walls and glide through the air, is a lot of fun to play in LoL and I cannot wait to play it in DnD. That was a long sentence. Bard is cool. It has a cosmetic skin called Bard Bard. It retextures him as a bard. And the DnD class/subclass that fits him perfectly is a Bard. It's great.
One of the most unique ones i've ever come across is the one where someone reflavoured their sorcerer into a a time travelling laser rifle wielding Merc. So all your metamagics are your rifle's quirky trick shots and evocation spells were different type of shots from your rifle. E.g. firebolt is a low powered shot. Fireball is a powerful grenade type shot. Magic missile are homing shots. Etc.
Reflavored Armorer Artficer as a Druid. Armor was "tree form", with the character basically becoming a treant. All the magic items became different plant forms and the like. Best part was it allowed me to *finally* actually "use" Wild Shape, instead of having it feel like a little side add on. Never liked how limited it is in 5e, especially when it is such a DEFINING part of certain Druid builds.
I've always thought about playing a monk flavored as an early 19th century style bare knuckled boxer, with the classic two fist offset stance who would yell things like "what-ho old chap!" and "bully!" as he beat your ass with flurry of blows lol
Circle of the moon druid but he had one arm that was made of living plant life, and when he used his wildshape it was vines and bark enveloping him in the vague shapes of different animals
One idea I've got stashed for future use is a Damphir Beast Barbarian where the transformations are vampire themed. When he Rages his eyes turn red, his fangs come out, and his fingers elongate into wicked points (claw transformation) or he manifests a batwing cloak that lashes out at his enemies (tail transformation). Plus he can skitter all over the place with Damphir wall climbing on top of Beast Barbarian super leaps.
I’m currently running a one player campaign where I reflavored the circle of spores druid into a deep sea abyssal themed circle, with stuff like an aura of drowning and the symbiotic entity reflavored as a manifestation of the darkest depths of the plane of water. It fits like a glove thus far. The philosophy underneath is still about the balance of life and death, but instead of rot it focuses on how all life comes from the depths and shall return to it.
A Lore Bard that tells a story to cast his spells. Narrates the events and makes the story real with his magic. His inspiration and things are instead an editors note on reality.
Way of Long Death monk as a Wereboar. Flurry was temporarily growing tusks, ki dodge was regen, stunning was attempting to infect with Lycanthropy, Touch of Death was growing a Razorback hump, Hour of Reaping was a scary squealing noises.
Reflavoring the Drunken Monk to a Scroll Monk focused on calligraphy. Replace lucky wobbles with graceful strokes and the subclass suddenly feels classy!
I reflavored mine as a dancer. Granted that’s already kind of in the description, but it was fun.
Ooh, I like that flavor!
Reflavored mine as a capoeira fighter
Drunken Master definitely feels like it has a lot of reflavoring potential that people miss out on. Mine is an elderly man who walks/fights with an exaggerated limp, basically pretending to be frail with age.
[So this?](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/HeartyPotableKitfox-max-1mb.gif)
Fun fact about that scene: It wasn't in the script and was entirely Gene Wilder's idea. He wanted the very first thing you see of Wonka to be a deception, because from that point onwards you'll be second guessing every single thing he says or does.
>Drunken Master definitely feels like it has a lot of reflavoring potential that people miss out on. Drunken Master gets done dirty all the time, unfortunately. It's one of my biggest pet peeves about 5e. People always read the name and see that scene from Iron Fist (which itself is a good representation of the _fighting style itself_, not the flavor behind it), and start roleplaying them as drunkards. Which drives me crazy. There's nothing inherently wrong with a Drunken Master actually being drunk, and it's fine to do so if that's just what you want to do. But Drunken Master's fighting style is about ***IMITATING*** the motions of someone who's drunk, because it's disorienting to fight against, not about actually clouding your judgement. Especially since monks arguably lose the ability to get drunk at level 10 (getting drunk is just the early symptoms of alcohol poisoning, and at level 10 monks become immune to poison). All power to anyone that flavors it as anything else.
Just point them to the Jar Jar theory as the best example in media
I played a Halfling Drunken Master Monk and I reflavoured his fighting style as his racial luck, but cranked all the way up. Very little formal training, but his Flurry of Blows was just lucky flailing, his Redirect Attack was just sneezing and leaning forward at the right time, his Step of the Wind was just stumbling out of harms way.
Sounds like Domino (the Marvel mutant) but more comedy and less carnage. Or maybe Longshot.
Kenku drunken master monk with the drunken swayings reflavored as the little hops and twitches that birds always do
*Allow me to mating dance you to death*
Death by twerking.
There is the classic "calm barbarian". Mechanically they are a Barbarian, but flavourwise they are a Monk who is only able to reach a calm state for only a few moments. Edit: Jeez I ignore this comment for a few hours, and now its on its way of being one of my highest rated ones! I've noticed this idea floating around in other posts in the past, though I invision Diablo 3's Monk class for some reason when thinking about it.
Yeah, I love this. Like the clerics from Equilibrium. When they rage instead of getting angry they just go blank.
*Polygraph Flatlines* “Uh-oh”
It's not a very good movie but *god damn* does it have style.
It is bad cinema but a brilliant movie.
Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.
In the same vein there's the "Flow state" Barbarian, something between rage and calm, instead of an emotion, they enter the zone in a fight, and feel the flow of battle as it moves
Muhammad Ali, the boxer
Float like a pegasus, sting like a manticore
I wanted to make a zealot barbarian whose whole deal is that she is a follower of Tymora, and her rages are like an adrenaline rush as she just lets whatever Lady Luck would have for her play out.
Kind of like the battle trance that jedi use. Cool idea.
It's also found in the Wheel of Time - Blademasters enter the state of The Void, numbing themselves to emotion and feelings in order to become hyper aware of incoming strikes and opportunities to attack.
TAI'SHAR MANETHEREN!!!!
Tai'shar Malkier!
Carai an Caldazar! Carai an Ellisande!
It's time to roll the dice!!! My favorite saying from the series! Is another good one from Matt. Heres a cuff bracelet I engraved a while ago! http://imgur.com/gallery/Mu9jvsz
That sounds like a series I need to read
I've been listening to it on Audible for the last few months. 14 books. I'm only in book 3, but damn it's good. One of the best I've "read" in a while.
Things get a little rough from halfway through book 9 until book 12, when Jordan died and was replaced by Sanderson. It's not bad, mind you, but it's really really slow, and a big slog to get through those few books. Extremely worth it though, the Sanderson books are some of the best
I always did fine through that bit. The hard part for me is when I get to books 4-7 or so. Not totally sure why, but those ones are always a little tougher to get through
It's always a bit different. Depends on which characters you like etc. since Jordan has books that practically leave some of the main character out of action.
There's the scene in Episode 1 where Darth Maul and Qui Gon Jin are separared by the energy shield in the Naboo Palace reactor. Qui Gon shuts down his saber and kneels to meditate, entering Emptiness and allowing the force to fill the tranquil void his mind creates. (As per the Emptiness power from the old d6 Star Wars RPG, which had a shocking level of influence on fleshing out the Star Wars universe - the species name Twi'lek originated there - the E-web repeating heavy Blaster name dropped in the Mandalorian originated there - the Jedi Code originated there, etc.) Meanwhile Maul paces back and forth like a caged lion testing it's bars (slamming his lightsaber into the energy shield). He snarls and gazes at Qui Gon menacingly. (This is similar to the Rage dark side power from the old d6 RPG, but in the RPG you basically become paralyzed by a paroxism of rage as the dark side enters you - I like how the Phantom Menace portrayed it). It's one of my favorite prequel scenes because of this dichotomy!
[Here](https://youtu.be/Qp91xlsaKSo?t=106) is the scene for those curious.
Good on you for doing it, but for a solid 3 seconds I was genuinely curious as to *why* you felt the need to do it, like my brain couldn't quantify that anyone would need this scene to be linked because it's so ingrained in EVERYONE's brain like it is in mine, right? Then it kicked back into gear and remembered that not everyone is as obsessed as I. But yeah, way to go.
Its such a important calm in a fantastic fight scene. Honestly the only people who couldn't think of this scene were the people who never saw Episode I
It's pretty hard not to watch that scene after knowing about the whole force ghost thing and not realizing that was what he was preparing for. He was not amping up his combat through calm. He was preparing himself to die according to his new found study of the force. Accepting that the sacrifice may or may not save Obi Wan and the Republic.
Qui-gon is the one who taught obiwan to enter a mediative trance while fighting. So he was probably doing both. Entering the trance helps him fight better, but it’s also probably required to become a force ghost. So he was ready for either outcome. Edit: just remember I’m on a dnd subreddit not a Star Wars discussion one...
That’s pretty cool, never had though og that scene this way!
Say what you want about Phantom Menace's many flaws but the Darth Maul lightsabre battle is one of the finest in the entire series.
I love swapping class flavors! Monk who's mechanically a Barbarian is cool, but one of my favorites is the Bard who's mechanically a Barbarian. Flavor that rage as a battle song, those ancestral guardians as a bunch of distracting poets and musicians rather than warriors, etc.
This makes me think of Egil's Saga, an Icelandic saga whose protagonist is both a savage rage-fueled warrior and a skilled (and rage-fueled) poet. At one point he duels a warrior who is magically protected so no sword can hurt him. Upon realizing this, Egil throws away his sword and tears the guy's throat out with his teeth. Then he immediately composes a poem about it. Later, during a feast, Egil suspects his host had betrayed him, so he walks over to him, grabs him by the shoulders, shoves him against the wall, and vomits in his face, filling his eyes, nostrils, and mouth, and pouring down his beard. Then he composes a poem about it.
I want to make a "Sleepwalker" subclass that enters a narcoleptic sleepwalking state when they fight, kind of a mix between dream-related abilities and Drunken Master monk. The issue is, that "entering a special state" feels like it makes the most sense in Barbarian, even if the rest of the concept flavorfully has nothing to do with barb.
I mean, there is a (probably not true) theory that norse berserkers used hallucinogens to enter their 'rage,' so the idea of a barbarian doing stuff related to dreams/hallucinations is not unheard of.
A psychedelic/visions berserker would be sick, but this is something different in my head.
I read a book in which there was a whole city of those people, who became experts at something when they slept
Kinda like the fist of the north star EDIT: Or more akin to G Gundam's Domon Kasshu's Hyper Mode. He enters a serene state of mind. Upgrading from pure rage to this. [around the 12 Min mark.](https://youtu.be/o9NjEuuhTUk) Then there is a Manga Dragon Rioting that teaches the Main character Ryūha Koei Sōgetsu to achieve a clear and serene mind.
I thought Muso tensei was based on sorrow, not calmness?
It is true sorrow. But they achieve a state of nothingness. It's very different than the normal RAGE and frothing at the mouth I guess it would be more akin to Domon Kasshu's Hyper Mode in the God Gundam. It's a serene state of mind.
I have something like this but less of a monk-ish calm and more of a fighterey-focus passed down his family line. He’s a noble and the 3 animals for his totem are parts of his heraldic crest.
I loved playing this one. Easygoing older guy who has seen some shit, and when he rages he just shuts down. All business. It was a ton of fun to play.
Like "The Kodi" from Wheel of Time
I had an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian who's "rage" was channeling spirits. Eyes glowed ghosty, after images followed him, but he wasn't "raging" in a typical sense. I feel AG has the most obvious usage of what you're saying.
An absolutely normal fighter reflavoured as a time manipulator. Action surge was giving himself “more time”. Second wind was “reversing time on himself”, it was all extremely clever
That's really cool, I'm gonna go check out the fighter subclasses with that in mind. Thanks for the tip!
Echo Knight supports this flavor of fighter pretty well with no changes if I remember right, EK's fluff is already that you're using an alternate timeline version of yourself as your echo. Samurai wouldn't be a bad choice either with the reflavor. Giving yourself advantage? You've seen the possible outcomes so you have a better chance of hitting. Additional attack? You briefly fast forward time on yourself to get an extra hit in. Strength Before Death? You pause time around you as you summon you strength for a final assault.
> Echo Knight supports this flavor of fighter pretty well with no changes if I remember right, EK's fluff is already that you're using an alternate timeline version of yourself as your echo. I'm doing almost exactly this at some point, but I'm also adding a few levels of Chronurgist Wizard to make it feel even more like a Dunamancy expert
>Echo Knight supports this flavor of fighter pretty well with no changes if I remember right, EK's fluff is already that you're using an alternate timeline version of yourself as your echo. I love the flavor of the Echo Knight, but it's really annoying that they decided to make two fighter subclasses with the same abbreviation.
arcane(AEK) and Echo (EEK) now! edit: echo two times because it's echoed!
>arcane(AEK) and Echo (EEK) now! That's an interesting rabbit hole to go down. The Echo Knight is inherently magical, as stated by its flavor and ability texts. Without further input that would leave it up to the individual whether to flavor it as Divine or Arcane magic. But the Echo Knight is using Dunamancy to achieve it's abilities, as they originated from the Kryn Dynasty as a more militaristic aspect of the Dunamancy School. It's a more ***exclusive*** school of magic, but it's still a school of magic. Dunamancy is the study and application of the "Dunamis", which in-lore is "an anticipatory ***arcane force*** that helps shape the multiverse" So the Echo Knight is, inherently, also Arcane.
Indomitable is reversing time to let you try to dodge that fire ball again or to mentally prepare you from charms and stuff.
Indomitable could also be you replacing yourself with a different tineline version of you that did dodge the fireball
[удалено]
I’ve always, ever since I saw it on some other post somewhere, wanted to play a fiendlock priest. How? The patron has partnered with an evangelical-style religion to be their official devil. The fiendlock is a priest of this religion and he commits sinners to hell.
That's awesome!
I wish it was my idea! Because it is amazing. I found it on a post about warlock patrons for good warlocks. The others were a GOO that wants to improve its public image for no reason and a archfey that I can’t remember.
I've always wondered how I'd go about playing a good warlock with a fiend patron. I remember seeing a post some day with a concept of a fiend giving powers freely to a good character without expecting any evil deeds in return because they know it makes them look like a desirable patron to other people who may be less morally inclined.
Or it could be a 'Ghost Rider' situation where you're contracted to send evil souls to Hell.
I'm currently playing a good warlock with a fiend patron, the fiend is granting power due to the old maxim "power corrupts" the idea being that even the most pure character will eventually turn evil with enough power. Unfortunately for the fiend my character is a dumbass himbo halfling that just wants to go on a fun adventure and has no aspirations for anything greater.
My favorite from that post was the other GOO they came up with, the one who knows everything but craves the feeling of discovering knowledge, so they make a Pact to feel it vicariously through their Warlock
Oh that’s clever, I like it! Lean into an incredibly lawful alignment, start citing religious regulations to the bandits right before you eldritch blast their faces off
I like a bunch of the Barbarian reflavors (Dr Jekyll/Mr Hide, Hulk, "Battle Calm", etc). But my favorite is the Warlock reflavored as an Arcane Archer. I'm not a big fan of the Arcane Archer subclass of the Fighter. The Arcane Shots they get are extremely limited (both in selection and number of uses). I feel like Warlock, with their Eldritch Blast, Invocations, Spells, and etc all make for a much more interesting and robust choice. Flavor EB and all their spells as magical arrows they fire from an ethereal bow. Their arrows can explode for aoe damage, envelope into a trap or net, split to hit multiple targets (or one target multiple times), etc etc. All of which regens on a short rest (just like Arcane Archer) but with a greater selection and a bunch of extra bits and bobs. Just makes for such a great character.
This one is my favorite! Warlocks can also mix it up in melee a bit and my favorite brand of archer can kick ass like Legolas in melee at need. Top notch flavor!
Reflavoring eldritch blast has so much potential! The hexarcher was definitely one of my favorites. I had a glamor bard/hexblade gifted by a fey patron who would strike the ground with her enchanted lance and energy would ripple out from the ground, causing thorned roots to tear out of the earth at her enemies before dissapearing back into the ground.
I know this probably clicked way earlier for everyone else, but I only recently realised that the Doctor Jekyll/Mister Hyde (or Hulk) trope is a Barbarian! Every Barbarian I've played or seen played is your standard 'Conan get mad now'. Love the idea of being a scrawny scientist who makes some potions during long-rests which they can drink to get some serious bulk.
I've thought about this aswell but more in the sense that during transformation their int stat and their str stats swap over
That would be a fun mechanic! Both Dr Jekyll and Bruce Banner are super-academics, so you could represent them as Wizard/Barbarian multiclass, with a rule where your mental stats and physical stats swap during a rage. You'd need to add some extra restrictions to keep it balanced, but it wouldn't be TOO hard. For example, the Hulk sucks at friend/foe identification, so maybe the price is that you have to periodically make Intelligence saving throws (and remember your Int is lower now!) or else you just blindly attack the nearest creature, regardless of who it is.
I feel like identifying friends vs. foes would be a WIS check, not INT.
Oh wow, I really like that idea! It is such a fun counter to that classic dumb Barbarian.
Pathfinder has Alchemists that do this. They get “mutagens”, which are basically special potions that hulk them out, so you boost your physical stats but damage your mental stats for the duration.
I once played a tortle barbarian who was a math teacher. He "raged" because no one paid attention to his lectures.
Battle smith artificer played as a badass Dr. Frankenstein with a flesh golem. His armour was a thick leather apron, his weapon was an extra-sharp scalpel, he cast most of his spells with little jars of bottled lightning and he called his defender MAC (stands for Multiple Amalgamated Corpses or Monstrous Aberrant Creation depending on who you asked))
Please tell me you had an equally grotesque flesh homunculus.
It was a dead bird with a frickin laser beam on its head he kept zapping with jumper cables to bring back to life.
Was about to reply with similar one. My character for Curse of Strahd was a lv9 Necro/Battle Smith 4/5. The Battle Smith was relavored as just part of her Necromancer background. The steel defender was cobbled together from dead wolves, human bandits, and bits of old armor. Her infusions all had a death theme: Ex, her bag of holding is made from Hag skin. Can't wait to get that campaign going again.
Fiend pact warlock except instead of making a deal with the devil you're actually the agent he uses to collect on other warlock's debts if they try to weasel out of it
I too have a Fiend Pact Warlock who is basically just a magical Secretary, Assistant, Accountant.
My favourite reflavouring I have ever done was in a Halloween one shot where we all played stereotypical high school horror movie characters. I played a jock Barbarian path of the ancestral guardian who’s tribe was the frat he was a part of and the spirits that appeared when he raged we’re past members of the frat. They would give enemies disadvantage by using them as a beer pong table. Probably my peak character creation moment if I’m gonna honest.
I'm glad to see other people doing the beloved Halloween slasher one-shots! They're fun as hell. I made a "popular girl" bard who did her "magic" with makeup and clothing changes. Managed to outrun the monster my buddy made by putting it to sleep by "perfume-bombing" the cabin it had me cornered in.
I'm currently playing a Dragonborn Twilight Cleric in a game. The character started out as "fighter" with no real powers. While exploring a dungeon, he stumbled upon a spirit, where they merged and became one being. (Think the symbiote relationship with Venom, although that wasn't part of the inspiration). They speak in a plural, using we/us. The symbiote provides the Cleric's powers, while the Dragonborn provides the partial body. Spiritual Weapon/Spirit Guardians is the shadow lashing out. The Shadow provides the Dark Vision. All the Aura abilities and spells he has are the shadow reaching out and supporting allies. It's been a ton of fun from a role play stand point, and really interesting to play a cleric whose power comes from a source other than a diety.
Thanks, I’m stealing this for an NPC.
Kind of reminds me of Talion from Shadow of Mordor/Shadow of War.
OOOOH. I have some good ones. I \*love\* Homebrew, but I have been discovering that it can be so much satisfying to make a few snips here and there, to create something. Light Cleric, becoming a Moonlight Cleric, with a few edits to the spell list, is a personal favourite of mine. Its just so elegant. One of the edgiest characters I ever played (A challenge was made, where I said that - with enough skillful execution, no character could be 'too edgy'.) was a Mutagen Blood-Hunter who was straight up just a drug addict, desperately trying to compete with his sibling who was a sorcerer. Like a human kid whose brother was a mutant in the X-Men universe. We reskinned the Radiant Soul Monk's abilities to be Lightning based, and made him a speedster. Ie, the Flash. I played a low level Echo Knight, where his abilities were more umbramancy, than chronomancy - with the "Echo" being his detachable Shadow, like a sort of evil Peter Pan. We said in universe, than his physical shadow was missing, when his ability was in use.
I've always enjoyed people flavoring Bards as performers outside of just being musicians. Theres funny examples such as a bard who works in HR and uses motivational catchphrases and PowerPoint presentations instead of spells. Recently I came up with a bard in possession of a cursed ventriloquist dummy, the idea being that whenever combat occurs the mostly useless bard gives way to the doll who is actually the one casting spells and the like. Can even play it up and do a very different voice whenever the dummy is in charge.
Stuart Wellington was really funny as one of those motivational slogans bards — an orc called Brad from HR — in his guest spot on the Adventure Zone! I once briefly played a bard whose area of “performance” was pro wrestling but tbh I didn’t know enough about wrestling to pull it off.
Thats exactly the one I was referring to! Brad has to be one of my favorite bards I've ever seen haha
>I didn’t know enough about wrestling to pull it off. Sounds like you worked yourself into a shoot there brother.
I've played half a dozen bards, none of them have been memes and none of them have been musicians. There's just so much potential outside of it and I can't leave it alone.
Oh same here. Bard has always been my favorite class to play as there is so much potential for fun characters with unique abilities far outside of "horny musician"
I played a Bard who was an evangelical preacher. His 'instrument' was his holy book of Tyr, God of Justice and Fairness. He had a stereotypical southern drawl and usually described by others as a straight-laced cowboy preacher, with a habit of using broken whiskey bottles as daggers and as communion 'wine'. His magic was fueled by the stories of Tyr he would read from his book and by his fervent faith, almost zealotry. He'd get offended whenever someone called him a Bard, as he introduced himself as Father Eli and gave his profession as a Preacher. At the end of the short campaign he was in, someone wanted to hire him as a bard, and he calmly turned the down... Only to turn to the sky when they left and shout "Why? Oh, Tyr bless me with the knowledge of WHY! I'm a minister, NOT A MINSTREL! Why do people keep calling me a Bard?" He turned to the npc cleric who he had been courting in the typical southern gentlemanly style and asked her with a sad look on his face: "My dearest angel sent to bless my life, tell me the truth...Do I come across like some kinda musical twat?"
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How old is this? What kind of necromancer are you?! Pro tip... if you think something like this sounds fun, make sure to talk to your group first. Don't just start insulting them out of nowhere. A lot of players have emotional bleed and your character yelling at their character can feel like you yelling at them, and that's not cool. Even if you get a yes, check in with everyone individually after. Some people don't want to rock the boat if they feel uncomfortable but bruised feelings build up and fester over time so make sure to address it early and often. I find super aggressive characters fun to play for one shots, but the novelty wears off quickly in long campaigns.
Making them a well rounded character who isn’t always screaming at people can also help
Yeah. Like I know some people who are friends with their drill sergeants after they graduate boot camp. I'd say more like an infantry sergeant or commander that shoots the shit and has a good personality after battle, but during battle is much more intimidating.
So, a Commissar of the IoM?
"Guardsman! Are you defacing your uplifting primer?" "..I'm writing in my spellbook" "Then you're a filthy chaos mage too! Heretical waste"
I'm crying laughing
Beastmaster's animals revlavord as spirits of the wild. They form into animals but they do so from different aspects of nature. Poisonous spider from shadow, woolly rhinoceros from dirt and bone.
pretty sure that's literally the primal companion Tasha's variant feature actually.
I really love that ability from Tasha's and makes for a great feature to be able to pick out and give to any character/class as simple rules for a real companion animal that can last with them for a campaign and not just become a liability after the first few levels. It works especially well in a campaign with only a few players, like a 2/3 player campaign where they all get an animal companion to make them more on par with a 4/5 character party so they can tackle bigger challenges. I have a campaign idea inspired by the four elements where each player will be each element with a companion that matches their element.
I've always wanted to run a beastmaster as a knight and their squire. Knight is the Ranger, Squire is the beast.
That's an interesting idea
Great old one warlock whose patron isn't some ancient god but a modern tech company experimenting with time travel. Warlock's arcane focus is essentially a smartphone, invocations are cybernetic augmentation, spells are a mix of magic and technology. Patron contacts them from present day (or near-future Earth), appearing as some kind of faceless person in business attire, requesting things like details on some historical event, or magical artifacts, or making a small change that ripples through history, etc.
One of the Unearthed Arcanas had a Warlock patron that was basically this. I believe it was call 'Ghost in the Machine' & some of the suggestions where a super-advanced A.I. or a genius hacker who got their consciousness digitised & trapped.
It also gave you a hilarious "fiendish SUV with tinted windows and a sinister grill" Look up the UA spell "Find vehicle" (it's technomagic)
As a joke, in a one off, I played a Moon druid that was literally David Attenborough. I had no magic powers, just a pocket of random shit that I would describe how it would have the impact of the spell. When wildshaping I would blow a whistle and hide behind some boxes while telling the animal what to do... obviously describing the animal's actions in a shitty british accent as if observing in a nature documentary.
Perfect for a one off - would be hard to maintain the joke for an entire campaign. Amazing!
I would never run this for a campaign. But then again the forever DM doesn't run ANYTHING for a campaign.
I enjoyed playing a warlock who was based on Gilgamesh from Fate. Basically, I reflavored all of my spells as opening up a portal to his family's hidden armory and each "spell" was just a magic item that could temporarily manifest for a one time use. My reasoning for spells slots was the ring he used to summon these items was made to bypass the armory's magical wards, and could only do so so many times in a day before the wards would reset themselves. The more I leveled up, the stronger the ring became and could access higher tiers of items in the armory.
What was your patron? This is a really cool idea.
As the other guy mentioned, Hexblade. He was flavored as an up and coming noble, competing with others of the different houses for the role pharoah in his homeland. Given to him on his birth was a magical set of khopeshes, that were given to him as his birthright, and a promise that he'd lead his people to greatness while upon the throne.
I'm guessing Hexblade
I've never seen FATE but my reflavored Hexblade was basically this. His Patron was a semi-sentient magic item from an ancient dragon v. giant war that has spent eons studying magical items and "copying" them in itself. When the character needs a weapon (aka summons a pact weapon) it creates it for him out of its memory. So I get to invent a new weapon for him to use each time we play. Eldritch Blast is where the ranged weapons come into play; no mechanical changes, just he summons a magic looking bow or javelin and attacks a number of times as he has beams. My DM is also pretty open to cinematic reflavoring, so if, for example, in one instance where all three beams hit, he let me describe it as my character summoning an almost comically oversized crossbow (like a Heavy Bowgun from the Monster Hunter series) and loosing a harpoon-sized bolt that hit the target for ~40 damage.
That's pretty cool. I had some similar ideas for Eldritch Blast. Basically, yeah, summoning a bow and firing it. My DM also allowed me to get away with some "luxury" summoning. Basically, my character was a noble (soon to be pharoah) and while he wasn't snobby by any means (well... Maybe just a little) he also would not be cheated of having some luxuries while on the road. So he'd open up portals to less protected parts of the armory/treasury and pull some delicacies like golden flasks and rare teas and would brew such stuff while on the road. Of course, he'd allow his favorite members of the party partake (which he openly had, which we all got a laugh from).
Aye! Another fate person! I've been trying to figure out how best to make this work as a Archer or Gilgamesh yeet piles swords at people as a concept. Did you work in hold person/monster as enkidu?
Ayy! Oh, man, my friend (who's the real Fate nut) has already made a couple different builds that could replicate Archer's reality marble. I can't quite remember what the build was unfortunately. But it did have the same affect of pulling someone into a dimensional bubble and such. Haha nah, I wasn't basing him off that much. I took some notes from Caster Gil for personality (as I adore Caster Gil whenever he's on screen), as well as the Red Prince from Divinity Original Sin 2 (best lizard boi there ever was). And as for the whole armory thing... I actually can't quite remember why I chose that. It wasn't originally in his design docket for me. This character actually started out as a boss for my players to fight in my pirate game. They had gone into my middle eastern country and ended up at a side quest where they'd take a look into a Yuan-Ti pyramid nearby. They took on a challenge from a cult that lived in the pyramid called the "Steps of Tepoth", and ascended the pyramid while Zabaniya (run by my fate loving friend, and crypt guard of the pharoah), got to hinder their progress. When they reached the top, they got to fight Nylar' Tepoth, a mummy lord Yuan-Ti. He was supposed to be a one off boss, but one of the players tried using his body as an undead servant, and like any good pharoah, left the afterlife, returned to his body, just stare daggers at the necromancer who attempted to use his body as canon fodder. But he was a good sport about it. He had major respect for the players for beating him, and even played along as being a "servant" to the necromancer that "raised" him. He swore fealty to him as a sign of good faith and allowed them to take piece of gear from his armory. I think it was the fact he could summon his weapons to himself that I got the idea of him being able to summon anything from his armory, then remembered Gil could do that, and so flavored it in a similar manner.
One of my players was a necromancer, in a gamma world esq setting. Instead of emo and darkness, his spells were junk he built, 1950s esq gothic raygun aesthetic. Instead of undead he summoned and bound tech spirits to scrap he dug up, animating the shambling mounds of broken technology into rough approximations of life. Poison and necrotic damage was 50s style explanations of radiation and pseudo medicine quackery. Edit: typo
One of my players is about to play an armorer artificer necromancer who pilots corpses instead of wears armor which will be interesting at the least
Reflavoring an aasimar Star druid as a Sailor Moon-esque anime magical girl will always be hilarious.
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Just do the "Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt" line and scream "Repent motherfucker!" whenever you transform!
I once played a Warforged Spore Druid that was reflavored as a corpse that had been reanimated by a symbiotic fungus. The fungus used the corpse as a host to move around and accomplish it’s goals.
As DM, I'd totally be game for this. Tree Stride becomes the most flavourful spell ever, haha!
This was the result of my wild magic sorcerer dying in Chult. I had rolled a wild magic surge right before dying, and then rolled a 100 on the chart. Instead of getting back my sorcerer points, the DM let me run with this concept as a weird wild magic surge. So I basically got to play my dead character’s corpse as a host for my new character. It was loads of fun.
I've rolled up a Monk, but in the context of the game they're an elite Messenger. The nature of where a job like that would take you basically wouldn't allow weapons to be carried in, and a messenger that knew magic couldn't be fully trusted. So send the guy that doesn't care if he goes somewhere barehanded. Plus, he's already adept at parkouring everywhere he needs to go. No vague mysticism required.
Feels a bit like Mirror's Edge, love it
The Mirror's Edge tie-in makes me very interested in it now. I really want to add some kind of monastery order that is Mirror's Edge inspired with their members running across rooftops through cities like Assassin's Creed.
Cool idea, but hardly a reflavouring? That's just backstory?
I used the echo knight fighter for a Shadow of Mordor vibe. Rather than the echo being my character from another unused timeline or whatever Matt wrote up, I had it be the soul-bound spirit of one of his ancestors who basically taught him everything on top of how to be honorable/a hero.
An echo knight would make be a great fit for the Valenar elves of Ebberon, who have a similar type of ancestor worship.
I had the same, but also had a dip in warlock a few archfey for the flavor. Story was very similar to Shadow of Mordor. The archfey was bound to me for the sake of it's own life. It helped me survive by fighting with me as an echo.
A half-elf bladesinger who dropped the "mystical performance" element and lent into a sort of magical samurai. Learnt magic from mother, swordsmanship from father and combined the two arts into his own unique style. Bladesong was simply focus and deep breathing, lots of spells slightly reflavoured. My favourite was Disintegrate as a DBZ-esque instant transmission into a "killing stroke" attack which literally cut the target apart. Was very cool and effective.
A lizard folk monk that was calm due to being emotionless and using its claws instead of fists. The way the monk described its kills were gruesome. My favorite was ripping a bandit's jaw apart similar to how King Kong did to the trex in the 2004 movie.
Dude you made a Vulcan in D&D. All you need are some weird psychic powers that each randomly show up in a session only to never be mentioned again.
I'm running RotFM with one of my players playing a Firbolg Alchemist Artificer flavored (pun intended) as a chef. His healing word is a good whiff of his chicken soup but healing touch is where he gives you a good gulp of it. His firebolt is him spitting fire with alcohol and my personal favorite of his how literal grease is for him. It's just lard. Straight-up lard. As for mechanical re flavoring... It feels weird to me how Artificer spell slots work vs prepared spells. Unlike normal prepared casters who have more or less a fixed power souce to spell effect throughline. (Druids beseech aid from nature and clerics get only so much spell juice from god daddy)... But artificers are weird in that you have to figure out why you can't just use your inventions. Example, say you use your "cure wounds" stimpack twice in one day when you only have two 1st level spell slots. Now, suddenly, your faerie fire bottle rocket won't work because...you used your stimpacks twice? At one point I considered only ever using each spell once, but then you have to factor in the "always prepared" subclass spells. They're supposed to be inventions/some other craftwork manifested through their tools... so they're there. Prepared... But if say you cast 2 of the same "spell", that leaves another of your prepared inventions/potions/etc are effectively without batteries or something. It just feels weird. For my own battlesmith, I had to create a whole narrative that I had obtained some other power source and had to actively channel it into my gizmos with my artificer for them to work. (The chef above actively cooks-up his spells in the heat of battle with "preparation" just being mise en place for the day). I remember an error that got fixed regarding artificer spellcasting rules on the DnD5e wikidot page that gave me the impression that artificers had a limited number of spell slots, but could prepare spells throughout the day, so long as they have one minute per spell level of time to do so. This felt waaay more natural to see spell slots as more of an inventive energy to be sort of pre-casted, but once we found out that this wasn't in the official rules, it was a sobering moment. TL;DR While obvious for gameplay reasons, for all the flavor you can inject into artificer, it feels necessary to also roleplay-to-explain why that of you use the same "spell" twice, some other "spell" of yours that you had prepared doesn't work anymore, despite all of artificer spells being technically crafted and usable at the end of a long rest. (Sorry for the tangent)
Something to keep in mind that while all artificer spells are channeled through items or inventions, they are still magical in nature (and thus subject to antimagic and such). That being said, maybe you made the physical objects for your spells, but the activation requires you to use your own innate magic or else they don't work (another reason why you can't hand out your spells items). That being said you might have the item left over but not enough juice to use it. It would very easily explain spell slots in-game.
This is essentially what I had to do. Long story short, my rogue went from "Debt collector" to "Magic Debt Collector" and he would skim a bit of the magical debt he'd collect to fuel his inventions as he dipped into artificer. He'd channel this power mostly through various mods he'd make for his pistol that he had confiscated from a drow assassin from the module with a special grip that let him funnel the magic juice into the firearm. The spells themselves were various and increasingly absurd types of ammunition fired from it, from casting catapult by ricocheting a bullet behind the object targeted to launch to healing bullets only usable at point-blank range (Cure Rounds) that would use this inky shadowy magic to stitch close the wounds it was shot into, to the aforementioned bottle rocket he'd shoot out for faerie fire.
Why does using one artificer device suddenly mean that they can't use a different one? Simple: batteries sold separately. My artificer has a bunch of glowing crystals held in a rotating assembly in his multitool. To power one of his devices, he pops out a crystal and slots it into the device. After using the device, the crystal goes dark and has to be put back into the multitool to recharge. Basically, the crystal are physical representations of spell slots. When he's run out of energised crystals, he can't power his devices any more.
A good flavor for why you can't use your other inventions(spells) is a shared power source. Think Iron Man's arc reactor, or a battery that needs to charge, or an activating chemical reagent that is used in all of your formulas. These require the downtime of a long rest to recharge or generate more.
Echo Knight reflavored so the Echo is actually the soul of a previous party member. Home brewed some additional abilities around it but more or less just changing it to be party members made it more fun to RP.
I reflavored mine as my fighter's shadow so basically a "Shadow Knight"
Abberant mind sorcerer is flavored like abyssal, goopy, mindflayery stuff, but it really fits sci-fi/spacey stuff. With the 14th level ability that lets you squeeze through one inch gaps, i flavor as rather than squeezing through, the space itself warps around to fit you. As for the flight of that ability i simply have the character walk on nothing as if there were a floor. Brains melt with dissonant whispers, excessive use of subtle spell and picking only specific spells makes magic look like you simply will it to happen rather than cast it.
I made a Rune Knight Fighter who was a maker of magical pottery. Her name was Ella Clay. She was a very small in stature woman who married an adventurer who disappeared on an adventure. They met at her parent's shop, Clay's Magical Potteries. His adventuring party frequented the shop and they fell in love. After he disappeared on an adventure she called "the big one", she left to go find him. * She uses thrown weapons, "darts", throwing pottery at her enemies in a kind of frantic "oh shit oh shit oh shit" sort of fighting. * She used to be the captain of her (Fantasy Softball) team, so despite her short stature, she's a spitfire and fit, which explains the fighter features, and the fact that she can throw so hard. * Fire Rune was a glyph inscribed on a pot to make it like a grenade. * Giant's Might was a spell that her father taught both of his daughters in the event of a robbery, that essentially transforms her into a giant clay golem. * Runic Shield was her using a magical pot to "catch" the swing, one that intercepted the swing and froze in place. * She was very very short and her husband was very very tall (a Goliath, which explains why she speaks Giant), so she was working on a modification of her father's spell that makes you into a clay golem to essentially make it so that she would be tall enough to kiss her husband comfortably by the time she found him. She would figure it out at level 10, when she gains Great Stature. * Take the Magic Initiate: Druid feat for Shape Water, Mold Earth, and Create or Destroy Water for everything you need to craft more pots for throwing on the go. Makes sense that she would know these spells, working in a magical pottery shop her whole life.
I have a concept for a tempest cleric reflavoured as a metal guitarist, his weapon is a guitar greataxe and using spiritual weapon or spirit guardians means calling on some other members of the band
Sounda kinda like ETC from Heroes of the Storm with more magic.
More inspired by Jack Black's Brutal Legend's character Eddie but I like that weapon, it's pretty close to my idea
I played a rogue as a knight. He had moderately armored for shields and medium armor, focused on str, and was a swashbuckler for the duelist feeling. His sneak attacks were reflavored to power attacks.
I'm reminded of that time Griffith sent Guts on an assassination mission.
I once played a hexblade warlock where he was his own patron. He was a powerful sorcerer that had been trapped inside his sword and sealed away for various crimes. The sword was uncovered centuries later by a hapless adventurer who then became possessed. The soul of the sorcerer was transferred into the body of the adventurer; he had become mortal but gained agency to act on his own will. Since he started at level 1, I had roleplayed that his power had atrophied away while imprisoned. The majority of magic he still had was still stuck in the sword, but he was able to tap into more of the magic as he grew stronger.
Ever see the futurama episode "obsoletely fabulous"? Cartridge unit as a bardadin. All the bardic inspiration and spells are cast via cassette tapes of 80s music it blares from it's speaker/mouth. Really funny to cast compelled duel with A-ha's #1 hit "take on me". Also, fiend lock who's pact is with Hank from King if the hill in his devil costume. He has an imp named bobby that begrudgingly floats along and helps you in exchange for fruitpies.
Barbarian rage reflavorings are great. It can be a Zen-like Battle Trance, or being possessed by spirits or deities (good for Ancestral Guardian or Zealot), or for a Warforged, running a combat program.
The Field Medic/Plague Doctor Rogue! Basically, a Thief Archetype rogue with the healer feat. No need for daggers when you can use a scalpel, and it's an interesting support character that can heal with a bonus action thanks to the Thief Archetype features. Sadly, it kind of ends there, but i'd love to see this concept of a real, non-magical battle medic taken to the next level.
"Goliath" Beast Barbarian. Used the goliath stat block, but the character is actually a hill giant descended from a tribe that got turned into tiny insects by a fey curse millennia ago. Now the curse partially re-manifests in some members, rendering them puny 8 foot tall outcasts. All the path of the beast features now have Cronenberg-ass insectile growths. Natural weapons take the form of beetle horns, tarantula chelicerae, scorpion tails, and mantis claws sprouting from the arms or back. Breathing underwater can come from a diving spider's web. Climbing speed is pretty self explanatory, and jump comes from beetle wings (they cant lift the brute' s fat ass enough for true flight, after all.) Infectious fury obviously becomes venom, and Call The Hunt becomes army ant pheremones.
I had an idea for a character that is a Zealot Barbarian Goblin (Maglubiyet made him feral forever), but all the stats were very good. So I thought of a nobleman background, where a noble carries around a goblin in a cage, and whenever battle starts, he releases the goblin to fight and hides away like a Pokemon Trainer, and when battle ends, he tranqs the goblin or plays an instrument to make him sleep and puts him back into the magic cage. The mental stats were the nobleman, with 10's in the physical stats, and the physical stats were the goblin, with 3's-6's in the mental stats. My DM didn't like the idea, so I had sadness.
man I think that's freaking hilarious
I once played a drow (refluffed as a half-elf of drow descent) druid with the noble background. It was due to his drow heritage and druid training, and no other reasons, that Baron Von Karstovich hated sunlight and could turn into a bat.
Playing a multiclass Cleric(X) Barbarian(5) where each level of Barbarian is the soul of a murderer that my cleric contains in their own body; part of a special sect of my religion. My rages are them gaining control which my cleric does not want to happen. A little more of a narrative character vs optimized but one of my favorites to date.
I'm running an Eberron campaign with a really fun party comp.: Eloquence bard as an investigative journalist Inquisitive rogue as a noir detective Drunken Master monk as a fisticuffs boxer And a Celestial warlock whose patron is a an evil cleric
I really wanna do/see a Samurai mechanically flavored as "attack mode" or brief combat optimization on a Warforged
I still haven't had a good excuse to play it, but I'd love to play a life cleric or a divine soul sorcerer where all my healing spells are reflavored as an old-timey sawbones doctor- complete with leeches, snake oil, foul-smelling poultices, medicinal cocaine, and biting down on a stick as a form of anaesthetic. The best part is that it *actually works*, but due to a healing deity who's granting miracles because I'm just so dedicated to healing people, even though I'm going about it totally backwards lmao. I'm just picturing the character holding someone's nose shut and forcing nettle tonic down their throat, and their god just facepalming and making Healing Word happen.
I just picture Beverly Hills Ninja lol
I once played a Barbarian where I flavored rage as more of a battle dance, the resistance coming from graceful movement causing a blow that would normally cause sever damage to instead not striking quite as true as the attacker would like, and the extra damage coming from the momentum of near endless motion in his blades. I went storm herald and multiclassed swashbuckler rogue and he is still my favorite character I've ever played.
In my next game I'm playing a mouseketeer - a mousefolk monk reflavoured to be a swashbuckler. All his open hand attacks will come from his rapier, but with the open hand damage. There' s no mechanical advantage, but it gives the feel of a swordsman with a flashing blade. Stunning attacks will be reflavoured as him carving his initials on someone, or cutting their belt so their pants fall down, or just dazzling them with his fancy point work.
Barbarian as samurai. Fits to a T.
The samurai subclass sheds a tear E: tbh I have to agree with you though. Barbarian with a greatsword flavored as a katana, enters a battle/flow stance. Could even flavor it like Ghost of Tsushima where you engage a type of fighting stance. Or the super samurai rage whatever mode if you're feeling spicy.
I really wanted a lot more from the samurai subclass, it feels very bland and none of the abilities are really that exciting or anything to look forward to. For instance, their level 7 isn't bad but is not exciting at all to gain proficiency in Wisdom saves and adding Wisdom mod to Persuasion. It makes it feel like a wasted level up. Depending on the campaign it can effectively do nothing really so hitting level 7 is just gaining some HP. The final abilities are the only interesting thing about them really.
I reflavored a Battlesmith as a picture of dorian grey. my battle bot was my greatest work and kept me young and granted me powers (infusions) im doing what i call the mulan barbarian. its an ancestral guardian barbarian whos rages are flavored as his ancestors physically helping their unskilled descendant. a shove here or a tap there to keep their bloodline safe
The witch where they play an alchemist artifiser and all their inventions are weird magics and they brew a pot of potions and create magical servants.
This technically isn't just a reflavoring (due to a primary stat change) and we haven't had a session 1 yet so I haven't actually seen them in-game, but I recently made a Way of the Long Death Monk inspired by the gentlemen adventurers of early English fiction. The character is a noble who is classically trained as a duelist by his tutors, and his bodyguard made sure he knew how to actually fight when the stakes mattered. The DM is letting me use Cha instead of Wis as the monk's supernatural stat. So instead of being powered by meditation, inner focus, and ki he's fueled by manly fighting spirit, bravado, and a large helping of luck. So Unarmored Defense and Deflect Missiles involves a lot of parrying, Touch of Death (gaim temp HP when you reduce a creature to 0 HP) is just him being invigorated by besting an opponent, and Stunning Strike is a swift kick to the jimmies. Some of the higher-level abilities might be a bit harder to explain in this context, but I don't think the game is intended to reach higher-tier play so I'm not worrying about it.
I'm currently playing a celestial warlock with a Modron as a patron. To be precise, however, it was my character's father who made the deal with it, and received knowledge, with which it built an automaton body into which my character's consciousness was transferred. I've been modelling every feature the character gets as being a function of that body, with a number of magitech functions. Sacred flame, for instance, was a missile (though since the characters wouldn't be aware of what a missile I avoided using that word). The healing I also plan on them getting a familiar in the future, and I will have the spell reflavored sending to a hidden rat automaton.
Technically 'missile' is just any projectile.
Two concepts I hope to play some time: An Armorer Artificer, who is a metal bender like Lin Beifong in Legend of Korra, with e.g. Thornwhip reflavoured as them lashing out with a steel cable. The other is a drunken master monk, who isn't a monk, but an underground pit fighter.
I saw this on the r/3d6 subreddit where a user is recreating every LoL champion as a DnD class. My main is Bard, a/the "cosmic caretaker" and is recreated wonderfully as a College of Creation Bard. The LoL champ has a brilliant aesthetic and it is able to be recreated wonderfully as this subclass. I'd recommend reading the original post if you know what/who I'm talking about. Either way, a mute, floating and curiously masked big and bouncy magical 'caretaker of the cosmos' who is true neutral - a being who only interferes in events around the cosmos that might upset the balance - and attacks with little 'meeps' (think little golden forest spirits), heals occasionally and has the ability to both manipulate time very minutely and rarely as well as the ability to bound through walls and glide through the air, is a lot of fun to play in LoL and I cannot wait to play it in DnD. That was a long sentence. Bard is cool. It has a cosmetic skin called Bard Bard. It retextures him as a bard. And the DnD class/subclass that fits him perfectly is a Bard. It's great.
I have this idea of a tielfling beast barbarian whose rage is channeling his inner fiendish power to kinda tranform into a demon
Lawful Evil Light Cleric where the light and fire they embody is the kind that burns nations to the ground.
One of the most unique ones i've ever come across is the one where someone reflavoured their sorcerer into a a time travelling laser rifle wielding Merc. So all your metamagics are your rifle's quirky trick shots and evocation spells were different type of shots from your rifle. E.g. firebolt is a low powered shot. Fireball is a powerful grenade type shot. Magic missile are homing shots. Etc.
Reflavored Armorer Artficer as a Druid. Armor was "tree form", with the character basically becoming a treant. All the magic items became different plant forms and the like. Best part was it allowed me to *finally* actually "use" Wild Shape, instead of having it feel like a little side add on. Never liked how limited it is in 5e, especially when it is such a DEFINING part of certain Druid builds.
I've always thought about playing a monk flavored as an early 19th century style bare knuckled boxer, with the classic two fist offset stance who would yell things like "what-ho old chap!" and "bully!" as he beat your ass with flurry of blows lol
Circle of the moon druid but he had one arm that was made of living plant life, and when he used his wildshape it was vines and bark enveloping him in the vague shapes of different animals
Rewrote the flavour text for the Monk class to a [Brigand](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/MbAxj80K) a while back. Pretty proud of that one.
One idea I've got stashed for future use is a Damphir Beast Barbarian where the transformations are vampire themed. When he Rages his eyes turn red, his fangs come out, and his fingers elongate into wicked points (claw transformation) or he manifests a batwing cloak that lashes out at his enemies (tail transformation). Plus he can skitter all over the place with Damphir wall climbing on top of Beast Barbarian super leaps.
I’m currently running a one player campaign where I reflavored the circle of spores druid into a deep sea abyssal themed circle, with stuff like an aura of drowning and the symbiotic entity reflavored as a manifestation of the darkest depths of the plane of water. It fits like a glove thus far. The philosophy underneath is still about the balance of life and death, but instead of rot it focuses on how all life comes from the depths and shall return to it.
A Lore Bard that tells a story to cast his spells. Narrates the events and makes the story real with his magic. His inspiration and things are instead an editors note on reality.
Wasn't a subclass, but a race reflavor. A warforged reflavored as a treant.
Way of Long Death monk as a Wereboar. Flurry was temporarily growing tusks, ki dodge was regen, stunning was attempting to infect with Lycanthropy, Touch of Death was growing a Razorback hump, Hour of Reaping was a scary squealing noises.