[3.5] Building Edward Elric

[Yael]

I've been curious of this for a time, is there a way to create Edward Elric on 3.5?

I have been thinking about making him an Artificer, but he has average hand-to-hand combat skills and uses transmutation for fighting (different from D&D, though).

So, Artificer/Monk/somewhat else...?

And about the arm and the leg, warforged implants?

Help :c

[ArcturusV]

Monk, no... nooooo.

I'd give it closer to Warlock, and refluff the Eldritch Blasts as the typical things Full Metal there does like making a the floor under his target reach up and smack him. So Artificer/Warlock perhaps.

[Chilingsworth]

I find the lack of an effective model for FMA alchemy to be a great weakness of the game. :smallfrown:

His primary characteristics and tactics:

metal arm and leg - warforged components would probably work.
ability to transmute his arm into a blade... ???
manipulating stone... sounds like wall of stone or maybe stoneshape to me.
ability to make mundane weapons: fabricate.
(He did so at least a couple of times.)
Fighting ability: minimum medium BAB, I guess?
Ability to "deconstruct" things or to transmute parts of his opponents... ???

Ability to do all of the above (and more) apparently at will: ???

[Yael]

The thing is that using the Transmutation School does a lot of abilities that FMA Universe's Transmutation actually do (like the spell: flesh to gold from WC).
So he would need the ability to cast spells or use a limited number of spells of the Transmutation school like spell-like abilities...?

[ArcturusV]

Well the DnD Transmutation is strictly better than FMAs due to the lack of Equivalent Exchange. But yeah.

You could probably kitbash a class to do everything you need fairly easy. 3/4 BAB progression. Good Ref Save and Will Save, poor Fort. Instead of caster progression you have something where it says "Pick an ability from this list, you get it as a Spell Like Ability 1/day. You may pick the same ability more than once, doing so grants additional uses per day". Limit the ability list to various spells that do what you'd want. Transmutation, probably some Conjuration and Necromancy (Clone your dead mom, eh?). Break up the abilities into tier so you can go taking Clone at level 1, etc. All SLAs require somatic components and material components, but no verbal or Focus components.

Eh... it'd be a project but not a particularly hard one. Other than looking through dozens of books to find all the spells and SLAs you'd want to convert.

[Gildedragon]

Transmuter, possibly a focused transmuter or conjurer, dropping illusion enchantment and divination.
Eidetic Spellcaster.
He takes the fighter-feat variant.

alternatively a sorcerer focusing on transmutation and conjuration (creation) spells, dropping the familiar for metamagic specialist and gaining the war domain.

He's got divine power running often.

[Psyren]

Never mind monk; instead, use Renegade Mastermaker from Eberron - you get a metal arm knows as a battlefist that you can make attacks with. Fluff that as Ed's automail-fu.

Artificer (or Transmuter) into RMM should let you mimic most of his powers.

[Yael]

Making a new class would be worth it?
I mean, all of this stuff can be made, of course, but using a lot of research could take me to build a straight artificer/caster :c
Also, having an ''Transmuter Alchemist'' class would be cool, even if it's a PrC :P

[Waspinator]

Maybe a homebrew modification of the Warlock? Probably needs some new invocations to replicate specific transmutations from the show. Oh, and have to work in the requirement for circles somehow. Maybe make it "number of circles that can be active at once" rather than "invocations known" with a lengthy setup time to change circles?

Probably want to change how Eldritch Blast works, too. Maybe allow them a few variant options, like fire or rock hurling?

[Gildedragon]

Oh! How didn't I notice this:

Binder! it has the 2/3 BAB, there are some vague rules for building custom vestiges; so likely he has that.

Somewhat changed up with adding somatic components to the casting, but he's taken a feat for that (something akin to rapid pact making)

[Chilingsworth]

Hmm, a 20th level build might be: sor5/RMM10/Abjurant Champion 5
Take the ACF that gives a domain to get the war domain (have the favored weapon be unarmed strike.) Maybe give him Arcane Disciple for the healing domain (near the end of the series he healed himself while he was prettymuch dying from impalement by rebar.) Then again, that healing could be explained by giving him the divine companion ACF to replace his familiar.

Focus on transmutation spells with a few conjuration spells (not sure about a full list, but definately include at least one repair damage spell for his multiple repairs of Al and wall of stone.)

[SowZ]

Hmm, a 20th level build might be: sor5/RMM10/Abjurant Champion 5
Take the ACF that gives a domain to get the war domain (have the favored weapon be unarmed strike.) Maybe give him Arcane Disciple for the healing domain (near the end of the series he healed himself while he was prettymuch dying from impalement by rebar.) Then again, that healing could be explained by giving him the divine companion ACF to replace his familiar.

Focus on transmutation spells with a few conjuration spells (not sure about a full list, but definately include at least one repair damage spell for his multiple repairs of Al and wall of stone.)

Edward Elric is probably going to be a pretty respectable level based on the magic he is capable of doing, but I don't think he is anywhere near the mythical status of a level 20. I doubt he'd ever really push much past level 10, honestly.

[ArcturusV]

Well.... most fictional magic users outside of particular DnD based fiction would struggle to crack level 10.

And I do agree, Edward Elric probably isn't cracking level 10. Outside of say, Clone... there isn't a lot of high level stuff he really does. And Clone nearly killed him to do it. Plus was literally circle magic using two spellcasters to accomplish, not just himself.

[Chilingsworth]

Well, an 8th level build could be: Sor 8 with warforged components (is there one that can be used as a weapon?) The Divine Companion and "gain a domain (for war)" ACF's. Maybe the arcane disciple feat for healing. That would give him 4th level spells, BAB 8 (1/Day for 8 rounds), the automail, and alittle healing ability.

Also, the clone spell... it failed- badly.

[ArcturusV]

Well, I don't know about that. They had a reasonable facsimile working as the Fuhrer's secretary for years later. Who looked just like the Mom. So it obviously worked. Even if they thought it didn't work at the time.

[Waspinator]

Yeah, it technically worked. Not the way they intended, but it did work.

[Chilingsworth]

Well, I don't know about that. They had a reasonable facsimile working as the Fuhrer's secretary for years later. Who looked just like the Mom. So it obviously worked. Even if they thought it didn't work at the time.

Ah, I see... we're thinking of different versions. You're thinking of the first anime (which divereged from the manga and isn't actually canon.)

I'm thinking of what happened in FMA:Brotherhood and the Manga. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qr97vX-7a0)

EDIT: Oops! Spoilers treated as such. (the linked vid is a clip from a very early episode... umm, the second, iirc.)

It's later revealed that Al's soul was temporarily bound to that... thing that they made, before Ed rebound it to the armor. (Deanimating the creation, which likely wouldn't have held Al's soul very long, anyway.) Also, in the Manga, homunculi are not the result of failed human transmutations. They're parts of the BigBad (either in pure form, or integrated in a human host.) That creation was a barely animate vaugely human shaped... meat puppet, for lack of a better term. It wasn't going to last long.

[Psyren]

Well.... most fictional magic users outside of particular DnD based fiction would struggle to crack level 10.

Anime tends to go to very high, even epic levels in its portrayals. Look at what the mages of Fairy Tail are capable of for instance, or for that matter look at Bleach or Naruto - all involve abilities that would take very high levels in D&D to pull off.



And I do agree, Edward Elric probably isn't cracking level 10. Outside of say, Clone... there isn't a lot of high level stuff he really does.

Creating a regular iron golem is minimum 16th level, and he was able to make an intelligent one by sticking a soul to it, which would be even higher. (In fact, I consider this feat roughly on par with Soul Bind.) He not only did that by himself, he knew exactly how to (thanks to the Gate) so it wasn't even a fluke. And the various times he repaired Alphonse would have probably also required Craft Construct.


*snip*

Could you possibly spoiler that stuff? I'm not done with Brotherhood yet...

[Ithquentbvare]

I saw a thread quite some time ago on Wizards that made their own Alchemy class. They essentially used the idea for the Warock (as mentioned earlier) and substituted a variety of Wu Jen spells as options for Invocations, and instead of the Eldritch Blast at will they got Wood Shape at will that worked on anything and at later levels it became Fabricate at will. Not sure if that helped at all, and I don't know if I can link to it.

[Waspinator]

Warlocks also have a couple of nice abilities related to magic items, which fits FMA alchemists pretty well.

[Ithquentbvare]

So then how would one build him then? I am curious. Obviously we have him as a human.

But should it just Warlock with specially chosen Invocations?

The Charisma based casting doesn't seem quite right to me. As an Alchemist you need to actually know the composition of things to break them down or rebuild them.

[SowZ]

Anime tends to go to very high, even epic levels in its portrayals. Look at what the mages of Fairy Tail are capable of for instance, or for that matter look at Bleach or Naruto - all involve abilities that would take very high levels in D&D to pull off.



Creating a regular iron golem is minimum 16th level, and he was able to make an intelligent one by sticking a soul to it, which would be even higher. (In fact, I consider this feat roughly on par with Soul Bind.) He not only did that by himself, he knew exactly how to (thanks to the Gate) so it wasn't even a fluke. And the various times he repaired Alphonse would have probably also required Craft Construct.



Could you possibly spoiler that stuff? I'm not done with Brotherhood yet...

Hmm, even if he can pull off a few high level tricks, I still don't think his power level overall is that of a 15th+ level caster in 3.5. Anime does get pretty powerful, though.

Bleach and Naruto are probably high levels, and saying the more powerful characters are in their upper teens with a few people even going above that probably isn't unreasonable. DBZ is clearly Epic level.

[Waker]

I do find it amusing how many people are suggesting refluffing Warlock and Binder, since the homebrew Alchemist I've been tinkering with is derived from Warlock and Binder.

Anyways, Edward has three things going for him: his alchemy, excellent combat skills and the fact that he's a midget since he refuses to drink his milk. In order to capture mos of that I would suggest a Whisper Gnome Transmuter/Monk (carmendine, kung fu genius) and a little bit of Enlightened Fist. After that you could go for Master Transmuter, Swiftblade or Master Transmogrifist.

[ArcturusV]

I don't know Fairy Tail to comment on it. I just know that typically in an Anime, actual "magic" users, and not people who are super Chi/Ki warrior types tend to be fairly limited as far as what they can normally do outside of Plot MacGuffin.

Like... Naruto, as it was mentioned. As far as Magic Abilities outside of particular Plot MacGuffins (Nine-Tail fox stuff, Bloodlines, etc), there isn't a lot of high power stuff.

You have the Substitution which is basically an alteration of Blink. Temporary Clones which would be comparable to a Summon Monster - spell. Outside of the titlular character it never gets THAT out of hand, suggesting the highest level users of it are typically casting something like Summon Monster III or IV and calling forth Level 1 monsters for a horde (They all do get wiped out in a single solid hit and such after all).

Typically when characters in an Anime use what is supposed to be their "most powerful" abilities it's typically lower level DnD stuff. Like... The Familiar of Zero. Where Louise's ultra powerful "Void Magic" could basically just be an Enlarged Fireball variant. And again, was a once in a lifetime thing. Otherwise the magic that she can normally use would be more akin to Burning Hands level evocations.

Or say for the higher end of "Magic Users" I've seen in Anime that isn't being based off DnD, you'd have something like Fortune Teller Baba from Dragonball. Who can Scry several times per day, capable of Planar Binding or Animate Dead based on how you wanted to work in, and Plane Shifting.

But yeah. I mean most things I see their "Most powerful" tricks and such that they can reliably use aren't necessarily high level.

[Psyren]

Hmm, even if he can pull off a few high level tricks, I still don't think his power level overall is that of a 15th+ level caster in 3.5.

What I was getting at is that he is capable of high-level stuff, even if he hasn't had much opportunity (or inclination) to go all out in the series. Consider that by stopping at step 2 of alchemy (breaking down) he can basically destroy any creature or object he touches with no save, just like Scar does. Consider that he can effectively Greater Fabricate at-will. He also has the knowledge and strength of will to bind souls and erase DR/hardness mid-fight.

One of his more common and favorite tricks is effectively Quickened Wall of Stone (slightly better even - his is an immediate rather than a swift action.) In D&D terms that's a 9th-level spell too.

[Fable Wright]

Never mind monk; instead, use Renegade Mastermaker from Eberron - you get a metal arm knows as a battlefist that you can make attacks with. Fluff that as Ed's automail-fu.

Artificer (or Transmuter) into RMM should let you mimic most of his powers.

Seconding Renegade Mastermaker. The whole class is based around learning to build warforged, to the point where you become one, and we have Ed turning Alphonse into a Warforged at the very start of the anime. I'm inclined to think it was done using an Incantation.

As for how to mimic Edward... the main ability he has is to use Fabricate at will, and the only way I can find to do that at a reasonable level is through the use of a level 12 spellthief with the Greater Mark of Making feat. As a Standard action, he steals his own Fabricate SLA, and then can use that without expending his own uses. If you rule that the Master Spellthief feat allows the spellthief to steal higher level spell-likes with Renegade Mastermaker, you can work that in, too... the only problem is that Edward now has the ability to borrow other people's techniques when he gets the drop on them, but with a custom flaw (possibly getting the Master Spellthief feat with it?) that could be remedied. You have the unfortunate situation of having to spend 2 Standard Actions to Fabricate, but you can sculpt a nearly unlimited amount of material, which fits him rather well.

[limejuicepowder]

I've read the entire FMA manga, and can say with confidence that Edward is in the 8-10 level range.

Saying "he has X ability, and the only way to gain X ability in DnD is by being 17 level, there for Edward is at least level 17" is not really logical; they are two different power systems, and what is par or even underpowered in one may be very out of place or overpowered in the other. Making Ed a very high level caster is going to give him LOTS of things he shouldn't have - like 34+ different spells, along with a reliance on a spellbook (if he's a wizard of course).

To really mimic a distinct a system as alchemy, some amount of homebrew is needed. I like the idea of basing it on the warlock or binder, since uses/day is also foreign to alchemy. I'm leaning towards the warlock because they have the same feel of "few powers known, but used very flexibly." Make a couple of custom invocations, exchange the eldritch blast for something more fitting, and call it a day.

[Seer_of_Heart]

Seconding Renegade Mastermaker. The whole class is based around learning to build warforged, to the point where you become one, and we have Ed turning Alphonse into a Warforged at the very start of the anime. I'm inclined to think it was done using an Incantation.

Doesn't the capstone make you a warforged? I seem to remember something like that so I don't recommend taking the full progression.

[Soren Hero]

Like... Naruto, as it was mentioned. As far as Magic Abilities outside of particular Plot MacGuffins (Nine-Tail fox stuff, Bloodlines, etc), there isn't a lot of high power stuff.



have you ever had a chance to look at the naruto in dnd thread (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6002)? it has some of the characters (like naruto and sasuke, pre-sannin training) at level 20, and the more badass ones (like itachi, sasori) in epic levels. they try to get as many signature abilities onto the characters as possible, and i feel like they did a good job. they have kisame at level 25, 351 power points, 17 bab, 7th level psionic powers, and a +1 Vicious Psychic Deep Crystal Greatsword, which when he is using it, his class abilities transform it into a +5 Vicious Keen Dissipator Soulbreaker Mindfeeder Deep Crystal Greatsword of Suppression (also psicrystal, because f u, that's why). i don't know enough about psionics to tell you what each of those abilities do and/or cost, but i can tell you that it is wicked sharp, does extra damage, drains power points and can store them. that is samehada, a massive, draining and uber powerful sword.

[ArcturusV]

Seems like it is all based on Psionics, which I'm not familiar with since 2nd edition ADnD... which I am told is very much like the Psionics in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, but that's the limit of my understanding of it. And those Psionics were so broken that it might properly represent a Genjutsu based Duel, but that's about it.

[Sith_Happens]

Seems like it is all based on Psionics, which I'm not familiar with since 2nd edition ADnD... which I am told is very much like the Psionics in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook, but that's the limit of my understanding of it. And those Psionics were so broken that it might properly represent a Genjutsu based Duel, but that's about it.

3.5 psionics somehow managed to break the streak and be really, really, ridiculously well-designed. You really should check it out some time.

[Waspinator]

Yeah, I think 3.5 Psionics gets a bad reputation simply because other versions of Psionics were bad.

Anyway, going back to FMA, I think we are definitely going to have to homebrew for this, but we can use existing stuff as a basis. If we're basing it off of Warlocks, we should probably change it to Int-based instead of Cha.