How to make Jayce Belden in 5th ed

[Ionsniper]

So our current DM is making a sandbox game soon and told us to start getting some concepts for characters going on. I've thought up a fee but one I'm really curious about creating a Jayce Belden type guy from Magic the gathering.

I've heard that charm spells and enchantment type stuff isn't that powerful overall. I'm wondering if building him to be like Jayce is even viable. What kinda spells would he use and feats? I've got some rough ideas but I would like to hear what you guys think.

[Wolfsraine]

So our current DM is making a sandbox game soon and told us to start getting some concepts for characters going on. I've thought up a fee but one I'm really curious about creating a Jayce Belden type guy from Magic the gathering.

I've heard that charm spells and enchantment type stuff isn't that powerful overall. I'm wondering if building him to be like Jayce is even viable. What kinda spells would he use and feats? I've got some rough ideas but I would like to hear what you guys think.

Who is Jayce Belden? Can't find any magic cards with that name.

[Townopolis]

Maybe we're talking about Jace Beleren, who is a natural telepath and big on blue magic, which is in line with a focus on enchantments and charms.

[Chronos]

The Charm Person spell specifically isn't all that powerful, but there's plenty of other good stuff in the enchantment school. The first two abilities of enchantment-schooled wizards are also quite nice, both giving you effective, useful ways of messing with enemies' minds that are usable at will (neither of them can be used twice on the same enemy in the same day, but they can still be used as many times as there are enemies at least).

[-Jynx-]

You could also go the route of Great Old One Warlock. The expanded spells almost all fit thematically and awakened mind and thought shield also fit well. Taking tome pact and picking up Book of Ancient Secrets Invocation for a couple rituals (plus agonizing blast, eldritch spear, maybe armor of shadows, maybe eventually eldritch sight) at 7th level you can get Dreadful word invocation etc. etc.

You won't have options a wizards or sorc will, and the build isn't tailored to put the team on your back... but it does smoothly fit the character you're trying to emulate. Though as advice, you should probably learn how to spell his name before wanting to make an entire character based off of him.

[Vortenger]

Great Old One Warlock (1 to 3 levels)/ Lore Bard (the rest). Telepathy, buffs, all the good enchantments, and enough tricks up your sleeve (magical secrets and proficiencies) to act like a real planeswalker. As with most classes, Plane Shift sold separately. You could swap enchanter wizard in in place of bard, but I don't find that fits the lore as well.

[Ionsniper]

Freaking autocorrect changed the name. Yeah its Jayce Beleren from Magic the Gathering. Thanks so far for the advice. I'm still just looking around and seeing what fits and stuff. I'm not too worried about planes shift though since I don't think we will be travelling too much.

[silveralen]

Straight wizard is fairly good for this, keeps int primary and he is a spell focused character.

Illusion and enchantment both work as schools, blue magic tends to have both in spades and both are somewhat representive of his abilities.

Maybe old one warlock just for telepathy but no more than that imo.

[mephnick]

I always hear about these magic characters. Are there novels or something? Do people just pull this stuff from the cards?

[Gavran]

I always hear about these magic characters. Are there novels or something? Do people just pull this stuff from the cards?

Short answer: yes. Or some form of stories at least. I've a friend that read some.

[silveralen]

They used to put out a fair number of novels, but that was a while back and is only vaguely relevant to the current storylines. I know they have some graphic novels and comics now but that's about it. A lot of the fluff I know of comes from the wiki which is pieced together from a ton of obscure sources (cards, bits of lore from expansions, comics, etc). I haven't actually seen a new novel in a a few years, at my bookstore or gaming shop.

[Ionsniper]

There are dozens of books related to Magic the Gathering. They used to make a book for almost every expansion of cards that was printed. However that practice seems to have fallen out lately and seems to be contained mostly in the online comics last I saw and the cards.

The original planes walkers had so much power that they would have been impossible to bring on the table in the current game. Though that was truly one of the best ages for MTG. The current group of planes walkers are all mostly just powerful beings with a spark that gives them the ability to travel the planes. Imagine the original spark being a full fledged bonfire of power vs the current spark being a match sized ember. That would be the difference.

I'm still trying to figure out how I wanna build him exactly. Default if I can't make it work is go evoker and just annihilate stuff. Always works well.