SangoProduction
2017-05-30, 10:43 PM
So, I just watched Necrit's video on youtube "Flesh and Stone". Fantastic story and narration. It made me want to have a galio-type character in my repertoire. (I might start putting stuff in "Spoiler" sections so that it's not just a huge block of text.)
Galio is a giant "magicite" (basically magic-absorbing stone) golem, who was often taken with the demacian army as an idol of victory against mages, as they are a magiophobic society. It then comes to life in the presence of magic, and smashes them to pieces. Then he returns to the pedestal. For some reason, it's still regarded as a myth....even though every soldier can see it when it happens.
In the latest bit of lore, he is awakened permanently by a Demacian light mage, Lux, and refuses to be put back on the pedestal. ...And he might have a twin who serves as a gatekeeper of hell.
Additionally, Galio is quoted as implying himself to be about 300 tons. He does have wings, though he doesn't so much fly as he does the whole "Superman jump" thing.
My first problem I ran in to when designing this character was, "How do I get magic resistance on a warforged," since I saw warforged as being the closest to being a playable construct. Then I remembered that Half-Golems are a thing. What'd ya know? It's got magic immunity built in. And Half Stone Golems even have an at will Slow effect, as a free action, similar to how the real Galio does (minus the taunt).
Yes, yes, Half golem's fluff is about replacing limbs. Who cares. We're refluffing the whole thing anyway. [However...the fluff about turning evil actually kinda works for the Gatekeeper of Hell twin.]
To be or not to be:
So, with the construct-like thing being taken care of, we could switch over to human, and feel good about ourselves. Or we could spend 2 feats (one from not being a human, in addition to the real feat), and take Adamantine Body. I mean, Galio has serious damage reduction in the game, and jokes when you buy armor items. Of course, Adamantine body is just plain weak, having to spend one of the least plentiful resources you have (feats) for a small amount of the most plentiful resource you will have (gold), and 2 DR. So, it fits the fluff, but not the role.
So, yeah. We'll stick with human (mechanically). [EDIT: Oh, right. LOL. You wouldn't even get that 2 DR because Half Golem gives you some already.]
Super Size me.
Now to increase his size. We can take Half Ogre, obviously. (Let's ignore the size advancement bonuses, which shatter the template's "balance" in to trillions of pieces, at least compared to other templates. If you're looking for more mage-level power, then take it.) Some nice natural armor bonus, size bonus, strength. Everything Galio needs. OOOOO! I have an idea! What about goliaths? I mean, if we're adding Goliath in to this, we are now at like +5 LA, which is rather silly, but we can use Huge sized weapons while being Large size, and sit perfectly on that precipice of "on the large side of Large."
Offence:
So, for offense. He doesn't use a weapon, so most would default to saying "unarmed". Indeed, having a level of monk and then fist of the forest, plus those damage advancing items wouldn't be a bad pick, especially with getting Con to AC. But...Well, I would be hard pressed to not think you could call a 300 ton golem's arm a Warhammer, at least. So, we don't need to do anything about that specifically, if we've got some DM buy-in.
He specifically has a charging ability. So, having some charge put in to his build would be useful. I won't go full ubercharger and trivialize the game, but a little bit won't hurt.
He's also got a means to deal splash damage with his strikes. Thankfully, there's a solution that D&D offers for that. Unfortunately, War Hulk removes mental skills, which sucks. But, I'm not sure if Galio actually has mental skills so...might actually be appropriate.
Classes:
Next up is the actual classes we'd take. We've got Barbarian and War Hulk for certain. We could go for 1 or 2 levels of monk and then fist of the forest, if we are going for the unarmed theme. Not sure what else to take as far as classes go. Galio seems pretty straight forward.
We might go for Warblade, actually. Perhaps crusader would be more thematic as a defender of the peoples?
Feats by the foot:
Default feats: Power Attack, Cleave. The Mage Slayer feat chain is also rather nice to have, even if just thematically.
Leap Attack makes so much sense, as does Shock Trooper (especially with Warhulk class and Galio's impressive leaping abilities). But combined with the "full attack on charge" from Barbarian, some may think we're going uber charger.
Superior Unarmed Strikes, Snap Kick, and so on would work for the unarmed theme.
Special abilities from the game and lore (I don't know how to implement in 3.5).
1) Ability to jump in to the sky, and grant someone damage resistance, landing by them and knocking enemies in to the air. This might be partially reconciled with a Transposition spell of some sort. I mean, you are granting damage reduction by just moving them out of the way. You can also just take a bunch of ranks in Jump, with your massive strength bonus.
2) Ability to "eat" magic. Magic Immunity does that well enough that it doesn't *need* to be focused on, but being able to gain power from the spells would be nice. Also, an in-built way to see magic would be nice instead of having to buy permanent Detect Magic or whatever. Best I could find was this homebrewed Spellthief (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Spellthief_(3.5e_Prestige_Class))class (which is quite a nice little class, if I say so myself).
I mean, I guess you could just hold on to your rage until you are hit by magic? You're just playing your character worse, but hey.
3) AoE taunts. Galio can taunt in a small area around him. There aren't any good taunts in this game, let alone AoE taunts.
Galio is a giant "magicite" (basically magic-absorbing stone) golem, who was often taken with the demacian army as an idol of victory against mages, as they are a magiophobic society. It then comes to life in the presence of magic, and smashes them to pieces. Then he returns to the pedestal. For some reason, it's still regarded as a myth....even though every soldier can see it when it happens.
In the latest bit of lore, he is awakened permanently by a Demacian light mage, Lux, and refuses to be put back on the pedestal. ...And he might have a twin who serves as a gatekeeper of hell.
Additionally, Galio is quoted as implying himself to be about 300 tons. He does have wings, though he doesn't so much fly as he does the whole "Superman jump" thing.
My first problem I ran in to when designing this character was, "How do I get magic resistance on a warforged," since I saw warforged as being the closest to being a playable construct. Then I remembered that Half-Golems are a thing. What'd ya know? It's got magic immunity built in. And Half Stone Golems even have an at will Slow effect, as a free action, similar to how the real Galio does (minus the taunt).
Yes, yes, Half golem's fluff is about replacing limbs. Who cares. We're refluffing the whole thing anyway. [However...the fluff about turning evil actually kinda works for the Gatekeeper of Hell twin.]
To be or not to be:
So, with the construct-like thing being taken care of, we could switch over to human, and feel good about ourselves. Or we could spend 2 feats (one from not being a human, in addition to the real feat), and take Adamantine Body. I mean, Galio has serious damage reduction in the game, and jokes when you buy armor items. Of course, Adamantine body is just plain weak, having to spend one of the least plentiful resources you have (feats) for a small amount of the most plentiful resource you will have (gold), and 2 DR. So, it fits the fluff, but not the role.
So, yeah. We'll stick with human (mechanically). [EDIT: Oh, right. LOL. You wouldn't even get that 2 DR because Half Golem gives you some already.]
Super Size me.
Now to increase his size. We can take Half Ogre, obviously. (Let's ignore the size advancement bonuses, which shatter the template's "balance" in to trillions of pieces, at least compared to other templates. If you're looking for more mage-level power, then take it.) Some nice natural armor bonus, size bonus, strength. Everything Galio needs. OOOOO! I have an idea! What about goliaths? I mean, if we're adding Goliath in to this, we are now at like +5 LA, which is rather silly, but we can use Huge sized weapons while being Large size, and sit perfectly on that precipice of "on the large side of Large."
Offence:
So, for offense. He doesn't use a weapon, so most would default to saying "unarmed". Indeed, having a level of monk and then fist of the forest, plus those damage advancing items wouldn't be a bad pick, especially with getting Con to AC. But...Well, I would be hard pressed to not think you could call a 300 ton golem's arm a Warhammer, at least. So, we don't need to do anything about that specifically, if we've got some DM buy-in.
He specifically has a charging ability. So, having some charge put in to his build would be useful. I won't go full ubercharger and trivialize the game, but a little bit won't hurt.
He's also got a means to deal splash damage with his strikes. Thankfully, there's a solution that D&D offers for that. Unfortunately, War Hulk removes mental skills, which sucks. But, I'm not sure if Galio actually has mental skills so...might actually be appropriate.
Classes:
Next up is the actual classes we'd take. We've got Barbarian and War Hulk for certain. We could go for 1 or 2 levels of monk and then fist of the forest, if we are going for the unarmed theme. Not sure what else to take as far as classes go. Galio seems pretty straight forward.
We might go for Warblade, actually. Perhaps crusader would be more thematic as a defender of the peoples?
Feats by the foot:
Default feats: Power Attack, Cleave. The Mage Slayer feat chain is also rather nice to have, even if just thematically.
Leap Attack makes so much sense, as does Shock Trooper (especially with Warhulk class and Galio's impressive leaping abilities). But combined with the "full attack on charge" from Barbarian, some may think we're going uber charger.
Superior Unarmed Strikes, Snap Kick, and so on would work for the unarmed theme.
Special abilities from the game and lore (I don't know how to implement in 3.5).
1) Ability to jump in to the sky, and grant someone damage resistance, landing by them and knocking enemies in to the air. This might be partially reconciled with a Transposition spell of some sort. I mean, you are granting damage reduction by just moving them out of the way. You can also just take a bunch of ranks in Jump, with your massive strength bonus.
2) Ability to "eat" magic. Magic Immunity does that well enough that it doesn't *need* to be focused on, but being able to gain power from the spells would be nice. Also, an in-built way to see magic would be nice instead of having to buy permanent Detect Magic or whatever. Best I could find was this homebrewed Spellthief (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Spellthief_(3.5e_Prestige_Class))class (which is quite a nice little class, if I say so myself).
I mean, I guess you could just hold on to your rage until you are hit by magic? You're just playing your character worse, but hey.
3) AoE taunts. Galio can taunt in a small area around him. There aren't any good taunts in this game, let alone AoE taunts.