Making a LoL Orianna-Type Character

[JBPuffin]

How would you go about making a character whose major shtick is piloting around a floating death machine? The more mechanically tied to the concept, the better; I know just refluffing some stuff works, but I'm thinking about homebrewing something and want to see what comes to other people's minds with what's available.

[agnos]

There's two ways to go with this. First is to say she's a control mage in LoL and just make a wizard with a heavy buff/debuff/battlefield control route. While it works, it's a pretty lazy approach; I think it's an important factor to work in though. The second is to breakdown her abilities and try to mimic them with spells. Her passive is increased damage on auto attacks. Q moves her ball and does pass through damage. W does AoE damage in the area around her ball while also slowing enemies and speeding up allies. E moves the ball to shield an ally (and give bonus resistances) doing pass through damage to enemies in the path. Her R does AoE damage and pulls enemies towards the ball.

In League, Orianna is all about using the ball to control zones for a fight at while threatening shockwave. The ball is what makes her so iconic as a mage. In this regard, I'd recommend using Flaming Sphere as your ball and it being the most akin to Command Attack. It can move around constantly throughout the fight. I would talk to your DM about letting you reskin the damage from fire damage to lightning or thunder as that's more fitting but it's not required. The spell most like Command Dissonence is fireball. Command Protect is tough; you can make an argument for shield, protection from good/evil, haste, protection from energy, and a few others. Unfortunately, there's not a real analog for Shockwave; I can't think of any spell in D&D that pulls creatures towards a specific point. You could consider something like Evards Tentacles (but that's really closer to Illaoi); Hypnotic pattern could act as AoE cc, but it breaks on damage. You could also try to incorporate some of the other Sphere spells like Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Storm Sphere and Vitriolic Sphere but none of them are quite right.

As far as build wise, I'd consider trying to build her as an Evocation wizard. You could also try to build her as a Light Cleric. Those are the two things that seem to fit the best thematically off the top of my head.

[JBPuffin]

There's two ways to go with this. First is to say she's a control mage in LoL and just make a wizard with a heavy buff/debuff/battlefield control route. While it works, it's a pretty lazy approach; I think it's an important factor to work in though. The second is to breakdown her abilities and try to mimic them with spells. Her passive is increased damage on auto attacks. Q moves her ball and does pass through damage. W does AoE damage in the area around her ball while also slowing enemies and speeding up allies. E moves the ball to shield an ally (and give bonus resistances) doing pass through damage to enemies in the path. Her R does AoE damage and pulls enemies towards the ball.

In League, Orianna is all about using the ball to control zones for a fight at while threatening shockwave. The ball is what makes her so iconic as a mage. In this regard, I'd recommend using Flaming Sphere as your ball and it being the most akin to Command Attack. It can move around constantly throughout the fight. I would talk to your DM about letting you reskin the damage from fire damage to lightning or thunder as that's more fitting but it's not required. The spell most like Command Dissonance is fireball. Command Protect is tough; you can make an argument for shield, protection from good/evil, haste, protection from energy, and a few others. Unfortunately, there's not a real analog for Shockwave; I can't think of any spell in D&D that pulls creatures towards a specific point. You could consider something like Evard's Tentacles (but that's really closer to Illaoi); Hypnotic pattern could act as AoE cc, but it breaks on damage. You could also try to incorporate some of the other Sphere spells like Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Storm Sphere and Vitriolic Sphere but none of them are quite right.

As far as build wise, I'd consider trying to build her as an Evocation wizard. You could also try to build her as a Light Cleric. Those are the two things that seem to fit the best thematically off the top of my head.

Flaming Sphere is definitely on the top of the list, and I'd probably bring the other spheres along as extensions of sorbcery, but you're right, they don't quite fit. I had a plan to use Sword Burst with Find Familiar, but I had the range restriction wrong...on the other hand, Familiar-range Cure Wounds is a nifty combination.

The quickest homebrew solution at this point is some kind of Sword Burst-like cantrip I can transfer through a familiar, although any ranged AoE would work, and an area of effect pull-and-stun. I kind of like the idea of a Mystic tree, for some reason...

[StoicLeaf]

I don't think you're going to get a satisfactory result without some homebrewing. If I were DMing this, I'd start with ..

You take the wizard as a template.
The orb is, functionally, a modified, immortal(/hard to kill) familiar that can cast certain spells despite the "touch" limitation the "find familiar" spell has. The orb can be "taken out", you'll have to dial in the orb's stats. Repair through modified find familiar ritual.
Going through her abilities:

Passive:
5e doesn't like fiddly mechanics. Oriana's passive is fiddly. Fiddly for me would be making ranged spell attacks, start at a d4, each successful hit improves the dice by 2 up to a d12, you have 2 rounds to land an attack to keep the buff up. Alternatively you could just modify a cantrip to piercing damage (say firebolt) to keep the game running at a smooth, non-fiddly pace. Remember, Oriana's gimmicks don't always have to have a mechanical implementation, narrating that your mage is throwing magic shurikens is good enough.

Command: Move
Oriana can't autoattack if she's casting. Which means that she's using an action to cast -or- autoattack. Add to this the question of "what happens when I run out of spell slots?", you might end up with a neutered mage with an orb that's just floating there. I'd allow the ball to be moved with a bonus action (say 30ft). Anything in the way takes damage. d8 damage, dex save, half damage on success. It isn't overpowering, it's kinda like a hunter's mark or hex, should be ok.

Command: Protect
Your mage learns a modified "cure wounds". Same as cure wounds except: Instead of healing, it adds temp hp to the target. Also, due to the orbs size, target gains half cover if the orb is between target and enemy that is firing.

Command: BZZZZT
You can cast shatter through the familiar, centralised on its location, with the orb being immune to the damage. change the damage type to force, maybe.

Command: Ult
Erf, tricky. There are no spells that really fit here; mass suggestion is the only legitimate one, but you're wanting to add damage to it as well. I think for fairness's sake you're going to have to wrap up alot of the gimmicky stuff into your own personalised arcane school. I'd then suggest something akin to action surge; once per short rest, your orb can "ult". damage scales according to level (i'd start with 2d6 at level 1, 2d6 per level), 20ft radius, pulls enemies into center, con save, on save: half damage, no pull.

other thoughts:
This really depends on how "Oriana" you want to be. If you don't mind being a wizard with an interesting magic item that isn't required for you to be a contributor in fights, a lot of the stuff I wrote down can simply be wrapped up into an item that has so and so many charges per day (say .. 20?) with each action costing so and so many charges.
If you want to be maximum Oriana, then ... well you're going to have to live with being a one trick pony. You're likely going to want all of Oriana's skills early on, which means you gain nothing at later levels except more ammo for your ball. Perhaps trying to model common Oriana build LoL items and using those as level 11, 14, etc boosts could be interesting. Or perhaps you think of things that the orb could feasibly do (but isn't available because league is 3 skills and 1 ult) and find a spell that matches it in DnD; e.g. I think detect magic is something that orb could totally do, you could add that to your repetoire.

[ZorroGames]

What is "LoL" please?

[alchahest]

League of Legends!
Orianna is a mechanical woman who has a robot murderball that she controls.

[ZorroGames]

League of Legends!
Orianna is a mechanical woman who has a robot murderball that she controls.

Thank you.

[Lolzyking]

Perhaps the new artificer would fit>

you could fluff the construct as the ball and Multiclass wizard for 12 wiz/Arti 8

Fluff the thunder cannon as your basic attack.

Give a Stored spell shatter to the orb.

[JBPuffin]

SNIP.

Why didn't I think of a magic item? Some combination of customized familiar and homebrew spells can do this, but simply have a magic item and doing whatever I can to max that out arguably works better flavor and mechanic-wise.


Perhaps the new artificer would fit>

you could fluff the construct as the ball and Multiclass wizard for 12 wiz/Arti 8

Fluff the thunder cannon as your basic attack.

Give a Stored spell shatter to the orb.

I hadn't even thought of Artificer, but it certainly has some nifty stuff I could use, especially since the other spell slots are less important...Evocation Wizard/Gunsmith Artificer could do this, I think.

So, Evocation Wizard/Gunsmith Artificer with a custom magic item does just about everything I'd want it to do. Awesome!

Next step is of course picking the proper race. I have a homebrew one that'd probably fit the bill, but refluffing High Elf could work too. Background's probably Entertainer to hone in on the arena fighter and ballerina aspects. Ah great, now I'm authentically considering running a LoL arena-fighting campaign...

[alchahest]

Perhaps the new artificer would fit>

you could fluff the construct as the ball and Multiclass wizard for 12 wiz/Arti 8

Fluff the thunder cannon as your basic attack.

Give a Stored spell shatter to the orb.

this is good thinking!

[StoicLeaf]

Next step is of course picking the proper race.

Warforged, clearly!
Instead of a battlefield model you could be the "made to look innocent but don't threaten the lord" variety that adorns living rooms or libraries!

[JBPuffin]

Warforged, clearly!
Instead of a battlefield model you could be the "made to look innocent but don't threaten the lord" variety that adorns living rooms or libraries!

Warforged doesn't do what I need the race to do in this case; I need 16 Int at start, which with point buy means a race boost, and while living construct is cool the rest I can do without. Admittedly, I wouldn't mind trading Trance and Fey Ancestry for it...heck, maybe even Keen Senses on top of it. Another DM-allowance question, I guess, which was already gonna happen with this build.

I think by this point Orianna is closer to the battlefield model, honestly - that chick is no stranger to violence, and anyone would probably recognize that after being in a room with her for more than five minutes >.>.

[Klorox]

The best way to make an LOL character is with a bard.

Take vicious mockery and Tasha's hideous laughter at first level.