aadder
2020-08-03, 07:59 AM
Hell everyone,
For an upcoming campaign in which we are going to Avernus, i am making a new character and i wanted to style him around some of the alchemists from Full Metal Alchemist. Not the Elric brothers or Mustang or anyone in particular, just the general idea.
So i'm essentially trying to engineer a character that gets to do a lot of at-will manipulation of the environment in ways that will let me be a highly utilitarian character. To this end i'm looking at taking a wizard and using a lot of cantrips and school ability to make it possible. We already have a ton of magical power in the party, so i'm not worried about sacrificing a lot of my cantrips for utility.
Here's what i'm looking at so far for ideas:
Continuous Bonfire looks like a really good way to generate fire and also control the battlefield. I know it's concentration but the ability to create very dangerous terrain to funnel enemies seems very cool and useful for no investment.
Gust is, yes, kind of just a more limited Mage Hang, but in terms of flavor, using the material in the environment to push people around and objects seems really fluffy.
Mold Earth seems highly underrated. In terms of creating obstacles Continuous Bonfire is better. But, rules-as-written this lets you move a 5foot by 5foot by 5foot cube of earth in a single action. Given that a cubic yard of dirt weighs about 2000lbs, 1000 lbs if its very loose and dry, 125 cubic feet of dirt weighs between 9000 and 4500 lbs. The ability to move that effortlessly in one action has some amazing uses. You can extinguish fire, re-route water, block doors, stop a moving object in its tracks, weigh-down objects, all kinds of stuff. And i know it says that it can't damage people, but i would argue that if i moved a couple tons of earth onto someone in one action, they are 100% pinned.
Magic Stone looks fun just to be able to generate projectiles and seems like it would make thematic sense to attack using object around you.
For magic school i can't decide between Transmutation or taking Conjuration or War Mage. I know that it's literally called transmutation, and that you literally get to make a philosopher's stone, but hear me out.
The level 2 ability that Transmutation gives you is really important to consider, because of what utility i want to have. And unfortunately, i feel like it's underpowered. Minor Alchemy lets you transform objects between iron, stone, silver, copper, or wood. It doesn't let you shape or change them in any other way, and it's very slow. 10 minutes at minimum to alter an object, more if it's more than one cubic foot in size. There are some good uses; you can open all kinds of things by turning them or parts of them into wood or silver to make them weak: doors, safes, jail bars, padlocks, etc. Arguably it's a free Knock spell with a 10 minute cast time. You can turn things into silver and sell them to cheat your way into some money, but i would argue that your dm won't let you do that more than twice before the shops hear that there's a scammer out there. You can give someone an impressive silver gift to gain favor that turns back later, but i would say that Friends is a cantrip that accomplishes that, essentially. You can turn objects into wood to destroy them with fire, given enough time, but i feel like that's highly situational in that any small object that's fast to transmute and burn you could just steal or hide, and any giant objects are probably too much of a bother, or are a constructed item and thus already able to be burnt or damaged with conventional tools.
Conjuration on the other hand lets you pull any mundane object out of thin air. You can't use it as a weapon, but you can do kind of anything else with it. Spyglass to see far, rope and grappling hook to climb, a length of pipe to redirect water, padding to cover up spikes or dangerous objects, a blanket to keep warm, paper to write on, a chair to sit on, literally anything. It seems less powerful in terms of plot solving, but also less contextual and more versatile. I could easily see taking Transmutation and not getting to take advantage of its contextual usefulness.
I know this is short, and doesn't cover higher-level spells, but i'm kind of concerned at the moment with what i can do off-hand to affect my environment. I have ideas for more spells at higher levels, but right now i'm more interested in what you all think of this for my basic abilities.
For an upcoming campaign in which we are going to Avernus, i am making a new character and i wanted to style him around some of the alchemists from Full Metal Alchemist. Not the Elric brothers or Mustang or anyone in particular, just the general idea.
So i'm essentially trying to engineer a character that gets to do a lot of at-will manipulation of the environment in ways that will let me be a highly utilitarian character. To this end i'm looking at taking a wizard and using a lot of cantrips and school ability to make it possible. We already have a ton of magical power in the party, so i'm not worried about sacrificing a lot of my cantrips for utility.
Here's what i'm looking at so far for ideas:
Continuous Bonfire looks like a really good way to generate fire and also control the battlefield. I know it's concentration but the ability to create very dangerous terrain to funnel enemies seems very cool and useful for no investment.
Gust is, yes, kind of just a more limited Mage Hang, but in terms of flavor, using the material in the environment to push people around and objects seems really fluffy.
Mold Earth seems highly underrated. In terms of creating obstacles Continuous Bonfire is better. But, rules-as-written this lets you move a 5foot by 5foot by 5foot cube of earth in a single action. Given that a cubic yard of dirt weighs about 2000lbs, 1000 lbs if its very loose and dry, 125 cubic feet of dirt weighs between 9000 and 4500 lbs. The ability to move that effortlessly in one action has some amazing uses. You can extinguish fire, re-route water, block doors, stop a moving object in its tracks, weigh-down objects, all kinds of stuff. And i know it says that it can't damage people, but i would argue that if i moved a couple tons of earth onto someone in one action, they are 100% pinned.
Magic Stone looks fun just to be able to generate projectiles and seems like it would make thematic sense to attack using object around you.
For magic school i can't decide between Transmutation or taking Conjuration or War Mage. I know that it's literally called transmutation, and that you literally get to make a philosopher's stone, but hear me out.
The level 2 ability that Transmutation gives you is really important to consider, because of what utility i want to have. And unfortunately, i feel like it's underpowered. Minor Alchemy lets you transform objects between iron, stone, silver, copper, or wood. It doesn't let you shape or change them in any other way, and it's very slow. 10 minutes at minimum to alter an object, more if it's more than one cubic foot in size. There are some good uses; you can open all kinds of things by turning them or parts of them into wood or silver to make them weak: doors, safes, jail bars, padlocks, etc. Arguably it's a free Knock spell with a 10 minute cast time. You can turn things into silver and sell them to cheat your way into some money, but i would argue that your dm won't let you do that more than twice before the shops hear that there's a scammer out there. You can give someone an impressive silver gift to gain favor that turns back later, but i would say that Friends is a cantrip that accomplishes that, essentially. You can turn objects into wood to destroy them with fire, given enough time, but i feel like that's highly situational in that any small object that's fast to transmute and burn you could just steal or hide, and any giant objects are probably too much of a bother, or are a constructed item and thus already able to be burnt or damaged with conventional tools.
Conjuration on the other hand lets you pull any mundane object out of thin air. You can't use it as a weapon, but you can do kind of anything else with it. Spyglass to see far, rope and grappling hook to climb, a length of pipe to redirect water, padding to cover up spikes or dangerous objects, a blanket to keep warm, paper to write on, a chair to sit on, literally anything. It seems less powerful in terms of plot solving, but also less contextual and more versatile. I could easily see taking Transmutation and not getting to take advantage of its contextual usefulness.
I know this is short, and doesn't cover higher-level spells, but i'm kind of concerned at the moment with what i can do off-hand to affect my environment. I have ideas for more spells at higher levels, but right now i'm more interested in what you all think of this for my basic abilities.