Iron Chef E6 Appetizer Edition, Round XLIV

[Venger]

What's that they say about abyss gazing?

Mehndi Toner



CG Half-Elf Skilled City-Dweller Sneak Attack Fighter 1 / Half-Elf Paragon 3 / Dragonmark Heir 2

Spoiler: Description

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In Sharn's middle city, flanked by greengrocers and locksmiths, you might spot an unassuming business. Below two small windows of frosted glass, next to a stylized illustration of a darkmantle, there is written:

THE SILHOUETTE: Tattoos, Piercings, Assorted Magical Services, Aesthetic and Utilitarian, inquire within!

Heading through an immaculate green door, one enters a large but full room. A small table groans under the weight of pamphets and binders, each illustrating some of the complex artworks that can be turned into tattoos. Charts hanging from the wall instead show intricate geometrical patterns, with elaborate notes detailing the arcane energies each invokes. Some distance away, a tray of needles and ink vials floats out of a cupboard: carried by some disembodied force? Perhaps-

The proprietor steps into view and introduces herself as Mehndi. She is a tall half-elf with short dark hair, adorned head to toe with tattoos: abstract works that resemble birds, twisting flowering vines, and a number of designs in the style of dragonmarks; a bit of a gauche trend, but a trend all the same. The two marks found among half-elves are of course not present: such a thing would skirt too close to impersonation.

You inquire as to the magic tattoos, and receive a detailed list of boons. Protection, resistance to magic, supernatural luck... It's an impressive range of options, beyond the abilities of all but the most dedicated mages. Fearing the answer, you ask about the price, only to hear a number so low it baffles the mind. Elsewhere, prices might hover around two hundred and fifty gold, and this woman is not even asking for half that? It seems like it would barely cover the cost of materials, so you inquire as to the catch.

"No catch! I like my job, I can make a living with these rates, and I'm not about to start price gouging for something that'll wear off by this time tomorrow."

Catch or no catch, those prices can't be beat. You pick out an effect, choose a design, and are informed there's an open spot coming right up. You sit down and begin some small talk: the woman is good conversation, humble yet frank, and you even find yourself letting some things slip that were supposed to be kept secret. She reassures you it's all safe with her, and you believe it.

And then, mere minutes after you walked in, the strange woman suddenly stands up. You express confusion, she points at your arm, and there it is: the tattoo, fully finalized. The whole thing was utterly painless; truth be told you hardly noticed her work, and yet it looks perfect. No, not just looks: already the magical enhancement is up and running, already arcane power flows freely from the sigil. Incredulous, you ask once more about just how she does all of this, but her response is only a sly smile and a cryptic remark.

"Trust me on this: you shouldn't think too much about it. No refunds for those who do."

Spoiler: Backstory

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Mehndi grew up in one of Sharn's many bad neighbourhoods, in a run-down tattoo parlor frequented only by the most unsavory types. Her caretaker, an elderly true-born half-elf, was family to her, and she repaid the favor by taking any unruly customers down a peg. Faced with a heavily tattooed half-elf and her mean-looking morningstar, most chose to go quietly.

When her caretaker died, seemingly taking the secret of her origins with him, Mehndi took over the shop. For a few weeks, it seemed like that would be all: a quiet life, neither comfortable nor squalid, punctuated by the background violence of the slums.

Then, Mehndi woke up to find a tattoo she never remembered placing. A dragonmark, but not just any dragonmark: the mark of shadow. She was no khoravar at all, but a child of elf and human! Now with a lead to her parents' identity, Mehndi approached House Phiarlan, and after some initial scepticism was quickly granted a place in their ranks. Her life improved considerably from that point on, though she still spent much of it in the slums: chasing down leads and rumors for the good of her house.

But still, questions remained. The house was unable (or unwilling?) to inform her who sired her. The mark's powers came to be accompanied by strange images and flashbacks, visions none could explain. And the ever-scheming house lords might very well be hatching plots that force them in opposition with pure-hearted Mehndi...

Spoiler: Ability scores and languages

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ECL1: STR 10 / DEX 10 / CON 12 / INT 12 / WIS 16 / CHA 16
At ECL 4, Half-Elf paragon increases our wisdom by 2, while the ASI is put in charisma.
During epic levels, Mark of the Twelve Moons increases our charisma by 1.
Final stats: STR 10 / DEX 10 / CON 12 / INT 12 / WIS 18 / CHA 18

Languages: Common, Elven, Draconic

Spoiler: Build Table

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Sneak AttackUA Skilled City-DwellerWeb Fighter 1	+1	+2	+0	+0	Craft (Tattooing) +4 (4), Gather Information +4 (4), Intimidate +4 (4)	Intuitive AttackBoED	Sneak Attack +1d6
2nd	Half-Elf ParagonUA 1	+1	+2	+2	+0	Bluff +2 (2), Craft (Tattooing) 4, Diplomacy +3 (3), Gather Information 4, Intimidate 4	Least Dragonmark (Mark of Shadow) (Minor Image)ECS	Bonus Feat, Divided Ancestry, Elven Vision
3rd	Half-Elf Paragon 2	+2	+2	+3	+0	Bluff +3 (5), Craft (Tattooing) 4, Diplomacy +2 (5), Gather Information 4, Intimidate 4	Favored in House (House Phiarlan)ECS	Persuasion
4th	Half-Elf Paragon 3	+3	+3	+3	+1	Bluff +2 (7), Craft (Tattooing) 4, Diplomacy +2 (7), Gather Information 4, Intimidate 4, Use Magic Device +1cc (0.5)	-	+2 Wisdom
5th	Dragonmark HeirECS 1	+3	+5	+5	+3	Bluff 7, Craft (Tattooing) 4, Diplomacy +1 (8), Gather Information 4, Intimidate 4, Knowledge (Arcana) +2 (2), Sense Motive +1 (1), Use Magic Device +1cc (1)	Lesser Dragonmark (Mark of Shadow) (Shadow Conjuration)ECS	Lesser Dragonmark, House Status
6th	Dragonmark Heir 2	+4	+6	+6	+4	Bluff 7, Craft (Tattooing) 4, Diplomacy +1 (9), Gather Information 4, Intimidate 4, Knowledge (Arcana) 2, Sense Motive +4 (5), Use Magic Device 1	Dragon ProphecizerMoE	Additional Action Points, Improved Least Dragonmark (Disguise Self)

Epic Feats:
1: Prophecy's Hero^MoE
2: Unlock Dragonmark^Dragonmarked
3: Craven^CoR
4: Mark of the Twelve Moons^Dragonmarked (+1 charisma)
5: Intimidating Strike^PHBII
6: Master Manipulator^PHBII
7: Dragonmark Adept^Dragonmarked (Blindsight 1/day)
8: Urban Tracking^CS
9: Dragonmark Luck^EotLQ
10: Mighty Dragonmark^Dragonmarked

Spoiler: Progression

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ECL 1: We're starting off as a basic sneak attacker, though one with unusual stats. Intuitive Attack and sneak attack let you do decent damage even though your physical stats are average (+4 to hit and 1d8+1d6 damage is probably more than what the rogue can muster at this point). You're also solid out of combat, thanks to your good charisma, ranks in all the social skills you can squeeze out of a fighter, and your racial bonus to diplomacy and gather information. Hitting +5 diplomacy out of the gate is nice as it lets you reliably turn unfriendly people indifferent or indifferent people friendly.

Defensively, you boast 11 HP, as much armor as you can get your hands on, and +3 to the two most important saves (plus another +2 to enchantments).

ECL 2: Half-Elf Paragon starts improving our social skills and so-so reflex save. More importantly, it gives us our dragonmark, letting us use the decently versatile Minor Image once per day and kicking off our illusion theme. Some might balk at giving a half-elf the mark of shadow, but:

Some half-elves continue to arise through the union of humans and elves. These individuals, with both a human and an elf parent, can appear among any of the human or elf dragonmarked houses, and thus might have either a human or elf dragonmark of the appropriate bloodline.

(really, why don't more people make use of that? I guess half-elves suck, but surely a bad race is preferable over one that gives -2 constitution)

ECL 3: Our racial bonus to Diplomacy and Gather Information is upped to +3: together with the bluff synergy bonus, our diplomacy modifier is currently +13 (+3 charisma, +5 ranks, +3 racial, +2 synergy), so with a masterwork tool and the chance to take 10 we're turning unfriendly people friendly. Furthermore, all other charisma-based skills get a +2 bonus as well, so we get even better at lying, intimidating, disguising, performing, and (soon) using magical devices.

We can also ask our house for favors, but that's so poorly-written that I'm not sure I can assume it does anything without DM permission.

ECL 4: Half-Elf paragon happens to give us something useful at every level: this time it's a wisdom bonus, which will be useful for reasons that shall soon be explained. We also start investing in UMD, but our need to get diplomacy and bluff to 7 ranks prevent us from getting a full rank quite yet.

ECL 5: With all requirements met, we enter a PrC as our 5th level. Right away, we get the Lesser dragonmark of shadow, giving us shadow conjuration, perhaps the most busted E6-accessible illusion in the game. More on it later. We also use the expanded skill list to invest in knowledge (arcana), take our first sense motive rank, and get an additional use of Minor Image.

ECL 6: Another illusion added to our repertoire (despite our lack of disguise ranks, we have +15 to the skill when magically cloaked), our dragonmark CL upped to 8, and the Dragon Prophecizer feat, which lets us enter a state of 'prophetic fervor' seven (3 + wis) times a day. It's not that good for now, but just you wait!

We also get 5 ranks in sense motive, thus grabbing yet another synergy bonus, and now have +19 (+9 ranks, +3 charisma, +2 bluff synergy, +2 sense motive synergy, +3 persuasion), with another +2 if we're talking to someone from our house.

Epic 1: Prophecy's Hero is now giving us an action point every time we enter the fervor state, meaning that throughout the day we can throw a 1d6 bonus onto a random out-of-combat skill checks seven times: not bad!

Epic 2 (sweet spot): Here's where it all comes together. Unlock Dragonmark now lets us spend an action point to activate any SLA that our least or lesser mark can grant. This is pretty sweet from a pure utility perspective, and you'll definitely appreciate the odd Scrying (it shouldn't be too hard to obtain blood or skin from anyone you tattoo) or Clairvoyance that's now castable, but more fundamentally this lets us turn action points into dragonmark uses. Thus, those seven daily action points from Prophecy's Hero are now all another casting of Shadow Conjuration. Action economy reasons make it difficult to do this in-combat, but shadow conjuration is so good that this restriction doesn't greatly matter (and we definitely could still do this in combat, it'd just take two rounds).

Epic 3: Our damage has been a bit underwhelming for a while, but with Craven it picks right back up. Unlike your typical rogue, we have a +8 base Will save that'll commonly get boosted by +2 (plus the potential bonus from our tattoos), so we're a bit more comfortable lowering our saves against fear.

Epic 4: As it happens, another point of charisma means a bonus to tons of important skills and a higher save DC for our dragonmark powers. In this situation specifically, Mark of the Twelve Moons can be justified. Specifically, our diplomacy balloons to +20 before items, meaning we can make full-round rushed checks that have a 50% chance of calming hostile foes down, or of turning indifferent people helpful, all before magic and items. And of course, even our worst foe is probably indifferent towards some disguised identity, so finding a minute to strike up a conversation won't be too hard.

Epic 5: Intimidating Strike is basically a free encounter-long debuff given that we can't make full attacks anyway. Our remarkably high to-hit (+10 with a tattoo but before magic items) means we can pretty easily take a penalty to increase the chance of the intimidate check succeeding. Said intimidate check is of course a respectable +12 all by itself.

Epic 6: More uses for charisma-based skills! We can now use our sky-high diplomacy to set up our subsequent bluffs or to catch others in their lies, making us an extremely potent face. I can't stress enough how powerful Master Manipulator is in a social context: almost nothing in E6 can just force people to speak the truth.

Epic 7: The ability to get blindsight up will help us secure sneak attacks, and the extra Shadow Conjuration is just icing. We can now also use Veil of Shadow when unlocking our dragonmark, and self-concealment isn't the worst buff, so note that it's an option.

Epic 8: Urban Tracking gets some use out of our +11 Gather Information and helps round out our capabilities some: not much point in being a face if you can't find the people you want to talk to.

Epic 9: Dragonmarked Luck gives yet another Shadow Conjuration per day, bringing the total to 10, though this one comes at the cost of a least dragonmark use. It can also serve to give us an action point on short notice.

Epic 10: Finally, Mighty Dragonmark to round things out, making our many dragonmark powers much harder to resist or disbelieve and adding another +2 CL. That means we're now at a CL of 10, which is where many low-level spells have their effects top out anyway.

Spoiler: Dragonmark

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Least:
Minor Image 2/day
Disguise Self 1/day

Lesser:
Shadow Conjuration 2/day
Blindsight^SC 1/day

Can turn Prophetic Fervors (7/day) into dragonmark uses with Prophecy's Hero -> Unlock Dragonmark.
1/day can transfer a use of the least dragonmark into a use of the lesser dragonmark with Dragonmark Luck -> Unlock Dragonmark.

When unlocking the dragonmark, Darkness, Scrying, Clairvoyance/Clairaudience or Veil of Shadow^SC can be used instead of the default abilities.

SHADOW CONJURATION:

In the following section I outline some spells that are good ways to burn your many shadow conjurations a day. Note that it says affected creatures 'can' make saving throws to disbelieve, so we can assume they won't if that's not in their favor.

Also, note that the increased level of Shadow Conjuration will reduce the downside of doubling up on saving throws. If a 18 charisma caster uses Wall of Smoke, it's got a DC of 15, so a foe with +4 to all saves has a 50% chance of making the save. If we use Shadow Conjuration, the DC is 19 (10+4+4+1), so that same foe has only a 30% chance. Even though it's allowed two saves, its chance of succeeding on both adds up to 49%: comparable to the non-shadowy casting! Our casting additionally retains a lessened chance to work if the first save is made and boasts a higher CL.

Finally, if a few of these listed spells seem niche, they probably are. The point is that we have all of them as options, with no need to pick any until we use Shadow Conjuration.

Bridge of Sound^SS - Invisible invulnerable barrier that can explicitly be at 'any angle' and should often do basically the same as a wall of force. Or you could use it as a bridge, like a boring person.

Clothier's Closet^MoE - Technically a way to generate infinite money, though the resale value might drop from the clothes being only 20% real. At any rate a solid source of disguises, and probably lets you pull an Emperor's New Clothes on some unsuspecting mark (great if you need a diversion!).

Corpse Candle^SC - Reveals 'hidden objects' so might just obviate the need for search checks entirely. It's also one of the few conjuration-based light sources.

CREATE MAGIC TATTOO^SC - Insanely good, as you bypass the expensive component and long casting time. You can give a +2 resistance bonus to all saves, a +2 competence bonus to attack rolls, a (stacking) +1 luck bonus to attack rolls, or a +1 deflection bonus to AC. If you have any shadow conjuration uses left when making camp, use them to cast this on your party members and enjoy basically free buffs during the next day. We can take 10 while casting this to hit 15, which is exactly enough for the effects we can create.

Deep Breath^SC - Suffocation is nasty, and being able to delay it on short notice is very helpful.

Dream Spirit^SoS - Incorporeal summon that sticks around for a minute? Great for scouting beyond walls (or floors, or ceilings), or just as a near-invulnerable vanguard to send in when a monster needs softening up.

Ectoplasmic Web^Ghost - Don't bother with the PHB variant: this is better in every way. Incorporeal creatures tend to lack ranged attacks and can't break the web with brute force, so this amounts to a save-or-die for many of them.

Engulfing Terror^DrU - A DC 20 fortitude save vs paralysis? That's really good even if there's an additional save to disbelieve. Even better, your ability to disbelieve automatically makes this thing less of an issue if it goes after the party.

Grease - It's grease, use it to move stuff, to prevent charges, or to turn slopes into deathtraps. Still good even with a saving throw.

Glitterdust - As above, great even if it offers a saving throw: anything that was going to fail a moderately hard will save should still have trouble with two high ones.

Golden Dragonmail^CoV - +1 mithril full plate is pretty good in an E6 context. Ask your DM if disbelieving it gives you an 80% chance to ignore the armor check penalty and movement reduction, but be prepared to dodge thrown books. The silver variant doesn't reduce movement speed, but gives three fewer points of AC.

Ice Darts^Frost - Great with sneak attack: dealing 8d4+4d6+24 on a failed will save is rather huge. Entering prophetic fervor shouldn't look obviously hostile, so consider using this whenever you ambush an unsuspecting foe.

Mage Armor, Mass^SC - Nice if your party is heavy on the monks, rogues, and arcane casters, or if you can't bring your golden dragonmail somewhere.

Phantom Steed - Insanely powerful, and with your souped-up CL these have a speed of 200 ft. and can cover 200 miles over the course of the 10 hours-duration; plus they can ignore rough terrain and even bodies of water. You don't even have to stand around for 40 minutes before everyone in the party has one, because shadow conjuration cuts it down to a standard action.

Regal Procession^SC - Ten horses per casting: enough to completely clog up a battlefield, move a bunch of NPCs, or just show off. They'll die to a stiff breeze, but that doesn't matter when there's just so many of them. You also get to stick a 'personal symbol' on the horses, which definitely counts as a tattoo for our theme.

Sepia Snake Sigil - Not an easy effect to set up, but it lasts permanently and doesn't cost you anything, so use this during downtime and trap all your books with fake fake snakes. Note that you can use this to put people in suspended animation over the course of a mere 2 turns, which is useful if they're dying of poison/curses/asphyxation! Also, if someone ever wants text tattooed on themselves, you can work this into it.

Servant Horde^SC - 2d6+10 unseen servants that last for the entire adventuring day? Give them some bags of marbles and sneak attack at your leisure, or just use them to lug your stuff around, trigger traps, or mob an enemy base and grab everything not nailed down: the possibilities are endless.

Summon Monster III - Not the best option in combat, but notable for giving you access to a flying mount (Celestial Hippogriff) and a tunnel-digger (Celestial Dire Badger), as well as various small elementals. Picking celestial eagles gets you some aerial scouts with +16 spot, which could also be useful, and summoning 1d4+1 giant fire beetles is one of the few ways to light up an area with conjurations.

Unseen Crafter^RE - Another scarily potent spell with how much you can spam it. During downtime, you can keep up to 90 of those things active at the same time, enough to earn dozens of gold per day or create most simple objects (like those marbles we like to have unseen servants spread) within a week. As a cute flavorful bonus, they share your craft ranks and can thus help out in the tattoo parlor!

Wall of Smoke^SC - Another of those spells that's so good at what it does that the extra save doesn't ruin it, especially when you're casting it 3 levels above par. Note that like all other mist/fog spells, you can automatically see through, but your enemies need to disbelieve.

In general, use your many out-of-combat uses to buff the party with mage armor and/or magic tattoos, then cast mainstays like Ectoplasmic Web or Glitterdust in battle, keeping a few uses apart for utility. In general, try to minimize the amount of battles you'll need to actually fight by using diplomacy and disguise, so you'll have the maximum amount of uses available during the fights you can't avoid.