Since we can’t create hombrew classes and they don’t plant to add that feature anytime soon (at least as far as I know) I was wondering how would you go about making a magical girl type subclass?
Since we can’t create hombrew classes and they don’t plant to add that feature anytime soon (at least as far as I know) I was wondering how would you go about making a magical girl type subclass?
It really depends on what type of Magical Girl you are wanting to make, but I would likely start with Warlock myself. It already has a number of sub-classes and features that fit the theme. Pact of the Talisman for example. Once you select the subclass that is closest to what you want, just made the requisite modifications to tweak it to fit.
For more detailed help from those on here that are really good at homebrew, you are likely going to need to give a lot more details as to what you want.
Honestly I just asked out of curiosity. I only found one published magical girl sub class so it peaked my curiosity. I just wanted to know how other people would go about it.
Generally warlock, with a few different options for patrons depending on whether you're a magic-lasers mahou shoujo or a magical-blade mahou shoujo. Personally I like using Mask of Many Faces and the Faceless background from Avernus to create a Magical Girl Transformation sequence - use Mask to change into your mahou-shoujo look, possibly combined with some shiftweave if your DM will allow it. Faceless legit gives you a Magical Girl persona, and warlock not only facilitates that but is one of the better classes for magic-lasers Mahou Shoujo given Eldrittch Blast. Misty Visions for magical glyphs, rune circles, and other such effects, and of course Pact of the Chain for the Cute Critter Companion.
You might be able to get away with something like Psi Warrior for a much more strongly martial, Mahou-Senshi style character, but the less on-demand magic you have the less well it tends to work. Magical girls are power users, not spellcasters - the warlock fits well with a character whose schtick is a smaller number of powers she can use as she likes, rather than a diverse pool of spells she can only fire off once in a blue moon.
I am currently floating the idea of a "hero of justice", faceless, master "gentleman thief", who gives Sailor Moon eske speeches before kicking things off. I think its less about classes and more about how you play the character.
I am currently floating the idea of a "hero of justice", faceless, master "gentleman thief", who gives Sailor Moon eske speeches before kicking things off. I think its less about classes and more about how you play the character.
Pretty much this. Just play your PC like she's a magical girl and race and class don't matter. Magical girls could be anything.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Just to throw something else out there, you could retheme a Moon Druid's Elemental Wild Shape as a magical girl transformation. But waiting for level 10 would be rough.
With the whole gentlemen’s their thing are you going for tuxedo mask?
The idea is more like Joker from Persona 5 crossed with Sailor Moon herself. I put gentleman thief in quotes because I didn't really mean it was explicitly a male design, but it's a sporting/honourable thief that breaks into places partially out of a sense of justice and partially just to show off how great they are. E.g. they aren't stealing for the money. They're stealing for the thrill of the heist. I was actually floating the idea of the character being a male noble who uses a magic mask or whatever to take on the form of a lady for his thief persona (no pun intended). I always wondering why thief character often don't try to disguise themselves when they're breaking and entering.
Since we can’t create hombrew classes and they don’t plant to add that feature anytime soon (at least as far as I know) I was wondering how would you go about making a magical girl type subclass?
There is a Fighter under the Homebrew section that is very anime and seems to be very popular.
Since we can’t create hombrew classes and they don’t plant to add that feature anytime soon (at least as far as I know) I was wondering how would you go about making a magical girl type subclass?
There is a Fighter under the Homebrew section that is very anime and seems to be very popular.
Bards are already almost magical girls so a bard with the magical girl subclass. Use bardic inspiration to transform. Maybe a special weapon that fits their theme and grows in power with them. Create some spells or just pick some that can be flavored to heavily match the theme. Perfect anime magical girl.
Since we can’t create hombrew classes and they don’t plant to add that feature anytime soon (at least as far as I know) I was wondering how would you go about making a magical girl type subclass?
There is a Fighter under the Homebrew section that is very anime and seems to be very popular.
What is its name and author, though?
Author's name is Turk and the subclass is called Anime Swordsman
There isn't enough time in your life to hear the backstory of this individual. The anime swordsman's past is shrouded in mystery, and you can bet this fighter's parents were gruesomely murdered in his or her formative years.
Gloating Monologue
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, as a Bonus action on your turn you can loudly and deliberately make a long-winded monologue aimed at a creature explaining exactly how you've just gained the upper hand and have been holding back in some ridiculous and obscure way. Make a Charisma (Intimidation) or (Performance) check contested by the target's passive Wisdom (Insight). If you succeed, you have advantage on the next melee attack you make against the target creature on this turn.
Starting at 7th level, when a creature drops one of your allies to 0 hit points in sight, you go into a blind rage and attempt to REVENGE them. You have advantage on all melee attack rolls against the creature that downed your ally, and disadvantage on all attack rolls against any other target. This effect ends if the target dies or your ally regains at least 1 hit point.
Plot Armor
Starting at 10th level, when rolling for death saving throws you only suffer one failure when rolling a 1, and you regain 1 hit point on a roll of 19 or 20.
Untapped Potential
Starting at 15th level, you gain a climbing speed equal to your current walking speed. This benefit works even when moving up or across completely flat, smooth surfaces, but only in short bursts; you fall if you end your turn on or against a surface and nothing else is holding you aloft. Additionally, the Extra Attack feature from the Fighter class now applies when you take the Ready action to make an attack.
Ridiculously Impractical Ultimate Attack
Starting at 18th level, as an Action you can make a single melee attack against a creature with extra anime power. A massive explosion forms from the power of your convictions and monologues and each creature in a 40-foot-radius from your target excluding yourself must make a Dexterity saving throw. The ability save DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength or Dexterity modifier (Your choice). The sphere spreads around corners. If your attack hits, the target takes the damage as normal and makes its save against the explosion at disadvantage. A creature takes 20d6 fire damage and 20d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Once you use this feature, you must complete a long rest before you can use it again.
Regardless. You may also want to look into the Fool's Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds Kickstarter that just launched. One of the Fool's Gold characters used a Magical Girl homebrew class, and in the lead-up to this setting/adventure book they retooled Erina's jank into a new subclass. For which base class, I do not know, but it'll be in there.
There are certain anime conventions that don't map well to D&D -- in particular, D&D heavily encourages using your big moves early, whereas anime fights start off with basic moves and escalate as the combat goes on.
There are certain anime conventions that don't map well to D&D -- in particular, D&D heavily encourages using your big moves early, whereas anime fights start off with basic moves and escalate as the combat goes on.
That is because anime tends to use a lot of stuff from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" such as wanting to better understand your opponent before you go big. In D&D even though it's meta gaming players already have a really good understanding of an enemies capabilities so they tend to skip that part.
It's more like in 5e, an enemy's capabilities don't matter. Not to the degree they did/could/can in older editions or other games. Very few enemies in 5e have any sort of whammy factor, where going in blind and not knowing what they can do will get you spanked. Critters in 5e generally just do damage, and if you damage them moar better harder you win. There's no reason to save your high-octane stuff for later, why do that when you can just blow the doors off and get rid of something before it can try and hurt you?
The small handful of 5e monsters with whammy abilities, things like the beholder or other critters that can ruin your day with not-damage abilities, are usually pretty well known. And frankly, the Art of War is about war, not individual battles. On the strategic scale, reserving your strength until a critical moment is the key to victory. On the tactical scale, i.e. D&D play, opening with a massive alpha strike and killing or crippling your target before it has a chance to respond is the key to victory. Anime Escalation is for dramatic purposes, not tactical ones. Heh...which means, of course, that managing to pull off Anime Escalation in D&D, a dramatic narrative game, would be awesome if the player and the DM were both on board and working to make it happen.
There are certain anime conventions that don't map well to D&D -- in particular, D&D heavily encourages using your big moves early, whereas anime fights start off with basic moves and escalate as the combat goes on.
That is because anime tends to use a lot of stuff from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" such as wanting to better understand your opponent before you go big.
No it isn't. There are reasons on a strategic scale you might want to figure out exactly what you're dealing with before committing major forces, and there's resource management (so you might want to figure out whether you actually need to expend your big attacks), but once you've established the basic scope of a threat hitting them fast and early is generally the right tactical decision. Anime battles have a long lead-up because that's how you make dramatic battles, not because they're rational tactics even within the setting.
Here's the one thing that I think is consistent about Magical Girls in my limited knowledge of the genre... transformations. With that in mind, you need some way to replicate that in the game.
Warlock is one of the better classes for this because any subclass or flavor of Warlock can take the Mask of Many Faces invocation to be able to cast Disguise Self as a means to "transform". They also get the Armor of Shadows invocation to cast Mage Armor for added defense, and from there you just pick whatever subclass and spells match your concept.
The other option is Barbarian, which has Rage to facilitate the transformation, but very few of the subclasses really fit the theme. At the very least it lets you not need armor, so your character can wear whatever she wants. You would need a very specific idea for your magical girl to make this work.
Druid has two subclasses that let you use your Wildshapes to power yourself up without turning into an animal. Spores works for a darker concept, since the subclass also includes creating zombies, and the Circle of Stars gives you a very versatile transformation that can be easily customized. Plus, it's already celestial-based... which at the very least works thematically if you're going for a Sailor Moon thing.
Beyond that there are a few individual subclasses... Bards have the College of Glamour, with the Mantle of Inspiration ability which overtly states that it grants your bard a "Wondrous Appearance". The Monk's Way of the Astral Self grants a pretty unique transformation that could easily be reflavored as being a magical girl ability. The last one I can think of off the top of my head is the Bladesinger Wizard... Blade Song easily fulfills the flavor and feel of a Magical Girl's transformation.
I probably missed a few, but that's my take on what most easily would allow someone to fulfill the very generic feel of a magical girl.
Since we can’t create hombrew classes and they don’t plant to add that feature anytime soon (at least as far as I know) I was wondering how would you go about making a magical girl type subclass?
Honestly, I wouldn't, I'd just take barbarian and change all the descriptions of abilities.
It really depends on what type of Magical Girl you are wanting to make, but I would likely start with Warlock myself. It already has a number of sub-classes and features that fit the theme. Pact of the Talisman for example. Once you select the subclass that is closest to what you want, just made the requisite modifications to tweak it to fit.
For more detailed help from those on here that are really good at homebrew, you are likely going to need to give a lot more details as to what you want.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Honestly I just asked out of curiosity. I only found one published magical girl sub class so it peaked my curiosity. I just wanted to know how other people would go about it.
Generally warlock, with a few different options for patrons depending on whether you're a magic-lasers mahou shoujo or a magical-blade mahou shoujo. Personally I like using Mask of Many Faces and the Faceless background from Avernus to create a Magical Girl Transformation sequence - use Mask to change into your mahou-shoujo look, possibly combined with some shiftweave if your DM will allow it. Faceless legit gives you a Magical Girl persona, and warlock not only facilitates that but is one of the better classes for magic-lasers Mahou Shoujo given Eldrittch Blast. Misty Visions for magical glyphs, rune circles, and other such effects, and of course Pact of the Chain for the Cute Critter Companion.
You might be able to get away with something like Psi Warrior for a much more strongly martial, Mahou-Senshi style character, but the less on-demand magic you have the less well it tends to work. Magical girls are power users, not spellcasters - the warlock fits well with a character whose schtick is a smaller number of powers she can use as she likes, rather than a diverse pool of spells she can only fire off once in a blue moon.
Please do not contact or message me.
I am currently floating the idea of a "hero of justice", faceless, master "gentleman thief", who gives Sailor Moon eske speeches before kicking things off. I think its less about classes and more about how you play the character.
With the whole gentlemen’s their thing are you going for tuxedo mask?
Pretty much this. Just play your PC like she's a magical girl and race and class don't matter. Magical girls could be anything.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Just to throw something else out there, you could retheme a Moon Druid's Elemental Wild Shape as a magical girl transformation. But waiting for level 10 would be rough.
The idea is more like Joker from Persona 5 crossed with Sailor Moon herself. I put gentleman thief in quotes because I didn't really mean it was explicitly a male design, but it's a sporting/honourable thief that breaks into places partially out of a sense of justice and partially just to show off how great they are. E.g. they aren't stealing for the money. They're stealing for the thrill of the heist. I was actually floating the idea of the character being a male noble who uses a magic mask or whatever to take on the form of a lady for his thief persona (no pun intended). I always wondering why thief character often don't try to disguise themselves when they're breaking and entering.
There is a Fighter under the Homebrew section that is very anime and seems to be very popular.
What is its name and author, though?
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXVIII?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
Bards are already almost magical girls so a bard with the magical girl subclass. Use bardic inspiration to transform. Maybe a special weapon that fits their theme and grows in power with them. Create some spells or just pick some that can be flavored to heavily match the theme. Perfect anime magical girl.
Author's name is Turk and the subclass is called Anime Swordsman
There isn't enough time in your life to hear the backstory of this individual. The anime swordsman's past is shrouded in mystery, and you can bet this fighter's parents were gruesomely murdered in his or her formative years.
Gloating Monologue
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, as a Bonus action on your turn you can loudly and deliberately make a long-winded monologue aimed at a creature explaining exactly how you've just gained the upper hand and have been holding back in some ridiculous and obscure way. Make a Charisma (Intimidation) or (Performance) check contested by the target's passive Wisdom (Insight). If you succeed, you have advantage on the next melee attack you make against the target creature on this turn.
Haunted Yet Convenient Past
At 3rd level, you gain proficiency in Intimidation or Performance (your choice).
The Power of Friendship
Starting at 7th level, when a creature drops one of your allies to 0 hit points in sight, you go into a blind rage and attempt to REVENGE them. You have advantage on all melee attack rolls against the creature that downed your ally, and disadvantage on all attack rolls against any other target. This effect ends if the target dies or your ally regains at least 1 hit point.
Plot Armor
Starting at 10th level, when rolling for death saving throws you only suffer one failure when rolling a 1, and you regain 1 hit point on a roll of 19 or 20.
Untapped Potential
Starting at 15th level, you gain a climbing speed equal to your current walking speed. This benefit works even when moving up or across completely flat, smooth surfaces, but only in short bursts; you fall if you end your turn on or against a surface and nothing else is holding you aloft. Additionally, the Extra Attack feature from the Fighter class now applies when you take the Ready action to make an attack.
Ridiculously Impractical Ultimate Attack
Starting at 18th level, as an Action you can make a single melee attack against a creature with extra anime power. A massive explosion forms from the power of your convictions and monologues and each creature in a 40-foot-radius from your target excluding yourself must make a Dexterity saving throw. The ability save DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength or Dexterity modifier (Your choice). The sphere spreads around corners. If your attack hits, the target takes the damage as normal and makes its save against the explosion at disadvantage. A creature takes 20d6 fire damage and 20d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Once you use this feature, you must complete a long rest before you can use it again.
God I hate that homebrew. So much.
So much.
Regardless. You may also want to look into the Fool's Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds Kickstarter that just launched. One of the Fool's Gold characters used a Magical Girl homebrew class, and in the lead-up to this setting/adventure book they retooled Erina's jank into a new subclass. For which base class, I do not know, but it'll be in there.
Please do not contact or message me.
There are certain anime conventions that don't map well to D&D -- in particular, D&D heavily encourages using your big moves early, whereas anime fights start off with basic moves and escalate as the combat goes on.
That is because anime tends to use a lot of stuff from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" such as wanting to better understand your opponent before you go big. In D&D even though it's meta gaming players already have a really good understanding of an enemies capabilities so they tend to skip that part.
It's more like in 5e, an enemy's capabilities don't matter. Not to the degree they did/could/can in older editions or other games. Very few enemies in 5e have any sort of whammy factor, where going in blind and not knowing what they can do will get you spanked. Critters in 5e generally just do damage, and if you damage them moar better harder you win. There's no reason to save your high-octane stuff for later, why do that when you can just blow the doors off and get rid of something before it can try and hurt you?
The small handful of 5e monsters with whammy abilities, things like the beholder or other critters that can ruin your day with not-damage abilities, are usually pretty well known. And frankly, the Art of War is about war, not individual battles. On the strategic scale, reserving your strength until a critical moment is the key to victory. On the tactical scale, i.e. D&D play, opening with a massive alpha strike and killing or crippling your target before it has a chance to respond is the key to victory. Anime Escalation is for dramatic purposes, not tactical ones. Heh...which means, of course, that managing to pull off Anime Escalation in D&D, a dramatic narrative game, would be awesome if the player and the DM were both on board and working to make it happen.
Please do not contact or message me.
No it isn't. There are reasons on a strategic scale you might want to figure out exactly what you're dealing with before committing major forces, and there's resource management (so you might want to figure out whether you actually need to expend your big attacks), but once you've established the basic scope of a threat hitting them fast and early is generally the right tactical decision. Anime battles have a long lead-up because that's how you make dramatic battles, not because they're rational tactics even within the setting.
Here's the one thing that I think is consistent about Magical Girls in my limited knowledge of the genre... transformations. With that in mind, you need some way to replicate that in the game.
Warlock is one of the better classes for this because any subclass or flavor of Warlock can take the Mask of Many Faces invocation to be able to cast Disguise Self as a means to "transform". They also get the Armor of Shadows invocation to cast Mage Armor for added defense, and from there you just pick whatever subclass and spells match your concept.
The other option is Barbarian, which has Rage to facilitate the transformation, but very few of the subclasses really fit the theme. At the very least it lets you not need armor, so your character can wear whatever she wants. You would need a very specific idea for your magical girl to make this work.
Druid has two subclasses that let you use your Wildshapes to power yourself up without turning into an animal. Spores works for a darker concept, since the subclass also includes creating zombies, and the Circle of Stars gives you a very versatile transformation that can be easily customized. Plus, it's already celestial-based... which at the very least works thematically if you're going for a Sailor Moon thing.
Beyond that there are a few individual subclasses... Bards have the College of Glamour, with the Mantle of Inspiration ability which overtly states that it grants your bard a "Wondrous Appearance". The Monk's Way of the Astral Self grants a pretty unique transformation that could easily be reflavored as being a magical girl ability. The last one I can think of off the top of my head is the Bladesinger Wizard... Blade Song easily fulfills the flavor and feel of a Magical Girl's transformation.
I probably missed a few, but that's my take on what most easily would allow someone to fulfill the very generic feel of a magical girl.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium