My character is an artist obsessed with color and painting. Over time, he gradually loses the ability to see normal colors — everything appears black and white. Until he stumbles across bioluminescent mushrooms, which are the only colors he can perceive.
He discovers he can grind these mushrooms into paints and pigments and paints with them. He sprays the pigments out of his palm like a spray can, and the pigments are also spore-like, which is how he casts his spells.
Each pigment has a different effect, which functions as a spell when used.
Over time, exposure to the pigments and his obsession with color is slowly transforming him into a mycelioid being, affecting his appearance and abilities.
Now he travels looking for diffrent coloured mushrooms that dont have any side effects that he can paint with peacefully
Gameplay Questions / Considerations:
Race / Transformation: If I were to start him as a typical D&D race, which do you think would work best? Should I just carry that stats block over when he fully transforms into a mycelioid?
Class / Subclass: I thought about Circle of Spores Druid, since the theme is myciod based but honestly I’m not sure it really fits him. I like the idea of him using mushroom pigments as spells sprayed from his palm, but the druid’s magic is natrure focused. i don’t feel quite right for this character. and i dotn really see him using wild shape either. Are there other classes or subclasses that could work better for a character whose magic comes from sprayable, spore-like pigments with unique effects, rather than standard druid spell casting?
If you need or want more details/ have any questions about his character feel free to ask or dm me!
Switching species to a myconid, which would likely need to be homebrewed, is definitely the kind of thing to make sure you ask your DM about. If it were me, my first thought would be to work with you on a way to make the change just cosmetic. For flavor reasons, you have mushrooms growing on your arm, but no mechanical effect. That’s going to be the easiest in terms of balancing your species. But assuming you’ve worked something out with your DM, any species could work. I’d maybe lean toward something like a drow, dwarf or deep gnome, which are an easy fit for being underground and encountering glowing mushrooms.
Spore Druid does kind of make some sense. Spraying spores from your palm seems pretty nature focused to me. It’s a common phenomenon in the natural world.
I played in a party with a spore Druid, I don’t think she ever once wild shaped. Your wild shape charges usually go to symbiotic entity. The kind of disappointing thing was the level 6 feature that lets you make a spore zombie. It only works on beasts and humanoids, and they need to die within 10’ of you. I don’t think she ever got to do it even once, as the stars didn’t align just right.
But if you’re really looking for something else, maybe an undying warlock. Or a beast master ranger, and flavor your companion as a little mushroom.
There's a lot of room here to play. I would suggest taking an existing race and calling it whatever name you like. Pick a bard of some type. Any combination of bard/race will give you the groundwork to be an eccentric artist with an eye for aesthetics and a strong motivation to express yourself. Bonus in that Bards have spells that are easy to theme as being 'shroom pigments like Dancing Lights and Color Spray. This saves you from having to homebrew everything. If you're a Dance Bard, the class features could explain your transformation, like the increased armor and unarmed attacks, for example. Similar goes for Draconic Sorcerer or Wild Magic Sorcerer (because the Wild Magic effects could be from the magical pigments, for example).
If you hate bards, I would suggest a magic-dipping character like a Ranger, Paladin, Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster because the room for flavor is huge there.
You could reflavor the alchemist artificer subclass. Tinker's tools could be a set of brushes. The various Elixirs could be mushroom concoctions, and your infused magic items could be the result of mushrooms growing all over your non magical equipment. Maybe your Flash of Genius becomes a Burst of Creativity?
I thought about this some more and I think a Warlock could be an amazing choice. They can be customized so many ways with Invocations, and you can use almost any play style (melee, dps, support, off-heals) that you like. Flavor it like your patron is the spores getting into your body. The Archfey is a good one for mushroom magic, because you could theme Misty Step as traveling through mycelium and underground fungi (which are basically everywhere in the world anyhow). The bonus effects you get when you Misty Step would be great to flavor as "spores", too.
You could also consider one of the expanded Fey races like Satyr, Quickstep, Hobgoblin, or Fairy, but you can RP that you started out as another species and are getting the magical fey features from your transformation. The more obscure the race, the more you can flavor the transformation, because you're not a typical humanoid.
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"Stories never end. They merely mark the beginning of the next chapter." -Rory Bristol "Failure means you've tried." -RB
Race / Transformation: If I were to start him as a typical D&D race, which do you think would work best? Should I just carry that stats block over when he fully transforms into a mycelioid?
Class / Subclass: I thought about Circle of Spores Druid, since the theme is myciod based but honestly I’m not sure it really fits him. I like the idea of him using mushroom pigments as spells sprayed from his palm, but the druid’s magic is natrure focused. i don’t feel quite right for this character. and i dotn really see him using wild shape either. Are there other classes or subclasses that could work better for a character whose magic comes from sprayable, spore-like pigments with unique effects, rather than standard druid spell casting?
If you need or want more details/ have any questions about his character feel free to ask or dm me!
As a DM, I look at this concept as 90 percent flavor, so mechanically just pick whatever you want/fits best for your play style and just tweak the descriptions accordingly. You're already doing that with your spells, so just carry that through to species/class as well. Pretty much any spellcasting class could be re-worked for 'spore magic', even something like wizard -- your "spellbook" would be your paintbox and palette, where you mix different colours together to get the spell you want, plus your notes (if any) on how different pigments react to each other
If you want actual mechanical changes for becoming more myconid-like, that would be something to discuss with your DM
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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Hey guys!! Need help on a design concept
Gameplay Questions / Considerations:
If you need or want more details/ have any questions about his character feel free to ask or dm me!
Switching species to a myconid, which would likely need to be homebrewed, is definitely the kind of thing to make sure you ask your DM about. If it were me, my first thought would be to work with you on a way to make the change just cosmetic. For flavor reasons, you have mushrooms growing on your arm, but no mechanical effect. That’s going to be the easiest in terms of balancing your species.
But assuming you’ve worked something out with your DM, any species could work. I’d maybe lean toward something like a drow, dwarf or deep gnome, which are an easy fit for being underground and encountering glowing mushrooms.
Spore Druid does kind of make some sense. Spraying spores from your palm seems pretty nature focused to me. It’s a common phenomenon in the natural world.
I played in a party with a spore Druid, I don’t think she ever once wild shaped. Your wild shape charges usually go to symbiotic entity. The kind of disappointing thing was the level 6 feature that lets you make a spore zombie. It only works on beasts and humanoids, and they need to die within 10’ of you. I don’t think she ever got to do it even once, as the stars didn’t align just right.
But if you’re really looking for something else, maybe an undying warlock. Or a beast master ranger, and flavor your companion as a little mushroom.
There's a lot of room here to play. I would suggest taking an existing race and calling it whatever name you like. Pick a bard of some type. Any combination of bard/race will give you the groundwork to be an eccentric artist with an eye for aesthetics and a strong motivation to express yourself. Bonus in that Bards have spells that are easy to theme as being 'shroom pigments like Dancing Lights and Color Spray. This saves you from having to homebrew everything. If you're a Dance Bard, the class features could explain your transformation, like the increased armor and unarmed attacks, for example. Similar goes for Draconic Sorcerer or Wild Magic Sorcerer (because the Wild Magic effects could be from the magical pigments, for example).
If you hate bards, I would suggest a magic-dipping character like a Ranger, Paladin, Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster because the room for flavor is huge there.
"Stories never end. They merely mark the beginning of the next chapter." -Rory Bristol
"Failure means you've tried." -RB
You could reflavor the alchemist artificer subclass. Tinker's tools could be a set of brushes. The various Elixirs could be mushroom concoctions, and your infused magic items could be the result of mushrooms growing all over your non magical equipment. Maybe your Flash of Genius becomes a Burst of Creativity?
[Forest of Wonders]: Huckleberry Honeysmith | Revelry Suneila
I thought about this some more and I think a Warlock could be an amazing choice. They can be customized so many ways with Invocations, and you can use almost any play style (melee, dps, support, off-heals) that you like. Flavor it like your patron is the spores getting into your body. The Archfey is a good one for mushroom magic, because you could theme Misty Step as traveling through mycelium and underground fungi (which are basically everywhere in the world anyhow). The bonus effects you get when you Misty Step would be great to flavor as "spores", too.
You could also consider one of the expanded Fey races like Satyr, Quickstep, Hobgoblin, or Fairy, but you can RP that you started out as another species and are getting the magical fey features from your transformation. The more obscure the race, the more you can flavor the transformation, because you're not a typical humanoid.
"Stories never end. They merely mark the beginning of the next chapter." -Rory Bristol
"Failure means you've tried." -RB
As a DM, I look at this concept as 90 percent flavor, so mechanically just pick whatever you want/fits best for your play style and just tweak the descriptions accordingly. You're already doing that with your spells, so just carry that through to species/class as well. Pretty much any spellcasting class could be re-worked for 'spore magic', even something like wizard -- your "spellbook" would be your paintbox and palette, where you mix different colours together to get the spell you want, plus your notes (if any) on how different pigments react to each other
If you want actual mechanical changes for becoming more myconid-like, that would be something to discuss with your DM
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)