So I was thinking that it would be fun to see if it was possible to make a Bollywood type of character. Where the Character pushes the bounds of reality to its limit. Here is an example of what I am thinking.
I want to make a character that has that over the top ridiculousness.
Mechanically I was thinking of a character that basically increase the odds of getting a natural 20 much higher. to increase the likely hood of that bollywood moment. But I'm not sure how to do that besides maybe taking the luckly feat.
2) Get super-advantage via the Elven Accuracy feat (this is better than being a halfling) or Lucky feat (which turns Disadvantage into super-advantage, so you only need to close your eyes before attacking).
3) Be a halfling, although item 2 is better.
4) Lucky feat.
5) Be a Divination wizard (or have a friend who is one).
6) Be a Champion Fighter (this is one of the worst ways to do this, because they're simultaneously boring and weak).
For example, here's a very powerful build based on making technically impossible gunshots:
Half-Elf, Samurai, Elven Accuracy, Gunner, Piercer, buy a musket.
You can fundamentally do the same thing with a Warlock (using Darkness+Devil's Sight) or a Shadow Monk/Fighter (using Darkness+Blind Fighting), or any other mechanism you have for reliably acquiring advantage, including having a Familiar to Help you.
It takes a while to get there, but if you're using skill checks to pull off this insanity:
L1: Rogue, gives you four proficiencies and Expertise in two skills.
L2-5: Lore Bard, gives you four more proficiencies, Expertise in two more skills, and an ability score increase.
L6-16: swashbuckler Rogue, gives you sneak attack virtually every turn without hiding or needing a flanking partner, Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, three ability score improvements, and importantly, Reliable Talent.
By L16, that's a total of expertise in four skills, proficiency in an additional four skills, and half-proficiency in the rest, with all die rolls for skill checks less than ten counting as if you'd rolled a 10. Your best skill with a +5 modifier in the corresponding ability score would have a minimum possible result of 25 on the check.
That scene is awesome! I can see why you would want to play an over the top hero like that. Fortunately, I don’t think you need to pick anything more complicated than a Champion Fighter with Shield Master and Lucky. As long as you get a DEX save for half damage for the landing, you can take no damage with Shield Master. And reroll it with Lucky or Indomitable if necessary.
I was thinking about this over the weekend and I think I want to go the Bollywood Bard approach-- The crux of the concept is the breaking into song and dance to affect events and inspire the other players. There's no way this character wears bulky armor, or even anything approaching an actual shirt. High Dex & high Cha all the way. Crazy performance as well. I almost want to dual class with Barbarian to gain the 'Unarmored Defense' ability. Also, Rage, would translate to a sort of dervish like dancing fugue state as the song begins, allowing the Bard to reduce damage as they continue to sing and dance. Thoughts?
I was thinking about this over the weekend and I think I want to go the Bollywood Bard approach-- The crux of the concept is the breaking into song and dance to affect events and inspire the other players. There's no way this character wears bulky armor, or even anything approaching an actual shirt. High Dex & high Cha all the way. Crazy performance as well. I almost want to dual class with Barbarian to gain the 'Unarmored Defense' ability. Also, Rage, would translate to a sort of dervish like dancing fugue state as the song begins, allowing the Bard to reduce damage as they continue to sing and dance. Thoughts?
Radically more functional to do this with Monk than Barbarian, especially since you can't combine spells with Raging and Bards are full spellcasters. However, your Constitution will still be abysmal, so I would ask if you wouldn't be happier with a Bladesinger Wizard.
Another way to solve the AC problem is to just be a Tortle.
So, to accomplish superhuman feats of agility and succeed on wildly improbable attempts, I don't think you necessarily need to go out of your way guarantee natural 20's. You want high rolls, sure, but you don't want to build a whole character around the concept of only succeeding at the ridiculous things you try to pull off by boosting your 5% success rate to like... 10 or 15%.
So, right off the bat... I think you're mostly going to want to be a Monk... Monks get a ton of great "always on" abilities... once you get higher level you can run up the side of buildings, dash across water, fall from great heights, leap great distances... all those amazing, agile feats that Bollywood Action movies pull off effortlessly. Of the many monk subclasses, I think Kensei would work well with this if only to empower your weapons, but the specific subclass isn't as important as the core Monk skills.
Secondly, you want to be able to succeed at wildly impossible feats, which means you're going to want, at the very least, expertise in athletics and acrobatics. This might seem like an odd choice, because most of the flavor doesn't really work with your concept... but I recommend playing as a Soul Knife Rogue. The Psychic Blades aren't really that useful for the flavor you're going for, but what you actually want is the "Psi-Bolstered Knack" feature... this allows you to roll a d6 and add the number rolled to any ability check you make. You have a limited number of die you can use in this way, but the number you have is determined by your Proficiency Bonus, and not your Rogue level, so you can take a 3 level dip and still have this amazing ability to drastically increase your odds of success on crazy acrobatics.
Specifically a Creation Bard. At third level you create items out of thin air (that play faint music when you touch them). At 6th level, they gain the dancing ability. Aka flight with a strength of 18 so they can carry you.
So you have people that magically create shields and then have the shields fly them around. You even get the bollywood music in the background.
I have no idea how to create that without a fun DM and an understanding group who just wants to be over the top! Like a holiday table special, I have been a part of those occasionally.
However, thank you for showing that clip. That is on my top 10 list now of movies to see before 2023. That scene was spectacularly insane, and reminds me of Kung Fu Hustle.
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I am not sure what my Spirit Animal is. But whatever that thing is, I am pretty sure it has rabies!
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So I was thinking that it would be fun to see if it was possible to make a Bollywood type of character. Where the Character pushes the bounds of reality to its limit. Here is an example of what I am thinking.
I want to make a character that has that over the top ridiculousness.
Mechanically I was thinking of a character that basically increase the odds of getting a natural 20 much higher. to increase the likely hood of that bollywood moment. But I'm not sure how to do that besides maybe taking the luckly feat.
Any ideas?
Increasing the odds of a crit:
1) Get advantage (many ways to do this).
2) Get super-advantage via the Elven Accuracy feat (this is better than being a halfling) or Lucky feat (which turns Disadvantage into super-advantage, so you only need to close your eyes before attacking).
3) Be a halfling, although item 2 is better.
4) Lucky feat.
5) Be a Divination wizard (or have a friend who is one).
6) Be a Champion Fighter (this is one of the worst ways to do this, because they're simultaneously boring and weak).
For example, here's a very powerful build based on making technically impossible gunshots:
Half-Elf, Samurai, Elven Accuracy, Gunner, Piercer, buy a musket.
You can fundamentally do the same thing with a Warlock (using Darkness+Devil's Sight) or a Shadow Monk/Fighter (using Darkness+Blind Fighting), or any other mechanism you have for reliably acquiring advantage, including having a Familiar to Help you.
It takes a while to get there, but if you're using skill checks to pull off this insanity:
L1: Rogue, gives you four proficiencies and Expertise in two skills.
L2-5: Lore Bard, gives you four more proficiencies, Expertise in two more skills, and an ability score increase.
L6-16: swashbuckler Rogue, gives you sneak attack virtually every turn without hiding or needing a flanking partner, Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, three ability score improvements, and importantly, Reliable Talent.
By L16, that's a total of expertise in four skills, proficiency in an additional four skills, and half-proficiency in the rest, with all die rolls for skill checks less than ten counting as if you'd rolled a 10. Your best skill with a +5 modifier in the corresponding ability score would have a minimum possible result of 25 on the check.
That scene is awesome! I can see why you would want to play an over the top hero like that. Fortunately, I don’t think you need to pick anything more complicated than a Champion Fighter with Shield Master and Lucky. As long as you get a DEX save for half damage for the landing, you can take no damage with Shield Master. And reroll it with Lucky or Indomitable if necessary.
I was thinking about this over the weekend and I think I want to go the Bollywood Bard approach-- The crux of the concept is the breaking into song and dance to affect events and inspire the other players. There's no way this character wears bulky armor, or even anything approaching an actual shirt. High Dex & high Cha all the way. Crazy performance as well. I almost want to dual class with Barbarian to gain the 'Unarmored Defense' ability. Also, Rage, would translate to a sort of dervish like dancing fugue state as the song begins, allowing the Bard to reduce damage as they continue to sing and dance. Thoughts?
Radically more functional to do this with Monk than Barbarian, especially since you can't combine spells with Raging and Bards are full spellcasters. However, your Constitution will still be abysmal, so I would ask if you wouldn't be happier with a Bladesinger Wizard.
Another way to solve the AC problem is to just be a Tortle.
So, to accomplish superhuman feats of agility and succeed on wildly improbable attempts, I don't think you necessarily need to go out of your way guarantee natural 20's. You want high rolls, sure, but you don't want to build a whole character around the concept of only succeeding at the ridiculous things you try to pull off by boosting your 5% success rate to like... 10 or 15%.
So, right off the bat... I think you're mostly going to want to be a Monk... Monks get a ton of great "always on" abilities... once you get higher level you can run up the side of buildings, dash across water, fall from great heights, leap great distances... all those amazing, agile feats that Bollywood Action movies pull off effortlessly. Of the many monk subclasses, I think Kensei would work well with this if only to empower your weapons, but the specific subclass isn't as important as the core Monk skills.
Secondly, you want to be able to succeed at wildly impossible feats, which means you're going to want, at the very least, expertise in athletics and acrobatics. This might seem like an odd choice, because most of the flavor doesn't really work with your concept... but I recommend playing as a Soul Knife Rogue. The Psychic Blades aren't really that useful for the flavor you're going for, but what you actually want is the "Psi-Bolstered Knack" feature... this allows you to roll a d6 and add the number rolled to any ability check you make. You have a limited number of die you can use in this way, but the number you have is determined by your Proficiency Bonus, and not your Rogue level, so you can take a 3 level dip and still have this amazing ability to drastically increase your odds of success on crazy acrobatics.
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Bollywood, over the top hero?
BARD
Specifically a Creation Bard. At third level you create items out of thin air (that play faint music when you touch them). At 6th level, they gain the dancing ability. Aka flight with a strength of 18 so they can carry you.
So you have people that magically create shields and then have the shields fly them around. You even get the bollywood music in the background.
I have no idea how to create that without a fun DM and an understanding group who just wants to be over the top! Like a holiday table special, I have been a part of those occasionally.
However, thank you for showing that clip. That is on my top 10 list now of movies to see before 2023. That scene was spectacularly insane, and reminds me of Kung Fu Hustle.
I am not sure what my Spirit Animal is. But whatever that thing is, I am pretty sure it has rabies!