All posts tagged Tank

Gish Optimized 6: The Barbarian Hellblade Tank, Myra Helkey

So it’s time to crack open our Dungeons and Dragons books again for another episode of Gish Optimized! Because D&D is much more fun when you Gish! And boy are we going to Gish today — in the form of a fantasy character as a D&D character build! She delivers some big booms, a lotta splat, serious tankage, and a heapin’ helping of Hellish sizzle!

Welcome to the Barbarian Hellblade Tank — Myra Helkey!

Thus far in our build series, we’ve explored two straight-classed Gishes — the Stab and Smite Dexadin and the Battle Sorcerer. Both pack a serious punch and demonstrate the 5e truism that you don’t have to multiclass to kick serious character optimization butt in D&D. We’ve also explored three dip Gish builds — the Hexblade-Fighter, the classic Fighter-Mage, and the Tempest Cleric-Storm Sorcerer. All dip builds included just 1-3 levels in their secondary class.

For our Barbarian-Hellblade Tank, we’re going for another dip. We’re just taking one level in a second class — Barbarian — to help enable an explosive piñata style tank that is also primarily a caster.

“Explosive pinata, what the eff does that mean?” you ask?

It’s exactly what it sounds like! This tank basically blows up in the faces of bad guys who beat on it. Now doesn’t that sound like fun? Yeah! Explosive pinata! Say it with me now! Sounds like Mustafa! Explosive pinata! And for our explosive pinata tank, that one level dip in Barbarian is going to carry one helluva lot of beefy, damage-soaking weight. The rest, the ice shards piercing bad guys, the shields of magical fire and cold, the temporary hit points stolen from each fallen foe, will be delivered by the nineteen levels coming from Warlock.

Now let’s jump into it!

Myra Helkey as Explosive Pinata Hellblade

Our new build gets its RP cred straight from the Helkey modern fantasy series that many of you have been enjoying here. Though this build will not perfectly mirror Myra Hellkey’s abilities from Into Infernia, it will provide you with a powerful full caster who’s capable of laying down severe blasts of magical power, of delivering some rather devastating NOVA damage, and, most importantly, of tanking like a champ on the battlefields of D&D. With these goals in mind, we’ll leverage both the Hellishly cool mojo of Myra from our series and the D&D ruleset to give you a great template for combat and RP fun in your games.

Myra steals both secrets and powers from devils. IRL, Myra would side with Ukraine in its existential struggle against the diabolical Vladimir Putin. A conflict that forms one back-drop of this modern fantasy tale.

Story-wise, our Myra gains her magical powers through her name curse tattoo. This source of magic is not a Warlock’s fiendish pact in a strictly traditional sense. Instead, Myra has been gifted by her mage parents with the ability to steal power from fiends — either by slaying them directly or by sheltering souls the fiends have taken in her name curse. These souls, in turn, gift Myra with magical energy. In past role-play, I’ve described Myra taking souls from slain fiends (which end up residing in her shadow, perhaps to be redeemed later) and by liberating the souls of the damned in the lower planes (which end up in her name curse, perhaps to be resurrected or carried to the celestial realms later).

This build is heavily lower planes themed. However, the character’s backstory, I find, works great for almost any campaign. Since there are many ways to render and describe Myra Helkey mechanically in D&D 5e, our guide here will be the first of many for Myra. One made more enjoyable owing to its improbable nature. A Fiend Warlock that steals power from fiends — tipping the tables against them. The build also makes excellent use of a Barbarian dip, often considered non-optimal, to great effect. A reverse Elric of Melnibone — in which the soul-sucking nature of fiends comes back to haunt them. Our version of Myra here is thus a rough-and-tumble Paladin — by other means. It often feels like pulling off a major coup to play her. I hope you enjoy her as much as I have.

Level 1 — Strength, Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity, Half-Elf, Barbarian

Starting with ability scores, the first thing we notice is we’re really, really MAD. We need Charisma for our spellcasting, we need Strength for our melee because man are we gonna melee, and we need Constitution because we want to be tough. In addition, we want a decent Dexterity because we don’t want to have a terrible AC. We also want max Strength and Charisma at high level. That’s a lot. But don’t fret! We have an awesome build plan that’s gonna make all this MADness work out for us. We’re just going to have to do some serious ability score gymnastics to accomplish our admittedly ambitious goals.

We begin with Strength — which is our first primary statistic. Using point buy, we dump 9 points into the physical might and prowess attribute. This gives us a 15 before we begin to tap into our racial bonuses. We’re taking Strength all the way to 20 (unless we gain a Belt of Giant Strength as an item drop, of course) and this buy gives us a great start. It also empowers our melee strikes. Since we are taking Fiend Warlock, not Hexblade for our main class, Strength is going to do a lot of work to help us stand tough in close fights. To this point, we’re not going to avoid close fighting. Instead, we’re going to run right into most fights with a high confidence in our power to take a literal crap-load of incoming physical punishment. Hell yeah! Because our Myra Helkey is a real scrapper. Indeed!

For our next stat, we drop 7 points into Charisma. This gives us a 14 before we access any of our race’s ability modifiers. Charisma’s our casting stat and we don’t want to neglect it. Sure, we’re going to be amazingly tough and badass in melee combat. But we are a Gish after all. And by level 6 we gain access to some seriously heavy blast effects. In addition, we have access to the wonderful Eldritch Blast and related supports. To fail to leverage our caster side in this build would be to hand in our Gish card. And we really don’t want to do that.

Moving on to Constitution, we drop 5 points into the stat for physical toughness and resiliency to end up with a total of 13 before any adds from our race. We’re not as heavily concentration focused as some of our other builds (which we’ll discuss more below). However, we do need the HP since we’re going to be wading into melee quite a lot. And though we don’t rely on any specific set of concentration magic, we may want to avail ourselves of a number of wonderful spells from the Warlock list like Hex, Shadow of Moil, or Spirit Shroud, from time to time.

We’re going to rely on our physical toughness, on our magic, and on the Fiend Warlock’s ability to generate temporary hit points for our main defense. However, we don’t want to have absolutely terrible armor class. Since we’re main-lining a Greatsword for our primary weapon and won’t have use of a shield, and since we’re stuck with medium armor from Barbarian, we want at least a halfway decent Dexterity. I’m gonna go ahead and drop 4 of our remaining points into Dexterity. This buy gives us a 12. We won’t max out medium armor. But starting with a 15 AC together with scale mail and all our other fun features ain’t half bad.

Myra prepares to enter Hell.

After being considerably MAD, we are only left with 2 points to spend on Intelligence and Wisdom. I’m not comfortable dumping Myra’s Int, so I’m going to drop these last 2 to get her a 10 in the smarts stat. That leaves Myra with an 8 Wisdom. I’m cool with her having a lower Wis. She’s always getting herself into trouble in fiction. A low Wisdom in-game lets us really lean into this RP characteristic.

So before choosing our race, we end up with 15 Str, 13 Con, 12 Dex, 10 Int, 8 Wis, and 14 Cha. A solid spread and yet somehow not stretching ourselves too thin.

Moving on, we go ahead and take Half Elf for our race. In RP, Half Elf works great as Myra Helkey is the daughter of the angelic and fey Beatrice Lushael. We could go Aasimar for this RP theme. But I’m more partial to Half-Elf both mechanically and story-wise. For one, Myra’s father, Robert Mori, is Human. Second, Beatrice comes from the very Fey Heaven that is Oesha. Third, Half-Elf gives us some great stats to help us out.

Adding in bonuses (+1, +1, +2) from Half Elf, we boost our Strength to 16, bump our Constitution to 14, and increase our Charisma to 16. Our final ability scores are Str 16, Con 14, Dex 12, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 16. These are solid stats. From Half-Elf, we also gain Darkvision, two extra skills (which we can trade for 5 feet of extra movement or a wizard cantrip, though I’m partial to the extra skills or movement, myself), advantage on saves against being charmed and magic can’t put us to sleep.

Now at last we come to class. We’re a Gish. But for our first level in this build we are going all in for Barbarian. We’ll never see another level in this class again. But at first level, we get a lot from the Barb. Our starting HP is 14. Wof! We pick up Scale Mail for a 15 base AC — about average. But we’re not too worried given our combined Rage and high HP. We gain proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves. We grab a Greatsword. For ranged attacks, we pick up hand axes or javelins. And, perhaps most importantly, we gain Rage which effectively doubles our Hit Points relative to physical attacks, buffs our damage, and gives us advantage on Strength checks while raging. In RP, I describe Myra’s Rage as an effect of her magical name curse tattoo. Of course this is pure fluff. But, again, I find this distinction from typical Barbarian Rage to be a fun story element.

Overall, at first level, we have nothing to complain about. Our strong ability scores, high HP, ability to Rage and versatility coming from Half Elf are our high points. We might lag a bit behind pure class Barbarians. But we’re no slackers. Our unique capabilities, however, begin to manifest as we progress to level 2.

Level 2 — Fiend Warlock, Eldritch Blast, Armor of Agathys, Dark One’s Blessing

Here we gain access both to our magical nature and to a rather unique combination that I’m calling the explosive pinata tank. To access this new talent, we take level 2 in Fiend Warlock. Immediately, we gain two Cantrips. I’m taking Eldritch Blast and Light. I enjoy Light for its utility and as a party aid. I often run into parties where members lack Darkvision — which can be a real impediment in dungeons if a light source isn’t available. Eldritch Blast is pretty self explanatory here. It immediately provides us with a medium range attack that does decent damage and scales quickly as we level. We can’t use it while we’re raging. But when we’re raging, we’re also tanking. Just in case we need a ranged attack, we keep a few javelins or hand axes at the ready.

We also gain access to two spells. I’m leaning toward picking up the thematic Burning Hands for a blast. Although Arms of Hadar might be a better choice. In any case, we grab a blast of some kind to give us an AOE option. The second spell, however, is pretty crucial. Armor of Agathys both gives us a resilience buff in the form of 5 temporary hit points (THP). This spell requires no concentration. And it lasts for 1 hour. Due to our short rest spell recharge, we can cast this spell multiple times per day. Combined with our two rages, Armor of Agathys gives us a serious edge as a Tank. Here’s how it works. Right now, we have 21 Hit Points. When we Rage, we take half damage from physical attacks. When we cast Armor of Agathys, we gain an additional 5 THP. And when we are hit, our attackers take 5 cold damage so long as some of the THP from Armor of Agathys remains. With rage active, it turns our 5 points of THP into an effective 10 THP for physical attacks. This means we are more likely to deliver that 5 cold damage multiple times. So attackers are taking damage from hitting us. Their hits are less effective due to our Rage. And we are also smacking them around with our Greatsword for 2d6+5 damage as we Rage. Explosive pinata!

Armor of Agathys — Ice Armor with a bite.

Moving on to our Fiend Pact, we get a nice cherry on top of our, already strong, resiliency suite as we gain Dark One’s Blessing. This power enables us to pick up 4 THP every time we reduce an enemy to 0 hit points. It doesn’t stack with other sources of THP. But it can give us a carry-over effect. For example, say we enter combat with six kobolds. We have Armor of Agathys already cast. We Rage and run into battle smashing one to bits. We gain 4 THP that doesn’t matter, because we still have 5 THP from Armor of Agathys. All five kobolds attack. Two hit. The first does 6 damage (reduced to 3 because we Raged) and the second one does 5 damage (reduced to 2 because we Raged). Typically, the first hit would take down our Armor of Agathys. Since we Raged, our spikey ice armor survives the first shot. This means that we have now killed two Kobolds as our Armor of Agathys delivers 5 cold damage to each. We’ve taken zero damage off our base HP. Our Armor of Agathys goes down from the second hit. But, we now have 4 THP because our Armor of Agathys killed the second Kobold that hit us. Only two Kobolds remain. They get lucky and we miss our attack. They attack us, again getting lucky and hitting twice. They each do 4 damage. Because of our Rage, we again lose none of our base HP. It all gets taken off the THP we gained from Dark One’s Blessing. Next round, we kill one of the Kobolds and recharge our THP to 4. The last Kobold crits us for 8 damage, which we turn to 4 because of Rage. Then on our turn, we kill the last Kobold and recharge our THP again. So far, we’ve taken 27 damage, reduced to 13 because we Raged, reduced to zero+4 because we racked up 17 THP in total. In addition, two of the hits against us killed enemy attackers.

Explosive pinata, baby!

Level 3 — Agonizing Blast, Hex

At level 3 we pick up Eldritch Invocations from Warlock along with a new spell and our second Warlock slot. For our first Invocation, we take Agonizing Blast. Devil’s Sight is somewhat less useful for us than for the Hexblade-Fighter as we won’t be leveraging magical forms of darkness to gain advantage very often. We also like to have the powerful ranged option provided by Agonizing Blast during the times when we are not raging. Our second spell slot also gives us a number of helpful options. We can, for example, cast Armor of Agayths prior to combat, wade into battle, on round 1 cast an AOE like Thunderwave, Burning Hands or Arms of Hadar. Then, for our bonus action, we activate rage and begin tanking. For our third spell choice, we pick Hex which allows us to further buff our Eldritch Blast to 1d10+1d6+3 when we are not raging. This provides us with a nice switch-hitting option and adds versatility to the character.

Level 4 — Pact of the Blade, Shatter

Reaching level 4 we hit level 3 in Warlock — granting us our Pact. Since we are an explosive pinata style tank, we immediately jump on Pact of the Blade. Now, our attacks count as magical with this amazing weapon we summon from mid-air by invoking the power of our name curse (err… patron). We set aside our second invocation at level 3, so we go ahead and immediately use it to buff our summoned Hellblade with Improved Pact of the Blade — granting us a +1 Greatsword. Mechanically badass and thematic.

Our Warlock spell slots bump up to level 2. Armor of Agathys delivers 10 THP and 10 damage to attackers that hit us in melee. Assessing our tankishness, we’ve probably accessed Half Plate for 16 AC, our base HP is 35 or about in line with the fighter/ranger average. Armor of Agathys gives us 10 THP and Dark One’s Blessing grants 6 THP when we reduce a creature to 0 HP. Rage effectively doubles both our Hit Points and THP against physical attacks. While raging and while Armor of Agathys is up, we also deal about 23 damage per round assuming our Greatsword attack lands and we’ve been hit once. With Rage ongoing, we can expect Armor of Agathys to reliably last for 2-3 hits or more, resulting in 20-30+ single target damage while also effectively absorbing 20 hit points of incoming fire. When Armor of Agathys goes down, we can still boost our survivability through Dark One’s Blessing (at 6 THP per pop) so long as we can land hits and reduce critters to 0 HP.

Last of all, for our new spell choice, we pick up Shatter. This choice grants us another, more powerful AOE which we can use to good effect just prior to activating our Rage.

Level 5 — Great Weapon Master, Misty Step, Mirror Image

This level isn’t as big for us as for many other builds, mainly due to the fact that we dipped into Barbarian right from jump. That said, level 5 does bring with it a number of major perks. First off, we gain a feat/ASI and we use it to pick up Great Weapon Master. Now, we can subtract 5 from our to hit roll to add 10 to our damage. In addition, we can use a bonus action to deliver another attack after we roll a critical hit or reduce a creature to 0 HP. These features provide us with another boost to our melee damage.

Picking up a new spell slot gives us access to the mobility-enhancing Misty Step. We don’t tend to use it as much as other builds due to a combination of high Strength and access to Eldritch Blast. But we have it for a rainy day when we need to get into or out of trouble quick. Eldritch Versatility also allows us to retrain one spell. We use this ability to switch out our level 1 AOE for Mirror Image. Now we have another spell we can cast in addition to Armor of Agathys that does not require concentration and is compatible with our Rage. It also adds to our tankiness. So we’re all over it.

Level 6 — Thirsting Blade, Fireball

At level 6 we get a big boost. First, we pick the Thirsting Blade Invocation. This grants us two attacks per round with our Greatsword. In addition, we gain a new known spell. We pick Fireball from our Fiend Warlock spell list.

By now, in addition to having access to a solid tanking ability, we also have some powerful offensive options. We can enter combat with Armor of Agathys pre-cast to give us 15 THP and 15 explosive pinata damage. On round 1, we might cast Fireball, then bonus action to Rage. If, on a subsequent round, we score a critical hit with Great Weapon Master, we do an average of 46-76 plus 15 reactive damage if we are hit once for a total of 61-91 damage on a NOVA round. Very solid damage for a build that leans more heavily toward tanking.

Our tanking at this level is also pretty badass. We have 49 base HP. But adding in 15 THP from Armor of Agathys brings us to 64. Our Rage effectively doubles our hit points against physical attacks. Due to Rage, our reactive damage from Armor of Agathys likely lasts for 2-3 hits or more for a total of 30-45 off turn damage. Our Dark One’s Blessing adds 8 THP every time we reduce a target to 0 HP. These THP additions now happen more often with our extra attacks and Fireballs.

Level 7 — Dark One’s Own Luck, Fly

By level 7 we pick up a little boost to our saves and ability checks in the form of Dark One’s Own Luck. I’m partial to saving this clutch ability to add a d10 roll onto a failed save or concentration check. We’re already a little weak on our Int, Dex, and Wis saves. Dake One’s Own Luck helps to fill that gap and shore up a major vulnerability. For our spell choice, we gain some amazing mobility options by picking up the Fly spell. Fly allows us to zoom around the battlefield while spreading havoc with our Greatsword or Eldritch Blasts if mobility is something we decide we need.

Level 8 — Eldritch Smite, Fire Shield

Rolling into level 8 we gain another set of enhancements to our explosive pinata style tank. For one, our key Armor of Agathys jumps to 20 THP. With our base HP at 63, Agathys gives us an effective HP of 83. This compares to a typical Barbarian of this level at approx 85 with the addition of reactive damage. We can’t Rage as many times as the Barb’ so we need to choose our moments. But when we do, we are a serious impediment to foes that try to blow through us. Armor of Agathys lasts for at least 3 hits against most physical attacks while we rage for an average of around 60 reactive damage. We are also now getting 10 THP additions from Dark One’s Blessing. This is all pretty amazing for a tank.

For our new Invocation we pick up Eldritch Smite. I’m honestly not as jazzed about Eldritch Smite on this build as I am with other melee Warlocks. However, if we do manage to land a critical hit, we can burn one of our precious spell slots to add 45 average damage to that single strike. Overall, this net effect is lower than casting Armor of Agathys while raging and taking physical hits. But there are encounters when we will find this extra potential critical hit damage more effective — for example, when we need to take down a big bad, when enemies are resistant to cold damage, or when we are dealing with an encounter when we are mainly dealing with energy-based damage and our Rage ability isn’t as effective.

Speaking of energy damage, we look to add some options for resistance in this category and gain some additional reactive damage by picking up Fire Shield for our spell selection. With both Armor of Agathys and Fire Shield active, we can deliver a total of 20+2d8 reactive damage for an average of 29 each time we are hit so long as Agathys is still up. If we’re in combat against a creature that does Fire or Cold damage, and we have the wherewithal to apply Fire Shield to help deflect this damage, our combat tankishness also gets a boost.

Level 9 — 18 Strength, Counterspell, Wall of Fire

At level 9 with get another ASI. If we don’t have Gauntlets of Ogre Power or a Belt of Giant Strength by this time, we boost our Strength to 18. If we do have one of these highly desirable items, we can either increase our Dexterity to 14 and gain some much-needed AC, or we can increase our Charisma to 18 to further buff our spells. I’m more partial to option 2, but you do you.

Assuming no magical Strength enhancement, the ASI boost to 18 gives us 2d6+7 damage with our Greatsword when we Rage, 2d6+17 if we use our Great Weapon Master feature. Solid. Now our NOVA rounds are looking pretty strong at 123-153 if we’re hit once while Armor of Agathys is active, if we crit, and if we activate our Eldritch Smite on a critical hit. Adding such a high damage potential on top of our already impressive tankishness is pretty amazing to say the least. Though our 2 slots from Warlock make such NOVAs a clutch choice as we decide to unload a lot of our available resources into an admittedly powerful combination.

Using Eldritch Versatility, we might switch Shatter to Counterspell. We are heavy on fire-based magic. However, our ability to use Eldritch Blast does provide us with a force option to counter most damage resistances. I tend to want to have access to Counterspell by this level, so I’m going to recommend it for our Myra Helkey Gish.

Wall of Fire is an effective area denial spell.

Speaking of fire, we decide to double down on this particularly hot elemental damage type by gaining access to Wall of Fire. We probably stole this spell from some devils somewhere. So let’s use it wisely to divide up our foes during a clutch moment.

One caveat — if we’re in the lower planes on a hunt for fiendish souls to power our magic, fire becomes less effective. So we may instead want to keep Shatter and take the wonderful area denial spell that is Sickening Radiance if our Myra is out to go get the fiends.

Level 10 — Devil’s Sight, Synaptic Static

At level 10 we gain access to 5th level spells. I’m not super jazzed about our options. But picking up some non fire AOE damage seems like a good choice to me. So I’m going to recommend Synaptic Static — providing us with tough to resist psychic damage and a nice debuff against monsters with even just a little jot of Intelligence. We also gain another Eldritch Invocation. Since we’re stealing powers from fiends, we now pick up the wonderful Devil’s Sight granting us 120 feet of Darkvision that also ignores magical darkness.

Gaining fifth level spell slots also boosts our signature Armor of Agathys to 25 THP. Combined with our base HP of 77, we have 102 effective HP for most encounters. Rage grants us resistance to physical attacks and our Fire Shield can give us resistance to cold or fire, two very common damage types. Our Dark One’s Blessing grants 12 THP when we bring creatures to 0 HP which we now do rather often given our sweet collection of offensive abilities. We can also boost our reactive damage to 25+2d8 for an average of 34. Our Armor of Agathys typically lasts through three or more hits while raging. So we can expect to do upwards of 75-102 reactive damage over the lifespan of Agathys.

Level 11-13 — Fiendish Resilience, Circle of Death, 18 Charisma, Lifedrinker

Reaching level 11, we are now a level 10 Warlock and we access another trait from our name curse (err… Fiend Patron). This trait — Fiendish Resilience — grants us one resistance of our choice at the end of a short or long rest. I’m partial to fire, necrotic, cold or lightning resistance considering we already have access to Rage. This extra resistance pairs nicely with our ability to cast Fire Shield. Yet another helpful addition to our tankish suite. For our level 11 spell choice I’m going to suggest Dispel Magic. It adds still more versatility to our suite. Since we’re getting another spell slot next level, this spell can be pretty clutch. For us, it’s more potent than your typical dispel, as it’s always upcast to level 5.

Level 12 grants us our first Mystic Arcanum. For it we take the very large AOE that is Circle of Death. This spell gives us a huge 60 foot radius area in which we inflict 8d6 necrotic damage. It’s like a gigantic necrotic Fireball. Speaking of Fireball, we can now also cast three of these bad boys at level 5 for 10d6 damage on top of our Circle of Death. Blasting isn’t our main schtick. But our spell choices enable us to still provide powerful blast support when we need to.

By level 13 we’ve hit level 12 in Warlock and gained another ASI. We use it to boost our Charisma to 18 granting us a +4 bonus. As we now lob three Eldritch Blasts, we can do 3d10+12 total damage if all hit. Yet another arrow in our quiver of versatility. Boosting Charisma also fuels our newest Eldritch Invocation — Lifedrinker, which adds our Cha bonus to our Pact Weapon attacks as necrotic damage. Our melee attacks using our Pact Weapon now deal 2d6+9 total damage, 2d6 +11 when we Rage, and up to 2d6 +21 if we use our Great Weapon Master ability to add 10 damage. Pretty badass.

Level 14-17 — Crown of Stars, Hurl Through Hell, Maddening Darkness, Witch Sight, 20 Strength

Level 14 grants us our second Mystic Arcanum. We use it to choose the amazing Crown of Stars. Now we have a ranged bonus action attack that we can use without concentration. This gives us another spell we can cast pre-Rage and use while we Rage. The damage from Crown of Stars at 4d12 is considerable. If we are outside of Rage, this ranged option adds to our already impressive Eldritch Blast. When we wish to, we can buff both of these effects with Hex for a total of 4d12+4d6+3d10+12 or 68.5 average damage per round if all attacks land. Wof!

With the arrival of level 15, we access our final Fiend Warlock feature — Hurl Through Hell. Now, when we hit a creature with any attack, we can take it out of combat until the end of our next turn and inflict 10d10 psychic damage to it if the creature is not a fiend. It’s like a free no-save one-turn banishment combined with a boatload of psychic damage to non-fiends. My fluff for Myra’s RP of this power is that the fiends trapped in her shadow shoot out to engulf the target, temporarily tearing it out of existence and pulling it into a deadly, hellish dimension only to spit it out again six seconds later. On single strike, if we land a critical hit, unload Eldritch Smite and Hurl Through Hell, we do 4d6+12d8+10d10+21 (if we are Raging and if we use Great Weapon Master) or 134 average damage. Our NOVA round damage including Armor of Agathys and Fire Shield is now 224 average. This on a build primarily optimized for HP and THP tanking.

Hell is deadly. So is being hurled into it unexpectedly.

Level 16 grants us our third Mystic Arcanum and we choose the amazing spell that is Maddening Darkness. With this spell, we fill a huge 60 foot radius area with magical darkness that damages opponents for 8d8 psychic each round all while lobbing Eldritch Blasts into the zone. Nasty.

Level 17 provides us with our fourth ASI which we use to boost our Strength to 20. Our Eldritch Blast jumps to 4d10+16 from all missiles. Finally, we pick up the Eldritch Invocation Witch Sight allowing us to see through shape-changing and illusions that mask physical forms. As an alternative, we might want to take Lance of Lethargy to make it more difficult for creatures to leave our damaging area denial zones like Maddening Darkness by reducing their movement by 10 feet when we hit them with our Eldritch Blasts.

Level 18-20 — Foresight, Eldritch Lance, 20 Charisma

Rounding out our high level gains, we pick up Foresight for our Mystic Arcanum at level 18. Foresight grants us advantage on our attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws while causing attacks against us to be made with disadvantage. This powerful buff lasts for eight hours and does not require concentration — meaning it is yet one more spell we can use while we Rage (against the dying of the light…). At level 19 we pick up Eldritch Lance to increase the range of our Eldritch Blast attacks to 300 feet. And last of all, by level 20, we boost our Charisma to 20. If we haven’t yet picked up Spirit Shroud, we go ahead an take it as another melee buff option when we are not Raging. We might need it for some long, high level adventuring days. Spirit Shroud also trades our resilience for some powerful potential NOVA rounds.

For both ranged and melee, we are looking pretty impressive. Our Eldritch Blast attacks now do 4d10+20, our melee attacks with our Greatsword now do 2d6+11 up to 2d6+23 while raging and using Great Weapon Master to boost our damage by 10.

Our NOVA critical round, while raging, hasn’t improved too much from level 14. But it has risen a bit to the hefty 8d6+12d8+10d10+2d8+72+25 or 242. With Spirit Shroud active, we can boost this NOVA by another 8d8 (subtracting 6 from the loss of Rage) for 272. Right up there with our other powerful NOVA builds.

Our tanking also remains very impressive when we do Rage. Our base Hit Points + THP are now 147+25 or 172. While raging, we take half damage from physical attacks. With Fiendish resilience, we’ve chosen one energy resistance. With Fire Shield, we can gain resistance to cold or fire. With Foresight active, attacks are made at disadvantage against us and we have advantage on our saving throws. When we bring a creature to 0 hit points with one of our powerful attacks, we gain 24 THP. The Barbarian has long since outpaced us on base hit points — averaging about 264. However, we surpass the Barb in average HP + THP if we reduce just four creatures to 0 HP over the course of one or more combats. Meanwhile, our strong suite of magical options provides us with powerful ranged attacks, various other buffs, deadly NOVAs, and amazing area denial and AOE damage effects.

Our girl — Myra Helkey as a Hellblade Tank — is one helluva Gish. She’s got badass RP mojo. As I mentioned from a start, I’ve played many versions of Myra throughout my career as gamer. I’ve enjoyed her so much I’ve even written a book about her. I hope your experience with this build version of Myra Helkey is as fantastic as mine has been. We will likely be returning to explore further D&D build renderings of this particular OC.

Love to you all and happy gaming!! 💙💛

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by robertscribbler on March 21, 2022  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on March 21, 2022

https://scribblersfantasticalworkshop.wordpress.com/2022/03/21/gish-optimized-6-the-barbarian-hellblade-tank-myra-helkey/

Helkey 25 — Mobile Holy Ground

“The Nightmare’s in the frigging train!” Mori shouts.

Beatrice spins, facing front. There’s a lurch, a shriek of wheels. The train contorts, jumping on its tracks, throwing passengers back and forth. Ghostly light strobes along the walls. People crouch and cower near her. Terrified murmurs surround her. What do I do? My energetic vessel’s almost empty. The Curse Rider’s arrival in terrible glory has left her stunned. Breathless. Fear threads through her — trying to freeze her to the floor. She spins, leaps up beside Mori.

“What now?” He says, his jaw line clenching in tension.

“We figure out some way to fight him,” She replies. To her ears, she sounds far more confident than she feels. “To exorcise the Nightmare.”

Sadie stands up. Puts a hand on Beatrice’s arm. “Wait. We’ve chosen our ground well. Look carefully.”

Beatrice lifts her eyes to the wall, watches the Nightmare’s ghostly spirit rushing back and forth through the train. Metal shudders. Plastic smolders. Wheels squeal and grind. But the train’s form does not change. There is no diabolical transformation.

“You see now? We picked a solar train for good reason. They don’t call it fueled by Heaven for nothing.” Then, Sadie lifts her hand, touches the train’s wall and incants “Ligamen Malum!” Blue-white light pulses out. A series of white rings expands from her point of contact. The rings ripple through the train — creating an interlocking chain of binding circles. The Nightmare spirit shrieks, fades, then melts back in silence. Smooth forward motion resumes. Beatrice’s eyes swirl with magical detection. The Nightmare thrashes. But it cannot escape from Sadie’s binding. Stuck in a substance anathema to its nature. Bound by a chain of celestial magic drawing strength from the solar train’s innate benevolence. For now, the demon is locked down, unable to move.

“You trapped it!” Beatrice exclaims in surprise and relief. “You chose the train for this reason didn’t you? You knew.”

Sadie taps the train’s deck with her foot, a sheepish grin spreading over her face. “What does Myra call this sort of conveyance? I heard her say it once?”

“Mobile holy ground, Highlander!” Mori says. “Damn, what a move! I saw you touch the wall and concentrate earlier. Didn’t know it was to work a heavy-weight curse!”

Beatrice wipes away a tear that forms, unbidden, at mention of her daughter. “The idea to set this trap came from something Myra said?”

“That’s as crazy as it is cool,” Mori actually laughs.

“No time to celebrate,” Sadie says. “We’ve knocked out one of his main weapons. But we still have a Curse Rider to deal with.”

“What’s the plan?” Beatrice asks.

“I’m drawing a blank too,” Mori says. He shares a glance with Beatrice, worry plain in his expression. “We’re both about tapped out.”

Ivan groans, clutches his belly, then barfs on the floor. Sadie grabs his collar, hoists him up. “We know what the Curse Rider wants.” She motions to Ivan. “Don’t we? For certainty, he hunts you to take your wisps. But he’s also here for Ivan. And as complicated as our Russian friend here makes things for us, he’s also splitting the Curse Rider’s focus.” Sadie pats Ivan on the back, then starts guiding him to the rear of the car.

“It’s a delay tactic,” Mori says.

Beatrice nods. “We move the quarries. Keep him guessing.” Flicking her sense through omnis scientia, she can see the Curse Rider raging on the train’s roof. His Nightmare trapped, his once-cool demeanor is now melting into a rictus of ugly rage. His eyes follow the magical lines running from the sensor back to Beatrice and Mori. With great leaps that seem impossible for such a whip-thin body, he begins bounding toward them. Where his feet touch the sanctified train, angry sparks lash out at him, burning him. He pays no mind as boots and cloths are blasted away. As human flesh sears to black and red scales, his feet taking on the shape of talons. “He’s coming! Let’s move!”

As they stand, Officer Winkler finally recovers from her shock at the madness caused by what she thinks is a mass phone hacking. She’s close, overhearing their conversation. Though some of it’s not processing for her, the magical parts mostly, she grasps the gist of their plan. Then, her police radio blares with a confusing report of a helicopter landing on the roof and depositing a likely hijacker. She stands, pulls her firearm. “Good idea! Get to the train’s rear! We’ll do what we can to protect your dignitary!” Winkler rushes into the next car, joins two other officers, then uses the emergency access to get to the roof.

Beatrice lifts a hand, then incants praesidia! The blue light of her protection curse shoots toward the officers, enveloping them in a momentary flare. She ties off the energy, watching sparks trail them as they climb onto the roof. It’ll last about ten minutes. Hopefully enough. Probing her energetic vessel she finds she’s got maybe one strong curse left. She doesn’t regret it. Those officers are good people going into a situation they don’t understand. One where they’re completely outclassed.

The Curse Rider is ten cars back and coming on fast. They turn and rush headlong toward the train’s rear. Running itself isn’t a strategy. It buys them time. And not much. Cunning Sadie must have another trick card in her deck.

Sadie grabs her by the shirt. “I know you’re almost out! Save your last magic until I tell you to use it! Going to need your special talent!”

Beatrice nods back, mouth forming a grim line. “Aye, my captain!” she replies, then rushes onward, checking her speed to make sure her companions can keep up. Most mages have specializations. Sadie’s are healing, binding, protection and traps. Mori’s involve information gathering, detection, stealth, obfuscation, and weapon-enhanced ranged combat. She has a few areas of magical specialization, but she bets Sadie will draw something from her wide-ranging, mobility-enabling quiver.

They pass through one train car. Another. Passengers stare in obvious shock from the phone disturbance, the jolting train, the diabolical light show. Warnings about a possible unauthorized boarder blare through the speakers. Ivan stumbles. Mori hit him pretty hard. Can’t say I blame him. Asmodeus’s Prophet is also cradling a burned hand, suffers from many bruises. The wound in his back and wisp from the Pride-Eater’s talon clearly troubles him as he lurches back and forth in a daze of pain. Beatrice hooks a hand under his arm, helping Sadie propel him onward.

Through omnis scientia, Beatrice watches as the officers climb onto the train’s roof. They shout, pointing at the Curse Rider who’s now become a horrific mash of devil and cowboy — running on taloned feet as divine energy sparks angrily around him. White light flares, rising from Sadie’s chain of binding circles. A Macto effect Sadie layered into her spell’s structure. The sparks are ripping holes in his human flesh. A superficial garment, some of it sags off in tatters — revealing more of the mottled black and red scales. A baleful black eye with a white pin-prick for its pupil scans them as the devil cowboy rushes forward, holding its black hat to its head with one hand.

“Halt!” the officers shout, weapons drawn. The interpretation from German ringing in her ears through the shared sensor.

Quicker than a cobra-strike, the devil cowboy draws his firearm. A massive six-shooter leaps into his hand. He fires. A black round erupts. It seems to expand, devouring light as it races toward its targets. The officers, pistols already out, return fire. A few bullets strike the Curse Rider. May as well be stinging gnats for all the damage they inflict. The black round shoots between the officers, contracts with a ‘wump!’ then explodes in a dark shockwave. Darkness tinged with fire bursts out, engulfing the officers and tearing a hole in the train roof. Blue light ripples, protecting them from the impact. Still, the officers are flung off like toys in warped bubbles. Two tumble away to the left. One to the right. Beatrice sees Winkler fall into bushes along the train tracks, blue light still shielding her. Safe if shook-up. The other two officers hurtle out of sight. The Curse Rider takes one leap, jumps through the hole opened by his black bullet, lands in a flare of sparks among screaming passengers, then continues his onrush from within the train.

Beatrice looks over her shoulder. She can’t see him yet. But she does see passengers cowering, diving under seats, or pressing themselves against walls. In the distance, through a series of doors, she can see material swirling around like confetti. “He’s in the train!” she shouts.

Sadie looks back at her, catches her eye. “Good,” she says.

Beatrice turns, facing the train’s rear. They sprint — slamming through doors and jumping over passengers, Ivan in tow. From behind them, the sounds of screams and crashes grows louder. Beatrice feels panic rise into her throat. Pricks run up her spine. She feels she’ll be snatched away and rent to pieces at any instant. They’re moving too fast now to look back. But the noise behind grows louder and louder.

Finally, they come to the caboose car’s entrance. Sadie lifts a hand. Beatrice spins to a halt. Mori stops, takes a knee. Ivan collapses. Toward the engine, not three cars away, the Curse Rider strides through a shower of sparks carrying Macto curses that blast into him in gory staccato. Bits of his human shell fly off — spraying over cowering and screaming passengers. He ignores them. Clawed feet hammer as he rushes toward them. Legs pistoning with terrible force that evokes both the machine and the reptilian. Eyes — twin white lights in orbs of darkness — fix on them like gun sights. His flesh and clothes are now tatters. Most of what made him look human is ripped away. His diabolical features — mottled black and bood-red scales, twin horns sprouting from his skull, long claws replacing toes and finger nails — take on most of his form now. Beatrice draws breath, in awe of what Sadie’s done with her magic. She turned the train into a gauntlet of destruction for the Curse Rider. It’s still no-where near enough. The thing she sees stands strong, barely phased by the terrible punishment coming in from all sides. The devil cowboy — it still wears its ridiculous hat — explodes into a dividing doorway. The door is thrown off its hinges with a shriek of steel. The Curse Rider bursts through. Now just two cars away.

“I hope you know what you’re doing!” Mori shouts to Sadie.

“He sees us! Good!” She shouts. “Now run! To the end of the train!”

They rush headlong. It’s a real race now and they’re losing fast. Beatrice has no idea what Sadie has in mind. But it better be good. They’re at the train’s end. All that stands between them and rushing tracks — a door of steel and glass. About a hundred feet away and opposite the door, the Curse Rider hurtles toward them. They’re trapped. Out of options.

“Mori! Shoot out the door!” Sadie shouts.

Mori, who was busy sighting down the Curse Rider, swings his weapon around, ejects the Macto magazine into his hand, switches it swiftly with a black magazine from his pocket, then aims at the door. Beatrice’s eyes widen as she recognizes the ammo. These are tungsten anti-material rounds! Mori shoots four times in succession, blasting away the hinges. The door flies off into space behind the train — tumbling like a leaf.

Sadie waves to the few passengers clustering near the caboose’s rear. “Too dangerous here! Run to the front now!” The passengers stand, scamper toward the car’s front. “Now hide! Something bad’s coming!” Sadie’s voice is laden with suggero spurring them to move despite their terror.

Not missing a beat, Sadie turns to Beatrice. “We’re going up top. Draw your sword. Use your defenses. Get its attention. Then follow my lead.” Sadie grabs Mori and Ivan. “Salire!” she incants. Together, they leap up — propelled in a swooping arc by Sadie’s curse magic. Then they’re on the roof, scampering toward the car’s front. Beatrice is now alone. She draws her curse-patterned rapier. Sparks fall from its tip. The tattoos on her feet and hands flare with magic as she prepares what remains in her energetic vessel. With her thumb, she taps the blue-white gem in her rapier’s pommel. A patterned praesidia curse triggers — enveloping her blade in a bubble of protective light. She’s deliberately bleeding a heavy amount of patterned lux into her name curse. Showing off both her nature as an angel and as a mage. A combination any devil worth its worb would lust for. In front of her, the door rips off — pinning two passengers as the Curse Rider tears it like a sheet of paper from a notebook, then casually casts it aside. She crouches. The Curse Rider’s white laser eyes in swirling darkness fall on her. She aims her sword at them. The Curse Rider hesitates for a moment, seems surprised she’s alone, glances about for her companions. The pause is only momentary. Her angelic, magical form, its vital wisp-energy fluttering within, is too spectacular a pull for a devil to resist. It tips its hat in seeming salute, lowers a hand toward the pistol on its belt, then leaps toward her.

“Sadie!!!” Beatrice shouts.

“Una!” Sadie replies. “Una!” she hears Mori speak in turn as he bridges the link between Sadie, Beatrice, himself, and Ivan. Una forms a bridge that flows like a river of magic between them. It then extends in a blue-green arc over the train, connecting them to their magical sensor — omnis scientia — hundreds of feet ahead. Beatrice’s senses are transported along the bridge to the sensor’s far-off focus. Its view is just above the hole created by the Curse Rider’s first black bullet when it exploded among the police officers minutes before.

In her real sight, she can see the Curse Rider tearing through the train’s floor with its clawed feet. “When I cast my curse use lanuae on the sensor!” Sadie shouts. The Curse Rider’s six shooter whips up. Beatrice’s sense of time dilates. The barrel seems to slowly rise. “QAUE MALA!” Sadie incants, using the binding circle curse to seal the caboose with a ward against evil.

Beatrice spins her rapier. The gun’s barrel lines up. Sparks swirl in the air. She can see the barrel through her circle of sparks like a gaping maw. The five black bullets still housed in its cylinder — each a bulge of devil’s magic waiting for launch. She grabs one spark. The gun’s hammer falls. She hurls the spark. It disappears as it passes into the magical link made by una and flares swiftly through the blue-green bridge above the train. The black bullet hurtles toward her, shadow tendrils swarm out from it. Her rapier blazes. The light of a star briefly blossoms in the caboose as praesidia forms its bubble around her. Shadow tendrils coil and swell from the black bullet. Around Beatrice, seats are ripped off their mountings and thrown from the train, windows shatter, metal bulges and cracks.

Beatrice is ejected out behind the train in this clash of forces. Tendrils blooming around the swelling black bullet core through her protective light. If they touch her, they will tear her wisp away. The black bullet will then capture it for the Curse Rider to enslave. Hundreds of feet ahead, in the train that is now leaving her behind, her spark finally crosses una’s bridge and shoots out of the magical sensor. It lands in the train roof’s hole. The black bullet begins to engulf her. Tendrils just inches away as she dips toward impact on the tracks. Tucking into a ball, she shouts “LANUAE!” The explosive magic of teleportation enfolds her — lighting up three more times to engulf her companions on the train car roof ahead and above. The black bullet cores through the explosion where she hung in mid-air a moment before.

Beatrice emerges along with Sadie, Mori, and Ivan. Each leaping up out of their own explosive spark-shower. They fall about 8 feet, then land in a chorus of thumps in the ruined train car. A few hundred feet away, within the caboose, the Curse Rider howls in rage. Sadie’s magic has formed an iridescent field around the damaged car. Reinforced by the train’s holy ground, it contains the Curse Rider even as he vents his fury. Pounding and shooting the magical containment in furious effort to find release. The remaining passengers, not similarly bound by Sadie’s magic and gathered near the exit forward, flee to safety in the next train car. For the moment, the Curse Rider is too distracted by his capture to pay them mind. He aims his might at breaking the bottle, he deforms the magical containment — causing the caboose to jump. Its walls are quickly tattered with dents and cracks. But, for now, the mighty Curse Rider is held even as Macto curses continue to rain down on it.

Beatrice slumps to the floor, still shaking from the intensity of a few moments before. “Whew!” she says. “Well, Sadie, you did it. Trapped a Curse Rider. But I don’t know for how long. I’ll take my miracles.”

“It’s bought us time. Hopefully enough to get where we need to go,” Sadie replies.

“Tonder?” Mori asks.

“Brons,” Sadie replies. “I’ve arranged a boat. We jump train there. If all goes as planned. Glenda will be on board.”

Beatrice looks at them, puts her shaking hand on her head. “Are you both going to let me know what you’ve cooked up? Do I have to guess at your charades? I did just… What would Myra call it? I think the term is tank. Yes. I did just tank that Curse Rider for you guys. A little explanation as gratitude would be appreciated.”

“Sweetheart,” Mori replies, catching her up in a reassuring embrace. “You tanked beautifully! And yes, I suppose we both missed a lot of Sadie’s subtlety here. So to fill you in, we’re going to jump off the train at Brons, then take a boat down the Brons River and out to our Heaven’s gate in the North Sea. Providence willing, the cage Sadie made for our Curse Rider will hold until then and for some time after.”

“Glorious!” Beatrice says in an outburst, trying to blow her shakes off into the word. “How much longer ’til Brons?”

“About fifty minutes,” Mori says.

“Seems like a long time given present circumstances.”

“It seems like forever.”

Ivan whimpers.

Beatrice stands, assesses her blessings. She’s still breathing — thanks in no small part to Sadie. This whole affair is too desperate. But she didn’t know what else to do. With Myra in Hell, they’re committed to this crazy path. And that was that.

(New to the Helkey multiverse? Haven’t yet read the first chapter? You can find it here: Helkey 1 — The Memory Draught.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)

(Enjoying the story? Want to help support the continuance of this tale? Please like, share and subscribe.)

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by robertscribbler on January 10, 2022  •  Permalink
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Posted by robertscribbler on January 10, 2022

https://scribblersfantasticalworkshop.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/helkey-25-an-angel-mage-tank-on-mobile-holy-ground-highlander/

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