Here Comes a New Challenger! (part 1)

Last week, I put up one of my custom Dungeons & Dragons Encounters characters.  Although the last one bordered on the "silly" category, it illustrated how the mechanics of D&D4E could be easily re-skinned into interesting (and often unexpected) ways.

When I started reading about the Essentials Mage class, I was both fascinated and upset about it.  I liked having a wizard option that focused on the different schools of magic but it didn't seem like they included enough schools to make it interesting.  The illusionist was nice but I had no fondness for Evokers and Enchanters.  Eventually, WotC released the first new "school" of magic, the Pyromancer, and it got me thinking.

From those thoughts, this was born:

Dhalsim, Yoga Master and World Warrior

Dhalsim, Master of the Yoga Fire

It was something of an easy choice in rendering this character the way that I did.  Unfortunately, you cannot remove Magic Missile from the Mage class, a feature I learned to dislike intensely mostly due to my intense dislike of Magic Missile.  Thus, despite having all of these wonderfully themed powers, there is the oddball "Yoga Force," which I could not find a way to better explain.  I considered leaving it off, but I would worry that purists out there may disagree with "house-ruling" my Encounters characters.

I believe Dhalsim is another character where applying the "skin" to it changes the way you interact with the game.  What was "just another wizard" has become something exceedingly strange yet entertaining.  It also begins to illustrate the idea that a character does not need to necessarily reflect the class.  Dhalsim doesn't necessarily feel like a wizard at all.  Mechanically, this character is a wizard, but nobody looks at him as a sagacious old student of magic but instead as the World Warrior we all know.

"You win!  Perfect!"