D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 10)

For the longest time, I had a real problem with respect to two things in the whole D&D/Star Wars crossover.  First of all, I had really wanted to do a dual-lightsaber character but did not want to use villainous characters (such as Assajj Ventress).  Secondly, I had spent a great deal of time not knowing what to do with Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker's apprentice.  Both of these things bothered me and I would never have guessed that the two issues would one day come together.

But they did.  When I was watching season 3 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I noticed that Ahsoka Tano had two things hanging from her belt.  I assumed that one was a ... scanner?  Honestly, I had no idea what it was, but the one thing I knew it couldn't be was another lightsaber.  That is, until the Mortis trilogy, where she busted out dual lightsaber action!  It's like the writers had heard my thoughts, unduly upset about not being able to properly work a two-weapon character into my D&D re-skin.

The color is just because it matched the picture....

Dual lightsaber wielding action!

I found it somewhat difficult picking all of the appropriate class features for Ahsoka.  I wanted to make sure that anybody who picked her up (and knew waaaaay too much about Star Wars) would feel like she had been done right.  Ahsoka is an interesting character because she was put into the story to be a sort of reflection of Anakin Skywalker and his slow progression throughout the series.  This is somebody who learned the important parts of being a Jedi from somebody who is slowly being corrupted to darkness.

For those curious, this variant of Ahsoka is an Elf Ranger (Scout).  I felt that the higher Elf speed matched Ahsoka's agile style while the ability to re-roll an attack seemed to fit Ahsoka and her ability to do the most ridiculous stuff as a Padawan.  It seemed to work out well.

Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars

As I put the finishing touches on my eleventh or twelfth Star Wars themed Dungeons & Dragons character, I thought I would take time to say a few things about how Dungeons & Dragons (4th Edition) and Star Wars intersect.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a television show currently (as of this writing) entering its fifth season.  It fills the gap between Episode II and Episode III.  As I see it, it is the Star Wars content that everybody thought they were going to see with the prequel movies.  It revolves around the Clone Wars, it displays a galaxy at war, and shows us the slow degradation of our alleged protagonist, Anakin Skywalker.

However, as it is an ongoing television series, it is much more than that little piece of story about the man who would be Darth Vader.  It is about the entire war, not just the few characters who's names we remember from the movies.  The creators of the show might be some of the world's biggest Star Wars fans as they often go out of their way to fill the show with bits and pieces of Expanded Universe trivia while crafting out a galaxy we thought we knew so well.  Quite frankly, I consider it the best Star Wars I have ever seen.

But what does this have to do with Dungeons & Dragons?  When I started making pre-generated characters for Dungeon & Dragons: Encounters, it was because there had been a definitive drought of characters provided by Wizards of the Coast.  Although I understand their intent in doing so, I felt like many players liked the ability to try out new character classes and features via the Encounters program yet did not have the time to make their own characters.

As I found interesting, iconic characters to convert to D&D format, I started to realize that I had made a significant number of Star Wars characters.  Star Wars characters seemed like an easy thing.  People would walk into Encounters, never having played Dungeons & Dragons, but could immediately get a sense of what their character would do because they knew the character.  Anakin Skywalker?  Whine a little bit and then start killing things with reckless abandon.  Obi-Wan Kenobi?  Talk a lot and belittle Anakin.  C-3PO?  Complain a lot.  I considered these iconic character a resounding success.

But why are we fighting Drow and Spiders, Master Plo Koon?

After having made five or six of these Star Wars D&D characters, a good friend asked me why I did not consider writing my own Lair Assault or One-Shot Adventure using Clone Wars material.  Wasn't going after Mordai Vell in his underground Dawn Forge just as reasonable as breaking into the Separatist facility to rescue R2-D2?  It made sense.  Choose a group of six characters and go after General Grievous aboard his flagship, the Malevolence.  Or, battle the Sith Assassin Assajj Ventress during the Battle of Christophsis.  This seemed a great plan.

I am more powerful than any Dragon, my dear Obi-Wan...

Although still hard at work on this, my first attempt has been to recreate the fifth episode of the first season, entitled "Rookies."  The episode begins on the Rishi moon, where a group of newly commissioned clone troopers have been stationed to monitor for Separatist incursion.  Their job?  Maintain the "All Clear" signal unless invasion by the Separatists is imminent, thus warning the rest of the Republic of the attack.

Alright, brothers.  We have to save the Republic from the clankers.

By the middle of the episode, it has become an adventure of five characters as they attempt to retake the Rishi station from Commando Droids who are masking a Separatist fleet's invasion into Republic space.  Captain Rex, Commander Cody, Echo, Fives, and Hevy must fight off a Rishi eel, get back into the station, defeat the Commando Droids, and deactivate the "All Clear" signal.  Of course, trials and tribulations face them as droid reinforcements arrive to secure the outpost.  Soon, they are forced to do the unthinkable and one of them makes a great sacrifice for the Republic.

That sounds like a perfect one-shot D&D adventure!  So, what started as an attempt to liven up my Wednesday D&D Encounters game has turned into a project building Star Wars themed adventures and encounters.  Although not for everybody, it demonstrates that with the right homebrew mindset, the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons can do quite a bit and make it fun.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 9)

After a while, making Jedi and Clone Troopers gets a little boring.  Occasionally, I feel as if I need to create something a bit different.  C-3PO and R2-D2 seemed like good choices for characters as they appear in quite a lot of Clone Wars episodes and they are iconic.  Unfortunately, making a protocol droid and an astromech droid using a ruleset that focuses on combat seemed difficult.

C-3PO was surprisingly simple once a friend helped me realize that he is simply the laziest of lazy warlords.  R2-D2 was tough, on the other hand.  Everybody had their own idea how he would be.  Some people thought he was a thief or rogue.  A wizard.  A bard.  Honestly, he is something of a generalist insomuch that he has a gadget for everything, so it was difficult finding something that captured him well.

I wanted to capture a few things with R2-D2.  He is something of a jack-of-all-trades in the Star Wars universe, although he's best known for cracking locks.  Most of his abilities are a result of some gadget or another hidden inside his casing.  From memory, I could think of a buzz saw, an electric zapper, a welding torch, and his booster jets.  So, whatever I chose would have to somehow capture as large a cross-section of those abilities as possible.

The Star Wars character who knows *everything*.

R2-D2, the jack-of-all-trades.

I had originally conceived of making him a Pixie to capture the booster jets, but I did not feel comfortable torquing the Pixie.  Besides, R2-D2 normally only uses his booster jets for brief periods and only rarely.  So, an encounter power would be reasonable enough.  I came across a rather peculiar racial power for Goblins that fit the bill: Leg Up lets a Goblin character adjacent to another creature jump his speed horizontally or 10 feet vertically.  This seemed a perfect match for R2-D2's booster jets.

Thief and wizard were high on my list of classes to use.  However, neither of them quite fit R2-D2 how I thought he should be.  When I started flipping through different classes, I found the Sorcerer to have an array of powers that might fit.  Furthermore, the Storm Sorcerer had a flight ability (on natural 20 attack roll) that also looked good.  So, from that, the Goblin Storm Sorcerer named R2-D2 was born.

I will honestly say that even after I had settled on a Goblin Storm Sorcerer, I still had what was potentially the most difficult challenge yet remaining: an iconic quote.  I spent at least twenty to thirty minutes scouring different websites, trying to find out how his bleeps and bloops are best written.  Unfortunately, I did not find anything that was particularly impressive.  Thus, I stuck with the relatively uninteresting <beep> <beep>. Perhaps I'll touch it up in the future.

People who have read my C-3PO post should already know why it is that R2-D2 is a vampire.  I wanted droids to be modeled after undead.  Radiant damage is ion blast and necrotic damage is more like radioactive damage.  Thus, the natural resistances and vulnerabilities of vampires worked very well.

At some point, I will likely try an alternative R2-D2 build, perhaps using a Pixie with a more wizardly class.  But, for now, R2-D2 is now available to join the rest of the Clone Wars team.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 8)

One thing that I have found in building all of these different Dungeons & Dragons characters is there are a lot of different ways to achieve certain character results. When I wanted to make a Clone Trooper, I wanted a ranged weapon character.  I started with the Ranger (Hunter) as the obvious choice and ended up with Hevy and Jek.  The Archer Warlord was another obvious choice, resulting in Commander Cody.  As I continued to research, I found some classes that seemed less obvious at first but fit well for a character like Captain Rex.  Sometimes, though, it takes me a while to find even the most obvious permutation.

Echo, Defender of Kamino and Rishi Station.

Pretty simple power set.

When I did Hevy, the only "Domino Squad" episode I had seen was the first season episode, Rookies.  I never would have guessed that these clones would appear in later episodes.  When I finally got to season three, I was quite pleased that not only did these clones get a back story (in the episode Clone Cadets), but also a sequel to the original episode where the survivors of Rishi Station return to Kamino. Excepting Cody and Rex, these were the first clones that really stuck out as characters.  It only seemed appropriate that I feature as many of them as I can as Dungeons & Dragons characters.

I made Echo at roughly the same time I did Charon, so the similarities between the two is easy to see.  Like Charon, Echo is a slayer fighter focused on Dexterity and ranged combat.  As a human, Echo got an additional feat.  This allowed the selection of the Greatbow proficiency, giving him enormous range and a higher damage range.  Dealing 1d12 + 10 damage on every hit, Echo is no slouch in the damage dealing department.  I felt like the Poised Assault stance seemed more appropriate for Echo than the Unfettered Fury stance that Charon had as Echo served as a sniper when he helped defend Kamino.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 7)

It is an interesting thing, trying to build specific characters using the mechanical structures of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition. Some characters are extremely easy to build, at least in a basic form. The Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series has provided quite a stable of adaptable characters. Jedi are generally "some class with a sword" and adapted to fit the style and flavor of a particular character.  The clone troopers have all fallen under a somewhat similar category, being "class with bow/crossbow" and adapted to that end.  Some, on the other hand, are more complicated.  Occasionally, strange character warrant strange mechanics, such as C-3PO as the "lazy Warlord" build.

In some cases, it is just terribly difficult to find something that fits the exact way I feel the character should.  Captain Rex quickly became one of those characters.  He should be simple enough: a clone trooper with two hand blasters.  However, no class within the Fourth Edition framework quite captured this especially well.  I had already done "guy with a handgun" with Resident's Evil's Barry Burton: an Essentials Thief armed with a Hand Crossbow.  My first idea was to replicate that character for Rex but I quickly found that it did not feel right. Eventually, frustration would lead me to examine the Seeker, a generally maligned and ignored class from Player's Handbook 3.  One variant of the Seeker utilized throwing weapons and several of the powers had "Melee or Ranged" capabilities.  After some thought, this seemed like exactly the thing for Captain Rex.  He can fight at range but he does his best work at melee and short range.  That got me started.

The Seeker ended up being a bit more difficult than I would have originally imagined. Despite having throwing weapon powers, the "out of the box" Seeker only has two throwing weapon proficiencies: javelin and dagger.  [Technical Note: The Seeker also has proficiency with a few odd throwing weapons added in later supplements, including the widow's knife and short spear, but I did not count those.]  Neither was especially enthralling of a choice.  I wanted something that could be used one handed but that could be used in a pair, like Rex's Hand Blasters.  I originally considered the Hand Axe or Throwing Hammer, both reasonable choices, but I found taking two weapons did not actually gain anything.  I flirted with a few exotic Dark Sun weapons, but eventually something came to mind: the Net.

Anakin's dependable clone commander, Captain Rex.

Rex is heavy on close-range monster control.

In my research of using Nets, another feat path came up: the Foamgather Heritage feats.  Foamgather Warrior, gave a +1 (untyped) bonus to attacks made with a net.  In addition, it granted use of a special Melee or Ranged net attack which could grab (immobilize) and reposition enemies.  This seemed like a really good choice for Captain Rex, as well.  Not able to decide between the two, I decide to go with both sets of feats (Net Training and the Foamgather feats).Way back in the early days of Fourth Edition (October 2008!), Dragon magazine featured an article on gladiators and gladiatorial combat.  In it, they introduced rules for "iconic" gladiatorial weapons, including Nets, Whips, and Bolas.  As these weapons were all somewhat exotic and generally only powerful within the context of special abilities, they included multi-class paths for gaining proficiency, special abilities, and new powers with specific weapons.  The basic net feat, Net Training, grants proficiency with the Net and the special ability to slow targets with each blow.  That seemed an interesting choice, so I went with it.

As it ends up, this is a character for which a few more levels would yield interesting results.  The two additional feats that would help improve Rex's performance are Flail Expertise, which would give an additional +1 to hit with the next and allow him to prone targets instead of slide them, and Far Throw, which would increase his Ranged capabilities from 2/5 to 4/7.  Honestly, the only concern at that point would be his armor, as he would rely on being "in the mix" to get his controlling done but be susceptible to attack.  Perhaps all he needs is a good defender, like Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker...

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 1, revisited)

After working through a large number of Dungeons & Dragons characters, I started to rethink a few of my original creations.  Specifically, some of them seemed like they could be done differently or, in a few cases, done a little bit better.  Rather than just go back and replace the old character cards, I thought it would be perfectly acceptable to make a new card representing a different "version" of the iconic character.

The first character I chose for this was Anakin Skywalker.  The reason was not that I had a problem with the original Anakin card I made but that I found a different (arguably, better) character match for Anakin.  I had read a bit on the Berserker class, first presented in Heroes of the Feywild, and I thought it seemed especially appropriate for Anakin.  A defender who can loose her cool and go wild as a striker seemed like an interesting fit for the young Jedi Knight.

A slightly different Anakin Skywalker..

Capturing the Fury in an easy-to-read fashion was tough.

What was most interesting about this was the number of abilities that suspiciously overlapped.  The original character was a Fighter with a Power Strike.  Now, as a Half-Orc, he has almost the same ability.  Thus, to a certain extent, I was able to ground him to the original Anakin Skywalker character I made.To a certain extent, I feel like this Anakin is more like what I expect Anakin to feel like.  In the beginning of battle, he is calm and collected.  He aids his comrades and defends them from attack.  But, once bloodied, the calm and cool Anakin Skywalker goes into his own style of rage, striking his foes with the power of his anger and fury.  Thus, he succumbs just a bit to that Dark Side gnawing away at his soul.

The Berserker is an interesting class.  Starting out as a stalwart defender and then losing it to strike down your foes is an interesting way to work the mechanic.  Unfortunately, it is quite easy to forget things like the AC bonus from the Defender's Aura, which can make him less effective as a defender.  Hopefully, anybody that chooses to use Anakin will not suffer that problem.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 6.5)

So, after thinking about it, I decided it would be appropriate to post the alternate version of C-3PO.  In this case, it is the "alternative" of leaving his melee basic attack off of the power list.  In this way, he technically has no attack power whatsoever.  Instead, all he has are directive powers, support powers, and utility powers.

Not a single attack power...

Some Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition purists may be upset by this but I will just consider this one of those times that I exercise designer discretion.  Of course, I am leaving the original up as well but I wanted to provide this for people who wanted something that felt very much like C-3PO (insomuch that C-3PO never attacks anybody).

Of course, this raises interesting questions about what to do with Jar Jar Binks...

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 6)

Having made a few Jedi and a few Clone Troopers, I realized that I had been missing a few of the more iconic characters from the Star Wars universe.  Not wanting to leave anybody out, I started thinking about who else I could make and fit within the 4E mechanics.  Taking a tip from one of my players, I started thinking about the droids and how they would fit.

I had already decided that droids in this Star Wars universe would be best captured by using undead.  Necrotic damage would be some sort of toxic gas, something that would naturally not affect a droid.  Radiant damage would be something like an ion blaster, making undead vulnerability to it make sense.  From that, I realized that any droid character I would make would have to have those characteristics.  Luckily, this became easy to accomplish through the simple use of a feat.

I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations.

I only put an attack on their for AoO purposes...

First to come from this crazy bit of thinking was the iconic Star Wars character C-3PO.  I used the model proposed by a good friend: the Ultimate Lazy Warlord.  C-3PO has no attack abilities (other than his basic melee attack, which I considered leaving off).  All of his abilities either direct allies to attack, heal allies, or otherwise provide support.  Let me restate that: C-3PO has no attack abilities.

It is an interesting thing building a Warlord who does not need Strength.  All of the Character Builder recommendations kind of go out the window when you decide to go down this route.  However, it ends up working surprisingly well.  C-3PO spends most of his turns flailing about, crying out for help or giving his allies support.  This is a character for a very particular kind of player, I imagine, but I like it because it is another one of these builds that goes directly against the character model provided.

One thing worth mentioning, though.  His daily power (Point Out Its Weakness) is a bit peculiar because it gives an ally the opportunity to make an attack.  Unfortunately, that player will have to determine what bonuses apply in figuring that out.  I suspect that using the bonuses for the appropriate at-will weapon attack (ranged or melee) is probably a reasonable way to figure it out.

Edit:  As a follow-up, I posted the backside of the character card without the attack power for those who want a more ... realistic C-3PO.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 5)

For those of you may have thought that I had been slacking on Star Wars character cards... You are right. I have been.  However, I went back into the Jedi foundry to see what I could dig up.  This time, I decided I needed a defender in the mix since I had not made one yet for my Star Wars: Clone Wars set of characters.  I was not fond of repeating myself using the Swordmage since lightning powers do not really feel right and I did not have the patience to navigate the other Swordmage powers.  Instead, I tried something different.

Ki-Adi-Mundi is a strange choice, I admit.  He looks kind of funny and he does not get a lot of screen time in any Star Wars.  He does have the dignity of being one of the few Jedi to present a relatively stalwart front against his clones when Order 66 is issued.  He also was in charge of the most ridiculous group of clones I have seen to date in the Clone Wars series (flamethrower troops!).  Somehow, I felt he needed representation.

Ki-Adi-Mundi.  That guy with the funny head.

Ki-Adi-Mundi, sporting Jedi forms and a Guardian aura!

I wanted to make an Essentials defender for some time.  From my experience, they appear simple yet they have a lot of interesting options.  Throw up an aura, defend your friends, but get bonuses with your basic attack (that you can use against enemies in your aura).  The jury is still out as to whether they are necessarily overpowered or not.

My experience is that they are good at what they are supposed to do.  They draw attacks away from allies and towards them.  They do not have fidgety elements like the Warden or Swordmage.  They capture what the Fighter should probably have done from the first day of 4E and did it in a way that was easy to explain.

I still work on making other types of defenders.  I still have trouble with the classic Fighter, but I hope I can get there soon.  Until then, Ki-Adi-Mundi can provide the defending you need in your Star Wars D&D campaign.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 4.5)

Sometimes, when I am building a character card, I come up with a few variants of a card that seem just as effective.  I try to fool around with the details to find the one that works best but it does not always work out that way.  Occasionally, the differences are sufficient that I value both but they are not different enough to warrant an entirely new character.

On the other hand, sometimes the character lends itself well to multiple variants or instances.  The Clone Troopers are a good example of that.  It makes sense there would be many different varieties, different flavors, of Clone Trooper but that many of them would be similar.  I first observed this when I was building the character for what was originally "Clone Trooper" that would later become Hevy.  While researching what notable Clones used a Z-6 Rotary Blaster Cannon, I found both Hevy and Jek.

Jek, from the episode "Ambush"

Subtle differences from Hevy

The difference here is in race selection.  Hevy was a Githzerai while Jek is a Human.  Most notably, Jek has higher defenses than Hevy because he has not only the Human racial defensive bonus but also the bonus feat, with which I selected Improved Defenses.  So, Jek is very similar to Hevy but with a few different details.

Truthfully, given the Essentials Ranger's single reliance on Dexterity for most of its attacks and abilities, the Human seems a more optimal choice than anything.  The single stat bonus is all the Ranger needs and the bonus Human feat and defenses allows for greater customization and/or improvement of the base class.

Either way, this provides an alternative character for my upcoming Star Wars D&D adventure that I'll be throwing up here sometime in the near future.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 4)

One of the interesting things I learned from trying to make a full party of Star Wars D&D characters was the focus on how certain things could be paralleled.  Star Wars: The Clone Wars is full of two types of characters: one-handed sword fighters with magical powers (Jedi) and soldiers with ranged weapons (Clones).  So, any character built has to fit relatively neatly into one of those two bins.

The Jedi came more naturally, at first, because there were already character classes that naturally fit into the Jedi mold (swordmage, bladesinger, avenger, etc).  The Clones proved to be a bit more of a thought process as I had to find things that felt like a soldier with a blaster rifle.  Sometimes, though, things just fell together in a way I could not have predicted.

Hevy, the Trooper from "Rookies" and "Clone Cadets."

Hevy, putting his Z-6 Rotary Blaster Cannon to use.

So, there are a few peculiarities with this character that need explanation.  This character is built on the Ranger (Hunter) Essentials class, which I have found to be a very interesting class from the Essentials block.  The Hunter is a very effective ranged combat controller (at least from my experience).  He is listed as using a Z-6 Rotary Blaster Cannon, as well.  This choice was because ... well, at the time, that was the only image of a Clone Trooper I could find.  That also dictates why he is named Hevy, as it is a picture of Hevy from the first season episode "Rookies."

As I continued to develop the character, the Rotary Blaster Cannon felt more in line with the Hunter's area burst ability, so I stuck to it.  Future clone troopers (without the cannon) would use a different class to represent them, was the idea.

As it ends up, I also created an alternative version of this character that I may post at a later time.  Same essential bits with a few changes to mix it up (and provide a certain amount of "difference").

UPDATE (5/29/2012): I changed the quote on the front of the card.  I felt like the scene in "Clone Cadets" where Hevy gets his nickname was a much better scene to draw from for Hevy.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 3)

As I continued making characters for my Star Wars: The Clone Wars encounter group, I realized that I had not properly considered how this group would get any healing done.  I had already made Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker as non-leader types.  As I considered how to squeeze in a leader, it occurred to me that I had already found a way: the Archer Captain Warlord.  As for who to build in that style, it only made sense that General Obi-Wan Kenobi's lead clone, Commander Cody, was the appropriate character.

Commander Cody during the Clone Wars.

Aiding his allies is Cody's specialty.

Obviously, there are a few conceits in this character build.  A bow isn't really a blaster rifle, but it seemed a reasonable interpolation.  Further, I had originally thought to make all of the clones the same race so they would have similar racial abilities (thus creating some consistency across them) but I decided against that option due to class stat preferences.  The observant will recognize Cody as a Goliath (or, for Dark Sun fans, a Half-Giant).  The post-Essentials change to the Goliath stat bonuses made him suitable for a Warlord as it gained a potential Wisdom bonus (as an alternative to the Constitution bonus).

Here, Cody has a number of abilities that allow him to heal his allies and expose weaknesses in enemies for his allies to use to their advantage.  He also has the ability to direct a nearby ally to attack, whether it be a ranged basic attack or a melee basic attack.  One of the things that the Essentials did was make the Warlord abilities more useful; the basic attack of several of the Essentials character classes are more useful than they had been in original PHB classes (i.e. the slayer fighter).  Thus, Cody's ability to direct his allies attacks have more utility than they would have in an earlier version of the game.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 2)

I almost feel silly putting Anakin Skywalker out there without his respectable Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Obi-Wan was less of a thought exercise as I jumped relatively quickly to the Bladesinger class in making him.  Some of his "force powers" are a bit strange but the effect is generally pretty reasonable (trips, pushes, etc).

Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, ready for action.

Introducing Niman-Style Attacks!

This was the first Star Wars themed character card where I did substantial research on Jedi lightsaber fighting styles.  I wanted to find a way to refer to the bladesinger's bladesongs in a way that sounded in-theme.  After substantial Internet research, I discovered that the combat style that integrates Force powers is called "Niman," or Lightsaber Form VI.  From there, a character was made.

The bladesinger really always felt like somebody had been thinking of Jedi and tried to implement them into the game.  Although I've always been upset that the bladesinger is a wizard variant instead of a swordmage variant, I've learned to accept it and continue creating bad ass character cards.  No matter what you call the original class, the Obi-Wan Kenobi character represented here is the kind of Jedi Master you expect to see in a guy like Obi-Wan.

D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 1)

A few weeks ago, I had this idea that it would be a great idea to create a coherent group of characters based on a single IP using Dungeons & Dragons mechanics.  Of course, being a fan of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I began thinking about how I could make characters from that show into respectable D&D characters.  Some of them seemed obvious, but others felt like they needed more thought.  Many different ideas came to mind, but some of them seemed worth turning into character cards...

Anakin Skywalker, he who would become Darth Vader

"Impressive.  Most impressive."

Anakin was not the first character I assembled under my new "make the Clone Wars characters" paradigm.  In fact, the construction for this character came later, after I did far too much lightsaber combat research.  Having decided that Anakin was too young and inexperienced to really show a fair range of force combat powers, I felt that his efforts would best be demonstrated through lightsaber combat styles.  After some research and thought, this idea turned into "Fighter (Slayer)."
Some may notice the peculiarity of this character.  This is the first D&D character card I made that was most distinctively off-book.  Unlike your typical Slayer Fighter, Anakin is focused on Dexterity.  By taking Melee Training (Dexterity), Anakin's melee basic attack has shifted to Dexterity (rather than Strength).  As Slayers have a bonus to damage from Dexterity, this only seemed to make sense.

Those that look carefully will notice the strange abilities that Anakin Skywalker has.  Those that look carefully and compare with their D&D Compendium will realize that Anakin (as he appears here) has been created as a Gnoll Figher (Slayer).  It is a peculiar build, especially given that Slayer Fighters normally emphasize Strength.  However, given my recent discovery (regarding the Slayer Fighter and Dexterity), it seemed appropriate to try something different with this character card.

D&D: The Force Unleashed

As my process of making novelty characters got better, I started taking more obvious character class mashups and making them into D&D characters.  One in particular had been sitting in the back of my head for years...

When I started in my first Eberron campaign, I was tasked with playing a defender.  Not one for classic classes, I tried to find something more interesting.  I found the Swordmage.  Or, as I discovered a few minutes after reading it, the Jedi Knight.  Years later, I would apply that thought process and create...

Vader's Apprentice, Unleashed!

It's all about the Force Lightning...

It's surprising how easy some of this stuff comes.  On the original version, I also gave him a magical item (the Farbond Spellblade) that let him throw his lightsaber 5/10.  However, with these versions, I wanted to keep them magic item free so the dispensing of magic items at D&D Encounters could be more relevant.

Combining the lightning Genasi with lightning based Swordmage powers yielded a significant amount of "Force Lightning" that works reasonably well with the character.  Although you may not quite get the 100% Sith Lord feel you're looking for, you do get some interesting play out of our friend Starkiller, enough to really influence the way you play with him.