Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 3)

Not every character in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series is an attorney.  In fact, there are any number of absurd characters worth memorializing as Dungeons & Dragons characters that are anything but attorneys.  As I put the final touches on Apollo Justice, I realized that there was another character from that Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney that I wanted to make into a character to go along with Polly.  It only made sense to build his "assistant" and Phoenix Wright's adoptive daughter, Trucy, as a D&D character.

Notable illusionist, Trucy Wright!

She controls her enemies.

I decided I would experiment with Illusion magic and see how an Illusionist Mage would turn out.  The class feature "Illusion Apprentice" makes all targets hit by arcane illusion spells to suffer a -2 penalty to hit the caster un of Trucy's next turn.  An illusion feat, Phantom Echoes, causes all targets hit by an arcane illusion spell to grant combat advantage to Trucy until the end of her next turn.  Both of those effects seemed best described as a trait, so I wrote it onto the front of the card.  Enemies hit by Trucy's illusions will be highly motivated to stay away from her as they not only get a penalty but she gets a bonus to hit them.

The Phantom Echoes power had another peculiar feature that I spent some time mulling over.  If the attack had an effect which imposes a condition that a save can end, the granting of combat advantage is tied to that save roll.  This was only applicable in one case, with Trucy's daily attack power.  Instead of writing an exceedingly cumbersome traits box that separated that fact, I instead decided to implement it directly into the attack power.  So, her feat is actually split across a general trait describing every power and a subtle change to the single attack power that behaves recently.

It was fun putting together a few PW:AA characters and I hope to continue to get that chance moving forward.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 1) [Alternate Image]

Alternate Image?  It's something I picked up from local game company Flying Frog Productions.  As it ends up, they are not fond of doing special promo cards at trade shows or for pre-orders.  Instead, they like to do alternative images on normal cards.  It makes them unique but not game-changing.

After I did Apollo Justice and a related upcoming card, I thought it appropriate to redo the art on the Miles Edgeworth character card so it matched the style of the other ones.  Hope people like a "matched set" of characters.

Same text as before, new image (mostly with new background)

Still the same Sorcerer-King Warlock we already saw.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 2)

Last week, I finally got around to creating a character from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as a Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters character.  Inspired by my work, I continued crafting characters out of that same framework.  Although practically every character in that game does not fit within the fantasy framework, I found it easier and easier to jam certain characters into certain roles.  Honestly, the further I went it, the more I realized that if they could fit Phoenix Wright into Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, I could fit Phoenix Wright (and friends) into Dungeons & Dragons.

Miles Edgeworth had been a character I had thought about for quite some time.  It only seemed natural for the "Devil Prosecutor" to be a warlock.  It was only a matter of tweaking the pact powers and abilities until I got something that I liked.  Moving on, I felt that the Fey Pact Binder had some utility for adaptation into a Phoenix Wright character as it had the close blast and burst powers that seemed to fit right.  As I already had plans for Phoenix Wright, I tried to think about what other important character would fit this model.  From there, it began to come together.

Phoenix Wright's protégé, Apollo Justice.

Without the Warlock's Curse, there's a lot less going on.

Apollo Justice is an Eladrin Fey Pact Warlock (Binder).  It was a strange thing when the fourth game in the Ace Attorney series involved a completely different character.  Beyond that, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney seemed a bit strange, as it featured some of the characters and game concepts introduced in the Nintendo DS only "bonus" level from the first game while introducing a new host of characters and nonsense.  Apollo himself was a different attorney than Phoenix Wright (who, by this point, had been disbarred).  One of the new gameplay elements was the ability to "observe" people as they testified, finding that little feature or twitch that gave away the fact that they were hiding something.  Truth be told, it was aggravating as hell.

All of this felt like it worked, just a bit, into the Fey Pact Binder.  His At-Will attacks fit nicely into the iconic "Objection" and "Hold It" maneuvers of the game while his Encounter power was torqued to feel like Apollo's iconic "Gotcha" mode.  Some of the other abilities and powers required some thought, but this became easy to do once I actually remembered Apollo's story and how he fits within the greater Phoenix Wright universe.

*** MILD SPOILER AHEAD ***

Nonetheless, Apollo was worth conversion in the Dungeons & Dragons model because his mystical bloodline fit well with some of the things that felt otherwise un-lawyerly.  As a decedent of the great magician Magnifi Gramarye, magic was part of his thing.  Rolling him in with the rest of the family of magicians seemed appropriate for his more ridiculous powers, such as the Eladrin Fey Step.  As I proceeded to build other characters from this game, it worked even better as another character could also share in the "Gramarye Bloodline" in a similar way.

*** END SPOILER ***

Hopefully, Apollo Justice can bring something new and interesting your Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters sessions.  He is ridiculous, absurd, but most importantly he is all Essentials.  He should be relatively simple for new players to get into and have fun playing.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ace Attorney (Part 1)

As a gamer of many stripes, I have played a lot of different games.  I have been doing so for the better part of thirty years.  As I have been creating characters for Dungeons & Dragons: Encounters, I have tried to think of iconic, interesting, or just damn awesome figures from games that deserve representation within the framework.  Sometimes, I come up with one, like Leisure Suit Larry, and I find a way to work it into the D&D framework in a way that seems to fit.  In other situations, I sit for months trying to find a way to get it to work, often to no avail.  Occasionally, though, months and months of sitting manifests in ways I never would have imagined.

I started playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney before going to law school.  I used to always insist that I was "training" for my big days as a lofty attorney.  I would never have believed that somebody could make a classic adventure game out of comical parody courtroom drama, but they did.  The characters were ridiculous, entertaining, and all around awesome.  As I fell knee deep into Dungeons & Dragons character development, I felt like I wanted to find a way to capture some of those characters into the D&D game.

The challenge proved harder than I anticipated.  Making Phoenix Wright proved more difficult than I had imagined.  What I wanted was some sort of psychic, ranged defender.  I wanted to find a character that felt like he did what Phoenix Wright did so the re-skinning would be simple.  After months of struggle, I gave up.  But, in that time, something else came to mind.  There was a character, easily captured within the game rules, that I could make.  From that, I began to work.

The fabled "Devil Prosecutor," Miles Edgeworth.

Former student of Manfred von Karma...

When I thought "Miles Edgeworth," I immediately went to "Infernal Pact Warlock."  After a little look at that, I thought that I could do better.  I wanted something that would feel like it came out of the game.  Setting people on fire did not capture the Miles Edgeworth I had hoped for.  As I flipped through the Warlock options, though, I came across the Dark Pact and the Sorcerer-King Pact, both options that could be easily adapted to serve as my favorite prosecutor.  [Author's Note: I did spend two years working at a prosecutor's office and, although I do adore the character Miles Edgeworth, I actually seriously question his effectiveness as a prosecutor.]  After toying with both, the Sorcerer-King Pact seemed like a simpler option for new players and an easier way to capture it into the "Edgeworth" character.

Warlock aficionados will likely detect that I have broken up the Warlock's Curse power into *four* different abilities on the card.  Honestly, that was done to make the Warlock's Curse power more digestible for new players.  It is a huge block of text that is quite confusing for players new and old.  In this format, I had hoped to present it in a way that was functional and easy to understand.  Of course, as I had chosen the Sorcerer-King Pact, I had to introduce a way to track "fell might."  It did not take long to develop and system, though, and from that Miles Edgeworth was born into the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

[Note: I posted an "alternate image" version that matches better with the other Ace Attorney characters presented on this blog.]