Bleach Shinigami [Archive] - Wizards Community

Bleach Shinigami [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Gevaden
09-22-07, 10:14 AM I'm trying to design a Bleach styled Shinigami character, primarly Byakuya and I'd like the opinion of you good folks. I don't want to create a whole new class because if I do then everyone in the group I play with is likely to want to start creating there own classes, so I'd like to avoid fixing up 5 classes which will probably have massive overpowered issues.

So far my idea is to play a Elf Samurai character, with the Noble Prestige Elf and Noble Samurai character concept and take the Noble Birth Feat. This way I can benefit from an Elves dex bonus, Noble Elves lvl 3 leadership, avoid paying for mundane things like food and the sort. I might Prestige as something like a Samurai's Paragon or the Monk Enlightened Scholar.

What do you folk think?
The_Shaman
09-22-07, 02:14 PM Well, I've never heard of Noble Prestige Elf and a Noble Samurai PrC (only Master Samurai, and that wouldn't fit him well), so I don't know how good these are. There were some Bleach builds and even classes here awhile ago; you could try the Search feature.

Anime is somewhat notorious for not translating well in D&D. Tome of Battle and Psionics do better than most other systems in that, imo, but even with them you tend to very quickly end in epic levels if you want to recreate all possible abilities. In your case... I haven't seen Bleach recently, and I even stopped reading the manga awhile ago, but I'd probably go with a gish (warrior-mage hybrid). Well, let's start with this: what abilities do you want your character to have/preserve?
InkBlot
09-22-07, 03:12 PM 1. An incarnate weapon, from Magic Of Incarnum. This soulmeld is a magic returning aligned sword which you form out of the power of your soul. Just like Ichigo's zanpakutō. You can learn to form this soulmeld simply by taking the Shape Soulmeld feat, which has no prerequisites. As you level up you can make it stronger by investing essentia into it, which you'll need to take other incarnum feats to get (all incarnum feats give you +1 point of essentia in addition to their normal benefit).

2. Soulknife. A psionic class which forms swords out of the power of their minds and souls, and which improve with their level. Unfortunately they do little else and they start off with shortswords. Taking one feat (Shape Soulmeld) can give you a sword that's almost as good, while leaving you free to take a class that at least gets detect undead.

3. Soulbound Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a). A variant of the Psychic Warrior class which can summon a special sword which is bound to their soul and improves as they level. You can actually choose any kind of weapon, but once you make that choice it can't be changed. Psychic Warriors get the psionic undead detection power stygian discernment, and many other powers that shingami should have. They also get bonus feats which can be used for Fighter feats (which can be used to grab martial maneuvers and stances from ToB) and Psionic feats (which let you do things like run up walls or attack ghosts).

You could also play a normal Psychic Warrior with Shape Soulmeld (incarnate weapon), or use the call weaponry power to summon a weapon.

4. Ardent. Ardents are much like Psychic Warriors but with no bonus feats, more power points, and a supremely customizable power list. If there's some weird esoteric ability a shinigami pulls out that a Psychic Warrior couldn't emulate, then I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that an Ardent could.

And Ardent can use the call weaponry power to summon weapons, or take the feat Shape Soulmeld (incarnate weapon).

5. Glaivelock (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=820872). A Warlock using the Eldritch Glaive invocation. The default flavor the eldritch glaive is that you create a glaive out of dark energy, but it could as easily be a ginormous sword made out of spirit energy. Warlocks have a bevy of tricks, including their famous at-will blast.

6. Tome Of Battle: The Book Of Nine Swords. This book revolutionized melee combat in D&D. Even without using any of the classes from it, you can use the material in ToB to spice up any martial character. Running up walls, leaping over enemies to deliver a deadly blow from above, anything you've ever seen while playing Soul Calibur (http://www.youtube.com/results.php?search_query=soul+calibur), etc.. It's just a must if you want to back up cool moves with cool mechanics.
The_Shaman
09-22-07, 03:48 PM BTW, you might want to check this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=423111). Also, should neither ToB nor Psionics be admissible (boo for your DM), I think the swiftblade PrC might be somewhat useful. You can just google it, it's from a free article on the Wizards site.

BTW, I'm not quite sure how the soulbound weapon thing works. So you only lose your 2nd level PW feat, and your weapon gets the +x enhancement for free, as if you paid the PPs for it (and you can pay PPs to get additional enhancements), right? And do you get the weapon focus instead of, or in addition to, your 1st level PW feat?
Alpha_Moose
09-22-07, 05:41 PM I'd also suggest using the feat Item Familiar (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedItems.html#item-familiar) in addition to the ideas InkBlot posted. Using Legendary Weapons would also be a good idea. Multiclass a bit of Psychic Warrior with Swordsage would work very well. You could also use Sorcerer/Martial Adept and go into Jade Phoenix Mage. Remember that reflavoring is very important when trying to mimic characters.
Nick Kahoshi
09-23-07, 02:05 AM And if you don't want to make your own class but don't mind using someone else's there is always this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=538244).

Well made class IMO.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Gevaden 09-22-07, 10:14 AM	I'm trying to design a Bleach styled Shinigami character, primarly Byakuya and I'd like the opinion of you good folks. I don't want to create a whole new class because if I do then everyone in the group I play with is likely to want to start creating there own classes, so I'd like to avoid fixing up 5 classes which will probably have massive overpowered issues. So far my idea is to play a Elf Samurai character, with the Noble Prestige Elf and Noble Samurai character concept and take the Noble Birth Feat. This way I can benefit from an Elves dex bonus, Noble Elves lvl 3 leadership, avoid paying for mundane things like food and the sort. I might Prestige as something like a Samurai's Paragon or the Monk Enlightened Scholar. What do you folk think?
The_Shaman 09-22-07, 02:14 PM	Well, I've never heard of Noble Prestige Elf and a Noble Samurai PrC (only Master Samurai, and that wouldn't fit him well), so I don't know how good these are. There were some Bleach builds and even classes here awhile ago; you could try the Search feature. Anime is somewhat notorious for not translating well in D&D. Tome of Battle and Psionics do better than most other systems in that, imo, but even with them you tend to very quickly end in epic levels if you want to recreate all possible abilities. In your case... I haven't seen Bleach recently, and I even stopped reading the manga awhile ago, but I'd probably go with a gish (warrior-mage hybrid). Well, let's start with this: what abilities do you want your character to have/preserve?
InkBlot 09-22-07, 03:12 PM	1. An incarnate weapon, from Magic Of Incarnum. This soulmeld is a magic returning aligned sword which you form out of the power of your soul. Just like Ichigo's zanpakutō. You can learn to form this soulmeld simply by taking the Shape Soulmeld feat, which has no prerequisites. As you level up you can make it stronger by investing essentia into it, which you'll need to take other incarnum feats to get (all incarnum feats give you +1 point of essentia in addition to their normal benefit). 2. Soulknife. A psionic class which forms swords out of the power of their minds and souls, and which improve with their level. Unfortunately they do little else and they start off with shortswords. Taking one feat (Shape Soulmeld) can give you a sword that's almost as good, while leaving you free to take a class that at least gets detect undead. 3. Soulbound Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a). A variant of the Psychic Warrior class which can summon a special sword which is bound to their soul and improves as they level. You can actually choose any kind of weapon, but once you make that choice it can't be changed. Psychic Warriors get the psionic undead detection power stygian discernment, and many other powers that shingami should have. They also get bonus feats which can be used for Fighter feats (which can be used to grab martial maneuvers and stances from ToB) and Psionic feats (which let you do things like run up walls or attack ghosts). You could also play a normal Psychic Warrior with Shape Soulmeld (incarnate weapon), or use the call weaponry power to summon a weapon. 4. Ardent. Ardents are much like Psychic Warriors but with no bonus feats, more power points, and a supremely customizable power list. If there's some weird esoteric ability a shinigami pulls out that a Psychic Warrior couldn't emulate, then I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that an Ardent could. And Ardent can use the call weaponry power to summon weapons, or take the feat Shape Soulmeld (incarnate weapon). 5. Glaivelock (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=820872). A Warlock using the Eldritch Glaive invocation. The default flavor the eldritch glaive is that you create a glaive out of dark energy, but it could as easily be a ginormous sword made out of spirit energy. Warlocks have a bevy of tricks, including their famous at-will blast. 6. Tome Of Battle: The Book Of Nine Swords. This book revolutionized melee combat in D&D. Even without using any of the classes from it, you can use the material in ToB to spice up any martial character. Running up walls, leaping over enemies to deliver a deadly blow from above, anything you've ever seen while playing Soul Calibur (http://www.youtube.com/results.php?search_query=soul+calibur), etc.. It's just a must if you want to back up cool moves with cool mechanics.
The_Shaman 09-22-07, 03:48 PM	BTW, you might want to check this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=423111). Also, should neither ToB nor Psionics be admissible (boo for your DM), I think the swiftblade PrC might be somewhat useful. You can just google it, it's from a free article on the Wizards site. BTW, I'm not quite sure how the soulbound weapon thing works. So you only lose your 2nd level PW feat, and your weapon gets the +x enhancement for free, as if you paid the PPs for it (and you can pay PPs to get additional enhancements), right? And do you get the weapon focus instead of, or in addition to, your 1st level PW feat?
Alpha_Moose 09-22-07, 05:41 PM	I'd also suggest using the feat Item Familiar (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/unearthedItems.html#item-familiar) in addition to the ideas InkBlot posted. Using Legendary Weapons would also be a good idea. Multiclass a bit of Psychic Warrior with Swordsage would work very well. You could also use Sorcerer/Martial Adept and go into Jade Phoenix Mage. Remember that reflavoring is very important when trying to mimic characters.
Nick Kahoshi 09-23-07, 02:05 AM	And if you don't want to make your own class but don't mind using someone else's there is always this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=538244). Well made class IMO.