D&D 5E Meet Achilles, Greatest Warrior of the Trojan War!

Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters, coming soon to Kickstarter, compiles Mike Myler's fantastic column here on EN World, with brand new art in a gorgeous full-colour book. Here's a quick look at a preliminary version of Achilles' entry.

Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters

Achilles. Lancelot. Robin Hood. Thor. Heroes, all.

The world is full of myths and legends which inspired those in our modern fiction and games. Iconic warriors and wizards, vampires and things from the deep, these legends are universally known.

Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters delves into these paragons of literature, fable, and folklore. From Ancient Greece to the Outer Realms, deepest Transylvania to the High Seas, you’ll meet champions and thieves, pirates and knights, demigods and fey queens, ancient evils and urban legends. Archetypal heroes meet exemplars of villainy like Blackbeard, Rasputin, Dracula, and Baba Yaga.

From Mike Myler’s popular column, this epic compilation of over 100 legendary heroes, villains, and monsters brings these characters to life for the 5th Edition of the world’s oldest roleplaying game.

 

[Garthanos]

love the scabbard reference.

 

[Tonguez]

Oh, the book contains a list of weapons too?

so is Ruyi Jingu Bang written up too?

 

[Morrus]

Oh, the book contains a list of weapons too?

so is Ruyi Jingu Bang written up too?

Well, not a list. On some entries where it's appropriate we include a legendary item or something. You can't really do Arthur and not give you Excalibur. It'd just be wrong.

 

[Mike Myler]

Oh, the book contains a list of weapons too?

so is Ruyi Jingu Bang written up too?

Mythological Figures: Sun Wukong (5E)

Here I was thinking King Arthur was going to be hard! For every bit of popularity the lord of Camelot has in the west, the Handsome Monkey King/Great Sage, Equal of Heaven/Victorious Fighting Buddha matches him in the east. You may know him through Goku but to most of the world he’s Sun Wukong...

www.enworld.org

 

[Garthanos]

Well, not a list. On some entries where it's appropriate we include a legendary item or something. You can't really do Arthur and not give you Excalibur. It'd just be wrong.

and actually totally seems appropriate to ignore certain characters magic items

 

[Tonguez]

Actually the weapon I've always really wanted is Jiǔ chǐ dīngpa

I've used Ranseur as a stand-in but its just not as satisfying as an authentic Nine-toothed Rake refined from divine ice−iron

Zhu Baije even gives a helpful list of the things it can do:
1 When I raise it, fire and light stream forth
2 When I lower it, a snowy blizzard blows.
3 It terrifies the Heavenly Generals and makes the King of Hell too quake with fear.
4 It changes into anything I like,
5 and leaps about whenever I say the spell.

Mythological Figures: Sun Wukong (5E)

Here I was thinking King Arthur was going to be hard! For every bit of popularity the lord of Camelot has in the west, the Handsome Monkey King/Great Sage, Equal of Heaven/Victorious Fighting Buddha matches him in the east. You may know him through Goku but to most of the world he’s Sun Wukong...

www.enworld.org

View attachment 120070

 

[Caliburn101]

I must agree with the detractors here. Putting aside just the statblock, Achilles was legendary, peerless. If you must stick to a set formula on stats then at least put a special ability which gets his attack bonus and AC up to levels worthy of his legendary status. +9 is weak, and so is AC19. I would have put in two special abilities like 'Lord of Myrmidons' - when using a spear or shortsword Achilles adds +2 to his attack bonus, and 'One Man Phalanx' - when using a shield Achilles adds +2 to his AC. I can build a standard array Kensai half that level with the same AC wearing nothing but a kimono. Then you can keep the stats formula in the admittedly terribly unrealistic 'only Str is relevant to attack bonus' of D&D and still explain why Achilles isn't eventually eclipsed by PCs.

The most feared warrior of an age, amongst a people particularly noted for their martial prowess and one so great he killed the Queen of the Amazons ij single combat (a title only given to the greatest warrior amongst a people who were ALL warriors) - maybe deserved to be represented as the 'undefeatable' warrior of legend as 20th level, with maybe even a few bespoke epic levels from the DMG on to to explain the additional special abilities.

There are of course many reasons why one should be cautious about maxing out the level of famous figures just because they are famous, but Achilles is really in a class of his own in many ways (for a non-Demigod Greek hero that is...), and 20th level in the DMG even with your other design principles intact would surely have been justified.

This looks more like the kind of statblock (minus the invulnerability) that would have been good for Hector.