Designing Elric of Melnibone

[Mircoles]

Traditional D&D spellcasters didn't really exist in the Elric books. Pretty much all the spell castings were rituals and if you needed something done by magic, you'd summon something up to do what you needed.

I think in one part of the books Elric summoned up air elementals to blow wind into the sails of the ship he was on.

So, pretty much none of the D&D caster classes woould be present. He wouldn't be a warlock, invoker or any other caster class. They didn't exist in his world. It was all rituals.

Seeing as he was a king and more or less a leader, I'd say that he was a warlord with the ritual casting feat.

 

[Klaus]

If you make him a full-fledged Warlock, you can take Twofold Pact to gain benefits of both Infernal and Dark pact at Paragon (the problem here is that Infernal powers are based on Constitution). Stormbringer could be an artifact, a Fullblade that serves as a warlock implement.

If this is the case, you can take Eldritch Strike or Reaper's Touch to let Elric use Eldritch Blast through Stormbringer as a melee attack.

 

[Garthanos]

Traditional D&D spellcasters didn't really exist in the Elric books. Pretty much all the spell castings were rituals and if you needed something done by magic, you'd summon something up to do what you needed.

I think in one part of the books Elric summoned up air elementals to blow wind into the sails of the ship he was on.

So, pretty much none of the D&D caster classes woould be present. He wouldn't be a warlock, invoker or any other caster class. They didn't exist in his world. It was all rituals.

Seeing as he was a king and more or less a leader, I'd say that he was a warlord with the ritual casting feat.

Class in D&D is about how one fights... It would be a serious failure not to model elric creating a Pact with Stormbringer (and gaining an energy boosting benefit when he cuts down enemies - note Mournblade didnt do this for Yrkoon - nor did he successfully attempt mastery of stormbringers twin ... it would have surely offered something different a different boon for the pact perhaps catering to what Yrkoon thought he needed) and calling/summoning Arioch and Arioch appearing as an Acid cloud to destroy his enemies... (he does that in book one - Chanting Blood and Souls for My Lord Arioch while sacrificing enemies on the field of battle.) . Elric also discovers in book one that all the rituals of sorceror including the time on ritual magic, seem to be replacements for proper circumstance and true need (... when he performs an incredibly elaborate summons by chanting a rhyme to Straashah in his head ... ).
It would seem a mistake not to interpret these and some of the abilities exhibited by Yrkoon in terms of the classes... especially Warlocks / Wizards(Summoning).

I considered the Warlord angle as the characters moves wielding Stormbringer are sometimes neglectful of his own health (Bravura?) and force openings that allow allies opportunities to attack.(this is expressed as how he and his longest running companion rogue fought together).

There are sorcerors in his world that move their souls out of there bodies in order to be virtuallly unkillable ("Warforged?") and ones from the Far East who were unlike Melniboneans at all who used sorcery in ways elric considered alien and certainly felt like druids ( In areas of his world which Elric considered un-mapped.)

Elrics's world does seem to have characters from the nonmartial classes but they are fewer and farther between.

Elric is a dimension traveller as much as anything else and did see characters with strange and different abilities and could easily become engaged in a quest with such.. He adventured with Archers and Rogues and Warlords, largely martial in nature and fought monsters and hoards of minions.

 

[Garthanos]

If you make him a full-fledged Warlock, you can take Twofold Pact to gain benefits of both Infernal and Dark pact at Paragon (the problem here is that Infernal powers are based on Constitution). Stormbringer could be an artifact, a Fullblade that serves as a warlock implement.

If this is the case, you can take Eldritch Strike or Reaper's Touch to let Elric use Eldritch Blast through Stormbringer as a melee attack.

The above is pretty much the build I have on the Drawing boards right now.. The suggestion that Stormbringer allowed Elric to use Charisma (ie Will) in place of Constitution ... does not seem that true to the model but Would allow him to be effective mechanically.

 

[Klaus]

The above is pretty much the build I have on the Drawing boards right now.. The suggestion that Stormbringer allowed Elric to use Charisma (ie Will) in place of Constitution ... does not seem that true to the model but Would allow him to be effective mechanically.

How's about Stormbringer give Elric a +5 item bonus to Constituion-based arcane attacks (essentially turning his 8 Constitution into an 18)?

 

[Garthanos]

How's about Stormbringer give Elric a +5 item bonus to Constituion-based arcane attacks (essentially turning his 8 Constitution into an 18)?

Ahhhhh.. in some fashions just like enhancing elrics health in an aggressive only fashion... and defensively when he kills things giving him faux health. That would be a twisted interpretation which I kind of like.

 

[Garthanos]

duplicate removed.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

but if he's using weapon keyworded at-wills and feeds off the temporary HPs, doesn't that imply he needs to stay in melee, mixing it up?

That's what a hexhammer does: you use Hellish Rebuke in melee with Armor of Agathys and similar defensive powers and a pile of temp HPs to keep fighting in melee. It's a warlock build specifically made for melee.

 

[Garthanos]

That's what a hexhammer does: you use Hellish Rebuke in melee with Armor of Agathys and similar defensive powers and a pile of temp HPs to keep fighting in melee. It's a warlock build specifically made for melee.

Are we actually talking skinning Elric off the dwarf and stormbringer off a hammer? do you have an example from DDi?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Description is just description. An MBA w/melee training could represent quite a wide variety of descriptive attacks, possibly quite odd or exotic depending upon which stat it's working off of. Of course, there's a simulationist benefit to going to the other way, and using regular MBA and a few STR-based powers via MC/hybrid. Elric was a fearsome warrior when stormbringer was feeding him superhuman STR. A build that could safely ignore STR wouldn't get that across as viscerally.