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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8063526" data-attributes="member: 63">The villain has a suite of aegises and flourishes. An aegis lets them defend against an incoming attack and gain an advantage, and a flourish lets them add some extra cool effect to an attack they're making. Basically they allow a character to do more at higher levels without actually increasing the number of actions or attacks they get.The 20th level BBEG fighter has, like, 10 Poise. (I borrowed the term from Dark Souls.) He expends 1 Poise each time he uses an aegis or flourish, and regains 1 Poise every turn. He can have 4 aegises and 4 flourishes prepared at a time, and can't use more than two on any given turn. (He can thus flourish twice on his turn, and if you attack him he might use two aegises to defend against two different attacks, or he might use the Impossible Riposte aegis (see below) and then use a flourish when he counterattacks you.The narrative explanation is that the fighter knows all sorts of tricks, but he can only be primed to use a few of them at a time. He starts combat with a confident understanding of the situation, but pulling off these moves gradually drains him of his focus.TL;DR - the fighter has spell slots, but they're flavored to match a fighting style.High-Level AegisesWhenever you use an aegis, an incoming attack has disadvantage (or you get advantage to save against it). If the attack already had disadvantage against you (or if you were making a save and already had advantage), the attack simply doesn't affect you.Impossible Riposte - You retaliate to attacks with exceptional swiftness. When someone makes a ranged attack against you or when you have to make a Strength or Dexterity save, you can dash up to one hundred feet toward the attacker and makes an attack against your attacker. Battlemind - Your awareness of your own mind is so refined that you can turn a mental attack against your foe, like throwing an unbalanced grappler. When you have to make an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma save, the attacker is also affected and must make their own save. If the attacker is immune to the effect of their attack, they instead must make a save against the same DC or else be stunned until the end of your next turn.I Can Do This All Day - Your body is only strengthened by adversity. When you have to make a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution save,  you may stand up, and can spend any number of hit dice to heal. If you have no hit dice, you heal one quarter your maximum hit points.Misleading Footwork - Your maneuvers draw an enemy into a bad position. When someone within 30 feet would attack you or have you make a saving throw, first you move them up to fifteen feet closer to you, and then you move adjacent to them. Then you can make an attack against them. Then continue with your foe's original attack.High-Level FlourishesEye of the Storm - Calm amidst the chaos of battle, when you make an attack you gain truesight 800 ft. until the end of your next turn, and you can ignore cover, concealment, and anything that is interfering with your senses or your ability to choose your actions, including illusions and charms. Then for your attack make either a melee attack against each creature within 20 feet of you, or make a special ranged attack: trace a path up to 800 feet long, which can turn any direction, and make one attack with your weapon against each creature whose space that path passes through. If you trace a path back to yourself, you can catch your weapon.The Art of Butchery - When you hit with an attack, you deal a brutal wound. Choose a limb, mouth, or eye. If limb, the chosen limb drops anything its holding and cannot be used at all, such as to attack; if a leg, the creature falls prone and thereafter its speed is reduced by half. If mouth, the target cannot speak or use the mouth at all, such as to attack. If eye, the target is blinded. Whatever you choose, the target takes 20 damage at the end of each of its turns from bleeding or some other form of gradual degradation (such as by disrupting the energy flow of an elemental). This ongoing damage and the associated wound can be healed by a spending an action and succeeding a DC 20 Wisdom (Medicine) check, or by any effect that heals at least 20 damage. However, if the attack reduces the target to 0 HP, the wound is permanent until the target receives a regeneration spell.To the Last, I Grapple With Thee - When you make an attack, you also make a Grab attempt with advantage, with no size restrictions. If you succeed, until the end of your next turn, the creature cannot free itself from your grab and forced movement can't move you away from your target. If the creature moves, you can choose to move with it, no matter the movement move - even flying, swimming, burrowing, teleporting, or traveling to another plane. As long as you maintain the grab, you have advantage on attacks against the creature and can ignore its resistances, you have advantage on saves against its attacks, and it has disadvantage to attack you. If the target is no larger than one size category bigger than you, your movement speed is not reduced while grabbing it. If the target you have grabbed moves to a different plane, you can use half your movement to drag both of you back to the previous plane.Supremacy of the Real - When you attack an object or creature that was created or summoned by magic in the past five minutes, if you hit it, you destroy it.</blockquote>

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