Nov 30

Nov 30 D&D and Overwatch - Way of Genji

Next in the Overwatch meets D&D series, Genji.

Genji is the brother of Hanzo and the youngest son in the Shimada Ninja clan. Lore has it that Hanzo despised Genji and a battle between the two resulted in Genji being left for dead by his older brother. His body decimated and his spirit crushed, Genji was saved by Mercy, the medical doctor, and manager of the Overwatch organization. After his recovery, Genji joined Overwatch and assisted them all over the globe.

Genji is a badass ninja. The ninja is an old school ‘unicorn’ character type in D&D. Everyone wanted to be one, but the closest you could come to playing one was going assassin and learning martial arts, which wasn’t a thing in previous editions. Dragon Magazine #121 had a good ninja class build, and I for one tried it out. You got all the Kung fu, poison and throwing stars any person could want, but something was missing.

The ninja was never, and probably will never, be a truly viable class in D&D. D&D is a team based toleplaying game and the ninja is a class that should probably be played solo. Some classes and subclasses are like that. What usually ends up happening is that the person playing the ninja wants to do all their cool ninja abilities and that doesn’t work well in the confines of playing in a party setting. A really good (and motivated) player will figure out a way to make it work, be able to use all their sneaky abilities and doing so in a way that helps the party. The challenge is on the person playing the ninja to make it work, not on the party or the DM. You choose the class, you take on that responsibility.

Anyways, let’s dive on into it. Here’s the Way of Genji, a Monk Subclass for all you wannabe ninja’s out there.

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Way of Genji
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Way of Genji
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Katana master.

One can’t be a ninja without their katana. At the 3rd level, you get your spirit katana, which is no ordinary weapon and will be needed for your 17th ever ability. It’s a good thing that you cannot ever be disarmed while wielding it since Dragonblade's ability looks awesome and it would be a shame you could use it because your katana got knock out of your hand and fell off the mountainside…into the ocean…and eaten by a dragon turtle.

Way of the Projectile.

If you have a cool DM, the first thing you want to ask them is if you can create the shuriken, or ninja throwing star, as a weapon you can use. Originally, being able to make your shuriken was part of the 3rd level ability, but I started getting bogged down in the process of doing so, and it didn’t make the cut.

In the game, Genji gets three shuriken attacks automatically, and that just doesn’t fit here. Adding Flurry of Blows ability with thrown weapons more than compensates for this, so you’re welcome

Agility of the Wind.

Have we mentioned that you’re a ninja? While it takes till the 6th level, you now get to run and jump like a ninja.

Speed Strike.

At 11th level, you can spend 3 ki points as an action to dash through a line up to 30 feet long, striking every creature in that line. You don’t run through them, like in the game, just you get so close that you can strike a deadly slashing blow as you go by. Each creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw and take 4d8 slashing damage, on a failed save, or half as much on a successful save.

As part of this action, you move 30 feet in a straight line and you can not end this movement in another creature's space. For those of us that like to spend ki points, you can spend an additional ki point to increase your line by 10 feet and deal an additional 1d8 of damage.

Dragonblade.

Remember how I said you’ll need that spirit katana? Well, at 17th Level you can channel your ki through your spirit katana, unleashing its full fury. As an action, you can expend ki points and empower the katana for a number of rounds equal to the number of ki points spent, minimum of one During this time, you double all damage dice for the katana and its range is extended by 5ft.

During this time, you may unleash the full fury of the earth spirit dragon. As an action, you may use an additional 3 ki points and make a wide sweeping arc with your katana, releasing a 5-foot wide wave of force that you can control. You may move the wave of force up to 30 feet and in all directions you choose. It can strike as many creatures as you can reach during this time, but each creature may only be hit once by the wave. All creatures in the wave’s path must make a Dexterity saving throw or take 8d10 force damage and be knocked prone and stunned for 1 minute. The stunning creature must make a Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a successful save, the stun effect ends.

Since we did Genji this week, look for his older and angrier brother, Hanzo, next week. That is as long as my son doesn’t convince me to do RoadHog instead.