Moana Waialiki, Human (Hobgoblin) Sorcerer / Sea Soul

[Ayeba]

Moana Waialiki

Basic Information

Name: Moana Waialiki
Age: 18
Race: Human (reflavored Hobgoblin)
Class: Sorcerer
Subclass: Seal Soul
Background: Sailor (How can she not be?)
Level: 6

Personality

Likes: Her family, her village, stories and legends, the sea, seashells, pork, dancing, skipping rocks, helping others, adventures, sailing, wayfinding

Dislikes: Being landbound, her village in danger, rough seas, storms, shipwrecks, being referred to as a "princess", Heihei's clumsiness, monsters, selfishness
 

Traits: My friends know they can rely on me, no matter what.

Ideals: The sea is freedom -- the freedom to go anywhere and do anything (Chaotic)

Bonds: No matter where I go, my people is close to my heart.

Flaws: Once something piques my interest, I'm drawn to it no matter the danger involved. 

Backstory

The daughter of Motunui's village chief, Moana Waialiki was chosen by the Ocean to restore the Heart of Te Fiti and save her island from a life-killing darkness. Due to an ancient law upheld by her father, Chief Tui, Moana is forbidden from ever going beyond the reef. She eventually finds the courage to do so, with the help of a powerful demigod named Maui, and the guidance of her Gramma Tala. In restoring Te Fiti's lost heart, the world is freed of darkness, allowing Moana's people to voyage the seas as freely as they please.

Two years later, Moana has become an experienced leader, and her people have adapted and taken well to the ways of their ancestors. She is a good chief, but her constant guidance is unnecessary. Her people are more than capable of handling the ships and the sea now.

Moana hasn't only learned to lead, she has strengthened her connection with the ocean. While the water was always willing to listen to her, she struggled to make it move according to her wishes. After a lot of practice, she can not only make it move, but dance.

With her people being safe and comfortable, Moana feels the onset of wanderlust. There is so much more to experience in the world. Places to see, people to meet, waterways to explore. Perhaps she can find out how people live inlands, without the ocean nearby. If something out of the ordinary should occur, her parents are still well and alive and can take up the reins of leadership. 

Her parents do not agree with her decision to leave, but they do not stop her. They just ask that she returns to her people once her heart is sated with wandering. She promises to come back, and assures them that while she wants to experience the world, her home will always be with them. They give her a pendant that has been inherited throughout her family, and that brings good fortune to the wearer.

She sets sail, going where the wind takes her. On her way, she meets Maui again, but he is not interested in joining her this time. He is much too busy fishing for a legendary underwater beast, rumoured to be large enough to swallow entire ships. She wishes him good luck, and continues on her own.

 

Stat Block

[b][url=http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=2886171]Moana Waialiki[/url][/b] 
[i]Hobgoblin (fluffed as human) Sorcerer / Sea Soul 6 CG[/i] 

[b]AC[/b] 15 [b]HP[/b] 35 [b]Speed[/b] 30ft 

[b]Str[/b] 10 (0) [b]Dex[/b] 14 (2) [b]Con[/b] 14 (2) [b]Wis[/b] 10 (0) [b]Int[/b] 10 (0) [b]Cha[/b] 20 (5)

[b]Attacks[/b]
[b]Water Whip (15 ft/Bludgeoning)[/b] 1d20+8 2d8+5
[b]Water Bullet (90 ft/Slashing)[/b] 1d20+8 2d6+5
[b]Ray of Frost (60 ft/Cold)[/b] 1d20+8 2d8+5
[b]Oar (Quarterstaff/Bludgeoning)[/b] 1d20+3 1d8
[b][/b]  

- Telekinetic: Bonus Action, 30ft. Target makes Strength save DC16, can willingly fail. Fail: Pushed or pulled 5 ft. 
- Fey Gift: Bonus action Aid 3 times/long rest. One additional effect:
  Hospitality: You and helped creature gains 1d6+3 thp. 
  Passage: You and helped creature gains +10 speed until start of next turn. 
  Spite: Helped creature hits with attack --> Target has disadvantage on next attack roll.
- Fortune of the Many: Can add bonus to failed d20 roll = number of allies within 30 ft, 3 times/long rest. 
- Darkvision 60 ft. 
- Fey Ancestry: Advantage against the charmed condition.
- Sorcerer Points: 6
- Metamagic: Subtle Spell, Twinned Spell
- Magical Guidance: Spend 1 sorcery point to reroll failed ability check. 
- Part of the Water: With Water and Cold spells, exclude up to spell level + 1 targets. They save and take no damage. 
- Gift of the Depths: Swim speed 30, and breathe underwater. 
- Turmoil of the Sea: A spell that moves, knocks prone or reduces speed can deal +5 Bludgeoning damage.
- Wave Dash: Become Water can be cast as a reaction when taking damage. Can also be cast with 2 sorcery points. 

Edited March 20 by Ayeba
Title (see edit history)

[Rumrunner]

needs a chicken familiar.

[Ayeba]

The entries for Bond and Flaw are something I came up with, since none of the alternatives listed in the Sailor background made sense for her character. Maybe the flaw "Once someone questions my courage, I never back down no matter how dangerous the situation.", the one I based my own custom one on.

[Ayeba]

Just now, Rumrunner said:

needs a chicken familiar.

If I can get one without dropping the Sailor background, sure. Navigator's tools and Vehicles (Water) are proficiencies that she basically has to have.

[Rumrunner]

I'm sure you can mix up the tool proficiencies from strixhaven without breaking the game.

[Ayeba]

1 minute ago, Rumrunner said:

I'm sure you can mix up the tool proficiencies from strixhaven without breaking the game.

I want everything else from Sailor. If I were to take a Strixhaven background, replace every skill and every proficiency with the ones from Sailor, I would essentially just be expanding the Sailor background. That feels too close to abusing the system for my taste. If the GM wants to grant it to me because they feel it fits, sure, I don't mind. If not, I think I'll just keep it as it is.

[Ayeba]

I took the average starting gold; 4d4 x 10 gp ~ 100 gp.

A rowboat costs 50 gp. How much would a small sailing vessel like Moana's cost?

[SMARTAgentKC]

2 hours ago, Ayeba said:

I want everything else from Sailor. If I were to take a Strixhaven background, replace every skill and every proficiency with the ones from Sailor, I would essentially just be expanding the Sailor background. That feels too close to abusing the system for my taste. If the GM wants to grant it to me because they feel it fits, sure, I don't mind. If not, I think I'll just keep it as it is.

In the character creation guidelines I stated that the backgrounds that gave a feat for their feature or gave expanded spell lists (like the Strixhaven and Ravica Backgrounds) had to be reviewed on a case by case basis due to the overall balance against the other background features.

The adventurer league for D&D5e came up with an interesting compromise to try and rebalance the backgrounds by stating that if you do not take a background with a feat that you were allowed to get a free one out of the choices of Skilled, Tough and depending on the setting Magic Initiate or some other feat that went with the setting and I generally liked the idea as it generally gave all those characters a free feat.

However I did make modifications to the feat system (and in extension to Variant human/Custom Origin) to keep things in general balance. I gave players a feat at character level 1 and then gave them ones at other characters levels in alignment with the usual ability score increases in exchange that people had to take their class ability score increases as ability score increases. At the current level people are getting two free feats to play with (The feats earned at character levels 1 and 4 when normally you would have to sacrifice an ability score increase to get a feat) and in my book should be enough freebies to start with.

I looked over your character sheet to see if you took your feats and I noticed that you did, so if you want to take Strixhaven Initiate, you will have to switch out one of your feats. If you're just looking to get Find Familiar however, I will have something setup for Table 1 during the beginning part of the upcoming adventure that will give an opportunity for Find Familiar to be learned. It will be a thing called Spell Research. It's something Table 2 has recently unlocked and it has a bunch of rules and other things that I will detail at a later time, but my advice is to keep at least 90 to 150gp available as that will be the initial cost of learning the spell.

As for the sailing boat, I glanced at some homebrew compared it to the cost of the rowboat and I think a small sailing vessel for Moana would be 100gp.

[Ayeba]

The thing is... I don't particularly want/need a familiar, neither in or out of character. If my memory serves me right, Moana discovered Heihei on board her boat; she didn't bring him there. Throughout the movie, she had to save him multiple times, much to her frustration. He did provide help once by finding the stone. From a storytelling perspective, that was essentially Deus Ex Machina, so it was less Heihei and more the will of the Gods at play. Moana certainly didn't think that Heihei caught the stone because it was smart enough to understand its significance; it was just pure luck.

It makes perfect sense for her to not want Heihei on her next journey, even going so far as to ensure her parents is holding the rooster so he can't sneak on board. I don't someone as unreliable as Heihei. In a different game the rooster would be seen as a dependent (a flaw) rather than an ally (an advantage).

From a gameplay perspective, Find Familiar creates (finds?) a familiar with enough intelligence to understand moderately complex instructions. The player can rely on the familiar to do its bidding as long as it is within its ability to understand and not particularly suicidal. This matches animal sidekicks like Rapunzel's chameleon, Ariel's fish friend, Cinderella's mice, etc. It does not function with Heihei's character; quite the opposite. He's too stupid to understand anything at all, and will not understand any command more complex than "here's food, come and eat." Moana's other animal companion, the pig, seems a lot smarter and more fitting to the role.

So the TL;DR is that I don't think I need/want a familiar for this character. If you as a GM want to straddle her with the responsibility of looking after Heihei, that could be fun to have to roleplay, but it wouldn't exactly be to her benefit.
 

I am very grateful you provided us with extra feats. It allows me to round out the character with two feats that I feel make complete sense. Teleknetic provides her with a way to use her water to help her allies without harming them. She can push and pull enemies around, so why shouldn't she be able to do the same with her friends? And Inspiring Leader is both useful in gameplay and thematically appropriate; she has become quite the inspiring leader for her people.

If you do hand out extra feats to balance the parties, both Skilled and Tough would be nice to have, but neither are a must.
 

Sailing boat purchased. That leaves me with enough gold for "A personalized communication device (modified Sending Stone,) 250gp". I still don't know what it is, though. The description of "personalized communication devices" makes me think of it as a rudimentary cell phone. Can you enlighten me on what exactly it is in this world?

Do you want me to change the tag from "Ready to review" to "Reviewed by GM"?

Edited March 7 by Ayeba (see edit history)

[SMARTAgentKC]

If you don't want the spell 'find familiar' I'm not going to force you to take it and I will not purposely saddle my players with a hinderance just for roleplay purposes.

 

The personalized communication device is a reworked sending stone allowing two-way communication between those who hold such an item fluffed however they wanted it to look like whether it was an orb that magically transmitted messages between people, or an electronic smart device like a modern-day cellphone. Originally it was for Yuu Chiba because she came from a modern area where such technology was so common it would be out of character for her not to have one, but I've also used it as a way to get the plot going and reveal important information to the plot. I think I've given one to the Kingdom Squad so that Merlin can stay in contact with them (I'll have to double check that, if I didn't I will for this upcoming mission)

 

Give me a day to finalize the review before you change tags.

[Ayeba]

I'll skip the personalized communication device. It doesn't make sense for her to have access to one. I've looked through the rest of the available magic items, and none of them scream out to me. A ring of jumping is useful, but not something that jells particularly well with her concept. I guess she's just keeping the rest of her money for now.

In other words, I think I'm done with the shopping, and the character is ready from my point of view.

Maybe, if she is given the option to learn Find Familiar, she decides to bring summon her pig while leaving the rooster alone. We'll see when that comes.

[Rumrunner]

Totally fine to not build a character around a chicken... I gave up on my horse because I couldn't use it most of the time myself.

All said though, a chicken is probably a few silver. I don't think she'd bring him on a mission.

[SMARTAgentKC]

Review complete,

Overall I really like this character's story, and I like that you built the character around their 'canon' abilities and tried to justify spells and feats based on those abilities even though I had no such restriction in play. Everything seems in order, so I say you pass the review checkpoint.

We can now switch your tags to reviewed by GM.

[Rumrunner]

Go team big hair!

[Ayeba]

@Rumrunner Considering we are literally playing Disney Princesses, it's a serious rarity to have short hair. Rapunzel post-movie is the only princess I can think of with short hair.

We can be team Unruly, Curly Hair, though 😋

Edited March 20 by Ayeba (see edit history)