LINK TO THE BUILD: https://pathbuilder.x10host.com/fluid.php?id=2830
Disclaimer: The following is a fan based parody character build. The Inn of Planar Crossroads does not own any of the referenced characters or material, and has only built this character for a love of the medium said character is from or inspired by. All rights are reserved to the proper legal owners of any referenced material. Thank you.
Opening Remarks
Greetings and Salutations from the Inn of Planar Crossroads. Several of our guild members find no short supply of enjoyment from the medium known as “Anime”, and as such we are starting off our build series with a Parody build from one of the best anime series of 2016… Konosuba!
And… when talking about building a character from Konosuba why not start with arguably the most popular: Magumin the Arch-Mage of the Crimson Magic Clan!
Megumin is defiantly a fun and obvious jab at the physically-weak-but-incredibly-powerful-magic-user trope that is very common in games; both on and off the table. This build will be reflective of that. As this is a Parody build, it isn’t going to be overly focused on optimization, but is more about being true to the character. As such you may see some choices that are less than spectacular for damage coverage and the like, but we are aiming to at least make her playable, and I dare say we succeed. Without further ado lets get this party started! By the way, for those needing to skip around in the video there are time stamps in the description below.
Ability Scores
Interestingly Megumin can be built quite effectively with even just the minimum of 10 point buy. I would, however, recommend at least doing a 15 point buy as it offers a more satisfactory start to the character. The scores would flow as follows beginning with Strength and going down the line to Charisma…
10 point: 7/10/7/18/10/11
15 point: 10/10/7/18/10/12
20 point: 10/10/7/18/10/15
25 point: 10/10/7/18/12/16
Stat Array: 10/12/8/15/13/14
I don’t suggest trying this build with a stat array as there isn’t really much statistical flavor to using it on a character build that is suppose to be a comedic take on gaming archetypes. Megumin is the stereotypical glass-cannon mage that is super squishy. Her stats should really reflect that. If you embrace the stereotype you can have lots of fun with it. For the purpose of this video all future calculations for the build will be based off the 15 point buy.
Race
Now, Megumin’s official race is human, and all our recommendations in this guide are going to assume that is the race you choose. Really, human is a solid choice for her as it allows her to place that racial +2 bonus into your Intelligence – getting a twenty at level 1, and that lovely bonus feat at the start of the game to work with. That said, I could see a couple other races working roleplay wise if you are just using her as a template, and not being too strict with the build. Teifling, Iffirt, or some other flavorful race could easily fit the personality of Megumin.
Alignment
This one can be subjective for some tables. The downloadable PDFs on the site have Neutral listed as she has no real interest in anything except the use of “Explosion Magic”, though if I personally was going to play her I would likely go with a Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good as she has been shown to repeatedly disregard rules in order to practice her magics; even if it had the potential to harm friends and acquaintances. Take the continued destruction of the castle that the Goblin King’s Dullahan General was occupying… even after being warned not to she kept blasting it over and over again just to practice her magics. Not exactly the best idea – and an example of why we didn’t give her too high of a wisdom stat.
Class
The world of Konosuba doesn’t seem to have the class system divided the same way as many tabletop games. Magic users seem to be just called Mages or Priests depending on their focus. That won’t effect our decision much on which class to pick, but one thing in the setting will… the WAY those spells are cast. The setting of Konosuba appears to use something most similar to a Mana or Point Based system of casting. This means that classes like Wizard and Sorcerer that use the Vancian system of spell slots and memorization are a bit of an awkward fit for Megumin. There is always the option to homebrew, or bring alternate rules in, but we’re trying to stick with RAW as much as possible for this build. So, after getting some opinions online, and doing some research of our own one class stood out for Megumin: the Arcanist.
The Arcanist’s “arcane reservoir” fits pretty well as a substitute for a Mana system, and the Eldritch Font archetype just sounded perfect for her. Why? Well, for those familiar with the show you’ll recall that Megumin refuses to use any kind of magic except, as the setting puts it, “explosion” magic, that she only uses the strongest, most destructive spells she knows, and once she uses that maxed out spell she collapses. This quark of literally blowing all her mana on one spell per day fits right in with the focused and powerful Eldritch Font’s “Eldritch Surge” ability; all the way to the fatigue effects on the PC. We’ll cover the other things the class gets as we get to the Advancement and Feat Choice section.
There is a gripe I have with choosing the Arcanist namely that the class still needs to study a spell book; which is something that we never see Megumin do. Though she is talked about as being very intelligent in the novels and anime, and is said to have done quite well in the mage’s school so take that as you will.
Traits
Megumin’s personality gives her access to some effective traits. PCs in my games get two at the start of their creation so we’ll use that as our baseline. First, the Alternate Racial Traits we picked. Comprehensive Education, and Unstoppable Magic. Of these two Unstoppable Magic is the one you want most for the +2 bonus on caster level checks verses Spell Resistance. You are sacrificing your bonus feat, so if a better option comes to mind that fits the theme of the build go ahead and do it. Comprehensive Education was chosen to reflect her performance in school. All and all you could go vanilla human and be fine, so long as you took a bonus feat to improve your spells in some meaningful way.
Secondly, the Background Traits. Reactionary, and Arcane Temper are the ones we preferred for Megamin as she is quick to want to just blow things up that are causing herself and her friends any trouble. So you get a total +2 to your initiative, and a +1 to your concentration. Though the concentration is not likely to come up the trait just fits her personality well.
Skills
Here we’re really just going to mention the ones that we think should be focused on, and let you decide what to do with the rest of the points you get through the levels. As an Arcanist Megumin will get Appraise, Craft, Fly, all Knowledges, Linguistics, Profession, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device.
You of course want to prioritize all the magic related things like Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana, but don’t forget Perception, and even Intimidation. She has regularly used the latter to get her way so it makes sense. Besides, who wouldn’t be scared of a somewhat emotionally unstable little mage that can blast almost anything into cinders. All the Knowledge skills are pretty solid choices too as they can reflect her mental prowess. Beyond that there is little we went for as a guild line. You’re going to have plenty of skill points to work with since you will get 2 + Megumin’s maxed out Intelligence, so no worries there. We do recommend a little Stealth investment once you hit a certain level, but we will mention when in the next section. Speaking of…
Advancement and Feat Choice
Here is where a build rises to the top, or falls under it’s own weight. Let’s see how you think this one for Megumin holds up by the end.
First off… Class Features. She’ll get proficiency with all simple weapons, but really nothing else. No biggie for her as she doesn’t use armor or weapons anyway.
Megumin’s Arcane Reservoir is unchanged through her archetype; getting a normal reservoir of 4 at level 1 and up to 23 at level 20 – baring enchantment boosts of course. This is the core ability that helps us mimic the “mana casting” system in Konosuba.
The Font of Power and Consume Spells abilities are going to have little effect on this build’s play-style. Font of Power is going to lessen the amount of spells she can prepare per day, but in exchange, she gets an extra spell slot. This works well for her though because she really just focuses on one spell per day anyway, and she’ll know plenty of spells from her excellent intelligence so losing one is no problem. She can use this extra slot if needed with the Consume Spells ability, but this will likely be unnecessary. All in all kind of “meh” abilities for Megumin.
Now to the meat of the class choices: the Arcane Exploits. The Eldritch Surge of her archetype will make her go from the normal ten exploits down to seven, but that, again, isn’t a problem for Megumin as we don’t need many to make her true to the character. In alphabetical order the ones we recommend are… Familiar – Cat, Metamagic Knowledge, Metamagic Knowledge – Greater, Metamixing, Potent Magic, School Understanding – Evocation, and Swift Consume. We have them assigned to specific levels on the PDFs we made in the Pathbuilder app, but you can mix them up as you wish. The only one that we think needs taken at a specific level is School Understanding – Evocation. You want it at level one as it lets you take one benefit from a Wizard School. From the Evocation specialization you’ll want the Intense Spells ability. Adding half your level to damage for your spells is hard to beat until you get Empower Spell.
Speaking of metamagics let’s talk about feats. Since Megumin is so focused in her casting metamagics will be how she is able to really master her use of her spells. We’ll go over specific spell choices in the next section, but as for which feats we like here they are (again in alphabetical order): Elemental Focus – Fire, Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Fearsome Spell, Focused Spell, Furious Spell, Improved Familiar, Improved Initiative, Intensified Spell, Spell Focus – Evocation, Spell Focus Greater – Evocation, and Widen Spell. There is little to explain about these choices really, though we would say that the Familiar feats are rather important for her as she does get a cat before the end of the first season named Chomuske. The little cat is clearly not a normal one (no spoilers in the comments please) as it has wings and a red cross mark on its head so it only makes sense to improve it eventually.
Now, we need to touch briefly again on the Eldritch Surge, and it’s Improved, and Greater forms. The Surge ability is what really caps off this class as a perfect fit for Megumin. Without going into too much of the minutiae of the ability it essentially lets her power up her spells and their DC at the cost of fatiguing herself. For anyone who has watched the show you’ll know why this fits so well, and why we thought it was a no-brainer for Megumin.
The last class feature to cover for the Eldritch Font is the 20th level ability of Bottomless Well. For Megumin this really isn’t a big deal. First off, most games won’t reach that level, and secondly it has minimal roleplay impact on our little one-shot glass-cannon. Just best not to worry about it really.
Spells
And we finally come to the list of spells that we think might be the most thematically appropriate for the Arch Wizard of the Crimson Magic Clan. Let me preemptively apologize that the spells didn’t get on the PDF sheets correctly, but the list is going to be in the post on the site so no worries. Back to brass tacks though, Megumin is going to have no problems learning new spells with her high intelligence, but we want to stay as true to the character as possible so don’t expect to see any illusion or necromancy in here. Let’s take these by level shall we?
Level 0 – Acid Splash, Detect Magic, Spark, Prestidigitation
Level 1 – Burning Hands, Ear-Peircing Scream, Touch of Combustion
Level 2 – Acid Arrow, Aggressive Thundercloud, Burning Arc, Burning Gaze, Flaming Sphere, Sonic Scream, Spontaneous Immolation
Level 3 – Explosive Runes, Battering Blast, Fireball, Firestream, Lightning Bolt, Sheet Lightning, Trail of Fire and Acid, Vengeful Comets
Level 4 – Agressive Thundercloud – Greater, Ball Lightening, Flaming Sphere – Greater, Pyrotechnic Eruption, Shout, Volcanic Storm, Firefall
Level 5 – Acidic Spray, Fire Snake, Lightning Arc
Level 6 – Chain Lightening, Hellfire Ray
Level 7 – Caustic Eruption
Level 8 – Stormbolts
Level 9 – Meteor Swarm
So, you might be noticing a theme here; namely flames and flashy damage. We think that Megumin fans would agree that she only cares about getting the biggest, most flashy, and most powerful explosion possible. As such, we don’t mind suggesting things with flashy lightening and nice damage. You might find it odd that she is messing with acid, though given the times she has been covered in slime on the show we don’t think it would be too out of the realm of possiblity that she would use those experiences to improve her magics. When it comes down to the line though she loves her big, flasy Fireballs. This means that if you play this build before 6th level you probably won’t feel very Megumin-y, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun so play at any level you want. We like to think that she really didn’t even enter the story until that level anyway, but that is just our personal head-cannon so take that as you will.
Once she has that spell though you don’t have to exclusively cast it. Pyrotechnic Eruption, Volcanic Storm, Hellfire Ray, and Meteor Swarm are also super fun and thematic for her style. If you notice in the show Megumin may seem to cast the same spell over and over, but she says a different incantation almost every time. We take this as an easy way to justify not only her knowledge of more than one spell, but also the use of said spells. Ones we defiantly think don’t fit her are Controlled Fireball and Disintegrate. Disintegrate because it isn’t explosive, fiery, or flashy at all; and Controlled Fireball because she NEVER HOLDS BACK. There have been many instances where she has blasted allies and enemies alike just because she loves blowing up multiple targets in the biggest and flashiest way possible. So, yeah, no Controlled Fireball.
All other spells seem a bit off for her preferences so we’ll leave that to discretion.
Equipment
Megumin doesn’t really have much as far as equipment goes. Because of this relative lack of equipment focus for her in the stories and anime we won’t focus much on it either; though we do want to cover the two main things associated with her – one of which she kinda just stops using as the series goes on, but that’s beside the point. The two items are simply an eye-patch and a staff. Starting with the eye-patch Magumin actually admits in her introduction episode that she really didn’t need it. She just used it to look cool and dangerous. As such it likely has no mechanical benefit. We however think that it would be fun to have it improve Charisma to some degree. Depending on what level you’re starting at you could go for anything from a +1 on up to a +5 if you want. Using it in the head slot of your character like any regular Headband of Charisma is probably the easiest way to go about it. This is the item she just does away with in the anime so keeping it or not is completely up to you.
The staff however is something magical that she fawns over in the anime. She even goes so far as to remark how it helps her explosions be even better. From this and other statements we suggest getting a Metamagic Rod of Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Intensified Spell, and the like for the lower levels until you have them, and then switching to one of your choice after gaining them. You could also see if your GM would allow it to be a Charisma booster once you have all the Meta-feats you need. When you go shopping keep in mind that most of the spells that Megumin will specialize in are going to have a range of “long” so getting a Rod of Range really wouldn’t be of benefit.
Closing Remarks
While playing Megumin fresh from level 1 is possible; the grand explosion magic that she so loves to indulge in doesn’t really start to come into her repertoire until level 6 and beyond. So, like we mentioned in the spell section, that is the sweet spot to start. But hey, if you want to roleplay her from level one that is totally fine. We all know that her personality is what makes her so endearing anyway.
We appreciate you attention. You made it to the end of the video. Well, done. We want to give a special thanks to the Facebook group Pathfinder Character Conversations, the official Paizo PRD, and d20pfsrd.com . The Facebook group was especially helpful as we got some feedback there while working on the build. It is definitely worth a look if you like discussing different options for your characters. If you have any builds you want spotlighted, remarks about this one, or want to see a different character built up then feel free to get a hold of us in the comments, on Facebook under The Inn of Planar Crossroads group page, on Twitter as @TheIoPC, or on our webpage: www.innofplanarcrossroads.com . If you want to watch some recordings of our live games then pop on over to the channel “Numbers on a Cube”. Who knows, you might get to see some of the builds we spotlight in action. Regardless, we hope you have a great day, God bless, and enjoy!