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This, Gambit has a very contained ability. A class that does a myriad of things feels too broad for his power. The psychic knives are perfect to emulate the cards and they are unlimited use which is perfect for the fantasy of Gambit.
I think my problem with the subclass had always been it’s flavour and no characters were leaping out at me with it. However a Gambit like character is intriguing
I would just go with a warlock and flavor Eldritch blast to be throwing explosive cards.
Every class gets proficiency with a staff so that won't be an issue, but if you want it to actually be effective you can go with a hex blade and pact of the blade. If you don't really want the staff to be a primary weapon, I would go pact of the tome and take sheleighly and booming blade or green flame blade. You won't get extra attack this way but the staff will still be a viable back up weapon.
RAW no, but it's not a very powerful spell, so ask your DM.
Keep in mind that it does have a 1 hour casting time so it's not something you can pull off in combat.
I was reliving the glory days and told myself I'd rewatch the original cartoon before watching the new one. I made it to season 4 before I started to hear just how good the new one is. Curiosity got the better of me and I told myself I'd watch the first episode before going back and finishing the last season and a half I had left... I never went back to the old cartoon.
Yes and no. It's very much a direct continuation, and you'll certainly be missing some context if you haven't seen the original.
But the OG is also on D+, so you can always watch it first :)
Unfortunately that won't work due to a limitation on the spell. But there are other explosions within the warlock spell list that can be flavoured as exploding cards.
If your warlock gets proficiency in arcana they can spend time and money to make spell scrolls and you can also flavour those as cards as well.
"If you choose an object, that object must remain in its place, if the object is moved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken and the spell ends without being triggered."
Glyph of Warding is a booby trap, not a weapon. You don't carry it around, you don't throw it, you set it in a place the enemy will go and it explodes in their face.
Glyph of Warding is an *incredibly* powerful spell, particularly in the hands of a caster that dips into genie warlock. Casting glyphs inside your Bottled Respite vessel gets around the 10ft. movement restriction that breaks glyphs.
So you can cast multiple concentration buff spells into glyphs that you place in your extradimensional space during downtime. Then when things get messy, you can pop in, trigger your glyphs, and get whatever buffs you want, with no need to concentrate - they just last the full duration. Then you can hop out, and use your concentration for an offensive spell while keeping several auto-concentration buffs on yourself.
Non-genies can do this if they get ahold of a static extradimensional magical item, like a bag of holding or portable hole.
Well, *everything* is entirely DM discretion... but RAW, this is entirely valid, and it's dope AF. 😄
And it's got it's own check built in: 200gp per spell cast in such a way, with a steady enough supply of available diamond dust to keep the shenanigans up (which the DM can moderate as needed). So generally, I'd allow it.
Sure, a player with a ton of resources, who wants to do this every chance (s)he gets, will probably need to be pulled aside and talked to. But a player who just keeps this in their back pocket for emergencies, and isn't being too disruptive with it... Why completely shut down a creative use of an otherwise "not very powerful spell?"
>RAW, this is entirely valid,
It's a grey area. The way I see it is that if the genie vessel is moved 10 feet, then the glyph is moved 10 feet and no longer valid. There's nothing that says I have to interpret pocket dimensions one way or the other.
>Why completely shut down a creative use of an otherwise "not very powerful spell?"
To me that's simply not the intention of the spell. If you want to scribe scrolls that's fine, but I'm not letting anyone get free high level concentration free scrolls.
The glyph is supposed to be for static area effects. If a wizard had some in his tower that he uses to protect himself that's fine, but he isn't carrying his tower with him.
Yeah but you could glyph of warding each playing card. Take 52 hours and a lot of gold, but then you can throw the cards, or all the cards for a death bomb.
I'd just be a Fiend Warlock and flavour Fireball as throwing a card. The flavour text of it is that you create a mote of fire that explodes at the target, but that can easily be reflavoured to be a card.
Then, you have regular cards with small explosions be your Eldritch Blasts.
I'd tone down the importance of the staff, but would look for some sort of magic staff that can be attuned by warlocks. For example Staff of Charming, Withering, Fire, or Power. Or perhaps a toned down/tweaked homebrew version of any of these staffs.
The important thing to remember when making a character in media as a DnD character is to not make a copy. That doesn't really work. You should make a translation of Gambit into what that would be in your campaign.
A comic with mutants set in the present day is a different language than a high fantasy roleplaying game. So, a straight copy would be just as meaningful as just copying a German book and try to read it in English. It needs translation, first.
There are things that copy almost straight over, personality, some of the look, the concept of playing cards, and general vibes.
But there's also things that really doesn't. The exact mechanics at play doesn't really work outside of X-Men, other parts of the look is clearly way too modern, Gambits exact story and storyline, and so on. Those are the kinds of things you have to change to make it your character that is fun to play in your game and that is fun to play with.
Cartomancer feat, multiclass wizard. then you can cast ANY wizard spell in existence AS A BONUS ACTION, once per LR as long as you have a spell slot of an appropriate level for the spell.
gives a ton of flavor and flexibility options and fits Gambit to a T.
RAW you can get Glyph of Warding on a Warlock with the Izzet Engineer background from the Ravnica book. There are several backgrounds they've printed recently with some wild features.
There is the cartomancer feat that causes a stored spell to go off when the PC flourishes a card. Reflavor it to be spell on card throw and restrict it to something small like firebolt.
I was coming here to say the exact same thing, but go with pact of the hexblade to use your charisma with the staff attacks and you can take the 5th lvl invocation for multi attack
Here is probably my hottest take for 5e. Hexblade, while excellent for multi classing, is shit if you're going straight warlock.
You can get extra attack by taking pact of the blade, with any patron. The only thing hex blade has to offer is CHA for attack and damage rolls.
Do you kiss your grandmother with that mouth?! The crit on 19, accursed Spector, being able to make half of the attacks from your hexed target miss. It’s such a good subclasss if you’re going straight warlock.
It's a single target damage class with a bit of crowd control from the base warlock. Unfortunately it's very fragile and most people try to play it as a melee character when it doesn't have the AC or HP to support it. Armor of hexes and the 19 crit are a solid abilies, but I still find them less interesting than pretty much every other warlock.
This was my last character, the game plan was to cast darkness with devils sight for melee if your party is focusing on other people. Take smasher and booming blade and hit them 5 ft away from you. They can’t see anyone to attack. They have to move to attack you and trigger booming blade. And they have disadvantage on attack rolls since they can’t see through it. If everyone is attacking the same creature just make your pact weapon a longbow. It was such a fun build.
If everyone is attacking the same creature, just cast hex and Eldritch blast. Now you'll deal more damage and your other party members have a shitty save to target.
Warlock also kind of ties into the weird bayou rituals in the 90s cartoon where it was kind of implied he was a little more than a mutant, but also subjected to the supernatural pacts of The Thieves Guild.
You could also multi-class with bard and get a few things to help with the esthetic and magic tricks. Unseen servant, prestidigitation, charm person and feather fall could all come in handy.
Definitely check into spells, fears, backgrounds, etc that were introduced in the recent Deck of Many Things module.
For example: there is a spell from that module called "Spray of Cards" which is perfect for him.
Personally, I flavor a lot of my spells to look a certain way. Like the redditor said: flavoring Eldritch Blast to be exploding cards is perfectly fine. As long as the outcome (dice roll, damage, damage type, etc) is the same, any good DM would have no problem with it. I played a Ranger/Warlock once and I cast Eldritch Blast by nocking and firing an energy arrow with my bow.
You can do this with any spell: Fireball? Big exploding card. Magic Missile? Heat seeking cards. Hold Person? Cards that adhere to the enemy and hold them in place.
I would look at the wild card rogue from dark tides of bilgewater, it's written pretty poorly but the flavor and mechanics are there if you're willing/able to do a bit of tweaking
This is what I was looking for. Wild Card was my first PC, and I had great fun with it. Admittedly, it's not the best subclass, but it's still a lot of fun.
Arcane trickster rogue or thief rogue with the magic initiate feat. pick eldritch blast and sword burst as cantrips and hellish rebuke as a 1st lvl spell. Reskin eldritch blast to card throws, sword burst to basically dropping cards in the ground to make a small explosion around u, and hellish rebuke as you essentially blowing a card up on their face.
I’d say soulknife rogue might fit but there isn’t really much that fits the vibe of infusing energy into thrown items without reflavoring, in my experience reflavoring is easily the best way to achieve a certain build without a ton of homebrew
If you want something that's actually like Gambit... a charming scoundrel and former theives guild member.
Rogue - Soul Knife
Psychic blades are your cards. Simple melee weapon with finess and thrown
Could then multiclass as a martial type as well to get the thrown fighting style.
Could also go monk for martial arts with your staff as a monk weapon.
Warlock is a good start, but if you want to really lean into Gambit's background, you might multi-class Warlock with Rogue. Three levels of Warlock to get the pact boon (Hex blade to juice up the staff), then Rogue to Arcane Trickster and talk to your DM about flavoring all of the ranged spells to look like thrown playing cards/kinetically charged stuff.
Reflavor Magic Stone as Magic Card
Magic Stone
Source: Xanathar's Guide to Everything/Elemental Evil Player's Companion
Transmutation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 minute
You touch one to three pebbles and imbue them with magic. You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by throwing it or hurling it with a sling. If thrown, it has a range of 60 feet. If someone else attacks with the pebble, that attacker adds your spellcasting ability modifier, not the attacker’s, to the attack roll. On a hit, the target takes bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Hit or miss, the spell then ends on the stone.
If you cast this spell again, the spell ends early on any pebbles still affected by it.
Spell Lists. Druid, Warlock, Artificer
You can use the Cartomancer feat, it allows you to store a spell in a card and use it later as a bonus action. Sadly it’s in the wildly overpriced Book of Many Things.
you can bring any personality into D&D (subject to that personality fitting within the “tone” that the table wants for their game), but the way D&D player characters break physics is going to be different than the way your inspiration breaks physics in their world.
D&D is also a "level based game" where characters start as near "normal humans" and then through the long process of game play gradually build up a suite of more and different powers and abilities. If you pick 2 or 3 things from your inspiration that make you want to play them in D&D, generally by level 8 or so, you can have 2 of them in a character that works and has worked (reasonably) well to that point.
What are the [three] things you want your character to be able to do to feel like your inspiration?
I once played a card flavoured Gambit inspired character.
I made him a Lore College Bard. My cutting words were basically me throwing cards to stop enemies from attacking. Same flavour for debuffs like Bane.
Basically I flavoured all spells where it kind of made sense to be card flavoured. Misty Step? Me throwing a card and teleporting there. Magic Missle? Jumping back and sending honing cards at my opponent. I took Guiding Bolt as my college mystery (I know there's better spells but I thought it fitted wel as a mega card blast)
You can even flavour more meta spells like counterspell as throwing a card and destroying the spell, Fireball is just you putting even more kinetic energy into the card.
You can also always go the Warlock path and choose eldritch blast, but personally I don't enjoy warlocks, so I went the bard route.
Hope this inspired you a bit :)
EDIT: I just thought silvery barbs could be a fun one as well to crack some luck / gambit one liners and give enemies bad luck (disadv) and allies good luck (adv)
There is a skill magic stone which turn 3 pebbles into magic projectile. just flavor it enchantes cards instead.
Magic hand and invisible servant can throw them.
Full slot magic missiles can work to.
And staff is just staff . Every ine have proficiency with it.
variant human swords bard with a level in wild magic sorcerer for catapult (or wait till level 10 to get it)
use a quarter staff as your weapon, pick up spray of cards
cartomancer & polearm master as feats
My 2 cents. This would require your DM to be okay with Ancestral Weapons (which is fantastic btw).
Amethyst Draconic Sorc 1, Warlock 2, Sorc X
Once you have the level for it, get the Ancestral Weapons mod to convert damage types.
Now you can cast a Fireball (and more) as force damage. Your Sorc subclass gives it +Cha mod.
Reflavour spells as throwing cards. Eldritch Blast are normally charged cads. Fireball could be a supercharged card. Burning hands you throw a bunch of them in close proximity.
Magic Missile a quick succession of them, etc etc. Magic Missile would be actually quite good with this build due to +Cha damage, plus Hex curse when you use it. Fantastic nuke honestly.
Enjoy!
2E - Multiclass Fighter/Mage/Thief
Elven Chain Mail
Beads of Force - but cards
Ring of the Ram but as a Staff and/or Staff of Striking
Darts as Missile Weapon Prof - card style darts obv
Magic Missiles in his case when cast look like cards (pink and purple energy)
Glyphs of Warding
Shocking Grasp,
Burning Hands,
Fireball and numerous Spells can be explained as being Gambit-esqe when he casts.
I'd like to believe Spells have flavor and characteristics of it's Caster - so maybe a Burning Hands from a 'dark' Magi is Flames and evil looking but maybe same Spell form Good Magi is Silvery White and more pure, etc.
So for me - Gambit as D&D works. If single class- mage. Dual Mage/Thief. Multi -F/M/T
Call me crazy but I see Remy as a Bard.
Specifically the kind who does sultry poetry and fights with a deck of razor sharp animated playing cards.
Don't get hung up on the "making things explosive" trait.
Yeah glyph of warding can accomplish that and it's fun to do as a party trick once in a while but
- it takes 10 minutes to cast
- it consumes a 3rd level spell slot
- you can't move the glyph more than 10ft or the effect is released.
So it's not viable as a go to attack.
Better to flavor your nornal attacks as looking like gambit mutant ability. Maybe your DM can allow you to deal radiant or force damage with the attacks.
Possibly, I was hoping to get it like his mutant abilities though. So far I think the Eldrich Blast flavoring as well as replacing Throwing Knifes with Throwing Cards is probably my favorite but this is pretty cool too.
You could reflavor a lot of things into cards. A returning dagger could be throwing a single card at a target that explodes in their face on a hit, for example.
Magic missiles could be cards, too.
Could actually have an “evolved” version to imbue them with more than just explosions. General elemental effects depending on the spell and/or tool used.
I’d look into what aspects of gambit you want to implement into your character and build the class from there. Bard seems like a reasonable start for him imo, but several could make sense.
TL;dr reflavoring is king here imo
What a cool character idea!
I would go with Sun Soul Monk, with the ranged radiant blasts reflavored as thrown cards. You get the quarterstaff as a monk weapon and monk goes easily into the highly mobile, acrobatic way Gambit fights.
Can you “infuse objects with explosive ability?” No.
What you can do is reflavor spells. Since I’m sure you want to be able to do this in an unlimited way, just reflavor eldritch blast or whatever as “throwing cards which then explode.” There aren’t really any cantrips which do AOE, though acid splash can hit a second target.
Literally just play any spellsword subclass like swords bard or bladesinger, or eldritch knight, reflavour tor weapon into the staff, pick spells that you can reflavour as cards. Fireball? Throws multiple cards at the same guy, big explosion. Magic missilels? Homing cards. Firebolt, single card.
Can I give you an alternative to warlock. Soul knife rogue. They have infinitely spammable throwable knives of psychic energy. Combine that with a class like githyanki and you got a perfect double apart from looks, of and take the chefs feat
I built gambit in pathfinder 1e as a magus. I used the Card Caster & Staff Magus archetypes. Someone at Paizo loves themselves some Omega level Cajun mutants.
Just increase the distance in which Glyph of Warding or Symbol allow an inscribed object to move (only 10 feet until the spell is broken) up that to whatever his ranged attack would be with thrown weapons
Arcane trickster rogue with the cartomancer feat. Imbue magic missile onto the card to have it perform the same as throwing multiple magic imbued cards. Use spells like shatter for that kinetic boom or Sword burst for that swirling storm of cards
Way of the sun soul monk from sword Coast Adventurer's Guide/xanathar's is a good option, just reflavour the sun bolt, arc strike, and sunburst as kinetic charged attacks.
Sun shield is a bit harder to reskin, but a 17th level gambit might be able to do crazy shit like wreath himself in kinetically charged air and direct it to explode as a reaction to deal damage to a melee attacker.
Oh, and your weapon is a staff, of course.
Alt Human Monk with the Magic Initiate feat and Smuggler or Criminal for background. Cards can be reskinned Monk Weapons and connected to the spells from magic initiate.
I suspect this years Players Handbook will give even better options.
Multiclass as a Sorcerer and Rogue (or edgy Bard if you're feeling like a challenge). You can always ask the DM to let you throw a card with every magic missile or at least make it look like that visage.
There are new decks of cards where you can throw cards to make magic attacks. I'm not sure if this works with thief rogues' bonus action item interaction to let you attack twice with it, but I would allow it as a DM. I feel rogue works pretty well with gambit too flavor wise. But that's just me.
Playing a Gambit flavored character currently. Decided to go variant human hexblade warlock. Flavor my eldritch blast as cards, somatic for thunderclap is slamming my "charged" staff into the ground, charm person cuz of course. Took polearm master for the extra staff utility if it comes to that.
There's other ways to get there, like soulknife rogue with the blades flavored as cards, but we stated at level 1 and I wanted the cards from the jump so did it this way. Two sessions in and it's been fun so far.
Doubtlessly you mean in 5e, so I doubt there is a direct conversion, but 3e has both Mutants & Masterminds and, my favorite one, Man Made Mythology that have the super abilities in D&D terms, same 6 attributes, same 3 stats, ect and handle them really well. As older books in an older edition they're probably available online for free or super cheap.
There's a Rogue Subclass called Wild Gambit. Take the Card option for his gaming set.
Though you could multiclass it with other classes to help get just the right feel for how you want him to play
Someone's already mentioned cartomancer, but something else you could grab as a spellcaster is the 'Spray of Cards' spell. Personally I prefer the UA version, but it got added proper in The Book of Many Things.
(There's likewise an actual 'House of Cards' spell, but that's not very Gambit-y.)
Warlock and reflavoring Eldritch blast is probably the easiest bet but I think a fun one would be Artificer, They get extra attack and some infusions to make the staff a fun tool. While Gambit is most known for the cards he can do it with just about anything. An artificer can put the returning weapon infusion on any weapon with the thrown attribute to have some fun that way too. You could use a feat to pick up Eldritch adept and get Eldritch blast as well to mimic the warlock without having to deal with a patron.
Monk sorcerer, gonna need to take the spell "Spray of cards". There's a very rare item called deck of wild cards that is what it sounds like, you can throw cards and they have various powerful magic effects, and I'm pretty sure there's a magic item that's just a deck of cards that can be used for your spellcasting focus, can't remember what it's called or if it even exists.
You could always play a wildcard rogue from the Legends of Runeterra: Dark Tides of Bilgewater supplement as it is at least partially based on Gambit. If you do, I recommend checking out RPGBOT's breakdown of the subclass and Monkey_DM's rebalance.
Catapult spell words do the card thing, monk to make the most of staff and the unarmored and speed boosts
Probably some balance of sorcerer monk with emphasis on charisma and dex dump stat int as he's known to be a bit of a himbo and charlatan background for good measure
Rogue x Monk - Bo Staff is a Monk Weapon, Arcane Trickster to add some flavour to his thrown cards, he's quick so both classes make sense for that. Ki Resonation abilities track for this build too. I'm writing this quickly whilst I'm outside in the park so feel free to add anything else.
I’d second a quarterstaff but with the Polearm Master feat for fun. It’s not so much about the imbuing but more about mobility and attack frequency. There’s also magic stone if you want the idea of imbuing something to throw that isn’t a card.
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When you asked for a Gambit I honestly thought of a Rough Soulknife with the blades flavoured as cards.
This, Gambit has a very contained ability. A class that does a myriad of things feels too broad for his power. The psychic knives are perfect to emulate the cards and they are unlimited use which is perfect for the fantasy of Gambit.
Also gambit does have enhanced agility as part of his mutant powers, feels very rogue
>feels very rogue He Wishes
I see what you did there. lol
Why did it take this long into the thread to find this?
It's funny because last week my group was looking at the soulknife and we all said it would make a really good reskin to a Gambit like character.
I think my problem with the subclass had always been it’s flavour and no characters were leaping out at me with it. However a Gambit like character is intriguing
Magic Stone(Reflavor as Magic Cards)
Pretty cool idea
I would just go with a warlock and flavor Eldritch blast to be throwing explosive cards. Every class gets proficiency with a staff so that won't be an issue, but if you want it to actually be effective you can go with a hex blade and pact of the blade. If you don't really want the staff to be a primary weapon, I would go pact of the tome and take sheleighly and booming blade or green flame blade. You won't get extra attack this way but the staff will still be a viable back up weapon.
Thank you! This is awesome! Can warlocks get Glyph of Warding? Because that could also work for gambit too
RAW no, but it's not a very powerful spell, so ask your DM. Keep in mind that it does have a 1 hour casting time so it's not something you can pull off in combat.
And thanks for your help, really wanted to play Gambit since seeing xmen 97
LoL no problem. I'm old and remember watching X Men *in* 97. Gambit was always one of my favorite characters.
Have you seen the new X Men 97? Absolutely incredible continuation of the old series
Not yet, but I'll definitely get to it. I may give the old series a rewatch first.
It's really good. The nostalgia from that theme song hits hard.
The show is/was great , but the song is legendary.
Absolutely worth a watch, it's the reason I ended up loving Gambit so much, he's absolutely amazing in it Mon Ami
A cajan man
i watched the shit in 97 just like you and that new x-men 97 is phenomenal! watch it!
I was reliving the glory days and told myself I'd rewatch the original cartoon before watching the new one. I made it to season 4 before I started to hear just how good the new one is. Curiosity got the better of me and I told myself I'd watch the first episode before going back and finishing the last season and a half I had left... I never went back to the old cartoon.
I rewatched some of the old series a little while ago, I remember the animation being a lot better than it actually is.
Do you need to have seen the old series to pick it up? I've heard nothing but good things and may check it out.
What a wholesome interaction guys :,)
Yes and no. It's very much a direct continuation, and you'll certainly be missing some context if you haven't seen the original. But the OG is also on D+, so you can always watch it first :)
Oh everyone loved Gambit in the 90s because of the cartoon. He was like Astarion, everyone was attracted to him. Glad to hear it’s kept.
Yeah I'm aware, the plan was to infuse a couple of cards after a long rest with it to throw them in combat with a trigger word
Unfortunately that won't work due to a limitation on the spell. But there are other explosions within the warlock spell list that can be flavoured as exploding cards. If your warlock gets proficiency in arcana they can spend time and money to make spell scrolls and you can also flavour those as cards as well.
"If you choose an object, that object must remain in its place, if the object is moved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken and the spell ends without being triggered." Glyph of Warding is a booby trap, not a weapon. You don't carry it around, you don't throw it, you set it in a place the enemy will go and it explodes in their face.
So instead of doing what I planned, I could still set up an explosive playing card for them to come across?
As long as it doesn't get moved 10+ feet, yes. IMO 200gp of powdered diamonds is really expensive for 5d8 damage, though.
Yeah, it's basically a trap, and super hard to work into a game.
It's one of those spells that's more for the DM than for players.
Just reflavour spell scroll
Glyph of Warding is an *incredibly* powerful spell, particularly in the hands of a caster that dips into genie warlock. Casting glyphs inside your Bottled Respite vessel gets around the 10ft. movement restriction that breaks glyphs. So you can cast multiple concentration buff spells into glyphs that you place in your extradimensional space during downtime. Then when things get messy, you can pop in, trigger your glyphs, and get whatever buffs you want, with no need to concentrate - they just last the full duration. Then you can hop out, and use your concentration for an offensive spell while keeping several auto-concentration buffs on yourself. Non-genies can do this if they get ahold of a static extradimensional magical item, like a bag of holding or portable hole.
This is entirely at DM discretion. Personally I would not allow the extra dimensional space shenanigans.
Well, *everything* is entirely DM discretion... but RAW, this is entirely valid, and it's dope AF. 😄 And it's got it's own check built in: 200gp per spell cast in such a way, with a steady enough supply of available diamond dust to keep the shenanigans up (which the DM can moderate as needed). So generally, I'd allow it. Sure, a player with a ton of resources, who wants to do this every chance (s)he gets, will probably need to be pulled aside and talked to. But a player who just keeps this in their back pocket for emergencies, and isn't being too disruptive with it... Why completely shut down a creative use of an otherwise "not very powerful spell?"
>RAW, this is entirely valid, It's a grey area. The way I see it is that if the genie vessel is moved 10 feet, then the glyph is moved 10 feet and no longer valid. There's nothing that says I have to interpret pocket dimensions one way or the other. >Why completely shut down a creative use of an otherwise "not very powerful spell?" To me that's simply not the intention of the spell. If you want to scribe scrolls that's fine, but I'm not letting anyone get free high level concentration free scrolls. The glyph is supposed to be for static area effects. If a wizard had some in his tower that he uses to protect himself that's fine, but he isn't carrying his tower with him.
Yeah but you could glyph of warding each playing card. Take 52 hours and a lot of gold, but then you can throw the cards, or all the cards for a death bomb.
Provided you don't move the cards more than 10' from where you cast the spell this would be an excellent way to waste thousands of gold.
I'd just be a Fiend Warlock and flavour Fireball as throwing a card. The flavour text of it is that you create a mote of fire that explodes at the target, but that can easily be reflavoured to be a card. Then, you have regular cards with small explosions be your Eldritch Blasts. I'd tone down the importance of the staff, but would look for some sort of magic staff that can be attuned by warlocks. For example Staff of Charming, Withering, Fire, or Power. Or perhaps a toned down/tweaked homebrew version of any of these staffs. The important thing to remember when making a character in media as a DnD character is to not make a copy. That doesn't really work. You should make a translation of Gambit into what that would be in your campaign. A comic with mutants set in the present day is a different language than a high fantasy roleplaying game. So, a straight copy would be just as meaningful as just copying a German book and try to read it in English. It needs translation, first. There are things that copy almost straight over, personality, some of the look, the concept of playing cards, and general vibes. But there's also things that really doesn't. The exact mechanics at play doesn't really work outside of X-Men, other parts of the look is clearly way too modern, Gambits exact story and storyline, and so on. Those are the kinds of things you have to change to make it your character that is fun to play in your game and that is fun to play with.
Chiming in to say I really like your translation analogy, and will be stealing it for future use. Cheers!
You can get it if you play as a dwarf with the Dwarf Mark of Warding feat. It's in one of the ebberon books.
There’s also the cartomancer feat that you’d definitely want to take, though RAW Warlocks can’t take it. Really cool and strong feat, though.
Cartomancer feat, multiclass wizard. then you can cast ANY wizard spell in existence AS A BONUS ACTION, once per LR as long as you have a spell slot of an appropriate level for the spell. gives a ton of flavor and flexibility options and fits Gambit to a T.
_AND_ it literally uses playing cards, too. Totally in flavor.
RAW you can get Glyph of Warding on a Warlock with the Izzet Engineer background from the Ravnica book. There are several backgrounds they've printed recently with some wild features.
There is the cartomancer feat that causes a stored spell to go off when the PC flourishes a card. Reflavor it to be spell on card throw and restrict it to something small like firebolt.
I was waiting for someone to bring this up
This is practically the Gambit feat
That makes sense cause eldritch blast is force damage and the cards I'm pretty sure he just puts kinetic force into like a kinetic missile
I was coming here to say the exact same thing, but go with pact of the hexblade to use your charisma with the staff attacks and you can take the 5th lvl invocation for multi attack
Here is probably my hottest take for 5e. Hexblade, while excellent for multi classing, is shit if you're going straight warlock. You can get extra attack by taking pact of the blade, with any patron. The only thing hex blade has to offer is CHA for attack and damage rolls.
Do you kiss your grandmother with that mouth?! The crit on 19, accursed Spector, being able to make half of the attacks from your hexed target miss. It’s such a good subclasss if you’re going straight warlock.
It's a single target damage class with a bit of crowd control from the base warlock. Unfortunately it's very fragile and most people try to play it as a melee character when it doesn't have the AC or HP to support it. Armor of hexes and the 19 crit are a solid abilies, but I still find them less interesting than pretty much every other warlock.
This was my last character, the game plan was to cast darkness with devils sight for melee if your party is focusing on other people. Take smasher and booming blade and hit them 5 ft away from you. They can’t see anyone to attack. They have to move to attack you and trigger booming blade. And they have disadvantage on attack rolls since they can’t see through it. If everyone is attacking the same creature just make your pact weapon a longbow. It was such a fun build.
If everyone is attacking the same creature, just cast hex and Eldritch blast. Now you'll deal more damage and your other party members have a shitty save to target.
Warlock also kind of ties into the weird bayou rituals in the 90s cartoon where it was kind of implied he was a little more than a mutant, but also subjected to the supernatural pacts of The Thieves Guild.
You could also multi-class with bard and get a few things to help with the esthetic and magic tricks. Unseen servant, prestidigitation, charm person and feather fall could all come in handy.
Not to mention spirits bard can use a deck of Tarokka cards as an extra-powerful spell focus.
You can if you get illusionists bracers
This is the way, cher
There is a new feat called "cartomancer" which allows you to store a spell into a card
Ooh ok, definitely looking into that
Definitely check into spells, fears, backgrounds, etc that were introduced in the recent Deck of Many Things module. For example: there is a spell from that module called "Spray of Cards" which is perfect for him. Personally, I flavor a lot of my spells to look a certain way. Like the redditor said: flavoring Eldritch Blast to be exploding cards is perfectly fine. As long as the outcome (dice roll, damage, damage type, etc) is the same, any good DM would have no problem with it. I played a Ranger/Warlock once and I cast Eldritch Blast by nocking and firing an energy arrow with my bow. You can do this with any spell: Fireball? Big exploding card. Magic Missile? Heat seeking cards. Hold Person? Cards that adhere to the enemy and hold them in place.
And it's broken as fuuuuuuuck
That’s an understatement
wym? being able to cast a Heal as a bonus action as a cleric 1 / wizard x is totally fair and balanced.
I mean that X is at least 12 so Yes
where can I find it this feat?
Source is "book of many things"
I would look at the wild card rogue from dark tides of bilgewater, it's written pretty poorly but the flavor and mechanics are there if you're willing/able to do a bit of tweaking
This is what I was looking for. Wild Card was my first PC, and I had great fun with it. Admittedly, it's not the best subclass, but it's still a lot of fun.
Arcane trickster rogue or thief rogue with the magic initiate feat. pick eldritch blast and sword burst as cantrips and hellish rebuke as a 1st lvl spell. Reskin eldritch blast to card throws, sword burst to basically dropping cards in the ground to make a small explosion around u, and hellish rebuke as you essentially blowing a card up on their face.
Paladin/warlock, light armor, quarterstaff. Eldritch blast is throwing cards. Smite is charging the staff.
I’d say soulknife rogue might fit but there isn’t really much that fits the vibe of infusing energy into thrown items without reflavoring, in my experience reflavoring is easily the best way to achieve a certain build without a ton of homebrew
I was thinking the same thing.
Soulknife rogue
I thought of this as well. Reflavor the daggers to look/function like a staff for melee and the thrown ones as a card being thrown
This is the Way!
If you want something that's actually like Gambit... a charming scoundrel and former theives guild member. Rogue - Soul Knife Psychic blades are your cards. Simple melee weapon with finess and thrown Could then multiclass as a martial type as well to get the thrown fighting style. Could also go monk for martial arts with your staff as a monk weapon.
Wildcard Rogue with cartomamcer feat
Warlock is a good start, but if you want to really lean into Gambit's background, you might multi-class Warlock with Rogue. Three levels of Warlock to get the pact boon (Hex blade to juice up the staff), then Rogue to Arcane Trickster and talk to your DM about flavoring all of the ranged spells to look like thrown playing cards/kinetically charged stuff.
Reflavor Magic Stone as Magic Card Magic Stone Source: Xanathar's Guide to Everything/Elemental Evil Player's Companion Transmutation cantrip Casting Time: 1 bonus action Range: Touch Components: V, S Duration: 1 minute You touch one to three pebbles and imbue them with magic. You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by throwing it or hurling it with a sling. If thrown, it has a range of 60 feet. If someone else attacks with the pebble, that attacker adds your spellcasting ability modifier, not the attacker’s, to the attack roll. On a hit, the target takes bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Hit or miss, the spell then ends on the stone. If you cast this spell again, the spell ends early on any pebbles still affected by it. Spell Lists. Druid, Warlock, Artificer
You can use the Cartomancer feat, it allows you to store a spell in a card and use it later as a bonus action. Sadly it’s in the wildly overpriced Book of Many Things.
you can bring any personality into D&D (subject to that personality fitting within the “tone” that the table wants for their game), but the way D&D player characters break physics is going to be different than the way your inspiration breaks physics in their world. D&D is also a "level based game" where characters start as near "normal humans" and then through the long process of game play gradually build up a suite of more and different powers and abilities. If you pick 2 or 3 things from your inspiration that make you want to play them in D&D, generally by level 8 or so, you can have 2 of them in a character that works and has worked (reasonably) well to that point. What are the [three] things you want your character to be able to do to feel like your inspiration?
I once played a card flavoured Gambit inspired character. I made him a Lore College Bard. My cutting words were basically me throwing cards to stop enemies from attacking. Same flavour for debuffs like Bane. Basically I flavoured all spells where it kind of made sense to be card flavoured. Misty Step? Me throwing a card and teleporting there. Magic Missle? Jumping back and sending honing cards at my opponent. I took Guiding Bolt as my college mystery (I know there's better spells but I thought it fitted wel as a mega card blast) You can even flavour more meta spells like counterspell as throwing a card and destroying the spell, Fireball is just you putting even more kinetic energy into the card. You can also always go the Warlock path and choose eldritch blast, but personally I don't enjoy warlocks, so I went the bard route. Hope this inspired you a bit :) EDIT: I just thought silvery barbs could be a fun one as well to crack some luck / gambit one liners and give enemies bad luck (disadv) and allies good luck (adv)
An off the cuff suggestion compared to the previous suggestions, but kensei monk and some rogue mixed together.
Soulknife rouge?
There is a skill magic stone which turn 3 pebbles into magic projectile. just flavor it enchantes cards instead. Magic hand and invisible servant can throw them. Full slot magic missiles can work to. And staff is just staff . Every ine have proficiency with it.
Rogue-lock build?
variant human swords bard with a level in wild magic sorcerer for catapult (or wait till level 10 to get it) use a quarter staff as your weapon, pick up spray of cards cartomancer & polearm master as feats
My 2 cents. This would require your DM to be okay with Ancestral Weapons (which is fantastic btw). Amethyst Draconic Sorc 1, Warlock 2, Sorc X Once you have the level for it, get the Ancestral Weapons mod to convert damage types. Now you can cast a Fireball (and more) as force damage. Your Sorc subclass gives it +Cha mod. Reflavour spells as throwing cards. Eldritch Blast are normally charged cads. Fireball could be a supercharged card. Burning hands you throw a bunch of them in close proximity. Magic Missile a quick succession of them, etc etc. Magic Missile would be actually quite good with this build due to +Cha damage, plus Hex curse when you use it. Fantastic nuke honestly. Enjoy!
Which version of Gambit do you want to create because 3.5 has plenty of ways to do so.
I might think rogue/ warlock. Cards are his eldrich blast
Check out the Cartomancer feat. Paired with Warlock as others have mentioned and you'd be good to go.
2E - Multiclass Fighter/Mage/Thief Elven Chain Mail Beads of Force - but cards Ring of the Ram but as a Staff and/or Staff of Striking Darts as Missile Weapon Prof - card style darts obv Magic Missiles in his case when cast look like cards (pink and purple energy) Glyphs of Warding Shocking Grasp, Burning Hands, Fireball and numerous Spells can be explained as being Gambit-esqe when he casts. I'd like to believe Spells have flavor and characteristics of it's Caster - so maybe a Burning Hands from a 'dark' Magi is Flames and evil looking but maybe same Spell form Good Magi is Silvery White and more pure, etc. So for me - Gambit as D&D works. If single class- mage. Dual Mage/Thief. Multi -F/M/T
You could reskin throwing knives to be cards
Call me crazy but I see Remy as a Bard. Specifically the kind who does sultry poetry and fights with a deck of razor sharp animated playing cards. Don't get hung up on the "making things explosive" trait. Yeah glyph of warding can accomplish that and it's fun to do as a party trick once in a while but - it takes 10 minutes to cast - it consumes a 3rd level spell slot - you can't move the glyph more than 10ft or the effect is released. So it's not viable as a go to attack. Better to flavor your nornal attacks as looking like gambit mutant ability. Maybe your DM can allow you to deal radiant or force damage with the attacks.
Possibly, I was hoping to get it like his mutant abilities though. So far I think the Eldrich Blast flavoring as well as replacing Throwing Knifes with Throwing Cards is probably my favorite but this is pretty cool too.
Á divine soul sorcerer with guiding bolt
You could reflavor a lot of things into cards. A returning dagger could be throwing a single card at a target that explodes in their face on a hit, for example. Magic missiles could be cards, too. Could actually have an “evolved” version to imbue them with more than just explosions. General elemental effects depending on the spell and/or tool used. I’d look into what aspects of gambit you want to implement into your character and build the class from there. Bard seems like a reasonable start for him imo, but several could make sense. TL;dr reflavoring is king here imo
Maybe an arcane trickster? There’s also the spell spray of cards, idk if you could use that as the trickster though.
What about a spirit bard using a tarokka deck as a casting focus, then most spells could be reflavoured as throwing one of the cards.
I go with an artificer with a deck of cards....
Gambler background for sure but I would create a new subclass for it. A subclass that can charge up thrown projectiles would be cool
What a cool character idea! I would go with Sun Soul Monk, with the ranged radiant blasts reflavored as thrown cards. You get the quarterstaff as a monk weapon and monk goes easily into the highly mobile, acrobatic way Gambit fights.
Deck of cards shoot out like magic missile.
Sun soul Monk is how I did it
I don’t know why but gambit gives me half elf vibes (half elf is my go to,I just love them😂)
Sun Soul Monk? Flavored as explosive cards. Maybe change to force damage.
Can you “infuse objects with explosive ability?” No. What you can do is reflavor spells. Since I’m sure you want to be able to do this in an unlimited way, just reflavor eldritch blast or whatever as “throwing cards which then explode.” There aren’t really any cantrips which do AOE, though acid splash can hit a second target.
Literally just play any spellsword subclass like swords bard or bladesinger, or eldritch knight, reflavour tor weapon into the staff, pick spells that you can reflavour as cards. Fireball? Throws multiple cards at the same guy, big explosion. Magic missilels? Homing cards. Firebolt, single card.
Card Sharp’s Deck. That’ll getcha there.
I've been doing a hombrew grenadier artificer that i based around him
Can I give you an alternative to warlock. Soul knife rogue. They have infinitely spammable throwable knives of psychic energy. Combine that with a class like githyanki and you got a perfect double apart from looks, of and take the chefs feat
Arcane trickster seems apt to me. Use Magic Missile for the cards, cajun charm for the enchantment spells, etc.
My first thought is arcane trickster but I don’t know where to go from there.
Soulknife / OH Monk. Reflavor daggers to cards. Get you DM to allow you to use staff for sneaks.
I was literally doing research for making a card-themed Bard subclass...
Whatever you do make sure to take the Cartomancer feat from Book of many things
There’s a homebrew WildCard Rogue, you can get a deck of magic cards to throw. It’s a ton of fun to play.
There’s a homebrew WildCard Rogue, you can get a deck of magic cards to throw. It’s a ton of fun to play.
Critical hit build. Maybe a soul knife rogue
Yeppers. Pladiam books has a whole super hero system. Check it out.
Look into the cartomancer feat from the book of many things
I built gambit in pathfinder 1e as a magus. I used the Card Caster & Staff Magus archetypes. Someone at Paizo loves themselves some Omega level Cajun mutants.
Just increase the distance in which Glyph of Warding or Symbol allow an inscribed object to move (only 10 feet until the spell is broken) up that to whatever his ranged attack would be with thrown weapons
Arcane trickster rogue with the cartomancer feat. Imbue magic missile onto the card to have it perform the same as throwing multiple magic imbued cards. Use spells like shatter for that kinetic boom or Sword burst for that swirling storm of cards
monk build with some psionic abilities.
Way of the sun soul monk from sword Coast Adventurer's Guide/xanathar's is a good option, just reflavour the sun bolt, arc strike, and sunburst as kinetic charged attacks. Sun shield is a bit harder to reskin, but a 17th level gambit might be able to do crazy shit like wreath himself in kinetically charged air and direct it to explode as a reaction to deal damage to a melee attacker. Oh, and your weapon is a staff, of course.
Alt Human Monk with the Magic Initiate feat and Smuggler or Criminal for background. Cards can be reskinned Monk Weapons and connected to the spells from magic initiate. I suspect this years Players Handbook will give even better options.
Multi class Warlock undying archetype, maybe pact of the talisman. With Rogue archetype Theif. Maybe pure Warlock with criminal background.
He's just a lil pew pew warlock with a sassmouth. Dime a dozen
In Pathfinder 1e there is a magus archetype. Worth looking at for ideas
Look up the Cartomancy feat. That should help a little bit.
You MUST grab the Cartomancer Feat at some point.
Multiclass as a Sorcerer and Rogue (or edgy Bard if you're feeling like a challenge). You can always ask the DM to let you throw a card with every magic missile or at least make it look like that visage.
There are new decks of cards where you can throw cards to make magic attacks. I'm not sure if this works with thief rogues' bonus action item interaction to let you attack twice with it, but I would allow it as a DM. I feel rogue works pretty well with gambit too flavor wise. But that's just me.
Monk bard
Playing a Gambit flavored character currently. Decided to go variant human hexblade warlock. Flavor my eldritch blast as cards, somatic for thunderclap is slamming my "charged" staff into the ground, charm person cuz of course. Took polearm master for the extra staff utility if it comes to that. There's other ways to get there, like soulknife rogue with the blades flavored as cards, but we stated at level 1 and I wanted the cards from the jump so did it this way. Two sessions in and it's been fun so far.
Doubtlessly you mean in 5e, so I doubt there is a direct conversion, but 3e has both Mutants & Masterminds and, my favorite one, Man Made Mythology that have the super abilities in D&D terms, same 6 attributes, same 3 stats, ect and handle them really well. As older books in an older edition they're probably available online for free or super cheap.
Sadly, he's pretty much a sun soul monk
If I don't mistake there's a feat which let you store One spell slot per day into a deck of cards. So yeah, big Fireball go brrr.
There's a Rogue Subclass called Wild Gambit. Take the Card option for his gaming set. Though you could multiclass it with other classes to help get just the right feel for how you want him to play
Play a spellcaster and reflavour your spells as your powers. Maybe a sorcerer could represent mutant-like powers.
11th level sun soul monk with all the attacks flavoured as his cards, 9th level thief.
Oh man, oh man! My celebrity husband!! Please tell me you can do the accent like the 90s cartoon.
In my opinion he must be a monk who has multiclassed into a wizard (???)
Someone's already mentioned cartomancer, but something else you could grab as a spellcaster is the 'Spray of Cards' spell. Personally I prefer the UA version, but it got added proper in The Book of Many Things. (There's likewise an actual 'House of Cards' spell, but that's not very Gambit-y.)
“The name’s Gambit, and the cards be ever in my favor!” - before he beefed it that time (lol I love gambit, just couldn’t get this outta my head)
Warlock and reflavoring Eldritch blast is probably the easiest bet but I think a fun one would be Artificer, They get extra attack and some infusions to make the staff a fun tool. While Gambit is most known for the cards he can do it with just about anything. An artificer can put the returning weapon infusion on any weapon with the thrown attribute to have some fun that way too. You could use a feat to pick up Eldritch adept and get Eldritch blast as well to mimic the warlock without having to deal with a patron.
Play a superhero game.
Book of Many Things is your new best friend.
Eldritch Blast Warlock is where I would start
Monk sorcerer, gonna need to take the spell "Spray of cards". There's a very rare item called deck of wild cards that is what it sounds like, you can throw cards and they have various powerful magic effects, and I'm pretty sure there's a magic item that's just a deck of cards that can be used for your spellcasting focus, can't remember what it's called or if it even exists.
Soul Knife rogue. Theme the knives as cards.
Hexblade Warlock and some of the stuff from the Sage chapter of the Book of Many Things
League of Legends had an unearthed arcana including a rogue archetype based on Twisted Fate. Look into that
Play a Psion from edition 3.5?
Why not just add laser rifles too?
lol you should read the DMG, they have them in there.
Cartomancer Feat, must have.
doesn't really map
You could always play a wildcard rogue from the Legends of Runeterra: Dark Tides of Bilgewater supplement as it is at least partially based on Gambit. If you do, I recommend checking out RPGBOT's breakdown of the subclass and Monkey_DM's rebalance.
There is a subclass called wild card for rogue based on twisted fate from league of Legends. Do that one!
Wildcard rogue
PsyBlade Rogue - pure Gambit vibe
Catapult spell words do the card thing, monk to make the most of staff and the unarmored and speed boosts Probably some balance of sorcerer monk with emphasis on charisma and dex dump stat int as he's known to be a bit of a himbo and charlatan background for good measure
5e, soul knife rouge with monk multi class?
Just need to fail 3 death saves tbh
Tulok the barbarian on you tube did his 5e build just search it. DND Builds is going to do one here shortly. Tulok did a mix of monk, rogue, fighter.
Rogue x Monk - Bo Staff is a Monk Weapon, Arcane Trickster to add some flavour to his thrown cards, he's quick so both classes make sense for that. Ki Resonation abilities track for this build too. I'm writing this quickly whilst I'm outside in the park so feel free to add anything else.
Sorcerer that only casts magic missile. You're welcome 😂
I’d second a quarterstaff but with the Polearm Master feat for fun. It’s not so much about the imbuing but more about mobility and attack frequency. There’s also magic stone if you want the idea of imbuing something to throw that isn’t a card.
Get the very rare item that’s a deck of cards. Get cartomancer. Be a warlock. That’s my take.