Demesne Livestream, Out of Story Episode 13: Top Five Most Requested Stat Blocks! (Patreon)

Just a fun, silly thing I posted where this story is available publicly.

Hello Internet friends and welcome back to our campaign! The new season is starting soon, and so as a refresher, I thought I'd give you all a treat and show you the stats of the characters we'll be playing with. Not the whole spread of course,  we don’t have the time to go Adjective by Adjective and go over every piece of equipment and why. See our old videos if you need that kind of refresher! Hopefully, this will be enough to sate you number crunchers out there.

As for you munchkins in the audience, I’ve said it before, but I am NOT playing Lori as an optimized build! This is a story campaign. We’re role-playing, not roll-playing. That said, don’t stop with the suggestions! I always need builds for villains, mwahaha!

Now, for all those tuning in for the very first time, or already know but need a reminder, we’re using the Demesne system for our character builds. I know Dungeon is more popular, but honestly, I like what Demesne did to improve on Dungeon 3.5 Edition. Evidently Dungeon thought so to, as they clearly cribbed a lot of stuff from it in Dungeon Fifth Edition. And more importantly for the campaign, Demesne has simplified skills and opposed checks, making it far easier to play on the livestream.

For those who don’t play Demesne… first, why not? And secondly, I’m going to leave a little note here on the screen to explain what stat does what, but to keep it brief 10 is average, 20 is max possible without magic, all are built from a hundred points each, and Shana has PTSD that have lowered her stats.

So, without further ado, here are the top five most asked for stats.

Now, as is abundantly clear… Lori has shit memory. If it weren’t for her ‘Formally Educated’ and ’Voracious Reader’ Adjectives that give her a boost to her knowledge checks and let her use Intelligence instead of Memory when recalling things she learned from books, the infrastructure of her demesne would be far worse off than it is.

Some of you are no doubt surprised she has such a high charisma score since she’s… well, Lori, but if you recall, Charisma is for force of personality, and she definitely has that. Most of her problems with people is in relating with them, since she has a Connection score as bad as her Memory. Her Bad Cop Adjective also means she can only use her Charisma score on Intimidate checks, not Socialize checks. Yes, I still call it Bad Cop even though they changed the name! I like it!

Now, people keep telling me I should pick Adjectives that let her use her Intelligence score in place of literally every other score she has to make, but again, this is a story campaign. And yes, I know people are going to suggest she start writing names down so that she can technically use Voracious Reader to remember people… that’s always been part of the plan, but we’re not at that point of the story yet.

Okay, next up, we have…

As you can see, her Traumatized and Mentally Scarred Adjectives have done a number on our little woobie. I gotta tell you, most of her Adjectives are giving her serious debuffs, or else stats like her Vitality would be higher. Putting numbers doesn’t really show the full picture, since Shana’s story comes off better in her characterization than her stats.

And yes, her Connection and Memory are stupidly high because her coping mechanism is taking care of people, so she reaches out and remembers everyone. And obviously with both her low Resolve and Charisma being what it is, she’d never win any opposed checks with Lori in things like Intimidate or, unfortunately, Socialize.

Lady Karina, as people have been calling her for a long time, is… not that bad, actually. Her Intelligence is only that low because she’s got Uneducated as an Adjective. Like Shana, she’s not going to overpower Lori with the power of Cute any time soon, but… she actually has a reasonably good chance of wrestling her to the ground. Catching seels makes you swole, apparently. Of course, she’s a child, so she gets a malus when grappling with adults. It’s one of those quirks of Demesne that her numbers are read straight when dealing with anything but an adult of her own species, where it’s adjusted. Too much trouble to house rule it, so I’m just going by the rules as written.

But seriously, she has those stats because it’s the minimum she needs to be able to consistently take down seels with the Adolescent Template by herself.  Admittedly, this is with the bonuses she gets from her Patient Hunter and Seel Hunter Adjectives, which bump up her numbers if she takes a few turns waiting.

Yes, it’s finally revealed why Mikon sucks at romancing Rian, Umu and Riz: Connection is her dump stat. But more seriously, it’s her dump stat because she doesn’t really need it from a story perspective. Most of those she deals with besides the main cast are casual coworkers, like the other weavers, or members of her family. Not much call to really have much Connection, unlike Riz who always has yet another buddy she knows if she needs help with a skill check or work to do.

Most of her Adjectives have to do with her livelihood, so she has Skilled: Weaver and Master: Distaff. She actually has a grand total of ONE Adjective related to her romance plot, which is Passionate and is there more for flavor that the boost to Will it gives.

No, I will not munchkin her to be a harem protagonist who gets everyone. Why would I want to munchkin that?

And finally, we have…

As you can see, Rian is only Level 22. For equipment, he doesn’t have much. He’s got a Longsword with no upgrades because we didn’t get any Iron Shard drops, and a Machette, which have Str and Dex scaling, respectively. His equipment is nothing special, just some Commoner’s Pants and Commoner’s Shirt, no gloves or head gear. His End means that he has the Stamina to make power stance swings with both weapons, and they both have pretty much equal stat scaling.

To be honest, I wish I hadn’t started with a Wretch while making him, since he doesn’t need Int, Faith or Mind because he’s not going to be a spellcasting class, but oh well. No shield, because that just engenders passivity.

I really don’t see why people keep claiming he’s an isekai, which is wrong and kinda silly. I mean, look at him. He’s not equipped with a Grand Lunarblade or a Bifurcating Crystal Twinblade. Where’s all these weird Rian conspiracy theories coming from?

And that's all the time we have for today. See you next week, when we start with the next season of the campaign. If you liked this video, please like, subscribe, ring that notification bell, comment down below, leave a review and thank you for support me on Patreon. I am your host and we'll see you guys next time. Bye!