The "Decapitator" Video Script (Mechanics Mondays #20 Wednesday Edition)

Let's face it, hit points, saving throws, damage, all that… it sometimes takes way too much time, especially at high levels. What if you could just avoid all of it and simply end a bunch of annoying minions with a flick of a wrist?

I’ve been sitting on this combo for a good while, indecisive whether to make an entire character around it or including it in these Mechanics Mondays Tuesday Wednesday edition videos. You can clearly tell which way I decided to go.

It initially got brought to my attention by a member of my Patreon Discord server, who expressed desire to remain anonymous. Shoutout to that person, you know who you are…

But, before we discuss the mechanics of massive wombo-combo decapitations, make sure you chop off the heads of YouTube algorithm down below. The less heads we have to deal with, the easier it gets.

Core Mechanics

All right, let’s go over the required ingredients first. Level 14 Chronurgy Wizard is a bare minimum for that Convergent Future feature. Preferably, you would be a level 17 Wizard to be able to cast Shapechange, but you can get away with the Magic Jar + Nystul Magic Aura as an alternative. A logistically tricky one, because you need to transform yourself into one of the weakest creatures there are. In other words, your Strength score needs to be as low as possible. Spirit Troll makes sense for a level 14 Wizard. For level 17, I think Draconic Shard from Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons fits the best – look, it even has the sword in its official artwork. This fits the bill perfectly, because Vorpal Sword is the last piece of the puzzle, a tool needed for a career decapitator like yourself.

Both Shapechange and Magic Jar specifically allow you to use your class features. This is key, because without that Convergent Future feature, going through all the rest of the trouble is pointless. OK, now that you’ve turned yourself into one of these physical weaklings, your Strength modifier is -5. You are not proficient with the Vorpal Sword, so you basically need to roll a natural 20 to hit any target with an AC of 15 or above. As it turns out, the overwhelming majority of enemies you encounter at such high levels have more than 15 AC anyway.

Of course, Convergent Future ensures that you do, in fact, get that critical hit when you need it. Vorpal Blade is there to turn that nat20 from some crappy ol’ boring damage into a flashy magic move that separates the enemy’s head from the body in a spectacular fashion. And if you’re worried about exhaustion, both Draconic Shard and Spirit Troll are immune to that nasty condition, so there’s no downside at all.

Complications

There’s seemingly a lot to unpack here, obviously. The Vorpal Sword limitations of creature size, slashing damage immunity and legendary actions are obvious. That’s why I specifically said “minions” at the beginning of this video – you are not killing a boss with this fancy setup, you’re merely getting rid of some of its henchmen. Hopefully.

On the flipside, this is almost a perfect tool for a sadistic DM to kill off a player or two. I’m truly sorry to all of your out there whose DMs watch my videos.

Now, both Spirit Troll and Draconic Shard are incorporeal creatures with 1 Strength, immunity to grapple, they deal non-physical damage types, so it isn’t unreasonable to wonder whether they’re even able to swing the Vorpal Beheader around.

If you think the sword would just clip right through their claws, well, there isn’t a good way around this really. But there are fun ways. The most hilarious and meme-worthy approach is to level up just a bit more and turn yourself into a Demilich. There’s something poetic about a deranged undead skull creature carrying a sword in its mouth and decapitating the mobs with it. In a similar fashion, Flameskull can do the same thing for a level 14 Chronurgy Wizard.

Magic Jar + Nystul Magic Aura bring forth their own issues. Nystul masks any non-humanoid and turns it into a humanoid, which is required to possess any of those creatures. Legendary Resistances and high Charisma saving throw bonus problems will give you headaches, no way around it. You’re also met with a whole another issue of juggling around the containers and bodies and preserving your soul in the process. As one of the long-time viewers explained, you pretty much need to become a pseudo-Voldemort to accomplish this elegantly enough. By the way, this comment alone can be a whole another video on its own. Shoutout to blarg minton by the way, I see your comments mate, I see them.

Besides all that, this kind of setup is clearly super hard to pull off as a player. You need a DM willing to put appropriate creature types somewhere in the world for your Magic Jar or Shapechange to work as you need them to. You need to get a Vorpal Sword too. If the DM is lenient and you get all your treats, you’re still running into the Vorpal Sword’s own limitations.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The more I think and write and talk about all this, the more it seems to me this video will result in dozens of mercilessly executed player characters out there. For a DM, just handwaving all the aforementioned requirements and limitations and roadblocks is not even an inconvenience. However, basically  all players characters are vulnerable to Vorpal Sword’s natural 20s.

I’ve recently played in a Halloween session as a Wizard and the DM gave the buffed-up homebrew Vorpal Scythe to the big baddie. It decapitated not just on natural 20, but 19 too. We all got our heads lopped off by the end of the session. It was hilarious, because he rolled in the open and most of our deaths were to the fateful nat20. I think there was only one 19 in there, don’t really remember…

But, that’s a topic for another video. The script for this video is available on my Patreon page under the Fireball tier. It’s not mandatory, it’s 100% optional, especially since I basically just read it out loud in this video, but if you find the Patreon perks worth the trouble, worth your time and worth your money, chuck a few bucks my way and support me over there.

Special shoutout to all of my current patrons, thank you for your continued support. A couple of updates and a new character are coming out finally, so get ready and keep an eye out on those notifications. If you haven’t yet, please decapitate those engagement buttons down below, thanks.

With everything said and done, MMM out, talk to you soon!