[3.5] building Melania -- Elden Ring

[cython]

I have been wondering how anyone would create a build of Melania from Elden Ring in an effective 3.5 build (for those who are unaware but still curious, google her "Melania Elden Ring"). My personal take is to use her as an antagonist to a well-rounded party.

My first thought would be a Fighter/Dervish build with "A Thousand Cuts" ability to mimic her "water dance" ability (effectively jumping to a player doing a large number of attacks).

However, I might miss other possibilities as I am not a 3.5 guru.

All core + supplements except the Tome of Battle and Magic are allowed in the game. While the Tome of Battle is out in the game, it might be the exception, provided it provides a faithful representation of Melania.

Please let me know how you guys might approach this build.

[AvatarVecna]

Are you looking for something mechanically appropriate, lore faithful, or both?

[AsuraKyoko]

Reproducing her abilities without ToB is definitely going to be tricky, and ToB has things that are basically perfect representations of her abilities; Diamond Mind's Time Stands Still is a pretty good way of recreating Waterfowl Dance, for example.

A question: are you also looking to include her Goddess of Rot phase in her abilities? Scarlet Aeonia could be emulated with something like the spell Slime Wave, perhaps, but getting that is a little bit tricky, unless you want to devote a bunch of levels to being a spellcaster.

[AvatarVecna]

One thing worth mentioning: D&D characters tend to be glass cannons, obliterating enemies very quickly, while elden ring bosses tend to have enormous health pools relative to player damage. Malenia healing offers a nice solution to this since we can bake some serious survivability in: Wrathful Healing is a +3 weapon enchantment from Enemies And Allies that heals you for half the damage you deal when you hit with the weapon. That's probably a better ratio than Malenia's damage-to-healz is in the game, but it would allow her to essentially full heal on any full attack, so the party has to bring enough firepower to bear to burn her down in a single turn.

Seconding the previous poster's suggestion of Time Stands Still, it's basically perfect. Blood In The Water stance also seems fitting for Malenia, rewarding making a whole bunch of attacks at once.

[AsuraKyoko]

Thinking about it a little bit more, the Eternal Blade prestige class grants you most of her non-Rot abilities: access to Devoted Spirit (her lifesteal), Diamond Mind (Time Stands Still, etc.), and Iron Heart (Iron Heart Surge, etc.). She can pretty easily enter it via Crusader, which is a pretty fitting class for her anyways. The class also gives you a mentor of sorts (though in this case, the mentor is funky ghost thing, instead of an old badass samurai dude)

Warblade is also a good entry into the class, and will give you access to Tiger Claw for things like Raging Mongoose and Blood in the Water.


EDIT:
Alternatively, if you are really opposed to using Tome of Battle, you could probably do something like Blade of Orien or Telflammar Shadowlord, and flavor the teleportation abilities as just her moving really fast. Both give you the ability to make a full attack after teleporting, so you can combine them with things that let you teleport as less than a standard action to get multiple full attacks per round (Blade of Orien has restrictions, but also provides its own move-action teleportation)

[pabelfly]

Wrathful Healing is a +3 weapon enchantment from Enemies And Allies that heals you for half the damage you deal when you hit with the weapon.

Unrelated, but this recommendation is perfect for a character at my table. Thank you very much.

[Maat Mons]

I’m not familiar with Elden Ring, but for implementing a mobile melee character in 3.5, I like Pounce and Travel Devotion much better than Dervish. One of my favorite bases is Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian 1 / Paladin of Freedom 4. It gets you Pounce, a Turn Undead pool to fuel Travel Devotion, immunity to Compulsions, and a potentially hefty bonus to saves.

[cython]

Many thanks for the responses.

I wanted to reproduce Melania's tactics mechanically (1st phase).

The sword's ability to regenerate for every hit should synergize with her ability to inflict many hits per round.

The Travel Devotion/Pounce combo sounds nice, but it deviates from Melania's sword dance ability, which is more AoE. I am not saying it is not effective; on the contrary, it might be too effective and counter to the desire of the DM, who may not want to kill a player. In my mind, the Dervise dance would allow her to move quickly between the players, inflicting to (almost) everyone a hit, and thus, the overall effect mimics an AoE without necessarily killing a player.

Thus effectively, Melania's strategy is to stay alive by hitting often and thus regaining health.

A "thousand cuts" of dervish and an "Island in Time" of Eternal Blade appear very appealing. However, I need to balance the rest of each class's abilities.

My initial thought was something along the lines of:

Rogue [with fighter feats instead of sneak attack] 8 / Dervish 10

Feats:
Flaw --> Improved Initiative
1) Weapon Focus
3) Combat Reflexes
6) Deft Opportunist
9) Elusive Target
12) Power Attack
15) RobilarÂ’s Gambit
18) ...
Fighter feats + Rogue
1) Dodge
2) Evasion, Mobility
4) Uncanny Dodge (keeps Dex vs invisible attackers), Combat Expertise
6) Improved Toughness
8) Improved Uncanny Dodge, Improved Toughness

The "Improved Toughness" is kind of needed to ensure that the character stays alive long enough. RobilarÂ’s Gambit is part of ensuring she will have more chances of producing hits to heal herself.

[Job]

You seem to have it all figured out.

But she might also qualify for Quasi-deity status depending on your reading of the lore. That nets you a boatload of hitpoints and relevant resistances/immunities.

[Unoriginal]

If you want to portray Malenia, you're gonna need the Deities & Demigods.

Also worth noting that Malenia is a blind triple-amputee whose equipment is mostly made out of unalloyed gold, while her prostethic limbs are *entirely* made of unalloyed gold... yet she's still strong and skilled enough to move a sword longer than a regular human faster than eyes can see.