Generic Monster School
Facility Notes
School type: School Campus
Status: Public Knowledge
Resources: Well-Equipped
School Type: University
History: Established
Build Notes
Origin: Human (+500 CP)/Social Butterfly
Drawbacks: 2 random roles in the facilities section (100 though this is in the base stipend section), Corrupt (100), School's Out (100), Second String (300), Learn or Die (400), No Survival Instinct (600)
Budget: 1500 (Base stipend) + 1500 (Drawbacks) = 3000
Perks: Butter Wouldn't Melt (Free), Looker (Free), Pants On Fire (Free), He said She Said (100), Foul Weather Friend (100), Lots of Noblesse (100), Casanova (200), Leader of the Pack (200), Weird Science (400), Catch On In A Flash (400), Hunter (400), Just Give Me One Chance (400), Teachable Moment (200), Apple A Day (200), Team Player (200)
Items (500 point stipend): Hunters Kit (200), Small Friends (200), Student Handbook (100), Notes Notebook (100)
Out of Context Beholder Supplement
Origin: Death Tyrant (Free),
Drawbacks: Boss Rush (600), X-Rated (100), Far-Mind (100), Behold Your Foes (600), Bounty (100), Knowledge Lockout (100), Sore Thumb (200), Everything is Fine Now (300), I Must Nap (100), Kick the Cook (100)
Budget: 1000 (stipend) +2300 (Drawbacks) = 3300
Perks: Eye Rays (Free), Experience (Free), Alien Mentality (100), Magical Anatomy (200), Regional Effects (400), I Dream Of (600), Undeath (Free), Negative Energy Master (100), Lord of Death (200), Necromancer (300), Anti Magic Expert (200), Paranoid (400), Eye Tyrant (600), Flurry of Rays (200)
Buffed Perks (all Free): Life-Creating Dreams, Master of All You See, Control, Lord Of Your Lair, Necromantic Region, Restorative Killer, Harbinger of the End
Build #1 Recap
Magic Essence Jump
Origin: Archmage, Sorcerer Lord, & Lich
Perks: Essence Entity (Free), Multi Essenced (400), Supernatural Student (Free), Mixer (100), Sage (200), Magically Universal (300), Death Sense (Free), Jumper the Destroyer (100), Undead Sovereign (200), Jumper Reaper (300), Supernatural Impressions (Free), Jumper the Builder (100), Leadership Material (200), Jumper's Legacy (300)
Items: Wand (Free), Local Spellbook (200), Spooky Ring (Free), Book of the Dead (100), Royal Specter (Free), Melting Pot (100)
A Human Of Earth
Origin: Major Veil Straddler (200)
Perks: Magic (Free), Troyverse Physiology (100), Permeability (Free), New In Town And It Gets… Better? (100), Well Traveled (200), Awakened Talent (300),
Items: Magical Focus (Free), Citizenship (100), Exotic Transport (200), Grimoire (300), A Romantic Gift (100)
Build Notes
To start things off: no warehouse, no body-mod. I'm not saying no as a hard-rule/hard-ruling forever, but this is not a standard chain so we're not acting like it. Beyond all of this, nothing here is immediately what Lalo really wants. It's all good, sure, but none of it addresses what Lalo hoped for. TBH I thought of doing a very different second jump that was more keyed to Lalo's desires, but then I changed my mind and went for a very different route.
Now let's talk about the actual build. Whoa a lot of stuff in this one. 6000 points across both jumps. Plenty of diverse drawbacks, a NICE number of new perks, though this isn't a "You have a slew of new powers" type build it's more a; "Take your personality and other skills and make them better" type build.
This build is amusing. It is split… perfectly between two big things. The Monster School build is ENTIRELY non-power perks, with literally the only exception being the Hunter perk. Hunter is a baby kill-anything perk, with the added buff of having a "Fuck you, no rezzes." ability tacked on for good measure. It is really good. It has a baby drawback that lasts the jump, but that is counteracted by the alien mentality beholder perk. With the exception of the 20x learning booster (wild, dude), and the supernatural stuff of Hunter, every direct power in this build comes from the Beholder Out of Context supplement.
I started my focus in Monster School intending to grab every meaningful social perk. I did that. My jumpers, especially self-inserts, are HEAVILY into social stuff and Lalo is no exception. I also ended up grabbing a bunch of capstones, just unintentionally. I knew I was gonna grab both of the nerd capstones, weird-sciences and a 20x learning boost are 100% worth getting and getting early. Kill anything perks are good, and I ended up really liking Just Give Me A Chance. I chose items that were simple QOL stuff, the hunter's kit blends well with the hunter perk, having a nice guide to settings is always good, and Small Friends is such a dope item in general. I chose the 200 teacher perk I picked because Lalo can already do quirky teaching stuff and giving him another helpful teaching ability is a nice nod to that, as well as a way to make it easier for him to share magic if he feels like doing so.
Out of Context Beholder is, famously (if you follow me on Reddit) an OoCS of mine that I just REALLY fucking like. I've always been a big beholder person, and I took a lot of drawbacks so that I could devise a devious build for this supplement. Lalo is an undead creature, and we're keeping that in mind here. I originally wanted to do solitary beholder origin, but ultimately I thought it'd be nice to stay thematic with Lalo, and have him be undead in this jump. I am giving myself the 400 points in Generic Monster School as opposed to giving Lalo two distinct alt-forms for the price of one so to speak, and I think that decision is fair since Lalo also doesn't grab any monster perks from the monster school jump.
So beholders are a lot of fun. Beholders can fly, which is an underrated thing even in a jumpchain, and beholders have access to that devastating slate of eye rays. Beholder eye rays are impressively diverse, allowing them to easily navigate a range of circumstances. Beholders can use disintegration and necrotic (and this one comes in two flavors: a weaker one that is guaranteed to do damage, and a fuck you, fucking die one that is save or suck but if you suck then it deals a wild amount of damage in one burst) rays as attacks, they can charm people, they can put them to sleep, they can fill them with fear, slow them, paralyze them, or even petrify them. Beholders also have anti-magic abilities and can use telekinetic rays. Beyond this there's finally a powerful and weird dreaming power that beholders have that Lalo now has. Lalo's version of it that can allow him to dream up creatures loyal to him, which is really just an evolution of both his necromancy and his melting power, and he can dream up resources and raw materials. I have plans for eye-stuff and I originally had those plans for Lucas but I decided to go to different places for Lucas and I never ended up using some of my bigger, sillier plans, so I'm giving some of them to Lalo (Lucas's story isn't done, but I am a prisoner of my muse and my muse wants me to focus on LIL).
One of the… not-so-subtly OP perks in the Beholder OoCS is Magic Anatomy. The ability to use eye abilities channeled through other body parts is pretty wild when you have a nice number of eye abilities. It's not super useful for something like x-ray vision, but if you have a heat-beam or the ability to paralyze or petrify people and can channel it through your fingers… Yeah. Another really strong example is if you take the anti-magic central cone of a standard beholder and just point at a wizard and say "No". It's also much better than having a cone that fucks with your magic if you can precisely channel it and target specific folks.
Some small things with regards to undeath: Lalo's necromancy is growing now. It was mentioned offhandedly that Lalo could raise monsters as simple undead, like actual zombies and skeletons. That was reinforced here, as is Lalo's ability to heal undead, and also his ability to be left alone by them. That "Undead leave you alone" bit… COULD come in handy in future jumps. There are jumps where that bit WILDLY changes a setting. Generic Necromancer has a drawback that this allows you to cheese, two of the central enemies someone finds in Minecraft are undead who'd be affected by this, and a lot of different zombie and vampire jumps have undead this would affect. D&D and Pathfinder, and the undead in them, would both be significantly affected by this as well.
One amusing note is that Lalo is now WILDLY more dangerous in one-on-one encounters because of the eye-rays and magic anatomy. Lalo could reasonably fire as many as 12 beams (10 finger beams and 2 eye beams) in a human form at someone, and that is a shocking amount of damage. Most beholder beams are save-or-suck; if you save nothing happens and if you fail you get fucked, but the enervation ray is NOT that. You get hit by it no matter what, and if you save you take half damage. In terms of D&D stuff, the lowest amount of damage that would be is 96 (8d8x12, and the lowest would be 8 damage, 12 times). That is a fucking nightmare. And if someone wants to use that in other, less-violent ways, they can essentially guarantee someone will fail any sort of save-or-suck ability by just bashing them with it repeatedly at comical speeds. Funnily enough someone in their beholder form can do this too, since OoCS Beholders don't determine their beams at random and actually pick what they fire when they fire.
As far as specific Monster School notes go…
Charisma origin. Gonna be real, with any semblance of a self-insert jumper, from me, you should expect me to pick charisma if it's an option. I went all in on charisma early, and I regret nothing. Lalo is now even more handsome, and has stronger social skills. Immunity to truth-telling stuff, even magical/supernatural truth-telling stuff (assuming you read the perk the way I do) is neat and stuff that rewards simple kindness is also really good.
Charisma synergies; Charisma is solid in general, Lalo has some healthy leadership STUFF already and when I mix that with something like Lalo's ability to charm people we start to get a little nasty. Some special notes about charm rays from beholders is that you don't get advantage on a charm save if you're already hostile with rules as written, and if you get charmed and don't see what is happening to you then you don't know you were charmed when the effect ends. That makes a charm RAY much stronger than something like the charm person spell or the friends cantrip. When you couple it with something like magic anatomy you get something quite fun out of it.
Beyond the social origin… Hunter is really good. It's got a lot of nice stuff to it, and is just a beast of a perk. I grabbed big brain perks, a teaching perk, and a perk that makes people receptive to giving Lalo a shot. I also have stuff for sociality in other ways, from making Lalo good at teaching others to teaming up with others. Yeah I'll be real I think this is a SOLID build even exempting other stuff from jump #1 or the Beholder OoCS.