In a world where spontaneous human combustion is a thing, and when it happens, the people turn into monsters, there is a special elite set of stations. Station 8 was created because every other station either has allegiances to their area, the Hijima corporation, or the religious order, and everyone is supposed to be working to figure out the cause of spontaneous human combustion, but they aren’t and Station 8 is tasked with figuring it out. That’s where new recruit, Shinra Kusakabe, is assigned. He’s a 3rd Generation pyrokinetic which mean that he can create and manipulate fire. Can he complete his dream of becoming a hero and help figure out what happened years ago when he lost his mother and brother in a fire?

This is a pretty standard anime in that it has a big ensemble cast of characters who all get their moment to shine, there is a lot of fighting and completely absurd situations that happen. There’s humor and fan service, and it kind of meanders towards the main plot at times, introducing new characters along the way, and then will rush through other parts of the plot. That said, I like the story. I think that it’s fun, and it’s not an anime that I’m going to think about after watching it, but I’ve had a good time watching it, and I feel like in 2020 that’s what I really want, and more so when it starts to get darker earlier, it’s just nice to have a show that you can pay attention to but doesn’t demand all of your brain power.

The cast of characters is what really makes this show. I think that the villains, while mainly just monsters, work pretty well, and I like the whole of station 8. They’ve done a solid job in the show of giving them all their moments, though the show does focus mainly on Shinra. There are plenty of other characters, like Arthur, Iris, Maki, and more that are getting a lot of chance to shine. While Shinra often gets to take down the biggest bad guy, in combat, it’s not like some anime and shows in general where the side characters get beaten up and the main character then comes in and saves the day for everyone. In this, everyone is very good at what they do and fairly competent about it, as competent, if not more than the main character.

The story itself makes a fair amount of sense actually, in an anime way. I think that they do a solid job of building the world out further and further as they go, which is really great because they don’t do a knowledge dump on you at the start. You learn more as you go, possibly matching when the creator learned the stuff or decided on stuff, but it works. And I think that it really is so character driven around Shinra most of the time, it also works. He has good motivation for what he is doing, why he is doing it, and an attitude that makes sense for the story and for the problems that he needs to overcome.

Let’s talk a bit about fan service. I wrote about Food Wars! last time and the fan service for Fire Force is no where near on the same level. There is a character who will lose articles of clothing at times and shots of cleavage, but for the most part the losing of the clothing is more for comedic affect than for fan service reasons. That isn’t to say that there aren’t characters who are drawn the way they are drawn so as to be fan service almost every time they are on the screen. That is certainly something that is the case for a few of the female characters. There is also an episode where there is a nude calendar shoot, but that is all the male characters in the calendar, and also no nudity is shown.

Overall, I think this is a pretty classic anime in terms of what it does. And I like that about it. It’s a show that doesn’t pretend it’s going to go that deep, but it also isn’t a random nonsensical plot to it. I would recommend this one to most anime fans, I think some will find it a bit to light and goofy for their taste, but I think that this is a pretty safe anime for most people to watch and enjoy.

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In my opinion, the best starting point is to look and determine if your character is a “support” or “attacker” character. Now, It’s possible to be a blend of both, and even if you lean towards being a support character, you should have at least an attack spell option, and if you’re an attacker, you should have some more support style spells for non-combat situations. It’s very tempting to go all in on either side, but there will be times when you need the other spells.

For example, if you’re a support character and you’re in combat, you’re at the point where most of the party is down but the monster is mainly dead. If you take a good hit from the monster, you’re probably dead as well, and that would end the combat with you all losing the fight. You could get someone else back on their feet with a couple of hit points, but at this point in time, you’re more apt to survive an attack than they would be. Do you just do the support thing and heal someone, watch them get knocked out again, heal them again, and keep that up until you run out of spells? That doesn’t sound like that fun at the table, and it also doesn’t really sound like it’s going to win the combat for your adventuring party. So you can attack, but you didn’t take a good attack spell or any attack spells, so you’re kind of stuck just healing.

The big thing that’s happening in the scenario is that you’re creating a prolonged and possibly stalemated battle for a chunk of time. And while attacking might not be what your character would normally do, a good attack would potentially end that stalemate. But it’s going to cause people to have more fun at the table because it isn’t a cycle of revive, monster knocks out, revive, monster knocks out, and so on and so forth. Adding in attack spell doesn’t stop you from being mainly support, but it can keep the game moving and keep it more interesting. The same goes for the flip side, maybe you’re a fire wizard and you’re up against a dragon that is resistant to fire damage. First, your DM’s a bit of a jerk if it happens all the time, but now you’re out of combat, so what do you do? You can attack, but it won’t do as much, but if you had a support spell or two, you’d be able to still interact with the combat. Or, maybe you want to be the best in combat, why not have your signature attack spell(s) but then also have the ability to support yourself so that you can truly be the best in combat and not have to rely on others for that aid.

This is all good to think about when picking your spells, but not actually picking spells. Let’s go with a Wizard as an example like I did in a previous article on magic. Our Wizard is fairly smart, 16 intelligence, so we get start with 4 spells known and 3 cantrips at first level. We have 2 first level spell slots as well, and I want to be an attacking focused Wizard. I believe in calling down the powers of the elements to smite my enemies and I might like fire a bit too much.

When I’m looking at cantrips, I know for sure that I want to get at least one, if not two attacking cantrips out of the three. These, at low levels, are going to be my go to spells (and even at higher levels), so I want something that feels like a signature ability that I can theme my character off of, or that has fire, because I’m a pyro. So the first cantrip is going to be Fire Bolt, a good attack spell with really good range, 120 ft. That allows me, since I’m a wizard and am always going to have lower armor class and hit points, to be at a safe distance for attacking and not being attacked. The other attack one I’m going to take is Thunderclap, this one is a bit of a jerk spell, because it can hit my allies, but it’s an area of affect, so that is a nice way to hit a lot of creatures if need be. Finally, a utility cantrip of light, simple spell, even if I have darkvision, that doesn’t mean I can see in pitch black, so good utility for outside of combat. Now we’re onto the first level, and with four known spells at first level, I’m going to consider a couple more attack spells, but again, we’re a pretty quishy character, so I’m going to grab shield as a spell. That is going to help keep you up. Witch Bolt is a good ranged spell that does lightning damage. Longstrider is going to be my first enhancing spell for my abilities on the combat field with an extra 10 feet of movement. Magic Missile is then my final one, a spell that doesn’t do massive damage, but it will do consistent damage.

Let’s break down what I picked, I’ve already done some why. Thunderclap and Fire Bolt both give me consistent spells to attack with. Witch Bolt and Magic Missile give me damage when I need a boost of damage. Magic Missile is the consistent damage when I need to finish everything off. The damage ones are definitely the most obvious spells, the others are just fairly obvious, but what I’m trying to create with my attacking wizard is a situation where I can keep out of range, Longstrider, boost my armor class to avoid an attack as needed, Shield, and be able to see outside of combat or even in combat if I’m fighting something with truesight or blindsight. But with so few spell slots available to me, I’m not going to use the first level spells for attacks all that often, it’ll mainly be for shield and then I’ll use my cantrips for attacking. There is a downside for that because cantrips aren’t as good for attack spells, but with a fairly high intelligence, it helps out the odds.

And, I only picked 4 of my 7 spells as attack spells. But even with that, I have a variety of damage, thunder, fire, lightning, and force, so I can get around most damage reductions. And while Fire Bolt will be my signature, the others have good utility for combat. Thunderclap has an area of affect, Magic Missile will never miss, and Witch Bolt can hang around for a while and continue to do damage. When I get to hire levels, I already have picked some utility damage spells, so I can focus in on more fire damage because I know that is going to be my signature element, but I have enough that I can still be effective if fire isn’t.

And when picking utility spells, I looked, besides the cantrip, as to what can boost my effectiveness in combat. Sure, I might want to use magic missile a one of my first level spells, but Longstrider allows me to avoid, which, again, I’m squishy, cause I’m a Wizard, and Shield is there for the same reason. I can’t be an awesome fighter if I’m constantly getting knocked out. At higher levels I’ll be able to improve upon those options as well with spells like Blur which make me even harder to hit.

I can flip this as well, and while I’d probably still keep a spell like Fire Bolt and Magic Missile (it’s kind of a signature of Dungeons and Dragons for a spell), I’d focus more on what can help other people. Longstrider on a Dwarf would allow them to charge into combat faster. Though, a Wizard probably isn’t the best support class out there, they do have some decent options as you get into higher levels. A class like Cleric would give you more support options.

When picking spells do you pick a variety of them or do you really focus in on attack spells or support? Have you every made a mistake with the spells that you’ve picked? I guess, that’s the last bit to write about for me, the mistakes and what what can mean. In Season 2 of Dungeons and Flagons the wizard picked a lot of weird attack spells, but they are were all area of affect spells, so that meant with two melee characters rounding out the party, he was always, when attacking, going to do damage to them as well. So thinking through your spells is important.

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In this game the different planes, fire, earth, prime material, hell, abyss, fey wild, and everything else, they are all being beset upon by an outside force, a massive massive outside force that is probably controlling one or some of them already and having them branch out against the others.

So in this game you pick different realms, probably fey wild, Sword Coast, Eberron, and whatever else you want and you start playing games in each of them where there are forces, maybe the elemental plane of fire and the abyss have been overrun by whatever this great force is, some evil deity most likely, that is bending them to their will. Have the players then deal with the threats showing up in their worlds.

Build this story up for some time that something is wrong in the abyss or the plane of fire, but don’t really let on that there is a big bad guy, think that it’s something smaller that is causing the unrest. Eventually have this dark force and their own army also show up in the realm. And here is where you might want to have one combined game for all the groups to spring the big reveal on them. Have this force s how up on all of their planes, and they all get transported to some pocket dimension or something like that where this being is controlling everything from. Then have there be a prophecy, but not one of those impossibly vague prophecies, but something something as specific that they basically have to find the pieces of Voltron or some god killing weapon, or even Dragon Balls.

Then you split back up and make the games take similar paths, but searching for this thing in their own realm. And they shouldn’t really be able to interact with the other realms. Once each group has found their piece of the weapon, come back to together for a final epic battle.

I’d really recommend doing a set piece for this epic battle. As I think having loads of monsters around that the players aren’t really fighting, but are kind of set dressing, but there should be some generals that each group of players need to take out to fight their way to the evil deity. Then some players are going to have to do a challenge to get the weapon assembled while the others are fighting off all sorts of monsters. The big thing is that they can’t do damage to this deity without the weapon and the weapon is a one shot kill. So once they’ve gotten the weapon assembled, and you can do some interesting things with that, like them having to cast spells, deal with things in their minds that the deity might be doing to them, more than just roll a dexterity tinkering check. The other players can then be fighting off hordes and hordes of monsters, and make it cinematic and let them hit more than one thing with a swing, so minion type monsters that just pop, but also can pack a punch if they actually get to attack.

Then once the weapon is ready, take your DM control back, and basically narrate what happens. I wouldn’t let it kill the deity, something that kills a deity besides another deity is too powerful, but it could banish him to a prison dimension, where he had been banished before, but had escaped from, or had been banished for a million years. The weapon should fall apart and Dragon Ball it out of there in it’s separate parts.

That’s where the campaign ends. I would pitch this when you are starting out in sessions zeros as an epic game that is going to be fought for the fate of all the planes. Hopefully every group will be in on the game, but really lean into that this is going to be bigger and more epic than other games. Also, with that, really let the players be heroes. As a DM, you should try and avoid having characters die in this game. Also, try and limit plane hopping, I’d maybe allow conversation to happen after that mid point of the game, but traveling between planes might be locked down by either the evil deity, or by good deities to prevent the spread of the evil deity. Definitely make this game big, and I also wouldn’t make this game all that long. Power level your characters up, getting them to the mid levels by the mid point of the game, and then let them have level 20 for the epic fight, But this game doesn’t have a ton of variety, so having them level up fast, almost as chosen ones, would make the characters seem really powerful.

I also know that I said, don’t kill off the characters die in this game. The last session, that is out the window. If a character actually die dies, that’s fine, that’s the epic end, in fact, there should be a chance that everyone dies. At level 20, if it seems too easy, have plans to bump up monsters, add in different tougher monsters, add in lair effects and other hazards for the players, make it difficult on them, make them use up resources to get to the final skill challenge, and make them use resources there. Maybe the weapon needs some magic items put into it to power it, make them spend stuff that they’ve got. Maybe they need to load some spell slots into it, take away resources, and make them spend resources to get there, this should be tough. I’d give the deity a way to interact with them throughout the whole battle, so they might be fighting the deity’s generals, but the deity is also causing them problems with large area effect spells and stuff like that, make it work for what you need, even if it “breaks” the D&D rules.

So what do you think of this game? Do you think it could be cool to run something this epic, or is it too simple and combat focused?

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