Let’s Play D&D With Doctor Octopus
We’re pulling from the pages of Spider Man’s rogues’ gallery this week as we invite Doc Ock to play Dungeons & Dragons with us.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is right around the corner. With the iconic octopus-themed villain of Spider Movies-past coming through the multiverse, we thought it would be fun to find a seat for one of our favorite baddies at the D&D table.
Get your telescoping mechanical octopus arms ready, we’re playing D&D with one Otto Gunther Octavius. And realistically I bet he was a fan of tabletop RPGs before that whole “supervillain” thing.
Doctor Octopus D&D Character Sheets
Sometimes I make villains’ sheets as monsters and sometimes I make them as playable characters. I decided to go the playable character route with Doc Ock because this is a character I’d enjoy playing a lot.
He’s also a pretty sympathetic member of Spidey’s rogues’ gallery, so I’m hesitant to make him too monstrous or even put him in the evil part of the alignment chart. Is he 100% right all the time? Oh heck no. Do I get his motivation? More often than not, yeah.
He’s an artificer for almost too many reasons. High-powered armor, mechanical tentacles, and octobots are all very artificery. But there’s also a character element that allows him to understand physics at a certain level that is practically magic, and I wanted to lean into that.
Doc Ock exists in a world where magic exists and other characters use it, but he holds his own with science. That said, I had to give him spells given his artificer class. But in this world, at some level, magic and science are indistinguishable. I’d like to think that’s what’s happening on Otto’s sheet.
A practical effect of the Armorer subclass is making otherwise too-heavy armor wearable, and you can even make it impossible to have taken away. Both of these features are perfect for Doc Ock.
But his iconic tentacle arms were difficult to replicate for a D&D setting. I mix and matched a few things like the Thunder Gauntlets, a Flail as a weapon, and the repeating shot infusion and an extra attack. I can’t say it’s perfect, but a fun DM and good flavor text can paint that word-picture at the table.
There can also be a certain psionic power to him. But I decided to shy away from that personally. If you happen to really enjoy a character with psionics, dive into it. Let us know how it works!
How would you make Doc Ock for D&D? Are you excited to see more of Doc Ock in Spider Man No Way Home? Which version of the character is your favorite? Personally, I’m partial to Liv Ock from Into The Spiderverse. What movie, show, comic, or game should I make sheets from next week? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
