Mental Resistance. Manny has advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws.
Innate Spellcasting (Psionics). Manny's spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 16). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:
At will: detect thoughts, mind whip
3/day each: psychic lance, phantasmal killer, modify memory, nondetection, compelled duel
1/day: feeblemind
Nominative Bond. Manny can communicate telepathically with any creature he is familiar with, so long as they are both in the same plane of existence. Manny can also target these creatures with his spells, ignoring any requirements the spells have for choosing targets. When a creature speaks or hears Manny's full nickname—The Man with the Upside-Down Face, at the Circus of the Disquieting—Manny is considered familliar with them for 1 minute. Manny immediately knows the approximate distance and direction to those creatures. Creatures under the effects of mind blank or similiar magical effect are immune to this ability.
Careful psychic. When Manny reduces a creature to 0 hit points using psychic damage, he may instead reduce the creature to 1 hit point and cause it to fall unconscious for 1 hour. This unconsciousness ends early if the creature is targeted by a greater restoration spell or similiar magical effect.
Wrestle. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d4 + 3) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 15) if Manny isn't already grappling a creature. Manny has advantage on this attack if he is already grappling the target.
Pin. Manny targets a creature he is grappling and at most his size. The target must succeed on a DC 15 Strength or Dexterity saving throw or for the duration of the grapple both the target and Manny are restrained.
Manny would not do well in a to-the-death combat. He excels at de-escalating situations without using violence. When at the Circus, Manny is in charge of security. His ability to cast detect thoughts allows him to screen suspicious characters.
Sometimes, a person will need escorting from the Circus. Manny’s wrestle and pin allow him to forcefully escort a troublemaker out of the Circus. For especially violent troublemakers, the Clowns handle them while Manny muddles their mind with mind whip and compelled duel, until the target is knocked unconscious (or accidentally dies). Manny can then cast modify memory on the unconscious individual and send them through the Kaleidoscope so they do not remember the Circus. When Manny is in a life-and-death situation, and he doesn’t care about harming the attackers, he’d cast psychic lance and phantasmal killer on them. Preferably far away from the combat while someone else, like a Clown, is tanking the hits.
Manny’s name magic allows him to target people he is familiar with and those that hear his full nickname with spells. This allows him to provide emergency support to Circus members who are in trouble, such as by casting phantasmal killer on an attacker. It also allows him to deal with “traitors” of the Circus, sometimes killing them, other times casting feeblemind on them.
Important nuances with these stats:
- The grapple action and Wrestle allows Manny grapple creatures one size larger than him, but he can only pin creatures his size and smaller.
- Pin is not a melee attack, and so Manny must choose between Wrestling twice (or using any other melee weapon he picked up) and pinning.
- If an ally shouts Manny’s full nickname in battle, and he is not present, he should roll initiative and be added to the turn order. He knows every ally that is in the combat, and any enemy that heard the nickname. This allows Manny to be a deus ex machina.
- Manny has a Kaleidoscope key, and uses it to escape whenever he’s in danger. This has allowed him to escape several Foundation and GOC soldiers when scouting. Manny’s magical knowledge allows him to make an interdimensional portal in a pothole and somehow fit himself through it.
- Manny uses nondetection whenever he’s scouting in veiled society.
- Manny is a single-target spellcaster. While he can technically pin a character, phantasmal killer another, and feeblemind a third, and use psychic lance and mind whip on a remaining fourth, the likelihood of those four characters rolling so poorly enough against Manny that he is able to take four turns disabling the first three characters without getting ganged up on is low. Manny will never willingly engage a group of people when he’s alone.
- Manny has a moderately large amount of health compared to normal D&D characters and monsters. Compared to our group, you may want to at least double his health so he isn’t instakillable by Shiro, Sworin, Jack, or Rukia.
- His somewhat low CR (at least for an NPC with Legendary Resistances) is because he’s more of a utility caster. Using mind whip his average dpr will probably be 1d6 (assuming most save his DC 16) along with a status affect. The only reason his CR is this high is because he can cast psychic lance and phantasmal killer without being in the combat using his Nominative Bond.