Terrible ideas

Summary:

Those things we'll never do, but love talking about.

Terrible ideas

TheMany 14 Jun 2013 03:58

I once had an idea for a Clan-backstory based class that was kind of horrible but the concept was entertaining.

The Swallowed Ones
A strange semi-cult of treasure hunters and fanatics. They seek out the largest of monsters that usually have been the downfall of legendary figures (Party-killers) and attempt to retrieve the historical artifacts and magical items that tend to be… left behind. For them the story of "Old Man swallowed by the whale" wasn't a parable, it was their elder.

Due to their nature, the Swallowed One slowly gains Resistance to acid throughout their career starting at level 2 (culminating at Immunity much later).

The more fanatical and religious minded revere the Tarrasque as like to a God. The vast amount of epic or legendary equipment, items, armor, weapons, gems, metals, etc. that could survive it's stomach unable to be digested,

Lower levels are referred to as "Muckers" for their habit of sorting through monster droppings for anything that survived digestion. Think of the coins hapless halflings or kobolds may have had on them when swallowed whole. Luckily for them, and anyone they go near, the two starting abilities

"Breathless" (supernatural ability) : they no longer need to breathe except to smell or speak.
"Neutralize" (spell-like ability) : Cleans the Swallowed One, equipment, and all non-living material (treasure) they are holding of residual acid, smell, and filth. This can be used once per day with an additional use per day every five levels (6th, 11th, 16th, etc.).

At 4th level, the Swallowed Ones earn their name with a new ability -> "Gastronaut" : when being attacked by a creature more than 2 size categories greater using a bite attack they make a DC 20 reflex check to avoid all damage and be completely swallowed by the creature.

At 14th level they gain "Escape-hatch" (supernatural ability) 1/day. Usable only INSIDE a monster (dead or alive). This teleports them to 100ft past the physical sensory range of the creature they are escaping.

Re: Terrible ideas

Duralan 14 Jun 2013 11:06

There is such a thing called "affiliation" and "organization benefits". Simply by belonging to certain organization and progressing through ranks by various means (most of the time it boils down to doing some quests on their behalf) one can acquire sometimes quite unique abilities… though none of them resembled ones of the OP.

It might be strange but I am getting somewhat incarnum-heavy vibes from this description, at least flavor-wise.
Totemists can channel two soulmelds which are simply fluffed as 'channeling BIG T'.

Totem Ragers could be viable NPCs which could belong to … this organization.

---

"That's us, defeating evil by being even bigger bastards" - Baltasar Malich commenting the latests exploits of "The Evil Trio" (himself + Altharid and Sidhe Spellweaver)

Re: Terrible ideas

TheMany 14 Jun 2013 23:14

I guess I saw it as more of a class. based on something I did with a one-shot character.

I was playing a mentally unstable Ogre Mage that had different personalities when in his small human shape and his large ogre shape. He was usually in his human shape for the party because they didn't like non-humans but didn't have a caster so they let what they thought was my 10yr old human join them since he could cast magic.

They get hired by a village to get rid of a big monster eating their herds. Turns out it was a T-Rex (the DM threw whatever entertained him at us, not very good really). Because every other person in the party was a melee type, they turned to me and said, do something! So he charged the T-Rex in his small shape. The T-Rex tries to bite him and use the "Swallow Whole" feat or something that requires a reflex save on my part to avoid just being swallowed taking damage instead. I asked the DM if I could attempt to avoid the damage by re-flexing DOWN the throat. Rolled a natural 20 plus good str, jump, and tumble. He's like… "Fine, you take 2 non-lethal from the crushing of the swallowing… but you make it to the stomach, your turn". So I used "Fly" to keep out of the stomach acid then Ray-of-Frost ability of the Ogre Mage to freeze the stomach acid solid. Being a reptile… the T-rex didn't like that.

With solid footing he then reverted to his Large ogre size and started tearing through the soft un-scaled innards of the T-Rex until I reached the outside. Then changed BACK to my 10yr old small human shape and exited the now-dead monster.