[D&D Adaptation Question] Swallow Whole rules and mechanics?

[Mister Negative]

FWIW, I don't think the damage necessary to escape is 'cutting yourself out of the beastie's body', but represents doing enough damage to force/encourage the creature to vomit you forth. I'm recalling this from Pathfinder, so it may be different in straight D&D, though.

That's a thing to consider within GURPS, though, that should add some fun (at least, for the GM) complexity. You could have some creatures which swallow whole and can be encouraged to regurgitate a meal with applications of force. You could have other creatures which either lack a vomit reflex or are used to violently struggling prey which you must simply cut your way out of, killing them in the process. The first type might not be terribly deadly internally, since their innards are relatively sensitive and used to non-resisting prey, and the second might be quite deadly inside (crushing stomachs and strong acids) since they are actually planning on killing prey by swallowing it.

Also, that gives you fun options against them too. If you can figure out that a creature can't, or won't, regurgitate, then you can feed them the sorts of traps that a quick vomiter would burp back up (heated stones, chaos shards, dire sea urchins).

[Adelus]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

SM-6 would be a large apple or banana, doubt a human being could fit one in the mouth.
SM-7 is a small to standard apple/banana, It may fit in the mouth, but It will be very hard and painful.
SM-8 is what I lean towards, the size of a lime, most people could fit one in the mouth.

True, but I think the mention of the banana ties in to what was said in the thread earlier.

Something that intends to swallow another thing whole doesn't have to necessarily beat its highest SM, but its lowest - although its unlikely a person could fit a banana into their mouth sideways and then swallow it that way, its not nearly as much a stretch to feed it in longways.

Likewise, although a human would be SM0 under most circumstances, you only need to be able to stretch far enough to work your jaws/mandibles/etc. to the point they can fit around the shoulders and hips.

Originally Posted by Mister Negative

*snip*

That might also be a way to do it. There are several ways it could be done - forcing them to regurgitate, cutting your way out and killing them, cutting your way out in the D&D 3.X sense... and then there's incidents like in Disney's Hercules, where the protagonist cuts themselves out of a Hydra's neck - certainly a lot of damage but not very bothersome to the creature in question.

Dire sea urchins... all something that big with spiky defense mechanisms implies is something nasty and bigger.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by Adelus

Something that intends to swallow another thing whole doesn't have to necessarily beat its highest SM, but its lowest - although its unlikely a person could fit a banana into their mouth sideways and then swallow it that way, its not nearly as much a stretch to feed it in longways.

Well, yeah, but even then, you couldn't fit all of it in your mouth at one time without the erotic art skill. You could however it in bits.

Originally Posted by Adelus

Likewise, although a human would be SM0 under most circumstances, you only need to be able to stretch far enough to work your jaws/mandibles/etc. to the point they can fit around the shoulders and hips.

Sounds like a perk or a skill, either big mouth(+1SM for calculating swallowness) or, as i said above, erotic art.

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Sounds like a perk or a skill, either big mouth(+1SM for calculating swallowness) or, as i said above, erotic art.

As I said, it's Born Biter, a zero-point feature, from Martial Arts. It basically adds its level (up to three) to your SM for determining size of target you can bite, but adds its level to other characters' targeted attacks vs your jaw/face. (So a SM 2 creature with Born Biter 3 counts as SM 5 for the purposes of how large a part of his target he can bite/swallow, but attacks against his jaw are at -2 [+0, factoring in his SM 2] rather than -5).

[Bruno]

I've got a PILE of notes on swallow whole around here somewhere. Basically, for the equivalent of monsters with the feats/special abilities (Rather than being about 8 SM larger and just plain able to stuff you in their mouths like a snickers bar) you wan to start with Constriction advantage with the Engulfing enhancement. Let me find my notes and shoo the cat off my desk and I'll get back to this thread.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Adelus

3) While silly, it is true to the rules and genre conventions that after slicing yourself out of a creatures stomach, its wound closes via "muscular action" or some other nonsense.

That's an innovation of about 3rd edition D&D-ish RPGs, for the convenience of GMs. It might be nonsense, but it's very convenient nonsense. YMMV.

[Bruno]

The whole thing in GURPS hinges on the Constriction advantage from Basic p43, with the Engulfing enhancement from Powers p45. This lets you crush, strangle, and pin your victim "hands free", and puts pinned victims "inside" you (where they can attack your insides, owch). Other useful traits are

• Brawling (for biting skill and damage)
• Wrestling (for keeping a hold on the little wrigglers)
• Born Biter (for having a bigger mouth to bite with)
• Biting Mastery (if you have Karate instead of Brawling)
• Power Grappling (because using your ST to keep a hold on the little wrigglers is great)
• Extra "one arm" ST (which is pretty fair for using for bite-grapple-crush ST)

If you have Biotech, consider getting Internal DR (costs 1/5th) to armor your inside from sharp food, or an Internal Innate Attack Aura (again, 1/5th cost) that does a little corrosion damage for crazy-dangerous stomach acid. Normal stomach acid probably only does 1 damage every 10 minutes or something, not 1/second... but hey, monsters!

First, bite to grapple (Martial Arts p115, Teeth box) a victim your SM or smaller. Without any other advantages, this takes full normal hit location penalties. [1] This is the grapple required as the first step of Constriction. On his turn he gets a chance to Break Free from your bite/grapple.
For unmodified Constriction (Engulfing) - if you still have him in your grasp, make the ST vs ST/HT contest to crush him. If you succeed, he's Pinned and Engulfed. Ie: you swallowed him. At this point, he doesn't have to roll to hit you with innate attacks, spines, etc. and you get no active defenses, and follows all the usual rules for being pinned.
This does plain crushing damage each turn based on ST vs ST/HT, as per Constriction.
Your victim typically escapes by escaping the Pin as usual, which is more or less "climbing back up your throat".

There are no specific rules for a victim cutting their way out of a grapple, constriction, or engulf, but I'd say if they can do enough cutting or corrosion damage in one attack to "dismember" a hypothetical arm off you (don't forget to use any "arm st" bought for bite/grapple/crushing here), they've cut a hole in you and escape - just like escaping a regular grab by cutting your arm off. And ow, your poor organs.

So, that's "defaults", and a suggestion for cutting your way out. Default really takes at least two turns, not one (Grab, then attempt to crush, subject is pinned and engulfed (ergo swallowed) once they start getting crushed).

For longer processes, add Takes Extra Time to the base Constriction, or onto the Engulfing enhancement. For shorter processes, buy an Extra Attack and limit it to only for the pin/engulf stage.

[1] the Hydra I built on the forums a while ago bought three extra arms and four extra heads and sharp claws AND teeth, so it ends up with five arm-head-bity-clawy-things, game mechanically speaking. I just called them heads of course.
I figure all the extra points spent on that combo despite not having thumbs justifies "a grapple that damages" for the usual half location penalties rather than "a damaging strike that grapples", but it may be more legit to buy one Extra Attack with limitations "only for adding a grapple to a bite". Or just live with hit location penalties :D
If you want to have an improved grapple-thing and skip over manipulative ability, buy the Extra Arms with Nuisance Effect: Temporary Disadvantage Ham Fisted 2 or so to make sure they're not very good at fine detail work while still having a strong grip.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by davidtmoore

As I said, it's Born Biter, a zero-point feature, from Martial Arts. It basically adds its level (up to three) to your SM for determining size of target you can bite

Side note: a max of 3 is probably unduly restrictive, inspection of images of alligators and great white sharks suggest 4 and maybe 5 levels as possible.

[Bruno]

For just generally eating things, I've done some reality testing. Well, not personally, but I know people.

A humanoid creature, or a creature with none of the 0 point features that tweak the effective SM of various body parts, SM Δ-8 is about enough for anyone to stuff it in their mouth and (with some chewing to break it up) swallow it. I wouldn't try swallowing it whole unless it's exactly the right shape and you're trained - I don't know what skill or perk a professional sideshow geek uses, but that's kind of what you want (at a bonus compared to, say, sword swallowing). See also some competition eaters, but they tend towards chewing their food at least a little because it makes everything easier. Technically, I'm sure there's a default. Please don't try this at home, failure by 5 probably causes Choking, critical failure probably causes Choking and aspirating food into your lungs, and pnumonia. Just bad.

At Δ-7, it's still possible for a human to take a good stab at swallowing it whole, but now you're talking into the realm of actual sword-swallowing scale feats, and it needs to be longer than it is wide or high. You REALLY shouldn't try this unless you're trained (ie, you're loosing a cushy circumstance bonus for using a smaller food item). I personally know someone who can swallow whole jumbo hot-dogs (no bun), but instead of the full skill they probably have a One-Trick-Wonder perk.
That's the last size I'd accept swallowing a roughly human-sized character whole, no chewing and no special training.

At Δ-6, it had better be long/thin in profile and you're definitely talking sword-swallowing stunt stuff because where the heck will it all go? If you plan on keeping this somewhere in your body, instead of pulling it out again like a sword, you'll want some levels of internal Payload.

[Bruno]

For a Fun Things From Biology note: Sea turtles swallow jellyfish whole. Lots of them at once. They have this totally amazing oesophagus that spirals around inside their body to give them enough space to pack a whole lot of jellyfish in and press all the sea water out of them before properly "swallowing" them into their stomachs.