View Single Post
Old 11-28-2014, 05:14 PM   #1
Shuckster
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Near Chicago
Default Sentient plague controlling a hoard of rats

((Disclaimer: this is my first post, I did a few searches and didn't find anything too similar, my apologies if Im making a new thread thats similar to an old one or something))

Rat-hoard as a PC

So Ive done two campaigns so far and was looking to make a player character that manifests itself as a sentient hoard of plague rats given a collective consciousness, with the ability to integrate other rats in to the swarm body, making them one with the hive-mind, the character would not be the rats themselves but rather an intelligent plague which takes control of rats upon infection.

Treating the swarm as the character's body and the plague as the character's mind these I have some traits in mind but am unsure on others:

Traits for the rat's themselves:
Night-vision level 5 [5] (common on rats)
Resistant, Metabolic Hazards [15] (as rats have naturally strong immune systems from creating a supply of vitamin c in their bodies)
Universal Digestion [5] (Rats can subsist on spoiled foods and poor nutrition)
Super climbing [3/level] (Rats can scamper across surfaces climbing nearly as fast as they can on the ground due to their exelent balance from their tails and ability to gain footholds easily with their claws)
Blunt Claws [3]
Sharp teeth [1]
No fine manipulators [-30] (rats have only paws, not opposable digits or prehensile tails)
Semi-Upright [-5] (pretty obvious)

Traits for the swarm as a whole:
Clinging [20] (the swarm body as a whole makes use of rat's natural ability to scale and climb most any surface and would effectively have some form of clinging)
Injury tolerance, Diffuse (Swarm enhancement +160% Powers page 53) [260]
Increased consumption [-10/level] (Swarms of rats have been known to consume huge amounts or food and organic mater very quickly)
Bad Smell [-10] (a hoard of plagued rats exudes a powerful odor of filth, death and disease)
Fragile, Unnatural [-50] (The plauge-mind dies if there are no living rats with the pathogen left alive, meaning that the character could not survive with 0 HP)

Potential traits for the swarm:

Duplication (no sympathetic injury +20%; Shared resources -40%) [28/copy] (this would entail the swarm being able to separate in to smaller groups while still remaining under the PC's control but dose not cover that group rejoining the main body and setting a limit for the duplicates is difficult as the pc could theoretically control each rat individually if no limit is put in place)
-this trait may have to be coupled with-
Permeation (other groups of rats, rare) [5] (the idea behind this trait is the ability to meld back in to duplicates, allowing the separated rats to rejoin the swarm, otherwise the swarm modifier on the diffuse injury tolerance would cover infiltration of other bodies, but this seems messy and Id like to have another way to work around it)

Independent Body Parts (Instant re-attachment +50%, Powers page 52) (the idea that if separated by obstacles or hazards that the rats could act independently and rejoin the main swarm, the separated group would in this case act as a detached body part rather than a duplicate)

Growth (accessibility: only if other rats are available, limited by the number of available rats -20%) [8/level] (the idea behind this would be that by absorbing other nearby rats the swarm's area would increase in size, effectively resulting in a size modifier increase for the character along with the possible increase in HP and ST, again the problem would be figuring the cost since the character could theoretically absorb extremely large numbers of rats if no other limit is put in place)

Regeneration/Regrowth (accessibility: only if other rats are available, limited by the number of available rats -20%) [Varies] (the idea behind this is that the number of rats in the swarm would constitute the amount of HP, replacing dead rats with new ones would allow the character to effectively regrow or regenerate damage, the problem with this trait is deciding a fair rate of regeneration and weather or not a body of rats can have regrowth as an advantage, also setting a limit as the character could potentially absorb a limitless number of rats)

Shrinking (Uncontrollable: occurs automatically upon losing a set amount of hp -??%) [Varies] (just as the rat swarm gains size, HP and ST when rats are added to it (growth) the swarm would also lose HP, ST and SM when rats are removed from it (shrinking) the issue with this is setting a rule for how much HP would constitute losing 1 SM and limiting it as otherwise the only logical limit would be to the size of a single rat)

Dominance (accessibility: limited to rats only -??) [Varies] (This would be the only way I could think of for the rat swarm to amass more rats for its body, but I have no idea how many points to charge for each rat, I know of a template in dungeon fantasy 5 that says a rat is a 35 point character but that seems off base for the type of character I want to build, Id like another potential work around for this ability but have no ideas)
-This trait would have to be coupled with-
Modular abilities (accessibility: only available to buy new rats with the dominance advantage) [Unknown] (this trait would be the swarm's potential to infect new rats, but again thats theoretically limitless)

Binding level 1 (Rat stampede; Engulfing +60%; Area of Effect 2 Yards +50%; Melee reach C-1, Cannot Parry -25%) [4] (an innate ability where the rat-pile over-runs the target the trouble here is I having the area of effect scale with the growth/shrinking of the rat swarm)

Toxic attack level 1 (Rat bites; 1 pt of damage; contact agent -30%; Cyclic 10 seconds , 6 cycles +300%; Area of effect 2 yards +50%; Melee attack, reach C-1, Cannot parry -25%; Resistible at HT-5 -0%) [4] (the diseased rats saliva carrying a toxic quality as they bite anything that comes within range, again the area of effect might change with the growth/shrinking of the swarm)

Unkillable (Sentient pathogen, Achilles heel: cure disease) [varies] (basically if all the rats in the swarm were killed the pathogen could still theoretically live inside their bodies and still infect new rats, but if the pathogen was cured via medical science, healing magic, purging flames or another sterilization method the character would die permanently, the issue here is deciding how much to have this cost and also if its appropriate)

In summation

I feel like this character has real potential to be really unique but I need help getting the traits in working condition and choosing which traits to take and which to go without, as well as maybe simplifying the character as a whole. What do you think?
Shuckster is offline   Reply With Quote