I'm fairly certain that I'm a bad person. A confession of sorts.

[Mr. Pants]

Something happened in a Character planning discussion involving a few players and the GM of an upcoming campaign. I need it to be understood that I accept all blame for the tale that follows.

We've been gearing up for a "hard mode" sort of campaign, based very loosely in the dark souls universe, and have been trying to plan a level 5 party out for a good mix of survival ability. Up until this point, the party plan has consisted of a Warpriest, a Paladin, a Rogue, a Strynx support Witch, a charge ninja with the scout archetype (me), and occasionally a Wizard. We feel fairly confident that we can handle most threats, and not get mauled too badly in the process. Nothing too unusual yet.

Our GM has made a comment or two about importing a homebrew race or two from a previous campaign world. One of which is a size tiny monstrous humanoid race from a previous game, who are essentially ferrets with opposable thumbs.

As a joke, I propose a tiny Ferret-man Bard, specializing in dance and oration, who inspires competence by dancing, or rather, with the detailed descriptions of the dance that he is performing. ("right leg out, extend arm, grasp at air, and pelvic thrust!" etc..). The response I receive is pretty much as I expect: Laughter, followed by a sarcastic "I hope you die". I leave it at that, but tell the other players about the joke idea, and it is pretty well received.

At some point, a hat with a lectern is added to the witch, and the dancing is removed, and the pocket-bard seems to become a thing that could happen.

The real mutation, from joke to actual character occurred tonight, and I have roped other people into this mess. The lectern-hat for the witch, through the course of discussion, evolves into an enclosed compartment on the top of the Paladin's helmet. From there I could provide healing, or poke the end of a blow gun out through a view-slit to harass other foes.

Things are about to grow rapidly out of hand.

As discussion progresses, this capsule is moved down, and onto the paladin's chest plate, mostly to keep the weight in a place that could be carried more easily, and then, because of the limited field of fire from that location, a second capsule is attached to the back of his armor, with a length of hamster tubing wrapping around the outside, to facilitate travel within the armor.

At this point, we have two "turrets", but only a single crew member, so the witch offers to play a Ferret-man as well.

Feeling that our party has lost a serious amount of bulk, in terms of direct combat capacity, the GM allows the paladin to play as an Ogre.

The now-Ogre decides he likes the flavor of the samurai class, over paladin.

Feeling that we now have much more room to expand, we stretch our samurai's chest plate forward about two feet, and add a second turret, and stretch the back plate similarly.. we may have at this point described these modifications as "ship-like", and begun referring to the ogre as a ship. A pair of siccatite rings are bought, one hot and one cold, to build a small stove burner and a refrigerator, and the "turrets" are equipped with small groups of tube arrow shooters and a wand.

The ogre player names his samurai Yamato.

At this point, "Boarding" grappled creatures is brought up, and later use of charm or dominate to commandeer additional "vessels" is mentioned..

I may have turned another player into a battleship. If I did not do so directly, I am at least the most responsible party. May god have mercy on my soul.

[Veilgn]

.... I don't really get it.

can you sum it up?

sorry English isn't my native.

[Mr. Pants]

The short form is this: A fairly normal adventuring party mutated into a.. thing.. that contains an Ogre who has ferrets in his armor that treat him as a naval ship, and I am to blame.

[Veilgn]

that's quite normal to me. rather my party members.... thing.

[Kobold Catgirl]

The PCs are playing a bunch of intelligent weasels who have used tubes to effectively colonize an ogre as a living battleship.

I have already stolen this for use against my players. Thank you, Mr. Pants.

[Mr. Pants]

Well, two of us are weasels, so battleship aside, there is still a warpriest, a rogue, and a wizard. I still feel like I should apologize to your players.

I'm pondering one level of gunslinger, and am considering mounting size tiny double hackbuts into the turrets as battleship cannons. If they scale in a linear fashion, 2d8 damage? feels wrong though.

[Kobold Catgirl]

A ballista for Medium users is presumed to be about a Huge crossbow. Following that basic logic, a hackbut would need to be sized for a Medium wielder in order to be a "battleship cannon" for a Tiny creature.

[Mr. Pants]

A medium double hackbut is already a large rifle, as it comes on a wheeled carriage, and it takes a large creature to just pick one up and use it, so small might be size appropriate as a light cannon, that said, those are something like 4 feet long, I think a 1.5 to 2 foot tiny would look more scale appropriate on a guy with a ship built around his torso.. and I could use them by myself.

Proper cannons are fun, don't get me wrong, but I intend for leadership to be a thing here, to have a proper crew, and there's only so much space on the ogre...

It's likely that real guns will be vetoed by the GM, so I'm also looking at other compact ranged weapons, or tiny siege engines.. Size tiny rocket springals might be fun.

[The Sword]

As a GM... The horror, the horror!

As a player, and owner of two gerbils in my childhood - Awesome!

I think this story is the best example of going 'down the rabbit hole' I have seen in a long time! You aren't a bad person, but you should probably seek professional help. : )

[Rimethorn]

Ferret people need room to breathe. Have you thought about removing some non-vital organs to make room for apartments? The ogre only really needs one lung. And he's just being greedy carrying around a spare kidney.

Love this concept, at least as a visual. Would NOT want to GM this.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

Let us be clear: When people speak of "power gaming" (not a term I care to use myself, but be that as it may), I assure you, THIS is NOT IT. This is what "power gamers" WISH they could do...and then they'd probably scuttle the whole deal by insisting that their "OBJECTIVE maths PROVE that so-and-so is unoptimized and will NEVER work and my Supreme Tank Build(C) is OBJECTIVELY SUPERIOR to this yadayada...."

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
- Chinese Proverb

[Valandil Ancalime]

Bad player...)smacks with rolledup newspaper(.

I admit, I laughed out loud at the visual. Funny concept and would be hilarious in the right game. The question you need to ask the DM is, is this the right game? I got the impression this was supposed to be a serious game and a funny "Battleship" character might not be appropriate. Maybe my impression is wrong.

[Ryzoken]

I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:

Let us be clear: When people speak of "power gaming" (not a term I care to use myself, but be that as it may), I assure you, THIS is NOT IT. This is what "power gamers" WISH they could do...and then they'd probably scuttle the whole deal by insisting that their "OBJECTIVE maths PROVE that so-and-so is unoptimized and will NEVER work and my Supreme Tank Build(C) is OBJECTIVELY SUPERIOR to this yadayada...."

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
- Chinese Proverb

Was that really necessary? Way to bring a thread about awesome down with petty politics...

I have a buddy who's been trying to do something similar using animated objects or something in PFS. Not sure how far off the ground he's gotten it, but he had a build he showed me once or twice... Minus the ferrets, of course.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Oh, good, let's start another thread trying to define "powergaming".

[Cevah]

Well, if the forward turrets are high on the chest, and the rear ones are low on the but, you could use Sleeves of Many Garments to make Mr. Ogre look like Mrs. Ogre. Heck, even with a circumstance bonus.

Invest in a Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents and have it shoot out the paired forward turrets for more fun. Better if the turrets become the re-fluffed staff in order to bypass explanations on how a staff fires out separate turrets.

/cevah

[The Guy With A Face]

That...is awesome.

[voideternal]

Mr. Pants wrote:

...

The ogre player names his samurai Yamato.
...

[Foeclan]

In one game, I was playing a minotaur (well, minotaur-like custom Large race the GM made) fighter who was raised in a city predominantly populated by Tiny mouse people (think Reepacheep from Narnia). Two of the other players were playing a mouse wizard and a mouse rogue. They frequently hid in my backpack and would pop out and play turret, or the wizard would cast buff spells. It was a lot of fun. :)

[GM_Beernorg]

No, no folks, when manned by intelligent mustelid folk, they are called furrets ;).

No, seriously, as a former owner of many ferrets, this...is...amazing!

[Klara Meison]

You have an error in the title, "awesome" is spelled "a-w-e-s-o-m-e", not "b-a-d".

[grimdog73]

i can just imagine the lead ferret yelling "Ramming speed!" during a charge/bullrush.

[David knott 242]

Party synergy is something I repeatedly try and fail to get out of my party. Congratulations to yours for achieving that!

[Marcus Steelfeather]

The ogre NEEDS an armor who resembles the Stone Colossus from Bestiary 4.

[Goddity]

Are you kidding? Bad? This is perhaps the greatest character concept I've ever seen. You sir, are amazing.

[Fergie]

OK... this... I... it's... I'm... this...

As someone who has had several ferrets as pets, and just took one of my rats out for a stroll earlier today, I sanction this fully.

Not saying I would want to GM it, but I really love the idea.

Just a note: Based on one of my rats who passed away recently, I've been working on an idea for a feat that would be available to some little creatures.
Fafnir's Wizard Hands - Basically allows a creature like a rat, squirrel, raccoon, ferret, etc. to use their hands for somatic components. I might impose a movement penalty, since they would kind of be up on their hind legs.

[Devilkiller]

I have a few minis of giants with dwarves manning gun turrets on their backs and shoulders, and this kind of inspires me to find a use for them in a game soon. I also play a Viking who sometimes has an awakened raven hiding under the wolf fur he wears. Sometimes the raven speaks through the wolf's head and threatens or taunts people. Neither of those really compare to a ferret infested ogre samurai though.

I'm not sure whether something like this would be better adjudicated with the mounted combat rules or the vehicle rules though I think maybe the latter would end up making more sense. I'd guess the ferrets might gain some AC bonuses for being "inside the vehicle", but if the DM knows this is coming in advance it might be possible to think of some disadvantages too. I guess swimming could be a problem, for instance, and maybe clever, very small, or incorporeal enemies could get at the ferrets better while also gaining cover from the ogre in his own armor.

[Tacticslion]

I'm just gonna leave this right here.

[Cevah]

Tacticslion wrote:

I'm just gonna leave this right here.

The turrets are definitely a more ladylike approach to the concept, compared to your more masculine approach. :-)

/cevah

[Tacticslion]

Tacticslion wrote:

I'm just gonna leave this right here.

Cevah wrote:

The turrets are definitely a more ladylike approach to the concept, compared to your more masculine approach. :-)

/cevah

Mine shows the true form of manly combining! :D

[Cevah]

Tacticslion wrote:

Tacticslion wrote:

I'm just gonna leave this right here.

Cevah wrote:

The turrets are definitely a more ladylike approach to the concept, compared to your more masculine approach. :-)

/cevah

Mine shows the true form of manly combining! :D

Adventurers have so many tools at their disposal.

Does the mythic version look like this? :-)

/cevah

[Tacticslion]

... yes. >.>

[hasteroth]

As a GM if my players pulled something like this... I'd groan and complain, but love telling the story nevertheless.
I'm a big fan of overly serious (and even melodramatic) Pathfinder plots, but shenanigans still have their place in my grimdark.

[Turin the Mad]

I'd do my level best to convince the rogue and wizard to also be ferret-folk. Then you have two "bigguns" each with a pair of rascally furballs!

[Tacticslion]

Turin the Mad wrote:

I'd do my level best to convince the rogue and wizard to also be ferret-folk. Then you have two "bigguns" each with a pair of rascally furballs!

I... I keep... I keep misreading that last sentence. And then my exposure to the internet takes over and it never ends well.

:I

[Turin the Mad]

Tacticslion wrote:

Turin the Mad wrote:

I'd do my level best to convince the rogue and wizard to also be ferret-folk. Then you have two "bigguns" each with a pair of rascally furballs!

I... I keep... I keep misreading that last sentence. And then my exposure to the internet takes over and it never ends well.

:I

Well, if you can't keep images of Beastmaster front and center, then you've been hanging out in the cerebral sewers with the likes of me for far too long. ;)