Does anybody play with a bantrid PC (or another bizarre alien)?

[LuisCarlos17Fe]

This tuesday I bought "Pact Worlds" sourcebook, and among the five new PC races the bantrid was there. They are like a big nose over a ball.

High speed movement, but they can't wear clothing or armour for bipedal humanoids, superior limbs aren't like ordinary arms & hands.

It is very original and exotic, but I am afraid it is not enough practical as PC. It runs too fast, but we can do that with a stepway.

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And how would be to use a (cyborg) bantrid like a (biomechanical) monster mount?

Other idea is a biohacker using a khizard (sentient plant) scion/graft/biopunk implant, working like a plant simbiont. It would work like a player with two PCs, but the distribution of XPs would be like an extra PC and then the power balance shouldn't be broken.

[HammerJack]

I think some of your concerns are assuming bantrids have bigger practical issues than they really do.

You can't wear armor that's tailored to a biped, but armor can be refitted to a different body type.

You don't have the same kind of hands/arms as a human, but you are not unable to manipulate objects or use tools and weapons.

Trying to use a sentient creature as a mount definitely raises more questions than it closes. Why is this bantrids acting like a mount? Do they just hire themselves out as a biological scooter? What is their rate? What do they do when not being ridden around? Is being shot at in their contract?

As for grafting on an extra PC, and relying on xp distribution for balance... I don't see that working at all. Improved action economy is very, very strong.

[LuisCarlos17Fe]

Maybe this bantrid lost his memory and conscence by fault of a mindcontrol parasite or spore, and survived a bite by a ghoul but the cure wasn't enough. Or the body survived a brain extraction (by a mad scientific, or something like the tall man from the horror cinema saga "Phantasma) but losing free-wall (and now the brain in a robotic body). Or the badrid is a clone created by alien plant like seeds from "the invasion of the body snatchers".

With machines as 3D printers you could create new clothing and armours for aliens with different body shapes, but it should be more expensive in the most of markets.

* Bandrids could use tools with its fingers, but most of machines have got buttons and triggers for smaller humanoid hands.

* Anybody couldn't pay enough for a resurection spell and then a variant of reincarnation spell, cheaper, was used. Then the soul of the dead adventurer has got a new body, a transgenic kizhard, working as a simbiont (or living biopunk armour) with his old lover. (the plan is later to implant the kizhard brain in a new biotechnological body).

[Dracomicron]

Alien Archive 3 has rules for creature companion mounts. I suggest going that direction instead of using a sentient person mount.

Armory has the stipulation that any piece of gear or augmentation can be used by any PC race, unless the race's stat block (note: stat block, not fluff) specifically states that it doesn't work.

Wrikreechees' fluff states that they can't speak normally above water without a special augmentation, but doesn't list that augmentation or even assume that any Wrikreechee PC doesn't have it. Stellifera, which are 2' long space cuttlefish, are mentioned in the fluff as not being able to talk except by making colored water patterns (and they don't even have traditional telepathy), but nothing in their stat block says that they have a hard time communicating, so the assumption is that there is some method of bypassing that problem (mine translates through her mechanic drone).

When a PC has an actual "disability" they are specifically called out. percentages of Vlaka society are either blind or deaf, and Khizars don't even have eyes.

So... Bantrid are just fine, they can have all the adventures that bipeds have... they just do it rolling in style.

[Dominik D]

i played a bantrid. it was fun. hated stairs and rolling over liquids and everything that could stick.... great time