Share your Awakened Animal PC concepts!

[PossibleCabbage]

Jacob Jett wrote:

I should think that an awakened snake can use its lower body and tail like a pair of hands for the purposes of grappling folks and opening containers, and possibly even wielding weapons. Disney's animated Robin Hood and Jungle Book movies seem relevant...

I wonder if snake PCs just won't be an option, since a lot of potential builds for snake PCs that involve a lot of hands are very funny mental images. I'm imagining a "Bomber alchemist who is a snake that takes the juggler archetype"- how you do anything is unclear.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

A party compromised of:

Human Bard of Tien descent
Awakened Chicken Monk
Awakened Pig Fighter with Martial Artist Archetype
Awakened Rat (not Ysoki) Rogue
Awakened Cow Monk

The Bard yodels.

[Sasha Laranoa Harving]

Awakened bandicoot unarmed-focused rogue with the time traveler background, because AU Tawna changed the way my brain works and I'm not afraid to admit it.

[_shredder_]

An awakened ostrich aerokineticist who just really wants to fly

[Archpaladin Zousha]

_shredder_ wrote:

An awakened ostrich aerokineticist who just really wants to fly

FEAR THEIR DROPKICK! D:

[_shredder_]

I wonder if an awakened horse/pony with another PC as the knight on top will be a viable build. It basically needs the mount trait to not suck compared to a horse animal companion.

[JiCi]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

_shredder_ wrote:

An awakened ostrich aerokineticist who just really wants to fly

FEAR THEIR DROPKICK! D:

This actually reminded me of Pokémon Johto, the second series based on Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal.

Ash faces off against Falkner, the Flying-type specialist Gym Leader, and his 2nd Pokémon is Dodrio, a three-headed ostrich. In the games, Doduo and Dodrio can learn Flying-type moves and are Normal/Flying, but neither actually flies, despite being able to learn the HM move Fly. In fact, in Pokémon Stadium, when either uses Fly, they jump high and wiggle their feet as if trying to stay aloft XD What,s also puzzling is that they cannot be affected by Ground-type moves... despite being grounded themselves, as the Flying type is immune to those, regardless of the Pokémon's anatomy O_o

In short, Falkner's Dodrio doesn't fly, but jumps way high and runs pretty fast, so much that it overpowers Ash's Pikachu, an Electric-type Pokémon which could have defeated Dodrio in one bolt.

[pixierose]

An Awakened animal with the reflection heritage. A reflection of the Kings Pet Bear( just Bear)

[JiCi]

We really need incentives to play as reflections... This ancestry feels like a NPC option than a PC one.

[JiCi]

_shredder_ wrote:

JiCi wrote:

_shredder_ wrote:

I am not sure if this will be playable (since I don't know if there will be an option to give aquatic animals the ability to breathe air), but a big sea anemone monk jumping around on land would be super cool to me. In general, I'm more interested if the animal has very little in common with the already available character options when it comes to its anatomy. I'm not really into the nagaji ancestry aesthetically, but an actual snake without arms or legs? That sounds amazing.

Given the clockwork prosthetics and such, I'd say that limbless animals could get limbs.

Then again, maybe there's going to be a feat that have a limbless animal "grow" arms and legs.

Not having arms and legs is exactly what makes an awakened snake pc interesting to me and so much cooler than a humanoid snake beastfolk. Looking and moving like other animals of your species is a big part of the appeal of this ancestry to me.

Oh, like Master Viper from Kung Fu Panda, got it ^_^

You... still should consider prosthetic arms and legs for other purposes though ;) Imagine being disguised as a bipedal snakefolk (with clothes, arms and legs), only to spring OUT of the disguise as a normal snake to strike :D

That, or when an opponent pins you by your prosthetic arms and "Ah! You can't use your hands now!", you answer back "Oh, I don't NEED arms" XD

[JiCi]

If I may pitch in for a concept, any animal revolutionary or rebel would work, provided the Awakening part can be "accidental".

Imagine a bull, a cow, a horse, a sheep, a chicken, a pig, a duck, a donkey and a goat all being awakened who rebeled against their farm owner O_o

Now imagine this idea for a traveling circus... whoops ^^; Lions, tigers, elephants, horses, bears, seals, dogs, rabbits and monkeys all fleeing their prison... after killing the ringmaster.

In the Advanced Bestiary, a P1E Pathfinder template book, there was a template called "Manimal", which was essentially what the Awakened Animal will be as a bipedal specie. There was also a spell to turn an animal into a manimal, as well as an Alchemist's discovery. Imagine once again an Alchemist activist who slips that kind of potion in the animals' drinking bowls.

[Scarablob]

Instead of an actual awakenned animal, I think that my first animal PC would be one that was turned into an animal via a curse, but still kept her memories and personality. While it's different in paper, rule wise it should work in the exact same way (an animal with intelligence and sentience to the level of an intelligent humanoid).

Bonus point, it allow the character to have an actually badass backstory, but still start at level one because the new body force them to relearn everything. So it will probably be a cocky fighter that use to be around level 8 or so, being a somewhat recognised local hero, that one day bite of more than she could chew and was defeated and cursed by a hag she was fighting. Now she's a talking chicken, nobody recognise her for who she was or even take her seriously anymore, and she's forced to relearn everything.

It give a clear nemesis and personal goal, and also allow for some sweet character devellopment. Actually, I think I'll make her a rogue or ranger that used to be a fighter equivalent, but now just can't wield her signature weapon the way she used to anymore, and must rely on what she used to see as "dirty tricks" back in her glory days.

[Ravingdork]

Themetricsystem wrote:

An Awakened Raven Curse Patron Witch with a Poppet Familiar who works to deceive anyone and everyone as to the nature of their relationship as they select Speech as one of their standby always on Familiar Abilities, after all, everyone knows that a right and proper Raven can talk on their own regardless.

You can also use Touch Telepathy to talk to each other discreetly, making people think that you are the familiar and the poppet is the master.

[keftiu]

JiCi wrote:

We really need incentives to play as reflections... This ancestry feels like a NPC option than a PC one.

I disagree. Reflections are niche, but they’re very, very cool, and can be flavored a lot of different ways: a magical contingency, an escapee from another timeline, a clone, embroiled in a bitter rivalry with their “other half”…

An option that doesn’t appeal to your personally doesn’t need ‘incentives,’ it just means one of the other 50+ options might suit you better.

[JiCi]

keftiu wrote:

JiCi wrote:

We really need incentives to play as reflections... This ancestry feels like a NPC option than a PC one.

I disagree. Reflections are niche, but they’re very, very cool, and can be flavored a lot of different ways: a magical contingency, an escapee from another timeline, a clone, embroiled in a bitter rivalry with their “other half”…

An option that doesn’t appeal to your personally doesn’t need ‘incentives,’ it just means one of the other 50+ options might suit you better.

My main issue is that you're technically the duplicate of an existing person. It's like you need to create your PC "in the flesh" and THEN create a backstory to explain your existance as a reflection, since you cannot be the reflection of a signature character in your own campaign.

Right there:

Quote:

PFS Note: Characters with the Reflection versatile heritage may not be a Reflection of any known and named NPC in Pathfinder canon. Your appearance may be used to strengthen your character’s story and roleplay, but cannot be used to impact gameplay during Organized Play adventures.

Any NPC in your campaign... counts of both known and named... so... how do you get around that ^^; ?

[pixierose]

I mean that is exclusively for Pathfinder Society. And while that sucks for society it is not the only type of play, and that restriction kind of makes sense otherwise there maybe dozens of reflections of a significant npc.

[Perpdepog]

JiCi wrote:

keftiu wrote:

JiCi wrote:

We really need incentives to play as reflections... This ancestry feels like a NPC option than a PC one.

I disagree. Reflections are niche, but they’re very, very cool, and can be flavored a lot of different ways: a magical contingency, an escapee from another timeline, a clone, embroiled in a bitter rivalry with their “other half”…

An option that doesn’t appeal to your personally doesn’t need ‘incentives,’ it just means one of the other 50+ options might suit you better.

My main issue is that you're technically the duplicate of an existing person. It's like you need to create your PC "in the flesh" and THEN create a backstory to explain your existance as a reflection, since you cannot be the reflection of a signature character in your own campaign.

Right there:

Quote:

PFS Note: Characters with the Reflection versatile heritage may not be a Reflection of any known and named NPC in Pathfinder canon. Your appearance may be used to strengthen your character’s story and roleplay, but cannot be used to impact gameplay during Organized Play adventures.

Any NPC in your campaign... counts of both known and named... so... how do you get around that ^^; ?

Play in a game that isn't PFS? Or, if in PFS, play as someone less well-known, or as the reflection of someone else who made their character as a duo, or as someone who isn't ever meant to show up in your PFS game that you can just make up. The only stipulation is that you not be a reflection of someone important to the storyline so that you can't throw someone else's weight around; past that you can be a reflection of whoever you want to. Heck, you could be the reflection of a previous character of your own if you want. The individual characters you create aren't part of Pathfinder canon, just their agrogated actions and effects on the storyline.

[PossibleCabbage]

JiCi wrote:

Quote:

PFS Note: Characters with the Reflection versatile heritage may not be a Reflection of any known and named NPC in Pathfinder canon. Your appearance may be used to strengthen your character’s story and roleplay, but cannot be used to impact gameplay during Organized Play adventures.

Any NPC in your campaign... counts of both known and named... so... how do you get around that ^^; ?

Could you show up with a character who is a reflection, then point at another person at the table and say "tell me about your character, I'm a reflection of you"?

[Perpdepog]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

JiCi wrote:

Quote:

PFS Note: Characters with the Reflection versatile heritage may not be a Reflection of any known and named NPC in Pathfinder canon. Your appearance may be used to strengthen your character’s story and roleplay, but cannot be used to impact gameplay during Organized Play adventures.

Any NPC in your campaign... counts of both known and named... so... how do you get around that ^^; ?

Could you show up with a character who is a reflection, then point at another person at the table and say "tell me about your character, I'm a reflection of you"?

If someone did that to me I would be all over that dynamic, sounds like a blast. Ditto for being the GM in such a scenario. A reflection PC is a GM's best friend.

"Thanks for the free NPC and plot hooks, m8."

[The Raven Black]

I would not like a player showing up with a PC who is a Reflection of my own character without asking me first.

[The Raven Black]

JiCi wrote:

Quote:

PFS Note: Characters with the Reflection versatile heritage may not be a Reflection of any known and named NPC in Pathfinder canon. Your appearance may be used to strengthen your character’s story and roleplay, but cannot be used to impact gameplay during Organized Play adventures.

Any NPC in your campaign... counts of both known and named... so... how do you get around that ^^; ?

In a home game, the GM can perfectly change the plot / encounters to adapt to this situation.

In PFS, the GMs have no such power. Hence the restriction.

And it is definitely not "any NPC in your campaign".

[JiCi]

I guess that there are many ways to use Reflections then :)

[PossibleCabbage]

I want to be an awakened Cephalopod Chirugeon Alchemist with the Medic archetype. I will be an Octopus Doctor.

[JiCi]

Oh... hate to break it... but I doubt that multi-limbed animals will be possible... Even Starfinder nerfed that to the ground :S

[PossibleCabbage]

JiCi wrote:

Oh... hate to break it... but I doubt that multi-limbed animals will be possible... Even Starfinder nerfed that to the ground :S

I don't want to be able to hold more items than a standard biped (though the alchemist using alchemical alacrity along with a worn alchemist's kit already stretches credulity in terms of "what one can do with two hands in 6 seconds"), I really just want the pun.

[JiCi]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

JiCi wrote:

Oh... hate to break it... but I doubt that multi-limbed animals will be possible... Even Starfinder nerfed that to the ground :S

I don't want to be able to hold more items than a standard biped (though the alchemist using alchemical alacrity along with a worn alchemist's kit already stretches credulity in terms of "what one can do with two hands in 6 seconds"), I really just want the pun.

Oh, I see, my bad ^^;

[Sanityfaerie]

Gunsnake!

[JiCi]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Gunsnake!

You've seen Rango, haven't you :P ?

[Maccassar]

Chameleon Kineticist

[moosher12]

An awakened Ferret Air Kineticist.
Wanted to make a Kamaitachi.

[dirkdragonslayer]

Speaking of Howl of the Wilds options; Awakened Apothecary Bee. Whatever magic awoken you took away your ability to create potions naturally, but not your desire to make them. So you became an alchemist, a bee apothecary apothecary bee if you will. Maybe mix in some rogue dedication to steal other people's potions like apothecary bees do.

[Ravingdork]

Here's my character concept realized.

[Perpdepog]

I'm building an awakened warhorse commander as a playtest character.

Commander Hardapple, pronounced Har-Dopple, acquired sapience on the battlefield when their mercenary rider rode them into a charge against a dangerous transmutation mage. After realizing they could think and speak after the battle, and that said mercenaries were pissed at the lack of loot on the mage and would be looking to salvage whatever they could, Hardapple decided to keep their intelligence a secret until they could slip away.
Now they've joined our kingdom in Kingmaker, a dummy on their back which Hardapple uses to speak for them and make everyone assume that there is no talking horse, just an incredibly dedicated military man who noone has ever seen out of the saddle.

[Darrell Impey UK]

One if my sons (he's 20 and should know better) wants us to turn up at a PFS table with a party of awakened penguins. (There's six of us, we can take a whole table.)

[Bluemagetim]

I can see some really interesting concepts emerging from this new ancestry.

How about the soul of a wizard who's simulacrum or reincarnation or some spell like that failed spectacularly shunting their soul into a Lion and the magiks transformed the body into a more humanoid form, leaking elements of that past like as a wizard into the newly formed conscious mind of the awakened Lion.

[moosher12]

Darrell Impey UK wrote:

One if my sons (he's 20 and should know better) wants us to turn up at a PFS table with a party of awakened penguins. (There's six of us, we can take a whole table.)

If you, your son, and your friends do not do it. I will be disappointed.

[Darrell Impey UK]

moosher12 wrote:

Darrell Impey UK wrote:

One if my sons (he's 20 and should know better) wants us to turn up at a PFS table with a party of awakened penguins. (There's six of us, we can take a whole table.)

If you, your son, and your friends do not do it. I will be disappointed.

We'll probably save it for our next residential con'. (And it's six family members, so it will be suitably ridiculous.)

[Lightning Raven]

The Beast of Caerbannog from Monthy Python and the Holy Grail.

It's a tiny bunny Animal Barbarian focused on jumping in order to kill pesky Arthurian knights with its point teeth, here:

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=769415

[Sir Belmont the Valiant, II]

Darrell Impey UK wrote:

One if my sons (he's 20 and should know better) wants us to turn up at a PFS table with a party of awakened penguins. (There's six of us, we can take a whole table.)

If only four of you are there, you could turn up as turtles:

Donatelo
Rapheal
Michelangelo &
Leonardo

[Anne Archer]

Perhaps one day, when I have retired, my brown bear animal companion Yogi Bera will awaken.

He could go adventuring, and tell tales over a campfire. "There was the time me Mum took me to..."

[Ravingdork]

Darrell Impey UK wrote:

One of my sons (he's 20 and should know better) wants us to turn up at a PFS table with a party of awakened penguins. (There's six of us, we can take a whole table.)

That's a whole lotta' AcP!

Some of the dudes I game with regularly at the game shop recently went to a convention with an entire party of undead. It was frightfully macabre!

[Zoken44]

Awakened Chicken with the Duskwalker versatile Heritage, Gladiator background, and Spirit Instinct Barbarian class.

You were a chicken from a cockfighting ring. You're back, you're pissed, and you're taking names on behalf of all chickens you were forced to kill in the ring.

[Ravingdork]

Zoken44 wrote:

Awakened Chicken with the Duskwalker versatile Heritage, Gladiator background, and Spirit Instinct Barbarian class.

You were a chicken from a cockfighting ring. You're back, you're pissed, and you're taking names on behalf of all chickens you were forced to kill in the ring.

I kinda did something sort of almost similar adjacent to that.

Great minds am-I-right?

[Pagan priest]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned running a Great Dane investigator.

[Ravingdork]

Pagan priest wrote:

I am surprised that no one has mentioned running a Great Dane investigator.

You're literally the third person I've seen suggest it...this week.

[PossibleCabbage]

Ravingdork wrote:

Pagan priest wrote:

I am surprised that no one has mentioned running a Great Dane investigator.

You're literally the third person I've seen suggest it...this week.

I'm going to play a Bloodhound in a trenchcoat so that people are inclined to trust me, but I am actually a Scoundrel Rogue who is "McGrift- the 'Do Crimes' Dog."

[Conscious Meat]

On the utterly silly side, a zoophonia muse parrot bard with a saloon entertainer background and whose performance speciality is comedy. Think "bar mascot who got awakened after some druids partied really, really hard".

[Ravingdork]

Conscious Meat wrote:

On the utterly silly side, a zoophonia muse parrot bard with a saloon entertainer background and whose performance speciality is comedy. Think "bar mascot who got awakened after some druids partied really, really hard".

The awaken animal ritual takes a full day.

That must have been some party!

[Paul Watson]

JiCi wrote:

*insert 80-90s cartoon shows to use as inspiration for PCs* :P

80-90s? pshaw and nonsense. Go for the 60-70s.

Swashbuckler turtles. (Touche Turtle)
Horse gunslingers. (Quickdraw McGraw)
Squirrel rogues. (Secret Squirrel)
Mouse exemplars with their magic red cape. (Mighty Mouse)
Coyote inventors. (Wile E coyote)
Rabbit bards (Who else, doc?)
Duck barbarians (Both Daffy and Donald have rage issues)
Obviously Great Dane investigators.

[moosher12]

Paul Watson wrote:

JiCi wrote:

*insert 80-90s cartoon shows to use as inspiration for PCs* :P

80-90s? pshaw and nonsense. Go for the 60-70s.

Swashbuckler turtles. (Touche Turtle)
Horse gunslingers. (Quickdraw McGraw)
Squirrel rogues. (Secret Squirrel)
Mouse exemplars with their magic red cape. (Mighty Mouse)
Coyote inventors. (Wile E coyote)
Rabbit bards (Who else, doc?)
Duck barbarians (Both Daffy and Donald have rage issues)
Obviously Great Dane investigators.

Though on the subject of 80's-90's I'm now thinking of Duck Rogues with Archaeologist or Pathfinder archetypes. (Huey, Dewey, and Louis, and Scrooge)