Fungal Creature (template)

[multibear]

Fungal Creature (prc)




Prerequisites
-Constitution 10+
-Must be humanoid, giant, monstrous humanoid, animal, magical beast or vermin
-Must have been infected with a fungal agent, either having been slain by another fungal creature or willingly consuming a special myconid potion

HD: d8

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Feature
1	+0	+2	+0	+0	Fungal Infestation, Poisonous Blood
2	+1	+3	+0	+0	Spores

Skills: 2 + Int modifier per level
Class Skills: None

Features
Fungal Infestation: A fungal creature gains the Plant type and all plant traits and immunities.

Poisonous Blood: Any creature making a bite attack or attempting to swallow a fungal creature whole must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier) or take 1 point of Strength damage and 1 point of Dexterity damage. One minute later, the creature must make a second save at the same DC or be nauseated for 1 minute and take 1d6 Strength damage and 1d6 Dexterity damage.

A fungal creature can drain its own blood to procure an ingested poison that affects creatures as described above. A number of doses can be drained per day equal to the fungal creature's Con modifier. Unfortunately, its blood has a distinctive and largely unwelcome smell and taste, so most intelligent creatures would not eat food tainted with it unless the taste were thoroughly disguised with a DC 15 Profession(Cook) check. Adding it to food or drink straight away will make it instantly noticeable as toxic. A fungal creature must deal 1 point of damage to itself per dose and the drawn blood retains its poisonous nature for just 1 day after being removed.

Fungal creature blood quickly oxidizes when exposed to the air. Applying the poison to a creature's skin will not make them poisonous, nor will applying it to an object make the object poisonous.

Spores: At 2nd level, a fungal creature begins growing useful spores. At the start of each day a fungal creature has access to a number of Spore Charges equal to its HD. These Spore Charges cannot be stored beyond each day. A fungal creature can expend Spore Charges to use any of the following abilities:

<sub>Attack Spores: By expending one Spore Charge, a fungal creature an release a cloud of spores in self-defense as a standard action.  The form is either a 20 foot burst radius or 20 foot cone.  All hostile opponents within the affected area must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ HD + Wis mod) or take Xd6 damage (X=1/2 HD) and suffer a -1 penalty on attack rolls and skill checks as the spores enflame and irritate the skin.  A successful save halves the damage, and the creature suffers no penalty on rolls.  At 5 HD, the cloud’s area increases to a 30 foot burst radius or a 40 foot cone.

Create Spawn: If a Fungal Creature lowers a victim’s Constitution score to 0 with its Poison Spore Cloud and then expends Spore Charges equal to the victim's HD, the victim returns to life reanimated by the fungal infection in 1d4 days (twice as long in overly dry conditions) with one level of fungal creature. The new fungal creature is under the command of the fungal creature that created it and remains enslaved until its master’s destruction. At any given time a fungal creature may control spawns whose combined CR is no bigger than the fungal creature's own CR-2; any spawns he creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed fungal creatures. A fungal creature that is enslaved may not gain the second fungal creature level, thus being unable to have spawns of its own. A fungal creature may voluntarily free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a fungal creature or a fungal spawn cannot be enslaved again.

Poison Spore Cloud: By expending one Spore Charge, a fungal creature can release a choking yellow cloud of spores in a 15-foot-radius spread. The spore cloud lingers visibly in the air for 10 rounds, but it dissipates normally on the wind. This cloud functions as an inhaled poison.

Any creature that does not hold its breath before the fungal creature activates this ability is assumed to inhale the spores. Each breathing creature in the cloud must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 fungal creature HD + fungal creature’s Con modifier) or take 1d2 points of Constitution damage and be fatigued for 1 minute. Thereafter, the creature must succeed on a second save (whether or not it succeeded on the first) or take 1d2 points of Constitution damage and become fatigued (or exhausted if already fatigued)

A creature that continues to inhale the spores continues to make Fortitude saves against their effects. Multiple spore clouds from multiple fungal creatures require multiple saves from any creature in an area where the clouds overlap. Creatures that are immune to poisons are immune to the fungal creature’s poison spore cloud.

Rejuvenation: By expending one Spore Charge, a fungal creature gains Fast Healing equal to their Con modifier for 1 minute as a free action.</sub>

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My first monster prestige class. The original template had the create spawn ability so I based the application here on the vampire class. I like the idea of spore counters and getting to do different kinds of fungal things with them, so if anyone has any other ideas for spore counter abilities I'll put them in.

[oslecamo]

Oh gods, the first image is a real-life parasect!

The table has the Poison Spore Cloud ability, which however seems to be an option of the spores ability.

Poisonous Blood-How much you can drain from yourself again? Can you cover your own allies to make them undigestable as well? Can you go out there and taint the fields? How long does it take? Can you do it on a drink when that other guy turns his head around?

Attack Spores and Rejuvenetaion-Nice, but kinda weakish.

Otherwise looks good. A nice template to go more fungi-like.

Also where's the original template from again?

[multibear]

The original template was from the Advanced Bestiary. I saw that it was on a number of srd websites including the Pathfinder srd here http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/fungal-creature.

I rephrased the poisonous blood ability so its clear you can't just smear your buddies with it. Since the stuff smells so bad and requires a profession check to disguise, I think that's enough to indicate it can't be used for quick, on-the-fly poisoning like adding it to some dude's drink.

The Attack Spores comes from the Myconid class and the Rejuvenation is just a renaming of one of the Vampire's blood charge abilities since thats where I got the idea for spore charges. I made rejuvenation a little stronger (Fast Healing based on Con modifier instead of just 1). I'd leave attack spores as is just because I wouldn't want to step on the myconid's toes too bad.

[phaedrusxy]

The vampire class can recharge his blood charges easily, though. So it makes sense his fast healing should be weaker. This guy has a defined amount per day (which isn't nearly as big as the typical vampire's blood charge pool, either). Awesome pic, BTW. Cool class, too!

Plant traits are actually worth a dip into it by themselves, and the ability to create spawn is awesome. Worryingly so, in fact. This guy could have a pet wizard and pet druid, each one level lower than him, on retainer, and go enslave new ones whenever his old ones die. So... a two level dip into this is like getting all the best parts of Thrallherd 10, plus plant traits.

As-is, this class is extremely powerful. If you allow Thrallherds in your game, this class should be OK. However, Thrallherd is regarded as one of the most powerful PrCs in the game, just a bit behind things like Planar Shepherd and Incantatrix (although you could have one each of those as your Thralls  ).

I'm kind of torn, to be honest. Spellcasters are unlikely to go this route, as it costs them two caster levels (but plenty of people play Thrallherds...). So this is really going to mostly impact non-casters, who could use the boost. I'd feel better if this class was actually longer... and didn't grant the ability to get two thralls of your ECL-1 till after eating more levels, to discourage casters from taking it.

Maybe turn that ability into a feat (which you can't take till 6th level, like Leadership, and give it some drawback which will deter casters... ), or make a PrC for this class which gets it as the capstone?

[multibear]

What if instead of getting true minions the fungal spawn you created had a time limit? Like they're mushroom zombie thralls under your control but they only live a week before they collapse into a pile of fermenting mushrooms. That and they can't make their own spawn.

[phaedrusxy]

Actually I misread it, didn't I? As written, it could have one minion of its level, and one a level lower, couldn't it? So it's even worse than thrallherd...

First, there needs to be a cap on the strength of the spawn, which I'd say should be CR-2. Hit dice aren't really a very good judge of power, even though that seems to be what WotC uses most of the time. ECL is likewise a crappy mechanic, hence the existence of these very monster classes...

I think the spawn definitely shouldn't be able to create their own spawn. If you want to restrict it further, you could put the time limit on them, or restrict them to one thrall at CR-2 and the second one at CR-4, or make them mindless and incapable of casting spells or something like that.

Someone else want to weigh in on this?

[multibear]

I like the idea of making them incapable of casting spells and giving them a time limit. I think both limitations fit the fungal infestation theme and keeps it from being too powerful. I'll take another crack at it and see if I can make it look better.

Edit: modified the ability. Also, what about a feat that lets you then make one of your temporary spawn permanent?

[oslecamo]

The problem I'm seeing here is that it feels kinda unfair the fungal minions get so many limitations when the vampire ones didn't. Unless phaedrusxy is sugesting the vampire class spawns also need tonining down, in which case I can take a look  at that.

I'm kind of torn, to be honest. Spellcasters are unlikely to go this route, as it costs them two caster levels (but plenty of people play Thrallherds...).

Thrallherd's most broken level is the very first. And the reason it is so is because you can cherry pick your personal army. Every single day. The fungal creature actually has to go out there, kill someone with spore clouds, have enough spore charges to transform them, and then still wait 1-2d4 days.

[phaedrusxy]

I hadn't actually looked at the vampire's spawn ability much before (despite the fact that I'm playing on in your PbP game...), but now that I do... yeah. It has exactly the same problems, but they're actually worse, as the vampire has a lot more blood charges than this guy has spore charges. He literally could have two minions with HD equal to his own.

I see what you're saying about the difficulty in obtaining minions (for both), but if the minions are permanent, that's a one-time "cost" once you get a good set.

I think the abilities of both classes need to be toned down from the originals, unless you think Thrallherd is a good balance point.

[oslecamo]

That's like saying the favored soul uses the cleric as a balancing point. One can change his options daily, the other cannot, and that's a whole world of diference.

Anyway the vampire still provides a lot of goodies, so weakened the spawn ability. Dunno if multibear would like to use the new version as inspiration. I personally dislike the whole "You can't cast spells but can still use all the other fancy tricks you had before".

[phaedrusxy]

That's like saying the favored soul uses the cleric as a balancing point. One can change his options daily, the other cannot, and that's a whole world of diference.

In theory. In my experience in seeing these things used in games, people pick the best thing possible and never (or very rarely) change it because it's too much of a pain in the neck to bother with. So one permanent thrall is the same as another in practice.

I know what you mean about non-spellcasting thing. I think if you limit the level to your HD-2 (or CR-2) for the thralls, it's probably fine to just let them be permanent, cast spells, etc. At that point, it's close enough to Leadership to pass the smell test, I guess.

[multibear]

ok, I went with the new vampire spawn ability

[oslecamo]

Seems like everything was worked out, added to the index then.