GLOG Parasite Challenge: Vine Servant

Normally I’d start with some vague, punchy blurb about DEATH and POWER but this class is not about death and power.

This class is about love, friendship, and caring. Also smells. Good smells.

You’ve found a special rose! It loves you so much that it’s growing with you and you can carry it forever and ever. It tells you about all the wonderful things there are to see and all the stupendous people there are to hug and share stories with!

Vadim Romanov

People will love you anywhere you go because you smell good! Share the smells with people to make them happy. This is a sad, sad world we live in, and people need to be cheered up! If you come across a violent person, you can touch them with your rose friend, and rose friend will drain all the anger out of them and put them to sleep.

Rose friend can also drain jealousy, envy, and all the other frets and worries people carry with them. Make friends! Help them calm down! Grab things with rose friend! Share good smells!

Other parasite submissions!
Biocon, Body King, Cuckoo Folk, Eater of Tongues, Hydrargent, Klyntar, Mother of Osk, Mycorrhizan, PARASITE, Parasite Brain, Spellbug, Temporal Paradox, Umbrant

This challenge brought to you by Micah of Nuclear Haruspex!

GLOG Class: Vine Servant

A: Blossoms, Happy, Parasite Die
B: Vine
C: Pigment Shift
D: Heartwood

You gain +1 HP for every Vine Servant template you have. Whenever an effect asks for your number of templates, use the number of Vine Servant templates you have.

Your Parasite Die controls the effectiveness and intensity of your powers. It starts as a d20. When you use your powers that tell you to roll your PD, roll it, and consult the Manifestation Table. Whenever you roll a 1 on your PD, it decreases by one dice size. (d20-d12-d8-d6-d4).
When your PD becomes a 1d4 and you roll a 1, your Parasite consumes your mortal shell and enters its final form in a glorious transformation. You die horribly.
Even if you never use your powers, you still must roll your PD once a week to see if it decreases in size.

Manifestation Table (roll the appropriate dice)

1. Apotheosis. You choose the desired effect which doubles in intensity and take 1 damage. Your PD decreases by one step.
2. Two effects. One that you want, another of the DM’s choice.
3. Roll two effects on the appropriate feature table and pick one.
4. Some other randomly rolled effect from another feature triggers.
5. An effect of your choice. 
6. The DM chooses what effect triggers.
7. You choose the effect, but it’s inverted if possible (you don’t know it’ll be inverted).
8. Roll on the appropriate feature table and apply the effect.
9. You have -2 to your next Save.
10. An effect of your choice triggers.
11. Next time you take damage, you double it.
12. An effect of your choice triggers but it’s half as powerful.
13. Nothing.
14. The effect is determined randomly and inverted if possible.
15. Nothing.
16. Nothing.
17. You take 1 damage for every time you’ve rolled on this table today.
18. Nothing.
19. Nothing.
20. Save or gain a plant based mutation of the DM’s choice.

You can sprout gorgeous Blossoms from your body and pick them. When you do so, roll your PD on the Manifestation Table and then consult the Blossom Table if necessary. The effects of any Blossom last for [template] minutes, after which they become a normal, if beautiful, rose. The range of all Blossom effects is equal to [template] x 5’, centered on the rose. You are immune to your own Blossoms, and you can only use each Blossom once a day.

Blossom Table (roll 1d6 if you must)

1. Yellow Rose. Creatures must Save or be overcome with an overwhelming reproductive impulse.
2. Red Rose. Creatures must Save or have their emotions amplified dramatically.
3. White Rose. Creatures must Save or take damage equal to the half the damage they’ve inflicted in the last minute.
4. Lavender Rose. Creatures must Save or have their movement and actions cut in half. 
5. Pink Rose. Creatures must Save or forget the last minute.
6. Black Rose. The first creature to fail its Save against this rose dies if its [HD] < [templates]. The black rose dissolves immediately after it kills a creature.

You’re a Happy person! You rationalize all the horrible things you do to others quite easily and have a [template] bonus to Saves against mental trauma or realizing what you’ve become. If you ever fail a Save of that nature, though, the effects are twice as bad.

Hoang Lap

Your rose sprouts a small Vine from a location of your choice. This vine has a length equal to [template] x 5’ and deals 1d4 damage if used as a weapon. If the vine is cut, you lose 1 HP for every 5 feet lost; the vine regrows 1’ a day. It can carry an object that weighs [template] pounds or less and support up to your weight. You can only use each Vine effect once a day.

Vine Table (Roll 1d4 if you must)

1. Drain. A creature within the reach of your vine must Save or lose [template] HP. You gain the HP it lost. Any excess provides a bonus to your next Save equal to the excess HP gained.
2. Transfer. You may lose up to a maximum of [template] x 2 HP to give that HP to a creature within the reach of your vine.*
3. Shred. The next [template] attacks you make with the vine have their damage dice increased by one step.
4. Extract. A creature within the reach of your vine must Save or you extract a fluid of your choice (poison, urine, etc) from it. You can store a bit of this substance inside yourself for [template] days, after which you suffer its effects unless you discharge it. You may discharge a stored fluid into another creature or a container. Unwilling creatures get a Save to avoid this.*

*if a creature is affected by this ability, it must Save or be infected by a Mictla Rose seedling. If it fails, its next template must be a Vine Servant.

Your rose can Pigment Shift your skin once per day. If you move slowly, the color of your exposed skin blends in perfectly with the background for [template] minutes.

Your tender flesh is partially replaced with Heartwood, and you reduce all bludgeoning/slashing damage by 3.

When the rose consumes and subverts your fleshy shell, you root to available dirt at the earliest opportunity and become a huge, carnivorous rosebush that seeks edible meat. Possibly your companions.

Sebastian Montecinos

Design Notes: Holy hell is this class mechanically complicated for a GLOG class. I have absolutely no idea how balanced this is or how well it’d play at the table. I didn’t have time, but I think I’m going to retrofit this class into a more encompassing Parasite class later with that delicious decreasing dice mechanic.

The biggest hangup is the Parasite Dice. I've tried to balance it, but I simply have no idea how well it will work. I can estimate math (if you count nothing as a bad effect, 12/20 or 60% of the time a d20 will crap out on you); I still have no idea how long an infested PC will last. Assuming that a dice rolls perfectly randomly, a 1 on the d20 should crop up after 20 rolls? And then 12 rolls for a d12, 8 rolls for a d8, 6 rolls for a d6, and 4 rolls for a d4. So this class has around 40 rolls in it? 40 uses of your powers, count them carefully.

I considered condensing the Parasite Dice with a Blossoms/Vine table but I decided that if I want the PD model to be adaptable to different parasites I should leave them separate.

Speaking of the Blossoms/Vine tables, I'm worried about their usability. The first two dice steps (d20 and d12) grant the uncertain use of features, but d8 and under becomes increasingly reliable and predictable. Does this power scale well? Are the features strong enough to be useful but still potentially dangerous enough if triggered wrongly to prompt second thoughts about spamming them? These are questions I think only playtesting can answer.

By the time a Vine Servant's powers become super useful, using them too much can lead quickly to death. I think that tension will go a long way towards counterbalancing the pull of strengthened abilities but then some players just run characters into the ground. Forming an attachment to a PC with this infection is risky anyway. More than anyone else, Vine Servants are going to die. It's just a matter of time.

I think this class has some great tools but I'm worried about it outshining other classes at lower levels. If a player gets "lucky" and decreases their PD on the first couple rolls, then they can enjoy higher levels of power while the rest of the party has a limited repertoire.

I really like this class concept: a time bomb. Kind of like the Biocon. Like my favorite GLOG classes, you can access great power relatively easily, but using it will surely damn you. Your expiration date is just more sure than most.