Mutations

Red Age > Rules > Characters > Mutations

Flaws

• Compulsion: a certain stimulus provokes a Spirit Save, on failure you respond instinctively with (your choice when you take this) fight, flight, or freeze (possibly locked in hallucinations); save each round to snap out of it.
• Vulnerability: you take double damage from a form of physical damage (crushing, slashing, or piercing), or two other forms of damage (fire, frost, acid, poison)
• Frail: Low HP progression. Halve your Vigor stat. Brutes cannot be Frail.
• Sunlight Sensitivity: you have +D on rolls to attack, defense, or perceive while in full sunlight or comparably bright light.
• Mute: you cannot speak, or are unable to make intelligible speech. You can develop a system of gestures (and whatever noises you can make) that allows simple communication with those who know you well. If a malison, you have developed something to replace speech in your casting, often some form of noisemaking (clicking mandibles, clapping hands, etc).
• Plodding: your Speed is 20', and you have +D to initiative and Wits saves to react to ambushes.
• Blind: you cannot see / have no eyes. You probably want to take some kind of sensory mutation to compensate.
• Carnivorous: you can only gain sustenance from meat. Provisions cost triple. You can survive on preserved meat. Unless you have eaten relatively fresh meat today, it costs 2 reserve to restore 1 HP, you receive half healing and fatigue reduction from spells or effects.
• Bestial Fighter: when you enter combat, animalistic instincts take over. You can't speak, must roll Wits to understand the words of others, and are limited to simple, though potentially cunning, strategies. You can use melee and thrown weapons, but not missile weapons. You're uninfluenced by civilized taboos or shames while fighting.
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• in progress...
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• delusions / hallucinations
• hungers
• weakness
• missing / dull sense

mutations: some are passive abilities, others require mana, HP, or fatigue to fuel (look to gamma world, metamorphica, or other randomizers?)

General Mutations

(2 mutation pts each, except where noted)

Perception

Second Sight

You have the spell-like ability Second Sight, as if you had Gnosis or casting ability.

Eagle Sight

You can see clearly over great distances. Treat yourself as being 10x closer to the object of your attention when determining what details you can make out.

Keen Smell

You can identify people and substances by smell. When dealing with creatures that have a scent, you have -5 DC to tracking and reading people.

Keen Senses 2

(1 - 2 pts, as Skilled or Expert Observer Feats)

Unhindered Gaze

When you concentrate (total), you can see through matter. Your vision is limited to 10', and you can see through up to 3' of low-density material (soil, wood, flesh), 1' of stone or metal, or 1" of lead or similar.

Physiology

Improved Healing

When you recover HP and/or Life through natural means, double the amount. You will eventually heal even severed limbs or destroyed organs (treat as a Wound with 4x the normal healing cost).

Aquatic

You are comfortable in the water and gain a Swim speed equal to your normal Speed. You probably have features such as webbed hands, flippers, fins, etc. Choose 1: Gills: you can breathe water indefinitely. Diver: you can hold your breath for (3 x Vigor) minutes, and last twice as long when resisting suffocation.

Heat Resistance

You are immune to mundane extremes of heat, and resistant to fire.

Cold Resistance

You are immune to mundane extremes of cold, and resistant to frost.

Acid Resistance (1 pt)

You are resistant to acid.

Pathogen Resistance

You have resistance to poison. You are immune to diseases of Magnitude 2+HALF or lower, and gain +A against nastier diseases.

Luminescent (1 pt)

You can emit heatless light from your body, sustaining a candle-glow indefinitely, or the brightness of a torch for up to a total of 1+VIG hours per Long Rest (30 minutes if 1+VIG = 0).

Extra Limbs (1 pt)

You have extra arms, tentacles, a prehensile tail, etc. This doesn't affect your ability to attack or defend (can't effectively wield more than 2 weapons, can't wield a 2h and shield, etc), but you have extra hands for grappling or holding things, and have +2 Readied items.

Hibernation (1 pt)

You can enter a state of hibernation, as restful as sleep and not requiring food, water, air. You appear dead. You may wake, or at least surface enough to groggily perceive your surroundings, when stirred by nearby sounds or touch. It takes 3 turns to fully enter or awaken from hibernation, during which time you are Stunned.

Plant

You count as a Plant where such things matter. You are vulnerable to fire. You don't require oxygen and produce enough for another Medium creature. You are immune to diseases that don't affect plants. You don't need to eat as long as you have water and sunlight (you can eat if sunlight is unavailable).

Inhuman Beauty

You are effectively under a Sanctuary spell when interacting with humans and abhumans (and any other beings susceptible to anthropic beauty). If you break the effect by taking hostile action, it doesn't affect those targets until 24 hours outside your presence have passed. Take -5 DC when exploiting your appearance in social situations.

Blood-drinker

You may restore 1 HP per 2 Life's worth of fresh blood consumed (less than a day old), up to (max HP / 2) per day.

Boneless

• Cost: 1
• You can contort as if your bones are made of rubber. Treat as the Contortionist feat, but without a Dex prerequisite.

Mobility

Intangibility

You can pass through matter less dense than stone (wood, plaster, soil, flesh), taking 1 hp per 10' of matter (or fraction thereof). If still intangible at the end of your turn, you may keep going, but now take 1d4 hp per 10'. Each turn the damage die increases 1 step further, up to d12.

Fleet of Foot 2

(as Feat)

Sticky Toes / Arboreal

(1 pt, as Climbing Expert)

Buoyant

As an action, you can inflate an internal gasbag, alter your connection to gravity, etc. Each round as an action, you can float up or down 5', or revert to normal (falling). As a reaction, take half damage from a fall that impacts in a turn or less, or halt yourself completely on longer falls. You have +D to physical actions and half Speed while buoyant, jostled around too easily by wind or movement.

Communication

Limited Telepathy

You can project words in your own voice into the mind of a willing target within 30', and can hear their response if they direct it back to you. Doesn't overcome language barriers.

Animal Speech

You can communicate with animals as if under the Speak With Animals spell. If you are a Plant, you may also Speak With Plants (or only with plants as 1 pt mutation).

Combat

Natural Weapons

You have claws, tusks, fangs, horns, bladed tail, etc. Light, d6 slashing / crushing / piercing (as appropriate), finesse or forceful, long or short (as needed). You don't count as unarmed.

Breath Weapon

Choose fire, frost, poison, or acid when you gain this mutation. You can spit a glob / jet at a single target within 15' up to 10 times per Brief Rest. The target must Dex (fire, frost, acid) or Vigor (poison) save or take 1d6 damage. 1+HALF times per Short Rest you can exhale a 15' cone affecting all targets within, dealing d6+PROF, save for half. Once you're out of uses, you can't use your normal Breath Weapon either.

- senses - communication: ESP - defense - offense: musk, venom - Sitting Very Still - flawless memory

achilles heel: you are resistant to physical damage, but also gain the Vulnerable flaw.

web-spinner: you can extrude up to 50' of web-line per day, replenished after a long rest with food. you can make parts of it adhesive, grippy, or smooth with a touch it. you can shoot a sticky strand at a target within 10' and they must Dex save or be grappled. each additional hit can advance the grapple. webbing breaks down quickly in flame, and loses its adhesion if doused with oil or alcohol.

sense material: when you concentrate (total), you can smell or otherwise sense the presence of a certain kind of material (precious metal, spilled blood, magic) within 60'. On the following turn, you can get a rough sense of direction, distance, and quantity.

exhale cloud: you can emit a 10' radius volume of opaque gas or fine particulate from yourself once per short rest.

???animal shape: you can transform into a particular type of Small or Tiny animal.

gullet storage: you can swallow up to

small: you are small. you can't use heavy weapons.

Phenotypic Mutations

Brute Mutations

Mighty 1

• as Feat

Mighty 2

• as Feat

Battle Rage

• as Feat

Numb to Pain

• as Feat

Brutal Natural Weapons

(1 pt)

• Same benefits as Natural Weapons, but when you make forceful attacks and don't use Dueling, you deal d10 damage. Deal +1d on crits.

Carapace

(1 pt)

• Your body counts as heavy armor, instead of medium.

Ferocity

(1 pt)

• You have Expert Intimidation when making direct physical threats.

Rip & Tear

(1 pt)

• You make 2 Forceful melee attacks, splitting your attack bonus evenly (as Fighter Flurry, but only up to 2 attacks).

Indomitable

(1 pt)

• The first time per Short Rest that you take Life damage while at 0 hp: gain Resistance to damage until the end of your next turn (including against the Life damage from this attack), and you do not need to roll for a Wound or collapse.
• Collapse rolls and saves against pain are made with +A.

Hulking

(2 pts)

• You are Large (increasing carrying capacity, advantaging grappling and forcing, taking up 10' x 10' space, and gaining +5' reach).

- increase Vigor saves? flat +2 Vigor save? or +A?

Skulk Mutations

- halfling small and nimble - undetectable - hypnotic gaze - stealthy - agile acrobat - contortionist - keen observer - keen insight - silver-tongued - animal ken - sleight of hand - changeling: gain the benefits of the Master of Disguise feat, and you can make minor changes to your own body as part of a Short Rest (shift soft tissue, slightly lengthen/shorten bones and flex bone structure, change pigmentation, add/reduce hair density and length) - slippery mind: +A to Wits and Spirit saves against mental influence, probing, or divination - fade away: if you remain still for a round, you can become invisible and inaudible until you move or do something overt

• Boneless

Malison Mutations

Improved Living Vessel (X)

• You can contained X additional spells.

Armored Raiment

• (1)
• You can craft any armor you are proficient with into raiment, providing all the benefits of each.

Blink

• You gain a spell-like ability, allowing you to teleport yourself (Power+1) x 10' feet as an action, or half that distance as a bonus action.

- weapon bond - spell resistance - hypnotic gaze: a subject who meets your gaze from within 10' must Spirit Save or become frozen while you maintain contact. If in the middle of a struggle, they gain +A to the save. - stunning scream - see invisible