Magic rats

[weenie]

So I'm DMing a campaign, and am in need of some custom-made rat special abilities. It can be anything from spell-like abilities, to special qualities and attacks such as DR or breath weapons. The plot is some weird strain of rat infested the city sewers and they're multiplying like crazy, but no-one knows why. No need for complete rat stats, just brainstorm a few ideas.

[...]

There are some great Cranium Rat Swarms in the FF, those would work.

[Seclora]

I know of three varieties of special magic bad time rats.
Ash Rats, which are both healed by fire and produce a little bit of it. They're in the MM2 page 24.
Moon Rats, from the same book on page 151, gain intelligence and strength as the moon become full and lose it as the new moon comes. They're known to move in numbers and are much smarter than your average rat without being visibly different.
And then there are the aforementioned Cranium Rat Swarms. Cranium Rat Swarms are a right menace, wielding both Psionic Powers and auto-hit swarm attacks. They can be found in the Fiend Folio under Swarms.

[Ellowryn]

Hive mind from BoVD, rat swarms (or any other swarm) gain caster ability based on size/numbers.

[Yerltvachovicic]

One word, doppelrat (http://http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/front-page6947.php#.U9_UnaNfyqY).

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I'm a fan of tossing pseudonatural (the non-epic version) on little critters.

[Dalebert]

My characters are going through a vermin-themed dungeon under the city at the moment. The BB they will eventually face is a rat king (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king_%28folklore%29) who has a fairly pervasive dominate monster type ability that it can use on normal rats, dire rats, ratfolk, were-rats, bats, cave fishers, and general vermin. You get the idea.

http://i.imgur.com/8hATYq3.jpg

It's gotten quite large and is growing in power and gaining levels along the way. I think I'm going to treat it like a rat swarm in terms of how it can direct attack. Meanwhile, they'll face a smaller rat king that is subservient to the larger one or maybe just not yet merged. It'll be like a dozen rats in a circle and will have some spell-casting ability and a couple of henchmen. So far they've faced a couple of were-rats who had glowing yellow eyes and seemed to be in a trance. The rat king is trying to grow his power so he prefers (if possible) to infect the party with rat lycanthropy so it can add them to it's dominion.

So anyway, feel free to steal my idea and modify it for your game if you like it. I used a donjon-generated vermin dungeon and then modified it to suit my idea.

[Cowardly Griffo]

Collective Creature (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/collective-creature-cr-1-tohc) isn't an awful place to look for ideas.

But honestly, look at what small changes can do: they're already stealthy, vast in number and can enter any home. They have opposable digits. They have teeth that can chew through cheap iron, and they can and will eat anything. They have a reputation for cunning. They form colonies. They organize.

You don't really need anything crazy. Just make them smart. That's all it takes. Now, they're an invading army that's already here.

Personally, I'd have them specialize in poisons and diseases. They're small and they know it, so direct confrontation won't work for them. But they've brought entire civilizations to their knees with the threat of plague, and a smart colony will recognize that strength. They already live in filth and disease; it's a small step for them to learn how to cultivate it. They can brew poisons from whatever the big dumb bipeds throw away because they're too scared to keep it around.

Smart rats aren't at their best as some alien hive mind, IMO. Honestly, that idea's been kind of done to death (granted, things get done to death because they work (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools), but if you're looking for something fresh, that's not it). And if you just throw some weird abilities like breath weapons, well, they're going to be pretty similar to what your players have faced before. Only tinier.

But give them a plan, play to their preexisting strengths, and suddenly they're an entire army, an entire society, of assassins and cancer mages.

Now think about what a colony of rats like that could do with the people they capture. Think what they would do with the people they capture. That, my friend, is terror.

[Yerltvachovicic]

Silus - The Rat Lich (http://http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?55087-And-You-Are-All-Trapped-Like-What-%28BBEG%29)

[Dalebert]

Smart rats aren't at their best as some alien hive mind, IMO. Honestly, that idea's been kind of done to death...


Understood, but I didn't start off with "How do I make rats scarier?". I started out with something more specific -- being fascinated by the legend of rat kings and wanting to build a monster and a story/adventure around it. It's a really gross and creepy concept and I just wanted to run with it.


Now think about what a colony of rats like that could do with the people they capture. Think what they would do with the people they capture. That, my friend, is terror.

I've already incorporated some of that. There's a chamber where they nibble on people as long as possible without killing them. Scratched on the wall just outside the entrance is "Let them fester", the idea being this is where they cultivate infections and disease. There are little phrases like that all around the dungeon starting off kind of like nonsense babble but getting more intelligent as they go into other areas to show the gradual increase in intelligence.