Grossest class abilities?

[GilesTheCleric]

I've been scouring the books for obscure PrCs to complement an entropomancer build I'm doing (spoiler, Entropomancer and Void Disciple only have one good ability each, the former only with a 5-level investment, the latter with either 1 or 12 depending on build). In the course of this, I noticed this gem that made me squirm in my seat:


Urban Sustenance (Ex): You rely on the presence of a city for your physical needs, and you suffer when you travel beyond such areas. While within a city, you need not eat, drink, or sleep, and you heal at twice the normal rate. If you cast spells, you must still rest for the normal amount of time needed to regain spells.
However, you cannot heal naturally at all outside a city, and you eventually weaken if kept away from an urban environment. If you remain outside a city for 24 hours, you must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or take 1 point of Strength damage and 1 point of Constitution damage. Each day after the first that you remain outside a city, the save DC increases by +1.

I'm not sure I want to think about how this works.

So, what sort of gut-wrenching options have you seen? Bonus points if your character had the fortitude to use them in a build.

[Necromancy]

I came here to see something gross...

[Troacctid]

How about the Cancer Mage ability to grow a sentient tumor that becomes your little tumor pal?

You also get a +4 natural armor bonus to AC by allowing insects and worms and maggots to crawl all over your body! Aren't Cancer Mages fun?

[Forrestfire]

The Thrall of Zuggtmoy gets erotic dreams with their demon lord as a class feature at two of the levels...

[Deadasadoor]

Fang of Lolth has you slowly turn into a gross spider-person, extra limbs and all.

Vermin Lord also gives you the ability to grow mandibles and such, and like Cancer Mage it gives you a coating of bugs that give DR.

[Pluto!]

Prestige Paladin turns your Cleric into a Paladin.

[Troacctid]

Prestige Paladin turns your Cleric into a Paladin.

Zing! :smalltongue:

[sideswipe]

Prestige Paladin turns your Cleric into a Paladin.

you get all of the brownie points for this thread!

[Milo v3]

I'm confused... how is Urban Sustenance gross?

[GilesTheCleric]

Prestige Paladin turns your Cleric into a Paladin.

That's the most disgusting thing yet. Somehow, it reminds me of Reese's, though. Hey, you got your paladin in my cleric! No, you got your cleric in my paladin!

I'm confused... how is Urban Sustenance gross?

The character becomes able to eat and drink only foods that are found in cities, and cannot survive without them. If you take it one way, it essentially means they're addicted to fast food/processed foods and drinks; alternatively, they can only survive on the waste produced by society, since those are the only two types of food and drink that can't be found in the wilderness. It also means that they're unable to live without society and encourage civilization to continue to supplant nature, though that's sad rather than gross.

[Milo v3]

The character becomes able to eat and drink only foods that are found in cities, and cannot survive without them. If you take it one way, it essentially means they're addicted to fast food/processed foods and drinks; alternatively, they can only survive on the waste produced by society, since those are the only two types of food and drink that can't be found in the wilderness. It also means that they're unable to live without society and encourage civilization to continue to supplant nature, though that's sad rather than gross.

That intepretation cannot be correct, since while in cities the character wouldn't need to eat at all. They aren't eating and drinking waste or fast food, they are being sustained by the very concept of the city around them. I'm amazed it isn't a Su ability with how damn magic that is.

[xBlackWolfx]

I don't know if this counts, but Radiance has a lot of obviously gross stuff in it. Its quite deviated from Dungeons and Dragons, truth be told the only resemblence it has to any edition is the attributes and the names of spells and such. Even many of the classes don't work the same. For example, a sorcerer in the game functions more like a red dragon disciple.

As for gross stuff? Plenty. There's the pygmies, one of the races, which are said to be cannibals. Lovely. And that's ignoring the fact that they're based off a racist stereotype (and btw there really are people in the world called pygmies). There's also the medicant, one of the classes in the game that's basically doctor frankenstein. Your character revolves around collecting organs and transplanting them. They also have the ability to create and transplant 'symbiots' which give enhancements to characters. But by the far the most horrific and wrong thing is an ability called 'skin alive'. The effect of that spell is obvious. Oh, and your character dies 3 rounds later and the only thing that can save them is a wish or miracle. Well, there's a few other things, but obviously there's not too many abilities in the game that can save the character. That class is just wrong in every way possible. Even the necromancer looks family-friendly in comparison.

Oh, and the book also x-ray glasses in its equipment list. Yes, the game seriously has x-ray glasses. Though in order to make them, you'd need access to the x-ray vision spell, which isn't available from any of the classes. The only way to get it is to worship this one goddess who's domain I believe is commerce and travel or something like that. It seems implied that the thing is meant to be used for a quick strip-search, and I believe that game was released before the whole airport scanner controversy.

A lot of screwy things in that book, and the site claims the book was primarily released for philanthropic reasons, despite the fact that the player's manual is free.

[YossarianLives]

There's that feat that involves you having sex with undead...

[Miscast_Mage]

If PF is on the table, alchemists can start being incredibly disgusting from level one. Their extracts(self only spells in a nutshell) include gems like spitting tanglefoot bags, vomiting swarms, vomiting a swappable puke clone, flame sneezes with snot,and gargling potions and spitting them back Out for re-use later.

Those are just their "spells". Class features they can choose from include the sentient tumour familiar that will usually be attached to you , mummifying their own organs inside themselves, reviving alchemical zombies or bottled oozes, growing extra limbs or tentacles or even an internal conjoined twin.

They can also go hulk mode with mutagens,getting a bonus to physical stats at a penalty to mental ones. One prestige class even builds this into a full on seconds personality, a la Dr jekyll and Mr Hyde.

[atemu1234]

Fang of Lolth has you slowly turn into a gross spider-person, extra limbs and all.

Vermin Lord also gives you the ability to grow mandibles and such, and like Cancer Mage it gives you a coating of bugs that give DR.

Fang of Lolth turns you into the spider version of the brundlefly.

[Crake]

Arguably, an acorn of far travel cast on an acorn from an oak tree inside a city would let you always be considered as if you were within a city.

[The Viscount]

The signs of several Vestiges are unsettling, but the top on for me is Vanus, who gives you a boil with a worm in in that is plainly visible and is immediately replaced if you try to remove it.

Alienist's funky tumor is also pretty nasty.

[A Tad Insane]

The signs of several Vestiges are unsettling, but the top on for me is Vanus, who gives you a boil with a worm in in that is plainly visible and is immediately replaced if you try to remove it.

What about Dahlver-nar's forehead teeth? Or Savnok's arrow under you skin?

[Jagernaut]

I always thought the Blood Magus' Bloodwalk was pretty gross, even if you don't make a bloody exit. There's just something about jumping in to someone, and then popping out of literally any creature with blood on the plane.

[Sith_Happens]

Prestige Paladin turns your Cleric into a Paladin.

Only if you take more than three levels. Prestige Paladin 3 gets you everything remotely good about being a Paladin for one lost caster level. If all you want is the spell list you only need Prestige Paladin 1 which doesn't lose a caster level.

[Zaq]

Not a class ability, but Tempo Bloodspikes from Magic of Eberron have always made me uncomfortable. They're an alchemical substance that you inject into your body (doing piercing damage—they mean INJECT), and then at some point in the next hour, you can take an additional move action. I can't quite articulate why that gives me the heebie-jeebies, but something about the combination of it being an injected substance (I don't do well with needles) and the fact that it doesn't do anything until you will it into action just makes me very uncomfortable. (The fact that it's basically a quasimagical stimulant doesn't help, and it's arguably made worse by the fact that it doesn't affect you immediately, but it waits dormant until you choose to have it surge to life.)

I'm not super comfortable with the other bloodspikes (like I said, I don't like needles), but it's the tempo ones that sit the least well with me. (Naturally, they're the only ones that optimizers talk about, since they're the only ones that are worth the cost. The rest of the bloodspikes are generally too expensive or too action-inefficient to be worth using, but tempo bloodspikes let you screw with the action economy, so they're actually pretty strong, even if they're too expensive to use in every single fight.)

[Padoodle]

Not a class feature, but the Mother Cyst feat from Libris Mortis. Kinda like a cancer mage in that you infect people with cysts without their knowing, and they are very difficult to remove. As you level up the Mother Cyst feat gives you cyst-based spells and you can engage in all kinds of ****ery.