Making a Seal-themed character

[RickAllison]

On a bet, I am trying to design a character themed around seals for 5e. Yes, the semi-aquatic mammals who are ridiculously cute. My first instinct is looking at Monk, riffing off of a variant of Dolphin Blow from Final Fantasy with Open Hand monk, especially treating the Flurry of Blows effects as indicative of Seal Style. But that seems like it might be taking a cop-out when there are better solutions.

The starting point, I think, would be to look at seal hunting behavior.

Leopard Seal: Violently swings prey back and forth until death. Could be used for a grappling maneuver
Walrus: Creates vacuum to suck out meat from invertebrates, also stabs predators with tusks.
Elephant Seal: Body slams and other violent, full-force blows

Other seal-style moves could include throwing foes around. Seals will do this to octopodes and other animals that can be grabbed, but still pose a threat while finishing off. So they will just slam them into things. All told, maybe something like a luchador-style build? I'm having a bit of difficulty with this one to be honest.

[Shabbazar]

And for what reason is a druid that likes to wild shape into a seal not an option? I think I missed something!

[Fable Wright]

Question 1:

As a Druid, you can play as a seal, who summons seals, with a seal companion. Is there a reason to not take the obvious solution?

Question 2:

How sold are you on Monk? I know that I had a build that I very much enjoyed, a Fighter with Tavern Brawler and Brawny/Prodigy for Athletics Expertise. Pick up an enemy and use them as an improvised weapon. With proficiency.

There's a couple things you could easily add in—for example, with Eldritch Knight, you could have "seal blubber" as Absorb Elements/Shield, Enlarge for "walrus form", and Warding Wind for any maneuver that a seal does when spinning around quickly. Also, your unarmed attacks are better than pretty much any non-Monk non-Barbarians for luchador action.

[iTreeby]

Only partially related but, Selkies are a creature from folklore that change from seal form to human form by shedding their skin. If one found a selkies skin while it was in human form, you could ransom favors from them.

consider asking your DM for a re-flavored cloak of the manta ray.

[RickAllison]

And for what reason is a druid that likes to wild shape into a seal not an option? I think I missed something!

Mainly the lack of any official seal XD Plus it needs to stand up in actual play. Like it doesn't need to be great, but a statblock that barely counts as cannon fodder doesn't really strike me as a viable character.


Question 1:

As a Druid, you can play as a seal, who summons seals, with a seal companion. Is there a reason to not take the obvious solution?

Question 2:

How sold are you on Monk? I know that I had a build that I very much enjoyed, a Fighter with Tavern Brawler and Brawny/Prodigy for Athletics Expertise. Pick up an enemy and use them as an improvised weapon. With proficiency.

There's a couple things you could easily add in—for example, with Eldritch Knight, you could have "seal blubber" as Absorb Elements/Shield, Enlarge for "walrus form", and Warding Wind for any maneuver that a seal does when spinning around quickly. Also, your unarmed attacks are better than pretty much any non-Monk non-Barbarians for luchador action.

I am not sold on monk at all, it was just the first thing that came to mind (and definitely was inspired by Tifa). I had considered the possibility of seal-themed spells. One concept I had for a caster a while back was an animist/summoner who didn't directly cast the spell, but summoned in a friendly creature to do it for them. I figure that refluffing could make for a similar thing, maybe for a sorcerer or something. Eldritch Knight is a good possibility.


Only partially related but, Selkies are a creature from folklore that change from seal form to human form by shedding their skin. If one found a selkies skin while it was in human form, you could ransom favors from them.

consider asking your DM for a re-flavored cloak of the manta ray.

That is an excellent suggestion. In our circles, we tend to allow characters to start with some lower-level magic items anyway, so they could probably start with one.

[Magicspook]

Have you ever heard of selkies? They are a type of faery folk of celtic mythology that can turn into seals. They might be cool for a homebrew race.

Something along the lines of
+2 DEX
+1 CHA

-Limited (seal only) wildshape 1/short rest, provided their sealskin is in their inventory
-Amphibious
-probably one more thing

EDIT: forgot to provide link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie

EDIT 2: dammit, ninja'd

[Vorpalchicken]

Work some sneak attack into your build and you can use that Seal song "Crit by a Rogue" as your theme.

[Arkhios]

Shifter could be a good race for a Selkie.

Beasthide (Elephant Seal)
Longtooth (Walrus)
Wildhunt (Leopard Seal*)
Swiftstride (Sea Lion*)
*I'm not entirely sure which one was the fastest of the two, but from appearance, these two are the most alike each other and could easily be swapped.

Subject to DM's discretion, but you could possibly ask for a swimming speed equal to your land speed while shifting with any one of these (not really broken, imho).

[JackPhoenix]

Use club as your weapon. It's payback time!

[BloodSnake'sCha]

How about a barbarian half orc(for the tusks) with the protagy or the UA Athletics feat for expertise.

The attacking ways of the Seals look to me very barbaric and it will give you the ability to grapple most of things.

Make it Seal totem barbarian.
LV3
Bear for not dieing.
LV6
bear for 2x carrying for throwing bigger enemies.
LV14
elk for crushing them to the ground or eagle for grappling and dropping them from the sky.

Change the name of every totam to Seal totam.

A full Orc can also work but only with the UA feat for the expertise.
I can also see a bugbear working and maybe a refluff lizardfolk as a sealfolk.

[OgataiKhan]

Came here to make a joke response about the animal-seal, assuming you actually meant the American Navy SEALs.

Was disappointed in the best possible way.

[Yunru]

Mainly the lack of any official seal XD Plus it needs to stand up in actual play. Like it doesn't need to be great, but a statblock that barely counts as cannon fodder doesn't really strike me as a viable character.
Shouldn't be that hard to refluff (maybe with slight tweaks) the Cave Bear and Polar Bear, but asides from those two... yeah.



Came here to make a joke response about the animal-seal, assuming you actually meant the American Navy SEALs.

Was disappointed in the best possible way.

Been trying to come up with a joke about heavily armed seals since the thread was posted, but still nothing.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Shouldn't be that hard to refluff (maybe with slight tweaks) the Cave Bear and Polar Bear, but asides from those two... yeah.




Been trying to come up with a joke about heavily armed seals since the thread was posted, but still nothing.

I was starting to think on a build of a god wizard of infiltration or bard(expertise and spells is what you want for this kind of stuff).

Then I saw he was talking on the animals.

[RickAllison]

I was starting to think on a build of a god wizard of infiltration or bard(expertise and spells is what you want for this kind of stuff).

Then I saw he was talking on the animals.

No one expects the Pinniped Inquisition!! With lots of help from the people in this thread, I’ve got three potential builds to develop.

The first is a Monk, either Open Hand or Shadow. Open Hand would be the most serious, featuring a Seal Style in the same way that there is Mantis style or Crane style. Elephant Seal Slam for the knockback, Foraging Walrus for the reaction (Snake Style like movements to intercept reactions), and Octopus Tenderization for the movement in honor of the video of the seal beaning a kayaker with an octopus.

The second is Seal Totem Barbarian with a grappling focus. I’m thinking Elk 3 for the ability to corral enemies and having more movement to run around, Bear 6 for the increased capacity, and Eagle 14 for air-swimming, so the Seal can drag their prey up to the “surface”, slam them against the rocks, then crash down on top of them. Brutal Criticals could be Leopard Seal Slaughter. Plus the nature spells will be great.

Finally, we have my Final Fantasy style Summoner using some caster and theming the spells as channeling or directly summoning extraplanar seals. Detect Magic or Identify could be astral walruses rubbing their whiskers against the things. Tidal Wave could be a giant seal slapping its tail against the ground. Dissonant Whispers is just a cacophony of seal harking. That kind of stuff. Maybe could tie in to the new warlock patron, have it be a Selkie Queen who has found her champion or something.

[nickl_2000]

Bonus points if you can do all this while singing "Kiss From a Rose" at the same time.

[GlenSmash!]

Came here to make a joke response about the animal-seal, assuming you actually meant the American Navy SEALs.

Was disappointed in the best possible way.

And here I thought it would be a character that compares you to a kiss from a rose on the grey.

Edit: should have read the whole thread commenting.

[darknite]

Make them vulnerable to bludgeoning damage?

[alchahest]

maybe use lizardmen as a BASE, alter from there. when I think seal, I think Leopard Seal and that means bite attack.

keep con+2, swap wis to dex.

change move speed to 25 walk / 40 swim

swap hunter's lore to proficiency in athletics

drop cunning artisan and natural armor, add Guardians of the depths from Triton, and double the hold breath to 30 minutes.

keep hungry jaws. because really. Leopard Seals.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

You could always play a druid and wildshape into already existing animal forms and just reflavor them into different variety of seals. Maybe work with your DM if theres some specific seal quality that would needed to be added for those forms to make sense, like being able to hold their breath for a long time. That way you could also use those same slightly modified stat sheets for conjuring seals in for battlefield support.

It also isn't really too much of a stretch to turn into a water elemental in the shape of a seal, when you get that.

[Sigreid]

Carry a ball you balance on your nose whever you get bored? 😁

[RickAllison]

Carry a ball you balance on your nose whever you get bored? 😁

Don’t you do that already? Am I alone in this?

[MagneticKitty]

The new Warlock patron of the sea(l)
Instead of tentacles it's seal flippers. And your eldritch blasts are flavored as balls of watery energy. Or beach balls.
Also use that evard's black tentacles but it's giant leopard seal heads that emerge from the void.
Pick lizardfolk and flavor it as seal folk. Your a.c. is 13 + con (blubber)
Proficiency in athletics and survival
The rest is fine.

[Sigreid]

I know DM's guild has an otter folk. Could be a solid start for a seal folk.