Cat Pirates!?

[smasher0404]

First, obligatory warning (since some of my players are on these forums): if you are playing in Solemn Explorers, and have dealt with too many NPCs named Bob please avoid spoilering yourself and turn away from this thread.

Hi Everyone! I was hoping to crowdsource some NPC ideas for my next session given the events of the previous one. My party has run into Redmane, a Tibbit pirate who runs an all-Tibbit crew. While most of the crew are NPC classes, I was planning on statting up some elites that haven't been introduced yet. They should all be Tibbits, and I would prefer that their gimmicks be functional while in their cat forms.

Due to the House Rules of my Campaign, any alignment works for the crew members (Alignment is really only used mechanically in my games), so a Vile character and an Exalted character would both function in the same group (there are in-setting reasons for this, but I won't get into it here). My party is ECL 7, and I'm aiming for each of the elites to come out to roughly CR 6 (with obvious wiggle room in terms of the exact Challenge Rating since not all creatures of the same CR are built equal).

While I obviously have some ideas of my own, I was wondering if the Playground had any clever builds/ideas that can be used with the Cat form. Thanks!

[Athan Artilliam]

First, obligatory warning (since some of my players are on these forums): if you are playing in Solemn Explorers, and have dealt with too many NPCs named Bob please avoid spoilering yourself and turn away from this thread.

Hi Everyone! I was hoping to crowdsource some NPC ideas for my next session given the events of the previous one. My party has run into Redmane, a Tibbit pirate who runs an all-Tibbit crew. While most of the crew are NPC classes, I was planning on statting up some elites that haven't been introduced yet. They should all be Tibbits, and I would prefer that their gimmicks be functional while in their cat forms.

Due to the House Rules of my Campaign, any alignment works for the crew members (Alignment is really only used mechanically in my games), so a Vile character and an Exalted character would both function in the same group (there are in-setting reasons for this, but I won't get into it here). My party is ECL 7, and I'm aiming for each of the elites to come out to roughly CR 6 (with obvious wiggle room in terms of the exact Challenge Rating since not all creatures of the same CR are built equal).

While I obviously have some ideas of my own, I was wondering if the Playground had any clever builds/ideas that can be used with the Cat form. Thanks!

Pegleg Pete
Doesnt actually have a peg leg, just one leg in cat form is fully white

[Jervis]

Snow Beard: white stomach with a lot of floof.

Munchy: a Druid who shapeshifts into non-cats, specifically dinosaurs

Tiger: A divine minion of baste who turns into every cat in existence. They have 18 strength and took levels in CE Soulborn to be immune to strength penalties. They also have war shaper and master of many forms levels

[Athan Artilliam]

Cannonball
Big fat black cat with a pierced ear & an orange vest worn open. Talks with a low class English accent. Master of the improvised weapon, his favorite of which is himself. Known to climb into a cannon & launching himself at the enemy ship.

Galore, a prissy ladycat of wealth before being marooned on an island. After being rescued by some sailors she was pressed into serving on deck to earn her passage. Now she has a love of the sea & the finer things

Big Kahuna
Cross a cat with Buddha tropes & Hawaiian culture. A peaceful cat with powerful weather/sea magic. Rather small for his size

Fish & Chips
Siamese cats who are brothers. They can pilfer any pocket & look so cute & innocent even Azmodeus would believe their lies

[Wintermoot]

I think you could make some progress by looking at the characters from Cats the musical and their roots in the T.S. Eliot poems from "Old Possums' Book of Practical Cats"

Asparagus (Gus) a.k.a. the Theatre Cat – A frail elderly cat who used to be a famous stage actor.
Bombalurina – A flirty and confident red queen; she is best friends with Demeter and the two share an intense hatred for Macavity.
Bustopher Jones a.k.a. the Cat About Town – A fat upper-class cat with a "fastidious black coat and white spats". Respected by all, he is a man of leisure who frequents gentlemen's club for their fine dining. In most productions, the actor playing Gus also plays Bustopher, though in early productions the part was handled by the actor playing Old Deuteronomy.
Demeter – A troubled and skittish queen; she is best friends with Bombalurina and the two share an intense hatred for Macavity.
Grizabella – A former Glamour Cat, ostracised by the Jellicles, who has lost her sparkle and now only wants to be accepted.
Jellylorum – A motherly caretaker who watches out for the kittens and looks after Gus.
Jemima/Sillabub – The youngest kitten. Idealistic and jovial, she is sympathetic to Grizabella's plight.
Jennyanydots a.k.a. the Old Gumbie Cat – She sits around all day and is seemingly very lazy, but at night, she becomes very active as she rules the mice and cockroaches, forcing them to undertake helpful functions and creative projects to curb their naturally destructive habits.
Macavity a.k.a. the Mystery Cat – A notorious criminal known as the "Napoleon of Crime". Usually played by the actor playing Admetus/Plato.
Mr. Mistoffelees – A young black-and-white tuxedo tom learning to control his magical powers.He is a featured dancer, performing his signature "Conjuring Turn" (twenty-four consecutive fouettés en tournant) during his number. Mistoffelees' chorus identity is sometimes known as Quaxo.
Mungojerrie – A mischievous troublemaker, he is one-half of a notorious duo of cat-burglars along with Rumpleteazer.
Munkustrap – A grey tabby tomcat who is the storyteller and protector of the Jellicle tribe. He is Old Deuteronomy's second-in-command and the show's main narrator.
Old Deuteronomy – The wise and benevolent elderly Jellicle leader who is beloved by his tribe.
Rumpleteazer – A mischievous troublemaker, she is one half of a notorious duo of cat-burglars along with Mungojerrie.
Rum Tum Tugger – A flashy and unappeasable cat who loves to be the centre of attention.
Skimbleshanks a.k.a. the Railway Cat – An upbeat and active orange tabby cat, who lives on the mail trains and acts as an unofficial chaperone to such an extent he is considered rather indispensable to the train and station employees.
Victoria – A demure and graceful white kitten. She is a featured dancer, opening with a ballet solo after "The Naming of the Cats" and is the first character to touch Grizabella.


Lots of Cat like archtypes in there you can mine and piratize.

[Eurus]

Tibbits have a tough time with spellcasting in cat form, IIRC, but it's not impossible. There's a feat called Surrogate Spellcasting in Savage Species, an older 3.0 book, which lets you pull off somatic and verbal components in cat form (or any other form, really), or you can use metamagic to just cast spells that don't have verbal/somatic components at all.

On the other hand, a tibbit psion can do whatever the heck they want. :smallamused:

A tibbit bard can Inspire Courage, that could be fun. And a tibbit rogue or ninja could do a decent amount of melee damage with sudden strike/sneak attack. A tibbit warblade or swordsage could add some damage with maneuvers...

[Maat Mons]

I'm surprised all these cats voluntarily work around so much water.

I suppose Rogue levels synergize well with the three natural attacks. Though I'm not sure how you'd deal with needing to enter an opponent's space.

Making some of them arcane casters with cat familiars could sew confusion. Alternately, the Urban Companion ACF would work.

[Particle_Man]

I'm surprised all these cats voluntarily work around so much water.

Surprisingly, some pirates could not swim and thus greatly feared walking the flank, so it could fit narratively.

A tibbit Warblade/Bloodclaw Master or Swordsage/Bloodclaw Master (or both) seems like they would fit. All that jumping around seems to be swashbuckleresque, which is pretty close to piratesque, cinematically speaking.

[Telonius]

I'm surprised all these cats voluntarily work around so much water.

The captain's a Turkish Van. (Also conveniently explains the "Redmane" name).

[Arael666]

A warlock1/scout 5 could take advantage of her size to blast from a safe distance (describing a cat lauching the eldrich blast from it's mouth is also fun).

For a melee oriented build, I like the swarmfighting feat (3 or 4 cats in a bundle fighting toguether is thematic and fun). But in order for that build to be effective you''d have to work in either warshaper 3 or the undefoot combat feat, so they don't have to suffer AoO every round and some way to add dex to damage.

[SpyOne]

Not just "some" - most pirates couldn't swim. Most sailors couldn't swim.

On the other hand, rough seas can easily lead to the crew getting wet, and except for a few breeds and a few rare individuals, cats don't like being wet a lot more than humans don't like it.

One of the crew is actually a spy for the government of a neighboring nation. Not spying on his shipmates, but gathering information on shipping and trade. This is irrelevant to the PCs' mission.

Mister Tibbles, a minor officer who is actually a war criminal trying to escape his past. (Type "tibbles stephens island wren" into your favorite search engine to get the full story of how a housecat singlehandedly drove a species extinct.)