Parasites as PCs V3.5

[AzureKnight]

Movie night last night with my friends led to a 4 hour stargate sg1 watch fest. Now they want to play as the nasty little snake looking parasites. i was asked a few questions as to their abilities. According to the series the creatures absorb the hosts memories and abilities. and thus can duplicate what they do to a fault.

If the parasite takes over a sorcerer it also takes on the ability to cast the spells the sorcerer can. If it takes over a warrior afterwards and leaves the sorcerer it gains the abilities of the new class. They want to know if they still retain the sorcerers abilities.

I said no as speculations into sorcerers say they have this ability from heritag3 and therefor lose the ability to cast spells. then the second asks what about if it were a mage taken over before the warrior. the spells researched and learned over the years stored into his memory.

So i figured he would keep that ability until he used the spells memorized and then be done with it. His point was that from there that if he still held the spellbook he memorized spells from why couldnt he memorize new spells as if he were still the mage.

I figured that his arguement held some merit so I put out that the creature would have the ability to multiclass without penelty. The stipulation being yes you gain the new class but must start it as a level 1 and once the new host is chosen they take a negative one level because the new host takes getting used too.

They are a little upset saying it semed a bit unfair and nothing like the show. But honestly according to what they think should happen upon switching hosts they have a full use of both classes at the level they were before taking them over. Hence a parasite residing in a level 10 mage leaps and takes over a fighter level 20 they feel the character should be a level 10 mage 20 warrior.

I am trying to be fair andkeep a balanced game so is what i proposed fair or could someone give me some ideas. Thanks

[Amechra]

If you can get a copy of Lords of Madness, one of the aberrations in that book hollows people out and wears them as a meatsuit. It could work for what you want.

Alternatively, if you ain't squeamish about the higher power level, here is a monster class.