All the world's a river, and I am its King (Assistance with a Tahm Kench build)

[Galacktic]

Hello everyone! I've got the idea recently to try and build Tahm Kench using Pathfinder rules but it's not the most easy thing in the world considering how...unique his kit is! Everything Pathfinder is available from FFD20 to basically everything on the Spheres of Power wiki and the Library of Metzofitz, it's just hard to find a fit for all of his abilities?

Goals: Recreate his abilities as well as we can, while making him a functional character from 1-20. Must be ungodly horrible to actually kill. Preferably Charisma based as he -is- a very alluring catfish. Some mechanical way of representing his raw gluttony. If possible, make him Large size by default instead of using buffs to be bigger.

Passive: We can mostly ignore this! It's a three hit passive that empowers his other abilities, but part of it is using his HP for damage. Maybe we can find a way of using Con for attack or damage rolls?

Q: Tongue Lash. He lashes out with his tongue as a ranged attack that slows (maybe we can lower their movement speed somehow on hit using Spheres of Might?) or stuns (Daze somehow? Berserker and Brute from Spheres of Might could work) if he's auto attacked them three times. The tongue part is easy, just play a Qu and that does it, really. You'll need to spend some feats to get it functional as a weapon but that's fine! It's the added effects on top of it.

W: Devour. This is the meat and potatoes of him, really. He can devour any enemy, monster, minion, or ally. Doing so does damage to enemies when he spits them back up. When he devours allies, he makes them untargetable while they're in his stomach but he's forced to spit them out within a few seconds.

Eating enemies is relatively easy! The Primal Blue Mage which is a Qu racial archetype does this incredibly well with some niceties besides, including some means of making him tanky as all hell. My group and I were looking at making a combination of that class plus the Ungermaw to really reflect him.

But the issue is devouring allies to save them somehow! I've done some digging and I can't find -any- means of doing that and actually having them be inside you or otherwise in your square when you eat them so that they move with you.

E: Thick Skin. A portion of all damage he takes is converted into gray health. When out of combat, a portion of his gray health is given back to him as actual health. While in combat, he can consume the gray health for a shield equal to the amount the gray health was.

The main possibilities I've seen for this are using the Life sphere for fast healing (which equates to out of combat healing anyway) combined with Berserker temp HP for the shield. I'm sure I'm missing something, however!

R: Abyssal Voyage. He devours a willing ally and travels, for all the world is a river, and he is its king. They emerge at a destination chosen by Tahm Kench after a few seconds of traveling.

So we need some way of making at least one ally travel with us for a fair distance. Dimension Door would work, as would the Warp sphere, and Ungermaw has an ability where you can chew a tunnel that your allies can follow behind you in if they're two sizes smaller than you. None of those fit -perfectly- though?



Bonus: Lore-wise, Tahm Kench is a demon of gluttony and vices. He sings a siren song to lure those who are down on their last little bit of luck and offers them an out, a way to save themselves or a fresh start. And all he asks is for them to set him a table when they've succeeded. And once that table is set, or when they're at their happiest, the demon emerges and devours it all - every bit of material wealth, their loved ones, and last the dealmaker themselves to savor their suffering and grief. For despair is the finest seasoning of all.

How can we get some way to make this dealmaking? A way to help someone in their time of greatest need, and then betray them at their pinnacle to devour them, house and all? This could easily just be roleplay (though I'd need some way of getting what they need to begin with) but I'd love if it if we could figure out some way of representing it mechanically.

[Efrate]

The spell Horde Gullet gives you a second extradimensional stomach, and you can swallow things 3 sizes smaller than you.

There are some veils that allow you to be larger for all respects related to size, so give yourself 2 virtual size categories + a permanent enlarge person or 3 virtual size categories and you can swallow medium or smaller creatures. Or Just 2 and you can eat all the teemos and that is honestly more than good enough.

There is a vile feat for a tongue that can make attacks and another to give it reach iirc. Swear to an elder evil(little devil teemo?) and get those for free.

Max HP damage can likely be semi mimicked by having a source of bleed. Dimensional agility and/or veiled moon style line from DSP let you teleport as part of movement which you can refluffed as "diving" into the ground and popping up elsewhere. Or gain a burrow speed.

Stone giants girdle veil gives you pretty good scaling and slowly regenerating temp HP based on essense invested and can mimic a shield.

Large and In charge for the stun on tongue attack?

[Val666]

Alteration/Death Sphere focused on Swallow talents :O

[Heavenblade]

So these are the basic ingredients - Swallow whole, teleport long distance, take allies/protect allies with movement, deal making is a bonus, in combat heals/defenses after he is attacked, charisma based....


Now THATS a challenge (;
Ill have to think about it, but I have a few ideas that stick MOSTLY to 1st party...Ill send my ideas later.

[Galacktic]

The spell Horde Gullet gives you a second extradimensional stomach, and you can swallow things 3 sizes smaller than you.

There are some veils that allow you to be larger for all respects related to size, so give yourself 2 virtual size categories + a permanent enlarge person or 3 virtual size categories and you can swallow medium or smaller creatures. Or Just 2 and you can eat all the teemos and that is honestly more than good enough.

There is a vile feat for a tongue that can make attacks and another to give it reach iirc. Swear to an elder evil(little devil teemo?) and get those for free.

Max HP damage can likely be semi mimicked by having a source of bleed. Dimensional agility and/or veiled moon style line from DSP let you teleport as part of movement which you can refluffed as "diving" into the ground and popping up elsewhere. Or gain a burrow speed.

Stone giants girdle veil gives you pretty good scaling and slowly regenerating temp HP based on essense invested and can mimic a shield.

Large and In charge for the stun on tongue attack?

3.5 stuff is sadly a no go, though I might be able to convince them to allow Horde Gullet. It's pretty much perfect for a lot of things.

Veils are a pretty fantastic way of going about this honestly given how easily dippable they are to obtain! Stone Giant's Girdle is a must on him I think, and the tongue attack can be dealt with by being a Qu race and spending some feats to get their racial tongue attack.

Veiled Moon is likewise pretty perfect, along with Sleeping Goddess - as a bonus, Sleeping Goddess has a maneuver that allows you to teleport allies too. Admittedly your destination also has to have a willing ally...



@Val666: Death Sphere doesn't quite fit, but I didn't realize the Alteration trait allows you to swallow creatures of your size if you take it twice. That's pretty decent!

[Galacktic]

Givin' this a little bump. I haven't found any other ways to facilitate this build yet, anyone else have any luck?

[Galacktic]

One last bump before I let this die, I've sadly not pulled up anything else that would help the build.