Character concept: Far realm symbiote

[Username]

The idea is to have a character who finds/found a creature from the far realms that has been heavily weakened by reality attempting to enforce itself upon it and is beginning to dissolve. In order to save itself, it anchors itself to the character, acting as a symbiote. It still maintains a limited ability to warp reality (enough to grant the PC power in exchange for siphoning off some of their reality in order to survive and not dissolve, making them less real and dealing charisma damage as per usual for symbiotes). This stabilizes the creature enough that it is able to communicate in a way that doesn't cause brain damage, albeit only a bit (it will learn over time).

This is a fairly complicated concept to pull off mechanically, but it would work out to actually starting your PC as an NPC class (this portion can occur in their background if you're starting high enough level to have the start for a Legacy Weapon). Once the character reaches a level where they would otherwise be able to find the start of a legacy weapon, they instead encounter the symbiote (a really cool encounter if the DM pulls it off properly) who binds with them and basically swaps out their NPC class levels for PC ones (the symbiote is powering them up).

Advance as per a normal character with a legacy weapon (the symbiote, who in addition to powering up the PC also grows to grant further power, albeit by siphoning off a bit of the granted power to the PC and reallocating it).

Thoughts and suggestions? I think the dynamic of a being trying to cope with an entirely new rule set for existence could be really fun, especially since you get to be creative with the process of the symbiote learning about the multiverse.

[puppyavenger]

first of all, a wizard would need some major refluffing to fit into this
also have with rituals, make sure you don't destroy reality

[CASTLEMIKE]

There is the Fiendish Symbiote in the Fiend Folio. In ECS there are the Quori who do the same thing to humans.

[Greenfaun]

Seems like a cool idea. Is it in any way inspired by the 4e warlock that can make a "pact" with far realms powers?

I'm not entirely sure why you want to model the situation mechanically with the weapon of legacy rules. This seems more like a template (perhaps giving psionic powers) or maybe the bloodlines (linky) would work. If you do want it to be both a symbiont and a weapon, though, you might check out the tentacle whip symbiont in the Eberron campaign setting.

Also, are you saying you want to play this character, or have it happen to a character you're DMing? Either way, it doesn't seem totally necessary to have them start with an NPC class. Just slap a template on them to bring them up to the campaign power level or give them a SS-style progression. Or you can make up your own rules, like you said.

[Username]

NPC class is a stylistic choice, to represent that the character isn't very powerful without the symbiote. They'd lose the NPc class fairly early on anyways since weapons of legacy have generally not too terribly expensive base items.

Weapon of legacy (which can be applied to non-weapon items) works best because it provides a a nice system for scaling the symbiote, wheras a template would have to be custom made and scaled.

[Username]

Oh, and as for how the symbiote would look, I've been considering looking like Tyrael's (spelling) from Diablo 2. They're pretty impressive, like big ethereal tentacles in vaguely wing location and shape that wave around.