Being a guy in a bathtub.

[Arros Winhadren]

So my group is going to play a monster campaign, and I've been trying to think of several fun monsters I could play. However, I remembered something I've wanted to do for a while, which is play as person who travels around in a bathtub and never gets out. The idea is that the bathtub is actually a monster, and the guy in it is just a trick to get people to get into the bathtub (huge bluff check - it's magical bathwater that heals you!). If you've ever seen the Spongebob Squarepants movie then think of the ice cream lady/monster and that's basically what I want to do.

Any good ideas for monsters/templates? Mimic doesn't seem like enough.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Pretty much an advanced Mimic would be the best way to go. You then fluff it to work like the Angler Fish from the Spongebob movie.
There's always things you can add to monsters, you can even build it frm the ground up.

[Tengu_temp]

I wouldn't enter a bathtub with a guy inside, even if the water healed me. A cute girl, on the other hand...

[Vexxation]

I wouldn't enter a bathtub with a guy inside, even if the water healed me. A cute girl, on the other hand...

Or a Nymph...

Covering her modesty only in bubble-bath bubbles...

[AKA_Bait]

I wouldn't enter a bathtub with a guy inside, even if the water healed me. A cute girl, on the other hand...

I suppose this particular tub prefers to munch on females?

And yea, Advanced Mimic seems the way to go. You could consider some of the other shapeshifting monsters. There's some ooze that can do it... can't remember where...

[Tengu_temp]

Or a Nymph...

I'm pretty sure that matches the definition of a cute girl. Unless you're going with the pictures in 3.0 or 3.5 Monster Manual - both look very un-nymphy, but for different reasons.

[Vexxation]

I'm pretty sure that matches the definition of a cute girl. Unless you're going with the pictures in 3.0 or 3.5 Monster Manual - both look very un-nymphy, but for different reasons.

Well, I figure if he made it a nymph he could use a Blinding Beauty-esque ability to lure foes over...

[AKA_Bait]

Well, I figure if he made it a nymph he could use a Blinding Beauty-esque ability to lure foes over...

Well, that's only if it really was a nymph... and not something that looks like a nymph to lure people into the tub.

[batsofchaos]

Man, that would be an awesome character to stat in Mutants and Masterminds.

[CASTLEMIKE]

+2 LA Half-Fey Mimic would grant Charm Person at will.

Sandstorm had that Oasis Fey and there is the Dryad so you could do some kind of variant attached to a Magical Bathtub instead of an oasis.

[Vexxation]

Well, that's only if it really was a nymph... and not something that looks like a nymph to lure people into the tub.

Well, I didn't mean the actual ability. Just the idea that it's really pretty and alluring.

[Arros Winhadren]

What is this Advanced Mimic? Is it in the monster manual? Mayhaps I missed it. Is there some way to permanently Dominate someone? See, I'm also thinking I could do some sort of haywire Animated Object (the bathtub) with some template that allows it to control people. Then it controlled some wizard and forced him to sit in the bathtub for all eternity. Then I could play two characters - the wizard normally, and the bathtub if he dies.

[ocato]

Dominate Person works for days/level and grants only one save so long as the caster takes a round each day (6 seconds every 24 hours) to concentrate on the spell. Also, as I've been told, it's perfectly acceptable to order a dominated person to auto-fail their save vs another dominate person. Granted, this strikes me as the kind of thing that would be against someone's nature...

Given that Dominate Person is, what, a 4th level spell? (3rd if you're a cleric of Wee Jas and have the domination domain) So you're looking at 5-7 days MINIMUM per casting.

[Rei_Jin]

Hhmmm... what about a symbiotic template?

Use a mimic and the nymph as the base, then add the symbiotic template (from savage species).

Voila!

[Arros Winhadren]

That sounds alright, but I most definitely want to be a guy in a bathtub, not a gal. Is there something other than nymph that will work? The problem is also that I want the bathtub to be the one dominating people, not the occupant. That's the funny part, you see. Symbiote still sounds useful though - if I could find something small that hid underneath the bubbly bathwater that could control people, that would work great.

[ocato]

That sounds alright, but I most definitely want to be a guy in a bathtub, not a gal. Is there something other than nymph that will work? The problem is also that I want the bathtub to be the one dominating people, not the occupant. That's the funny part, you see. Symbiote still sounds useful though - if I could find something small that hid underneath the bubbly bathwater that could control people, that would work great.

If you give the mimic some class levels it can cast an illusionary person and maybe a few dominate/charms to get people into the magical tub.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Mimic Psion with Leadership and a Druid cohort with a homebrew piranha swarm Animal Companion. (using the PrC that gets you swarm companions) Can't you just smell the evil?

[ocato]

Psion/thrallherd gets the cohort without the feat (a different feat for a PrC Prereq though) and it's maximum level is 1 less than the mimic instead of 2. The tub could have throngs of worshipers/believers all talking about how magical and special the tub is if you just get inside.

[AslanCross]

What is this Advanced Mimic? Is it in the monster manual? Mayhaps I missed it.

The 3.5 Monster Manual has rules for advancing monsters towards the end. You take the Mimic's base stats and give it more HD, among other things.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The 3.5 Monster Manual has rules for advancing monsters towards the end. You take the Mimic's base stats and give it more HD, among other things.

Except I wouldn't bother advancing it, just changing the feats, maybe giving it the Aquatic subtype, and class levels. Make sure they're non-associated, for CR silliness.

[LibraryOgre]

This sounds like a bizarre variation on a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.

[Dire Ferret]

Perhaps you could actually make the water have magical healing properties. The man could be a wizard who was cursed to slowly wither away and die, and the only solution he could muster up was creating medicinal water, but for the water to work he has to be constantly submerged in it. Since he didn't want to sit in one place all the day, the wizard then animated the bathtub he kept the water in. And, even though the water is enchanted to heal, the wizard receives no health regeneration bonus as the water is constantly combating the effects of the curse.

This may screw up your plan of tricking other people to get into the tub, but you could have the wizard temporarily negate the healing effects of the water once a victim is in the tub and then drown them or whatever it is you plan to do with the unlucky individual.

[Arros Winhadren]

I actually really like the idea of the piranhas in the tub. What PrC is it that gets you swarm animals? Ok, so I've got some good ideas for the tub. Here's what I'm thinking - I go with the piranhas in the tub, get some mind-affecting spells or SLAs like Suggestion, Charm Person, Dominate Humanoid. I convince someone to get into the tub, murder them with piranhas, then Animate Dead them into a zombie or something. Then I cast some illusion to make them look like a handsome guy, and then I use the guy/my spells to convince other people to get into the tub. This time the zombie grapples with the victim to hinder their escape while my piranhas do their work. Rinse and repeat.

So, how should I get started? Druid? Psion? Both?

[ocato]

I'd consider either an Enchanter with Leadership or a Psion/thrallherd. Either way, the cohort is the druid. Psion/Thrallherd might be better at forcing people in but the Wizard has the edge on illusions and necromancy.

[Ruckby]

In a campaign I played a while ago, my DM used a mechanic similar to this, with a sorceress who charmed people to enter her crocodile-filled lake. The scene went something like this:

Fighter (low intelligence): Duh, me Derek. Me go in lake.
DM: Fighter dies.

The guy playing the fighter got pretty mad. He broke the heck outta that Player's Handbook.

Anyway, I think a good combo would be to use Feeblemind (cleric) or Mind Fog to lower the enemies chance of making a will save, then hit them with Command or Suggestion to get them into your tub. Charm Animal or Charm Monster would be an easy way to acquire hungry tub-dwellers to devour your targets. Unfortunately, this might require a bit of multiclassing. Also, this is all assuming that you are using regular classes, rather than just monster abilities, etc. If that's the case, an aboleth would seem tailor made with its enslave ability and unlimited use illusions. A Nixie would also work well and fit with the water-based theme.

[Thurbane]

So my group is going to play a monster campaign, and I've been trying to think of several fun monsters I could play. However, I remembered something I've wanted to do for a while, which is play as person who travels around in a bathtub and never gets out. The idea is that the bathtub is actually a monster, and the guy in it is just a trick to get people to get into the bathtub (huge bluff check - it's magical bathwater that heals you!). If you've ever seen the Spongebob Squarepants movie then think of the ice cream lady/monster and that's basically what I want to do.

Any good ideas for monsters/templates? Mimic doesn't seem like enough.

LOL - also sounds like the starship captain from the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series...

[Arros Winhadren]

Alright, so the ideas are flying everywhere but none of them works quite right. So the main thing is that I'm playing an evil bathtub. The guy is just superfluous, and can be Charmed into the bathtub anytime during the game. I had thought about doing an Animated Object/Gelatinous Cube symbiote, but the symbiote template won't work with constructs or oozes, so that's out. The druid cohort sounds cool, but it also sounds like a large amount of fluff to keep track of just for the sake of having a simple bathtub. Finally, the darn Animated Object has no Int/Wis/Cha, so Charming people into getting into the tub wouldn't work. Which puts me back at Mimic, and no good way of killing people once they're in the tub.

At this point I'm ready to completely give up on having someone always in the tub, but the tub still has the goal of getting people in it. Now they'll just die. Also an illusion would work just fine for the purposes of having a guy in the tub.

[Mando Knight]

Make the guy a natural shapeshifter like a doppelganger or changeling. That way, if you run into an all-straight-guy encounter and need a snack, you can shift the creature into a female... It'll also allow you to account for different opponents from different races. (They can't all want to make out with humans, right?)

He's a bit more useful fluff wise that way, I think. If your bathtub needs a mouth, the guy could be enchanted to speak for it...

EDIT: The way I see it, the monster tub could control the guy in the tub, and the guy in the tub attracts the beings to go in the tub through the powers of the tub. The beings think they want the mind-controlled guy in the tub, which makes the "going into the tub" suggestion a little easier. Weaken their minds with the guy in the tub, then the tub pulls them the rest of the way in. (possibly using the guy as its mouth...)

Say that the tub's a mimic, and its slam attack is made almost exclusively to characters in the water... then the adhesive ability keeps them in the water to drown... but if they won't come into the water, it can still lash out with the pseudopod's full reach... like a long, sticky tongue that brings the victims into a Venus Fly Trap type thing...