The Bullymong: A Symbiotic Player Race

[maceo]

I'm glad the feedback helped. I enjoyed reading through your thoughts. If you are still thinking about the Rock Throw ability how about this alternative:

Four-Arm Smash. With your Bullier you can use your action to smash the ground with all four fists. When the Bullier smashes the ground, pick a point up to 60’ away. Each creature within a 10’ radius of the chosen point must make a Dexterity saving throw. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Strength modifier + your proficiency bonus. A creature takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 5d6 at 11th level, and 6d6 at 17th level. After you use your four-arm smash, you can't use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

That way you don't need to have it be dependent on too many rocks being around or not enough. The mechanics stay the same. I added the bludgeoning damage because you didn’t indicate a type.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So first of all, the name needs work. I went with Bullymong since the visual I have in my mind for the larger of the two creatures is a Bullymong from the Borderlands series (not to mention there is that one mission where you need to kill the Bullymong with the symbiotic relationship with a midget psycho), and the smaller of the two in my mind is like Kif from Futurama.

In ERB's Mars series, there were a pair of races on Mars, the Kaldanes and Rykors, the Kaldanes were intelligent and had a less dependent symbyotic relationship than you're envisioning with the Rykors, who looked like headless human bodies, while the Kaldanes looked like wierd, pallid heads with arthropod-like legs and 'tails' that they essentially plugged into the Rykors to ride them.
(Bit like Avatar, just not nearly as pretty.)

But in essence, this is a unique kind of player race that is actually two individual creatures with their own minds and personalities, but continues to function as a single entity.

...in Chessmen of Mars, one Kaldane who befriended John Carter was exiled from his people, meaning he wouldn't have the chance to get a replacement Rykor if the one he was riding died, so he was essentially a de-facto humanoid from that point on...

Chessmen of Mars, BTW, c1922.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I'm glad the feedback helped. I enjoyed reading through your thoughts. If you are still thinking about the Rock Throw ability how about this alternative:

Four-Arm Smash. With your Bullier you can use your action to smash the ground with all four fists. When the Bullier smashes the ground, pick a point up to 60’ away. Each creature within a 10’ radius of the chosen point must make a Dexterity saving throw. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Strength modifier + your proficiency bonus. A creature takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 5d6 at 11th level, and 6d6 at 17th level. After you use your four-arm smash, you can't use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

That way you don't need to have it be dependent on too many rocks being around or not enough. The mechanics stay the same. I added the bludgeoning damage because you didn’t indicate a type.

That's a great idea!
[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] Thanks for the reference. I haven't read the series but I've heard good things.

I've updated the original post with more flavor text and history. I also changed the name Bullier to Bulliox. Other than that, I think at least for now I will keep the name until someone suggests something better. I'd like it to be something that would be two interesting names that can be smashed together, similar to how Bullymong can become Bulliox and Mongo.

 

[maceo]

Try this link to see if you can see the race. I used the homebrewery website to experiment. You need to use Chrome for it to be viewed correctly.

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1mrumEmm

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Try this link to see if you can see the race. I used the homebrewery website to experiment. You need to use Chrome for it to be viewed correctly.

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1mrumEmm

Whoa! That is AWESOME! Thanks for that!

 

[maceo]

Only you will know when the name sounds right but I think the main thing is for the name to sound tougher. Maybe look at half-orc names to get some ideas about the beginning of the name.

Something like Dendranor. Dendrat is the big guy and Norn is the small one or,
Vizrakel. Vizran for the big one and Keldar for the small.

Let me know if there's any other updates you want me to make to that pdf.

 

[Satyrn]

As an aside: Something about this thread made me realize how I can better model the goliaths in my Borderlands-influenced D&D.

I'm already using the goblinoids in place of the bandits, since the hobgoblins can be the "standard" and the goblins the midgets (and it feels more reasonable that some monstrous race could be full of suicidal pyschos), which obvious means bugbears fit as the goliaths.

But I hadn't landed on a way to model how the goliaths level up and enter a terrifying berserk rage on a headshot. I don't know what it was about this thread that had me land on it, but I'm gonna make bugbears vulnerable to crits (like, hitting a bugbear with a natural 16+ instead of just 20) and the crit is what triggers the rage.

Thanks, @Hawk Diesel, for I don't really know what.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

LOL! [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] gald I could help? Actually, it doesn't sound too disimilar to how I create the mechanics for this race. I was playing it in a freeform/rules-less game that is transitioning into 5e. I was driving to work when my buddy asked how I would make this guy. Something on the drive clicked into the Four Arms ability, and the rest just flowed from there. Rough draft only took 20 min to create.

Also, your game sounds awesome. I'm a huge fan of Borderlands (clearly).