The gnolls of Midgard are a bloody and ferocious lot. These feats are designed to make gnoll player characters and nonplayer characters as terrifying and fierce as can be. Note that they are designed for and refer to gnolls, but they are appropriate for any savage warrior race (barbarians, orcs, ogres, trolls, goblins, and so on).
Bloody Display
You intimidate your enemies with gruesome displays of self-mutilation.
Benefit: By taking a standard action and drawing blood through self-inflicted wounds to visible portions of its own body (in other words, slicing one’s own face or arms), you gain an Intimidate bonus equal to the number of hit points sacrificed (maximum +6) to any creature within line of sight, for a number of rounds equal to the bonus. Creatures immune to fear and other mind-affecting abilities and effects (for example, constructs) are immune to this ability.
Devour
You consume the power of your slain enemies by devouring their flesh and organs.
Benefit: By eating the organs of a recently slain humanoid enemy, you may take a standard action and regain 1d3 hp per Hit Die of the creature consumed.
Devour Power
Devouring the flesh and organs of your slain enemies gives you great power.
Prerequisite: Devour
Benefit: You take a standard action and consume the entrails of a recently slain humanoid enemy. Instead of regaining hit points, you may choose to gain the benefits of a death knell spell for 5 minutes per HD of the creature consumed.
Devour Death
Devouring the flesh and organs of your slain enemies gives you the ability to defy Death itself.
Prerequisite: Devour, Devour Power
Benefit: Â You take a standard action and consume the entrails of a recently slain humanoid enemy. Instead of regaining hit points or gaining the death knell effect, you may choose to gain the benefits of a death ward spell for 2 minutes per HD of the creature consumed.
Fleshcrafter
You can shape the flesh of creatures to your liking.
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 5th-level spells or create 5th-level extracts, Knowledge (nature [5 ranks]), Spellcraft (5 ranks)
Benefit: You may take 24 hours to permanently alter the physical attributes of a living humanoid creature. You must work for the full 24 hours in a private area with no interruption. If you are interrupted (in other words, you are attacked in melee or you have a damaging spell cast on you), the subject must make a DC 30 Fortitude save or take 3d6 damage and take 1 point of Constitution damage.
If you complete the alteration period (even after an interruption) and a successful DC 25 Spellcraft check, the operation is a success. If the Spellcraft check fails, the subject must make a DC 25 Fortitude save or immediately die (they may be raised or resurrected normally) and the alteration fails. If successful, you may add one of the following physical attributes to the subject at 9th level and every three levels you gain beyond 9th: burrow (10 feet), blindsense (10 feet), climb (30 feet), darkvision (30 feet), extra arm (+2 bonus to CMB/CMD for grapple checks and can tack Multiattack feat), extra legs (+10 feet to base speed and +2 bonus to CMD vs. trip attacks), fly (30 feet, poor maneuverability), low-light vision, natural bite attack (1d4), natural claw attack (1d6), scent, swim (30 feet).
Fleshcrafting can be attempted only once per month on the same creature (any attempts in the same 30 days results in the immediate death of the subject) and each successive attempt on the same creature increases the Fortitude and Spellcraft DCs by 5.
Monster Hunter
You are an expert at hunting monstrous creatures
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +5, proficiency with martial weapons, Survival (5 ranks)
Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus to your attack rolls and damage rolls against magical beasts and monstrous humanoids.
Monster Slayer
You are an unparalleled at hunting monstrous creatures
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +7, Monster Hunter feat, Survival (9 ranks)
Benefit: You gain an additional +2 bonus to your attack rolls and damage rolls against magical beasts and monstrous humanoids. You also gain a +2 bonus to your attack rolls and damage rolls against aberrations and dragons. Your critical hit threat range against all these creatures increases by one.
Scholarly
You were raised and educated in civilized society instead of feral tribal lands.
Benefit: You gain a +2 to all Knowledge checks, and Knowledge (local) is a class skill for you, but you take a –2 penalty to all Intimidate and Survival checks.
These are all cool, but I especially like the Devour feats. They are a perfect fit for any tribal society that literally believes “you are what you eat”. :)
I’m a little worried about the healing of 1d3/HD from Devour. That adds up pretty fast, and it seems to be usable without limit. In other words, characters with this feat always heal up to full after every battle, so long as they kill at least one foe.
I’d probably limit it to once/foe.
That last one is really powerful– *all* knowledge checks and no prerequisite? Every wizard ever will take it. At least mine will. In pen.
-Ben.
There were some other feats from Empire of the Ghouls that would be similar in benefit to the Devour option and just need the prerequisites altered– particularly the “Eater of the Dead” feat chain for the Darakhul.
-Ben.
Devour Witchery
Devouring the brain of an arcane spellcaster in a special ritual allows you to cast one of the victim’s spells.
Prerequisite: Devour, Ability to cast Arcane Spells
Benefit: You conduct a ritual with the brain of a recently slain (within 12 hours) arcane spellcaster, and gain one randomly-chosen spell from whatever the victim had available at the time of casting. You know what the spell is, and you cast it at the victim’s arcane caster level (even if that is lower than your arcane caster level). The spell remains available until you either cast it or deliberately allow it to slip from memory. You must supply the necessary material components, if any.
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Devour Strength
Devouring the heart of a victim in a special ritual allows you to gain their strength.
Prerequisite: Devour
Benefit: You conduct a ritual with the heart of a recently slain (within 12 hours) victim. The next time you enter combat, add half the victim’s strength adjustment to your own for the duration of the battle. (Presumably you will seek to devour the hearts of strong opponents. However, if the victim was weak, you will be too.)
This ritual does not stack with itself. Only the most recently devoured heart has an effect.
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Devour Prowess
Devouring the heart of a victim in a special ritual allows you to gain their combat prowess.
Prerequisite: Devour, Devour Strength
Benefit: You conduct a ritual with the heart of a recently slain (within 24 hours) victim. The next time you enter combat, add half the victim’s Base Attack Bonus to your own BAB for the duration of the battle. (Max adjustment = 5.)
This ritual does not stack with itself. Only the most recently devoured heart has an effect.
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Why did I add a ritual to the feat? Because I wanted to! :)
I like the idea of a group of gnolls dancing wildly around a bonfire while corpses from the battlefield (or better yet, living prisoners) are butchered and ritually consumed.
Oops, did I need to add the “Product Identity” link to that last post? Here it is, just in case:
My previous post was Product Identity: http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/open-game-license-ver-10a-for-kobold-quarterly-web-site
Unbalanced feats. The gnolls are unique and powerful in their own right. Though I like the spirit of these, I find the mechanics tilted in the wrong direction.
To be fair I find these feats for Gnolls to be somewhat derivative and lack flair and ingenuity. I often play monster races and feel that generally they are put into a box and limited in creativity. In a way I see these feats as a form of game racism, they limit Gnolls to eating machines without depth.
But the whole tradition of intelligent monsters in RPGs is kind of fraught with literal racism, isn’t it? We’re calling them monsters, for crying out loud. That said, perhaps you could think of these feats as potentially providing a ton of depth to a civilized gnoll PC – for instance, the intellectual and thoughtful druid who only breaks from her gentle vegetarianism to occasionally devour the corpses of her enemies. And sometimes fish.