Favorite Monster Tattoos

[Mack]

Curious what folks prefer for a Monster Tattoo. It's easy to say something like a T-Rex with 800 MDC or the like, but there's plenty of other, smaller monsters that bring other advantages. Such as:

Grigleapers (New West, p146) -- They only have about 75 MDC (which makes a mid-grade, cheaper PPE cost), are excellent climbers, have a Horror Factor, and should be good at playing fetch.

Slitherers (Dark Conversations, p140) -- Since they come in three sizes and the tattoo artist can pick how many tentacles it has, you can select how tough of one you want. From as low as 120 MDC to as high as 960 MDC. Up to 14 attacks per melee. Has a short range teleport. And grapples quite well.

Lepidosaurs (Adv in Dino Swamp, p47) -- Yea, he's a little fella with only 8 MDC max, But he flies and climbs well, and is useful to have an extra set of eyes checking for danger. Also has a few minor spells at his disposal.


And as an Honorable Mention, I'll toss out the Whisker Coyote (New West, p167) as an Animal Tattoo. An awesome companion to keep you company on the road. Considered a major psionic, with some at triple the normal range. A great little alien dog.

[Bill]

I tend to go for stuff that looks cool, rather than focus on the powers that the monster may have. I've used a sea serpent (WB2, p11) and a gryphon (CB1R, p137) in the past. Both are useful, but neither has very many actions per round or inflicts a tremendous amount of damage. The sea serpent can be fairly durable, if you choose to max out its M.D.C., but it's not even in the same ball park as a t-rex. They're both useful as back-up mounts, I suppose. And the gryphon has some senses that might come into play.

[Glistam]

Dragonfish from Coalition Navy is a great cheap flying animal.

[Marcethus]

Sapphire Cobra from Three Galaxies book.

[Axelmania]

Gulper from Rifts England, enjoy hundreds of MDC vehicle with auto-dodge. Being water-locked sucks but spells to give fish legs or let them swim in air aren't THAT expensive in underseas.

May as well totally exploit the utter lack of an MDC cap on monster tattoos, since a cap exists on the South America monster patterns for Nazca or Monster Shaping tats for that Atlantean city.

[taalismn]

Pity the guy who introduces his 'favorite monster tattoo' as that of his girlfriend.

Okay...worse would be the guy who introduces his most powerful monster tattoo is that of his MOTHER.

[Glistam]

Pity the guy who introduces his 'favorite monster tattoo' as that of his girlfriend.

Okay...worse would be the guy who introduces his most powerful monster tattoo is that of his MOTHER.

Even weirder... they're monster shaping tattoos.

[Marcethus]

I thought I was going to die of laughter after having read this:

Pity the guy who introduces his 'favorite monster tattoo' as that of his girlfriend.

Okay...worse would be the guy who introduces his most powerful monster tattoo is that of his MOTHER.

Then found I really could laugh harder after reading this:

Pity the guy who introduces his 'favorite monster tattoo' as that of his girlfriend.

Okay...worse would be the guy who introduces his most powerful monster tattoo is that of his MOTHER.

Even weirder... they're monster shaping tattoos.

Oh Gods. taalismn, Glistam you both crack me up. I needed a good laugh. Thanks.

[Axelmania]

Pity the guy who introduces his 'favorite monster tattoo' as that of his girlfriend.

Okay...worse would be the guy who introduces his most powerful monster tattoo is that of his MOTHER.

Or the guy who has both... and makes them battle each other.

Or something else...

[Incriptus]

Okay...worse would be the guy who introduces his most powerful monster tattoo is that of his MOTHER.

Monster Tattoos can't be intelligent creatures ... so lets use mother-in-law instead

[taalismn]

Okay...worse would be the guy who introduces his most powerful monster tattoo is that of his MOTHER.

Monster Tattoos can't be intelligent creatures ... so lets use mother-in-law instead

You clearly have not encountered some of the families I have....

[Mack]

Gulper from Rifts England, enjoy hundreds of MDC vehicle with auto-dodge. Being water-locked sucks but spells to give fish legs or let them swim in air aren't THAT expensive in underseas.

May as well totally exploit the utter lack of an MDC cap on monster tattoos, since a cap exists on the South America monster patterns for Nazca or Monster Shaping tats for that Atlantean city.

Can you give a page reference for that?

[Glistam]

Gulper from Rifts England, enjoy hundreds of MDC vehicle with auto-dodge. Being water-locked sucks but spells to give fish legs or let them swim in air aren't THAT expensive in underseas.

May as well totally exploit the utter lack of an MDC cap on monster tattoos, since a cap exists on the South America monster patterns for Nazca or Monster Shaping tats for that Atlantean city.

Can you give a page reference for that?

Page reference for which? The Gulper's hundreds of M.D.C., the Gulper's auto-dodge, the Gulper being water-locked, spells to give fish legs or let them swim in air not being that expensive in Rifts: Underseas, the lack of M.D.C. cap on Monster tattoos, the M.D.C. cap on Nazca line magic monster creations, or the M.D.C. cap on Monster Shaping tattoos?

[Axelmania]

The Gulper is on page 28 of Rifts Underseas. Took me a while to find because it's under the glossary under its primary title 'Sea Maw'.

I was mistaken about England, I think I was remembering the Armored Devil Fish on page 60 which also has 650 MDC but doesn't have autododge. In feet it's 20-30 tall / 30-60 long / 10-20 wide. It probably couldn't carry as many passengers in its mouth as the Gulper which is 70-100 long and 20-30 diameter mouth. I also low-balled the Gulper's MDC, it has 21,000 to 26,000 MDC. With auto-dodge that'd probably last the full tattoo's duration unless you were fighting starships, particularly with 4D4x10/minute regeneration.

Given the short tattoo duration you'd probably have it constantly using its 'Speed Burst' feature for an added +2 to strike for its D6x10 bite on top of it's base +2, for +4 total, or if you were willing to settle for a D4x10 tail swat you get another +2 for a total +6 to strike.

Except for the whole being water-bound thing, the Gulper is probably the best candidate for a monster tattoo which I know of, and that really isn't that much of a limit if you have access to some Ocean Magic.. maybe get an Ocean Wizard to make some Talismans for you or something...

For 30 PPE (Walk Like a Humanoid, Underseas page 68) the Gulper could chase enemies on magical lefts at 4D6 speed.

More economic: Air Swim for 15 PPE. It only lasts half as long but let them use their in-water speed in flight which is much better...

At minimum they normally swim Spd 13, double that to 26 using the 'Speed Burst' ability, if attacking someone below them, they can triple that again to speed 78 using their 'dive' ability.

Only problem with gulper transport is its stomach acid does 2D6 MD/min to metal/skin that's MDC, so you'd need to wear some kind of non-metal MDC armor to travel safely inside one, like maybe a plastic-man or Bark Armor or something.

[Mack]

Gulper from Rifts England, enjoy hundreds of MDC vehicle with auto-dodge. Being water-locked sucks but spells to give fish legs or let them swim in air aren't THAT expensive in underseas.

May as well totally exploit the utter lack of an MDC cap on monster tattoos, since a cap exists on the South America monster patterns for Nazca or Monster Shaping tats for that Atlantean city.

Can you give a page reference for that?

Page reference for which? The Gulper's hundreds of M.D.C., the Gulper's auto-dodge, the Gulper being water-locked, spells to give fish legs or let them swim in air not being that expensive in Rifts: Underseas, the lack of M.D.C. cap on Monster tattoos, the M.D.C. cap on Nazca line magic monster creations, or the M.D.C. cap on Monster Shaping tattoos?

He figured it out, but notice I underlined in his post what I was asking about.

[Axelmania]

I wonder... if I was a TM-Man could I choose specific dimensions for my monsters? I was thinking, what if I had a 20 foot tall Devil Fish and then I let him swallow me, and then I had a 30-diameter Gulper and had the Gulper swallow my devil-fish, then both monster's MDC could be used to protect me.

Might be a good defense if the CS was launching a giant volley of missiles in my direction there was no escape.

[Bill]

The text indicates that the creature becomes full-sized, but is not otherwise specific regarding how that size is determined. I would be inclined to have the tattoo master that creates the tattoo establish exactly what a character gets any time the power is used.

So, yes. If a character can get a tattoo master to apply those two monsters, he or she may summon both, then command the gulper to swallow the devil fish and themselves, then command the devil fish to swallow them. The order of operations is important because the commands are verbal and the monsters may have difficulty hearing the character from inside their stomachs.

[Axelmania]

Good point... although maybe if a TM-Man had telepathy that'd be one go-around for contacting monsters who can't hear you. You could probably hook up a radio receiver to attach near the ear of these creatures once you create them, which would be valuable for issuing commands to them underwater, or if you wanted to direct them from very far away. You could gt an hour of activity from each tattoo at 2nd level so they might be able to do a patrol and then bring the transmitter back to you to re-equip next activation.

In spite of the whole 'only animal-like predatory' and 'intelligent.. not possible' disclaimer, based on the list of examples you could summon a speaking monster to deliver verbal commands on your behalf to ones too far to hear you... the Manticore (Conversion Book 146) speaks Dragonese 98% (plus maybe 1D4 others) and have min Spd 16 to run to pass messages for you (not too helpful with fish minions though...) and Melech are 90% with Dragonese/Gobbleley (and maybe 1D4 others).

Although... given that many monsters don't normally understand language at all, maybe they can only understand verbal commands directly from the T-Man and not through a proxy? Even if the proxy is basically an extension of the T-Man's magic?

Come to think of it though it isn't explicit that T-Men can actually be understood by monsters if monsters lack understanding as a natural ability. What if it is necessary to use a Power Tattoo like Eye With Tears to manipulate the emotions of a monster tattoo to nudge it in the direction you want it to go?

Dragondactyls can learn to understand any language, Gryphons can learn up to 3, Peryton 2, but without these being default abilities it's unclear how long it would take to re-teach the monster every single time you summoned it.

What would probably make things easier is if monster tattoos retained memories across summons. That way it being taught to understand commands could be explained as something you did during a previous summoning.

It would also be interesting since then you could have it get messages back to you even if it can't make the return trip.

I would say though, that if you played it that way, then as a house rule, getting destroyed would make the monster lose at least the memories it acquired during that recent summoning, or maybe even some previous or ALL previous summons.

There is already incentive to not let your monster tattoos get destroyed (damage to you, extra PPE cost to recreate for the next 1/3 day) but this would create additional RP incentive.

I don't know if I would utterly wipe out their memory if they were destroyed but making them lose the recent session (and maybe 1D4 sessions before) would be interesting. You might have to re-train it to learn a new trick, go re-acquire the same message, etc. A randomly generated length of amnesia could add refreshing randomness so the T-Man doesn't just meta-game around the memory limitations.

I wouldn't take this approach to stuff like Nazca drawings, but that's largely because each drawing can just create as many monsters as it likes, so there's nothing particularly unique about them.

Monster tattoos disappear while in use, and they're uniquely bonded to you so that you can only make one of them... and their destruction has an impact. This makes them seem more special, so retaining memory cross-recreation is a great way to have the T-Men continue to stand out as other monster-summoning means become available.

[H.P. Hovercraft]

Huge amounts of MDC and things like attacks per melee are great, but unique abilities are a huge plus, too.

Spitfire Leapers (Dino Swamp pg. 33): moderate MDC plus a ranged fireball attack.

Gruesome Tarbids (AiDS pg. 44): Huge MDC, plus an anti-magic venom which neutralizes ALL magic abilities for 2D6 hours, web shooting, and a natural auto-dodge.

Land Ray (Psyscape pg. 101): An SDC creature that normally operates underwater but can fly, generate a psychic body-field (MDC), as well as a psi-sword!!

[Svartalf]

I'm not much of a monster man myself, but I have a character who loves fighting from atop a Tri Ops (from New West)

[Axelmania]

The ideal thing would be to manage your own army of TM-Men loyal to you. I'm not sure if anyone besides the Splugorth or their High Lords can train them though.

I get the impression others who can make magic tattoos (Chaing-Ku, Styphathal, Nunnehi) could train your basic T-Man but specialized variants like Monster/Maxi/Archer, probably not...

Members of the Atlantean Clan Aerihman are T-Monster Men (something not true of your standard True Atlantean) but then, we know the likely explanation for that...

I still don't get why there's only Ogresses in the Maxi-Man OCC. I would think with the lack of male attention they get with their Ogre males off chasing human women that they would enjoy having cheap-cost Monster Tattoos for companionship.

[Marcethus]

Correction it's not Clan Aerihman its Clan Skellion.

[Axelmania]

Skellion are the ones who do monster-shaping tattoos in South America, I'm talking about the T-Monster Man OCC, the guys who spend 1/2 PPE to create mobile monsters to command, not the ones who make monster shells around themself.

[Marcethus]

Ah ok.

[Myrrhibis]

Whisker Coyote; usually a Griffin (mainly for travelling purposes)

When my character gets higher level.... Mau'Dib likes to show up (template of Blow Worm of Taut, except crystal teeth & electrical storm at its mouth vs slime spit.

Have had that tat on several PCs of mine & literary-minded friends, and while limited in usefulness.... has been useful if for no other reason than "OMFG that's a big mo fo".

[Marcethus]

Once had a GM allow My Chiang-Ku Tattoo Master to have an Earth Elemental Intelligence as a Monster Tattoo. This was before I even noticed that it wasn't allowed. Obviously My GM at the time missed that part too.

[Axelmania]

I'd like to know how to work making a Land Ray from Psyscape they're SDC creatures so maybe they fall under animal?

[Mack]

I'd like to know how to work making a Land Ray from Psyscape they're SDC creatures so maybe they fall under animal?

I could make an argument either way, monster or animal. GM's call.

Either way, that's a pretty good pet to have on call. Great selection of psionics.

[Axelmania]

If so then I think it would fall under the less than 50 MDC cost since you would normally go by creature life points and not the points of any force fields it can make.