GLOG Class: Brave Mouse

 Class: Brave Mouse

You are a brave little mouse. You are very small but your heart is very large. A GLOG class. 

 

Credit: Nicholas Kole

Reroll your Dexterity and take the highest. +1 to-hit and save per template. COURAGE.

Equipment: Enchanted sewing-kit (rosewood spool, golden thread, silver needles [6]); a red-ribbon sash, an acorn-flask filled with one moon drop (heals 1), thimble bucket-helm (slots for ears), strike-anywhere matches [3], razor-sword with twine-wrapped hilt [1d1].  

Proficient in acrobatics, climbing and swimming, sneaking, earnest poetry. 

A: Brave Mouse; Twinkle, Twinkle

B: Star Light, Star Bright; Bravado; +1 attack & COURAGE

C: Straight On Till Morning; That Daring Young Mouse (On The Flying Trapeze)

D: Knight of Falling Stars; +1 attack & COURAGE

A. Brave Mouse: You are a talking mouse, with mostly everything that entails. You are 2-to-4 inches tall, or about half the size of an average rat. You walk on two legs, but can drop to all fours and scurry and climb with all the speed and skill of a regular mouse. Your ears and nose are superlative, your eyesight is uncommonly good for a mouse (as human), and you can use your whiskers to know your immediate surroundings even in perfect darkness. You weigh about an ounce--your equipment needs to be specially made for you, and your capacity to carry or move things is limited appropriately.

Your HP are equal to HD-- but each instance of damage only does 1 HP to you, as you bounce, dodge, or slip away from blows at the last moment. This does not apply to cats, owls, and other mouse-foes, who deal damage as normal; it also will not apply if you are grappled. You're very difficult for big people (larger than dog) to strike, tripling your dexterity bonus to AC against them. You're too small for proper healing magic to really get a handle on you; healing spells and potions for big people can only catch you for 1 HP, but there's enough left over for a big person to benefit for the full heal -1.

I read all the Redwalls when I was young

You have a unique stat just for you: your COURAGE. Your natural COURAGE begins at 2, and increases by 1 at B and D templates. You may use your COURAGE instead of STRENGTH to modify your to-hit and damage; and may add it to skill checks and saves in addition to your other modifiers.

 

When you take harm, roll a d6 against your COURAGE. If your COURAGE meets or exceeds the roll, take no harm as you make a dashing, lucky, last-minute escape. A roll of 5+ always fails, and COURAGE cannot save you from damage while grappled.

 

COURAGE does not make you immune to fear, but when you fail a save against fear, you may lean on your COURAGE to push through anyway at the cost of 1 HP of stress damage. After all--bravery cannot exist in the absence of fear.

 

COURAGE grows with:

Selfless deeds at great risk, the warmth of worldly goodness, wearing a jaunty little cap made by someone who loves you.

 

COURAGE shrinks from: 

Personal failure that gets people hurt, exposure to the darkness of the world, doubt.

If your courage shrinks terribly, it may recover over time with care and warmth from those around you.

 

Twinkle, Twinkle: You did a great service for a fairy, an act of selfless bravery--the sort of thing that catches their attention. They gifted you an enchanted sewing kit, their own hair as thread, and in your hands it is Attack on Titan 3D maneuver gear.

Like this.

As a free action on your turn, you may throw one of your six needles, trailing the golden thread [Templates]*10 feet to lodge into a surface, and swing, pivot, or grapple towards it as your movement for the round. You may throw as many needles per round as you have attacks [1 at A, 2 at B, 3 at D]. Needles do no damage but can stick into anything and dislodge themselves to be reeled in by the spool automatically. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity as you threadswing. 

 

If you are able to use this mobility to strike at your enemy's weakspots--eyes, throat, exposed tendons, major bloodvessels, etc--your weapon's damage increases based on your template: 1d6 at A, 1d8 at B, 1d10 at C, and 2d6 at D. You can only hit a given target once as you swing past--if you want to make multiple attacks, you must architect your arcs to swing by multiple in one go, or come back around for another pass. 

 

imagine this but a mouse

 

You may use your sewing kit as a winch to move things too large for a mouse, with a torque of [templates]x10 lbs. If the thread would be tested to the breaking point, roll 1d6 against COURAGE, and if your COURAGE meets or exceeds the roll, the thread holds. Your needles have a distinct, nostalgic scent that stands out for you, should you find yourself searching for one that is lost.

 

If your COURAGE hits 0, the glamour fades; the spool cheap plastic, the needles tin, the fine golden hair a wan and tangled mess. The magic has not abandoned you--you have lost faith in yourself. Just a silly mouse with pretensions of honor. If you recover your COURAGE, you may find the strength to banish such illusions, and resume your quest.

B. 

Star Light, Star Bright: To those who know you, you are a comfort and guidelight; you may share your COURAGE. When your allies would be afflicted by fear, they may choose to follow your example instead and push through the fear at the price of 1 damage. 

[Templates] per day, *after* an ally has rolled a die, you may cry out in encouragement, and add your Courage bonus to their result. Once a day, you may refresh this ability if you spend an hour in restful companionship, speaking and breaking bread together. 

 

Under the light of a full moon, you may spend an hour sniffing through a meadow, garden or flower-patch, and locate 1d4 drops of moon-drop nectar. A drop of nectar, when administered, heals 1 hit point and allows a new save against poison or disease. If someone has just died, a drop of dew between the still-warm lips allows a death saving throw; on success, they miraculously gasp--still on the brink of death, but revived with 1hp.  Only you may administer it to others, but others may administer it to you. Moon-drops lose their power when the next full moon rises. 

Bloomburrow was a good set for art

 

Bravado: When you scurry about on all fours, you are easily missed as a regular mouse, but when you stand up proudly and announce yourself, the big folks take notice. So long as you're participating in combat or society on two legs, all parties will notice and note you as an equal member of your party (though they may well be baffled at the novelty of a talking mouse). Fairies will treat you as a knight, though whether that carries respect and admiration or simmering contempt will vary by moiety. At will, you may project your Battle Aura, and be perceived as the largest HD foe you have personally vanquished by those capable of sensing killing intent--animals, fighters and killers, mostly.

At will, you may hold out your blade and cant it against the light; its gleam will catch the eyes you intend it to, and cannot be ignored.

C: 

Straight On Till Morning: Your skill and confidence with your needles and thread has reached a crescendo; you may now use it to pull, swing and trip others, not just yourself. The thread becomes unbreakable, and the spool has a torque of 1000 lbs. Note that *you* still weigh roughly as much as a silver piece; proper bracing and lashing is essential to load-bearing maneuvers.   That Daring Young Mouse (On The Flying Trapeze): When you use your threadswinging to strike weakpoints, you crit on rolls of 18+. On a crit, you may choose to deal normal damage but cripple the body part for the rest of the day.

D:

Knight of Falling Stars: When fighting in defense of others against dark and terrible odds, your true valor shines. You glow like a falling star as you fly across the battlefield, striking sparks of wonder in the hearts of all. Your blade becomes *vorpal*, and will always strike for full damage; your courage is sufficient to cleave dragonscale. 

 

Once ever, when slain: Those who witnessed your fall, those who love you, may choose to clap, to applaud. The players too. If everyone believes, and claps for you, you get back up with 1 HP and 8 COURAGE. 

 

 

Credit: Provellone on Reddit

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One day at work I was musing about Attack on Titan, and how absolutely sick maneuver gear combat was. It struck me that if one were to play as a mouse, the entire D&D world would be a continuous game of Attack on Titan, and the rest of the class kind of wrote itself. Say what you will about that series, Isayama COOKED with the Maneuver Gear. 

Garamondia’s Cherubim has been living rent-free in my brain for months now, and much of this post is effectively a fan-take on it. I also drew heavily on Goblinpunch’s Gnomes from 2020, because "Attack on Titan as little guys vs regular people" is a rich vein that can support many miners. The class as-is is probably both over-tuned and under-written, but I decided it was better to just get it done and throw it out there, lest endless noodling around the edges cloud the broth and stick it in Draft Purgatory. If you think I should instead try to fully legislate all the rules and procedures for threadswinging and life as a mouse, yell at me in the comments!