20 Really Good Mutations

Most mutations are very bad, both in real life and in tabletop games. How about some really good ones instead? You get these for drinking an evolution potion, being blessed by the God of life, or from just being really lucky rolling on a random mutation table.

20 Really Good Mutations

[1] One of your hands, at random, becomes plant based. Your fingers wither and die, the palm cracks and bleeds, but shortly after leaves and shoots bloom in their place, and soon the entire hand is formed from green leafy plant matter with all of its normal strength and dexterity. This hand grants you +2 hit points from being such a hearty part of your body. Additionally, this plant body part can regrow if ever chopped or burnt off; simply holding it under water will allow it to become green and healthy again, and it will regrow in a season if ever forcibly removed or mutilated.

From now on, any seed you “plant” in that hand's palm can blossom into either a single small fruit of that plant type, a tiny adult version of that plant, or create a single use of a magical or potion-ingredient effect that that plant can have. It takes one turn of resting in your palm to sprout, and then you can make use of the plant for one turn before it dies off and falls away. This would allow you to turn an apple seed into a single apple for one ration's worth of food, for example, or a few leaves worth for a single dose of a poison plant whose seed you put in that palm.

[2] Your muscles gain some of the traits of sponges and other primitive life forms. While giving yourself a slightly flabby look, you can 'inflate' your muscles at will full of blood and energy to gain all of your strength back- and then some. Treat your strength modifier as +1 at all times, even when you are affected by things that make you weaker or entangled. If you spend a combat round flexing and pumping up your muscles, they inflate to a much larger size and you treat them as +2 for all rolls involving strength. If your Strength modifier was already +2, then treat them as a +3. You can also use this ability to forcibly push out rot grubs, burrowing worms, and other flesh-eating creatures or objects forcing their way into your body if they found entry through a muscular spot. Simply flex and they will be ejected by the force of your muscular spasm- you take 1 damage each time you do this though from the blood used to flush out your wounds.

[3] The mutagens course through your eyes. Your vision blurs and you find your eyes shifting into that of another creature. Beyond their new captivating purple colored iris, the orbs are extremely sensitive and pristine such as from a hawk or other bird of prey. You can see farther distances then most and any vision problems you may have had before are corrected- adjust your Wisdom modifier to +0 if it's negative, purely from your vision alone. As for other abilities; Firstly, they can shift into feline slits in bright light, making you immune to flares or blinding powder. Second, they can dilate very wide in dark places, giving incredible nightvision similar to many underworld creatures.

But along with these, your eyes also gain the power to see a faint outline of invisible creatures or spell effects, though you only have a 1 in 6 chance to notice them each round until you spot them, in which case you can track them as long as your vision is not interrupted. You also gain the ability to see body heat with a bit of concentration, see unusual and indescribable colors that normal people cannot, and focus your vision over a round to see through a single thin object not made of lead. Your newfound sensitive eyes do come at a small price though; after your eyes mutate you must make a saving throw every time you open your eyes for the first week and a half or so- on failed save you are too disoriented by your incredible vision and vomit. Once the acclimation period has ended you now have your newfound superpowered eyes for life.

[4] Your chest bulges and is inflamed, for a few days you experience strange periods of tiredness and boundless energy back to back, and feel as though you are being dragged two directions at once. Soon, you realize that you have grown a second heart, and after that it becomes stable, beating in sync with your first. Your body feels stronger already- you gain +1d8 maximum hit points and treat your HD for the purposes of spells, resistances, or monster abilities as one size higher. Your physical endurance also improves, letting you run all day without becoming tired and moving at full encumbrance without any sort of exhaustion penalties.

Additionally, your second heart grants you a second chance. If you are struck and fail a save with a heart seeking arrow or poison that destroys your heart (aka causing instant death), you instead live with your first heart. Roll 1d8 and lose that many hit points permanently, but you don't die.

[5] Your colon feels extremely healthy. Whenever you are suffering from a disease or poison that was ingested, you get a second saving throw to resist the effects if the first one failed about 4-6 hours after consuming or drinking the item. If the poison kills too fast for this second save to kick in, consider it a single level of level drain unless you fail the second save, in which case it causes death as normal.

Also; you only need to piss once a week and shit once every two weeks, though you can go more often if you don't want to piss an entire stream. Whenever you poop, your poop comes out as a solid, very dense round ball. If you store up your poop and polish it a bit you can use it as a cannonball on a long ocean voyage, with little daily poop balls being used as musket bullets.

[6] Your shoulders, back, and arms become double jointed. If you're a biped, you can now snap your joints back and run on all fours. While on all fours, you cannot use tools or attack besides biting or kicking, but you move +50% faster. You also take double damage from caltrops. It takes one combat round to snap back upright. If you're quadrapedal, you become a biped instead from using this ability. Even without grasping hands, your paws or claws can still clumsily open doors and push levers, and you can carry small items by holding them against your chest and in your mouth. You can also attack with regular weapons like swords or spears, but must roll disadvantage at the clumsy imitation of normal bipedal combat.

[7] Your skin crawls. Somehow detached from your muscles, but yet still a part of you. You can shake and wiggle tattoos, brands, scars, or other blemishes on your body to other parts of them or fade them out, and can even move wounds with a turn's concentration- these are usually just for cosmetic reasons, but could also be used to avoid painful injuries from repeated stress. Such as moving the slave-lashes you got on your feet to your back or sides to avoid further damage and pain while on tomorrow's march. Your skin can creepily crawl around, letting you move while prone without moving your limbs by sliding across the floor at a very slow pace, like a slug.

Additionally, you have the power to jump out of your skin. Your flesh and bones come out of your skin alive and in one piece, but with several disadvantages. While in this form you'll be almost impossible to recognize physically, looking like a strange flesh zombie but still glistening with fresh blood. Secondly you'll automatically fail any saving throws vs poison or disease, as anything splashed on your body is absorbed directly into the blood and tissues. However, in this form you can jump into the skin of another creature to take on its appearance, though you may move and act differently, and sound differently, then what the creature normally seems. If your original skin is destroyed while you are out of it you will lose -1d4 levels from level drain and never be able to regain your original appearance without a much greater form of regenerative magic.

[8] Your fingers turn blotchy white on both hands. This blueish-tint gives your fingers the appearance of being stained with something, or being frozen solid. While you cannot remove this coloration you can pretty easily hide it with a simple pair of gloves. These coloration also gives you several powers.

Your hands become immune to cold. You can touch things that are “too cold to touch” without injury, and can hold your hands in front of your face when being targeted by ice breath or cold spells, granting you a +2 to saves from deflecting the frost away from you. You can also now 'cut' ice by touching it at your will. You can cut out perfect cubes or spheres of ice with a little practice, though this only works on purely frozen ice and not snow or slush. You could use this to carve rooms or stairs in a glacier. This power also works on clear glass, letting you cut holes in glass windows or objects similar to a burglar; the glass and ice can stick to your fingers to make retrieval of these objects easy. Your hands are immune to cold, but you still take standard damage from cold sources.

[9] Your body tingles, you feel healthy all the time. If the first wound you take during a day is not fire or acid, you restore 50% of the damage from that wound at the end of an exploration turn. This explosive healing also grants +1 hit points per day of bed rest and you are sick for 1 day less as well from common diseases that pass through your system. This healing doesn't seem to speed up your metabolism or cause premature aging, your body is just that active when it comes to healing you.

[10] Your ribs are replaced with a highly mobile, pressurized gas with beneficial properties. The gas inside your chest follows a roughly rib-like shape, and provides the same protection to your heart and lungs as your normal ribs do, but prevent knives and blades from slipping through the gaps in your ribs as they are a solid sheet, without impeding flexibility. Additionally, this gas slips out to instantly shut cuts or stabs on your torso and back, melding the wound with a pure white, boney plate until it is healed and consumed by your skin and flesh above it through natural healing. You gain +4 hit points.

[11] Your eyes and skull gain an unusual hinge, letting you mash your upper face together. This lets you combine your two eyes into a single larger Cyclops eye. This cyclops eye has terrible depth perception giving -4 to all ranged attacks, and if it is destroyed you will lose both of your regular eyes, but the cyclops eye has many magic properties. It can see the basic materials of any crafted item, can identify magic items that aren't legendary in status, grants vision that allows you to see unimpeded for 6 miles from a high place, and finally allows you to levitate objects of 1 load unit or less by staring at them. Your eyes can be split back apart when you choose, requiring a single exploration turn and causing a headache to split or merge your eyes into the magic cyclops eye.

[12] Lymph Nodes- Yours grow even more as a tangled web. Beyond increasing your saves vs disease by +4, you also have a network of highly developed lymph just beneath the surface of your skin. Through your skin these creeping tendrils can pop up and entangle or grasp at objects or beings nearby you. This is painful and makes you take 1 damage per round they are outside of your body, but can freely slide back in without damage; the holes healing themselves up. These tiny blue tentacles can be used to “stick” yourself against a wall or other surface, wrap around a person in a grapple letting you treat your Strength score as doubled for the grapple, or squeeze and strangle tiny creatures crawling on your like flesh eating rats or piranha trying to bite you. The lymph node mutation lets you lower the damage taken by swarms to a maximum of 1 each round.

[13] You regain the ancestral strength in your jaw. Your progenitor's muscles were much stronger then your own, the ancient men who had to fight to survive. You regain that strength. If you are a man, this gives you a totally manly, handsome jaw. If you're a woman, this retreats back to your cheeks and back of the neck instead, letting you retain a more feminine appearance, but having the same effect. You can bite straight through raw meat, and deal 1d4 damage on a bite. If you're of a nonhuman species who could already do biting attacks, then increase the damage of your bite by +2. This strong jaw is also highly resistant to getting you knocked out when punched hard, meaning you can no longer be knocked out by a punch except on an attack roll of 20. Finally, this ability comes with a slightly painful but not unsightly restructuring of your teeth- you gain wisdom teeth and your teeth have an extra ability to regrow if they are knocked out or damaged.

[14] The space between your brain and skill expands to create a fleshy, lumpy layer of helpful blood and air, fed from your breathing. Extremely useful for general health- increase your maximum hit points by +2 and increase your Intelligence to 8 if it was lower then 8. This also allows you to survive and stay conscious and alive for up to 5 + Con modifier minutes without oxygen or fresh air to breath, but without fresh oxygen you cannot power your muscles, simply avoid brain death.

Additionally, in the event you are beheaded, your brain can stay alive long enough for your head to be sown back onto your body and reconnected. Making a saving throw against death to survive and have your head grow back onto your body.

[15] For a short period of about two weeks after gaining this mutation, you feel an incredible urge to eat things that are hard. You feel as though your entire body is as weak as a sapling and your bones will snap at the slightest touch, despite not having any loss of muscle or bone strength. Over this period of time you will venture to eat metal, stone, wood, bone shards, and anything you can to get hard materials into your system. Additionally during this time, your stomach acid turns a bright pink color in the event you throw up to see it- it has become capable of breaking down these substances. You will need to eat powdered or small grits of these items, as your teeth or jaw have not become any stronger. Based on the amount and number of types of objects you have eaten, your bones become remade into much stronger structures based on the materials you ate- the percentage of hard materials you ate that were not common rocks, stones, wood, and bones should be marked and tallied. These materials include things like iron ore, rare alloys, lead, or magical fantasy metals or crystals.

Consult the table below for the results. You also lose the urge to eat these things and become unable to digest them after this two weeks is up.

Pounds Eaten	%	AC Bonus	Description
5 lbs	20.00%	0	Noticeably tougher finger and toes.
10 lbs	40.00%	1	No longer feel pain from bumped elbow.
15 lbs	60.00%	1	Takes 2x long to amputate limbs.
20 lbs	80.00%	2	Bones are immune to Bone Breaking spells.
+25 lbs	90.00%	2	Iron weapons cannot sever your limbs.
+25 lbs w/ Adamantine	100.00%	3	Your corpse's bones will make mighty clubs.

The % category indicates how much of your skeleton has changed into a metallic or heavy form. Small percentages mean little streaks of steel in your bones, where as high percentages mean fully metal bones. You can also roll on the percentage value as a percentile roll to avoid your bone breaking from a fall or similar situation where they would snap under the strain.

[16] For a few days, you lose control of your legs. You'll occasionally fall over, jump in place for a few minutes, run with great speed when you meant to just walk, or accidentally kick your partner in bed from the random firing of your legs. After this fews days is up, both your legs feel very different. The muscles in them are taught like snakes and coiled like a spring. You can now jump 10ft high and bound around +15ft faster then your normal movement rate. Your kicks deal 1d4 damage. If your legs are cut and you don't move, the coiled muscles prevent you from losing any blood. You can also now sleep standing up, and you never feel foot pain or exhaustion from long travels, but you will still develop blisters without the proper footware.

[17] You gain a marsupial pouch. Up against your underbelly, this pouch is made of skin and can be 'sucked flat' against your body by the newfound muscular contractions you can do with your pouch. This suction is so strong that your pouch slit is invisible to the naked eye, only a slip of elf paper could find and enter the invisible gap to prove you had a pouch in the first place. You can store items inside the pouch which meld seamlessly with your stomach fat; a dagger would just make you appear chubby instead of having a dagger-like impression against your skin- still more useful for fatter characters. Using this as a hiding place, you can basically keep a small bag's worth of items sucked up close to you and unable to be detected. Being fatter gives you more storage space.

[18] The bottom of your feet grow hard leathery pads. This lets you walk around with bare feet that is tough as a shoe. Your feet also become more flexible- letting you tip toe around most trap pressure-plates and take no damage by moving through caltrops or burning embers. You can use them to walk across tightropes easily. Your feet have the same protection as good leather shoes would give. You also gain a +2 to stealth rolls from your silent, padded footfalls.

Additionally, you can "step out" of these leather pads whenever you choose, similar to a pair of sandals. As long as you are standing on a nonliving object, your leathery foot-pads remain and continue to press down with the same weight as your physical body would if you were still standing there. Such as stepping on a pressure plate that activates when you step off of it- you can simply step out of your leather foot pads and keep it pressed down. If these footpads are destroyed or knocked loose, they crumble to dust. Over the next week they regrow on your itchy feet.

[19] Uncomfortable growths being to form beneath both your wrists, which stretch down to your elbow. After a few days, they solidify into bones. With a motion you can force long bone spines to exit your forearms from your wrists. They exit through the specially made pores on your skin here, and thus cause no injury to yourself. These act as hidden weapons you can summon at a moment's notice. If you are a human sized being, these bone spines deal 1d4 damage. If you are smaller then a human, such as a dwarf or kobold, then these spines only deal 1d3 damage. If you are bigger then a human, then they're similar to the size of a sword and deal 1d6 damage. Finally, if you have any natural venom or poison, these spines gain the ability to deliver your own natural poison when stabbed into a target.

[20] Along your upper chest and back, scales of an unknown material form. These are bright orange in color, and hold a comfortable warmth, especially in sunlight. The affected character gains +1 AC from the hard scales granting protection, but also gain an inherent knowledge of what the scales do. As long as they are charged by being outside in the sun while shirtless for a few hours a week, the scales can grant the bearer their power. If the scales are not fed enough sunlight, they retain their AC bonus but lose the ability to channel light. In this case they turn a sickly yellow color until they are fed the requisite amount of sunlight once again.

While in darkness, the user can squeeze their temples to channel the sunlight energy in their scales through their eyes. This makes their eyes glow a bright yellow color, and lets them see in darkness. These eyes act exactly as a lantern, with only illumination on whatever the person is looking at at the time. This doesn't negatively effect stealth as long as you close your eyes, but the light can be seen from quite a distance in a dark place. You can keep your eyes glowing for a maximum of 3 exploration turns worth of time per day as long as your scales are charged up.