Creating Creatures - advice needed

[Caynreth]

Hi,

for my first HQ-session (non-Glorantha-setting) on Saturday (*so excited!*) I want to create some creatures for a simple contest combat. However it is still quite difficult for me to give the creatures the adequate abilities and ratings and to figure some combat tactics (like augmenting and modifiers) in HQ-terms.

Woodspiders:
Something like those in Tolkien's Hobbit. Large (but not giant) and dark. Without venom, but using webs to trap their victims and with giant mandibles to crush.

Direrats:
Like normal rats (fast and with sharp teeth) but these are send by the God without a Name, the adversary of the primary pantheon. So they can inflict diseases on their victims.
I want them to attack in packs and have some augment because of their evil origin.

Because they are send by a devotee of this god they work together. The spiders trap the prey with their webs and try to crush them with their mandibles. When someone is trapped the rats will come in packs trying to bite at weak points and inflict their diseases.

Does anybody have some ideas how they could be "translated" into HQ-terms?

Thanks in advance

Cay

[Mac Logo]

Hi Caynreth,

Woodspiders:
Something like those in Tolkien's Hobbit. Large (but not giant) and dark. Without venom, but using webs to trap their victims and with giant mandibles to crush.

I'd recommend using the Giant Hunting Spider (HQ p217), but decrease the size from Large 5W to what you need - 6 being default size for a normal human. You can just ignore the Paralyzing Poison trait.

Direrats:
Like normal rats (fast and with sharp teeth) but these are send by the God without a Name, the adversary of the primary pantheon. So they can inflict diseases on their victims.
I want them to attack in packs and have some augment because of their evil origin.

Rubble Runners (HQ p216). Don't give them the Armoured Hide bonus. The Evoke Fear trait could be due to their link with evil - narrate how they have an evil look/feel/aura, describe the warrping, disturbing effect of supernatural forces around them.

Because they are send by a devotee of this god they work together. The spiders trap the prey with their webs and try to crush them with their mandibles. When someone is trapped the rats will come in packs trying to bite at weak points and inflict their diseases.

Does anybody have some ideas how they could be "translated" into HQ-terms?

Simply describe their obviously unnatural behaviour, just like you have here! Maybe give them an augment from whatever ritual magic the Devotee used to get them to co-operate. Have them flicker with dark magical light, or something.

I hope this has been helpful.

Graeme

[Bankuei]

Hi Caynreth,

You know that nifty table in the back of the book that lists various abilities and their appropriate ratings?  That happens to be bookmarked when I'm prepping for play.  It's useful for everything, from characters, to animals, to designing difficulties for doing anything.  I often reference it during play as well to make up difficulties on the spot.

Just remember, if the resistance is about the same as the acting character's, outcomes are around 50%.  A mastery of difference shifts it by 25% either way, and more masteries than that becomes almost a guaranteed win or loss.

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

Here's another little secret. Since you're making these creatures out of thin air, rate them whatever you want to rate them. In fact, make the ratings good for the characters to have the level of challenge that you want.

Does this mean that the ratings are irrellevant? No, not at all. Just that the creatures will be defined by how you rate them, rather than trying to figure out what they're like, and then discovering the stats from that.

Now, if you then have to describe them, do so in relative terms. If they're large 5W, then find another creature in the book that's got the same size (and abiltity to use it). Say it's about that size, when players ask or when you describe the creature. Is it Strong 18 when it grabs a character? Then when the player asks how strong it is, you can look at his character's Strong 20, and say, Strong, but not quite as strong as Ragnar.

See what I'm getting at? The stats you choose will indicate something to the players themselves given the relative nature of the system. So just pick stats that sound right to you. You can't really miss, unless you guess totally out of range. Also, remember that if you do "miss" and the player says, I thought that these were larger, then say, "well, this is a small specimen, and look, here comes a larger one, now, just like you expected."

Get what I'm saying? It's really not worth fretting over too much, just use your common sense, and the examples that people are refering you to. Whatever you choose, the players will end up seeing the threat in terms of the numbers on the page. Which is plenty evocative, really.

I personally feel comfortable with it that I don't bother to stat anything out before I play. Instead, I stat things out as the need for the ability rating arises. Saves a lot of effort.

Keep this in mind, too. You can't rate something "too easy" or "too hard" in HQ. If it's easy, well, you can always roll well for the pipsqueaks. If you don't, then the conflict only serves to show just how cool the good guys are. Some conflicts should be designed this way, in fact. If the conflict rolls over the PC easily, remember that this doesn't mean that the character is dead (unless it's dramatically important for that to happen then and there), but instead he's been thouroughly defeated, and needs to form another plan entirely, or realize the character's place in the order of things. That is, things just got more interesting.

You can't go wrong with rating things, if you keep in mind these principles.

Mike

[Caynreth]

Here's another little secret. Since you're making these creatures out of thin air, rate them whatever you want to rate them. In fact, make the ratings good for the characters to have the level of challenge that you want.

Does this mean that the ratings are irrellevant? No, not at all. Just that the creatures will be defined by how you rate them, rather than trying to figure out what they're like, and then discovering the stats from that.

And that's the point! I'm still thinking in "how do I translate the 'real' creature into a rules system"-terms instead of "how do I use the rules to help me make my game"-terms.
Argh! I need to find that switch in my brain which causes this! ;)

Thank you all for help and advice. :)

[ddunham]

Woodspiders:
Something like those in Tolkien's Hobbit. Large (but not giant) and dark. Without venom, but using webs to trap their victims and with giant mandibles to crush.

You don't really need to worry about stats for this, it can be all narration. For example, any time you describe the spider as making a web-trapping attack, and it succeeds, the hero must do something specifically intended to free himself from the web (i.e. not just a combat attack).

You can worry about overall ratings (Webbing 10W2, Mandibles 15W), but you can determine that based on hero toughness and the charts in HQ.