Making Critters

[rikiwarren]

I'm prepairing for my first Donjon game (on Wed.) and I have some questions about making critters.

First, can critters go beyond the 6 pt limit for stats?

Second, how do most people do natural weapons?  For example a Bite attribute? Is it used for just the attack roll? Just the damage roll? or both?

I was tenatively thinking that if it was the primary attribute, it would be used for both. If it wasn't, you would have to define it as either an attack roll or a damage roll. Creatures with a lot of natural attacks may have a broader skill that represents their attack rolls in all of them, like "hunting" or "kill, kill, kill!!!!".

But looking at the examples in the book and here, it looks like many creatures have a single attack attribute as a secondary attribute.

This is particularly perplexing for supernatural attacks (e.g. breathing fire). The PC example in the book just decided what the damage was going to be (but had to purchase special herbs and spices to cover it).

How does this work with NPCs? Particularly those of the critter variety.

-Rich-

[Wulf]

I'm prepairing for my first Donjon game (on Wed.) and I have some questions about making critters.

First, can critters go beyond the 6 pt limit for stats?

Second, how do most people do natural weapons?  For example a Bite attribute? Is it used for just the attack roll? Just the damage roll? or both?

As you'll see elsewhere in the forum, I've been thinking about this too...

Basically, I never even doubted that critters can go beyond 6 in Stats (in fact, some of them might go all the way up to 11...). Take blobs. Not much on Sociality or Cerebrality, and you might give them 0 in these AND Virility (weightlifting ooze?). That leaves only 3 stats to split the points between. Fine for a first-level slime, but where does the extra point go for a level three? Likewise, I was actually tempted to use less than the full points for some of my low-level weak critters, so I usually stuck the extra into Adroitness.

As for natural weapons, I've split most of them, but not all. Take the average fire-breathing dragon (there's an AVERAGE fire-breathing dragon?). He'll need fire breath, fire damage, claw and bite, claw and bite damage, flight, armour. That's six already, and not much individuality... I left 'Firebreath' to cover both aspects rather than create a more complex creature, with more stats, and less dice in each (I could have raised it's level, but it works this way). I still don't like that Fiera had to BUY her natural breath weapon - you don't have to but separate damage for fists, after all! I may drop that requirement in our game (except I'm not running the first one... oops...).

Wulf

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Critters can definitely have stats above 6. (For that matter, so can characters, as they advance.)

As for natural weapons, one Ability can be used for either the attack Test or the damage Test, but not both. In most sample creatures, I've denoted which occurs. This means that you end up with creatures that either:
a) hit well, but do ok damage
b) hit rarely, but do horribly nasty damage when they hit

You can have two Abilities - one for attack and damage - but be careful before you assign this. Unless you want the creature to be a total combat monster, this will be too powerful.

[Mike Holmes]

You can have two Abilities - one for attack and damage - but be careful before you assign this. Unless you want the creature to be a total combat monster, this will be too powerful.

In a playtest, I did this once against a party that was not optimized so (and the creature was a copuple levels higher to boot). The demon thingie tore the group apart. So, yes, avoid this if at all sensible, or consider the creature to be higher level for comparison purposes.

Mike

[rikiwarren]

If I make a humanoid critter (eg my rock goblins), I can equip them with goblin swords, goblin armor and the like as equipment.

If I make a non-humanoid critter (eg my dragonkin), I have to give them abilities for the attack and damage (like bite or tail-slap), which can either be used for damage or the attack roll. Same with armor.

Or am I powering up the humanoids too much? Should I buy thier attacks and armor as attributes as well?

And how would giving them equipment affect looting the bodies? If the goblin sword does 2d, it is a 2 worth weapon. The goblins are level 1, so the characters wouldn't be able to loot (not what I want).

Hmm. Am I making this too complicated?

Ok, here's another question. If a warrior character is wearing both scale armor and carrying a shield, does he get 4d armor? or do you just use the higher value?

-Rich-

[Wulf]

If I make a humanoid critter (eg my rock goblins), I can equip them with goblin swords, goblin armor and the like as equipment.

Or am I powering up the humanoids too much? Should I buy thier attacks and armor as attributes as well?

And how would giving them equipment affect looting the bodies? If the goblin sword does 2d, it is a 2 worth weapon. The goblins are level 1, so the characters wouldn't be able to loot (not what I want).

I give them abilities like 'Stab With Spear', but I won't give them weapons unless I have a specific reason. The ability does the job, albeit the Gobbo only gets 'Stab With Spear 4' rather than 'Stab With Spear 4' PLUS 'Spear 2'. After all, if you design a Level 1 Gobbo, then hand it a spear and armour, haven't you just added 4 free dice to it? The looting thing reminds me of a computer game called 'Jagged Alliance' - you could design your own scenarios, and assign loot to NPCs. So you could have a guy blasting away with an assault rifle, but when you kill him all he has on him is a Toolkit...

As I understand it, you are right, if the Gobbo has a sword, he doesn't get any other loot. Of course, if he has a sword that gets broken when he dies, it wouldn't count as loot...

I'm happy with this interpretation of the looting rules (and I loved Jagged Alliance).

Ok, here's another question. If a warrior character is wearing both scale armor and carrying a shield, does he get 4d armor? or do you just use the higher value?
-Rich-

I'd say he gets both, but the shield only counts if you FAIL an active defence!

Wulf