Wasteland Bestiary

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

Lonewulf, do you mind if I take these statblocks and put them into a PDF document along with a bunch of others from other people on the forums? It was a suggestion made in 3e conversions thread: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=30140&page=1

Nope, I don't mind at all. Just keep in mind that they'll probably be reprinted in my module, and probably heavily edited in the future.

I'm brainstorming at this point, although the stats aren't really that hard to come up with. They shouldn't be that hard to modify, either.

EDIT: If you want a good list of creatures, I have this printed in another thread:

NOTICE: All mutated animals (which includes all "enlargened" versions of small animals) also do 1 point of radiation damage every strike unless otherwise stated. Some creatures do more (which will be noted in their stats block).

Scorpion, Large (+1 SM, 2 hexes):
ST 14, DX 12, IQ 4, HT 12
HP 14, Speed 6, Move 6, Perception 12, Will 11

Poison Strike (1d+1 Imp, injects poison, Range 1), Claws (1d-1 cutting, can grapple)

Skills: Stealth 12, Brawling 12

Traits: DR 4, Extra Legs (6 legs), Horizontal, No Fine Manipulators, Striker/Poisonous Tail (Only -1 to target instead of -2), Wild Animal

Poison: Can act as a stun agent or as a deadly agent; Stun is cyclic, and inflicts 1d-2 fatigue damage; resisted by HT, Cyclic (1 hour). Deadly agent is resisted by HT-2; if failed, you are inflicted with 1d-2 points of toxic damage (Cyclic, 1 hour) and are inflicted with Severe Pain. Symptoms of a scorpion sting include abnormal head, eye, and neck movements; increased saliva production; sweating; and restlessness.

Scorpion, Cat-sized (SM-1):
ST 7, DX 12, IQ 4, HT 12
HP 7, Speed 6, Move 4, Will 11, Perception 12

Poison Strike (1d-3 imp, Poison, Range C), Claws (1d-4 Cut, Range C)

Skills: Brawling 12, Stealth 12

Traits: DR 1, otherwise the same

Poison: As with Large Scorpion, but weaker. Save with HT (HT+2 vs. stun toxin), does far less damage; 1 point of fatigue, or 1 point of physical damage, with Moderate Pain. Also Cyclic (1 hour)

(Note: My version of the scorpions is somewhat based on a perview of Wikipedia. Interesting things...)

Scorpions attack when they are on the hunt and feel that they have the advantage; otherwise, they are more prone to run away or stand still (if unseen). Any scorpion that suffers a major injury or drops to 1/2 HP will attempt to flee if it is able to; if it's fight or die, the scorpion will choose to fight.

Mutated Dogs and Wolves:
Like normal dogs and wolves, but also do +1 radiation damage (as noted in the beginning of this section), and may develop some odd mutations. Also, they become more aggressive and more likely to attack humans.

The Burned Ones:
Actually an added template, applied to humans or any other monster or animal. The creature has received a huge dose of radiation, but instead of dying, it somehow survived with severely burnt skin (and is almost entirely fur-less for most furred animals). It's gotten used to the pain, and thus to all pain. While this is available to PCs, it tends to put a damper on their actions... partly because some people will shoot them on sight! Also, it would definitely ruin your love-life...

On the plus side, the Burned Ones are resistant to any other radiation damage; on the minus side, a significant enough dosage is likely to do more damage, not less.

Burned One: [-20]
High Pain Threshold (10)
Monstrous Appearance (-20)
Radiation Resistance/Radiation Divisor 5 (5)
Social Stigma/Monster (-15)



I'm thinking of changing around the scorpion's poison. While people have stated that after being stung by a high-poison scorpion, they receive a jet of pain more significant than those that are less potent poisonous scorpion, I think that the stunning poison needs to be a bit more debilitating; maybe it'll do more fatigue damage depending on the size of the creature.

Maybe I'll change it to 2d fatigue damage on a human, or just have it stun them; I'm honestly not sure. People that are experienced in scorpion toxicology (or are more willing to research the issue) can give me some advice.

As for their claws, I don't think they should necessarily count as talons, as talons can swing... a corpion's claws really aren't made for that.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

I might add two tiny vestigial arms, probably at haphazard angles that make no logical sense. It's supposed to be partially gengineered, and partially mutated.

Something about this just made me think of GURPS Trogdor :?

CONSUMMATE!

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Something about this just made me think of GURPS Trogdor :?

CONSUMMATE!

I knew someone was going to say this...

I still like the ending of Peasant Quest. :D

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Lonewulf

I'm thinking of changing around the scorpion's poison. While people have stated that after being stung by a high-poison scorpion, they receive a jet of pain more significant than those that are less potent poisonous scorpion, I think that the stunning poison needs to be a bit more debilitating; maybe it'll do more fatigue damage depending on the size of the creature.

Maybe I'll change it to 2d fatigue damage on a human, or just have it stun them; I'm honestly not sure. People that are experienced in scorpion toxicology (or are more willing to research the issue) can give me some advice.

I'm not 100% clear on how you'd model this. Stun is only possible with an Affliction (Innate Attack Symptoms doesn't include Stun as an allowed effect, and normal damage only does stun if it produces a Major Wound), but damage is only possible with an Innate Attack. When I set up the entries I ended up having to use a Toxic Attack and an Affliction for the first poison.

And since Side Effect can't be used with Follow-Up (the poison is a follow-up to the tail attack), you can't get the stun effect *or* the moderate/severe pain from the nastier poison. This matters because Symptoms, which can create the pain effect, only kicks in at a fraction of the victim's HP lost. For even the large scorpion this is unlikely to occur, even if you go with Symptoms at 1/3 HP (and it's effectively impossible with the smaller one). So here's what I went with on the large scorpion:

Poison Type 1: Fatigue Attack 1d-2 (Cyclic, 1 hour, 1 cycle; Follow-Up, tail; Resist HT); Affliction 1 (HT; Follow-Up, tail; Stun)

Poison Type 2: Toxic Attack 1d-2 (Cyclic, 1 hour, 1 cycle; Follow-Up, tail; Resist HT-2; Symptoms at 1/3 HP, see text); Affliction 3 (HT-2; Follow-Up, tail; Severe Pain)

A problem comes up with the cat-sized scorpion, though, because Afflictions can't get any easier than HT, so you can't have Affliction HT+2, which you need in order to match the innate attack's resistance roll. So I just went with HT on the Affliction.

This is all moot if you intended for it to be delivered as a straight Innate Attack without the Striker, but since you didn't include the Innate Attack skill, I'm assuming you meant to use a Striker on this.

[Lonewulf]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

This is all moot if you intended for it to be delivered as a straight Innate Attack without the Striker, but since you didn't include the Innate Attack skill, I'm assuming you meant to use a Striker on this.

Striker, with a follow-up affliction, seems to be the best route to me. Less changes need to made than an innate attack that's melee only, etc.

Your stats seem to work out alright, overall. I wonder if there's a way to get an affliction to be HT+1 or HT+2 for a harmful affliction? Maybe count as subtracting a certain percentage? -10% per +1?