Make Animals Threatening [Basic]

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I treat amimals realistically. If the were supposed to e a threat to PCs I would tell the players to make 25pt characters. That'd mostly make them realistic people.

Pretty much this.

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The issue with most real-life "scary man-eating predator" incidents is that the humans being eaten are somewhere between 0-point kids and 25-point villagers. Where suitable animals live, at least a good part of the victims' low point total is because everyone is at Struggling or even Poor wealth; has what's functionally a few levels of Low TL; and suffers from some disadvantage – like Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen, Valuable Property, or even Subjugated) or just Status -1 or -2 – that reflects living under an oppressive local warlord or national government that enforces CR4-6 and takes all guns out of everyone's hands, even for hunting purposes. Do that and keep everybody's attributes at 9-11 due to malnutrition and undereducation, and I can promise you that your predators will eat well.

The issue with most fictional stories of this kind is that they're horror stories. The people being eaten, including the protagonists, are still somewhere between 0 and 25 points. Now this is largely due to being deliberately "kept down" by the story's author, who makes sure that all the characters are either truly helpless, functionally so because they're ordinary folks with desk jobs and no combat skills, or bundles of flaws who are taken while giving in to Addiction, Alcoholism, Lecherousness, etc. and not paying attention.

Unsurprisingly, there are precious few cases of hardened, well-fed, well-equipped combat troops being successfully killed by predators. That's because a person trained and armed to kill fellow humans who can shoot back with guns or artillery isn't going to find a big, furry killer nearly as worrisome as a squad of men with assault rifles. This is the typical "realistic" 150-point campaign.

Once you get to 250- and 300-point movie commandos – or dungeon delvers, or professional monster hunters, or Mad Max survivalists – normal animals, however large and toothy, shouldn't be a threat. They're "just" ordinary life, like the villagers I talked about a few paragraphs up. From the lofty heights of the protagonists, the difference between "villager with a stick," "big dog," and "tiger" blurs into insignificance.

So frankly, I'd change nothing about the animals in any realistic game. If you want the animals to be deadly, make the PCs at most 25-point noncombatants. That's real life for most people, and for just about all of the people who get eaten by predators. In a heroic or cinematic game, yeah, you'll have to make the animals deadlier. That's why hack 'n' slash fantasy is full of dire, giant, were-, and mutant animals . . . For these, you can add more Stealth, sure, or just decide they have ST 100 and shoot lasers.

[Donny Brook]

Made-up animals I have used as challenges in my campaigns have been:

1) Critters much like the D&D 'Displacer Beast'. Sized like a large panther, with added Reach 2 tentacles, the ability to 'displace' (i.e. become briefly insubstantial with short-range teleportation), and for added threat: semi-intelligent, cooperative hunters with Tactics. (TL4 campaign)

2) Bugs (lots of them) with SM-9, chameleon surface, DR2, armor piercing pincers, and venom. I had made the venom Cyclic, but the PCs had so much trouble dealing with them, I dropped that in play. (TL5-6 campaign)

3) D-scale megafauna (like Godzilla or bigger). (TL5-6 and TL9 campaigns)

[Kromm]

I'll add that a frequent problem with horror games is running them at 150+ points. That suits so-called "fantasy horror" which is really hack 'n' slash with more demons and necromancy, or monster hunters who go after traditional horror monsters like vampires and werewolves . . . neither of which is horror, but rather a hack 'n' slash or action game with elements or window dressing borrowed from horror.

Actual horror pretty much depends on the protagonists being rather helpless or the horrors being cosmic enough that the protagonists are functionally helpless. GURPS Horror has some excellent discussions of this. It places the heroes of "typical" horror stories at 25-50 points, and points out that even 75 points is straying into hero territory. At 150 points, you get investigators who go looking for trouble that's more horrific for NPCs than for them, unless the horror is cosmic. Anyway, man-eaters are for "typical" horror stories; to challenge 150-point professional investigators of horror, look at what makes 150-point human opposition deadly and give animals that.

[Kromm]

For instance, here's a typical real-world plains-dweller who lives in a preindustrial village in the modern world and has to survive by hunting, raising cattle, and avoiding lions.

My Friends Know Me As "Lion Meat"

25 points

ST 11 [10]; DX 11 [20]; IQ 10 [0]; HT 11 [10].
Damage 1d-1/1d+1; BL 24 lbs.; HP 11 [0]; Will 10 [0]; Per 12 [10]; FP 11 [0]; Basic Speed 5.50 [0]; Basic Move 5 [0].

Disadvantages: Low TL4 [-20]; Status -1 [-5]; Wealth (Poor) [-15].
Skills: Area Knowledge (Home Territory)-11 [2]; Farming-10 [2]; Running-11 [2]; Spear-11 [2]; Stealth-11 [2]; Survival (Plains)-11 [1]; Thrown Weapon (Spear)-12 [2]; Tracking-11 [1]; Weather Sense-9 [1].

And here's a typical Hollywood horror character.

Angie the Cheerleader

25 points

ST 9 [-10]; DX 11 [20]; IQ 10 [0]; HT 11 [10].
Damage 1d-2/1d-1; BL 16 lbs.; HP 9 [0]; Will 10 [0]; Per 10 [0]; FP 11 [0]; Basic Speed 5.50 [0]; Basic Move 5 [0].

Advantages: Beautiful [12]; Penetrating Voice [1].
Disadvantages: Confused (12) [-10]; Skinny [-5].
Skills: Acrobatics-11 [4]; Dancing-11 [2]; Sex Appeal-10 [1].

Toss an ordinary lion at either, even in a frontal encounter (not an ambush), and see what happens. Heck, Lion Meat can even start with a spear, and Angie with a .38 off a dead cop, if you like. Remember that the lion has Basic Speed 6.00 and acts first, and gets to close at Move 10 which ends in a pounce with Brawling-15.

Making these kinds of characters typical PCs is how I'd normally make animals deadlier.

[ericthered]

Some of the more niche combat rules can make animals a lot more deadly. There is rule somewhere that lets bites double as grapple attempts, which makes getting back into weapons range hard and lets the animal leverage its superior strength.

Large animals can make slam attacks, which can be impossible to block and are often one sided.

Most animals are faster than people in one way or another. Use this to let them dictate the terms of the engagement. And animals are pretty good about exploiting this (when they aren't doing it, its called "being hunted").

Four adventurers in a cave vs. eight wolves shouldn't be a problem. Its when the wolves are following them home from the crawl, through the wilderness, waiting for them to go to sleep to attack that you run into problems.

[Alden Loveshade]

What Dr. Kromm said.

I might add that if that 150 point character is unarmed, things can be very different. And some predators such as some bears can fight on and be deadly even when shot.

There's also the issue of rabies or other conditions that can radically change animal behavior (not to mention being infectious). I once saw an animal at night out here in the country that was possibly a wolf or dog-wolf cross. It could even have been a large mixed breed dog, but it was night and I wasn't going to examine it. It repeatedly leapt at a wooden gate trying to break through to get to me on my property. It actually did break some of the lattice work on the gate. I've worked with dogs, and that is definitely not normal dog behavior.

An animal with a mental/neurological disorder can be vicious--or very tame (rabies can sometimes turn wild animals into friendly ones--but don't let them bite you!)

[AlexanderHowl]

In reality, there are very few people at TL4 in the modern day. Even the least sophisticated rural villages in Africa and India have cell phone towers that provide communications to the majority of the population (and probably Internet access), and used cell phones from the developed world are cheap enough that even beggars have them. Despite being desperately poor, these are TL8 societies, and it is a lack of wealth rather than a lack of technological sophistication that hinders them.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Some of the more niche combat rules can make animals a lot more deadly. There is rule somewhere that lets bites double as grapple attempts, which makes getting back into weapons range hard and lets the animal leverage its superior strength.

Large animals can make slam attacks, which can be impossible to block and are often one sided.

Most animals are faster than people in one way or another. Use this to let them dictate the terms of the engagement. And animals are pretty good about exploiting this (when they aren't doing it, its called "being hunted").

Four adventurers in a cave vs. eight wolves shouldn't be a problem. Its when the wolves are following them home from the crawl, through the wilderness, waiting for them to go to sleep to attack that you run into problems.

A related statement is "animals (mostly) don't fight...they hunt."

Mostly, an animal that isn't defending territory, mates, or offspring is going to hunt for food, not do battle. They stalk, chase, pounce, strangle, and break necks. Even then it's not always certain and they sometimes get chased off even after they bring down a prey animal.

There's a great video of a hiker/jogger who came too close to a mother mountain lion. She charged him, and he backed away, always making noise and facing the lion (had he turned his back she'd have pounced on him). He got away unscathed, eventually scaring the lion back to her cubs by throwing a rock at her.

But they're looking for food, not a contest of arms. Look at cases of bears or lions chased away by housecats and dogs, respectively, who make intimidation displays or charge the much larger animals. They're just not INTERESTED in battle. It doesn't feed them.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

So, how do you make animals terrifying in your games? Do you strip your PCs of their equipement? Do you give the animals supernatural powers? Or do you do something else?

One idea is just to hunt penalties for PCs. Like have the animal attack in bad lighting where their nightvision offsets darkness penalties but not the vision penalties for humans.

Another might be fright checks more often (still not sure where to find rules on using that w/o the Terror advantage)

Or the animal using the "intimidation" skill where instead of causing stun it causes MoF penalties to actions.

Originally Posted by ericthered

There is rule somewhere that lets bites double as grapple attempts, which makes getting back into weapons range hard and lets the animal leverage its superior strength.

That's in Martial Arts (pg 115) plus aside from maintaining a grapple you can do followup "worries" without rolling to hit which can't be defended against.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Large animals can make slam attacks, which can be impossible to block and are often one sided.

MA also allows during a Move and Attack maneuver for you to substitute your slam dice based on HPxV for the "thrust" dice your Striking ST provides if it is higher.

I'm not sure if that affects "effective weight" of a weapon for parrying purposes though.

I figure bites are usually like punches (ST/10 pounds) rather than slams (ST pounds) but it does make me wonder if you are allowed to sub the slam dice if you can also treat it being 10x heavier like a slam too.

AFAIK other slam rules may not apply to this (it's just the damage, not stuff like over-running on a miss, taking damage to your weapon like "Slams With Long Weapons", attacker risking knockdown if they don't do enough damage, etc) so enhanced weight might not apply either.

I can't really imagine a situation where a lion would body-check you instead of bite you (though I haven't watched an extensive library of lion fights)

The idea of adding velocity-based damage to a bite is also kind of hard to grasp conceptually too. The idea of substituting slam is because it's a "thrust" action (you can't substitute it for "swing" damage)

A bite, even though it uses "thrust", isn't really a thrusting movement though: you wrap around and crush. Teeth are bent inward so it's more of a "pull" than a thrust. You don't push your nose into something as you bite it, you actually pull it AWAY from your face (think about tearing a piece of meat off bone w/ teeth)

For that reason I'm thinking maybe bites should be an exception to being able to substitute slam damage?

A lion might do something like a running headbutt first (which should get the option to sub slam since that IS a classic thrust movement) and then follow that up with a bite. That seems a lot more logical to me. Though I can't remember actually seeing it.

Maybe what they might do is just run alongside you and then try and shoulder-check you sideways once they're alongside, or reach out a claw and snag a leg?

From what I remember of seeing lionesses hunt (they do most of action) they usually do something like jump on the rear haunches, or snag a hamstring with an outstretched claw and just sort of hang on maintaining a grapple using their weight to drag the target into a crawling posture to slow them down so their packmates can run around and surround it.

One thing I would like to see is the horrible range of bites compared to other attacks adapted more. There's a great illustration of that in Walking Dead World Beyond where a girl has arms locked overhead trying to keep zombies from biting her. Their HANDS are able to reach at her of course...

That might just be a result of smart grappling though: she grapples their necks which per TG counts as a grapple against both the torso AND the head, so would give full CP penalties to both.

If she had merely grappled the torso (easier target) then she would only get referred control penalties on the head, which probably wouldn't made them more able to try to bite her.

Zombies are dumb berserk AOA types fro mwhat I've seen so they don't think to break free. They seem to try and grapple her torso or head/neck but can't seem to reach it I guess because of the DX penalties they're suffering from her having solid locked-arm "keep back" grips on their necks.

That's one thing about locked arms: even if you can't get a grip on a big target (a small girl's hand can't reach around an adult's neck like it could a handle or small wrist) you could still "palm and push" with pretty decent control as long as a foe was only moving straight in one direction.

Those kinds of countermeasures don't work so well against smart foes since they could retreat or sidestep. You're not "grabbing" them so much as "impeding" them. Basically "holding up a weapon to occupy a hex" like you might with a staff except it's just your hands.

Even if we keep arms/hands as C-reach weapons I'd think of them as "something in the way" similar to a weapon. I don't think MA106 "Obstruction" was intended for use in unarmed combat, but allowing a roll against your combat skill (ie you punch with DX) instad of DX to counter their evasion should perhaps make it possible to avoid someone entering close combat with you?

IE it should trigger when they try to evade the weapon, not try to evade you. Holding up a 9ft pole should make it harder to get within 6ft of you, not just 3ft or 0ft or -3 ft.

If you keep arms outstretched to obstruct like this though it should make it harder to throw punches since you don't keep your arms cocked. They should also be less able to react with parries since you'd also have to withdraw them.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

A related statement is "animals (mostly) don't fight...they hunt."

Mostly, an animal that isn't defending territory, mates, or offspring is going to hunt for food, not do battle.

Agreed. There is my earlier post about one exception, where an animal has a neurological disorder, sometimes caused by a disease like rabies. And some animals can, of course, be trained to attack on command.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

There's a great video of a hiker/jogger who came too close to a mother mountain lion. She charged him, and he backed away, always making noise and facing the lion (had he turned his back she'd have pounced on him). He got away unscathed, eventually scaring the lion back to her cubs by throwing a rock at her.

I saw the video you're referring to, but do have a different interpretation. My experience with mountain lions/cougars is admittedly very limited (although I did have a trained one sit on my lap--they're heavy!).

But I have dealt with literally hundreds of cats including training a few dozen to do things like come, hunt, climb, not beg for food, etc., and behaviors across feline species are generally similar. Before the rock was thrown in the video, the cat hesitated slightly, and looked a bit away. As soon as I saw that, I thought, "She's reached the edge of her territory, and will soon run back," which is exactly what she did. I honestly think the rock thrown shortly after she left her territory made little difference.