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Old 07-19-2018, 05:19 PM   #21
mr beer
 
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Default Re: Making Animals more Dangerous

It sort of depends on what you are trying to achieve. You can have an animal attack which is annoying and dangerous (especially with gritty rules - deep carnivore bites and scratches are bad news in the tropics) but unlikely to result in an animal 'victory'.

That said, animals* don't usually attack groups of armed, alert humans. For good evolutionary reasons...the ones that are inclined to do that, all died.

* leaving aside things like the mosquitos mentioned above.
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Old 07-19-2018, 05:33 PM   #22
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Default Re: Making Animals more Dangerous

Recently I saw news about a woman who had to have a leg amputated due to the bite of a brown recluse spider. That kind of animal can be extremely dangerous even to armored PC's. It's so small it's hard to spot it can crawl inside armor and bite several times before the character can get the armor off to kill it. Worse when adventurers camp it can crawl into their boots packs or clothing while they sleep. When they try to get into wherever the spider has decided it's new home is they get bit.
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Old 07-19-2018, 05:45 PM   #23
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Default Re: Making Animals more Dangerous

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Originally Posted by rkbrown419 View Post
Recently I saw news about a woman who had to have a leg amputated due to the bite of a brown recluse spider. That kind of animal can be extremely dangerous even to armored PC's. It's so small it's hard to spot it can crawl inside armor and bite several times before the character can get the armor off to kill it. Worse when adventurers camp it can crawl into their boots packs or clothing while they sleep. When they try to get into wherever the spider has decided it's new home is they get bit.
That sounds like a critical failure of one's Survival roll to me. Experienced outdoorsy people know the various tricks like shaking ones boots out before putting them on, checking one's bedroll for snakes before getting into it, and so on.
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Old 07-19-2018, 08:31 PM   #24
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Default Re: Making Animals more Dangerous

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That sounds like a critical failure of one's Survival roll to me. Experienced outdoorsy people know the various tricks like shaking ones boots out before putting them on, checking one's bedroll for snakes before getting into it, and so on.
I think the woman got bit in her own house. Not a place you usually think you need to check for dangerous animals. You're right though that it's the sort of complication normally experienced from a failed Survival roll.

My point was animals don't have to be big or smart to be dangerous. If the pc's have to face an horde of army ants it's probably going to be worse than a grizzly bear. Armor won't stop the ants and most weapons won't be very effective.
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Old 07-19-2018, 09:26 PM   #25
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My point was animals don't have to be big or smart to be dangerous. If the pc's have to face an horde of army ants it's probably going to be worse than a grizzly bear. Armor won't stop the ants and most weapons won't be very effective.
Yeah but unlike enraged grizzly bears, strolling away works just fine. Army ants are only a problem if that's not an option.

Last edited by mr beer; 07-19-2018 at 09:34 PM.
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Old 07-19-2018, 11:38 PM   #26
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Default Re: Making Animals more Dangerous

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Intelligent attack tactics for an animal involve attacking unarmed people from behind. This is not terribly relevant to PCs vs animals.
There is more to it than that. But yes, not having regular animals attack when they wouldn't is a start.
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Old 07-20-2018, 06:32 AM   #27
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I think the woman got bit in her own house. Not a place you usually think you need to check for dangerous animals.
This may be my Australian[1] heritage talking here, but if you live in an area with venomous arthropods of any significance, you should be checking in your house for dangerous animals. Same if you live with venomous snakes, really, depending on the age and style of your house.

We in colder climates are positively spoiled by the rarity of human-dangerous venomous animals.

[1] Half Australian. Spent enough time there to knock my shoes out before donning them and never reach into sheltered spots without poking them with a stick. I don't do it here in Canada inside the house because I live in a hermetically sealed fortress surrounded by sub-arctic weather, but outside in the yard... (We don't have dangerous spiders or snakes in this area, but old habits die hard when ignoring them can mean death)
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Old 07-20-2018, 08:54 AM   #28
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We in colder climates are positively spoiled by the rarity of human-dangerous venomous animals.
There aren't many in Riverside, where I live now, and I wouldn't call it a colder climate; a week or two back it was over 45°C.
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Old 07-20-2018, 09:22 AM   #29
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There aren't many in Riverside, where I live now, and I wouldn't call it a colder climate; a week or two back it was over 45°C.
I didn't say fairer climes can't also be so blessed :)

We're having a scorcher of a summer here too (headed for 40 today) but it doesn't change the long cold dark part of the year. It seems to leave cold-blooded creatures wasting far less resources on insanely lethal venom vs practical tasks like "how to hibernate". I think we technically have tiny numbers of black widow spiders and rattlesnakes out west, and some sort of mildly venomous adder out east.

Instead, nature provides enormous summer swarms of blackflies and mosquitos, so dense you can't breathe without mesh protecting your face to filter them out, or they'll get in your nose and mouth and bite you on the soft thin skin there (and choke you by accident). Deer get chased by blackflies out of the woods and onto the highways, where they get hit by a car and die, as well as risking the lives of the humans in the cars.

We're raised on things like The Blackfly Song here.

Blackfly,
the little black fly,
always the blackfly no matter where you go,
I'll die with the blackfly picking my bones,
In North Ontario (io)
In North Ontario

Kids music! You can tell because of the death.
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Old 07-20-2018, 09:27 AM   #30
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I think we technically have tiny numbers of black widow spiders and rattlesnakes out west
Yes. Grew up in Saskabush, and both of those are native. Never heard of anyone getting killed by one of those though.

Death by deer collision was pretty common though.
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