Making Animals more Dangerous

[AlexanderHowl]

Genetically engineering blackflies to have a toxin in their bite could be quite horrific. Even if a swarm only did 1d toxic damage every attack, it would empty rural areas within days.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I didn't say fairer climes can't also be so blessed :)

I think Australia's god had an inordinate fondness for poisonous animals of all sorts.

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.

When we lived in San Diego I thought 104°F was insanely hot. . . .

[Bruno]

We had endemic malaria but it's a pretty minimal risk these days. Malaria may be the single most lethal organism to humans, over the course of human history. That makes mosquitos the single most dangerous animal, even setting aside all the other things they carry.

Rabies is incurable and 100% lethal once you're properly infected by it; we're fortunate that there's actually a lengthy window after it enters your body and before it really infects you, where we can act against it. Once that deadline is past, you're dead (exception: 6 people that survived using the Milwaulkee protocol, that's an 8% success rate of a procedure that in and of itself is life threatening).

Rabies is a good excuse for an animal to attack humans and makes them disproportionately threatening, but it also makes the animals a total mess and stops them from using the normal tactics that help animals vs humans. No stalking, no ambushing, no working in large groups, no sensibly evaluating the group and picking off the weakest.

In my experience players don't take disease risk from animals seriously (short of lycanthropy and even then, some see it as a shortcut to kewl superpowers).

[AlexanderHowl]

An interesting scenario would be to have a mad scientist genetically engineer a form of rabies that would be less symptomatic before causing death. A form of rabies that did not inhibit the ability of victims to tolerate water would be especially effective because victims would not die of dehydration, allowing them to function longer, though it might reduce transmission during attacks. Without the foaming at the mouth, the only sign of rabies would be increased aggression, which might mean that bitten humans might not seek treatment until it is too late.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Without the foaming at the mouth, the only sign of rabies would be increased aggression, which might mean that bitten humans might not seek treatment until it is too late.

It might, but normal guidelines don't really care whether the animal shows such visible signs.

[rkbrown419]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

An interesting scenario would be to have a mad scientist genetically engineer a form of rabies that would be less symptomatic before causing death. A form of rabies that did not inhibit the ability of victims to tolerate water would be especially effective because victims would not die of dehydration, allowing them to function longer, though it might reduce transmission during attacks. Without the foaming at the mouth, the only sign of rabies would be increased aggression, which might mean that bitten humans might not seek treatment until it is too late.

Give rabies a shorter incubation time and you have a recipe for a realistic "zombie virus" situation. You wouldn't have actual undead but with or without foaming at the mouth and hydrophobia you'd have a rapidly growing population of crazed biting people and animals to contend with.

[(E)]

One approach is having the animals being aware of the risk humans pose and behaving accordingly.
Wolves approach a camp howl a bit and then retreat when the PCs follow, the wolves stay out of range for the entire pursuit. When the PCs return to camp all their food supplies have been eaten by the other half of the pack.
A pride of lions gets close enough to the parties campsite during the night to spook all the pack animals. The flee when humans appear and then content themselves to picking off the panicked animals.
Rats dispoiling food.
A bull that is otherwise placid until a character gets close enough to slam/kick/toss into the air.
Any hippo can overturn a small watercraft.
Pay attention to a croc's death roll not it's bite.
Patience as a virtue, the animal stalks the character waiting for a moment of weakness.

There is always taking a close look at grapples and related close attacks.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by (E)

One approach is having the animals being aware of the risk humans pose and behaving accordingly.

Raccoons rappel down from the trees and steal everything without a sound.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by (E)

Wolves approach a camp howl a bit and then retreat when the PCs follow, the wolves stay out of range for the entire pursuit. When the PCs return to camp all their food supplies have been eaten by the other half of the pack.
A pride of lions gets close enough to the parties campsite during the night to spook all the pack animals. The flee when humans appear and then content themselves to picking off the panicked animals.

These are actually reminiscent of some animal tactics I have actually encountered. About 8 years ago I was going for a walk with my two dogs (a border collie mix and a blue heeler mix) in the undeveloped, swampy area around the Yakima delta, where the Yakima river flows into the Columbia. I encountered a pair of coyotes. Normally coyotes just run away whenever they encounter an adult human, or watch from a long ways away (well out of rifle shot). These ones would circle around at a range of about 20 to 50 meters, yipping, often pausing in plain sight and staring at me and my dogs (one even occasionally stood up on its hind legs to give yips, a very odd thing to watch). My best guess is that they were trying to get my dogs to chase them, at which point they would lure the dogs far enough away and behind cover that I couldn't come to assistance and then kill a dog or two to eat. Fortunately my dogs, being of herding dog stock, paid close attention to me, stayed close, and didn't go running off. If I'd had a hound, I suspect it would be dead. I saw them use this behavior on two different occasions. It unnerved me enough that now whenever I go out where I might encounter coyotes I always bring a firearm if I've got dogs or my kids with me.

Luke

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I think we technically have tiny numbers of black widow spiders and rattlesnakes out west, and some sort of mildly venomous adder out east.

I just checked the range maps, and I guess customs and border control must be doing their work because both massasaguas and timber rattlers get up to Michigan, Minnesota, New York state, and New England but just miss slithering into Canada. Prairie rattlers and pacific rattlers both have fingers of their range that extend into Alberta and Saskatchewan, and B.C., respectively. The northern black widow is supposed to get into Ontario on occasion.

Luke