Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Does anyone have any working/workable/decent/reasonable subclass systems for monsters? For example: Mundane is pretty broad so you could divide it into Dragon, Humanoid, etc. It would be similar to the way that Animal is technically divided into Vermin, Fish, Reptile, Bird, Mammal for spells.

Yes, it is very D&D-esque, but I feel like someone must have done something nice like this. I plan on making my own up or tweaking someone else's, but it's always nice to have a starting point or a reference. What works in one RPG may not work in another!

Thanks!

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

DF has a pretty good one:

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Aha! I was going with the one from DF2. I even have that little PDF. I can't believe that I didn't think of it!

Speaking of Dungeon Fantasy Monsters... It has a 1 in the title... So where are the others? And I don't mean that literally. I'm aware that there aren't others yet, but I'd be surprised if people didn't want another.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Short answer: They do. Pipeline is clogged. Big Damn Ogre is in the way. When it gets unclogged they I'm hoping for at lest one or two releases a month. There is a lot of stuff to be released.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Would you care so much as to define clogged? You just say "when" like it is a definite thing with a definite time to it. I knew that it had something to do with Ogre, but I can't say that I looked into it. And pardon my ignorance, but why does it matter that Ogre is "in the way"?

After reading through DF:M1... I'm afraid that there is still one thing missing. What is a dragon? I guess it just bugs me especially that dragons don't have anything special going for them... They don't even have to be their own category, but... I dunno. It would make it easier on Dragonslayers for enchantments and Higher Purpose and whatnot!

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

The 'when' we were given was fall of last year; since then, the schedule has obviously slipped, but we haven't been given any GURPS-centric updates on that. However, sine Ogre is supposed to be released in a few months, that puts a definite upper limit on how long Ogre can get in the way.

That said, there may be other things getting in the way after that - the eventual Car Wars kickstarter, perhaps, though I hear that they don't intend to let it get in the way of SJG's other lines the way Ogre did. We won't really know when the tubes come unclogged until releases start flowing.

A Dragon would probably be a Dire Animal from that listing, I suppose, but honestly they could be a category all on their own (along with dragonkin, like wyrms and drakes and kobolds).

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

I'd classify dragons as dragons personally. But I think they are Dire Animals.

Clogged? Basically the folks who do the final "GURPS" prep work for books are retasked to doing "Ogre" things. Ogre's almost done so soon we will get new books (hopefully). :-)

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Hello clone. >_>

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

You guys both rock! And I think I might just have to make a separate category for the giant fire-breathing lizards! Or acid-breathing... Lightning-breathing... Ya know how it goes. I think it will be smoother for me in the long run! Thanks for the advice!

Now I'm excited for Ogre! Simply because the sooner Ogre gets here, the sooner GURPS gets here!

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Well there is at least one DF book by Kromm in the pipleine.
Dont know what it is about but there is a lot of other stuff out there as well. I hope ot se a couple months of heavy releases soon.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

There are two schools of thought about dragons:

1) Dragons are smart, ancient, eldritch creatures who are near immortal and indestructible. Typically powerful with magic (or psi or whatever).

2) Dragons are a rapacious virus on the land. They eat everything in sight, kill everything in sight, etc.

The first time is probably great for a typical fantasy setting while the second is probably better for DF-style games.

Ogre is going to be great. I personally can't wait. :-) Getting new GURPS stuff will be pretty cool too.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

GURPS Fantasy offered a classification of types of monsters. But you have to bear in mind that the GURPS Fantasy treatment views "monster" as distinct from "animal": An animal belongs to a species, but a monster is something inherently abnormal that in effect is its own unique species. Given that, GURPS Fantasy has around half a dozen broad general variants of "abnormality."

Bill Stoddard

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Or you can go the D&D route in which case the answer is "they're both!" Occasionally at the same time, but just as frequently you can have some dragons that are in category one and some (called Drakes or something else, usually) in category two.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Ahh yes the true dragon/worm approach. That can actually work quite well too. Good point.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

It's not obvious that Dragons should be classified as Mundane in most fantasy worlds. They're huge, yet don't eat all that much for their size. They can fly, which seems to violate physics. They can breathe fire.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

I don't think that dragons would be a unified "species" in classic kitchen-sink fantasy. In Dungeon Fantasy terms, there would be:

• Animal (Dire): Dumb crocs, lizards, and snakes capable of breathing fire or otherwise doing the impossible thanks to magic.*
• Animal (Giant): Huge, dumb lizards and snakes, their size and vast dietary needs curbed by magic.*
• Demon: Winged, fire-breathing creatures from Hell, both intelligent and Evil.†
• Divine Servitor: As Demon, but Good.‡
• Faerie: Serpents of pure magic. I'd classify the intelligent versions of the things listed under Animal (Dire), Animal (Giant), and Hybrid here.
• Hybrid: Various dumb reptilian things that happen to have wings and flight thanks to magic.*
• Mundane: Leftover dinosaurs of all descriptions.
• Spirit: Various primal urges given visuals that somebody would describe as "dragon."

—

* Remember that being magical doesn't change being an animal in this genre! The acid spider, flesh-eating ape, foul bat, frost snake, and triger are all dire animals, despite having impossible anatomy and weird powers. In many cases, all magical powers do is add the word "dire" in front or justify a made-up name like "gryphon." The unusual trait that changes something from animal to not-animal is sapience, not magic as such.

† The proper origin of dragons in Western mythology, actually, and what I'd recommend for the huge, treasure-hording, people-eating monsters of fantasy.

‡ The usual "good" version of the classic dragon, found mainly in Chinese and Mesoamerican myth, but also in kitchen-sink fantasy that insists that the demonic kind have a nice-guy counterpart.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

That does make me wonder why Half-Infernal and Half-Celestials have weird supernatural markers that make them count as "unholy" or "holy" but Dragon-Blood do not.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Mostly because dragon-blooded aren't descended from demonic or divine dragons, but are animals "uplifted" by dragons. The dragons chose to work in their image, but it's pretty clear from the description that dragon-blooded are to dragons as humans are to humanoid gods.

Re: Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses
 

Ars Magica similarly has dragon-kinds from the various supernatural Realms: Infernal Dragons, Faerie Dragons and Magical Dragons. I'm not sure if they have Divine Dragons too, but it wouldn't surprise me much.