[Kromm]

Animal HT scores in previous editions were ridiculous, because animals are about as prone to disease as humans and do not have to be machine-gunned down to -5×HP to be killed . . . many are frailer than humans, and die of the slightest change in their environment, or from a single arrow or bullet that wouldn't stop a human of equal mass (we are cockroaches). We went with the lower of 12 or the HT in previous editions; i.e., things with HT 12 or less kept their old HT, while those with HT 13+ ended up at HT 12. In the case of ranges, we used the lowest value and applied this rule; e.g., HT 9 to whatever became HT 9, HT 10 to whatever became HT 10, HT 11 to whatever became HT 11, and ranges starting at or above HT 12 became HT 12. If we had reason to believe something was exceptionally tough, we just threw +1 at it afterward.

Animal DX scores weren't systematically reduced this severely. We just stuck a soft cap at around DX 15 (I believe) on the grounds that 15 is about the highest non-cinematic score. Yes, skills were often used to improve specific functions above that level, where beasts were famously good at something.

All told, the goal was to get away from using dramatic and cinematic perceptions to assess stats, like tigers with DX 18 and HT 15, because of feline grace and large-predator mystique. Tigers with DX 13 are better than nearly all humans, and are tough because they have ST/HP 17 and HT 11, meaning they need about twice as much injury to stop as a human. The perceived need for crazy scores stems largely from adventurers being ridiculously rare and unusual specimens. A legendary tiger "adventurer" would have ST×1.7, DX×1.3, IQ×0.4, and HT×1.1 relative to a human . . . so if all your heroes have 15s across the board, they could meet ST 25, DX 19, IQ 6, HT 16 tigers.