Quick Question: Monster Classes and Subclasses

[Raekai]

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!

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Raekai

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!

DF has a pretty good one:

Originally Posted by Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1

Class: Animal (Giant if huge, Dire if mutant; all are affected by Animal Handling and Animal spells), Construct
(entirely incorruptible), Demon (evil, and subject to the
Banish spell), Divine Servitor (treat as demons, but not necessarily
evil), Elder Thing (insane, and not vulnerable to
Banish), Elemental (affected by Banish and Control Elemental),
Faerie, Hybrid (as Animal, but requires a special
subset of Animal spells), Mundane (has vital areas), Plant
(affected by Plant spells), Slime (diffuse, and immune to
most Animal and Plant spells), or Undead (can be turned
with True Faith).

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

DF has a pretty good one:

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.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Raekai

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.

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.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

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.

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!

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Raekai

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"?

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.

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!

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).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Raekai

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!

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). :-)

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Raekai

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.

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.

[Kromm]

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.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kromm

[*]Demon: Winged, fire-breathing creatures from Hell, both intelligent and Evil.†[*]Divine Servitor: As Demon, but Good.‡[*]

† 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.

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.