Dungeon Fantasy Animal Stats

[Ed the Coastie]

I'm finally working on updating my Rainbow Sheep adventure for use with Dungeon Fantasy, and I have a question regarding monster stats.

Here is what I have for a Jaguar:

ST: 16 HP: 16 Speed: 6.0
DX: 13 Will: 10 Move: 12 (14 sprint)
IQ: 4 Per: 12
HT: 10 FP: 10 SM: 0
Dodge: 8 Parry: N/A DR: 1
Bite (13): 1d-2 cut
Claw (13): 1d-4 cut
Traits: Acute Hearing 2; Catfall; Combat Reflexes; Discriminatory Smell; Flexibility; Night Vision 6; Parabolic Hearing 2; Perfect Balance; Racial Talent 2 (climbing); Ultrahearing; Vibration Sense (air; based on hearing); Bad Sight 2 (Motion Sensitive); Bad Temper (12-); Callous; Careful; Colorblindness; Compulsive Pouncing (12-); Nosy
Skills: Brawling –15; Climbing –19; Intimidation –11; Jumping –13; Stealth –15; Survival –12; Swimming –11; Wrestling –15
Class: Animal
Notes:

Does this look right? Bite and claw damage have been modified for Brawling skill. My biggest concern is with the Feats; I think I cut those that are not relevant to the adventure, but I wonder if there is anything else that might not be necessary.

Ideas?

[mlangsdorf]

It should have the Feral Animal meta-trait, presumably.

Callous, Ultra Hearing, Flexibility, and Vibration Sense all seem odd.

ST 16 is stronger than a tiger (ST 15). Are jaguars stronger than tigers?

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

It should have the Feral Animal meta-trait, presumably.

Callous, Ultra Hearing, Flexibility, and Vibration Sense all seem odd.

ST 16 is stronger than a tiger (ST 15). Are jaguars stronger than tigers?

Callous - have you ever watched a cat with a mouse? 'nuff said.

Ultra hearing - cats can hear ultrasonic noises, much like dogs, mice, and many other mammals.

Flexibility - well, they are extraordinarily lithe.

Vibration sense - their vibrissae (whiskers) will mimic this up close. Otherwise it looks like Ed is basing the ability on a variation I wrote up
http://www.panoptesv.com/RPGs/Ads-n'...e-hearing.html
which is meant to mimic the way cats and some dogs can target prey within pouncing distance by hearing alone.

In the GURPS campaigns rulebook, animals are assigned ST scores based entirely on their weight, so that at around 160 lbs or so you get average human ST of 10. Cats are more muscular than humans of the same weight, however. Since Ed seems to be basing his jaguar on a writeup I've go on my website, this would put a human weight cat at around ST 14. A half ton Amur tiger would have a ST of around 27, while one of those human-sized island tigers from Indonesia would be around ST 14.

Luke

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

ST: 16 HP: 16 Speed: 6.0
DX: 13 Will: 10 Move: 12 (14 sprint)
IQ: 4 Per: 12
HT: 10 FP: 10 SM: 0
Dodge: 8 Parry: N/A DR: 1
Bite (13): 1d-2 cut
Claw (13): 1d-4 cut
Traits: Acute Hearing 2; Catfall; Combat Reflexes; Discriminatory Smell; Flexibility; Night Vision 6; Parabolic Hearing 2; Perfect Balance; Racial Talent 2 (climbing); Ultrahearing; Vibration Sense (air; based on hearing); Bad Sight 2 (Motion Sensitive); Bad Temper (12-); Callous; Careful; Colorblindness; Compulsive Pouncing (12-); Nosy
Skills: Brawling –15; Climbing –19; Intimidation –11; Jumping –13; Stealth –15; Survival –12; Swimming –11; Wrestling –15
Class: Animal
Notes:

Does this look right? Bite and claw damage have been modified for Brawling skill. My biggest concern is with the Feats; I think I cut those that are not relevant to the adventure, but I wonder if there is anything else that might not be necessary.

Ideas?

I would replace colorblindness with a Quirk (red-green colorblind).

Isn't base damage for ST 16 1d+1? With -2 for an unarmed attack and +1 for Brawling skill, shouldn't this work out to 1d cut for claws and bite? Am I missing something?

Luke

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Isn't base damage for ST 16 1d+1? With -2 for an unarmed attack and +1 for Brawling skill, shouldn't this work out to 1d cut for claws and bite? Am I missing something?

I have no idea where the OP got his numbers from, but there's no "-2 for unarmed attack" in GURPS.

There is a -1 for a punch, but not for a kick or a bite. Bite damage should be 1d+1+1 cut (1d+2), and claw damage should be 1d+1-1+1 cut (1d+1).

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I have no idea where the OP got his numbers from, but there's no "-2 for unarmed attack" in GURPS.

You're right, my bad. It should be -1. Serves me right for posting early in the morning before I wake up properly and without consulting my books.

Originally Posted by Bruno

There is a -1 for a punch, but not for a kick or a bite. Bite damage should be 1d+1+1 cut (1d+2), and claw damage should be 1d+1-1+1 cut (1d+1).

The melee weapon table on pg. B271 lists sharp teeth as thr-1 cut. With the brawling bonus, it would bring it back to straight thr cut, or 1d+1 cut.

On the other hand, jaguars have the strongest jaws for their size of any of the large cats. In my writeup, I gave them enough Jaw ST to raise the damage by 1.

Luke

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Isn't base damage for ST 16 1d+1? With -2 for an unarmed attack and +1 for Brawling skill, shouldn't this work out to 1d cut for claws and bite? Am I missing something?

He didn't put Claws in the Trait list. I'd assume it should still be Sharp Claws. Clawing should be thr-1, with Brawling countering that minus, so base ought to be thr cut.

Edit: Ya ninjaed me again, B :) Bite is thr-1 though, so the damage should match that from the claws [left Sharp Teeth off, also].

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

I'm finally working on updating my Rainbow Sheep adventure for use with Dungeon Fantasy, and I have a question regarding monster stats.

Here is what I have for a Jaguar:

ST: 16 HP: 16 Speed: 6.0
DX: 13 Will: 10 Move: 12 (14 sprint)
IQ: 4 Per: 12
HT: 10 FP: 10 SM: 0

How are you calculating ST? If it's based on weight, the ST should be between 11-14 (150-350 lbs.) The largest jaguars have been measured at under 350 lbs, but ST 16 -> 512 lbs. Also, it doesn't matter if you've done your own calculations, but the official 3e stats would have DX 14; IQ 4; HT 15, and they mostly convert straight over to 4e.

For ST you'd be better off giving it ST 11-14 and using Striking ST to bring its attacks up to an effective ST 16.

Also, as far as I'm aware, jaguars aren't colorblind. (But I could be mistaken about that.)

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

How are you calculating ST? If it's based on weight, the ST should be between 11-14 (150-350 lbs.) The largest jaguars have been measured at under 350 lbs, but ST 16 -> 512 lbs. Also, it doesn't matter if you've done your own calculations, but the official 3e stats would have DX 14; IQ 4; HT 15, and they mostly convert straight over to 4e.

For ST you'd be better off giving it ST 11-14 and using Striking ST to bring its attacks up to an effective ST 16.

The cats (with the exception of cheetahs) are quite strong for their size. A typical 160 lb jaguar or cougar or leopard will be stronger than a typical 160 lb man, not just in terms of striking ST but also in terms of lifting ST - witness the leopards that haul prey weighing twice the cat's weight up into trees. Exactly how much stronger is open to debate, I tend to peg it at ST 13 to 14 for a man sized cat. This puts a 220 lb jaguar at around ST 16.

HT of real cats is quite clearly not 15. They are prone to diseases and parasites and infections, they do not have an amazing resistance to traumatic injury, and they have nowhere near the athletic endurance of a typical human. Nor can I see any arguments for assuming cats have amazingly good bases or defaults for HT based skills.

DX is arguable. On pg. B14, a DX of 13 to 14 is described as "feline grace", so either DX of 13 or 14 would be a reasonable choice for the base value.

Luke

[Kromm]

Be careful assuming that 3e stats convert to 4e without a hitch. We knocked some of the crazier DX scores down; former scores of 15-16 are now down at 14 or less (sometimes a lot less). IQ went down a level for quite a few creatures so that we could compress animals into the IQ 1-5 scale between IQ 0 (nonsentient) and IQ 6 (sapient). We dropped HT a lot -- HT 14+ is just crazy for natural creatures, and most animals are HT 10-12 in 4e, with a strong bias toward the HT 10 end, unless they're famously robust. The main reason for high HT in 3e was to give a suitable HP base, as many beasts were given stats before "split HT/HP" was invented (this wasn't always part of the game, believe it or not); with HP = ST, and HP being separately variable in any event, this isn't necessary in 4e.

Thus, something described as ST 30, DX 15, IQ 5, HT 14/18 in 3e is very, very likely to be more like ST 18, DX 13, IQ 4, HT 12 in 4e.