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#1 |
Join Date: May 2010
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The animal ally builds in Allies seem ill-suited for PC Alternate Forms, for various reasons. I decided to throw together some more to my taste—and it occurs to me that some other people might be interested in them:
One thing to highlight: I didn't give the elephant "Long Arm" or "Weak Arm", though lots of GURPS sources use both. Real-life elephant trunks seem to be around 6 feet, typically, which suggests the Reach 2 they get automatically for being SM +3 is plenty. The idea that an elephant's trunk should have the "1/4 ST" version of "Weak" also seems clearly wrong—an elephant's trunk is much stronger than the arm of an ST 11 human. The "1/2 ST" version is more arguable, but I still say it doesn't fit—particularly because any impressive feat you've ever heard of an elephant doing with it's trunk is what GURPS would call a one-handed lift. Officially, GURPS limits those to 2×BL, which at ST 22 is just 194 lbs.
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Handle is a character from the Star*Drive setting (a.k.a. d20 Future), not my real name. Innkeeper's Quest: A GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Forum Quest Last edited by Michael Thayne; 01-14-2025 at 05:01 AM. |
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#2 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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For falcons, while the current build works as-is, I'd be inclined to give the option to have Ham-Fisted rather than No Fine Manipulators - with a human mind behind it, a raptor's talons could probably manage better manipulation than, say, a wolf paw. I read Animorphs a lot as a kid, and I remember Tobias (who was stuck in hawk form) making good - if a bit clumsy - use of a Dracon pistol (a handheld energy weapon). In DF, you probably aren't going to have many items like that, but if you do, an enhanced version of the template may be appropriate. *It would probably be more fair, in cases where all of a character's arms are weak compared to the rest of their body, to allow them to buy some of their ST with the No Fine Manipulators -40% Limitation. Such ST would be unavailable to their arms, but would work for everything else. So, if your ST 45 elephant should have an ST 30 trunk, you could give them ST +20 (Size -30%) [140] and ST +15 (No Fine Manipulators -40%; Size -30%) [45], for a total cost of [185] instead of [245] for ST (and thus a template cost of [168] instead of [228]).
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#3 | |
Join Date: May 2010
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Handle is a character from the Star*Drive setting (a.k.a. d20 Future), not my real name. Innkeeper's Quest: A GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Forum Quest |
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#4 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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This is great! Thanks for sharing.
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#5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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*EDIT: My mistake, it appears it's actually a Disadvantage worth [-2]. It's still only a very small value, of course, but I suppose it has a bit of room for modification - you could argue for [-1] for -1/die, [-2] for -2/die, [-3] for -3/die, and [-5] for No Bite ([-4] would be -4/die, which is basically no damage; lacking the basic manipulating abilities of a bite could be argued as being worth a further [-1], hence [-5], plus it plays well with GURPS' general love of multiples of 5). So if your centaur's human-torso strength is sufficiently-lower than their horse-torso strength that it would cause a -1/die to bite damage, you could give them a [-1] trait.
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GURPS Overhaul Last edited by Varyon; 01-13-2025 at 03:29 PM. |
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#6 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Austin Texas
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I would recommend some "utility" forms for lower cost. Smaller animals that might come in handy. Owl, Cat, Pigeon, mouse
By the time you lower strength you could have a shapeshifter that can be a utility belt of random abilities to fill some niches in ability points. I often run low level beginning Dungeon Fantasy to simulate DnD like games at a lower level so I often find myself wishing for low cost animals that aren't geared towards combat. the ones you have are definitely cool. Sorry I realized my post came off as "um actually-ing" They were really cool and immediately made me think some more about my attempts.
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He stared out in the distance to see the awesome might of the Meerkat war party. |
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#7 |
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Chagrin Falls
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I think Parrot would be interesting in play. Remove Cannot Talk and you have a fun form.
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Benundefined Life has a funny way of making sure you decide to leave the party just a few minutes too late to avoid trouble. |
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#8 | |
Join Date: May 2010
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You're welcome!
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Funnily enough, adding the cat caused me to notice that my lion was missing Cannot Speak, which sort of snowballed into noticing a bunch of other omissions—bull missing Weak Bite, elephant missing DR, and everything with DR missing Cannot Wear Armor. Oh, no problem, especially since you caused me to notice a bunch of oversights I was then able to correct!
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Handle is a character from the Star*Drive setting (a.k.a. d20 Future), not my real name. Innkeeper's Quest: A GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Forum Quest |
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#9 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Technically, barding should be an option - Low Tech has options for horse, camel, elephant, and dog armor (the last should work for wolves as well), and other animals should be possible to armor as well. Of course, considering these are intended as Alternate Forms, and most people aren't going to be carrying around a secondary set of barding (or several, for those with more than one Alternate Form), I'd be fine with tossing it on as a sort of "Give me a discount and I'll agree to not wear armor." Well, I would be if I liked the Cannot Wear Armor Limitation, anyway (it should really be a separate Disadvantage, with cost either independent of DR or actually giving fewer points back the more DR you have, but the latter would be complicated and setting-dependent; a "Doesn't Stack with Armor" Limitation would be more appropriate - I think Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians have a Limitation like that). I don't know if there's an enchantment you can toss onto armor to allow it to change size and shape with you, but if so a character might be inclined to get such and subsequently buy off any Cannot Wear Armor Limitation on their DR.
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#10 |
Join Date: May 2010
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This was my thinking. Honestly, the one I hesitated most on was the gorilla, because what if the party scavenges some appropriate armor from a gladiator ape (from Monsters 1)? But I figured realistically this was unlikely to be an issue.
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Handle is a character from the Star*Drive setting (a.k.a. d20 Future), not my real name. Innkeeper's Quest: A GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Forum Quest |
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