Standard Monster Damage

[tbeard1999]

It might be useful to create a chart showing standard damage (I'd assume based on ST) for various natural and monster weapons. Examples would include bite, claw, tail sweep, stinger, and horns.

These would be "suggestions" only; a GM or monster designer could always vary from them.

This could be a great resource for GMs who want to create their own monsters and will help guard against unintentional inconsistencies between creatures with similar stats. For instance, why does a ST 30 troll do the same damage with his bare hands that a ST 60 dragon does with his claws?

As a first approximation, I'd start with the TFT bare handed damage chart (AM, page 21).

Bare hands with no claws would use the base damage.

Claws might do +2 to base damage.

A bite might do base damage, but +2 in HTH.

Horns might do base damage but can perform charge attacks like pole weapons.

Tail sweeps might do base damage, but the target must make a 3/DX roll to avoid being knocked down if (say) 5 points of damage are done BEFORE armor protection is taken into account.

Stingers might do base ST damage minus 1, but could be poisoned.

Long stingers might act like stingers, but have a 2 hex range.

Etc.

Addendum - for reference, cutlasses and shortswords add an average of 4.5 points damage to the damage listed on the barehanded damage chart. Broadswords and 1 handed bastard swords add and average of 5.5 damage points to the damage listed on the barehanded damage chart. 2 handed clubs add 3; 1 handed clubs add 2 and daggers/foils add 3.

Note - These are all "off the cuff" rules, so consider them as examples, not serious rule proposals.