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Small Talking Animal Fantasy

Started by LoA, November 25, 2014, 05:17:08 AM

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Steerpike

I like the updated weasel. Personally I'd change Swift of Shadows to something different to avoid overlap with the mouse. What about Silent Hunter (reduce the penalty for using Stealth while moving by 5 and can make Stealth checks while running at a –20 penalty) for a variant of Swift of Shadows? This could just be me though.

Weasels are pretty excellent predators: their diet is pretty much rodents smaller than they are.

Also, nitpick, but since there's no magic there probably needn't be a mention of spells/spell-like abilities in the badger entry.

LoA

Yep I'll be removing spell resistance and adding disease resistance and a bonus to healing checks or something.

Also, are there source books (Pathfinder, or 3.x) that have giant tortioses or something?


LoA

Quote from: Steerpike
The SRD has giant tortoises; they originally appeared in Bestiary 4.

I meant much bigger. Not carrying a world on it's back, but gigantic. I'm thinking from the perspective of small animals. I had this idea of tortoises being used as war animals and siege weapons that carry soldiers and have big catapults on their backs.

Thank you though!

HippopotamusDundee

Quote from: Steerpike
Quote from: HippopotamusDundeeAlternatively, limit frogs to a swim speed only and give the climb speed to their land-based cousins the frogs (the distinction is informal rather than taxonomic but is usually recreated in this genre).

You mean Toads for the drier/terrestrial ones, right?

You caught me, that I did. Climb speed and some kind of racial ability for the whole poison-glands in the back thing.

Quote from: Love of Awesome
I'm not gonna lie. this one probably has issues.

I'd go for Constitution instead of Strength for the badger, personally - save Strength for the wolverine. And I'm doing to disagree with Steerpike - I like Ferocity as written because it very much captures the suicidally-driven beserking warrior angle that Brian Jacques had on them in Redwall what with the bloodwrath.

Quote from: Love of Awesome
Weasels

Weasel's solid, though I'd like to see a climb speed (ferrets can climb like nobodies business) and the Compression ability Steerpike suggested for their ability to squirm through narrow places added in.

LoA

Quote from: HippopotamusDundee
Quote from: Steerpike
Quote from: HippopotamusDundeeAlternatively, limit frogs to a swim speed only and give the climb speed to their land-based cousins the frogs (the distinction is informal rather than taxonomic but is usually recreated in this genre).

You mean Toads for the drier/terrestrial ones, right?

You caught me, that I did. Climb speed and some kind of racial ability for the whole poison-glands in the back thing.

Quote from: Love of Awesome
I'm not gonna lie. this one probably has issues.

I'd go for Constitution instead of Strength for the badger, personally - save Strength for the wolverine. And I'm doing to disagree with Steerpike - I like Ferocity as written because it very much captures the suicidally-driven beserking warrior angle that Brian Jacques had on them in Redwall what with the bloodwrath.

Quote from: Love of Awesome
Weasels

Weasel's solid, though I'd like to see a climb speed (ferrets can climb like nobodies business) and the Compression ability Steerpike suggested for their ability to squirm through narrow places added in.

I won't lie, I'm not going to make a race for every possible little animal. I had an idea for a wolverine villian, but i think he's going to be a special case.

Steerpike

#21
I like the Ferocity ability flavour-wise... my only concern is balance. It's the kind of ability that's much more powerful at low levels since, effectively, it doubles a badger's 1st level hp (well, not exactly, but close). But it might not be a problem. Orcs have it and they're supposed to be OK for player races.

There are three options for absolutely huge turtles/tortoises - the Archelon, the Dragon Turtle, and the Immense Tortoise. The Dragon Turtle is probably the most problematic since it has a breath weapon. I'd say the Immense Tortoise is probably the way to go, maybe using the Archelon for slightly smaller ones.

I could see going either way on Str vs Con on the badger front.

I see moles as being wise as hell and having insane senses (Tremorsense, Scent, etc).

sparkletwist

I'm not really sure that Pathfinder is at all the best system for a game like this, but you seem committed to using it, so, that said, my 2 cents about making it work in Pathfinder--

First of all, the no magic thing could get problematic in places, as a lot of what makes the system function is dependent on having magic. It's not quite as bad at low levels, as Fighters and such are still pretty viable, but there are still problems. For example, the system is pretty combat-oriented, but non-magical healing in Pathfinder is actually pretty terrible. The game really is designed around the expectation that every party will have some sort of healer, even if it's just a Rogue who has a Wand of CLW. The other issue is that a lot of the meaningful options to expand character power in Pathfinder are based around magic, like the expectation that everybody's going to be carrying a +1 or more weapon past a certain point, and most of the interesting special weapon properties are also inherently magical. Also a lot of nonmagical ranged attacks in Pathfinder are garbage, unless you sink a few feats into being a longbow master.

Personally, what I'd do to make the swordsmouse viable is give them all Weapon Finesse. Then they're fighting with their Dex bonus instead. If you're pushing the angle that they're not that strong, then they're going to be finesse fighters anyway. Moles could just get darkvision, which isn't completely accurate but probably workable using Pathfinder mechanics.

LoA

Quote from: sparkletwist
I'm not really sure that Pathfinder is at all the best system for a game like this, but you seem committed to using it, so, that said, my 2 cents about making it work in Pathfinder--

First of all, the no magic thing could get problematic in places, as a lot of what makes the system function is dependent on having magic. It's not quite as bad at low levels, as Fighters and such are still pretty viable, but there are still problems. For example, the system is pretty combat-oriented, but non-magical healing in Pathfinder is actually pretty terrible. The game really is designed around the expectation that every party will have some sort of healer, even if it's just a Rogue who has a Wand of CLW. The other issue is that a lot of the meaningful options to expand character power in Pathfinder are based around magic, like the expectation that everybody's going to be carrying a +1 or more weapon past a certain point, and most of the interesting special weapon properties are also inherently magical. Also a lot of nonmagical ranged attacks in Pathfinder are garbage, unless you sink a few feats into being a longbow master.

Personally, what I'd do to make the swordsmouse viable is give them all Weapon Finesse. Then they're fighting with their Dex bonus instead. If you're pushing the angle that they're not that strong, then they're going to be finesse fighters anyway. Moles could just get darkvision, which isn't completely accurate but probably workable using Pathfinder mechanics.

I'm designing this around the E6 system, so high levels won't be an issue. The healing thing though is a good point. I was thinking about a "war medic" class, with some combat ability, but specializes in medicine. The weapon finesse thing is a good point. I'll think about it.

Steerpike

#24
Ninja'd by LoA... ah well I'll post anyway.

Quote from: sparkletwistFirst of all, the no magic thing could get problematic in places, as a lot of what makes the system function is dependent on having magic. It's not quite as bad at low levels, as Fighters and such are still pretty viable, but there are still problems. For example, the system is pretty combat-oriented, but non-magical healing in Pathfinder is actually pretty terrible. The game really is designed around the expectation that every party will have some sort of healer, even if it's just a Rogue who has a Wand of CLW. The other issue is that a lot of the meaningful options to expand character power in Pathfinder are based around magic, like the expectation that everybody's going to be carrying a +1 or more weapon past a certain point, and most of the interesting special weapon properties are also inherently magical. Also a lot of nonmagical ranged attacks in Pathfinder are garbage, unless you sink a few feats into being a longbow master.

These are very good points against removing magic from Pathfinder. However, (as LoA points out) since this is E6, the expansion of character power isn't as big a deal, especially since everyone is on an equal playing field. Since there are no casters, the "linear fighter vs quadratic wizard" issue is moot, and since monsters are basically versions of animals, things like DR won't be much of an issue. Overall the Fighter is probably a bit more disadvantaged than the other classes, since they tend to be the most reliant on equipment, but with such a low cap I don't think it'd be too crippling.

The healing thing is a much bigger issue, IMO. There are a few ways of mitigating it: Wounds and Vigor are one option, as is simply increasing how many HP a day's rest grants (it could be your Con modifier, or even your Con; or you could rule characters heal 1 HP/hour, or something). All of those methods have flaws - healing in combat becomes basically impossible.

Quote from: sparkletwistPersonally, what I'd do to make the swordsmouse viable is give them all Weapon Finesse.

Weapon Finesse as a racial bonus feat is a good idea for mice, although Weapon Finesse only affects attack bonuses, not damage, so I'd still keep the Strength penalty at -2.

EDIT: Was checking out the Heal skill in Pathfinder... it's actually not too bad. The "Long-Term Care" and "Treat Deadly Wounds" abilities at least allow for relatively swift non-magical healing. If you have a Healer with a decent Wisdom bonus and a healer's kit you could probably restore most of a low-level character's HP in a day.

Fits rather well with Redwall, actually, where infirmary scenes were quite common.

LoA

Oooohhh.... I likey the diehard feat. I might just replace that for the ferocity ability on badgers...


sparkletwist

Yes, I know it's E6, but there's still a pretty big difference between level 1 and level 6. At level 6, the expectation is that you can cast see invisibility, glitterdust or some other anti-invisibility debuff. At least a couple party members can cast fly or have items or SLAs that duplicate it, so you can take on flying monsters. You can cast greater magic weapon if you need to, and could've cast regular old magic weapon since level 1. Spells are also a really good way of dealing esoteric damage types. Various obnoxious and dangerous monster abilities aren't a huge problem because you have access to cure disease, lesser restoration, and the like. Of course, it's not that the monsters will have most of their own dangerous powers, because they won't have magic either, but poison suddenly becomes a lot more dangerous in a world where delay poison and/or neutralize poison don't exist; this may be create interesting challenges on some level, but you should also be aware the system is balanced around different expectations.

Without this expansion of magically granted abilities, the main difference between level 1 and level 6 is probably that monsters are just bigger sacks of hit points without interesting resistances or special attacks, and that's honestly kind of boring.

Steerpike

#28
I think that the CRs for things like poison and disease would go up quite considerably, yeah. Generally CRs would become more untrustworthy.

"No magical monsters" does tend to make monsters much more homogenous - not necessarily boring, but it's harder to make them interesting. You need solid GMing and more emphasis on things like terrain and interesting layouts to compensate for the dearth of spell-like abilities and stuff. Like, an encounter with a giant snake is pretty dull on its own, but an encounter with a giant snake in a warren full of tunnels that slope up and down, prone to caves in and collapses - that could be engaging. In a sense it might be a good exercise for a GM.

It's my impression that "monster-fighting" isn't really central to the setting, though? Based on the world described, most of the conflict would be between PCs and NPCs with class levels... is that right LoA?

LoA

Quote from: Steerpike
I think that the CRs for things like poison and disease would go up quite considerably, yeah. Generally CRs would become more untrustworthy.

"No magical monsters" does tend to make monsters much more homogenous - not necessarily boring, but it's harder to make them interesting. You need solid GMing and more emphasis on things like terrain and interesting layouts to compensate for the dearth of spell-like abilities and stuff. Like, an encounter with a giant snake is pretty dull on its own, but an encounter with a giant snake in a warren full of tunnels that slope up and down, prone to caves in and collapses - that could be engaging. In a sense it might be a good exercise for a GM.

It's my impression that "monster-fighting" isn't really central to the setting, though? Based on the world described, most of the conflict would be between PCs and NPCs with class levels... is that right LoA?

You know this is really good food for thought. And yeah I definitely had more thoughts towards heroes vs. villians than outright monster hunting.