Fighting Normal Animals (How I choose to run it YMMV)

[Admin Pete]

Context: This was prompted by a post I saw that called a Crocodile a 1 HD creature. This is so unrealistic that it breaks the "suspension of disbelief" for me and so I started thinking about how I run animals, nothing hard and fast, but just some thoughts about if. I will be updating this first post as I add more critters.

What are appropriate HD, AC and attacks for normal common animals that the PC's might encounter.

Here are my thoughts on the subject, not detailed writeups but rather basic guidelines.

Snakes have to be considered by the kind of snake venomous or non-venomous and by there size. (Garter snake or King Cobra or Anaconda)

HD from 1/2 HD up to a 28 foot long anaconda of 6 HD

Attacks from max 1HP up to a venomous bite of 4HD +2HPs per additional melee round until death or healing whichever comes first. Constrictors do a 2HD bite and/or plus 2HD of crushing damage per melee round

Scorpions

the size of scorpions ranges from 0.33 inches to 8.5 inches long

Attacks

"Most species possess a sting comparable to that of a bee sting, but a few scorpion species have a venomous sting that can be lethal to humans."

Wolf - male wolves can weight up to 180 lbs and a female wolf up to 120 lbs. Based on my experience growing up around large dogs ranging up to about 140 lbs I rate normal wolves as follows

vs missle weapons AC 8

vs up close and personal AC 7 to account for their speed/dexterity

2 to 3 HD

Attack 1 HD bite damage and/or knock down damage as a couple of wolves could take an armored fighter to the ground in a hurry and once he is down - deadly to low level characters and especially to leather armor or less.

Gorilla

Male gorilla can weigh up to 600 lbs and can be up to 6' in height and a female up to 250 lbs

1 HD up to 4 HD
Consider without weapons

A male gorilla significantly outweighs most professional fighters.

His center of gravity is closer to the ground. Wrestlers will appreciate the huge advantage involved; erect bipedality is a serious liability here.

One word: fangs.

Being a wild animal, the gorilla will throw 100 percent of his available resources into the fight from the word go. Humans—even professional fighters or soldiers—never do this, unless they are in such a state of psychosis that they might as well be wild animals. (I have seen a 5-foot-tall woman in such a state, and weighing 100 pounds, require five humans at double her weight each to take her down and hold her down.)

Because the gorilla's fighting responses are instinctual, not trained, they will be faster than the human's.

The gorilla's musculature and skeleton are considerably more robust than the human's, which means that the gorilla will soak up much more punishment before being seriously injured. This makes the human's fighter's main hope of winning—almost immediately incapacitating the gorilla—very problematic.
What will happen is that the gorilla will close with the human and knock him off his feet. At that point, all—all—of the human's possible advantages are out the window, and it's all over but the screaming, bleeding, and dying.

But the strongest part of a gorilla is their enormous canine teeth.

A gorilla’s bite has been recorded to reach the strength of 1,300 pounds per square inch (PSI), stronger than that of a great white shark (625 PSI) or a tiger (650 PSI).

[captaincrumbcake]

I am reminded of book 2, Monsters & Treasure, p.20:

Insects or Small Animals: Any hit will kill small ones (centipedes, snakes, spiders, etc.) while larger things, such as wolves, would receive 1 Hit Die/1-6 hit points, generally be AC 8, cause 1 six sided die of damage.

Large Insects or Animals:
Such as giant ants to prehistoric monsters, would have AC from 8 to 2, Hit Dice from 2 to near 20 (For a T-Rex) and cause 2 to 4 six sided dice of damage(2-12/4-24).

For BTB players and groups, it is a fairly reasonable template to follow.
Otherwise, one could just follow one's own reasoning.
Either work.

[Admin Pete]

Nov 9, 2017 14:49:54 GMT -5 captaincrumbcake said:

I am reminded of book 2, Monsters & Treasure, p.20:

Insects or Small Animals: Any hit will kill small ones (centipedes, snakes, spiders, etc.) while larger things, such as wolves, would receive 1 Hit Die/1-6 hit points, generally be AC 8, cause 1 six sided die of damage.

Large Insects or Animals:
Such as giant ants to prehistoric monsters, would have AC from 8 to 2, Hit Dice from 2 to near 20 (For a T-Rex) and cause 2 to 4 six sided dice of damage(2-12/4-24).

For BTB players and groups, it is a fairly reasonable template to follow.
Otherwise, one could just follow one's own reasoning.
Either work.

Yeah, a 180 wolf is small compared to a tiger, but not compared the average human IMO and 1 HD is giving it a serious handicap compared to how hard it is to kill. Now you could adjust the difficulty by making a wolf 1 HD and AC 2, but since it is hard to hit because of its agility I would prefer to adjust the HD instead of the AC.

[captaincrumbcake]

From Wikki--just a frame of reference.

The gray wolf or grey wolf (Canis lupus), also known as the timber wolf[3][4] or western wolf, is a canine native to the wilderness and remote areas of Eurasia and North America. It is the largest extant member of its family, with males averaging 43–45 kg (95–99 lb) and females 36–38.5 kg (79–85 lb).

[Admin Pete]

Nov 9, 2017 16:25:34 GMT -5 captaincrumbcake said:

From Wikki--just a frame of reference.

The gray wolf or grey wolf (Canis lupus), also known as the timber wolf[3][4] or western wolf, is a canine native to the wilderness and remote areas of Eurasia and North America. It is the largest extant member of its family, with males averaging 43–45 kg (95–99 lb) and females 36–38.5 kg (79–85 lb).

From the same wiki article:

The gray wolf is the largest extant member of the Canidae, excepting certain large breeds of domestic dog.[35] Gray wolf weight and size can vary greatly worldwide, tending to increase proportionally with latitude as predicted by Bergmann's Rule,[9] with the large wolves of Alaska and Canada sometimes weighing 3–6 times more than their Middle Eastern and South Asian cousins.[36] On average, adult wolves measure 105–160 cm (41–63 in) in length and 80–85 cm (31–33 in) in shoulder height.[9] The tail measures 29–50 cm (11–20 in) in length. The ears are 90–110 mm (3.5–4.3 in) in height, and the hind feet are 220–250 mm (8.7–9.8 in).[9] The mean body mass of the extant gray wolf is 40 kg (88 lb), with the smallest specimen recorded at 12 kg (26 lb) and the largest at 80 kg (180 lb).[37][38][39][40][41] Gray wolf weight varies geographically; on average, European wolves may weigh 38.5 kg (85 lb), North American wolves 36 kg (79 lb) and Indian and Arabian wolves 25 kg (55 lb).[42] Females in any given wolf population typically weigh 5–10 lb (2.3–4.5 kg) less than males.[43] Wolves weighing over 54 kg (119 lb) are uncommon, though exceptionally large individuals have been recorded in Alaska, Canada,[43] and the forests of western Russia.[9] The heaviest recorded gray wolf in North America was killed on 70 Mile River in east-central Alaska on July 12, 1939 and weighed 79.4 kg (175 lb).[44]

I just rounded the 175 off to 180 as the max size for the upper range. I saw a documentary on cable that showed a man interacting with wolves that had been tagged and several of them were over 140 lbs.

[captaincrumbcake]

I think when considering animals (natural types not monster types) the vast majority of encounters will be (should be?) with an average member of the species. While much larger and stronger and much smaller and weaker will exist, those species members will be encountered far less often for logical and natural reasons. 

Of course there could be 2 HD wolves weighing 160 lbs. And in a fantasy game, one could design one's own specifics to be whatever desired. That, I think, would be not only logical, but the most desirable thing for campaign creators.

So whatever template one wishes to utilize as a guiding source is going to be an individual choice and preference. And perhaps one of if not the most important aspects of fantasy gaming.

[robkuntz]

The PD quoth: "...a wolf 1 HD and AC 2, but since it is hard to hit because of its agility"..

And here one must pause to consider "to hit." A bow/missile attack would negate its agility, Just like ranged firearm attacks do so to stationary or walking hunting targets today. Your sentence has an automatic assumption that this is in melee, while the AC is more abstract (and unrealistic for all possible "to hit" situations that could occur). We will not get into the territory of martial arms experience (human) vs. animal cunning and instinctual reactions (human and animal) by comparison, as that is yet another kettle of fish.

I would judge these according to singular situations, thus, and adjust accordingly for each circumstance; and that is what Gary and I did while working off the base AC slider.

Thus we are back to open form interpretation rather than tabulated, constant and/or static interpretations.

[Admin Pete]

Nov 10, 2017 6:35:17 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

The PD quoth: "...a wolf 1 HD and AC 2, but since it is hard to hit because of its agility"..

And here one must pause to consider "to hit." A bow/missile attack would negate its agility, Just like ranged firearm attacks do so to stationary or walking hunting targets today. Your sentence has an automatic assumption that this is in melee, while the AC is more abstract (and unrealistic for all possible "to hit" situations that could occur). We will not get into the territory of martial arms experience (human) vs. animal cunning and instinctual reactions (human and animal) by comparison, as that is yet another kettle of fish.

I would judge these according to singular situations, thus, and adjust accordingly for each circumstance; and that is what Gary and I did while working off the base AC slider.

Thus we are back to open form interpretation rather than tabulated, constant and/or static interpretations.

Which is why I gave a wolf a better AC for melee and a lesser AC for missile attacks in the first post.

Wolf - male wolves can weight up to 180 lbs and a female wolf up to 120 lbs. Based on my experience growing up around large dogs ranging up to about 140 lbs I rate normal wolves as follows

vs missle weapons AC 8

vs up close and personal AC 7 to account for their speed/dexterity

2 to 3 HD

Attack 1 HD bite damage and/or knock down damage as a couple of wolves could take an armored fighter to the ground in a hurry and once he is down - deadly to low level characters and especially to leather armor or less.

As I noted I chose to keep the AC more IMO reasonable, but increase the HD instead to represent hard to hit up close, by allowing them to soak up more damage.

[robkuntz]

Yes. But that does not include the kettle of fish argument, nor does it factor in size (larger more ponderous or targetable animals), the human ability to study its prey (we are the intelligent hunters and they cannot study us) and many other abstract factors that have been rolled into the AC determinations for game purposes. So when you start selectively talking about one category alone for a determination it opens up the "realistic portrayal" argument as the inputs become enormous and the generalization "normal animals" becomes, at best, realistically determinable only in case by case situations.

[Admin Pete]

Slight edit to first post for context. Will revisit this thread tonight.

[captaincrumbcake]

I take no issue with any one adjusting the source material to suit their own sensibility. It's what separates one campaign from another, and adds spice to the mix. As written, the LBBs operate just fine (though some might find certain sections confusing); it is, after all, just a game. However, tweaking whatever one wants to achieve whatever purpose they desire is, also--just fine! especially when one considers the mindset of all those that will be involved with such tweaking. The ref and the players are not outside the scope of creative input when the ultimate outcome of their purpose for getting together depends upon their participation.

All that said, most folks know of the many beefs I have with just about everything; even non-game related!   So it should come as no shock to anyone if I were to suggest that the idea of an animal/monster even having Hit Dice is unnecessary. One could assign hit points intentionally and it wouldn't break the game. One could assign any # the animal/monster needs "to hit" its target, and it wouldn't break the game. I could suggest that even hit points are unnecessary; one could assign a time limit of taking hits, after which, an animal/monster's stamina would be so depleted, it would attempt to flee, or collapse from exhaustion--the latter rendering it open to immediate killing. And so on, and so on.

In the end, how one chooses to run things is how they choose to run things. I say, its your game now. You do it your way.

[robkuntz]

Of course, this is what the D&D open system was all about. Gary and I learned that from Arneson. Arneson in fact assigned permanent hp and he covered animal types differently in FFC, too.

[mao]

I use ac6(14) as my universal AC of normal animals. a very few would be higher(mongoose, cheetah) and a few would be lower(female cow). HD would very greatly from 1(small wolf) to 6-8 (Ape, moose)

[ripx187]

I like swarms of bats. I use them to put out torches, effectively blind people while they are being swarmed, cause parties to separate or get lost. If the bats are feeling particularly rowdy, they automatically do 1d3 dmg per round with a chance of catching a disease.

Mice and rats are also a big problem in my worlds; eating rations, chewing on ropes and straps, ruining bags. I put them on most of my random encounters lists (yes I like RE lists), they attack equipment and annoy players. God forbid somebody or something is controlling them, like bats, if they swarm you can't effectively attack them through normal means.

Fighting with animals is often very rare, there should be an easy to find motivation behind any attack. Granted, there are some unpredictable animals that defend territory fairly aggressively, but these are always apex predators. It is often best to avoid them if at all possible. I do try to fill up most of my lists with natural wildlife, most encounters are not really true combat encounters. It goes to immersion in the setting. Keep things normal so that when something strange does happen, the players catch it.

[mao]

Dec 22, 2017 20:29:35 GMT -5 ripx187 said:

I like swarms of bats. I use them to put out torches, effectively blind people while they are being swarmed, cause parties to separate or get lost. If the bats are feeling particularly rowdy, they automatically do 1d3 dmg per round with a chance of catching a disease.

Mice and rats are also a big problem in my worlds; eating rations, chewing on ropes and straps, ruining bags. I put them on most of my random encounters lists (yes I like RE lists), they attack equipment and annoy players. God forbid somebody or something is controlling them, like bats, if they swarm you can't effectively attack them through normal means.

Fighting with animals is often very rare, there should be an easy to find motivation behind any attack. Granted, there are some unpredictable animals that defend territory fairly aggressively, but these are always apex predators. It is often best to avoid them if at all possible. I do try to fill up most of my lists with natural wildlife, most encounters are not really true combat encounters. It goes to immersion in the setting. Keep things normal so that when something strange does happen, the players catch it.

Love this! Consider your bat swarms stolen!(Maybe thats why I call it the Stolen World)