Animal Careers

[Tom Kalbfus]

Has anyone ever thought of making career tables for animals? I'm currently trying to stat some animals in Traveller and the though had occured to me that animals too could roll on career table to determine their skills. Each animal would follow a number of careers. There are four Animal careers Herbivore, Omnivore, Carnivore, and Scavenger and each career has its specialties

 

[Reynard]

Seriously? I think the vast majority of non-sapient animals are nature as opposed to nurture.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Seriously? I think the vast majority of non-sapient animals are nature as opposed to nurture.

I was reading the core rules, I'm trying to make Dinosaur Stats using the Mongoose rules, my method is basically this, I have a book that lists the dinosaurs length in meters, I divide that by 2 and multiply by 50 kg to get an approximation of the creatures's mass, and from that, I look at the chart to determine how many d6s to role to get Strength, Dexterity and Endurance, I assign an intelligence of 1 and I role 2d6s to determine Instinct and pack. When it came to skills, I just looked at a few examples of skills and assigned 1s to them all With strength I got the attack score, since these were sea going reptiles, they attack with their teeth. these animals aren't completely random, I have a size and mass predetermined by the creature's description and illustration. Here's what I've done so far:
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=105301&p=865839#p865839

 

[Condottiere]

A career as a chipmunk must be fascinating.

You could take the musician or the rescue ranger path.

 

[dragoner]

Uplifted rabbits, that way you could play a mix of Gamma World and Watership Down.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Supplement 11 - Animal Encounters pretty much has what you need to design most animals to MgT. It has "Evolution" tables instead of "Career" tables.

 

[GypsyComet]

Uplifted rabbits, that way you could play a mix of Gamma World and Watership Down.

Hoops were someone's idea of a really bad joke IN game, never mind that 70s approach to monster design.

 

[dragoner]

Uplifted rabbits, that way you could play a mix of Gamma World and Watership Down.

Hoops were someone's idea of a really bad joke IN game, never mind that 70s approach to monster design.

But the picture was cool. 8)

 

[GypsyComet]

They were that most terrifying of encounter, in that they could destroy your hard-earned loot. That they were also numerous, organized, and well-armed didn't help.

 

[dragoner]

Like an analog for the rust monster. An all mutant rabbit campaign could be cool, adventure to the ancient fortress (really a crashed lab ship).

 

[Reynard]

Bunnies And Blasters!

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Bunnies And Blasters!

Humor aside, a method for assigning skills to Animals would seem nice. You know in Dungeons & Dragons, they had some optional rules for monster classes, For instance if you were an Ogre, you would start out as a 1st level Ogre, and as you advanced levels you would accumulate all the abilities of a standard ogre in the Monster manual. Now as animals have shorter life spans that humans, terms of service might be 6 months to a year, and each time a term of service lapsed, you would roll on the skills table for the animal. Animals don't get any mustering out benefits, they don't get cash awards either, but they could get ability score increases.

 

[Reynard]

You do realize Animal Encounters does assign skills to animals in a perfectly efficient manner? Why should animals have such rapid skill development over intelligent species that take years to hone. Most of an animal's skill base is instinct and they have less mental ability to acquire new or higher skills on the rate Traveller demands. They can be taught 'tricks' which would be very limited ability or skill over many weeks or months but need a trainer and a whole lot of cooperation IF there is cooperation. I'd say what we would see as learning for animals in Traveller would be on the part of the Animal(Training) skill for a specific desired routine.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

You do realize Animal Encounters does assign skills to animals in a perfectly efficient manner? Why should animals have such rapid skill development over intelligent species that take years to hone. Most of an animal's skill base is instinct and they have less mental ability to acquire new or higher skills on the rate Traveller demands. They can be taught 'tricks' which would be very limited ability or skill over many weeks or months but need a trainer and a whole lot of cooperation IF there is cooperation. I'd say what we would see as learning for animals in Traveller would be on the part of the Animal(Training) skill for a specific desired routine.

I just need a method for assigning skills to animal so that each animal's skill set wouldn't be all the same. You see, I am not generating random animals, but assigning traits based on the physical characteristics of these animals as determined by paleontologists.

Also on a side note, judging from the size of these creatures, what sort of challenges would they pose to PCs, and what's the best way to use them. Lets say you have your basic party of four, which includes an ex-scout, a ex-marine, and ex-navy man, and a scholar. The land in a scout ship to survey the planet, they have an air/raft in the back, and they are armed with laser rifles.
Lets say they encounter a pair of T-Rexes with hatchings, the mother decides the party is a threat to its young and attacks. How might the party deal with this situation?

 

[Reynard]

Run and hide. Observe from the air/raft or a high cliff.

Reptiles, Carnivore, a LOT of d6 +1 to STR, a LOT of d6 to END, at least +1 Armor. Even energy weapons will have a hard time bringing them down because of that mass. They can be brought down with continuous fire if they don't get your first but they are a story plot device to work around rather than though.

 

[dragoner]

Found it:

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Run and hide. Observe from the air/raft or a high cliff.

Reptiles, Carnivore, a LOT of d6 +1 to STR, a LOT of d6 to END, at least +1 Armor. Even energy weapons will have a hard time bringing them down because of that mass. They can be brought down with continuous fire if they don't get your first but they are a story plot device to work around rather than though.

Pretty much, the biggest advantage the PCs have is they have ranged weapons and the T-Rexes don't. Probably if the T-Rexes were very far away, they wouldn't perceive the PCs as a threat to their hatchlings, if they were up close, the PCs might get a few shots off before the T-Rexes closed the distance, and all the T-Rex would have to do is get a bite on one of the PCs, or perhaps step on him and he's dead. The PCs would do well to never venture far on foot from their grav vehicle, and even then, the PCs might get some trouble from some giant flying reptiles. As a place to live, the PCs would have to construct a sturdy fort to keep the giant reptiles out.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

There are stats for the tyrannosaurus in the judge Dredd rpg book 'cursed earth'

(I'd post stats, but I'm not sure if that's allowed...?)

 

[Condottiere]

If we need puns.

Fish 'N' Chimps