Mongoose Core Book Errata etc - Animals, Surprise, Enc Range

[nats]

Animal Speed
For animal speeds add the following shown in bold to page 72 after the flee column of the animal reactions table which is in the format of Animal type, Speed dice throw, (Speed Range):

Filter 1D-5 (0-1)
Intermittent 1D-4 (1-2)
Grazer 1D-2 (2-4)
Gatherer 1D-3 (1-3)
Hunter 1D-4 (1-2)
Eater 1D-3 (1-3)
Pouncer 1D-4 (1-2)
Chaser 1D-2 (2-4)
Trapper 1D-5 (0-1)
Siren 1D-4 (0-2)
Killer 1D-3 (1-3)
Hijacker 1D-4 (1-2)
Intimidator 1D-4 (1-2)
Carrion eater 1D-3 (1-3)
Reducer 1D-4 (1-2)

Terrain DM Chart page 71
Some of the ocean type/sizes seem suspect to me according to original Classic Traveller so I have changed:
Ocean Shallows type to +2 and Size to +2
changed Open Ocean to Ocean Surface and the Type to +2 and Size to +3
Deep Ocean (Depths) Type to +2 and Size to +4
I also added Cave/Ruins as a new terrain with a Type of -3 and Size of 0 and W,W,W,W+2, F-4 and F-6 for the Creature Movement Rolls

Creature Sizes page 71
Not errata but as the rolls for animal size can effectively go up to 24 and well below 1 I added a 0 throw as a 500g animal (rat) with 1,1d6-2,1 as the stats and I added a load of new animals for the 14 to 24 rolls that go from 10000 kg up to 180000 kg in order to cover animals such as Tyrannosaurs, Megladons and Blue Whales increasing the stats as they go.

Weapons Table page 71
Again not arrata but I changed the 'no weapon' to Hooves and Horns (I dont know any animal that has no weapon at all) and added Stinger +2 and Claws +3 and Teeth +3for the 14, 15 and 16 rolls at the bottom of the table. Gives a bit more variety like the Classic Traveller animal weapons did.

Damage Attacks Table page 72
I altered this table to extend up to 100+ (increasing the dice by one each time) to cater for the much larger animals I added as above.

I personally think all this gives animals more variety and realism but if you dont agree dont change them. The only one that is really errata I think is the animal speed which should have been in the book (cant see how this was left out).

 

[JRoss]

I'm a bit confused. Are you a Mongoose employee giving errata, or is this just homebrew?

 

[nats]

I am simply unofficially suggesting the animal speeds as errata to the revised (and supposedly correct) Core Rulebook as animal speeds should be there - they are taken from Classic Traveller which has exactly the same table in it, but in that table the animal speeds are included, whereas in the same table in Mongoose Traveller they are missing. Without animal speeds you have chasers and grazers etc all moving at exactly the same speed as each other and humans which is obviously daft. I know I cannot outrun a cheetah thats for sure.

What I didnt point out above is that an animal speed of 2 means 2 x typical human speed and an animal speed of 4 means 4 x human speed and this can be assumed to be sauntering speed (I prefer the term sauntering rather than walking) - with running speed 4 times faster. A human typically walks at 6m per combat round of 6 sec long (which correctly equates to roughly 3m per hour), and the core rule book does talk about sprinting (which I take as running not sprinting) at 24m+athletics effect per round (around 12mph which is pretty close to real life running speed of 15mph, although humans have sprinted at 25mph). So an animal with 4x speed rating will saunter at 24m per round (12mph) and run at 96m per round (48mph). This is actually low for a cheetah type animal (which goes 70mph+) but there you go, we cant have everything without getting too fiddly (I suppose you could assume this is a normal running speed not sprinting). A suppose also the animal size might have an effect on speed - although rats have been known to go 35mph and an elephant only around 25mph - with normal speed of 12-20mph - so maybe not!

 

[SSWarlock]

Works for me. Thank you for posting.

By the way, one animal with no weapon capability is the glass sponge. Not sure why a GM would want to use one in a Traveller adventure though.

 

[nats]

Works for me. Thank you for posting.

By the way, one animal with no weapon capability is the glass sponge. Not sure why a GM would want to use one in a Traveller adventure though.

Yeah actually I suppose whales that filter feed also have no weapons per se, in fact most filter feeders probably don't have any teeth so it might be worth leaving the 'no weapons' item alone then.

 

[GypsyComet]

Depends on how broadly you consider "filter" to apply. Anenomes are certainly not harmless.

 

[BFalcon]

Depends on how broadly you consider "filter" to apply. Anenomes are certainly not harmless.

Nor Jellyfish... and I'd class those as "filters"...

And I'm not sure how to classify an animal who waited for prey to fall into their "mouths" (so to speak) in the same way a pitcher plant does - a "Trapper" or a "Filter"... I'd tend to classify a "Trapper" as a more proactive form of "Filter", personally...

 

[nats]

Another spurious item in animals generation is 'surprise'' It says in a few animals reaction specs (probably left over from the original CT table) that if an animal gains surprise it attacks and if surprised is flees (Pouncer for example) but surprise isnt actually covered in the combat rules at all. How do people deal with this or havent they yet? I was assuming this would have to be a recon task check opposed by the stealth of the animal? If the task check is negative the animal gains surprise and if not the characters gain surprise. Its not as good as the original Traveller method though as it doesnt allow for having no surprise at all.

And what about combat encounter ranges? - as again the combat encounter range isnt in the book either - the book just says most encounters will occur at medium range which is a right cop-out IMHO, especially when the original Traveller went into quite a lot of detail about determining combat encounter range, surprise and evasion. It was far better the way the original Traveller did it where encounter range was determined by the terrain. So I for one have added the old Traveller encounter terrain DMs and encounter range table into my Mongoose book as follows:

Combat Terrain DMs:
Desert +4
Clear, Road, Mountain, Plain +3
Hills, Foothills, Broken, Rough +2
Forest, Woods, Beach, Shore, Bank +1
Jungle, Rainforest +0
Suburb, City -2
Swamp, M<arsh, Cave, Building -4

Combat Encounter Range (simplified from the original Traveller one)
0-2 Short
3-12 Medium
13-14 Long
15-16 Very Long

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Depends on how broadly you consider "filter" to apply. Anenomes are certainly not harmless.

Nor Jellyfish... and I'd class those as "filters"...

And I'm not sure how to classify an animal who waited for prey to fall into their "mouths" (so to speak) in the same way a pitcher plant does - a "Trapper" or a "Filter"... I'd tend to classify a "Trapper" as a more proactive form of "Filter", personally...

Like that sand creature in Return of the Jedi? I would call that a Trapper.

Ironically, using these rules, the Sandworms of Dune would be Filters. Not sure how "helpless" you would call those!

 

[AndrewW]

Like that sand creature in Return of the Jedi? I would call that a Trapper.

The Sarlacc?

 

[GypsyComet]

That's the one.

Gotta wonder how many of them are on Tattoine. The Sarlacc was reportedly a legendarily large example. The other question is whether or not they were native. The Star Wars galaxy has apparently been subject to at least two and maybe many more wide-spread migrations of races. Aside from Humans, who apparently spread around quite recently, the Duros are known to have spread themselves far and wide so long ago that the scattered descendants have diverged considerably. The Neimoidians (the Trade Federation of the prequels) are Duros offshoots, as just one example, and I suspect the Kaminoans (the Cloners) are as well. With that kind of multi-diaspora history and pre-history, it is really no surprise that civilization finds tasty animals (and animals that find it tasty in turn) everywhere it goes.

 

[AndrewW]

That's the one.

Gotta wonder how many of them are on Tattoine. The Sarlacc was reportedly a legendarily large example. The other question is whether or not they were native. The Star Wars galaxy has apparently been subject to at least two and maybe many more wide-spread migrations of races. Aside from Humans, who apparently spread around quite recently, the Duros are known to have spread themselves far and wide so long ago that the scattered descendants have diverged considerably. The Neimoidians (the Trade Federation of the prequels) are Duros offshoots, as just one example, and I suspect the Kaminoans (the Cloners) are as well. With that kind of multi-diaspora history and pre-history, it is really no surprise that civilization finds tasty animals (and animals that find it tasty in turn) everywhere it goes.

They might be out there, a planet was recently discovered orbiting two stars...

 

[nats]

What I didn't point out above is that an animal speed of 2 means 2 x typical human speed and an animal speed of 4 means 4 x human speed and this can be assumed to be sauntering speed (I prefer the term sauntering rather than walking) - with running speed 4 times faster. A human typically walks at 6m per combat round of 6 sec long (which correctly equates to roughly 3m per hour), and the core rule book does talk about sprinting (which I take as running not sprinting) at 24m+athletics effect per round (around 12mph which is pretty close to real life running speed of 15mph, although humans have sprinted at 25mph). So an animal with 4x speed rating will saunter at 24m per round (12mph) and run at 96m per round (48mph).

I have done this incorrectly. I didn't realise that you can move three times in a combat round (three minor actions), which would count as normal running presumably, and it would also give you the -1 DM for being shot at as a fast moving target. BUT as a separate exercise completely, you can sprint at 24m per round, but that takes up a complete combat round in which you cannot do anything else (either react, minor or significant actions) - but it would again give you the -1 DM for being a fast target.

So for the initial rounds of animal encounters it could be assumed that they will always sprint for all the early rounds, either to open or close range as quickly as possible (depending on whether they are attacking or fleeing). That means a chaser or grazer could effectively move 4(maximum animal movement rate) x 24m, or 96m per round (57km per hour) - not bad speed, still slow for a cheetah though.

Although most other normal animal movement (riding, trotting animals etc) would be based on moving for all of its three minor actions. So horse riding would still be based on the usual movement rules ie one movement allowed per minor action, and so an animal wanting to run normally (not sprinting - for example riding a horse around the countryside) would move up to its movement rate x 3 (minor actions) x 6m. It could effectively run this speed indefinitely, although one might want to do an endurance check at regular intervals along the lines of Athletics (Endurance) rules for long distance running, and if it fails the throw it would get fatigued.

In terms of fatigue the rule says that if you melee attack more than your endurance in a combat you get fatigued. I assume this is the same for animals? Although fatigue doesn't seem to be affected by running (other than the Athletics task check above), one could probably say that sprinting would affect it - so perhaps you could say that the combination of sprinting and melee attacking can only be done to the maximum of your endurance without getting fatigued (after which you get the -2 DM). And this could be applied to both animals and humans. So to ride, for example, a sprinting warhorse into battle you would have its endurance in combat rounds before it got fatigued. But to ride the same horse around the countryside at a gentle trot, you could do that pretty much indefinitely (with regular Athletics (Endurance) checks).

Anyway hope that all helps with your animal orientated adventures.