Supplement 11: Animal Encounters Issues

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I have been going through the new Animal Encounters book (S11) and have NOT been able to get it to work properly. PLEASE help me figure out what I am doing wrong!

Since S11 specifically states that it supercedes the TMB rules, I expected everything needed to be in this book. That doesn't seem to be the case.

Issues:

1. How do I create the Rural Encounter Table (TMB 70)? Do I just pick animals and let it fill in itself? I don't get balanced Encounters that way (more Herbivores, fewer Omnivores and Carnivores). The encounter tables in the back of S11 are completely unbalanced for "random" encounters.

2. How do I determine what CLASS the animal is (Amphibian, Reptile etc). There is no generation table, just a list. Do I pick? If I pick, why are there no guidelines on how to do this? Obviously this was done in the Encounter Tables at the back of the book, but HOW?

3. What happened to Scavengers? Each class has a table where you roll up what Diet the creature has (Herbivore, Omnivore, Carnivore) but none of these tables have Scavengers! The Behaviour Models DO list Scavengers though...???

4. What happened to the Exotic types of Classes? On Earth there are a lot of creatures that don't fit into the Classes listed (Extremophiles, Black Smoker Life, Pre-Cambrian life etc). How can I create those for my weird or primordial worlds?

5. The size table stops at 15 (10,000 kg) which doesn't even come close to allowing me to create creatures that exist right now on Earth. Blue Whales are 150,000 kg (ish), over 10 times larger than the table allows. Even existing land creatures like the Elephant (11,000 kg) are almost impossible to create and then you have to squint.

Anyone know what I am missing? The first THREE points are REALLY bothering me, I can house rule the rest (expanding tables).

HELP!

 

[alex_greene]

So if the size table stops at 10 tons, how are we supposed to create dinosaurs? Oh, Krodmandoon, that rules out dragons, too.

 

[rust]

- deleted, misunderstood question, not enough coffee ... :roll: -

 

[nats]

Sounds like yet another book of broken rules from Mongoose.

 

[Iron Domokun]

3. What happened to Scavengers? Each class has a table where you roll up what Diet the creature has (Herbivore, Omnivore, Carnivore) but none of these tables have Scavengers! The Behaviour Models DO list Scavengers though...???

It seems to me that "scavenger" is not a diet but a way of getting food which forms your diet. Most scavengers are carnivores (e.g. vultures) or omnivores (rats). I don't know what a herbivorous scavenger would be - dung beetle? One of those cockroaches that eats rotting wood?

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

One More thing that seems to be missing:

6. Planetary Quirks - The TMB had a nice table to give your creatures a unique feel from world to world (NOT in CT btw). I really liked that table and was hoping the S11 would expand on it. Rather than expand on it, it seems to have eliminated it. While the author added Quirks to each type of creature, they are not the same as the Planetary Quirks from the TMB.

I like a lot of what was added with S11, please don't think I am trashing the whole book, but there seems to be several missing steps that the author has but didn't make it into the book.

Regarding Scavengers, I did some more digging and the author has incorporated the Type of Scavengers into the Carnivore/Omnivore/Herbivore behaviors, so I have to give him that one back! My Bad.

 

[alex_greene]

We still need large scale beasties, >>> 10 tons.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

While doing some research online regarding this issue, I found a science paper that claims the largest possible creature on Earth would be somewhere between 100 and 1000 tons (not much help really). The Blue Whale, the largest beast EVER averages about 170-180 tons.

Even if the tables just went up to 200,000 kg, I would be OK with that, but realistically on a low gravity, dense atmosphere world, the creatures should be able to get to enormous sizes, perhaps getting to that 1000 ton range.

Maybe the top of the Creature Size table just needs to say - "See Starships".

 

[Ishmael]

Even if the tables just went up to 200,000 kg, I would be OK with that, but realistically on a low gravity, dense atmosphere world, the creatures should be able to get to enormous sizes, perhaps getting to that 1000 ton range.

Metabolism is what limits size. Using Kleiber's Law, you can see how mass relates to basal metabolism. The problem then becomes, how fast can a creature eat to maintain that metabolism? There becomes a point where the animal can't eat fast enough to maintain its size...it starves to death.
It's thought that blue whales are right up against that point.

Now if you lower the metabolism, then the animal can't eat fast. If you up the metabolism to eat faster, then you have to eat more to maintain that.

The only real way to get more energy and up the mass limit is to eat stuff with more energy content, but then that high energy food probably can avoid being eaten by moving faster. Even then, there is probably a limit to how much energy you can pack into a given mass of food.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber's_law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allometric_law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Thanks Ismael, Biology and Ecology are NOT my specialty. I was going more off of what Wiki (I KNOW!) said under the entry for Blue Whales.

Thanks for the linkies!

My thoughts were that lower gravity would allow larger beasties for the same energy needs, same for a Dense (High oxygen partial pressure); so a combination of the two (Droyne worlds) would push the upper limit of size way above Blue Whales. I'll have to read some more.

 

[Rick]

So if the size table stops at 10 tons, how are we supposed to create dinosaurs? Oh, Krodmandoon, that rules out dragons, too.

Even big elephants can weigh more than 10 tons (just) - it does seem a bit odd to cap the table there.

 

[rust]

My thoughts were that lower gravity would allow larger beasties for the same energy needs, same for a Dense (High oxygen partial pressure); so a combination of the two (Droyne worlds) would push the upper limit of size way above Blue Whales. I'll have to read some more.

It would depend a lot on how much food / energy is available to the creature, and how
much energy the creature has to spend to get enough food / energy to sustain its me-
tabolism. The perfect "big creature" either lives in a kind of nutrient solution where it
only has to open its mouth to get it full of food (as is almost the case for plankton ea-
ters like whale sharks, manta rays or blue whales in nutrient rich waters), or - even
better - where it does not have to move at all to get the energy (which is why some
fungi and plants can compete with whales when it comes to size).

 

[nats]

The Classic Traveller animal table in Book 3 goes up to 44000kg (about the size of a humpback whale) but the die throws can feasibly go up to 26 so I have altered my book to take it up to around 100,000kg ie the size of a Megladon. Only the blue whale at 130,000kg is larger than that and thats the largest creature that has ever lived (on this world).

You should just manually alter the table and DMs to be able to go higher but it is stupid that the author didnt consider real animals like that when he did the table.

This is why I have a problem with Mongoose. They dont just copy what was done before - they make it far worse...its just clear there is no real thought process there.

I mean if I can find out that Megladons and Blue Whales are such a size in all of ten minutes and get all the weights of various animals (Tyrannasaurus - 12000kg, Diplodocus - 36000kg, Great White 1600kg) then why cant an author who is getting paid to do it not do the same thing.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I was also hoping that ALIEN life, or at least not 21st Century Earth Life would be discussed.

Under the Class of the animals, there is no mention of Invertebrates! How can I have a giant Octopus (Release the Kraken!)? No way the table lets me do that. Heck, you can't even create the CT Tree Kraken from the original LBBs!

Also, the Burgess Shale has revealed that there are a LOT more possibilities for life than just Reptiles, Insects and Mammals.

Also, there is no mention of how the creatures reproduce, how many sexes they have, how many limbs etc.

I am thinking of mixing Flynn's Guide to Aliens (which has nice tables for all those things) and the TMB's Design stuff, adding in all the OTHER terrain types that exist on a planet, and well, basically redoing the entire thing to be more COMPLETE.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, don't get me wrong. I LIKE this book. I just wanted it to be MORE. There are a lot of good ideas in there.

 

[zero]

There is a race of tree-dwelling octopoids detailed and statted in the Darrians supplement, theyre native to Cunnonic apparently.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Exactly my point. According to S11, you can't create that creature using the rules in the book!

Too much like Earth, not enough diversity.

 

[zero]

I just use the Animal stat tables in the Core if needed or the ones already in supplements, like said tree-dwelling octopoid. Seems better that way...

 

[delrom5]

Another aspect of S11 is that of a critter's speed. Moving between the range bands implies movement, whether agressive (pouncers etc) or defensive (a fleeing pack), yet my impression from skimming the rules of S11 seems to be that creatures just stand there as targets. So, how do pouncers pounce or chasers chase?

One possible extension that may help to simulate creature movements would be a few athletics specialitites for animals. Examples;
Athletics (Burst): skill only available to pouncers. A successful roll allows a pouncer to multiply its skill rating with its base speed for End x skill level secs. Eg cheetahs
Athletics (Strike): available to pounces. A successful roll against Dex whilst at close range allows a pouncer to strike suddenly and accurately. Eg cobras, scorpions etc.
Athletics (Pursue): For chasers only. A skill roll allows chasers to extend their endurance whilst chasing prey.
Athletics (Dodge): Allows a creature being pursued to rapidly chose direction.

Comments or suggestions?

 

[Merxiless]

"you can't create that creature using the rules in the book!"

Suggestion: You know what you want. It's your campaign. Pitch the book, and make 1000 ton land-slithering polka dotted piranhas that breathe oatmeal if you like.

If you want it to be Earth-Realistic, read a whole lot for a month of overview books cliffs notes type stuff on Biology, Biochemistry, etc. Then break out the old Classic Traveller books, and roll it out. Then make that fit your concept.

 

[hdan]

Suggestion: You know what you want. It's your campaign. Pitch the book, and make 1000 ton land-slithering polka dotted piranhas that breathe oatmeal if you like.

Except that this is a thread about discussing the supplement's issues, and everyone here already knows that they are under no obligation to use rules they don't like in their campaigns. The book has enough good ideas that just pitching it would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.