Testing the limits of animal creation
I have a bad habit of using games in wildly unintended ways. Since a couple of my friends have been on a fantasy kick, I decided to be evil with the TNE animal rules and see just how nasty of a creature I could make. Note that I'm not actually rolling table results, I'm picking the result I want, but they're all plausible (if, in some cases, wildly improbable).
Step 1: World Size and Atmosphere
For pure giggles, I'm going with a Medium world and Dense atmosphere, to get +3 DM in Step 6 (I could have gone with a Small world for a +4 DM, but it turns out it's not a Small world after all).
Step 2: Terrain Types - N/A
Step 3: Animal Type and Weight DM
Again, for bonus, I'm going with Prairie/Plains/Steppe, which is +4 Type and +1 Weight.
Step 4: Animal Encounter/Category Table
Carnivore.
Step 5: Animal Type and Quantity
With a +4 bonus on this table, rolling a 6 on Carnivore modifies up to a 10, which is Killer.
Step 6: Special Attributes
The +3 DM on the Other column works out nicely, giving a 14 (F) result. Our creature's a Flyer with no size modifier.
Step 7: Animal Size
From Step 3, there's a +1 to this roll, and I'm milking it for all it's worth, using boxcars to get me a 13 (roll again at +6) and another boxcars for a total of 19. Our flying creature is 40,000 kilograms, has 13d20 hits (average 136.5), gets a x2d6 modifier to whatever damage we get later, has +3 to armor DM (Step 11), but suffers -4 to Initiative (Step 9).
Step 8: Animal Weaponry
2d6+5 gives a range of 7-17 for this roll. An 11 gives Claws and Teeth at +2 to hit, 1d6 damage (x2d6 from Step 7, so on an average roll 7d6 damage), Pen 2, and Long melee range.
Step 9: Initiative
With 1d6+2-4 (for Carnivore and Size 19, respectively), this isn't a swift striker, averaging only a 1 or 2 for initiative.
Step 10: To-Hit Number
Being a Carnivore and having the Step 8 modifier means the roll is 3d6+2, so the average To-Hit Number is 13. Not shabby.
Step 11: Animal Armor
With +3 DM from size and -1 DM for being a carnivore, it's just barely possible to get Armor 3 by rolling a 10 (modified to 12) for "roll again at +6", then rolling a 12 (modified to 20) for Armor 3.
Step 12: Animal Behaviors
Using the dice, behavior should be A13, F4, so it'll attack 65% of the time, flee 7% of the time, and ignore the party 28% of the time. Speed is 3d20, which averages 32.
So, we end up with a 40 tonne flying carnivore that attacks with claws and teeth with Initiative 2, To-Hit 13, 7d6 damage, Pen 2, and Armor 3.
And yes, I just created a dragon for TNE, which can exist either on a Medium world with a Dense atmosphere or a Small world with a Standard atmosphere.
For a Medium world with Standard atmo, the largest size is 11 (since the best result in Step 6 is F-2). Hits drop to 6d20, Damage becomes 3d6, Pen is 1, Initiative is 4, and Armor is 2 (Head 3). This is only a 1600-kilogram dragon, rather less terrifying than the dense atmosphere beast, though obviously still dangerous.
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