A fast template system

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:25 am

A couple days ago, I suggested it might be possible to build a template system to make it much easier (i.e., faster) to throw together balanced opposition. I took a crack at it if anyone's interested in looking.

I'm pretty sure it's not perfectly balanced, though I hope it's close. I also stopped (somewhat arbitrarily) at CR 6. I'd be real interested in opinions on the system as proof of concept though.

http://wiki.fectin.com/doku.php?id=scra ... ate_system

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:27 am

This looks promising, and potentially very useful in my upcoming game. Curious to see what the missing templates do.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:00 am

Interesting take on monster/animal building.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:19 pm

"Dirty" energy. That is all.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:13 pm

Not much point in giving out specific natural weapons. Just give them a "natural weapon", and slap additional attacks on top of that. This way you don't have to worry about whether the boar is clawing rather than biting/goring.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:42 pm

Yeah, it's not that hard to write up a "one natural attack" routine and a "one primary and two secondary attacks" routine in the stat block and pick one.

I suppose you could also add in an extra ability to pick from (bonus NA, pounce, etc), but those are harder to balance and start to get rid of the point of this system.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:01 pm

It doesn't even really matter whether it's 'bite, bite, bite' or 'claw, tentacle, gore'. The distinction from an unarmed strike only matters for damage types.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:43 pm

Fair point. I had that in there to get the damage type, but it's not really necessary.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat Dec 11, 2010 12:19 am

If you just assume that a fast template animal's natural weapon does BPS (like a bite), you end up with the straightforward case of DR/magic and DR/material working, while DR/damage type and DR/alignment don't.