Board Thread:Midian Ideas/@comment-4701109-20170108033644/@comment-24302820-20170110171009

Digging through my old notes, I do have a few of these things that I've been working on, but these are far from ready.

Incidental damage: Large and aggressive beasts can cause damage to those around it even without intent. A saving throw must be made (starting at ten) to avoid harm. This target number increases for especially unruly or dangerous beasts. For example, being near a frightened horse needs a 10 or better to avoid injury, an injured bull a 13 or better, and being in the water surrounded by sharks (both hostile and sharp-scaled) needs a 16 or higher. As a rule, for every half ton (thousand pounds) an additional potential point of damage can be caused per round to everyone nearby. That is, a one-ton creature can cause 1-2 points of damage, whereas one weighing three-tons could cause 1-6. Weighing at least a quarter of the larger animal's mass makes one immune to this damage. The specific saving throw and potential damage is listed with each creature's description.

Do we make this per ton, so that the dice match up better? Round up, of course.

Okay, this gets out of hand pretty fucking fast. How's about we start with 1-2 at the one ton level, and double the mass with each die increase? This is still 1D4 for two tons, 1D6 for four tons, 1D8 for eight tons, 1D10 for 16 tons, and 1D12 for 32 tons. This makes elephant seals 1D6 instead of 1D10, and killer whales 1D8 instead of 1D20. Blue whales (at an average 120 tons) could cause 2D8 incidental damage instead of up to 420 points of damage for the largest specimens. That would be far more than what I would want to give them as a deliberate attack.

We still need to do this in reverse somehow, for stomping on swarms. How about we keep the damage at a minimum 1 point, but start bumping up the save for smaller creatures, based on the ratio of masses? 1 point at 1:10 with a save of 10 is a nice even starting point, in reverse it gives 10-20 pound creatures that even shot against a human. A 1:20 ratio (5-10 pounds) would have a 12 save, 1:30 a 13 save, and so on. With a typical ant in the 1:30 million or so range, they would need critical saves to avoid being squished. Should we do this logarithmically? That is, keep the 1:10-10, but make 1:100 a save of 12, 1:1000 (about 3 ounces) has a save of 13. Our unfortunate ant then only needs a 17 or higher to save.

Working with these new figures, our starting point is when the ratio of the respective masses reaches 1:10. That is, it's one ton for a 200 lb human, and 20 pounds for that same human squishing something else. Unless you are dealing with very large or very small player characters who are particular about such things, or just really like doing lots of superfluous math, keep your sanity by using a 200 lb baseline for everyone.

Trampling damage is 1D6 per thousand pounds, rounded down. This is described as the same damage as a kick from that animal. So, should we just equate trampling with kick damage, or base it on mass? I think I like the idea of mass-based damage better. After all, a cart or boat's keel can't exactly kick, can it? This would simplify hoof damage, since a mounted rider would prevent the horse from kicking, and trampling isn't something that horses generally do on their own, but would still give us a unified number for damage.

Crashing damage, like from a bull, can be mass in tons times tens of Speed in D12s. This is pretty much the same as trampling damage (both use mass as the basis) but smashing into something would be increased based on speed.

Animal training: Moderately intelligent animals, such as horses or cats, can be trained as work animals in about a year. Smarter animals--like dogs--can learn in half that time, and even smarter ones in half of that. That is, an elephant can be trained as a pack animal, and accept commands appropriately, in about three months. A year's training with a dog (or six months with a more intelligent animal) teaches it a series of basic commands. It can sit, fetch, guard, et cetera. Alternatively, that same timeframe can be used to teach a dog a much more complex role. That is, it is much more involved to train a dog to sniff out drugs and explosives than to guard or herd. Two years with a helper monkey trains it in nearly any task that a quadraplegic owner would need it to do. Specific tricks can be taught at about one per month for a dog, or in three months for a horse. An apprentice animal trainer can work with a single animal at a time. Journeymen can work with up to six at once. Masters can potentially handle dozens of animals at one time. Very intelligent animals are worth double the normal price, if they are sufficiently trained. Hyperintelligent animals, such as a cat as smart as a monkey and trained to be as useful as one (allowing for the lack of thumbs) costs five times as much. Behaviours that are natural and desired by the animal can be taught in half the time.

For maximum hit point capacity, I worked out three different formulas. (log [mass in pounds])^e mass^(1/e) 2 x mass^(1/3) I think that I like the numbers generated by the first equation best, even though it involves a bit more math. These formulae were derived from the already published weights and maximum hit point capacity totals for sentient species.