[ArM5] Beast Stats

[Saxum Caribetum]

Andrew Gronosky wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Some people have been asking for beast stats and I am making some for 
> my own Saga.  They will be totally unofficial but I'll let the list 
> know when they are done.  It may be a couple of weeks because I'm 
> going on vacation soon.
>
> My approach will be simply to give beasts a Brawl skill and weapon 
> stats for their natural attacks.  Weapons stats will be comparable to 
> Inexpensive weapons for the most part but beasts are not restricted to 
> +5/-5 for their Characteristics.  A bull, for example, could have a 
> Strength higher than +5.
>
that's the approach we are taking, and took until publication IOS.

My other rule-of-thumb is to check whether X can kill and eat Y, if it's 
in its nature to do so (cat & mouse!);

and similarly that you don't get severe wounds from beasts you know 
don't do this - a person can handle a cat and tolerate scratches - they 
are normally "no effect" or Light Wound at worst... this implies that 
Cat Claw Damage is substantially less than average person's Soak, so 
that a lucky strike might cause 1 point after Soak (which rounds up to 
Light Wound).

you then feed that back from cat to mouse, to relate the mouse's Soak to 
the Cat's damage...  The Mouse is also small enough that its wound scale 
is down to 1/2/3/4/dead

In the end you tend to find that ArM combat, in all editions, works best 
with people, with options for weapons, armour toughness & +/- Size, and 
doesn't work especially well outside that range...

-- 
Neil Taylor "Creo Imaginem Mente"
ArM Code 1.5 5++ Ca++ R++p H++ ?L Y(96) T(5)- SG+++ G++++ P++ HoH(Ma++ Q+ Hg+) Fz(E)++ C++ :-) Cd++
Saga site at http://www.quantal.demon.co.uk/saga/
Hermes Portal Ars Magica zine - http://www.hermesportal.fr.st/