GURPS Doesn't Have Monsters. That's What I Keep Hearing from Various DF Fans Who Bemoan the Lack of a Bestiary
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GURPS doesn't have monsters. That's what I keep hearing from various DF fans who bemoan the lack of a bestiary. Strictly speaking, however, this is not true. GURPS is loaded with monsters, if you know where to look for them. To just name a few: GURPS Characters: Dragons, Vampires GURPS Magic: Zombies, Skeletons, Mummies, Wraiths, Liches, Demons, Elementals of all four varieties. Thaumatology adds even more Elementals. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3: Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Gargoyles, Trolls, Dark Ones, Shadow Elves, giant bug people, lizard men, and many more. Even more options exist in GURPS Fantasy (including a chapter dedicated to monsters), GURPS Banestorm (loads of racial templates), and other sources, if you care to dig around. The problem isn't the lack of monsters, though, it's the lack of detail on these monsters. Most of these are racial templates. It's all fine and well to know what a Vampire or a Dragon is like, racially, but what sorts of skills, weapons and powers does he actually have? We have no quick-and-easy way to toss together a disposable monster to unleash on the table. Astute veterans of GURPS will point out that we simply slap on whatever skills and such that we find appropriate and move on, but I would caution that you could do the same with racial templates themselves, that the average DF player isn't interested in wholesale world-building, but prefers some kind of quick-start guide, the equivalent for monsters what DF 1 is to dungeoneers. So, at the request of my Dungeon Fantasy GM, I put together what follows in this thread: a list of "occupational" templates that can be quickly applied to a monster to give it a role within combat, and a large list of example monsters, ready for any dungeon. Disclaimer This work is insufficiently playtested. I'm a veteran GURPS GM, running on 15 years of experience now, and I created this document for another GM, who promptly used it for his DF campaign which ran for several sessions, but not for long as campaigns are measured. My experience with it suggests that it works. However, the best of us make mistakes all the time. We mean things that we don't say. We forget a rule, or over- or underestimate player capability. I bet Kromm himself has some embarrassing stories to tell about "obvious" mistakes that only turned up after a thorough playtesting. This work has not had the kind of fisking necessary to work out all the chinks. While I'm sure further posters in this thread will help to refine it, understand that this work should be regarded cautiously and taken with a grain of salt. Consider it a work-in-progress How This Works Dungeon and Dragons 4e included "roles" for its monsters, a guide on how to use a monster and what sort of tactics they designed it for. This document does the same. Each role has a list of associated templates that, if applied to a racial template, should help you put together a monster ideally suited to that sort of tactic in combat. The standard templates are worth roughly 50 points, the "Greater" templates are worth 100 points, and the Epic templates are worth 150. "Core" templates are worth 50 points, and every monster should have at least one, to provide a solid basis of skills. Beyond that, no limitations or prerequisites apply (You're just making a monster, not carefully balancing a character). Furthermore, each role has a set of "strange" templates, which represent unique powers associated with that role. Strange templates always have a power modifier. The most common power modifiers for monsters are: • Magical: The powers can be nullified with counter-magic effects and do not work in no-mana zones • Unholy: The powers do not work in areas of High (Holy) Sanctity, and might not affect "faithful" characters • Biological: The power is always a manifestation of some interesting internal organs, which the players may harvest after the battle. Generally, these organs provide bonuses to appropriate alchemy and invention rolls. Minion organs provide +1, Worthy organs provide a +2, and Bosses generally have multiple harvestable organs with +2. I haven't always explicitly outlined how the templates are constructed, because I feel the average DF GM is more interested in knowing how a monster works, rather than looking at a list of advantages and modifiers. If you want to know how I did something, feel free to ask. I bet I can still remember. Every core template has a list of associated disadvantages, which I discuss in each section. Sometimes, these disadvantages are described beyond their normal, PC context. That's because a monstrous disadvantage that does not disadvantage the monster isn't interesting or worth mentioning. These disadvantages exist to allow players to come up with clever solutions to defeating their foe, and thus must represent real vulnerabilities. Where possible, exaggerate these weaknesses and make sure the players are aware of them. Wait, Points? What do you mean Points? GURPS Sages will carefully recite the hallowed mantra "don't use points when designing monsters" Dungeon Fantasy 2 itself offers this tid-bit of wisdom. Points unnecessarily slow down monster creation, and they won't necessarily balance the encounter. After all, 250 points of carefully nuanced player character is no match for 250 points of pure, distilled lethality. However, points still have their place. While points won't necessarily balance a monster for an encounter, that's primarily because of the existence of non-combat traits (15 points of Empathy just isn't as useful in a fight as 15 points of DR or even 10 points of High Pain Threshold). Combat traits, however, tend to be fairly well balanced against one another. Thus, a 50 point combat monster should measure up nicely against another, differently designed 50 point combat monster, so points do give us nice "ball park" figures for balance. Moreover, certain advantages and aspects of the system demand points, things like summoning and shape-shifting. By noting the points involved, if a player sees a demon he likes and asks to summon it in the next adventure, the GM can swiftly give him a total Energy Cost associated with that demon, for example. I have a few caveats regarding these point-costs, however. Monsters need to be kept simple. They don't need to worry about things like perks, and you don't have the time to worry about fatigue cost this and recharge time that. Thus, those who carefully reverse engineer my templates might discover that not everything adds up exactly to the described point value, because monsters are too simple to worry about the small change. Moreover, points do not trump good monster design. Kromm's advice on page 27 of DF 2 remains very valid and pertinent. A 250 point "worthy" monster who has 200 points of DR (DR 40 or so, more with limitations) isn't very fun to fight because you can't actually hurt it. When we design monsters, we want to create interesting fights, so consider what your players have at their disposal before you sic a particular beastie on them. If your goal is an unbeatable monster that your players cannot escape from, these rules won't prevent you from succeeding, but all you'll have really designed is a unique invitation to write up new characters. If done too often, you're really telling your players not to invest emotion into their characters or, worse, not to invest interest in your game. In general, I have found that a minion needs only one or two templates (no more than 100 points) to be an acceptable "quick" challenge, and about 5-10 per player is enough. Worthies generally take 3 to 5 standard templates (150-250 points), and one to two per player is enough. I find bosses need at least 500 points worth of templates (often at least one epic for truly awesome fights), and you only need one per group of players. Final Notes Where possible, I have discarded any reference to fatigue, but when it comes to spell-casting monsters, or powers that attack fatigue, players will want to know how much fatigue a monster has. For the purpose of these rules: • Minions have sufficient fatigue to cast one effect. Don't worry about the exact cost, they just get to cast one spell or use one fatigue-based ability.. Any fatigue damage will knock them unconscious • Worthies have normal fatigue, but should they run out of fatigue, they automatically fall unconscious, without rolling. • Bosses use the normal fatigue rules. This document offers no tips or suggestions for equipment. Generally, monsters have access to items that suit their skill set: a monster with Broadsword 15 will have a broadsword, and a monster with Traps 12 will have some traps. Don't bother with minor stuff, like rations or rope, except perhaps as loot for the players. When it comes to equipment quality, don't worry about wealth and simply give the monsters whatever gear you think is suitable remembering that players will loot them after they defeat the monster. Giving a goblin minion an Very Fine Enchanted fire sword is really just handing the players a Very Fine Enchanted fire sword for free. Monsters are certainly allowed to wear armor (provided they don't have some ability that precludes it), again, with the note that players can and will loot said armor at the end of the fight. Oh, and on a very final note, I'd like to eventually collect all this into one big downloadable PDF, but I'd need some art for that.