FANGS: Appendix E - Monsters

File:FANGS-Basic Fangs Logo (small original).gifWelcome to FANGS, the Fantasy Adventure Networked Gaming System. The goal of this roleplaying system is to offer rules that allow for fun, dramatic play without losing too much realism, simple and yet elegant rules, and balanced for different styles of players who wish to game together.

Monsters

No fantasy world is complete without monsters lurking in the shadows and dreaming dark dreams of domination and extinction of humanity. Rather than provide long lists of monsters in excruciating detail, we are providing a simple set of guidelines to build the demons/undead/goblins/dragons you need to terrorize your players.

The Monster Formula

To match the monsters to the PCs, determine the following:

• The total maximum damage of the party members. This includes both weapon damage and the effect of any damaging magic used by spellchuckers. Just take the largest attack usually used. * The total Attack skills (including starting value) of the party members. * The total Defense skill (including starting value) of the party members. * The total Armor value of the party members. * The total Hit Points of the party members

Add these numbers together. This is the number you can use to make a group of monsters to attack the group with, or populate an area the group is going into.

The monster created has no characteristics as such. It is composed entirely of the five aspects listed above, plus the following:

• Stun Points are figured by doubling the Hit Points.

• The monster is stunned if it takes stun points equal to its hit points in one blow.

• The monster’s initiative is equal to its Attack Skill.

• The monster may have special abilities, described below.

• Any special vulnerabilities are part of the description of the monster and have no effect on its monster points.

These are not character points. These are Monster Points. 1 monster point gets 1 point of Max Damage, etc.

Example: Gru, Saul, and Esmeralda are overlanding through a wilderness. Their total damage is 36, Total attack skill is 39, total defense is 42, the total armor value is 21 and the total Hit Points are 36. This is a total of 174. You want to hit them with a pack of wolves. Deciding that six would be a good number, you divide that number into 174 to get 29 points for each wolf. Wolves are not notoriously well armored, so they each get 2 points of armor. Wolf bites are probably not very nasty, but they should be able to do something, so we assume they have a bite of 1d6+2, for eight points. That leaves 19 points, so we assume the attack skill is 8 and the Defense skill is 7. Each wolf has 4 Hit Points and 8 Stun Points.

The Really Nasty Monster

Of course, we could have taken that 174 points and put it all into one monster, but a creature with 34-35 points each in Attack, Defense, Damage, Armor, and Hit Points would be just about unstoppable. For such creatures, we provide Advantages that can be paid for like any other Advantages (see Character creation in the main rules and Non-Human Characters in the Appendices). The Advantages come out of the total point value.

Some Sample Advantages

• Additional Attacks -- This is the ability to make more than one attack in a combat round. The cost is 10 times the number of attacks.

• Characteristic Drain -- The monster's attacks drain the target of characteristic points in one of the character's characteristics, such as ST or DX or IN. Something has to be capable of stopping and/or reversing the process. The cost is 25 points for every 1d6-1 the monster can drain with the attack. The cost is 40 if the monster can do this at range, and 50 if it can affect more than one target at once in a radius around itself. The cost is 75 if it can project the area of effect to elsewhere than around itself.

• Desolidification -- If the creature can escape into desolid state but cannot affect the real world if so, the cost is 20 points. If it can be desolid and still affect the real world, the cost is 50 points. And, of course, there has to be something that can affect the creature, such as holy magic or fire, or explosions, or something similar.

• Flight -- Cost is equal to the number of paces it can fly in a turn. The ability to hover and fight costs a flat 10 points.

• Immunity -- This can be some specific sort of attack, such as cold steel, or priestly magic, or fire magic, or mental attacks, or silver weapons. The cost of the effect depends on whether the creature takes no damage (hit Points) or no effect (neither Hit Points nor Stun), or even no Stun (as a zombie or golem might). The GM has to gauge this based on the situation. If hardly anyone in the world uses magic, then a creature with damage immunity to cold steel may have to pay as much as 50 points for the privilege. If everyone is a magician, then 20 points is probably enough.

• Magic Use – 'The monster can use Magic. The ability to use magic is 15 points. Each spell known is 1 point. Magic Skill for the spells is 10 plus 1 point per extra point put into the Magic Ability. Example: A dragon with spell use could be built with 15 points for the ability, 10 points for 10 spells, and 7 points to give it a spell ability of 17.'

• Regeneration -- Cost is equal to the number of Hit Points it can heal in a turn times 10 points.

• Teleport -- The ability to teleport costs 2 points for every pace it can teleport. The ability to teleport and attack in one round costs a flat 20 points extra.

Adjusting the Point Values

At the moment, these are estimates that need playtesting. And, of course, there is nothing that says that the GM has to match the point values of the PCs when creating monsters. Using more points or less points to make the challenge tougher or easier for the PCs is always permissible.