Natural weapon damage relative to size

[Soldier of Od]

Hi all. Like some other people on the boards it always annoyed me a bit that claw and teeth damages end up looking a bit incongruous when you alter the size level of your character. One of my players rolled up a size level two elephant with tusks that do 5D6 damage. While my size level fourteen pheasant has a beak that only does 1D4 damage. Just doesn’t seem right.

The standard response – that the P.S. bonuses and minuses for size levels cover this – is not sufficient in my opinion. The changes to P.S. occur anyway when just using fists – the extra strength doesn’t factor in the fact that the claws will be bigger on a bigger animal. I don’t think that anyone is suggesting that if I make a size level ten mouse that the claws will remain only a millimetre or two long as on a normal mouse. And besides, P.S. bonus is not added to bite attacks, so that argument falls short when talking about teeth and beaks.

With that in mind, I have come up with an optional idea that involves altering natural weapon damages based on size level. I have divided up the size levels into five ranges.

Size level ranges:
Tiny – 1-2
Small – 3-6
Medium – 7-12
Large – 13-16
Giant – 17-20

Please see the tables below. To find out which table you need to refer to, just look at the normal damage of the natural weapons purchased and assume that to be the damage at size level ten. You can then refer to the relevant table to see if there are any changes at your final size level.

e.g. I roll up an alligator and pay 5 Bio-E for 2D4 damage teeth. Looking at the tables below I can see that 2D4 damage leads me to table 3. My final build leaves me at size level eight; therefore the teeth damage remains unchanged at 2D4. Should I choose to shrink down to level six to gain further Bio-E my bite damage would be reduced to 1D6. If I spend Bio-E to grow to, say, size level fourteen, the damage would increase to 2D6.

For the sake of completeness, I have included pretty much all damage roll possibilities in the tables below, including a couple that are relevant only to the old supplements or Rifter articles. I included some examples for reference:

Table 1.
Standard damage: 1D4
Fists, small claws or talons, small teeth or beak.
1-2: 1 point
3-6: 1D4
7-12: 1D4
13-16: 1D6
17-20: 1D8

Table 2.
Standard damage: 1D6
Badger teeth, duck bill, parrot beak, wolf running claws.
1-2: 2 points
3-6: 1D4
7-12: 1D6
13-16: 2D4
17-20: 2D6

Table 3.
Standard damage: 1D8 or 2D4
Badger claws, large beak, fox teeth, deer hooves, goat horns, small tusks.
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 1D6
7-12: 1D8/2D4
13-16: 2D6
17-20: 2D8

Table 4.
Standard damage: 1D10
Anteater claws, kangaroo claws, komodo teeth, single rhino horn
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 1D8
7-12: 1D10
13-16: 1D12
17-20: 2D8

Table 5.
Standard damage: 2D6
Heavy bear claws, cougar claws, beaver gnawing teeth, raptor talons, horse hooves, moose antlers.
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 2D4
7-12: 2D6
13-16: 2D8
17-20: 3D6

Table 6.
Standard damage: 3D4
Small raptor beak.
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 2D4
7-12: 3D4
13-16: 4D4
17-20: 5D4

Table 7.
Standard damage: 2D8
Rhino horns, Wildebeest hooves, yak hooves.
1-2: 1D6
3-6: 2D6
7-12: 2D8
13-16: 3D6
17-20: 4D6

Table 8.
Standard damage: 3D6
Large lion claws or teeth, eagle beak or talons, crocodile teeth, bull horns.
1-2: 1D6
3-6: 2D6
7-12: 3D6
13-16: 4D6
17-20: 5D6

Table 9.
Standard damage: 4D6
Shark teeth.
1-2: 2D4
3-6: 3D6
7-12: 4D6
13-16: 5D6
17-20: 6D6

Table 10.
Standard damage: 5D6
Elephant tusks.
1-2: 2D6
3-6: 4D6
7-12: 5D6
13-16: 6D6
17-20: 1D4x10

Note: if the normal damage listed includes a bonus to the damage roll (e.g. a wolf’s bite may do 1D8+2 or 2D6+4 damage), then that bonus should be added to the dice roll regardless of size level. E.g. the wolf gets running claws doing 1D6+1 damage. So the player should refer to table 2 as normal for any natural weapon that does 1D6 damage. If he ends up at size level ten, the claws will do 1D6+1 damage; at size level 5 they would do 1D4+1 damage; at size level 13 they would to 2D4+1 damage, and so on.)

Opinions? Useful? Totally unnecessary? Interesting but perhaps you would choose different ranges/damages? Please let me know.

[Rali]

The book does have a table that modifies PS down to -12 at Growth Step 1 and up to +19 at Step 25.

Source: AtB2, pg 21.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

Hi all. Like some other people on the boards it always annoyed me a bit that claw and teeth damages end up looking a bit incongruous when you alter the size level of your character. One of my players rolled up a size level two elephant with tusks that do 5D6 damage. While my size level fourteen pheasant has a beak that only does 1D4 damage. Just doesn’t seem right.

The standard response – that the P.S. bonuses and minuses for size levels cover this – is not sufficient in my opinion. The changes to P.S. occur anyway when just using fists – the extra strength doesn’t factor in the fact that the claws will be bigger on a bigger animal. I don’t think that anyone is suggesting that if I make a size level ten mouse that the claws will remain only a millimetre or two long as on a normal mouse. And besides, P.S. bonus is not added to bite attacks, so that argument falls short when talking about teeth and beaks.

With that in mind, I have come up with an optional idea that involves altering natural weapon damages based on size level. I have divided up the size levels into five ranges.

Size level ranges:7
Tiny – 1-2
Small – 3-6
Medium – 7-12
Large – 13-16
Giant – 17-20

Please see the tables below. To find out which table you need to refer to, just look at the normal damage of the natural weapons purchased and assume that to be the damage at size level ten. You can then refer to the relevant table to see if there are any changes at your final size level.

e.g. I roll up an alligator and pay 5 Bio-E for 2D4 damage teeth. Looking at the tables below I can see that 2D4 damage leads me to table 3. My final build leaves me at size level eight; therefore the teeth damage remains unchanged at 2D4. Should I choose to shrink down to level six to gain further Bio-E my bite damage would be reduced to 1D6. If I spend Bio-E to grow to, say, size level fourteen, the damage would increase to 2D6.

For the sake of completeness, I have included pretty much all damage roll possibilities in the tables below, including a couple that are relevant only to the old supplements or Rifter articles. I included some examples for reference:

Table 1.
Fists, small claws or talons, small teeth or beak.
1-2: 1 point
3-6: 1D4
7-12: 1D4
13-16: 1D6
17-20: 1D8

Table 2.
Badger teeth, duck bill, parrot beak, wolf running claws.
1-2: 2 points
3-6: 1D4
7-12: 1D6
13-16: 2D4
17-20: 2D6

Table 3.
Badger claws, large beak, fox teeth, deer hooves, goat horns, small tusks.
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 1D6
7-12: 1D8/2D4
13-16: 2D6
17-20: 2D8

Table 4.
Anteater claws, kangaroo claws, komodo teeth, single rhino horn
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 1D8
7-12: 1D10
13-16: 1D12
17-20: 2D8

Table 5.
Heavy bear claws, cougar claws, beaver gnawing teeth, raptor talons, horse hooves, moose antlers.
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 2D4
7-12: 2D6
13-16: 2D8
17-20: 3D6

Table 6.
Small raptor beak.
1-2: 1D4
3-6: 2D4
7-12: 3D4
13-16: 4D4
17-20: 5D4

Table 7.
Rhino horns, Wildebeest hooves, yak hooves.
1-2: 1D6
3-6: 2D6
7-12: 2D8
13-16: 3D6
17-20: 4D6

Table 8.
Large lion claws or teeth, eagle beak or talons, crocodile teeth, bull horns.
1-2: 1D6
3-6: 2D6
7-12: 3D6
13-16: 4D6
17-20: 5D6

Table 9.
Shark teeth.
1-2: 2D4
3-6: 3D6
7-12: 4D6
13-16: 5D6
17-20: 6D6

Table 10.
Elephant tusks.
1-2: 2D6
3-6: 4D6
7-12: 5D6
13-16: 6D6
17-20: 1D4x10

Note: if the normal damage listed includes a bonus to the damage roll (e.g. a wolf’s bite may do 1D8+2 or 2D6+4 damage), then that bonus should be added to the dice roll regardless of size level. E.g. the wolf gets running claws doing 1D6+1 damage. So the player should refer to table 2 as normal for any natural weapon that does 1D6 damage. If he ends up at size level ten, the claws will do 1D6+1 damage; at size level 5 they would do 1D4+1 damage; at size level 13 they would to 2D4+1 damage, and so on.)

Opinions? Useful? Totally unnecessary? Interesting but perhaps you would choose different ranges/damages? Please let me know.

Maybe it's because i am tired. But i can't figure out how to use your chart. More explanation please.

[Soldier of Od]

The book does have a table that modifies PS down to -12 at Growth Step 1 and up to +19 at Step 25.

Source: AtB2, pg 21.

I know. I did mention the modifications to P.S. in my post. And then went on to say that this was nothing to do with P.S., but to do with the sizes of the natural weapons you have. Bigger size means bigger claws and teeth - just like in the equipment section where it says larger characters will use larger and more damaging weapons. P.S. will increase/decrease whether you have natural weapons or are just using your fists. And a P.S. of 15 or below ceases to have any impact on damage. Note that P.S. has no bearing on damage from bite attacks.

Nate - sorry if I wasn't clear! I'll try again. Example: I roll up a wolverine and purchase teeth that normally do 2D6 damage. To find which table I need to refer to I look for the table that has 2D6 at size level 10 (covered by the mid range, 7-12). I can see that is table 5. To help with this, I have edited my original post to include the standard damage at the top of each table for easier reference. probably should have done that first! So, when I have finished my build, I refer to table 5 to see if I should make any adjustments to the bite damage based on my final size. If I am in the mid-range of 7-12, I leave the damage as it stands at 2D6; if I used bio-E to grow larger, my teeth also became larger, and will do more damage: 2D8 at levels 13-16, or even more at the highest levels; if I finished up on the small side of things, my teeth are smaller and therefore do less damage: 2d4 if I am level 3-6, and only 1D4 if I end up as a tiny level 1-2 wolverine. Does that help?

The point being that it makes sense to me that a bite from a seven-inch long wolverine should be less of a bother than a bite from a seven-foot long wolverine.

[Rali]

I know. I did mention the modifications to P.S. in my post. And then went on to say that this was nothing to do with P.S., but to do with the sizes of the natural weapons you have.

I'd forgotten that Palladium doesn't include damage modifiers for low attribute scores (I've been playing to much Pathfire), which really should be addressed in future releases.

[Soldier of Od]

I know. I did mention the modifications to P.S. in my post. And then went on to say that this was nothing to do with P.S., but to do with the sizes of the natural weapons you have.

I'd forgotten that Palladium doesn't include damage modifiers for low attribute scores (I've been playing to much Pathfire), which really should be addressed in future releases.

I agree. Same for all the attributes. Someone here on the boards has their own modified version that includes bonuses and minuses right down to attributes of 1. It works well. I can't remember who it was. Hendrik led me to it.

[Nightmask]

Having adjusted damage for things like claws based on Size Level is a pretty good idea, a 1' tall mouse compared to a 6' mouse shouldn't be doing the same claw or bite damage between them. A good posting here!

[Soldier of Od]

Having adjusted damage for things like claws based on Size Level is a pretty good idea, a 1' tall mouse compared to a 6' mouse shouldn't be doing the same claw or bite damage between them. A good posting here!

Thanks, Nightmask!

How do the size ranges and modifiers look to you?

[Nightmask]

Having adjusted damage for things like claws based on Size Level is a pretty good idea, a 1' tall mouse compared to a 6' mouse shouldn't be doing the same claw or bite damage between them. A good posting here!

Thanks, Nightmask!

How do the size ranges and modifiers look to you?

Not too bad, although I'm the sort who thinks that the damage would scale up higher for those larger size levels (size level 20 mouse only doing 1d8? Don't think so.).

[Soldier of Od]

Having adjusted damage for things like claws based on Size Level is a pretty good idea, a 1' tall mouse compared to a 6' mouse shouldn't be doing the same claw or bite damage between them. A good posting here!

Thanks, Nightmask!

How do the size ranges and modifiers look to you?

Not too bad, although I'm the sort who thinks that the damage would scale up higher for those larger size levels (size level 20 mouse only doing 1d8? Don't think so.).

Yeah, I could have gone that way. But then it gets a bit much at the higher initial damages. maybe I could re-jig the numbers to have bigger differences at the higher size levels on the first few tables. But I didn't want to go too far away from the original numbers - the lion's claws should still do more than the mouse's claws, even when the two characters are similar in height.

[Stone Gargoyle]

I like this. Damages are often not adjusted for the differing sizes of the natural weapons. I have the same issue with some of the natural weaponry for animals in the Monsters & Animals book for PFRPG.

[green.nova343]

I know. I did mention the modifications to P.S. in my post. And then went on to say that this was nothing to do with P.S., but to do with the sizes of the natural weapons you have.

I'd forgotten that Palladium doesn't include damage modifiers for low attribute scores (I've been playing to much Pathfire), which really should be addressed in future releases.

I agree. Same for all the attributes. Someone here on the boards has their own modified version that includes bonuses and minuses right down to attributes of 1. It works well. I can't remember who it was. Hendrik led me to it.

Ok...sorry to burst the bubble, but I'm thinking this is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't actually exist.

First off, let's take the Mutant Tiger. SL 15, base Bio-E 5 points. Assuming you don't pick any human features, you'll end up being SL 13 (2D6 S.D.C. Retractable Claws) or SL 12 (3D6 S.D.C. Retractible Claws), because your base 5 Bio-E were spent on Telepathic Transmission (required if you picked Speech: None). However, this means you can't stand upright, you can only talk telepathically...& you can only pick from five skills max (climbing, prowl, running, swimming & wrestling) -- not even any HTH skills. Going for at least Partial Speech/Hands/Biped drops you down 2 more SL (11 for 2D6 claws, 10 for 3D6 claws), but you're still stuck with the skill penalty (-20% to all physical-based skills except the prior 5) & have trouble moving when upright. So even with the hefty P.S. bonus (+4 for TIgers, +4/+5 for SL 10/11), you're going to average a higher P.S. than a human, but you're paying for it in other places. You want a mutant animal like our favorite youth-oriented reptiles, you need Full Biped/Speech/Hands, which drops you down even more (SL 7 or SL8), although P.S. is still higher (+5/+6). And yes, these claws are based on the HU2 animal stats.

As for below-average PS for smaller SLs, they have officially done so. Rifts Ultimate Edition (possibly also BTS2, will have to check that) has specific rules on how low attributes affect performance...including P.S. below 8. Suffice it to say, by the time you reach P.S. 2 (which is quite possible for a size 1/size 2 animal), your punches will only do 1 S.D.C. (kicks do 1D4), HTH weapons do half their normal damage, and no damage bonuses will apply (no O.C.C., HTH training, or other bonuses). Even at P.S. 5-7, you don't get any damage bonuses from HTH training or O.C.C. bonuses; P.S. 3-4 gives you half damage from punches & weapons. For claws & other natural weapons, they can probably be treated as handheld weapons (i.e. half damage for P.S. 4 or less). Again, let's consider the Mutant Mouse (SL 1, 80 Bio-E). Full Biped/Hands/Speech, plus Climbing Claws (1D6) & Biting Teeth (1D6) costs 45 Bio-E, so you can increase up to SL 8 (P.S. +2); however, if you want to max out with Digging, Nightvision, Advanced Smell & Advanced Hearing, you're stuck at SL 1 (P.S. -12, I.Q. -8, P.E. -4)... so you're going to be super-dumb & lucky to even have a P.S. 3, let alone P.S. 8. At best, then, even a high-level character with HTH Martial Arts at best will do 1D6 with the claws, more likely 1D3.