User:Ganteka Future/DrawingBoard6

=Awakened Animal Quest=

This is meant to be a less-than-serious introductory game with thematic elements similar to an 80s Saturday morning cartoon show or video game.

Quick Backstory
Gasp!

Unexpectedly, one morning, many (well okay, a few) of the animals of the kingdom of Buggel were "Awakened", becoming sentient and gaining personalities.

Apparently, the night before, the malcontent minotaur, Diabolical Jo, used an artifact called the Fairy Staff and went a little nuts with it, shooting animals all over the place with magic fairy energy and granting them sentience. He even broke into the king's zoo! On the day before Fiend's Day too! Some suspect he was drunk.

Anyhow, Diabolical Jo works for Great Centipede, the devilish bellringer, who plans to ring his devilish bell in his Devilish Belltower and call all the awakened animals to his service of evil with evil brainwashing.

He's tried this before last year, and got away with it, but thankfully for the citizens of Buggel, all he could wrangle for brainwashed minions was a herd of starved goats.

So this time, with some advance warning, King Myer was all like "Deploy the knights!", but apparently they couldn't get near the tower. So, the King's trusted aid and magical expert, Miss Eggplant went to do some research. She was promptly captured, but not before reporting back that only animals may venture forth near the Devilish Belltower.

Also, the annual day of superstition and dread magic is tomorrow, called Fiend's Day, leading many to believe that Great Centipede will ring the bell at midnight on this day when his evil is at its most powerful. Just like last year, but without all the goats this time.

So, the king's knights, trying not to be useless, instead gathered any nearby awakened animals and drafted them into the king's service to put a stop to Great Centipede's evil.

Are you a bad enough animal to stop Great Centipede and rescue Miss Eggplant before an evil belltower makes you do things against your will?

Character Creation
1. Pick an animal ranging from Tiny (the size of a cat) to Large (the size of a horse or cow). This doesn't have to be a DnD animal, since we won't be using those stats. Also keep in mind that this is a magical place, and if you want to play an oversized or undersized version of something, that works too (like a giant spider or a tiny elephant). For that matter, anything fancy that a royal-type dude like King Myer might keep in his magical zoo, like pink zebras or two-headed ostriches.

2. What kinds of things is your animal going to be good at? Prioritize a short list. The list should include basic things that your animal does, like swim, climb, sneak and whatnot. This will just be for your own personal reference and should help later.

Ability Score Array
3. Now, onto character creation. Take the ability score array from below and assign the numbers to your ability scores how you want.


 * 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 8

Racial Ability Score Modifier Packages
4. Next, pick a racial ability modifier package from the 3 options. Apply any changes to your ability scores.

Pick one:


 * Package A: None
 * Package B: +2/-2/-2 of choice
 * Package C: +2/+2/-2/-4 of choice

Size Starting Packages
5. Now, onto Size. Pick what size your animal is. Apply the size modifiers to your ability scores and add your bonus HP (if any). Take note now of that Speed and Damage stuff. We'll get to that.

Note: You can't pick Fine or Diminutive, they're just on the table for damage reference.

Racial Traits
6. Write down these racial traits:


 * Skill Focus: Gain this feat for any "usable untrained" skill of your choice.
 * Low-light Vision: A creature with low-light vision can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of shadowy illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
 * Stability: If your animal is a quadruped or otherwise stable, gain a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground). (If this does not apply to your animal, talk to me about this one and we'll come up with something for you as a replacement feature.)
 * Bonus Feat: Pick either Weapon Finesse or Power Attack.
 * Automatic Language: Buggel. It's like Common in Buggel. How convenient.

Aggressive or Defensive Package
7. Now decide if your animal is concerned with making attacks or not. Pick one of the two packages listed here:

2 Weapons & 1 Fancy Weapon

-OR-

1 Weapon, 1 Minor Weapon & +2 Natural Armor

Attack Methods
Your animal's weapons are built into it. Your animal is considered armed with its attacks at all times. You may strike with any of these weapons as an offhand weapon if you want, taking penalties as normal when doing so.

Physical attacks in DnD basically deal 3 kinds of damage: Bludgeoning, piercing or slashing. Most of the time it doesn't matter. There are only a few things that resist one kind of damage or the other.

You get to pick what your attacks are based on your animal's basic form. If your animal has claws, it can slash at things. Horns can be piercing or bludgeoning, depending on the horns. Animals can bite, stomp, ram, trample and whip with tails and do all kinds of stuff.

Bite attacks deal all three damage types, but are slightly weaker (treating the attack as though you were a size smaller). Bite attacks will deal triple damage on a critical hit instead of double.

Fancy Weapon: A fancy weapon deals either bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage, is treated as a masterwork weapon (gaining +1 to attack) and threatens a critical hit on a 19-20. Apply your strength modifier to attack and damage.

Weapon: A regular weapon deals either bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage. Apply your strength modifier to attack and damage.

Minor Weapon: A minor weapon deals either bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage. A minor attack deals damage as though you were a size smaller. Apply your strength modifier to attack and damage.

Movement Package
8. Movement is important, and here again are some packages to pick from. It references the Speed column listed under Size Starting Packages above.


 * Package A: Swim Speed at Speed
 * Package B: Climb Speed at Speed
 * Package C: Burrow Speed (no tunnel) at half Speed
 * Package D: Fly Speed (Good maneuverability) at Speed. Land Speed at -10 feet
 * Package E: Land Speed Bonus +10 feet

Bogey Chart
9. Now, the Bogey Chart. You'll need me (the DM) for this step. You can put this off until later, but I recommend you do it at this point. Anyways, the Bogey Chart involves rolling on some tables. There are 3 charts and 3 rolls in which you gain a minor flaw, a minor boon and a flavorful thing.

Finishing Up
10. Next up, you'll be picking a character class and filling in all that stuff into your character sheet. Since this is a short game, with a new player, we'll be playing at 2nd level. Just enough to get a few class abilities and stuff without (hopefully) being too overwhelming.

11. Do all your character class stuff. For HP, take the maximum for your first level's HD and then the "high average" for your second level. High averages are as follows: d4=3, d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, d12=7. Don't forget your bonus HP (you only get it once) as listed on the table above.

12. You guys won't have gear yet, so don't worry about that at this point.

13. Let me know in advance of what your character is (including alignment) so I can plan accordingly on game day. Have a little bit of a backstory. I can help where the setting is concerned with that.

House Rules of Note

 * Death: Death at -10. To stabilize when dying, you just have to roll a DC 10 Fortitude Save.
 * Fumbles: When you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, you miss. Roll a DC 10 Reflex Save to keep any additional attacks after that. If that rolls a 1, you drop your weapon unless you have locked gauntlets. If it's a natural weapon, your balance is instead thrown off and you are now flat-footed until your next turn.
 * Open Lock is now part of Disable Device: You may use either Intelligence or Dexterity as the key ability modifier for the skill.
 * Carrying Items: I really don't care if you have "backpack" written down, and you don't need to track weight with much concern, just keep it within reason.
 * Alchemy on the Go: If you want to take ranks in alchemy, you don't need to be a spellcaster. There's more rules to this and I will make them available upon request.
 * Eschew Materials: Spellcasters don't need a component pouch.

Other Rule-like notes:


 * Honor system rolls. Use your preferred dice-rolling method as available.
 * Limit out of character chatter and distractions.
 * There will likely be other rules. However, I forget them at hand.