Prep-As-Practice
Shortened to PAP, I guess. There seems to be two major sides that come to blows from time to time: Prep vs ZeroPrep. Having observed some of the skirmishes, I believe the NoPrep side favors Efficient Prep and avoiding PrepHell; a state where a game master spends all their timing thinking and zero time doing. I’d like to explore a facet of this that came up during a couple side interactions: Prep-As-Practice.
Prep-As-Practice shares similarities to maintenance, drills, or training; the idea that you should be practicing and honing the foundations of your skills at regular intervals. For a game master, this could take form in generating dungeons with Appendix A, prerolling encounters (recommended in ACKS), or managing downtime actions from your players. That last one can be especially useful since DT actions can run the gamut from dealing with ACKS II’s arbitrage rules to learning about Domain Incursions and Fortifications.
What I’d like to do is occasionally share my experiences and log my own practice, to be criticized by the community or reviewed by myself later. Since I’ve had a downswing in players and sessions are in limbo, it is a good opportunity to work on improving my skills. To that end, let’s try out the Monster Creation Rules!
Monster Creation: Fuecko
Monster Creation is located in Chapter 4 of the ACKS II Monstrous Manual and appears to be a pretty involved process at first glance. I’ve never done it so it’s a perfect opportunity for PAP.
To begin, the framework. Wendyl the Mad is a Warlock obsessed with fire and possibly (maybe, definitely) possessed by some destructive entity from beyond the veil. His servants are Fanatic Kobolds (more similar to 5e than ACKS) with a penchant for explosions, military oil, and kamikaze strikes. While looking over the troops in the Revised Rules, I spotted Weasel Riders. It got me thinking, what if Wendyl’s delve into the veil gifted him with possession/knowledge of riding lizards that could scale walls and spit fire? Fire Geckos. Since I like butchering Spanish due to my setting, we’ll call them Fueckos.
Giant Geckos have the abilities we want, and we can probably steal the Hellhound Fiery Breath (Note: I looked at dragon breath and hoo boy that would’ve been well over in terms of cost/power). Now, it’d probably be easy enough to make a few adjustments and tack them together using the XP chart. Since I’d like to know more about the system’s workings, we’ll continue the process per Ch4.
Type: Giant Animal, Hit Dice: 2, Save F2, Body Type: Lacertine (BME 1.35, CCF .020, AC+1, Bite, 120mv). This puts our Fuecko at 57lbs; making it man-sized. It should also be less than 8’ long so… Let’s go with 5’ so they can raid enemy tunnels. Oh, but they need to carry enough weight to support our Kobold riders! Checking the formula means we end up with 1.14 st! Alas, our Kobs are 4 st.
We have hit a wall and I believe that means we have two options: special ability to increase carry/load or adjust our Body Type. Skimming the latter gives us the option of Basilicine (BME 1.38, CCF 0.066, AC +0, Bite, 60mv). This results in 62lbs and 4 st. load, not to mention the significant drop in speed and loss of AC. Since HD affects our numbers, what if we bump it up by 1? That leaves Lacertine at 2st and Basilicine at 7st. Maybe we can get some speed back with a special ability. Onward!
Looks like our AC is going to be 2.4 (0.8 per HD, 0 for body type); which drops to 2. It looks like our bite attack with be 2d3+1 as well (the chart here is a godsend). According to special senses, it looks like our boys will have Night Vision and one other; let’s go with Acute Vision.
Gotta say, the basics are pretty easy (minus the hiccup)! Then again, our fiery friend is pretty simple. Next we need to pick some special abilities. Since we mentioned the Hell Hound’s breath earlier, we’ll use it as a model. Thematically, our geckos will lob sticky masses of flaming goo from their bellies. That should be welcomed by military oil carrying adventurers everywhere! Before sorting that out, let’s see if there’s any other options worth adding. The obvious is Immune vs Fire. It looks like the closest analogue is Any 3 for 4#. Seeing as we have a split between normal and extraordinary, Fire would count as 2 so we need one more, perhaps Mundane Cold?
Next we get to take an unexpected detour for Natural Climbers (Giant Gecko) and Fiery Breath (Hellhound). These calculations use the spell creation rules in the Judge’s Journal. This also means we might be able to find a solution to our speed problem! Let’s start there.
Movement Spell: x2 normal movement (5), climb sheer surface (12), normal carrying capacity while affected (x1), Range: Self (x0.75), Duration (?), Arcane (x1). The result is 12.75 or 9.56 (pending duration x1 or 0.75; this is a weird one because At-Will usage and no “permanent” spell modifier).
Blast Spell: 1d4 dmg/lvl (20), ignite flammable (10), elemental (x1), range 15 (0.5?), instant (x1), Target 1 (x1), save for half (0.75), Arcane (x1). Result 11.25. This makes it a Lv2 spell and 4#.
Totaling up we get 12#, which is 1.5* that rounds up to 2* (or **). This is used to calculate our XP so our 3** Fuecko are worth 80 XP. For Organization, we’re going to keep it simple and steal Giant Gecko. So they appear as 1d6 or a lair of 1d10 (25%). The creatures are still just geckos, even if granted superior firepower; this will give us a training modifier of -2 and a period of 10 months.
We’re on to sorting out magical components. Since we’re a hybrid of Hellhound and Giant Gecko, let’s go halves: Heart (40gp, 3/6st: Fan of Flames, Energy Protection: Fire); Feet (40gp, 3/6st, Spider Climbing, Armor +1). The total should probably weigh 1 1/6, but I’ll keep it simple for myself.
We’re on the final stretch, calculating age, BR, et al. I imagine (hope) most of this will just be a retread of Giant Gecko. It’s pretty late now so I’ll have to revisit when I find time.
Trained Value: 900
BR: .0375
TT: None
Fuecko
A portmanteau of Fuego and Gecko, these 6-legged creatures serve as evidence of the chaos of wild magic and breaches of the veil. Fueckos are typically deep reds with orange to yellow mottling and prefer hotter habitats. They are reported to be a common sight around places infused with Elemental Fire. Fueckos can lob a ball of molten goo at a target within 15' that deals 3d4 extraordinary fire damage and ignites flammables (save for half). Being creatures touched by the veil, they are immune to mundane cold, as well as mundane and extraordinary fire damage.
(Since time of writing, I have discovered that calculating the Battle Rating for a man-sized “cavalry” type may be more complex than expected. All part of Prep-As-Practice!)
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