Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ittyan 04-16-07, 12:57 PM	So part of my current campaign has the PCs rounding up escaped animals as a favor to the Emperor. I've laid out the basics for how lassos will work and what happens afterwards, but I'm worried that it might be way too complicated. Any thoughts would be most appreciated -- I tried to focus on realism but it's also supposed to be a fun diversion from the main storyline. Here's what I came up with: Mount: Modified warhorse from MM. speed 60', AC 13 STR +4 Weapon: Lasso - Exotic weapon. Threat range from melee to 15' (or is only 10' better?). Uncalled shots have a 50% miss chance, but called shots get -4 to the attack roll. Combat works as follows: Make a touch attack of one of the following types: 1) -4 for uncalled, 50% miss attack, range attack only (throwin' the rope at the critter & hoping) 2) -8 for called, range attack only (aiming w/ an exotic weapon is tricky) 3) -4 for melee (sidling up along the critter & dropping the loop around its neck is easier, but riskier -- will probably have either a DC15 ride/balance check involved) On a successful touch attach, the rider and the animal make opposed strength checks. Add the mount's strength modifier to the rider's check. If two or more riders are lassoin' the same critter, instead add their combined strength scores (rider1 + mount1 + rider2 + mount2) to the strength check. If the rider wins, then the animal is considered "caught" and may be led back to the pen. If the animal wins, make a DC15 Ride check to stay in the saddle or risk being pulled off and suffer 1d6 falling damage. A DC15 tumble check negates the damage Every time the animal wins, there is a 10% chance of rope snappage. Make a DC10 reflex save to let go of the rope. Fail, and you are dragged behind the animal, taking 1d6+1 for every 10' over 30' (1d6+2 @ 40', 1d6+3 @ 50', etc). As only one of the 7 PCs has any ranks in or feats related to ride, I'm thinking of outfitting the mounts with a military saddle (+2 to stay in) and a magic cowboy hat (+4 to all ride checks). Here's what I've got for animals they'll be facing (all pulled from the MM & tweaked a bit), listed with speed, touch AC, and STR modifier. There will be two of each (I figure with 7 PCs that 26 critters should be enough) Wolf 40' AC 11 +5 Impala 50' AC 10 +3 Rhino 30' AC 9 +8 Hippo 20' AC 9 +8 Elephant 30' AC 12 +14 Buffalo 40' AC 10 +6 Lion 40' AC 11 +6 Crocodile 20' AC 11 +6 Bear 40' AC 10 +8 Gorilla 30'/30' (climb) AC 10 +8 Cheetah 70' AC 11 +6 Giraffe 40' AC 13 +4 Zebra 50' AC 11 +4 If they get thru that pretty easily, I was thinking of having any or all of the following also attack them: 7-headed Hydra 20' 9 +4/head Velociraptor 60' 11 +4 T-rex 40' 11 +9 The last set of animals won't attack the riders (and the emperor will emplore the PCs to not use magic on the animals) but this set of animals will attack the PCs and their mounts. The PCs all have STR mods from +2 to +4, DEX from +1 to +5, and BAB from 3 to 7. Thanks to anyone who slogged thru all that mess! You deserve a :cookie:
Araes 04-16-07, 02:19 PM	So the emperor doesn't want them to use magic on the animals at all? I was going to say that if any of your party are magic users, I could see them putting the whole lot to sleep and not messing around with the lassos, since they're horribly hard to use for characters with only BAB 3-7. On a lot of those monsters, with the BAB and modifiers listed, assuming no other bonuses, they're going to have 25% hit chances every time with the lassos. They'll probably be a bit better than that, maybe 30-40, but still, that's pretty low. Also, if I was a player in the game, I'd be skeptical of the concept of having to round up 26 animals for an emperor. For a local knight, or land owner, maybe. But the emperor? Doesn't someone that high up and powerful have staff people to do this kind of thing? P.S. There's an odd Noah vibe coming from the adventure. Is it male / female pairs too? Heh, my players would probably wonder if I was about to flood them if I did something like this. There's actually an RPGNow product called rope that covers the use of lariats. Its only $2.00. Basically, they treat it as a ranged touch attack. If you succeed, the character is entangled. You then have to hold onto the rope and you can do more complex things like try to tie them up with the Use Rope skill.
ittyan 04-17-07, 03:07 AM	So the emperor doesn't want them to use magic on the animals at all? I was going to say that if any of your party are magic users, I could see them putting the whole lot to sleep and not messing around with the lassos, since they're horribly hard to use for characters with only BAB 3-7. On a lot of those monsters, with the BAB and modifiers listed, assuming no other bonuses, they're going to have 25% hit chances every time with the lassos. They'll probably be a bit better than that, maybe 30-40, but still, that's pretty low. That's what I was worried about. I figured out the hit percentages for each character, and it was anywhere from 30% to 60%, depending on their stats. What would make it better? Removing or lowering the uncalled miss chance? Removing the -4 for called shots? Maybe the hats also give lasso proficiency? At the same time I don't want this to be so easy that it's boring. I also like the idea of possibly being dragged along behind a stampeding buffalo after the rope snaps. Also, if I was a player in the game, I'd be skeptical of the concept of having to round up 26 animals for an emperor. For a local knight, or land owner, maybe. But the emperor? Doesn't someone that high up and powerful have staff people to do this kind of thing? So they're staying with the emperor when an earthquake hits in the middle of the night: flattening barracks, leveling whole parts of the castle, and generally sending the whole area into chaos. In the imperial meagerie (which contains a ton more monsters than this) the cages break and all the monsters escape and are running loose. The surviving animal trainers are all busy dealing with the dangerous monsters (the dinosaurs, etc.) so the emperor turns to the adventurers for help with the safer ones. Since the monsters are his personal pets, he doesn't want any strange magics to be used on them. Emperors are picky sometimes. That's the in-game reason. Though this doesn't mean they can't use magic on each other (cat's grace, etc.). The real reason is I thought it'd be fun for everyone to get mounts later on in the campaign (as a sort of thank you from the emperor) and so the roundup would act as a training exercise for the upcoming battle. My playgroup is pretty casual so slight leaps in logic and occasional randomness is more acceptable than it might be in more serious groups. There's actually an RPGNow product called rope that covers the use of lariats. Its only $2.00. Basically, they treat it as a ranged touch attack. If you succeed, the character is entangled. You then have to hold onto the rope and you can do more complex things like try to tie them up with the Use Rope skill. That's more or less what I was imagining. Any specifics on how it works? There aren't any good gaming shops anywhere near me. P.S. There's an odd Noah vibe coming from the adventure. Is it male / female pairs too? Heh, my players would probably wonder if I was about to flood them if I did something like this. No, that's just a coincidence. The tube of awesome plastic jungle animals I bought at Toys'r'Us came in sets of two. I wish I was that clever..
GoriceXII 04-17-07, 03:37 AM	The players may also use nets, hire expert hunters to assist or what have you...they may not use lassos and frankly with some of those beasts I sure as hell wouldn't bother. And freaking DINOSAURS? Are these from the zoo too?