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TNE Only: Testing the limits of animal creation

TheDark

SOC-12
I have a bad habit of using games in wildly unintended ways. Since a couple of my friends have been on a fantasy kick, I decided to be evil with the TNE animal rules and see just how nasty of a creature I could make. Note that I'm not actually rolling table results, I'm picking the result I want, but they're all plausible (if, in some cases, wildly improbable).

Step 1: World Size and Atmosphere
For pure giggles, I'm going with a Medium world and Dense atmosphere, to get +3 DM in Step 6 (I could have gone with a Small world for a +4 DM, but it turns out it's not a Small world after all).

Step 2: Terrain Types - N/A

Step 3: Animal Type and Weight DM
Again, for bonus, I'm going with Prairie/Plains/Steppe, which is +4 Type and +1 Weight.

Step 4: Animal Encounter/Category Table
Carnivore.

Step 5: Animal Type and Quantity
With a +4 bonus on this table, rolling a 6 on Carnivore modifies up to a 10, which is Killer.

Step 6: Special Attributes
The +3 DM on the Other column works out nicely, giving a 14 (F) result. Our creature's a Flyer with no size modifier.

Step 7: Animal Size
From Step 3, there's a +1 to this roll, and I'm milking it for all it's worth, using boxcars to get me a 13 (roll again at +6) and another boxcars for a total of 19. Our flying creature is 40,000 kilograms, has 13d20 hits (average 136.5), gets a x2d6 modifier to whatever damage we get later, has +3 to armor DM (Step 11), but suffers -4 to Initiative (Step 9).

Step 8: Animal Weaponry
2d6+5 gives a range of 7-17 for this roll. An 11 gives Claws and Teeth at +2 to hit, 1d6 damage (x2d6 from Step 7, so on an average roll 7d6 damage), Pen 2, and Long melee range.

Step 9: Initiative
With 1d6+2-4 (for Carnivore and Size 19, respectively), this isn't a swift striker, averaging only a 1 or 2 for initiative.

Step 10: To-Hit Number
Being a Carnivore and having the Step 8 modifier means the roll is 3d6+2, so the average To-Hit Number is 13. Not shabby.

Step 11: Animal Armor
With +3 DM from size and -1 DM for being a carnivore, it's just barely possible to get Armor 3 by rolling a 10 (modified to 12) for "roll again at +6", then rolling a 12 (modified to 20) for Armor 3.

Step 12: Animal Behaviors
Using the dice, behavior should be A13, F4, so it'll attack 65% of the time, flee 7% of the time, and ignore the party 28% of the time. Speed is 3d20, which averages 32.

So, we end up with a 40 tonne flying carnivore that attacks with claws and teeth with Initiative 2, To-Hit 13, 7d6 damage, Pen 2, and Armor 3.

And yes, I just created a dragon for TNE, which can exist either on a Medium world with a Dense atmosphere or a Small world with a Standard atmosphere.

For a Medium world with Standard atmo, the largest size is 11 (since the best result in Step 6 is F-2). Hits drop to 6d20, Damage becomes 3d6, Pen is 1, Initiative is 4, and Armor is 2 (Head 3). This is only a 1600-kilogram dragon, rather less terrifying than the dense atmosphere beast, though obviously still dangerous.
 
So, we end up with a 40 tonne flying carnivore that attacks with claws and teeth with Initiative 2, To-Hit 13, 7d6 damage, Pen 2, and Armor 3.

And yes, I just created a dragon for TNE, which can exist either on a Medium world with a Dense atmosphere or a Small world with a Standard atmosphere.

I hope it has some kind of helium lift bladders somewhere! Or hydrogen, they can use it to belch fire.
 
I hope it has some kind of helium lift bladders somewhere! Or hydrogen, they can use it to belch fire.

The general rule of thumb for birds is that they can lift 25 kg/m^2 in flight. Since the dragon needs either a Dense atmosphere or Small planet (with concomitant lower gravity), for the sake of argument let's assume it can lift 50 kg/m^2. That means it needs 800 m^2 of wing area, or about a 50 meter wingspan with 20 meter length (allowing for 20% loss due to being curved instead of a perfect rectangle. It basically has the wingspan of a B-52 with longer (front-to-back) wings, and masses 1/3 the B-52's loaded weight. The Maksim Gorki would be another possible comparison; it has slightly more wingspan, about 60% of the wing area, and is 2 tonnes heavier than this creature.
 
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