The F&F now has stats!
The bestiary uses five difficulties—Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Brutal, Impossible—and every entry is scaled for a four-person party with an HP value, To-Hit (so like with your characters, you roll a d100 and add their To Hit modifier), and DMG per attack.
We kept the logic for stats as realistic as we could throughout, i.e., bigger beasts generally hit harder but are easier to hit. Small, fast creatures are harder to pin down, so their To-Hit is higher, but they usually hit for less. Flora and environmental hazards don’t “aim,” so their To-Hit is fixed at 2 with contact/ambient damage, and stones/woody flora (trees/constructs) have much higher HP than soft flora (like a tree vs. grass).
The entries also now have a hostility rating. Think of the hostility rating as what the creature would do if you came upon it in a field:
Be sure to look at these stats when considering hunting endeavours or even brushes with death. I.e., there should never be characters who have taken down a frost giant with their bare hands, or who were able to one-shot kill an adult dragon. In your threads, you can always say that the Wildwatch (or even the Syndicate of Steel) are there to help you out, and hopefully the hostility information will make it more clear when you can shrug about having a serendipity appear in one of your threads (aww, a frost fox!) and when you should haul ass (fuck, a dragon!)
These stats are what should be used during PQs/PQ+s/KQs. While you can make an encounter harder than what's listed here, it should never be easier. If you want creatures to be more or less hostile than what is given, you should have a good IC reason for it.
If anything feels unbalanced or wrong, let us know below. There are over 140+ F&F so making sure everything is balanced 100% proportionally to everything else might still take a bit of tweaking! Some of these things are meant to be more difficult than some people have been writing them as, so hopefully seeing their stats compared to other critters will be helpful!
The bestiary uses five difficulties—Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Brutal, Impossible—and every entry is scaled for a four-person party with an HP value, To-Hit (so like with your characters, you roll a d100 and add their To Hit modifier), and DMG per attack.
We kept the logic for stats as realistic as we could throughout, i.e., bigger beasts generally hit harder but are easier to hit. Small, fast creatures are harder to pin down, so their To-Hit is higher, but they usually hit for less. Flora and environmental hazards don’t “aim,” so their To-Hit is fixed at 2 with contact/ambient damage, and stones/woody flora (trees/constructs) have much higher HP than soft flora (like a tree vs. grass).
- Easy is scaled for parties around Level 2. A typical fight is about 2 rounds if your group stays on target, with roughly 100% player attacks hitting each round. The enemy hits less often than you do, and it takes about 3 enemy hits to mortally wound a character.
- Moderate is scaled for parties around Level 4. Expect around 3 rounds to finish an enemy with about 80% of player attacks landing each round. The enemy’s hit chance is roughly equal to yours, and about 2.5 enemy hits will kill a character.
- Difficult is scaled roughly for Levels 7–8. Plan on roughly 5 rounds when everyone is contributing (with only 3 of 4 player hits per round). Enemies here hit most of the time and may make multiple attacks or one big swing. It takes about 4 enemy hits to kill a character.
- Brutal is scaled roughly for Level 12. These are demanding fights that usually run 5–6 rounds. A solid enemy hit will drop a character in roughly 2–3 blows.
- Impossible is scaled for Level 15. These are long, end-game fights with very high HP and strong accuracy appropriate to that level, OR are things which by and large simply cannot be killed.
The entries also now have a hostility rating. Think of the hostility rating as what the creature would do if you came upon it in a field:
- N/A: This is a flora or a rock.
- Friendly: There's a good chance you could probably walk up and pet it!
- Flighty: If you try and get too close, it'll probably fuck off.
- Ambivalent: Doesn't really care that you're around, may or may not stick around.
- Will defend territory/young: Will become aggressive if you come too close to its space or its young
- Will attack if provoked: If you chuck a rock at it, get too close, or are otherwise threatening, it'll attack
- Extremely aggressive: As soon as it sees you, it's going to start stalking you/charging/coming at you
- Will attack on sight/to the death: You might not have any warning it's coming, and it won't relent until one of you is dead.
Be sure to look at these stats when considering hunting endeavours or even brushes with death. I.e., there should never be characters who have taken down a frost giant with their bare hands, or who were able to one-shot kill an adult dragon. In your threads, you can always say that the Wildwatch (or even the Syndicate of Steel) are there to help you out, and hopefully the hostility information will make it more clear when you can shrug about having a serendipity appear in one of your threads (aww, a frost fox!) and when you should haul ass (fuck, a dragon!)
These stats are what should be used during PQs/PQ+s/KQs. While you can make an encounter harder than what's listed here, it should never be easier. If you want creatures to be more or less hostile than what is given, you should have a good IC reason for it.
If anything feels unbalanced or wrong, let us know below. There are over 140+ F&F so making sure everything is balanced 100% proportionally to everything else might still take a bit of tweaking! Some of these things are meant to be more difficult than some people have been writing them as, so hopefully seeing their stats compared to other critters will be helpful!
