[Creature] Lizard, Noxious

[Tattered Rags]

Looking for some feedback on this one. Going to throw it at my players in their first session in a few weeks. I borrowed the stats from the wolves in Masks of Fear. Please let me know if you think it's a good challenge for 5 first circle characters, and in what quantity.

Note that the disease is more a plot hook than anything else, but could catch an unwary PC.


Exuding an overpowering odor, noxious lizards like to make their nests in refuse and garbage, much like their cousins the plague lizards. Also like the plague lizards, noxious lizards spread disease, but only through their bite. This disease is magical in nature and highly resistant to treatment, as a connection to the lizard after infection sustains it. This disease has a rapid onset, is highly communicable (which can be blocked from spreading effectively if quarantined early), and is fatal. These lizards can also produce a spray of odorous liquid capable of debilitating threats.
These are horror-tainted lizards.

Challenge: Novice (First Circle)?
DEX: 6 Initiative: 7 Unconsciousness: 17
STR: 4 Physical Defense: 9 Death Rating: 21
TOU: 4 Mystic Defense: 7 Wound Threshold: 6
PER: 5 Social Defense: 8 Knockdown: 6
WIL: 4 Physical Armor: 3 Recovery Tests: 1
CHA: 4 Mystic Armor: 2
Movement: 8
Actions: 1; Bite: 8 (10); Claws 8 (8)

Powers:
Creature Power (10, Standard, Stink Spray)
Climbing (10): As the skill, Player's Guide, p. 314.
Disease (10): A victim bitten by a noxious lizard is exposed to the disease it carries in pustules in its mouth. The disease is Step 10 [Onset: 8 hours, Interval: 6/12 hours]. This disease is often fatal if not cured within a few days. Boils and festering pustules appear on the victim, and it is highly communicable. Touching or being in the same room as a victim once they start presenting causes infection. This disease is magical in nature and is tied to all of the lizards in the nest. In order to cure the disease, one must kill every lizard connected to it or travel at least 60 miles away from the source of infection (lizard or other victims). Due to the magical nature, Astral sight can reveal the magical threads connecting victims to each other and the lizards. Astral Sight (9) will reveal the threads from the patient zero to the lizards. Astral Sight (7) will reveal the threads from patient zero to those infected by exposure. Once seen, a successful Patterncraft (7) (or other appropriate magical Talent/spell) will allow one to follow the thread to the next connection point. Killing the lizards or getting the patients far enough away will cause the threads to dissolve over minutes, and the patients will instantly start to recover, being fully healed in a day or two.
Enhanced Sense [Smell] (4)
Enhanced Sense [Taste] (4)
Immune to Disease: The noxious lizard automatically succeeds at Toughness tests made to resist disease
Stink Spray (special): Pus-filled nodules on the lizard's back explode open and release a toxic vapor onto its opponent, which coats them in a foul smelling ichor. They must make a Creature Power test against the target's Physical Defense. If successful, the target receives a -2 to all action tests. To resist this, the target rolls either Toughness or Willpower, their choice (Willforce helps), every round. If they succeed, or after 8 rounds have passed, the effect ends. They can also wash the ichor off.
Special Maneuvers:
Pop the Pimple (Opponent): An opponent may spend an additional success from an attack roll to prevent a noxious lizard from using Stink Spray until the end of the next round.
Loot: none (who would want it?)

Edit: made changes to a couple things

[Slimcreeper]

Is the stink spray an action or a reaction when it is hit with a melee attack? What if it could harry with 3 instead of 4 because of the overwhelming stench? Perhaps there could be a bonus to tracking the creature, but it could get a bonus to hide in its lair because of the overwhelming stench.

I almost like the stink spray as debilitating from nausea, rather than an additional disease effect. But maybe resistance to disease could still counter it.

In terms of numbers, I would think one-to-one, but I'm not always a good judge of these things.

[Tattered Rags]

Stink Spray is an action (under Creature Power). Hadn't thought about it as a reaction. As well the idea is that it's debilitating from Nausea, which is why it targets either Willpower (power through the disgust) or Toughness (hold your breath). It's not meant to be a disease, only it mechanically operates like a disease for rolling purposes. I'll update the description with that notation.

I was thinking one-to-one, too.

[Tattered Rags]

Okay, I actually put it back to the way I originally intended, which was to have the target throw off the effect with a Step 8 resistance roll. That fits it better.

[Tattered Rags]

As it turns out, these guys were slightly too hard. With a PD of 9, and everyone kept rolling 8.

The heroes eventually pulled through once o convinced the Troll Warrior to go Aggressive. And the Wizard decided to attack, too.

[Mataxes]

Yeah, PD of 9 makes them slightly on the tougher end of first circle physical combat.

A good ballpark for whenever you're making a creature and trying to judge its challenge? Take a look at how its Defense Ratings compare to the group's primary attack steps.

For example: Most melee/ranged combat characters at C1 will likely have a 7 in Dexterity (main combat attribute), with 2 ranks in melee/missile/unarmed combat. This gives them a Step 9 primary attack.

Against a PD of 9, they'll hit about half the time, averaged out*, and the results will tend to cluster around that value (so a run of 7s and 8s is totally plausible). To get an edge, you have karma (though not much at C1), combat options (like Aggressive), and enhancing talents (like Mystic Aim, Maneuver, etc). One of the problems with those is that they often (but not always) target the same defense, and so have the same (if not slightly worse) chance of success/failure, but getting that extra +2 makes that chance of successfully hitting notably better -- with a normal Step 9, you have a 47.57% chance of success. With a +2 bonus, it's 68.75% if you mod the result (so you only need a 7 or better), 65% if you mod the Step up to Step 11.

Fortunately, this creature has a slightly lower Mystic Defense, so magicians and Archers can harm/debuff it more easily. It doesn't have much armor, so most of the damage will get through, and it's damage ratings are on the lower end, with a low WT and Knockdown. They're harder to hit, but if you get a solid hit on them it should be effective.

The disease is rough, but it's got long onset, so while it would cause problems for a typical community, magic should help mitigate it once adepts clear out the nest.

* This is an inherent function of the Step system. Your chance of success against a DN equal to the Step is about 50%.

[Tattered Rags]

Thanks for the analysis!

I didn't have everyone's character until right before the game, but even if I did I forgot about comparing stats.


The inherent statistical info from the Core Step system is really one of my favorite things about it. And using a dice roller takes the hardest part of it away (not knowing which dice to roll for a given step, especially when needing to modify it).


One of the other problems was the newness of everyone. While I played Earthdawn back on the '90s, no one even knew what it was when I broached playing it. So they simply used their attack Talent and nothing else.

[Tattered Rags]

One other problem was that I started everyone off with 0 karma as this was the last test before the would be fully initiated into their Disciplines. The idea was to have the final initiation ritual be their karma ritual. Additionally, I didn't want newbie players to have to track one more thing.

That said, if I had it to do over again, I'd drop the PD of the Noxious Lizards rather than give the players karma.

[Tattered Rags]

The disease is rough, but it's got long onset, so while it would cause problems for a typical community, magic should help mitigate it once adepts clear out the nest.

I actually judged an appropriate stat for a little kid and then used AnyDice to make sure the plot device, I mean kid, could reasonably survive the disease for 2 days but not much longer, adjusting the disease's stats to work.

Funny I didn't do that for the players.