Well I have two hunters characters in my gaming group now and the question
of how to handle hunting has arisen. I thought that I would share some of
my thoughts on this subject (including tinkering with the game mechanics).
I'm not looking for a fight on whether or not the rules work, but I would
like any other suggestions or feedback.
- Most hunting can be accomplished with a single ability test by the
hunter. Success bags enough meat (mainly small game) and critical success
bags more than enough meat (possibly a large animal). With this method a
skilled hunter in an area with plentiful enough game will rarely fail. A
starting character hunter will have at least a 17 (and possibly a 5w) in an
appropriate skill. The Narrator adjusts the odds with modifiers. This is
all well and good until a hunt becomes a major part of the game and the
group wants to play it out.
- In a simple contest against a deer, a starting hero will often wound the
deer in a minor or major way, but rarely get it in one shot. The deer has a
dodge of 15 (and its lowest ability is a 10, which means that it succeeds
half of the time unless penalized anyway) that it can augment so that we
can assume that it succeeds most of the time in its roll. Assuming that the
deer succeeds, even if the hunter gets a critical success (assuming a 5w
ability, less than half of the time, including augments), the best result
is a minor victory (a -1 wound). The deer bounds off and the blood trail
(if any) must be followed. Even on a major victory, the deer will run off
and must be tracked and finally killed (if we accept that Gloranthan deer
are similar to real world deer). The deer must critically fail and the
hunter must critically succeed for an instant kill (less 2.5% or 1/40
chance given the numbers discussed previously in this paragraph). Since it
seems that Orlanthi don't believe in torturing animals, this is an
unacceptable outcome.[1] Beyond this, using these results makes my case 1
(above) appear unbelievable. (Player: So when we go on unimportant hunts,
we often succeed, but when we go on important hunts, we don't?)
- Using Attract Game Animal as a surefire hypnotic technique seems
possible, but then you don't need all of those other hunting skills, so I'm
not going to use it this way.
- In an extended contest, the hunt can be played out as a series of tasks:
- In a stalking hunt, the hunter uses hunting skills vs. the deer's senses
until wearing it down far enough (maybe below zero AP) to stake a lot of AP
on killing it (possible coup de grace). The problem with this is that the
odds of dropping the deer in one shot aren't much better because the deer
gets to roll against its still substantial Dodge with a good chance of success.
- In a lurking/ambush hunt, the hunter presumably uses hiding skills vs.
the deer's sense as above. The question here is how any player justifies
high-risk hiding in an effort to drive down the deer's AP decisively? The
GM is always able to bid high for the deer, but that doesn't seem to follow
the spirit of the bidding rules either. This isn't a big deal; it just
seems weird to me.
- In a chasing-down-the-deer hunt, the hunter (and often a pack of dogs or
an alynx, or even a <smirk> pack of alynx) run down the deer until it is
brought to bay/exhausted (low/negative AP). Then the hunter moves in for
the kill. The deer still has a good chance not to be killed in one shot as
above.
More on the extended contests:
d. You can always wear down deer's abilities with "wounds" for 7 AP per.
(Among other things, this models hiding so well that the deer is partially
stunned when you finally attack.)
e. The Narrator can arbitrarily say that deer is killed, but then what
about other hunting tasks against more significant foes where the *players*
want to use their experiences with how hunting works.
f. You can institute a bump-down for the deer, based on humans being as far
above deer as otherworld entities are above humans. This probably isn't
kosher and makes the deer too easy prey.
g. I recommend the extended contest over the simple contest.
5. What happened to Peaceful Cut? I was surprised to note its absence in
the Odayla and Yinkin keywords. I'm guessing that it is too animistic.
[1] These thoughts on deer come from real world hunting experience (gun and
bow). Minor wounding of a deer will cause it to bound off, often never to
be seen again. Major wounding, even that which is lethal (such as gut
shots), will often still result in the deer running for miles before
dropping. I grew up in a rural area that was full of hunters, many of whom
were not what I would consider "hero" material. You could legally start
hunting at age 12 and one shot-one kill was the very real goal of the hunt.
There were plenty of misses, but the shots that hit were supposed to be
lethal. The odds of an instant kill were greater than 1 in 40 shots that
hit. (Note for those who like detail: Even on a instant kill, the deer
often takes a few bounds before collapsing.) I know that this is a game,
but it would be nice for epic hunts to still resemble hunting more than the
type of bullfighting where the bullfighter wounds the bull several times to
wear him out before killing him. Besides, real heroes don't whittle down
their deer.
Thanks,
Andy