Critter Collection

[Ker'ion]

Has anyone noticed the lack of cannon creatures in Exalted?


Going through the books I know have creatures in them and guessing from there, I didn't find that many different groups of creatures.


The Core Book has 23 in 1st Ed. (24 in 2nd Ed.).


The Fair Folk Book has 39.


The Creatures of the Wyld has 71, plus 13 for the Web Enhancement, for 84.


The Ruins of Rathess has 10.


The GoD book has 58.


Okay, we'll add in another 50% for the rest of the books that I can't think of having creatures in, so 23 + 39 + 84 + 10 + 58 = 214, multiplied by one and a half gives a total of 321 Creatures in the whole of the books (this doesn't count most of the original creatures where there's only one of them).


I'm betting the total isn't actually as large as 321, but it's an estimate.


Now, let's try d20.


I've only a few books to total up, as my collection isn't very big.


The Player's Handbook gives us the basic 7.


The Monster Manual with the 2 from it's web enhancement has 393.


The Monsters of Faerun book adds in another 150.


And don't forget the Epic Level Handbook has 64 more creatures.


The Creature Collection 1 has 191 monsters and the CC2 adds another 164 (both by White Wolf, so it's still in the company).


Not including the severe amount made available by the d20 Open Gaming License, that's 969 creatures for the d20 collection.


Why are there more than tripple the number of creatures created for one of Wizards' systems than there are for another one?


It's not like they can't duplicate their creatures.


What are they going to do, sue themselves?


(maybe they should go with the Open Gaming License on d10 as well)


For my personal preference, I'd say that with there being between 2 and 100 million species on Earth, you could at least have 1000 species that would be capable of causing even the most basic problems for the primary sentient race(s) of Creation.  Maybe they're just being lazy.

 

[Jukashi]

Well, most of those species are quite similar in the first place. If you have the rules for a lion, it's not too hard to figure out the stats for a tiger, get what I'm saying?

 

[Ker'ion]

Actually, if you take a look at the normal creatures covered by the Exalted Books, you get the following:


Bears, boars, camels, coral snakes, war dogs, great cats, horses, war horses, mammoths (close enough to normal), siakas (giant shark), squids, and tyrant lizards (there are only a few hundred thousand different types of dinosaurs, so one list of stats should do it for them all).


Yeah, I can make a tiger off of the Great Cat stats, but what if I want any type of normal bird?  A plague of rats?  What of a swarm of pirannah?


Maybe I'll just have the group get attacked by a flock of blood-sucking carnivorous butterflies made from living gems.  That one I can just wing it on.

 

[X-Salted]

Most of those creatures in DnD have been there for many, many years even when TSR still owned the game. It wouldn't be fair to compare the number of creatures in Exalted than of DnD simply that DnD has a way head start over it. The reason why DnD has so many creatures is that it originally revolved on the hack n slash monster-killing genre. Exalted on the other hand doesn't need to have a vast variety of creatures since the game revolves more on the Exalted and society. DnD also follows a strict format when it comes to creature-creation and needs to be categorized to a creature type.

 

[Ker'ion]

The longevity of the format should not be considered a viable issue.  Otherwise, Windows wouldn't be the predominant computer software platform in the world.


Yes, focusing on the society of the game would mean less of a focus on the battle and the creatures.  But just because you are trying to bait the Daimyo into allowing you to marry his daughter while sparring in his garden doesn't stop a random flying creature from trying to cart off with either of you or his daughter.


By the way, where are the bloody DRAGONS at.


I miss the dragons.


Baby dragon's got your finger.  No really, he's eating your damn finger!

 

[X-Salted]

The longevity of the format should not be considered a viable issue.  Otherwise, Windows wouldn't be the predominant computer software platform in the world.
Yes, focusing on the society of the game would mean less of a focus on the battle and the creatures.  But just because you are trying to bait the Daimyo into allowing you to marry his daughter while sparring in his garden doesn't stop a random flying creature from trying to cart off with either of you or his daughter.


By the way, where are the bloody DRAGONS at.


I miss the dragons.


Baby dragon's got your finger.  No really, he's eating your damn finger!

I wasn't really pointing particularly on the longevity of the format but the longevity of the game itself. DnD has been with us for over 30 years and new creatures are still being developed. DnD also still catered more to the combat-monger audience even in 3rd ed. And in a combat-heavy mideival fantasy game like DnD it requires a large creature list to keep players (and GMs) in the game. Many of the mythical creatures mentioned in the MM would be classified as a wyld creature, shadowland/undead, or yozi/demon  in Exalted standard.


As for dragons, the elemental dragons are considered spirits or gods. But some dragons are also wyld creatures. If I'm not mistaken some were stated in the fair folk book.

 

[Solfi]

... Merciful handsweat of Buddha please don't let WW turn the Exalted critter collection into something like the D&D one!!!


"Hmm, we haven't padded our creature collection with enough useless crap, to inflate the number of available critters, tricking the kids that quantity equals quality.... what to do, what to do.


Oh, look! Here's an elephant and a tiger! Why don't we combine them into some sort of monstrum and call it a... a.. tiphant! Yeah, that'll be cool!"...

 

[Jakk Bey]

WW assumes that STs have the smarts to make their own critters.  At least the natural ones.  


Do you really need stats for a rat?  How about a dozen acting in concert?  What is the real feat of engineering here?  The WW system is very easy to create stats for critters with.  


X amount of strength


Y amount of speed


Z amount of Health


Can it hurt you?  Will it just annoy a Demi-God?


WW gives you a few baseline critters to give you some guidance, and assumes that you're bright enough to run with that--they don't make "creature compendiums" for natural critters, because they assume that most of the time, you're not going to run up and poke cows or annoy every damn critter in the Creation.


D&D, not so much.  If you're rolling Old Skool D&D, it's pretty much assumed that everythig is going be dangerous.  WW assumes that the ST is going to plot encounters, rather than have a "Wandering Damage Table" that D&D encouraged...


D&D=Final Fantasy-esque wandering monsters.


Exalted=KotOR for generally planned encounters.

 

[Vanman]

I agree with X Salted. D&D's been around for 30 years. Exalted came out in 2001. That's 5 years. How many creatures were there for D&D after 5 yerars? Wait until Exalted is 30 years old and then see how many creatures there are. Until that point, I don't think you can necessarily compare the two.


And that's not even taking into account the differences in the style of play. As has already been pointed out, I think the target audiences for the two games are a bit different.


If you really need critters like those, then just convert 'em.

 

[uteck]

You are forgeting the most powerful and plentiful opponents in the Exalted world are made with character creation rules.  A Solars main opponent will be DB's, Lunars, Siderials and Abyssals.  And vise-versa for the others.


A friend of mine who used to run D&D considered the Player's Handbook his top choice for a really dangerous fight.  Monsters were just shock troops and distractions.  But another friend has trouble with anything more the giants and/or undead.  So even with over a thousand monster choices, it was always giants or undead, or for verity, undead giants.


But it would be nice to see some stats for more critters to get an idea of how diverse Creation is.  Any such book will come out after the Lunar book and will tie in closely with it most likely.

 

[Persell]

And it wouldn't be hard that hard to use creatures from the Monster Manuals (there are 4 now, which I personally feel is entirely too much) and adapt them to Exalted, which should be relatively easy.


The thing about d20 creatures is that they have stats for everything under the sun and its always such a hassle to keep track of everything they can and can't do.  Creatures and battling them are a staple of D&D - it's part of their flavor.


For Exalted, not so much.  Exalted tends to be more about the various factions in Creation, and so antagonists are not made up of creatures but rather Mortals, Undead, Spirits, Elementals, and Exalted.  This keeps Exalted more social and less hack'n'slash as you're not fighting mindless enemies but people who can be three-dimensional.

 

[Persell]

By the way, where are the bloody DRAGONS at.


I miss the dragons.

Dragons as natural beasties in the Exalted setting would be completely absurd. Dragons already exist in the setting, in a role derived from Exalted's Asian inspirations- the elemental lieutenants of the Celestial Bureaucracy. I, for one, would leave a flaming bag of dookie the size of Marlon Brando's bloated corpse on WW doorstep if they jammed anything like that into Exalted.


That said, there are the River Dragons and whatnot, which don't hoard things, cast spells, or exhale anything more impressive than carbon dioxide, but are big f'in lizards, if you really feel the need to stab something with scales. Ditto for Tyrant Lizards.

 

[Jukashi]

Just give a Raptok the wings and fire-breath wyld mutations. Bam, classical western dragon... albeit a bit small. You could just give them the Large mutation or derivations thereof.


EDIT: For extra fun, get one of my Warstalkers, add on the warstalker version (+1 Artifact rating) of the Windrider Crystals and a jaw-mounted Sunrage Crystals set, and have fun with your giant plant/crystal laser-breathing dragon robot.

 

[Sherwood]

With the Wyld as a source of mutation, there is a unlimited supply of creatures at your disposal.  The critter in question would not have to obey any of the laws of physics in its creation and it lets you slap together anything you want at any threat level.  Mostly, in my game, the biggest threats is not a natural monster, but the Exalts they run into.  Unless it is a monster that I had preplanned for the group to run into, wandering monsters are just extras to slow down the party or add some flavor to the story.

 

[Ker'ion]

By the way, where are the bloody DRAGONS at.


I miss the dragons.

Dragons as natural beasties in the Exalted setting would be completely absurd. Dragons already exist in the setting, in a role derived from Exalted's Asian inspirations- the elemental lieutenants of the Celestial Bureaucracy. I, for one, would leave a flaming bag of dookie the size of Marlon Brando's bloated corpse on WW doorstep if they jammed anything like that into Exalted.


That said, there are the River Dragons and whatnot, which don't hoard things, cast spells, or exhale anything more impressive than carbon dioxide, but are big f'in lizards, if you really feel the need to stab something with scales. Ditto for Tyrant Lizards.

Flaming is for children.

Just give a Raptok the wings and fire-breath wyld mutations. Bam, classical western dragon... albeit a bit small. You could just give them the Large mutation or derivations thereof.
EDIT: For extra fun, get one of my Warstalkers, add on the warstalker version (+1 Artifact rating) of the Windrider Crystals and a jaw-mounted Sunrage Crystals set, and have fun with your giant plant/crystal laser-breathing dragon robot.

I'd kiss ya, but I think you're straight.

 

[Jukashi]

I think that's twice you've wanted to kiss me now.


I suppose that, just from being a furry, I have some additional points on the scale, but I am mostly heterosexual. Occasionally I admire bishounen-types, but I don't think liking guys counts if it's only guys who look like girls in the first place.


You know, now that I think of it, you don't even need to give a Dragon King the fire breath mutation. The Path of blazing Fire doesn't exactly specify how you hurl fire about, after all- they could easily shoot it out of their razor-toothed jaws. I've actually been planning to do that with Jyfriss in CW's game at some stage, if he's ever in a mid-air combat and can't use his arms because they're his wings.


Hell, do Dragon Kings even suffer the Mutation-based Essence restriction that Exalted do?