Tee-hee!

[Morgenstern]

Just finished up Goblins as a playable race. So, so wrong . They share a number of feats with Orcs but won't play anything like them... and they get the Containment Basics feat as part of their Talent...

[Golden Dragon]

Scott, you are cruel!

Now, for a Tolkien fan who suspects that goblin is another name for orc, I hope that you haven't removed that possibility.

[Morgenstern]

Since Goblins can take the Eastern, Great, Southern, and Northern Horde feats, I can definitely see setings where orcs and goblins fight and move in combined tribes/armies and may infact be extreme examples of the same race. The 'Goblins' just being smaller and more vicious, the orcs stranger and more cruel. Goblins having a radically different set of favored classes from Orcs ensures the two compoents of a force will support and expand upon the capabilites of the horde as a whole.

[Morgenstern]

Part of the fun is the favored classes. We've got art for the book that makes goblins a little comical, but also a lot of hard core. Surly little buggers that gleefully take on bigger foes. They get currently Lancer (!) and Priest (!?!!) as favored classes. Player characters aren't schlub Goblins, they are the dangerous ones. And the rules we have for mounted combat mean that if you can talk another player into playing a beast (like a Warg) you are going to get a terrifying synergy in combat.

[Agent 333]

Part of the fun is the favored classes. We've got art for the book that makes goblins a little comical, but also a lot of hard core. Surly little buggers that gleefully take on bigger foes. They get currently Lancer (!) and Priest (!?!!) as favored classes. Player characters aren't schlub Goblins, they are the dangerous ones. And the rules we have for mounted combat mean that if you can talk another player into playing a beast (like a Warg) you are going to get a terrifying synergy in combat.

Or get a Personal Lieutenant that's a Warg....

[Morgenstern]

Yeah. That would do it. The magic is when a special character has a special character mount. Can you say "Shared vitality points"?

[meadicus]

Yeah. That would do it. The magic is when a special character has a special character mount. Can you say "Shared vitality points"?

We definitely can, very nice. Would this be from a mounted combat feat tree or a lancer ability?

How easy will it be for characters to build 'special character' mounts? Essentially a 'Special NPC' from Personal Lieutenant which just happens to be an animal. This kind of thing has come up in several of my games where the people's horses have stuck with them from start to finish and essentially become secondary characters anyway.

~Mead (Always fishing for teases)

[Agent 333]

Mead, the Animal Partner feat (Second Printing p201) offers a special NPC version of a regular animal. I was assuming by Morg's wording (plus several earlier teases) that Wargs are a playable PC talent (that are probably barred from making checks with the Hands On, or at least given all-thumbs), which would require a Personal Lieutenant instead of just an Animal Partner.

EDIT: Centaurs are allowed to carry people on their backs, can they be used as 'mounts' for mounted combaty goodness?

[meadicus]

Mead, the Animal Partner feat (Second Printing p201) offers a special NPC version of a regular animal.

Doh! I'd forgotten about that feature of the feat. Thanks.

[Morgenstern]

The magic is when a special character has a special character mount. Can you say "Shared vitality points"?

We definitely can, very nice. Would this be from a mounted combat feat tree or a lancer ability?

Base rule of mounted combat .

Mounted combat is gonna sing . You and the mount act as one combined character, so you lose some actions (just 1 full/2 half for the "mounted character") but you get some excellent benefits like being able to shield a normal horse with your vitality, or laugh as the dragon under you automatically rolls to soak up a hit that wold have splatered you the rider.

How easy will it be for characters to build 'special character' mounts?

...pretty easy . The trick will be selecting a mount with the best stats to contribute to the combined "mounted character". That's one area where Lancer's will shine: taking the best of two values (like Fort save) instead of the lower of the two.

[Morgenstern]

I was assuming by Morg's wording (plus several earlier teases) that Wargs are a playable PC talent (that are probably barred from making checks with the Hands On, or at least given all-thumbs), which would require a Personal Lieutenant instead of just an Animal Partner.

They won't appear in Fantasy Craft, but yes, I'm pretty committed to publishing a Big Bad Wolf as a playable race . They are classed as 'Beasts' rather than Animals, which makes them not eligible for Animal Partner. The Beast NPC quality handles all the rules for smart-but-no-hands characters in one simple block. Drakes (playable dragons) are beasts for example. There might already be beasts in print in Fragile Minds. Not sure.

Centaurs are allowed to carry people on their backs, can they be used as 'mounts' for mounted combaty goodness?

We haven't made a final ruling on that one. Its possible that things with hands won't qualify as mounts. Still trying to decide if troll riders are (mechanically) cool or not...


...The funniest thing is so far the mounted combat rules look like they'd also handle combining robots for Transformers or other mecha settings. Weird byproduct .

[Medwyn]

This would have come in handy for over the Feast of Chocolate Weekend.

Two players teamed up with a 1/2 Elf Centaur Martial Artist and a 1/2 Elf Thug/Scout with plenty of Sneak Attack and Wolf Pack Mastery it quickly became a thing of amazing synergy.

Adding the tidbits of Mounted Combat would have only increased the bloodshed

[Daedalus4096]

<snip>  They are classed as 'Beasts' rather than Animals, which makes them not eligible for Animal Partner.

Oh no.  Please God, no.  Not the animal vs. beast classification conflict again.  I had enough trouble figuring out how the hell D&D3 separated them.  Please, please, if you go this route, make sure there's a very bright line between the two.  I don't want to go through that again.

[meadicus]

<snip>  They are classed as 'Beasts' rather than Animals, which makes them not eligible for Animal Partner.

Oh no.  Please God, no.  Not the animal vs. beast classification conflict again.  I had enough trouble figuring out how the hell D&D3 separated them.  Please, please, if you go this route, make sure there's a very bright line between the two.  I don't want to go through that again.

Fortunately we're not dealing with the 3.0 MM and we've more to go on than the seeming random classifications by someone deep within the Wizards cove.

Beasts are anything with the 'beast' npc quality, which if you've got Fragile Minds - it's in there. To summarize it says the NPC is non-humanoid and may look like an animal but isn't one. That is to say it's not limited by skills and intelligence score like an animal is. Then there's some extra rules to handle the NPC not having fully developed hands (no opposable thumbs at best) and needing custom designed equipment.

[Morgenstern]

Off the cuff summary: If unicorns are animals and one impales you it's because of instinct or fright. If unicorns are beasts and it impales you its because it didn't have it's coffee this morning and it's grumpy .

Beast very specifically means "smart but no hands"
Animal means "not very smart at all"

It is not some hodge-podge way of trying to seperate what is real and mythological in our world as if that were in any way relevent in a fantasy setting.

Both are very clearly defined in the rules and serve very different purposes when making NPCs .