• 2.3 Non-humans
  • 2.31 Strength and Mass
  • 2.32 Speed
  • 2.33 Scale Correlations
  • 2.35 Racial Bonuses and Penalties
• 2.4 Legendary Heroes

2.3 Non-humans

Some campaigns will have characters (or animals, monsters, etc.) with traits beyond the human norm. In particular, characters with Strength and Speed well above or below the human range are common in role-playing games. Examples include giants, superheroes, pixies, aliens, ogres, intelligent rabbits, robots, etc.

In FUDGE, Strength, Mass and Speed are rated by the GM in terms of *Scale* for different races. Most other traits that may be different for non-humans are handled with a *Racial Bonus or Penalty* rather than being on a different Scale - see Section 2.35. Of course, the GM may assign any trait she wishes in terms of Scale.

Humans are of Scale 0, unless some other race is the game-world norm. (E.g., if all the PCs are playing pixies or giants. In these cases, the PCs' race is Scale 0, and humans would be a different Scale.) Non-human races can have a positive or negative number for Scale, depending on whether they are stronger (or bigger or faster) or weaker (or smaller or slower) than humans.

2.31 Strength and Mass

Each level of Strength (from Terrible to Superb) is defined to be 1.5 times stronger than the previous level. A character with Good Strength is thus 1.5 times as strong as a character with Fair Strength. Note that this progression is not necessarily true for any other attribute. There is a wider range of strength in humans than dexterity, for example: Superb Dexterity is only about twice as good as Fair Dexterity.

Strength Scale increases in the same way: a Scale 1, Fair Strength individual is 1.5 times stronger than a Scale 0, Fair Strength individual. This holds for each increase in Scale: a Scale 10 Superb Strength creature is 1.5 times stronger than a Scale 9 Superb Strength creature, for example.

At this point, it is tempting to say that a Scale 1 Fair Strength is equal to a Scale 0 Good Strength. This is true for Strength, but not for Mass. Scale really measures Mass, or Density, and Strength just goes along for the ride.

In FUDGE, Mass has a specific meaning: how wounds affect a character. (This may or may not coincide with the scientific definition of Mass.) It takes more human-powered hits to weaken a giant than a human, for example. She may not really be a healthy giant, but her sheer bulkmeans that human-sized sword strokes don't do as much damage relative to her as they would to a human - unless they hit a vital spot, of course. Likewise, a pixie can be healthy and robust, but not survive a single kick from a human. The difference is Mass, and the strength related to it.

A Scale 1 Fair Strength fighter has an advantage over a Scale 0 Good Strength fighter, even though their Strengths are equal. The Scale 1 fighter is less affected by the other's damage due to his mass. Therefore, do not blithely equate Scale 0 Good with Scale 1 Fair.

Of course, the GM may envision a less massive but harder to kill race than humans. This is best handled by a Racial Bonus (Section 2.35), either as a Toughness Gift (Tough Hide, or Density - either one would subtract from damage), or by a bonus to Damage Capacity.

The GM may decide that increased Mass does not necessarily mean of greater size - the race may be of denser material. Dwarves in northern European legend were derived from stone, and are hence denser than humans. Such a dwarf hits harder and shrugs off damage easier than most humans: he is Scale 1, though shorter than a human. (Of course, the GM should define dwarves' attributes and Scale to her own requirements.)

Normally, Strength and Mass are handled by a single Scale figure. That is, if a creature is said to be Scale 7, that means Scale 7 Mass and Scale 7 Strength. Strength can vary within each race just as it can for humans. You can have Scale 10 Superb Strength Giants and Scale 10 Terrible Strength Giants. Unlike Strength, though, it is not recommended that Mass vary much within a race. If you do allow Mass to vary for an individual, it should never be worse than Mediocre or better than Good. In fact, it is far better to call Good Mass a Gift, and Mediocre Mass a fault than treat it as an attribute.

The Game Master should refer to the following table when assigning a Scale to a race. This only has to be done *once*, at race creation.

First, the GM should decide how much stronger (or weaker or faster, etc.) the average member of race X is compared to the average human. For example, she decides that Ogres are three times stronger than humans, and pixies are eight times weaker (which equals 0.12 times as strong). She then needs to look up the closest numbers to these strength multipliers on the table below, and look in the corresponding Scale column to find the correct racial Strength/Mass Scales. In this example, Ogres are Scale 3 creatures, while Pixies are Scale -6. (You may envision Ogres and Pixies differently, of course.)

2.32 Speed

Speed Scale increases in the same manner: a Scale 1, Fair Speed individual is 1.2 times faster than a Scale 0, Fair Speed individual. This holds for each increase in Scale: a Scale 10 Superb Speed animal is 1.2 times faster than a Scale 9 Superb Speed animal, for example.

Speed is not a necessary attribute, of course, and can be ignored entirely if desired. It is included primarily for creatures and vehicles significantly faster than humans. For comparison purposes, assume a Fair Speed human can run at about 10 mph (16 kph) over some distance, provided they are in shape, of course. Sprinting short distance is somewhat faster. This comes to about 15 yards (meters) per three-second combat round.

In a short race, you don't really have to roll the dice to see if someone of Superb Speed can beat someone of Good Speed - he can, and will, much more often than rolling the dice would indicate. The Speed Scale rises too slowly for comparing such things as race cars or space ships to human movement. In these cases, either use a rough human Scale, or simply set the average space ship at Space Ship Speed Scale 0, and rate others relative to it. Thus, the average race car will be roughly human Scale 12 - or you can simply call it Race Car Scale 0, and compare other race cars to it. A Space Ship might be Human Scale 100, or Space Ship Scale 0.

2.33 Scale Correlations

First, the GM should decide how much stronger (or weaker or faster, etc.) the average member of race X is compared to the average human. For example, she decides that Ogres are three times stronger than humans, and pixies are eight times weaker (which equals 0.12 times as strong). She then needs to look up the closest numbers to these strength multipliers on the table below, and look in the corresponding Scale column to find the correct racial Strength/Mass Scales. In this example, Ogres are Scale 3 creatures, while Pixies are Scale -6. (You may envision Ogres and Pixies differently, of course.)

Strength and Speed Scale Multipliers

Scale	xStrength	xSpeed	Scale	xStrength	xSpeed
-11	0.01	0.13	5	7.5	2.5
-10	0.02	0.16	6	10	3
-9	0.03	0.2	7	15	3.5
-8	0.04	0.23	8	25	4
-7	0.06	0.28	9	40	5
-6	0.1	0.3	10	60	6
-5	0.15	0.4	11	90	7.5
-4	0.2	0.5	12	130	9
-3	0.3	0.6	13	200	11
-2	0.5	0.7	14	300	13
-1	0.7	0.8	15	450	15
0	1	1	16	650	18
1	1.5	1.2	17	1000	22
2	2.3	1.4	18	1500	27
3	3.5	1.7	19	2500	32
4	5	2	20	4000	38

The Strength/Mass Scale number is figured into damage in combat, and all weapons and armor are assumed to be of the same Scale as the wielder. (These numbers have been rounded to the nearest useful number. They are only roughly 1.5 times the previous number, but close enough for game purposes.)

Other examples: a GM reads in a Medieval text that a dragon is "as strong as 20 warriors." Looking at the table, 20 times the human norm is Scale 8. However, since the average *warrior* has Good strength, she chooses Scale 9 for the average dragon in her world. Of course, an individual dragon can still have Poor Strength compared to other dragons. This is simply listed as Strength Poor (-2), Scale 9.

This same GM wants PC leprechauns to be available. While they are small, she decides their magic makes them a bit stronger than their size would otherwise indicate: Scale -4. So a Good Strength leprechaun is as strong as a Terrible Strength human in her world.

The GM can also use this table to determine relative lifting strength or carrying capacity of characters or beasts if she wishes.

The GM may require a Strength roll to lift a given object. This will depend on the Scale of the character, of course. Thus, a leprechaun might need a Good Difficulty Level Strength roll to lift a rock that a human could lift without even a roll. (See Chapter 3, Action Resolution.)

2.35 Racial Bonuses and Penalties

There is rarely any need to use Scale for traits other than Strength, Mass and Speed. It's easy to imagine someone wanting to play a race that is slightly more intelligent than humans, but a race ten times smarter than the smartest human is so alien that it would be impossible to play. This is true for most traits - we just can't grasp such extreme differences from our world view.

Actually, there is a way to use intelligence in Scale: in a non- quantified manner. For example, when creating a dog character, you can list:

Intelligence: Great (Scale: Dog)

Since no one is able to quantify inter-species intelligence accurately, do not expect to use it comparatively. It gives an indication that, relative to other dogs, this dog has Great intelligence. The word "Scale" isn't necessary - "Great canine intelligence" works just as well.

The GM should usually use Racial Bonuses or Penalties for traits other than Strength, Mass and Speed. If the GM envisions halflings as being particularly hardy, she can give them a +1 bonus to Constitution: halfling Fair Constitution equals human Good Constitution. As another example, an alien race, Cludds, have a racial penalty of -1 to Intelligence.

It is best to use trait levels relative to humans on the character sheets, though you should put the racial-relative term in brackets. (Example: Grahkesh, Intelligence Poor [Cludd Fair].) However, *always* list Strength relative to the character's own race, with the Scale (if other than 0), so the Mass will be accurate. See the sample character, Brogo the Halfling (Section 6.311), for an example of both racial bonus and different Scale.

Racial bonuses and penalties can be used for any type of trait: attributes, skills, gifts, supernormal powers, or faults.

If using the Objective Character Creation system, each level of a Racial Bonus or Penalty is usually equal to one level of the specific trait raised or lowered normally. That is, if you are granting a +1 to Agility or +1 to Perception for a race, it should cost one attribute level. If a race has a bonus of a Perfect Sense of Direction, it should cost one gift. The innate ability to fly or cast magic spells should cost one supernormal power, etc.

If a race is at -1 to all Social skills, however, this should only be worth -1 skill level if you have a single skill called Social Skills. If you have many social individual social skills, it should be worth one fault. The converse is true for Bonuses that affect many skills: it should cost one or more gifts.

2.4 Legendary Heroes

Some genres allow human characters to develop beyond the realm of the humanly possible. Such campaigns eventually involve planes of existence beyond the mundane as the PCs require greater and greater challenges.

This style of gaming can be represented in FUDGE by Legendary Levels. Section 1.2, Levels, introduced the concept of Legendary traits as a goal for PCs to work toward. This section expands that concept infinitely.

If the GM and players prefer this type of gaming, *any* skill can be raised beyond Legendary. Instead of renaming each level, simply use a numbering system: Legendary 2nd Level Swordsman, Legendary 3rd Level Archer, etc. Attributes can also be raised, but (except for Strength) this is much rarer.

Each level of Legendary gives a +1 bonus to any action resolution. The character Hugh Quickfinger, for example, has a Longbow skill of Legendary 2nd Level. This gives him a total bonus of +5 (+3 for Superb, and +2 for two levels of Legendary). In any contest against a Fair Longbowman (+0), Hugh should easily triumph.

The Objective Character Development system, Section 5.2, lists suggested experience point costs for attaining these levels.

Anna's Fantasy FUDGE