Browsing through my Paranormal Animals of Europe here. Dreading the though of fighting some of them, thinking to myself "which one would make my players crap their pants the fastest".

Other than dracoforms and the infected, which critters have you had the hardest time against?

I ran a run where the whole team damn near got wasted by a Spectre in a basement. They got so desperate, they were literally calling other people on their phone for help. It was using telekineses to fire their weapons at each other, tied one runner up in barbed wire. one of them sat cringing in a corner for a while. They all crawled out with serious or better wounds. It was only force 6.

I'm also going to setup a run where the players have to extract an Abrams lobster rom a corp facility that it's a guard at and bring it back to Seattle for a banquet. It's the main course.

Then there was a fun adventure Mod (Predators and Prey I think) that was all critter runs.The massive battle that ensued running through the zoo of released paracritters was the best! Had a troll throwing down with a pair of wild minotaurs! Good times, good times.

Any other favorites? Anyone have a runin with a black berry cat?

Juggernaut. Demon Rats (plural). Wyrd Mantis.

Anything that is toxic and mutant.

Truth be told, I haven't ever really fought all that many Critters. My group tends towards very urban, metahuman vs. metahuman, combats for the most part (discounting the recent shedim incidents, and the occasional spirit/elemental that someone whips up).

Hrm. Maybe I should remedy that...

Shedim - had a one-shot run some weeks ago and the whole team got wiped out by a pack of shedim.

Has to be Weredigo's dream of the killer snapping box turtle!

torz

P.s on its way i have not forgotten!

Juggernaughts and Rocs.

Exchange between runners and mercs, talking about Juggernaughts, that happened in my game:

Merc: "They're like big mountains, we try to avoid them"
Runner: "What if you can't? How do you kill them?"
Merc: "Mostly, we call in air support and have them cluster-bombed, or call artillery"
Runner: ...
Merc: Unless we get lucky and a Roc comes by and eats one
Runner: But you just said they were like mountains?
Merc: Rocs are bigger
Runner: *gulp*

Juggernauts: omg u see armadilo. it r ubarhuge.

You know... following the rules, if even the armadillo was a Trained one, it would go running away if you dealt it a serious wound.

only thing is to manage to do that...

Oh P.S. For all this talking about Juggies and how beefed they are.

You're forgetting, the stats in the book are based on it having 3 str 3 bod 3 quick 3 int 3 will 3 cha. And those numbers are modified by its 'race' modifiers.

So if you want a tougher Juggie, just give it Priority A Race B Stats C) Resources (for cyber) D Skills (mostly SUT) and E ) Magic (awakened animal)

so you get like
B 18(9) Q 7 X3 S 45 C - I 1/6 W 12 E 7 (before cyber) R 7
Init 7 + 1D6
Combat Pool : 8
Attack 11D
Small unit Tactics(Animal Cunning) 5(7)

These modified stats are recalculated. 1/2 BOD rounded up = Hardened Armor.
1/4th STR = Power of attacks.

Powers: Enhanced Physical Attributes (Quickness, once each per day, for [Essence x 2]D6 turns), Enhanced Senses (Hearing and Smell, Motion Detection), Fear, Hardened Armor, Immunity (Cold, Fire, Pathogens, Poisons)

With Enhanced quickness of 14 the Reaction goes up to 10 (I think)
Combat Pool goes up to 10 as well. (I think)

So now your Juggy is possibly throwing 20 dice at an attack. Also with it's monsterous quickness, That's one Nimble 10,000 kilo armadillo.

Animals can use stats in lieu of skills. So 18 'athletic' dice, to add onto virtual quickness when it's in Stampeed mode. Provided everything is all successess and it's juicing up it's quickness. That's a Virtual quickness of 32 X 3 = 96 meters per turn. or 115 kilometer per hour. (Don't know the conversion to MPH off the top of my head)

And If I'm remembering right there's an optional rule to use 'Athletics' as bonus dice to Dodging if doing full defense and spending your previous action on doing backflips to dodge (I think).


And lets say Mr./Ms. juggernaut manages to get some Karma.

it has a Maximum stat rating of
B 27 (14) Q 11 X3 S 68 C - I 2/9 W 18
Attack: 16 D

Now of course, it's going to cost a whole hell of alot of Karma. But hell this could be the Legendary Juggernaut the one that was mentioned in that Fluff text. And Since so many Runners and hunters came to bag it, and it survived, it got karma for killingi it's hunters and jacked itself up.

P.S. My calculations could be way off and just plain wrong.
P.P.S. I heart juggernaughts.

Ranger Arms SM-3 + Laser Sight + EX-Ex ammunition, and you can pick off Juggies 500 meters away easy. This is hardly beyond the means of any decent runner team, either. If you want to be mean to cute animals, you can just get a rocket launcher.

I still like the suggestion made in the thread I linked before of making Juggies and other large animals count as vehicles as far as damage is concerned.

What the fuck? What rules are you using to make that, where did you find them, and why did anyone create them?

Demon Rats are technically infected. Don't a decent number of them carry a VITAS strain?

For the friendly neighborhood Rigger, the Thunderbird is probably it. Any electronic device that gets nailed by their lighting bolt/ball loses a point of rating.

~J

You're using the character creation rules for critters?

That's one of the weirdest things i've ever read here....

Just make em extra large and add +5 to all their stats. Can I get that Juggie in Supersized please?

I was just looking through the Critters book, thinking about what the worst critter would be... I think the Corpselight get the prize. Immunity to Normal Weapons (which is based on Essence, not Force, so with a 4D6 Essence, that could get UGLY ), Psychokinesis (which is also based off of Essence - just think of a well-fed Corpselight throwing around the baddest-assed troll in existence like it was a rag-doll), Movement (which was limited to decreasing and only usable in Swamps in before the SR3 update, but no more and which is also an Essense thing... just think of dividing some poor vehicle's movement rate by 24. Or increasing it's own by the same amount), and Essense Drain (just to give bad-assed sammies the shakes). Then throw on Regeneration.

I've never used one of these in my game, even though I've had PoNA since it came out. A PoNA shadow poster says they're among the most lethal creatures in existence. No kidding.

Just for the record, Juggies aren't critters. They're eye-candy from the finest stunt in television history.

Now, fighting skimpily clad ladies in curious costumes.... that might terrify my players.

Not mine! Sign us all up!

shedim are, hands-down, the scariest things you can run into. many of them have regeneration, which is bad enough, but the worst ones are the ones with that custom fear power. in an urban or jungle environment (the two terrain types my characters have so far faced them in), the shedim will often get you in range of the fear simultaneous to you getting LOS on them--and even if they don't, the fact that they add they're especially dangerous in urban areas, specifically barrens, because there are lots and lots of metahumans around who won't be able to put up much resistance--lots and lots of free karma.

Juggies = the large breasted girls who entertained the Man Show guests during commercials.

I'm always fond of Proteans myself. Immune to all weapons (as in, it does no damage at all) except fire, hydrophobic substances, alkaline chemicals, and EMP. Mimics its last victim. Eats runners and melts them with corrosive substances.

heh, yeah. master shedim suck, too, but i tend to view them more as NPCs (or, well, threats) than critters.

Bunnies.

Actually I've used critters to good effect against my runners. A cerberus hound nearly killed the entire group and then gave some of them a heart attack when they broke into a R&D lab from the sewers and the first person came up the grate - and face to face with a cerberus hound.

Rats have made my players paranoid in the sewers...

And I have one char who now has a phobia of cats - I found the stats for a lesser awakened cat called the "Accident Cat" and he threw it into barbed wire. The Cat survived...and the player kept tripping at the worst time the rest of the session. Since then he has run into a Blackberry Cat as well, which has gotten him even more paranoid. Oh yeah, and Lina adopted the Accident Cat. *laugh*

As far as scary critters, I gotta go with Corpselight and Specters as well. Don't have shedim yet (they don't really appear until YOTC, IIRC.)

I havn´t used much critters at all. Just some devil rats really. The fiends in my games have always been metahuman or spirit. For some reason. I just resently threw my first vampire at them (they met them before, this was the first one they fought. On a pirate ship I might add)

I never realized the power of them critter powers before, chummers. Jesus. There´s just so many horrificly powerfull things out there. As a GM... it makes me rub my hands together My players have always been suitably paranoid. But it´s been a long time now doing stuff they can handle. They need to be reminded of how small and helpless they really are. But only in small doses. I´ve gone years now playing the old adventures. They haven´t been up against any big corporations or significantly powerfull beings. But in the future there´s Year of the Comet combined with a revised Harlequin. Then after that Survival of the Fittest. And I´m going to make those hurt like hell, because they aught to. Just feels right to really try and get that difference across.

Imagine a dual natured sasquatch that has been infected with HMHVV (and is therefore contagious). It’s a sasquatch so its at home in the forest (can climb trees, hang upside down from branches and generally move through the undergrowth better than a meta-human) It has the ability to mimic just about any sound or voice. It has the natural ability to disappear like the Predator, making all ranged combat attacks against it +2 to hit and if it stands still you need to roll a 10 on perception to detect it. If you detect it, all you’d see is a vaguely humanoid shimmer that may or may not be shadows or tree branches moving in the wind, or a heat shimmer, or whatever. That, my friend, is a bandersnatch.

I think if played right and in its own territory, a bandersnatch could be a very scary critter. It probably can’t stand up to an entire group in a straight up fight. But if it hunts them and takes them one at a time, I think it could really ratchet up the tension.

As an example, I would probably have a party out in the woods someplace, maybe shot down if they were flying or broken down if they were driving. They could have been doing a smuggling run from Denver to Seattle so they have a load of cargo they want to protect. They may be wounded and probably won’t have much in the way of food, water, gear or ammo. I would enforce some limits on what they could reasonably carry (maybe not the SR encumbrance rules, but something to keep them from hauling more than I think would be reasonable.) They may already be stressed because the cargo they’re carrying may be perishable and they stand to lose a big chunk of profit. You show them a map with the nearest town being on the other side of a forest, 20 km away. The only road goes wide around the forest and is 75 km. Maybe they have an NPC with them, like a local guide, who warns them against going through the woods because legends say evil spirits dwell there. But the border patrols drive along the roads and will surely catch them if they walk on or near the roads. Their radios aren’t powerful enough to reach anyone and their cell phones are out of the service area. No one knows where the hell they are, and oh yeah, night fall is just a few short hours away. If they do manage to contact someone (say they have a satellite link or someone goes astral, the best the person can do is have someone to meet them at the nearby town. Let them make the decision to take the short cut through the scary woods.

Once in the woods, things would be fine for the first few kilometers. The terrain would, of course, be very difficult. Steep hills, cliffs, rocky areas, dense undergrowth, gorges, streams, maybe a small lake to cause them to detour. I’d make them work to get through the terrain and definitely have to spend a night in the woods. I’d let them get pretty far in before nightfall so they’d have nearly as much distance to go back as they’d have to go forward. Then they would start to hear weird sounds. Almost voices, but faint or unintelligible. Maybe one of them sees something, but before he can tell anyone, it’s gone. Nothing dangerous, but definitely spooky. Then the NPC goes missing. No one is sure what happened to him but one second he was there and the next he’s gone. Maybe they heard a faint yell, but they can’t be sure. There’s no sign of a struggle or any blood. Again, more scary noises and apparitions for the rest of the night.

The next morning they wake up (assuming they slept) and the forest doesn’t seem so scary anymore. They start off again and after a few more kilometers, they find what’s left of the NPC hanging from a tree 20 meters up. As the day goes on, there are more noises, more shadows that may not be shadows, more things for the team to waste ammo on.

If any of them get separated by the terrain, goes off to scout around or goes astral, have him meet up with the bandersnatch for some one on one time. I’d have the player leave the room for some private roleplaying so no one else knows what’s happening to him. Think how scary it would be if one guy goes astral and the rest of the party sees the body spasm, cough up some blood and then go slack. No explanation, no warning, just the body dies (or if you’re feeling generous, the character gets to return to his body and report that there’s something out there and it just kicked his ass.)

Anyone wounded would have to make a BODY roll for HMHVV infection. Even if they don’t catch the disease, they should still show some symptoms like dizziness, nausea, weakness, lethargy, weird skin rashes, wounds that ooze strange puss and worse. The party may survive and get out of the woods, but sure as hell they’d have lost some gear and taken some wounds. They may not have HMHVV, but I’d make them sweat that until they saw a doctor and had some tests performed.

I think that would make for a pretty scary critter encounter.

Megladon,
16 Meters long
Body: 15 /2
10D damage
Enhanced Senses (smell)
Regeneration

I agree that a bandersnach is scary. However, since the forum asked for non-draconic or non-infected, I left it out.

Paranormal Animals of North America

In Target Wastelands it mentions that the Azzies use torpedos that drop blood packs to attract megaldons.

edit: sorry, double post

... I must have skipped over it. Thanks chummer.

Send my regards and apologies to your players.

3rd ed Megalodon
p115 T: AL.

Hey, one of the guys is a physad that kills people with playing cards. I gotta throw SOMETHING hard at them every now and then.

Now 15 lickers and a Nemisis, that would be evil.

Oh, did I mention said physad is from Amazonia, and wants to destroy Azland? Hehehehehe.

Queen
Flesh Worker with BattleTac and Tac Comp
Flesh Soldier Juggernaut(with all the mutant, toxic and cyber trimmings) with BattleTac.

...........
I think I'll just put a gun to my head and save the trouble.

I'm not sure how you came up with that, but keep it comming, you're giving me fun ideas.

Hmm... prolly can't make a cyberzombie fleshfrom hu?
drat....

Vampires. Nothing even comes close to being as deadly as these guys if the GM plays them right. Main advantage is that they're sentient and intelligent and look just like everyone else and can blend in to the background. Throw in the critter powers they have and make them magically active and practically nothing can kill them. Check out the thread from a couple weeks back about how evil they can be.

You did read non-infected in the topic right? I think that means no HMHVV.

Ack! Missed the infected part after dragons. :/

How about a flesh form vampiric greater dragon?

*doh*

I am so tempted to start building the Monty Python devil-bunny...or create Bun-Bun.

You're not the only one. hehehehe