Tuesday, December 15, 2009

2e Tuesday - Hoops


That's right, Gamma World 2d edition... what 2e did you think I meant?  Every Tuesday I will pick one of my favorite monsters from the fully illustrated bestiary included in the 2d edition Gamma World Basic Rules Booklet and convert it to Mutant Future.  Today's monster is...


Hoops (Floppsies)

No. Enc: 1d20
Alignment:  Neutral
Movement: 180' (60')
Armor Class: 9 (or by armor value)
Hit Dice:  11 + 2
Attacks:  1 (weapon)
Damage:  by weapon
Save:  L10
Morale: 6
Hoard Class:XVI (see Hoard Note below)


Hoops, also known as Floppsies, are 7 1/2' tall bipedal humanoid jackrabbits capable of leaping twice as far as a human.  They are of average intelligence (3-18) but they have exceptional willpower (12-18).  While not inherently evil, they are extremely enamored of technological artifacts and would think nothing of stealing that cool looking gizmo from a party member.  If expecting danger they will usually be geared up for the occasion, wearing studded leather or chainmail armor and wielding swords and spears.  Hoops are very social creatures, and all possess the ability to link minds with other Hoops to plan coordinated actions.  Hoops also possess the bizarre ability to turn metal objects into rubber by touch, affecting up to a 3' radius per touch.  They can also (much less reliably) turn such rubber objects back to their original forms (base 50% chance, less 10% for each hour that has elapsed since the transformation down to a minimum of 10% after four hours).  Hoops use this ability to render objects that they covet useless, hoping that their owners will discard them so that the opportunistic rabbit-men can scavenge them later for their own use.

Hoard Note: The Mutant Lord should roll for the hoard possessed by the Hoops before using them in an encounter, giving each Hoop a 30% chance of having one artifact rather than rolling just once for the whole group to have a 30% chance of having five artifacts.  The total number of artifacts is still limited to five, so large groups will have several members without artifacts (and small groups may have individuals with more than one artifact).  A Hoop with an artifact has a 20% chance of knowing how to use it, and will do so as appropriate. All groups have one gizmo as per the XVI hoard class.

Mutations:  Metaconcert, Neural Telepathy, Special (Rubberize Object)



I decided I had to do the Hoops because Gamma World had a very noticeable gonzo element to it, and the rubberizing rabbits seem to personify that aspect of the game quite nicely.  I love that a race of man-bunnies known as Floppsies manage to look so badass!  I also imagine that these guys could really piss a party off with their rubberizing ability.  I decided to include the chance to turn rubberized objects back to metal because it seemed in keeping with the Hoops' obsession with artifacts.

There are several challenges facing anyone converting Gamma World creatures to the Mutant Future.  Two of the seemingly more straightforward elements of a monster's stat block, the HD and Movement, are handled differently between the two games.  Gamma World uses a variety of different dice for monster HD, while Mutant Future uses the d8 exclusively.  This is why you will see more HD entries in the form X HD + Y HP in these 2e Tuesday entries; for example, the Gamma World Hoops/Floppsies have 15d6 HP, giving a range of 15-90.  By  turning that into 11 + 2 I generated a range of 13-90, which is as close as I could come using the d8.  Movement is even more complicated, because Gamma World uses a tripartite system that divides movement into Slow, Fast and Normal rates, and these can vary considerably - in the case of the Jagets, a mutated jaguar now inhabiting a cheetah-like ecological niche, its slow speed is half that of the Hoops, its fast speed is identical, but its normal speed is four times faster!

6 comments:

  1. Carl,

    Excellent conversion from GW 2e to MF! I like that you enabled them a chance to undo their rubberizing ability - which is devastating to a group of adventurers outfitted with swords and metallic armor...I remember changing metallic armor to AC 8, assuming that the Hoops are smart enough to transmogrify the breastplate portion of a humanoid PCs armor. As for the HD conversion, you could default to using GW 1e HD for the cross-over (which for Hoops is 15!), since 1e used just a d8 (just like OD&D).

    All in all, another great post!

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  2. Carl,

    Belay my last comment about 1e HD...I double-checked the 1e rulebook again, and the standard HD is a d6.

    My mistake!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the Hoops even though they always annouyed the crap out of me.

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  4. @ The Angry man -

    I want to stick to the 2e monster stats mostly because I love the illustrations in the 2e book. I did find it interesting that 2e Gamma World uses everything from d4's to d12's for HD!

    @ Eli Arndt - Yeah, these buggers are nothing if not annoying. Use with caution, unless your PCs really like rubber!

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  5. Which makes me think of another monster one could create, a rubberphile that follows the Hoops around and has some sort of symbiotic relationship with them.

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  6. The yexil, or some yexil off-shoot? Maybe the Yexil hang around to take any polyester the Hoops might unearth.

    Yeah they do look bad-ass for something supposedly gonzo.

    WV: Parkrocc - giant hostile birds usually found in wooded areas of Deathlands. Fond of attacking moving vehicles to get at crew.

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