Copper Coins! Monsters Preview

Like all RPGs, Copper Coins! has monsters. All Monsters and NPCs use some of the same stuff PCs do, but they have some unique stuff as well that your PC can’t have. Unless your GM lets you be a giant wasp or something. Monsters, like PCs, have an abridged block of stats. Copper Coins! is a game system, not a setting, so it does not have any fluff or ecological info about the monsters. That’s your job to add it. It treats them solely as pieces of a game that it can sort on its own terms.

We’ll try making one. Here’s the basic template:

Name [Ranks]
Vitals: Vitality, Wounds, Fatigue, Nemesis Points, Misc. Resources
Defenses: Defense, Mettle, Willpower
Skills:
Perks:
Talents:
Disadvantages:
Equipment:
Behavior:
[Expanded Elements]

One important detail about critters. All Critters use the normal PC maneuvers in combat. So every critter can try to do basic things all characters can do. These include normal attacks, trying to trip you, trying to shove you, charging at you, grabbing hold of you, etc. So those things aren’t detailed anywhere and this includes two important maneuvers: Basic Move and Withdraw. Basic move lets you move 2 steps as a Minor action and 4 Steps as a Full Action. Withdraw lets you move 3 steps away from an Engaged enemy as a Full Action, but you always move in the direction of the nearest ally away from the enemy.

To talk some more about the block. Name is self-explanatory but Ranks aren’t. Ranks are special little rules you tag your monsters with. For example, [Mook] means that the creature is an utter redshirt loser. When you tag a creature with Mook it means that it succumbs to Wounds whenever it loses a Wound or receives a Critical Attack, regardless of how many wounds it normally has, and all damage done to it while it is Staggered is done directly to Wounds. Ranks save you a bit of time in changing stat blocks. So if you want to take the Vampire Lord stat block and right now make it into an easy grunt enemy, you give it the Mook rank. There’s also the Master rank. Master rank enemies change all condition durations imposed upon them to last only 1 combat round, and they can spend Nemesis Points to just plain be immune to conditions for a certain number of rounds (1d10+1).

Finally there’s a few tags which give monsters useful abilities for a certain role. One such tag is Bleeder. Tagging a creature with Bleeder means you want to use it to drain PC resources. Fighting Bleeders is a troublesome affair, and usually more expensive than just running away from them. To make a creature a Bleeder, you give it 3 Nemesis Points and let it spend those points when it attacks to give PCs Fatigue or to Stagger them for a round or two. Staggered is pretty much the worst condition and you never want to be in it.

Nemesis Points are basically the enemy’s version of the player’s Story Points. They work differently though – an enemy uses Nemesis Points to trigger its abilities, recover talents it has used, recover Health/Fatigue and trigger abilities that come to it from Tags you’ve added. This is because some of the PC effects would be kinda useless on a monster. But the GM can use a PC effect at his or her discretion if it would be appropriate.

Most of the rest of the stuff up there is self-explanatory, but what is Behavior? Behavior is a suggestion of the creature’s overall conduct in a battle. It’s where you put stuff from “Will run away when it first loses a Wound” to “Flashing a light at it will force it to Withdraw.”

So let me whip up a Kobold really quick, as agreed to on Twitter.

Kobold
Vitals: Vitality 15, Wounds 2, Fatigue 0/2
Defenses: Defense 14, Mettle 13, Willpower 13
Skills: Simple Weapons 5, Wilderness Lore 5, Stealth 5, Athletics 4, Object Use 4, Awareness 3, Common Lore 3, Deceit 3, Dexterity 3, Labor 2, Medicinal Lore 2, Larceny 2
Perks: Vitality 3, Wounds 2, Mettle 3, Willpower 3, Light Armor Use, Weapon Power 3, Stunning Blow, Hammer To Piston
Talents: Sneak Attack 1
Disadvantages: Shorty
Equipment: Club (1d6+3 Bludgeoning damage, Hand, Glance 8+/1, Critical 2, Close Range), Leather armor (14, Rating 12/-2)
Behavior: Will attempt to run away after losing 1 wound.

Sneak Attack (5 XP) [Weapon Range] {Full Action}
Roll: Stealth or Deceit
TN: Enemy Defense, Awareness or Scrutiny; use the lowest.
Damage: Any hand weapon or ranged weapon + 2d6
Recover: Once per scene when you gain an advantage on an opponent. It must be used within 1 round of being recovered.
Description: You use cover, concealment, quickness or wit to deliver an attack upon an opponent. Before attacking, you can move 1 step.
Level 1: If you had advantage before attacking, you deal +2 damage.

Stunning Blow (4 XP) [Static]
Benefit: The first time in a combat that you glance or score an Exceptional Success with a bludgeoning weapon (whichever happens first) you cause the target to become Restricted for 1 round, and it ceases to engage any creature that it was formerly engaging.

Hammer To Piston (5 XP) [Static]
Benefit: You are particularly adept at smashing immobile targets. You gain a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls against Restricted characters. You gain half as much of a bonus against Hindered targets.

There are tons of ways you could’ve gone about doing this if you had the full rules. I’m not sure what’s iconic about Kobolds other than being small and annoying. You could have given him a special rule to let him burrow into the ground as a Basic Move, or invented some other rules element in the Expanded Elements section. I chose to use some PC stuff in order to preview it. He has a bit of a combo there with Stunning Blow and Hammer To Piston, but his tactic really is to bash your head in with a 3d6+3 (or +5) club sneak attack. It’s actually a pretty dangerous enemy at the start of the game because of this (if it manages to Recover Sneak Attack and use it again on the same PC, it’ll probably take off a PC wound right there, from just two attacks), so I might, if I wanted to use a bunch of them, remove the Sneak Attack talent to make them less damaging. And yes, everyone gets the first sneak attack of the day for free. Afterwards, because it has a non-standard recovery, you have to meet the conditions of the recovery to be able to use it again.

Possible expansions include a Rank and some Nemesis Points, as well as Perks and Talents that are a bit more defining. But some folks are fine with just this level of detail. You can go all-out on the rules or sit back on them as you wish. Most monsters that come already done up with the Copper Coins! alpha will have varying levels of detail.