[poll] would you pay for a Dog20 pdf?

[Gez]

heh, these two parts would be a lot of fun, tis true - especially deciding what relationships the different races have with dogs.

In creature collection 1, there is a dog trained by dwarves to live in the dark caves and mines, able to find gold by scent, and with a deafening bark attack.

Elves are famous for their cooshee. Wood elves would also adopt wolves, à la Elfquest (dire wolves could be used as mounts).

Gnomes take foxes as pets, furthermore any gnome can speak with his pet fox.

Halflings are notorious for their riding dogs -- Saint-Bernards (with their little rhum barrel attached on the collar) and pyrenean shepherds comes to mind.

Orcs would have pitbulls, hogboblins would have german shepherds, kobolds would have the terrifying man-eating pirahna-poodle of monkey island fame.

One thing that worries me in terms of mentality is how to handle intelligence. Some breeds are just plain brighter than others (on average) and without messing with core rules, there a two point range of int to work with. I will likely introduce a 'trainability' special quality (graded) that reflects an increased number of base tricks and a lowered DC to teach new tricks. An increased wisdom score or 'human empathy' skill might also reflect the ability of domestic dogs to read body language cues better than wild animals...

Maybe a racial traits. Dogs have been bred from the wolves who understood the best human body language. This human empathy is now innate to them, they can understand it even without having seen a human ever before. Cats, horses, and other domesticated animals are still far from having been as "humanified" as dogs have.

Maybe a special class for "Trained Animal": animal HD, BAB, saves, skills, and feat (as for 3.5: 2 skill point per HD, 1 feat every three HD, etc.) but with class features like Extra Trick, Uncanny Empathy (sense motive bonus to understand master); and why not, in the high level, ever more fantastical abilities like Danger Sense (intuition or premonition to when master is threatened), heightened intelligence, transcendance to magical beast, telepathy, speach... To progress, it could either be keyed to a core class of beastmaster (not too narrow in focus if it can be generalized to other animals than canine), so for example, your animal companion would be of the same level as yourself in its special class; or it the progression could be paid by the master (similarly to what Monte Cook made for advancing intelligent items in the third Book of Eldritch Might, with a pseudo class and all).

this would add a bit of padding, but my main concern would be the number of judgement calls I'd have to make on which ones really counted as dog variations and which happened to have similar form, creation, etc. eh, if no one else wants to decide I'll just flip a coint and call it cannon...

I don't think it would be really useful to describe every races of dog. By size (Tiny to Medium), and maybe broad categories (pet for mere company dogs like poodle, shepherd, utilitary (blindman dog, sniffer dog), tracker/watchdog, and warhounds.

However, fantasy dogs (like the Cavvekan or those from that article) should not be forgotten.

Dogs that could scent magic, or whose barks make certain creature (undead or evil outsiders, for example) flee, winged dogs, 3-headed dogs, 6-legged dogs, chimerical dogs (cat dog, horse dog, owl dog, raven dog, bear dog, boar dog, and other magical hybrids)... See also certain creatures from the Tome of Horrors: hound of ill omen and moon dog, hoar fox. As another example, to complement the blink dog and displacer beast, I have made blur foxes IMC.

Finally, don't forget this prized pet of Azers and salamanders alike, the Hot Dog.

 

[lord irial]

I would pay for this, provided it was low on setting-specific examples. I'm not saying there couldn't be fantasy breeds, but I'd be less interested in Freeport Demonhounds or Waterdahavian Sheepdogs than I would more generic Gnome Burrow-terriers, et al.

 

[ced1106]

Well, some asked for d20 stats for a chimp, so expand the scope to not just dogs, but **any** animal that might join the party and have its own personality: familiars, domesticated animals, semi-intelligent ones, etc. Add chrome so that players may customize the animals, allow them to gain experience, etc.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Orcs would have pitbulls, hogboblins would have german shepherds, kobolds would have the terrifying man-eating pirahna-poodle of monkey island fame.

Frankly I would hesitate to dignify those unfortunate canines kept by the more savage peoples as a 'breed', but due to the growing interest among human fanciers with these animals, I will address them as best I can.

Starting with war and riding dogs taken from raids on civilized settlements and caravans, the orc-dogs have been bred back to wolves, worgs and perhaps even fiendish hounds. As would be expected from such an esthetically dead race, there is no graceful proportion to these animals, or even the utilitarian compactness of the human bull baiters. They are irregular in build, coat texture and hue and do not breed true to their individual appearance.

The traits that these dogs do share are size (large), teeth (sharp), jaws (strong) and temper (very bad). The barbaric custom of 'cropping' the ears is also common among the orcs, lending their dogs a small measure of uniformity. In terms of personality, it is hard to say exactly how much is due to the cruel training (if I can call it that) methods used by their owners and how much to genetics. Attempts to rehabilitate pups have met with intermittent success, and it seems that while less trainable than true breeds and slow to bond, the orc dogs do have a tendency to cruel slyness which may come from their worg ancestry...

From "The Elastic Form - A Guide to Dogs" by Kivrina Burnevrese of the Sylvan Breeding Club.

 

[Krug]

I'd pay a few bucks for it. Might be interesting.

 

[mistergone]

I really love dogs. As soon as I can find a DM that won't use it as a weapon against me, I want to have a ranger or similar character with a dog sidekick. A long time ago, I did play a ranger with a dog that was like the one from that series by Weis and Hickman (not dragonlance), and that was kind of fun, though the DM balked at the idea that the dog couldn't really be killed by normal means. Eventually, to ease his wild fears, we said it was a blink dog that was just very very lucky.

Oh, but here on the ever-present other hand, I would have to say that I wouldn't buy such a product. I probably wouldn't buy a .pdf, anyways, and for a print product, it would seem a litle narrow in scope. Unless EVERY character I ever made afterwards had a dog as a companion. This is all more due to the fact that I am trying ot become somewhat of a minimalist in my gameing purchaces, and only buy things that I will get a lot of use out of.

 

[Krug]

What d'ya know...
Now if Haven can support it...

http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=8195&mode=thread&order=0


Devil’s Workshop announces its Online PDF Schedule for 2003 – 2004

July 2003
Man’s Best Friend – Haven: City of Violence sourcebook on Dogs

 

[Umbran]

For the most part, a dog is a dog. There's small, medium, and large, but beyond that, there's not enough variation to call for separate stats for different breeds, IMHO. Certainly not so much variation that I, as a DM, need someone else to tell me that one dog might be a bit faster than another, or somesuch. I can tweak that on my own without paying for a pdf.

Fantastic canines are another story. But I don't see as that's interesting enough to call for a whole book. Extend it to a book on fantastic domestic animals, and it might be worth buying.

 

[Gez]

Now we know Krug is at least a Cleric of Enworld 9: He may cast raise thread.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

July 2003
Man’s Best Friend – Haven: City of Violence sourcebook on Dogs

July, huh? (checks calendar) I can beat that.

Kahuna Burger