Anthromorphic animal template - ability scores?

[Alzrius]

I'm a bit perplexed by the anthropomorphic template presented on page 214 of Savage Species. The basic template on pages 214-215 mention under the abilities heading that the physical ability scores are altered by size change, that Int becomes 11, that Wis gets a +2 bonus, and that Cha gets a +4 bonus.

However, table A-58 on page 216 lists the various ability bonuses for each type of anthropomorphic animal, and they vary wildly from what's presented on the previous template! I'm now quite confused about which to use. If I wanted to make an anthropomorphic cat, for example, does she get a +4 to Cha, or a +0?

 

[Alzrius]

Okay, I think I found the answer anyway.

As near as I can tell, the template listing on pages 214-215 are when you just lay the anthropomorphic template on an animal (as an NPC), whereas table A-58 is used when directly making an anthropomorphic PC (thus, you don't use it as a template when making an anthropomorphic PC), so the more individual modifiers on the table are added to the attribute rolls.

 

[Pax]

Actually, if you reverse-engineer the listed animals, they ARE made with the template.

That +4 Charisma is not the FINAL modifier ... it's applied to the ANIMAL'S Charisma. Most of them are quite low ...

Take the African Elephant. In the MM, we have a Huge-size animal with the following:

[color=white]
STR 30
DEX 10
CON 21
INT  2
WIS 13
CHA  7[/color]

Reduced to Size Large:

[color=white]STR 22
DEX 12
CON 17
INT  2
WIS 13
CHA  7[/color]

Now, this translates (using the MM rules) into Racial modifiers of:

[color=white]STR +12
DEX  +2
CON  +6
INT  -8
WIS  +2
CHA  -4[/color]

Now, let's apply the Anthropomorphic template atop those modifiers:

[color=white]STR +12 +0 = +12
DEX  +2 +0 =  +2
CON  +6 +0 =  +6
INT  -8 ** =  +0 [i]Intelligence score is [b]REPLACED[/b] with an average of 11[/i]
WIS  +2 +2 =  +4
CHA  -4 +4 =  +0[/color]

Strangely enough, the African Elephant entry in SavS lists:

[color=white]STR +12
DEX  +2
CON  +6
INT  +0
WIS  +4
CHA  +0[/color]

IOW, the table is merely what your result would be, following the Template. The +2 Wisdom and +4 Charisma are template adds, not replacements. Only the Intelligence score average is replaced, with an 11.