Classic: Bestiary

This is Classic material. Some conversion will be needed to use with 4e, some of which may have been done for you.

Classic Bestiary (1988, 1993, 1994, 2000) has not only more than 150 real and imaginary creatures but related things like hunting and trapping. The PDF version is 131 pages.

Note: the preview has the raw stats for the over 150 creatures within the book.

4e Bestiaries

The following are pages that list 4e Bestiaries. If you count fanmade stuff there has been a 500+ creature Bestiary available for free since 2007; so anyone who says GURPS 4e has no bestiaries has no idea what they are talking about.

• Official 4e Bestiaries
• Fanmade 4e Bestiaries

A quick and dirty conversion to 4e

The creature count breakdown for Classic GURPS is

• Classic: Bestiary 150+ (The raw stats are available from the online preview)
• Classic: Fantasy Bestiary — 250+
• Classic: Space Bestiary — 300+
• Classic: Creatures of the Night — 67; Classic: Dinosaurs — 41 dinosaurs and 49 mammals and birds

With a few tweaks classic material can be used as is in 4e GURPS as long as you are not concerned with traits or skills.

• ST: Damage - use value given or that based on $\sqrt{10 * Classic ST}$; (Quick Classic to 4e ST table)
  Use Lifting ST for Classic ST<10 and Striking ST for Classic ST>10 as needed;
  For really large creatures use ST = $2 * \sqrt[3]{weight-in-pounds}$. (Quick Weight to 4e ST table)
• HT and HP: For HT by itself HP is equal to HT. For HT x/y the "y" is HP.
  Sometimes this can result in HP being too low for some large animals and HP will need to be changed. The quickest way is to use the converted ST. Do not use Classic ST to figure 4e HP as this will result in damage sponge nightmares.
• Will: 10-12 range
• Per: 10-14 range
• Dodge: Ignore PD and add 3 to score

Example

A Classic creature has ST 80-100 and HT 14-16. Per GURPS Update ST becomes 36-40 with HP being 14-16. If this makes the creature too easily killed use 36-40 for HP. Do not use the 80-100 range for 4e HP. If the creature had had HT 14-16/40-60 then HP would be 40-60.

Bestiary Origin Categories

• Ice Age: known to early man.
• Mythical and Legendary (ML): from classical mythology, primitive beliefs, lumberjack tall-tales, medieval bestiaries.
• Prehistoric: varies though generally c 3,000 BCE
• Real/Extant: Real is for extinct animals. Ex: Passenger Pigeon, Tasmanian wolf, Mamo
• Speculative Fiction: fantasy, science fiction and horror.
• ?: There is some evidence for the existence of these creatures, but no conclusive proof has been established. Bigfoot would fall into this category.

Creature Full Statblock

{{{Name}}}
Monster Class				Animal
ST	10	HP	10	Speed	5
DX	10	Will	10	Move	5
IQ	10	Per	10	Weight	NG
HT	10	FP	10	SM Size	0 NG
Dodge		8		Parry	N/A	DR	0
Attacks		No Racial Attacks
Traits		Not Determined
Skills		No Racial Skills
Habitat		Not Given
Bestiary Origin		Not Given
Notes		No Notes
CER		Not yet calculated

The {{CreatureFull}} Statblock builds on the Classic Statblock by adding HP, Will, Per, FP, Skills, Traits, a Notes section, and (if known) Combat Effectiveness Rating. It is designed to make conversion from Classic as simple as possible while giving informaiton from which point totals can be determined. It is recommended that animal classes from Anon's Animal Album be used as they are built from Template Toolkit 2: Races aer more focued. Size generally is in hexes

Creatures Full Statbox

{{{Name}}}
Monster Class				Animal
ST	10	HP	10	Speed	5
DX	10	Will	10	Move	5
IQ	10	Per	10	Weight	NG
HT	10	FP	10	SM Size	0 NG
Dodge		8		Parry	N/A	DR	0
Attacks		No Racial Attacks
Traits		Not Determined
Skills		No Racial Skills
Habitat		Not Given
Bestiary Origin		Not Given
Notes		No Notes
CER		Not yet calculated

Creatures of the Wild

• Domestic Animals
• Vemin
• Prehistoric Animals
• Mythical and Legendary Creatures
• Speculative Creatures

Game Mastering Animals

• Abilities and Skills
• Combat
• Injuries
• Hit Location for Animals
• Animal Reactions

Hunting and Trapping

• Hunting
• Fishing
• Trapping
• Live Capture
• Game Animals

Creating Animals

• Stats
• Sensing Abilities
• Behavior
• Ecology

Animal Characters

• Being an Animal
• Quick-and-Dirty Shapeshifiting
• Animal Companions
• Acquiring Animal Companions
• Creating Animal Templates
• Sample Animal Templates
  • Alligator, Cat, Chimpanzee, Deinonychus, Dog, Dolphin, Elephant, Rat-Thing, Giant Rat, Grizzly Bear, Leopard, Parrot, Rabbit, Sea Lion, Spotted Hyena, Warhorse, Wolf, Yeti

Additional Material

• Designer's Notes: Extras from GURPS Bestiary, Third Edition (12/15/2000)
• GURPS Update
• Animalia in GURPS: An animal calculator

See Also

• Classic: Fantasy Bestiary