Racial Template: Drider (Blog or Treat)

Kawaii!

Man, spiders are too kawaii to get the bad end of the publicity stick all the time. Yesterday, we have a post for a way to randomly generate antagonistic spiders from the Collaborative Gamer. How about this for some collaboration?! A playable Drider racial template for Dungeon Fantasy that tries it's hardest to fit the tightly constrained budget of the game. Let's make something spooky, but who can be a good guy at the same time!

Mechanics

I have two main places to look for inspiration for a drider, someone with the lower body of a spider, attached to a nigh human-like torso. Dungeon Fantasy 5 has a giant spider familiar and GURPS Fantasy has a racial template for a centaur. The special abilities of the giant spider are pretty self evident, and the centaur disappointingly doesn't have a lot of information about the unusual form of a drider, a pretty bulky shape. So let's build this from the ground floor.

First off, I mentioned I want this Dungeon Fantasy compatible, but this huge beauty is at least SM+2 and comes in weighing at least a minimum ST of 25, with a small discount costing us 120 whopping points for that, which will make a satisfying racial template with an absolute maximum of 75 very difficult, and probably require a lot of corner cutting. So instead, let's start with an SM+1 (bulky!) frame (and make an SM+2 frame a racial power-up.)

This makes our typical ST a 15 for the size. The human/elf like torso I see usually looks a bit waifish/frail so, proportionately, I'll go with a ST of 13 which is a little bit better than a ST 8 human for comparison.

The drider of course has 6 extra legs, and the lower body is covered in chitin, or exoskeleton, so that means it has built in armor that the human-like component does not. The DR advantage has a -15% limitation for only protecting the spider body part.

Next, to make it somewhat unique, I want to give it a racial talent. Thinking of things that a spider should probably be good at, the talent includes:

• Traps
• Poison
• Knot-Tying
• Climbing

This talent either gives a reaction bonus of +1 per level to everyone that can appreciate the beauty in places where people don't usually look, or +1 per level to the strength of the binding attack.

So altogether, we have an expensive, but somewhat milquetoast fundamental template of:

Drider	65 points
Attribute Modifiers:  ST+3[27]
Secondary Characteristics:  Per-2[-10], SM+1[0]
Advantages:  Binding 3(Engulfing, +60%; Jet, +0%)[10]; Clinging[20]; Damage Resistance 4(Can't Wear Armor, -40%; Spider Part only, -15%)[9]; Double-Jointed[15]; Drider Talent 1[5]; Extra Legs (8; Can't Kick, -50%)[8]; Super Climbing 2[6]
Disadvantages: Draining (Blood of Sentients)[-10]; Social Stigma (Monster)[-15]; Features: May wear human SM+0 armor for arms and face. Torso armor is not compatible with human armor, but is priced as SM+0 armor. Similarly, you may wield weapons as if you are SM+0. Arms are technically short, having the reach of an SM+0 human, but don't have the penalty to grappling that would normally entail.

Power-Ups

So, this template is pretty weak to fit into a reasonable budget for a new player, but that means we have a lot of Power-Ups easily in range

• Accessory (Grappling Hook) You can shoot web that functions as the grappling hook from Dungeon Fantasy 1. Combine this with Skill Adaption(Throwing Grappling Hooks to Innate Attack) and it feels even more like a web!
• Binding is allowed to be bought up to the same level as ST. So, for a starting Drider, that is Binding 13.
• Super Climbing may be bought up high enough to always cling at maximum move speed.
• Drider Talent may be bought up to 4 levels
• Infravision[10] - Getting used to your subterranean home!
• Kicking Legs[5] - This removes the Can't Kick limitation from your legs. You have buffed up enough so the spindly pretty things aren't so fragile anymore.
• Grappling Legs[17] - This is Extra Arms 2 (Temporary disadvantage, missing 2 legs, -15%) To munchkins, this value is estimated based on most players having about 6 move or more. For a more fair value, round move up to the nearest 5, and subtract that from -5% for the real modifier. That means this advantage is 19 points if you have less than 6 move, and 17 if you have more than 10 move, but those are both somewhat rare!
• Fangs[2]
• Additionally you may buy a toxic Follow-Up for your fangs that does 1 HP of damage a second for 10 seconds.
• Toxic 1 HP (Cyclic, 10 Cycles, 1 Second each, +900%; Follow-Up, +0%)[10]
• Developed Palette[5] 
• You may fill your need for blood from any animal that you can bite, not just sentience. In order to buy this, you are required to abstain from sentient blood for 10 consecutive days. At which point your Draining Disadvantage is transformed into 2 disadvantages
• Draining (Blood)[-5]
• Addiction (Sentient Blood)[-5]
• You may then buy off the Addiction disadvantage as per the rules in Basic Set p.440 for addiction withdrawals if you can continue to abstain.
• Damage Resistance for the spider body may increase up to 6 at SM+1, and up to 8 at SM+2

The last bullet point hints to one special power up:

Moult

You may elect to shed your spider skin to grow to an SM+2 creature. This requires points enough to buy a minimum ST of 21, a low, but serviceable amount for an SM+2 body. 

That makes the cost variable based on how much ST you currently have.

Current ST	Cost
13	61
14	52
15	43
16	34
17	25
18	16
19	7
20	-2
21	-9
22	-12
23	-13
+1	-1

If you have a negative number, this is your change for ST going down in price. (consider also the effects on any lifting ST, HP, and Striking ST you may have independent of ST for whatever reason). These points can be set aside to buy additional ST if and when you have enough points to afford additional levels.
However, when you engage the moulting process you are vulnerable, and this will last for the length of one adventure. During this time you lose all natural DR on the spider part of your body until a new chitin exoskeleton hardens which takes, coincidentally, the length of 1 adventure.

Stat Maxima

At SM+1 maximum ST is 24, and at SM+2 maximum ST is 40. Regardless, Maximum IQ, DX, and HT, and Will are 20, Maximum Per is 18, Maximum HP is ST+30%, Maximum FP is HT+30%, Maximum increase to basic speed is +2.00, and maximum Basic Move is +3 to basic speed.

Other Thoughts and Conclusion

If I play a racial template, I want to go big or go home. To me, if the race is "furry human with a tail," and all the traits are mundane and easily buyable for a human, then I'm just playing a human that forces me to spend my discretionary points some way! So, in that respect, I hope I have created something that is unique and gives a different game experience, giving a slew of interesting obstacles and abilities that are exotic and allow one to approach the game from a different angle, while doing so on a tightly constrained budget. Would GCS templates be appreciated by the way? I could save it off somewhere.