Encounter: Shambling Grass

It said to give credit, so look at the
attribution at the end of this post.

I haven't done a lot of swarm enemies yet, so I think to myself, maybe it is time to do just that. I recently thought of a field of grass that is living, I guess you could think of it as somewhat similar to Blade Grass from Mirror of the Fire Demon, but the mechanics here are much different. I'm thinking a fields-wide swarm of grass that can attack. Let's see what that might look like in GURPS terms.

Mechanics

So, I liked using CER, but for swarms, we play a bit differently. In Pyramid 3/77 on p.31, there is a call-out with the title "Made Monsters," which addresses swarms. First off, these guys will only attack feet and legs, so we need to have enough skill for that, and then we need to account for Rapid Fire because there are so many, so let's get up a template and take a look if we consider these things SM-3 Taking into account that size modifier, let's leave skill at 10, the modifier from Rapid Fire for about 25 in one hex is +5. We can also make this thing move kinda slow. Let's take a look at what we are working with.

Attack Skill	5	Active Defense	-16
Affliction		Damage Resistance
Damage		Health
Fatigue Points		Hit Points
Move	-3	Will
Total Offensive Rating (OR)	2	Total Protective Rating (PR)	-16

I want the grass to be a little weak, so let's say 1d-3 cut, a 1 point damage, multiplied by the 5 for RoF bonus, which gives us 5 points. Let's make them slightly better at dodging but not great.

Attack Skill	5	Active Defense	-4
Affliction	0	Damage Resistance
Damage	5	Health
Fatigue Points		Hit Points
Move	-3	Will
Total Offensive Rating (OR)	7	Total Protective Rating (PR)	-4

Now we need to decide on FP and HP. Each individual unit is weak, so let's say 4 each. For a one-yard swarm of Grass, it has 50 points for Fatigue and 50 points for HP. That's a lot of points! On second thought, let's remove the Active Defenses again. Let's also add Homogeneous (because I don't want to deal with Targeted Attacks and Weak Points.)

Attack Skill	5	Active Defense	-16
Affliction	0	Damage Resistance	8
Damage	5	Health
Fatigue Points	50	Hit Points	50
Move	-3	Will
Total Offensive Rating (OR)	57	Total Protective Rating (PR)	42

Finally, to throw Druids and friends of vegetables a bone, let's give it a low will so we have an alternative method of attack.

Attack Skill	5	Active Defense	-16
Affliction	0	Damage Resistance	8
Damage	5	Health	0
Fatigue Points	50	Hit Points	50
Move	-3	Will	-3
Total Offensive Rating (OR)	57	Total Protective Rating (PR)	39

OK, so we have statted up a one-hex swarm. And it is intensely powerful at 96 CER. Each additional hex is also an additional 100 CER. Now, a singular Shambling Grass with its 5 HP, and 5 FP, and no RoF bonus is -24. This is rounded up as is required by the system, to 1.

So, a final stat block for a single blade of Shambling Grass is as follows:

ST: 5	HP: 4	Speed: 3
DX: 10	Will: 7	Move: 3
IQ: 4	Per: 10
HT: 10	FP: 4	SM: -3
Dodge: 0	Parry: N/A	DR: 0

Scratch (10): Reach C, 1d-3 Cutting. Aims exclusively for the legs or feet of a standing target.
Traits: Wild Animal, No Arms, Vermiform (but vertical instead of horizontal), and with legs. One long sharp, but fragile blade of grass, Terrain Adaption (forms thick grasses wherever it grows), Homogeneous
Skills: Brawling-10
Class: Plant

And the stat block for a one-yard hex swarm:

ST: 5	HP: 100	Speed: 3
DX: 10	Will: 7	Move: 3
IQ: 4	Per: 10
HT: 10	FP: 100	SM: 0
Dodge: 0	Parry: N/A	DR: 0

Scratch (15): Reach C, 1d-3 Cutting, Rate of Fire: 25 (Bonus already rolled into attack) Aims exclusively for the legs or feet of a standing target.
Traits: Wild Animal, No Arms, Vermiform (but vertical instead of horizontal), and Has Legs. One long sharp, but fragile blade of grass, Terrain Adaption (forms thick grasses wherever it grows), Homogeneous
Skills: Brawling-10
Class: Plant

This swarm is a challenge for a group of weaker adventurers, and is on par with two strong adventurers. Note that it is dispersed when it loses 60 HP.

Other Notes and Closing

The swarm came out really strong really fast, but I guess that's fine. It seems kinda interesting how fast it got strong... and also FP seems overvalued for a lot of monsters that don't need it... on the other hand, if they had lower FP, then it would be vulnerable to a couple extra tricks. This monster is pretty simple, but could probably benefit from Camouflage, and Stealth skills. The trickiest part is thinking of a motive for grass to attack. Maybe it is just a dumb pest that attacks people because it doesn't know any better? Maybe it regularly consumes large animals as a horde? Maybe it is the army of an angry nature protector scorned by the party?
This enemy is an interesting way to exploit targeted attacks, but other than that and the swarm thing, it feels pretty mundane. That said, it is still a pretty dangerous thing. It may have a bunch of weak attacks, but feet tend to be not as well protected, and it only takes a few hits before bigger problems occur.

Image Attribution

By The original uploader was Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Off2riorob using CommonsHelper., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6902647