source: RPGGeek.com
I promised y'all a kaiju built with Mecha + Monsters, and here it is. The first thing I knew I wanted was size; I passed on the ginormous Titan chassis yesterday and though I don't regret that I still want my monster to be one of the biggest critters on the razed block.
Kaiju creation mirrors mech creation, without the pilot rules and with some changes in terminology. There are four basic types of monster, each termed a "bioform": the striker-analogous Mokin, the versatile Bakemono, the heavy-hitting Oni, and the gargantuan Daikaiju. As I mentioned above, I'm going large today and that means Daikaiju.
A kaiju has Health points where mecha have Structure points and Energy where a mecha has Fuel, and for balance reasons a Daikaiju has a lot of base Health (12) and not a lot of base Energy (4). Each bioform also comes with an inherent Trait; for Daikaiju this is Unstoppable Mountain, which for a cost of 2 energy lets the Daikaiju ignore Disadvantage when making a Test roll. (Given the form's low base Energy, that's pretty expensive.)
Kaiju have four categories of customizable Traits, here termed Evolutions (as well as an Origin trait to select, which we'll do next): Intelligence, Attack, Defense, and Movement. Daikaiju can select 1 Intelligence, 2 Attack, 3 Defense and one Movement Evolution.
There is one Intelligence Evolution that has Daikaiju written all over it: Alpha. An Alpha kaiju can scream or bellow out a challenge that forces all kaiju and mecha in range to suffer Disadvantage when attacking it, until the end of the alpha kaiju's next turn. Sold!
Shopping the Attack Evolutions I come across Grasping Tentacles, which confers three Light Melee attacks at Disadvantage, and inflicts Disadvantage on the target's next roll if all three hit. That sparks an idea, and I note that Extra Limbs is also an Attack evolution; it grants two extra Attack Evolutions at the cost of one Defense Evolution. Now I'm beginning to see a giant squid or octopus come into focus. For my two bonus Evolutions I take Vicious Chomp to represent a beaked mouth (Light Melee attack with an extra point of damage carried over to my next action) and, in order to add a ranged threat, Bio-electric Discharge (Light attack at melee or range, damage plus, if target has electronics, shot down one system for a turn). Lots of ways to hurt enemies here, is none of them seem quite worthy of the Daikaiju title.
I would ordinarily get three Defense Evolutions, but I swapped one for Extra Limbs so that leaves me two slots in this category. And a lot of these Evolutions cost two slots, which is kind of annoying. Massive Evolution costs only one slot and gives me 5 extra Health points, which seems quite on-brand. And there are stealth-based defensive Evolutions that would be very squid-appropriate, but they don't really say "titan of the depths." So I opt for Layered Plating, which gives me a point of damage reduction against multiattack powers, and call it a day.
The Movement Evolutions are relatively few in number and not super attractive for the kind of creature I'm building towards, either for thematic reasons or due to energy cost. I settle for Powerful Lunge, which costs 2 Energy but lets me make what is basically a charge attack combining a move action with an Attack action at disadvantage.
None of the Origins directly reference the seas or oceans--a failure of imagination on the designers' part, it seems to me--but Born of Cold is not entirely unsuitable; the effect allows me to slap Disadvantage on the target of my attacks, and to force them to spend power points if that attack is already at Disadvantage.
It seems to me that, in the name of game balance (which to be honest TIny d6 isn't that good at anyhow), the Daikaiju and its mech analog the Titan are kind of underwhelming. It might have been better to keep these concepts NPC-only in order to preserve their grandeur.
And now all that remains is to give our lord of the deep a name (I'm sorry to admit I don't really have a backstory for it) and present a statblock. I couldn't come up with a Japanese name I liked (and maybe that field is a little too heavily cultivated anyway), so I turned to Greek (and set aside the existing taxonomy, a little) to dub my creation Megaloteuthis Basileos, the giant king squid of the Mediterranean world's nightmares.
Bioform: Daikaiju
Bioform Evolution: Unstoppable Mountain
Intelligence Evolutions: Alpha
Attack Evolutions: Extra Arms, Grasping Tentacles, Vicious Chomp, Bio-Electric Discharge
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