Mon­sters die dif­fer­ent­ly. They lose vital­i­ty when wound­ed equal to wound severity—1, 2, or 3 per hit. At 0 vital­i­ty, they die.

6-dam­age wounds usu­al­ly kill mon­sters instant­ly.

Mon­sters have unique hit loca­tion charts. Chart­ed body areas describe their armor and the wound effects caused by hit­ting them, list­ed in ital­ics. Wound effects include:

A mon­ster’s foe type deter­mines how it reacts to vio­lence.

• Sim­ple foes do not suf­fer malus, react to attacks, or roll to resist wounds. They suf­fer spe­cial effects from all wounds. They die in 1–2 hits, on aver­age. They are threat­en­ing in num­bers.
• Cun­ning foes react to attacks and inten­tion­al­ly exploit edges, but do not roll to resist wounds. When maimed—at ½ vitality—they suf­fer 2 malus. They suf­fer spe­cial effects from sev. 3 wounds. They die in 1–4 hits, on aver­age. They are sig­nif­i­cant indi­vid­ual threats, and a cut­ter may eas­i­ly die if out­num­bered by them.
• Mor­tal foes react to attacks; suf­fer malus per X vital­i­ty lost (per their malus stat,) abuse edges, roll For­ti­tude to resist wounds, and suf­fer spe­cial effects only from unre­sist­ed sev. 3 wounds. They die in 3–12 hits. They are pro­found, boss-tier threats. Team­work is required to defeat them with­out casu­al­ties.

Foe types pre­vent unnec­es­sary com­plex­i­ty in mon­sters, mak­ing them less stren­u­ous for you to run in per­il.

building monsters

1. foe type

Numer­ous, triv­ial foes are sim­ple. Dan­ger­ous, intim­i­dat­ing, dynam­ic foes are cun­ning. Boss­es, mini­boss­es, and pow­er­ful, named char­ac­ters are mor­tal.

Cun­ning and mor­tal foes require more note-tak­ing and active mem­o­ry to run, in per­il, and make for longer fights.

2. VITALITY

Assume your cut­ters will land mor­tal (sev. 3) blows with every attack. With this giv­en, choose mon­ster vital­i­ty in mul­ti­ples of 3.

Mon­sters with low vital­i­ty and high dam­age out­put are best. Mon­sters with high vital­i­ty (or effec­tive armor) are dan­ger­ous, as they sur­vive more per­il rounds and live to land more attacks. Mon­sters with 9+ vital­i­ty, espe­cial­ly armored ones, make for dead cutters—and long com­bats.

Effi­cient cut­ters pro­duce quick fights. They’ll aim for death and dis­mem­ber­ment with every blow. If a mon­ster too impor­tant or durable to deserve this fate, raise or remove the thresh­old for instant death with traits.

For cun­ning foes, divide vital­i­ty by 4–5 to deter­mine their malus stat. To make them strong­ly affect­ed by wounds, divide by 6.

3. BASE SKILL

Base skill mat­ters for cun­ning and mor­tal foes. Since it’s used for reac­tions (blocking/dodging/countering,) it deter­mines a mon­ster’s base defen­sive capa­bil­i­ty.

• Sim­ple foes: Base skill of 2–3. To them, this stat is least impor­tant.
• Cun­ning foes: Base skill of 3–5. Not so high to guar­an­tee suc­cess every roll; not so low that 2 malus ruins every­thing.
• Mor­tal foes: Base skill of 6–9. Mind how “dead” your mon­ster must be for malus to affect their attack/reaction rolls.

4. ACTIONS & REACTIONS

A mon­ster’s num­ber of actions dic­tates its pri­ma­ry offen­sive capa­bil­i­ty. More actions = more attacks.

A mon­ster’s num­ber of reac­tions influ­ences its defen­sive capability—and its abil­i­ty to counter more often. More reac­tions = more dodges, blocks, or coun­ters. More attacks required for cut­ters to “wear it down” and land unmit­i­gat­ed hits.

Unless your mon­ster is espe­cial­ly slow, fast, or threat­en­ing, leave actions and reac­tions at 2 apiece.

• Mor­tal foes are the excep­tion to this: They deserve more than 2 actions, plus a trait split­ting them between mul­ti­ple ini­tia­tive turns. With­out extra actions, mor­tal foes are too mild.

5. AGI, PER, & SUB

These three skills are crit­i­cal to dan­ger (for stealth/surprise) and per­il (for move­ment speed/dodging/initiative.)

Record these indi­vid­u­al­ly for cun­ning and mor­tal foes. Vary them per your mon­ster’s strengths and weak­ness­es.

6. TRAITS

Sens­es, weak­ness­es, enhanced dura­bil­i­ty, dam­age type resis­tances, extra actions, and any­thing else that “breaks the rules.”

Mor­tal foes deserve traits that dis­trib­ute their ample actions across the ini­tia­tive order, plus a trait to raise or remove the thresh­old for instant death.

A selec­tion of sam­ple traits is includ­ed at the foot of this page.

7. ATTACKS

Most mon­ster attacks are “no roll,” rely­ing on cut­ters’ reac­tions to deter­mine if they hit or not.

• Mon­ster melee attacks do not typ­i­cal­ly roll to hit. Con­se­quen­tial or bru­tal attacks may earn a roll (rolled + base skill, typ­i­cal­ly.)
• Mon­ster ranged attacks typ­i­cal­ly do roll to hit. Area attacks (fire breath, acid spray, etc.) do not.

Choose dam­age care­ful­ly. High (6+) dam­age wounds kill or dis­mem­ber green or unar­mored cut­ters.

• 1d4+2 is a safe option for nor­mal foes.
• If the mon­ster wields a con­ven­tion­al weapon, use the weapon’s default dam­age val­ue (per the arms lists.) Add +1 if it’s par­tic­u­lar­ly strong.
• For nat­ur­al weapons (teeth, claws) and super­nat­ur­al attacks, refer to the dam­age chart below

Some attacks can deal more or less dam­age vs spe­cif­ic cut­ter reac­tions, reward­ing cut­ters for choos­ing the best defense.

8. hit loca­tions

Deter­mine a num­ber of hit loca­tions appro­pri­ate the mon­ster’s phys­i­ol­o­gy. It need­n’t be as detailed as human loca­tions. Assign these to the num­bers of a sim­i­lar poly­he­dral die.

At least half of a mon­ster’s hit loca­tions should yield a spe­cial wound effect.

If the mon­ster is armored, record the armor’s reduc­tion and hard­ness along­side the hit loca­tion it cov­ers.