As the title suggests, I'm trying to figure out how to go about hacking 3.x to make fighting much larger creatures actually "feel" like you're fighting something really big.
The Problem:
D&D does a passable job of simulating combat between creatures that are approximately the same size (i.e., within 1 size category of each other). But when you encounter much larger/smaller creatures, you're left with either ignoring the narrative or having your immersion completely shattered.
Confounding factors:
To make matters even worse, there are even some mechanics that do recognize size differences (anything that involves STR checks, and arguably Sneak Attack); and that inclusion actually just serves to further muddy the waters.
Goal:
I'm wanting some sort of way to shoehorn some sort of mechanic that can passably serve to simulate some Shadow of Colossus type of stuff ... and needs to be functional from both sides of the size-difference coin. Again, this is to apply to creatures who are 2-or-more size categories apart from each other.
My instinct is break each body part apart and treat them as separate creatures, with a sprinkling of inspiration from the hydra rules.
What can be done?
How to make larger creatures "feel" large? (3.x hack)
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Schleiermacher
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Don't, don't, don't break up monsters by body part and treat each body part as a separate monster. That has worked in exactly one place ever and that place was the first seven Final Fantasy games. In a tabletop RPG it goes straight to sillytown.
Honestly, I don't think there are a lot of problems with big monsters in D&D as it is, once you add the Tome grapple maneuvers like Grab and Climb On to the mix. You'd want some more options for large creatures making area attacks and knockback attacks against smaller creatures, and if you were feeling really ambitious you'd want a "damage to objects" subsystem that made sense so you could have monsters trample huts and break down castle walls and shit... but ultimately you're just looking at ways to make large creatures fighting small ones a bit more dynamic and getting rid of dumb details like dragons making 6-hit full attacks against targets the size of their thumbs.
Honestly, I don't think there are a lot of problems with big monsters in D&D as it is, once you add the Tome grapple maneuvers like Grab and Climb On to the mix. You'd want some more options for large creatures making area attacks and knockback attacks against smaller creatures, and if you were feeling really ambitious you'd want a "damage to objects" subsystem that made sense so you could have monsters trample huts and break down castle walls and shit... but ultimately you're just looking at ways to make large creatures fighting small ones a bit more dynamic and getting rid of dumb details like dragons making 6-hit full attacks against targets the size of their thumbs.
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infected slut princess
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Honestly the Grab On action from Races of War works fine. You just abstract some of the finer details and WHAM! you have Shadow of the Colossus. It's simple, it works, and your imagination does the rest.
Oh, then you are an idiot. Because infected slut princess has never posted anything worth reading at any time.
I don't mean to be dense; but could you detail that a bit for me?Schleiermacher wrote:Don't, don't, don't break up monsters by body part and treat each body part as a separate monster. That has worked in exactly one place ever and that place was the first seven Final Fantasy games. In a tabletop RPG it goes straight to sillytown.
Yes, this applies to the "other side of the coin" that I referred to.You'd want some more options for large creatures making area attacks and knockback attacks against smaller creatures, and if you were feeling really ambitious you'd want a "damage to objects" subsystem that made sense so you could have monsters trample huts and break down castle walls and shit... but ultimately you're just looking at ways to make large creatures fighting small ones a bit more dynamic and getting rid of dumb details like dragons making 6-hit full attacks against targets the size of their thumbs.
I will have to check that out.infected slut princess wrote:Honestly the Grab On action from Races of War works fine. You just abstract some of the finer details and WHAM! you have Shadow of the Colossus. It's simple, it works, and your imagination does the rest.
I've glanced over the Tombs; but I haven't really looked too deeply in to it.
I recall reading here at some point that some GURPS book had decent rules for making big things feel properly big and deadly. It was apparently a bit more detailed than Grab On. I don't remember which book had the rules, though.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
Woah, I'm going to have to say fuck you on that one. It also worked in Grandia.Schleiermacher wrote:Don't, don't, don't break up monsters by body part and treat each body part as a separate monster. That has worked in exactly one place ever and that place was the first seven Final Fantasy games.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
Distinction without a difference.Koumei wrote:Woah, I'm going to have to say fuck you on that one. It also worked in Grandia.Schleiermacher wrote:Don't, don't, don't break up monsters by body part and treat each body part as a separate monster. That has worked in exactly one place ever and that place was the first seven Final Fantasy games.
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
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OgreBattle
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Big guys get stomp their feet, throw their mass around, swing in broad arcs with their club, some way to clear multiple smaller weaker foes.
The Trample rules are a start:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#trample
But make it accessible to everyone with a size difference against their foe and have it be a move action instead of a full round action or something like that.
Little guys in turn get to climb up on big dudes, which Races of War has added to the grappling rules I think.
As for hitting targets in different heads or breaking off their horns or maiming their wings, what's a good way to do that? Maybe scoring a critical hit lets you choose a condition to inflict? Target a higher AC in a called-shot kind of system?
The Trample rules are a start:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#trample
But make it accessible to everyone with a size difference against their foe and have it be a move action instead of a full round action or something like that.
Little guys in turn get to climb up on big dudes, which Races of War has added to the grappling rules I think.
As for hitting targets in different heads or breaking off their horns or maiming their wings, what's a good way to do that? Maybe scoring a critical hit lets you choose a condition to inflict? Target a higher AC in a called-shot kind of system?
Last edited by OgreBattle on Fri Nov 21, 2014 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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infected slut princess
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TarkisFlux
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I worked up some stuff along these lines a while back, as part of a larger "making size changes less work" project that I was never satisfied with. It leaned on the Grab On maneuver and flight/climb/jump/whatever to get into position, as has been suggested here, and then added some additional restrictions. Here's the bits that might be relevant to your query:
[*]3 or more sizes smaller than target: You must enter the creature's space to attack it. Damage dealt to creature is applied to a limb that you can reach and not their normal hit point total (which may make the limb useless, but will never actually kill them), unless you can reach the creature's vital areas.
[*]2 sizes smaller to 2 sizes larger: No changes.
[*]3 or more sizes larger than target: You are considered to have Improved Grab against your target. You can throw your target as if they had a range increment equal to your space size.
[*]4 or more sizes larger than target: Attacks with melee weapons are resolved as touch attacks. You are considered to have Improved Grab and Trample against your target. You can throw your target as if they had a range increment equal to double your space size.
[*]5 or more sizes larger than target: Attacks with melee or ranged weapons are resolved as touch attacks. You are considered to have Improved Grab, Trample, and Swallow Whole against your target. You can throw your target as if they had a range increment equal to four times your space size.
You can also add in awesome blow at some point in there to knock small targets back. Or AoE attacks against a line of squares equal to the large creature's facing, to emulate a wide swing.
That basically sets up small creatures to get murdered closing with large creatures, but able to murder them if they can close and get their climb on. Creatures that are really small relative to a big thing may not be able to kill it, but they can annoy it or disable enough parts of it to drive it away. Which seems like what you're looking for if you want Shadow of the Colossus as inspiration.
[*]3 or more sizes smaller than target: You must enter the creature's space to attack it. Damage dealt to creature is applied to a limb that you can reach and not their normal hit point total (which may make the limb useless, but will never actually kill them), unless you can reach the creature's vital areas.
[*]2 sizes smaller to 2 sizes larger: No changes.
[*]3 or more sizes larger than target: You are considered to have Improved Grab against your target. You can throw your target as if they had a range increment equal to your space size.
[*]4 or more sizes larger than target: Attacks with melee weapons are resolved as touch attacks. You are considered to have Improved Grab and Trample against your target. You can throw your target as if they had a range increment equal to double your space size.
[*]5 or more sizes larger than target: Attacks with melee or ranged weapons are resolved as touch attacks. You are considered to have Improved Grab, Trample, and Swallow Whole against your target. You can throw your target as if they had a range increment equal to four times your space size.
You can also add in awesome blow at some point in there to knock small targets back. Or AoE attacks against a line of squares equal to the large creature's facing, to emulate a wide swing.
That basically sets up small creatures to get murdered closing with large creatures, but able to murder them if they can close and get their climb on. Creatures that are really small relative to a big thing may not be able to kill it, but they can annoy it or disable enough parts of it to drive it away. Which seems like what you're looking for if you want Shadow of the Colossus as inspiration.
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org
Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
Chrono Trigger?Schleiermacher wrote:Don't, don't, don't break up monsters by body part and treat each body part as a separate monster. That has worked in exactly one place ever and that place was the first seven Final Fantasy games.
Can you be more specific about what problem you are having? Why is your immersion shattered?ACOS wrote:As the title suggests, I'm trying to figure out how to go about hacking 3.x to make fighting much larger creatures actually "feel" like you're fighting something really big.
The Problem:
D&D does a passable job of simulating combat between creatures that are approximately the same size (i.e., within 1 size category of each other). But when you encounter much larger/smaller creatures, you're left with either ignoring the narrative or having your immersion completely shattered.
Confounding factors:
To make matters even worse, there are even some mechanics that do recognize size differences (anything that involves STR checks, and arguably Sneak Attack); and that inclusion actually just serves to further muddy the waters.
Goal:
I'm wanting some sort of way to shoehorn some sort of mechanic that can passably serve to simulate some Shadow of Colossus type of stuff ... and needs to be functional from both sides of the size-difference coin. Again, this is to apply to creatures who are 2-or-more size categories apart from each other.
My instinct is break each body part apart and treat them as separate creatures, with a sprinkling of inspiration from the hydra rules.
What can be done?
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radthemad4
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TarkisFlux's post has some good stuff.
Tome Grab On:
It's a start, but you're either holding on to an opponent or you're not. When dealing with way bigger opponents, you might want a bit more granularity.
How about letting you use some sort of 'get higher' or 'closer to a weak spot' maneuver if whatever you're climbing is a three or more categories larger that makes it harder to shake you off and gives you an increasing bonus to attack? Perhaps the number of times you can increase the advantage depends on the size category difference. Perhaps you can start off at a more advantageous 'holding on position' if you exceed the Grab on DC by a significant margin on your initial roll, with a bonus if you make a good Jump Check or can fly.
Tome Grab On:
Grab On
Sometimes, you want to attach yourself to a larger creature, getting inside their reach and then repeatedly stabbing them or simply weighing them down. As an attack action you may attempt to grab on to an opponent.
Grabbing on to an opponent provokes an attack of opportunity and requires a check with the same bonuses as a melee attack. The DC to grab on to an opponent is their Touch AC plus their BAB. If you have 5 ranks of Climb or Ride, you get a +2 synergy bonus on this maneuver for each skill.
Holding on: Once you’ve attached yourself to your opponent, you go wherever they go. Move in to their space, and move where they do automatically (this movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity or count against your movement in any way). You may attack with any light or one handed weapon, and your opponent is denied his Dexterity bonus against you.
Being Held on to: If another creature has grabbed on to your character, their weight counts against your carrying capacity. If you’re overloaded, you may be unable to move or even collapse until you shake your opponent off. You can attempt to attack a creature holding on to you, but your strength modifier is halved for such attacks and your attacks are at -4. You may attempt to shake your opponent off as an attack action by making a check with a bonus equal to your melee attack or Escape Artist and a DC of 10 + the greatest of your opponent’s BAB, Climb Ranks, or Ride Ranks.
Edge Options: If you have the edge on an opponent when you grab them, they may not attack you at all once you
have grabbed on to them. Further, grabbing on to an opponent does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Sometimes, you want to attach yourself to a larger creature, getting inside their reach and then repeatedly stabbing them or simply weighing them down. As an attack action you may attempt to grab on to an opponent.
Grabbing on to an opponent provokes an attack of opportunity and requires a check with the same bonuses as a melee attack. The DC to grab on to an opponent is their Touch AC plus their BAB. If you have 5 ranks of Climb or Ride, you get a +2 synergy bonus on this maneuver for each skill.
Holding on: Once you’ve attached yourself to your opponent, you go wherever they go. Move in to their space, and move where they do automatically (this movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity or count against your movement in any way). You may attack with any light or one handed weapon, and your opponent is denied his Dexterity bonus against you.
Being Held on to: If another creature has grabbed on to your character, their weight counts against your carrying capacity. If you’re overloaded, you may be unable to move or even collapse until you shake your opponent off. You can attempt to attack a creature holding on to you, but your strength modifier is halved for such attacks and your attacks are at -4. You may attempt to shake your opponent off as an attack action by making a check with a bonus equal to your melee attack or Escape Artist and a DC of 10 + the greatest of your opponent’s BAB, Climb Ranks, or Ride Ranks.
Edge Options: If you have the edge on an opponent when you grab them, they may not attack you at all once you
have grabbed on to them. Further, grabbing on to an opponent does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
How about letting you use some sort of 'get higher' or 'closer to a weak spot' maneuver if whatever you're climbing is a three or more categories larger that makes it harder to shake you off and gives you an increasing bonus to attack? Perhaps the number of times you can increase the advantage depends on the size category difference. Perhaps you can start off at a more advantageous 'holding on position' if you exceed the Grab on DC by a significant margin on your initial roll, with a bonus if you make a good Jump Check or can fly.
Last edited by radthemad4 on Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
Well, TarkisFlux hit the highlights for me (thanks, btw).Drolyt wrote: Can you be more specific about what problem you are having? Why is your immersion shattered?
But more specifically ... some examples are needed:
So you've got a halfling (small) waltzing up to a Mountain Giant (colossal), and commences to hack away. Even ignoring the fact that his blade wouldn't even make it through the giant's epidermis, what exactly is supposed to be going on here? Am I to expect that said giant is going to die in under a minute from being stabbed in the toe?
Conversely, as Schleiermacher mentioned, there's the issue of a ginormous dragon busting out an attack-per-second on a single target the size of his thumb. The image here is just preposterous. Yet, this is exactly what the rules would have me believe. Dafuq? What is there here to make sense?
Last edited by ACOS on Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RadiantPhoenix
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Lago PARANOIA
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Why do you find that silly? Do you think that it's silly how in games that feature large vehicular combat the sections are broken up into different hit locations? If you don't there, then why here?Schleiermacher wrote:Don't, don't, don't break up monsters by body part and treat each body part as a separate monster. That has worked in exactly one place ever and that place was the first seven Final Fantasy games. In a tabletop RPG it goes straight to sillytown.
Just because something isn't realistic doesn't mean it's not lame. Just because something is realistic doesn't mean it isn't awesome. For example, 4E D&D posits that a company of peasant children can punch through a stone wall faster than a catapult can is both unrealistic and lame. Also, assassinating someone in the bathtub by throwing in a fuseless hair dryer is both realistic and awesome.RadiantPhoenix wrote:Wait, "raelizm" is your objection?
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Fri Nov 21, 2014 5:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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RadiantPhoenix
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Right, my point is that you should approach it with your primary goal being "make it awesome!", and "realism" should be one of the methods you consider, rather than the primary selection criterion.Lago PARANOIA wrote:Just because something isn't realistic doesn't mean it's not lame. Just because something is realistic doesn't mean it isn't awesome. For example, 4E D&D posits that a company of peasant children can punch through a stone wall faster than a catapult can is both unrealistic and lame. Also, assassinating someone in the bathtub by throwing in a fuseless hair dryer is both realistic and awesome.
I think it is less realism and more verisimilitude. A halfling jumping in the air and slicing a colossal giant's throat with a magic dagger is in no way realistic, but it is much easier to swallow than a halfling killing that same giant by stabbing its toe repeatedly (and somehow getting sneak attack damage because a dwarf is attacking the same monster's heel).RadiantPhoenix wrote:Wait, "raelizm" is your objection?
Not, "This is nowhere near as cool and epic as it should be!"?
Well, in this case what I would normally do as MC is describe something from out of an action movie or a video game. So the halfling jumps up and stabs the giant in the eye, not the toe. You have to handwave away the fact that this probably isn't supported by the characters abilities, and in many ways it is an unsatisfying solution, but it is the simplest solution.ACOS wrote:Well, TarkisFlux hit the highlights for me (thanks, btw).Drolyt wrote: Can you be more specific about what problem you are having? Why is your immersion shattered?
But more specifically ... some examples are needed:
So you've got a halfling (small) waltzing up to a Mountain Giant (colossal), and commences to hack away. Even ignoring the fact that his blade wouldn't even make it through the giant's epidermis, what exactly is supposed to be going on here? Am I to expect that said giant is going to die in under a minute from being stabbed in the toe?
Well, the problem here is that multiple attacks a round was always a horrible idea. I don't know how to fix it without writing a new game.Conversely, as Schleiermacher mentioned, there's the issue of a ginormous dragon busting out an attack-per-second on a single target the size of his thumb. The image here is just preposterous. Yet, this is exactly what the rules would have me believe. Dafuq? What is there here to make sense?
Last edited by Drolyt on Fri Nov 21, 2014 6:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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OgreBattle
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Abstract it to mean something other than "he punches with his left, then his right hand". So a dragon expending 2 'attacks' on one smaller target just means he smashed it with his palm. While a dragon expending two attacks on different targets means he made a long swipe with his claws.Drolyt wrote: Well, the problem here is that multiple attacks a round was always a horrible idea. I don't know how to fix it without writing a new game.
Now on having monsters with breakable parts, is the hydra's decapitation rule a good base to follow?
So then things like hydra necks, tentacles, golem limbs and harpy wings are treated like 'equipment' that can be sundered.To sever a head, an opponent must make a successful sunder attempt with a slashing weapon. (The player should declare where the attack is aimed before making the attack roll.) Making a sunder attempt provokes an attack of opportunity unless the foe has the Improved Sunder feat. An opponent can strike at a hydra’s heads from any position in which he could strike at the hydra itself, because the hydra’s head writhe and whip about in combat. An opponent can ready an action to attempt to sunder a hydra’s head when the creature bites at him. Each of a hydra’s heads has hit points equal to the creature’s full normal hit point total, divided by its original number of heads. Losing a head deals damage to the body equal to half the head’s full normal hit points.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Fri Nov 21, 2014 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ah, but the halfling is actually a master of reflexology. A quick Google search shows that the toe corresponds to the brain. Therefore, gaining sneak attack is quite simple.ACOS wrote:So you've got a halfling (small) waltzing up to a Mountain Giant (colossal), and commences to hack away. Even ignoring the fact that his blade wouldn't even make it through the giant's epidermis, what exactly is supposed to be going on here? Am I to expect that said giant is going to die in under a minute from being stabbed in the toe?
(sorry for turning this into a giant omni-post)
If "raelizm" was what I was going for, I would insist that the halfling's sword couldn't penetrate the giant's skin; but I'm not, which is why I am explicitly ignoring that kind of thing.
I want smaller characters to have to climb/fly/teleport to a vulnerable spot and/or have to take down the dragon/giant/colossus piecemeal. This is for 2 reasons: (1) verisimilitude (yes, that is the right word, not "realizm"), and (2) it would make for some awesome cinematic scenes. Again, as Lago pointed out, simply stabbing at the creature's toe and heel is just flat-out lame. And being able to translate even something like Disney's rendition of Brave Little Tailor (as silly as that example might seem) would indeed be pretty badass. Hell, if you pay attention to the beginning of that short, it even briefly demonstrates the flip-side of that coin that I mentioned earlier.
*(side note to Lago: Sneak Attack actually does specifically state that you must be able to reach a vital area on your opponent; so there's that)
I'll start with the hydra example: We ran an encounter a while back that involved a kraken attacking a ship (a la PotC:Dead Man's Chest); and it worked beautifully (well, once the players got over the "fuck you - we're only level 6"). I treated each tentacle as a separate creature (and too bad nobody had water breathing); an even had a narrative countdown timer, in the form of the ship itself taking damage. Every time a tentacle missed its attack on a crew member, it instead caused damage to the ship, in addition to the couple of tentacles that I had dedicated to just attacking the ship (via grapple damage). I divided the kraken's HP amongst the tentacles; and they just hacked it apart from there, until the kraken decided "fuck this, I'm going home".
I realize that scene was made possible because of the specifics unique to that particular scenario; but surely some of that can translate to more general applications.
@attacking smaller creatures:
What about giving something like Whirlwind Attack for free iff the size difference is sufficient? Or, what about something like breaking apart the War Hulk PrC and turning the class features in to feats that can be used against smaller creatures? Not only would PCs be able to take it (if they wanted to, I guess); but big creatures generally have feats to spare for retraining (because seriously, does "Big T" really need 6 iterations of toughness?).
Or maybe this is just stuff you can just do, with a sufficient size difference?
@trample:
Why not toss in bull-rush, overrun, and sunder while I'm at it? Granted, I haven't yet taken the time to consider all the implications; just spit-balling.
Back to the point:
Bringing down big creatures via a slogfest of HP attrition is boring; and there's currently no real way to differentiate between hacking at a dragon/giant/etc. and hacking at a level-15 Pixie barbarian. And quite frankly, that makes me sad.
Players should want to have to make Ride checks as they hold on to the dragon and stab at its wing joints in an effort to ground the thing to make it more manageable. They should want to scale the Mountain Giant via Climb checks so that they can stab out its eyes while everyone else works at tripping hit down. And having to do this should be a feature of how these kinds of encounters should run. They're no longer just "encounters"; they're now their own mini-adventures in their own right. And that desire should be accommodated with something other than MTP/DM-fiat.
After reviewing the feats from Races of War, that certainly helps some. Some. And this thread has now given me quite a bit to tinker with.
Or maybe I'm just wanting too much.
(adding to what Lago and Drolyt said)RadiantPhoenix wrote:Wait, "raelizm" is your objection?
Not, "This is nowhere near as cool and epic as it should be!"?
If "raelizm" was what I was going for, I would insist that the halfling's sword couldn't penetrate the giant's skin; but I'm not, which is why I am explicitly ignoring that kind of thing.
I want smaller characters to have to climb/fly/teleport to a vulnerable spot and/or have to take down the dragon/giant/colossus piecemeal. This is for 2 reasons: (1) verisimilitude (yes, that is the right word, not "realizm"), and (2) it would make for some awesome cinematic scenes. Again, as Lago pointed out, simply stabbing at the creature's toe and heel is just flat-out lame. And being able to translate even something like Disney's rendition of Brave Little Tailor (as silly as that example might seem) would indeed be pretty badass. Hell, if you pay attention to the beginning of that short, it even briefly demonstrates the flip-side of that coin that I mentioned earlier.
*(side note to Lago: Sneak Attack actually does specifically state that you must be able to reach a vital area on your opponent; so there's that)
I understand what you're saying here; but for smaller creatures, more attacks is actually something that I can grok, especially in regards to attacking other smaller creatures. OgreBattle has actually touched on this, so I'll address this more below.Drolyt wrote: Well, the problem here is that multiple attacks a round was always a horrible idea. I don't know how to fix it without writing a new game.
OgreBattle wrote: Big guys get stomp their feet, throw their mass around, swing in broad arcs with their club, some way to clear multiple smaller weaker foes.
The Trample rules are a start:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#trample
But make it accessible to everyone with a size difference against their foe and have it be a move action instead of a full round action or something like that.
This is all good stuff. And it got me thinking ...OgreBattle wrote:Abstract it to mean something other than "he punches with his left, then his right hand". So a dragon expending 2 'attacks' on one smaller target just means he smashed it with his palm. While a dragon expending two attacks on different targets means he made a long swipe with his claws.Drolyt wrote: Well, the problem here is that multiple attacks a round was always a horrible idea. I don't know how to fix it without writing a new game.
Now on having monsters with breakable parts, is the hydra's decapitation rule a good base to follow?
So then things like hydra necks, tentacles, golem limbs and harpy wings are treated like 'equipment' that can be sundered.To sever a head, an opponent must make a successful sunder attempt with a slashing weapon. (The player should declare where the attack is aimed before making the attack roll.) Making a sunder attempt provokes an attack of opportunity unless the foe has the Improved Sunder feat. An opponent can strike at a hydra’s heads from any position in which he could strike at the hydra itself, because the hydra’s head writhe and whip about in combat. An opponent can ready an action to attempt to sunder a hydra’s head when the creature bites at him. Each of a hydra’s heads has hit points equal to the creature’s full normal hit point total, divided by its original number of heads. Losing a head deals damage to the body equal to half the head’s full normal hit points.
I'll start with the hydra example: We ran an encounter a while back that involved a kraken attacking a ship (a la PotC:Dead Man's Chest); and it worked beautifully (well, once the players got over the "fuck you - we're only level 6"). I treated each tentacle as a separate creature (and too bad nobody had water breathing); an even had a narrative countdown timer, in the form of the ship itself taking damage. Every time a tentacle missed its attack on a crew member, it instead caused damage to the ship, in addition to the couple of tentacles that I had dedicated to just attacking the ship (via grapple damage). I divided the kraken's HP amongst the tentacles; and they just hacked it apart from there, until the kraken decided "fuck this, I'm going home".
I realize that scene was made possible because of the specifics unique to that particular scenario; but surely some of that can translate to more general applications.
@attacking smaller creatures:
What about giving something like Whirlwind Attack for free iff the size difference is sufficient? Or, what about something like breaking apart the War Hulk PrC and turning the class features in to feats that can be used against smaller creatures? Not only would PCs be able to take it (if they wanted to, I guess); but big creatures generally have feats to spare for retraining (because seriously, does "Big T" really need 6 iterations of toughness?).
Or maybe this is just stuff you can just do, with a sufficient size difference?
@trample:
Why not toss in bull-rush, overrun, and sunder while I'm at it? Granted, I haven't yet taken the time to consider all the implications; just spit-balling.
Back to the point:
Bringing down big creatures via a slogfest of HP attrition is boring; and there's currently no real way to differentiate between hacking at a dragon/giant/etc. and hacking at a level-15 Pixie barbarian. And quite frankly, that makes me sad.
Players should want to have to make Ride checks as they hold on to the dragon and stab at its wing joints in an effort to ground the thing to make it more manageable. They should want to scale the Mountain Giant via Climb checks so that they can stab out its eyes while everyone else works at tripping hit down. And having to do this should be a feature of how these kinds of encounters should run. They're no longer just "encounters"; they're now their own mini-adventures in their own right. And that desire should be accommodated with something other than MTP/DM-fiat.
After reviewing the feats from Races of War, that certainly helps some. Some. And this thread has now given me quite a bit to tinker with.
Or maybe I'm just wanting too much.
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OgreBattle
- King
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knocking things over should be a natural part of the combat system and not require specialized techniques. Like in stories and video games you'll see a giant swing and bat someone away with their club, a person getting shot fall over then get back up a moment later. But in D&D I have to have a special attack maneuver to do that.
I could see the 'massive damage threshold' rule being fiddled with where when you take that much damage you have make a save vs falling prone.
Or the ride check rule about seeing if you fall over after being struck, but applying to all forms of combat in some way. It'd also be good for grounding flying foes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O731m_Apvuk
*Ah neat, seems like the SRD kraken already has rules for fighting its tentacles individually:
I could see the 'massive damage threshold' rule being fiddled with where when you take that much damage you have make a save vs falling prone.
Or the ride check rule about seeing if you fall over after being struck, but applying to all forms of combat in some way. It'd also be good for grounding flying foes.
That sounded like a fun fight. Dragon's Crown has a kraken fight that begins just like that, with the added element of loading and firing cannons at the tentacles too:ACOS wrote: I divided the kraken's HP amongst the tentacles; and they just hacked it apart from there, until the kraken decided "fuck this, I'm going home".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O731m_Apvuk
*Ah neat, seems like the SRD kraken already has rules for fighting its tentacles individually:
An opponent can make sunder attempts against a kraken’s tentacles or arms as if they were weapons. A kraken’s tentacles have 20 hit points, and its arms have 10 hit points. If a kraken is currently grappling a target with one tentacle or arm, it usually uses another limb to make its attack of opportunity against the sunder attempt. Severing a kraken’s tentacle or arm deals damage to the kraken equal to half the limb’s full normal hit points. A kraken usually withdraws from combat if it loses both tentacles or three of its arms. A kraken regrows severed limbs in 1d10+10 days.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:15 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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radthemad4
- Duke
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When a weapon is larger than you it should just stop doing more damage and get a bullrush effect for free. If a player is wielding some gargantuan greatsword through some means it makes no more sense that the human he is hitting just stands there like a brick wall when hit than if a dragon tailswipes a human.
Last edited by MfA on Sat Nov 22, 2014 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
With some heavy searching, I also found this thread.radthemad4 wrote:This thread might be relevant.
Hmm. This feels like it might be opening the door to being just a little too much.MfA wrote:When a weapon is larger than you it should just stop doing more damage and get a bullrush effect for free. If a player is wielding some gargantuan greatsword through some means it makes no more sense that the human he is hitting just stands there like a brick wall when hit than if a dragon tailswipes a human.
So my Goliath with Monkey Grip is just bullrushing huge swaths with his club. Huh .... there might actually be something to this. I'm a little more conservative when it comes to just handing out stuff for free; but there may be something to work with.
Again, it all comes to size differences.