eldrin
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 14
Preferred Game Systems: Heroic
Currently Playing: Star Wars d20, Savage Worlds (Shaintar)
Currently Running: Savage Worlds *coming soon*
Favorite Species of Monkey: King Kong
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Post by eldrin on Apr 17, 2017 19:37:15 GMT -8
Hi,
Recently I listened to one of the podcasts in which the concepts of Hit Points and Wounds were discussed. I know that the HJ crew prefer wounds, and the arguments for it are valid. I've played (and GM'd) in numerous campaigns using Silhouette, which uses a wounds system, and it definitely makes combat more deadly, as well as realistic.
However, in the last homebrew I ran (a Shinobi campaign using elements of Naruto and Basilisk), I ran into issues when trying to bring in large and gigantic creatures. The threshold and wound system worked well for human versus human, but with larger creatures who have a much bigger body size, the minimum damage required to hurt them went way beyond what the PCs could do. Similarly, damage output from the big creatures made them super deadly. Granted, an argument could be made that they SHOULD be uber-deadly. But one-shot party-wipes are not to my taste, especially in a homebrew where I'm responsible for creating the system mechanics. In the end, I had to tweak the numbers, but I never quite felt satisfied with it.
With a Hit Point system, I could have potentially made the monsters have a crap ton of points, and the players would get satisfaction landing hits, and working as a team to overcome the behemoth. I think I would have also had additional leeway in damaging the PCs, since they would take injuries to a symbolic pool of points and could better judge when to fall back. I should also note that there was no "healing magic" in the game.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what kind of system could account for PCs tackling huge+ monsters, maintaining a feeling of threat, but not being SOO deadly as to insta-death the party?
Eldrin
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Post by jazzisblues on Apr 19, 2017 10:39:30 GMT -8
Savage Worlds handles this pretty well with Toughness, and what amounts to scaled damage. Personal weapons (hand guns and such) do not have enough oomph to do damage to, for example, a vehicle. Weapons that damage a vehicle do hateful amounts of damage to a person, but it's harder to hit a relatively small target like a dodging person.
that's where my head goes with it. The big ass monsters are easier to hit but harder to hurt and the hoomins are harder to hit but easier to hurt.
Cheers,
JiB
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2017 16:22:53 GMT -8
You have to decide if you want to allow a death by 1,000 paper cuts to large monsters. Can a dragon be killed by dagger wounds, or do you need to have 2 feet or more of penetration to hit a vital? One aspect of dungeon world I like is that it addresses just this sort of situation. You can't just go after such big threats with your normal pig stickers. You might need siege weapons or magic weapons (the type that can cleave through several inches of dragon scales). You might need to target vulnerable spots in order to get a telling blow in.
The difficulty of such fights isn't hitting and dealing damage, but in getting the fictional positioning so that you are even allowed to take a meaningful shot. You might need to study lore to find a weakness to exploit, then go on another quest to get the weapon that can kill it. Finally you get to take a run at the creature itself, and even then you have the difficulty of bringing that weapon to bear.
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Post by lowkeyoh on Apr 19, 2017 19:17:16 GMT -8
Seems like you have three choices. Make it hard to hit. Make it hard to damage. Make it able to take a lot of damage.
In d20 this would be AC, DR, and HP. In Savage Worlds this would be Parry, Toughness, and Wounds/Bennies.
Making it harder to hit a monster can be very frustrating. The 'I need to roll a 20' or 'I need two explosions on my attack' to hit problems mean that you can just circle around the table with players not hitting.
Hard to damage can be more satisfying for the players, because at least you're 'hitting' but can drag fights out too.
Amount of damage that a target can take is where I tend to do my on the fly adjustments to an encounter.
So is this large monster hard to hit? Hard to damage? Or can it take a lot of punishment?
One thing I've been doing for large monsters in Savage Worlds is just making them multiple wildcards. This Giant Stone Elephant is three wild card Bulls from the back of the book. It get three initiative cards. You shake different parts of it separately. As they wound the Stonephant I'll assign wounds to each subsector of the monster evenly. Area 1 takes a wound, then 2, then 3, then a second wound on one.
What this system does is allow players to focus damage on one part of the monster to cripple it. They focus on the head and get three wounds there? Tusks shatter and now it can only stomp them. Now it's drawing two cards a round. You've killed one of the three wildcards.
You're just using the trapping of 'it's all one monster' over the mechanics of 'you're fighting three wildcards'
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2017 21:17:43 GMT -8
Seems like you have three choices. Make it hard to hit. Make it hard to damage. Make it able to take a lot of damage. In d20 this would be AC, DR, and HP. In Savage Worlds this would be Parry, Toughness, and Wounds/Bennies. Making it harder to hit a monster can be very frustrating. The 'I need to roll a 20' or 'I need two explosions on my attack' to hit problems mean that you can just circle around the table with players not hitting. Hard to damage can be more satisfying for the players, because at least you're 'hitting' but can drag fights out too. Amount of damage that a target can take is where I tend to do my on the fly adjustments to an encounter. So is this large monster hard to hit? Hard to damage? Or can it take a lot of punishment? One thing I've been doing for large monsters in Savage Worlds is just making them multiple wildcards. This Giant Stone Elephant is three wild card Bulls from the back of the book. It get three initiative cards. You shake different parts of it separately. As they wound the Stonephant I'll assign wounds to each subsector of the monster evenly. Area 1 takes a wound, then 2, then 3, then a second wound on one. What this system does is allow players to focus damage on one part of the monster to cripple it. They focus on the head and get three wounds there? Tusks shatter and now it can only stomp them. Now it's drawing two cards a round. You've killed one of the three wildcards. You're just using the trapping of 'it's all one monster' over the mechanics of 'you're fighting three wildcards' Why spread the wounds out? Taking out a part of a monster is cool, but makes more sense when they are actually focusing on that part of the monster. I've actually seen this idea before on AngryGM's blog. He also has a cool one for monsters that transform when one of their parts is broken. So a possessed suit of armor might shatter away to reveal a ghost. WHen the transformation occurs, usually it changes the abilities of the monster, etc.
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Post by Probie Tim on Apr 20, 2017 6:54:59 GMT -8
One word: megadamage. Rifts for everyone.
...
Just kidding.
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Post by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE on Apr 20, 2017 8:06:52 GMT -8
Which is now just another word for "Heavy Weapon" and MDC being "Heavy Armor" in Savage Worlds. Mechanically it doesn't nothing different than normal damage against a normally armored enemy but in the narrative can be mean. But the result is the same: a Wound.
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Post by lowkeyoh on Apr 20, 2017 13:07:38 GMT -8
Why spread the wounds out? Taking out a part of a monster is cool, but makes more sense when they are actually focusing on that part of the monster. I've actually seen this idea before on AngryGM's blog. He also has a cool one for monsters that transform when one of their parts is broken. So a possessed suit of armor might shatter away to reveal a ghost. WHen the transformation occurs, usually it changes the abilities of the monster, etc. Because the alternative is giving a monster nine wounds. That means it'll eventually be at -7 to all it's rolls when it's getting close to death, and that's just not a fun fight. Imagine you're party is up against three wolves. Depending on their tactics they'll either focus fire on one wolf and kill it then move onto the next, or they'll all pair off with their own wolf and have at it. The same concept applies if you're putting the trapping of "it's a giant wolf" on the mechanics of "you're fighting three wildcard wolves" If they all gang up on one part of the wolf, those wounds come off the same wildcard. If they just 'I attack the wolf' and are aiming center of mass then the wounds spread out like they would if they were all attacking the different wolfs. I like transforming bad guys and bosses with phases, but neither of them really translate to simulating just a big, tough monster. That way you're not inventing mechanics, you're just using trappings over existing mechanics. The way you describe something is the way it exists for the players. The big wolf IS a big wolf. How you mechanically represent that is up to you. You can achieve the same result by fiddling with Parry, Toughness, giving it extra bennies, or house ruling custom rules for large monsters to have multiple wounds without taking penalties. However, just tossing a giant wolf shaped costume over three regular sized wolves means that you're not altering the basic mathematical assumptions of the game. And specifically for Savage Worlds, you can keep the game Fast, Fun, and whatever else they bill themselves as.
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eldrin
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 14
Preferred Game Systems: Heroic
Currently Playing: Star Wars d20, Savage Worlds (Shaintar)
Currently Running: Savage Worlds *coming soon*
Favorite Species of Monkey: King Kong
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Post by eldrin on Apr 20, 2017 22:56:55 GMT -8
Thanks for all the replies. The idea of the large creature having different parts that each act as like separate monsters, in terms of initiative, attacks, and damage, seems like a logical approach. I'm planning to run a Savage Worlds fantasy game soon so this should be helpful.
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Post by kurtpotts on May 3, 2017 15:12:35 GMT -8
There was an article about Dragons in Dungeon World only having 16 hit points that has changed the way I think of this kind of monster.
Something that is different about apocalypse world games that I've begun to integrate into my other games, Savage Worlds especially, is the idea that if the fiction doesn't support your action it doesn't engage the mechanics. For Example:
Say your big bad monster has natural armor that is impenetrable to normal weapons and someone tries to shoot it with a pistol or stab it with a sword. Instead of increasing it's Parry/Toughness to the point that it can't take the damage. Quickly describe how they fire a few shots or slash at it with their sword to no effect. We're not even in initiative at this point because they have no way of effectively dealing with the threat.
When the narrative changes, someone produces their special monster slaying greatsword or enacts a plan to drive a tanker truck off the parking garage and into it's mouth the next time it fires it's beam weapon. That might be able to hurt the thing. Shuffle the cards and roll some dice.
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Post by lowkeyoh on May 3, 2017 15:18:37 GMT -8
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