Topic: Are Large and Huge Monsters Getting the Shaft in Hack and Slash?

[kedrake]

From  Hack & Slash (Page 4)

?Large and huge foes are more resistant to damage, and therefore use different attack tables. Thus, when fighting a dragon, a character would not use the Slash attack table for his sword, but would use the Huge table, since the dragon?s size is Huge in the stats given for him.  These foes (i.e. monsters) will be marked in their stats as being of Large or Huge size.?

However, using the attack tables given, they are certainly not MORE RESISTANT, in fact they are getting the holy crap kicked out of them on these tables.

A strike with a Normal Sized weapon on the normal critical tables gives these results

Roll	Results (S)	Results(C)	Results(P)
25	6 Hits	7 Hits	6 Hits
50	17H S2 -10M	19H S1 -10M	15H B2 -5M
75	28H S3 B2 -30M	31H S3 -25M	24H S1 B4 -20M
100	38H S5 B5 -45M	43H S6 B1 -40M	33H S4 B7 -40M

But if you are attacking a Large (L) or Huge (H) using a normal sized weapon the results get jacked up to these:

Roll	Results (L)	Results(H)
25	17 Hits	14 Hits
50	23H S1	25H
75	40H S3 B1 -10M	43H S1 -10M
100	56H S6 B3 -25M	61H S4 B1 -20M

As a gross average, Large creatures are taking roughly 52% more concussion damage than normal sized creatures and Huge creatures are sucking up 60% more concussion damage.  I do realize that the critical penalties for these results are slightly too moderately less severe.

This is a new trend (in Hack and Slash) over the tables in the HARP Core rules and also Martial Law, where the concussion hits are LESS on the (L) and (H) tables than on the normal tables.

This difference compounds itself (potentially more) if using the OPTIONAL RULE: RANDOMIZING CRITICALS where the large beasts will take more hits from the original attack, and then possibly get smacked by an even Higher Critical than normal.

I find this weird.

[WoeRie]

I made a simple house rule because of that: I reduce the criticals by one severity for each size above Medium and increase it for each size below Medium. This would result in less damage against large and huge creatures and more against small and tiny. Values below Tiny get a -10 or -20, values above Huge +10 or +20. I totally droped the Large/Huge tables and use the specific tables instead.

Example: If you attack a Huge Demon with a Small Dagger, you make nearly no damage (as long as you do not roll an open ended or you use Power-Attack): Huge Monster => Reduce weapon size by 2: Small Slash => Tiny -10 Slash.
Attacking a tiny rat with a Longsword: Tiny Monster => Increase weapon size by 2: Medium Slash => Huge Slash.

I'm very happy with the outcome so far (we use this rule since a year, now) and in the EoH setting I use they have to fight some Demons. The players fear the huge monsters and try to avoid combat (if possible) or use large weapons. I know that these creatures got an extra power boost because they begin with more hits than others, but I like that these creatures get the respect they should get.

[Thos]

Wow! I never realized this. Thank you for pointing that out, kedrake.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Consider that Hack & Slash was actually somewhat based on the same tables that appear in RMX, and if you look at those tables and criticals, you will find similar patterns. Thus, it is less weird than it might first seem...

The system gives an entirely different flavor to combat, and that was its goal.