Size Differential
I hate to say it, but Mr. Stabby has a point. In the real world getting into melee with anything bigger than a bear beggars belief. Elephant guns and explosive harpoons even the score, but that not what’s happening here. Pug may be mighty and Pug may be fierce, but let’s be real: It doesn’t matter how many years of judo you took. Punching a charging rhino to death ain’t happening here on Planet Earth.
Happily, the Land of Adventure is a different place entirely. That means we have plenty of weapons to help us fight for our suspension of disbelief. There’s ki and magic and divine power to draw upon. But even better than those is media precedent. Small things fight big things all the time! Yoda backflips over Count Dooku. Wander climbs a colossus. Kratos dodges [insert giant boss here]. The general pattern is “highly mobile vs. big and clumsy,” and it’s easy to imagine our PCs following suit. Unfortunately, our games don’t always reflect that narrative.
Especially when we’re talking about games that use a grid, it can be tough to break out of the stand-and-swing mindset. I always liked DM of the Rings on this point, but here’s the TLDR: When you’re locked into a single square on the game board, the visual and the mechanics show a static miniature. It’s not moving. It’s not backflipping. It’s just standing there trading blows like a heavyweight bruiser. And when you’re talking about human-sized critters trading haymakers with literal Godzilla, you’ve got suspension of disbelief problems. So I’m sorry Fighter, but being a big strong medium-sized creature isn’t much better than being a kobold in this scenario.
This is why I always liked the Exalted stunt system. There dramatic maneuvers stop being “actually you’d have to make three different jump checks to even attempt that” and become instead “that’s awesome and creative and I award you two bonus dice.” The trick is that you can port this mindset over to others game. The mini may not move on the table, but that doesn’t mean you can’t describe yourself grabbing onto the titan’s hand, riding it up to the thing’s face, and stabbing it through the eye.
It works for me, but what about the rest of you guys? How do you rationalize your heroes surviving hits from house-sized critters? Let’s hear about the weapons you use to fight for your suspension of disbelief down in the comments!
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shrugs
usually I don’t even notice its there
And this is why we put points into Perception.
When the Tarrasque gets a surprise round because nobody spotted it, that’s just embarrassing.
*snerk*
Everybody above level 5 is magic. They may not cast spells, but when the fighter gets smacked through a wall by a tentacle of evil, his innate fighter magic allows him to survive that when a wizard or a commoner would have been turned into jelly. Its a lot easier to just come out and say it than it is to try and hold onto the “Guy at the Gym” fallacy.
But like… Why does the fighter magic still work in anti-magic fields?
Because magic. Why do sentient oozes not just fall apart in an anti-magic field?
There isn’t really going to be a clean answer here, because for whatever reason the folks writing 3rd edition (and by extension, pathfinder) really didn’t want to actually come out and say that the fighter was anything more than an ordinary guy, even though by 20th level he could easily walk off a fall from the upper atmosphere.
Although the high-initiative rogues would probably be perfectly happy to have an anti-magic field drop the HP of everybody inside it to their level 1 values.
Wound up finding the “guy at the gym fallacy” thread. Interesting read! I think my skydiving club applies:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/falling-damage
Exactly. Its a lot easier to just call it magic and move on than to try and explain what it is he’s doing to be able to take that kind of fall. I know HP aren’t meat points, but past a certain amount of trauma you really do need to explain how getting hit by a truck isn’t doing meat damage.
If you’re willing to break from a grid system (which is admittedly easier in a system like 5e than PF) then the way I justify surviving hits from a house-sized creature is they don’t get directly hit. When the roc slashes at the fighter, instead of a direct hit the fighter ducks down and raises his shield. The claw clips the shield, sending the fighter spinning through the air and leaving a nasty mark, but nowhere near the level a direct hit would. Or when the tarrasque hits the rogue, instead of being a true hit the tarrasque narrowly misses, but the resulting shockwave and flying debris still damage the rogue as she just barely dodges. I feel this both helps colossal creatures truly feel colossal and justifies how they can land damage on the PCs without the PCs getting instantly pancaked.
Let’s call that the “close shave method.” I dig it!
I believe Starfinder’s Stamina Points system works something like this. Stamina Points are your ability to take minor damage, and Hit Points are your resistance to more serious injury. Whenever you get hit, you lose Stamina Points until you run out (at which point you begin to lose Hit Points), and short resting gets you back your Stamina Points but not your HP. Stamina Points can easily be flavored as “your ability to avoid serious injury”, so when a giant “hits” you, you actually narrowly dodge but get tired as a result. Too many close dodges like that wear you down to the point where you start taking actual injuries that’ll stick with you for more than 10 minutes.
Pug’s secret is that she took a level in Ninj-I mean, Samurai, to jump good.
https://youtu.be/Uwbqr2UjeSg
Also, unless I’m mistaken, Pug seems to be the only actually named (as in, identified by something other than class name) character in the comic? Does that mean she’s the true protagonist of the Handbook-verse?
Pug is a pugilist. It’s a Mathfinder class that’s like a Monk but different. Since I filter everything from bad editions in this comic through the lens of better editions I assume she’s either a Monk of some sort, or a Barbarian with the Tavern Brawler feat.
Knew what it was before clicking the link. Might be my favorite moment in the show.
I believe that I’ve referred to Barbarian as Barbie a couple of times in comments, but I’m not sure that’s ever made it into the comic itself.
Regarding huge creatures, there is an often overlooked ability all of the largest dragons, as well as most other chonker monsters have – the ‘crush’ attack. Essentially, they fly and/or jump towards your PCs and simply land on top of them, doing damage and pinning them if they don’t get out of the way.
Crush (Ex)
A flying or jumping Huge or larger dragon can land on foes as a standard action, using its whole body to crush them. Crush attacks are effective only against opponents three or more size categories smaller than the dragon. A crush attack affects as many creatures as fit in the dragon’s space. Creatures in the affected area must succeed on a Reflex save (DC equal to that of the dragon’s breath weapon) or be pinned, automatically taking bludgeoning damage during the next round unless the dragon moves off them. If the dragon chooses to maintain the pin, it must succeed at a combat maneuver check as normal. Pinned foes take damage from the crush each round if they don’t escape. A crush attack deals the indicated damage plus 1-1/2 times the dragon’s Strength bonus.
I cannot tell you how clearly I can hear this moment in my head. And a dragon with that voice cracks my shit up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqClWdOcWog
Past a certain point the party becomes fantasy superheroes and I can justify any of their chicanery that is represented in the mechanics.
I use Dark Souls as my point of visual reference. It never feels incongruous that the Chosen Undead blocks blows from giant monsters and spears them to death, why should it feel incongruous for your D&D party? That said the invincibility frames in dodging do feel incongruous. Get good dodge players, learn to actually not be where the attack is, or just use a shield like a real player.
lol.
“Just imagine it more like a video game. That will help things feel more realistic!”
No lie man… “Realism” is one hell of a moving target.
Generally, I think it’s no different than PCs being able to survive multi-Boromir volleys of arrow; at some point, the hit point abstraction breaks down and you have to start treating their hp totals as something supernatural. Like, because their destinies are tied up in the magic of the legendary items they carry and the rivalry with dragons and undead gods and whatnot…
I’ve always wanted to try a campaign where that was codified. Remove the hp abstraction entirely and just say “you’re too heroic to die” as the official rather than the implied excuse.
I like to steal a little from RWBY and say that all HP above a certain threshold (say, equal to CON score) is a barrier of positive energy, aka aura, projected by the soul to ward against harm.
huh. Well that’s a novel approach.
And then there’s…
https://i.imgur.com/i2JZsc5.png
Ha! Nice to see that I’m an authentic original.
They’re Rasputin, pure and simple. It takes a legendary amount of punishment to fell them.
When you can wrestle men three times your size into the ground, what’s another few size multipliers?
Weirdly, that one varies by edition. I think I made a point about it way back here:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/adventurers-be-trippin
The usual way I justify smaller creatures damaging huger ones tends to be implied called shots. Two medium sized folks can slug each other in the chest to decent effectiveness, but trying to hit punch a hill giant means you didn’t beat his AC. Thus if/when you do, you’re not just attacking their bodies, but going for small, sensitive areas that can inflict some level of pain to the enemy. Giant dragon swiping a claw at you? Slice into their finger. Stone Giant about to bite you in half? Pike up the nose. Undead skeleton monstrosity that’s probably a Zombie Tarrasque? Smash their toe.
That works well for swashbuckling types, but when you’re a big strong barbarian I’ve got a harder time fitting it into my head. I mean, I want to hulk smash a mofo, not bob and weave.
Pug is a perfect little wrecking ball and she can do what she wants.
Yeah she is. 😀
If anime has taught us anything, it’s that leaping up into the air and punching the giant is super effective, while hitting it with a sword less than 10 ft tall is not.
I tend to think of HP as less absolute units of damage and more of a countdown towards inevitable demise. It’s impossible to survive a Doom Giant’s punch, but it is possible for a PC to just be clipped by it, or barely dodge it, leaving them shaken and rattled and 4d8+12 hit points closer to being crushed by it on its next swing. This also makes sense in sci-fi games where people are shooting guns and lasers and what-have-you. It only takes one hit to kill, but you have a certain number of shots you can absorb or dodge before your luck runs out.
On the flip side of the coin, I try to break up giant-sized fights into phases to make them more plausible. Sure, start by standing still and hacking at the Doom Giant’s toenails, but when it falls to its knees after a certain amount of damage you then fight its torso, then its head, then climb inside and fight its heart. (Some call this the Oglaf Method.) Takes a bit more setup, but makes more sense to my mind than taking it from 100-0 just by plinking at its feet.
I always liked video-game style multi-phase fights. The real trick is to make it abundantly clear that things have changed on the battlefield.
The way I think of it this in the the fact that any character can go from 1 hp to full after just 8 hours (or 1, if you’re lucky on a short rest). I think that the magic in the world around them is helping them heal their wounds, and as it does so it therefore becomes part of their body and they heal stronger. This also explains why this magic favours martial hp over casters; being front-liners, martials get hit more often, and thus heal more often.
In essence, I took “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, and made it head cannon.
Of course, that’s just how I think of it, and isn’t what I do in game. In game, I just give as many enemies as possible bludgeoning weapons as possible. It’s hard to justify little effect for getting hit in the chest by a maul, but it’s even harder to justify little effect from getting hit in the chest by a sharpened great sword.
“You’re only slightly cloven in twain. Take five damage.”
Yeah… That mess never quite works.
When the giant monster appears we defenestraste the grid. For small tactical combat is good, for a group of four “adventurers”, if you want to stretch the word, against a monster the size of a large inn, the grid is not so good 🙁
Also: What the f0{king f0ck is that thing? Fighter and Pugilist are gonna fight a Neverborn? o_O
Well I mean, we’ve established that Pug is mighty and Pug is fierce.
So Pug punch the Neverborn in the face?
Finally she has reached the zenith of her power and her determination and heroism has called the attention of the Unconquered Sun who has bestow upon her the Exaltation that breaks the darkness and bring new light…
Go Neverborn!!! Smash her into the Abyss!!! You can do it!!! 😀
Ima need some fan art of this, STAT!
Alternately she’s been watched by Luna, and she has to survive the first hit on sheer willpower, crawl away, lick her wounds, and come back and kill it smarter. ~.^
Pug’s totem is definitely Tyrant Lizard.
Well also remember she is a Kobold so i suppose that she can become a Dragon-blooded in more than one sense of the word.
That too is a good addition to her character, she already goes for a class/race that not too much people will recommend and fights to prove her worth each day. Just like when you use the lamest exalted and manage to do something awesome 🙂
Oddly enough, even though Irlana could blow through most opponents with ease, she’s probably have some trouble with that thing. The buzzsaw of AoOs only works if she confirms the crit.
Good luck flanking it too. Mick would be in another time zone.
Nah, that’s easily taken care of with Pack Flanking. Hunters share all their teamwork feats with their animal companions. That’s why the buzzsaw works in the first place – Outflank and Paired Opportunists are shared.
I’ve played many systems that allow this, and some handle it better than others. More rules heavy systems like Pathfinder with its tactical movement and large creatures tending to have Grab do it less well. Scion 2E, Exalted of any Edition, Mutants and Masterminds tend to actually do it better. Generally it works with anything that isn’t trying to provide Warhammer levels of strategy.
That being said, I’m with all of those people that espouse “Fighter magic” for high level characters. Not only for the hp though, but for the damage. A tenth level Pathfinder Fighter will have 80 hp on even very low stats and rolls. That same fighter will be hitting for weapon die + twenty one or so with fairly normal adventurer stats, gear and Abilities. With both his attacks hitting, that’s two hits of roughly 25 damage each. He can kill himself in two rounds, the only thing keeping him from murdering multiple level 2 guards a round is positioning.
Is this what happens when both Fighter and Pug fail the Will save versus Phantasmal Killer?
It’s what happens when Laurel gets overly ambitious. 😛
I for one never hate to say Mr Stabby has a point. Mostly because he’d stab me for the insult. =P
Well in the realms of realism, Fighter can theoretically do anything at all because weapons are amazing force multipliers whereas fists….aren’t. (Well I guess they are compared to…. not even a fist. shrug )
As for surviving blows, yeah being a few feet taller really doesn’t help anything.
But I’ve never really been aiming for that kind of realism in games. So I’ve never really had an issue with those kinds of things. I imagine most people who play a game of any kind that involve monster fighting unconsciously sign the suspension of disbelief waiver since the ability to fight monsters is part of what they’re there to enjoy.
Oh sure. I’m just trying to figure out how we can mechanically / dramatically aid that suspension of disbelief.
Might I ask what the giant beastie in the comic is? Is it a Paizo or WOTC bestiary creature, a videogame reference, or a Laurel original?
Just asked her. As per Laurel:
Ya know, I’m starting to think all the Fighters are actually just some sort of summon or construct created by Mr Stabby to let him get to places.
<_<
I played that character once. My GM hated it.
I’m thinking that all it will take is for Pug to curl up in an armadillo-like ball, accelerate to terminal velocity via some means of (non)magical propulsion, and punch right through that skeletal structure….
Non-magical terminal velocity you say? I think I know someone who can help:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/thrown-for-a-loss
First, Pug, you KEEP punching good!
Second, my characters usually survive house-sized monster-punches by NOT BEING ANYWHERE NEAR THEM! Holy crap, are you crazy? That thing is huge! Nono, I’ll kill it from way back here, thank you very much. …Or at least that’s the mentality of my Kobold Goolock.
For everyone else, I fall back on ‘Hit Points are not Meat Points.’ They more reflect your ability to fight on, so when that giant lobs a boulder at my barb, and he shrugs it off, it’s more because he stepped out of the way and at most had to roll with it clipping him and dislocating a shoulder. He’d just pop it back in and move on, whereas a less tanky character might stand there with a limp arm and shattered morale.
I’m more worried about how they’re managing TO hit enormous creatures in ways that actually damage them. A Stone Colossus, for example, stands upright and doesn’t have a femoral artery or an achilles tendon. By all rights (barring flight magic or an equally sized opponent) that combat should be in two stages, first destroying one of its feet to force it prone, and then actually fighting the dang thing. But that’s not how it works
(For some creatures this is mitigated by the opposite question of how a creature can fight something that much smaller than itself anyway (which is also an issue with the cliche lv1 rat fighting adventure). Does it crouch down? Or swing its sword or axe like a golfclub? If it crouches down to strike I could kind of see it also being vulnerable to being struck, but the way the stats are done seems to assume this isn’t the case)
What do you mean “how to hit it?” It’s got AC 31. You hit AC 31. /s
But for serious, I hear you on that count. It would be interesting to design a monster that has DR / flying.
Really late commenting as I catch up with the comic, but there’s an in-development game call Reach of Titan which is all about combatting enormous foes.
It’s a very specific concept which I’m not sure I’ll ever play in its own right, but the bit that I found really interesting was that you play on a vertical battle map. The idea is that you need to climb the creature to kill it, and damaging different parts of its body produces different effects. At some point I’m hoping for an excuse to convert the concept for a D&D/PF session.
Neat! I know that PF has a similar concept over here:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo-rogue-archetypes/vexing-dodger/
And I worked with a guy that made an Attack on Titans class for the Veranthea Codex:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/135154/Veranthea-Codex-Beztekorps-Prestige-Class–FREE-PDF?term=veranthe&affiliate_id=189525%20
Plunder that mess! Build something cool from the pieces!
Well I feel a kobold vexing dodger rogue character in my future, that sounds like a ton of fun.
Do it! Report back with tails of great success.
The game grid may only show 2d, but I’ve always operated my characters in 3d. Broke many a DM that way.
This is why I’m looking forward to when my Eagle Totem Barbarian gets the leaping flight ability: I’ll be zipping all around any larger creatures to poke their vital bits.
More monsters should be designed as multi-stage boss fights. That would be awesome.
The issue with fighting that giant skeleton is different than the issue you’d face with a rhino. With the rhino the only issue is that you can’t hit it hard enough to hurt it, but with that skeleton thing you wouldn’t even be able to reach its head or torso to begin with. I’m a little curious how even Fighter intends to justify damaging that thing
Fighter is much larger than Pug. He’s gonna hit it with his sword. Obviously.