I possess no special insights, but I reread the monster description and the pertinent rules in
Exploits. Seems to me that you've got it right on all counts. I'll add a few specific notes below.
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Originally Posted by tbone
1) Unnatural, etc.: Doomchildren are described as fragile and easily killed with one solid hit. But at HP 8 and no particular physical weakness, that needs to be a really big solid hit – at least 16 damage, possibly 24+. True, some DFRPG heroes can deliver that kind of wallop, but doesn't it seem doomchildren should they have the Unnatural trait, or even Fragile (Explosive)? (Fragile isn't listed among monster disads, though.)
Am I missing something obvious that makes them blow up more readily?
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I'm curious about this too. Seems to me that there's a 50% chance of death with 16-23 points of injury. That's a solid hit, but not an assured death. (If you use mortal wounds for foes, then the chance drops to 16%). If you use the “And Stay Down!” rules (
Exploits, p. 86), then it works if you just say that they die at zero HP. But, as written, the rule doesn't suggest that the monsters are dead, just that they "cower, play dead, flee, or surrender," so this doesn't solve the problem. In my game I think I will say that they explode automatically at either zero or -8. This is not
exactly a house rule since the monster description itself says that "one solid hit will kill them."
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4) Chain reactions: The idea of a chain reaction of exploding doomchildren is a fun one. But unless there's a missing "die at 0 HP" trait, it seems really unlikely to occur unless 'children are packed into the same hex.
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Yeah, without death death at 0, a chain reaction is unlikely. Killing them at zero, though, is pretty nifty. Any doomchild within five hexes will take 1d cutting (plus potential explosion damage. Rolling a six would kill uninjured doomchildren. Doomchildren in the first hex out from an average 10 HP explosion would take 3 from the explosion plus the shrapnel, which would cause an explosion 50% of the time.
Edit: Going with 1 hit = death (as Bruno did) would definitely amp up the chain reaction potential!