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Old 04-27-2018, 08:09 AM   #1
martinl
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Default Bodkins vs. Werewolves

Last night Llando was in a werewolf fight, and lacking any silver arrows, used his bodkin armor divisor against the lycanthrope's supernatural DR.

A think this is legal RAW, but I think I'm gonna personally invoke the "that was cute, once" rule and not allow it in the future.
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Old 04-27-2018, 12:04 PM   #2
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Bodkins vs. Werewolves

You can always make their DR hardened.
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Old 04-28-2018, 07:20 AM   #3
ArchonShiva
 
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Default Re: Bodkins vs. Werewolves

Why? Silvered or silver arrows would work a whole lot better (silvered bodkin work great if the werewolf is wearing armor), but halving DR is what bodkin arrows do. Would you prevent a 3d+9 attack from injuring the creature?

All my scouts carry a few inexpensive silvered arrows for such emergencies. But if they don’t have them, halving DR is a tolerable backup plan. DR 7 is still a big deal when your damage is somewhat low.
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Old 04-28-2018, 08:47 AM   #4
martinl
 
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Default Re: Bodkins vs. Werewolves

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Originally Posted by ArchonShiva View Post
Why?
Lore, mostly. My idea of werewolf DR has less to do with having skin of iron and more to do with weird supernatural disdain of damage not caused by silver. Bodkins make sense for the first but not the second.

I might switch to dividing non-Silver damage by 10 and reduce DR to 2. (I might allow fire to work at ~half damage as well - somehow I feel you should be able to burn Lycanthropes.)
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Old 05-01-2018, 08:36 PM   #5
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: Bodkins vs. Werewolves

Give your werewolves Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction, Except silver).
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Old 05-02-2018, 07:13 AM   #6
Kromm
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Default Re: Bodkins vs. Werewolves

The GM would be within their rights to rule that the words "narrow, hardened point for piercing armor" aren't just fluff, and imply that only armor DR is affected. The reason that was not emphasized more was to avoid a situation where all DR scores would have to be qualified in whole or in part by one or several labels such as "Armor," "Force Field," "Magic," "Toughness," etc., with inevitable hair-splitting like "Should elephant hide be Armor or Toughness?" and "Magic means supernatural damage absorption that works by fiat rather than by hardening the subject's flesh (Toughness), providing a surface covering of hard material (Armor), or generating physical protection some distance from the surface (Force Field)." That seemed like . . . too much, somehow. YMMV.

In my rant above, the DR of werewolves would be Magic because it's a sort of blessing – not tough flesh (weapons bounce off and don't transfer, say, poison), physical armor (there are no scales or plates), or a field that protects the monsters' possessions as well. They get DR 15 vs. non-silver "just because," and there's no justification other than "the curse of the werewolf." So it would be reasonable to say, "It isn't Armor, so bodkins do nothing." Just realize that if you do, you're going to be looking to categorize all monster DR.
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Old 09-13-2022, 02:34 PM   #7
sjmdw45
 
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Default Re: Bodkins vs. Werewolves

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
The GM would be within their rights to rule that the words "narrow, hardened point for piercing armor" aren't just fluff, and imply that only armor DR is affected. The reason that was not emphasized more was to avoid a situation where all DR scores would have to be qualified in whole or in part by one or several labels such as "Armor," "Force Field," "Magic," "Toughness," etc., with inevitable hair-splitting like "Should elephant hide be Armor or Toughness?" and "Magic means supernatural damage absorption that works by fiat rather than by hardening the subject's flesh (Toughness), providing a surface covering of hard material (Armor), or generating physical protection some distance from the surface (Force Field)." That seemed like . . . too much, somehow. YMMV.
Aren't we in this situation anyway because of the armor chinks rule?

Attacking Chinks in Armor
You may use a piercing or impaling attack to target weak points in armor (not natural DR or that provided by a spell). Roll at -8 for torso armor or -10 for any other location, instead of the usual penalty for hit location. If you hit, halve armor DR.


I spent a certain amount of time the other day trying to figure out whether Golem-Armor Swordsmen could have their DR 17 bypassed by attacking at -8 for torso chinks, are vulnerable to Large Area damage, can be shot in the eyes to bypass DR, etc.

On the one hand, DFRPG Monsters does say that "Only creatures noted as wearing armor have it". The Golem-Armor Swordsman does not say it wears armor--in fact it implies that it's simply made out of armor, especially the Extra Life where the corpse golem is already dead and only the armor is alive[1]. On the other hand, it does have "armor" in the name. On the other-other hand, the Nictitating Membrane trait seems designed specifically so that a small handful of monsters like dragons can be an exception to a general trend of eyes being unarmored, which implies that maybe there's an unspoken DFRPG rule that eyes are not armored without this trait.

On the gripping hand, as GM I can make monsters work any way that I want. But still, I think it would be useful to have more detail on how armoring works per-monster, such as having the Elephant be DR 4 [Tough Skin]. As GM I can make something up if necessary but it's still nice to know authorial intent.

[1] BTW, is it just my imagination, or is the Golem-Armor Swordsman inspired by the T-800 in Terminator 2? I imagine the Extra Life playing out exactly the same way that the T-800 reboots on emergency power after "dying" the first time.

Last edited by sjmdw45; 09-13-2022 at 03:43 PM.
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