Dungeon Fantasy and HT Rolls -> Death

[sunstone]

I am on the fence to buy the dungeon fantasy RPG as a pdf.

I have one question about it, especially combat:

I am avid GURPS player but run into problems when named monsters have a HT of 11 or 12 or even higher and keep on going for rounds and rounds and the players have to hack HP away to kill the beast.

The problem I have with this is that it is so anticlimatic to wait for a monster to get over a certain HP-threshold and see it make the roll again and again.

So, how is it done in dungeon fantasy? Death rolls? Any change to the gurps system?

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by sunstone

The problem I have with this is that it is so anticlimatic to wait for a monster to get over a certain HP-threshold and see it make the roll again and again.

So, how is it done in dungeon fantasy? Death rolls? Any change to the gurps system?

The Exploits book has a sidebar, "And Stay Down!," on page 86, that deals with this very question. It suggests that the GM should "adjust the injury level that will defeat monsters in a given encounter." It provides some recommendations for different levels of monsters, from a "1-HP tap" for the weakest fodder to -1xHP for worthies. It recommends reserving the full injury rules for bosses. This sidebar is also referenced from the Monsters book on page 6.

For DF-style games, I typically just have most monsters drop dead at zero unless the dramatic needs of the encounter demand more or a PC wants to take a prisoner.

[Lord Azagthoth]

And don't forget the Conscious Check every turn if the monster does something else than Do Nothing. A Consciousness Check every turn is alot quicker way to subdue the monster than a Deatch Check every multiple of HP. When its unconscious, go for the kill and drop the monster to -5xHP instantly.

[sunstone]

Okay, seems similar to GURPS then.

My gripe is the story and emotional aspect. It is a downer, that you have to chop HP away bit for bit when a boss has high HT and high pain threshold. Everyone is going "awwwww..." when he makes his 15th HT roll without a problem. But maybe my players should aim for vitals more etc. to do more damage.
Somehow killing some boss monster is more epic in D&D, not sure why though.

[Kromm]

Also, don't overlook the fact that players aren't supposed to know how many HP monsters have! Tough monsters are designed to take a lot of hacking to drop. The only practical difference between "60 HP and HT 10, and probably drops at most a turn after 60 points of injury" and "10 HP and HT 15, and probably needs 60 points of injury to be hacked down to -5×HP" is a few dice rolls in the latter case for the slim chance of victory before 60 points are inflicted. Intermediate HT values decrease the creature's effective HP and increase that chance, but it's not the case that players should be able to say, "This foe has x HP, so it should be finished once we inflict that."

So if there's an anticlimax, it's more a result of play style (i.e., revealing HP to the players) than game mechanics. If the GM thinks it's fairer to reveal HP, well, I'd recommend exaggerating HP for high-HT creatures. If the players have the impression that the HP 10, HT 15 monster is a HP 60 foe, and that enemy gets unlucky and fails an early HT roll, the victory will seem unexpected and sweet! However you handle it, the unpredictability of HT rolls serves to prevent players from getting too cocky (and frankly, mechanical) about anticipating victory.

[TorgSmith]

Also, you do not need to always use the same number of HP or HT on creatures every time. You can change other things about a monster as well. I like to mix stats up to shape the monster to my needs at the moment. Keep them guessing.

[sunstone]

I really appreciate all your answers. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Kromm

So if there's an anticlimax, it's more a result of play style (i.e., revealing HP to the players) than game mechanics. If the GM thinks it's fairer to reveal HP, well, I'd recommend exaggerating HP for high-HT creatures. If the players have the impression that the HP 10, HT 15 monster is a HP 60 foe, and that enemy gets unlucky and fails an early HT roll, the victory will seem unexpected and sweet! However you handle it, the unpredictability of HT rolls serves to prevent players from getting too cocky (and frankly, mechanical) about anticipating victory.

I never reveal the HP of a monster, but my players know the mechanics, and when they hit a monster really well and they see me rolling HT, they notice right away, when I make the death roll and I THINK this is anticlimatic to them.

I have the impression that the mechanic who is rolling when is making combat sometimes a bit cumbersome (chomping hp away and hitting "boundaries")

[Kromm]

A solution is to roll dice whenever a monster is hit!

In my own GMing style, I perpetually fidget with dice anyway, so the players don't know when I'm rolling and when I'm just fidgeting. This becomes a reflex: Casually toss 3d whenever you mark off damage. Only bother to register what the dice say if that actually matters.

If you have a GM screen, the players will never know what the results are even when you are rolling for real.

Regardless, never let the players know for sure why you are rolling or even if you actually needed to roll at all.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Dalin

For DF-style games, I typically just have most monsters drop dead at zero unless the dramatic needs of the encounter demand more or a PC wants to take a prisoner.

For my games it's similar: 0 HP or failing an HT roll on a major wound. Regardless, a monster (or really anyone) at 0 HP needs to keep making HT rolls to act normally and stay conscious. Until you get to about HT 13 or so, few monsters are going to be able to act normally for more than a few seconds before dropping anyways, so having them just go down at 0 HP doesn't take away much. At HT 10, the monster will get one more turn before dropping, on average (50/50 chance each second); at HT 12, the monster will get three more turns.

Hmmm, that might not be a bad rule to keep the players guessing more. At HT 10, a monster gets one more turn after dropping to 0 HP. At HT 11, it gets two more turns, at HT 12, three more turns, and above that, roll. If it goes to full negative, then treat its HT as one lower, and another one lower for each full multiple below -HP. So a HT 13 gets only three more turns at -HP and an HT 10 monster drops, a monster of HT 15 will get three more turns after going to -4×HP

[Michael Thayne]

The wording of the "And Stay Down!" sidebar makes me unclear on what the "default" approach is, which surprises me a bit given that the DFRPG otherwise tries really, really hard to streamline everything as much as possible. This is particularly surprising to me with published adventures—what assumptions were used when balancing encounters?