05-24-2016, 03:42 AM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2016
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Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
I was taking a gander at DF 2 when I realized something--doomchildren are said to "always [be in] a horde". They also prefer melee with knives, have very low hit points, and die in a huge explosion of fire and bone shards--the last of which is plenty enough damage to hurt any nearby doomchildren, even at a yard or so away!
This got me thinking... is this a recipe for turning the battlefield into a crater? In melee, your melee skirmishers are doomed, since the doomchildren will explode and cripple any flanking attackers. However, this "defense mechanism" works against the creature in a hilariously combat-ending fashion--if your ranged characters do enough damage to the leading doomy before it reaches the heroes, it'll set off a chain reaction, destroying all of them rather handily. I guess I've always thought DF monsters were too lethal, but these ones are capable of killing each other through sheer collateral damage! |
05-24-2016, 03:45 AM | #2 |
Join Date: May 2016
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
PS This is assuming they're at least one every two hexes from each other, at most.
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05-24-2016, 04:22 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
I don't think they're quite as delicate as that?
They've got 8 HP and I don't see any Fragile (Unnatural). So it takes at least 16 HP to put them down, and with HT 10 they've got a decent chance of not dying at that point. That's enough that their fratricidal tendencies don't trivially lead to a chain reaction. The fireball damage is actually very minor for fratricide, unless you're packing more than one of them to a hex. At one yard it's only 1d burning, which stings but poses little threat. Incidentally, this is also why front-line PCs aren't that doomed - all the explosion damage comes in 1d packets, which good armor can pretty easily control. The frags, on the other hand, can hit two or rarely three times...and with three 1d frags (or high rolls on two) you might pop a doomchild. So there's some risk. I'm up too late at the moment to work out any numbers, but yeah, running a bunch of them over exposed ground with 1 yard spacing just might make a mess. Of course, with SM -1 they might contrive to get close before you see them...
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05-24-2016, 05:04 AM | #4 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
Importing some additional stuff from the SM thread to a place it seems like it fits better:
Quote:
Also 1d+2 impaling isn't that much either by DF standards, though it'd probably be scary for a hoard monster ranged attack. Quote:
The considerable cutting damage from the knife, of course, you want to avoid allowing to hit you
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05-24-2016, 06:05 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
The book itself says they're fragile, ie, that "one good hit should do them in." Given that they're a horde, I think the intent may well be that they're supposed to be Fodder (DF2 page 27), though I can't find any directly indication that this is so. I suppose there's nothing stopping you from treating every Doomchild as a Boss, but I don't think that's the intent.
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05-24-2016, 08:27 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
I used them as fragile foddery monsters to good effect. The look on my friends face as he realized that one-shoting the monster was counter-productive... >:)
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05-24-2016, 08:30 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cambridge, MA
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
Quote:
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05-24-2016, 10:00 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
I used Doomchildren in one of my early DF games. This is a link to the chat log: http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/...y_Baron/Fourth
They blew up nicely, and it looks like there was a couple of incidences when a Doomchild died and took out a wounded one, and then the combined frags from two of them took out a third, and so forth. The delvers got through mostly unscathed, aside from embarrassment, and a lightly armored Thief that got carved up pretty bad.
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05-24-2016, 10:24 AM | #9 |
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
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Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction
Some people like the chain reactions, hence using either Worthy or Fodder rules on them. Others don't so much, and the easiest way to deal with that is just to rule they aren't harmed by other Doomchildren exploding; they're demons, afterall, and nobody cheats like demons.
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Tags |
combat, dungeon fantasy, dungeon fantasy 2, explosion, self destruct |
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