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Old 05-24-2016, 03:42 AM   #1
Tallor
 
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Default 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!
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Old 05-24-2016, 03:45 AM   #2
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Default 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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Old 05-24-2016, 04:22 AM   #3
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default 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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Old 05-24-2016, 05:04 AM   #4
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Default 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:
Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
I'd second that. Thrown weapons could easily accept the rapid energy bursts of Striking ST. Though that makes the doomchildren from DF 2 able to do 1d+2 impaling at ridiculous ranges...
Doomchildren have Knife-18, but they don't have Thrown Weapon (Knife). So they might be able to fling their knife with the power of an good arrow, but they can't hit the broad side of a barn with it.

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:
Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
2. You'd think, but honestly I think the monsters in DF were built on the assumption that the adventurers had a load of Ablative DR, in similar fashion to how those other games have their heroes absorb damage---but they don't! DF PCs may be high-powered, but your team knight is probably going to be wearing mail when the doomchildren attack, and that's not going to be fair. :P
I don't know why you think the knight will be wearing mail rather than something sturdier, but DR 4 from mail means that adjacent doomchildren's blast damage won't usually hurt you if you've got full body coverage, and will only hurt a little if you don't, and their frags will be stopped cold more often than not.

The considerable cutting damage from the knife, of course, you want to avoid allowing to hit you
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Old 05-24-2016, 06:05 AM   #5
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Default Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I don't think they're quite as delicate as that?
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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Old 05-24-2016, 08:27 AM   #6
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Default 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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Old 05-24-2016, 08:30 AM   #7
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Default Re: Doomchildren: A Recipe for Self Destruction

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
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.
The Fodder rules are strictly optional. I don't think monster stat blocks generally assume them (or why include HP for Fodder monsters at all?), and often they seem to assume these rules are not in effect (in MotFD, for example, the basic orcs and other NPCs should probably count as fodder, but they all have varying HT and HP scores that seem like they should matter, at least in my interpretation of the text when I last read it).
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Old 05-24-2016, 10:00 AM   #8
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Default 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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Old 05-24-2016, 10:24 AM   #9
simply Nathan
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Default 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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