Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

In past fantasy campaigns, I've seen this avoided by wearing a solid, visorless magic greathelm with DR 8 over the eyes, bearing an Invisibility enchantment so that the thing didn't obstruct vision. Pretty clever, IMO, and an entirely reasonable upshot of common magic.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Who needs transparent aluminum, when you can just make good steel invisible?

(Aluminium to you Canadians, and Europeans, and frankly the whole rest of the freaking world and science committee.)

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Yet we have to consider that it's a DF game, so:

- it's likely that many opponent hasn't wrestling skills, so no lock and throw from locks
- in these scenarios, you usually are not alone; a member of a party can count on the others to covers his weakpoints, while making his hard job
- as a GM, I wouldn't allow a 25 kg goblin to simply arm lock and throw a 300 kg minotaur. Probably the former would end buried under the prone minotaur. But perhaps this is not as DF style game is intended to function

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

What kind of lame-o intelligent foe has no grappling skills?

Also, Arm Lock defaults to pretty much any Melee Weapon skill at +0. And throwing someone from an Arm Lock defaults to Arm Lock, which means that anyone with Axe/Mace, Broadsword or any other combat skill at 12+ can use it to take down a crazy berserker without much chance of failure.

Yes, good point. Berserkers are not necessarily doomed in their first combat. They may remain an albatross around their fellow party member's necks for longer if everyone else makes sure to tailor their tactics around coming to their rescue in every fight featuring intelligent foes.

Fair point and rules are coming to help with this. But in the RAW as it stands, 300 kg minotaurs who AoA, ever, are little female dogs in the hands of any goblin who wants to throw them around.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

SM has its usual benefits in close combat, and minotaurs come with CC weapons strapped to their heads. Minotaurs with the longhorn powerup STILL have CC weapons strapped to their heads, but now they do a silly amount of damage and have the option of disgusting reach.

Which means that my SM +1 longhorn minotaur had an alarming area-denial effect, even if you broke his leg and try to sit on him. A goblin tried to judo-throw him, failed, and got turned into a jaunty hat. The Bloody Baron (some kind of wight) broke Mrugnak's legs and turned his back on 'im, only to discover that a minotaur can in fact still charge while on all fours.

The other thing about the giant-berserker archetype is that Bersker hinges on percentage of HP done in a single blow. Having lots of HP and good DR makes it harder to hit the critical number - and playing a race with natural DR, on a template that lets you buy DR, and starts you with tons of HP, that's a LOT harder to hit the critical number.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Telegraphic Attack isn't an option for Quick Contests. It's an option for attacks that face active defense rolls.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

If you do that you should probably lower the value of the disadvantage.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Or a case of Baby back ribs to distract the ogre.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Let us say, for example, Ogre by some miracle was released before Christmas time...would we then be waiting another few months for technical grappling, or would it be an 'unspecified amount of time'?

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

And the third character is a Holy Warrior... of a deity of love and lust!