[DF] Advice for first-time Dungeon Fantasy GM

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Cutting a leg off of a humanoid might end the fight. Might not. Same with a monster - especially a multi-legged one.

Stabbing the eyes? It might have a brain, it might not.

Yeah, that reflects my experience. I'm not one to waste time worrying about ecology and enemy logistics on dungeon-crawls, but I do prefer to stage adventures sufficiently far from settlements that my players can suspend disbelief. Hordes of horrible monsters at the town limits or a day's hike away make no sense to me or, more important, to my players. Since my monsters are lurking far from conventional food sources, most often in places filled with traps, curses, poison slime, and Evil Runes, suspension of disbelief also dictates that they'll rarely be creatures with human-esque weaknesses. I save people who can be stabbed in the eye or have their legs chopped off for casual bandit encounters on the way to and from the dungeon, and for altercations in town. My standard dungeon creatures are Elder Things with unearthly biology, Homogenous golems, Diffuse slimes, semi- or wholly spectral undead, and so on, not to mention vast numbers of things with No Legs (Aerial or Slithers) – and traits like Doesn't Breathe, Doesn't Eat or Drink, Immunity to Metabolic Hazards, and Injury Tolerance are very common indeed.

Certainly, I still let the PCs use rapier stabs to the eye, poison on arrows, and so on. They paid points for that stuff. But that's fare for those bandit battles and town quarrels I mentioned. Once you go off to fight constructs, demons, Elder Things, spirits, undead, etc., all bets are off. For the most part, your best tactic is to hit as hard and as often as you can with a swung weapon or a high-FP spell, and pray that you can deplete HP faster than they regenerate.

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

enemies with a crippled leg are movement-limited, but not motionless, nor unable to attack. Especially in a fantasy game, where opponents might have magic, psi, afflictions, innate attacks, sheer attack skill, and/or special advantages that reduce the impact of crippling.

Indeed, any monster worth its salt isn't going to let being forced to crawl stop it. Ignoring the fact that I prefer monsters that ooze, slither, levitate, phase, or teleport, the ones that actually have legs aren't going to give up just because they're crippled. I always make sure that most serious monsters have at least one of an area-effect breath weapon (like as-Sharak and ice wyrms), a gaze weapon (like eyes of death and mindwarpers), a long-range bolt (like erupting slimes and flame lords), a dangerous emanation (like foul bats, horrid skulls, toxifiers, and undead slime), spells (like liches), or just a ranged weapon or even a melee weapon with long Reach. And of course I like zombies and similar ghoulies, who keep crawling after you and grappling if you don't utterly destroy them. My players have learned to go for K-kills . . . M-kills aren't nearly enough, and F-kills only work if the enemy has a weapon rather than an innate ability.