Housecat-sized octopus vs. SCUBA-equipped commoner

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

Based on some campaign-related tinkering, I realised that octopodes are surprisingly nasty in close combat. Possibly much nastier than housecats. Even if picks a housecat-sizes octopus, reducing SM to -4 and ST to perhaps 4, they still have many traits in their favour that compensate for the weakness of the cat. The cat's weakness is mostly the fact that commoners get +4 to their Grappling actions due to SM.

The octopus compensates for it to some extent: having 8 arms results in a +12 modifier to its grappling actions (including strangling!), on top of a base DX13, though penalised by -2 due to Bad Grip 1. Even with ST4, that's a roll against 14 for strangulation. Then there's the beak which may contain serious poison depending on species.

While all this isn't a guaranteed victory, it does seem like it makes octopodes very serious threats if somehow angered. I now think that our encounter with a much smarter and larger astropus actually went with extreme amounts of good luck, considering what these fellas can do.

Anyone ever used them as opponents? Other interesting observations?

Thanks in advance!