Old School Monsters

[phiwum]

Blood hawks have a -3 DX to be hit, because they're totally awesome at dodging. Of course, they're usually on the wing and flying critters are -4 DX to hit.

So, either blood hawks are a STUNNING -7 DX to hit when flying -- which includes when attacking -- or somehow, they lose the -4 DX bonus for flight due to their superior dodging skills and are just -3 DX to hit.

I assume that it's the former, but it sure does make them a LOT more dangerous. Already, they get a free attack on the first round, they have a remarkable 1d+3 damage and a move of 30 hexes/turn. With a -7 DX to hit, the majority of characters will be trying for an automatic hit (a roll of 5 or less) while the hawk is chomping away with DX 13, so a 84% chance to hit. Put differently, one can expect the blood hawk to hit 17 times for every time that its opponent hits[1].

Add to that the fact that they attack in flocks of 2d+1 and they're just really, really scary.

I'm pretty sure the last time I played a blood hawk encounter, I just gave them the DX -3 defensive bonus, without adding it to the usual DX -4 to strike a flying target, but I don't think that's right. On the other hand, the only other interpretation is just plumb unreasonable.

ETA: I thought of one more possibility. There's a very unfortunate typo in the text and the blood hawk attack is a much more reasonable 1d-3 rather than 1d+3. This would explain the preference for attacking the wounded, the unarmored and the young. It would also be a pretty reasonable attack for a bird of prey, a bit weaker than the 1d-2 for dragonets that I hear is the new rule in the Bestiary. An attack of 1d+3 is almost equivalent to a broad sword, which would be one mean bird.

Getting hit 17 times by a 1d-3 attack gives an average of 8.5 hits to an unarmored guy and less than 3 hits to a guy wearing leather. Still dangerous in large numbers, but not unreasonably so.

How do y'all read it?

Thanks.

[1] All of this assumes that the opponent has DX 12 or less and that there are no particular talents or situations that change the odds from adjDX (12 - 7) = adjDX 5 against the hawk's adjDX 13 and that each combatant is attacking.