Reptile Men Lycanthropes

[Shaira]

Hi everyone,

So I was just writing out some stat blocks...

Let's take an NPC Reptile Man. ST 18, DX 10, IQ 10. According to the RAW he does 1d+3 bare-handed damage in melee, including his +2 damage bonus for reptile man claws. According to ITLp79, in HTH combat he does "double the HTH damage that a human of equivalent strength would". So, a human of ST 18 would do 1d+2 damage in HTH combat. Now it's unclear whether we add the +2 damage bonus for the Reptile Man's claws before or after the doubling, but in HTH combat our ST 18 Reptile Man does either 2d+6 or 2d+8 damage.

So then I was looking at statting up a Reptile Man lycanthrope (a "were-dinosaur" - ITL p83). According to the write-up, a lycanthrope's ST doubles when in were-form. Our Were-Dinosaur has ST36, DX 7, IQ 6.

In normal melee combat, that Were-Dinosaur does 2d+3 bare-handed damage, including his +2 damage bonus for reptile man claws. In HTH, depending on when you add the +2 damage bonus, he does double normal HTH damage, so either 4d+6 or 4d+8 damage. In HTH, he also gets a +4 to his DX, which is bumped to DX 11.

Any thoughts? Am I missing anything?

Cheers,

Sarah

[hcobb]

Your ST 36 weredino jumps an wee wisp of an apprentice witch:

ST 8, DX 11, IQ 13
Unarmed Combat I, etc.

She acts first in HTH and attempts a pin. She needs to roll 11 or less on two dice, after subtracting 2 points (for the difference in DX) from the roll. She can not fail to succeed here. Even without the UC talent she would still have a 83.8% chance of success and no chance of a critical failure.

[phiwum]

The problems with the pinning rules are well-known, but I don't think that's the point of Shaira's thread.

[Bill_in_IN]

I only recall one time where there was a were-dino via a Reptile Man. I was not the GM. After the game, I discussed the lycanthrope conversion with the GM. It was what I believed to be a sound interpretation of the rules. The problem is that was almost 40 years ago. The details have escaped my memory.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by hcobb

She acts first in HTH and attempts a pin. She needs to roll 11 or less on two dice, after subtracting 2 points (for the difference in DX) from the roll. She can not fail to succeed here. Even without the UC talent she would still have a 83.8% chance of success and no chance of a critical failure.

Yeah, as Phiwum says, the Pin rules are problematic, but also nothing to do with ny example... 😁

However, I'm curious... Assuming the GM allows the pin attempt, why do you say she can't fail to succeed? Surely a roll of 12 is a failure?

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Shaira

Yeah, as Phiwum says, the Pin rules are problematic, but also nothing to do with ny example... 😁

However, I'm curious... Assuming the GM allows the pin attempt, why do you say she can't fail to succeed? Surely a roll of 12 is a failure?

The wording on Pin is just bad. "subtract 2 from your roll when you try to pin him" rather than "add 2 to DX".


Will propose some fixes in house rules.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by hcobb

The wording on Pin is just bad. "subtract 2 from your roll when you try to pin him" rather than "add 2 to DX".


Will propose some fixes in house rules.

Agreed. 😁 Although IMHO even if modifiers to dice rolls were a thing in TFT (!), I'd still say a "natural 12" on 2 dice was always an autofail.

But yeah definitely we should discuss the Pinning rules in a separate thread. 😊 (y)

[Shaira]

But back to my original post - does everyone think were-dinos are intended to be so gamebreakingly lethal in TFT, or is the 4d+8 hth damage just a rules artifact that needs a bit of tweaking? Or none of the above?

(For context, a were-dino in hth with a 14 hex dragon does twice as much damage... In fact it does more damage than a Greater Demon and twice that of a ST 40 giant...)

[hcobb]

This huge amount of potential damage is attached to a long list of drawbacks. For example wall him off with fire until he gets over it. Even if he regenerates fire damage (does he?) he still won't enter a fire hex. So I don't see the problem.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Shaira

But back to my original post - does everyone think were-dinos are intended to be so gamebreakingly lethal in TFT, or is the 4d+8 hth damage just a rules artifact that needs a bit of tweaking? Or none of the above?

(For context, a were-dino in hth with a 14 hex dragon does twice as much damage... In fact it does more damage than a Greater Demon and twice that of a ST 40 giant...)

I think you've discovered a problem with were-creatures, Sarah; that damage is just too much.