Really Big Monsters and Hex Maps

[The Rampant Gamer]

Lest we diverge too far from the general subject, it was a theoretical dragon. It could have been a giant that happened to occupy, say, a seven-hex diameter.

And to be honest, I was just curious how it would be handled, just in case it could be applicable to a variant space combat system I was daydreaming about while code was compiling, this morning.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by gruundehn

In the medieval culture the dragon was the ultimate force of chaos. No one can expect to stand up to a dragon, thus the exploits of St. George were so striking.
Modern terms: You have a .45 ACP and you are going up against a fully armed A-10D or F-15E. No dragon is going to be stupid enough to get into close combat or even melee combat with any group of humans. Look at the features of your dragon and intelligently plan a TPK attack, it should be easy.
Killing a dragon should be the extreme high point of a campaign, if it can even be done.
As should be obvious, I do not believe in 500 point dragons, even baby ones. A dragon should be 2000-5000 points (vs 150 point charaters) if it is to be anywhere close to the medieval original.

The Dragon-Slayers in my Ärth setting are more like GURPS Special Ops than anything else. They train intensively to kill dragons, using Enchanted bows and arrows, and other magical equipment. None of their training involves getting up close and personal with swords, and even then it is generally assumed that there will be casualties. Dragons are dangerous.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by The Rampant Gamer

Lest we diverge too far from the general subject, it was a theoretical dragon. It could have been a giant that happened to occupy, say, a seven-hex diameter.

It does seem less daunting to me to have to keep track of a bipedal, no matter how large.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by The Rampant Gamer

And to be honest, I was just curious how it would be handled, just in case it could be applicable to a variant space combat system I was daydreaming about while code was compiling, this morning.

Okay, you've piqued my curiosity. I hope that if you go beyond daydreaming, you'll share your thoughts here. With all the recent threads on spaceships I've been thinking of how to tweak the available systems for handling a variety of genres and feels, especially the classic "squads of agile fighters versus massive mothership" scenario.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

It would be a bit like a squirrel trying to take on a human. The human is going to win.

Oh yeah? You think? You want some of this? Huhn?

[The Rampant Gamer]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Okay, you've piqued my curiosity. I hope that if you go beyond daydreaming, you'll share your thoughts here. With all the recent threads on spaceships I've been thinking of how to tweak the available systems for handling a variety of genres and feels, especially the classic "squads of agile fighters versus massive mothership" scenario.

I'll give you the ten-thousand foot view, and you decide if you think you still want to subscribe to my newsletter. ;)

Games that make me happiest are consistent - they have systems that scale well in both directions, to either end of whatever scale you might have in mind. So I got to thinking about why we don't just use the standard combat system with spaceships - 1 second turns, dodge rolls, maybe allow for a point defense system based on parrying (which would make your beam weapon "unready" just like an unbalanced parry) and the like.

The fact that you can just take the SM's of the ships involved in the combat and subtract the smallest value from them all to scale things back down to more "human" scales without changing the ratios (I think - I've only cross checked a couple different sizes) dovetails with this idea.

It's a far less abstract system than the default combat rules from Spaceships, and where I'm currently hung up is thrust values versus hex sizes versus velocities. Anyone else notice just how hard it is to get interesting combats going if someone's already got a few mps of momentum? Get your ship going fast enough, not in the direction of your target, and you can kiss goodbye any effectiveness of your missiles as they'll burn out their delta-V just countering the vector that you impart upon them at launch!

Originally Posted by Peter

It does seem less daunting to me to have to keep track of a bipedal, no matter how large.

Do you let such a creature pivot on it's center of mass, the middle of the seven-hex body? And if so, would you use the same rule for a sprawling dragon - find the center of mass and pivot there? Or decide where it's feet are, and pivot on the feet?

Again

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Oh yeah? You think? You want some of this? Huhn?

alright that's hilarious.

The original poster is right though... I did diverge quite a bit from what he was asking. I have kind of a nerd crush on dragons though, and think it's silly that any human (super or not) would stand a chance against one. I focused on the dragon part of the question.

For handling really big stuff like spaceship sized things versus human sized things in terms of movement on the hex map... other people have mentioned things like picking the one hex to base movement on for the large object. And you asked about maneuvering difficulties for the large object compared to humans... I think that's built into the system too. Facing matters right? If the big object spends movement points on changing facing, it can't move as far that turn. And you can just decide that the big object can't move directly to the side (a car has to move forward to turn to the side, and then when it faces the way it wants to go it can move forward). Just thinking... the rules as written cover a lot of this I think, and you can make decisions based on how you think it would work.

[Dunadin777]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

Also, if you're trying to be "realistic", imagine a human fighting a Tyrannosaurus. The human might have a sword and when the T-Rex comes in for an attack the human might get one swing in, but it's not going to bother the dinosaur. And the dinosaur is going to kill the human probably within the next second. It would be a bit like a squirrel trying to take on a human. The human is going to win. The squirrel can probably run away though.

Well, if the squirrel had a sharpened twig and a decent grasp of basic tactics, a smart squirrel could probably scurry up my body and gouge out my eye before I had a decent chance to step on it. Likewise, if the squirrel knew about the parasites and diseases it could threaten me with, it could probably just bite me a few times in sensitive places and run away before I'd realized I had been given the Slow Death(tm).

Just because a dragon is big doesn't mean it's impossible to take down without modern weapons. Whales have been hunted by rowboat-using adventurers long before harpoons were gun-mounted. Likewise, it's reasonable to imagine that a dragon can be opposed by a team of smart experts of completely mundane abilities--they'd just have to play the odds very carefully.



The hex map would be difficult to use on a traditional scale, as others have said, if only because the massive 10-hex long dragon couldn't do anything interesting and still stay on the map. I would probably pull things out to a 1 hex=5 yards scale and use that for 'close-in' dragon-fighting. I'd then make the dragon take up two hexes to make its turning radius, flanks, and rear still apparent exploits to the PCs. This also means that in general a PC has to take a full move to shift just one hex, which might emphasize use of cover and terrain for the PCs. I'd put ruins, dense copses of trees, and other useful geographic features an average of one-three hexes apart, forcing the players to commit fully to reaching cover while engaging the dragon.

Remember, the name of the game with large creature fighting is guile and counterattacks. All of my melee-types would be fully AoD and just waiting for the chance to parry a swipe of the claws--a spear rammed through the paw should be at least as irritating to the dragon as getting a pencil shoved through your palm. Which I wouldn't like very much at all--and even if it was just a squirrel that did it, I'd probably be the one running at that point.

This assumes you're looking for an anti-DnD dragon-fight. If not, then standing toe-to-toe and not maneuvering in any meaningful way is almost the point, right?

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by The Rampant Gamer

I'll give you the ten-thousand foot view, and you decide if you think you still want to subscribe to my newsletter. ;)

Games that make me happiest are consistent - they have systems that scale well in both directions, to either end of whatever scale you might have in mind. So I got to thinking about why we don't just use the standard combat system with spaceships - 1 second turns, dodge rolls, maybe allow for a point defense system based on parrying (which would make your beam weapon "unready" just like an unbalanced parry) and the like.

The fact that you can just take the SM's of the ships involved in the combat and subtract the smallest value from them all to scale things back down to more "human" scales without changing the ratios (I think - I've only cross checked a couple different sizes) dovetails with this idea.

It's a far less abstract system than the default combat rules from Spaceships, and where I'm currently hung up is thrust values versus hex sizes versus velocities. Anyone else notice just how hard it is to get interesting combats going if someone's already got a few mps of momentum? Get your ship going fast enough, not in the direction of your target, and you can kiss goodbye any effectiveness of your missiles as they'll burn out their delta-V just countering the vector that you impart upon them at launch!

I'd subscribe to this newsletter. :-)

Using the same combat system for both things definitely has its advantages. I think the Spaceships combat rules are designed more to optimize space opera feel, and for this reason to abstract some of the stuff that could rightfully be handled in a more detailed and precise way if you simulated it with the standard combat system as you suggested. Which is nice and all in some games, until you want to run a combat between a fleet of allied spaceships and some great big giant super-entity in space, like a less overpowered Galactus type creature. Although I guess to be fair that isn't at all in-genre for any sort of space opera...

[supersaiyandoyle]

If you have a battlemat, you could always draw the monster on the map itself, and wipe it when you want to change something, and redraw it to fit that.