Skeletons and the Need for Bludgeoning Weapons

Crazy Jerome · Feb 13, 2012

Another reason this is hard to model for all folks is that DR versus vulnerabilities have very different effects on low damage results, and some people want one or the other.

1. If you like to visualize the monsters as shrugging off damage and being hard to kill--even impossible in some situations--then DR works great. The fact that some commoner with a 1d4 dagger cannot hurt it is just fine.

2. OTOH, if you like to visualize such monsters as mostly avoiding damage, but eventually getting worn down by attacks, then with DR you need to make sure that there are ways to increase damage enough for some to leak through--and this may play havoc with other parts of the system. Whereas, "vulnerability 5 to bludgeon" works great. Daggers will eventually kill this thing, but maces work a lot better.

Herschel · Feb 13, 2012

The thing is though that even a trained dagger-wielder is smart enough to do what he normally does: go after weak points. In the case of the skeleton, he'll be stabbing at the connective "tissues" at the joints. As for bows, DR5 ranged or whatever is kind of messy. I DETESTED DR/SR in 3.0/3.5.

Alzrius · Feb 13, 2012

There's a time when a stick is more appropriate than a carrot.

If you want to emphasize that a monster has a great deal of resistance to most methods of being wounded, save for a small few - rather than emphasizing that it's as vulnerable as a normal person to most attack forms, and exceptionally vulnerable to a few - then DR is a better mechanic than assigning it a vulnerability.

To put it another way, one does not kill Demogorgon with a non-magical dagger.

Dausuul · Feb 13, 2012

Alzrius said:
There's a time when a stick is more appropriate than a carrot.

If you want to emphasize that a monster has a great deal of resistance to most methods of being wounded, save for a small few - rather than emphasizing that it's as vulnerable as a normal person to most attack forms, and exceptionally vulnerable to a few - then DR is a better mechanic than assigning it a vulnerability.

To put it another way, one does not kill Demogorgon with a non-magical dagger.

Sure. But we're not talking about Demogorgon here. We're talking about your basic skeleton, the kind every two-bit necromancer can raise by the hundreds.

(I might also add that whether you can kill Demogorgon with a nonmagical dagger depends heavily on the assumptions of your game. In a Tolkien-style setting, where storied weapons of ancient provenance are the norm, that would no doubt be true. On the other hand, in a Conan-style setting--"What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it?*"--a sufficiently mighty hero could well slay Demogorgon with an ordinary blade.)

[SIZE=-2]*Yes, I know this quote comes from the movie. I think it gets at the spirit of Conan rather well, though.[/SIZE]

Leatherhead · Feb 13, 2012

What if: Instead of DR or resistances, skeletons just had an additional hp pool (like temp hp) that was only used when faced with damage types they are resistant too? That way even a dagger can destroy them, but it would take longer, and you don't have to modify the player damage at all (which is a big mental roadblock it seems).

Recidivism · Feb 13, 2012

Dausuul said:
Sure. But we're not talking about Demogorgon here. We're talking about your basic skeleton, the kind every two-bit necromancer can raise by the hundreds.

Maybe in your campaign.
Personally I'm inclined towards presenting undead as much more formidable foes than D&D typically does.
I can't think of a single book or movie (though I'm sure there are some) that presents raising the dead, even if just in some sort of twisted half-life, as trivial.
One of the main uses of having undead, narratively, is to ratchet up the fear factor -- An implacable foe, that can absorb damage that would kill a normal living creature and keep coming. Can't be scared off or bargained with, and many of the adventurer's common tactics just won't work. I'm ok with that, and while I liked 4E a lot, the idea that every monster has to be "balanced" in terms of presenting a challenge that can be met in the same way, grinding down monster HP, is something I'd like to get away from.
I don't really expect D&D to adopt that idea wholesale, but it'd be nice if D&D were more aligned with popular fiction than something like Diablo, where Skeletons are just cannon fodder.

Alzrius · Feb 13, 2012

Dausuul said:
Sure. But we're not talking about Demogorgon here. We're talking about your basic skeleton, the kind every two-bit necromancer can raise by the hundreds.

It was a counter-example to the underlying assumption regarding monster traits that reduce or increase damage taken. There's a difference between trying to simulate an area of particular vulnerability while other attacks deal normal damage, versus simulating a monster that's incredibly resistant to most damage but has some area where particular vulnerability that lets them be damaged normally.

Dausuul · Feb 14, 2012

Recidivism said:
One of the main uses of having undead, narratively, is to ratchet up the fear factor -- An implacable foe, that can absorb damage that would kill a normal living creature and keep coming. Can't be scared off or bargained with, and many of the adventurer's common tactics just won't work. I'm ok with that, and while I liked 4E a lot, the idea that every monster has to be "balanced" in terms of presenting a challenge that can be met in the same way, grinding down monster HP, is something I'd like to get away from.

I quite like this approach, as it happens. My all-time favorite undead are the Cauldron-Born from Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain," whose signature trait was that you could not kill them. Ever. By any means. There was no victory against the Cauldron-Born. The best you could do was delay them until they were forced to return to their places of power, since they weakened the longer they were away.

I would really love to see something like the Cauldron-Born in D&D. However, I would not consider this treatment appropriate for skeletons, which are well established in D&D's history as the fragile, disposable fodder of undead armies. Better to create a new, more formidable class of undead, and then just say skeletons don't exist in that setting.

Savage Wombat · Feb 14, 2012

I had my PCs run into Cauldron-Born in a Planescape adventure that led to Arawn's realm. Effectively just 6 HD zombies, but they couldn't be killed. At all.

One of the PCs, a half-troll, came up with the solution of lifting heavy objects and putting them on top of the Cauldron-Born, immobilizing them.

FireLance · Feb 14, 2012

Dausuul said:
I quite like this approach, as it happens. My all-time favorite undead are the Cauldron-Born from Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain," whose signature trait was that you could not kill them. Ever. By any means. There was no victory against the Cauldron-Born.

Until the last book

, of course.

Also: Finally! A use for that bag of devouring!

Skeletons and the Need for Bludgeoning Weapons

Crazy Jerome

First Post

Herschel

Adventurer

Alzrius

The EN World kitten

Dausuul

Legend

Leatherhead

Possibly a Idiot.

Recidivism

First Post

Alzrius

The EN World kitten

Dausuul

Legend

Savage Wombat

Hero

FireLance

Legend

Similar Threads