Enemies with a visible weak point

[Omegaxicor]

I have an enemy coming up and I need an answer, the enemy is a creature with a visible heart (a hole in his chest so his heart can be seen beating), the creature is a large flying creature.

I want to know how to handle an obvious weakness such as this and I have come up with a few ways:-

1) Called Shots - Let the players target the heart with an AC 3-4 points higher than the enemy for it's size bonus

2) Increase Threat - Subtract the base weapons threat range from whatever the player's is (most likely doubling the threat range)

3) Increase Critical - Increase the critical multiplier by 2 or 3

4) Death Blow - Hits have a 10% chance to strike the exposed heart and kill the creature

 

[kitcik]

Caslled Shot is a bad idea b/c they will then want to do it in other encounters.

Any of the other 3 should work. Personally, I like increasing the critical range.

 

[Sekhmet]

I'm reminded of a very low CR demon or devil that dies automatically when hit with a Critical, for similar reasons.

You could roll percentile behind your screen whenever it is hit for extra damage. You could also have DR everywhere but the heart, or having natural armor everywhere but the heart (instead of extra damage).

 

[Omegaxicor]

[MENTION=98256]kitcik[/MENTION] I see what you mean...

[MENTION=97602]Sekhmet[/MENTION] I don't understand what you mean, "have DR/NA everywhere but the heart" how would you know whether you hit the heart, do you mean using Called Shots?

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=98256]kitcik[/MENTION] I see what you mean...

[MENTION=97602]Sekhmet[/MENTION] I don't understand what you mean, "have DR/NA everywhere but the heart" how would you know whether you hit the heart, do you mean using Called Shots?

I had meant that you would use the previous "roll percentile" idea. Have a 10% chance to hit the unprotected heart. Unless it is a relatively low CR creature, I wouldn't have it kill it outright, I'd have it bypass armor or DR.

 

[Omegaxicor]

ah, I understand I think I will use that

Thanks

 

[Empirate]

Quite a few creatures have areas that can be targeted separately. The most well-known is the Hydra. It's not a huge problem to say "THIS creature has a heart that can be targeted separately, and to do this, you must do the following...". Make sure that the option to attack the heart is interesting, but not automatically superior to just whacking the creature in a more general way. That way, it will be an interesting encounter instead of a "this monster is actually not as tough as it looks at first" encounter.

The Hydra gets weakened when you kill its heads (in that it loses a bite attack, and damage done to a head deals a little bit of damage to the rest of the body, too), but it's quite feasible to just go for the body instead. If you have lots of attacks, attacking the heads might be better, as each one of them is easy to get rid of - but if you have just a single, powerful attack, it's better to kill the body. Try and come up with something similar here.

For example, let's model it this way: when either the creature as a whole OR the heart reach 0 HP, the creature dies. Furthermore, the heart has as many HP as the creature itself - specifically damaging the heart inflicts half damage on the creature as a whole, and full damage to the heart itself. The heart gets some DR x/piercing (since only piercing weapons can easily reach the heart, which is presumably encased in a body cavity), while the rest of the body has no DR. Also, the heart has a higher AC (for size) than the rest of the body.
So far, hitting the heart instead of the body sounds like a bad idea. But if each hit on the heart ALSO inflicts a negative level on the creature, or deals some Str damage or other cumulative debuff, specifically attacking the heart is an interesting alternative to just pummeling the body.

 

[Omegaxicor]

Nice ideas, I think that might be better than just saying, "yea, hit the heart to kill the beast" instead hitting the heart stuns the creature in pain, it is dazed for one round (this effectively ends the fight since you can just keep hitting the heart to kill it BUT you have to hit the heart, the only problem is that the party has six attacks to try and hit the heart, but they don't have piercing weapons (well one does but he won't be using the bow)

Thanks Empirate, I'd Exp you if I could...

 

[Celebrim]

1) Called Shots - Let the players target the heart with an AC 3-4 points higher than the enemy for it's size bonus

I would suggest a -12 penalty to hit for called shots (-8 might be ok as well). This makes it useful mainly for the case of enemies with vunerabilities created by the DM. Usually the advantage of a called shot is avoiding armor (presumably armor that is much more than a +12 bonus) or damage resistance.

Your other mechanics are less general, and I'd probably only use them on a case by case basis. I mean, it's perfectly acceptable to have a monster with DR 30/-, but if you succeed in a called shot on the right location it instantly dies. Just whatever makes sense for the scenario.

 

[James the Newbie]

What about grapple, grabbing the heart?