Goblin Picador

[Dausuul]

I believe it probably does. It looks to me like all their prereleases are kind of lean on the details and I look for more long-winded descriptions in the book. But for me, if you stab a harpoon in a guy and then go walking off, trailing its tether, he is bound to follow you. Likewise, if you pull the rope he will come closer.

This is a goblin, remember? You're talking about the equivalent of a person harpooning a grizzly bear. If the bear wants to go elsewhere, it's damned well going to, and you dragging on the rope is not going to stop it; all you'll accomplish is to make it really, really mad. Not only that, but this particular grizzly bear can grab hold of the rope, so you can't even use the pain to force him to move.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

What I have a problem with here (and I subscribe to the "Hit Points are abstract and loss of hit points does not mean that actual physical damage takes place every time" side) is Consistency.

With a creature like the Goblin Picador, every time he "hits" with the harpoon, it has to be physical damage or his ability to "move" the character shouldn't work.

However, this opens up a new can of worms with creatures that do poison damage (or something similar) with every hit because it also requires actual physical contact for that to work. (At lease in my mind).

It's not that hard. Hitpoints represent physical wounds AND luck, dodging etc. If an attack requires physical contact to make sense...then it got it. If it doesn't, it might not have hit. Or it could simply be that ALL hits actually have physical contact. However most of them are small scratches.

This is what both sides of this argument are missing. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

 

[Naszir]

But doesn't the Goblin Picador imply that it has to hit enough to be more than a little scratch? The harpoon has to sink in deep enough so that it has enough grabbing power to be able to pull a character to wherever it wants to go.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

But doesn't the Goblin Picador imply that it has to hit enough to be more than a little scratch? The harpoon has to sink in deep enough so that it has enough grabbing power to be able to pull a character to wherever it wants to go.

Sure, you can get the harpoon through someone's shoulder and get that sort of grabbing power. However, like most heroes in movies who get shot in the shoulder, it isn't a bad wound for the heroes of the story.

 

[Dausuul]

Or it could simply be that ALL hits actually have physical contact. However most of them are small scratches.

*succumbs*

This is my interpretation. At least in my games, any attack that takes off hit points is an attack that connected. Partly this is because most "rider" effects, like poison and harpoons, only make sense if the attack hits; mostly, however, it's because the terminology of the game reinforces the idea very, very strongly.

When players, especially newbie players, make an "attack roll," and that attack roll "hits," and the enemy loses "hit points," they expect that to mean that they, y'know, hit something. It really throws them for a loop if you announce a narrow miss. I see no reason to fight the English language on this one. It may only inflict a bruise or a scratch, but a hit is a hit.

 

[Naszir]

I would think having a bullet pass through a shoulder you can make a case for but a harpoon that stays lodged and is meant to rip flesh if an attempt to remove it is made? That is one wound that you just don't heal overnight unless you have magic.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well I think for the Harpoon, it can be for lower levels a different style, when you reach Epic I think a pronged-harpoon going through a shoulder be nothing to them... For lower levels though:

You can even change the kind of harpoon if you want, you can switch from the classic pronged harpoon too a barbed one, and have it that the harpoon has hooked onto the PCs flesh with the barbs.

Barbs would be quite painful and hard to take out, which constitutes the control the Goblin has, cause come on. No matter how strong you are, unless you have gone total berserk (like my Barbarian idea) when your flesh is being tugged on by barbs you will follow that tug to lessen the pain.

Also while barbs are quite dangerous, they really aren't all that life-threatening, you just have some gouges that can be patched up pretty well.

Also and finally, barbs can hook onto clothing and armour as well, so if you wished to, (say it hit but barely) it can simply be hooked on the clothing.

 

[Naszir]

Well I think for the Harpoon, it can be for lower levels a different style, when you reach Epic I think a pronged-harpoon going through a shoulder be nothing to them... For lower levels though:

]
You can even change the kind of harpoon if you want, you can switch from the classic pronged harpoon too a barbed one, and have it that the harpoon has hooked onto the PCs flesh with the barbs.

Barbs would be quite painful and hard to take out, which constitutes the control the Goblin has, cause come on. No matter how strong you are, unless you have gone total berserk (like my Barbarian idea) when your flesh is being tugged on by barbs you will follow that tug to lessen the pain.

Also while barbs are quite dangerous, they really aren't all that life-threatening, you just have some gouges that can be patched up pretty well.

Also and finally, barbs can hook onto clothing and armour as well, so if you wished to, (say it hit but barely) it can simply be hooked on the clothing.

This is a very good point.

 

[Cadfan]

I'm going to chuckle if, after all this, the goblin picador's harpoon ability is in the PHB under Fighter.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

To people who say "The wound should bleed" or "Hit points should be a reflection of real physical damage sustained", I would like to ask where they have been all this time. No one in real life can survive falling from the height a mid-level fighter can. The game is not realistic. If a weapon isn't poisoned or doesn't have specific abilities, a fighter can keep on fighting until he is almost dead without any penalties. Not realistic either.

Actually, some people jump out of airplanes, have a failure with the parachute, fall several thousand feet and survive. Some rare few walk away with nary a scratch. Most get splattered, of course. Many people survive falls from lower heights as well.

So, it's not like every fall over 15' is invariably fatal.