[Donjon] Question re: Smashing

[tetsujin28]

NB: this was originally posted by access.denied at rpg.net. None of us could figure it out, so I'm posting it here.

Originally posted by access.denied
I'm reading the thoroughly fun-looking Donjon rules, with the intent to run a quick game next weekend. I'm baffled, however, by the smashing rule.
The rule states that in order for the PC to be killed (and the same rule is applied to big monsters later in the book), they must be reduced to 0 flesh wounds, and then smashed. Which means landing another hit and having ALL dice come up as successes in the damage roll.
Now, if the PC relies only on Wherewithal to resist damage, this is quite doable, as it's possible to bring down one's Wherewithal to 1 or even 0 (when the PC will still be rolling 1 die to resist damagE). However, if the PC uses armor and/or special abilities (e.g. Resist Combat Damage), this gets sticky, especially on higher level, as there seems to be almost no way in hell to roll all successes against, say, 3 dice of armour AND 4 dice of Resist Damage ability.
Any suggestions? Am I missing something?
(And no, I don't want to kill my PCs, but what happens if they meet such an unkillable Big Bad--will the game get very boring? Will I need to *gasp* improvise?)

So, this seems to create weird situations where a 1 die monster has a better chance to kill a PC than a 44 die monster.

[Zak Arntson]

That is a weird rule. The more dice you have, the less likely you are to Smash something. I'd suggest an entire rewrite of the rule!

How about: You have to be brought down to zero Flesh Wounds, and the enemy must roll as many successes as your Fortitude (in a single roll!). This means that for a PC with Fortitude 7 to be smashed by a band of goblins (who get only 3 dice when attacking), they have to turn their successes into bonus dice for subsequent rolls in order to get one of their members up to a 7 dice roll.

[tetsujin28]

Clinton's ruling is that after you get someone to Wherewithal 0, you then trash their armour with facts (since armour's just another 'fact', like anything else. Then a Dragon would have a much better chance. Actually, trashing the armour first seems like a good idea. But I still think the rule should be reworked.

Clinton's reply can be found here.

[Zak Arntson]

The goblin example is mathematically correct, but moot. No 5th level adventurer is going to get to a place where he can be smashed by a goblin in the first place.

Even with the 1 vs. 44 being moot, the current rule still states that an ogre attacking with 4 dice would have a better chance of smashing than one with 6 dice. That's all sorts of weird, and more realistically in play. I'll wait for Clinton to weigh in on this one, but I'd rather he contemplate the 4 vs. 6 dice than 1 vs. 44.

[aplath]

Even with the 1 vs. 44 being moot, the current rule still states that an ogre attacking with 4 dice would have a better chance of smashing than one with 6 dice. That's all sorts of weird, and more realistically in play. I'll wait for Clinton to weigh in on this one, but I'd rather he contemplate the 4 vs. 6 dice than 1 vs. 44.

I guess the point here is that an ogre with 4 dice would have a harder time bringing a PC down to smashing point than an ogre with 6 dice.

This is very clear when we compare a 1 dice goblin against a 5th level PC, for instance. Even though the goblin can easily smash the PC, how did he bring the PC down to smashing point in the first place ?

Though less evident for the 4 x 6 dice ogre example, I guess the same applies.

In the end, make sure to kill the dragon's goblin friend right in the start of combat! ;-)

Or ... if you are the DM, make sure to pair low and high level monsters against your PC's! >:-)

Andreas

[Edited to add the DM comment]

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Andreas is on it. Trying to make physical sense of these rules isn't going to explain them. It's a competitiveness/payback thing: if a smaller creature's gotten your character to the smashing point, it's easier for them to smash you because your character shouldn't be at that point in the first place.

In play, you'll find that the frequency of characters getting to that point is very, very low.

[Manxome]

Are we assuming that the DM would never be so cruel as to include a couple of random level 1 monsters in a level 10 encounter (at the back) just so that they can run up at the last minute and smash the PCs after the "real" monsters have reduced their flesh wounds and wherewithal?

[tetsujin28]

Absolutely not! The GM's entire job is to trash the heroes. The rules say so :D

[John Harper]

But what about the 44-dice uber-dragon, Clinton? Such a beast will lay waste to the PCs, then combat will stall for round after round as the thing tries in vain to smash someone. What happens then?

My impulse would be to skip all the dragon's smashing attempts and just skip to, "He eats all of you." After all, he will eventually manage to get all 44-dice to come up higher than the player's single die. But that's not very Donjon-like.

[tetsujin28]

Well, the players might be able to sneak some facts past him. Might.

[Bob McNamee]

Why not have the creature just roll one dice as its last Smash roll attack instead of the maximum that it could?

[Manxome]

Here's a thought on smashing:  how about in order to count as a smash, you simply need a number of successes on the damage roll at least equal to the character's level plus three?  And in order to give weaker monsters a chance, if the target has no remaining flesh wounds and ever damage die comes up as a success, you can add additional damage dice to your roll, one at a time, until one of them comes up as a failure.  And characters still cannot be smashed until their flesh wounds drop to zero.

The number could be adjusted slightly, but that requires monsters to hit with a number of successes that's probably somewhere around the number of dice they're rolling if they're equal in level to their opponent, while still giving attackers with more damage dice a greater chance to smash.