How would you handle an opponent with more than 2 arms, say like your classic 6 armed demoness? They would obviously be deadly in combat. Would they need to make terrain rolls for fighting more than one opponent? Would you add to their CP due to extra arms? I was thinking of adding 2 Cp per extra arm, that would give the demoness a CP of 20 (Ref=6, Prof=6, Arms=8). What do you think.



(P.S. sorry if it sounds a little random, I've been up all night for reasons I can't really seem to remember)

The extra CP could represent being able to attack from tricky angles, etc.

OTOH, if you want the creature to be way more deadly, simply count it as more than one opponent, though ones that have to occupy the same space (but can't be "terrain rolled" into not being able to attack). So, basically, like any two opponents (or three if you're really mean), they get two maneuvers per one everyone else makes. Represents a superhumanly co-ordinated, creature, however. That just might make sense in this case depending on your definition of the creature.

Anyhow, better tag team it or pool splitting will make it really hard to survive. :-)

Mike

Having it act as two separate combatants gives you the ability to set different CP values for different sets of arms, too. The upper-arms, which are really strong and agile, might have a higher Reflex value than the middle- or lower-arms, which are constrained and smaller. :)

But how would it's split it's attention, it's still only got one head. Unless for some fiendsih reason it's got 2 heads and 4 arms.......<evil laugh>. Seriously, how could it split it's attention to justify a whole new CP?

(Keep in mind I still haven't slept since the last time I posted.....)

Attention? I'm not sure what you mean. I agree that it's not at all realistic to have a creature have more attacks because it has more arms. But the idea is that this is a special case. In GURPS the character would have to take the (very expensive, 100 points, IIRC) Total Co-ordination power to be allowed to do it. What we're presupposing it a creature that might as well have two brains for purposes of the combat. Could even happen genetically, I suppose, under the right circumstances.

I mean, other than the extra heads idea, how about independently focusing eyes? Like a chameleon. :-) Rationalize it however you want. Maybe it's just fast and can look back and forth so quickly that it's not a problem.

OTOH, co-ordinating all those arms could be difficult, I suppose. You could also lower each "set's" CP to represent that...though I sorta assumed that you'd be setting it arbitrarily anyhow. I mean, make it as dangerous as you need it to be to be an appropriate challenge for your players.

What, are they going to claim that you statted out a demon "unrealistically"? ;-)

Mike

One way you might be able to do it would be to give a very large combat pool bonus for extra limbs, like maybe +50% per extra pair. Then let them split their attacks like with case of rapiers. Finally, give a maximum CP allocation for any one pair of arms at their original CP pre-bonus.

So, a four armed creature might have reflex 8, proficiency 8, for 16 CP. The extra limbs give him another 50% for a total of 24 CP. He can split this CP for actions between the two sets of limbs each round, but can't use more than 16 on any one pair of arms.

I think it would capture the notion of a creature gaining extra attacks, but losing some focus by having to dedicate attention in more directions. One head, four arms. Is it too complicated though?

Attention? I'm not sure what you mean.

Surely a creature couldn't evolve (or whatever) with more than two arms unless its brain had similarly evolved to be able to cope with them.

I quite like the idea of treating it like multiple opponents.

Heh. Makes me think of the silly 100-armed creature in D&D's eipc level handbook. Going by D&D's own rules, the laws of averages say that every round it's going to critically fumble with 5 of it's arms, so I can picture this monstrosity marching toward a party, arms flailing about and chopping off other arms etc until it reaches them and collapses from bloodloss :-)

Brian.

If a creature had more than two arms, and could use each equally well (i.e., with swords and other melee weapons), it will chop into tiny bits whatever poor, stupid human it happens to be fighting.

--methinks the game suffers somewhat from being TOO deadly NB

Again NB, there are plenty of threads on this forum you can find which will explain in great detail why that is not the case. You have to work pretty hard to get yourself killed in TROS. Its extremely difficult to die accidentally. 90% of all character deaths come down to getting into a fight you had no business getting into, or making a stupid mistake...which usually means being too aggressive.

Overly aggressive players used to huge hit point buffers and just wading in to the middle of the enemy and starting to swing will die fast and messily. Once the learning curve is passed, however, caution and tactics and well timed aggressiveness will become the rule and life expectancy is extended quite on par with any other game...meaning its highly dependent on how nasty the GM makes the opposition.

Valamir, the system's broken. It literally could not handle high-powered fantasy. If a "Seneschal" (why the hell couldn't it just be called "Game Master", btw?) tried to import half of the monsters from your typical fantasy system, TROS would snap in two. Take an average monster, like a medusa. With TROS, that's a campaign killer right there. Non-magical people have virtually no defense against magic, and since I know of no natural way that a woman's gaze can turn a man literally into stone, I would assume that it's magic.

Furthermore, take a hecatonchiere, as was mentioned earlier. This thing would be so overpowered using TROS that stats simply become meaningless. The way wounds are recorded becomes utterly meaningless for something like this.

--say it with me now: "broken system" NB

I run TROS like in a high fantasy setting. In the next session it moves to Planescape the definitive high fantasy setting. After 6 sessions of play there have only been 2 serious injuries.

As to how you wouls kill such a creature..
-Magic
-pikes, longspears, dopplehanders
- bows and crossbows
-ambush
- kill it with kindness or harsh language

Hopefully by next post I'll have the write up on this beast.

MW - I look forward to that writeup.

NB - You're not alone in your impression that the TROS system is very deadly. Are you prepared to discuss it rationally? I know there are a lot of people here who have varying opinions on the matter.

If you are, then I will make a new thread for that discussion, I think it would be a valuable one. If you have already closed your mind about the system and are not interested in discussing it, well, that's fine too. I just want to know.

Brian.

Nero's Boot wrote: Valamir, the system's broken. It literally could not handle high-powered fantasy. If a "Seneschal" (why the hell couldn't it just be called "Game Master", btw?) tried to import half of the monsters from your typical fantasy system, TROS would snap in two. Take an average monster, like a medusa. With TROS, that's a campaign killer right there. Non-magical people have virtually no defense against magic, and since I know of no natural way that a woman's gaze can turn a man literally into stone, I would assume that it's magic.

Furthermore, take a hecatonchiere, as was mentioned earlier. This thing would be so overpowered using TROS that stats simply become meaningless. The way wounds are recorded becomes utterly meaningless for something like this.

--say it with me now: "broken system" NB

Take an average monster, like a medusa. With TROS, that's a campaign killer right there. Non-magical people have virtually no defense against magic, and since I know of no natural way that a woman's gaze can turn a man literally into stone, I would assume that it's magic.

There's a Conan story where he fights a giant slug. He sees the thing and runs away to save his life. They go tearing through the ruins, the thing trying to kill him as he runs for his life. Finally he kills it, if I recall, by pulling down an entire building on top of the thing. TROS models the reality of large creatures being very, very, dangerous pretty well. A person would have a really hard time fighting something like that giant slug, if it really existed, with a sword. You have to fight smart, and be creative to take down such impressive enemies, like Conan did.

It's not broken, it just doesn't play like D&D does, where high level characters can take down a couple of massive grizzly bears barehanded without breaking a sweat.

Let's get back to the original thread, shall we?

MW, against a single opponent your multi limbed monster would simply slice and dice. Consider this: each pair of limbs is a seperate opponent. Each additional PC engages a pair of limbs. Therefore a six armed monster is considered three opponents. Against three PC's the odds are one to one. The idea that it needs special compound eyes or multiple heads is redundant; it's an other planar creature or magical construct, it dosen't need to make sense.

I think it was Jason and the Argonauts or maybe Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger that had the heroes fighting a six-armed animated statue of Kali. Rent the movie, pop some corn and smile as you replace the actor's faces with those of your players.

Ok here's a rough draft so to speak of the demoness in question. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

The creature has the upper torso of a well muscled woman with three pairs of arms. The creatures lower body is that of a giant snake between 15 - 30 feet long.

ST: 5
AG: 8
TO: 6
EN: 4
HT: 4

WP:4
Wit: 6
MA: 3
Soc: 1
Per: 4

Ref: 7
Aim: 6
KD: 7
KO: 10
Move: 6

Comabt Proficiency 6-10 (cut and thrust or wrestling most likely)
CP: 13 - 17
Each set of arms is treated as a seperate opponent. They are fully capable of making their own maneuvers, but if one set evades then the other two are assumed to have evaded as well (due it's ability to sway back and forth using it's tail it gains 2 dice for evasive moves)
At any time the creautre may decide to constrict with it's lower body.

So there's my rough draft. Tell me what you think. I'm not worried if it's to powerful my mian concern is does it make sense from a rules stand point. I envision it's favorite tactic is to grapple using it's snake body and then slice away at the poor hero who got nabbed.

I'll have to add some flavor text on my next post.

What CP does it use for the lower body?

I'm going to use it's wrestling prof. to cover attacks made by it's lower body.

This brings me to a question. How do you switch between proficiences in a single round? Lets say that in the first exchange I use my C&T to slice and dice, but in the second exchange I want to grapple with my wrestling prof. Is there a CP cost to switch between proficiences?

Can it grapple one person while attacking another with it's four arms?

I'm thinking it can grapple with it's tail while continuing to use it's 6 arms for whatever. And the more I think about it the more I think that I will only have it grapple.

Imagine this...
A 30 foot long snake woman with six arms. She rises up out of a pool of stagnant water littered with the bones of her kill. She hisses at you and darts towards you faster than something so big should be able to move. She engages you in combat and as you try to defend her tail wraps around your legs and lower torso. She lifts you up in the air, clawing your face and eyes, chocking you, and stabbing you in the abdomen. Scary huh?

But to answer your question I'd say that yes it can grapple with one set of arms while attacking with the other 4. Although it should only be the lower set so as to not get in the way of the other arms.

I see. So, just to be clear, the tail also gets an independent combat pool just like each pair of arms?

just to be clear, the tail also gets an independent combat pool just like each pair of arms?

Cool - that kind of power sounds really appropriate and really invokes some cool imagery. I like it. One other thing - if you face this demoness alone, can you still try terrain rolls to avoid fighting all of her at once, or is this not possible because it's one creature, or is it possible with a penalty?

Yep, this is the kind of epic creature that you don't fight unless it's got a hold of your wife and kids, guards the royal crown your after, is anathma to your faith, is threatening to burn down that village of nice people you who just put you up for a month for free after you got mangled fighting the He-, um Medusa, and you're feeling lucky besides. Yep, with enough SAs one guy can still take it on.

Or you have a bow, and are far enough away. Just how fast is it anyway? ;-)

BTW, there's no reason that the arms have to correspond by pairs in terms of it's developed ability to attack. If that seems too powerful, then just go with two opponent's worth. Dropped weapons and disarms will still be less of a problem, however, as will arm wounds.

Damn, now I really want to play this. :-)

Mike

The bottom line, I guess is that it is some kind of supernatural creature, so it can pretty much do what ever you like. I would think that if it followed any kind of natural laws though it could only concentrate on so many things given it only has one set of eyes that work in unison. I guess what I would think is more plausible is close to additive, but with deminishing returns like 10 CP for one set of arms, 14 Cp for 2 sets of arms, and 17 for 3 sets, then treat it like a double or triple attack maneuver. You could also just treat it like a normal 2 armed creature that's 3 times faster.

Just some ideas that came to mind tonight.

I agree that the different CP's for different sets of arms should have a diminishing return. But not because it's having to divide its attention between them (I maintain that it would not have evolved the arms if it had not evolved the ability to use them perfectly), but because they are close enough that each set will be getting in the way of each other set etc.

Perhaps something like the creature gets it's full CP if it only uses one set of arms, or 75% of it's CP for each set if it uses 2 sets of arms, or 50% CP for each set of arms if it uses all three...?

Brian.

Perhaps something like the creature gets it's full CP if it only uses one set of arms, or 75% of it's CP for each set if it uses 2 sets of arms, or 50% CP for each set of arms if it uses all three...?

It opens up whole new options such as bind, strike and strike; block open, bind and strike, and so on :-)

Brian.

or what about a stop short or feint with one arm, then four thrusts, each from different angles from the other arms? That would leave the last arm for defense, if any were needed (assuming it had 6 arms)

can you still try terrain rolls to avoid fighting all of her at once, or is this not possible because it's one creature, or is it possible with a penalty?

Just how fast is it anyway?

MonkeyWrench wrote: I'd still like to know what the penalty is for switching proficiencies in the middle of a round. Or is there any penalty at all?

Brian Leybourne wrote: By the way, I think that with your 6 armed creature, evasions should automatically work against all attacks from the creature as they're all coming from the same place, if you catch my meaning.

I would NOT want to fight that thing. One evasion and two attacks with the full CP. EEK! Damn, it could take down one heavily armed, armored, skilled, and SAed character a round without breaking a sweat...

Actually, I wouldn't let it evade unless it was only evading (evade uses the whole body) but two attacks and a defense, sure. :-)

This isn't something you would want to fight alone unless you were the worlds best warrior (or it killed your father, raped your sister, blasphemed against your faith, and it was both your destiny and drive to kill it. And you're lucky. And killing it is the right thing to do.) :-)

Brian.

It seems pretty vulnerable to missile weapons, relatively speaking. You've just got to keep out of reach.

I ran through some combats last night. Here are the results....

Combat #1 The demon was armed with a scimitar, a cut and thrust sword, a morning star, a short sowrd, a hand axe, and a dagger. The 1st PC was in a chain shirt with a doppelhander. The 2nd in leather and chain with a longsword, medium shield, and a longbow. The 3rd had full chain with a scimitar and buckler and a short bow.
What Happened - red/white was thrown. The doppelhander couldn't get a hit in with all the parrying and the demon won initiative. After a rather successful bind and strike the doppelhander had very little dice to defend with the next exchange. I had the demon go on full offense and used 3 double strikes. Needless to say the doppelhander died a messy death. The archers had failed to hit it with their first volley and were in the midst of reloading when their friend was cut down. The demon ended up being very wounded at the end, but none of the PCs survived.

Combat #2 - The demon was armed the same way, but this time all 3 PCs are armed with pikes
What Happened - The PCs beat the demon with very little injury. She only closed range with one of the PCs once and he drew his arming sword and went mainly defensive while the other two poked her.

So the lesson is keep out of reach of the thing. Whenever it would close range with the PCs death was close. Another thing, the PCs weren't using any SAs so I suppose that it would gone differently if they were using them.

All in all it very well and there are only a few minor tweaks I'd like to make. I'll post them later (damn job hunting). Now I'm turning my eyes to some other Planescape demons. Somebody stop me.......

Victory for the TROS system. I can totally see the differences in the battles. I'd call that Monkeywrench's Rule #1 - Use lots of pikes to kill big nasties if you're not invested in it.

(or it killed your father, raped your sister, blasphemed against your faith, and it was both your destiny and drive to kill it. And you're lucky. And killing it is the right thing to do.)

I'll let you know how it goes with SAs after tonight. The PCs have been hunting down a group of Sslassk for the last few adventures and tonight they will attempt to rescue some people from the camp. They'll be in for a big suprise when it turns out this demon has been the object of worship for this group of snake men.

As a side note I think tFoB should have some thoughts on wearing armor in sweltering heat, like rain forests and deserts. I've been doing it that they get a Fatigue point every ENx 10 min for metal armors and every EN x 20 min in leather or no armor.

Sweet. Can't wait to hear about it.

Mike

MonkeyWrench wrote: The PCs have been hunting down a group of Sslassk for the last few adventures and tonight they will attempt to rescue some people from the camp. They'll be in for a big suprise when it turns out this demon has been the object of worship for this group of snake men.

One question though - you said that at one point in the first battle the demon got initiative - did all three sets of arms get or lose initiative at the same time, or were you handling them differently?

MonkeyWrench wrote: In my game it's an actual demon. A Sslassk sorcerer summoned one up a long time ago and since then they've been worshipping it.

Unfortunatly I never got a chance to see the demon in action last night. It sucks....big time. I'd still like to work on this monster though so at least some people can get enjoyment out of it. How would anyone out there handle the initiative problem? Does each set of arms get it's own initiative or do they only get one? Lemme know what you think.



Next up.....a fifteen foot tall wolf demon with a set of lobster claws!

I'd give it one initiative for each pair. Again, this is no more complicated, really, than running three NPCs. OTOH, this would again all be trumped by things like evasion.

Mike