TRPG GMs! Have you ever used an enemy that was many, many times larger than the PCs, and made it easier to fight said enemy by giving separate body parts separate stat blocks? Like a kraken where each limb is treated as a separate NPC?
How did that work out? Did you come up with quirks to the fight? Like, tentacles can't be blinded on their own, but if you throw shit at the kraken's face you can 'blind' every tentacle at once? Or someone trying to use one part of the monster as cover against itself? How did you rule things like that? Did it turn into a clusterfuck?
I suspect I chose a shitty time to make this thread.
No, you asked a dumb question.
I did something similar once. It was essentially a mechanical war machine, game-wise it was a bunch of traps attached to a moving platform, it payed out much like what you're talking about, player targeting individual parts and maneuvering in and out of reach. Went pretty well, payers got a lot more creative since they had options for disabling different parts of the creature as opposed to just damaging it, I'd definitely run a similar encounter again in the future.
I once had a thing where there was a large magic gemstone that was controlling a bunch of people. If the players damaged the gemstone a lot, the people would be damaged a bit. Also, the people took penalties for being damaged. However, the people always healed and reconstituted themselves. It was awesome.
I believe there's a 3.5ed boss monster based around this concept. It's quite complex, is sort of like an obstacle course where the monster is also the area you fight it in.
You can find it under the name Ragnorra in Elder Evils
Seems like a good strategy for Shadows of the Colossus style fights but I've yet to try it.
I think it'd be cool for dragons. Make them a bit more of a puzzle/strategic challenge than merely smashing two statblocks together.
Mostly I do not want to run huge monsters as
>if it hits you, you ded
or
>giant pile of hitpoints you slowly whittle away
Not that this concept doesn't have some merit, but it's like people in this thread haven't ever heard of hit locations.
>>46096240
That doesn't address the possibility of (say) climbing up a creature's back, attacking from high ground instead of hacking at its toes, etc.
>>46096413
Yes it does?
Not sure if it's entirely what you mean but I had a giant worm at the end of a short run I did (rotating DMs).
It had about 10 segments, each with their own hp, when one was destroyed the segments in front and behind formed a new tail and head respectively. There were about 3 worms at one point, it was kinda fun.
>>46096422
ok.
The only systems I know of with hit locations usually assign hits randomly, or with called shots (the mechanics for which are usually lame).
>>46091856
Yes, that's how I do most of my boss monster fights.
The basic structure is, when a part is "killed" that part is disabled and can only do slow and basic things, unless it's the torso, where it will die if it is killed:
Legs - Movement, kicks.
Torso - Doesn't generally do much, sometimes has regeneration powers, or innate defence abilities.
Arms - Primary attacks
Head - Spellcasting, breath weapons etc.
Wings - flight and buffets
I found it's really good for making monster fights have punch, without the problem of making a singular opponent tough enough to take 4-5 rounds of PC's hitting it before it gets each turn, and strong enough to be a serious threat without having to fuck up its target.
